La généalogie de l'espace comme "champ de bataille ... - Archipel

lien a ainsi toujours été clair pour la RAND quant au pouvoir des idées pour structurer
la réalité, notamment sur le plan technologique (Campbell, 2004 : 52). C'est d'ailleurs
ce que laisse entendre le «partenariat de confiance» exposé dans le livre (issu de la
RAND) sur les 50 ans (1946-1996) du Project Air Force, « What the founders put in
place with Project RAND, and what the Air Force has sustained for the past 50 years, is
an institution capable of affecting the fundamental thinking of the Air Force itself-in
logistics, acquisition, force employment, strategie policy, cost analysis » (Campbell,
2004 : 8). Pour ceux qui douteraient des liens privilégiés existant entre la Communauté
de défense des États-Unis, le gouvernement américain et la RAND, il suffit de faire
remarquer qu'en 2005, celui qui présidait ce qu'on pourrait appeler son Conseil
d'administration (le Board ofTrustees), n'était nul autre que le secrétaire à la Défense
d'alors des États-Unis, Donald Rumsfeld 4 . Il est peu connu cependant que les premiers
travaux de la RAND concernent le développement américain de l'exploration spatiale et
son potentiel militaire:
The organization's very first report, "Preliminary Design of an Experimental World-Circling
Spaceship," was issued in May of 1946, within months of RAND's creation. It set an immediate
precedent, serving as a model of how orchestrated ideas could forcefully shape the development of
technology in several different areas. The report was a detailed engineering feasibiJity study for a
proposed satellite. It spelled out why such a vehicle should be developed : Space was the future; the
Air Force should consider space its natural habitat; space offered tremendous advantages in
reconnaissance, communications, and weather forecasting. It noted that technologies for launching
into space, conducting activities in space, and deorbiting were within reach (Campbell, 52).
D'ailleurs, lorsqu'on sait l'importance du lancement de Spoutnik sur l'État américain, il
est révélateur de voir combien le premier rapport de la RAND avait visé juste:
"Preliminary Design for a World-Circling Spaceship" was so direct and c1ear that it jump-started the
minds of those within the Air Force who would, in the crucial years to come, push a host of space
initiatives through the natural resistance that radical and expensive proposais engender. ln a follow-up
paper, the RAND analyst James Lipp remarked : "Since mastery of the elements is a reliable index of
material progress, the nation which first makes significant achievements in space travel will be
acknowledged as the world leader in both military and scientific techniques. To visualize the impact
on the world, one can imagine the consternation and admiration that would be felt here if the United
States were to discover suddenly that sorne other nation had already put up a successful satellite."
This is, of course, what happened a decade later, when the Soviet Union launched its Sputnik
On retrouve la liste des membres actuels à l'adresse
suivante: www.rand.org/about/organizationlrandtrustees.html.
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