Tag: Ronald Reagan

Sharing SDI

On By gyonas3 Comments

When I joined the SDIO in 1984, the president gave us clear instructions to figure out how to share missile defense technology as part of his strategy to eliminate all nuclear weapons. At the same time, we were aware that the Soviets would love to benefit from our investments and we were serious about protecting our secrets. I responded with a proposal to share early warning data–not technology–as part of an agreement preventing any surprise missile launches, and, as I expected, my suggestion was rejected as coming from an engineer. Reagan continued to insist that we share SDI, and he wanted to make a deal with Soviet leadership, but they kept on dying before he could sit down with them. Then came a totally new and revolutionary Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev.

Reagan and Gorbachev sharing a pen
In 1985 at the Geneva summit, Gorbachev and Reagan stated, “A nuclear war cannot be won and must never be fought.” This was not just propaganda but a deeply felt conviction on both of their parts.

After the latest dust up over North Korean missile tests had passed, our current secretary of state indicated a willingness to consider negotiations with North Korea. It seems to be unlikely to happen, or even less likely to be productive, but maybe we can learn from the history of the one of the most surprising negotiations in history. During three days of one-on-one arguments, the result was almost an agreement to eliminate all nuclear weapons.

President Reagan went to the Reykjavik summit in the fall of 1986 with a spirit of Reagan on Time magazinecooperation and a conviction to abolish nuclear weapons. He wanted to move ahead with SDI that he thought was close to deployment, and share SDI with the Soviets. Secretary of State George Schultz, his principal adviser, had recommended that “we trade the sleeves of our vest and make them think they got an overcoat.”

The young and vigorous new leader of the Soviet Union, Gorbachev also wanted to eliminate nuclear weapons, but his military industrial complex wanted to compete not cooperate. He was told that his industry was only five years behind us in missile defense and could catch up if he could slow us down for 10 years. He was more worried about his own SDI that was preparing to launch its giant space laser and was terrified of a space weapon race in the face of his country’s imploding economy. He had been on the job only since March 1985, but his confidence had already been shattered by a rapidly declining situation that left him desperate to make a deal.

ground based laser

Advancements in ground based lasers could lead to space war

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“Cloudy Day Could Sink Star Wars, Scientist Cautions”

CloudsThis “fake news” headline appeared on a May 1985 article in the Los Angeles Times: http://articles.latimes.com/1985-05-28/news/mn-16287_1_star-wars. I was the scientist in the article responding to a reporter’s question about the ground based laser (GBL). At the time, using the GBL was our leading approach to energizing space mirrors to destroy attacking boosters. After seeing the negative article, the Secretary of Defense was not too pleased with my public relations gaff and I did not have time to get into the “I shoulda, coulda said” before he contacted the press to undo the damage that my remarks had caused.

Weinberger told the news media that the SDI had already bounced a GBL beam off ground based space wara mirror on the space shuttle, so I was not to be believed. Well, technically he was correct about what we did, but he neglected to say that our laser was on top of a cloud free mountain. So the real story should have mentioned that several laser locations would be needed in high altitude relatively cloud free areas, like in Arizona, or even a more futuristic concept would require a high power laser on an aircraft, which is not unrealistic in the near future. But these recent advancements in the GBL could pose a problem. What if the GBL, whose technical basis has advanced rapidly, is used by a future adversary to attack our defense satellites as the first or second step of an escalating global conflict?

Possibly such an attack would begin with a stealthy cyber attack against our satellite ground stations, communication links, and command structures. Once the fog of war is upon us, the lasers could then be used to dazzle, blind, disrupt, or even damage our defensive satellites used for detection and location of launches, and tracking of the threat cloud including a myriad of decoys, It is also realistic that enemy constellations of swarms of small missiles and directed energy weapons could be deployed in space even before we get there. This scenario sounds a bit like gunfight at the Space OK Corral. If attacked, do we dodge the bullets, or quick draw and shoot first. The space war could escalate in minutes and the outcome is likely to be chaotic at best. We might wish that the worst we have to deal with is a cloudy day.

Learn more about laser-based missile defense systems in my book Death Rays and Delusions, which will be available soon.

THAAD

Missile defense resembles an elaborate shell game

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shell gameAccording to  Chinese general, military strategist, and philosopher Sun Tzu, “All warfare is based on deception.” The classic shell game uses three walnut shells and a pea to deceive the victim of the scam. The crook uses slight of hand to disguise the rapid moves. In mid course missile defense the reentry vehicle (RV) is the pea and the walnut shells are lightweight balloons. The slight of hand is to make each of the balloons look slightly different from all of the others. The game gets more challenging by spreading out the balloons so the observer can’t attack all of them. So one approach to defeat the balloons is to wait until the threat cloud reenters the atmosphere so the light weight objects slow down leaving only the RV to be attacked with an atmospheric interceptor like Terminal High Altitude Area Defense  or THAAD, which works for a limited area. shell game

Wide area defense requires that either the defense discriminates the empty balloons in mid course or attacks the booster before it can deploy the threat objects. Every booster would have to be attacked and launching many at once from a limited area challenges the boost phase interceptors. If the boosters are driven around, maybe in extensive underground tunnels, the trucks can be the shells hiding the real booster. The key to defense is sensors that can observe and discriminate in all phases including preparations for the attack, and the latest development of swarms of satellites is the key to discrimination.

I will write more about satellites later, then more regarding the vital issue of information and shell gamebattle management software. Does the street smart trickster win the shell game? We can only answer with tests of the defense system in the face of a credible “red team” of attackers….using realistic computer simulations. But how do we test the software against accidental faults or determined hackers who hide their moves under more shells?

Many a truth is spoken in jest

On By gyonas2 Comments

physicistsneedporches1.jpgMany politicians including Ronald Reagan and Jack Kennedy knew how to express reality through humor in order to communicate real news hidden behind quips. I believe their style would be useful today.

In my two years as the SDI chief scientist, I often used that approach to deal with the daily chaos, confusion and contradictions in my assignment. I recall sitting  in my SDI Pentagon office just down the hall from Secretary of Defense Caspar Weinberger when I got a call to hurry over to the Hill to answer an urgent question from a senator. The question was regarding a reporter’s claim that we were hiding an alien spacecraft at a secret facility on a South Pacific island. Even worse, I was accused by the reporter and the editor of the paper of being involved in developing the alien’s propulsion technology.

I had no experience with “fake news,” but I was already prepared with my approach to SDI humor. During my time with the SDI, I had become the brunt of ridicule–depicted as a chubby lying penguin named opus in Bloom County cartoon–and my natural sense of the ridiculous had become well developed during my two year assignment. It was a common occurrence that some serious event tested my communication skills, or maybe it was just my sense of humor that I used to preserve my sanity.  My official memo to my supervisor, Lt. Gen. James Abrahamson, aka Abe, giving a record of the meeting was even sillier than the alien accusation, but it allowed me to deal with the real and the unreal. For the rest of the story, check out my soon-to-be-published book Death Rays and Delusions on Amazon.com.