STOP NATO: �NO PASARAN! - HTTP://WWW.STOPNATO.ORG.UK --------------------------- ListBot Sponsor -------------------------- Sopranos fanatics, this one is for you. Tony Soprano's autographed Suburban is available for purchase on eBayTM. James Gandolfini has personally signed the vehicle. Find this and over 800 other Sopranos items for sale on eBay. http://www.bcentral.com/listbot/ebay ---------------------------------------------------------------------- [Via Communist Internet... http://www.egroups.com/group/Communist-Internet ] . . ----- Original Message ----- From: Global Network Against Weapons & Nuclear Power in Space <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To: <mailto:Undisclosed-Recipient:;@mindspring.com> Sent: Wednesday, July 18, 2001 2:33 PM Subject: U.S. TO TEST SPACE-BASED LASER http://washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A10831-2001Jul17.html ================== + ================== U.S. Plans to Test Space-Based Laser To Intercept Missiles by Vernon Loeb Washington Post Staff Writer Wednesday, July 18, 2001; Page A03 HUNTSVILLE, Ala., July 17 -- A top Pentagon official said today that the Bush administration plans to test a space-based laser interceptor as early as 2005 as part of its ambitious new missile defense agenda. Robert Snyder, executive director of the Ballistic Missile Defense Organization, told reporters at a missile defense conference here that $110 million has been included in the fiscal 2002 defense budget to study technologies, including the space-based laser, aimed at hitting missiles in their "boost" phase three to five minutes after launch. The test would signal a return to the technology at the heart of the Reagan administration's Strategic Defense Initiative, dubbed "Star Wars" by critics, which defense planners envisioned as a space-based shield to protect the United States against ballistic missile attack. While deployment of space-based missile defenses would be a clear violation of the 1972 Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty, it is not clear whether an initial test of the technology would violate the pact. Bush administration officials, in any event, told Congress last week that their missile defense plans, which call for possible "emergency" deployment of ground-, air- and sea-based defenses by 2004, could violate the ABM Treaty within months. Beyond its treaty implications, testing a space-based laser also would represent a first step toward "weaponizing" space, a move that critics say could ignite a new arms race. No country has put weapons into orbit. If deployed, space-based lasers would be mounted on satellites. Snyder said the test envisioned for 2005 or 2006 most likely would involve launching a prototype laser into space and then firing it back at a target in the earth's atmosphere. "It's not clear we know how we're going to do that," Snyder said, speaking at the conference sponsored by the U.S. Army Space and Missile Defense Command. In the first Bush administration, a space-based missile defense initiative known as "Brilliant Pebbles" was considered but abandoned. It envisaged between 3,600 and 4,000 satellites armed with space-based interceptors. In California, meanwhile, federal prosecutors have charged 17 activists associated with the environmental group Greenpeace with felony counts for trying to disrupt Saturday's test of a ground-based missile defense system. During the test, an interceptor fired from Kwajalein Atoll in the Marshall Islands destroyed a dummy warhead launched from Vandenberg Air Force Base in California. Officials at Vandenberg confirmed that the Greenpeace protesters delayed the launch for several minutes by piloting four Zodiac rubber boats into a safety zone that extended into the ocean near the launch site. Four protesters were apprehended as they swam to shore, officials said. Two of the four were suffering from hypothermia and were flown to a hospital by military helicopter. The other 13 were arrested by the FBI and Coast Guard when they returned on the boats to San Luis Bay, officials said. Seven of the 17 activists, all U.S. citizens, have been released on bond, said Sharon McCaslin, a federal prosecutor in Los Angeles. She said the government was appealing a magistrate's decision granting $20,000 bond to the other 10, all foreign nationals, because it considers them flight risks. Bonnie McDiarmid, a Greenpeace anti-nuclear campaigner, said the 17 have been charged with offenses that carry sentences of up to 11 years and possible $250,000 fines. "We believe that 'Star Wars' is probably the single biggest threat to world peace at the moment," McDiarmid said, referring to the missile defense test. "It has the capability of igniting a whole new arms race." Bruce K. Gagnon Coordinator Global Network Against Weapons & Nuclear Power in Space PO Box 90083 Gainesville, FL. 32607 (352) 337-9274 http://www.space4peace.org [EMAIL PROTECTED] ______________________________________________________________________ To unsubscribe, write to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
