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U.S. considers a space bomber

The defense secretary envisions a craft that could hit global targets in minutes. Critics warn of a militarization of space.

WASHINGTON - The Pentagon is exploring development of a futuristic "space bomber" that could destroy targets on the other side of the world in 30 minutes, but could also intensify the growing international debate over the militarization of space.

As part of its program to modernize the military, Secretary of Defense Donald H. Rumsfeld directed the Pentagon last month to look into "sub-orbital space vehicles" that "would be valuable for conducting rapid global strikes," according to a planning document issued under his name.

The bomber, possibly manned, would blast off like a long-range missile and could drop precision bombs from heights of 60 miles or more. Traveling at 15 times the speed and 10 times the altitude of current heavy bombers, it would help the Pentagon overcome one of its most worrisome problems: How to destroy distant targets that are becoming harder to reach because of the declining numbers - and increasing vulnerability - of U.S. military bases abroad.

Pentagon officials insist such a spacecraft would not mark a further move to militarize space, because its targets would be on Earth and it would not make a full orbit of the planet. Its ultimate prospects before Congress are far from certain, although analysts pointed out that such a program could escape a direct vote if it is included in a "black budget," or secret, funding request.

The plane is likely to ignite protests from foreign governments and arms-control advocates because it could be adapted to defend U.S. satellites or strike those of enemies, analysts said.

The administration's plans for military uses of space have already been under scrutiny because of officials' previous hints that they want to take a more assertive approach in this area.

In May, when Rumsfeld reorganized Pentagon space programs to give them more prominence, arms-control advocates and congressional critics reacted angrily, accusing Rumsfeld of opening the way to placing arms in space. Arming space was "the single dumbest thing I've heard in this administration," Sen. Tom Daschle (D., S.D.), then minority leader and now majority leader of the Senate, said at the time.

Rumsfeld denied the accusation, but he and other senior officials have said that the United States - with far more satellites than any other country - needs to be able to defend itself and that technology.

Adapting a spacecraft

While the Pentagon's interest in the bomber is conceptual, it could move quickly toward a procurement program by adapting an experimental reusable spacecraft that was under development by NASA for five years at Lockheed Martin's Skunk Works facility in Palmdale, Calif.

After investing about $1 billion, NASA canceled the X-33 Venture Star program in March because of technical problems and cost concerns.

But the military's top space official, Air Force Gen. Ralph E. Eberhart, commander of U.S. Space Command, has since then expressed a strong interest in having the program taken over by the Air Force. Eberhart is considered a leading candidate to become Rumsfeld's choice as next chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.

Rear Adm. Craig Quigley, a senior Pentagon spokesman, said the Pentagon wants to fully explore the concept because, in a crisis, "the military couldn't get anything [to a war zone] faster than this. . . . It could be useful in any number of scenarios."

Capable of immediate strike

Advocates in industry contend that a space bomber could be built to strike any target on the globe and return to its base in the United States in less than 90 minutes. By comparison, during the 1999 Kosovo war, U.S. B-2 bombers flew from western Missouri to the Balkans in a round trip that lasted about 24 hours.

Advocates say such a space bomber could strike key targets, such as buried command bunkers or air defense sites, in the first minutes of a war to make it safe for attack by other aircraft.

With its speed and altitude, such a bomber would be out of reach of conventional air defenses.

Weapons dropped from the height of space would have such destructive power when they reached the ground that they would have no need for explosive warheads. They would be well suited to act as "bunker busters" - bombs that seek to pierce the reinforced concrete walls that are increasingly used to shield underground command centers.

John E. Pike, director of the GlobalSecurity.org research organization, predicted that, with its Buck Rogers overtones, the space bomber "would become the poster child for the militarization of space."

Europeans and Asians who are already nervous about the United States' growing lead in military hardware would raise new questions about American "hegemonism," he predicted.

But others say the migration of the military into space is inevitable, and that the United States, with the most to lose, must take advantage of promising technologies before others do.

Frank Gaffney, president of the Center for Security Policy, a pro-defense think tank with ties to Rumsfeld, called the spacecraft "one of the obvious transformational capabilities that I hope will be coming out of Rumsfeld's review" of the military.

Copyright 2001 / Los Angeles Times