Guns in Space

For anyone who grew up reading a lot of science fiction, like myself, the weaponization of space probably seemed pretty inevitable.  I mean, all those cool stories couldn't happen unless there were really big spaceships flying around all over the place with plasma beams and graviton pulse weapons and... sorry, my geekdom was showing.

But lately we're talking about the real deal, and not only does the weaponization of space mean a threat to the human race like we've never before faced (and we've faced some biggies), it also seems to say something about us as a species.  No matter how advanced we become, no matter how much we know, no matter how much mastery we achieve over our physical world, we're still a bunch of apes trying to intimidate the other apes by carrying our big sticks and screaming at each other to seem fierce.

Story #1: Recently, the world was told that a "bus-sized" spy satellite was about to drop out of orbit and crash somewhere on Earth, possibly releasing a half ton of toxic fuel and poisoning anyone who might be in the area of the crash site (if they weren't already dead, that is).  To save us all from this grizzly fate, a Navy cruiser fired a missile at the satellite, blowing it to smitherines in orbit.

The question that some people seem to be asking is, was it really necessary to shoot this thing down by firing a missile at it, or was it really done to show the world that we had the technology to shoot down spy satellites with missiles?  China has done this before to one of their satellites, so perhaps this was necessary to show that the U.S., too, has the power to shoot down satellites?

I'm not sure I buy it.  I think it probably was necessary to shoot it down.  At two and a half tons, the satellite in question was too big to count on it burning up in the atmosphere, and if it would have been impossible to predict exactly where it would land.  With toxic fuel still on board, destroying the satellite in space would be the only real option, so I think this was the thing to do.

But, the really concerning thing about this issue is something that no one seems to be bringing up.  How did we end up with a bus-sized "spy satellite" full of toxic fuel about to rain down on our heads in the first place?  Are we so desparate to see what our neighbors are doing that we're willing to threaten the lives of random people on Earth to do it?  And if all it was was a spy satellite, why was it so damned big, and filled with toxic fuel?  The purpose of the satellite is what I'm not quite believing.  You don't need a five ton satellite with on-board fuel to take pictures of the Earth.  And even if it was necessary, is it too much to ask that they make the satellite with a self-destruct so we don't have to rely on the military being able to hit it with a missile in a scheme that would make Wile E. Coyote proud?

And so do we trust our government enough to allow them to hang a bus over our head, looking down on us, when they won't tell us everything that's on board, and the stuff they will tell us about would kill us?  How did we get to this point?

Story #2: There is a handgun on the International Space Station.  It's in the survival kit in the Russian space capsule that is attached to the station and, essentially, part of the station.

I understand the purpose of the gun.  If any of the crew had to use the space capsule to escape the space station in the event of a catastrophic failure, there's no guarantee where they will land.  Assuming they survive the landing, they may find themselves in the middle of a war zone.  Or New Jersey.  In which case, they will want to have the handgun.

But, given that there was just recently a story about an astronaut that drove across the country to confront her love rival and was suspected of wanting to kidnap her, are we so sure about the mental health of our astronauts that we're willing to put them all in tight quarters, make them sick to their stomaches from being in microgravity, force them to work 18-hour days, separate them from their friends and family, make them eat toothpaste for every meal, then tell them where the gun is kept?  I'm just a simple Earthling, but that doesn't seem like such a hot idea.

It seems, though, that we can't help it.  We like guns, and we like blowing things up.  That proclivity probably won't go away, no matter how high above the Earth we go.

Roy Zimmerman - Guns in Space

Roy Zimmerman