[jimtorr]

What we really need is better situational awareness in space -- who else is up there, where they are and what they are doing in both space and time.

I am happy to say that we have already been there and done that. There is a wide ground-based network of telescopes to monitor orbital space. In fact, there is a new, open, program in the works to place cameras on satellites to scan orbital space.

[CBart95]

This may piss off all you "one-worlders",but lets declare space off limits to any type of weapons except our own and have done with it.

Everyone else can just pound sand.

[Cincinatus]

Ground-based assets work fine for low Earth orbit, but a lot of important satellites are much higher, in the space between Earth and Moon. We need space-based monitoring (and ultimately, access) to those higher orbits.