The United States wants to develop new weapons technologies that go beyond the never-realized "Star Wars" defense system proposal. In a recent story for Wired News, Noah Shachtman reports on a recent planning document (PDF) from the U.S. Air Force that shows how the United States plans to step up the militarization of space.

SHACHTMAN: The military has been using satellite for years, but
there seems to be a shift to the thought of putting weapons in
space. The idea is that our satellites our so important to our military, so precious, that we've got to have weapons up there to protect them. Now what some in the defense community are saying is that these weapons themselves will become targets for other countries, and therefore it will make it more likely that other countries will develop weapons of their own in space. And that also it'll just create a climate of instability by breaking a taboo you might start an arms race up in orbit, and I don't think anybody wants to see that.

GORDON: What kind of weapons is the U.S. talking about?

SHACHTMAN: There are a couple of different things. The first in general is denying other countries access to space, or to be able to knock down
their satellites. So that could be anything from sending radio frequency impulses to actual lasers of missiles that might knock down enemy satellites.

GORDON: Is this fanciful technology or something we're developing and might actually get?

SHACHTMAN: It's certainly not about to happen tomorrow. There is a range of technologies being discussed, from the extremely fanciful like sending giant metal rods from orbit crashing down onto earth, to stuff that's a lot more likely which is just crashing one thing into another to stop a satellite from being launched or knock it from orbit.

GORDON: Do these weapons look primarily defensive or offensive?

SHACHTMAN: They talk about them in defensive terms: protecting our assets in space, and making sure other countries can't deny us the use of space. But some of them have an offensive bent in that they're meant to cripple opponents' satellites. There doesn't seem to be a whole lot of talk, except for that one crazy metal rod program I told you about, about positioning weapons in space that could then strike the earth. It seems to be much more about guaranteeing that we're the ones who run space, and that no other country can really have many assets up there.

GORDON: How much weight does a report from the Air Force carry in setting American policy?

SHACHTMAN: I was able to track down the funding for several of the space weapons program mentioned in the report, and it's not insignificant money: $60 or 70 million in this year alone for each of several different programs. Does this mean the U.S. is going to be putting weapons in space tomorrow? No, it doesn't, and I don't want to give that impression. But planning and research for it really seems to be on the up tick.