Jack Reed: “I want to underscore the major issue that the Senator from New Mexico is raising and that is the weaponization of space.…”

“I want to underscore the major issue that the Senator from New Mexico is raising and that is the weaponization of space. We have talked today earlier about different nuclear programs and should we have low-yield weapons bans or robust nuclear earth penetrator bans. But the realm of nuclear weaponry has been upon us now for five decades. To date, we have been successful in preventing weapons from being deployed in space. So this is a completely different issue. This is not the issue of shall we do more of what we have been doing for 50 years. This is a threshold question: Do we want to introduce weapons into space? And will this introduction come surreptitiously, innocuously by research programs that put weapons in space for a test bed without debate in the U.S. Congress on behalf of the American people and a clear decision? I think that is the Senator's amendment. He has identified programmatic funding that could be stretched to inch our way--perhaps through the back door, if you will--into placing weapons in space. I think that is such a critical and important issue that we not only have to debate it but we should decide it, not scientists and technologists in the Department of Defense.”