[Brett66]

I hope someone is paying attention in the administration to what they are doing. They seem to be planning a true space infrastructure which, coincidently, will provide support for space based weapons platforms and industry. We'll probably take this seriously when it's too late. Just like we did with Pearl Harbor, 911 etc.

[boris]

"They seem to be planning a true space infrastructure which, coincidently, will provide support for space based weapons platforms and industry."

As Larry Niven and others have pointed out, such a device (big laser) would make a potent weapon. Terrorists might wish to find a way to direct its multi-gigawatt beam elsewhere than the normal point of aim...

And what, he asked pointedly, do they do with the laser when it is raining and/or cloudy?

I recall one study, BTW, that indicated it would take 50 space shuttle flights a year to build even a modestly-sized space power platform. Uh huh. At $10,000 per pound, FOB earth orbit...I wonder a bit at the economic soundness of this.

--Boris