Space Wars

SPIRITS must be high in the Soviet Union these days. Last week marked the 25th anniversary of the launching that made Sputnik I the first man-made object to orbit Earth. In America, broad-minded thinkers like Isaac Asimov took the occasion to reflect optimistically on space exploration as mankind's first step towards a broader vision--"a view that presents Earth and humanity as a single entity." But Asimov's idealism has not infected American military leaders, who now plan to make space yet another theater of operations in the modern superpower cold war.

Like the nuclear arms race, the space race is characterized by rhetorical half-truths, hysterical warnings and a sizable dose of governmental paranoia. Robert Jastrow, founder of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration's Goodard Institute for Space Studies, has asserted in a recent New York Times Magazine article that "since Sputnik, Moscow has undertaken a massive military space program that appears designed to do nothing less than control space." But apart from shadowy references to a 1957 speech by then-Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev, Jastrow's case against the USSR relied mainly on speculation.

Noting, for example, that the Soviet Union plans to build a large space station, Jastrow quotes the head Pentagon scientist, who last month suggested that the station "may be the forerunner of a weapons platform." That the USSR launched 125 satellites last year while NASA sent up only 18 leads Jastrow to suspect that some of the Soviet devices are actually "killer satellites that can lurk in orbit" for long periods of time until detonated from the ground. Jastrow most fears the Soviets may someday have enough such killer satellites to abruptly declare the space above the USSR off-limits to American reconnaissance satellites. This, he says, would cripple our present ability to monitor the Soviet arms build-up.

President Reagan publicly joined the space arms race last July 4, the same day the space shuttle Columbia returned from its fourth and final test flight. Reagan announced that NASA would undertake "activities in space in support of the right of self-defense." Two months later, on September 1, the Air Force Space Command opened in Colorado Springs.

Secretary of Defense Caspar Weinberger '38 has ordered the Air Force to develop space lasers by 1985 that can destroy Soviet satellites, and the 1983 military budget will target $140 million for this goal. A military center for space technology will begin operations in 1983 at New Mexico's Kirkland Air Force base; three research labs there will concentrate on developing new weapons. And nearly half of the 234 space shuttle flights scheduled from now until 1994 will have a hidden military nature.

THE ADMINISTRATION'S preparations for space warfare serve to undercut United Nations efforts--such as the recently-concluded Unispace '82 conference in Vienna--to set guidelines encouraging the exploration and peaceful use of outer space. Moreover, accepting the notion that America has a "space border" that must be defended like other borders will heighten cold war tensions and increase the possibility of a nuclear war. Worst of all, the resources spent militarizing space will be diverted from more practical and often desperately needed purposes. For instance, science-fiction writer Arthur C. Clarke, who predicted a satellite age as early as 1945, makes a good case for more weather satellites in the developing world:

A few years ago, half a million people were killed in Bangladesh. The cyclone that caused that disaster was tracked by satellite, but because a good communications satellite was lacking in Bangladesh, advance warning was not possible.

Keeping matters from getting out of control in space will take a serious effort in both America and the U. N. to call off the buildup. Organizations now working to halt the nuclear arms race must hurry before the U. S. spends millions, and eventually billions, on space weapons. The sooner such groups challenge the "reasoning" of the Pentagon, the better will be the chances of getting the superpowers to negotiate a treaty outlining the sensible use of space.