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When most of us think about the potential of outer space for future generations, we think of worldwide communication, satellite navigation, and scientific exploration. U.S. Space Command, however, thinks about weapons. Believing that conflict in space and wars fought from space are inevitable, the agency has called on the White House to weaponize outer space. As a result, it is provoking an arms race that could cost the United States hundreds of billions of dollars and could lead to a cataclysmic war.
In "War in Heaven," a Nobel Prize-nominated peace activist and a former U.S. foreign service officer (who helped write the Outer Space Treaty of 1967) look at the history of military uses of space and the current plans for "militarizing the heavens," including kinetic, laser, nuclear bombardment, and anti-satellite weapons. Contrary to the claims of Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld that the United States faces a "space Pearl Harbor," Caldicott and Eisendrath show that the United States itself is today the principal obstruction to passage of an international treaty banning weapons from outer space.
At a time when plans to build and deploy space weapons are very much on the presidential agenda—but only just becoming known to the general public—this book will help launch a much-needed national discussion about a critical issue.
Author: Helen Caldicott & Craig Eisendrath
ISBN: 9781595581143
Pages: 166
Features: HB, Spr |
