Jon Kyl: “let me say, first, I am aware of what is being done to protect our assets, and we don't, as has been said before on the…”

“let me say, first, I am aware of what is being done to protect our assets, and we don't, as has been said before on the floor of this Chamber, have defenses for our satellites in space today by an attack by another country. We have to work in this area. The space-based test bed is one of the places in which we could develop proof of concept that could be effective both for our satellites and, yes, also for an attack by a hostile missile because that is where this program started, it is in the missile defense budget. But that doesn't mean if I drop this amendment, for example, as the Senator is suggesting I do, that, therefore, we can forget about the need to protect our satellites because everything is taken care of. We have a need to develop concepts which include the ability to test, first, terrestrially and then in space, proof of concept that would provide for defenses, that would both protect satellites and protect against a hostile missile attack. For the life of me, I don't see why my colleague can so confidently predict that my amendment will not have the votes to be adopted simply because on down the road many years from now it is theoretically possible that a concept would be developed to protect against a hostile missile attack with some kind of a space-based program.”