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Why Is NASA Getting Ready To Fight A War In Space? Space Weapons On The Rise

By Coburn Palmer
Published on: 05:08 PST, Apr 24, 2016

Pentagon-funded space weapons, NASA inspired robotic powered asteroids, and lasers designed to hide the Earth all point to a war in space, but who is the U.S. intending to fight?

With China gearing up for a Mars mission and Russia firing ballistic missiles at passing asteroids, space is set to become the next battleground, but some skeptics are worried there could be more at stake.

Stephen Hawking recently announced plans to team with Silicon Valley billionaire Yuri Milner and send a fleet of tiny nano ships out into the universe to try and find alien life. Using photonic propulsion, the tiny ships could arrive at Alpha Centauri in 15 years.

That may be why two astronomers from Columbia University are proposing that the governments of the Earth use lasers to hide the planet from alien enemies in space. After all, we’ve been beaming radio and television signals into space since WWII, and those signals could be picked up by extraterrestrials, even hostile ones.

Hawking’s own analysis of alien cultures says any intelligent life we find in space is more than likely to be hostile, according to his own Discovery Channel show Into The Universe.

“We have only to look at ourselves to see how intelligent life might develop into something we wouldn’t want to meet. I imagine they might exist in massive ships, having used up all the resources from their home planet. Such advanced aliens would perhaps become nomads, looking to conquer and colonise whatever planets they can reach. If aliens ever visit us, I think the outcome would be much as when Christopher Columbus first landed in America, which didn’t turn out very well for the Native Americans.”

Aliens from space, however, aren’t the only ones NASA and the Pentagon are worried about.

China is also gearing up to take a larger role in space exploration, and the highly ambitious program could surpass NASA in years to come. The country already possesses anti-satellite missiles that could bring down U.S. military satellites, and that would severely hamper American ground forces in the event of an emergency.

As Secretary of Defense Ash Carter told Congress when he lobbied for the $144 million Counter Communications System, the U.S. is vulnerable to any attack that could disable its advanced space systems.

“We must be prepared for the possibility of a conflict that extends into space.”

Scientists at NASA are also worried a passing rogue asteroid or comet could strike the Earth in a doomsday event like the one that killed the dinosaurs. That’s why the space agency is spending millions developing a planetary defense system.

The Earth’s defense system won’t look like something out the movies, with satellites bearing asteroid killing lasers, however, or at least not yet.

NASA’s current strategy of protecting the planet involves robot-powered asteroids that could be launched at other asteroids as they approach Earth.

The space agency, however, is confident the Earth is safe from falling space rock for at least the next 100 years or so, but that hasn’t stopped the super rich from snatching up fortified underground bunkers like they were candy.

From Germany to Indiana, the super rich are snatching up heavily fortified yet surprisingly luxurious bunkers they could use to hide out for at least a year until the dust from the apocalypse blows over.

Whatever the reason for the militarization of space, one thing is certain: If war breaks out, NASA and the Pentagon are preparing to have the upper hand.

[Photo by NASA/Getty Images]

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