Headline August 30, 2018/ '' 'TO STARS : TO WARS' ''

'' 'TO STARS : TO WARS' ''

GOING where no US president had gone before...........

President Trump recently signed an executive order to create the sixth branch of the US military - the Space Force - with the vice president later giving a deadline of 2020 for it to become operational.

Like all Trumpian pronouncements, it was met with groans, jokes, invective and some pretty amazing memes.

There have been complaints that this is an unnecessary waste of money and that the US Air Force already has a Space Command and space force.

There has also been much hand-wringing about about how this will lead to the militarization of space, but the fact is that space - like any other area we can get our warlike little hands on - is already militarized and has been for some time now.

The race started in 1950 with the launch Sputnik by the USSR, which was quickly followed by the Soviets sending the first dog, and then the first man and woman into space..

This threw military planners in the US scrambling to find countermeasures. One proposal was Project Horizon, which envisaged the building of a military base on the Moon.

The Soviets took a more pragmatic approach, launching Ployot-1, the first  'suicide' spaceship which was designed to approach enemy spy satellites and explode, destroying them with shrapnel.

Even sci-fi genre was the Soviet's Amazon space station - a habitable space base designed for reconnaissance and surveillance, but that was also equipped with with a cannon to fire-at enemy satellites.

As late as 1987, the USSR tried and failed to launch the unmanned Polyus spacecraft that was equipped with a carbon dioxide laser and designed to destroy America's anti-missile Strategic  Defence Initiative satellites.

Plans were drawn up by both sides to actually place nuclear weapons on select satellites as well but thanks to  detente and the Outer Space Treaty of 1967, those plans were never realised.

Conventional weapons, however, are another matter and the US - starting with the Obama Administration - has repeatedly refused to back the  Prevention of an Arms Race in outer space treaty which would ban the placement of conventional weapons in race.

Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov recently railed against this refusal, accusing the US of ''nurturing plans to militarize outer space [and deploy]  weapons in outer space.

He's not wrong, given that the US  recently launched the secretive X-37B  unmanned spaceplane, which can remain in orbit for a year [ironically], the use of orbiting spacecraft as surveillance and weapons platforms was proposed by Soviet scientists decades ago-

And that there is a real possibility that conventional hypersonic missiles [currently in development]  could be placed on US military satellites.

The Honor and  Serving of the latest  Global Operational Research on Wars And Potential and State of the world continues. The World Students Society thanks author Zarrar Khurro.

With respectful dedication to the Students, Professors and Teachers of the world. See Ya all   ''register'' on : www.wssciw.blogspot.com  and Twitter - !E-WOW! - the Ecosystem 2011 :

''' Working Wonders '''

Good Night and God Bless

SAM Daily Times - the Voice of the Voiceless