Word: orbit
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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Advocates conjure up visions of death rays flashing across thousands of miles of space to zap Soviet missiles as they rise. Critics counter with derisive pictures of the most supersophisticated Star Wars weaponry foiled by something as simple as grains of beach sand scattered in orbit. Back and forth go the millions of words of argument that have been resounding since Ronald Reagan unveiled his Star Wars plan in 1983. But the essential question raised by all the debate can be put into just three words: Can it work...
Excimer lasers, which use a different kind of chemical reaction, produce beams of short wavelengths that could destroy a missile by focusing on it for only a second or so. But the generating apparatus is so bulky that it could not be lifted into orbit; the laser stations would have to be placed on mountaintops to put them above the densest layers of the atmosphere. Even the thin upper layers would cause the beams to shimmer, however, owing to the same phenomenon that makes the light from stars appear to twinkle. The excimer laser beams would have to be bounced...
...ideal weapon? Not quite. In theory, X-ray lasers could be based in space, but that might mean keeping something like 1,400 atomic bombs in low orbits constantly crisscrossing the Soviet Union. Says Coll, rather delicately: "I don't think it's going to be politically acceptable to put bombs in orbit." In practice, the X-ray lasers would have to be launched from earth at the first warning of attack in a "pop-up" defense (they are in fact the only laser devices compact enough for such a defense). To get high enough fast enough, they would probably...
...four miles in circumference. A device that could accelerate the particles to perhaps half the speed of light, which would be poky by laser standards, but adequate for missile defense, might still weigh 500 tons, and hundreds if not thousands of the contraptions would have to be lifted into orbit. Particle beams have even more trouble penetrating the atmosphere than X rays, so they would be more useful for post-boost and mid-course interception than for boost-phase kills...
...investigation of the alleged security breach. The shuttle's main cargo was a military intelligence satellite called a SIGINT (for "signals intelligence"), which is able to intercept electronic messages. The 6,000- lb. bird was to be spring-ejected from the shuttle, then rocket-propelled into a geostationary orbit 22,300 miles above the equator. The satellite will allow the U.S. to eavesdrop on traffic between Moscow and Soviet missile command centers. Using radar and infrared, the SIGINT will also be able to "see" Soviet launches. Said a U.S. military official: "Our country needs to have a better assessment...