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NEWS & LETTERS, March 2003
Editorial
U.S. militarization of space
The disintegration of the space shuttle Columbia evoked
shock not only at the deaths of the seven crew members but at bureaucratic
complacency over safety problems, as news stories revealed that prior warnings
had been rejected or covered up. Why is crew safety taken so lightly at a time
when space--at least, using space for war--is so high on the government's
agenda? In the wake of the 1986 explosion of the Challenger,
NASA was supposed to have become zealously devoted to safety. However, several
reports in recent years have spotlighted dangerous corner-cutting on maintenance
of the aging shuttles. During the same period the safety and maintenance
workforce at NASA was cut by one-third. The remaining shuttle workforce
"shows signs of overwork and fatigue," according to a government
report. In 2001 five members of NASA's safety advisory panel were fired while
preparing a report critical of inadequate maintenance and safety funding and
practices. DECREPIT CAPITALISM NASA's five shuttles were designed to operate for 10
years or 100 flights. With Columbia's destruction after 21 years of use, only
three are left. This decaying fleet reflects the decrepit state of capitalism.
One result of the collapse of the high-tech economy in 2000 was a sudden glut of
capacity in the satellite market. Private space businesses and NASA scrambled to
cut costs, and, as always in capitalist production, human beings bore the brunt
in the service of almighty capital. NASA was already in bad shape, never having fully
recovered from the 1986 Challenger disaster, which induced its military and
commercial customers to seek more reliable means of launching their equipment
into space. Left without any significant mission, the space shuttle became
little more than a welfare program for military contractors, who receive
hundreds of millions of dollars each year the shuttles remain in operation. But even as the space shuttle program's budget has been
stalled, the military's space program has been well-funded and growing, because
it is a foremost element of the U.S. strategy to perpetuate its global military
and economic dominance. Which is why the seven dead seemed a mere aside in
Bush's first callous statement: "While we grieve the loss of these
astronauts, the cause of which they died will continue. America's journey into
space will go on." At the same time, his spokesman made it clear that any
mourning would not delay his timetable for war against Iraq by one second. Few things could be more frightening than Bush's rush to
carry on an "us against the world" arms race. Reagan's "Star
Wars," ostensibly ended under the first President Bush, lived on through
the Clinton administration, and now the militarization of space has returned to
high gear. Militarization of space dates back to 1960, when the
first U.S. spy satellite began operating. The space shuttle itself has always
been a joint program of NASA and the Air Force. One-third of the flights in its
first 10 years performed military missions, many of them shrouded in secrecy.
Sean O'Keefe, appointed by Bush to head NASA, called for "a more direct
association between the Defense Department and NASA," adding that there
cannot be a differentiation between military and other applications. The Air
Force will play a decisive part in designing the successor to the space shuttle,
and the key requirements will clearly revolve around supporting the new version
of "Star Wars." Modern warfare is coordinated from space using
satellites for communications, mapping and spying. Global Positioning Systems
were developed for military purposes, and have guided projectiles to their
targets in all U.S. wars since Iraq 1991, including bombing villages in
Afghanistan and committing assassinations in Yemen. Currently, about $20 billion
is openly spent per year on military and intelligence space programs, plus
billions more for secret programs. The largest program in Bush's immense 2004 military
budget is the "son of Star Wars," the Missile Defense Agency, slated
for a staggering $9.1 billion. Also included are a "space test bed" to
deploy weapons in space for the first time, and the first flight of a complete
anti-missile laser system. BUSH'S STAR WARS The Pentagon envisions a vastly intensified
militarization of space, including military space planes, anti-satellite weapons
and ballistic missile systems. Space-based lasers and other weapons would be
powered by on-board nuclear reactors. Numerous planning documents call for
"domination and control" of space. Most brutally, Senator Bob Smith
declared that space "is our manifest destiny," letting fly the phrase
used 150 years ago to justify conquest and territorial expansion by the U.S.
through genocide of Native American peoples, war on Mexico, and threats against
Canada. Bush is determined to let nothing stand in the way of total domination of the earth, the seas, the sky and space, whether it be the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty, which he explicitly abrogated; or the Outer Space Treaty reserving space for "peaceful purposes," whose reaffirmation by the United Nations the U.S. refused to vote for; or even China's threat to respond to the U.S. by "the extension of the arms race into space." Bush's insane vision of turning the entire planet--and more--into a battlefield must be stopped. |
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