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Space Dominance

Posted on: Friday, July 20th, 2007 in: Space Policy, Space Warfare, Strategy

[It’s been a while since this first appeared in Space News, thought it might be worth dredging up]

No nation relies on space for its security more than the United States — none is even close. Both economically and militarily, loss of space capabilities would prove disastrous. America’s economy, and along with it the world’s, would [...]

A Panama Canal Going Up?

Posted on: Monday, February 12th, 2007 in: Sci Fi, Space Policy

Here’s an emerging sci-fi technology that’s beginning to shed some of its giggle factor — enough so that a year ago last fall, Arthur C. Clarke felt comfortable saying the following in a London Times column: 
The space elevator was the central theme in my 1978 science-fiction novel The Fountains of Paradise (soon to be a Hollywood [...]

The Sky is Falling!

Posted on: Thursday, February 8th, 2007 in: Civil-Military, Space Policy, Strategy

Saturday’s Science Section of the New York Times had a colorful piece by William Broad on the problem of space debris complicated by the reckless destruction of one of its weather satellites by the Chinese. The gist is that a terrible problem in space navigation is getting catastrophically worse. There is no doubt the Chinese ASAT [...]

China’s ‘Shot Across the Bow’

Posted on: Friday, February 2nd, 2007 in: Space Policy, Space Warfare, Strategy

[A version of this editorial appeared in Space News]
No nation relies on space more than the United States, both for its economic well-being and its military security. For this reason, obliteration of a decrepit weather satellite in a successful Chinese weapon system test on January 11 is especially troubling.