The universe is infinite, and, as reported first by The Washington Post on Oct. 18, we own all of it. President Bush updated the National Space Policy quietly on Aug. 31, stating the U.S. right to “defense and intelligence-related activities in pursuit of national interests.” Further, Bush stated, the United States “rejects any claims to sovereignty by any nation over outer space or celestial bodies.”

In case the last couple of sentences gave you a nosebleed, let me clarify. The new space policy basically states that the United States can do whatever it wants, whenever it wants in space, and no one better get in our way.

Apparently Bush was watching “Star Wars” when he choked on that pretzel, and when he came to, he thought he was watching a documentary. Last time I checked there isn’t anything in space that is a threat to our national security except maybe a large meteoroid or invading alien armada, and we have enough science-fiction movies to tell us how to deal with both of those.

The problem with declaring sole sovereignty of space, which is really what this document does, is in enforcement. Declaring national sovereignty in space is kind of like trying to completely cut off the flow of illegal immigrants across the U.S-Mexican border; it doesn’t really work. Furthermore, it is equally, if not more, absurd in its arrogance. We can’t even make it to Mars yet, and we are attempting to claim national sovereignty of the entire universe.
Currently the only other country with a space program comparable to ours is China. I suppose if you wanted you could include Russia, but currently it seems the Russian space program has been transformed into an amusement ride for rich tourists wanting to see how creative they can get in wasting millions of dollars. So even if we claim sovereignty of space, there really isn’t anyone to challenge it, so where is the fun – I mean, if we can’t at least make it interesting by having a short space war.

The greatest flaw with this proposal of space sovereignty is the possibility of conflict when, that is if, it occurs. Taking China, for example, as they are currently the most likely to be an adversary in this space fantasy. Assume for a moment that China was building a Death Star in space. I mean we already know they have the plans; they ship thousands of them to us every year. If they were to attempt to build a Death Star of sorts, what exactly are we going to do? Maybe we could call up our Air Force and tell them to jump in the X-Wings that don’t exist to go defend the United States from a grave and gathering threat. Or maybe we could lob a few thermonuclear warheads up there; that sure would make one heck of a fireworks show.

Aside from the enforcement problem of this claim is its purpose. Claiming sovereignty over something that we cannot possibly fully explore, much less have even come close at this point to understand, is pointless. It will only be seen as another arrogant move by Americans trying to claim control over something that really isn’t theirs. And if you really want to get into the nitty-gritty details and explore the claim that we have the right to use it for our own national interests, that in itself opens up a whole can of worms into the debate of putting weapons into space.

National security can be defined in many ways, and under the current Bush doctrine of pre-emption, it could easily be seen as trying to quietly claim a right to deploy weapon systems into space, which would be a violation of previous treaties signed under the Clinton administration.

This isn’t an unfounded fear, sadly, as Bush has already poured millions of dollars into the failed “Star Wars” missile defense program of the Reagan administration. This program attempts to create a “missile-shield” for the United States, where if a nuclear weapon was launched at the United States it could be intercepted by a missile in space.

Overall, this claim to space sovereignty is not only arrogant and pointless, it is just plain ridiculous. Debates continue to this day over what classifies sovereignty as it relates to a nation, and if it even truly exists. Before we go trying to claim sovereignty over the final frontier, maybe we should at least try to settle the disputes over sovereignty here on earth.