It may also serve as a test of how important military space truly is to the blue suits in the Pentagon-and the administration of Defense Secretary William Cohen, who tried to save the project last year.

The space radar satellite program, which faced similar action last year, is the first new military space project in a half decade. It follows the Evolved Expendable Launch Vehicle (EELV) and Space-Based Infrared Satellite (SBIRS) as new milspace projects initiated during the eight-year Clinton presidency.

Last week the Defense Appropriations Subcommittee voted to eliminate all funding for the Discoverer II project from the FY2001 Defense Appropriations bill. Virtually at the same time Senate action on their version of the Defense bill also contained no funds for the project.

If the House and Senate action is confirmed this summer by a joint conference committee, the Discoverer II project will be dead on arrival as the FY2001 budget cycle begins Oct. 1st.

"I have little hope that we can get a reversal of this on our side-it will be tough", said Sen. Bob Smith (R-N.H.), third ranking member of the Senate Armed Services Committee and a milspace advocate.

The Congressional moves are a virtual repeat of last year's action, triggered by the Senate, which voted to eliminate funding in 2000 for Discoverer II.

It took a very public statement by Cohen in late December 1999 to put the full weight of the Air Force and Pentagon leadership behind the project. By making Discoverer II a priority, Cohen raised the ante for the project in the Air Force laundry list of desired new starts.

Previously, some in Congress- and the military space community- had accused Air Force and intelligence community leaders of half-hearted support for the program, a joint research effort combining resources from the Air Force, National Reconnaissance Office (NRO), and Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA). Further demonstration of support for space radar technology came last March when NRO chief and Air Force Assistant Secretary for Space Keith Hall testified before the Senate Armed Services Committee.

Hall hailed Discoverer II as a signature project demonstrating "jointness" among the three agencies, and pegging the program as a top priority for new program starts, notoriously few in the Clinton era of privatization of milspace assets such as the EELV boosters. With money again removed from the Defense budget, the spotlight shifts to Air Force Secretary F. Whitten Peters, just finishing his first year as service chief, to see if the military can maneuver with House and Senate politicos to again salvage Discoverer II.

For his part, Peters said Friday following a speech before an aerospace trade group he was up for a fight with Congress-if necessary. "This a serious mistake," Peters said about the House action. "I frequently get the question about the Air Force commitment to Space," he remarked.

"I have the commitment but don't have the money." Peters said that the Air Force as well as DARPA and NRO leaders had "spent an enormous amount of capital trying to explain to people on Capitol Hill that we don't have an asset that can look deep into a large country except by overflying that country," Peters explained. If the U.S. is threatened by a peer competitor in "2020 or 2030 or beyond" then according to Peters "we have got to move space-based radar forward-period."

And he added "you're never going to be able to look thousands of miles into a battle zone by flying JSTARS airplanes" or by "orbiting Globalhawk" unpiloted drone aircraft. "So I think this is a very serious mistake." For their part, Congressional appropriators accused the Air Force of underestimating the technological challenge of space radar development, and of underestimating the eventual cost of Discoverer II-type craft, which a study suggested last year could range in the billions for prototypes and billions more for a full orbital constellation of two dozen or so satellites

Peters counted the arguments Friday by claiming that Discoverer II could be done on the cheap. "Everybody involved in this project knows it has to be cheap- you have to get the cost down to under $100 million per satellite," he said.

Peters suggested that "if you do that-and you might not be able- but if it does happen it would have tremendous spinoffs in all of our other space programs,".

Smith wasn't buying the argument of Air Force support for either Discoverer II or military space spending in general. "If it's there, I just don't see it," Smith said Friday.

Disillusion with a perceived failure of the Air Force to fully support space programs is causing some in Congress to again talk about separating out space and creating a U.S. military space force as a new uniformed service.

"It is getting serious attention and being talked about by more and more of my colleagues," he said. But few observers expect that to happen, whether or not space projects like Discoverer II are salvaged.

The opposition by military leaders such as the Joint Chiefs and service chiefs, plus the increased cost of establishing a new branch of the military, would make the creation of a space service highly unlikely for the foreseeable future, experts suggest.