A fun fantasy from CDR Klein, but almost everything he proposes violates the Outer Space Treaty...

Besides that, the last thing America can afford right now is a space race with the China-Russia alliance.

Monkeyboy,

You are wrong again, as usual.

I suggest that you, Joe Katzman and USN Commander John J. Klein all acquaint yourselves with Confrontation in Space by G. Harry Stine.

At one time (Late 1980's) it was teaching material used in the US Army Command & General Staff colleges.

Hehe, Trent,

The book you linked to is going for 62 cents on Amazon.

The author seems to be an "expert" on model rockets.

Maybe you could just give us a precis of it?

Monkeyboy,

Please continue to demonstrate your ignorance of G. Harry Stine for the rest of the people here on Winds. It will help people evaluate the information content of your posts in the future.

G. Harry Stine made a lot of points in his book and the chapters on near earth space military geography were what made the Command and General Staff college correspondence course material I saw my father using.

The following information taken from Stine's book is via a Global Security article titled The Militarization Of Space--Spurring Or Deterring Future Conflict? AUTHOR Major Christopher A. Davis, USMC CSC 1989

In his book Confrontation in Space, G. Harry Stine proposes two very basic reasons for human conflict. It is possible, he claims, to trace the aggressive tendencies of humans to the biological law of least effort known as the Attila Syndrome -- take from others rather than go to the greater effort to make it. When the scratch plow, a simple invention developed about 10,000 years ago in the Tigris-Euphrates River Valley of Mesopotamia, allowed people to give up their nomadic life and settle down to raise seasonal cereal crops, a new philosophy slowly developed to protect them from the Attilas of the time: the Neolithic Ethic.22 In a world of scarcity, which has been the circumstances of 99 percent of all humans in the past and is still the norm today, the Neolithic Ethic was very sucessful. Anthropologist Carleton S. Coon stated it most succinctly:

"You stay in your village, and I will stay in mine.
If your sheep come to eat our grass, we will kill you.
We may kill you anyway to get your grass for our sheep if we run short.
Anyone who tries to make us change is a witch and we will kill him.
Stay out of our village!"23

The Neolithic Ethic, Stine elaborates, worked reasonably well for hundreds of centuries, permitting the human race to build civilization against those who would have destroyed it through greed and covetousness. He contends that the Neolithic Ethic is the reason why conflicts build up slowly for years, then explode in an orgy of violence and end up in a situation that is often worse than the original one.

With each succeeding generation, mankind has increased the effectiveness of his weapons until, with the recent development of thermonucear weapons, he is capable of destroying civilization. We have progressed to the point, Stine argues, where we can no longer live by the Neolithic Ethic and must, therefore, develop a new ethic. Stine writes:

"It will take centuries of worldwide education -- using near-earth space as a location for communications satellites capable of beaming information to any spot on Earth for the education of humans every where -- before the Ethic can be changed, before the memories of past wrongs are erased by time, and before the fires of vengeance can be damped."24

Stine contends that a new ethic for a world of peace, cooperation and unity can be developed. But until then, people are going to fight. We need to investigate all technological possibilities and prepare the weapons, the counter-weapons and other safegaurds as they become tech-nologically feasible. But we need to do so with a purposeful goal -- to deter war in the hopes of buying time to transition to the new ethic.

Those interested more pricey copies of Confrontation in Space can use the link here

It sounds great, Trent..,

"They" are out to get us.

Right now though, the United States itself is currently being defended by all of two combat brigades totaling about 7000 troops.

In other words, Aruba or Liechtenstein have a fair chance of invading us successfully...without the aid of space technology.

Could we please beef up our conventional defenses before we start spending billions to defend ourselves from the mole people and the Martians?

That's all fine and good, but what about the Prime Directive?

Monkey -- once again you fail in thinking things through.

What happens once CHINA or RUSSIA or dominate space? To the point of being able to shoot down any ICBMs and Satellites?

Whichever nation holds the dominant position in space, dominates the world the way navies dominated the oceans.

China for example could use space dominance to force America to "surrender" to bin Laden in exchange for oil on the cheap. Being able to nuke America with TOTAL IMPUNITY since they can shoot down missiles while we cannot.

It boils down to this, do you trust China or Russia being able to nuke America with impunity. I would not. Liberals of course would, while never trusting America.

Jim, I think there's a missing premise in your comment, that space dominance would equal high-effectiveness ABM capability. It could, but does not necessarily, equate to this. Nor would having said capability in and of itself confer space dominance.

Indeed, the US military's 2 largest space vulnerabilities are probably communications and GPS, on which so much of their warfighting means depend. Hence the applicability of Corbett's focus on "lines of communication" as key.

Monkyboy is just living up to his name, and has now said so many blatantly moronic things that I simply can't work up the interest in addressing his latest obviously inaccurate stupidities.

It's a form of asymetrical warfare, since he can think up untrue things in a split second whereas refutation takes time and research; the best response is simply to note his consistent lack of veracity and credibility, and not play.

Don't want this to sound too snarky - especially because the thread topic is a good one.

BUT... the way "Sir Julian Corbett" works isn't the same as "Mr Julian Corbett".

If you're talking about a Mr Julian Corbett, it's Mr Corbett.

If you're talking about Sir Julian Corbett, it's either "Corbett" or "Sir Julian". Not "Sir Corbett".

Not that it's worth losing any sleep over. He'd probably just be pleased you're citing him. He was a better historian than Mahan, too.

Nuclear Power. It's the only way to carry the next generation of mobile satellite communication bandwidth (w-band) 22,300 miles effectively. Thurya uses 14,000 watts of solar power and at a lower frequency. Imagine what 500,000 watts can do?

New legislation has approved a commercial company (IOSTAR) to build a nuclear power plant in space, in conjunction with SANDIA Labs & all the energy & nuclear oversight committees you can think of – including White House Presidential launch approval!

IOSTAR's stated primary use is to be a "space-tug boat", moving space assets around, but other uses can include power requirements communication satellites that IOSTAR are designing.

Commercial Reusable In-Space Transportation Act of 2002. A Redacted Portion of The Department of Defense Appropriations Act of 2003" provides a $1.5B loan facility to approved applicants.

International Astronautical Congress. Oct 2-6, 2006, Page 24 (c4.8/d2.8) – Session Chairman: Sandia Lab's chief Roger Lenard. He will lead the session entitled: New missions enabled by Nuclear Propulsion (2.3megs Conference brochure.) Original IOSTAR patent and Lenard assigns the patent to IOSTAR, July 4, 2006

System for testing space weapons Robert F. D'Ausilio (YEAR 1988!!)

A system for testing weapons in space comprising:

a weapons platform, including
means for carrying a space weapon, and
housekeepiing subsystems, including
a propulsion subsystem to control the orientation of the platform relative to the target,
a support power subsystem to power the weapon to be tested,
a communication subsystem to report back platform subsystem status and to process received information,
a command subsystem to provide commands for the weapons platform to cooperate with the target, and
a positioning/pointing subsystem to determine the platform's attitude;