On the afternoon of the 9th, a dozen Reject Raytheon members walked the crowded streets of downtown Asheville, carrying signs and handing out flyers to bring awareness to Raytheon’s role in weaponizing space. The action coincided with the Global Network Against Weapons and Nuclear Power in Space Week of Action. We highlighted Raytheon’s role in militarizing space.
The U.S. is militarizing space, calling space a war fighting domain. This is in violation of the 1967 UN Outer Space Treaty, which declares that space must be preserved for peace for all of humanity.
US tax payers will fund this program while Congress cuts spending on social programs, health care, education, climate change, and other urgent needs.
Aerospace military corporations like Lockheed Martin, Raytheon, and Boeing will be the main profiteers of moving war into space. Raytheon alone is already involved in managing launch sites for military satellites, and in developing and operating GPS, command and control, surveillance, and missile “defense” systems for the military.
Since our action we learned that Raytheon Technologies, through its Intelligence and Space Division, is moving quickly into Space Force operations with its acquisition of SEAKR Engineering and its investment in the CU’s VADeR lab.
Every year since 1985, member states in the UN have adopted a resolution to negotiate a multilateral treaty on the Prevention of an Arms Race in Outer Space (PAROS), all except the US and a few allies. Both China and Russia are in support of PAROS.
We said, “NO WEAPONS IN SPACE!”
