TECHNOIR (8 page)

            Nevertheless, US missile defense plans remain foggy. For FY (fiscal year) 2009, and for the first time since 1993, a small amount of money ($5 million) was approved by the US Congress to study the prospect of “Space-Based Interceptors”, or killer satellites. Also for FY 2009, the
Defense  Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA),
in its request for funding, said they were seeking “the ability to neutralize man-made space environments.”

            “It is a bold declaration that DARPA will be researching ways in which to affect other countries’ efforts in space,” said Victoria Samson, a space weapons expert with the Center for Defense Information. “By doing this sort of research under the radar, the Pentagon obviously figures it’s easier to ask for forgiveness rather than permission.”

          Will President Obama keep his promise of cutting missile defense research and to never weaponize space, or will super-rich missile defense contractors have too much influence over the new President and Congress? It sure appears as if missile defense contractors such as Lockheed Martin have Obama on their puppet strings. For FY 2010, the Obama administration only cut $1.2 billion off the missile defense budget and the overall total remains around $10 billion – roughly the same yearly average total spent during the Bush administration. Then for FY 2011, Obama actually raised the missile defense budget by roughly $500 million from the previous year. Indeed, missile defense advocates breathed a sigh of relief; one high-ranking CEO saying missile defense is an “embedded core element of the US military” and is here to stay.

            On the flipside, peace activists such as Bruce Gagnon say if US missile defense continues as is, war in and from Earth’s orbits is on (and above) the horizon. Want more evidence the US will someday weaponize the heavens? The Obama administration has called for a “new missile defense architecture” – one that calls for a greater emphasis on “space-engagement intercept layer.” As they say, promises are meant to be broken.

            Here are several major missile defense programs some arms analysts and peace activists say could someday be “dual use” and thus space weapons. The following is used with permission from the Center for Defense Information and The World Policy Institute-Arms Trade Resource Center
.

•           
The Terminal High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD)
is a mobile-unit – an oversized truck actually – with launchers on its back end.  THAAD fires “interceptors” into space that can destroy ballistic missiles, as well as atmospheric targets such as SCUDs. The interceptor has no munitions, and simply strikes a target with kinetic energy. The interceptor is roughly 6-meters long and about 8-inches wide and weighs over 1,200 pounds. Its rocket booster is 4-meters long and it’s “kill vehicle” – at the top of interceptor – is about 2-meters long. At the tip of the kill vehicle is an infrared sensor and within its shell is a navigational system. The THAAD’s kill vehicle could be described as a huge spike that can fly at 15,000 mph, with a range of 200 km and height of 150 km. In essence, kinetic energy that is most lethal. Lockheed Martin is THAAD’s main civilian contractor and it is scheduled for deployment in 2009.

•            For the Navy and the Missile Defense Agency, the
Aegis Ballistic Missile Defense
system is their sea-based missile defense. Some space weapons experts call the Aegis-equipped USS Lake Eris mankind’s first space battleship. The Aegis, as described by MissileThreat.com: “At the heart of Aegis is the AN/SPY-1 radar system. AN/SPY-1 sends out beams of electromagnetic energy in all directions, thus allowing Aegis ships to track up to 100 targets simultaneously, while still retaining the ability to counter other air, surface, and submarine threats. AN/SPY-1 will be able to detect ballistic missiles as they rise above the horizon.” Like THAAD, the Aegis fires an interceptor, but from a launch pad system, not a silo system. The Aegis interceptor – the SM-3 – is also different in that it has a three-stage booster with its kill vehicle. GlobalSecurity.org states the SM-3 has produced an impact during testing calculated at 125 megajoules. “Equivalent to the force released when a ten ton truck traveling at 600 miles per hour hits a wall.”

•          The Air Force and the Missile Defense Agency (MDA) are close to developing “microsatellites”. Two of these have already been tested in space. There’s the
XSS-11
, which is no larger than the fridge in your kitchen. The Air Force claims it can dock with malfunctioning US satellites and make repairs. How about approaching enemy satellites and sabotaging them? DARPA is currently developing a robotic arm for the XSS-11, called the FREND, or the Front-end Robotics Enabling Near-term Demonstration. Theoretically, the FREND could blind enemy satellites by applying some type of eye-patch on cameras. The FREND also might someday pick a satellite apart and let it drift like a jigsaw puzzle forever and ever. The other well-known microsatellite is the
NFIRE
, which is also run by the MDA. The NFIRE is said to be able to track a ballistic missile by the heat of its rocket’s plume and was designed to be “fitted” with a missile-like kill vehicle. NFIRE was launched into space in 2007 – but without the planned kill vehicle – the Generation 2 KV. Arms-control experts had convinced the Senate to kill it, apparently. The MDA claimed the Generation 2 KV would fly directly near the plume of a ballistic missile and track it. An incredible feat to say the least; but the kill vehicle, don’t forget, could have a dual use. It could also be used as a kinetic interceptor and destroy satellites.

•          The Missile Defense Agency’s $1 billon-dollar
Sea Based X-Band  Radar
– built primarily by Boeing – is perhaps the strangest-looking ship to have ever cruised the Pacific. The alien-looking vessel is actually a revamped oil-drilling platform, and centered on its top is it’s most striking feature – a tremendous white globe that could engulf the middle of a soccer field. And from the top of this white cylinder to the water, is an intimidating void of roughly 20 floors. Hidden inside the inflated white ball is the clue to this ship’s ultimate mission: A radar dish so powerful it can decipher a real ballistic missile from a balloon that looks like a ballistic missile, claims the US military. The vessel is actually a new and important piece in the growing arsenal that is the US’s missile defense program. But it has a dual use, say space-weapons experts. It could also decipher space debris from any future “killer micro-satellite.” There are several other X-Bands across the globe; and if all are upgraded to maximum capacity, they could track over 300 targets at the same time, some less than a meter long.

•            One former missile defense/space weapons program is the aptly named “
Rods from God
.” The rods being kinetic energy weapons – oversized metal spears a foot wide and twenty- feet long – fired by a Battlesat and propelled by gravity as they hurtle towards their Earthly target. The system was planned to be comprised of two satellites. One would house targeting hardware, the other the rods. When they’re ripping through the atmosphere the rods will be traveling at a speed of 11,000 meters per second and with the apparent blast force of a nuclear tipped ICBM. But with no radioactive flakes falling out of the sky post-impact. Preliminary tests, conducted in the New Mexico desert, of rods dropped from a high altitude resulted in a penetration of over 50-feet of Earth. Bunkers beware.

•            President Reagan envisioned laser cannons on satellites with the power to melt through the skin of ballistic missiles as they traveled through space heading towards their rendezvous with large US metropolises. Space-based laser cannons, however, never made it out of the 1980s. But the Missile Defense Agency is working on a handful of high-profiled laser projects, nonetheless (see Chapter 10). Such as the
Airborne Laser (ABL)
aircraft. The aircraft is a Boeing 747 that has been gutted and turned into a literal flying laser cannon. In 2008, the aircraft test fired its “primary beam,” a megawatt-class High Energy Laser (HEL), which is a weapons-grade laser, meaning it can take out missiles, artillery shells and mortars. In 2010, the primary beam actually
destroyed a ballistic missile during a test
over central California. The ABL has two other lasers on board, for tracking and targeting. The “laser cannon” that fires the weapons-grade laser is actually an exotic, circular mirror, 1.5 meters in length that can rotate nearly 360 degrees. It is underneath a roundish protective cone that covers the plane’s nose. The lens directs the laser as it leaves the plane. The “cannon” also consists of a long mirrored tube that extends to the back of the plane where the laser is generated. There are several different kinds of US military lasers, and some work better in space than others. The ABL’s laser works in both space and the atmosphere and technically is called the Chemical Oxygen Iodine Laser, or COIL. A laser created from a chemical reaction amongst chlorine, hydrogen peroxide and iodine, resulting in what the MDA calls the “killer laser beam.” A beam you can’t see. The ABL conducts this chemical reaction at the back of the plane in a set of six modules weighing, with chemicals added, a gut-busting, SUV-sized 6,500 pounds or 3,000 kg each. Part of the weight is a cooling system. Initially, the reaction produces a steam and light explosion that is allegedly fatal if standing too close. A explosion of light that creates a megawatt class laser with an actual total wattage believed to be roughly over 1 million watts. This is then funneled down the mirrored tube and out the front-end lens hitting any target at the speed of light. If the laser can stay on a ballistic missile, even for a few seconds, it should be able to melt through the metal skin of the hull creating a hole that would eventually lead to the missile’s destruction in-flight. There is also research ongoing to develop floating mirrors or “relay mirrors” – in the atmosphere and space – that could redirect the ABL’s laser across the globe or into space, which would give it the capability of shooting down low-earth satellites. The program, run by the MDA, is the Evolutionary Air and Space Global Engagement (EAGLE). The ABL has survived the Obama administration, but barely. It has cost $4.3 billion since 1994 and is said to be a long way from deployment.

•            In the heart of Alaska and just north of Los Angeles, the US has two missile defense installations that are said to be close to operational, which probably means they could shoot down a  constellation of satellites if need be. The two installations are part of the
Ground-Based Mid-course Defense (GMD).
The GMD’s prime contractor is Boeing, and like the Aegis and THAAD, the GMD is Earth-based and uses kinetic interceptors that are stored and fired from underground silos to take out ICBMs in their midcourse phase; when the missile is flying through space towards its target, a timeframe of about twenty minutes. The other two phases an ICBM goes through is the boost phase, which is right after lift-off, and terminal phase, when the ICBM re-enters the atmosphere. Boost phase lasts no more than 300 seconds, while terminal phase also lasts a short time at just 30 seconds. But during the mid-course phase the ICBM could release hundreds of decoys. Many experts believe the space decoy is a fundamental downfall of any anti-missile shield. No matter how many layers, how powerful your radar, trying to discern hundreds of targets in space and picking the right one or taking out dozens at a time may someday prove to be an impossible task. Which makes the GMD practically useless considering it only has the capability, due to its limited numbers of interceptors, to take out one or two ICBMs, say fired by a rogue state. Unless they have a death wish, why would a rogue state fire one or two ICBMs at the US or even one of its allies? The return address of any ICBM is undeniable. And if fired, the US will come back with utter devastation – no matter who launched it. So what are the chances a rogue nation fires one or two ICBMs at the US or our allies? Very, very small. This logic is another reason why the GMD is more space weapon than missile defense.

The resource that could spark a future war for the Moon

            “
Mankind is drawn to the heavens for the same reason we were once drawn into unknown lands and across the open sea. We choose to explore space because doing so improves our lives, and lifts our national spirit. So let us continue the journey.” –
President Bush
, 2004, announcing the US’s new plan to put a base on the Moon and use it as “stepping-stone” to Mars.

            “I poured the wine into the chalice our church had given me. In the one-sixth gravity of the Moon, the wine slowly curled and gracefully came up the side of the cup. Then I read the Scripture, ‘I am the vine, you are the branches. Whosoever abides in me will bring forth much fruit,’” later recounted Apollo astronaut
Buzz Aldrin
after being the second man to ever set foot on the Moon.

            Back in 1998, representatives from Haliburton and Shell met with officials from NASA to talk, practically in secret. At Los Alamos, NM, no less, home to some of the most radical and exotic US military research ever. They met over the prospects of drilling on Mars and the Moon. From that meeting, Halliburton – the oilfields technology and services corporation once ran by Dick Cheney – came away with the idea of building a drill specifically for our two closest celestial bodies.

            Why build a drill for the Red Planet and the Harvest Moon? And why “No-bid” Haliburton? Which still has a strong connection to one of its greatest beneficiary's, Dick Cheney, of course. Yes, that US Vice President, the one who tricked the world into thinking the US needed to invade Iraq for Weapons of Mass Destruction.