Sarah Scole in Undark Magazine:
Twelve years ago, Frank Kendall, then under secretary of defense for acquisition, technology, and logistics at the Department of Defense, pulled up a PowerPoint slide to show a group of senior military officials who deliberate over budgets. It showed the choices he thought the military had to make in space, since China and Russia were working on weapons to take down American satellites that provide everything from intelligence to communications to navigation.
The country, Kendall said, could either keep building the relatively few hyper-expensive satellites of yore, easily attacked and hard to defend; dream up a more resilient satellite infrastructure; or lean back from dependence on satellites. “Business as usual was not a viable choice,” Kendall writes in “Lethal Autonomy: The Future of Warfare Whether We Like It or Not,” an account of a military future where vehicles and weapons operate largely on their own — including making some decisions to strike people or infrastructure. Spacecraft, living in orbit as they do, already work more independently than other systems.
More here.
Enjoying the content on 3QD? Help keep us going by donating now.