WASHINGTON - The United States, Australia and Canada have voiced concerns to China over the first known satellite-killing test in space in more than 20 years, the White House said Thursday.
“The U.S. believes China’s development and testing of such weapons is inconsistent with the spirit of cooperation that both countries aspire to in the civil space area,” National Security Council spokesman Gordon Johndroe said. “We and other countries have expressed our concern regarding this action to the Chinese.”
Using a ground-based medium-range ballistic missile, the test knocked out an aging Chinese weather satellite about 537 miles (860 kilometers) above the earth on Jan. 11 through “kinetic impact,” or by slamming into it, Johndroe said.
Canada and Australia had joined in voicing concern, he said. Britain, South Korea and Japan were expected to follow suit, an administration official told Reuters.
The last U.S. anti-satellite test took place on Sept. 13, 1985. Washington then halted such Cold War-era testing, concerned that debris could harm civilian and military satellite operations on which the West increasingly relies for everything from pinpoint navigation to Internet access to automated teller machines.
According to David Wright of the Cambridge, Mass.-based Union of Concerned Scientists, the satellite pulverized by China could have broken into nearly 40,000 fragments from 1 to 10 centimeters (a half-inch to 4 inches) in size, roughly half of which would stay in orbit for more than a decade.
The Chinese are now getting into the militarization of space. That shouldn't be too surprising since both the United States and the former Soviet Union were conducting research and development of anti-satellite weapons back in the 1980s. The real problem here is that the Bush administration has decided that the U.S. should have the freedom to do whatever it wants in space--and that includes developing weapons in space. Consider this from a July 5, 2006 Boston.com story:
TENSIONS IN the United Nations over space-based weapons ran to new heights recently when the United States delivered a hard-line statement on its right to develop such weapons.
Responding to repeated and increased international pressure in recent weeks, John Mohanco, US deputy director of the Office of Multilateral Nuclear and Security Affairs, said ``our government will continue to consider the possible role that space-related weapons may play in protecting our [space] assets."
Russia, which is pushing for a new treaty on such weapons, wanted countries to ``refrain from any practical activities aimed to place weapon systems in outer space while the international agreement on non-weaponization of outer space is being elaborated." Apparently the US reaction was only to harden its stance.
This adds to the alarming change of course last year when the United States became the first country to oppose the annual non binding resolution on Preventing an Arms Race in Outer Space. Essentially the world considers it important to develop a treaty to prevent an arms race in space by prohibiting weapons there. The need for a treaty is compounded by the US withdrawal in 2002 from the ABM Treaty, which had key restrictions on space weapons.
It is no wonder that the Chinese are happily developing its own space-based weapons program here? If the Bush administration has decided that the U.S. must develop spaced-based weapons, then the Chinese, or the Russians, or the French, or the British have their own right to develop these weapon systems, and perhaps use them against the United States. We are talking about a very slippery slope here. Continuing with the Boston.com story:
Space issues are perhaps the most important Achilles' heel facing the US military. Their importance can be seen from Iraq: Planning and operations are helped by satellite imagery. Planes, ships, tanks, and even missiles are guided by the Global Positioning System. Generals command missions from outside the country thanks to communications satellites. Beyond this, early warning satellites would serve as the first notice of missile attacks.
The problem is that satellites are also vulnerable to elimination by enemies. A Space Commission report chaired by Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld considers the threat so real it warned of a ``Space Pearl Harbor."
Naturally, Americans want to protect these assets, so why not pursue space weapons? The most compelling reason is that they would actually make the situation worse.
This is due to the technical ease of ground-based anti-satellite systems. Adversaries wouldn't need to go to the trouble of building space-based weapons systems. Simple and inexpensive, ground-based systems could shoot these satellites out of the sky. More than 25 nations already have the missile capability to reach the altitude at which the satellites orbit. More significantly, powerful lasers able to kill a satellite in low orbit through heating are available commercially in more than 50 nations. If the United States deploys ground-based anti-satellite technology, or ASATs (which it can do technically now), then others will follow suit. America has the most assets in orbit to lose in such a game.
If the United States deploys space-based weapons -- like interceptors for missile defense (which it is on course to deploy within about 6 years) -- an adversary could simply take them out from the ground. If any security advantage afforded by such a weapon is easily negated, then one is left with the prospect of other nations moving toward developing ground-based ASAT capabilities. This would severely jeopardize America's precious satellites, all of them. Also, the capabilities provided by each proposed space-based weapon can be achieved with ground-based alternatives that are generally 100 to 1,000 times cheaper.
The Chinese have just proven this with their test. They have been able to use a ground-based, medium-ranged ballistic missile to successfully intercept and destroy a satellite. It is not going to take much for the Chinese to adapt this technology into a military weapon. Even worst, the Chinese can easily build hundreds, if not a thousand, of these missiles which can be used to attack U.S. military spy and communications satellites at a cheaper cost than the U.S. could replace such destroyed satellites.
Say hello to the new space arms race.
UPDATE: I found this Yahoo News story which provides the Bush administration’s response to the Chinese satellite test:
WASHINGTON - The United States criticized China on Thursday for conducting an anti-satellite weapons test in which an old Chinese weather satellite was destroyed by a missile.
The Bush administration has kept a lid on the test for a week as it weighs its significance. Analysts said China's weather satellites would travel at about the same altitude as U.S. spy satellites, so the test represented an indirect threat to U.S. defense systems.
"The United States believes China's development and testing of such weapons is inconsistent with the spirit of cooperation that both countries aspire to in the civil space area," National Security Council spokesman Gordon Johndroe said. "We and other countries have expressed our concern to the Chinese."
Of course, the Bush administration has every right to militarize space, and prevent other countries from embarking on their own spaced weapons program:
In October,President Bush signed an order asserting the United States' right to deny adversaries access to space for hostile purposes. As part of the first revision of U.S. space policy in nearly 10 years, the policy also said the United States would oppose the development of treaties or other restrictions that seek to prohibit or limit U.S. access to or use of space.
"Freedom of action in space is as important to the United States as air power and sea power," the policy said. "In order to increase knowledge, discovery, economic prosperity and to enhance the national security, the United States must have robust, effective and efficient space capabilities."
Talk about hypocrisy here.
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