No country yet threatens its dominance of space and neither America nor anyone else has deployed space-based weapons.
Deploying space arms could cost hundreds of billions of dollars.
It also includes plans for breaking up satellites into smaller components that communicate wirelessly, or deploying "space tugs" that would repair and refuel existing satellites.Few of these options are cost-free.
Space structures such as the solar panels or antenna, when deployed in space, have large dimensions, low mass to size ratio, large inertias and relatively low structural rigidity.
However, 2D assumption may no longer be valid if a wireless network is deployed in space, atmosphere, or ocean, where nodes of a network are distributed over a three-dimensional (3D) space and the difference in the third dimension is too large to be ignored.
Within 17 minutes, the towerlike mast was all the way out -- and the longest rigid structure ever deployed in space.
Altogether, the solar wings will cover half an acre, making them the largest structure ever deployed in space.
Once unfurled, the wings will stretch 240 feet from tip to tip, and 38 feet across, constituting the largest structure ever deployed in space.
His Republican competitor, Gov. George W. Bush, who has called for a more ambitious plan that could be deployed in space, said he would press forward with a vigorous missile defense plan.
The issue has also entered the presidential campaign, with Vice President Al Gore endorsing a limited version of the plan and Gov. George W. Bush backing a more ambitious system that could be deployed in space.
