"Race faster to secure space"

Opinion by Paul Meyer
Published by EmbassyNews.ca
October 17, 2012

Excerpt: "Today it is estimated that there are some 1,000 satellites in operation, owned by over 60 states.  Significantly, developing countries are increasingly to be found beside developed ones in posessing satellites, and practically every country on the globe is a consumer of space-based services, in one form or the other.

All these benefits could easily be negated, however, if outer space was ever to become a battleground.  The 2007 test by China of an anti-satellitte weapon and the 2008 demonstration by the United States of the inherent ASAT-capability of its ballistic missile interceptors have, for the first time since the Cold War, raised again the spectre of satellites becoming targets for weapons.

These military displays, coupled with increasing levels of debris in lower space orbits that could eventually render these orbits unusable, have prompted the international community to start thinking about some preventative action."

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Paul Meyer is a Fellow in International Security, Centre for Dialogue, Simon Fraser University in Vancouver, Canada, and Senior Fellow, The Simons Foundation.