Programs were often championed by Congress, particularly the Senate as noted prior, rather than in the services themselves. Clementine 2, a program that lived and died between 1996-98, is another exemplary story of the opposition encountered by ASAT missions from inside and outside the Pentagon. It was conceived as a follow-on mission to the highly successful Clementine 136 mission that for $5 million mapped the Moon and provided evidence of ice on the surface. Clementine 2 was originally scheduled for launch in 1998. It would have been the first mission specifically intended to study asteroids from an impact mitigation perspective. As pointed out earlier, targeting an asteroid involves many of the same technical issues as targeting a satellite. The space probe was to be built by the Air Force, and at one point was provided $120 million toward achieving its goals, and fit with instrument-packed three-foot-long missiles. Those missiles were to be released into the path of two asteroids selected by NASA: 1986JK, a halfmile wide chunk of rock to be encountered in May 2000; and Toutatis, an asteroid about two miles across, to be intercepted about five months later. The instrumented missiles would first take close-up pictures and make scientific measurements before slamming into their targets. The idea was to provide scientists with information about strength and make-up of the objects, specifically vital to understanding how to counter a potential Earth-impact, as well as to gain information on targeting space objects generally.

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Johnson-Freese, Joan. The Viability Of U.S. Antisatellite Policy: Moving Toward Space Control. USAF Academy, CO: USAF Institute for National Security Studies, January 2000. [ 1 reference ] [ page 21 ]