Source: Responsible Statecraft
by Ben Chiacchia
“The past year has witnessed a growing chorus of alarm in Washington regarding the military utility of space. From the proliferation of space debris to the hastened tempo of anti-satellite (ASAT) weapons development by China and Russia, there is a fear that U.S. space assets are held in peril by the threat of direct attack and the destruction of orbital usability. In November of last year, Chief of Space Operations General Chance Saltzman went as far as to designate China’s adoption of ASATs in 2007 as a key moment of inflection in the militarization of space. These worries have a legitimate basis — scientists have posited that space debris has the potential to render certain orbital clouds such as low earth orbit (LEO) unusable through cascading collisions. ASATs only compound this risk, as even individual tests can generate thousands of pieces of debris.” (09/11/24)