"Deep Impact" and the Militarization of Space - Official policy, not science fiction

by Larry Chin

July 6, 2005
GlobalResearch.ca

On July 3, 2005, NASA and its Deep Impact spacecraft successfully crashed an 820-pound "impactor" into the comet Tempel 1. The force of the 23,000 mph collision, equal to approximately 5 tons of TNT, created a crater the size of a stadium, between two and 14 stories deep.

While the positive scientific and technological aspects of the successful mission have received splashy worldwide attention, scant notice has been paid to the destructive military applications and capabilities demonstrated and suggested by Deep Impact. In light of the weaponization of space that is being aggressively pursued by the Bush administration, all space policy must be examined with these potentially cataclysmic implications in mind.

While some scoff that such thinking is alarmist, official government policies exhaustively prove that space militarization is not only documented fact, but a top US priority---and the subject of intensive policy making at the highest levels across successive presidential administrations.

‘In the coming period,’ states the report issued January 11, 2001, ‘the U.S. will conduct operations to, from, in and through space in support of its national interests both on the earth and in space.’

"It is possible to project power through and from space in response to events anywhere in the world,’ it stresses… ‘Having this capability would give the U.S. a much stronger deterrant and, in a conflict, an extraordinary military advantage.’

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