At - Space Mil - Uniqueness

8/13/2019 At - Space Mil - Uniqueness

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Northview Debate 2012

2AC - Space Mil - UniquenessNon-unique -

A) X-37B - it's back!

David 9/25(Leonard David, staff writer, "X-37B Space Plane Set To Launch Third Mission NextMonth, Air Force Says," Huffington Post, http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/09/25/x-37b-space-plane-launch_n_1912240.html)

The U.S. military's hush-hushrobotic X-37B space plane is slated to blast off again next month, Air Forceofficials say. The mission will test the robotic spacecraft's reusability and may eventually land on the Florida runway once used for NASA space shuttles. The X-37Bspace plane's next missioncalled Orbital Test Vehicle-3, or OTV-3, because it is the program's third-ever spaceflight isscheduled to launch aboard an Atlas 5rocket from Florida's Cape Canaveral Air Force Station (CCAFS) sometime in October."Preparations for launch at Cape Canaveral have begun," said Major Tracy Bunko at the Pentagons Air Force press desk. "We are ontrack to launch OTV-3 next month; however, the exact date remains subject to change based on range conditions, weather, etc." A mysterious mission As with the X-37Bprogram's two previous spaceflights OTV-1 and OTV-2 OTV-3's payload and mission details are classified. But the focusremains on testing vehicle capabilities and proving the utility and cost-effectiveness of a reusable spacecraft, Bunko told SPACE.com. [Photos: The X-37B Space Plane] Bunkosaid in an earlier communiqu that this third flight will use the same X-37B spacecraft that flew the first test flight, the OTV-1 mission, back in 2010. That maiden voyage of theminiature space plane lasted 225 days. It launched into orbit on April 22, 2010, and then landed on Dec. 3 of that year, zooming in on autopilot over the Pa cific Ocean andgliding down onto a specially prepared runway at Vandenberg Air Force Base in California. A different X-37B vehicle made a similar Vandenberg touchdown this past June 16,having stayed in orbit for 469 days on its OTV-2 mission. The X-37B program is being run by the U.S. Air Force Rapid Capabilities Office. The two space planes which are 29

feet (8.8 meters) long and 15 feet (4.5 m) wide, with a payload bay about the size of a pickup truck bed were built by Boeing Government Space Systems. While they'resparing with details about the X-37Bprogram,Air Force officials say the vehicles enable them to test

out how new technologies perform in space. One of the most promising aspects of the X-37B is it enables us to

examine a payload systemor technology in the environment in which it will perform its mission and inspect them when we bring them back to Earth,Bunko said. Returning an experiment via the X-37B OTV enables detailed inspection and significantly better learning than can be achieved by remote telemetry alone.

B) Militarization and weaponization inevitable - and conventional warsturn the DAHitchens 10/3(Theresa Hitchens, Director of UNIDIR since January 2009. Previously, she wasDirector of the US Center for Defense Information and led its Space Security Project, in cooperation withSecure World Foundation. She is a member of the World Economic Forums Global Agenda Council onSpace Security, "What if space was the next frontier for war?," Risk Response Networks Interview,http://forumblog.org/2012/10/what-if-space-was-the-next-frontier-for-war/)

Why is this issue something that worries you? We may not be about to see a real life Death Star hovering into view, butwe will see earth wars elevatedinto space. It is almost inevitable that if a major conflictarises between developed powers, satellites will

become targets .This was not the case ten years ago, but since then satellites have increasingly been integratedinto a

nations ability to project powerand pursueawar. They are used for militarycommunications,for mapping and to guide bombs.A modern army could not operate in a satellite-freeenvironment. This is worrying when you consider that, if a satellite is destroyed or damaged, it is not only the military functions that are taken out: most of themcarry out all kinds of essential civilian services, too. What warning signs have you seen already? Three nations have tested anti-satellite

weapons in the last three decades: the United Statesand the Soviet Union in the 1980s, then China in 2007. The latter shocked a lot ofpeople.China sent a kinetic weapona solid warhead slamming into one of its own weather satellites,causing an explosion which created thousands of pieces of debris in one of the most crowded orbits around earth. The worst part was not the demonstration of capability, as

pretty much everyone knew China could do something like this, it was the question of why they chose to demonstrate it in the manner in which they did. Whats more, anycountry that has a medium-range ballistic weapon and a reasonable commercial satellite

programme can develop an a nti- sat ellite weapon, and there is noreal international agreementon what norms of behaviour are acceptable. I am pretty sure that France, Indiaand Israelall have thecapacity. What about North Korea? North Korea hasnt shown much control over its ballistic missiles. Frankly, they couldnt hit the back side of a barn. If war were toescalate in space, how would the situation unfold? Say you have a crisis between two nuclear-armed, space-faring countries, Nation A and Nation B, which have a long-standing

border dispute. Nation A, with its satellite capability, sees that Nation B is mobilizing troops and opening up military depots in a region where things are very tense already, onthe tipping point. Nation A thinks: Thats it, theyre going to attack. So it might decide to pre-emptively strike the communications satellite used by Nation B to slow down itsability to move toward the border and give itself time to fortify. Say this happens and Nation B has no use of satellites for 12 hours, the time it takes it to get another satellite intoposition. What does Nation B do? Its blind, its deaf, its thinking all this time that its about to be overwhelmed by an i nvasion or even nuked. This is possibly a real crisisescalation situation; something similar has been played out in US Air Force war games, a scenario-planning exercise practised by the US military. The first game involving anti-satellite weapons stopped in five minutes because it went nuclear bam. Nation B nuked Nation A. This is not a far-out, The skys falling in! concern, it is something that has

been played out over and over again in the gaming of these things, and I have real fears about it. Could other channels of communication not defuse the situation? I have fewerfears about major nation states who have established means of communicating with one another. The United States and Russia have ways of de-escalating crises which they builtup during the Cold War. So when, in 1995, Yeltsin was handed the nuclear command suitcase after a Norwegian-American research rocket was mistaken for a missile strike from


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the West, he called Clinton on the hotline and resolved the situation. The United States and China dont have a hot line , although theircommunication is improving over time. India and Pakistan dont have a hotline. Iran doesnt have a hotline withanyone.


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1AR - AT Budget CutsLaunch cost reductions solve budget concerns. DOD spending inevitableHsu 9/27(Jeremy Hsu, "US military still longs for space planes and reusable rockets,"http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/49195613/ns/technology_and_science-space/#.UH4XmcXA-So)

Shrinking space budgets don't stop the U.S. military from dreaming about space planes orrocketscapable of flying back and landing on their own. Reusable launch vehicles capable of soaring into space and returning

by flying through Earth's atmosphere like airplanes couldpotentially save millions on expensive launches that typically cost thousands ofdollars per pound especially if they fly frequently. But U.S. military officers and researchers acknowledged the challenge of pushing for next-generation space vehicles during atime of budget cuts.


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1AR - AT Space Mil =/= Space WepsIt's both- dual-use tech and desire for full-spectrum dominance lead to

weaponizationYevstafyev 9/23(Gennady Yevstafyev retired Lieutenant General of the Russian ForeignIntelligence Service, "Space Research Today," Interview from Voice of Russia,http://english.ruvr.ru/2012_09_23/Space-research-today/)

Now over 100 states are connected in the military purposes, over 20 countries are working veryactivelyin this sense in the practical way. And how it all began? We consider that of course the space was opened by the Russian sputnik in 1957. And it istrue, the Russian sputnik gave a tremendous push to the discussions of space. One of pioneers of space law, of the rules of behavior of different countries in space, was

Argentinean Ambassador Alfredo Cocca. And he put forward the fundamental formula for the space that space is the common property of all mankind and space belongs to allmankind and the sovereignty of space is a joined exercise of all the countries. That included in his ideas the use of the Moon in peaceful purposes because he also considered thatthe Moon belongs to the family of the nations of the world. And in 1963 the General Assembly of the UN unanimously adopted a resolution which is called the Declaration ofPrinciples which reflected all these ideas of space as a common property of mankind. And this resolution gave birth to the first agreement which was signed in Moscow in 1967

which has put these ideas into the legal form and introduced the idea of space as international area which lies beyond the national jurisdiction. And how about now? Does

anyone remember that resolution? Is it still valid? We are actually in this kind of understanding right now. But the problem is there are technologicaldevelopments which as compared to 1967 are tremendousand some countries are faraheadof the others and they are trying to make their positionknown to the other people, and they are trying

to establish the leadership. And their advantages in the technological fieldand convert them

into the politicaland military advantages. The US in all agreements on demilitarization of

spacethey were trying to avoid the prohibition of military activities in cosmic area. And their attemptswere numerous butthey didntwork. Butdefinitely it seems it is not the case now, is it? There were left certain loopholeswhich allowed the leading countries of the

world to have some military activity in space.And in 1982 the interpretation of the conference of the UNISPACE gave certain opportunitiesfor that. And the thing is that the use of space in a passive way really didnt bother many people. What I mean saying the passive use of space theinterpretation was that the systems of support, such as sputniks and satellites for the purposes of communication, meteorology and navigation, could be the

satellites of dual capacityused in peaceful purposes as well as in military purposes. This is very

difficult to checkand it was a legally justifiedapproach. What would the military use of satellites imply? The militarymeans of monitoring. That means the use of different gadgets with the high degree of definition and electronic systems of intelligence gathering and so on, including the early

warning systems. The conference also defined that there could be space systems of weapons, first of all anti-satellite weapons and weapons based on laser and other new meansof technology. And to be very honest for thirty years most of the satellites which were launched at that period till the end of the 20th century over 70% of these satellites were ofmilitary denomination. Because you know, in the period of Cold War and confrontation the US and the Soviet Union actively developed anti-missile systems, anti-satellite

systems. But as it was prohibited there was no weapon elements of which were based in space. So, space wars, is it the American idea? TheAmericans rightfrom the beginning were trying to discuss the problem of putting weapons in space. You know, even in 1948the German experts which were captured by the Americans, for example the famous Walter Dornberger, he put forward the idea of putting a nuclear bomb on the satellite on thelow level orbit around the Earth. Von Brawn was the author of military orbital station and the idea which he formulated was to destroy the facilities of the enemy on the Earth.

One has to admit that in the Soviet Union there was also one very important project which was called the Project R-36. It was a problem of partially orbital missile. You see, theproblem, as it is legally put, the space object becomes the satellite only after one revolution around the Earth. If it has not achieved one revolution around the Earth, then it wasnot considered to be really valuable and justified by all rules space instrument. And thats why the Russian Federation has created a partially orbital which really have put

Americans into a tremor and they have insisted on the prohibition of this system because it could attack the territory, not from the expected trajectories, but from any place onthe low orbit, and it was not considered to be a prohibited object in space. And what happened to the system? In 1971 the last launch of this system was arranged and in 1979under the strategic II agreement these orbital missiles were totally prohibited. One has to say that Americans after Gagarins flight made a tremendous effort and they haveachieved serious advantages over the Soviet Union in many areas of space research, and they first came to the Moon. If the come to the recent years, we are coming to

understand that major directions of the space research and space competition were already defined in1980es this was the use of space in military and dual capacity purposes, commercial use of space and scientificresearch of space. Of course it has ended in a determined way in 2002 when theAmericans left the antimissile treatyand they donot hide that the American space policy and of course of NATO as a junior partner has the firm goal to achieve the reallycrucial military dominationin the world though the use of space, and of course putting this domination intopractical thing. Are you saying in practical terms? This was clearly shown when there were operation in the Persian Gulf and operation in Yugoslavia because the use of spacesystems were really indispensable part of the American operation against Yugoslavia and Iraq, because they were using such satellites as KH-11, the satellites of radiolocationmonitoring Lacrosse, Ferret, Ferret-D, Jumpsuit, Magnum, Mentor and many others. And of course even such systems, like the systems of antimissile defense of sea based

Aegis, are based also on the achievements of the Americans in space and space is playing a tremendous role in this field. And of course Americans have resumed the work on theprogram of the so called lightweight advanced technology kill vehicles and as part of it such very famous program of 80es asBrilliant Pebbles. And they promised that within 3-5

years they would test the elements of antimissile defense of space basing. And in this sense we have to note and we have to be very clear that in 1999 Americans have published

the doctrine and space policy of military defense which was for some time the space policy of the US in a really open way. And this problem was developed further and in the lastten years Americans for several times announced that they would really make a tremendous contribution to development of their space policy. For example there is new

approach to the Moon program. So, the military use of space seems to be a legitimate practical project in the US now. American military doctrine has

become thereally integral part of Obamas doctrine on space which was published in the US in 2010. A number of developments aresupporting the idea ofAmericans to increase their domination of space and for example they are creatingnew satellite super systemwhich would convert the existing military satellite system Iridium andcombining it with the GPS they think they would dominate monitoring the developments inspace and on the Earth to a tremendous degree.

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At - Space Mil - Uniqueness