Special Reports

AS IF on cue, as Star Wars: Episode III opened in cinemas across the US, opponents of real-life war in space last week accused the Bush administration of pushing hard for a range of space-based weapons.

At a press briefing on 19 May, David Wright of the Union of Concerned Scientists argued against space weapons. "It makes it difficult [to pursue] the things space is uniquely suited for, such as communications, navigation and exploration," he says.

Since 2001, when defence secretary Donald Rumsfeld urged the US air force to consider space-based weapons, the Pentagon has funded a range of programmes. One of them is "Rods from God", a scheme to blast ground targets with tungsten rods dropped from satellites. The air force says it has cancelled these projects, but Jeffrey Lewis of the University of Maryland School of Public Policy in College Park claims that money from last year's budget is keeping the projects going.

Opponents of space weapons also point to existing technologies that could easily be transformed into space weapons. Theresa Hitchens of the Center for Defense Information in Washington DC says the air force's XSS-11 micro-satellite, which is currently in orbit alongside another satellite to take photos of it, could be easily fitted to attack an enemy satellite.

"Since 2001, the Pentagon has clearly laid out its intentions to carry out war in space," Hitchens says. "My one ray of hope is that it's going to be hilariously expensive."