Star Trek is teleplay (I'm a huge Trekker: I have a replica of a tricorder signed by Shatner himself, in front of me, at SVCC (Thanks Woz!). He smiled at me and said, "Nice to see ya'." I still have the silver sharpie marker he used. Touched by his own hand. One day I'll meet a kid wearing a Starfleet uniform and Vulcan ears and bequeath 'em that pen, but the tricorder is getting buried with me when I die. Hardcore ST4LIFE.)

Now then, you can't hold up Star Trek as something to help decide policy in actual space.

If anything "Moon is a Harsh Mistress" is the sci-fi to look to. I don't want to give a spoiler though, but, uh, whoever gets to the Moon first effectively rules the Earth.

That accounts for local space around the Earth, now Alan Dean Foster was the first sci-fi author to point out that war is impossible in space due to fundamental physics. I don't have the time to go into it now but it's not hard to work out once you clear away the mental/emotional dross.

In sum, "war" in "space" is a mental concept not grounded in physical reality. People have been watching too much fiction and are all screwed up in the head in re: the realities of space and physics.

If we wind up with "war" in "space" it will be a kind of theater that the powerful use to cow the naive.