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18 July 2001 |
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HUNTSVILLE, Ala., July 17 - A defense official announced today that the Pentagon planned to renew research on a highly contentious element of the Strategic Defense Initiative called Brilliant Pebbles, a plan to base thousands of missile interceptors in space. Rob Snyder, the executive director of the Ballistic Missile Defense Organization, said the Pentagon was seeking $110 million to study a partial revival of this program and to begin a missile defense program involving interceptors that would blast off from ships to destroy missiles leaving nearby launching sites. He spoke at a briefing at the Army's Space and Missile Defense Command here. Brilliant Pebbles has faced intense opposition by critics who have said it would be the first step in militarizing space. The Pentagon would like to test the program in space by 2005 or 2006 if initial studies of the concept are successful, Mr. Snyder said. The original program was first proposed by the Reagan administration in the mid-1980's, said Lt. Col. Rick Lehner, a spokesman for the Ballistic Missile Defense Organization, and it was terminated in 1993 after $4.8 billion had been spent on it. Critics of the current plan doubt the ability of the interceptors to function when left for long periods in space. "They almost invite an enemy to develop antisatellite weapons to knock them out," said Tom Z. Collina, director of the Global Security Program at the Union of Concerned Scientists. |
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