Image: DOD
Blog Editor’s Note: We are all for preventing problems rather than waiting for them to crop up and then running around figuring out how to recover.
Think about how much easier it would have been to fix the levees in New Orleans BEFORE Hurricane Katrina.
And how about if we had taken the advice of experts and harden cockpit doors before 9/11? Maybe Al Qaeda would have still attacked another way, but it is hard to imagine it being as successful and leading to decades of war.
In both cases, so may lives and so much treasure lost so unnecessarily.
Yet little to nothing was done in either case to prevent the problem.
So, “right on” for an ASAT test ban to make space safer. The VP’s proposal isn’t completely out in front of the problem, but it can certainly help prevent making the problem worse.
And while we are at it, how about we get the bullseye off GPS so an attack on will be less impactful and therefore less likely? That will make space safer also.
BTW – Funny how perceptions change so quickly. It was just last year RAND published a report for DHS saying we shouldn’t worry about an attack on GPS satellites. Our adversaries would NEVER do that.
Op-ed | U.S. Antisatellite Test Ban Reveals a New Approach for Security and Sustainability in Space
On April 18, Vice President Kamala Harris announced a U.S. commitment to forgo “destructive direct-ascent anti-satellite missile testing.” This carefully designed ban has the potential to be the first step in a new approach to security and sustainability in space. If so, the United States will be well-positioned to ensure peace and prosperity in space in the emerging era. However, if the U.S. continues its present course, it is unlikely to counter the range of space threats emerging over this decade and beyond.
To succeed, the new U.S. approach must be characterized by three elements.
