© historyguy.comSecretary of State Hillary Clinton
Secretary of State Hillary Clinton announced Tuesday that the United States will begin working on an international code of conduct for outer space with other nations around the world.
An international code of conduct would put concrete space-related rules in place for all participating nations. According to Clinton, the main threats that the rules would address are space junk and "irresponsible actors."
There are currently more than 500,000 pieces of space junk debris surrounding Earth, according to NASA, and about 22,000 of these pieces are as large as a softball. Only about 1,100 are active satellites. Space junk is the collection of objects created by humans that are left in orbit, but are no longer useful.
Clinton sees this space junk as potentially harmful, and for good reason. Just last month, a Siberian man escaped death as a Russian satellite fragment crashed right through his roof. The fragment was about the size of a 5 kg titanium ball.
In addition, Russa's Mars probe Phobos-Grunt finally crashed back to Earth on January 15 after floating around in space aimlessly for two months.
The new code of conduct announcement also addressed "irresponsible actors," which likely indirectly referred to China's space behavior back in 2007 when it destroyed a dead weather satellite with a rocket. In late 2011, the U.S.-China Economic and Security Review Commission (USCC) released a report that warned the U.S. of China's plans to attack U.S. space defenses. This has since worried the U.S., and raised questions regarding the potential need for a space military.
"The threats to the space environment will increase as more nations and non-state actors develop and deploy counter-space systems," said the State Department's fact sheet. "Today, space systems and their supporting infrastructure face a range of man-made threats that may deny, degrade, deceive, disrupt or destroy assets."
The U.S. also noted that the European Union has developed a space code, which it has been working on for many years, but that the U.S. isn't quite ready to agree to it yet.
"A code of conduct will help maintain the long-term sustainability, safety, stability and security of space by establishing guidelines for the responsible use of space," said Clinton. "As we begin this work, the United States has made clear to our partners that we will not enter into a code of conduct that in any way constrains our national security-related activities in space or our ability to protect the United States and our allies."
Comment: Is this a small media campaign to begin bastardizing China? It's very subtle, but it seems to be geared toward slowly making China who (like Russia) is an ally of Iran, to appear to be a loose cannon. What is it about the European version of the "Space Code of Conduct" that has caused the U.S. to have shunned it?
Though vaguely, it can be seen that the War on Terror and security by way of fearmongering, is high on the agenda for steering the minds of the masses.