Pentagon Wants To Test a Space-Based Weapon In 2023 (defenseone.com)

pgmrdlm writes: Defense officials want to test a neutral particle-beam in orbit in fiscal 2023 as part of a ramped-up effort to explore various types of space-based weaponry. They've asked for $304 million in the 2020 budget to develop such beams, more powerful lasers, and other new tech for next-generation missile defense. Such weapons are needed, they say, to counter new missiles from China, Russia, North Korea and Iran. But just figuring out what might work is a difficult technical challenge.

So the Pentagon is undertaking two studies. The first is a $15 million exploration of whether satellites outfitted with lasers might be able to disable enemy missiles coming off the launch pad. Defense officials have said previously that these lasers would need to be in the megawatt class. They expect to finish the study within six months. They're also pouring money into a study of space-based neutral particle beams, a different form of directed energy that disrupts missiles with streams of subatomic particles traveling close to light speed -- as opposed to lasers, whose photons travel at light speed.

Comments

Re: If you act like a paper tiger, you get attack

[wierd_w]

Did you even fucking READ the first link, asshole? Here, let me quote it for you.

Although these treaties ban the placement of weapons of mass destruction in space, they do not prevent states from placing other types of weapons in space. As a result, many states argue that existing treaties are insufficient for safeguarding outer space as âoethe common heritage of mankind.â In order to address this, the final document of the UN General Assemblyâ(TM)s Special Session on Disarmament mandated that negotiations should take place in what is now the Conference on Disarmament (CD), âoein order to prevent an arms race in outer spaceâ that are âoeheld in accordance with the spirit of the [Outer Space Treaty].â

The last fucking sentence is pretty damn contradictory to your argument. It is pretty abundantly clear that the consensus position of the UN and its member nations is that the treaty should have applied to all weapons, and they have been trying VERY hard ever since to make that so.

Our own legislature, as I pointed out, has *ALSO* tried several times.

The problem, is that for some reason that escapes me, people like you and the GP are hell bent on creating an escalation of force in space for no tangible benefit.