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I am going to be doing some upgrades and other technical work on this blog over the next week or so (I’m using essentially the same version of Movable Type as when this blog started three years ago; it’s time for a change). All of this work should be behind the scenes, but it’s possible there may be some brief outages, particularly this weekend. Consider yourselves warned. The one major development in the China ASAT saga in the last 24 hours was news that China officially admitted that it carried out the test, although it claims that it is still interested in the “peaceful development of outer space” and that the nation “has never, and will never, participate in any form of space arms race.” Needless to say, many people are skeptical. (Also noteworthy: a Xinhua article about the test describes it as only a “space experiment”, as if China had simply been irradiating seeds in space or something.) Some additional commentary about the test:
This weekend provided more opportunity for commentary about China’s ASAT test earlier this month, but also very little news. China continues to remain silent about the test, and that silence is the subject of much speculation in the US, the New York Times reports this morning. Some Americans officials, such as National Security Adviser Stephen Hadley, suggested that while Chinese political leadership approved the test, they may have been unaware of its timing, and thus were caught off guard when it occurred. “It’s the kind of silence that makes you wonder what’s happening inside the country,” another official told the Times. Other commentary and related items of note:
While the US and a number of other countries are condemning the test of an ASAT weapon by the Chinese, Russian defense minister Sergei Ivanov is taking a very different tack, claiming that the test actually did not take place. “I have heard such rather unsubstantiated reports, and I am afraid they are unfounded,” RIA Novosti quoted him as saying Friday. “There is nothing to comment on. The rumors are largely exaggerated.” Ivanov didn’t say why be believes the reports are unfounded, though. Recall that Russia and China often worked together to press for treaties banning space weapons. Chinese officials, meanwhile, have declined to confirm that the incident took place, but reiterated their opposition to space weapons. “There’s no need to feel threatened about this,” a Chinese foreign ministry spokesman said, according to AFP. “We are not going to get into any arms race in space.” The credibility of that statement is certainly questionable. The news first announced Wednesday night that China tested an ASAT weapon last week, destroying a satellite, became one of the biggest stories internationally yesterday. The report was confirmed by a National Security Council spokesman yesterday morning, and by the end of the day the US and other countries, including Canada, Japan, Australia, and South Korea, had “expressed concern” about the test. The Chinese have remained silent, with no news about the test in state-run media. The test does raise several questions about which there has been a lot of speculation, but few firm answers: Why did China conduct the test? The test took a lot of people by surprise (although apparently not in the US intelligence community, which believed that a test was imminent), both because of the bluntness of it and the fact that, prior to it, China had insisted it had no interest in space weapons and was pushing for a treaty to ban such devices. “There’s nothing subtle about this,” Michael Krepon of the Stimson Center told the New York Times. Does this mean that China is no longer interested in a ban on such weapons, or is it an effort to get the attention of the US and force it to the negotiation table? How will the Bush Administration respond? Will the US, in fact, reconsider its stance on PAROS, now that there is evidence of an “arms race in space”, or will it push the US to accelerate work on defensive and offensive counterspace systems? The Union of Concerned Scientists wants the US to take the former path, but that would involve a significant change of course from the current national space policy. What about Congress? The House and Senate armed services committees will get classified briefings about the Chinese ASAT test today, Space News reports [subscription required]. One member of Congress, Rep. Ed Markey (D-MA), co-chair of the House Bipartisan Task Force on Nonproliferation, condemned the test in a statement but also called on the administration to negotiate a ban on space weapons. “American satellites are the soft underbelly of our national security, and it is urgent that President Bush move to guarantee their protection by initiating an international agreement to ban the development, testing, and deployment of space weapons and anti-satellite systems.” Earlier this week the National Academy of Sciences released a report on the state of Earth sciences from space. The report warned that the existing fleet of Earth science spacecraft could degrade significantly in the next decade because of decreased funding for such programs, especially at NASA. Without a new generation of Earth science missions, the report warns, studies of climate change and other key Earth science topics will be adversely affected. A key item in the report, picked up in most of the media accounts of it, is that funding for NASA’s Earth sciences program has dropped by nearly a third between 2000 and 2006 when adjusted for inflation, from about $2 billion in 2000 to under $1.5 billion in 2006. Naturally, many people have turned their attention to the Vision for Space Exploration as a major reason for the cuts. An editorial yesterday in the Washington Post puts the blame for the cuts squarely at the feet of President Bush and his support for the exploration initiative:
The editorial concludes: “If the president must go to the moon or Mars, he should find the money for it responsibly, not by chopping away at other, more vital programs.” Likewise, the St. Petersburg Times, in an editorial today, argues, “This information [from Earth sciences missions] is useful in making everyday decisions about where to live, what to build and how to use our natural resources – much more so than what President Bush has envisioned in his call for manned missions to the moon and Mars. The president’s NASA priorities are misplaced.” The problem with pinning the blame for Earth sciences cuts directly on The Vision is that the budget data doesn’t bear that out. Page 34 of the report shows a chart of the NASA Earth sciences budget, adjusted for inflation. The budget is fairly steady at about $2 billion a year through 2001, at which point it starts to steadily drop to the 2006 level of around $1.4 billion. There’s no inflection point after 2004, when the exploration program kicked in; the slope is fairly constant from 2003 through 2006, after which it levels off (although exactly what will happen in FY07 and beyond remains to be seen, depending on what Congress does for the long-delayed 2007 budget.) But the cuts started well before the Vision was announced, when NASA was dealing with shuttle and station issues alone. There’s no doubt that NASA’s Earth sciences program has suffered serious cuts, and that these cuts may well be short-sighted in the long run. However, to blame them solely or primarily on the Vision for Space Exploration is inaccurate. Remember all the debate in the weeks and months following the release of the new national space policy that the US was opening the door to the weaponization of space—and perhaps imperiling the security of its own space assets—by appearing to go down the road of space weaponization? Now comes work from Aviation Week that China tested, apparently successfully, an anti-satellite weapon earlier this month. The ASAT, fired from a Chinese spaceport, hit and apparently destroyed an aging Chinese polar-orbiting weather satellite on January 11. (ArmsControlWonk also had some discussion about the ASAT test shortly before the Aviation Week article was published Wednesday evening.) It will be interesting to see how people on both sides of the space weaponization debate spin this. Is it a sign that the Chinese were not sincere in their opposition to space weaponization, and that therefore the US need to step up its defensive and offensive counterspace efforts, or does it reflect a failure of US policy (including claims that there is no “arms race in space”)? Or both? For those of you interested in the new national space policy and its implications for national security, the Marshall Institute is hosting an event Monday morning, January 22nd, titled “Forum on National Security Space – Space Issues in 2007″. The three-hour hour event, held at the Capitol Hill Club in Washington, is intended to “examine the issues influencing debates over national security space policy and programs likely to arise in 2007.” The Russian news agency RIA Novosti published an interesting commentary about US-Russia space cooperation earlier this week, one that indicates that at least some in Russia have an arguably warped perspective of US policy and intentions. The essay, by Novosti’s political commentator Andrei Kislyakov, claims that the national space policy released by the US last fall will be a major obstacle to future cooperation between the two nations, because “the United States wants to head the so-called ‘active systems’ now playing an important economic role and influencing the allocation of funding.” (What are these “active systems”? Beats me.) Kislyakov adds that “the United States will assume the role of a global leader in coordinating projects aimed at establishing a joint worldwide surveillance system”, although he doesn’t explain what this “surveillance system” is. (Perhaps a reference the Global Earth Observation System of Systems?) “In effect, Russia’s main space partner is determined to lead the global space program,” Kislyakov concludes, saying that may be why Russia has expressed reluctance in cooperating with the US on lunar exploration. He is also concerned about the US commitment to the ISS, hinting that delays in NASA’s plans to purchase Soyuz and Progress spacecraft may be proof that NASA will “forget all about the ISS program” after the shuttle is retired in 2010, leaving Russia (with limited European support) holding the bag. Senator Wayne Allard (R-CO) announced yesterday that he will not seek a third term in 2008. Allard has been a supporter of military space issues in the Senate and was chairman of the strategic forces subcommittee of the Senate Armed Services Committee in the last Congress; he also served (along with Rep. Jane Harman (D-CA)) as co-chair of the Congressional Space Power Caucus. Allard’s web site lists military space as one of his “important issues” as well. (It is a long list of issues, though…) While Allard’s retirement is expected to set off a battle to secure the Republican nomination to replace him, the Post notes that the likely Democratic nominee is someone who also has some space ties: Rep. Mark Udall, who served as the ranking Democrat on the space subcommittee of the House Science Committee in the last Congress. |
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