[ssf] US 'to launch bombs from unmanned spacecraft'

[Dan]

Sorry about sending all these things... it's stuff we all know in the 
abstract, but to read about it actually happening...

http://globalsecurity.org/org/news/2005/050317-spacecraft.htm

The Pentagon is looking to space as the next frontier in its quest for 
absolute military supremacy.

It is planning a new generation of sub-orbital bombers able to strike 
anywhere in the world "within minutes".

The Falcon programme will this year test a launcher for its Common Aero 
Vehicle (CAV), an unmanned spacecraft that would travel five times the 
speed of sound and carry 1,000 pounds of bombs and intelligence sensors, 
the House armed services committee has been told.

Defence chiefs expect the CAV to be ready by 2010. A second stage of the 
project will develop two versions of a reusable "space plane" that could 
cruise at 100,000 feet, carrying a CAV anywhere in the world.

The Falcon programme is understood to reflect the Bush administration's 
growing interest in using space as a battle zone.

John Pike, director of GlobalSecurity.org, a non-governmental defence 
think tank, told the Washington Post the US will be able "to crush 
someone anywhere in the world on 30 minutes' notice".