Space Debris Aff

Index
1... Index 2 1AC 12 Inherency Extensions 12Debris making space useless 13 Huge amounts of space debris 14 Space debris increasing 14 Debris destroys satellites 15 Space debris problem has recently escalated 16 Mitigation fails 18 Tracking and avoidance fails 20 Current policy is insufficient 21 Heg Extensions 21 Satellites Key- Military 28 Satellites Key- Disaster Response 28 Military Key- Heg 29 Heg Key 31 Economy Extensions 35 Asteroids Extensions 35 Asteroids Inevitable 37 Asteroids = Extinction 42 Solvency Extensions 42 General EDDE 43 Active Debris Removal Key 45 US Solves-HEG+ECON 46 EDDE Solves Eliminates Debris 47 EDDE Solves - Cost Effective 48 EDDE solves Uses Clean Energy 50 A2 DAs 50 Militarization No Link 53 Militarization Inevitable 56 Politics link turns 58 Spending Answers

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1AC
Contention 1: Inherency First, space debris policy is focused on mitigation not removal which cannot prevent the impending crisis.

Ansdell, 2010
(Megan, graduate student in the Master in International Science and Technology Program at the George Washington Universitys Elliot School of International Affairs, Active Space Debris Removal: Needs, Implications, and Recommendations for Todays Geopolitical Environment, http://www.princeton.edu/jpia/past-issues-1/2010/Space-Debris-Removal.pdf) There are two ways to reduce space debris: mitigation and removal. Mitigation refers to reducing the creation of new debris, while removal refers to either natural removal by atmospheric drag or active removal by human-made systems. Historically, the United States has been a leader in space debris mitigation; U.S. national
space policy has included space debris mitigation since 1988, and the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) developed the worlds rst set of space debris mitigation guidelines in 1995. The Inter-Agency Space Debris Coordination Committee (IADC) serves as the leading international space debris forum; its mitigation guidelines (IADC 2002) were adopted by the United Nations Committee on the Peaceful Uses of Outer Space (COPUOS) and the General Assembly in 2007 and 2008, respectively.

Efforts to reduce space debris have focused on mitigation rather than removal. Although mitigation is important, studies show it will be insufcient to stabilize the long-term space debris environment. In this century, increasing collisions between space objects will create debris faster than it is removed naturally by atmospheric drag (Liou and Johnson 2006). Yet, no active space debris removal systems currently exist and there have been no serious attempts to develop them in the past. The limited number of historical impact events fails to give the situation a sense of urgency outside the space debris community. Further, though mitigation techniques are relatively cheap and can be easily integrated into current space
activities, active removal will require developing new and potentially expensive systems. The remainder of this paper addresses the current space debris debate and options to develop effective space debris removal systems.

Second, small debris is the critical threat causes cascading and exponential threat increase current preventative measures dont work to prevent impact.

Johnson and Hudson, et al, 2008

(Lt. Kevin Johnson USAF, John G. Hudson II Ph.D

Global Innovation Strategy Center, GISC, Eliminating Space Debris:Applied Technology and Policy Prescriptions, Fall 2008, http://www.slideshare.net/stephaniclark/giscinternpaperspacedebriselimination)
Millions of tiny space debris particles orbit the earth today, some travelling ten times faster than a high-powered rifle bullet.29 30 According to Dr. Nicholas Johnson, millimeter fragmentations are a greater threat than larger objects like defunct satellites as they are too small to be tracked with current technology.31 The estimated 11,000 objects large enough to be tracked are catalogued and monitored, enabling satellite operators to maneuver around them by expending additional fuel.32 When small debris pieces collide with space assets, the result is not simply a matter of speed, but also of motion. Because the (low earth orbit) velocities are so high, the kinetic energy is very high. Its the equivalent of exploding several sticks of dynamite in your spacecraft, noted a BBC report on the
problem.33 Debris fragments as small as one-tenth of one millimeter could potentially puncture the suit of an astronaut.34 The Kessler effect35 complicates matters further: as the volume of satellites increases, so does the probability that they will collide with each other.36 Such a chain reaction is inevitable, according to Dr. Johnson37 in an interview with The New York Times, A significant piece of debris will run into an old rocket

body, and that will create more debris. Its a bad situation. In summary, while preventative measures against debris creation are vital, they will not prevent further growth arising from existing debris.

Space debris destroys satellites David Wright, senior scientist and co-director of the Global Security Program at the Union of Concerned
Scientists (UCS). He is an established expert on the technical aspects of arms control, particularly those

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related to missile defense systems, missile proliferation, and space weapons, 2-26-2009, Colliding Satellites: Consequences and Implications http://www.ucsusa.org/assets/documents/nwgs/SatelliteCollision-2-12-09.pdf Because of their very high speeds in orbit, even relatively small pieces of debris can damage or destroy satellites in a collision. Since atmospheric drag at high altitudes is very small, debris at high altitudes can stay in orbit for decades or longer, so it accumulates as more is produced. As the amount grows, the risk of collisions with satellites also grows. If the amount of debris at some altitudes becomes sufficiently large, it could become difficult to use those regions for satellites. Debris with size between 1 mm and 1 cm can damage a satellite if it hits a vulnerable area. Shielding can protect against objects of this size, but adding shielding increases the cost of satellites and of launching them, and many satellites have minimal shielding. Debris with size greater than about 1 cm can seriously damage or destroy a satellite in a collision, and there is no effective shielding against such particles. Moreover, debris particles less than 5 to 10 cm cannot reliably be tracked from the ground so there is no warning of collisions. Debris with size greater than 10 cm may be massive enough to create large amounts of additional debris in a collision with a satellite or another large piece of debris.

Plan Plank I: Mandates- (Thus the plan:) The United States federal government should develop the Electrodynamic Debris Eliminator and deploy it in low earth orbit. Plan Plank II: Enforcement- We will enforce through all normal and necessary means Plan Plank III: Administration- We will create a 9 member board, presidentially appointed and congressionally approved to oversee implementation of the affirmative proposal Plan Plank IV: We claim the power of legislative intent and fiat Plan Plank V: Funding- Funding is guaranteed Advantage 1: US Hegemony Satellites are key to hegemony disruptions from space debris threaten all aspects of military operations Imburgia 10 - United States Air Force Academy(1994); J.D., University of Tennessee College of
Law (2002); LL.M., The Judge Advocate Generals Legal Center & School, U.S. Army, Charlottesville, Va. (2009))[Lieutenant Colonel Joseph S. Imburgia, Vanderbilt Journal of Transnational Law, Space Debris and Its Threat to National Security: A Proposal for a Binding International Agreement to Clean Up the Junk, Vol. 44:589, pg. 608] These gloomy prognostications about the threats to our space environment should be troubling to Americans. The United States relies on the unhindered use of outer space for national security.151 According to a space commission led by former Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, [t]he [United States] is more dependent on space than any other nation.152 According to Robert G. Joseph, former Undersecretary for Arms Control and International Security at the State Department, space capabilities are vital to our national security and to our economic well-being.153 Therefore, a catastrophic collision between space debris and the satellites on which that national security so heavily depends poses a very real and current threat to the national security interests of the United States. Since the [1991] Gulf War, the [United States] military has depended on satellites for communications, intelligence and navigation for its troops and precision-guided weapons.154 Satellites are also used for reconnaissance and surveillance, command and control, and control of Unmanned Aerial Vehicles.155 According to the United States Space Commands Fact Sheet:

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Satellites provide essential in-theater secure communications, weather and navigational data for ground, air and fleet operations and threat warning. Ground-based radar and Defense Support Program satellites monitor ballistic missile launches around the world to guard against a surprise missile attack on North America. Space surveillance radars provide vital information on the location of satellites and space debris for the nation and the world. Maintaining space superiority is an emerging capability required to protect our space assets.156 With the modern speed of warfare, it has become difficult to fight conflicts without the timely intelligence and information that space assets provide. Space-based assets and space-controlled assets have created among U.S. military commanders a nearly insatiable desire for live video surveillance, especially as provided from remotely piloted vehicles like the Predator and now the Reaper.157 Moreover, military forces have become so dependent on satellite communications and targeting capabilities that the loss of such a satellite would badly damage their ability to respond to a military emergency.158 In fact, the May 2008 malfunction of a communications satellite demonstrates the fragile nature of the satellite communications system.159 The temporary loss of a single satellite effectively pulled the plug on what executives said could [have been] as much as 90 percent of the paging network in the United States.160 Although this countrys paging network is perhaps not vital to its national security, the incident demonstrates the possible national security risks created by the simultaneous loss of multiple satellites due to space debris collisions. Simply put, the United States depends on spacebased assets for national security, and those assets are vulnerable to space debris collisions. As Massachusetts Democratic Congressman Edward Markey stated, American satellites are the soft underbelly of our national security.161 The Rumsfeld Commission set the groundwork for such a conclusion in 2001, when it discussed the vulnerability of U.S. space-based assets and warned of the Space Pearl Harbor.162 Congress also recognized this vulnerability in June 2006, when it held hearings concerning space and its import to U.S. national power and security.163 In his June 2006 Congressional Statement, Lieutenant General C. Robert Kehler, then the Deputy Commander, United States Strategic Command, stated that space capabilities are inextricably woven into the fabric of American security.164 He added that these space capabilities are vital to our daily efforts throughout the world in all aspects of modern warfare and discussed how integral space capabilities are to defeating terrorist threats, defending the homeland in depth, shaping the choices of countries at strategic crossroads and preventing hostile states and actors from acquiring or using WMD.165

And, Satellite capabilities are critical to the broader ability of the United States to project power
C.A. Dutch Ruppersberger February 10, 2011 [Worldwide Threats Hearing Opening Statement American politician, has been a Democratic member of the United States House of Representatives since 2003, representing the 2nd District of Maryland. He was born in Baltimore, Maryland, was educated at University of Maryland and the University of Baltimore, and was a lawyer and member of the Baltimore City Council before entering the House. http://intelligence.house.gov/sites/intelligence.house gov/files/documents/RMOpeningWorldwideThreatsHearing.pdf] The last issue I would like to discuss is space. We have some of the best satellite systems. America is the most powerful country in the world, in part, because we control the skies. Satellites are important because they keep us safe. We use satellites and their images to track suspected terrorists around the world and stop future attacks. Satellites allow us to monitor important global developments and provide real-time data to our troops on the ground in Iraq and Afghanistan. When our troops climb a hill on the battlefield, they know what is on the other side of that hill because of our technology. We can find that needle in the haystack because we have the best satellites in the world. You may have heard the President of the United States mention our Sputnik moment. Well, he stole my line. I have been talking about this for years. More than 50 years ago, the Soviet Union rocked our world by launching Sputnik into space. Just 12 years later, America answered the challenge and landed a man on the moon. The space industry was born. America made a massive investment in research and development, employed the best and brightest scientists, mathematicians and engineers, and put unprecedented emphasis on science education. America made worldwide headlines and just about every kid on Earth wanted to be Neil Armstrong. Today, Americas dominance in space is fragile.

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Kagan 2007, senior fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace (Robert, End of
Dreams, Return of History, 7/19, http://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2007/07/end_of_dreams_return_of_histor.html) The jostling for status and influence among these ambitious nations and would-be nations is a second defining feature of the new post-Cold War international system. Nationalism in all its forms is back, if it ever went away, and so is international competition for power, influence, honor, and status. American predominance prevents these rivalries from intensifying its regional as well as its global predominance. Were the United States to diminish its influence in the regions where it is currently the strongest power, the other nations would settle disputes as great and lesser powers have done in the past: sometimes through diplomacy and accommodation but often through confrontation and wars of varying scope, intensity, and destructiveness. One novel aspect of such a multipolar world is that most of these powers would possess nuclear weapons. That could make wars between them less likely, or it could simply make them more catastrophic. It is easy but also dangerous to underestimate the role the United States plays in providing a measure of stability in the world even as it also disrupts stability. For instance, the United States is the dominant naval power everywhere, such that other nations cannot compete with it even in their home waters. They either happily or grudgingly allow the United States Navy to be the guarantor of international waterways and trade routes, of international access to markets and raw materials such as oil. Even when the United States engages in a war, it is able to play its role as guardian of the waterways. In a more genuinely multipolar world, however, it would not. Nations would compete for naval dominance at least in their own regions and possibly beyond. Conflict between nations would involve struggles on the oceans as well as on land. Armed embargos, of the kind used in World War I and other major conflicts, would disrupt trade flows in a way that is now impossible. Such order as exists in the world rests not merely on the goodwill of peoples but on a foundation provided by American power. Even the European Union, that great geopolitical miracle, owes its founding to American power, for without it the European nations after World War II would never have felt secure enough to reintegrate Germany. Most Europeans recoil at the thought, but even today Europe s stability depends on the guarantee, however distant and one hopes unnecessary, that the United States could step in to check any dangerous development on the continent. In a genuinely multipolar world, that would not be possible without renewing the danger of world war. People who believe greater equality among nations would be preferable to the present American predominance often succumb to a basic logical fallacy. They believe the order the world enjoys today exists independently of American power. They imagine that in a world where American power was diminished, the aspects of international order that they like would remain in place. But that s not the way it works. International order does not rest on ideas and institutions. It is shaped by configurations of power. The international order we know today reflects the distribution of power in the world since World War II, and especially since the end of the Cold War. A different configuration of power, a multipolar world in which the poles were Russia, China, the United States, India, and Europe, would produce its own kind of order, with different rules and norms reflecting the interests of the powerful states that would have a hand in shaping it. Would that international order be an improvement? Perhaps for Beijing and Moscow it would. But it is doubtful that it would suit the tastes of enlightenment liberals in the United States and Europe. The current order, of course, is not only far from perfect but also offers no guarantee against major conflict among the world s great powers. Even under the umbrella of unipolarity, regional conflicts involving the large powers may erupt. War could erupt between China and Taiwan and draw in both the United States and Japan. War could erupt between Russia and Georgia, forcing the United States and its European allies to decide whether to intervene or suffer the consequences of a Russian victory. Conflict between India and Pakistan remains possible, as does conflict between Iran and Israel or other Middle Eastern states. These, too, could draw in other great powers, including the United States. Such conflicts may be unavoidable no matter what policies the United States pursues. But they are more likely to erupt if the United States weakens or withdraws from its positions of regional dominance. This is especially true in East Asia, where most nations agree that a reliable American power has a stabilizing and pacific effect on the region. That is certainly the view of most of China s neighbors. But even China, which seeks gradually to supplant the United States as the dominant power in the region, faces the dilemma that an American withdrawal could unleash an ambitious, independent, nationalist Japan.

Loss of hegemony results in nuclear war

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Advantage 2: Economy Debris collision is imminentwill occur within the next three years Black and Butt 10 Samuel Black is a research associate at the Henry L. Stimson Center. Previously,
he was a research assistant at the Center for Defense Information. He holds undergraduate degrees in government and politics and a graduate degree in public policy from the University of Maryland. Yousaf Butt is a staff scientist in the High-Energy Astrophysics Division at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics. Previously, he worked on NASA's orbiting Chandra X-Ray Observatory Project and served as a research fellow at the Union of Concerned Scientists' Global Security Program. He holds a PhD in experimental nuclear astrophysics. Journal published March 2010. The Growing Threat of Space Debris. Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists vol. 66. It is estimated that a collision between an active satellite and a piece of dangerous debris (larger than 1 centimeter) will occur on average once every two to three years over the next decade. 15 NASA contends that existing satellite debris shields can protect against impacts with such dangerous debris. Even if true, there are more than 300,000 pieces of debris larger than 1 centimeter in low Earth orbit, and fewer than 20,000 of them are tracked regularly by the United States. 16 Aside from posing a risk to satellites, debris threatens better-protected manned spacecraft as well. On March 12, 2009, the crew of the International Space Station was forced to evacuate to a docked Soyuz spacecraft in response to a debris fragments predicted close approach. Another piece of debris threatened the station four days later. Then, on March 22, the space station and the docked space shuttle were forced to change orbit to avoid an approaching Chinese rocket-booster fragment. 17 Although both manned and unmanned spacecraft can be maneuvered to avoid potential collisions if enough warning is provided, such maneuvers use limited fuel, which can shorten the operational lifetime of the spacecraft, and disrupt data and other satellite services. (In some cases it can take many hours to plan and execute such a maneuver; for the International Space Station, for example, it takes approximately 30 hours.) 18 Furthermore, because there is very little atmospheric drag at the high altitudes associated with low Earth orbit, debris can remain there for decades. 19 Independent studies predict that roughly one quarter of the debris larger than 10 centimeters created in the Iridium collision will remain in orbit for more than 30 years. Roughly 15 percent of 110 centimeter debris is expected to remain in orbit even longer. 20 The threat to satellites in low Earth orbit is heightened because most are not in equatorial orbits, but rather in polar or near-polar orbits. 21 Because all satellites in such orbits cross above Earths poles, the risk of collision near these two spots is dramatically higher than the risk of collision at any other point during an orbit, creating a polar bottleneck. The spatial density of satellites over the poles is approximately 10 times greater than that over the equator. As a result, the debris problem is exacerbated by two crowding problems: the concentration of debris at certain altitudes and the frequent, high-speed approaches occurring over the poles

A single collision could start a chain reaction and destroy our GPS satellites DOD assessment proves Dillow 10 Clay Dillow, writer for Pop Sci magazine, 05-27-2010, Pentagon: A Space Junk Collision
Could Set Off Catastrophic Chain Reaction, Disable Earth Communications, http://www.popsci.com/technology/article/2010-05/dod-space-junk-tipping-point-collision-could-setcatastrophic-chain-reaction Every now and again someone raises a stern warning about the amount of space junk orbiting Earth. Those warnings are usually met with general indifference, as very few of us own satellites or travel regularly to low Earth orbit. But the DoD's assessment of the space junk problem finds that perhaps we should be paying attention: space junk has reached a critical tipping point that could result in a cataclysmic chain reaction that brings everyday life on Earth to a grinding halt. Our reliance on satellites goes beyond the obvious. We depend on them for television signals, the evening weather report, and to find our houses on Google Earth when we're bored at work. But behind the scenes, they also inform our warfighting capabilities, keep track of the global shipping networks that keep our economies humming, and help us get to the places we need to get to via GPS. According to the DoD's interim Space Posture Review, that could all come crashing down. Literally. Our satellites are sorely

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outnumbered by space debris, to the tune of 370,000 pieces of junk up there versus 1,100 satellites. That junk ranges from nuts and bolts lost during spacewalks to pieces of older satellites to whole satellites that no longer function, and it's all whipping around the Earth at a rate of about 4.8 miles per second. The fear is that with so much junk already up there, a collision is numerically probable at some point. Two large pieces of junk colliding could theoretically send thousands more potential satellite killers into orbit, and those could in turn collide with other pieces of junk or with satellites, unleashing another swarm of debris. You get the idea. To give an idea of how quickly a chain reaction could get out hand consider this: in February of last year a defunct Russian satellite collided with a communications satellite, turning 2 orbiting craft into 1,500 pieces of junk. The Chinese missile test that obliterated a satellite in 2007 spawned 100 times more than that, scattering 150,000 pieces of debris. If a chain reaction got out of control up there, it could very quickly sever our communications, our GPS system (upon which the U.S. military heavily relies), and cripple the global economy (not to mention destroy the $250 billion space services industry), and whole orbits could be rendered unusable, potentially making some places on Earth technological dead zones.

Cascade events in GEO orbit would crush the economy

Foust 9 [Jeff- editor and publisher of The Space Review, July 27, Putting a bounty on orbital debris the space review. http://www.thespacereview.com/article/1427/1] The electrodynamic tether approach doesnt work well for objects in geosynchronous orbit (GEO) because of the Earths magnetic field isnt as strong. However, the lower orbital velocities of GEO make using chemical or electric propulsion more feasible, said Dennis Wingo, who was chief technology officer for Orbital Recovery Corporation, a venture that proposed using spacecraft to latch onto GEO satellites to extend their life. Keeping GEO relatively clean is essential to maintaining the long-term viability of that orbit for communications and other applications. While guidelines are in place to require spacecraft to boost themselves up several hundred kilometers into a graveyard orbit at the end of their lives, every year spacecraft fail or are otherwise abandoned in GEO, a key example being the DSP 23 early warning satellite that failed in GEO last year and is now drifting through the GEO arc, posing a small but non-zero collision risk to other satellites. Wingo said there was a risk that a collision between two large GEO satellites could create a cascade of debris that could threaten the hundreds of other satellites there. If you had a cascade event in GEO that rendered GEO useless, he warned, it would probably cost on the order of a couple trillion dollars in GNP over the next couple of decades while we tried to figure out how to clean it up.

Economic collapse would engulf the war into small regional wars and nuclear conflicts

Friedberg and Schoenfeld, 8

[Aaron, Prof. Politics. And IR @ Princetons Woodrow Wilson School and Visiting Scholar @ Witherspoon Institute, and Gabriel, Senior Editor of Commentary and Wall Street Journal, The Dangers of a Diminished America, 10-28, http://online.wsj.com/article/SB122455074012352571.html] Then there are the dolorous consequences of a potential collapse of the world's financial architecture. For decades now, Americans have enjoyed the advantages of being at the center of that system. The worldwide use of the dollar, and the stability of our economy, among other things, made it easier for us to run huge budget deficits, as we counted on foreigners to pick up the tab by buying dollar-denominated assets as a safe haven. Will this be possible in the future? Meanwhile, traditional foreign-policy challenges are multiplying. The threat from al Qaeda and Islamic terrorist affiliates has not been extinguished. Iran and North Korea are continuing on their bellicose paths, while Pakistan and Afghanistan are progressing smartly down the road to chaos. Russia's new militancy and China's seemingly relentless rise also give cause for concern. If America now tries to pull back from
the world stage, it will leave a dangerous power vacuum. The stabilizing effects of our presence in Asia, our continuing commitment to Europe, and our position as defender of last resort for Middle East energy sources and supply lines could all be placed at risk. In such a scenario there are shades of the 1930s, when global trade and finance ground nearly to a halt, the peaceful

democracies failed to cooperate, and aggressive powers led by the remorseless fanatics who rose up on the crest of economic disaster exploited their divisions. Today we run the risk that rogue states may choose to become ever more reckless with their nuclear toys, just at our moment of maximum vulnerability. The aftershocks of the financial crisis will almost certainly rock our principal strategic competitors even harder

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than they will rock us. The dramatic free fall of the Russian

stock market has demonstrated the fragility of a state whose economic performance hinges on high oil prices, now driven down by the global slowdown. China is perhaps even more fragile, its economic growth depending heavily on foreign investment and access to foreign markets. Both will now be constricted, inflicting economic pain and perhaps even sparking unrest in a country where political legitimacy rests on progress in the long march to prosperity. None of this is good news if the authoritarian leaders of these countries seek to divert attention from internal travails with external adventures. Advantage 3: Asteroids Asteroids are coming and will cause extinction. Campbell 2000 (Jonathan W. Campbell. Colonel, USAER, Occasional Paper No. 20, Center for Strategy and Technology,
Air War College, Using Lasers in Space: Laser Orbital Debris Removal and Asteroid Deflection, http://www.au.af.mil/au/awc/awcgate/cst/csat20.pdf) RKS Technology Demonstration. The serious international concern over the orbital debris problem, when coupled with the evident feasibility and costeffectiveness of debris removal by ground-based pulsed laser propulsion, has led to

planning for the next step toward debris removal. The Orion report contained a suggestion for a technology demonstration in which a 120-J pulsed laser would he joined with a 3.5 m aperture telescope with tracking capability, such as the USAF Advanced Electro-Optical System (AEOS) under construction in
Hawaii or the Starfire Optical Range (SOR) in New Mexico. Specially constructed targets, which would he deployed from the space shuttle, would have corner-cube reflectors or a UPS unit to return a strong signal for calibration tests. This demonstration would have a number of goals. Figure 4. Post-Engagement Lifetime For an Orbital Debris Object With Zero Final Zenith Angle. Using Lasers in Space.11 Cost estimates for the technology demonstration are in the range of $13-28 million, which is comparable with the cost of a single flight of the least expensive orbital launch vehicle (Pegasus). The

potential benefits, if the demonstration leads to an operational system, are saving tens of millions of dollars per year in expenses (increased shielding, damage control systems, and satellite replacements) related to orbital debris, and the accelerated development of other applications of laser space propulsion and laser power beaming. Astronomical telescopes and deep space radar systems have observed the existence of at least 2000 Near Earth Objects (NEO), such as asteroids and comets, which potentially could destroy most life on Earth. An asteroid with a diameter of 0.2 km would strike the Earth with a power rivaling the strength of a multiple warhead attack with the most powerful hydrogen bombs. This strike would throw. up a cloud of dust rivaling the most powerful volcanic explosion, which would seriously affect climate on the scale of two to three years. A strike by a larger asteroid, say 1 km, (especially in the ocean) would create a gigantic tsunami that would flood and obliterate coastal regions. More significantly it would eject a massive dust cloud that would alter cur biosphere to the point that life as we know it would cease to exist with no chance of recovery within the near term. The consensus in the astronomical and astrophysics community was that most of the known NEOs
do not pose a near term threat, and therefore that these objects do not present any dancer to the Earth and its biosphere in the foreseeable future. However, the recent collision of a comet Iauki with Jupiter and the discovery of an

uncatalogued asteroid, that passed near Earth without any advanced warning, have increased concerns. Several schemes have since been discussed for dealing with NEO on collision courses with the earth. These
include blowing them up with nuclear weapons or landing on them and using small, shaped nuclear detonations to steer the asteroid into a passing orbit. However, fragmentation may not be a solution because the center of mass of the resulting cloud of debris would continue on the original collision trajectory. Also, we presently do not have the lift capability to land and place nuclear devices on asteroids without extremely long lead times. The research and development of a nuclear deflection system would cost billions and would still require sufficient warning of an

impact to be implemented. A better system would be one that is on station and could be used routinely to shape asteroid orbits over long periods of time so that they do not pose a potential threat. Phased Array Laser Systems (PALS) could be developed and orbited. Space-based laser constellations (SBL) are presently under development and will be flow-n during the next decade. Coupling PALS with powerful telescopes, such as those being developed under the Next Generation Space Telescope (NGST) project, would provide long-term warning for implementation of an overall NEO avoidance system. The feasibility of this system is discussed below. The lasers that would he used in Project Orion have demonstrated sufficient capability for orbital debris removal for objects in the size range from 1-10 cm diameter. Ground based experimental data, using a 20 kW pulsed laser, show
-4 -6 2 2

that the impulse imparted to aluminum targets due to the ejected plasma cloud gives an average surface pressure p = 6.5 x 10 N/cm , or equivalently, an acceleration, a = l.25x 10 m/s

With present technology, a laser phased array can be aimed at the asteroid with sufficient power to ablate its surface. Assuming that a laser array can be scaled up to operate on a 1 km

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diameter iron asteroid, this would require a 200 GW power grid. Several alternate potential power sources are available, including nuclear or electric generation and solar power arrays.

The catch-up collision is the most dangerous. However, it is only necessary to move the asteroid laterally away from its original orbit by at most 1.1 RE, which is the worse case scenario. Table 1 gives several relevant
times for irradiation. Lateral displacement and final velocity of asteroid from original orbit for perpendicular illumination of target. The final velocity is a linear change, but the displacement is quadratic. Note the change of units in the second and third columns. Table 1 shows that a

minimum of 38.8 days of illuminating the target is necessary for the worse case of a head on collision, and in most cases would take much less time. The warning time of impending impact is of critical significance, which highlights
the importance of deep space surveillance for NEOs, using the NGST for example, in addition to long-term monitoring and orbital calculations. Early orbit shaping would be extraordinarily effective. Also it is important that PALS be deployed at positions, which are free from occluding (obstructing) the beam by the Earth or the Moon. The ability to see clearly, i.e., surveillance of small, dark objects such as asteroids requires freedom from Earth-and Moon-shine, is essential for the NGST. However, it is obvious that the PALS must be located sufficiently near the Earth, which it is designed to protect. A primary candidate is one of the Sun-Earth Lagrange points at which a spacecraft will maintain a fixed position with respect to the Earth.6

Space Debris independently makes terrestrial vision and asteroid monitoring measures impossible U.S. Congress 90 (September, U.S. Congress, Office of Technology Assessment, Orbiting Debris: A Space Environmental, pg.13-17, http://www.fas.org/ota/reports/9033.pdf) Space debris can interfere with scientific, commercial, and military space activities. In some orbits, debris deposited today may affect these activities far in the future. This section describes the hazards posed by orbital debris
and summarizes how they are generated. Functioning spacecraft face a variety of potential hazards from orbital debris: Space debris can interfere with scientific, commercial, and military space activities. Collisions of space debris with functional satellites could result in damage that could significantly impair the performance of a spacecraft or its subsystems. For example, according to one calculation, the Hubble Space Telescope, which was launched in April 1990, faces a chance of one in one hundred of being severely damaged by orbital debris during its planned 17-year lifetime.37 Orbital debris has already hit active payloads.38 After the reentry of Kosmos 954 in 1978 a Soviet spokesman attributed the fall to an earlier (January 1978) collision with another object.39 Kosmos 1275 may have been completely destroyed by collision with space debris.40 Further, evidence derived mainly from statistical analyses of the increases in orbital debris and from other circumstantial evidence suggests that the fragmentation of some spacecraft may have resulted from high velocity impacts.41 Given that the capability of tracking technology decreases as the altitude of the tracked objects increases, there is no way to establish if collisions have occurred in GEO,42 where the current ability to catalog fragments is limited to objects larger than about one meter (see below). Pollution in the form of gases and particles is created in the exhaust clouds formed when second stage rockets are used to boost a payload from LEO into GEO. A single solid rocket motor can place billions of particles of aluminum oxide into space, creating clouds that may linger up to 2 weeks after the rocket is fired, before dispersing and reentering the atmosphere. The particles therefore represent a significant threat of surface erosion and contamination to spacecraft during that period.43 Interference with scientific and other observations can occur as a result of orbital debris. For example, the combination of byproducts from second stage firings gases, small solid particles and spaceglow (light emitted from the gases) will often affect the accuracy of scientific data.44 Debris may also contaminate stratospheric cosmic dust collection experiments or even interfere with the debris tracking process itself.45 The presence of man-made objects in space complicates the observations of

natural phenomena. 46 Astronomers are beginning to have difficulty determining whether an object under observation is scientifically significant or if what they observe is just a piece of debris. As the number of debris particles increases, the amount of light they reflect also increases, causing light pollution, a further interference with astronomers efforts. Space debris has also disrupted reception of radio telescopes and has distorted photographs from ground-based telescopes, affecting the accuracy of scientific results that might be obtained.47 The Nature of Space Debris Since the first satellite break up in 1961, nearly 100 satellites have violently fragmented
in orbit. Over 20,000 objects have now been cataloged by the SSN, with nearly 35 percent of this compilation a result of these breakup events (as of January 1990).48

The scarcity of life in the universe proves both the probability and impact of our advantage KAZAN 2011 (Casey, Owner of Galaxy Media LLC and graduate of Harvard University, Tracking the Realtime Threat of NearEarth Asteroids &comets- could it save the planet?, The Daily Galaxy, Feb 8,

http://www.dailygalaxy.com/my_weblog/2011/02/tracking-the-realtime-threat-of-near-earth-asteroids-willit-save-the-planet.html)//DT

of the major factors in the possible scarcity of intelligent life in our galaxy is the high probability of an asteroid or comet colliding with inhabited planets. We have observed, Hawking points out in Life in the Universe, the collision of a comet, Schumacher-Levi, with Jupiter, which produced a series of enormous fireballs, plumes many thousands of kilometers high, hot "bubbles" of
Stephen Hawking believes that one

Space Debris Aff

gas in the atmosphere, and large dark "scars" on the atmosphere which had lifetimes on the order of weeks. Shoemaker-Levy 9 was the first comet discovered to be orbiting a planet, Jupiter, instead of the sun. This enlargement of a 1993 Hubble Space Telescope
image above shows the brightest nuclei in a string of approximately 20 objects that comprise Shoemaker-Levy 9 as it hurtled toward its July I994 collision with Jupiter. It is thought the

collision of a rather smaller body with the Earth, about 70 million years ago, was responsible for the extinction of the dinosaurs. A few small early mammals survived, but anything as large as a human, would have almost certainly been wiped out. Through Earth's history such collisions occur, on the average every one million year. If this figure is correct, it would mean that intelligent life on Earth has developed only because of the lucky chance that there have been no major collisions in the last 70 million years. Other planets in the galaxy,
Hawking believes, on which life has developed, may not have had a long enough collision free period to evolve intelligent beings. While NASA's Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer, or WISE, is busy surveying the landscape of the infrared sky, building up a catalog of cosmic specimens -- everything from distant galaxies to "failed" stars, called brown dwarfs, closer to home, the NEOWise mission is picking out an impressive collection of asteroids and comets, most of these hang out in the Main Belt between Mars and Jupiter, but a small number are near-Earth objects -- asteroids and comets with orbits that pass within about 48 million kilometers (30 million miles) of Earth's orbit. By studying a small sample of near-Earth objects, WISE will learn more about the population as a whole. How do their sizes differ, and how many objects are dark versus light. "We are taking a census of a small sample of near-Earth objects to get a better idea of how they vary," said Amy Mainzer, the principal investigator of NEOWISE, a program to catalog asteroids seen with WISE. So far, the mission has observed more than 60,000 asteroids, both Main Belt and near-Earth objects, with more than 11,000 are new previously unknown objects.

"Our data pipeline is bursting with asteroids," said WISE Principal Investigator Ned Wright of UCLA. "We are discovering about a hundred a day, mostly in the Main Belt." About 190 near-Earth asteroids have been observed to date, of which more than 50 are new discoveries. All asteroid observations are reported to the NASA-funded International
Astronomical Union's Minor Planet Center, a clearinghouse for data on all solar system bodies at the Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory in Cambridge, Mass.

Contention 2: Solvency And, active debris removal technology works the ElectroDynamic Debris Eliminator could eliminate nearly all of low earth orbit debris in seven years Pearson et al 10 Author of MARCUS: Moon and Mars Gravity in a LEO Satellite and LEO Mobility Vehicle for Space
Situational Awareness, a Fellow of the British Interplanetary Society, an Associate Fellow of the AIAA, and member of the AIAA Space Colonization Technical Committee, and President of STAR, Inc [September, ElectroDynamic Debris Eliminator (EDDE): Design, Operation, and Ground Supporthttp://www.dtic.mil/cgibin/GetTRDoc?Location=U2&doc=GetTRDoc.pdf&AD=ADA531867]

The ElectroDynamic Debris Eliminator (EDDE) is a low-cost solution for LEO space debris removal. EDDE can affordably remove nearly all the 2,465 objects of more than 2 kg that are now in 500-2000 km orbits. That is more than 99% of the total mass, collision area, and debrisgeneration potential in LEO. EDDE is a propellantless vehicle that reacts against the Earths magnetic field. EDDE can climb about 200 km/day and change orbit plane at 1.5?/day, even in polar orbit. No other electric vehicle can match these rates, much less sustain them for years. After catching and releasing one object, EDDE can climb and change its orbit to reach another object within days while actively avoiding other catalog objects. Binocular imaging allows accurate relative orbit determination from a distance. Capture uses lightweight expendable nets and real-time man-in-the-loop control. After capture, EDDE drags the debris down and releases it and the net into a short-lived orbit safely below ISS, or takes it to a recycling facility for reuse. EDDE can also sling debris into controlled reentry, or can include an adjustable drag device with the net before release, to allow later adjustment of payload reentry location. A dozen 100-kg EDDE vehicles could remove nearly all 2166 tons of LEO orbital debris in 7 years. The estimated cost per kilogram of debris removed is on the order of a few percent of typical launch costs per kilogram. This supports shifting the focus on debris from simply maintaining the status quo by limiting the introduction of new
debris to active, wholesale removal of all large debris objects in LEO with EDDE.

EDDEs can be deployed by 2013leads to a full cleanup of LEO

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Space Debris Aff

Clay Dilliow, staff writer, 8/16/10. DARPAs Giant Space Junk Net Could Remove Almost All Debris in Popular Science, http://www.popsci.com/technology/article/2010-08/darpas-space-junkremover-will-net-orbiting-debris-leo Once EDDE has a piece of space junk cornered, it can either hurl it into the South Pacific where it has little chance of doing any harm, or put it on a trajectory to burn up during re-entry. Or, Star insists, the pieces of junk could be recycled right there in space to create raw materials for the construction of future orbiting space stations or satellites. It sounds pretty out there, but Star has already begun testing the tech and should conduct a test flight in 2013. If that succeeds, EDDEs could begin a full cleanup operation in LEO by 2017. EDDEs solvecheap, effective, power-efficient Jerome Pearson, STAR president, DoD and NASA tech developer, once researcher for NASA and the
Air Force Research Laboratory, 10. Active Debris Removal: EDDE, the Electrodynamic Debris Eliminator, prepared for the International Astronautical Congress, http://www.star-techinc.com/papers/EDDE_IAC_Final_Paper.pdf The most near-term and technically advanced method presented was a roving space vehicle that can capture LEO debris objects in nets and drag them down safely out of the space lanes. EDDE, the ElectroDynamic Debris Eliminator, is the first space vehicle that can remove all the large debris from LEO at reasonable cost4. EDDE is a new kind of space vehicle5. It is not a rocket that accelerates a payload by throwing propellant mass in the opposite direction. EDDE is an electric motor/generator in space. It maneuvers by reacting against the Earths magnetic field, and uses no propellant. This means that it is not limited by the Tsiolkovsky rocket equation. It can produce enormous delta-Vs of hundreds of km/sec over its operational lifetime. An EDDE vehicle equipped with solar panels for power and expendable capture nets could safely remove from orbit its own mass in debris each day on average. The principle of operation of an EDDE vehicle is shown in Figure 2.

Extensions
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Space Debris Aff

***Inherency
Debris =Making Space Useless
Space Debris Accumulation Risks Making Space Unusable for all Purposes

Lori 6 Scheetz, Lori. "Infusing Environmental Ethics into the Space Weapons Dialogue." International Environmental Law
Review. Vol. 19, No. 1 (Fall 57-82. It is important to note that debris orbiting approximately 800 kilometers above Earth resulting from testing, deployment, and use of space weapons will reside there for decades. After debris settles into orbit at more than 1,500 kilometers

above Earth's surface, it will remain there indefinitely. Collisions involving debris exceeding just one centimeter can be disastrous. In LEO, a marble-sized debris fragment can collide with satellites "with about the same energy as a one ton safe dropped from the top of a five story building." When these fragments collide, the quantity of debris increases. This prospect is compounded if each nation, in the long-term future, rationally takes advantage of the space commons and introduces its own weapons systems.

Space Debris from Chinese ASAT Test will Complicate Space Activities for Next 20 Years

Terry 7 Everett, Terry. "Arguing for a Comprehensive Space Protection Strategy." Strategic Studies Quarterly. Vol. 1, No. 1
(Fall 2007 Unfortunately, our adversaries do not need to be educated about our reliance on satellites. On

11 January 2007 the Chinese launched a mediumrange ballistic missile into space. It targeted an aging Chinese weather satellite orbiting 500 miles above the planet. The kill vehicle rammed into the target satellite, sending out into orbit thousands of pieces of debris of varying sizes with speeds up to 1,400 miles per hour, according to Air Force Space Command. Particles a few centimeters in length are large enough to cause major damage, which is what makes this debris so significant and why, given its potential to stay in orbit for years to come, it poses a long-term hazard to our satellites. The United States, with its space surveillance network, will bear the long-term responsibility for warning others of potential collisions, including foreign and commercial operators, and ironically, the Chinese. The likely result is that the space shuttle, the International Space Station, and many satellites in low Earth orbit will need to expend precious fuel to maneuver around debris. At some point, our satellite operators will determine the loss of mission life due to this extra maneuvering. This could be a sizeable impact when we are talking about multibilliondollar satellites designed for lifetimes of five to 10 years. In recent testimony before the Strategic Forces Subcommittee, Gen James Cartwright, commander, US Strategic Command, commented that we are going to have to make
significant adjustments as collision, or, as we call it, conjunction opportunities occur over the next 20-plus years. . . . That is going to have an effect on business, on commerce. And it is going to have an effect on our national assets that are in low Earth orbit.

The many causes of space debristheyre becoming more common Bonal and Flurry 5 [Completed by a cross-section of space debris experts and representatives of satellite and
launcher manufacturing companies, IAA Position Paper - Space Debris Mitrigation,http://iaaweb.org/iaa/Studies/spacedebrismitigation.pdf]

A large amount of debris may also be produced as an unexpected outcome of normal operations. For example, the nuclear reactor core disposal procedure adopted after the accidental reentry of the RORSAT satellite Cosmos 954 resulted in many liquid metal (sodium potassium) droplets escaping from the primary cooling system encircling the expelled reactor core. The diameter of these liquid metal spheres, located at 850-1000 km with an inclination of about 65 degrees, can reach 5 cm or more. Unfortunately, such debris can remain a

hazard for years--the orbital lifetime of a 1 cm droplet is about 100 years. In addition to these specific cases, the production of debris during the operation phase can come from break-ups, surface degradation or collision with other objects.

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Space Debris Aff

The amount of space debris in the air is enough to cause accidental collisions: Iridium proves

Ansdell 10 second year graduate in the Master of International Science and Technology program at the George
Washingtons Elliots School of International Affairs, [Megan, Spring, Active Space Debris Removal: Needs, Implications, and Recommendations for Todays Geopolitical Environment]

The second major space-debris creating event was the accidental collision between an active Iridium satellite and a defunct Russian military satellite on February 10, 2009. The collision created two debris clouds holding more than 200,000 pieces of debris larger than one centimeter at similar altitudes to those of the 2007 Chinese ASAT test (Johnson 2009b). It was the first time two intact satellites accidentally crashed in orbit, challenging the Big Sky Theory, which asserts that the vastness of space makes the chances of a collision between two orbiting satellites negligible (Newman et al. 2009). Iridium uses a constellation of sixty-six satellites to provide voice and data services to 300,000 subscribers globally. As the company keeps several spare satellites in orbit, the collision caused only brief service interruptions directly after the event (Wolf 2009). Nevertheless, the event was highly significant as it demonstrated that the current population of space objects is already sufficient to lead to accidental collisions, which, in turn, can lead to the creation of more space debris and increased risks to operational space systems. This type of progressive space debris growth is worrisome. The U.S. military, for example, relies on commercial satellites like Iridium for over 80 percent of
its wartime communications (Cavossa 2006, 5).

Huge Amounts of Space Debris

Recent events have overloaded space debris and the amount is still growing
[Megan focuses on space policy at the George Washington Universitys Elliot School of International Affairs, second year graduate, Active Space Debris Removal: Needs, Implications and Recommendations for Todays Geopolitical Environment, www.princeton.edu/jpia/past-issues-1/2010/Space-Debris-Removal.pdf] The first of these events occurred on January 11, 2007, when China intentionally destroyed its Fengyun-1C satellite while testing its newly developed ground-based ASAT system. It was the largest debris-creatingevent in history,

Ansdell, 10

producing at least 150,000 pieces of debris larger thanone centimeter (NASA 2008, 3). The resulting debris has spread into nearpolarorbits ranging in altitude from 200 to 4,000 kilometers. Roughly80 percent of this debris is expected to stay in orbit for at least the nextone hundred years and threatens to impact operating satellites (CelesTrak2009). The test illustrates how a single unilateral action in space can create
long-term implications for all space-faring nations and users of satellite services. The 2007 Chinese ASAT test prompted criticism from major space powers regarding the reckless creation of space debris and the consequent threat to operational satellites (Clark and Singer 2007). It triggered debates over a range of issues, from banning space weapons to questioningfuture cooperation with China in space. Although these debates have not produced international agreements on complex issues such as the prohibition of space weaponization, they have highlighted the need for greater communication and transparency in space activities as the number of space-faring nations and non-state actors in space continues to grow (Pace 2009). Uncertainties surrounding the event have also raised larger political and security questions: the fact that the Chinese Foreign Ministrydenied the test for several days after it became public suggests that there was a lack of communication between the Peoples Liberation Army, which ordered the test, and other parts of the Chinese government. Thus, beyond revealing Chinas military capabilities and ambitions, the test alsoraised questions as to whether Chinas stove piped bureaucracies make it an unreliable global partner in general (Bates and Kleiber 2007). The second major space-

debris creating event was the accidental collisionbetween an active Iridium satellite and a defunct Russian military satelliteon February 10, 2009. The collision created two debris clouds holdingmore than 200,000 pieces of debris larger than one centimeter at similaraltitudes to those of the 2007 Chinese ASAT test (Johnson 2009b). It was the first time two intact satellites accidentally crashed in orbit, challenging
the Big Sky Theory, which asserts that the vastness of space makes the chances of a collision between two orbiting satellites negligible (Newmanet al. 2009). Iridium uses a constellation of sixty-six satellites to provide voice and data services to 300,000 subscribers globally. As the company keeps several spare satellites in orbit, the collision caused only brief service interruptions directly after the event (Wolf 2009). Nevertheless, the event was highly significant as it demonstrated that the

current population of space objectsis already sufficient to lead to accidental collisions, which, in turn, canlead to the creation of more space debris and increased risks to operationalspace systems. This type of progressive space debris growth is worrisome.The U.S. military, for example, relies on
commercial satellites like Iridium for over 80 percent of its wartime communications (Cavossa 2006, 5).

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Space Debris Aff

Space Debris Increasing

Space debris is increasing - there is a sufficient amount to produce accidental collisions now Ansdell 10 [Megan Graduate student in International Science and Technology Policy at GWU Elliott School of International Affairs, focusing in space policy. Princeton University Journal of Public and International Affairs. Spring. http://www.princeton.edu/jpia/past-issues-1/2010/Space-Debris-Removal.pdf Active Space Debris Removal] There has been a steady growth of space debris since the launch of Sputnik in 1957, with jumps following two of the largest debris creating events in history: the 2007 Chinese anti-satellite (ASAT) test and the 2009 Iridium-Cosmos collision. The first of these events occurred on January 11, 2007, when China intentionally destroyed its Fengyun-1C satellite while testing its newly developed ground-based ASAT system. It was the largest debris-creating event in history, producing at least 150,000 pieces of debris larger than one centimeter (NASA 2008, 3). The resulting debris has spread into near- polar orbits ranging in altitude from 200 to 4,000 kilometers. Roughly 80 percent of this debris is expected to stay in orbit for at least the next one hundred years and threatens to impact operating satellites (CelesTrak 2009). The test illustrates how a single unilateral action in space can create long-term implications for all space-faring nations and users of satellite services. The 2007 Chinese ASAT test prompted criticism from major space powers regarding the reckless creation of space debris and the consequent threat to operational satellites (Clark and Singer 2007). It triggered de- bates over a range of issues, from banning space weapons to questioning future cooperation with China in space. Although these debates have not produced international agreements on complex issues such as the prohibition of space weaponization, they have highlighted the need for greater communication and transparency in space activities as the number of space-faring nations and non-state actors in space continues to grow (Pace 2009). Uncertainties surrounding the event have also raised larger political and security questions: the fact that the Chinese Foreign Min- istry denied the test for several days after it became public suggests that there was a lack of communication between the Peoples Liberation Army, which ordered the test, and other parts of the Chinese government. Thus, beyond revealing Chinas military capabilities and ambitions, the test also raised questions as to whether Chinas stove piped bureaucracies make it an unreliable global partner in general (Bates and Kleiber 2007). The second major space-debris creating event was the accidental collision between an active Iridium satellite and a defunct Russian military satellite on February 10, 2009. The collision created two debris clouds holding more than 200,000 pieces of debris larger than one centimeter at similar altitudes to those of the 2007 Chinese ASAT test (Johnson 2009b). It was the first time two intact satellites accidentally crashed in orbit, challenging the Big Sky Theory, which asserts that the vastness of space makes the chances of a collision between two orbiting satellites negligible (Newman et al. 2009). Iridium uses a constellation of sixty-six satellites to provide voice and data services to 300,000 subscribers globally. As the company keeps several spare satellites in orbit, the collision caused only brief service interruptions directly after the event (Wolf 2009). Nevertheless, the event was highly significant as it demonstrated that the current population of space objects is already sufficient to lead to accidental collisions, which, in turn, can lead to the creation of more space debris and increased risks to operational space systems. This type of progressive space debris growth is worrisome. The U.S. military, for example, relies on commercial satellites like Iridium for over 80 percent of its wartime communications (Cavossa 2006, 5).

Debris Destroys Satellites

Each dodge is expensive and shortens the lifespan of the satellite
- PhD in astrophysics, author of The Big Questions: The Universe and Voyager: 101 Wonders Between Earth and the Edge of the Cosmos, a Fellow of the Royal Astronomical Society and a former Vice Chair of the Association of British Science Writers[New Source, Vol. 207 Issue 2777, p46-49, 9/11/2010] Galaxy 15 is a name to strike terror into the hearts of satellite operators around the world. Once an ordinary and largely anonymous telecommunications satellite, it is now a zombie. It stopped talking to its masters on 5 April, just as a solar storm battered the Earth. The satellite's owner Intelsat is still investigating whether this caused Galaxy 15 to lose its mind. But Galaxy 15 is not

Clark 10

only a problem for its owner. Following its malfunction, it began an inexorable march across space, bound for a natural orbital graveyard created by Earth's gravity. In its blind stumble to get there, Galaxy 15 risks

14

Space Debris Aff colliding with other satellites. It has already menaced three and has at least three others in its path. To avert destruction, satellite operators must wait for the zombie to draw close and then manoeuvre their own satellite to "leapfrog" it. What makes Galaxy 15 particularly annoying is that its main
transmitter and receiver are still working. As it drifts across the path of another working satellite, it could interfere with communications. To avoid this, satellite operators are signalling on tighter beams with larger antennae and less power. In effect they are whispering to their satellites in the hope they won't attract the zombie's attention. All of this is costing money - big money. "These satellites are profit centres making millions of dollars a month," says James Dunstan of Mobius Legal Group in Washington DC. Every dodge to avoid a collision eats around $10 million into a

satellite's profits. That's because collision avoidance manoeuvres waste precious fuel that would otherwise be used to combat the tendency for satellites to drift off into orbital graveyards. Although companies do not divulge how much fuel they use in collision avoidance manoeuvres, Dunstan estimates that each one must shorten a satellite's lifespan by between four and 12 months. He says dealing with Galaxy 15 could easily cost the telecomms industry $100 million.

Space Debris Problem has Recently Escalated

Satellite collisions causes more of a threat then Chinas ASAT test
[American scientist and leader,President and Chief Executive Office of Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center,2009, online, New Scientist, Satellite collision 'more powerful than China's ASAT test, http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn16604-satellite-collision-more-powerful-than-chinas-asat-test.html]

Marks, 09

Space weapons are dangerous but out-of-control, defunct satellites can do just as much damage, if not more. So says a leading space scientist who has calculated that Tuesday's collision between an Iridium communications satellite and the defunct Soviet-era Cosmos 2251 spacecraft expended a great deal more destructive energy than China's infamous anti-satellite missile test did in January 2007. In 2003, space debris expert Hugh Lewis and colleagues at the University of Southampton in the UK ran predictions on the debris field that would be created in a hypothetical Iridium satellite break-up owing to a collision with just 1 kilogram of space junk (Acta
Astronautica, doi:10.1016/S0094-5765(02)00290-4). Now, based on initial analysis of Cosmos 2251's orbital data, mass and velocity, he has estimated some of the dynamics involved in last week's much more energetic collision event. To be completely obliterated, a spacecraft must suffer a direct hit with an energy of 40 joules for every gram of its mass. In China's anti-satellite (ASAT) test, a defunct weather satellite called Fengyun-1C was destroyed by a missile that imparted an estimated 350 joules per gram of its mass. (The figure is an estimate because the missile's mass is not known for certain.) But the Iridium and Cosmos satellites collided at 42,120 kilometres per hour, Lewis calculates, imparting 50,000 joules per gram of their mass.

Space debris is a serious problem

[Mike space.com senior writer, 2011,Space.com,Space Junk Threat Will Grow for Astronauts and Satellites, http://www.space.com/11305-space-junk-astronauts-bigger-threat.html] Pieces of space trash which may be defunct spacecraft, abandoned launch vehicles, or fragments from satellite collisions zip around Earth at speeds up to 17,500 mph (28,163 kph). That's so fast that even orbiting paint flecks can damage a spacecraft. And there's a lot of this stuff much of it larger and far more dangerous than paint flecks. There are more than 20,000 pieces bigger than a softball, for example, and more than 500,000 bigger than a marble, according

Wall, 2011

to NASA officials. Researchers are tracking more than 22,000 chunks of space debris in Earth orbit, but they can't watch it all. The 2007 Chinese anti-satellite test added about 3,000 pieces of space junk to the
orbiting population, NASA officials said. The 2009 collision between a defunct Russian satellite and a U.S. Iridium communications satellite contributed another 2,000 or so. Sun is waking up These 5,000 new fragments initially started out higher up in Earth orbit than the space station, which flies around the Earth about 220 miles (354 km) up. But they're

starting to come closer to the station now, because solar activity is ramping up. The sun is emerging from an extended quiescent period, and increased solar activity is causing Earth's atmosphere to expand, Stansbery said. As a result, the drag on high-altitude space junk is increasing, causing the stuff to spiral lower and lower. "When the solar cycle is ramped up, that's typically
when we get a lot of this rain-down from higher altitudes," Stansbery said. Since the peak of solar activity is not expected until 2012 or 2013, astronauts aboard the station could be in for some more close calls in the near future, he added. he end of 2012.

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Space Debris Aff

Space debris caused several fragementation and collision events in 2005

Simon and Graham 6 Collard-Wexler, Simon, Thomas Graham et al. Space Security 2006. . Waterloo, Ontario: Space
Security Index, July 2006.

Several satellite fragmentation and debris collision events took place in 2005. By October, five cases of satellite fragmentation had been recorded and two new accidental collisions identified. On 17 January, a US rocket body collided with a fragment from a Chinese launch vehicle that exploded in 2000. Two Russian
motors also broke-up in 2005 the first, on 23 April, was a Russian Proton launch vehicle launched as part of the Kosmos 2224 Mission in 1992. The second breakup occurred on 1 June and was associated with the Russian Kosmos

2392 mission launched in mid-2002. As many as 40 objects were initially detected from the second fragmentation, five of which were catalogued by the SSN. On 30 June, that same motor experienced another fragmentation and 50 fragments were initially catalogued. On 21 June, a Russian meteorological
observation system generated one small piece of debris. And on 22 June, a Russian Kosmos 3M rocket body released a single piece of debris. The event is believed to have been caused by a collision between the rocket body and a small piece of orbital debris or a meteoroid.

Debris is Already Becoming Self-Sustaining

Thomas and Marshall 7 Graham, Thomas and William Marshall. Space Security 2007. . Waterlo,
Ontario: Project Ploughshares, Two key factors affecting the amount of space debris are the number of objects in orbit and the number of debris-creating launches each year. Growth in the debris population increases the probability of inter-debris collisions that have the potential to create even more debris. A recent study by NASA has shown that, in LEO, debris-debris collisions will become the dominant source of debris production within the next 50 years. As debris collides and multiplies, it will eventually create a "cascade of collisions" that will spread debris to levels threatening sustainable space access. As of 2003 it was estimated that 43 percent of tracked debris resulted mostly from explosions and collisions.7Additional space debris in LEO could be created by ground- and space-based midcourse missile defense
systems currently under development or other weapons testing in space. Between 1961 and 1996, an average of approximately 240 new pieces of debris were catalogued each year, due in large part to fragmentation and the presence of new satellites. Between 8 October 1997 and 30 June 2004, only 603 new pieces of debris were

catalogued, representing a noteworthy decrease from the previous rate of debris generation, particularly given the increased resolution of the system. This decline can be related in large part to international debris mitigation efforts, which increased significantly in the 1990s, combined with a lower number of launches per year. An increase in the annual rate of debris production has been observed again since 2004.

Mitigation Fails
Collective action failures prevent space debris cleanup in the squo
Ansdell 10 [Megan Graduate student in International Science and Technology Policy at GWU Elliott School of International Affairs, focusing in space policy. Princeton University Journal of Public and International Affairs. Spring. http://www.princeton.edu/jpia/past-issues-1/2010/Space-Debris-Removal.pdf Active Space Debris Removal] There are many sources of space debris, including satellites that are no longer functional; mission related objects, such as tools lost by astronauts during extravehicular activities; and fragmentation events, which can be either accidental or intentional (Jehn 2008, 7). Fragmentation debris is the largest source of space debris. Three countries in particular are responsible for roughly 95 percent of the fragmentation debris currently in Earths orbit: China (42 percent), the United States (27.5 percent), and Russia (25.5 percent) (NASA 2008, 3). Although this distribution of responsibility suggests that these countries should contribute more to cleaning up the near-Earth space environment than others, the fact that many nations will benefit

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Space Debris Aff

from remediation results in a classic free rider problem that complicates the situation. Similar to the political challenges associated with an effective multilateral response to climate change, this uneven distribution of historic responsibility threatens to prevent or stall much-needed action. Collisions mean that space debris will continue to proliferate mitigation is insufficient Liou and Johnson 9 [J.-C. Liou , Nicholas L. Johnson - NASA Johnson Space Center. A sensitivity study of the effectiveness of active debris removal in LEO Acta Astronautica 64 (2009) 236243] Recent numerical simulations on the evolution of orbital debris population in low-Earth orbit (LEO, 200 2000km altitude) indicate that the population has reached a point where the environment is unstable and population growth is inevitable [1,2]. The main conclu- sion from the two studies is that even if no further space launches were conducted, the Earth satellite population would remain relatively constant for only the next 50 years or so. Beyond that, the debris population would begin to increase noticeably due to the production of collisional debris. In reality, the satellite population rowth in LEO will undoubtedly be worse than the stud- ies indicate, since spacecraft and their orbital stages will continue to be launched into space and unexpected ma- jor breakups may continue to occur. Postmission dis- posal of vehicles, such as limiting postmission orbital lifetimes to less than 25 years, can certainly slow down the population growth [35]. However, this mitigation measure will be insufficient to prevent further growth of the Earth satellite population. To better preserve the near-Earth environment for future space activities, other alternatives must be considered.

Cascade of debris generation means mitigation fails

Liou and Johnson 8 [J.-C. Liou- ESCG/ERC,, Nicholas L. Johnson - Orbital Debris Program Office, NASA Johnson Space Center. Instability of the present LEO satellite populations Advances in Space Research 41 (2008) 10461053] The no new launches assumption adopted for the study is, of course, not practical. However, it does serve as a good benchmark to assess the current debris environ-ment. In reality, the LEO population growth will be greater than that shown in this paper, as spacecraft and their orbi- tal stages continue to be launched into space. How much greater it will be in 200 years is difficult to predict, due to major uncertainties in future launches, although one can make reasonable assumptions to bound the problem (e.g., Krisko, 2004). In addition, the growth rate of collision fragments is dominated by catastrophic collisions involving two massive objects. The outcome of such collisions is sen- sitive to the selection of breakup model. Commonly adopted mitigation measures, such as limiting postmission orbital lifetimes of satellites to less than 25years, will slow down the population growth (e.g., Krisko et al., 2001b; Walker et al., 2001; Liou and John- son, 2005). However, these measures will be insufficient to constrain the Earth satellite population. Only remedia- tion of the near-Earth environment, i.e., removing existing large and massive objects from orbit, will likely prevent the undesirable effects predicted in the present study. Space debris is growing threatens satellites Wright 7 [David Wright is codirector and senior scientist with the global security program of the Union of Concerned Scientists in Cambridge, Massachusetts. October 2007 Physics Today pp 35-40 Space debris] The space age began 50 years ago with the launch of Sput- nik 1 by the Soviet Union on 4 October 1957. Since that time, some 4500 additional launches have taken place. Today 850 active satellites are in orbit, supporting a wide range of civil and military uses. The US owns and operates roughly half of those satellites, as shown in figure 1. As a result of this space activity, a tremendous amount of debris has been left orbiting in space. Orbital debris is any human-made object in orbit that no longer serves a useful purpose. It comes in the form of discarded equipment and rocket stages, defunct satellites, bolts and other hardware re- leased during the deployment of satellites, and fragments from the breakup of satellites and rocket stages. Space debris is a growing concern. With their high speed in orbit, even relatively small pieces of debris can damage or destroy satellites in a collision. Since debris at high altitudes can stay in orbit for decades or longer, it accumulates as more is produced. As the amount grows, the risk of collisions with satellites also grows. If the amount of debris at some altitudes becomes sufficiently large, it could become difficult to use those regions for satellites. There is currently no effective way to remove large amounts of debris from orbit, so controlling the production of debris is essential for preserving the longterm use of space.

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Tracking and Avoidance Fails

Cant track threat to sats
Ansdell 10 [Megan Graduate student in International Science and Technology Policy at GWU Elliott School of International Affairs, focusing in space policy. Princeton University Journal of Public and International Affairs. Spring. http://www.princeton.edu/jpia/past-issues-1/2010/Space-Debris-Removal.pdf Active Space Debris Removal] The most dangerous pieces of space debris are those ranging in diam- eter from one to ten centimeters, of which there are roughly 300,000 in orbit. These are large enough to cause serious damage, yet current sensor networks cannot track them and there is no practical method for shielding spacecraft against them. Consequently, this class of orbital debris poses an invisible threat to operating satellites (Wright 2007, 36). Debris larger than ten centimeters, of which there are roughly 19,000 in orbit, can also incapacitate satellites but they are large enough to be tracked and thus potentially avoided. Debris smaller than one centimeter, in contrast, can- not be tracked or avoided, but can be protected against by using relatively simple shielding (Wright 2007, 36).

Tracking fails cant track small objects

Day 9 [Dwayne - space historian and policy analyst and served as an investigator for the Columbia Accident Investigation Board. The gun pointed at the head of the universe the space review, June 15, http://www.thespacereview.com/article/1394/1] Graziani said that there are currently 19,000 objects larger than a softball in orbit. Those are the ones that can be tracked from the ground. The more dangerous population includes the objects between 1 and 10 centimeters, which are too small to track, but big enough to cause serious damage to a spacecraft. There are an estimated 300,000 of these killers currently in orbit, each one capable of smashing into the space shuttle, the International Space Station, or any of hundreds of active robotic spacecraft. As far as objects smaller than 1 centimeter goes, nobody has a good idea of how many are up there, but most estimates are in the millions. Space might be a big place, but low Earth orbit isnt all that big, and its filled with a lot of junk. Graziani added that several incidents, starting with the January 2007 Chinese ASAT test, and most recently the February 2009 collision of an Iridium comsat and a retired Russian spy-communications satellite, have added substantially to the debris population. For example, the Chinese ASAT test added 2,500 pieces larger than a softball to low Earth orbit. In this regard the Chinese ended up polluting their own backyard, since they also use the orbit that theyve filled with debris. Theyve got a manned space program of their own and theyre going to have to deal with the results of that debris, Graziani explained. He then contrasted Chinas actions to those of the United States, which destroyed the defective USA193/NROL-21 intelligence satellite in February 2008. That event was conducted in such a way as to minimized the generation of debris. (Various AGI animations of the incident can be downloaded here.) When we do things in space, Graziani said, we do them very responsibly. The Iridium incident, although adding substantially to the debris population in low Earth orbit, has had an unexpected side benefit. The radar systems that the United States currently uses to track objects in low Earth orbit can only calculate the location of objects to an accuracy of several hundred meters. The Iridium and Russian satellites were supposed to pass no more than 584 meters from each other. But because they hit, it demonstrated the locational limitations of the tracking systems. Graziani listed three overall limitations to American tracking systems: -they cannot track objects smaller than a softball -they provide no southern hemisphere coverage -the sensors are old and tired

Space junk takes out GPS satellites which are key to the economy Ansdell 10 Megan Ansdell, graduate student with a master in international science and technology at the
George Washington space society and a graduate student group of the space policy institute - she focuses in space policy. Published in 2010. http://www.princeton.edu/jpia/past-issues-1/2010/Space-DebrisRemoval.pdf It is likely that space debris will become a significant problem within the next several decades. Predictive studies show that if humans do not take action to control the space debris population, an increasing number of unintentional collisions between orbiting objects will lead to the

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runaway growth of space debris in Earths orbit (Liou and Johnson 2006). This uncontrolled growth of space debris threatens the ability of satellites to deliver the services humanity has come to rely on in its day-to-day activities. For example, Global Positioning System (GPS) precision timing and navigation signals are a significant component of the modern global economy; a GPS failure could disrupt emergency response services, cripple global banking systems, and interrupt electric power grids (Logsdon 2001).

GPS key to global finance DeBlois 3 Bruce M. DeBlois is Director of Systems Integration at BAE SYSTEMS, Reston, Virginia.
He was formerly Adjunct Senior Fellow for Science and Technology at the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR). 7/5/3 The Advent of Space Weapons. There is a common theme running through this and other recent space policy studies. In the words of the commission report, "the security and economic well being of the United States and its allies and friends depends on the nation's ability to operate successfully in space." This is clearly a valid conclusion, but one that has seemingly not yet made much of an impression on the public's consciousness. The availability of the many services dependent on space systems appears to be taken for granted by the public. However, if space capabilities were denied to the U.S. military, it would be impossible to carry out a modern military operation, particularly one distant from the United States. The civilian sector is equally dependent on space. Communication satellites carry voice, video, and data to all corners of Earth and are integral to the functioning of the global economy. The commission noted that failure of a single satellite in May 1998 disabled 80 percent of the pagers in the United States, as well as video feeds for cable and broadcast transmission, credit card authorization networks, and corporate communication systems. If the U.S. GPS system were to experience a major failure, it would disrupt fire, ambulance, and police operations around the world; cripple the global financial and banking system; interrupt electric power distribution; and in the future could threaten air traffic control.

Loss of space assets would cost hundreds of billions Logsdon 7 John M. Logsdon (logsdon@gwu.edu) is director of the Space Policy Institute at George
Washington University's Elliott School of International Affairs in Washington, D.C. No date given: updated 2007. Hundreds of billions of dollars in resources are invested in globally exposed assets orbiting the earth that directly support national economies and militaries, and in general, the twenty-first century civilized way of life. The total economic impact resulting from the destruction of spacebased resources would be far greater than the loss of revenues from these assets, as many other sectors rely critically on satellite-related services. As such, any exposed and valuable asset isa target for adversaries a target warranting protection. 6 The threat includes well-funded terrorists or the possibility of space collateral damage from rogue actors perceiving a military threat from an adversary in space, and responding against it (i.e., the impact to commercial and civil activities is simply a by-product of an assault on military activities). The emergence of microsatellites and possibilities for space mines must not be overlooked. While space-based weapons might not be the most obvious means of defending on-orbit assets, concepts of on-orbit weapons co-located with at-risk assets, with automated kinetic or directed energy intercept capability, must be considered. In a future of thousands of critically important and valuable national and international space assets some will, if left unchecked, inevitably support selfdefense mechanisms that by any definition would constitute weapons in space.

Current Policy is Insufficient

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Space Debris Aff

Current debris policy is insufficient international consensus is that we need additional debris removal policies
Space Daily 10 (The space industry professional daily news from the frontier, with contract, bid, launch and on-orbit satellite news, Secure World Foundation Holds Space Debris Workshop, written by staff writers, October 26, lexis academic) International participants from a dozen universities around the world, including the United States, United Kingdom, Spain, Russia, and Japan, along with faculty and graduate students from across China, participated in the 2010 Beijing Space Debris Mitigation Workshop, held on October 18-19 in Beijing, China. Secure World Foundation, along with its partners at Beihang University in Beijing and International Space University in Strasbourg, France, held the 2010 Beijing Space Debris Mitigation Workshop on October 18-19. International participants from a dozen universities around the world, including the United States, United Kingdom, Spain, Russia, and Japan, participated in the event in Beijing, along with faculty and graduate students from across China. The threat posed by space debris to satellites and space services continues to be an urgent topic among scientists and researchers. Although significant progress has been made on reducing the creation of space debris, there is an emerging consensus that rapid, uncontrolled growth in the amount of space debris can only be prevented by actively removing debris from orbit. Challenges ahead
Over the last year, conferences have been held in the United States, France, and Russia to discuss the challenges ahead in dealing with orbital debris. Sessions held at the 2010 Beijing Space Debris Mitigation Workshop involved discussion on a variety of topics, such as: + Research into modeling and simulation of hypervelocity impacts and the potential threat posed by large numbers of small satellites in Sun-synchronous orbits. + The need for actively removing space debris and proposed techniques for doing so. + The legal and policy issues involved with space debris and potential removal from Earth orbit. More than just one solution In the late 1970's, two influential NASA scientists, John Gabbard and Donald Kessler, laid the scientific groundwork for what became to be known as the "Kessler syndrome." They predicted that at some point in the future the population of human-generated

space debris would hit a critical point where it would pose a greater risk to spacecraft than the natural debris population of meteoroids. This "collisional cascading" would increase the risks and costs of operating in space, and make certain types of missions no longer cost effective or safe. Research and modeling over the last decade has shown that even without any new space launches, the amount of debris in orbit will continue to grow in the future as large pieces of debris - such as dead satellites and spent rocket bodies - would be impacted by small pieces of debris. This, in turn, would generate thousands of additional small debris, and increase the chances that other large objects would be vulnerable to impacts. In the 1990's, several of the world's space agencies formed the Inter-Agency Space Debris Coordination Committee to study this problem. Their work resulted in a set of guidelines for reducing the amount of debris produced by space activities. In 2008 these voluntary guidelines were adopted by the United Nations, and currently many countries are in the process of adopting the guidelines into national regulations. "The debris mitigation guidelines are a major accomplishment, and an important step in preserving the long-term sustainability of space," said Dr. Ray Williamson,
Executive Director of Secure World Foundation. "But they are only an initial first step, and will not solve the problem by themselves. "Research done by both NASA and the European Space Agency shows that a combination of debris mitigation, collision

screening and avoidance by operational satellites - as well as active debris removal - are needed to prevent collisional cascading.

***Military Advantage
Satellites Key-Military
Loss of space capabilities would cripple the US military and collapse the global economy

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Space Debris Aff Dolman 6 [Everett C. Dolman is Associate Professor of Comparative Military Studies at the U.S. Air Forces School of Advanced Air and Space Studies. A Debate About Weapons in Space: For U.S. Military Transformation and Weapons in Space SAIS Review vol. XXVI no. 1 (WinterSpring 2006)] No nation relies on space more than the United Statesnone is even closeand its reliance grows daily. A widespread loss of space capa- bilities would prove disastrous for American military security and civilian welfare. Americas economy would collapse, bringing the rest of the world down with it. Its military would be obliged to hunker down in a defensive crouch while it prepared to withdraw from dozens of thenuntenable foreign deployments. To prevent such disasters from occurring, the United States militaryin particular the United States Air Forceis charged with protect- ing space capabilities from harm and ensuring reliable space operations for the foreseeable future. As a martial organization, the Air Force naturally looks to military means to achieve these desired ends. And so it should. US space assets are essential to military effectiveness and power projection Dolman 6 [Everett C. Dolman is Associate Professor of Comparative Military Studies at the U.S. Air Forces School of Advanced Air and Space Studies. A Debate About Weapons in Space: For U.S. Military Transformation and Weapons in Space SAIS Review vol. XXVI no. 1 (WinterSpring 2006)] The United States has embarked on a revolutionary military transformation designed to extend its dominance in military engagements. Space capabili- ties are the lynchpin of this transformation, enabling a level of precision, stealth, command and control, intelligence gathering, speed, maneuverabil- ity, flexibility, and lethality heretofore unknown. This 21st-century way of war promises to give the United States a capacity to use force to influence events around the world in a timely, effective, and sustainable manner. Russell Weigley described a long-standing American way of war that was based on an essentially isolationist
preference to allow issues beyond its borders to sort themselves out.1 Only when events spilled out of hand and threatened U.S. interests directly did America feel compelled to intervene. Only then did it mobilize for war. In the first half of the 20th century, however, this model had to be substantially refined. It was predicated on taking the fight to the enemys shores, away from American soil, but only after other means of influence had failed and the military option was deemed the only one likely to succeed. And then, when America finally chose to bring force, it was overwhelming force. The country braced for long build- ups. American leaders made the public feel confident in its righteousness. Friendly casualties were to be limited to the extent practical, but damage to the enemy could be maximized. The strategy was suitable in an era when the U.S. homeland was safe from attack, when its industrial production ensured the stockpiling of vital supplies and innumerable armaments, and excess resources could be provided to friends and allies to do the fighting where prudent. In these conditions, America could afford to wait for problems to incubate and mature before reacting with colossal expenditure and terrible force. For the most part, this way of war was effective. But then came the debacle in Vietnam, where U.S. forces arguably won every battle but lost the war, at home as well as in Southeast Asia. Television had come to war; rampant carnage was available for viewing in every Ameri- can home. Indiscriminant area bombing was particularly horrific, and from that time forward U.S. leaders would not contemplate using such tactics except at desperate times, when the very survival of the state was at stake. In wars of lesser urgency, those characterized by international theorists as wars for less than the vital national interest, it would be incumbent on America to win the hearts and minds of not just the domestic audience, but of allies, potential allies, and erstwhile enemies as well. Overwhelming force on a broad scale would be ruled out in advance. Success would be

achieved through the employment of high-tech means and weapons: by computers, satellites, and whole new classes of technological marvel. Americas future wars would be less destructive. They would have far fewer casualties, both friendly and enemy. And they would be short. That this transformation was well underway became evident in 1991, when U.S. forces defeated the worlds fourth-largest military in just ten days of ground combat. The Gulf War witnessed the public and operational debut of unfathomably complicated battle equipment, sleek new aircraft employing stealth technology, and promising new missile interceptors. Arthur C. Clarke went so far as to dub Operation Desert Storm the worlds first space war, as none of the accomplishments of Americas new look mili- tary would have been possible without support from space.2 Twelve years later Operation Iraqi Freedom proved that the central role of space power could no longer be denied. Americas military had made the transition from a space-supported to a fully spaceenabled force, with astonishing results. Indeed, the military successfully exercised most of its current space power functions, including space lift, command and control, rapid battle damage assessment, meteorological support, and timing and navigation techniques such as Blue Force tracking, which significantly reduced incidences of frat- ricide. The tremendous growth in space reliance from Desert Storm to Iraqi Freedom is evident in the raw numbers. The use of operational satellite communications increased four-fold, despite being used to support a much smaller force (fewer than 200,000 personnel compared with more than 500,000). New operational concepts such as reach back (intelligence analysts in the United States sending information directly to frontline units) and reach forward (rear-deployed commanders able to direct battlefield operations in real time) reconfigured the tactical concept of war. The value of Predator and Global Hawk Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs), completely reliant on satellite communications and navigation for their operation, was confirmed. Satellite support also allowed Special Forces units to range

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across Iraq in extremely disruptive independent operations, practically unfettered in their silent movements. But the paramount effect of space-enabled warfare was in the area of combat efficiency. Space assets allowed all-weather, day-night precision munitions to provide the bulk of Americas striking power. Attacks from standoff platforms, including Vietnam-era B-52s, allowed maximum target devastation with extraordinarily low casualty rates and collateral damage. In Desert Storm, only 8 percent of munitions used were precision-guided, none of which were GPS-capable. By Iraqi Freedom, nearly 70 percent were precision-guided, more than half from GPS satellites.3 In Desert Storm, fewer than 5 percent of aircraft were GPS-equipped. By Iraqi Freedom, all were. During Desert Storm, GPS proved so valuable to the army that it procured and rushed into theater more than 4,500 commercial receivers to augment the meager 800 military-band ones it could deploy from stockpiles, an average of one per company (about 200 personnel). By Iraqi Freedom, each army squad (610 soldiers) had at least one military GPS receiver.

U.S. military most dependent on satellites

(Terrence Smith, Challenges to Future U.S. Space Control. Summer 2002. The Army Space Journal http://www.armyspace.army.mil/spacejournal/Article.asp?AID=24) The U.S. military is more dependent on Space-based assets than any other military on earth. The mission of the national Space programs includes launching military satellites designed to: 1) provide worldwide command, control, and communications between deployed elements and their respective command structures, 2) provide extremely precise navigational aid to maneuvering military forces and guidance assistance to advanced weapon systems and 3) conduct Reconnaissance, Surveillance, and Target Acquisition (RSTA) of enemy military bases, assets, and deployments. The RSTA element of the national military Space program permitted the collection of various types of intelligence in order to rapidly assess a potential adversarys military current order of battle and capabilities, and to provide insight into their intentions or to provide warning of impending hostile action. As the level of technology and the capability of satellites increases, these assets will continue to be increasingly more important to all aspects of U.S. military operations. Satellite support is critical to the U.S. military, especially taking into account the fact that the United States could be and often is conducting military operations in several different theaters at any one time. These theaters of operations can be located on opposite sides of the globe from one another. U.S. military satellites provide increased flexibility while increasing overall efficiency and effectiveness of U.S. military forces, operations, and weapon systems. Increased weapon system accuracy was a direct result of U.S. military satellite integration both through precision location assessments of targets and the use of global positioning system constellation information for weapon system course correction and guidance to the intended target. This capability has been studied in depth by many foreign powers in an effort to increase their own military capabilities. The demands on the limited number of U.S. Space-based assets are growing as their services and products become increasingly integrated into U.S. military operations. The loss of any of the current U.S. Space-based capabilities would have an immediate affect on the U.S. warfighting capabilities and effectiveness. As dependence and reliance on RSTA satellites has increased, the other more traditional or lower tech intelligence disciplines have been neglected. The loss of Space- based RSTA capabilities would have significant impact on U.S. operations and would be difficult to rapidly augment or substitute using strictly terrestrial assets. Protection of U.S. Space-based assets will be of the highest priority for U.S. Space control policy, doctrine, and tactics.

Satellites essential to military war games prove

(Lambeth, Benjamin S. Mastering the Ultimate High Ground: Next Steps in the Military Uses of Space. Santa Monica, CA: RAND Corporation, 2003.) Prompted by this concern, the U.S. Army, U.S. Strategic Command, and other joint agencies conducted a succession of high- level war games in recent years that focused expressly on the susceptibility of various U.S. space systems to disruption, denial, degradation, deception, and destruction. By one account, those experiences gave land, sea, and air commanders a new appreciation for how dependent on space resources their operations have become. In one

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Space Debris Aff Army-sponsored game, a scenario set in the year 2020 involving an invasion of Ukraine by a neighboring state featured the early neutralization of many U.S. satellites by detonations of nuclear weapons on orbit aimed at disrupting intelligence and communications channels and at inhibiting any Western intervention. As one game participant later said of this gambit, they took out most of our spacebased capabilities. Our military forces just ground to a halt.

GPS is key to hegemony cost effective technology

Ansdell 10 [Megan Graduate student in International Science and Technology Policy at GWU Elliott School of International Affairs, focusing in space policy. Princeton University Journal of Public and International Affairs. Spring. http://www.princeton.edu/jpia/past-issues-1/2010/Space-Debris-Removal.pdf Active Space Debris Removal] Furthermore, satellite-enabled military capabilities such as GPS precision-guided munitions are critical enablers of current U.S. military strategies and tactics. They allow the United States to not only remain a globally dominant military power, but also wage war in accordance with its political and ethical values by enabling faster, less costly warfighting with minimal collateral damage (Sheldon 2005; Dolman 2006, 163165). Given the U.S. militarys increasing reliance on satellite-enabled capabilities in recent conflicts, in particular Operation Desert Storm and Operation Iraqi Freedom, some have argued that losing access to space would seriously impede the ability of the United States to be successful in future conflicts (Dolman 2006, 165).

Commercial satellites increasingly important for U.S. military

(Andrea Shalal-Esahttp://www.reuters.com/article/2008/06/02/satellite-militaryidUSN0229389520080602 June 2, 2008) U.S. military demand for commercial satellite services will continue expanding sharply in coming years, despite the planned deployment of some new military satellites, two top defense officials said on Monday. "The number is going up and it's going up at a much higher rate than what we expect to be able to achieve with our military satellite communications," Joseph Rouge, who heads the Pentagon's National Security Space Office, told an industry conference. Rouge said it was difficult to project future military demand, but commercial satellite services were now being included in the Pentagon's baseline estimates and would continue to serve the military's growing needs. That's a huge change from just a few years ago when the U.S. military still believed it could meet the entire demand for satellite communications services with its own satellites.Eighty percent of U.S. military satellite communications with fixed ground stations are currently provided by commercial operators like Inmarsat (ISA.L) and Intelsat, Rouge said. While the percentage of commercial sales could decline as new military satellites are launched into space, Rouge said the absolute value of the services would clearly continue rising. "The number on the commercial side is going to continue to increase," he said, citing growing need for satellite communications throughout the military, including between tactical units in the field, and with unmanned aerial vehicles. "We're always going to need more than we expect," he said. Industry executives speaking at the conference said it would be difficult to give exact estimates for the size of the military market, but all agreed it was "huge." "We're all in the business to make money. We see a lot of potential," said Philip Harlow, vice president of the global communications division of DRS Technologies Inc DRS.N. Any further delays in military satellite programs would step up demand even further, Rouge said. Col. Patrick Rayermann, chief of the U.S. Army's Space and Missile Defense division, told the conference the Pentagon was reviewing the Transformation Communications Satellite program, or TSAT, a planned network of laser-linked communications satellites valued at $26 billion over the next 10 years. Lockheed Martin Corp (LMT.N) and Boeing Co (BA.N) are vying for a contract to build the new system, but Rayermann said its expected launch into space now looked likely to be delayed until 2018 or 2020 from the currently planned date of 2016. Rayermann said the Army urgently needed the secure broadband services that TSAT was designed to deliver, and the capabilities that were to be come from Space Radar, another large-scale program to track moving targets from space. The U.S. government has basically scrapped that program, for which Lockheed and Northrop Grumman Corp (NOC.N) were competing, but Rayermann said the Army was working closely with the Pentagon leadership to

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Space Debris Aff ensure that its need to understand terrain and the movement of enemy troops, would still be met. By 2018, he predicted Army brigade combat teams would receive 20 percent of their satellite services from commercial providers, 25.5 percent from TSAT, 50 percent from Wideband Global SATCOM, a program led by Boeing, and the rest from satellites already under contract. But that calculation did not include the use of satellite services by the Navy, the Air Force and intelligence agencies. Rouge said the U.S. military was trying to improve its ties with commercial satellite providers through regular meetings and by spelling out clearly military security requirements. He said the military would never require commercial satellite operators to provide the same level of security required for military satellites, but industry needed to provide more information about the location of its satellites, any cyber attacks, any plans to move satellites and reporting of any disruptions.

U.S. access to space critical Operation Desert Storm Proves

(Lambakis,Steven. "Space Control in Desert Storm and Beyond."Orbis.Vol. 39, No. 3 (Summer1995). Desert Storm was America's first space war, the first significant conflict wherein sure and rapid success depended upon steady access to satellites for all of the armed services. Space operational support usually did not make front page news, no doubt adding to the public's lack of appreciation for the importance of military space power. Nevertheless, U.S. dependence on military capabilities in space is rising with each passing year. The Persian Gulf war teaches the defense community that certain advantages accrue to the nation that ensures its freedom to use Earth's orbits. Conversely, an inability to exploit space (owing to our own policy and material deficiencies, or to enemy actions) will place our warriors at a distinct disadvantage that may someday spell the difference between victory and defeat.

Satellites are key to security

David Cavossa 2006, {Executive Director Satellite Industry Association (SIA)Hearing onSpace
and US National Power Before the Committee on Armed Services Subcommittee on Strategic Forces United States House of Representatives Wednesday, June 21, 2006 http://www.globalsecurity.org/space/library/congress/2006_h/060621-cavossa.pdf} The national and homeland security communities also rely on commercial satellites for critical activities, such as direct or backup communications, emergency response services, continuity of operations (COOP) and continuity of government during emergencies, military support, and intelligence gathering. Incorporating satellite technology into overall information network architectures for primary or backup communications provides for transmission media diversity, system redundancy, and increased communications resiliency. Here are a few examples of US Government agencies using Here are a few examples of US Government agencies using commercial satellite communications for either their primary or their backup communications solution. Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) relies heavily on Fixed Satellite Services (FSS) and Mobile Satellite Services (MSS) for daily use and during emergencies. The Department of State (DOS) relies heavily on commercial satellites to transmit voice, data, and video communications. White House Communications Agency (WHCA) uses commercial SATCOM systems extensively to support the President and Vice President. Transportation Security Administration (TSA) and their Federal Air Marshals use satellite communications while in-flight to communicate with staff on the ground.2 United States Coast Guard (USCG) uses commercial SATCOM for ship-to-ship and ship-to-shore communications and for container security and tracking. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC uses SATCOM for monitoring of the status of the nuclear assets and voice communications for field personnel. The Department of Health and Human Service (HHS) is a heavy user of fixed and mobile satellite services. Specifically, the HHS command center uses satellites to back up its data networks. The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) maintains satellite phones in every field office; And there are many, many more examples. As we all know, satellite communications have

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Satellites key to homeland security and emergency management of disasters

Cavossa 6 [Statement of David Cavossa, Executive Director Satellite Industry Association (SIA) Hearing on Space and US National Power Before the Committee on Armed Services Subcommittee on Strategic Forces United States House of Representatives Wednesday, June 21, 2006] Critical to Homeland Security The national and homeland security communities also rely on commercial satellites for critical activities, such as direct or backup communications, emergency response services, continuity of operations (COOP) and continuity of government during emergencies, military support, and intelligence gathering. Incorporating satellite technology into overall information network architectures for primary or backup communications provides for transmission media diversity, system redundancy, and increased communications resiliency. Here are a few examples of US Government agencies using commercial satellite communications for either their primary or their backup communications solution. Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) relies heavily on Fixed Satellite Services (FSS) and Mobile Satellite Services (MSS) for daily use and during emergencies. The Department of State (DOS) relies heavily on commercial satellites to transmit voice, data, and video communications. White House Communications Agency (WHCA) uses commercial SATCOM systems extensively to support the President and Vice President. Transportation Security Administration (TSA) and their Federal Air Marshals use satellite communications while in-flight to communicate with staff on the ground.2 United States Coast Guard (USCG) uses commercial SATCOM for ship-to-ship and ship-to-shore communications and for container security and tracking. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC uses SATCOM for monitoring of the status of the nuclear assets and voice communications for field personnel. The Department of Health and Human Service (HHS) is a heavy user of fixed and mobile satellite services. Specifically, the HHS command center uses satellites to back up its data networks. The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) maintains satellite phones in every field office; And there are many, many more examples. As we all know, satellite communications have also played a critical role during the response to each of the natural and man-made disasters in recent years. Following the terrorist attacks of September 11th, 2001, when New York Citys terrestrial communications networks were damaged and overloaded, satellite communications services easily maintained connectivity and satellite equipment was quickly deployed to meet urgent needs. In 2005, satellite communications provided a lifeline for aid workers and victims in the remote islands of the Indian Ocean following the Asian Tsunami and in the earthquakedesolated towns and villages of Pakistan. And most recently during last years hurricane season, satellite communications once again proved their essential value when all other forms of communication were wiped out in the nations Gulf region following the devastation caused by Hurricanes Katrina, Rita and Wilma. In many of the affected areas, satellites provided the ONLY source of communications in the hours, days, and weeks following hurricanes Katrina and Rita. Organizations using satellite communications ranged from first responders at the federal, state and local government agencies to individuals, schools, churches and local relief groups. Small businesses such as retail gas stations and convenience stores, and larger businesses such as insurance companies, financial institutions, and news teams also used satellites to communicate when all other means of communications failed. The DOD relies on commercial satellites for key military operations Cavossa 6 [Statement of David Cavossa, Executive Director Satellite Industry Association (SIA) Hearing on Space and US National Power Before the Committee on Armed Services Subcommittee on Strategic Forces United States House of Representatives Wednesday, June 21, 2006] Critical to National Security Military forces are perhaps the most dependent upon space-based communications systems to access essential information services to support land, sea, air, and space operations. The DoD currently uses military satellite communications (MILSATCOM) and commercial satellite communications to meet its global deployed telecommunications requirements. During his tenure, Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld has focused in particular on the role of space assets in his vision for military transformation and the DoD is currently developing an array of new MILSATCOM satellites to fulfill this vision. These new systems include the Wideband Gapfiller Satellites (WGS), the Advanced Extremely High Frequency Satellites, the Transformational Communications Satellite (TSAT), and the Mobile User Objective System (MUOS). But even as these new military communication satellites are deployed, the U.S. militarys need for satellite bandwidth will only continue to expand as new weapons systems are fielded and new bandwidth intensive applications are created. Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs), such as the Predator and Global Hawk, are heavy users of commercial satellite bandwidth. Other

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bandwidth-intensive activities, such as secure video teleconferencing and encrypted command and control operations, will add to the overall increase in bandwidth demand. The Army's Blue Force Tracking program uses low-cost satellite links to provide battlefield situational awareness directly to soldiers and commanders, improving the effectiveness of distributed teams and greatly reducing the potential for friendly-fire incidents. The Armed Forces Radio and Television Service provides news and morale programming to our troops around the globe via satellite. Telemedicine puts the resources of world-class trauma specialists and surgeons at the disposal of medical teams battling minutes to save lives in the field. As a result, the DoD has steadily increased its use of commercial satellite bandwidth and services to support a multitude of military operations. DoD estimates that commercial satellite systems provided over 80 percent of the satellite bandwidth supporting the Operation Iraqi Freedom. This is a significant increase from the 20 percent used in Operation Desert Storm.

Satellites key to national security David Cavossa 2006, Executive DirectorSatellite Industry Association (SIA)Hearing onSpace and
US National Power Before the Committee on Armed Services Subcommittee on Strategic Forces United States House of Representatives Wednesday, June 21, 2006 http://www.globalsecurity.org/space/library/congress/2006_h/060621-cavossa.pdf Military forces are perhaps the most dependent upon space-based communications systems to access essential information services to support land, sea, air, and space operations. The DoD currently uses military satellite communications (MILSATCOM) and commercial satellite communications to meet its global deployed telecommunications requirements. During his tenure, Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld has focused in particular on the role of space assets in his vision for military transformation and the DoD is currently developing an array of new MILSATCOM satellites to fulfill this vision. These new systems include the Wideband Gapfiller Satellites (WGS), the Advanced Extremely High Frequency Satellites, the Transformational Communications Satellite (TSAT), and the Mobile User Objective System (MUOS). But even as these new military communication satellites are deployed, the U.S. militarys need for satellite bandwidth will only continue to expand as new weapons systems are fielded and new bandwidth intensive applications are created. Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs), such as the Predator and Global Hawk, are heavy users of commercial satellite bandwidth. Other bandwidth-intensive activities, such as secure video teleconferencing and encrypted command and control operations, will add to the overall increase in bandwidth demand. The Army's Blue Force Tracking program uses low-cost satellite links to provide battlefield situational awareness directly to soldiers and commanders, improving the effectiveness of distributed teams and greatly reducing the potential for friendly-fire incidents. The Armed Forces Radio and Television Service provides news and morale programming to our troops around the globe via satellite. Telemedicine puts the resources of world-class trauma specialists and surgeons at the disposal of medical teams battling minutes to save lives in the field. As a result, the DoD has steadily increased its use of commercial satellite bandwidth and services to support a multitude of military operations. DoD estimates that commercial satellite systems provided over 80 percent of the satellite bandwidth supporting the Operation Iraqi Freedom. This is a significant increase from the 20 percent used in Operation Desert Storm. To provide you with a brief example of the DoD need for satellite communications bandwidth, in 2005 alone, the DoD spent over $650 million on commercial satellite communications equipment and capacity and is projected to spend over a one billion dollars a year by 2010 on its expanding commercial satellite communications requirements.

Sats are essential for continued security

Oslund 04, [

Dr. Jack Oslund is an Adjunct Professor on the faculty of the George WashingtonUniversity's Graduate Telecommunication Program, and Coordinator of the interdisciplinaryGraduate Certificate Program in "Telecommunication and National Security.", Communications Satellitees: Global Change Agents, pg 178]
U.S. military interest in using satellites for communications has a long history. The Army Signal Corps bounced radio signals off a satellite for the first time in 1945, but the satellite was a natural onethe moon. At almost the same time, the Army Air Corps funded Project RAND that, among other things, was to study satellite communications. The U.S. Air Force

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successfully launched and orbited the first artificial communications satellite, the low altitude Score in 1958, followed 2 years later by the DOD's low-altitude Courier. As discussed in chapter 5, the DOD was unsuccessful in
developing a multipurpose geosynchronous satellite, Advent. It then entered into discussions with the new Comsat Corporation concerning the development of a shared system arrangement; at approximately the same time, Comsat and the Department of State were negotiating the Interim Agreement for what would become Intelsat. After a Military Subcommittee of the House Committee on Government Operations held a number of hearings that revealed the cost and complexity of such a civil/military undertaking, the discussions were canceled (see U.S. Congress, 1964). Another form of system

sharing occurred in the mid-1970s when Comsat General, a Comsat subsidiary, developed, funded, and operated Gapsat for the Navy, the initial principal customer; as discussed in chapters 3, 5, and 6. This system, of course, also became the platform for the commercial Marisatsystem. Since then, defense ministries of nations around the world, besides using dedicated military satellite systems, have used commercial satellites in varying ways and degrees for military purposes. Traditionally, the commercial satellites were used for general purpose communications, and military satellites were used for critical command and control communications. However, commercial satellites since have been increasingly used to directly support regional military operations. Besides the Persian Gulf,
Afghanistan, and Iraqi Wars, they have been used in the Falklands (Malvinas) War in the 1980s and military operations in Somalia, Bangladesh, Bosnia, and Croatia.

Military communications have been disrupted before

- United States Air Force Academy(1994); J.D., University of Tennessee College of Law (2002); LL.M., The Judge Advocate Generals Legal Center & School, U.S. Army, Charlottesville, Va. (2009))[Lieutenant Colonel Joseph S. Imburgia, Vanderbilt Journal of Transnational Law, Space Debris and Its Threat to National Security: A Proposal for a Binding International Agreement to Clean Up the Junk, Vol. 44:589, pg. 608]

Imburgia 10

In fact, the May 2008 malfunction of a communications satellite demonstrates the fragile nature of the satellite communications system.159 The temporary loss of a single satellite effectively pulled the plug on what executives said could [have been] as much as 90 percent of the paging network in the United States.160 Although this countrys paging network is perhaps not vital to its national security, the incident demonstrates the possible national security risks created by the simultaneous loss of multiple satellites due to space debris collisions.

Satellites are essential to our military

Krepon 4 [Michael Krepon is co-founder of the Stimson Center; worked at the Carnegie Endowment
for International Peace, the US Arms Control and Disarmament Agency during the Carter Administration, and in the US House of Representatives, received a MA from the School of Advanced International Studies; Space: Code of Conduct, 7-18, http://www.stimson.org/images/uploads/researchpdfs/MKrepon_Final_Format.pdf] Satellites are indispensable and vulnerable. Satellites perform essential military functions. They provide early warning of missile launches and offensive military preparations. They provide intelligence to monitor compliance with treaties, or the emergence of new security challenges. They help soldiers communicate and navigate in unfamiliar terrain. Satellites also guide weapons to their targets. They help many countries, rich and poor, to manage and develop their natural resources. Satellites provide early warning of disastrous storms, and help to pin-point relief efforts. They are essential for communication and global commerce. Emergency cell phone calls and pagers depend on satellites. Many essential services, including those provided by the medical and banking professions, would break down if satellites fail. Anti-satellite weapons have been tested recently by China and the United States, and many military technologies can be adapted to harm satellites. The challenge we face is how to best assure that US satellites will remain available to advance US national and economic security.

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Satellites Key-Disaster Response

Satellites key to disaster response

David Cavossa 2006, Executive DirectorSatellite Industry Association (SIA)Hearing onSpace and
US National Power Before the Committee on Armed Services Subcommittee on Strategic Forces United States House of Representatives Wednesday, June 21, 2006 http://www.globalsecurity.org/space/library/congress/2006_h/060621-cavossa.pdf And there are many, many more examples. As we all know, satellite communications have also played a critical role during the response to each of the natural and man-made disasters in recent years. Following the terrorist attacks of September 11th, 2001, when New York Citys terrestrial communications networks were damaged and overloaded, satellite communications services easily maintained connectivity and satellite equipment was quickly deployed to meet urgent needs. In 2005, satellite communications provided a lifeline for aid workers and victims in the remote islands of the Indian Ocean following the Asian Tsunami and in the earthquakedesolated towns and villages of Pakistan. And most recently during last years hurricane season, satellite communications once again proved their essential value when all other forms of communication were wiped out in the nations Gulf region following the devastation caused by Hurricanes Katrina, Rita and Wilma. In many of the affected areas, satellites provided the ONLY source of communications in the hours, days, and weeks following hurricanes Katrina and Rita. Organizations using satellite communications ranged from first responders at the federal, state and local government agencies to individuals, schools, churches and local relief groups. Small businesses such as retail gas stations and convenience stores, and larger businesses such as insurance companies, financial institutions, and news teams also used satellites to communicate when all other means of communications failed.

Military Key - Heg

Military is key to U.S. hegemony

Posen 3 [Barry is Ford International Professor of Political Science at MIT, Director of the MIT Security Studies Program; Command of the Commons The Military Foundation of U.S. Hegemony; The MIT Press Journals; 7-18-11; http://belfercenter.ksg.harvard.edu/files/posen_summer_2003.pdf]

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One pillar of U.S. hegemony is the vast military power of the United States. A staple of the U.S. debate about the size of the postCold War defense budget is the observation that the United States spends more than virtually all of the worlds other major military powers combined, most of which are U.S. allies.7 Observers of the actual capabilities that this effort produces can focus on a favorite aspect of U.S. superiority to make the point that the United States sits comfortably atop the military food chain, and is likely to remain there. This article takes a slightly different approach. Below I argue that the United States enjoys command of the commonscommand of the sea, space, and air. I discuss how command of the commons supports a hegemonic grand strategy. I explain why it seems implausible that a challenge to this command could arise in the near to medium term. Then I review the arenas of military action where adversaries continue to be able to fight U.S. forces with some hope of success the contested zones. I argue that in the near to medium term the United States will not be able to establish command in these arenas. The interrelationship between U.S. command of the commons and the persistence of the contested zones suggests that the United States can probably pursue a policy of selective engagement but not one of primacy. I purposefully eschew discussing U.S. military power in light of the metrics of the current and previous administrations. The Clinton administration planned to be able to fight two nearly simultaneous major theater wars; the Bush administrations emerging, and even more demanding, metric is the 4-2-1 principlethat is, deter in four places, counterattack in two, and if necessary, go to the enemys capital in one of the two.8 These metrics obscure the foundations of U.S. military powerthat is, all the difficult and expensive things that the United States does to create the conditions that permit it to even consider one, two, or four campaigns. To do so would require a major digression. I am trying to build an understanding of the overall

Heg Key
U.S. space dominance overcomes classic military problems
(BruceSterlinghttp://www.wired.com/wired/archive/10.04/sdi.html April 2002) Space dominance wins wars because it overcomes the two fundamental impediments to victory famously summarized by 19th- century theorist Carl von Clausewitz as fog and friction.In a fog of low-quality or nonexistent information, warriors can't see allies or enemies.Amid the friction of hostile onslaughts, they can't hit the adversaries they manage to see. These are classic military problems. Having an overhead view makes them the other guy's problem. The Serbs, Iraqis, and Taliban suffered mightily from fog and friction, which increased whenever bombs fell. American soldiers enjoyed what the Pentagon likes to call "comprehensive situational awareness" and "precision engagement."

Hegemony key to prevent miscalculation

ZALMAY KHALILZAD FEBRUARY 8, 2011 4:00 A.M. The Economy and National Security ( a counselor at the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) and president of Khalilzad Associates, an international business consulting firm based in Washington, DC. He was the United States Ambassador to the United Nations under President George W. Bush. He has been involved with U.S. policy makers at the White House, State Department and Pentagon since the mid-1980s, and was the highest-ranking Muslim American in the Administration of U.S. President George W. Bush. Khalilzad's previous assignments in the Administration include U.S. Ambassador to Afghanistan, U.S. Ambassador to Iraq and United States Permanent Representative to the United Nations.) http://www.nationalreview.com/articles/259024/economy-and-national-security-zalmay-khalilzad If U.S. policymakers fail to act and other powers continue to grow, it is not a question of whether but when a new international order will emerge. The closing of the gap between the United States and its rivals could intensify geopolitical competition among major powers, increase incentives for local powers to play major powers against one another, and undercut our will to preclude or respond to international crises because of the higher risk of escalation. The stakes are high. In modern history, the longest period of peace among the great powers has been the era of U.S. leadership. By

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contrast, multi-polar systems have been unstable, with their competitive dynamics resulting in frequent crises and major wars among the great powers. Failures of multi-polar international systems produced both world wars. American retrenchment could have devastating consequences. Without an American security blanket, regional powers could rearm in an attempt to balance against emerging threats. Under this scenario, there would be a heightened possibility of arms races, miscalculation, or other crises spiraling into all-out conflict. Alternatively, in seeking to accommodate the stronger powers, weaker powers may shift their geopolitical posture away from the United States. Either way, hostile states would be emboldened to make aggressive moves in their regions.

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***Economy
Satellites Key to global economy and society we are inextricably plugged in!

Johnson and Hudson, et al, 2008 (Lt. Kevin Johnson USAF, John G. Hudson II Ph.D Global Innovation Strategy Center, GISC, Eliminating Space Debris:Applied Technology and Policy Prescriptions, Fall 2008,
http://www.slideshare.net/stephaniclark/giscinternpaperspacedebriselimination) Fifty years after their introduction, it is difficult to imagine a world without satellites. According to the Satellite Industry Association (SIA),41 satellite industry revenue topped $106 billion dollars worldwide in 2006. Noting continued government and military demand and investment and the global appetite for more power, more mobility, more convergence, SIA predicts a future market with even faster growth.42 As Charles Cynamon43 points out: We are living in a society with an insatiable appetite for technology.We are increasingly choosing to remotely transact business, to connect our computers to the Internet, to have
an 18 satellite dish in lieu of cable TV, and to have the ability to contact anyone from anywhere with as small a phone as possible.The average person hardly realizes the extent they rely on commercial space systems.44 Frank Klotz echoed a similar theme in a Council on Foreign Relations report: While the public continues to identify

space most closely with scientific exploration and high adventure, space has also become a big business and represents a huge investment in terms of capital assets and jobs.45 Might satellite technology be historys answer to Gutenbergs printing press? Never before has information and commerce traveled so quickly. Given the integrated state of todays global economy, any major fluctuation in satellite capabilities has the potential to reverberate throughout multiple nations.

Satellites Provide Communication Systems for the People

Sig Mickelson, Foreign Affairs, Vol. 48, No. 1 (Oct., 1969), pp. 67-79 Published by:Council on Foreign Relations, (http://www.jstor.org/stable/20039423).
It is hardly necessary to belabor the benefits to mankind which will result from a sure, efficient, inexpensive and wide communications system free of government restraints and capable of delivering sound, pictures, words and data by telephone, telex, radio, television and through data transmissions, from computer to computer. The implications may be especially for those sections of the world, which for reasons of profound topography or poverty have so far been able to develop only the most rudimentary communications systems.
flexible world

Satellites provide much benefit to economy

Sig Mickelson, Foreign Affairs, Vol. 48, No. 1 (Oct., 1969), pp. 67-79 Published by: Council on Foreign Relations, (http://www.jstor.org/stable/20039423).
It is the instantaneous transmission of news and such events as the moon walk, the investiture of the Prince of Wales and the like that has so far constituted the most glamorous of the satellite's functions. By cable we have long been able to move written messages, voice and, in recent years, still pictures; the capacity to transmit moving pictures over great distances is new. But like the iceberg, the television coverage, which has attracted the most attention, this is only a small part of the capability of the communications satellite system operated by the International T elecommunications Satellite consortium. Only about 2 percent of the revenues of the United States' Communications Satellite Corporation derive from television usage. The remainder comes largely from telephone traffic. In the future, how ever, there is every reason to think that the satellite may become a device for relaying a great variety of information, including data, facsimile reproductions, medical information and even business and personal letters.

The loss of satellites greatly impacts economy

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Ziad I. Akir, 03, Director of Distance Learning, Space Security: Possible Issues & Potential Solutions, Washington State Community College, (http://spacejournal.ohio.edu/issue6/pdf/ziad.pdf)
Economic sectors such as telecommunication; energy and utilities; transportation; and banking and finance; rely on satellite systems. Damage to satellite operations will cause huge and painful monitory losses to the operators of such services. The more dependent countries become on the information and services provided by satellites, the more significant the impact of failure are sure to be. For a country such as the United States, an attack on its commercial satellite systems will create an Information Pearl Harbor. Such an attack can damage the U.S. economy via its financial markets. Moreover, economic consequences can also be due to hijacking satellite links that provide telephony and television broadcast. Space communication, particularly satellite communication, is becoming an integral component of our overall global telecommunication infrastructure. Satellites are being used for communication, navigation, remote sensing, imaging, and weather forecasting.
Satellites are also providing backup communication capabilities when terrestrial communication is interrupted in cases such as earthquakes or other natural (or unnatural) disasters. The September 11th events in 2001 demonstrated the value

of redundant satellite systems in supporting rescue efforts. Many governments around the world, including the United States, rely on commercial satellite systems for communication, commerce, and defense. Commercial satellite systems include ground- based components such as earth station antennas, data terminals, and mobile terminals; and space-based components include satellites and other systems (e.g. space station and launching vehicles) that are now essential to global function.

Satellites improve weather predictions

Jerome Schnee, 2000, Business Administration Department Rutgers, The Economics of U.S. Space Program
Meteorological satellites represent one of the most important technological advances in the history of weather analysis and prediction (9). The launching of TIROS I (Television and Infrared Observation Satellite) on April 1,
1960 revolutionized weather observation methods. TIROS I demonstrated the effectiveness of meteorological satellites in overcoming limitations of conventional observation techniques. For example, radar, weather reconnaissance aircraft, weather ships, and weather balloons supplied information on less than one-fifth of the Earth's surface; TIROS I encompassed almost the entire globe. NASA has served as the R&D organization with the National Meteorological Satellite Program, exercising the responsibility for designing, building, launching, and testing satellites. When a meteorological satellite becomes operational, the U.S. Weather Bureau then assumes responsibility for processing satellite data for operational purposes, disseminating data and forecasts, and conducting research on the climatological uses of satellite data. The economic benefits of improved weather forecasting can be substantial, because of the significant total value of annual weather-caused losses in the United States. J.C. Thompson's 1972 survey of agricultural, industrial, and other activities suggests that the annual cost of weather-

caused losses approximated $12.7 billion. Roughly $5.3 billion of this total could have been avoided with adequate warnings. However, all of such "protectable losses" cannot be avoided, because the costs of protection must be weighed
into the calculation as well. Perfect weather forecasts only can salvage about 15 percent of protectable losses, a relatively modest proportion of total protectable losses, but a relatively large absolute savings $739 million according to Thompson's estimate (10). Meteorological satellites have greatly enhanced the accuracy of storm warnings and forecasts; the availability of satellite data produced economic savings over the 1966-73 period of approximately $20 million. However, it appears unlikely that satellite data have as yet improved the accuracy of daily weather forecasts. In fact, the true potential of satellites in weather forecasting will not be realized until satellite data are integrated into numerical weather prediction models, which may occur during the 1980s. What type of economic impacts can be expected when an operational weather satellite system is implemented and linked to numerical prediction systems? Despite substantial progress in numerical weather, prediction, improvements in the accuracy of daily weather forecasts have ranged between 5 and 10 percent. Furthermore, Thompson contends that only 56 percent of estimated economic gains could be achieved using more accurate forecasts. Therefore, if the use of satellite data increased current

levels of forecast accuracy by another 5 to 10 percent, annual economic savings would range between $2040 million ($739 x .56 x .05 or $739 x .56 x .10). It is important to recognize that these projected savings represent a small fraction of the potential economic benefits. The contributions of weather satellites and numerical weather
prediction to weather forecasting will not be fully exploited until two major barriers are overcome.

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The economic disadvantages will be huge.

Kraig and Roston 2002, Nuclear-Tipped Foolishness, Foreign Policy in Focus, 5-1 http://www.fpif.org/articles/nuclear-tipped_foolishness)
Most commercial communications satellites are in low earth orbit. In their role as conduits for rapid information exchange, they form the backbone of the global economy, and their destruction would chaotically disrupt international markets. Furthermore, the diplomatic consequences of destroying all other countries' LEO satellites in such a strike (including those of our allies) would be almost unimaginable. And the effects would go well beyond economic and diplomatic. Weather prediction and monitoring satellites would also be badly degraded, undermining everything from U.S. military operations to worldwide shipping and transportation to disaster prevention. In addition, crucial military imaging systems such as the Lacrosse, KH-11, and KH-12 photoreconnaissance satellites would eventually be disabled as well.

U.S. should emphasize efforts in space, as they are key to economy

J.P., 2011, Vice President for Space Systems Aerospace Industries Association, Maintain U.S. Global Leadership in Space, http://www.aiaaerospace.org/issues_policies/space/maintain/
U.S. space efforts civil, commercial and national security drive our nations competitiveness, economic growth and innovation. To maintain U.S. preeminence in this sector and to allow space to act as a technological driver for current and future industries, our leadership must recognize space as a national priority and robustly fund its programs. Space technologies and applications are essential in our everyday lives. Banking transactions, business and personal communications as well as emergency responders, airliners and automobiles depend on communications and GPS satellites. Weather and remote sensing satellites provide lifesaving warnings and recurring global measurements of our changing Earth. National security and military operations are deeply dependent upon space assets. The key to continuing U.S. preeminence is a cohesive coordination body and a national space
strategy. Absent this, the myriad government agencies overseeing these critical systems may make decisions based upon narrow agency requirements. The U.S. space industrial base consists of unique workforce skills and production techniques. The ability of industry to meet the needs of U.S. space programs depends on a healthy industrial base. U.S. leadership in space cannot be

taken for granted. Other nations are learning the value of space systems; the arena is increasingly contested, congested and competitive. Strong government leadership at the highest level is critical to maintaining our lead in space and must be supported by a healthy and innovative industrial sector.

Satellites have assured an interconnected global economy and society

Zachary Fenell, 2011, Bachelor of Arts in Communication, The Advantages of Global Communication, http://www.ehow.com/list_6129825_advantages-globalcommunication.html
The rise of electronic communication, such as instant messaging and email, has led to an increase of global communication. This increase of global communication has had a profound impact on society. In fact, society has become more global as electronic communication has eliminated distance as a barrier to communication. The benefits of a

global society include making the world a smaller place, increasing business opportunities and improving cultural education. While a clich idea, the world being a small place has become more evident with the rise of global communication. Family members separated by distance can stay connected with each other through electronic
communication. Computer mediated communication, like social networking websites, even allow for long-distance communication without having to dread receiving an expensive long-distance phone bill. Electronic communication helps to make the world a smaller place by making news stories more accessible as well; by increasing the amount of international news people have access to. For businesses, an increase in global communication means new business opportunities. Effective international business communication requires an understanding of other cultures. For example, according to Mind Tools, an online resource for learning business skills, in Eastern countries establishing relationships plays an important role in business transactions. Therefore, by developing personal relationships with Eastern businesspeople using electronic communication, you increase your chances of enjoying successful business transactions.

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Satellites contribute billions of dollars to the global economy

Air Force 9/6/03 (US Air Force>Air University>Spaatz Center; U.S. Satellite Communication Systems; accessed 7/13/11)
Today, satellites permeate our every day lives and contribute over $90 billion to the global economy. Satellites provide direct to home television and digital audio radio services to over 30 million satellite radio and direct-to-home television subscribers throughout the United States. Today, commercial satellites support daily activities such as truck fleet management, credit card validations, pay-at-thepump services, ATM withdrawals, high-speed Internet, traffic and weather reports, and almost all television and radio distribution.

Impact Global War

Lack of global economic stability leads to global war

Rasler and Thompson 00-

[Professor Rasler's research interests are in general theories of international conflict and cooperation; Professor Thompson's teaching interests focus on international relations theory, conflict processes and international political economy; they both work at Indiana University; Global War and the Political Economy of Structural Change; 7-19-2000; http://slantchev.ucsd.edu/courses/pdf/rasler-thompson-global-war.pdf] From a systemic perspective, the global political economy is characterized by undulating patterns of capability concentration, followed by deconcentration, and then followed again by reconcentration. We attribute this pattern primarily to the emergence and relative decline of lead economies. The linkage to global war is straightforward. When the global political economy is highly concentrated, the outbreak of a global war is unlikely. After the global political economy has experienced considerable deconcentration, the outbreak of a global war becomes more probable because global wars, inherently, can be seen as succession struggles over which economy will replace the incumbent as the global systems militarypolitical center. In fact, we designate as global wars only those intensive conflicts that lead to a new phase of significant reconcentration and global military-political and economic leadership. In this respect, we admit to being more interested in these wars roles in the concentration process than we are in their identities as increasingly lethal wars among major powers. Put another way, we think global wars merit special attention as a distinctive set of wars that are a critical part of

the global political economys functioning.

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***Asteroids
EXT. ASTERIODS INEVITABLE
An Asteroid collision is 100% certain and could occur at any time VERSCHUUR 1996 (Gerrit, Adjunct Prof of Physics at U of Memphis, Impact: the Threat of Comets and Asteroids, p. 158)
In the past few years, the comet impact scenario has taken on a life of its own and the danger of asteroids has been added to the comet count. In the context of heightened interest in the threat, reassuring predictions have been offered about the likelihood of a civilization-destroying impact in the years to come. Without exception, the scientists who have recently offered odds have been careful in making any statement. They have acted in a "responsible" manner and left us with a feeling that the threat is not worth worrying about. This is not to criticize their earnest efforts, only to point out that estimates have been attempted for centuries. The way I look at the business of offering odds is that it hardly matters whether the chance of being wiped out next century is 1 in 10,000, for example, or that the likelihood of a civilization-destroying impact is once in a million years.

That's like betting on a horse race. The only thing that is certain is that a horse will win. What matters is the larger picture that begins to force itself into our imagination; comet or asteroid impacts are inevitable. The next one may not wipe us out in the coming century, or even in the century after that, but sooner or later it will happen. It could happen next year. I think that what matters is how we react to this knowledge. That, in the long run, is what will make a
difference to our planet and its inhabitants. It is not the impact itself that may be immediately relevant; it is how we react to the idea of an impact that may change the course of human history. I am afraid that we will deal with this potentially mind-expanding

discovery in the way we deal with most issues that relate to matters of great consequence; we will ignore it until the crisis is upon us. The problem may be that the consequences of a comet catastrophe are so horrendous that it is easiest to confront it through denial. In the end, though, it may be this limitation of human nature that will determine our fate.

A., 5/23, American Institute of Aeronautics and Aerospace, Developing a Three Period Strategy to Face a Global Threat: A Preliminary Analysis http://www.aero.org/conferences/planetarydefense/2007papers/P5-1--Ghayur--Paper.pdf) 1694 was the year when a man envisioned a bone chilling scenario after witnessing a Near Earth Object (NEO); What if it would return and hit the Earth? The man is now a world renowned scientist, Dr. Edmond Halley, and the object now one of the most famous comets, the Halleys Comet has returned numerous times without any incident. Human civilization has come a long way since the Dark Ages of mid twentieth century, however, it is only now that the humankind is realizing the veracity of the apocalyptic scenario a heavenly body colliding with earth the Hellish nightmare which troubled Dr. Halley. Although the chances of Halleys Comet plummeting into earth are nearly nonexistent, the chances nevertheless of another NEO colliding head on with earth are very much there. The battle-scared face of moon and the numerous impact craters on earth are a living testament to it. But all this evidence proved insufficient to turn any heads until 1994 when Shoemaker-Levy Nine crashed into Jupiter. The earth-sized storms created on Jupiter surface sent alarms through the echelons of bureaucracy and politics and suddenly a nonexistent apocalyptic nightmare had become a very much possible scenario. 1 Today, we are sitting in the midst of ever increasing human population on this planet Earth, which in turn is sitting amidst ever

Were overdue for an asteroid hit that would kill billions Ghayur 7 (Lecturer, University Institute of Information Technology

increasing number of identified NEOs. We are already overdue for our next big hit; last one occurring 65 million years ago at Chixilub. Any impact of that scale would result in deaths and displacement of billions, if not
more. Do we have a global network and an institution to respond timely and effectively?

Asteroid strikes are statistically inevitable Chapman 04- PhD in planetary science from MIT
(Clark, March, The hazard of near-Earth asteroid impacts on earth http://www.b612foundation.org/papers/Chapman_hazard_EPSL.pdf)

Even after discovery of the Chicxulub impact structure in Mexico and its temporal simultaneity with the Cretaceous Tertiary (KT) boundary and mass extinctions [18], it has taken some earth scientists a while to recognize and accept the statistical inevitability that Earth is struck by asteroids and comets. Each impact, occurring on timescales of tens to hundreds of Myr, liberates tens of millions to billions of megatons (Mt, TNT-equivalent) of energy into the fragile ecosphere, which must have had dramatic consequences every time. A few researchers still consider the Chicxulub impact to be only one of several contributing factors to the KT extinctions (e.g., [19]) and direct evidence firmly linking other mass extinctions to impacts is so far either more equivocal than for the KT, or altogether lacking. Some geoscientists still think of asteroid impacts as ad hoc explanations for paleontological changes and they resist the logic that earlier, even greater impact catastrophes

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surely occurred. If the great mass extinctions are not attributed to impacts (e.g., explained instead by episodes of volcanism or sea regressions), one must ask how the huge impacts that must have occurred failed to leave

dramatic evidence in the fossil record. Many recent threats prove theres a high probability of asteroid impact NRC 2010 (National Research Council Committee to Review Near-Earth Object Surveys and Hazard Mitigation Strategies,
Defending Planet Earth: Near-Earth Object Surveys and Hazard Mitigation Strategies, http://www.nap.edu/catalog.php?record_id=12842)

Several recent events and new analyses have highlighted the impact threat to Earth: 1. As Comet ShoemakerLevy 9 came close to Jupiter in 1992, tidal forces caused it to separate into many smaller fragments that then may have regrouped by means of self-gravity into at least 21 distinct pieces (e.g., Asphaug and Benz, 1994). These pieces impacted Jupiter in July 1994, creating a sequence of visible impacts into the gaseous Jovian atmosphere. The resultant scars in Jupiters atmosphere could be readily seen through Earthbased telescopes for several months. In July 2009, a second object, though much smaller than Shoemaker-Levy 9, impacted Jupiter, also causing a visible dark scar in the Jovian atmosphere. Such clear evidence of major collisions in the contemporary solar system does raise concern about the risk to humanity. 2. In December 2004, astronomers determined that there was a non-negligible probability that near-Earth asteroid Apophis (see Chapter 4 for more details) would strike Earth in 2029. As Apophis is an almost 300-meterdiameter
object, a collision anywhere on Earth would have serious regional consequences and possibly produce transient global climate effects. Subsequent observations of Apophis ruled out an impact in 2029 and also determined that it is quite unlikely that this object could strike during its next close approach to Earth in 2036. However, there likely remain many Apophis-sized NEOs that

have yet to be detected. The threat from Apophis was discovered only in 2004, raising concerns about whether the threat of such an object could be mitigated should a collision with Earth be determined to have a high probability of occurrence in the relatively near future. 3. In June 1908, a powerful explosion blew down trees over an area spanning at least 2,000 square kilometers of forest near the Podkamennaya Tunguska
River in Central Siberia. As no crater associated with this explosion was located, scientists initially argued against an asteroid or comet origin. However, subsequent analysis and more recent modeling (see, e.g., Chyba, 1993; Boslough and Crawford, 1997, 2008) have indicated that modest-sized objects (the Tunguska object may have been only 30 to 50 meters in diameter) moving at

high supersonic speeds through the atmosphere can disintegrate spontaneously, creating an airburst that causes substantial damage without cratering. Such airbursts are potentially more destructive than are ground impacts of similar-size objects. 4. A stony meteorite 1 to 2 meters in diameter traveling at high supersonic speeds created an impact crater in Peru in September 2007. According to current models with standard assumptions, such a small object should not have impacted the surface at such a high velocity. This case demonstrates that specific instances can vary widely from the norm and is a reminder that small NEOs can also be dangerous. 5. On October 6, 2008, asteroid 2008 TC3 was observed by the Catalina Sky Survey (see Chapter 3) on a collision course with Earth. Although the object was deemed too small to pose much of a threat,
the Spaceguard Survey and the Minor Planet Center (see Chapter 3) acted rapidly to coordinate an observation campaign over the following 19 hours, with both professionals and amateurs to observe the object and determine its trajectory. The 2- to 5-meterdiameter object entered the atmosphere on October 7, 2008, and the consequent fireball was observed over northern Sudan (Figure 2.2) (Jenniskens et al., 2009). Subsequent ground searches in the Nubian Desert in Sudan located 3.9 kilograms (in 280 fragments) of material from the meteorite. These recent events, as well as the current understanding of impact processes and

the population of small bodies across the solar system but especially in the near-Earth environment, raise significant concerns about the current state of knowledge of potentially hazardous objects and the ability to respond to the threats that they might pose to humanity. Were passing through a cosmic cycle with ten times the risk of asteroid impact DAILY GALAXY 2-11-2010 (A Deadly Orbit? http://www.dailygalaxy.com/my_weblog/2010/02/a-deadly-orbit-the-solarsystems-journey-through-the-milky-way.html)

Is there a genocidal countdown built into the motion of our solar system? Recent work at Cardiff University suggests that our system's orbit through the Milky Way encounters regular speedbumps - and by "speedbumps" we mean "potentially extinction-causing asteroids". Professor William Napier and Dr Janaki Wickramasinghe have completed
computer simulations of the motion of the Sun in our outer spiral-arm location in the Milky Way (image left of spiral arms). These

models reveal a regular oscillation through the central galactic plane, where the surrounding dust clouds are the densest. The solar system is a non-trivial object, so its gravitational effects set off a far-reaching planetoid-pinball machine which often ends with comets hurled into the intruding system. The sun is about 26,000 light-years from
the center of the Milky Way Galaxy, which is about 80,000 to 120,000 light-years across (and less than 7,000 light-years thick). We are located on on one of its spiral arms, out towards the edge. It takes the sun -and our solar system- roughly 200-250 million years to orbit once around the Milky Way. In this orbit, we are traveling at a velocity of about 155 miles/sec (250 km/sec). Many of the

ricocheted rocks collide with planets on their way through our system, including Earth. Impact craters recorded worldwide show correlations with the ~37 million year-cycle of these journeys through the

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galactic plane - including the vast impact craters thought to have put an end to the dinosaurs two cycles ago. Almost exactly two cycles ago, in fact. The figures show that we're very close to another danger zone, when the odds of asteroid impact on Earth go up by a factor of ten. Ten times a tiny chance might not seem like much, but when "Risk of Extinction" is on the table that single order of magnitude can look much more imposing.
Worse, Bruce Willis will only be available to save us for another fifty years at most. But you have to remember that ten times a very small number is still a very small number - and Earth has been struck by thousands of asteroids without any exciting extinction events. A rock doesn't just have to hit us, it has to be large enough to survive the truly fearsome forces that cause most to burn up on re-entry.

EXT. ASTERIODS = EXTINCTION

The impact is extinction McGUIRE 2002 (Bill, Professor of Geohazards at University College London and is one of Britain's leading volcanologists, A
Guide to the End of the World, p. 159-168) The Tunguska events pale into insignificance when compared to what happened off the coast of Mexico's Yucatan Peninsula 65 million years earlier. Here a 10-kilometre asteroid or cometits exact nature is uncertaincrashed into the sea and changed our world forever. Within microseconds, an unimaginable explosion released as much energy

as billions of Hiroshima bombs detonated simultaneously, creating a titanic fireball hotter than the Sun that vaporized the ocean and excavated a crater 180 kilometres across in the crust beneath. Shock waves blasted upwards, tearing the atmosphere apart and expelling over a hundred trillion tonnes of molten rock into space, later to fall across the globe. Almost immediately an area bigger than Europe would have been flattened and scoured of virtually all life, while massive earthquakes rocked the planet. The atmosphere would have howled and screamed as hypercanes five times more powerful than the strongest hurricane ripped the landscape apart, joining forces with huge
tsunamis to batter coastlines many thousandsof kilometres distant. Even worse was to follow. As the rock blasted into space began to rain down across the entire planet so the heat generated by its re-entry into the atmosphere irradiated the surface, roasting animals alive as effectively as an oven grill, and starting great conflagrations that laid waste the world's forests and grasslands and turned fully a quarter of all living material to ashes. Even once the atmosphere and oceans had settled down, the crust had stopped shuddering, and the bombardment of debris from space had ceased, more was to come. In the following weeks, smoke and dust in the atmosphere blotted out the Sun and brought temperatures plunging by as much as 15 degrees Celsius. In the growing gloom and bitter cold the surviving plant life wilted and died while those herbivorous dinosaurs that remained slowly starved. global wildfires and acid rain from the huge quantities of sulphur injected into the atmosphere from rocks at the site of the impact poured into the oceans, wiping out threequarters of all marine life. After years of freezing conditions the gloom following the so-called Chicxulub impact would eventually have lifted, only to reveal a terrible Sun blazing through the tatters of an ozone layer torn apart by the chemical action of nitrous oxides concocted in the impact fireball: an ultraviolet spring hard on the heels of the cosmic winter that fried many of the remaining species struggling precariously to hang on to life. So enormously was the natural balance of the Earth upset that according to some it might have taken hundreds of thousands of years for the postChicxulub Earth to return to what passes for normal. When it did the age of the great reptiles was finally over, leaving the field to the primitive mammalsour distant ancestorsand opening an evolutionary trail that culminated in the rise and rise of the human race. But could we go the same way1?To assess the chances, let me look a little more closely at the destructive power of an impact event. At Tunguska, destruction of the forests resulted partly from the great heat generated by the explosion, but mainly from the blast wave that literally pushed the trees over and flattened them against the ground. The strength of this blast wave depends upon what is called the peak overpressure, that is the difference between ambient pressure and the pressure of the blastwave. In order to cause severe destruction thisnccds to exceed 4. pounds per square inch, an overpressure that results in wind speeds that arc over twice the force of those found in a typical hurricane. Even though tiny compared with, say, the land area of London, the enormous overpressures generated by a 50-metre object exploding low overhead would cause damage comparable with the detonation of a very large nuclear device, obliterating almost everything within the city's orbital motorway. Increase the size of the impactor and things get very much worse. An asteroid just 250 metres across would be sufficiently massive to penetrate the atmosphere; blasting a crater 5 kilometres across and devastating an area of around 10,000 square kilometres that is about the size of the English county of Kent. Raise the size of the asteroid again, to 650 metres, and the area of devastation increases to ioo;ooo square kilometresabout the size of the US state of South Carolina. Terrible as this all sounds, however, even this would be insufficient to affect the entire planet. In order to do this, an impactor has to be at least 1 kilometre across, if it is one of the speedier comets, or 1.5 kilometres in diameter if it is one of the slower asteroids. A collision with one of these objects would generate a blast equivalent to 100.000 million tonnes of TNT, which would obliterate an area 500 kilometres across say the size of Englandand kill perhaps tens of millions of people, depending upon the location of the impact. The real problems for the rest of the world would start soon after as dust in the atmosphere began to darken the skies and reduce the level of sunlight reaching the Earth's surface. By comparison with the huge Chicxulub impact it is certain that this would result in a dramatic lowering of global temperatures but there is no consensus on just how bad this would be. The chances are, however, that an impact of this size would result in appalling weather conditions and crop failures at least as severe as those of the 'Year Without a Summer'; 'which followed the 1815 eruption of Indonesia's Tambora volcano. As mentioned in the last chapter, with even developed countries holding sufficient food to feed their populations for only a month or so, large-scale crop failures across the planet would undoubtedly have serious implications.

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Rationing, at the very least, is likely to be die result, with a worst case scenario seeing widespread disruption of the social and economic fabric of developed nations. In the developing world, where subsistence farming remains very much the norm,

wide-spread failure of the harvests could be expected to translate rapidly into famine on a biblical scale Some researchers forecast that as many as a quarter of the world's population could succumb to a deteriorating climate following an impact in the 11.5 kilometre size range. Anything bigger and photosynthesis stops completely. Once this happens the issue is not how many people will die but whether the human race will survive. One estimate proposes that the impact of an object just 4- kilometres across will inject sufficient quantities of dust and debris into the atmosphere to reduce light levels below those required for photosynthesis. Because we still don't know how many threatening objects there are out there nor whether they come in bursts, it is
almost impossible to say when the Earth will be struck by an asteroid or comet that will bring to an end the world as we know it. Impact events on the scale of the Chicxulub dinosaur-killer only occur every several tens of millions of years, so in any single year the chances of such an impact arc tiny. Any optimism is, however, tempered by the fact that should the Shiva hypothesis be truethe next swarm of Oort Cloud comets could even now be speeding towards the inner solar system. Failing this, we may have only another thousand years to wait until the return of the dense part of the Taurid Complex and another asteroidal assault. Even if it turns out that there is no coherence in the timing of impact events, there is statistically no reason

why we cannot be hit next year by an undiscovered Earth-Crossing Asteroid or by a long-period comet that has never before visited the inner solar system. Small impactors on the Tunguska scale struck Brazil in 1931 and
Greenland in 1097, and will continue to pound the Earth every few decades. Because their destructive footprint is tiny compared to the surface area of the Earth, however, it would be very bad luck if one of these hit an urban area, and most will fall in the sea. Although this might seem a good thing, a larger object striking the ocean would be very bad news indeed. A 500-metre rock landing in the Pacific Basin, for example, would generate gigantic tsunamis that would obliterate just about every coastal city in the hemisphere within 20 hours or so. The chances of this happening arc actually quite highabout 1 per cent in the next 100 yearsand the death toll could well top half a billion. Estimates of the frequencies of impacts in the 1 kilometre size bracket range from 100,000 to 333,000 years, but the youngest impact crater produced by an object of this size is almost a million years old. Of course, there could have been several large impacts since, which cither occurred in the sea or have not yet been located on land. Fair enough you might say, the threat is clearly out there, but is there anything on the horizon? Actually, there is. Some 13 asteroidsmostly quite smallcould feasibly collide with the Earth before 2100. Realistically, however, this is not very likely as the probabilities involved arc not much greater than 1 in io;ooo although bear in mind that these arc pretty good odds. If this was the probability of winning the lottery then my local agent would be getting considerably more of my business. There is another enigmatic object out there, however. Of the 40 or so Near Earth Asteroids spotted last year, one designated 2000SG344looked at first as if it might actually hit us. The object is small, in the 100 metre size range, and its orbit is so similar to the earth that some have suggested it may be a booster rocket that sped one of the Apollo spacecraft on its way to the Moon. Whether hunk of rock or lump of man-made metal, it was originally estimated that 2000SG344 had a 1 in 500 chance of striking the Earth on 21 September 2030. Again, these may sound very long odds, but they are actually only five times greater than those recently offered during summer 2001 for England beating Germany 5-1 at football. We can all relax now anyway, as recent calculations have indicated that the object will not approach closer to the Earth than around five million kilometres. A few years ago, scientists came up with an index to measure the impact threat, known as the Torino Scale, and so far 2000SG2144 is the first object to register a value greater than zero. The potential impactor originally scraped into category 1, events meriting careful monitoring. Let's hope that many years elapse before we encounter the first category 10 eventdefined as 'a certain collision with global consequences'. Given sufficient warning we might be able to nudge an asteroid out of the Earth's way but due to its size, high velocity, and sudden appearance, wc could do little about a new comet heading in our direction.

Asteroid impact would cause human extinction PURGAVIE 1994 (Dermot, Mail on Sunday, June 12)
It's out there somewhere. A big galactic boulder with bad intentions. The

doomsday rock. Travelling at 54,000mph, it is on a collision course with the Earth, packed with 10,000 times more energy than all the world's nuclear weapons. It could hit with the percussive force of 100 million megatons of TNT, punching a crater 25 miles deep and 112 miles

wide, creating a vast fireball and a 20,000mph shockwave. Vaporised stone burns a hole through the atmosphere, the nitrogen and oxygen in the air combine as nitric acid and the entire planet is shrouded in a cloud of dust and debris that blocks out sunlight. In the cold and the dark, all plants and animals perish, man becomes extinct, civilisation ends. A killer asteroid, like the one that did for the dinosaurs, has now done for us too. Relax. Do not cancel your holidays. The Earth-crushing, lifequenching asteroid probably won't arrive this year, perhaps not this decade, maybe not in the next century. On the other hand, who knows? It's out there and it's coming. The sky really is falling. It's just a matter of when. In the perilous game of cosmic pinball, there are perhaps 4,000 asteroids on an orbit that intersects with Earth's that are big enough - half a mile in diameter and up - to snuff us out or at least blast us back to the Stone Age. And the experts say that the chances of the world and one of them arriving at the same place at the same apocalyptic moment have become relatively high in celestial terms. Distilled to the comprehensible - Ladbroke's terms - it is not especially comforting. The end may be nigher than we thought. On the index of dismal expectations, it now seems that it may not be nuclear war, global warming or another ice age that finishes us off, but a space rock that has strayed out of its lane between Jupiter and Mars. The odds are, well, not astronomical. Scientists reckon that 'a big one' slams into the Earth every 300,000 years, but, rather more compellingly, they calculate that the chances of being barbecued by an errant asteroid over the next 50 years are now down to about one in 10,000. To put this into bleak, actuarial perspective, serious space watchers are saying that we and our children might be twice as likely to end up dead at the

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wrong end of an asteroid as we are to be killed in a plane crash. 'It's just a matter of time,' says Eugene Shoemaker, the eminent astronomer who was awarded the National Medal of Science for his pioneering research on Earth-approaching asteroids and comets. 'There's a high potential for a catastrophic disaster,' says Greg Canavan, senior scientific adviser at Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico. 'It could wipe out everybody.' 'Eventually it will hit and be catastrophic,' says Dr Tom Gehrels, professor of lunar and planetary science at the University of Arizona. 'The largest near-Earth asteroid we know of is about six miles in diameter. If a thing like that hit, the explosion would be a billion times bigger than Hiroshima.' Menace from outer space has tended to be dismissed as an invention of imaginative novels and B movies. In fact, two-thirds of all the species that ever swam, flew, crawled or walked on Earth were made extinct by violent intrusions from space, but man is the first one able to anticipate the threat, and the first, perhaps, to do something to prevent it. The danger of cosmic incoming first got a lot of people's attention in 1989 when a half-mile-wide asteroid missed the Earth by only 700,000 miles, an astral hair's breadth. Worse for the global neuroses, nobody saw it approaching, and if it had arrived just six hours later there might have been a world-extinguishing collision. 'Earth runs its course around the sun in a swarm of asteroids,' says Donald Yeomans, of Nasa's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in California. 'Sooner or later our planet will be struck by one of them.'

Asteroid impact would cause human extinctionwe massively underestimate the risk relative to other threats CHICHILNISKY AND EISENBERGER 2010 (Graciela Chichilnisky and Peter Eisenberger, Columbia University,
Asteroids: Assessing Catastrophic Risks, Journal of Probability and Statistics, http://www.hindawi.com/journals/jps/2010/954750/) Sixty five million years ago, an asteroid crashed into earth. Global winds distributed the dust throughout the atmosphere, blocking sunlight, and many life forms that relied on the sun eventually perished. In a short period of time, experts believe, the mighty dinosaurs that dominated our planet went extinct. Realistically the same fate awaits us. Over

99.99% of the species that have ever existed are now extinct
1, 2. If our species survives long enough, we will be exposed to an asteroid and could suffer the same the dinosaurs. The data suggests that asteroids of that caliber will hit our planet on average once every 100 million years

fate as

2. The last one was 65 million years ago. Under current conditions, when the next one hits the earth, humans and many other species could go extinct. What should we do about this threat to our survival and others like it? And if the issue is serious, why is this

issue getting so little attention whereas the less catastrophic threat of global warming is in the news almost daily?The purpose of this paper is to provide answers to these questions. We examine systematically how to deal with catastrophic
risks such as asteroid impacts, which are small-probability events with enormous consequences, events that could threaten the survival of our species, and compare their treatment with risks like global warming that are more imminent and familiar but possibly less catastrophic. The task is not easy. Classic tools for risk management are notoriously poor for managing catastrophic risks, (see Posner [2] and Chichilnisky [3, 4]). There is an understandable tendency to ignore rare events, such as an asteroid impact, which are unlikely to occur in our lifetimes or those of our families [2, 5]. Yes this is a

questionable instinct at this stage of human evolution where our knowledge enables to identify such risks. Standard decision tools make this task difficult. We show using the existing data that a major disturbance caused by global
warming of less than 1 % of GDP overwhelms in expected value the costs associated with an asteroid impact that can plausibly lead to the extinction of the human species. We show that the expected value of the loss caused by an asteroid that leads to extinctionis between $ 5 0 0 million and $ 9 2 billion. A loss of this magnitude is smaller than that of a failure of a single atomic plantthe Russians lost more than $ 1 4 0 billion with the accident at Chernobylor with the potential risks involved in global warming that is between $ 8 9 0 billion and $ 9 . 7 trillion [2]. Using expected values therefore we are led to believe that preventing

asteroid impacts should not rank high in our policy priorities. Common sense rebels against the computation we just provided. The ability to anticipate and plan for threats that have never been experienced by any current or past member of the species and are unlikely to happen in our lifespans, appears to be unique to our species. We need to use a risk management approach that enables us to deal more effectively with such threats [2]. To overcome this problem this paper summarizes a new axiomatic approach to catastrophic risks that
updates current methods developed initially by John Von Neumann, see Chichilnisky [3, 4, 69], and offers practical figures to evaluate possible policies that would protect us from asteroid impacts. Our conclusion is that we are underinvesting in preventing the risk of asteroid like threats. Much can and should be done at a relatively small cost; this paper suggests a methodology and a range of dollar values that should be spent to protect against such risks to help prevent the extinction of our species.

No impact can outweigh thisnothing else threatens extinction McGUIRE 2002 (Bill, Professor of Geohazards at University College London and is one of Britain's leading volcanologists, A
Guide to the End of the World, p. 173-174) Probably the only piece of good news that can be taken away from my brief look at the end of the world as we know it is that although this is going to happen and soonthe survival of our race seems to be assured, for now at least. Leaving aside the possibility of a major comet or asteroid impact on a scale of the dinosaur-killer 65 million years ago which only happen every few hundred million yearsit is highly unlikely that anything else is going to wipe out every single last one of usall 6 billion plusin the foreseeable future. Even the replacement of the world with which we have become so familiar with one of sweltering heat or bitter cold might not seem as scary for those of our descendants likely to be in the thick of things. After all, we are a remarkably adaptable species, and can change to match new

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circumstances with some aplomb. Familiar 'worlds' have certainly ended many times before, as no doubt a centenarian born and
raised while Queen Victoria sat on the throne of the United Kingdom, and who lived to sec man land on the moon, would testify. The danger is, however, that the world of our children and those that follow will be a world of struggle and strife with little prospect of, and perhaps little enthusiasm for, progress as the Victorians viewed it. Indeed, it would not be entirely surprising if, at some future time, as the great coastal cities sink beneath the waves or below sheets of ice, the general consensus did not hold that there had been quite enough progress thank youat least for a while. While I have tried in these pages to extrapolate current trends and ideas to tease out and examine somewhat depressing scenarios for the future of our planet and our race, I am sure that, to some extent at least, you would be justified in accusing me of a failure of the imagination. After all, I have rarely looked ahead beyond a few tens of thousands of years, and yet our Sun will still be bathing our planet in its life-giving warmth for another 5 billion years or more. Who knows, over that incomprehensible length of time, what Homo sapiens and the species that evolve from us will do and become. Our species and those that follow may be knocked back time and time again in the short term, but provided we learn to nurture our environment rather than exploit it, both here on Earthbefore the Sun eventually swallows it upand later, perhaps, in the solar system and the galaxy and beyond, then we have the time to do and be almost anything. Maybe now is the right time to start.

Asteroids are more catastrophic than 1000 nukes Easterbrook 8- fellow at Brookings
(Gregg, June, Atlantic Magazing, The Sky Is Falling http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2008/06/the-sky-isfalling/6807/) Breakthrough ideas have a way of seeming obvious in retro-spect, and about a decade ago, a Columbia University geophysicist named Dallas Abbott had a breakthrough idea. She had been pondering the craters left by comets and asteroids that smashed into Earth. Geologists had counted them and concluded that space strikes are rare events and had occurred mainly during the era of primordial mists. But, Abbott realized, this deduction was based on the number of craters found on landand because 70 percent of Earths surface is water, wouldnt most space objects hit the sea? So she began searching for underwater craters caused by impacts rather than by other forces, such as volcanoes. What she has found is spine-chilling: evidence that several enormous asteroids or comets have slammed into our planet quite recently, in geologic terms. If Abbott is right, then you may be here today, reading this magazine, only because by sheer chance those objects struck the ocean rather than land. Abbott believes that a space object about 300 meters in diameter hit the Gulf of Carpentaria, north of Australia, in 536 A.D. An object that size, striking at up to 50,000 miles per hour, could release as much energy as 1,000 nuclear bombs. Debris, dust, and gases thrown into the atmosphere by the impact would have blocked sunlight, temporarily cooling the planetand indeed, contemporaneous accounts describe dim skies, cold summers, and poor harvests in 536 and 537. A most dread portent took place, the Byzantine historian Procopius wrote of 536; the sun gave forth its light without brightness. Frost reportedly covered China in the summertime. Still, the harm was mitigated by the ocean impact. When a space object strikes land, it kicks up more dust and debris, increasing the global-cooling effect; at the same time, the combination of shock waves and extreme heating at the point of impact generates nitric and nitrous acids, producing rain as corrosive as battery acid. If the Gulf of Carpentaria object were to strike Miami today, most of the city would be leveled, and the atmospheric effects

could trigger crop failures around the world.

Kilometer wide asteroids could create a nuclear wintercausing extinction

National Post 02 quoting Dave Balam, research associate in physics and astronomy at University of Victoria, one of the world's lead trackers of dangerous asteroids and comets
(8/29 August 29, 2002 Thursday National Edition Giant air bag could save Earth in cosmic collision, by Tom Blackwell, lexis, d.a. 6/22)

Asteroids a kilometre-wide could cause catastrophic damage and create years of nuclear winter for a continent. Giant, 10-kilometre-wide rocks, like one that wiped out the dinosaurs 65 million years ago, would "sterilize" the planet, said Mr. Balam.

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Satellites connect remote areas and give consumers competition.

Air Force 9/6/03 (US Air Force>Air University>Spaatz Center; U.S. Satellite Communication Systems; accessed 7/13/11)
In addition, satellites

systems are often exploited for their unique ability to easily access remote locations. These advantages make satellite technology not only a routine element of normal operations, but also an essential component of the overall nationwide and global communications architecture for businesses and
governments alike. In rural areas where terrestrial based communications solutions do not reach all residents -- satellite broadband, satellite television, satellite radio, and a host of other satellite services provide consumers and businesses with a wealth of voice, video, and data services and applications they otherwise would not have access to from terrestrial providers. Furthermore, in areas where terrestrial services are available, satellite services give consumers all the benefits of competition, including

greater diversity of service offerings, incentives for improving service quality, and downward pressure on pricing. Satellites can also interconnect terrestrial networks in the event that those networks become unavailable or congested, allowing traffic to be re-routed and thereby increasing overall end-to-end communication availability. Satellite systems are flexible and they can quickly and cost-effectively provide surge capacity on demand to our businesses and consumers. Further, innovative integrated satellite-terrestrial systems
are planned to be deployed, which will provide fully interoperable, reliable communications services to all Americans.

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***Solvency
General EDDE EDDE can clean up space in 7 years Gohring 10 Nancy Gohring, staff writer for Techworld Magazine. August 16, 2010. DARPA invests
in giant net to catch trash. <http://news.techworld.com/sme/3235495/darpa-invests-in-giant-space-nets-tocatch-trash/> Forget reality for a minute and try to picture an elegant solution to the problem of space garbage. Imagine that each piece of trash floats in space like a butterfly that can be gently scooped up with a net, preventing collisions. Turns out, that's pretty close to reality. It's the concept behind the Electrodynamic Debris Eliminator, or EDDE, a space vehicle being developed by Star Inc with funding from the US Defense Advanced Research Project Agency. Jerome Pearson, president of Star Inc, presented the idea for what he calls "a space garbage truck" on Friday at the annual Space Elevator conference. Pearson was an early proponent of the idea of building a space elevator, and a paper he wrote about it in 1975 inspired the description of a space elevator in Arthur C Clarke's science fiction book, The Fountains of Paradise, which popularised the idea. Space garbage happens to be one of the biggest obstacles to building a space elevator. Pearson's proposed EDDE vehicle will come equipped with around 200 nets, like butterfly nets, that it extends to scoop up garbage in low-earth orbit. Over a period of seven years, 12 EDDE vehicles could capture all 2,465 identified objects over 2 kilograms floating in LEO, Pearson says.

EDDEs solve bestcomparative Jerome Pearson, STAR president, DoD and NASA tech developer, once researcher for NASA and the Air Force Research Laboratory, 10. Active Debris Removal: EDDE, the Electrodynamic Debris
Eliminator, prepared for the International Astronautical Congress, http://www.star-techinc.com/papers/EDDE_IAC_Final_Paper.pdf These rates are possible over altitudes of about 300 km to 1000 km, and are reduced at higher altitudes by lower magnetic field strength and plasma density. A bare EDDE vehicle without a payload could go from the International Space Station 51.6 inclination orbit to 90 inclination polar orbit in about 3 weeks, a delta- V of nearly 5 km/sec. Using conventional rockets for space debris removal is extremely difficult. To launch a satellite into low Earth orbit, it must be given a velocity of 7 or 8 km/sec. With chemical propellants, even our best launch vehicles put only about 4% of the total launch mass into orbit. But to change the orbit of a satellite already in orbit can require even higher velocities. For example, to move a satellite from equatorial to polar orbit takes 1.4 times the orbital velocity, or about 10-11 km/sec. It would actually be easier to launch another satellite from the ground than to make this orbit change! Launching a chemical rocket from the ground to remove the debris, each piece in its own orbit, would be extremely expensive. The enormous advantage that the propellantless EDDE vehicle has over conventional rockets is shown in Table II, which compares different propulsion systems in performing the task of removing the 2465 objects in LEO weighing over 2 kg. Propulsion System Isp, sec Number of Vehicles Total Mass in Orbit Bipropellant 300 900 800 tons NH3 Arcjet 800 300 250 tons Ion Rocket 3,000 120 65 tons VASIMR 10,000 30 25 tons EDDE --- 12 1 ton Table II: Propulsion System Requirements for Debris Removal A typical bipropellant chemical rocket might have specific impulse of 300 seconds, and the table shows that this task would require 900 vehicles weighing 800 tons. Higher-Isp systems include arc jets, ion rockets, and the recently-tested Variable Specific Impulse Magneto-plasma Rocket (VASIMR) championed by former NASA astronaut Franklin Chang-Diaz of Ad Astra11. These systems also require higher power. But even VASIMR would require 25 tons in orbit to remove all the debris, more than 20 times the mass of 12 EDDEs, a little over 1 ton. Twelve EDDEs could remove all 2465.

EDDE solves better than tethers or chemical rockets

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Jerome Pearson, STAR president, DoD and NASA tech developer, once researcher for NASA and the Air Force Research Laboratory, 10. Active Debris Removal: EDDE, the Electrodynamic Debris Eliminator, prepared for the International Astronautical Congress, http://www.star-techinc.com/papers/EDDE_IAC_Final_Paper.pdf There are other methods for debris removal using electrodynamic tethers, but they are far less effective and far more risky than EDDE. It has been suggested that rockets could be used in a single orbit inclination to attach drag devices such as balloons or passive electrodynamic tethers to drag the debris down. Debris removal using chemical rockets will be much more expensive by itself, but there is also another problem. These devices do not actively control the debris for collision avoidance during deorbit, have much larger collision cross-sections than the debris, and add to the collision risk during their longer de-orbit times. Using passive electrodynamic tethers, for example, would require having multikilometer tethers on hundreds of objects over years as they slowly spiral down to re-entry. This would result in a huge additional collision risk, especially to ISS. By contrast, EDDE removes debris objects quickly, each object within days, and actively avoids all tracked objects while dragging debris to disposal.

EDDE key to check an escalating space debris problem Paul Marks, New Scientist senior tech correspondent, 2/12/11. Clearing the Heavens,
One Piece at a Time, New Scientist volume 209, issue 2799 via Science Direct As the cloud of space junk shrouding the Earth grows ever denser, the most sophisticated garbage collectors of all time are taking shape IN SEPTEMBER 2009 a giant robotic arm beneath the International Space Station plucked an uncrewed Japanese cargo ship from the void of space. It was the first time this spectacular capture mechanism had been tried, but this robotic grab was no one-off. On 27 January this year, the Japanese space agency, JAXA, was involved again with HTV2, its second cargo craft (pictured). The feats show that "robotic capture" can be a reliable option in orbit. Their success was critical for engineers developing technologies designed to clear space debris, because they need related orbital snatch-and-grab technology to drag defunct satellites to a lower orbit to burn up on re-entry. This matters because there are now 22,000 human-made objects larger than 10 centimetres across in orbit and half a million larger than 1 centimetre -- and all pose a grave risk to space missions. More debris is on its way. Hugh Lewis, a space scientist at the University of Southampton in the UK, has calculated that the debris population in low Earth orbit will increase by at least 33 per cent over the next two centuries. Even if space agencies never launched another rocket, the cloud of debris will continue to grow as pieces of space junk crash into one another. There are a number of ideas about how best to go about clearing up this mess. At Star Technology and Research (STR) in Mount Pleasant, South Carolina, Jerome Pearson proposes a scheme in which a spacecraft comprising a conducting-cable tether would orbit Earth, grabbing debris and casting it into lower orbits (see diagram, far right). Studded with solar arrays that generate electric current in the cable, STR's Electro Dynamic Debris Eliminator (EDDE) slowly rotates and uses the current's interaction with Earth's magnetic field to change its orbit. EDDE is manoeuvred until it matches orbits with the target, and rotates so it either robotically grabs the junk or ensnares it in a net. The debris can then be slung into a lower, re-entry orbit or EDDE can descend and then release it.

Active Debris Removal Key

Even removing a few key objects of space debris is sufficient to solve
Ansdell 10 [Megan Graduate student in International Science and Technology Policy at GWU Elliott School of International Affairs, focusing in space policy. Princeton University Journal of Public and International Affairs. Spring. http://www.princeton.edu/jpia/past-issues-1/2010/Space-Debris-Removal.pdf Active Space Debris Removal] A recent NASA study that simulated active debris removal over the next 200 years showed that certain pieces of space debris are more dangerous than others, in that they are more likely to cause debris-creating collisions (Liou and Johnson 2007). These more dangerous objects have masses of 1,000 to 1,500

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kilograms and 2,500 to 3,000 kilograms; orbital inclina- tions of 70 to 75, 80 to 85, and 95 to 100 degrees; and orbital altitudes of 800 to 850, 950 to 1,000, and 1,450 to 1,500 kilometers. The study found that annually removing as few as five of these objects will significantly stabilize the future space debris environment (Liou and Johnson 2007, 3). These results suggest that the threat posed by space debris could be significantly reduced by annually removing several large pieces from criti- cal orbits. This would make effective space debris removal much more straightforward and potentially manageable by one nation or a small group of nations. In other words, the countries responsible for the majority of the current space debris populationChina, Russia, and the United States not only should take responsibility, but also now can take responsibility. Efforts to develop removal systems should begin immediately.

Even removing a few objects a year could stabilize the LEO environment Liou, Johnson, and Hill 10
[J.-C. Liou - NASA Johnson Space Center,, N.L. Johnson, N.M. Hill - ESCG/MEI Controlling the growth of future LEO debris populations with active debris removal Acta Astronautica 66 (2010) 648653] The spatial density distributions for objects 10cm and larger are compared in Fig. 5. The long, dashed curve is the environment at the beginning of the future projection. Re- sults from the PMD simulations (bold curve) indicate that the fastest debris growth region is between 800 and 1000 km al- titudes, where massive payloads and rocket bodies currently reside, and higher collision probabilities are expected. Even without specifying altitude, the removal criterion based on mass and collision probability effectively reduces the popu- lation growth in that critical altitude regime. With a removal rate of two objects per year, the projected LEO environment (dotted curve) is significantly lower than that predicted by the PMD scenario. With a removal rate of five objects per year, the LEO environment in 200 years, shown as the thin curve with diamonds, is similar to the current one. 4. Concluding remarks Any future debris environment simulations must rely on certain assumptions. Those adopted in the present study fall into two basic categories. The first category consists of assumptions considered to be typical by most modeling groups, such as the repeats of an 8-year launch cycle and an average solar activity cycle. The second category consists of assumptions which appear to be reasonable. These include the start time of ADR (the year 2020), the 90% success rate of the implementation of the commonly-adopted mitigation measures, and the immediate removal of objects identified for ADR. Each assumption has a different impact on the simulation's outcome [8]. It is a straightforward task to repeat similar numerical simulations with different parameters to encompass what is needed to stabilize the future LEO debris environment. In all likelihood, based on similar launch traffic, solar activity cycle, and mitigation measures, the results should be similar to what is shown above, i.e., it would re- quire removing about 5 objects per year, as opposed to, say, 50 per year, to keep the future LEO environment stable. If more objects are removed, then the future LEO debris pop- ulation could be lower than what is in the current environment.

The aff is the only cost-effective solution for debris removal-other methods fail

Imburgia 11, [Joseph Imburgia is a Judge Advocate in the United States Air Force and is presently assigned as a legal
exchange officer to the Directorate of Operations and International Law, He is a member of the Supreme Court of the United States, member of the Society of International Law. Space Debris and Its Threat to National Security: A Proposal for a Binding International Agreement to Clean Up the Junk, May, The Vanderbilt University Law School, Lexis Nexis] Undoubtedly, technological accomplishments in the area of space debris removal are necessary to solve this problem. "Despite natural clearing, deorbiting, and debris mitigation measures, the [space [*627] debris] population is growing and so is the risk of collisions." n306 NASA scientists J.C. Liou and Nicholas Johnson believe that space debris mitigation measures will not be enough to constrain Earth's space debris population. n307 Instead, they argue that only "the removal of existing [space debris] can prevent future problems for research in and commercialization of space." n308 The European Space Agency agrees. According to its 2009 "Key Findings from the 5th European Conference on Space Debris," the European Space Agency believes that space debris mitigation is not enough to

maintain a safe space debris environment; active debris removal from orbit is the necessary next step. n309 Because removal of debris is the only long-term solution, implementing a binding international treaty on this issue can only assist in drawing attention to the need for cost-effective debris-removal techniques. n310 Legal necessity can sometimes be the mother of invention. Currently, there
are few cost-effective ways to remove space debris, n311 but NASA and the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency are working on viable solutions. n312 Retrieval by the U.S. Space Shuttle or Russian Soyuz could be a viable solution for old satellites in LEO. n313 An easier and less costly way to remove defunct satellites from LEO is to limit the time that those satellites remain in orbit: after its effective life, a satellite could disperse enough residual fuel to allow it to deorbit for a destructive reentry or a controlled [*628] disposal over the ocean. n314 The cost for this

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Space Debris Aff extra fuel to the satellite, however, would increase the launch costs due to increases in total mass at launch. n316 Another option is to increase
"residual fuel" technique is estimated to be low. n315 Adding the drag on a satellite by attaching tethers that can be deployed at the end of the satellite's effective life to cause a corresponding increase in atmospheric drag that would subsequently result in atmospheric reentry. n317 These postmission deorbiting options are currently "advocated by the major space-faring nations and organizations of the world, including NASA, the Department of Defense, the Department of Transportation, and the Federal Communications Commission in the United States." n318 Unfortunately, it is not yet possible to effectively deorbit satellites in GEO. n319 The only cost-effective option is to move defunct GEO satellites into

"graveyard orbits" where "dead" GEO satellites can move and stay until the requisite technology is developed to collect them. n320 This solution would require the satellite to have and save enough fuel to accomplish the transfer, and that additional fuel would also increase launch costs. n321 Moreover, this solution fails to offer long-term relief; it only rearranges the chairs on the deck of the titanic space debris problem. n322 LiveScience speculated on a few futuristic alternative methods to clean up space debris. n323 The online magazine discussed such solutions as "giant NERF balls, space lasers and cosmic collection vehicles among other imaginative ways to tackle the growing problem." n324 According to NASA Scientist Nicholas [*629] Johnson, however, none of these solutions "meet all the requirements for a viable remediation technique."

Removing space debris is necessary and possible

Asimov 05 [Isaac was a professor of biochemistry at Boston University; genius writer of science essays, Space Junk p.
23, 7-16] If too much space debris accumulates around Earth, it could become impossible to find safe orbits for future satellites which might put an end to space exploration. To help avoid this, countries

with major space programs have in recent years tried to design and operate satellites and other spacecraft in ways that tend to keep the production of space junk at a minimum. Engineers have worked on making spacecraft less likely to break apart and better able to survive debris. Another approach is to remove dead satellite from orbit although this can be difficult expensive, depending on the situation. Sometimes satellites whose life is up are steered into the atmosphere, where they are destroyed. In some cases dying satellites are moved into out-the-way graveyard orbits, where they cant collide with active satellites. One of the tasks of some space shuttles missions has been to pick up satellites that arent working and repair them or remove them from space. In the future there may even be a way to sweep up the debris using lasers or some other powerful technology.

US Solves-HEG+ECON
Plan has political and economic advantages; US is should take Leadership role

Ansdell, 10 Megan focuses on space policy at the George Washington Universitys Elliot School of International Affairs,
second year graduate, Active Space Debris Removal: Needs, Implications and Recommendations for Todays Geopolitical Environment, www.princeton.edu/jpia/past-issues-1/2010/Space-Debris-Removal.pdf There are several reasons why the United States should take this leadership role, rather than China or Russia. First and foremost, the United States would be hardest hit by the loss of satellites services. It owns about half the roughly 800 operating satellites in orbit and its military is significantly more dependent upon them than any other entity (Moore 2008). For example, GPS precision-guided munitions are a key component of the new American way of war (Dolman 2006, 163-165), which allows the United States to remain a globally dominant military power while also waging war in accordance with its political and ethical values by enabling faster, less costly war fighting with minimal collateral damage (Sheldon 2005). The U.S. Department of Defense recognized the need to

of

protect U.S. satellite systems over ten years ago when it stated in its 1999 Space Policy that, the ability to access and utilize space is a vital national interest because many of the activities conducted in the medium are critical to U.S. national security and economic well-being (U.S. Department of
Defense 1999, 6). Clearly, the United States has a vested interest in keeping the near-Earth space environment free from threats like space debris and thus assuring U.S. access to space. Moreover, current U.S. National Space Policy asserts that the United States will take a leadership role in space debris minimization. This could include the development, deployment, and demonstration of an effective space debris removal system to remove U.S. debris as well as that of other nations, upon their request. There could also be international political and economic

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advantages associated with being the first country to develop this revolutionary technology. However,
there is always the danger of other nations simply benefiting from U.S. investment of its resources in this area. Thus, mechanisms should also be created to avoid a classic free rider situation. For example, techniques could be

employed to ensure other countries either join in the effort later on or pay appropriate fees to the United States for removal services.

Plan is necessary for US heg, international cooperation, and further sustainability of the economy

Ansdell, 10 Megan focuses on space policy at the George Washington Universitys Elliot School of International Affairs,
second year graduate, Active Space Debris Removal: Needs, Implications and Recommendations for Todays Geopolitical Environment, www.princeton.edu/jpia/past-issues-1/2010/Space-Debris-Removal.pdf

If the United States and other powerful governments do not take steps now to avert the potentially devastating effects of space debris, the issue risks becoming stalemated in a manner similar to climate change. Given the past hesitation of international forums in addressing the space debris issue, unilateral action is the most appropriate means of instigating space debris removal within the needed timeframe. The United States is well poised for a leadership role in space debris removal. Going forward, the U.S. government should work closely with the commercial sector in this endeavor, focusing on removing pieces of U.S. debris with the greatest potential to contribute to future collisions. It should also keep its space debris removal system as open and transparent as possible to allow for future international cooperation in this field. Although leadership in space debris removal will entail certain risks, investing early in preserving the near-Earth space environment is necessary to protect the satellite technology that is so vital to the U.S. military and day-to-day operations of the global economy. By instituting global space debris removal measures, a critical opportunity exists to mitigate and minimize the potential damage of space debris and ensure the sustainable development of the near-Earth space environment.

EDDE Solves Eliminates Debris EDDE gathers debris in a net and directs it to the atmosphere where it is incinerated
Editorial Intern at Maclean's, Editor in Chief at Queen's Journal, General Assignment Intern at The Kingston Whig-Standard[9/13/2010, Academic Search Premier, A Garbage Bag in Space, Vol. 123, Issue 35.]

Switzer 10-

An American firm has proposed a fix: scoop up spent rocket bodies, defunct satellites and fragments with a big net. Jerome Pearson, president of Mount Pleasant, S.C.-based STAR Inc., says the electrodynamic debris eliminator, or EDDE, would zip around using solar power and electrodynamic thrust. Then, using a tissue-dispenser-like net manager, it would release a net to envelop debris before tossing it in the ocean, putting it on a trajectory to burn up upon reentry, or recycling the material for future use. Pearson envisions the EDDE launching on an existing rocket.
Once in orbit, it would be controlled from a ground station. A full fleet would get rid of all debris under two kilos in seven years. But responsibility over ownership is an issue, says Eugene Stansbery, of the NASA orbital debris program office.

"The country that launches and operates a satellite is responsible for that debris, but there's no treaty that says anybody should go and clean it up," he says. With funding for EDDE development coming from the U.S. Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, security concerns have been raised. There is potential to develop space weapons to scoop operational satellites out of orbit, and Pearson says international treaties will need to be ironed out. A test flight will take place in 2014.

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EDDE Solves - Cost Effective

EDDE has no lauch cost since it can be launched with other space craft.
- Author of MARCUS: Moon and Mars Gravity in a LEO Satellite and LEO Mobility Vehicle for Space Situational Awareness, a Fellow of the British Interplanetary Society, an Associate Fellow of the AIAA, and member of the AIAA Space Colonization Technical Committee, and President of STAR, Inc [The Bent of Tau Beta Pi, The ElectroDynamic Debris Eliminator (EDDE): Removing Debris in Space, Spring, http://www.star-tech-inc.com/papers/EDDE_The_Bent.pdf]

Pearson 10

A further advantage of the propellantless spacecraft is that it folds compactly into a box 60 cm square and 30 cm deep. This allows it to be launched in one of the secondary payload slots of the Boeing Delta 4 or Lockheed Atlas 5 ESPA ring (Figure 4). It can also be launched as a secondary payload on the Orbital Sciences Pegasus airlaunched vehicle and the new SpaceX Falcon 1 and Falcon 9. If there is payload margin for the launch vehicle, then there is no additional cost to launch EDDE vehicles piggyback. One or two vehicles can fit into each secondary payload
slot, leaving room for several nanosatellites that EDDE can carry to custom orbits after the primary payload is released.

EDDE uses propulsion systems which are cheaper and more maneuverable than conventional, chemical rockets.
- Author of MARCUS: Moon and Mars Gravity in a LEO Satellite and LEO Mobility Vehicle for Space Situational Awareness, a Fellow of the British Interplanetary Society, an Associate Fellow of the AIAA, and member of the AIAA Space Colonization Technical Committee, and President of STAR, Inc [The Bent of Tau Beta Pi, The ElectroDynamic Debris Eliminator (EDDE): Removing Debris in Space, Spring, http://www.star-tech-inc.com/papers/EDDE_The_Bent.pdf]

Pearson 10

Using conventional rockets for space-debris removal is extremely expensive. A satellite launched into
low Earth orbit requires a velocity of 7 to 8 km/sec. With chemical propellants, even our best launch vehicles put only about four percent of the total launch mass into orbit. Changing the orbit of a satellite already in orbit can require even higher velocities. Launching a chemical rocket from the ground to remove the debris, each piece in its

own orbit, would be expensive and would leave upper stages as more debris. The enormous advantage that the propellantless EDDE vehicle has over conventional rockets is shown in Table 1, which compares different propulsion systems in performing the task of removing the 2,561 objects in LEO weighing over 2 kg. The performance of a rocket is commonly measured in specific impulse Isp, which in
English units of pound-seconds of thrust per pound of propellant expelled is measured in seconds. In SI units, this has the dimensions of velocitythe rocket exhaust velocity. A typical bipropellant chemical rocket might have Isp

of 300 seconds, and the table shows that this task would require 900 vehicles weighing 800 tons. Higher-Isp systems include arcjets, ion rockets, and the recently-tested variable specific impulse magnetoplasma rocket (VASIMR) championed by former NASA astronaut Franklin R. Chang-Diaz of Ad Astra Rocket Company. But even that would require 25 tons in orbit to remove all the debris, more than 20 times the oneton mass of 12 EDDEs. Twelve EDDEs could remove all 2,561 objects2,155 tonsin fewer than seven years.

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EDDE solves Uses Clean Energy

EDDE uses solar energy and the Earths magnetic pull to navigate efficiently

Pearson 10- Author of MARCUS: Moon and Mars Gravity in a LEO Satellite and LEO Mobility Vehicle for Space
Situational Awareness, a Fellow of the British Interplanetary Society, an Associate Fellow of the AIAA, and member of the AIAA Space Colonization Technical Committee, and President of STAR, Inc [The Bent of Tau Beta Pi, The ElectroDynamic Debris Eliminator (EDDE): Removing Debris in Space, Spring, http://www.star-tech-inc.com/papers/EDDE_The_Bent.pdf]

For typical values of a few kilowatts of electric power from large, thin-film solar cells, a few amps of current, and a 10-km-long conductor, the force is typically half a newton. This is a small force compared with typical rockets, but its advantage is that it operates continually, orbit after orbit, persistently changing the orbital elements to make large orbital changes. By
changing the direction of the current and the angle of the conductor, the force can be used to change every orbital element at once, including altitude, inclination, node, and eccentricity. The force can also be used to change the attitude of the conductor by changing the EDDE rotation rate and plane. By using lightweight solar arrays, a reinforced aluminum

ribbon conductor, and hollow cathodes at each end to run reversible currents, a typical EDDE spacecraft produces about 7 kw of power, weighs 100 kg, and can make large changes in orbit in a fairly short time. A bare EDDE vehicle without a payload can change its orbit by 1.5 in inclination and climb 160
km or descend 600 km each day at a typical 75 inclination orbit. These rates are possible over altitudes of 300 to 1,000 km, but are reduced at higher altitudes by lower magnetic field strength and plasma density. Such a vehicle could go from the ISS 51.6 inclination orbit to polar orbit in about three weeks, a change in velocity of nearly 5 km/sec.

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***AT: DA*** AT: Militarization DA No Link

The UN governs space debris cleanupno way EDDE would be used for military purposes. Frank Rose, Bureau of Arms Control Deputy Assistant Secretary for Verification and Compliance, 11/2/10. International Cooperation: Furthering U.S. National Space Policy and Goals at the
USSTRATCOM Space Symposium http://www.state.gov/t/avc/rls/150316.htm As was discussed earlier, congestion in space is becoming an increasingly difficult challenge and addressing it will require international action. There are now around 21,000 pieces of space debris in various Earth orbits in other words, about 6,000 metric tons of debris orbiting the Earth. Some of this debris was created accidentally through collisions or routine space launches, some was intentional such as the Chinese ASAT test in 2007. Not only is there a direct economic impact to this debris, it also adds to the overall magnitude of hazards in critical orbits, such as those used by the space shuttle and the International Space Station. For example, the space shuttle is impacted by debris repeatedly on every mission. In fact, debris poses the single largest threat to the shuttle and to the astronauts onboard during these missions. The typical risk of the space shuttle being critically impacted by debris is about one in 250. To address the growing problem of orbital debris, the United States plans to expand its engagement within the United Nations and with other governments and non-governmental organizations. We are continuing to lead the development and adoption of international standards to minimize debris, building upon the foundation of the U.N. Space Debris Mitigation Guidelines. The United States is also engaged with our European allies and partners and other like-minded nations on a multiyear study of long-term sustainability within the Scientific and Technical Committee of the U.N. Committee on the Peaceful Uses of Outer Space, or COPUOS. This effort will provide a valuable opportunity for cooperation with established and emerging space actors and with the private sector to establish a set of best practice guidelines that will enhance space-flight safety. In collaboration with other space-faring nations, the United States is also pursuing research and development of technologies and techniques to mitigate on-orbit debris, reduce hazards, and increase our understanding of the current and future debris environment. These activities provide valuable opportunities and benefits for expanded international cooperation with the global spacefaring community and the private sector, and also contribute to preserving the space environment for future generations.

Current international engagement efforts to clean debris disprove the link Rose 10 [Frank A. Rose Deputy Assistant Secretary, Bureau of Arms Control, Verification and Compliance, Remarks at the
USSTRATCOM Space Symposium. International

Cooperation: Furthering U.S. National Space Policy and Goals November 2, 2010 http://www.state.gov/t/avc/rls/150316.htm] As was discussed earlier, congestion in space is becoming an increasingly difficult challenge and addressing it will require international action. There are now around 21,000 pieces of space debris in various Earth orbits in other words, about 6,000 metric tons of debris orbiting the Earth. Some of this debris was created accidentally through collisions or routine space launches, some was intentional such as the Chinese ASAT test in 2007. Not only is there a direct economic impact to this debris, it also adds to the overall magnitude of hazards in critical orbits, such as those used by the space shuttle and the International Space Station. For example, the space shuttle is impacted by debris repeatedly on every mission. In fact, debris poses the single largest threat to the shuttle and to the astronauts onboard during these missions. The typical risk of the space shuttle being critically impacted by debris is about one in 250. To address the growing problem of orbital debris, the United States plans to expand its engagement within the United Nations and with other governments and non-governmental organizations. We are continuing to lead the development and adoption of international standards to minimize debris, building upon the foundation of the U.N. Space Debris Mitigation Guidelines. The United States

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is also engaged with our European allies and partners and other like-minded nations on a multiyear study of long-term sustainability within the Scientific and Technical Committee of the U.N. Committee on the Peaceful Uses of Outer Space, or COPUOS. This effort will provide a valuable opportunity for cooperation with established and emerging space actors and with the private sector to establish a set of best practice guidelines that will enhance space-flight safety. In collaboration with other space-faring nations, the United States is also pursuing research and development of technologies and techniques to mitigate on-orbit debris, reduce hazards, and increase our understanding of the current and future debris environment. These activities provide valuable opportunities and benefits for expanded international cooperation with the global spacefaring community and the private sector, and also contribute to preserving the space environment for future generations

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AT: Militarization DA No Link

No risk of space mil too slow to pose a threat
Taylor Dinerman, writer for the Space Review, 5-4-2009, Unilateral orbital cleanup http://www.thespacereview.com/article/1365/1 Of course the expertise the US would develop while performing this task would have many useful military applications, and as such would be objected to by those who are always on the look out for anything that looks like a US space weapon. Such spacecraft, though, would move far too slowly to themselves be used in an effective anti-satellite mode. The skills involve would in fact be far more useful in the robotic building of large structures in space, including solar power satellites. Eventually other nations would see America gaining prestige and technological advantages from its efforts and would try and emulate it. Such emulation would only show that Washington had the right, public-spirited idea in the first place. It would be far better for President Obamas administration to begin the process of developing the spacecraft that will clean up Earths celestial neighborhood now, rather than to wait for an international consensus or for more incidents to happen.

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AT: Militarization DA - Inevitable

Weaponization is inevitableChina, BMDs Stratfor 4/10/08. United States: The Weaponization of Space
http://www.stratfor.com/analysis/united_states_weaponization_space In the 1950s, the United States began pushing for an international treaty on outer space even before the 1957 launch of Sputnik atop a modified version of the worlds first intercontinental ballistic missile. Fortunes have changed somewhat in the last 50 years, and the Pentagon has little interest in taking on further legally binding constraints these days. This is especially true in space, where weaponization is not only inevitable, but already well under way. In 1967, Washington became party to the Treaty on Principles Governing the Activities of States in the Exploration and Use of Outer Space, Including the Moon and Other Celestial Bodies (better known as the Outer Space Treaty). This treaty was quickly and readily accepted, in part because of its utter lack of definitions. Aside from some fairly unequivocal language about prohibiting the deployment of nuclear weapons in outer space and more broad military activities on the moon and other celestial bodies, the treaty is much more a loose collection of very large holes than it is a constraint on sovereign national action in space. Since then, the military utility of space has begun to be realized. Today, it is a cornerstone of global military communications and navigation. In Iraq today, for example, the U.S. military uses the Global Positioning System (GPS) for everything from squad level maneuvers to joint direct attack munition (JDAM) delivery. Largely from facilities inside the continental United States, the Pentagon controls some unmanned aerial systems half a world away. GPS has given rise to a new degree of precision in guided weapons. Imagery from space-based surveillance platforms has become commonplace and the Defense Support Program constellation continually monitors the surface of the earth for the launch plume of a ballistic missile. It is an incredibly valuable military domain. And just as it has become more valuable, the United States has become increasingly dependent on it. Thus, space-based assets are susceptible targets for U.S. adversaries. Were the United States to lose these assets, its military capability on the ground would be severely affected. Any symmetric enemy knows that and will act to neutralize U.S. space capability. The United States knows that this attack will take place and must therefore defend the assets. In this sense, space is already a domain of military competition and conflict. There is no escaping it. In other words, space has already been weaponized, except that the actual projectiles are not yet located in space. Beijings 2007 and Washingtons recent anti-satellite weapons tests only emphasize this point. The United States satellite intercept demonstrated what STRATFOR has argued for some time that ballistic missile defense (BMD) ultimately is about space. A defensive BMD interceptor was used in an inherently offensive role (one it would almost necessarily play as an interceptor capable of hitting a ballistic missile warhead hundreds of miles above Earth would be up to the easier task of hitting a satellite at the same altitude). BMD could well push the first weapon into space. The Missile Defense Agency is still working to secure funding from Congress for a space test bed to explore the role of space systems in BMD. While congressional funding is in question, there is broad bi-partisan support for BMD. And for strategic, intercontinental BMD, space is inherently superior to terrestrial basing for interceptors in terms of coverage, flexibility and response time. Put another way, while near-term funding for such projects remains questionable, those projects are the logical ultimate trajectory of the deliberate pursuit of BMD now underway. But BMD aside, the Pentagon intends to dominate space the same way it dominates the worlds oceans: largely passively, allowing the free flow of international traffic, but with overwhelming and unchallenged military superiority. That will include not only defending assets in space, but holding those of a potential adversary at risk. Currently, Washington can do much of this from the ground; it is not only able to destroy a satellite with a BMD interceptor, it is also honing the technology to deny and disrupt access to space systems. But the trajectory of development and the challenges that lie ahead will sooner or later dictate space-based weapons platforms (BMD is just one of a variety of potential justifications and applications). And since the United States intends to ensure that its dominance in space remains unrivaled, it will move preemptively to consolidate that control. At some point, that will include actual weapons in space. As has been said of other matters, the debate is over. Space is an

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integral part of U.S. military fighting capability, and therefore in all practical terms it has been weaponized

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AT: Militarization DA - Inevitable

Weaponization is inevitable but plan causes US dominance that can control conflict John Hyten, University of Illinois Professor, April 2k. A Sea of Peace or a Theater of War: Dealing with
the Inevitable Conflict in Space. Program in Arms Control, Disarmament and International Security Google Scholar If history is any indication, many scenarios involving conflict in space are almost certain to occur in the future. Each frontier that humans have entered has eventually ended up as a theater of warfare. On the other hand, the opportunities are there today for the United States, because of its unique position as the world's sole remaining superpower, to make the decisions and take the actions that will allow the world to more peacefully resolve these conflicts -- conflicts that will naturally come in the development of the frontier of space. There are, however, and will continue to be, significant pressures that impact the development of the frontier of space. These pressures come from both economic activity and military desires and necessities. Both commerce and the military have tracked the frontier as it moved from land to sea to air, and they are continuing to follow the frontier into space. Commerce has always been driven by the need for access (and quicker access) to new markets and resources. The military continues to be driven by the need to protect both the core of a nation and that nation's interests in the frontier. How the United States responds to these pressures -- pressures that inevitably create conflict -will define space, and the use of space, in the next century.

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Politics Link Turns

Obama, NASA and other US agencies want to clean up space debris MSNBC 2010
(MSNBC, 12/23/2010, pg online @ www.msnbc.msn.com/id/40797342/ns/technology_and_sciencespace/t/orbiting-junk-rivals-weapons-major-threat-space-use//gh-arjun) The new Space Security 2010 report released by the Space Security Index, an international research consortium, represented space debris as a primary issue. Similar recognition of the orbital trash threat also emerged in the U.S. national space policy unveiled by President Obama in June 2010. Such growing awareness of the space debris problem builds on stark warnings issued in past years by scientists and military commanders, experts said. It could also pave the way for U.S. agencies and others to better figure out how to clean up Earth orbit. Obama Pushing Solution to Space Debris Boyle 2010 (Rebecca Boyle, Covering NASA research, biology, engineering and other topics for Popular Science and other publications. Covering business and the legal system for the St. Louis Business Journal and Missouri Lawyers Weekly, Popsci, "6/29/2010 pg online @ www.popsci.com/science/article/2010-06/obama-space-policy-short-exploration-details-long-internationalcooperation//gh-arjun) Cleaning up space junk, conducting climate research and forging international celestial harmony are the hallmarks of President Obama's new National Space Policy (PDF), unveiled Monday. Parts of the plan had been expected for months, but NASA-philes were still holding out hope for a grand vision of human exploration. But there were no Kennedy-esque calls to action, neither for the purpose of scientific exploration nor for national prestige. NASA's exploration role is fairly vague -- sure, there's a call for expanded robotics and human spaceflight programs, but there's no specific location or time frame. The biggest news is Obama's focus on international cooperation, a departure from his predecessor. Specifically, he wants countries to work together to clean up space junk, which the Pentagon has said is a threat. The 14-page document also explains how the U.S. will use space to study Earth, and how NASA will cede ground to the private sector, working with commercial firms to develop new modes of space transport. Science, Rebecca Boyle, climate change, commercial space, nasa, Obama, pentagon, satellites, Space, space debris, space junk The space agency will expand its focus on Earth science, specifically climate research. Satellites will be tasked with studying natural and human-caused changes to climate, land and water, and a new fleet of weather satellites will provide better forecasts. Obama notes that space belongs to all nations -- perhaps an important point given China's ambitious space goals. The document offers little detail about how space cooperation will work, other than to say that with great power comes great responsibility. "The now- ubiquitous and interconnected nature of space capabilities and the world's growing dependence on them mean that irresponsible acts in space can have damaging consequences for all of us," the paper says. Specifically, Obama wants international cooperation in cleaning up space junk, which the Pentagon has already said presents a threat. The U.S. will share more information with other countries in an effort to prevent satellite collisions, and will fund research into cleaning up existing space debris. That nugget is really the only new detail that sets Obama's space policy apart from his predecessors'

Plan Popular DOD, Pentagon and Obama all think that there needs to be a solution Satellite Today 2010 (Satellite Today, Staff Writer, 5-27-2010 pg online @

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www.satellitetoday.com/civilspace/headlines/Pentagon-Warns-Congress-About-Space-Debris-Threats-toSatellites_34221.html//gh-arjun) Potential crashes between satellites and space debris may impact the $250 billion space-services market, according to a U.S. Defense Department Space Posture Review report released to the public May 26. The report, the second debris report produced by the Pentagon since 2007, warned Congress that space collisions and debris might make some orbits unusable for commercial or military satellites. The report cited the February 2009 crash between a defunct Russian Cosmos satellite and an Iridium satellite. The crash left approximately 1,500 pieces of junk each capable of destroying more satellites as they orbit the Earth at 7.8 kilometers per second. A Chinese missile test, which destroyed a satellite in January 2007, left 150,000 pieces of junk in the atmosphere. According to the Space Posture Review, there are now more than 370,000 pieces of junk in space compared with 1,100 satellites. The Pentagon forecasts orbital congestion will worsen.

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AT: Spending DA
NASA's budget is less than half of what Americans spend on pets Stevens 07 (Robert J. Stevens, CEO of Lockheed, 4/16/07, "U.S. Risks Space Leadership Without
Increased Funding," Space & Missile Defense Report, Vol. 8, Iss. 15) He proposed four basic principles as the United States confronts this dismaying reality: First, there is no substitute for adequate financial support. Money, in sufficient quantities, must be provided. The United States "cannot preserve space leadership without sustained investment," he noted. "Funding stability is key and we should all work to deliver the kind of performance that reinforces this stability. For customers this means focusing early on system definition and requirements discipline - because stable requirements lead to a more executable program. For industry this means assembling core competencies, processes, and leadership in the supply chain to better discharge the program plan and meet commitments. "Programs that are meeting commitments with stable and managed requirements prove to be the best candidates for sustained funding support, and we together hold many of the keys to this virtuous cycle. I also believe that, as crucial as it is in a constrained budget environment to make the most of the resources we have, there is ultimately a point when doing more simply demands more." He noted that NASA, in attempting to assemble the funds for the vision of returning to the moon, Mars and beyond, had to make some hard choices. To place matters in perspective, Stevens noted that "at $17.3 billion, NASA's proposed budget for 2008 is significantly less than annual sales of candy and gum. It's less than half what Americans spend on their pets. In fact, this year, Americans spent about $17 billion just to celebrate Valentines Day."

Debris removal is far cheaper than the costs of collision.

Campbell 2000 (Jonathan W. Campbell. Colonel, USAER, Occasional Paper No. 20, Center for Strategy and Technology,
Air War College, Using Lasers in Space: Laser Orbital Debris Removal and Asteroid Deflection, http://www.au.af.mil/au/awc/awcgate/cst/csat20.pdf) RKS

Based on the number of objects in low-earth orbit, and using the Iridium satellite system as an example, if we assume that the replacement cost of one of the 66 satellites in the $3.450 billion system is roughly $50 million, then the total cost to LEO satellites from orbital debris is estimated to be roughly $40 million per year. Debrisrelated expenses that are on the order of tens of millions of dollars per year should be compared with estimates from the Orion study for debris removal. It estimated that eliminating debris in orbits tip to 800 km in altitude within 3 years of operation would not exceed $200 million. It was for this reason that the study team has proposed a technology demonstration project as a next step, which is estimated to cost roughly $13-28 million.

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