These advances will enable lasers with reasonable mass and cost to effect very many kills. . . . Setting the emotional issues of nuclear power aside, this technology offers a viable alternative for large amounts of power in space. It s politically sensitive, but it s going to happen. We re going to fight from space, and we re going to fight into space. It s a threat to our economic well-being.
Space is in the nation s economic interest.
In Congress, one avid booster of US space dominance is Senator Bob Smith, Republican of New Hampshire. The most immediate task of the United States in the years ahead is to sustain and extend its leadership in the increasingly intertwined fields of military and commercial space. And the United States has signed a multimillion dollar contract with TRW and Boeing to build a Space-Based Laser Readiness Demonstrator. Next April, the Global Network will come to Washington DC for a protest, including a demonstration at the US Treasury to stress how much money is being spent by the United States on military activities in space. We have this one chance, this one moment in history, to stop the weaponization of space from happening.