Over at Aviation Week, Jeffrey Manber reports some news coming out of the UN about space weapons:
The United Nations Conference on Disarmament, the Geneva-based 65-nation group that has been stuck in a diplomatic quagmire for the past decade, announced two surprising breakthroughs two weeks ago.
The first concerned creating rules prohibiting the production of nuclear-grade materials, even among nations with nuclear weapons. The second was the equally dramatic agreement to create a working group to seek an end to weapons in space.
Manber sees these developments – done with the blessing of the Obama Administration – as good news:
For the space community there are only good implications. Sure, it could well take another decade to reach an agreement. But in the meantime it will send a signal of goodwill to other spacefaring nations, with spillover effects for increased cooperation in the civil and commercial sectors.
Read the full analysis.