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.

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.

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.