US creeping towards weapons in space

The United States is “crossing the rubicon into space weaponisation” with a little-known missile programme, a senior government official said today.

The unnamed Bush Administration figure said the US military was trying to “creep up” on the issue of putting weapons in space.

It comes amid reported fears in the White House that America could one day face a “space Pearl Harbour” attack.

“We’re crossing the rubicon into space weaponisation,” the official told the US network ABC.

He said: “A lot of folk in the Air Force are leery of lobbing weapons into space, so they want to creep up on this issue.

“It’s very hard to kill anything in the Missile Defense Agency budget – it’s politically protected.” The US Missile Defence Agency has set aside €55.4m for a new satellite weapons programme called the Near Field Infrared Experiment.

Officials have said the programme is a defensive one, and designed primarily to collect data on exhaust plumes from rockets launched from earth.

But the satellite also contains what is called a “kill vehicle” which can destroy objects – such as a missile – moving through Earth’s lower orbit, or knock out other satellites.

The Missile Defence Agency was created out of the Ballistic Missile Defense Organisation following the September 11 terrorist attacks.

It was tasked with developing missile defence systems, including those in space.

About a year earlier, before he was appointed as Defence Secretary, Donald Rumsfeld chaired a commission investigating space security.

The commission concluded in January 2001 that space defence had to be taken seriously to prevent a “space Pearl Harbour”.

But space experts warned that putting weapons into orbit could mark the start of a new arms race.

“There are two paths and we are at a crossroads now,” Laura Grego, space weapons expert at the Union of Concerned Scientists told ABC.

She added: “Space is a beautiful research laboratory above the atmosphere. Putting that in danger to fulfil a Star Wars fantasy doesn’t make sense.”