Northview Debate

2012

2AC - Space Mil - Uniqueness

Non-unique A) X-37B - it's back! David 9/25 (Leonard David, staff writer, "X-37B Space Plane Set To Launch Third Mission Next
Month, Air Force Says," Huffington Post, http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/09/25/x-37b-spaceplane-launch_n_1912240.html)

The U.S. military's hush-hush robotic X-37B space plane is slated to blast off again next month, Air Force officials 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-37B space plane's next mission called Orbital Test Vehicle-3, or OTV-3, because it is the program's third-ever spaceflight is scheduled to launch aboard an Atlas 5 rocket 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 on track 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-37B program's two previous spaceflights OTV-1 and OTV-2 OTV-3's payload and mission details are classified. But the focus
remains 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] Bunko said 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 the miniature 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 Pacific Ocean and gliding 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're

sparing with details about the X-37B program, 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 system or 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 wars turn the DA Hitchens 10/3 (Theresa Hitchens, Director of UNIDIR since January 2009. Previously, she was
Director of the US Center for Defense Information and led its Space Security Project, in cooperation with Secure World Foundation. She is a member of the World Economic Forum s Global Agenda Council on Space 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/)

we will see earth wars elevated into space. It is almost inevitable that if a major conflict arises between developed powers, satellites will become targets . This was not the case ten years ago, but since then satellites have increasingly been integrated into a nations ability to project power and pursue a war. They are used for military communications, for mapping and to guide bombs. A modern army could not operate in a satellite-free environment. 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 them carry 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 States and the Soviet Union in the 1980s, then China in 2007. The latter shocked a lot of people. China sent a kinetic weapon a solid warhead slamming into one of its own weather satellites,
Why is this issue something that worries you? We may not be about to see a real life Death Star hovering into view, but 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

, any country that has a medium-range ballistic weapon and a reasonable commercial satellite programme can develop an a nti- sat ellite weapon, and there is no real international agreement on what norms of behaviour are acceptable. I am pretty sure that France, India and Israel all have the capacity. 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 to

escalate 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, on the 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 its ability 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 into position. 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 crisis escalation 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 antisatellite 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 fewer fears 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 built up 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

Northview Debate

2012

the West, he called Clinton on the hotline and resolved the situation. communication is improving over time.

anyone.

The United States and China dont have a hot line, although their India and Pakistan dont have a hotline. Iran doesnt have a hotline with

Northview Debate

2012

1AR - AT Budget Cuts

Launch cost reductions solve budget concerns. DOD spending inevitable Hsu 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 or rockets capable 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 could potentially save millions on expensive launches that typically cost thousands of

dollars 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 a time of budget cuts.

Northview Debate

2012

1AR - AT Space Mil =/= Space Weps

It's both - dual-use tech and desire for full-spectrum dominance lead to weaponization Yevstafyev 9/23 (Gennady Yevstafyev retired Lieutenant General of the Russian Foreign
Intelligence Service, "Space Research Today," Interview from Voice of Russia, http://english.ruvr.ru/2012_09_23/Space-research-today/)

over 100 states are connected in the military purposes, over 20 countries are working very actively in 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 is
Now

true, 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 all mankind 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 that the 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 of Principles 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

there are technological developments which as compared to 1967 are tremendous and some countries are far ahead of the others and they are trying to make their position known to the other people, and they are trying to establish the leadership. And their advantages in the technological field and convert them into the political and military advantages. The US in all agreements on demilitarization of space they were trying to avoid the prohibition of military activities in cosmic area. And their attempts were numerous but they didnt work . But definitely it seems it is not the case now, is it? There were left certain loopholes which 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 opportunities for 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 the interpretation 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 capacity used in peaceful purposes as well as in military purposes. This is very difficult to check and it was a legally justified approach. What would the military use of satellites imply? The military
anyone remember that resolution? Is it still valid? We are actually in this kind of understanding right now. But the problem is means 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 means of 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 of military 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?

The Americans right from the beginning were trying to discuss the problem of putting weapons in space. You know, even in 1948

the 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 the low 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, the problem, 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 was not considered to be really valuable and justified by all rules space ins trument. 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 on the 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 1979 under 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 have achieved 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

that major directions of the space research and space competition were already defined in 1980es this was the use of space in military and dual capacity purposes, commercial use of space and scientific research of space. Of course it has ended in a determined way in 2002 when the Americans left the antimissile treaty and they do not hide that the American space policy and of course of NATO as a junior partner has the firm goal to achieve the really crucial military domination in the world though the use of space, and of course putting this domination into
understand

practical 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 space systems were really indispensable part of the American operation against Yugoslavia and Iraq, because they were using such satellites as KH-11, the satellites of radiolocation monitoring 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 the program of the so called lightweight advanced technology kill vehicles and as part of it such very famous program of 80es as Brilliant 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 last ten 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 the really integral part of Obamas doctrine on space which was published in the US in 2010. A number of developments are supporting the idea of Americans to increase their domination of space and for example they are creating new satellite super system which would convert the existing military satellite system Iridium and combining it with the GPS they think they would dominate monitoring the developments in space and on the Earth to a tremendous degree.