The Ethics of Space-Based Ballistic Missile Defense

Abstract

In 1967 the United States and the Soviet Union signed the Treaty on Principles Governing the Activities of States in the Exploration and Use of Outer Space, Including the Moon and Other Celestial Bodies, commonly known as the Outer Space Treaty. The treaty went into effect on October 10, 1967 and prohibits the stationing of weapons of mass destruction in space or on celestial bodies. Both nations apparently perceived benefits in preventing escalation of the arms race into space. Space exploration could concentrate upon nonmilitary missions such as medical research, or military missions designed to guarantee peace, such as orbiting spy satellites. The weapons-of-mass-destruction clause in the treaty is officially inter preted as including only nuclear weapons. In 1981, the Soviets proposed a treaty at the United Nations calling for a ban on the stationing of weapons of any kind in space and, in 1983, they presented a resolution seeking the prohibition of space based antisatellite weapons (ASATs).1 Of course, Soviet proposals are always met with a great deal of skepticism. Colin Gray, for instance, warns us that Soviet calls for negotiations to prevent the militarization of space are part of a Soviet plan to untrack the Strategic Defense Initiative (SDI). Gray remarks that SDI will need ASATs to defend against Soviet satellites whose mission will be to destroy SDI tracking in stallations on space-based platforms.2 Regardless of what the real intentions of the Soviets are, it is fair to say that the U.S. has undertaken a new orientation toward space-based weapons under President Reagan. In his now famous speech, Peace and National Security, delivered on March 23, 1983, Reagan urged the development of a defensive system which would make nuclear weapons ob solete. The speech presented a vision of a population defense which would free citizens from the threat of nuclear destruction and allow the United States to abandon reliance upon the immoral policy of mutual assured destruction (MAD) for deterrence.3 SDI will be a layered system with many space-based components. The version envisaged by James C. Fletcher, head of the Reagan-commissioned Defense Technologies Study and current director of NASA, involves four defensive layers correlated to the phases of a ballistic missile's flight: boost, post-boost, midcourse, and terminal.4 Three of these layers rely upon space-based weapons. It is doubtful that any of the layers would involve