VLSI%DEC-MARLBORO@sri-unix.UUCP (11/22/83)
From: John Redford <VLSI at DEC-MARLBORO>
A few issues back someone complained about the article on anti-satellite
weapons by Fred Kaplan that came out in the Boston Globe.
Far from being a propaganda piece, the article
summarizes a lot of people's concerns. The September issue of
Spectrum magazine was devoted to the space program, and that the same theme
came up over and over again. If we start developing anti-satellite weapons,
we will lose what small arms-control verification capabilities we have,
we will be plunged into another spiral of the arms race, and we will
endanger peaceful uses of outer space.
Even on purely military grounds, a treaty forbidding anti-satellite weapons
would be a good idea. Our military satellites let us know what the Russians are
doing. ASAT weapons would help us prevent the Russians from knowing what we are
doing, but American security is so bad that it wouldn't help us much. On the
other hand, their ASAT weapons would destroy our main means of reconnaissance.
By developing ASATs we would be killing our own reconnaissance efforts and
hardly hurting theirs. Not a good tradeoff.
The present Russian weapons are unreliable and unable to reach the
altitudes of our military satellites. They do not pose much of a threat.
By negotiating a treaty now, we can preserve a valuable military resource,
and keep civilian space use from being threatened. If the Soviet embassy is
putting out this kind of common sense, then perhaps, just this once, we
ought to listen.
John Redford
DEC-Hudson
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