SPACE IS OURS!….Via Priorities & Frivolities comes this EE Times article about the National Reconnaissance Office, the agency in charge of our spy satellites. With the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty out of the way, it looks like total dominance of space is the next step:
The nation’s largest intelligence agency by budget and in control of all U.S. spy satellites, NRO is talking openly with the U.S. Air Force Space Command about actively denying the use of space for intelligence purposes to any other nation at any time?not just adversaries, but even longtime allies, according to NRO director Peter Teets.
….Beginning next year, NRO will be in charge of the new Offensive Counter-Space program, which will come up with plans to specifically deny the use of near-Earth space to other nations, said Teets.
The program will include two components: the Counter Communication System, designed to disrupt other nations’ communication networks from space; and the Counter Surveillance Reconnaissance System, formed to prevent other countries from using advanced intelligence-gathering technology in air or space.
I wish I had some idea what this meant. Does it mean that we just want to have lots and lots of satellites, more than anyone else? Or does it mean that we want to develop ways of shooting other people’s satellites out of space?
Whatever. I’m sure if our allies don’t like it, it must be a good thing.
