While the US military as well as other militaries have an operational need here, I don't want to see them run CAPS overall. I want NASA to do it, and do it right.

While there's going to have to be a shared early warning system to prevent accidental nuclear war, and the large backup nuclear charges needed for any final attempt if laser ablation fails are going to require action by DoD and State, this is NASA's responsibility.

While I appreciate cheap help, especially since preventing an accidental nuclear war is part of DoD's responsibilities, I don't want the MSX geosynchronous satellites to do this. They are too weak for this particular task, and I don't wnat to see them cluttered up and diverted from their primary defense tasks.

I can appreciate that some in DoD might not like to see NASA spend any money on this problem, and would prefer to spend it for weapons systems, but there is a serious problem here which only NASA can handle. If the current OSS head, who is fundamentally a nice guy, can not form an operational plan and implement it with DoD, NSF, and FEMA, he's going to have to go.

Dealing with this hazard is going to take civilian space based assets. That's NASA's responsibility. Serious professional system studies have shown that Moon based observation is the best and cheapest way to handle it.

NASA has the appropriate experience there.

Merrry Christmas,
ed