A senior military officer warned yesterday that U.S. military and commercial satellites are vulnerable to attack and said the United States must begin creating a system to defend them.
Unless more focus is put on "protecting and advancing our interests in space," the United States runs "the very real risk of a 'space Pearl Harbor' or another Sputnik that catches us off guard and unprepared," Lt. Gen. Edward G. Anderson III, deputy commander of the U.S. Space Command, told the House Armed Services Committee.
"We must prepare now to ensure our continued access to space [and] deny space to others, if necessary," he said.
As a step toward enhancing the country's space defense capabilities, Anderson said the Pentagon recently set up two Air Force squadrons "to replicate the known capabilities of potential adversaries . . . [and] explore future space control technologies."
Anderson sought congressional support for research on a space-based laser that could be used in missile defense and other missions such as air defense, global surveillance, space control and target detection.
-- Walter Pincus