"Nuclear weapons in space are a really, really dumb idea," said Jessica West of Canadian non-profit Ploughshares, but experts note that with Russia, nothing can ever be fully ruled out.
One new working group, led by the UK and US, will focus on norms; the other, led by Russia and China, will draft legal treaty.
Only a small number of nations, including Venezuela, Iran and China, supported Russia's objections, especially its rejection of responsible behavior as a foundation for norms.
"The prospects for complete success in deterrence of hostile attacks on space assets, particularly reversible, nondestructive attacks, are limited," the RAND study cautions.
"There are hard kill and soft kill capabilities, if you will, that we're funding," Air Force Secretary Frank Kendall said with regards to offensive space capabilities, but none that would created dangerous space debris.
"I think it's a really important part of where we go to is just looking at how we can have that sort of electronic warfare type of capability to allow us to deter attacks or certainly interfere," the head of Australia's Defense Space Command said.
There may not be an agreement on where airspace ends and space begins, but experts say other questions floated during the balloon saga have down-to-earth answers.
SPACE SYMPOSIUM: Offensive war in space is one of the truly hot button defense policy issues. Advocates say it is inevitable. Opponents say it violates the ideal of a cosmos marked for exploration and peaceful coexistence. Some say war in space would violate the Outer Space Treaty, which bars nuclear weapons and other weapons of mass […]
COLORADO SPRINGS: The work being done at the high-profile Joint Interagency Combined Space Operations Center (JICSPOC) includes live experiments with satellites, in addition to the wargaming that all assumed has been taking place, Deputy Defense Bob Work says. “There are satellites up there, as you know, that don’t have a lot of useful life left,” Work replied when I asked what he […]