Space (Pro) Readings

A listing of Space Warfare-related book in my personal collection. Arranged in reverse-chronological order with most recently published at top. Some include commentary. Headers are year of publication.

September 2026 SECAF Announcement

The announcement on 14 September 2026 that the US Space Force has weapons in space is not a book but an event I see as pivotal in space warfare. Before this announcement, the official US policy over weapons in space was that set in the Eisenhower Administration (see 2015 Sambulak for a historical recounting of the issues). While there has long been speculation about what space warfare may look like (see 1978 Hackett or 1988 Brown for my earliest fictional encounters) the placement of weapons on orbit has long been officially denied.

“Meink also acknowledged for the first time that Space Force has weapons in space. “We are increasing readiness against existing threats, and the United States has on-orbit space control weapons capable of defending the Joint Force against hostile adversary action,” he said.”

2026 (Pre-SECAF announcement)

Dawson, Linda. War in Space: The Science and Technology Behind Our Next Theater of Conflict. Switzerland: Springer, 2026.

2025

Garretson, Peter A., and Richard M. Harrison. Space Shock: 18 Threats That Will Define Space Power. Estes Park, CO: Armin Lear Press, 2025. 

Klein, John J. Space Warfare: Strategy, Principles and Policy. 2nd ed. Space Power and Politics series. London: Routledge, Taylor & Francis Group, 2025.

2024

Syzmanski, Paul. The Battle Beyond: Fighting and Winning the Coming War in Space – Sun Tzu and ‘The Art of War’ Applied to Space War, Volume I. Albuquerque, NM,: Space Strategies Center, 2024.

2023

Klein, John J. Fight for the Final Frontier: Irregular Warfare in Space. Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute Press, 2023.

May, Andrew. How Space Physics Really Works: Lessons from Well-Constructed Science Fiction. Switzerland: Springer, 2023.

Miller, Gregory D. Sun Tzu in Space: What International Relations, History, and Science Fiction Teach Us About Our Future. Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute Press, 2023.

2015

Sambulak, Nicholas Michael. The Other Space Race: Eisenhower and the Quest for Aerospace Security. Annapolis: Naval Institute Press, 2015.

  • Details policy discussions at the highest levels of the US Government over the peaceful uses of space vs. space weaponization. Incredibly interesting to see the policy decisions in the Eisenhower Administration and compare/contrast to the major shifts in US policy seen a little over 10 years later where the Trump Administration acknowledges the US has space weapons on-orbit.

2010

Harvey, Brian, Hank H.F. Smid and Theo Pirard. Emerging Space Powers: The New Space Programs of Asia, the Middle East, and South America. Chichester (UK): Praxis (SPringer), 2010.

Seedhouse, Erik. The New Space Race: China vs. the United States. Chichester (UK): Praxis (Springer), 2010.

Wong, Wilson W.S. and James Fergusson. Military Space Power: A Guide to the Issues. Contemporary Military, Strategic, and Security Issues series. Santa Barbara: Praeger, 2010.

2007-2009

Space Wars series

  • Coumatos, Michael J. William B. Scott and William J. Birnes. Space Wars: The First Six Hours of World War III – A Wargame Scenario. New York: Forge, 2007.
  • Scott, William B., Michael J. Coumatos and Wiliam J. Birnes. Counter Space: The Next Hours of World War III. New York: Forge, 2009.
  • “William B. Scott is a retired Rocky Mountain bureau chief for Aviation Week and Space Technology magazine and a former U.S. Air Force fight-test engineer…Michael J. Coumatos is a former U.S. Navy test pilot, the former U.S. Space Command director of wargaming…with the help of bestselling author William J. Birnes…” (Space Wars Back cover)
  • “Although the characters and actual events depicted in Space Wars are fiction and bear no resemblance to actual persons living or dead, the action and weapons depicted herein are based on actual technologies and war gaming strategies used by the United States military and civilian planners in preparation for the types of events depicted fictitiously in Space Wars” (Space Wars, front matter)

2006

Chun, Clayton K S. Defending Space: US Anti-Satellite Warfare and Space Weaponry. Fortress 53. Oxford: Osprey Publishing, 2006.

  • Part adversary threat warning and part policy advocation.

2005

Sellers, Jerry John. Understanding Space: An Introduction to Astronautics, Third Edition. McGraw-Hill, 2005.

  • Textbook from class taught by Dr. Sellers himself. There was other useful handout materials on a CD-ROM that I need to locate and see if I can recover.

1997

Peebles, Curtis. The Corona Project: America’s First Spy Satellites. Annapolis: Naval Institute Press, 1997.

  • Written in the early years of declassification for the Corona program.

1988

Brown, Dale. Silver Tower. New York: Donald I. Fine, Inc., 1988.

  • What do you mean that you pass over certain points of the Earth only at certain times of the day? Orbital mechanics, you say? Didn’t really understand it (before reading this book…).

1978

Hackett, General Sir John. “Chapter 18: The War in Inner Space.” The Third World War: August 1985. New York: Berkley, 1978.

  • The first “serious” space war scenario I remember reading. Rereading the chapter in late 2026 (a mere seven pages of the 509 in the book) it is amazing to see how much Hackett understood about the impact of space even back then. Key examples include:
    • “The military applications of this extended area of man’s domination over his environment were seen as precisely those first sought in aviation—namely, reconnaissance and communications” (p. 256).
    • “Especially dramatic was space photography of such high resolution that soldiers marching on earth could be counted in columns” (p. 256)
    • “…electronic eavesdropping… .” (p. 256)
    • “Communications satellites acting as relay stations in space…” (p. 256).
    • “…provided remarkable navigation assistance, with an accuracy down to a few metres, to ships, submarines, and aircraft” (p. 256).
    • “Their [USA] vehicles and systems were demonstrably more capable, more reliable and more durable than those of the USSR….the Americans invested their resources in complicated long-life, multi-purpose craft designed to function in orbit for periods as long as a year. The Russians, under force majeure, went for frequent launchings of simple, single-purpose, short-lived payloads” (p. 257).
    • “It was…pretty well authenticated that they [Soviet Union] were developing a counter satellite capability employing, in addition to jamming, certainly lasers and other high energy beams” (pp. 257-258).
    • “As tensions heightened…the two Big Birds [imagery satellites] were so manoeuvred as to photograph sites for the Soviet SS-16 mobile ICBM…” (p. 259).
    • “…supplementary navigation satellites…was the system that gave such astonishing navigational capability and allowed USAF F-111 aircraft to be immediately capable of reading out a ground position to an accuracy of twelve metres” (p. 259).
    • “…there must surely be more cost-effective ways of disrupting the system [SATCOM] than by days of satellite manoeuvring…Some corroboration of that view came…when…tracking and control station on the eastern seaboard suffered major damage from an undetected saboteur. The very disturbing feature of this was that damage was done by electronic means and could only have been inflicted by someone with an intimate knowledge of the station and its technology” (p. 259).
    • “…a Soyuz 49 mission was launched…when Mission 49 made its first beam sweep across Enterprise…the craft had been subjected to other high energy beam sweeps…their five engine nozzles and their elevons damaged…Worst of all, their solar cells seemed to have suffered and electric power generation ceased” (pp. 260-261).
    • “But the war was on now, and damage and interference to US surveillance required the two waiting Big Birds to be placed on orbit without delay” (p. 261).

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