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National Security Space Policy Important military uses of space are imperiled by confusing them with the two space-related programs most in the public eye-the Shuttle and the Strategic Defense Initiative (SDI). The Shuttle program has written its place in history from bureaucratic imperative to national security disaster; and SDI, with its origin in Presidential blind faith, will follow. But the United States will benefit most by military, intelligence, and commercial use of space as opportunity is recognized and need arises, not by overblown national programs of manned space flight such as the Shuttle or the NASA space station. SDI has received considerable attention in the pages of this journal. In the hope of focusing attention on the core activities important to U.S. security, I shall discuss here some background of the Shuttle and of U.S. use of space. Uses of Space for U.S. National Security In 1958, as a member of the U.S. delegation to the Conference for Prevention of Surprise Attack, I proposed to the first NASA administrator the consideration of a geosynchronous satellite for relay of teletype-rate information from U.S. sentinels at Soviet airfields and missile launch sites. This was to be a cooperative means of verification that strategic aircraft and missiles had not been launched. Earlier that year, I had circulated a proposal for a geosynchronous satellite system which by time difference of arrival of radio signals (TDOA)would be able to monitor the position of aircraft (on demand) to an accuracy of 1 kilometer (km) or better, at any instant. This would be used as a cooperative means of verification of proscribed deployment areas. As a member of many panels of the President’s Science Advisory Committee (PSAC) from 1957 until its abolition in 1973, I was involved in the evolution of those photographic satellites and other systems protected by the 1972 ABM Treaty as ”national technical means-NTM” and cited by Richard L. Garwin is IBM Fellow at the Thomas 1. Watson Research Center, Yorktown Heights, N.Y., as well as Adjunct Professor of Physics at Columbia University and Andrew D. White Professor-at-Large at Cornell Unirwrsity. I n addition to his work in rnany other areas of science, technology, and national security policy, he has for the past three decades been involved in work on the militaty uses of space. This essay reflects the views uf the author, not of his organizations. Infernafionnl Security, Spring 1987 (Vol. 11, No. 4) 01987by the President and Fellows of Harvard College and of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. 165 lntevnational Security I 166 President Johnson as so important to national security that they in themselves were worth the entire cost of the U.S. civil and military space programs. Johnson went on to say that, until the time that we had the information from our satellites, we were doing things that we did not need to do and that those satellites saved us vast amounts of money and improved the national security. I have worked for many years as a technical consultant to the U.S. Air Force and other organizations involved in developing and operating satellites important to the nation’s security, and am enthusiastic about the proper involvement of space in military matters. I was, for example, an early and persistent program advocate and technical innovator for what is now known as Navstar-a set of 18 satellites which by time difference of arrival of signals at the radio receiver-computer will allow any vehicle to determine position to 10 meters accuracy (in three dimensions) anywhere in the world or in near space, within 0.1 second. Such a capability will provide great benefit to the operation of our military vehicles, but also will improve the accuracy of delivery of ordinary weapons to their targets, whether by manned vehicle, missile, or artillery shell. In experiments in 1980, large numbers of ordinary bombs were dropped by a suitably equipped Navstar-test F-4 aircraft with accuracy better than 20 meters, much better than that experienced by ordinary navigational means or by eyeball delivery. The Military Aircraft and Air Traffic Control Panels of the President’s Science Advisory...

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