MONTEREY INSTITUTE OF
INTERNATIONAL STUDIES
CENTER FOR NONPROLIFERATION
STUDIES
Critical
Issues Forum 2006-2007
Space:
Forum for Cooperation or Next Frontier for WMD Proliferation?
High School 125,
Snezhinsk, Russian Federation
Student: Anna
Melnikova
Teacher: Marina
Chebysheva
Benchmark I
Objective
1 - Definitions
Our
known planetary universe, space in the vicinity of Earth and the atmosphere
adjacent to Earth
Some units of measure of distances in
space
The average distance
of the earth to the sun is used as a standard for measuring distances in the solar
system and is called an astronomical unit (AU). One AU is about 150 million kilometers.
A light-year is the
distance light travels in vacuum in one Julian year. A light-year is equal to 9,460,730,472,580.8
km and 63,241.077 AU.
Solar System
The solar system is
a place we live in. What do we know about it? For a long time the mankind has
been preserving and increasing its knowledge about it. For years astronomers
have been preserving all the necessary information about the Universe adding
more and more facts. Today this information is rather vast.
The solar system [1-2]
consists of the Sun, the eight planets, three dwarf planets, more than 160
satellites of the planets (moons), a large number of small bodies (asteroids,
meteoroids, comets) and interplanetary medium. The Sun is the star at the
center of the Solar System, which accounts for more than 99% of the solar
system’s mass. The Earth and other matter orbit the Sun. The inner solar
system contains the Sun,
Mercury, Venus, Earth and Mars. Between the orbits of Mars and Jupiter lies the
main asteroid belt. The
planets of the outer solar system are Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, and Neptune. Beyond the orbit of Neptune lies
the Kuiper belt - a second belt of small icy bodies. Pluto, considered a planet
for 76 years, was reclassified as a dwarf planet in 2006. Two other dwarf
planets are Ceres, the largest object in the asteroid belt, and Eris, which
lies beyond the Kuiper belt.
The four innermost
planets in the solar system (Mercury, Venus, Earth and Mars) are called terrestrial planets because they have a compact, rocky
surface like the Earth’s. The planets, Venus, Earth, and Mars have significant
atmospheres while Mercury has almost none. Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, and Neptune
are known as the Jovian
(Jupiter-like) planets, because they are all gigantic compared with Earth, and
they have a gaseous nature like Jupiter’s. The Jovian planets are also referred
to as the gas giants,
although some or all of them might have small solid cores.
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The
eight planets (Sun, Mercury, Venus, Earth, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus,
Neptune) and Pluto with approximately correct relative sizes (http://www2.jpl.nasa.gov/galileo/sepo/education/nav/ss2.gif) |
The planets, most of
the satellites of the planets and the asteroids revolve around the Sun in the
same direction, in nearly circular orbits. When looking down from above the Sun’s
north pole, the planets orbit in a counter-clockwise direction. The planets
orbit the Sun in or near the same plane, called the ecliptic. Pluto is a
special case in that its orbit is the most highly inclined (18 degrees) and the
most highly elliptical of all the planets. Because of this, for part of its
orbit, Pluto is closer to the Sun than is Neptune. The axis of rotation for
most of the planets is nearly perpendicular to the ecliptic. The exceptions are
Uranus and Pluto, which are tipped on their sides.
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Solar
System Live by John Walker (http://www.fourmilab.ch/solar/solar.html) |
Comets are small, fragile, irregularly shaped bodies
composed of a mixture of non-volatile grains and frozen gases. They have highly
elliptical orbits that bring them very close to the Sun and swing them deeply
into space, often beyond the orbit of Pluto. Each time a comet visits the Sun,
it loses some of its volatiles. Eventually, it becomes just another rocky mass
in the solar system. Many scientists believe that some asteroids are extinct
comet nuclei, comets that have lost all of their volatiles.
Asteroids are rocky and metallic objects that orbit the
Sun but are too small to be considered planets. They are known as minor
planets. Asteroids range in size from Ceres, which has a diameter of about 1000
km, down to the size of pebbles. They have been found inside Earth’s orbit to
beyond Saturn’s orbit. Most, however, are contained within a main belt that
exists between the orbits of Mars and Jupiter. Asteroids that are on a
collision course with Earth are called meteoroids. When a meteoroid strikes our atmosphere at
high velocity, friction causes this chunk of space matter to incinerate in a
streak of light known as a meteor. If the meteoroid does not burn up completely, what’s left strikes
Earth’s surface and is called a meteorite.
Interplanetary
medium
The space between
the planets is far from empty. It contains: electromagnetic radiation
(photons); plasma (electrons, protons and other ions) a.k.a. the solar wind; cosmic rays; microscopic dust particles; and
magnetic fields (primarily the Sun’s). The temperature of the interplanetary
medium is about 100,000 K. Its density is about 5 particles/cm3 near
the Earth and decreases farther from the Sun. However, the density is highly variable;
it can be as much as 100 particles/cm3. The highest energy particles
in the interplanetary medium are called cosmic rays. Some are of solar origin; the most energetic,
however, originate in some other unknown and very energetic processes outside
our solar system. Except near some of the planets, interplanetary space is
filled with the Sun’s magnetic field. Its interactions with the solar wind are
very complicated. Within a few solar radii of the Sun the magnetic field
determines the flow of the solar wind; much of the flow is trapped in magnetic
loops. But some regions of the Sun’s magnetic field are open allowing the solar
wind to escape. Farther out the plasma dominates and the magnetic field is
entrained in the particle flow. Some planets (e.g. Earth, Jupiter) have their
own magnetic fields. These create smaller magnetospheres that dominate the Sun’s influence within their
boundaries. The Earth’s magnetosphere extended only to a few thousand km, but
protects us from the otherwise very dangerous effects of the solar wind. For
non-magnetic bodies, such as the Moon, the solar wind impacts the surface
directly. The speed of the solar wind is about 400 kilometers per second in the
vicinity of Earth’s orbit. The point at which the solar wind meets the
interstellar medium, which is the “solar” wind from other stars, is called the heliopause. It is a boundary theorized to be roughly
circular or teardrop-shaped, marking the edge of the Sun’s influence perhaps
100 AU from the Sun. The space within the boundary of the heliopause,
containing the Sun and solar system, is referred to as the heliosphere.
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Interplanetary space (image from [2]) |
The question where
exactly the Solar system ends and the interstellar space starts, is ambiguous,
as it is connected with the influence of two different phenomena – the solar
wind and the solar gravitation. Even far beyond the boundary of the heliopause,
the Sun is able to retain by its gravitation other objects − up to the Oort
cloud – large clusters of comets surrounding the Solar system that stretch at
the distance from 50,000 to 100,000 AU, almost a light year.
Milky Way
The Sun’s nearest
known stellar neighbor is a red dwarf star called Proxima Centauri, at a
distance of 4.3 light years away. The whole solar system, together with the
local stars visible on a clear night, orbits the center of our home galaxy, a
spiral disk of 200 billion stars we call the Milky Way [3]. Like all spiral galaxies, the Milky Way has
three main components: a disk, a central bulge, and a large halo. In the
picture below, the disk is seen edge on, the bulge is the spherical white blob
in the center, and the halo is made of the Globular Clusters (seen as white
dots) filling the rest of the picture.
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The
Milky Way Galaxy (http://www.astro.umd.edu/education/astro/mw/mw.html) |
The Milky Way has
two small galaxies orbiting it nearby, which are visible from the southern
hemisphere. They are called the Large Magellanic Cloud and the Small Magellanic
Cloud. The nearest large galaxy is the Andromeda Galaxy. It is a spiral galaxy
like the Milky Way but is 4 times as massive and is 2 million light years away.
Current measurements suggest the Andromeda Galaxy is approaching us at 100 to
140 kilometers per second, and that the Milky Way might collide with it in
several (3-4) billion years, depending on the importance of unknown lateral components
to the galaxies’ relative motion. Our galaxy, one of billions of galaxies
known, is traveling through intergalactic space spreading outwards from the
centre of the universe as the universe expands.
The Earth’s atmosphere
The earth’s
atmosphere is a thin layer of gases wrapped around our planet. The present
composition of the atmosphere is 79% nitrogen, 20% oxygen, 1% other “trace” gases
(argon, carbon dioxide) and water vapor. This mixture of gases is commonly
known as air.
Five distinct layers
of atmosphere have been identified using temperature changes, chemical
composition, movement and density [5]. Each of the layers are bounded by “pauses”
where the maximum changes in this characteristics occur.
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An average temperature profile through the
lower layers of the atmosphere (from [4]) |
The troposphere begins at the Earth’s surface and extends up 7-18
km high. The temperature in the troposphere decreases with height from about 17°C
to -51°C. Almost all weather occurs in this region. The height of the
troposphere varies from the equator to the poles. The transition boundary
between the troposphere and the layer above is called the tropopause. Both the tropopause and the troposphere are
known as the lower atmosphere.
The stratosphere extends from the tropopause up to 50 km above
the Earth’s surface. This layer holds 19 percent of the atmosphere’s gases and
but very little water vapor.Temperature increases with height as radiation is
increasingly absorbed by oxygen molecules which leads to the formation of
Ozone. The temperature rises from an average -60°C at tropopause to a maximum
of about -15°C at the stratopause due to this absorption of ultraviolet
radiation. The increasing temperature also makes it a calm layer with movements
of the gases slow. The regions of the stratosphere and the mesosphere, along
with the stratopause and mesopause, are called the middle atmosphere by scientists. The transition boundary which
separates the stratosphere from the mesosphere is called the stratopause.
The mesosphere extends from the stratopause to about 85 km
above the earth. The gases, including the oxygen molecules, continue to become
thinner and thinner with height. As such, the effect of the warming by
ultraviolet radiation also becomes less and less leading to a decrease in
temperature with height. On average, temperature decreases from about -15°C to
as low as -120°C at the mesopause. However, the gases in the mesosphere are thick enough to slow down
meteorites hurtling into the atmosphere, where they burn up.
The thermosphere extends from the mesopause to 690 km above the
earth. This layer is known as the upper atmosphere. The thermosphere is very thin, but it is
where aurora take place, and is also responsible for absorbing the most
energetic photons from the Sun, and for reflecting radio waves, thereby making
long-distance radio communication possible. The structure of the termosphere is
strongly influenced by the charged particle wind from the Sun (solar wind),
which is in turn governed by the level of Solar activity. The temperature
increases with height and can reach as high as 2000°C near the top of this
layer.
The exosphere is the most distant atmospheric region from
Earth’s surface. In the exosphere, an upward travelling molecule can escape to
space (if it is moving fast enough) or be pulled back to Earth by gravity (if
it isn’t) with little probability of colliding with another molecule. The
altitude of its lower boundary, known as the thermopause, ranges from about 250 to 500 km depending on
solar activity. The upper boundary is relatively undefined. The exosphere is a
transitional zone between Earth’s atmosphere and interplanetary space.
The upper atmosphere
is also divided into regions based on the behavior and number of free electrons
and other charged particles.
The ionosphere is defined by atmospheric effects on radiowave
propagation as a result of the presence and variation in concentration of free
electrons in the atmosphere. D-region is about 60 - 90 km in altitude but
disappears at night. E-region is about 90 - 140 km in altitude. F-region is
above 140 km in altitude. During the day it has two regions known as the
F1-region from about 140 to 180 km altitude and the F2-region in which the
concentration of electrons peaks in the altitude range of 250 to 500 km. The
ionosphere above the peak electron concentration is usually referred to as the
Topside Ionosphere.
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Earth’s
plasmasphere (image from [6]) |
The plasmasphere is essentially an extension of the ionosphere.
It is a torus-shaped region with the hole aligned with Earth’s magnetic axis. It
is made of plasma, the fourth state of matter, which composed mostly of
hydrogen ions (protons) and electrons. Plasmasphere has a very sharp edge
called the plasmapause. The
outer edge of this “doughnut” over the equator is usually some 4 to 6 Earth
radii from the center of the Earth (19,000-32,000 km). Inside of the
plasmapause, geomagnetic field lines rotate with the Earth. The inner edge of
the plasmasphere is taken as the altitude at which protons replace oxygen as
the dominant species in the ionospheric plasma which usually occurs at about
1000 km altitude.
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Earth’s
magnetophere (image from [6]) |
Outside the
plasmapause, magnetic field lines are unable to corotate because they are
influenced strongly by electric fields of solar wind origin. The magnetosphere is a cavity (also not spherical) in which the
Earth’s magnetic field is constrained by the solar wind and interplanetary
magnetic field (IMF). The outer boundary of the magnetosphere is called the magnetopause. The magnetosphere is shaped like an elongated
teardrop with the tail pointing away from the Sun. The magnetopause is
typically located at about 10 Earth radii or about 56,000 km above the Earth’s
surface on the day side and stretches into a long tail, the magnetotail, a few
million km long (about 1000 Earth radii) on the night side of the Earth.
The magnetopause
marks the outer limit of Earth’s gaseous envelope. Beyond the magnetopause are
the magnetosheath and bow
shock which are regions in the solar wind disturbed by the presence of Earth
and its magnetic field.
Definition
of space
We can define the
term of “outer space” (or simply “space”) as the relatively empty regions of
the universe outside the atmosphere of Earth. But there is no definite boundary
between the atmosphere and space. It slowly becomes thinner and fades away into
space. But even at 1000 kilometers, there is a trace of the Earth’s “hydrogen
cloud” as its outer atmosphere (it is called the geocorona). The Karman line at
100 km is frequently used as the boundary between atmosphere and outer space. This
definition is accepted by the Fédération Aéronautique Internationale (FAI),
which is an international standard setting and record-keeping body for
aeronautics and astronautics. Around this altitude the Earth’s atmosphere
becomes too thin for aeronautic purposes. The China’s Science
of Campaigns defines space as beginning at 120 km above the earth because “aeronautical
maneuvering and jet propelling are of little effect” and because “vehicles can
maintain an orbit around the Earth for a certain period of time” [7].
TV
series “Cosmos”
An educational BBC
TV series “Space” tells how wonderful, but how at the same time mortally
dangerous is the Universe where we live. We can see how vast and endless the
Universe is. It is a fascinating and colorful story about the greatest
mysteries of the Universe: the birth of supernovas and the death of whole star
systems, about blue giants and red dwarfs, about structure and the origin of
our Solar system. The most advanced shooting techniques involving computer graphics
and unique shots obtained with the help of space technology have been used in
the series. The series consists of three parts.
Part 1. Life. Everything of which a human body and the
surrounding environment consist of appeared long time ago out of space. Nearly
half a century the humankind has been studying the neighboring planets,
submerging into alien unexplored worlds, seeking an answer to the main
questions:
How did the Earth
appear? Hydrogen sustains
combustion of stars. But hydrogen burns down, and the star dies, compressing
and accumulating tremendous energy. A powerful explosion takes place – a
supernova is born, scattering elements of life all over the Universe giving
birth to new stars and planets.
How did life
appear on our planet? The
first Earth inhabitants were probably the simplest microorganisms that came to
the Earth from space on comets. Favorable conditions on the Earth promoted
rapid development of life.
Are we alone in
the Universe? So far, there is
no universal answer to this question. What should we expect from meeting with
other sentient beings? There are many questions, but there are no exact answers
so far.
Part 2. Survival.
We are lucky to have survived,
although life on the Earth was at the brink of extinction many times. Let us
take a walk over planet Earth – it is a wonderful place, with life in most
astonishing forms everywhere. We take all this for granted. In vain! Because
one day everything can disappear forever. This is a story about the Universe,
where we live, about dangers, which we encounter. We will witness a catastrophe
that has nearly destroyed the planet, we will fly with comets and asteroids
that threaten life on the Earth, we will meet invisible monsters of the
Universe − black holes. We will learn about catastrophes that mean an end to
all of us. Our planet is under a threat, and our task is to survive. There is
still another question: how real is this threat?
Part 3. Density. The temperature of the Sun constantly rises and
in some distant future it may burn away all signs of life from the face of the
Earth. The humankind will have to leave it and search for a new home on other
planets of the Solar system, and maybe in other galaxies. Now we can learn
about research in new technologies that will help our descendants reach the
stars.
Kinds
of objects that have been put into space
During many years of
human activity in space, more than 20,000 objects with a total mass exceeding
3,000 tons have been launched into different near-earth orbits and into deep
space. Space control services have registered and are constantly monitoring
over 10,000 objects on near-earth orbits. These are mainly rather large bodies with
dimensions more than 10 cm. The 1974 UN Convention on Registration of Objects
Launched into Outer Space provides for the national registration by launching
states of space objects launched into outer space and for the maintenance of a
central register of objects launched into outer space by the Secretary-General
of the United Nations. Some registers available online in Internet [8-9].
Let us consider the
main types of artificial objects, launched into space from the Earth (or other
artificial objects).
Spacecraft is a device designed to operate beyond the surface
of the Earth in outer space. Spacecraft are designed for a variety of missions
which may include communications, earth observation, meteorology, navigation,
planetary exploration, space tourism and space warfare. Spacecraft may either
be unmanned or manned.
Artificial
satellite is a spacecraft that
orbits the Earth. Types of artificial satellites:
·
Anti-Satellite
weapons (“Killer satellites”) - designed to destroy “enemy” satellites, other
orbital weapons and targets.
·
Astronomical
satellites - used for observation of distant planets, galaxies, and other outer
space objects.
·
Biosatellites - designed
to carry living organisms, generally for scientific experimentation.
·
Communications
satellites – used for the purposes of telecommunications.
·
Miniaturized satellites
are satellites of unusually low weights and small sizes. New classifications
are used to categorize these satellites: minisatellite (500–200 kg),
microsatellite (below 200 kg), nanosatellite (below 10 kg).
·
Navigation
satellites are satellites which use radio time signals transmitted to enable
mobile receivers on the ground to determine their exact location.
·
Reconnaissance (spy)
satellites are Earth observation satellite or communications satellite deployed
for military or intelligence applications.
·
Earth observation
satellites are satellites intended for non-military uses such as environmental
monitoring, meteorology, map making etc.
·
Weather
satellites are satellites that primarily are used to monitor Earth’s weather
and climate.
·
Space stations are man-made structures that are designed for
human beings to live on in outer space. A space station is distinguished from
other manned spacecraft by its lack of major propulsion or landing facilities —
instead, other vehicles are used as transport to and from the station.
A space probe is an unmanned space mission in which a
spacecraft leaves Earth’s orbit to explore other planets in the solar system
and asteroids or comets (the first successful space probe was the Soviet Luna
1, which studied the Moon in 1959).
Unmanned rovers, landed on the Moon (Lunokhod) and Mars (Spirit,
Opportunity) were primarily designed to explore the planet’s surface and return
pictures.
A spaceplane (Space Shuttle, Buran) is a (manned or
unmanned) rocket plane designed to pass the edge of space. It combines some of
the features of an aircraft and some of a spacecraft. Typically, it takes the
form of a spacecraft equipped with wings. Spaceplanes are reusable spacecrafts.
Space debris (space junk, space waste) are the objects in
orbit around Earth created by humans that no longer serve any useful purpose.
They consist of everything from entire spent rocket stages and defunct
satellites to explosion fragments, paint flakes, dust and slag from solid
rocket motors, coolant released by nuclear powered satellites.
Kinds
of objects that might be put into space in the future
A space elevator is a structure designed to transport material
from a planet’s surface into space. Many different types of space elevators
have been suggested. They all share the goal of replacing rocket propulsion
with the traversal of a fixed structure via a mechanism not unlike an elevator
in order to move material into or beyond orbit. Space elevators have also
sometimes been referred to as beanstalks, space bridges, space lifts, space
ladders or orbital towers.
Solar power
satellites are satellites in
orbit around Earth that use power transmission to beam solar power to very
large antennae on Earth where it can be used in place of conventional power
sources.
A manned starship is a spacecraft designed for interstellar
travel, specifically between star systems.
Scavengers are special spacecrafts designed for
collection of space debris. They can either destroy it or collect it and
transport it for recycling.
Space plants where hazardous substances or substances that
require peculiar production conditions are produced. The weightless environment
of space can be exploited for manufacturing of valuable products which cannot
be produced on Earth, such as pharmaceuticals, semiconductors, hyper-pure
materials and exotic alloys. Additionally, the pollutant-laden process of
manufacturing products and chemicals could be moved off-world where the
by-products so harmful to the delicate terrestrial ecosystem could be more
safely dispersed into space.
Space
weapons
What are “space weapons”?
Probably, there is no precise answer to this question, because there are no
precise definitions of the main terms, “space” and “weapon”. In the RAND report
[10] noted: “By space weapons, we mean things
intended to cause harm that are based in space or that have an essential
element based in space. The degree of harm we include in defining space weapons
may range from temporary disruption to permanent destruction or death. This definition
does not include things that are based on the earth and transit space without
achieving orbit, such as ballistic missiles… We also do not mean things in space
… such as reconnaissance, navigation, weather or communications satellites … And
while some of the space weapons we consider may also be useful against targets
in space, our interest here is in war on earth rather than war in space. …weapons against targets in space are
old news, and all of them developed to date have been based on earth, not in
space. We also do not mean information weapons that might use space-based
communications for access to the database, decisionmaker, or computer that is
their target”. This is a narrower definition which probably should be better
called as “space-based weapons”.
Ref. [7] offers such a definition of “space-based
weapons”: “damage causing mechanisms (not associated elements such as sensors
or command and control) actually based in space (not just transiting, like
missiles or space planes)”.
Other definitions
have a wider meaning and include “ground-based space weapons” as well, for
example [11]: “We define space weapons and offensive space
warfare initiatives as terrestrially based devices specifically designed and
flight-tested to physically attack, impair, or destroy objects in space, or
space-based devices designed and flight-tested to attack, impair, or destroy
objects in space or on earth”.
Foreign Affairs
Canada’s Space Security Index inclusively designates as space weapons “objects
passing through space, via the projection of mass or energy” [12]. So ground-based high energy laser which
bounces beams off a constellation of space-based mirrors (component of the US
“Global Area Strike System”) is a space weapon.
There are also other
approaches. Further we’ll follow last two definitions and shall not concern residual
or latent space warfare capabilities, such as ballistic missiles. Also we excluded
satellites and other spacecrafts that do not serve as weapon platforms (but
they may be used for some military purposes, as for example spy satellites). So
we bring to a focus things capable of direct attacks in or from space (or use
essential component placed in space).
Space weapons are
not all alike. They differ importantly in the physical principles they use, in
the physical constraints that limit them, and in the targets they can attack [13]. Here are some kinds of up-to-date space weapons.
·
Directed-energy
weapon. They direct
destructive energy at very high speeds to their targets without transporting
significant mass (ex. particle beam, high energy lasers, laser zappers,
high-powered microwaves). In 1987, the Zenith Star prototype space combat
satellite prototype, using the Alpha laser, was announced by President Bush.
The launch vehicle would be the Barbarian. Zenith Star weighed 39.4 tonnes, and
was to be launched at one time by a Barbarian clustered launch vehicle or in
two elements aboard a Titan 4. In 1991 the Star Lite space laser experiment was
made public. Star Lite would weigh half that of the previously planned Zenith
Star with a launch mass of 16.3 tonnes, which could be launched by a single
Titan 4. By 1996 the Star Lite space laser was replaced by the more refined and
slightly heavier SLD (Space Laser Demo), weighing 17.4 tonnes). Two versions of
the 20 meter long spacecraft were envisioned. OKB Vympel (USSR) built the major Terra-3 laser testing
centre at Sary Shagan in the 1970’s, which was eventually equipped with
Astrofizika high energy red ruby and carbon dioxide lasers. The first
applications would have to be limited to anti-satellite, and then primarily to
blind optical sensors. As a ‘warning shot’ the Terra-3 complex was used to
track the space shuttle Challenger with a low power laser on 10 October 1984.
·
Mass-to-target
(kinetic-energy) weapons are
“billets” accelerated to high speed and intended for destruction of enemy’s
satellites, intercontinental ballistic missiles, and hitting targets on the
surface of the Earth. A natural kinetic “weapon” is meteor. A “Long Rod Space
Weapon” is a space-to-earth weapon (often nicknamed “Rods from God”) that has
been under consideration since the 1980s. Long tungsten or uranium rods would
be orbited, and then “de-orbited” by canceling their orbital velocity, so that
they would fall essentially vertically through the atmosphere, striking their
target with enormous energy. The system would consist of tandem satellites, one
serving as a communications platform, the other carrying a number of tungsten
rods, each up to 20 feet in length and 1 foot in diameter. These rods, which
could be dropped on a target with as little as 15 minutes notice, would enter
the Earth’s atmosphere about as fast as a meteor. Upon impact, the rod would be
capable of producing all the effects of an earth-penetrating nuclear weapon,
without any of the radioactive fallout.
·
Anti-satellite (ASAT) weapons include ground-based high-energy weapons,
ground- or air-launched interceptor missiles, or ‘hunter-killer’ satellites
that destroy their target through explosion or ballistic impact. A Soviet
“Satellite destroyer” with explosive on board would approach the target and
explode, destroying any spacecraft by its debris in the radius of one kilometer
(tested in 1968) [14].
·
Carrier
rockets with nuclear warheads,
aimed at destruction of space objects (nuclear explosions in space were
performed by the USA and the USSR in 1958-1962).
·
Exoatmospheric
Kill Vehicle (EKV). Its
mission is to engage high-speed ballistic missile warheads in the midcourse
phase of flight and to destroy them using only the force of impact, or
hit-to-kill. An EKV is boosted to an intercept trajectory by a boost vehicle
(missile), where it separates from the boost vehicle and autonomously collides
with an incoming warhead. EKV devices appear in both ground and ship based
missile defense systems.
·
Shrapnel - ejection of balls and other small parts to
destroy satellites, stations, carrier rockets).
·
Orbital
stations. The first Soviet Orbital
Piloted Station (OPS) blasted off into orbit on April 3, 1973. OPS was equipped
with high speed aviation 23 mm cannon. Since the Soviet authorities did not
want to disclose the existence of the top-secret “Almaz” project, the OPS-1 was
announced as Salyut-2 upon reaching the orbit. Unlike its civilian counterpart
- Salyut-1 - Salyut-2 transmitted signals at 19.944 MHz, the frequency common
for Soviet reconnaissance satellites [27].
In future, the
following types of space weapons may appear (some of them are currently under
development and testing):
·
space bombers –
aircraft that will bomb enemy’s objects by kinetic bombs;
·
war
satellites-“bodyguards” (escorting and protection of the most important space
objects);
·
space
ground-based interceptors (anti-satellite defense tasks, destruction of intercontinental
ballistic missile warheads and aircraft);
·
war spacecraft
(struggling against enemy’s satellites, destroying important ground targets);
·
gigantic space
mirrors that can redirect a laser from the Earth to enemy’s war objects or
illuminate territories;
·
space mines
(creation of minefields in space in order to destroy enemy’s satellites);
· “space-space” missiles.
Militarization
and weaponization of space
Terms “space
militarization” and “space weaponization” have been actively discussed during
the recent years. These terms are used both by public figures and statesmen,
and by politicians, scientists, military men, and journalists. Let us consider
some of the existing opinions:
Prof. Vinogradov (retired general-lieutenant, chairman of
Committee of Scientists for Global Safety and Security and Armament Control,
honorary member of the Russian Academy of Military Sciences): “Space… is so far
the only natural environment free of weapons, unlike land, sea, and air. … One
should distinguish two approaches to military use of space. One approach is to
place communication and intelligence systems, alarm systems that warn about missile
attacks, navigation systems in space…, i.e. passive use of space facilities.
Another approach concerns placing of different classes of weapons in space:
“space-space”, “space-land”, and deploy weapons of the “land-space” class on
land, in the air, and at sea… In this connection I feel doubtful about
applicability of such a frequently used generalized term as “space
militarization”, because military use of space is an accomplished fact. The
first approach is not only acceptable, but also necessary in order to preserve
national interests of countries in terms of safety. The second approach is unacceptable”
[15].
Lieutenant
Colonel Donald P. Christy
(United States Air Force): “a space weapon as any device or system placed in earth
orbit, deep space or on a celestial body (such as the moon) capable of directly
engaging, defeating or destroying a target (kinetically or with energy). What
this definition does not include are weapons that use space as a means to get
from one point in the land/air battle space to another or originate from the
land/air medium without the intent to return. Therefore, this definition
excludes Intercontinental Ballistic Missiles (ICBMs), ground based ICBM
interceptor missiles, ground/air launched Anti Satellite Weapons, and ground
based energy weapons (such as lasers). By using the phrase “directly engaging,
defeating or destroying a target,” the definition also excludes those systems
that only serve as a component or enhancement to another direct delivery system
or platform, for example, the role of the Global Positioning System (GPS) in a
delivery of a Joint Direct Attack Monition by an aircraft” [16].
Karl P. Mueller (an associate
political
scientist of RAND): «Space weaponization
is a subset of space militarization. If one envisions a continuum running from
space systems not being used for any militarily useful purposes to satellites providing
services to support terrestrial
military operations (from the late
1950s
for the United States) to satellites being integral parts of terrestrial weapon systems (from the 1990s)
to weapons themselves being deployed in
space, weaponization occurs
when the upper range of the spectrum is reached.
At its most extreme, space weaponization would
include the deployment in quantity
of a
full range of space weapons, including satellite based systems for ballistic missile defense (BMD), ground- and space-based anti-satellite weapons (ASATs), and a variety of space-to-earth weapons (STEW), and these would play a central role in any
type of military
operations. … we have not yet
crossed the principal space weaponization threshold precisely because almost
everyone believes that we have not done so» [17].
John M. Logsdon (Director of the Space Policy Institute at the George Washington University’s Elliott School of International Affairs): “Space militarization describes a situation in which the military
makes use of space in carrying out its missions. There is no question that
space has been militarized; U.S. armed forces would have great difficulty
carrying out a military mission today if denied access to its guidance,
reconnaissance, and communications satellites. But to date, military systems in
space are used exclusively as “force enhancers,” making air, sea, and land
force projection more effective” [18].
Of course, there are
other opinions. For example, after Saddam Hussein’s attempt to jam US GPS
satellite signals in March 2003 General Lance Lord (commander of US Space Command)
says “The war in space began during Operation Iraqi Freedom” [12]. Steven Lambakis
posits that “the term weaponization may be used, in a general way, to
characterize activities that countries have undertaken for nearly 60 years. In
other words, the so-called weaponization of space is happening under our very
noses. Space weaponization started in September 1944, when the first German V-2
missile came rocketing down from the edge of space
and exploded on the residents and buildings of London” [19].
However, in general
opinions coincide in the following: space militarization is a passive use of
space for military purposes in order to solve secondary problems. Currently,
space is not weaponized. There are no weapons deployed in space or
terrestrially (in air, sea, or on the ground) meant to attack space objects,
such as satellites; nor are satellite weapons deployed against terrestrial
targets. At the same time, space is an increasingly vital part of military
activities. Space used for communication, for surveillance and targeting over
the battlefields, for weather prediction, for precise mapping and positioning
of military assets, for early warning of missile and air attacks, and for
general military, economic, and technological intelligence worldwide. Thus
space is “militarized” and space militarization has some peacebuilding
benefits, such as arms control verification. But where do we locate the line
between the militarization of space and the weaponization of space, which by
most accounts has not yet taken place?
Space-based
defense
The notion of
defense is very broad. Taking into account our previous work, further we
consider only military defense. In military science, according to Wikipedia [20], “defense is the art of preventing an attack,
or minimizing the damage of an attack, e.g. by preventing an enemy from
conquering territory. Thus, if a party attacks an enemy who is about to attack
that party, this could be called defense”. Of course, such definition leaves room
for interpretation.
Now we can define
the “space-based defense” as military defense using some devices in space. There
are many advantages to using space-based systems, particularly as the threat
matures and improves over time. Space-based systems (weapons) would always be
in position. They could defend and offer protection against threats to forces
arriving in theater before theater commanders have had the opportunity to establish
their own theater defense capabilities. Space offers broad area coverage to
protect wide array of assets from a system based in space rather than having to
protect each of those assets with their own individual ground-based systems. Space-based
weapons are a key hedge against a possible resurgent threat.
Before present time
space-based defense developed mainly as a missile defense. Strategic Defense
Initiative (SDI) is USA defense program, which originally was focused on the
threat of a massive Soviet attack, but by 1991 it had switched to protection
against much more limited strikes from anywhere on the globe.
Now major components
of the USA space-based defense programs are SBIRS, SMTS Brilliant Eyes and the
Space-Based Laser.
Space Based Infrared
System, or SBIRS, is a program that is intended to combine the activities of
the existing development programs into a single integrated program to most
effectively meet the military’s infrared surveillance requirements. SBIRS is
built to replace the current Defense Support Program and related systems. SBIRS
operational requirements include four mission areas of missile warning, missile
defense, technical intelligence and battle-space characterization. SBIRS is
composed of eight satellites, four of which oscillate around Earth’s
geo-synchronous orbit (GEO), two are on the highly elliptical orbits (HEO, or
SBIRS-high), and two more are on the low Earth Orbit (LEO, or SBIRS-low).
Being a low-orbit
element of SBIRS with capacity to detect and track incoming missiles, Space and
Missile Tracking System, or SMTS, is a constellation of 12-24 satellites,
orbiting Earth on low orbits. SMTS is designed to detect and track incoming
missiles, sending trajectory data to the space-based lasers or other missile
defense elements, which can provide quick response and target incoming
missiles. The importance of this system is that utilizing its capacity, the
alarm response can be quick enough to be able to intercept a missile in the
boost stage of its trajectory. That is, the missile can be intercepted over the
adversary territory within seconds of its launch.
Space-based lasers
are another component necessary for the precise boost-phase interception. Unlike
SBIRS or SMTS, space-based lasers are directed energy offence weapons main
target of which is the boost-phase missile interception. Development of the
boost-phase interception capability is very desirable because of its immediate
payoff in case of a hostile ballistic missile launch. Interception in the
boost-stage does not only prevent the missile from reaching its target, but
also makes the launcher suffer damages inflicted by their own missile as well
as the missile interceptor.
Space
security
The Space
Security Index is the annual, comprehensive, and integrated assessment of space
security. It defines the term “space security” as “the secure and sustainable
access to and use of space, and freedom from space-based threats” [21]. International developments in space security
may be divided to eight indicator
areas: the Space
Environment; Space Security Laws, Policies and Doctrines; Civil space programs
and global utilities; Commercial Space; Space Support for Terrestrial Military
Operations; Space Systems Protection; Space Systems Negation; Space-based
Strike Weapons. The main trends
and developments in indicator areas were posed in “Space Security 2006” [21].
Space
in literature
Literature,
dedicated to space, is immense. There are hundreds of books about space –
scientific, science fiction, educational ones. Their review would take several
volumes. That is why we will limit ourselves by literature pertaining to the
Moon, because the Moon is the closest and the most approachable to a
terrestrial observer special object. It was the Moon to whom many famous
ancient writers addressed.
One of the first
stories of the science fiction genre is probably the one written by Plutarch
(46-120 A.D.) “On the Apparent Face in the Orb of the Moon”. With a
reference to ancient wizards, he mentions “smooth hills” of the Moon.
Surprisingly, typical smoothed shape of moon mountains, covered with a thick
layer of rock debris and dust, became known only after space flights to the
Moon. Besides, Plutarch wrote about smaller gravitation of the Moon and even
about its mass.
Lucian of Samosata
is an Assyrian-Roman rhetorician and satirist (120- after 180 A.D.) could
really be called the Father of science fiction. In his book “Icaromenip” (Lat.
“Icaromenippus” (about 161 A.D.), the main character flies to the Moon
with the help of wings. In his book “A True Story” (Lat. “Vera Historia”, about
170 A.D.), travelers-seafarers are also blown to the Moon with a whirlwind and
encounter a great number of exotic forms of extraterrestrial life, intrude into
local “politics” and even take part in “star wars” for the planet of Venus.
In 1516, an epic
“Furious Orland” by an Italian poet Ludovico Ariostro was published. His
character flies to the Moon in a quadriga. The famous astronomer Kepler, who
discovered the laws of motion of planets of the Solar system, also turned his
inquisitive mind to science fiction and in 1609 wrote a novel “Dream”
(published in 1634). Despite the fact that Kepler’s character appears at the
Moon with the help of demonic forces, this novel turned out to be prophetical
in some sense, because the author had foreseen such circumstances as dangers
pertaining to interplanetary flights, impossibility of existence of life on the
Moon, possibility to move using the Moon’s gravitation.
In 1638 two English
bishops published two science fiction novels that are worth mentioning, as they
were widely known and were republished during many years. These novels are
Francisco Godwin’s “A Man on the Moon, or Tractate about a Voyage There” and
John Wilkins’s “Discovery of a New World”. Godwin was probably the first one to
describe the state of weightlessness. He used a flock of swans as a mover, who
flew at the speed of 280 km/h and reached the Moon in 12 days. By the way, this
story laid the foundation of a tradition of space utopia: his main character
finds an ideal social order. Wilkins considers for the first time problems of
life support and possible technical means for the flight. He thought that it is
possible to create “a flying carriage” and believed that since carriages had
already been created, then a flight to the Moon would be possible in the
nearest future.
It was proposed to
use different technical means known at that time as a means of traveling, and
all these “space carriages” competed with each other in their astonishing
naivety. In 1657, a science fiction novel “Space History of States and Empires
of the Sun” by Cyrano de Bergerac was published. It proposes different
technical means of transportation: a solar battery-aerostat, a combination of magnets,
powder-charged rockets with consecutive combustion. It was the first proposal in literature to use a rocket as a
technical means of traveling to the Moon.
E.F. Burney’s
“Voyage to the Moon” (1815) apparently proposes the first “space canon” – four
large guns operating in parallel. A spaceship has a conical shape and looks
like a partially folded umbrella, which opens at the Moon and ensures safe
landing on its surface. For the first time in literature, the novel offers the
first description of a “space garment”, known today as a space suit. 1864
witnessed the appearance of the first paper on the history of space flights in
literature, “Worlds Imagined and Real” by a French astronomer Flammarion.
Starting from the end of the 18th and beginning of the 19th
centuries, alongside with the development of astronomy and other sciences, more
and more realistic features appear in the enormous flow of science fiction
literature. For example, in Edgar Poe’s novel “The Unparalleled Adventures of
One Hans Pfall”, the description of the Earth from space is very similar to
that that we know today by photographs and television, although Edgar Poe wrote
it on the assumption that the air, though highly rarefied, is present all
through the way from the Earth to the Moon. Space travels in science fiction literature acquire a more
realistic character. People travel
to the Moon in hermetically sealed cylinders or spheres, although these devices
were launched to the Moon by canons or by other similarly incredible methods, for
example, using antigravitation as a driving force. The latter method was used
by Herbert Wells in his novel “The First Men in the Moon”. Even more realistic
features can be found in the novels by Jules Verne: one can see some features
of the “Apollo” project, for example, the return of the foreship with landing
on the water in the ocean. In his famous dilogy, “From the Earth to the Moon”
(1865) and “Around the Moon” (1969), Joules Verne describes a voyage to the
Moon unauthorized access detail.
Let us also
recollect traveling of the famous baron Munchausen in the novel by a German
writer Rudolf Erich Raspe, (Rudolf Erich Raspe, “The Adventures of Baron
Munchausen”, 1785), space flights of Cyrano de Bergerac in the epic of a French
poet Edmond Rostand (Edmond Rostand, “Cyrano de Bergerac”, 1898).
Such well-known
Russian writers as V.K. Kukhelbeker and V.F. Odoyevsy also address to the topic
of space flights. In his novel “The Year 4338” (1840), Odoyevsy states, that
Moon colonization is necessary in connection with the threat of overpopulation.
The greatest contribution to popularization of the main problems and tasks of
space exploration was made by K. E. Tsiolkovsky. His science fiction novels “On
the Moon”, “Dreams of the Earth and Sky”, and “Beyond the Earth” tackle nearly
all problems and tasks that had to be solved in order to perform a space
flight. Amonf a great number of literature on this subject, he was probably the
only writer who put real scientific ideas and calculations beyond the fiction
narrative.
Tsiolkovsky’s novel
“On the Moon” was first published in 1893. The aim of the novel is to tell the
readers about achievements in astronomy and technology of that time in a
popular, comprehensive and captivating manner. Two friends come to the Moon,
travel there, observe the Earth and stars. Tsiolkovsky’s characters encountered
the world of the Moon face-to-face. And it required to have a tremendous
imagination to give such an astonishingly precise, colorful and emotional
description of impressions of a man on the Moon − and to do so at the end of
the 19th century. Of course, a modern reader will have different
questions − why there are no space suits, why the characters run on the Moon
surface wearing ordinary boots at the temperature of -150ºC? How did they
manage to see Jupiter’s satellites with an unaided eye? First of all, one
should keep in mind that “On the Moon” is a science fiction novel. Secondly,
Tsiolkovsky wanted to show how a human being and earth objects would behave in
physical conditions of the Moon. What would happen to a man, whose weight had
been reduced in six times? How would he move, what weights w would ill he be
able to lift? What would happen to a boiling samovar, to fruits taken from the
Earth, in conditions of the Moon world? How one should cook food? All his
narrative is like one continuous physical experiment, described in a bright and
absorbing manner. This is what Tsiolkovsky’s science fiction concerns about −
he omitted many important for a real space travel details, because that was not
what was important to him. But at the same time his characters had seen and
felt all that the American astronauts saw and felt about 80 years later.
Tsiolkovsky dreamt that one day such travels would come true. Already at the
end of the 19th century, he started to prepare people to space
flights, he taught them not to be afraid of space, and he taught them to think
not about dangers of such travels, but about natural curiosity, that stimulates
a man to make new discoveries, about high interest to see something new, to
experience something unknown and unwitnessed, that has always attracted human
mind and feelings.
In the 20-s, a
“rocket era” in science fiction started, and from pages of novels and stories
various types of rockets – unmanned, manned, multi-stage, nuclear, photon, ion
ones − rushed to the Moon and other celestial bodies ... An in 1959, the Soviet
station “Luna-2” became the first earth object that reached the surface of the
Moon, and then Neil Armstrong stepped on the Moon. And the topic of the first
flight to the Moon practically disappeared from science fiction literature.
Why
space is of interest to or fascinating to people?
From ancient time people turned their glances to the sky and stars. They
tried to understand and explain the world around them and natural phenomena.
People want to know if there is life on other planets, if there are places in
the Universe, where people could live better, than on the Earth. We are a race of explorers. We are always on a quest to discover. Space
is the final frontier and it is infinite. It is our future because it's in our
nature. For society not to be funding deep space exploration is to deny a large
part of what makes us human.
In the course of our
explorations we hope find evidence of other civilizations if not living members
of those societies. The confirmed existence of extraterrestrial life developed
independently of our own planet's history will help to provide some additional
perspective on fundamental questions like "why are we here?" If we
discover that life is ubiquitous, our human-centric perspective will give way
to a greater cosmic truth. If on the other hand we are able to confirm, after
much exploration that we are indeed alone, that will perhaps have the greater
impact.
However, not only
curiosity and scientific interest attract people in space. Concern about the
future also makes us look beyond the Earth. Natural resources are being
exhausted, the air is getting too dirty to breathe with, the ozone layer is
being destroyed, and there are overpopulation problems. It is possible that
there are planets that are suitable for people of the Earth to live on. Space
is an endless source of different natural resources. The resources, in terms of
mineral deposits, tied up in asteroids, the Moon, Mars and other bodies could
provide off-world mining sites that would allow us to stop or reduce
terrestrial resource mining. The natural resources in space include metallic
nickel-iron alloy, silicate minerals, hydrated minerals, bituminous material,
and various volatiles, including water, ammonia, carbon dioxide, methane, and
others. These have all been identified either in meteorites, or
spectroscopically in asteroids and comets. People need energy, and energy is in
abundance in space, the Sun can serve as a practically inexhaustible source of
energy. If the major part of industrial plants is carried out into space, it
will remove all restrictions and limitations pertaining to lack of raw
materials or energy, to destruction of the Earth’s ecology, and it will finally
make possible to satisfy material needs of people in the scale of the whole
planet. Laboratories in space could perform experiments you wouldn't want to do
on Earth because of the risks involved to the population. Potential deadly experiments
with viruses and bacteria that hold the possibility of mass casualty in the
event of an accident could more safely be performed from either space stations
or planetary scientific outposts, greatly reducing the risk of catastrophe.
We are also worried about threat from space.
The Earth has already experienced asteroid attacks. There is no guarantee that
another collision of the Earth with a space object, the planet will survive. The earth's existence is finite.
It may very well be billions of years before the Sun burns out or explodes, but it may only be
months or years before some extremist regime or fundamentalist group set in
motion a chain of events that cause the annihilation of the human race. We must
expand beyond one environment to decrease the likelihood that a single
catastrophe will cause our extinction.
Objective
2 – Background: History of Man in Space
Evolution
of cosmic ideas
Having asked himself the questions – who I am, where we came from – a
man has simultaneously posed another question – what space is. The first
systematic notions about space reached us in the form of myths. We still use
the names of planets and constellations that they obtained based on natural
myths in Ancient Greece. The first understanding of the world that can be
called scientific was formulated in the antiquity period. “Space”, or “cosmos”
in Greek, means order, arrangement, harmony (anything organized). Philosophers
of the Ancient Greece interpreted “cosmos” as the Universe, considering it an
ordered harmonic system. They opposed “cosmos” to disorder, chaos. For example,
Heraklith of Ephesus considered, that space, or “cosmos”, is an absolute order
and harmony, a closed sphere, at the center of which the Earth is situated. He
introduces the notion of the world year (10800 years), during which “cosmos”
appears, develops and burns down in flame, being substituted by Chaos.
Pythagoras - the author of the term “space” in its modern understanding −
proposed a pyrocentric system of the world, according to which the Sun and
planets under the music of celestial spheres revolve around a central flame.
Pythagoras (or maybe his student Parmenides) was the first to state that the
Earth is a sphere. The first ones to speak about revolution of the Earth around
its axis were apparently Pythagoreans Hyket and Ekfant of Syracuse. However, Pythagoreans
also had ideas that even the Earth had an orbit and was not the center of the
World. Phylolay (470-388 B.C.) was the first to proclaim ideas of the
Pythagorean studies in his book “On the Nature”. From this book we learn about
the Earth’s movement (before that the Earth has always been considered a
motionless and flat center of the Universe). In Phylolay’s book the Earth is
“removed” from its central position and moves along its orbit. Phylolay’s Moon
looks like Earth and is inhabited (in the 5th century B.C. – that is
when ideas about life on other planets appeared!) by the same animals and
plants, but bigger in size and more beautiful ones.
The peak of the ancient scientific achievements is Aristotle’s doctrine.
Aristotle’s followers completed creation of an ordered scholastic system of
knowledge that reflected invariability and perfection of space. According to
scholastic view, the Universe is eternal, but is periodically destroyed so as
to be revived again in the next cosmic cycle. Aristotle stated that only the
changeable sublunary world was subject to destruction, but regions above the
Moon were eternal. Stars consisted of a divine substance and hence had power
over everything that happened in the sublunary world.
Duration of the “Great year”, according to Plato, is 760,000 years, and
according to Ptolemy is 36,000 years. After works by Plato and Aristotle, no
serious philosophers challenged the theory about the Earth’s spherical shape.
After the end of the slave-owning epoch, the cosmic philosophy of the
ancient world could not but reach a deadlock. And that is exactly what
happened. At the end of the ancient period the philosophic school of
Neo-Platonists came to a conclusion, that space was a desert, because there was no personality. Plotin, the
founder of Neo-Platonism (3rd century A.D.) taught that space was an
undefined, devoid of any personal qualities, acceptor of eternal ideas
(eidoses), the source of which was the Universal Whole. The Universal Whole produced reason
(nous) that contained all ideas, and the world soul that contained all
individual souls. It took only one step to exaltation of a personality, and
this step was made by philosophy of monotheism (Christianity, Islam). The basis
of this doctrine was not the nature any more, but a demiurge – an absolute
personality who was “higher” and “earlier” than space. However, having started
in the antique times, this philosophy flourished only in the Middle Ages. The
scholastic system of the world that absorbed elements of mythological notions
appeared very stable and formed a basis of the European science for over 1,500
years, up until the scientific revolution marked by studies of Copernicus,
Galileo and Newton. However, this does not mean that the picture of the world
accepted in the Middle Ages did not experience any changes and did not have its
peculiarities.
The middle ages started from the breakdown of the great Roman Empire.
General decadence resulted in the appearance of strange pictures of the world.
For example, Kosma Indikplov, basing on a story about divine tabernacle,
believed that the Universe had a shape of a box. Hervasius of Tilberia
considered that the Earth was square, and so on. But still the cosmogony of the
Middle Ages was determined by two sources – the Bible and Aristotle’s doctrine.
The world was considered to be a huge symbolic system, a sort of collection of
ideas. Every external phenomenon was considered to be an act of God.
The Renaissance covers a period from the 14th to the
beginning of the 18th centuries. One of the most prominent achievements
of natural studies of that time was the establishment of a heliocentric system
of the world by Nicholas Copernicus (1473-1543). The main ideas comprising the
core of this system are the following: the Earth is not a stationary center of
the world, but it revolves around its axis and simultaneously around the Sun
that is the center of the world. This discovery made a scientific revolution,
as it disproved the picture of the world based on the geocentric system of
Aristotle-Ptolemy that had existed more than a thousand years.
The central idea of cosmologic doctrine of Giordano Bruno (1548-1600) is
a statement about infinity of the Universe. “It [the Universe] is not capable
of comprehension and therefore is endless and limitless, and to that extent
infinite and indeterminable…”. The statement about infinity of the Universe
allowed Bruno to pose a new question about the center of the world, denying not
only the geocentric, but also the heliocentric system. Neither the Sun nor the Earth
can be the center of the Universe, because there are infinitely many worlds.
And each world has its center – its star.
Kepler calculated paths of planets motion. They turned out to be
ellipses having the Sun in one of the focuses (the First Kepler’s Law). Kepler
also discovered the Second Law that determined the speed of planet’s motion at
each point of its orbit, and the Third Law that established the dependence of
the distance between the planet and the Sun on the period of its revolution
around the Sun.
With the help of a telescope, Galileo saw mountains on the Moon, spots
on the Sun, and discovered four Jupiter’s satellites that ran around the planet
at different distances. That was a serious argument supporting the idea that in
the Solar system all planets move around the biggest body – the Sun, but not
around the Earth.
The founder of the modern physics, Newton, produced a simple and strange
picture of the world – an absolutely empty space that had no boundaries and
that was subject to the Euclidian geometry, where from the times of creations
stars and planets revolved according to the law of gravity. Newton assumed that
in general stars were evenly distributed in the Universe. However, one may
demonstrate that if in such a Universe a universal law of gravitation exists,
then such a Universe is unstable and with time it should either concentrate
into a point, or into an innumerable number of spheres. Since this is not
observed, then there should be some external “Agent” (Newton’s term) that makes
the system stable. Such an “agent” can be God’s will. Despite some weak points
and contradictions, the mathematical theory of the Universe established by
Newton allowed him to find brilliant solutions of a number of practical tasks:
establish a theory of the Moon’s movement, calculate motion of planets and
comets, explain tides and ebbs, etc.
However, Newton’s world was static, devoid of development and preserved
properties obtained from God at the first day of creation. This weak point was
corrected later by Kant and by Dallas, both of whom have independently proposed
a hypothesis that the Solar system had originated from a nebula.
Speaking about the main peculiarities of the picture of the world at the
period of classic natural sciences, one should but mention A. Humboldt, who was
rightfully called Aristotle of the 19th century. In his main paper “Space” he
gave a systematic physical description of the Universe – an encyclopedic abridgement
of knowledge about space at the middle of the century. The scientific paradigm
that established in natural sciences after Newton’s works predominated till the
beginning of the 20th century, developing consecutively in new spheres of
knowledge.
In the 20th centuries,
scientific ideas about space have considerably changed and filled with new
content. First of all, one should mention a concept of K.E. Tsiolkovsky about
humankind as an active creative force that develops and transforms space. A
concept of the Universe as a unified self-organizing evolving system was also
formulated, and problems of cosmology and physics of the microworld became
closer. In the 20th century, industrial space exploration started as a new
medium of industrial activity of the humankind, and a new definition of the
term “space” that we presented earlier was formulated.
The
history of people’s exploration of space
For centuries humans
dreamed of conquering time and space and for centuries so it remained -just a
dream. Finally, the 20th century arrived and with it the phenomenal
ascent of science and technology that allowed humanity to progress faster and
farther than during all previous recorded history. Let’s look at the some significant
events in the history of exploration of outer space [22]:
·
1957, Oct. 4:
World’s first artificial satellite Sputnik-1 is launched.
·
1958, March 17:
The Vanguard (TV-4), the first satellite to use solar energy, reaches orbit.
·
1959, Jan. 1-2:
Luna-1, the first spacecraft to escape Earth orbit, is launched.
·
1959, Sept. 12:
Luna-2 the first man-made object to impact the Moon.
·
1959, Oct. 3:
Luna-3 photographs far side of the Moon.
·
1960, April 1:
The US launches Tiros-1, the first weather-monitoring satellite.
·
1960, April 13:
The US successfully launches Transit 1B, the first navigational satellite.
·
1960, Aug. 19:
Two dogs, Belka and Strelka, landed onboard the prototype of the Vostok
spacecraft (Korabl Sputnik-5), becoming first animals returning from orbit.
·
1961, Feb. 12:
Venera-1 probe launched toward Venus.
·
1961, April 12:
Yuri Gagarin completes world’s first manned spaceflight onboard Vostok
spacecraft.
·
1962, Aug. 11-15:
Two manned spacecrafts, Vostok 3 and 4, orbit the Earth simultaneously.
·
1962, Dec. 14:
Mariner-2 completes the first Venus flyby.
·
1963, June 16-19:
Valentina Tereshkova, the world’s first woman in space completed orbital flight
onboard Vostok-6 spacecraft.
·
1963, July 26:
The Syncom-2 communications satellite reaches synchronous orbit.
·
1964, Aug. 19:
The Syncom-3 communications satellite becomes the world’s first geostationary
satellite.
·
1964, Oct. 12-13:
A first three-member crew orbited Earth onboard Voskhod spacecraft.
·
1965, March 18:
Alexei Leonov conducts world’s first spacewalk during the 24-hour, 16-orbit Voskhod-2
mission.
·
1965, July 15:
Mariner-4 completes flyby of Mars.
·
1965, Nov. 26:
The Diamant rocket orbited the first French satellite, the A-1, making the
country the third space power.
·
1966, Feb. 3:
Luna-9 conducts soft-landing and scientific research on the surface of the
Moon.
·
1966, March 16: US
spacecraft Gemini-8 completes world’s first manual docking with Agena-8.
·
1967, June 12:
Venera-4, the first probe to enter the atmosphere of Venus, blasts off from
Baikonur.
·
1968, Dec. 24:
The US spacecraft Apollo-8 with the crew of three completes world’s first
translunar flight and orbiting of the Moon.
·
1969, July 20:
The Apollo-11 astronauts land and walk on the surface of the Moon.
·
1970, April 24:
China launches an artificial satellite onboard domestically built rocket.
·
1970, July 22:
The Venera-7 lander transmits data from the surface of Venus.
·
1971, April 19:
The Salyut-1, the first orbital station is launched. Its crew of three dies on
landing.
·
1971, Oct. 28:
Great Britain launches the Prospero satellite onboard the Black Arrow rocket
from the launch site in Australia.
·
1971, Dec. 2: The
Mars-3 lander reaches the surface of Mars. Only few seconds of data had been
received on Earth, before the spacecraft fails.
·
1973, May 14: The
US Saturn-5 rocket launches Skylab orbital lab. Three crews visit and work
onboard the station.
·
1973, Dec. 4: The
Pioneer-10 completes flyby of Jupiter.
·
1974, March 29:
The Mariner-10 completes flyby of Mercury.
·
1975, July 17:
The Soviet Soyuz and US Apollo spacecraft dock in space.
·
1975, Oct. 22:
Venera-9 transmitted first ever images from the surface of Venus.
·
1978, Jan. 20:
The Progress-1 the first cargo ship to resupply the space station is launched.
·
1979, Sept. 1:
Pioneer-11 completes flyby of Saturn.
·
1980, July 18:
India launches Rokhini satellite onboard its own SLV-3 rocket from its own
launch site.
·
1981, April 12:
The US Shuttle Columbia blasts off into the first test flight.
·
1981, Nov. 12:
The US Shuttle Columbia returns to orbit, becoming the first reusable
spacecraft.
·
1983, November:
The European Spacelab conducts its first orbital mission onboard US Shuttle.
·
1986, Jan. 24:
The Voyager-2 becomes the first and only spacecraft in the 20th
century to flyby and study Uranus.
·
1986, February
20: The core module of the Mir space station is launched. Its first expedition
shuttles between Mir and Salyut-7.
·
1988, Sept. 19:
Israel’s Shavit rocket successfully launched Ofeq-1 (Oz-1) - country’s first
satellite.
·
1988, Nov. 15:
The Energia booster launches unmanned Buran reusable shuttle, which lands
automatically after two orbits.
·
1989, August: The
Voyager-2 becomes the first spacecraft to flyby and study Neptune.
·
1990, April
24-29: The Shuttle Discovery deploys Hubble Space Telescope (STS-31).
·
1991, May: The
first commercial passenger, British citizen Helen Sharman, visits Mir.
·
1995, June
27-July 7: The US Space Shuttle (STS-71) docks to the Mir space station for the
first time.
·
1995, Dec. 7: The
Galileo spacecraft enters orbit around Jupiter.
·
1997, Mars
Pathfinder lands on Mars and deploys the first rover on the Red Planet.
·
1998, August:
North Korea launched Daepodong-1 rocket, officially announced as a satellite
launch, which apparently did not reach orbit.
·
1998, Nov. 20:
The Zarya/FGB control module, the first element of the International Space
Station blasts off from Baikonur.
·
2001, Feb. 12: At
the end of its mission, the NASA’s NEAR spacecraft touched down on the surface
of the asteroid Eros, which the spacecraft was orbiting since previous year.
·
2001, April 28:
Dennis Tito, the first space tourist, blasts off toward the ISS onboard Soyuz
TM-32 spacecraft.
·
2003, Oct. 15:
China becomes the third nation to conduct manned space flight, launching the
Shenzhou-5 spacecraft, with a 38-year-old Lt. Colonel Yang Liwei onboard.
·
2004, Jan. 2: The
Stardust spacecraft flies by comet Wild 2, collecting samples.
·
2004, July 1: The
Cassini spacecraft entered orbit around Saturn.
·
2005, Jan. 14:
The Huygens probe from the Cassini spacecraft successfully lands on the surface
of Saturn’s moon Titan and transmits imagery during the descent and from the
surface.
·
2005, July 4:
NASA’s Deep Impact 1 probe to approach Comet Tempel 1 and release the probe,
which will impact the comet’s core some 24 hours later.
·
2006: “Voyager 1”,
already the most distant human-made object in the cosmos, reaches 100
astronomical units from the Sun. That means the spacecraft, which launched in
1977, will be 100 times more distant from the Sun than Earth is.
Space
technologies on Earth
The applications for
space technologies on Earth are myriad and include telecommunications,
navigation, medicine and health care, water management, leisure and lifestyle,
agriculture, mining, oil and gas exploration, automobile industry, textile
industry, buildings and houses and many more. Just a glance at some of the
success stories will indicate the breadth of areas and products which have been
enhanced by the transfer of space technologies.
Since 1976, over
1500 NASA technologies have benefited industry, improved the quality of life,
and created jobs [23-24]. Here are some of the contributions of the US
Apollo program:
·
Cool suits, which
kept Apollo astronauts comfortable during moon walks, are today worn by race
car drivers, nuclear reactor technicians, shipyard workers, people with
multiple sclerosis and kids with a congenital disorder known as hypohidrotic
ectodermal displasia.
·
Special kidney
dialysis machines were developed as a result of a NASA developed chemical
process that could remove toxic waste from used dialysis fluid.
·
A cardiovascular
conditioner developed for astronauts in space led to the development of a
physical therapy and athletic development machine used by football teams,
sports clinics and medical rehabilitation centers.
·
Cordless power
tools and appliances are one of the most successful commercial spinoffs of
space-based technology.
·
Athletic shoe
design and manufacture also benefited from Apollo. Space suit technology is
incorporated into a shoe’s external shell. A stress-free “blow molding” process
adapted from NASA space suit design is also used in the shoe’s manufacture.
·
Insulation
barriers made of aluminum foil laid over a core of propylene or mylar, which
protected astronauts and their spacecraft’s delicate instruments from radiation,
is used to protect cars and trucks and dampen engine and exhaust noise.
·
Vacuum
metallizing techniques led to an extensive line of commercial products, from
insulated outer garments to packaging for foods, from wall coverings to window
shades, from life rafts to candy wrappings and from reflective blankets to
photographic reflectors.
·
Water
purification technology used on the Apollo spacecraft is now employed in
several spinoff applications to kill bacteria, viruses and algae in community
water supply systems and cooling towers. Filters mounted on faucets can reduce
lead in water supplies.
·
Freeze-dried food
solved the problem of what to feed an astronaut on the long-duration Apollo
missions.
·
A hospital food
service system employs a cook/chill concept for serving food. The system allows
staff to prepare food well in advance, maintain heat, visual appeal and
nutritional value while reducing operating costs.
·
A hollow
retroreflector, a mirror-like instrument that reflects light and other
radiation back to the source, is used as a sensor to detect the presence of
hazardous gases in oil fields, refineries, offshore platforms, chemical plants,
waste storage sites and other locations where gases could be released into the
environment.
·
A process for
bonding dry lubricant to space metals led to the development of surface
enhancement coatings, or synergistic coatings, which are used in applications
from pizza making to laser manufacture. Each coating is designed to protect a
specific metal group or group of metals to solve problems encountered under
operating conditions, such as resistance to corrosion and wear.
The US Space Shuttle
Program has generated more than 100 technology spinoffs. Some of the shuttle’s
contributions are:
·
Artificial Heart
- The technology used in space shuttle fuel pumps led to the development of a
miniaturized ventricular assist pump by NASA and renowned heart surgeon Dr.
Michael DeBakey.
·
Balance
Evaluation Systems - Devices built to measure the equilibrium of space shuttle
astronauts when they return from space are widely used by major medical centers
to diagnose and treat patients suffering head injury, stroke, chronic dizziness
and central nervous system disorders.
·
Diagnostic
Instrument - NASA technology was used to create a compact laboratory instrument
for hospitals and doctor offices that more quickly analyzes blood,
accomplishing in 30 seconds what once took 20 minutes.
·
Gas Detector - A
gas leak detection system, originally developed to monitor the shuttle’s
hydrogen propulsion system, is being used by the Ford Motor Company in the
production of a natural gas-powered car.
·
Infrared
Thermometer - Infrared sensors developed to remotely measure the temperature of
distant stars and planets, led to the development of the hand-held optical
sensor thermometer. Placed inside the ear canal, the thermometer provides an
accurate reading in two seconds or less.
·
Vehicle Tracking
System - Tracking information originally used onboard Space Shuttle missions
now helps track vehicles on Earth. This commercial spinoff allows vehicles to
transmit a signal back to a home base. Municipalities today use the software to
track and reassign emergency and public works vehicles. It also is used by
vehicle fleet operations, such as taxis, armored cars and vehicles carrying
hazardous cargo.
ESA and its
industrial contractors actively promote technology transfer from space to the
ground. ESA’s Technology Transfer and Promotion Office [25] has successfully transferred over 200 space
technologies to non-space sectors, such as:
·
electrically
cooled underwear developed from the space suits of astronauts;
·
to reduce
vibration in newly designed cars, a German firm markets software first used for
ESA’s Columbus Laboratory on the International Space Station;
·
a biomedical
camera company in the UK has a new way to spot cancer cells using a
superconducting detector developed by ESA’s space scientists;
·
a ground
penetrating radar to detect cracks in mine tunnels;
·
several of the
technologies used in the design and manufacture of modern cars and trucks come
from materials and systems that were developed for applications in space and
are being used to improve not only their cost and performance but also their
comfort and safety – airbags, carbon brakes, navigation systems, vibration
damping, insulation, cooling systems and many more;
·
cleaner fuels and
solar energy used to power satellites are already starting to power cars and
buses;
·
the hand-held
device which incorporates satellite navigation technologies into the personal
navigator to help blind people find their way around city streets.
Objects
that have been put into space in my lifetime
I was burn in 1992.
Since this year many different objects were launched into space. The Online
Index of Objects Launched into Outer Space [9] provides a quick means to access information
provided to the United Nations in accordance with the Convention on
Registration of Objects Launched into Outer Space and General Assembly
resolution 1721B. Currently the Index contains information on objects launched
from 1957 to the present. According to this Index, since 1992 more than 1600
registered objects were launched into outer space. The table below presents
number of objects launched from 1992 to 2006 year. Some of these objects were
listed in section “The history of people’s exploration of space”.
|
Year |
#
of objects |
example |
|
1992 |
130 |
21/01/1992,
COSMOS 2175 (Russia) - Investigation of the upper atmosphere and outer space |
|
1993 |
108 |
13/01/1993,
MOLNIYA 1 (Russia) - Operation of the long-range telephone and telegraph
radio-communications system, transmission of television programmes to
stations in the Orbita network |
|
1994 |
123 |
08/01/1994,
SOYUZ TM-18 (Russia) - Transport to the Mir orbital station of the crew for the
15th main mission composed of the cosmonauts V. M. Afanasev, Y. V. Usachev
and V. V. Polyakov |
|
1995 |
104 |
19/04/1995,
GFZ 1 (Russia for Germany) - The GFZ-1 satellite is intended for
investigation of the Earth's gravitational field |
|
1996 |
100 |
11/01/1996,
STS 72 (ENDEAVOUR F-10) (USA) - reusable space transportation system |
|
1997 |
151 |
21/01/1997,
STS 81 (ATLANTIS F-18) (USA) - reusable space transportation system |
|
1998 |
158 |
07/01/1998,
LUNAR PROSPECTOR (USA) - Spacecraft engaged in practical applications and uses
of space technology such as weather or communications. Celestis space burial
capsule containing ashes of Eugene Shoemaker included in object. |
|
1999 |
129 |
03/01/1999,
MARS POLAR LANDER (USA) - Spacecraft engaged in practical applications and
uses of space technology such as weather or communications |
|
2000 |
121 |
03/02/2000,
COSMOS 2369 (Russia) - The space object is intended for assignments on behalf
of the Ministry of Defence of the Russian Federation |
|
2001 |
87 |
19/04/2001,
CANADARM 2 (Canada)
- Assembly and maintenance of the International Space Station |
|
2002 |
96 |
04/02/2002,
Mission Demonstration Test Satellite (Japan) - The objectives of Mission
Demonstration Test Satellite 1 (MDS-1) are to verify the function of
commercial parts in orbit, to verify minimization technology for components
and to measure space environment data (radiation, and so forth). |
|
2003 |
88 |
12/04/2003,
ASIASAT 4 (China) - Fixed-satellite telecommunications and broadcasting
services with an expected operational lifespan of 15 years. |
|
2004 |
72 |
13/03/2004,
ROSETTA (European Space Agency) - a deep-space exploratory satellite that
will explore the comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko. Rosetta is the first probe
ever designed to enter orbit around a comet’s nucleus and release a lander
onto its surface. |
|
2005 |
71 |
20/01/2005,
UNIVERSITETSKYA (TATYANA) (Russia) - The small space object is intended for
science education purposes. The launch was scheduled to coincide with the two
hundred and fiftieth anniversary of the founding of Lomonosov Moscow State
University. |
|
2006 |
89 |
11/03/2006,
HOTBIRD 7A (France) - telecommunications satellite |
Space
objects that had been predicted in the past
Predictions in
literature are a vast and complicated topic for discussion. Some people
consider that such predictions do not exist, and correspondence between
predicted and real things is largely factitious. But let’s leave these debates
beyond the scope of our report and still make a try to find some processes and
objects that have been described in science fiction literature and that
resemble the really existing ones [26]:
·
Jules Verne did predict
lunar spacecraft and weightlessness (1865); he correctly predicts the size of
the first Moon crew as three men (same as Apollo) and accurately sizes the
Columbiad as about the size of the Apollo command module which first orbited
the Moon with men in 1968. Another Verne foresight was the use of
retro-rocketry with his attachment of a type of retro-rocket to “break the fall”
of his craft on reaching the Moon.
·
Frank Paul in
1928 painted in magazine “Amazing Stories” planetary lander “Model T”.
·
Thea Von Harbou (“The
Girl in the Moon”, 1929) - rocket fins for aerodynamic stability; the
consultants for the movie were German rocket scientists. Their sizing of the
Earth launch rocket is remarkably close to that of a Saturn V moon rocket. The
German scientists included a VAB (Vertical Assembly Building).
·
Clustered rocket
boosters were predicted in 1929.
·
The “Wonder
Quarterly” illustrator, Frank R. Paul, predicted in 1929 an extravehicular
activity (EVA) with pressure suited astronauts, life support tethers, and
guidance gun (later created by NASA using compressed gas rather than
combustible propellant).
·
Construction of
orbital space station complete with living quarters using material ferried up
and regular service visits was predicted in 1945.
·
Arthur Clarke in
his “Radioworld” predicted, that an artificial satellite, launched at a
circular equatorial orbit at the height 35,803 km above the earth surface would
have a 24-hour period of revolution around the Earth, i. e. it will stay fixed
with respect to any point at the earth surface. All satellites used for
retransmission of a TV signal are geostationary. In honor of the writer, this
orbit was called “the Clarke Belt”.
·
Solar- and
light-sails were predicted in 1920.
·
Hugo Gernsbak
(Ralph 124C 41+) and Robert Heinlein “The Roads Must Roll” both described a
solar battery. Robert Heinlein in his “Coventry” described spacecrafts using
the energy of solar batteries.
·
Streamlined crew
modules for atmospheric entry were predicted in 1954.
·
Spaceships with
ion engines are one of the most popular means of transport in science fiction
novels. Ion engines were installed at the NASA research station Deep Space 1,
at the ESA’s telecommunication satellite Artemis, and at the ESA’s
interplanetary station SMART 1.
·
Alfred Bester
predicted space tourism in The Stars My Destination (1956).
·
Unmanned flying
machines can be found in Joules Verne’s “Unusual Adventures of Barsack’s
Expedition”.
·
Murray Leinster
in his “First Contact” described a spacesuit with an engine; a spacesuit
described by Clifford Simak in the “Cosmic Engineers” also had a rocket pack.
·
In their 1982
book The Descent of Anansi, Larry Niven and Steven Barnes predicted that two
satellites linked by a cable and passing through Earth's magnetic field could
generate an electrical current. NASA launched an experimental tethered
satellite in 1992 and reflew the mission in 1996. Today, the only tethered
satellite in orbit is the Tether Physics and Survivability Experiment, launched
in 2005.
Objective
3 – Space as an Area for Military Competition
Military
events in space
From 1958 to 1962,
the US and USSR conducted over a dozen nuclear tests in the Earth’s upper
atmosphere or in space - the highest at an altitude of 540 km.
On October 10, 1984
the Soviet laser testing centre Terra-3 was used to track the space shuttle
Challenger with a low power laser. This caused malfunctions to on-board
equipment and temporary blinding of the crew, leading to a US diplomatic
protest.
In October 1997, the
US Air Force commissioned a test of an ASAT system based on the MIRACL laser - a
megawatt-class chemical laser located at the White Sands Missile Range in New
Mexico. This system was directed toward a satellite orbiting 420 km above the
Earth. The MIRACL laser apparently had technical difficulties, but the results
of the test were startling. A lower-power (30-watt) laser intended for
alignment of the system and tracking of the satellite was the primary laser source
used during the test, and it appeared that this lower-power laser was
sufficiently powerful itself to blind the satellite temporarily, although it
could not destroy the sensor.
Four dozen
satellites from nearly two dozen nations supported the 1999 North Atlantic
Treaty Organization (NATO) military campaign against the Federal Republic of
Yugoslavia (FRY) in southeastern Europe. It was the largest armada of
spacecraft ever brought to bear on a single war in history.
Dozens of satellites
from the United States and its international coalition supported the American
military campaign against terrorists in the Islamic State of Afghanistan in
2001.
Satellites from the
United States and its international coalition partners supported the American
military buildup around the Republic of Iraq in 2003.
On January 11, 2007 the
anti-satellite missile lifted off from the Xichang site, lofting a “kill
vehicle”, which then directly impacted and destroyed a functioning Chinese
satellite. It was apparently a fourth launch of the system and its first
success.
Integration of military
and civilian space assets
In the past few
years the military has increasingly relied on commercial and civilian space
assets, owned and operated by foreign, domestic, and even international entities.
Such non-military organizations may provide cheap and technologically advanced
space commodities in a number of areas - launch, communications, remote
sensing, weather etc. Even in situations in which the military relies on its
own space assets (such as navigation, launch, and surveillance), partnerships
with and investment in non-military entities are common.
The development and
use of space technology for military and civil applications generally occurred
in parallel, but often civil space technologies crossed into military use (and
vice versa). Now we’ll review some major cooperative efforts between the
civilian, commercial, and military sectors in several technologies.
Launching Facilities and Services
The launch service
providers are often commercial companies such as Boeing and Lockheed Martin.
These same commercial entities support commercial launches, civilian
governmental launches, and military launches. Boeing and Lockheed Martin, for
example, provide launch vehicles and services for commercial launches, provide
services for shuttle launches through their joint venture as United Space
Alliance (USA). The military, NASA, and the commercial sector have all expended
great efforts and investment, often in direct partnership, in an attempt to
reach the common goal of reducing the expense of delivering satellites to
orbit.
Communications and Remote
Sensing/Earth Observation by Satellite
Satellite
communications systems have long been the backbone of the commercial space
industry. Although the military has its own satellite communication systems,
these systems cannot alone handle the military’s increasing demand for
communications services - a demand which has risen sharply as the military
moves real-time data and video from headquarters to military commanders
deployed to foreign areas of operation. Furthermore, the military needs
compact, mobile communications systems, which is the very technology gaining in
popularity in civilian and commercial sectors.
Remote sensing is
the collection of data which is processed into images of the surface features
of the earth. Once confined to national security objectives benefiting the
military and intelligence sectors, remote sensing is now being developed and
used for civilian and commercial ends such as environmental monitoring,
pollution tracking, natural disaster prediction and response, agriculture
planning, and mapping. The easy access to such high-resolution data, while a
national security concern, also offers great benefit to the military sector.
In the earliest
years of the “Space Age”, satellites were mainly useful in maintaining peace
and stability through reconnaissance, intelligence-gathering, early warning,
and as the National Technical Means (NTM) of verification for monitoring arms
control compliance. Recent years have seen increasing military reliance on
satellites as “force multipliers” or “force enablers” improving the
performance, lethality, and effectiveness of ground, air, and naval forces and
weapons, both during peace and war. The interdependence of military and
nonmilitary space systems is a global and intentional phenomenon, based on
advances in technology, proliferation of technology, market forces, and
political linkage of space technology with other issues. Here are some examples
of U.S. military reliance on commercial sector space services:
·
In 1991, the U.S.
military procured commercial remote sensing imagery from a non-U.S. company
during Desert Storm (The French SPOT Image satellite system). Commercial
satellite communications services were critical to U.S. Army missions.
·
In 1995, the U.S.
Navy bought more than two million minutes of service on an intergovernmental
satellite system constellation (Inmarsat),
and many Navy ships communicate through the system today.
·
The U.S.
Government has leveraged commercially-developed direct broadcast satellite
technology for its Global Broadcast Service.
·
During the first
Gulf War Coalition forces used Arabsat satellite for military communications.
.
Military-use
objects now in space that had been predicted in the past
Some military-use space
objects had been predicted in the past by science fiction writers. For example:
·
The prototype of
the laser has been described by Herbert Wells in "The War of the
Worlds" (1898). Wells's Martians leveled London with heat rays.
·
In 1945, Arthur
C. Clarke proposed in an issue of “Wireless World” the use of geostationary
satellites for communications with ground stations.
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