The discussion to kick off the 38th Space Congress came on the day when President George W. Bush outlined a strategy for a global missile shield. Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld also is reportedly working on a budget that emphasizes military hardware in space.

"All of us are very pleased with the administration," said Gen. Lester Lyles, commander of Air Force Materials Command, which oversees research for air and space. Lyles also is a former director of the Ballistic Missile Defense Organization.

While military uses for space are highly controversial, Hamel said the arena has been militarized since the beginning of spaceflight.

Currently, the Pentagon uses satellites for communications, intercepting electronic signals and photographing Earth.

Launching satellites that carry weaponry would be a step up, one that Hamel said should occur only after a wide-ranging debate on whether the United States should pursue such measures.

High-tech surveillance satellites that use radar to peer through clouds and can guide attacks in all weather are the closest to fruition and could be launched in just a few years.

Lasers that could shoot down missiles just after launch, when they are most vulnerable, are 15-20 years away. Flight tests on such a weapon are scheduled for as soon as 2012.

The laser weapons could grow strong enough to zap buildings or vehicles on the ground, though that would be many more years away, Hamel said.

Lyles said the technology to allow a missile defense system to work is ready, but other questions have to be posed for more advanced systems.

"The first question we have to ask ourselves" Lyles said, is whether the technology is far enough along to justify putting more money into it to make it operational.

Retired Gen. and Apollo astronaut Tom Stafford said the military has developed sufficient technologies to pursue its goals.

"The things they can do now is amazing," he said. Stafford, who commanded Apollo 10 and the Apollo-Soyuz mission serves as a consultant on space issues.

China and Russia are seen as potential combatants in space since each is said to be developing anti-satellite weapons and methods to interfere with transmissions between satellites and ground stations.

Meanwhile, the Air Force is close to a decision on a military spaceplane.

Gen. Ralph "Ed" Eberhart, commander of U.S. Space Command, spoke of continuing the X-33 unmanned prototype that NASA cancelled in March.

"We believe it's way ahead, it's the future, and hopefully we'll have a checkbook to back that up," Eberhart said.

The $1.3 billion X-33 has been 90 percent finished and is designed to test technologies that would allow it to reach Earth orbit in one piece.

Such an approach, employed by the Air Force, could give the service a cornerstone of a space fleet that can launch satellites quickly, or carry weapons.

Other designs also could be implemented, such as the McDonnell Douglas-designed Delta Clipper.

Hamel said a fleet of such craft could be launched in a crisis, or placed in orbit with conventional weapons onboard until they are needed. When called on, the vehicles would reenter Earth's atmosphere and act as a bomber before returning to base.

Four-star Gen. Eberhart said controlling space is a near-certain eventuality.

"I think it's naive to think we're not going to be interested in controlling space in the coming decades," he told Space Congress. "If someone is using their assets in space against us, then we have to have the capability to deny them."
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And I tend to agree with them as well.

>"China and Russia are seen as potential combatants in space since each is said to be developing anti-satellite weapons..."

And a lot of 'anti-satellite' weapons make use of the same technology that could be used against missiles... so much for our adversaries (and their friends here) saying they're not working on their own missile-defense. They're just not calling it that.

I find the idea of a spaceplane extremely appealing, though.

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