- Joined
- Apr 12, 2018
- Location
- Australia
Moon battle: New Space Force plans raise fears over militarizing the lunar surface
The Pentagon's designs on cislunar space are viewed by some as a “demarcation that we shouldn’t cross.”
www.politico.com
The battle is on for the moon.
The U.S. military is investing in new technologies to build large structures on the lunar surface. It’s designing a spy satellite to orbit the moon. And it just announced plans for a surveillance network — what it calls a “highway patrol” — for the vast domain between Earth’s orbit and the moon, known as cislunar space. Top military strategists and documents, meanwhile, now consistently refer to this region as a new realm of operations.
The Space Force maintains it is interested only in developing the means for “domain awareness,” not exploration.
That means “demonstrating technologies that will ensure we can sense and make sense of anything happening beyond” Earth orbit, a spokesperson said in a statement.
“As our nation reaches farther and farther into space, the U.S. Space Force must be prepared to protect our nation’s interests and provide the capabilities needed for security and stability wherever that may take us,” the statement said.