Below you'll find a list of all posts that have been tagged as “Jessica West”
The number of threats to the security of outer space is growing. Reports on global counter-space capabilities released at the end of March by the Secure World Foundation and the Center for Strategic and International Studies indicate that the range of capabilities that can interfere with and even destroy satellites is increasing, as is covert on-orbit activity. New initiatives such as the U.S. Space …
The history of arms control in outer space reads like a success story. Outer space is one of the few domains of human activity in which the focus has been on prevention. Although military satellites that provide communications, remote sensing, navigation, and timing services once dominated space and continue to provide essential military services, their operations have long been considered peaceful. Those of us working in space security say that space is “militarized but not weaponized.”
Landing on the moon 50 years ago was a major achievement. But, as Jessica West writes, renewing a space race without checks and balances only spells trouble
Militaries use wargames to test concepts, assumptions, and processes; to inform future planning and decision-making. But what does such an exercise look and feel like from a peace perspective?
Two new policy documents released in the United States cast light on what future war could look like, especially the central and entwined roles of missiles and outer space.
Project Ploughshares Program Officer Jessica West talks with Michelle Hanlon, cofounder of For All Moonkind about preserving Moon culture.
A new space race is on. Symbolized by the historic landing of China’s robotic explorer on the far side of the Moon, the goal this time is to create a permanent human presence on the Moon and beyond.
The world has entered a Second Space Age, marked by an intensification of our interactions and reach into outer space. A core part of the international Space Security Index project, managed by Project Ploughshares, is to look holistically at how states, companies, and people around the world access and make use of this domain. Looking to the year ahead, five …
Like boomerangs, some bad ideas keep coming back. Space-based missile defence has been pursued intermittently by the United States since the launch of the Space Age. Now, under Donald Trump, America is once again dreaming that it can protect itself from nuclear-armed missiles by deploying a “shield” of interceptors in outer space. Closely resembling President Reagan’s derided “Star Wars,” this …
U.S. President Trump’s desire to create a Space Force—a new military branch focused solely on outer space operations—has drawn public attention to the prospects of warfare in a domain that has been used only for peaceful and passive purposes. Despite the provocative name, the proposed mission would in many ways be mundane: the command and control of spacecraft rather than …
