The Moon Was Shining, The Stars Were Bright…

... the domain of the odd conference on disarmament. It is against this background that the special report published by the RAND Corporation entitled “Acquisition of Space Systems” attempts to return to the study of the militarization of outer space. The report’s subtitle is particularly noteworthy: “Past Problems and Future Challenges”. It shows that the authors are trying to bridge the gap between past attempts at studying the militarization of space, the present situation, and modelling future problems. At first glance, the report appears to be a purely technical analysis of the United States’ current programmes to militarize space. In actual fact, however, it contains ...