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Top US contractors say ready for space-arms
studies - Thu Apr 10, 2008 7:06pm EDT
By Jim
Wolf
COLORADO SPRINGS, Colorado, April 10 (Reuters) - Boeing Co and
Lockheed Martin Corp each said on Thursday they would respond to any U.S.
request to explore a space-based layer for ballistic missile defense.
"If
our customer comes to us and says we want you to investigate this, certainly
industry will be ready, willing and able to do so," said Scott Fancher, Boeing's
top executive for missile defense systems.
"I think you'll find Boeing
has many of the technologies and capabilities and skills that are necessary to
go do that," he said in reply to a question at a briefing for reporters during a
conference here called the National Space Symposium.
Lockheed Martin, the
only contractor that does more business with the Pentagon than Boeing, followed
suit when asked about bidding on any such work.
President Bush has asked
Congress for $10 million in seed money to look at adding a space-based layer to
ground- and sea-based parts of an emerging shield against missiles that could be
tipped with chemical, germ or nuclear warheads.
If the funding is
approved and the Missile Defense Agency seeks industry help on studies,
"Lockheed Martin would be pleased to support such activities," said Scott Lusk,
a company spokesman.
"Lockheed Martin has a tremendous depth and breadth
of proven missile defense capabilities that it brings to the table," he added in
an e-mailed reply.
Air Force Lt. Gen. Henry Obering, head of the Missile
Defense Agency, told Congress last week that the administration is again seeking
$10 million for studies to inform debate and "to keep our options
open."
"I wish that I could tell you in the next 20 years what the
missile threats to the United States will be, and I wish the (intelligence)
community could see that with a crystal ball, but they can't," he said at an
April 1 hearing of the Senate Armed Forces strategic forces
subcommittee.
"And so I think it's very prudent that out of a $9.3
billion request (for the Missile Defense Agency in the 2009 budget year), that
we allocate at least $10 million to maintaining our options with respect to the
future," he said.
"And that future, in terms of flexibility, of not
knowing which axis the threat may come from, is in space," Obering
said.
A space-based missile-defense layer could involve some 1,000
orbiting interceptors at an estimated cost of $16.4 billion, according to a July
2006 report by leading missile-defense advocates who call themselves the
Independent Working Group.
Last year, the Democrat-controlled Congress
rejected the administration's request for $10 million to resume studies on the
idea, first floated in the 1980s as part of then-President Ronald Reagan's
Strategic Defense Initiative. (Editing by Tim Dobbyn)
http://uk.reuters.com/article/companyNews/idUKN1030405620080410
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