Air University Review, July-August 1982

Space Warfare in Perspective

by

THE strategic military significance of the space environment has been recognized by farsighted individuals for at least the past four decades. During and after World War II, Eugen Sänger envisioned the development of manned antipodal rocket bombers and various other military space systems,¹ while in the 1950s Wernher von Braun advocated the construction of manned U.S. space stations armed with nuclear weapons.² Space futurists such as Dandridge M. Cole³ and Michael Golovine⁴ have predicted the militarization of strategic areas of space within the Earth-Moon system which dominates this system, the so-called Panama Hypothesis of Space. Today, the military use of space is still at a relatively preliminary stage, but certain rapidly developing technologies are making very probable the realization of some aspects of the militarization of space that were foreseen by these earlier visionaries. These technological developments may well augur the beginnings of a great revolution in the history of warfare.

Such technological developments are necessitating the implementation by the United States and other Western nations of a cohesive, coordinated space doctrine that considers space in accordance with its true strategic value. Military decision-makers and planners must begin to think in such radical new terms if they are to utilize to the maximum this ultimate "high ground" for the defense of the West.

The tactical space environment of the Earth-Moon system can be conceptualized as a series of gravity well zones that are somewhat analogous to terrestrial hills, promontories, and mountains in that much effort and energy must be initially expended to situate forces in such locations. Once attained, however, these positions can be used to dominate the terrain below with relative ease. Figure 1 illustrates in two-dimensional form the gravity well zones of the Earth-Moon system, which are in reality three dimensional spheres.

During the next two decades, military space activities and the development of various commercial space enterprises (or "space industrialization") will be primarily restricted to this system. Possible military missions in this tactical environment include direct intervention on the Earth’s surface form space, regulation of the flow of space traffic, protection of military and industrial space facilities, denial of strategic areas of space to others (such as choice satellite orbits at Geosynchronous Earth Orbit and the various Lagrangian points at which objects revolve with the same period as the gravitational Earth-Moon system and thus remain effectively stationary), and various surveillance, reconnaissance, navigation, command, control, and communication functions.

Near-Earth Orbit (NEO) or aerospace extends 50 to 200 kilometers above the Earth’s surface, incorporating the mesosphere and the lower edge of the ionosphere in an intermediate region where aerodynamics and ballistics interact or succeed each other. In the short term, NEO will remain the primary location for the deployment of manned and unmanned military systems⁵ and probable major space industrialization facilities such as a manned space operations center (SOC).⁶ It is through this zone that ballistic missiles must proceed during and after their boost phase and are most vulnerable to antiballistic missile (ABM) systems. However, minimum long-range effects from nuclear explosions are found at altitudes between 50 and 150 ki1ometers: above 50 kilometers, the mechanical effects of shockwave pressures almost disappear as a consequence of the relatively low air density; below 150 kilometers, the air density is still high enough to reduce the range of corpuscular radiation through dispersion and absorption so that the long-range thermal effect is also not maximum.⁷ Therefore, even very powerful nuclear devises in the megaton range must be detonated at relatively close proximity to their intended target at NEO to be effective, although electromagnetic pulse (EMP) effects could seriously disrupt unhardened electronic systems at long-range distances. Nevertheless, targets at NEO, compared to those at higher gravity well zones, are relatively vulnerable to Earth-based intervention because of an inherently short warning time available for the implementation of countermeasures and the minimal amount of energy that the enemy must expend to reach this zone. Conversely, a weapon system such as a fractional orbital bombardment system (FOBS) at NEO could attack targets on Earth with a minimum of warning.

The cislunar zone consists of all space between NEO and Lunar Surface Orbit (LSO), including Geosynchronous Earth Orbit (GEO). GEO is presently utilized extensively for the positioning of satellites in a stationary orbit relative to the Earth’s surface rotation and will take on an even greater significance if space industrialization projects such as large space platforms and solar satellite power systems are feasible during the next several decades. The cislunar zone provides military systems situated here the defensive option of a longer reaction time to implement countermeasures against Earth- or NEO-based intervention.

LSO consists of the zone of space where the Moon orbits the Earth, including Near Lunar Orbit (NLO) or the space immediately surrounding the Moon. The translunar zone is comprised of the space from LSO to approximately one million kilometers from the Earth’s surface, where the solar gravity well begins to predominate and includes the five Lagrangian points. These final zones will attain increasing military significance as the process of space industrialization evolves. Eventually the Moon and Lagrangian points could be used to dominate the entire Earth-Moon system.

Military space systems that are currently available to several nations include satellites for various sensoring and communication purposes and ballistic missiles: intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs) and submarine-launched ballistic missiles (SLBMs). The recent, successful launch by the United States of its space shuttle transportation system will markedly reduce the cost of placing large objects in NEO. The United States is also developing a two-stage antisatellite missile that utilizes only its kinetic energy to disable its target and will be launched from fighter aircraft or possibly prepositioned at NEO. Until 1971, the Soviet Union pursued a vigorous program to develop a FOBS and is currently perfecting hunter-killer antisatellite satellites.⁸ These satellites will function as giant nuclear grenades encased in jackets of shrapnel and detonate by command or remote sensing. Also, the Soviet manned Salyut 6 space station is undoubtedly being used for covert military purposes. The use of exoatmospheric missiles in an ABM role and a system for the distribution of chaff in the path of a ballistic missile or satellite are two other technological concepts that may soon be operational.

However, several other technological concepts that may profoundly affect the future of military space operations have now reached, or are about to reach, the critical point that separates theory from practice; that point is known to technological forecasters as the Hahn-Strassmann point of technological development.⁹

Both the United States and the Soviet Union are currently allocating significant resources for the development of directed-energy beam weapons. Continuous wave, high-energy chemical laser "battle stations" may be situated either at NEO or GEO by the 1990s.¹⁰ This weapon system would initially be deployed in a primarily antisatellite role, but eventual technical improvements and the use of larger, more powerful lasers would allow such battle stations to engage and incapacitate ballistic missiles and their multiple independently targeted reentry vehicle (MIRVed) warheads, cruise missiles, aircraft, surface and submersible ships, and ground targets. For detecting and tracking targets, these battle stations would utilize synthetic aperture radar and ultraviolet/infrared optical probes, while possible space-based power sources include nuclear reactors, solar collectors, and pulsed plasma MHD (magnetohydrodynamic) generators.¹¹ Possible weaknesses of such a weapon system may include the thermal blooming and turbulence of the laser beam when used through the atmosphere, defraction and tracking jitter, and the enemy use of such countermeasures as electronic countermeasures (ECM) warfare, the hardening of target surfaces using ablative, absorptive, and reflective materials, target maneuverability, and a simple proliferation of targets (launch vehicles, MIRVed warheads, and dummy targets). A careful consideration and integration of system design may negate most of these problems, while the use of hunter-killer satellites as an active enemy countermeasure could be practically discounted because of each battle station’s inherent capability to destroy such targets at long-range distances up to thousands of kilometers. A possible alternative battle-station system design would employ ground-based lasers coupled with space-based relay mirrors. This system would have the advantages of larger available power supplies with unlimited run times, the use of smaller optical mirrors, a relative ease of deployment and maintenance, and a possible dual-role as a space propulsion system.

Very compact, space-based laser battle stations could be developed by the use of laser devices pumped by small, low-yield nuclear devices that would produce pulsed x-ray laser beams at extremely high levels of power.¹² Each of these battle stations could be used only once but would, essentially, direct the energy of a small nuclear explosion into narrow, multiple beams of coherent x-ray radiation that would be capable of literally evaporating targets. Such x-ray lasers would be able to penetrate atmospheric layers more efficiently than chemical high-energy lasers, while enemy hardening countermeasures would provide an ineffective defense. The relatively small size of each such battle station would allow it to be delivered to NEO by large boosters, such as Titan III and MX, or in volume by space shuttle. This system could be prepositioned in space or deployed in times of crisis. The integrated use of x-ray and chemical high-energy laser battle stations in conjunction with exoatmospheric ABM missiles could possibly provide a significant layered ABM defense by the 1990s and would, at the very least, force a costly redevelopment of strategic enemy-offensive capabilities.

A small, fully reusable, one- or two-man space fighter may be developed for the USAF during the next decade; various designs are now being considered.¹³ In concept this vehicle would appear to be similar to the abortive USAF/Boeing X-20 Dyna-Soar, and compared to the current U.S. space shuttle, it would be much smaller and less costly, more flexible in terms of orbital capabilities, and less complicated in terms of maintenance and launch preparations. The space fighter could be drop-launched to NEO from a large aircraft such as a Boeing 747 or a Lockheed C-5A, launched directly on a large booster, or several could be delivered in a single space shuttle payload. Unlike the present space shuttle, the space fighter would have an NEO orbit-to-orbit maneuvering capability and would be able to reach higher orbits such as GEO after a refueling rendezvous with a space shuttle fuel tanker. After its mission was completed; the space fighter would proceed directly to a horizontal landing on a conventional runway. Possible missions and capabilities include being a weapon platform for directed-energy and projectile weapons, satellite inspection and destruction, an ABM role, "stealth" reconnaissance/intelligence flights over enemy territory at altitudes too high for aircraft and too low for satellites, the provision of security for industrial space facilities, the repair and maintenance of satellites and other space-based weapon systems, a space "rescue vehicle" role, and a limited logistics capability for NEO and cislunar space. The current Soviet space shuttle program apparently involves a vehicle of this nature, which may be operational in the near future.¹⁴

The future development of large-scale civilian and military space projects will necessitate the development of a heavy lift vehicle (HLV) to transport larger payloads to NEO than the current U.S. space shuttle is capable of and a reusable manned orbital transfer vehicle (MOTV) to ferry large cargo loads from NEO to other gravity well zones. It seems probable that the HLV design will be an up-rated version of the current space shuttle transportation system, while various designs are now feasible for the MOTV that could utilize chemical, nuclear, and solar-electric propulsion systems.

Other important technological developments that could possibly become operational during the next two decades include charged and neutral particle beam weapon systems,¹⁵ hypervelocity missiles that are accelerated either from space-based linear synchronous motors (or mass drivers) or from ground-based artillery-rocket systems such as were developed by the U.S./ Canadian Project HARP, and even the use of "planetoid bombs" as a Strangelovian doomsday device. While this last idea may be considered by some to be completely preposterous, it is well to consider that it was suggested almost twenty years ago that planetoid massing some 7 x 10¹² pounds and capable of devastating entire nations with an impact energy equivalent to millions of megatons of TNT could be directed to a predetermined spot on Earth by a manned space expedition utilizing Apollo-level technology and a reasonable amount of nuclear explosives.¹⁶

Eugen Sänger envisaged a future development of space by man in which ". . . the military will install a weapons complex consisting of transport and reconnaissance systems and of offensive and defensive installations of such efficiency that as long as they exist war on earth will be impossible."¹⁷ A more recent analysis of the potentially revolutionary impact of space warfare predicts:

An orbital conflict (to establish saliency) might be oddly reminiscent of feudal wars in the Middle Ages. The mass of the population, allies and even "uncommitted" nations would be the burghers and villeins; helpless spectators of the clash of machines in space without any possibility of influencing the final outcome. More, in accordance with such a medieval archetype, the fate of large communities would be decided by a comparatively small though technologically and industrially ascendant group.¹⁸

However, it is crucial that a number of important, interrelated strategic issues be considered today that will have direct impact on the future military and industrial development of space:

• The relationships of the Test-ban Treaty of 1963, the Outer Space Treaty of 1967, the SALT negotiations, current international efforts toward the development of a "space law," and international relations in general to current and potential developments in the military use of space;

• The question of whether the emerging capabilities of space warfare are an evolutionary military development and should be exploited as force multipliers, additives, and levers in support of the current strategic doctrine of mutual assured destruction (MAD), or whether these capabilities will collectively constitute a true revolution in the history of warfare that necessitates a new strategic space doctrine;

• The question of the utility of the United States allocating a $70-80 billion expenditure¹⁹ for the next decade for the development and upgrading of strategic weapon systems intended to indefinitely continue the MAD doctrine if this doctrine will soon be made obsolete;

• The development of an overall synergism between Western military and civilian space programs that would greatly expedite space industrialization by the deployment of dual-role space systems such as SOCs, HLVs, and MOTVs—such a synergism presently exists in the Soviet space program;

• The development of a specialized space command or space force for operational military and civilian space missions that would allow organizations such as NASA and USAF Systems Command to resume their original primary mission of research and development;²⁰

• The question of the exact status of the future of manned spaceflight ²¹ and whether reliance should be placed on increasingly sophisticated automated systems or a "man-in-the-loop" should be emphasized.

While the constraints of technology, economics, and politics will make difficult the militarization and industrialization of space, it can be safely assumed that this will eventually be accomplished by someone. Western military decision-makers and planners would be wise to consider carefully the implicit meaning of the closing words of the Soviet cosmonauts Vladimir Lebedev and Yuri Gagarin in their book Survival in Space:

There has to be persistence, determination, and selfless devotion to the goal. It is these that will help the highly educated and physically strong to conquer space, for space will submit only to the strong.²²

1. Eugen Sänger, Space Flight (New York, 1965).

2. Jonathan Norton Leonard, Flight into Space (London, 1957), pp. 183-84.

3. Dandridge M. Cole, Strategic Areas in Space—The Panama Theory (Los Angeles: Institute of Aerospace Studies, 1962).

4. Michael Golovine, Conflict in Space (London, 1962).

5. Major E. M. Fitzgerald, "The Command of Space," Journal of the Royal United Services Institute for Defence Studies, March 1981, pp. 36-38.

6. Clarke Covington and Robert 0. Piland, "Space Operations Center: The Next Goal for Manned Space Flight?" Astronautics and Aeronautics, September 1980, pp. 30-37.

7. Sänger, pp. 140-41.

8. "Soviets Launch Second Satellite Intercept in Nine Months," Aviation Week & Space Technology, February 9, 1981, pp. 28-29; "Soviets Test Another Killer Satellite," Aviation Week & Space Technology, March 23, 1981, pp. 22-23.

9. So-named after the experiment that physicists Otto Hahn and Fritz Strassmann conducted in 1938, which confirmed the previously purely theoretical concept of nuclear fission.

10. Clarence A. Robinson, Jr., "Space-Based Laser Battle Stations Seen," Aviation Week & Space Technology, December 8, 1980, pp. 36-40; David Tonge, "The ‘Space Beam’ Race," World Press Review, December 1980, p. 51; Clarence A. Robinson, Jr., "Laser Technology Demonstration Proposed," Aviation Week & Space Technology, February 16, 1981, pp. 16-19; Monte Davis, "Is There a Laser Gap?" Discover, March 1981, pp. 62-66; Clarence A. Robinson, Jr., "Need Cited for High-Energy Lasers," Aviation Week & Space Technology, March 16, 1981, pp. 19-20; Clarence A. Robinson, Jr., "Technical Survey: Beam Weapons Technology Expanding," Aviation Week & Space Technology, May 25, 1981, pp. 40-7l; Colonel W. C. Weston, "A Look Ahead at North American Air Defence in the Eighties and Beyond," Canadian Defence Quarterly, vol. 10, no. 4, 1981, pp. 6-12.

11. National Aeronautics and Space Administration, A Forecast of Space Technology 1980-2000 (Washington: Scientific and Technical Information Office, 1976), pp. 4-25—4-27; "Pulsed Electrical Power Generation Studied," Aviation Week & Space Technology, April 27, 1981, p. 181.

12. Clarence A. Robinson, Jr., "Advance Made on High-Energy Laser," Aviation Week & Space Technology, February 23, 1981, pp. 25-27.

13. Lieutenant General Daniel O. Graham, USA (Ret), "Toward a New U.S. Strategy: Bold Strokes Rather Than Increments," Strategic Review, Spring 1981, pp. 9-16; Erwin J. Bulban, "Tactical Missile System Studied by Sandia, DARPA," Aviation Week & Space Technology, January 5, 1981, pp. 64-65; Dave Dooling, "Once More—The New ‘High Ground’," Astronautics and Aeronautics, April 1981, pp. 4-12; Robert Salkeld, Rudi Beichel, and Robert Skulsky, ‘A Reusable Space Vehicle for Direct Descent from High Orbits," Astronautics and Aeronautics, April 1981, pp. 46-47; Robinson, "Technical Survey: Beam Weapons Technology Expanding," pp. 40-47.

14. Lieutenant Colonel Carl A. Forbrich, Jr., "The Soviet Space Shuttle Program," Air University Review, May-June 1980, pp. 55-62.

15. Captain H. P. Smith, "Charged Particle Beam Weapons," Canadian Defence Quarterly, vol. 7, no. 4, 1978, pp. 16-18; Robinson, "Technical Survey: Beam Weapons Technology Expanding," pp. 55-60.

16. Dandridge M. Cole and Donald W. Cox, Islands in Space (Philadelphia, 1964), pp. 122-33 and pp. 152-59.

17. Sanger, p. 132.

18. Fitzgerald, p. 38.

19. Graham, p. 14.

20. Colonel Morgan W. Sanborn, "National Military Space Doctrine," Air University Review, January-February 1977, pp. 75-79.

21. Congressman Cecil Heftel, "A Space Policy for the 1980s— and Beyond," Air University Review, November-December 1980, pp. 2-16.

22. Vladimir Lebedev and Yuri Gagarin, Survival in Space (Toronto, 1969), p. 166.

Ronald D. Humble (B.A., University of Winnipeg; M.C.P., University of Manitoba) is a doctoral candidate and research assistant in the Interdisciplinary Studies Program, University of Manitoba, Canada. His research specialty is technological forecasting, with emphasis on aerospace technology. Humble is a member of the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics.

The conclusions and opinions expressed in this document are those of the author cultivated in the freedom of expression, academic environment of Air University. They do not reflect the official position of the U.S. Government, Department of Defense, the United States Air Force or the Air University.

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