Boeing Company
Statement for the Annual Meeting, April 29, 2002
Topic: Space Weaponization

Presented by: Susan Jordan, SSND
School Sisters of Notre Dame

Good morning. I am Sister Susan Jordan. I represent the fourteen faith-based institutional investors, women's and men's religious communities, and a health system, who are asking Boeing to report to shareholders on many aspects of the company's involvement in the weaponization of space.

While the Company says information on its space-related operations is provided in various documents, the information for which we are asking is not.

Some of the specifics of Boeing's space-related research and project development that we would like to know are: the value of outstanding contracts to develop components of the programs, the amount of the company's own money versus government funding spent on in-house research and development for the program, and the Company's ethical and financial reasons for being involved in the Space Command program.

Boeing says the company supports government decisions regarding what it calls our country's defense posture. What Boeing does not say is how many Boeing lobbyists are employed to urge that certain programs go forward, or how the revolving door phenomenon finds people going back and forth from government or Pentagon positions to Boeing positions. Boeing needs to acknowledge how much it influences what it calls government decisions.

Much of the language of Vision for 2020, the plan of the US Space Command, is unacceptable and abhorrent to anyone who understands the cycle of violence in our world. The report says that space power will "evolve into a separate and equal medium of warfare," and that "we must be prepared to exploit the advantages of the space medium." The document speaks of "controlling space," and "dominating" the earth below. The development of the Long Range Plan to carry out the Vision for 2020 involved many corporations, including Boeing, another example of Boeing's influence in what Boeing calls government decisions.

We are asking for the report from Boeing because the programs involved in the weaponization of space are and will be extremely expensive; social needs - education, health care, social security, housing, the environment, will suffer. No real threat has been established. Star wars programs will be destabilizing, create a new arms race, and violate long-standing international agreements, such as the Outer Space Treaty that sets space aside for peaceful uses. Most of the programs will in the end benefit only the military industrial complex, not the sustainability of the world community.

Boeing needs to give serious consideration to its involvement in the weaponization of space and the consequences of that involvement, taking account of the interdependence of all of us in the world, and our common resources such as air, land and water. We believe the report we request will assist shareholders in knowing what our company is doing, and will assist our company in a deeper assessment of its involvement in the weaponization of space.

Thank you.