STRASBOURG,
France - The United States is not developing space weapons and could not
afford to do so even if it wanted to, an official with the Pentagon's National
Security Space Office said Thursday.
Pete Hays,
a senior policy analyst at the space office who is also associate director of
the Eisenhower Center for Space and Defense Studies, said U.S. policy
on space weaponry has remained pretty much the same over the last 30 years
despite the occasionally heated debate on the subject during the administration
of former U.S. President George W. Bush.
"There
has not been one minute spent on this issue as far as I know," Hays said
of U.S. Defense Department policy on using weapons in space. "There are no
space weaponization programs. It's an issue that academics like to flog now and
then, but in terms of funded programs, there aren't any. I can tell you that
categorically."
Hays made
his remarks during a space security conference organized by the International
Space University here. He said that even if the United States decided to embark
on a space-based
weapon system, it could not pay for it given its current military program
commitments.
Hays said
the U.S. policy of refusing to sign a treaty banning space-based weapons has
not changed since the 1970s. Despite occasional efforts, no administration,
Democrat or Republican, has been able to craft an acceptable treaty.
Hays said
he cannot explain why a policy statement from the new administration of President
Barack Obama appears to highlight a priority of seeking
a worldwide ban on weapons that would interfere with satellites. "This
will be an extremely difficult policy to adopt" for the same reasons that
other administrations have fallen short, Hays said. "It is not for lack of
trying that the United States and others have been unable" to produce a
treaty.
Russia and
China continue to try to win support for such a treaty at the United Nations
Disarmament Conference.
In a
separate presentation to the conference, John Sheldon of the School of Advanced
Air and Space Studies at Maxwell Air Force Base, Ala., said defining space
weapons will never be possible to the extent demanded by a treaty.
"Four
guys in black pajamas who attack a
satellite control station: That too is a space weapon, and you cannot stop
it," Sheldon said.
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