Weltraumbewaffnung und Optionen für präventive Rüstungskontrolle

"Der erdnahe Raum wird zunehmend von Raumfahrt treibenden Staaten für vielfältige zivile, kommerzielle aber auch für militärische Zwecke genutzt. Insbesondere für global agierende Streitkräfte wie z.B. die der USA oder für die Verifikation von Rüstungskontrolle sind Weltraumanwendungen wie Kommunikation, Fernerkundung oder Navigation unverzichtbar. Bisher ist der Weltraum 'frei von Waffen' geblieben, die Ziele im All oder direkt auf der Erde bedrohen könnten. Heutige Satelliten haben lediglich 'passive Funktionen', d.h. sie sind nicht in der Lage, gezielt gegnerische Satelliten 'auszuschalten'. Die USA und Russland sind nach über fünfzigjähriger Rüstungskonkurrenz im All militärisch führend, haben es trotz einiger Versuche jedoch vermieden, Weltraumwaffen (WRW) stationierungsreif einzusetzen. WRW sind Objekte, die sich im Weltraum befinden oder in den Weltraum wirken und Satelliten beschädigen oder zerstören. In den USA gibt es eine anhaltende Debatte bezüglich der nächsten Schritte zur Einführung von WRW. In den US-Streitkräften werden institutionelle, organisatorische und budgetäre Weichen für eine verstärkte Integration des Weltraums in die Kriegführung der USA gestellt. Die Europäische Union wird den erdnahen Raum zukünftig verstärkt sicherheitspolitisch nutzen. Russland verfügt im Prinzip über ein veraltetes auf der Erde stationiertes ASAT-System. China werden Aktivitäten auf dem Gebiet WRW nachgesagt. Drei Gründe sprechen gegen eine Bewaffnung des Weltraums: Zum einen sind WRW teuer und ineffizient. Um große Bereiche des Weltraums zu schützen, benötigt man viele Systeme, die gestartet, manövriert und gewartet werden müssen. Darüber hinaus müssen funktionsfähige WRW getestet werden. Waffentests oder der reale Einsatz gegen Satelliten im Weltraum erhöhen die Menge an 'Weltraumschrott' dramatisch. Zum dritten haben die USA am meisten zu verlieren, wenn sich weitere Staaten zur Stationierung von WRW entschließen. Eine Weltraumbewaffnung könnte militärische Schritte weiterer Akteure provozieren, die bisher nicht an WRW interessiert sind - ein 'Wettrüsten im Weltraum' wäre die wahrscheinliche Konsequenz. Solch eine 'Konkurrenz im All' würde enorme Ressourcen binden und Rivalitäten in den Weltraum tragen. Ein verschärftes Klima des Misstrauens in den internationalen Beziehungen wäre die Folge. Die internationale Staatengemeinschaft sollte völkerrechtlich verbindliche Schritte unternehmen, um den Status der Waffenfreiheit des Weltraums zu erhalten. Ziel sollte die Schaffung eines verbindlichen, verifizierbaren Verbotsregimes für alle Arten von WRW sein. Auf dem Weg dorthin sind diverse vertrauensbildende Maßnahmen ebenso denkbar wie erste institutionelle und technische Schritte wie die Verbesserung der 'Space Surveillance' oder die Schaffung einer UN-Weltraumagentur. Die UN und die EU sollten auf dem Sektor der Rüstungskontrolle gestaltend tätig werden und Schritte zur Stärkung des Weltraumvertrages einleiten, zumal dieser im Jahr 2007 vierzig Jahre alt wird." (Textauszug)"Today, near-earth environment is increasingly being used by space-faring nations not only for various civilian and commercial purposes, but also for military means. In particular, space-based technologies in areas such as communications, remote sensing, and navigation are indispensable for armed forces with a global reach, such as those of the US, and for the verification of arms control arrangements. To this day, the earth environment has remained free from weapons capable of threatening targets in outer space or directly on earth. Today's satellites are restricted to 'passive functions', i.e. they are not capable of directly eliminating adversarial satellites. As a result of their 50-years arms race, the USA and Russia are assured of military dominance in space. However, apart from a few attempts, they have refrained from deploying operational space weapons (SWs). SWs are objects that are deployed in space or act on objects in space and are capable of damaging or destroying satellites. In the US, there is an ongoing debate concerning the next steps in the introduction of SWs. In the US armed forces, the organizational and budgetary foundations have been laid for the enhanced integration of space concepts into warfare. In the future, the European Union will increasingly use the near-earth environment for security purposes. Russia possesses an outdated ASAT system. China is rumored to be developing SW-related activities. There are three reasons to oppose the weaponization of space: First, SWs are expensive and inefficient. In order to protect vast areas of space, many systems are required and they all have to be launched, maneuvered, and maintained. Second, operational SWs have to be tested. Both tests and the real use of weapons against satellites in space increase the amount of space debris dramatically. Third, the US has the most to lose if other states decide to deploy SWs. Space weaponization could provoke reactions on the part of other parties, who are not yet interested in SWs - an arms race in space would be the most likely consequence. Such a turn of events would devour enormous resources. It would also be likely to lead to a widening climate of mistrust in international relations. The international community should establish binding provisions under international law to guarantee the weapon-free status of outer space as laid down by the Outer Space Treaty. The goal should be the establishment of an arms control regime centered upon a binding and verifiable ban on all kinds of SWs. Steps towards this could include confidence building measures as well as institutional and technical measures, such as the improvement of 'space surveillance' or the establishment of a UN space agency. The UN and the EU should seek to act independently on arms control in space thus improving security on earth to strengthen the Outer Space Treaty, which has its 40th anniversary in 2007." (excerpt

Aluminum-1,4-cyclohexanedicarboxylates: High-Throughput and Temperature-Dependent in Situ EDXRD Studies

Exploring the use of the flexible aliphatic 1,4-cyclohexanedicarboxylic acid (H2CDC) as linker molecule in Al-MOF synthesis, two new compounds were discovered. The layered compound 1 is built from chains of corner-sharing AlO6-polyhedra and cis-CDC, while the microporous MIL-53 analogue CAU-13 (2) contains the same inorganic building unit as 1 but trans-CDC linker molecules in two different conformations. In addition to the detailed characterization of both compounds, the crystallization of 2 was investigated with temperature-dependent in situ EDXRD

Determination of the Surface Facets of Gold Nanorods in Wet‐Coated Thin Films with Grazing‐Incidence Wide Angle X‐Ray Scattering

This work studies the surface facets of gold nanorods (AuNRs) in wet‐coated nanoparticle thin films with synchrotron‐light‐based grazing‐incidence wide angle X‐ray scattering (GIWAXS), which provides statistically relevant results on many nanoparticles. Air‐brush spraying deposits the monodisperse AuNRs into sparse monolayers where the long axis of rods is parallel to the substrate surface. It is found that the crystalline facets of individual AuNRs in the sparse monolayer are all in the same orientation, as indicated by narrow azimuthal widths of (200) reflections, over a macroscopic scale comparable to the substrate. This alignment is probably due to the rods' sitting on high‐index surface facets such as (520) and (250). A quantitative analysis of the angles between bulk facets and the surface facets leads to a “nested‐octagon” model for the cross sections of AuNRs: shell octagon with high‐index crystalline facets (520), (5‐20), (2‐50), (‐2‐50), (‐5‐20), (‐520), (‐250), and (250), and core octagon consisting of low‐index crystalline facets (100), (1‐10), (0‐10), (‐1‐10), (‐100), (‐110), (010), and (110

Size Limit on the Formation of Periodic Mesoporous Organosilicas (PMOs)

The decrease of the lattice size of periodic mesoporous organosilicas (PMOs) is one important goal in obtaining a microporous material for storage or adsorption of small molecules. To determine the influence of different synthesis parameters in the lattice size, here we performed in situ small-angle X-ray diffraction studies and show that a variation of the surfactant’s headgroup size is not directly followed by the lattice parameter of the resulting structure. We show that in the surfactant series of penta-, hexa-, hepta-, octa-, nona-, and decaethylene glycol monododecyl ether (C12(EO)n, n = 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10) the lattice size decreases between n = 5 and n = 8 and then increases, while the ordering of the materials is always cubic (space group Fd3m). This size effect is due to the ethylene oxide (EO) chain conformation that changes as the number of EO groups increases. Short ethylene oxide chains tend to have a so-called “zigzag” conformation while an increase of the chain length leads to a “Mäander” (coiling) conformation. Although this phenomenon is most commonly observed for chains consisting of more than 10 ethylene oxide units, we found a minimum PMO lattice size for 8 EO units and intermediate values for 6 and 7 EO units. The increase of the lattice parameter for more than 9 EO units is attributed to the increasing number of “Mäander” configurated EO units

Brdf Effects In Remotely Sensed High Resolution Images Of Urban Areas

Satellite remotely sensed images with a resolution of 1 m are expected to be available in the near future. These images are well suited for the study of inhomogenous areas like cities. This paper presents research projects of our group concerning the bidirectional reflectance properties of man-made surfaces, such as roofs, streets, etc. The BRDF effects (like e.g. specular reflection for forward scattering or Hot Spot for backward scattering) can lead to incorrect classification results. The focus of this paper is the presentation of the measurement of the BRDF of a roof with corrugated tiles. The distance sensor-target was about 70 m. The sensor consists of two hyperspectral units, measuring from 610 to 1650 nm. The incoming irradiance was determined with a Spectralon panel. Measurements of the shaded roof were used to correct for skylight effects. Particular attention was given to estimating the error, which turned out to be 10 to 12 % on average. The deviation of the measured BRDF v..

Single-crystal diffraction at the Extreme Conditions beamline P02.2: procedure for collecting and analyzing high-pressure single-crystal data

Fast detectors employed at third-generation synchrotrons have reduced collection times significantly and require the optimization of commercial as well as customized software packages for data reduction and analysis. In this paper a procedure to collect, process and analyze single-crystal data sets collected at high pressure at the Extreme Conditions beamline (P02.2) at PETRA III, DESY, is presented. A new data image format called \u2018Esperanto\u2019 is introduced that is supported by the commercial software package CrysAlis Pro (Agilent Technologies UK Ltd). The new format acts as a vehicle to transform the most common area-detector data formats via a translator software. Such a conversion tool has been developed and converts tiff data collected on a Perkin Elmer detector, as well as data collected on a MAR345/555, to be imported into the CrysAlis Pro software. In order to demonstrate the validity of the new approach, a complete structure refinement of boron-mullite (Al5BO9) collected at a pressure of 19.4 (2) GPa is presented. Details pertaining to the data collections and refinements of B-mullite are presented