Abstract:

The current debate over missile defense has failed to emphasize a crucial point: even preparing for war in space could create a battlefield that will last forever, encasing the entire planet in a shell of high-velocity debris that will thereafter make space near the earth highly hazardous for peaceful as well as military purposes. There are already over 3 million kg of rocket bodies and dead satellites in low-earth orbit, but attack weapons such as space lasers or kinetic kill vehicles will require thousands of new satellites. With enough orbiting debris, pieces will begin to hit other pieces, whose fragments will in turn hit more pieces, setting off a chain reaction of destruction that will leave a lethal halo around the Earth. No actual space war even has to be fought to create this catastrophe; any country that felt threatened by America's starting to place lasers or other weapons into space would only have to launch the equivalent of gravel to destroy the sophisticated weaponry. Wise people have pointed out that missile defense will waste hundreds of billions of dollars that could be spent combating the real threats in the modern world. Short term political interests pale before the overwhelming immorality of imprisoning Earth for all future generations in a halo of debris.