Skipper

The Navy's project Skipper intended to launch a modified Scout rocket from a ship or submarine as a kinetic kill ASAT weapon. Skipper was different from most of the other projects because it would not use a nuclear warhead. Neither the Early Spring nor the Skipper project moved into development. By the mid-1960s the Navy's Polaris-related direct-ascent Early Spring, and the Skipper R&D program, were apparently still in development. None of these concepts proceeded beyond the discussion phase.

US military development of anti-satellite (ASAT) systems had begun almost concurrently with development of the first U.S. satellites. In 1957, all three military services had made proposals to develop ASATs: the Army, for an ASAT lifted to orbit on a modified Nike Zeus antiballistic missile; the Navy, for an ASAT lifted to orbit on a Polaris missile; and the Air Force, for its proposed Project SAtellite INTerceptor (SAINT).

During the latter stages of the Eisenhower administration, each of the services proposed to expand their respective ASAT studies into advanced development. President Eisenhower resisted these proposals, for the following stated reasons:

• U.S. strategic weapon delivery was by aircraft and intermediate range or intercontinental ballistic missiles, not by satellite, and there was no perceived threat from Soviet strategic weapons carried by satellites.
• Space-based strategic defense against Soviet ballistic missiles was not considered technologically feasible at that time.
• The value to the Soviets of satellite reconnaissance (at that time limited to lowresolution photo reconnaissance) did not warrant large expenditures for US ASAT systems.

These points of view were further refined into an argument that the Soviets had more to gain from ASAT weapons than the U.S. because the U.S. was more dependent on satellites for collection of intelligence over the USSR than the USSR was for intelligence over the U.S. To hedge this bet, the argument continued, the U.S. should continue research on an ASAT technology base. This argument prevailed as the basis for U.S. ASAT policy over the next 20 years.