The Ethical Use of Outer Space - Ethical Engineering for International Development and Environmental Sustainability - page 114

the next steps in the militarisation of space will be the development, deployment
and eventual use of space weapons. 9

3.3.3 The Weaponisation of Space

The 'militarisation' of space is a phrase used to describe the development and deployment
of space assets that enable the military to maximize their effectiveness. It should not be
confused with the 'weaponisation' of space, which would involve the placing of weapons
in orbit around the Earth. At present, although there are no actual weapons stationed in
space, it can be argued that there are components of weapons and many other military
related systems positioned there. (Webb 2010 )

Although the Outer Space Treaty (discussed below) prevents the positioning of
weapons of mass destruction in space, it does not prevent them passing through (as
intercontinental ballistic missiles) nor does it prevent other types of weapon or
weapon components from being stationed there. Although the development or siting
of weapon systems in space is not against the letter of the law, it would undoubtedly
contravene the spirit of the Outer Space Treaty which seeks to prevent 'a new form
of colonial competition' and declares outer space to be 'the province of all
mankind'.
However, the diffi culty of determining the true intent of some space systems and
the lack of a defi nition of a space weapon (military satellites could already be inter-
preted as being components of a distributed weapon system) are leading many ana-
lysts to the conclusion that the next steps in the militarisation of space will be the
development, deployment and eventual use of space weapons. 10
A major problem with satellite systems used for warfi ghting is that they are
extremely vulnerable, and the major space power states (Russia, the United States
and China) have or have had antisatellite (ASAT) programmes (Grego 2012 ) and
have demonstrated to each other that they have the capability to deploy them:

• The Soviet Union declared its co-orbital ASAT weapon operational in 1971 fol-
lowing a number of explosive encounters with their own target satellites ( Grahn
1996 ).

• In January 2007, China tested an antisatellite weapon against one of its own age-

ing weather satellites 11 .

9 For more information on this, see the discussions and publications by the Stimson Centre ( http://
www.stimson.org/space/programhome.cfm ), the Acronym Institute ( http://www.acronym.org.uk/
space/index.htm ), the Centre for Defense Information ( http://www.cdi.org/ ), etc.
10 See, for example, the results of a high-level workshop on the threats arising from the weaponisa-
tion of space, by the World Academy of Arts and Science in collaboration with the Global Security
Institute at the GSI's offi ces in New York City available at http://worldacademy.org/content/
weaponization-outer-space
11 More details of the Chinese antisatellite programme can be obtained from GlobalSecurity.org at
http://www.globalsecurity.org/space/world/china/asat.htm