Word: orbiteer
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...remember those exciting early days of the U.S. space program? Dieter Kolff and his fellow scientists leading America's effort to catch up with the Soviets and put a man into orbit. Astronaut John Pope making his spectacular walk in space. And, of course, that historic Apollo landing on the dark side of the moon and its terrifying brush with disaster...
Garn will serve mainly as the shuttle's human guinea pig. He will be subjected to tests designed to increase understanding of space motion sickness, an affliction suffered by about half the people who go into orbit. In one of the "gastric motility" experiments, stethoscopic microphones were strapped to the Senator's midsection to record his stomach noises at takeoff (NASA has yet to release a tape of the senatorial rumblings). Said Garn: "I am hopeful that I can fill in a few of the pieces of the puzzle in the medical department...
Nonetheless, the U.S.S.R. is not exactly a backwater when it comes to computers. Its scientists, many of whom are top notch by international standards, have built large machines that are powerful and accurate enough to guide cosmonauts into orbit. The military has many weapons that incorporate advanced computer technology, some of it stolen or copied from Western nations. The Soviets have lagged far behind the West in developing smaller computers that are used in offices and factories. They have been unable to master the precision manufacturing techniques needed to mass-produce computers. Says Vico Henriques, head of the Washington-based...
Other requirements, according to Fletcher: "The computers must be able to operate in a nuclear environment and must be hardened to survive radiation and shock. To keep crucial command, control and communications capabilities out of the fray, some of the computers would be placed in high orbit halfway to the moon." Humans would make the key strategic decisions in advance, determining under what conditions the missile defense would start firing, and devise a computer system that could translate those decisions into a program. In the end the defensive response would be out of human hands: it would be activated...
Finally, the Soviets could attack a Star Wars system directly. Orbiting satellites are vastly easier than missiles or warheads to track and draw a bead on. Just two possibilities: the Soviets could orbit a "space mine" that would blow up near an American satellite and destroy it, or a countersatellite that would discharge a cloud of pellets, capable at orbital speeds of piercing steel, or even beach sand, which could pit and disable laser mirrors. American satellites might be defended against such attacks. But once that kind of cycle begins, says William Shuler, coordinator of S.D.I. research at Livermore...