Reply #9: The regressives are the ones who have assumed power in Washington [View All]

[bigtree]

Their motives are clearly spelled out in their manifestos, from PNAC to the Nuclear Policy Posture review. They are responsible for the cynicism. Cassini would be fine in a perfect world where there were no neocons spelling out plans for space based platforms that would support space based lasers.

It should be remembered that there is no pot of money sitting around unneeded to dip into for these space projects. No starry-eyed mission to the moons of Pluto can be sustained without the military bonanza of nervous cash; and you can't easily turn this industry off once you've given them the money and licence to fiddle.

In response to the call from some in the Clinton-era's Republican Congress for the rapid acceleration of national missile defense development, "leading to deployment of a defense system as soon as possible," the United Missile Defense Company (UMDC) was formed in 1997 as a joint venture; equally owned by Lockheed Martin, Raytheon and TRW.

In fiscal years 1996 through 1998, the Republican congress authorized and appropriated a total of $1,174 million more for missile defense than President Clinton's budget requested for those years.

Despite President Clinton's opposition, a multimillion dollar contract was signed in 1998 for a "Space-Based Laser Readiness Demonstrator" with Lockheed Martin, TRW, and Boeing as the contractors.

On the 25th of April 1997 the Ballistic Missile Defense Organization announced that two contracts for the concept definition study phase of the National Missile Defense (NMD) Lead Systems Integrator were awarded to United Missile Defense Company, Bethesda, MD, and Boeing North American Inc., Downey, CA.

According to a 1997 U.S. Army Space and Strategic Defense Command news release, the then- commanding general of the Training and Doctrine Command, Gen. Hartzog, and the then- commander of the SSDC, Lieut. General Anderson signed a memorandum of agreement to recognize SSDC as the Army's specified proponent for space and missile defense.

The MOA also permitted SSDC to establish the Space and Missile Defense Battle Lab.

The Space and Strategic Defense Command was set up as the Army's specified proponent for space and national missile defense and an "integrator" for theater missile defense issues - recognized by the military establishment as a "one stop shop".

The Space Battle Lab is intended to develop "warfighting concepts, focus military science and technology research, conduct warfighting experiments, and support exercises and training activities, all focused on space and missile defense."

Lockheed Martin Space Systems and Northrop Grumman Space Technology ended up with the contract for the Space Battle Lab.

Today the Lockheed Space Systems website describes the corporation's ambitions in "space-based telecommunications; remote-sensing; missile systems; and the capability to integrate these complex elements into a total "system of systems," as an enterprise built by heritage aerospace companies including Lockheed, Martin Marietta, RCA, GE and Loral.

Lockheed Martin Space Systems is one of the major operating units of the Lockheed Corporation. It designs, develops, tests, manufactures and operates a variety of advanced technology systems for military, civil, and commercial customers.

Chief products include space launch and ground systems, remote sensing and communications satellites for commercial and government customers, advanced space observatories and spacecraft, fleet ballistic missiles and missile defense systems.

Everything for the next-generation of meddling in space. Everything for a down-on-his-luck weapon's manufacturer to get his blood money-grubbing career back on track.

Specific defense projects for the Lockheed Space Battle Lab:
-Global Positioning System IIR (GPS).
-Defense Meteorological Satellite Program
-Space Based Infrared System (Space-Based Lasers)
-International Space Station
-Theater High-Altitude Area Defense
-Airborne Laser
-Trident II D5 Fleet Ballistic Missile: The D5 is the latest generation of submarine launched ballistic missiles

-Trident II D5 Fleet Ballistic Missile: (UK FBM). The D5, built by LM Space & Strategic Missiles, is the cornerstone of the United Kingdom Ministry of Defense's strategic nuclear fleet.

A senior U.S. military officer warned in October of this year that, "Space may become a war zone in the not-too-distant future," in an apparent reaction to China becoming the third country besides the U.S. and Russia to put a man in space.

"In my view it will not be long before space becomes a battleground," Lieutenant General Edward Anderson, Deputy Commander, United States Northern Command, and Vice Commander, U.S. Element, North American Aerospace Defense Command, said at a geospatial intelligence conference in New Orleans.

"Our military forces depend very, very heavily on space capabilities, and so that is a statement of the obvious to our potential threat, whoever that may be," he said.

Anderson has served on the Army staff in the Office of the Deputy Chief of Staff for Research, Development, and Acquisition in the Pentagon as a space acquisitions and appropriations warrior.

"They can see that one of the ways that they can certainly diminish our capabilities will be to attack the space systems," said Anderson, who was formerly with the U.S. Space Command.

"Now how they do that and who that's going to be I can't tell you in this audience," he warned ominously.

In a Reuters article published in the same month as Anderson's remarks, Rich Haver, former special assistant for intelligence to Donald Rumsfeld, said he expected battles in space within the next two decades.

"I believe space is the place we will fight in the next 20 years," said Haver, now vice president for intelligence strategy at Northrop Grumman Mission Systems. (sincere, concerned look on his face as he speaks)

"There are executive orders that say we don't want to do that," Haver explained. "There's been a long-standing U.S. policy to try to keep space a peaceful place, but ... we have in space assets absolutely essential to the conduct of our military operations (and our portfolios), absolutely essential to our national security. They have been there for many years," he asserted.

"When the true history of the Cold War is written and all the classified items are finally unclassified, I believe that historians will note that it was in space that a significant degree of this country's ability to win the Cold War was embedded," Haver extolled.

Responding to a question about the implications of China sending a man into space, Haver said: "I think the Chinese are telling us they're there, and I think if we ever wind up in a confrontation again with any one of the major powers who has a space capability we will find space is a battleground."

The Pentagon's 2004 budget request includes $8.5 billion for unclassified space programs, an increase of about $600 million more than 2003, including funding increases for work on an advanced network of laser-based communications satellites.

The request also includes $274 million for a space-based radar system which the U.S. Air Force hopes to launch in 2012 to track moving ground targets at all times regardless of weather conditions. That marked a sharp rise from $48 million in 2003.

Peter Teets, undersecretary of defense, and former Lockheed president, is a major promoter of the Rumsfeld Commission's January 2001 report on the Military in Space, which warns of a "space Pearl Harbor" if the U.S. does not thoroughly "dominate all aspects of space."

"Clearly, space is the high ground, and we need to capture that high ground and then exploit it," said the former chief executive of the aerospace contractor. Teets has said that winning approval to increase funding for the radar program would be "one of the real tests" for future space programs.

Defense officials plan to spend about $4.4 billion in the next five years on the program, which will provide data to both military and intelligence agencies.

The GAO report faults the stepped-up schedule proposed by President Bush for premature integration. "As a result, there is greater likelihood that critical technologies will not work as intended in planned flight tests," the GAO said, which could force the Pentagon to spend more funds than expected or "accept a less capable system".

Despite the GAO report, the Defense Department has budgeted approximately $10 billion a year over the next five years to fund the missile defense program, and appropriators approved $9.1billion to be spent next year on the system.

Of course, there exists the possibility that President Bush actually assembled the Pentagon's recent pack of aerospace executives to run his foreign policy in his own anticipation of a credible 'space threat', to deter a future assault on our nation's security. What foresight he must have had from his Texas ranch. What of it, if executives and shareholders in the space industry happen to rape of our treasury to fulfill their own hunger to dominate military and commercial space?

There seems to be no limit to aerospace ambitions. The administration is pushing ahead with the expansion of the military space program, despite the limitations of the nation's weak economy and the adoption of many other costly ‘priorities' for the armed forces.

Dayton-based Mission Research Corp., has been tasked recently for a $12 million defense research project. The project is designed to build an experimental system that will track moving ground targets and utilize low-cost weapons to engage them.

The described goal of Mission Research Corp. is to develop a system that will have long-duration surface tracking capabilities, improved sensors, and the ability to use a variety of munitions available in-theater.

Mission Research will provide the technology used for the long-duration surface target tracking, along with Alphatech of Burlington, Mass., and Sandia National Laboratories of Albuquerque, N.M (owned and operated by Lockheed). The principal contractor for the project is the Northrop Grumman Corp. of Melbourne, Fla.

MRC's major clients include the: Air Force Research Laboratory; Electronic Systems Center; Office of Scientific Research; Edwards Flight Test Center Space Systems Division; Army Research Laboratory Space and Strategic Defense Command; Missile Command; Restone Technical Test Center; Navy Research Laboratory; Naval Surface Warfare Center Naval Air Warfare Center Defense Special Weapons Agency Defense; Advanced Research Projects; Department of Energy; Los Alamos National Laboratory; Sandia National Laboratories; Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory; and NASA.

The majority of MRC Microelectronics Division programs are performed through task order contracts and multiple company teams. Typically, MRC is the Prime Contractor.
Other companies include: Honeywell; BAE Systems; Raytheon; Intersil; Texas Instruments; Aerojet; Boeing; TRW; General Electric; Hughes; Orbital Sciences Corporation; and others.

Mission Research Corp.'s annual sales are about $80 million.

NASA’s Chief Administrator, Sean O’Keefe, who just happened to serve as Navy secretary, as well as comptroller and chief financial officer at the Defense Dept., was quoted declaring that NASA and the Pentagon were practically inseparable.

Bruce K. Gagon, Coordinator of the Global Network against Weapons and Nuclear Power in Space quotes O’Keefe’s declaration that, it is “imperative that we have a more direct association between the Defense Department and NASA.” O’Keefe continues, “Technology has taken us to a point where you really can’t differentiate between that which is purely military in application and whose capabilities are civil and commercial in nature.”

NASA's new mission claims to place a high priority on the search for life beyond Earth. NASA touts recent discoveries on Mars and the moons around Jupiter, which they say indicates that there may be or have been habitable environments on these worlds that supported the development of life.

That's the official story.

What's actually behind the White House's hawking of this space mission is their desire to promote and legitimize the industry's new nuclear propulsion technology needed to support such missions. These would be added to a long list of moneymaking boondoggles for the aerospace industry.

NASA, the Department of Defense and the Department of Energy are currently working together to develop the technology base for what they term, Space Nuclear Reactor Power.

This program will develop and demonstrate in ground tests the technology required for space reactor power systems from tens of kilowatts to hundreds of kilowatts. The SP-100 nuclear reactor system is to be launched ‘radioactively cold.' When the mission is done, the reactor is intended to be stored in space for hundreds of years.

The reactor would would utilize new blends of "recycled" uranium fuel.

The Jet Propulsion Laboratory, a division of the California Institute of Technology, manages the Mars Odyssey mission for NASA's Office of Space Science. Additional science partners are located at the Russian Aviation and Space Agency and at Los Alamos National Laboratory. Lockheed Martin Astronautics, Denver, is the prime contractor for the project to develop and build the orbiter. Mission operations are conducted jointly from Lockheed Martin and JPL.

Included in NASA plans for the nuclear rocket to Mars; a new generation of Radioisotope Thermoelectric Generators (RTGs) for interplanetary missions; nuclear-powered robotic Mars rovers to be launched in 2003 and 2009. NASA touts future mining colonies on the Moon, Mars, and asteroids that would be powered by nuclear reactors.

To develop and demonstrate these new nuclear power and propulsion technologies, President Bush's budget proposes $279 million; ($3 billion over five years) for Project Prometheus, which builds on the Nuclear Systems Initiative started last year.

Project Prometheus includes the development of the first nuclear-electric space mission, called the Jupiter Icy Moons Orbiter. 135 This mission will conduct extensive, in-depth studies of the moons of Jupiter that may harbor subsurface oceans. Only advanced nuclear reactors could provide the hundreds of kilowatts of power the craft would need.

The Prometheus Project is based on an archaic notion that began in the '50's with a space project named Orion. Project Orion was a propulsion system that depended on exploding atomic bombs roughly two hundred feet behind the space vehicle. Orion was developed at the old General Dynamics Corporation, under the guidance of several former Manhattan Project scientists. Cassini is not the same, and may be safer. Fine, but . . .my point:

In the late 1950's, Freeman Dyson, physicist, educator, and author, joined the Orion Project research team. The project's participants proposed exploding atomic bombs at regular intervals at very short distances behind a specially designed space ship in order to propel it to the Moon and other planets in the Solar System far more quickly and cheaply than with chemical-fuel rockets.

The motto for Orion was, 'Mars by 1965, Saturn by 1970'; hauntingly reminiscent of the administration's line about Project Prometheus exploring Mars and Europa's moons.

Orion ran out of money and needed the government's help. The military agreed to take up the project, but only on the condition that it adapt itself to a military purpose. The project was later abandoned because of uncertainty about the safety and efficacy of nuclear energy, and the high cost of the speculative program. Also, because the Nuclear Test Ban Treaty of 1963 outlawed it.

"Technology must be guided and driven by ethics if it is to do more than provide new toys for the rich," Dyson, 76, said, as he received the Templeton Prize for Progress in Religion 2000.

Dyson once commented that, "Project Orion is a monument to those who once believed, or still believe, in turning the power of these weapons into something else."

Mum to all of that, the White House wants you to know that the nuclear space project will prove new technologies for future NASA missions. Like space-based weaponry.

The decision by U.S. President George W. Bush to withdraw from the 1972 Anti-Ballistic Missile (ABM) Treaty allows research beneficial to orbiting space-based lasers as part of a global missile defense shield to resume; orbiting space lasers on permanent space platforms.

Despite the administration and industry talk of Europa's moons, the Prometheus Project will pave the way for the original Pentagon plan to mount nuclear reactors on space-based platforms to power their nuclear lasers. And of course, as the Space Command also asserts, ". . . the United States must also have the capability to deny America's adversaries the use of commercial space platforms, for military purposes" Enough!

This Promethus project is a cynical attempt to commit the nation to Rumsfeld's Star War's nonsense. Bush and Europa's moons: I don't believe them!

A space-based laser system would only encourage other nations to build space-nukes to counter ours. The move to expand this type of weaponry will almost certainly provoke a space-based weapon war.

Maybe we can shoot this crazy laser down before then.

At the military industry conference hosted by the American Enterprise Institute, defense policy advisor Richard Perle mused that, "It would be better if we simply handed the money to the defense industry and let them invest it themselves, . . . but Congress likes to control that . . . , but it gives the impression that the merchants of death are unduly licenced."

Perle then made a weak plea for less regulation of arms exports ($140 + billion since 1992), and suggested that export licencing be consolidated into one agency. I wonder who the administration executives will suggest to head that office. Industry lawyers; resumes at the ready!

You can hear the regret in his statement. If we would only just give the industry the money they want, no strings attached; they would provide for the nation's defense needs.

The industry wants us to believe that they are the best judges of what the next generation's needs are in terms of weaponry.

But the existence of these corporations and their new hi-tech boondoggles will not make us anymore secure than the existence of these same executives in our government have kept our sons and daughters from dying in senseless wars.


This diatribe contains excerpts from my book, 'Power of Mischief- Military Industry Executives Are Making Bush Policy And The Country Is Paying The Price'
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0974735205/002-0073119-5222456?v=glance&s=books