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| 27/4/06 |
Say “No” to weapons in space |
The time to stop it is now. Tell your Member of Congress: Don’t fund testing a system designed specifically to attack a satellite. Space is not the place for weapons or for fighting wars, but if the Bush Administration has its way, the world will head that direction all too soon. This Administration entered office in 2001 determined to reverse decades of U.S. space policy. Four years later, in 2005, official Air Force doctrine included a “requirement” to deploy U.S. weapons to “dominate” and “control” space. The president’s FY07 budget request contains a small but very significant step toward that goal: $5.7 million to deliberately fire a ground-based laser at a satellite. In other words, we would be testing a system designed specifically to attack a satellite. If this test goes forward, it would break a long-standing moratorium on ASAT testing and push the world closer to warfighting in space. It is a short road from testing ASATs to deploying weapons and fighting wars in space that could endanger current satellites and even threaten the use of space by future generations. If that happens, we will all be losers. Satellites enhance our lives all day long, enabling instant banking, improved weather prediction, faster search and rescue, and safer airplane navigation, not to mention television broadcasting! Yet putting weapons in space and attacking satellites with ASATs would put at risk these systems that are essential to civil and economic life, as well as to keeping US troops safe. Full-scale war in space could so pollute the environment as to prohibit any future human spacefaring activities. The Subcommittees listed here will be considering this issue soon. If your Member of Congress is listed, it’s particularly important for you to take action. But even if your Member isn’t here, it’s worth sending a message to Congress. We all need to speak out about this sooner rather than later. Thanks! Senate Armed Services Committee Strategic Forces Subcommittee Senate Appropriations Subcommittee on Defense House Armed Services Committee Strategic Subcommittee House Appropriations Subcommittee on Defense |
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