#11 THe problem is not that it would start an arms race in space - that has already happened. Of course you'll never hear the anti-American bigoted press tell the whole truth: The Chinese government started it when they began developing and testing anti-sat weapons. The US did the same earlier in the cold war - but has basically discarded all of it as unneeded since the collapse of the Soviet Union, and Russia's allowing thier programs to go into "only R&D" mode. If the Chinese had left well-enough alone this would never have come up.
You guys missed the real point here.
The main reason for putting weapons in space is not to strike ground targets, but to ensure the safety of our own satellites against threats that are now developing in China.
Basically, the Chines havbe decided to pursue a cours that includes making anti-sat weaponry part of their arsenal. So, to protect the US satellites upon which we are very dependent (for Intel, navigation, bomb guidance, communications, etc), we need to set up interceptors of our own, and they need to be in space already. Simple orbital mechanics mandate this approach. By the time the adversary launches and we can determine from the launch the probable orbit to be a hostile one, it will be too late to launch a countermeasures satellite or to intercept it from the ground. The protectors must already be in orbit, on station, to be effective.
To do otherwise is to make oursleves susceptible to a loss of comms, intel and military capability that would enable a "Pearl Harbor" to happen and severely degrade the armed forces' ability to act in the nation's defense.
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