Weaponry In Space

Describes the reality of today's military space technology, growing military role of Soviet and U.S. space shuttles, spy satellites and anti-satellite weapons and manned space stations.

Weapons in Space examines how the United States is forcing forward—in violation of international treaties—to militarize space. Based on excerpts from U.S. government documents, award-winning investigative journalist Karl Grossman outlines the U.S. military's space doctrine, its similarity with the original Stars Wars scheme of Ronald Reagan and Edward Teller, and the space-based lasers, hypervelocity guns, and particle beams it plans to deploy in its mission to "dominate" earth. Grossman shows the intimate link between the militarization and the nuclearization of space, and follows the flow of billions of U.S. tax dollars to the corporations that research and develop weapons for space. His book explains the Outer Space Treaty and gives a history of the Global Network Against Weapons and Nuclear power in Space: what it is doing, what it plans to do—and what the reader can do to challenge U.S. plans to turn the heavens into a war zone.

This overview aims to inform the public discussion of space-based weapons by examining their characteristics, potential attributes, limitations, legality, and utility. The authors do not argue for or against space weapons, nor do they estimate the potential costs and performance of specific programs, but instead sort through the realities and myths surrounding space weapons in order to ensure that debates and discussions are based on fact.

This book, first published in 1991, is the cumulative result of a long period of research by qualified experts in an attempt to analyse the legal and scientific problems of arriving at definitions in the task of preventing an arms race in outer space. Problems of definition confront the negotiator at the very outset of any discussion on preventing a space arms race – this book sets out to remove these problems by examining the possible definitions.

This book, first published in 1982, analyses the prospects of the Cold War superpowers arms race spilling into outer space. A SIPRI-organized symposium in 1981 discussed the consequences of the militarization of outer space, as well as further arms control and disarmament measures. This book presents the findings of 20 eminent scientists, lawyers and diplomats from 12 different countries.

The efforts of the United States to develop defences against ballistic missiles (the Strategic Defense Initiative) is one of the most hotly debated topics of our time. This authoritative book contributes to the debate by presenting th searching and wide-ranging views of twenty-six international experts on the technical, legal, political, and military aspects of space weapons. They address such questions as: What are the technological promises and problems of strategic defence? What effects will SDI have on the arms race or on deterring nuclear war? How do China, India, and Japan perceive SDI? What can be done to guard international stability? These papers, which express every range of opinion on SDI, from an unqualified approval to total scepticism, are prefaced by an overview by the editor of the volume.

This book, first published in 1985, analyses the factors that have shaped the militarization of space. By examining in great detail the determinants of U.S. policy, it explains why for over 25 years space did not become the scene of an arms race, and why this began to change in the late 1970s. Both superpowers did, however, develop a limited anti-satellite capability in the 1960s, and these programmes are also discussed.