VIEWPOINT: EXPANDING THE HIGH FRONTIER: SPACE WEAPONS IN HISTORY

Abstract

A hot topic within national security policy circles involves space weaponization. Concerns about a future arms race, cost, operational capability, and other problems appear to be new. However, past space weaponization efforts have addressed these same issues. Current policy makers can look to World War II German experiments, the Soviet Union's co-orbital anti-satellite system, and the United States' X-20 Dyna-Soar proposals to explore these same challenges. A look to the past might help policy makers to consider many of these same questions that past governments have wrestled with in any attempt to gain an operational status for a proposed space weapon.