‘Rods from God’

[TomInTib]

With no fanfare, the Bush Administration is taking military control of what it terms “near space,” thereby laying claim to the area of the Solar System that lies between the Earth and the Moon’s orbit. “A key objective … is not only to ensure U.S. ability to exploit space for military purposes, but also as required to deny an adversary’s ability to do so,” is how the Pentagon’s 2001 Quadrennial Defense Review explained U.S. strategy.

Indeed, the success of the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq depended on the use of more than 50 military satellites to direct U.S. missiles and bombers to their intended targets. “I’d call this the first real space war,” says Brig. Gen. Larry Jones, commander of the 50th Space Wing at Schriever Air Force Base in Colorado.

Air Force Secretary James G. Roche, a self-described “space warrior,” is the soldier in charge of U.S. Space Command, the space-based branch of the armed services. In an October 2002 speech at the Conference on the Law and Policy Relating to National Security Activities in Outer Space, Roche explained:

Space capabilities in today’s world are no longer nice-to-have: they’ve become indispensable at the strategic, operational, as well as the tactical levels of war. … Space capabilities are integrated with and affect every link in the kill chain. … Given the absolute interdependence of air and space power, we cannot risk loss of space superiority.
According to the Space Command’s Strategic Master Plan, by 2025, the United States will have developed the capability to strike any target on Earth within minutes. To that end, the Pentagon is developing a space-based arsenal. These Star Wars weapons include laser-armed satellites—in military lingo, SBLs (Space-Based Lasers)—that will shoot down an enemy’s earth-launched missiles, destroy hostile satellites, and attack Earth-based enemy installations. Also on the drawing board are un-manned satellite gunships that would smash earthly targets with non-explosive tungsten rods. Such projectiles, known as “Rods from God,” would be so hard and traveling so fast that they could penetrate and destroy a four-story underground bunker.

more:
http://www.inthesetimes.com/comments.php?id=336_0_3_0_c

[tularetom]

1. Now that we have forfeited the lead in technology

others are almost surely developing the same kinds of weapons. It won't be long before they will become available to any group with the money to acquire one and a big enough chip on their shoulder to use it or at least threaten to do so.

I'm not too worried about global warming. Some idiot like the boy king will have blowed up the whole earth long before climate change even gets a chance to threaten human existence.

[DavidDvorkin]

2. Yeah, and Britannia once ruled the waves

That wasn't just a policy and military objective, mind you. Britannia really did rule the waves.

But such situations have a tendency to change. By their existence, they encourage the forces that bring them to an end.

[lovuian]

3. Its scary stuff

http://youtube.com/watch?v=MWJw8Wn3jpk