Samford Debate Camp 2011
Space Mil NegGarrett/ Quinn Lab
Space Mil Neg
***Privates DA***
1NC
2NC- Privates DA Turns NASA
***Spending DA***
1NC
***Politics Links***
Political Capital
Plan Unpopular
Flip Flop Link
***AT: Hegemony/ American Leadership***
1NC
2NC: Extension Friedman
2NC: Extension Global Aging
AT: Space Weaponization Inevitable
***AT: China-US War***
1NC
Ext - Economics Check
Ext - Won’t Go Nuclear
Ext - Causes Instability/Leadership P.B.
Ext - No Escalation
AT: Taiwan Internal
***AT: Addons***
AT: Econ Addon
AT: Nuk Terror/Bioweapons
AT: Indo-Pak War
AT: Israeli/Iran Strikes
***Privates DA***
1NC
The private industry is currently strong in militarizing space- solves better
Boyle ’11 (Rebecca Boyle, PopSci, “Private Space Industry Could Pay For Military Communications and Commercialized Mars Missions”, February 11, 2011, LEQ)
Spacecraft For Sale Astronaut Dale Gardner holds up a "For Sale" sign, referring to two satellites, Palapa B-2 and Westar 6, that were retrieved from orbit. NASA via Space.comThe trend toward commercialized space is reaching into military communications and even a human expedition to Mars. Advocates say such public-private partnerships could bring down mission costs and speed up the process.First, the Air Force’s Space and Missile Systems Center signaled that communications satellites could increasingly have extra bandwidth set aside for military use, following a 6-month study by four aerospace firms.Boeing, Intelsat, Space Systems/Loral and Orbital Sciences were awarded $3.7 million to study modifying commercial satellite capabilities for military purposes, including setting aside bandwidth in military frequencies. The firms will examine how they can meet military requirements with minimal modifications to their commercial platforms.These so-called hosted payloads are additional payloads added to a commercial satellite for the purpose of being leased to a government user.They could help private firms make more money and would give the military some extra bandwidth. Boeing alone has received five hosted-payload orders in the past year and a half, said Craig Cooning, vice president and general manager of Boeing Space & Intelligence Systems, in a press release.Boeing says one of the main benefits is delivery speed — the private sector moves pretty fast, and a commercial satellite carrying a hosted payload can be ready in less than three years.Meanwhile, NASA scientists are proposing corporate financing for a human mission to Mars, rather than relying on government support. Private firms could raise $160 billion for the trip and a Mars colony, according to Joel Levine, a senior research scientist at NASA Langley Research Center. Levine makes the case in the book “The Human Mission to Mars: Colonizing the Red Planet,” which he co-edited with Rudy Schild of the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics.
2NC- Privates DA Turns NASA
Collapse of the private industry kills NASA
Boyle ’11 (Rebecca Boyle, PopSci, “Private Space Industry Could Pay For Military Communications and Commercialized Mars Missions”,
But commercialization is very much in NASA’s future, even if the space agency doesn’t privatize the space shuttles. The space agency’s administrator, former astronaut Charles Bolden, said at an industry conference this week that NASA can’t survive without strong partnerships with private space companies.“When I retire the space shuttles, that's it for NASA access to low-Earth orbit – we need you,” he said.
***Spending DA***
1NC
Militarizing space cost billions
Hsu ’10 (Jeremy Hsu, SPACE.com Senior Writer, “World's Military Projects Still Dominate Space”, October 6, 2010, LEQ)
Cold War paranoia may have eased up on the Space Race decades ago, but a new report finds that military projects still take up nearly half of all spending worldwide on space assets. The United States is by far the biggest spender on defense-related space programs, yet its technical savvy also makes it the country most dependent on such systems, according to a report, "Space Security 2010," released in September. American efforts to project military power across the globe have helped drive such dependence on space power, said military and security analyst John Pike, who runs GlobalSecurity.org. "If we want to blow somebody up, we have to go to the other side of the planet, and need lots of space support to do so," said Pike, who was not involved in compiling the report. [Most Destructive Space Weapons Concepts] That dependency may leave the U.S. most vulnerable to anti-satellite measures aimed at taking out the country's watchful orbital platforms. While the U.S., China and Russia have perhaps the most advanced capabilities for destroying satellites, India also has announced plans to develop anti-satellite capabilities. Eyes in the sky According to the new report, the U.S. Department of Defense allocated $10.7 billion to boost space-based capabilities in 2009. But that figure did not include money for the National Reconnaissance Office, National Geo-Spatial Agency, or Missile Defense Agency. Much of that defense spending focused on satellites that provide services such as communications, intelligence, reconnaissance and surveillance, as well as weather forecasting, navigation and weapons guidance applications. The United States operated about half of the world's 175 dedicated military satellites that were in space at the end of 2009, according to the Space Security Index, an international research consortium that compiled "Space Security 2010."
***Politics Links***
Political Capital
Space militarization costs tons of political capital
Mueller 6 (Karl, PhD and Political Scientist @ RAND, “Toward a U.S. Grand Strategy in Space,”March 10th, Washington Roundtable on Science and Public Policy,
The United States probably has – conceivably at least – the capability of doing that if we want. We are in a position where we could actually say, “Alright, space is so important to national security and global stability that it needs to be handled by someone responsible. Guess what – we’re it!” So the United States develops space weapons first and says, “Alright, nobody goes into space and does anything there without our permis-sion.” This would obviously be quite a sensational political thing to do. It would be expensive monetarily and politically. The political investment would be very large and before you embark on a path that involves that as your desired end-state, you need to be sure you actually want to go there. Another analogy here: it is like trying to corner the gold market. Buying so much gold that you corner the market would be very, very profitable. Buying a whole lot of gold and not cornering the market is just putting a lot of money into an investment with a very poor return. So you want to be pretty clear about whether you are going to be able to achieve the end-state you envision before you embark on a path that leads in that direction.
Plan Unpopular
Both the public and policymakers despise the plan - there’s overwhelming bipartisan opposition to space weaponization - even Obama spin can’t overcome this
CISSM 8 (Center for International and Security Studies @ Maryland, “ Large Majorities of Americans and Russians Oppose All Space Weapons,” Jan 23, )
Most Americans and Russians agree that their governments should work together to prevent an arms race in space. Large majorities in both countries favor unilateral restraint and a treaty that would keep space free of weapons. A United States Air Force Defense Support System satellite used for infrared detection (Photo: USAF) Americans and Russians also support treaties that would prohibit countries from attacking or interfering with each others' satellites and from testing or deploying weapons designed to attack satellites. These are among the key findings of a WorldPublicOpinion.org poll of 1,247 Americans and 1,601 Russians developed in conjunction with the Center for International and Security Studies at the University of Maryland (CISSM). Knowledge Networks in the United States and the Levada Center in Russia conducted the interviews. Russia (67%) say that as long as no other country puts weapons into space, their own governments should also refrain from doing so. Most Russians (72%) and Americans (80%) also favor a new treaty banning all weapons in space. Support for such a ban was strong among Americans even when they were presented counter arguments about the potential military advantages of deploying such systems. The US poll revealed strong bipartisan consensus on the issue. Majorities in both the Republican and Democratic parties believe the US government should refrain unilaterally from deploying space weapons. There is also bipartisan backing for a treaty to ban these weapons, though support is higher among Democrats. Steven Kull, director of WorldPublicOpinion.org, noted that there was remarkable agreement within and between the two countries on the issue of space weapons. "What is striking is the robust consensus among Russians as well as Americans, and among Republicans as well as Democrats that space should not be an arena for the major powers to compete for military advantage," Kull said.
The plan is political unfeasible - your author agrees
Dolman and Cooper 11 (Everett, PhD and Professor of Comparative Military Studies @ US Air Force School of Advanced Air and Space Studies and Recipient of Central Intelligence’s Outstanding Intelligence Analyst Award, and Henry, Former Deputy for the Strategic and Space Systems, “Chapter 19: Increasing the Military Uses of Space,” Part of “Toward a Theory of Spacepower,” Edited by Charles Lutes and Peter Hays, National Defense University Press, )
Within about 15 years of Arnold's comments, Soviet ICBMs armed with nuclear warheads did indeed have the ability to threaten Washington, but over 40 years later, America's ability to reliably defend itself from ICBMs remains minimal—due not to technology limitations but to long-standing policy and political constraints. To understand the passion of the current opposition to space weapons, one must look into the fundamental issue of the Cold War: nuclear weapons deployed at a scale to threaten the existence of all life on the planet. The specter of potential nuclear devastation was so horrendous that a neo-ideal of a world without war became a political imperative. Longstanding realist preference for peace through strength was stymied by the invulnerability of ballistic missiles traveling at suborbital velocities. Thus, America accepted a policy of assured and mutual destruction to deter its opponents in a horrible (if effective) balance of terror. This meant it became politically infeasible even to contemplate shooting down missiles aimed at America or its allies— especially from machines in space that might prove so efficient as to force an opponent to strike while it could, before such a system became operational.
Even among fears of space inferiority, weaponization is still politically explosive
Moltz 7 (James, PhD and Associate Professor for Security Studies @ Naval Postgraduate School, “ Protecting Safe Access to Space: Lessons from the First 50 Years of Space Security,” Space Policy Vol 23, November, Accessed on Spacedebate.org, )
But the combined impact of sharply elevated defense spending for the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, a series of now-familiar technical problems in developing space-based missile defenses, and the unwillingness of most Democratic and many Republican members of Congress to move hastily into the weaponization of space before understanding its likely costs and geopolitical implications, led to the scaling back of many of these programs by mid-2006. In November 2006, the Democrats' seizure of both houses of Congress in the mid-term elections seemed to end any realistic prospects for near-term deployment of space weapons. Or did it? China's successful test of an ASAT weapon in January 2007 shocked the US political establishment. Proponents of space defenses, like Republican Senator Jon Kyl, argued for near-term deployment of orbital ASAT weapons, seeing China's action as the start of a space arms race that the USA could not afford to lose. But his calls fell upon deaf ears even among most of his fellow Republican members of Congress, as other defense priorities dominated their attention and the new Democratic majority all but eliminated prospects of significant new funding. Previous, rosy predictions of an era of unchallenged US "space dominance" now seemed hopelessly unattainable after just one Chinese test.
Plan saps tons of PC - Congress isn’t ready to support space weaponization
Lambeth 3 (Benjamin, PhD Political Science and Writer @ RAND, “Mastering the Ultimate High Ground: Next Steps in the Military Uses of Space,” Accessed on Spacedebate.org, )
For the time being, the idea of placing offensive weapons in space for use against terrestrial targets remains contrary to declared national policy, and there is no indication that the nation is anywhere near the threshold of deciding to weaponize space. Any truly serious steps toward acquiring a space force application capability will involve a momentous political decision that the nation's leadership has not yet shown itself ready to make. As the Air Force's former deputy chief of staff for air and space operations, then Lieutenant General Robert Foglesong, noted, "if the policy decision is made to take our guns into space, that will be decided by our civilian leadership." Until that threshold is reached, any talk of space weaponization will remain not only politically moot but needlessly provocative, and military space activity will remain limited to enhancing terrestrial operations and controlling the ultimate high ground.
Space weaponization isn’t political feasible - seen as unnecessary and belligerent
O’Hanlon 4 (Michael, Senior Fellow @ Brookings, “Neither Star Wars nor Sanctuary: Constraining the Military Uses of Outer Space,” Accessed on SpaceDebate.org, )
Space-to-Earth weapons are not a promising concept for the foreseeable future. In addition to being politically very provocative, they offer few benefits to a global military power already capable of rapid intercontinental strike. The technologies within reach, such as tungsten rods or a common aero vehicle that could function first as a reentry vehicle and then as a guided aerodynamic device, do not warrant advanced development and deployment. They are either too limited in capabilities, too expensive, or too uninteresting in terms of their limited attributes relative to ground-based systems. Further conceptual exploration and basic research may be warranted; nothing more than that is even desirable in the coming years -- and hence budgets need not be substantially increased.
Empirically proven
Lambakis 1 (Steven, Writer @ the Hoover Institution, “Space Weapons: Refuting the Critics,” Policy Review No 105, Feb 1, )
Clashes over the military use of space, usually a result of proposals to fund politically controversial weapons programs, have agitated and unsettled the country at various times throughout the space age. But though the world has changed, the intellectual and doctrinal foundations underlying the debate have not.
Flip Flop Link
Plan’s an enormous flipflop - Obama promised to eliminate all space weapons
Gilbert 10 (Jo-Anne, Griffith Asia Institute @ Griffith University, “ A SPOON FULL OF SUGAR MAKES THE MEDICINE GO DOWN? AN ANALYSIS OF THE OBAMA ADMINISTRATION’S ‘NEW’ NATIONAL SPACE POLICY,” 8/9, )
On 28 June 2010, US President Barack Obama released a new, and much anticipated National Space Policy (NSP) document. In contrast to the bellicose and unilateral tone of George W. Bush’s 2006 policy, the 2010 document is replete with references to ‘international cooperation’ and ‘responsibility.’ When taken with Obama’s campaign promise to pursue a “world-wide ban” on space weapons(1) and overtures to the Conference on Disarmament that the US is prepared to negotiate international arms control agreements regarding space, those opposed to the weaponisation of space might have some cause for optimism that the US has stepped back from setting a dangerous precedent.
Flip-flops destroy Obama’s political capital
Goddard 9 (Taegan, Creator – Political Wire, (One of the Most Widely-Read and Influential Political Web Sites on the Internet), "Does Obama Practice a Different Kind of Politics?", CQ Politics, 3-19, liveonline/51/landing)
# Dan from Philadelphia: How quickly is Obama burning through his political capital? Will he have anything left to actually keep some of his promises? With potential shifts from his campaign stanceson the question of Gitmo, Iraq troop withdrawals and taxing employer healthcare benefits, it seems he is in for tough fights on all fronts.
# Taegan Goddard: That's a great question. I think Obama spends some of his political capital every time he makes an exception to his principles -- such as hiring a lobbyist to a key position or overlooking an appointee not paying their taxes. Policy reversals such as the ones you note burn through even more of this precious capital.
Flip-flops are politically devastating