Lost in Space

Via Needlenose comes the story of America's next generation military boondoggle: space-based weapons or, more poetically, rods from god.

Snark aside, the story is serious.

...In its outlook on space, the United States has a case of what my late Rand colleague Carl Builder called the "Icarus syndrome." The U.S. military is drawn, like Icarus, ever higher. Yet, if it became capable of waging war in space, the results would be as catastrophic as they were for Icarus when he flew too close to the sun.

Our image would be damaged. The financial waste would be enormous, as we spent huge new sums on ineffective or easily countered new weapons. Worst of all, others will fight back in space, and we would likely lose the satellite connectivity that contributes so much to the efficiency of our incomparable ground forces. In the "long war" against terror, waged against elusive enemies on the ground, losing access to space-based communications and targeting systems would be crippling....