U.S Air Force and NASA Work Closer on Strategic Space Control

I think September 11, 2001 made the U.S. Space Force a priority.

(Sept 27, 2001) NASA Urged to Join Fight Against Terrorism By Leonard David Senior Space Writer

[Excerpt] A Presidential order and subsequent policies have prohibited and stalled military manned spaceflight, Handberg said. While not a prime priority, "the military may use the war footing as the mechanism for getting back into the manned spaceflight arena," he said.

If a major U.S. military push evolves to seize control over entry and use of outer space by other nations, however, NASA would be pushed into backseat status in terms of human spaceflight, Handberg said.

"For NASA, all of this becomes institutionally threatening since it implies that at some point the military may take control over human spaceflight by the United States, relegating NASA to space science and aviation development. That would lead to a budget decline that would significantly change the nature of the American space program," Handberg predicted. [End Excerpt]

(Oct. 9, 2001) Delta IV Rockets Have New Pad--[Excerpt] The dedication of the launch pad comes at a time when the military is trying to make more use of space in the future, as the secretary of the Air Force said at the ceremonies Tuesday.

"We will be increasingly making use of space to help us monitor a whole world. And the fact that you are able to produce these launch vehicles at a much lower cost will enable us to buy these services and will enable us to think more about putting things into space," Air Force Secretary Dr. James Roche said.[End Excerpt]

(Sept. 10, 2001)Russia-China Deal Makes NASA Uneasy[Excerpt]-- An emerging relationship between Russian and Chinese space agencies has a cash-strapped NASA looking on with concern.

……….While the technology aspects are what concern NASA and the American government the most, Fisher said the impetus behind the Chinese surge is an attempt to prop up the ruling communist party.

"For its propaganda purposes, the manned space program is worth its weight in gold to the communist party," he said. "The manned space program is first and foremost a nationalist tool, which the communist party will use to strengthen its nationalistic credentials."

Statements from the Chinese government signal similar sentiments.

The government issued its space program blueprint in November 2000, showing the nation regards the effort much the way the Soviets and Americans saw their own during the Cold War: as an avenue to show off technical prowess.

"Now, China ranks among the most advanced countries in the world in many important technological fields," the Chinese government said.

The nation has built the Jiuquan launch center at the edge of the Gobi Desert complete with a smaller version of Kennedy Space Center's Vehicle Assembly Building.

Though China talks about a lunar mission, observers don't expect one for at least 15 years. They are divided on whether such an attempt would signal a new space race with NASA.

Pietrobon said a Chinese moon flight is impossible until the Chinese develop a rocket similar to the Saturn 5 that carried Apollo astronauts.

"I don't see the U.S. twiddling its thumbs while Taikonauts are hopping around the moon's surface," he said. "This won't happen for awhile yet, (but) the Chinese are interested in the moon."

(Oct. 10, 2001)China Plans to Send Probe to Moon--[Excerpt]…….few details are available of new developments in the military-linked program. ……….China's communist government has poured huge resources into making the nation a force in space. In addition to its scientific benefits, lunar exploration has an ``immeasurable usefulness to raising national prestige and inspiring the nationalistic spirit,'' Xinhua said. [End Excerpt]

(Oct. 8, 2001)Pentagon Report Calls for the United States Control of Space-- U.S. Armed Forces are dedicated to protect and advance American interests, on a national and global basis, and if necessary, to decisively defeat threats to those interests. The QDR notes that "enduring national interests" include protection of critical U.S. infrastructure. Furthermore, part of the country's economic well being includes "security of international sea, air, and space, and information lines of communication."

(Oct 5, 2001)

Reengineer military space operations [Excerpt]-- "This realignment will better meet operational requirements for space," said General Lester Lyles, commander of the Air Force Missile Center. "Space priorities will be set by a single command - Air Force Space Command - ensuring the Air Force continues to provide quality stewardship for America's space assets," he said.

While there is no physical movement of people and organizations, the realignment is expected to help "reengineer" military space operations and management.

As this unifying step is taken, uninterrupted delivery, operation and sustainment of space-based capabilities to the joint warfighter will continue in support of America's national security, states a U.S. Air Force press release on the realignment.

"We are creating an organization that has no counterpart anywhere -- a cradle-to-grave powerhouse that's exactly the right organization for the 21st century," said Lt. Gen. Roger DeKok, Air Force Space Command vice commander.

China Announces 2005 Space Plans --Say space arms race has begun--While building its space programs, China is also concerned that space could become an expensive battleground in any future conflict. Beijing is especially unhappy with U.S. plans to build systems to shield the United States from missile attack. (snip) ``Another arms race in outer space has begun since 1998, and we should be watchful,'' Huang said.

Good stuff. It's also nice to see that the new Chairman of the Joint Chiefs is an Air Force man who was in charge of the Space Command.

I think O'Keefe will be an asset to NASA and the country in this regard too.

(December 09, 2001) China's great leap forward: Space--[Excerpt] "The space industry is not only a reflection of the comprehensive national strength but also an important tool for leaping over the traditional developing stage," said Liu Jibin, minister of China's Commission of Science, Technology and Industry for National Defense.

If China makes that leap, the country's civil and military space efforts could close the gap between East and West in years instead of decades. Technology is critical to China's development of bigger, better missiles and space-based defenses as well as the country's commercial ambitions. Market reforms and cheap labor already are turning a once-stagnant, planned economy into a powerhouse.

Signs of the transformation can be seen everywhere in China's cities. Bumper-to-bumper car traffic has replaced bicycle gridlock. McDonald's and Kentucky Fried Chicken are almost as common as traditional roadside food stalls. Chairman Mao's wardrobe has been mothballed in favor of Western fashions. Handbills and posters are more likely to tout the qualities of European cigarettes than the virtues of class struggle.

One thing, however, hasn't changed: Most of China's space program remains closed to the outside world. Even so, a few Chinese officials are cautiously -- almost reluctantly -- beginning to open up.

A two-week tour of Chinese aerospace facilities this fall and talks with high-level managers, many of whom have been off-limits to Americans, revealed this about the country's mysterious manned program:

China likely will launch its first astronaut sometime in 2003 after six or so unpiloted test flights of its manned spacecraft. The next test flight -- the third overall -- is expected to blast off before the end of January.

Preliminary design of a Chinese space station already is under way. A modest outpost with limited capabilities could be developed during the next decade.

And there's even talk of sending people to the moon and building lunar bases in the next decade. [End Excerpt]

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(December 10, 2001) CHINA'S NEW FRONTIER China finds launches lucrative--[Excerpt] There also were accusations -- adamantly denied -- that Loral's chairman influenced a Clinton administration licensing decision with a hefty donation to the Democratic National Committee. License approval eventually was shifted from the Commerce Department to the more restrictive State Department.

The Clinton White House announced in November 2000 that it would resume processing export licenses and extend China's launch privileges through 2001 after Beijing agreed to a missile nonproliferation pact. But the Bush administration says outstanding issues remain in implementing the nonproliferation agreement. New satellite export licenses remain on hold. Sen. Jesse Helms, R-N.C., and three other lawmakers urged President Bush in July not to resume licensing under any condition. [End Excerpt]

CHINA'S NEW FRONTIER: U.S. threw out man who put China in space---[Excerpt] As World War II wound down, Tsien was made a colonel in the U.S. Army Air Forces and sent to Europe in 1945. His mission: Size up the German V-2 rocket program developed by Hitler's Third Reich.

There, he met and interviewed young Wernher von Braun, the V-2 project's technical director who one day would become the visionary behind the Saturn V rocket that put America on the moon. During their meeting, Tsien asked von Braun to put down on paper German breakthroughs and future space goals. The resulting report is credited with helping inspire development of the first U.S. satellites.

After the war, Tsien became the youngest full professor on the faculty at MIT. During a 1947 visit to see his family in China, he met Jiang Ying, a glamorous aristocrat who studied music in Germany and was one of China's most celebrated young sopranos. Her father -- a military adviser for Chiang Kai-shek's Nationalist government -- was helping wage a civil war aimed at crushing Mao Tse Tung's communist rebels.

The couple married later that year and moved back to America. When Tsien re-entered the United States in Honolulu, he reflexively answered "no" to a question on an immigration form asking whether he had ever belonged to a group advocating overthrow of the U.S. government. [End Excerpt]

Red Dragon Rising: China's Space Program Driven by Military Ambitions

Report: China on schedule for manned launch- By JOE McDONALD, AP [Full Text] BEIJING -- China is sticking to plans for a manned space launch this year, confident its rockets are safe, the head of the country's main civilian space agency was quoted Friday as saying. The comments by Zhang Qingwei, president of the China Aerospace Science and Technology Corp., to the China Daily newspaper were the highest-level affirmation yet of Chinese determination to go ahead with a manned flight. The communist government hasn't announced a launch date, but earlier reports put it in the second half of this year.

"China put into place its space program long ago, and it will stick to its schedule without being distracted," Zhang was quoted as saying. He was paraphrased as saying a manned launch would take place this year, though the report gave no details. The Chinese have not given any indication whether one or more taikonauts will be launched or how long the flight will last. However, the last unmanned flight of the Shenzhou capsule in January lasted for 108 orbits. Also, the Russian Soyuz capsule, on which the Shenzhou is based, can seat up to three people. A successful flight would make China only the third nation, after Russia and the United States, to send a human into space on its own.

Beijing is thought to have invested at least $1 billion in the program, a symbol of communist-led progress. The sum is large for a country with an annual income per person of about $700. The military-linked program, begun in 1992, operated until recently in almost total secrecy. But China has been emboldened by four test launches of its Shenzhou space capsule, the latest in January. "Technically there is no direct link between China's manned space program and U.S. missions, and China has developed an effective quality-control system in rocket and spacecraft manufacturing, launching and scientific research," the China Daily quoted Zhang as saying.

A spokesman at China Aerospace headquarters in Beijing couldn't confirm the report and said Zhang wasn't available to comment. However, earlier reports from state-controlled media about the space program have been confirmed by officials. The report Friday noted that China's Long March booster rockets have had 27 successful launches in the past seven years. [End]

China Waging War on Space-Based Weapons***The PLA also is experimenting with other types of satellite killers: land-based, directed-energy weapons and "micro-satellites" (search) that can be used as kinetic energy weapons. According to the latest (July 2003) assessment by the U.S. Defense Department, China will probably be able to field a direct-ascent anti-satellite system (search) in the next two to six years.

Such weapons would directly threaten what many believe would be America's best form of ballistic-missile defense: a system of space-based surveillance and tracking sensors, connected with land-based sensors and space-based missile interceptors. Such a system could negate any Chinese missile attack on the U.S. homeland.

China may be a long way from contemplating a ballistic missile attack on the U.S. homeland. But deployment of American space-based interceptors also would negate the missiles China is refitting to threaten Taiwan and U.S. bases in Okinawa and Guam. And there's the rub, as far as the PLA is concerned.

Clearly, Beijing's draft treaty to ban deployment of space-based weapons is merely a delaying tactic aimed at hampering American progress on ballistic-missile defense while its own scientists develop effective countermeasures.

What Beijing hopes to gain from this approach is the ability to disrupt American battlefield awareness--and its command and control operations--and to deny the U.S. access to the waters around China and Taiwan should the issue of Taiwan's sovereignty lead to conflict between the two Chinas.

China's military thinkers are probably correct: The weaponization of space is inevitable. And it's abundantly clear that, draft treaties and pious rhetoric notwithstanding, they're doing everything possible to position themselves for dominance in space. That's worth keeping in mind the next time they exhort "peace-loving nations" to stay grounded.***

China's PLA Sees Value in Pre-emptive Strike Strategy [Full Text] WASHINGTON, Aug. 11, 2003 - The military strategy of "shock and awe" used to stun the Iraqi military in the opening campaign of Operation Iraqi Freedom might be used by the Chinese if military force is needed to bring Taiwan back under communist control.

According to the released recently The Annual Report on the Military Power of the People's Republic of China, the country's military doctrine now stresses elements such as "surprise, deception and pre- emption." Furthermore, the report states that Beijing believes that "surprise is crucial" for the success of any military campaign.

Taiwan, located off the coast of mainland China, claimed independence from the communist country in 1949. The island has 21 million people and its own democratic government.

China, with 1.3 billion people, claims sovereignty over the tiny island, sees Taiwan as a breakaway province and has threatened to use military force against Taiwan to reunify the country. And China's force against Taiwan could come as a surprise attack.

But "China would not likely initiate any military action unless assured of a significant degree of strategic surprise," according to the report.

The report states that Lt. Gen. Zheng Shenxia, chief of staff of the People's Liberation Army's Air Force and an advocate of pre-emptive action, believes the chances of victory against Taiwan would be "limited" without adopting a pre-emptive strategy.

The report says that China now believes pre-emptive strikes are its best advantage against a technologically superior force. Capt. Shen Zhongchang from the Chinese Navy Research Institute is quoted as saying that "lighting attacks and powerful first strikes will be widely used in the future."

China's new military thinking has evolved over the past decade. PLA observers have been studying U.S. military strategies since the first Gulf War, when they noticed how quickly U.S. forces using state-of-the-art weapons defeated Iraqi forces that in some ways resemble their own.

Since then, the report states the PLA has shifted its war approach from "annihilative," where an army uses "mass and attrition" to defeat an enemy, to more "coercive warfighting strategies."

The PLA now considers "shock power" as a crucial coercion element to the opening phase of its war plans and that PLA operational doctrine is now designed to actively "take the initiative" and "catch the enemy unprepared."

"With no apparent political prohibitions against pre- emption, the PLA requires shock as a force multiplier to catch Taiwan or another potential adversary, such as the United States, unprepared," the report states.

Ways the PLA would catch Taiwan and the U.S. off guard include strategic and operational deception, electronic warfare and wearing down or desensitizing the opponent's political and military leadership. Another objective would be to reduce any indication or warning of impending military action, the report states.

Preparing for a possible conflict with Taiwan and deterring the United States from intervening on Taiwan's behalf is the "primary driver" of China's military overhaul, according to this year's report. Over the course of the next decade the country will spend billions to counter U.S. advances in warfare technology, the report states. [End]

SORRY STATE (Communist, Nationalist, and Dangerous)*** OBSTACLES TO EMPIRE The grand project of restoring and Sinifying the Manchu dominions has unfortunately met three stumbling blocks. The first was Outer Mongolia, from which the Chinese garrison was expelled following the collapse of Manchu rule. The country declared independence in 1921 under Soviet auspices, and that independence was recognized by Chiang Kai-shek's government in 1945, in return for Soviet recognition of themselves as the "the Central Government of China." Mao seems not to have been very happy about this. In 1954, he asked the Soviets to "return" Outer Mongolia. I do not know the position of China's current government towards Outer Mongolia, but I should not be surprised to learn that somewhere in the filling cabinets of China's defense ministry is a detailed plan for restoring Outer Mongolia to the warm embrace of the Motherland, as soon as a suitable opportunity presents itself.

The second is Taiwan. No Chinese Imperial dynasty paid the least attention to Taiwan, or bothered to claim it. The Manchus did, though, in 1683, and ruled it in a desultory way, as a prefecture of Fujian Province, until 1887, when it was upgraded to a province in its own right. Eight years later it was ceded to Japan, whose property it remained until 1945. In its entire history, it has been ruled by Chinese people seated in China's capital for less than four years. China's current attitudes to Taiwan are, I think, pretty well known.

And the third stumbling block to the restoration of China's greatness is…….the United States. To the modern Chinese way of thinking, China's proper sphere of influence encompasses all of East Asia and the western Pacific. This does not mean that they necessarily want to invade and subjugate all the nations of that region, though they certainly do want to do just that to Taiwan and some groups of smaller islands. For Japan, Korea, the Philippines, Micronesia, etc., the old imperial-suzerainty model would do well enough, at least in the short term. These places could conduct their own internal affairs, so long as they acknowledged the overlordship of Beijing, and, above all, did not enter into alliances, nor even close friendships, with other powers.

Which, of course, too many of them have done, the competitor power in every case being the U.S. It is impossible to overstate how angry it makes the Chinese to think about all those American troops in Japan, Korea, and Guam, together with the U.S. Seventh Fleet steaming up and down in "Chinese" waters, and electronic reconnaissance planes like the EP-3 brought down on April 1 operating within listening distance of the mainland. If you tackle Chinese people on this, they usually say: "How would you feel if there were Chinese troops in Mexico and Jamaica, and Chinese planes flying up and down your coasts?" Leaving aside the fact that front companies for the Beijing regime now control both ends of the Panama Canal, as well as Freeport in the Bahamas, the answer is that the United States is a democracy of free people, whose government derives its just powers from the consent of the governed, so that the wider America's influence spreads, the better for humanity: while China is a corrupt, brutish, and lawless despotism, the close containment of which is a pressing interest for the whole human race. One cannot, of course, expect Chinese people to be very receptive to this answer.

Or, indeed, to anything much we have to say on the subject of their increasing militant and assertive nationalism. We simply have no leverage here. It is no use trying to pretend that this is the face-saving ideology of a small leadership group, forced on an unwilling populace at gunpoint. The Chinese people respond eagerly to these ultra-nationalist appeals: That is precisely why the leadership makes them. Resentment of the U.S., and a determination to enforce Chinese hegemony in Asia, are well-nigh universal among modern mainland Chinese. These emotions trump any desire for constitutional government, however much people dislike the current regime for its corruption and incompetence. Find a mainlander, preferably one under the age of thirty, and ask him which of the following he would prefer: for the Communists to stay in power indefinitely, unreformed, but in full control of the "three T's" (Tibet, Turkestan, Taiwan); or a democratic, constitutional government without the three T's. His answer will depress you. You can even try this unhappy little experiment with dissidents: same answer.

Is there anything we can do about all this? One thing only. We must understand clearly that there will be lasting peace in East Asia when, and only when, China abandons her atavistic fantasies of imperial hegemony, withdraws her armies from the 2 million square miles of other people's territory they currently occupy, and gets herself a democratic government under a rule of law. Until that day comes, if it ever does, the danger of war will be a constant in relations between China and the world beyond the Wall, as recent events in the South China Sea have illustrated. Free nations, under the indispensable leadership of the United States, must in the meantime struggle to maintain peace, using the one, single, and only method that wretched humanity, in all its millennia of experience, has so far been able to devise for that purpose: Qui desiderat pacem, praeparet bellum.***