Bush to Announce Orbiting Battle Platform?

(this was linked to Drudge)

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Pajamas Media has learned that the Bush administration is going to ask Congress for funding to begin development of an “orbital battle station” that will be able to attack enemy missiles in their vulnerable boost phase.

Each Battle Station would be a fairly large satellite that carried a number, perhaps 40 to 50 infrared guided “kill vehicles.” On orders from the ground, the battle station would launch these kill vehicles, roughly about the size of a loaf of bread, at incoming missiles. Professor Everett Dolman of the School of Advanced Air and Space Studies at Maxwell Air Force Base in Alabama and the author of %%Amazon= 0714681970 Astropolitik - Classical Geopolitics in The Space Age%%, says that space based systems are “the only viable option for global defense against the most likely threats, such as an attack by Iran against Israel or by Pakistan against India.”

“The technology,” Dolman said, “for a basic orbital interceptor that could hit an ICBM in mid flight has been available to the U.S. for at least two decades. Indeed should the U.S. dedicate itself to a fast track development and deployment of several dozen networked anti-missile satellites, it could have a baseline capability in place within two years.”

The Bush administration pending request for an orbital battle station will surely touch off a brawl over “space weaponization”. Loren Dealy a spokeswoman for the Democrats on the House Armed Services Committee told Pajamas Media: “Our members have serious concerns with the concept of space-based interceptors.”

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and this:

BBC: US Plans Permanent Base on the Moon

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US space agency Nasa has said it plans to start work on a permanently-occupied base on the Moon after astronauts begin flying back there in 2020.

The base is likely to be built on one of the Moon's poles and will serve as a science centre and possible stepping stone for manned missions to Mars.

The US has already said it plans to build a new lunar spacecraft to succeed the last Apollo mission in 1972.

Funds will be moved from space shuttle flights, due to be scrapped in 2010.

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If they can find the money for all of this by 2020 with the state of oil depletion and global climate change by then, I'll be shocked. But they, the masters of the universe always seem to have the money to do what they want to.

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Originally posted by 500_Apples:
It's like linking better commercial airliners with better fighter jets, or better sail boats with better submarines.

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Kind of like the internet, eh?

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Russia hopes to join the U.S. moon exploration program by adding its technology and know-how, a Russian space agency spokesman said Thursday.

Russia was conducting talks with NASA and voiced hope that a deal could be reached within months, said the spokesman, Igor Panarin.

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