safety of a SPS against the detrimental or hostile conduct of non-national forces. If human beings are ultimately to depend on "wholesale" solar energy for their needs, it would not be advisable to allow a figurative umbilical cord to be affixed to the SPS. The question is not as to the existence of such a cord. Rather the question is what can be done to protect both the SPS and its capability to deliver energy to Earth. If it might be anticipated that intentional harms might be directed toward a SPS, it might be advisable to establish either a national or international police force in the space environment to offer whatever protection it might be able to muster. In the fairly recent past attention has been given to the possibility that the Soviet Union has in operational use a space object able to interfere with other space objects, if not in fact able to neutralize their use. Recently, the United States has found itself under increasing pressure to field an anti-satellite capability of its own in response to Soviet activities in this area. The United States has a goal of maintaining its right of passage through and operations in space without interference. The respective security needs of nations relating to the effective use and operation of a SPS require a political-legal assessment of the seeming capabilities of such space objects. Inquiry might now be directed toward a clarification of the legal right of a State to engage in antisatellite activities under the terms of the Principles Treaty, whether the terms of the agreement should be reconsidered in order to prevent such uses if in fact they are not permitted, and, might even consider the possibility of reviving the notion that there should be complete disarmament of the space environment. An approach in which all States
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