kinney@mailer.cc.fsu.edu (Mark A. Kinney) (04/24/91)
From: Mark A. Kinney <wku_unix!kinney@mailer.cc.fsu.edu> While I may have been wrong about the KH bit, I agree that having on- the-spot ability to launch even small short-life-span sattelites. Every source I'd ever read about the subject noted the possible extreme losses in anti-sat warfare (especially the blurb in the booklet about the Slava and Sovremmennyy class ships written by Tom Clancy in the Harpoon computer game, where it mentions shortwave antennas on each ship: "Do they know something we don't?") With the right design, a real-time recon sat could be sent up on a Pegasus or similar vehicle whenever needed. Of course, SR-71's may not be real time, but are reuseable. They also aren't defeated by cloud cover. My opinion? Everything has a place where it's needed. Iraq was where we needed SR-71's, because of the smoke from the burning oil wells. Mark Kinney kinney@wku.edu