Now, for the first time, a multi-nation human outpost -- the multi-billion dollar International Space Station (ISS) -- could prove beneficial in the world-wide campaign to root out terrorism.

It is not unique to include space-based assets are part of an American counterattack. The August 1990 invasion of Kuwait by Iraq brought about Operation Desert Storm, an allied response led by the United States.

That Gulf War conflict made great use of space borne hardware, earning it the label of the world's first space war.

Surveillance, intelligence-gathering, weather, communications, and global navigation spacecraft are already tasked to help in finding and keeping tabs on terrorists, as well as plotting retaliatory responses.

But to what extent can humans in Earth orbit assist battlefield commanders? Moreover, can the civilian orbiting complex -- an icon for the peaceful uses of outer space -- be legally assigned such a duty?

Peaceful purposes
An Intergovernmental Agreement on the ISS was first put in place in 1988, resulting in an exchange of letters between participating countries involved in the mega-project. Those letters state that each partner in the project determines what a "peaceful purpose" is for its own element.

"The 1988 U.S. letter clearly states that the United States has the right to use its elements ... for national security purposes, as we define them" said Marcia Smith, a space policy expert at the Congressional Research Service - a research arm of the U.S. Congress.

Smith told SPACE.com that using space stations to support military functions is not new. As example, the former Soviet Union assigned military work to their Salyut 3 and Salyut 5 space stations in the 1970s.

The crewed stations of the Soviet Union and now Russia, including the recently deorbited Mir, are known to have supported remote sensing of Earth, Smith said. Various types of Earth-monitoring devices were flown up to and used by crews on those facilities, she said.

"That line between remote sensing and reconnaissance is very fine. They certainly had an array of remote sensing equipment. But how useful the data was for their military activities, and compared to what their reconnaissance satellites can do, I can't evaluate that," Smith said.

Space stations flown to date haven't been in ideal, pole-to-pole orbits that provide full coverage of Earth and adequate revisit times over world trouble spots. However, they can be "in the right place at the right time," contrasted to an unpiloted spacecraft that might be in the wrong location when needed, Smith said.

The unmaking of MOL
U.S. Air Force space planners have long been interested in the role of military personnel in Earth orbit. Getting a real program off the ground, however, has been thwarted in the past - at least in open circles.

Following cancellation in late 1963 of the Air Force DynaSoar project -- a piloted space glider capable of making bombing runs among other functions -- then American President Lyndon Johnson approved the building of the U.S. Air Force Manned Orbiting Laboratory (MOL).

MOL's mission was grand. Military astronauts would carry out reconnaissance using novel cameras and radar gear. Satellites could be inspected, retrieved, even intercepted, if need be. A variety of experiments and hardware were built to explore the usefulness of military command and control operations from Earth orbit. By 1967, the MOL project became the Air Force's largest space program.

Cost growth in the MOL, technology advances in automated military spacecraft, as well as the expensive Vietnam war, helped force cancellation of the project in mid-1969. MOL systems later found their way on classified military satellites. Similarly, MOL experiments were later flown onboard NASA's Skylab space station in the early 1970s. Rapid-fire

The role of humans in orbit to perform military space operations continues to dog the U.S. Air Force.

"We're still looking for that definitive mission," said Air Force Lt. Col. Steve Davis, an officer at Kirtland Air Force Base in Albuquerque, New Mexico. "Force enhancement is primarily what we're doing today," he said August 28 during Space 2001, a meeting of the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics held in Albuquerque.

Davis said there is increasing reliance on using space for national needs. "Space control is becoming more important as we have very high value assets in orbit. We depend on these assets and are interested in protecting them," he said.

Onboard one of the Soviet Union's early orbital piloted stations, Davis said, a rapid-fire cannon was installed. The military outpost was armed, he said, "so they could defend themselves from any hostile intercepts."

The Air Force Manned Orbiting Laboratory (MOL) was a 1960's Cold War space station. It was designed to keep tabs on enemies, among other duties, but received the budget ax partly due to rising costs.

The proposed, but never flown, Dynasoar space craft. It was to be a piloted space glider capable of making bombing runs among other functions.

Air Force mission
At present, any vision of military commandos zooming from orbit to orbit, blowing up enemy satellites, seems far-fetched and more like sci-fi fare than real battle plans.

The bottom line, Davis said, "is that there is no current or near term roles for military man in space. We will probably continue on a current method of having supervised systems...man on the ground in the loop...supervising systems in space," he said.

However, terrorist threats to ground links that maintain space assets is another matter, Davis said. These type of attacks can be cheaply done, and accomplished by adversaries that don't have a significant space capability, he said.

Furthermore, terrestrial threats to ground links could mean putting military personnel in orbit, Davis explained. That reduces vulnerabilities and pushes command and control functions into orbit and out of harm's way, he said.

Davis said there are provisions for doing "sensitive research" on the International Space Station. Using the brainpower and precision hand-eye coordination of humans in orbit is hard to beat with automated equipment.

"It would be nice to have a blue-suiter (an Air Force technician) sitting there for Air Force type research," Davis said. Collaboration

In a gathering of NASA employees last week, days after the terrorist attack on New York and Washington, D.C., space agency chief, Daniel Goldin said that the civilian organization stands ready to work with the Defense Department, as it has in the past.

A recent study of collaboration between civil space agencies, military and intelligence services found a number of areas ripe for follow-up. NASA could assist military space strategists in honing critical capabilities, including: satellite servicing and repair; on-orbit refueling; artificial intelligence, such as automated reasoning, intelligent use of data, and human-centered computing; as well as forecasting space weather.

Another opportunity for collaboration is drawing on NASA expertise in crafting the 16-nation International Space Station effort in the first place. "NASA's experience with international partnerships could serve as a model for establishing joint space security agreements with our allies," the study concluded.

Window on the world
A program already in place is the Department of Defense Space Test Program (STP). Created in 1966, the STP has manifested a range of experiments on the Space Shuttle and now the ISS. A Department of Defense Space Shuttle and ISS Integration and Operations office is located at the NASA Johnson Space Center in Houston, Texas.

Defense Department experiments have flown on almost every Space Shuttle mission. Access is now available for long-duration research on the ISS, both inside the orbiting facility as well as via externally attached payload accommodations.

An early and likely spot on the ISS that could prove useful for an anti-terrorist campaign is built into the U.S. Destiny module - a unique window on the world. This optical-grade round window is located in the center section of the module. The purity of glass used, size of the porthole, and its ability to support a range of cameras and film types should make observations and picture shooting extremely good from on-high.

A thorny issue remains, however.

Gaining overall acceptance by all partners to use ISS for military and intelligence gathering tasks may be problematic. Just as in carrying out proprietary commercial research in orbit, one nation may not want to reveal to other nations what it has learned.

At this stage, all the ISS partners seem allied to a snuff-out-terrorism work order. Over time, however, any growing list of ISS military and intelligence assignments might find less accord among the partners.