Agencies Agree to Keep Weapons Off Space Station

NASA and the Defense Department, at odds over recent military interest in the proposed space station, have agreed that there will be no major weapons system on the station, the space agency’s administrator said Thursday.

James C. Fletcher said that under the agreement the National Aeronautics and Space Administration will be able to reassure worried European and Japanese partners at a scheduled meeting next week that the civilian character of the station will not change.

Fletcher told the House Science and Technology Committee, however, that the Pentagon will be allowed to do research on the station. Asked by Rep. Robert S. Walker (R-Pa.) whether that would include weapons research, he replied: “In terms of laser beams, no, but research on semiconductors would be fair game.”

Neither Fletcher nor other NASA officials offered any details of the agreement, which was reached late Wednesday night.

The military had expressed no interest in the space station, which is not expected to be aloft until the mid-1990s. But in December the Defense Department said it wanted agreements with other nations to reflect its right to do research if it chose to do so in the future.

NASA officials expected an angry response from the European Space Agency, which plans to spend $2 billion on the station, and from Japan, which is committed to spend $1 billion. The other partners based their participation on a totally civilian station.

“We could not put any major weapons system on the space station and have it acceptable to our European and Japanese partners,” Fletcher testified. “I don’t think our partners would stand for it.”

He said “we are in sensitive negotiations” with the other countries. “The only conceivable Defense Department use is for research and the language (of the agreement) really reflects that.”