Karl Grossman space video

Enviro Closeup #642

Unless it’s stopped, Donald Trump will have opened space to war. Trump’s establishment of a U.S. Space Force as the sixth branch of U.S. armed forces has come despite the landmark Outer Space Treaty that designates space as a global commons to be used for peaceful purposes.

Trump and the U.S. military claim a Space Force is needed because China and Russia have been moving into space militarily. But, in fact, China and Russia—along with U.S. neighbor Canada—have for decades been seeking to expand the Outer Space Treaty, which prohibits weapons of mass destruction in space, to banning all weapons in space. The U.S. has repeatedly voted against this, the Prevention of an Arms Race in Outer Space, or PAROS treaty, essentially vetoing it at the UN.

And despite their efforts to expand the Outer Space Treaty, China and Russia—with the U.S. moving ahead to achieve what Trump calls “American dominance in space”—will meet the U.S. in kind. They’d be followed by other nations. And the heavens will be turned into a war zone.

The program features Bruce Gagnon, coordinator of the Global Network Against Weapons & Nuclear Power in Space.

~ Karl Grossman is a life-long journalist and professor at the State University of New York/College at Old Westbury on Long Island.  He began working on space issues in the late 1980's when he wrote an article for The Nation alerting the world that the ill-fated Challenger space shuttle's next mission was to carry a plutonium-238 payload on-board.  It was that article that got Karl linked to the Florida Coalition for Peace & Justice - a connection that in 1992 helped establish the Global Network Against Weapons & Nuclear Power in Space.