The Pentagon's Missile Defence Agency has shelved a research project aimed at developing what could become the first weapons in space pending orders from higher-ups, a spokesman said on Wednesday. "Everything is geared now to the near term," not to futuristic components that could be based in space, said Richard Lehner, a Missile Defence Agency spokesman.
The United States plans to spend about $10 billion a year for the next five years on sensors, missiles and other systems based on the ground, at sea and aboard a modified Boeing Co to thwart ballistic missile attack from countries like North Korea and Iran.
China, an emerging space power, has voiced strong objections to any "weaponisation" of space as have Russia and some US European allies. Critics in Congress and elsewhere have also opposed steps toward putting weapons in space.
Elaborating on a colleague's off-the-record comments at a briefing on President Bush's fiscal 2006 budget request, Lehner said the agency was awaiting orders from Congress and the administration on whether to pursue space-based technology.
Companies that could benefit from expanding missile defence into space include the three largest US defence contractors, Lockheed Martin Corp, Boeing Co and Northrop Grumman Corp.
In his budget request a year ago, Bush sought an unspecified sum for developing and testing "advanced, lightweight, space-based (missile) interceptor components" reminiscent of the late president Ronald Reagan's "Star Wars" missile defence plan launched in March 1983.
The Missile Defence Agency said at that time it was seeking $47 million to start "technology development" of such weapons and others that could be phased into a layered missile shield starting in January 2012.
In outlining the spending plan to reporters at a Pentagon briefing on Friday, a senior Defence Department official who spoke on condition he not be named said no funds related to space "test beds" were sought in the 2006 budget.
"Right now, the debate has not taken place on space-basing missile defence capability," he said. "When the time comes, we will be told to budget for it. That is a decision that will not be made within the agency."
Philip Coyle, the Pentagon's chief weapons tester under former president Bill Clinton and now at the private Centre for Defence Information, said the official in effect was acknowledging insufficient support in Congress to move forward with any missile defence-related space-basing plans.
Michael Krepon, who runs a space security project at the Henry L. Stimson Centre, a public policy research group, said funding for programs that could contribute to space warfare were scattered throughout the federal budget, many in "black" compartments not made public.
"We just don't know. But we do need a debate," he said. "If we go down this route, the consequences would be huge."
Jeffrey Lewis, a University of Maryland researcher who tracks space spending at the Web site www.armscontrolwonk.com said: "If they really shelved it this year, I have no doubt it'll reappear in future budgets."
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