KINDS AND CAPABILITIES OF SPACE WEAPONS

By space weapons, we mean things intended to cause harm that are
based in space or that have an essential element based in space. The
degree of harm we include in defining space weapons may range
from temporary disruption to permanent destruction or death. This
definition does not include things that are based on the earth and
transit space without achieving orbit, such as ballistic missiles.
Although the dynamics are similar, the logi.more important, the legal
regimes are different for the two types of weapons.
We also do not mean things in spr,� not mature.estrial weapons,
such as reconnaissance, navigation, weather or communications
satellites. The improvements such satellites provide certainly make
some of them targets themselves in terrestrial conflict. And while
some of the space weapons we consider may also be useful against
targets in space, our interest here is in war on earth rather than war
in space. As Chapter Two pointed out, weapons against targets in
space are old news, and all of them developed to date have been
based on earth, not in space. We also do not mean information
weapons that might use space-based communications for access to
the database, decisionmaker, or computer that is their target.

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