potentials are known. Our policy and national interest should be permitted to develop first: the law, and commitments should follow, and be consonant with the former.”[1] However, the outline did note that with respect to the principle of freedom of space that “we must evolve a workable theory of international law” on this problem.[2]
Whether space law should be codified remained an issue. In May 1958, during testimony before the Senate Special Committee on Space and Astronautics, Department of State legal adviser Loftus Becker, echoing what the Air Force had first advised, reiterated US policy.
It has been felt that the soundest way to progress in the extremely complex field of the law is by means of specific decisions on specific questions presented by specific fact situation …Moreover, there are very great risks in attempting to transmute a body of law based upon one determined set of facts into a body of law with respect to which the basic facts have not been determined.[3]
Accordingly, Becker indicated the State Department was “inclined to view with great reserve” codification of outer space law.[4]
In March 1958, Air Force chief of staff Gen Thomas D. White publicly opposed the setting of any boundaries between air and outer space. General White articulated an air-space continuum (aerospace) doctrine that “it should be recognized that there is no division, per se, between the two. For all practical purposes air and space merge, forming a continuous and indivisible field of operations.”[5] Also in the spring of 1958, the assistant deputy chief of staff for plans and programs directed that the Air Doctrine Branch complete a second sovereignty study for Air Force “eyes only,” regarding the feasibility of international law for space and its effects on military space programs. The Air Doctrine Branch, Air Policy Division, Directorate of Plans, DCS for Plans and Programs, circulated the study to the Air Staff on 22 August 1958. The study-prepared with the advice and assistance of all interested headquarters agencies, the Air University (AU), and RAND-was circulated among Headquarters USAF offices in October.[6] Given that an earlier published AU study was “divergent” from the opinions of the Air Staff, the Air Doctrine Branch recommended any further studies incorporating the opinions of both be held in abeyance pending completion of the RAND study, which had
- ↑ Outline, “Some Elements Requiring Consideration in Formulating a National Policy on Outer Space,” 6, attachment to Mansfield D. Sprague, assistant secretary of defense, to secretary of the Air Force et al., memorandum, subject: Proposal for a National Policy on Outer Space, 25 February 1958.
- ↑ Ibid.
- ↑ Testimony, Loftus E. Becker, Department of State legal adviser, to Special Senate Committee on Space and Astronautics, 13 May 1958, 18. Attached to Meeker to Monroe Leigh, transmittal letter, 16 May 1958.
- ↑ Ibid.
- ↑ Gen Thomas D. White, “Air And Space Are Indivisible,” Air Force Magazine, March 1958, 41; and preface to “Missiles and the Race toward Space,” The United States Air Force Report on the Ballistic Missile, 1958, 22. General White’s continuum statement certainly impacted the delimitation issue. However, the focus of his statement must also have been the effort of the Air Force to obtain or retain the aerospace function as part of the on-going roles and missions discussions taking place within DOD.
- ↑ Bowen, 185; and History, DCS/Plans and Programs, 166-67.
