Onward to the High Frontier!

Here is another reason to be glad we have George W Bush as our president.

From The Washington Post:

President Bush has signed a new National Space Policy that rejects future arms-control agreements that might limit U.S. flexibility in space and asserts a right to deny access to space to anyone "hostile to U.S. interests."

The document, the first full revision of overall space policy in 10 years, emphasizes security issues, encourages private enterprise in space, and characterizes the role of U.S. space diplomacy largely in terms of persuading other nations to support U.S. policy.

"Freedom of action in space is as important to the United States as air power and sea power," the policy asserts in its introduction.

National Security Council spokesman Frederick Jones said in written comments that an update was needed to "reflect the fact that space has become an even more important component of U.S. economic, national and homeland security." The military has become increasingly dependent on satellite communication and navigation, as have providers of cellphones, personal navigation devices and even ATMs.

The administration said the policy revisions are not a prelude to introducing weapons systems into Earth orbit. "This policy is not about developing or deploying weapons in space. Period," said a senior administration official who was not authorized to speak on the record.

Nevertheless, Michael Krepon, co-founder of the Henry L. Stimson Center, a nonpartisan think tank that follows the space-weaponry issue, said the policy changes will reinforce international suspicions that the United States may seek to develop, test and deploy space weapons. The concerns are amplified, he said, by the administration's refusal to enter negotiations or even less formal discussions on the subject.

"The Clinton policy opened the door to developing space weapons, but that administration never did anything about it," Krepon said. "The Bush policy now goes further."
Theresa Hitchens, director of the nonpartisan Center for Defense Information in Washington, said that the new policy "kicks the door a little more open to a space-war fighting strategy" and has a "very unilateral tone to it."

[Snip]

In 2004, the Air Force published a Counterspace Operations Doctrine that called for a more active military posture in space and said that protecting U.S. satellites and spacecraft may require "deception, disruption, denial, degradation and destruction." Four years earlier, a congressionally chartered panel led by Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld recommended developing space weapons to protect military and civilian satellites.

[Snip]

Some of the potential space weapons most frequently discussed are lasers that can "blind" or shut down adversary satellites and small, maneuverable satellites that could ram another satellite.

The new Bush policy calls on the defense secretary to provide "space capabilities" to support missile-warning systems as well as "multi-layered and integrated missile defenses," an apparent nod toward placing some components of the system in space.

If a nation can dominate the orbital space around a planet they will dominate the planet. It is just that simple. The agreements which the US entered into to keep weapons out of space were the result of the fear that we would not be able to keep up with the USSR since they had launched the first artificial satellite and put the first man in orbit. There was some justification to this concern since they did have a good heavy launch vehicle and building a reentry vehicle which is accurate enough to get a 10 megaton bomb close enough to its target isn't all that difficult.

We know now that the Soviets didn't have anywhere near the capabilities which they wanted the rest of the world to think they had. We know now that all it took was one good hard push from Ronald Reagan in the form of SDI to bring down their entire house of cards.

The situation today is very different than it was during the Cold War. Today we know that we have an unmatched technological superiority to every other nation and we have the economic strength to support a large investment in orbital infrastructure. European nations, who can match us in scientific knowledge, are crippled by their massive welfare states and the high unemployment and stagnation which go with them.

China, which has the money, doesn't have the technical sophistication and if we can keep the Clintons away from the White House they will have to invest decades in developing it rather than buying it from us in exchange for illegal campaign contributions.

The United States has the ability to establish a permanent presence in orbital space which would give us military supremacy over the rest of the planet. A supremacy which would last for as long as we wish it to last because once you control the orbitals nobody launches anything which you don't allow them to launch.

All of this doesn't even get into the economic benefits. From the time that JFK said that we would go to the moon before the end of the decade to the time the last Apollo mission splashed down American women spent more money on cosmetics than the nation spent on the space program yet the every dollar which we spent on space has returned hundreds, if not thousands, of dollars back to the economy. Everything from the ipod you listen to music on to the computer you are using right now are spinoffs from the space program.

The scientific advances which would come as a result of the colonization and militarization of space would take both our technology and our economy to the next level. Imagine electrical power in limitless quantities generated with zero pollution at a price so cheap that it is essentially free. That is only the first and most obvious result of a true permanent presence in space.

So let's see. Clean cheap energy that doesn't depend on OPEC, military command of the planet and technological advances which will make our PC's look like mechanical adding machines. What are we waiting for?