From the beginning of the Cold War, the US had generally thought of itself as superior in every respect to its nemesis, the Soviet Union. It came as quite a shock when, in 1957, the Soviets launched the first satellite, Sputnik I. Now it was known that the Russians had the ability to not only strike the US with ballistic missiles, but also could start working on the capabilities to rain nuclear weapons on the US with space-based satellite systems.

Or so it was thought.

The reality was that these sorts of capabilities were well beyond the times, but still the possibility was there, so the US and USSR developed agreements regarding the use of space.

While many today give little thought to how satellites impact their lives, the truth is that most of us use space-based technology all the time when we watch the weather on the news, or use our GPS systems to help find a restaurant or even to make a cellular phone call. The military has been using space for decades to keep track of our adversaries in the form of photo spy satellites. In Desert Storm, much of the success of the coalition was due to the ability to put weapons right on target thanks to the recently installed Global Positioning Satellites (GPS). During the Iraq invasion, things had gotten to where use of satellite based systems was taken for granted.

This book looks at the history of satellite based systems from the early photo spy satellites to the use of anti-satellite systems, most of them ground based, but with the emphasis now on developing systems that can be orbited. Most of these involve the use of kinetic energy weapons as the use of nukes in space to destroy an enemy satellite will also take out others in near orbit.

Clayton Chun has done a remarkable job of explaining not only what these systems are but how they operate. It is in such a way that one is not lost in jargon, a problem with many books where a lot of technical information is provided. The superb illustrations of Chris Taylor as shown on the cover help us to visualize how this all works.

Not only are US systems covered, but the ones of other countries, specifically China are covered. I found it to be a most intriguing book and one that is a truly fascinating read. I'm sure you will as well and can recommend it for your book shelves.

October 2006

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