UZAY-TABANLI GÜVENLİK ÇALIŞMALARI

In response to growing needs, space activities have been increasingly gaining an interdisciplinary dimension, and a starategic importance for all countries concerned with security in the widest sense. The concept of space and security has now moved beyond the classical domain of the armed forces, to encompass service to the whole humanity. In this context, while space used to be concerned with aeronautics and defense, it has now come to a point where, along with the changing global threats, it shares a varity of research areas and applications within the security platform. As the classical security concept gives way to a new security understanding in the framework of new threats, countries have been incorporating more space based systems in their struggle at both the national and international levels. As a result of effective use of space systems, significant achievements have been made against both natural and man-made threats. On the other hand, waste of time and resources cannot be afforded in the high technology and high cost space projects. In this paper first the classical and new security concepts are explored comparatively in the face of the new threats, as percieved by the major powers in the World. Then, use of space assets are explained in relation to security applications, followed by the space policies of the major powers, and some specific space based security projects and programs. Finally a summary of Turkish space activities is given together with certain recommendations as derived from other countries.