NARRATOR: When I think about space, I think about planets, astronauts, Buck Rogers stuff. I think about satellites. They're a lot of satellites up there. They help send phone calls and TV programs, take pictures of the Earth and provide navigational data for ships and airplanes. Everybody benefits from satellites.
What is the future of satellites? Should they become targets in space? The US military wants to build anti-satellites weapons.
General COLIN POWELL(At hearing) "And to ensure our access to: space and to deny a haven in space to any enemy in time of crises, we need the anti-satellite that is under development."
NARRATOR: Others thinks the idea is way off the mark.
INTERVIEWER: What's wrong with weapons in space?
Admiral NOEL GAYLER: Well, just about everything is wrong with weapons in space. In a general sense, space, of course, is the common possession of mankind.
NARRATOR: The Strategic Defense Initiative, or Star Wars, is not the only military program that raises the question of weapons in space. This week, "AMERICA'S DEFENSE MONITOR" looks at the many civilian and military uses of satellites and examines the future of space weapons.
["AMERICA'S DEFENSE MONITOR" program introduction.]Admiral GENE LaROCQUE: Welcome once again to "AMERICA'S DEFENSE MONITOR." It wasn't so long ago, in the United States Navy, the only way we could communicate with each other was by using semi-four signals or a flashing light of a short range or unreliable radar systems and we navigated with sextants by ourselves aboard ship.
In the last few years, we've seen some remarkable developments in satellite communications, intelligence-gathering, communications and a variety of other uses. We have found though that these very satellites they we've put up in the air to improve people's lives, to improve communication, also can be used as instruments of war. They can be used to accelerate and evaluate the destructive capabilities of nations.
There's a movement, of course, today to accentuate the use of military satellites and the weapons which could be used to destroy them. The question we have before us right now as a nation and a -- a world is are we going to use these satellites to improve people's lives on this planet or are we going to use the satellites to find better ways to destroy each other?
Our program's about that today. I hope you find it interesting.
NARRATOR: In the vacuum of space, satellites perform many tasks. The vast majority of them are used by civilians.
John Pike is the respected Associate Director for Space Policy at the Federation of American Scientists:
JOHN PIKE: They've improved long distance communications, drastically improving the quality, while similarly reducing the cost of communications, as well as other contributions, monitoring pollution, improving navigation, and understanding the development of our Earth, our solar system and our universe.
NARRATOR: Every country around the world benefits from using outer space. Over 170 separate countries and territories depend on Intelsat, an international consortium, which operates a network, of 13 satellites. Intelsat provides worldwide communications services.
In the United states, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration, or NASA, has an ambitious program for the future. NASA's plans include the Space Station Freedom. The space station will be a multinational space lab and living facility. NASA also hopes to continue exploration of the Moon and Mars. And there are plans for an aerospace plane which would let astronauts go directly into orbit from a conventional runway and land back on that same runway.
The shuttle is a reusable space bus. It is launched like a rocket an descends from orbit like a plane. It is used to place satellites into orbit and to conduct scientific experiments. These manned flights are extremely costly, over $30 million per shuttle mission.
NASA has been grounded because of fuel leaks on the Discovery and Atlantis space shuttles and the ambitious Hubble Space Telescope needs a new prescription -- a bad mirror has
clouded its vision. NASA leaders hope to begin shuttle launches again soon, but basic questions remain about NASA's reliability.
Europeans have exciting space programs, as well. The European Space Agency, a consortium of 13 European nations, will contribute to the international Space Station.
Ariannespace, a French commercial space firm, currently launches one-half of all civilian satellites.
Connie Van Praet, the director of the Institute for Security and Cooperation in Outer Space, watches development in space programs worldwide.
CONNIE VAN PRAET: Australia is starting to set up a new space launch facility and they'll be doing business with China and also American corporations. So, many nations -- There's about eight space nations now.
NARRATOR: With an increase in the number of countries in space, the number of orbiting satellites has grown, as well. There are over 1800 satellites and other manmade objects, called "payloads," in space. These payloads range from weather and communications satellites to the Soviet Mir Space Station and spent rocket stages.
Congressman Jon Kyl of Arizona is a key Republican member of the House Armed Services Committee.
Rep. JON KYL: A lot of other countries are going to be literally proliferating their space assets,
not only for military, but also for commercial uses. We could easily see a doubling of the amount of satellites in space over the next decade, for example.
NARRATOR: Satellites have a use that is extremely timely now to monitor and record changes in the Earth's environment. They collect data on cloud cover, rainfall, global warming, ozone depletion and deforestation. These are important jobs as we struggle to understand and preserve the Earth's fragile environment.
Environmental monitoring or remote sensing satellites have made a number of contributions in detecting environmental disasters. Satellites helped monitor nuclear disaster at Chernobyl. Infrared sensors onboard a satellite also detected a cooling system breakdown at a nuclear power plant in the British Isles. And crop forecasting and other agricultural uses have a direct effect on many farmers.
Ms. VAN PRAET: We saw the droughts happening in the Midwest around the cornfields last year and now we have to use that ability to not only monitor what's going wrong, but to help prevent disaster from occurring.
NARRATOR: Congressman George Brown is a senior member of the House Committee on Science, Space and Technology. He has overseen the development of Landsat, the US remote sensing system.
Rep. GEORGE BROWN: It can measure the amount of -- of forested land, whether we're destroying forest or whether they're coming back, the amount of deserts. It can detect the level of gases in the atmosphere and all of the things that are of concern to us. Holes in the ozone layer, that sort of thing.
NARRATOR: As these remote sensing satellites go around the earth, they send data to ground-based receiving stations. The data is then interpreted, checked for accuracy and released to the international scientific community.
To make the best use of resources and technical knowhow, international cooperation has become a necessity. Many nations are currently in line to cooperate in a program call the Mission to Planet Earth. It is an American-led international effort to collect data on the environment.
This program will utilize many means, high-lighting the use of space platforms of satellites.
Ms. VAN PRAET: The Europeans are working on two new space platforms, the -- the US is working on two new platforms, as are the Japanese. And with this new infrastructure in space, they are going to be tapping into the International Scientific Council of Unions and other international scientific groups that are going to be interpreting the data with how to look at Earth as one breathing, living system.
NARRATOR: The Soviets are ready to cooperate. Academician Yuri Ryzhov is the Chairman of the Science, Education and Culture Committee in the Supreme Soviet, the Soviet parliament.
YURI RYZHOV: This type of environmental monitoring could enable both sides to have early warning about new environmental threats, to work toward the prevention of such threats and to control those threats by joint action.
NARRATOR: The United States and the Soviet Union are discussing a joint manned mission to Mars, and many other scientific missions in outer space.
Congressman Brown sees much benefit from cooperation with the Soviets.
Rep. BROWN: Now why don't we get together? We can get twice as much bang for the buck that way. We can get all the scientific information and share the cost and the world would be far better off. That's the direction that we're moving in.
NARRATOR: Satellites also perform important functions for the military. They're expensive often costing hundreds of millions of dollars, but military satellites are extremely useful.
Mr. PIKE: Military satellites have made major contributions, both to the effectiveness of our terrestrial military forces and I think, most importantly, to our ability to verify reductions in strategic and conventional arms.
NARRATOR: Congressman Kyl finds that military satellites reduce tensions among nations.
Rep. KYL: I think they have made the world a safer place. First of all, they've provided some eyes to both the Soviet Union and the United States, as well as some other countries for us to better know what each other are up to. And I think, all in all, that has proven to be conducive to a more peaceful, more stable situation over the years.
NARRATOR: Congressman Brown agrees.
Rep. BROWN: We feel, for example that knowing whether or not a country has mobilized its army creates a great deal of security. If we can know the minute they start to mobilize, that makes the situation much more predictable.
NARRATOR: Communications, navigation, reconnaissance, early warning of a missile attack. The US military currently has over 80 satellites deployed to perform these functions. The overall military budget for space is about $30 billion, compared to NASA's $14 billion dollar budget.
Military satellites, however, are double-edged swords. While they perform missions that contribute to lessening world tensions, they're also extremely useful in waging modern war.
Paul Stares is a research fellow at the Brookings Institution. He is an expert on military space issues.
PAUL STARES: They also provide you a highly accurate means for targeting missiles and other military systems. So, they have a -- have a -- almost a Janus-like quality to them, a Jekyll and Hyde quality to them, which is not such a-- a good side of their character.
NARRATOR: Photo reconnaissance satellites are able to spy on foreign lands and military sites. Sensitive areas within a country are not so secret anymore. Ocean reconnaissance satellites seek out and track ships at sea which, according to some, make them vulnerable to attack. Satellites
play a key role in any military action, from Operation Just Cause in Panama to a nuclear first strike. All military satellite systems have some capability that an attacker would like to deny to its foe.
To knock out the other side's satellites, both the US and Soviet militaries have developed and deployed various anti-satellite weapons, ASATs.
The Soviet military currently has about 20 ASAT weapons, missiles that enter the same
orbit as the target satellite, and then explode. Experts generally agree that the Soviet system poses no serious threat to satellites in high, 22,000-mile orbits, where the most valuable US early warning and communications satellites are located.
Mr. STARES: It has not been tested since 1982 I believe. It is only capable of attacking objects in low earth orbit. Its reliability has to be questioned, given that it's not been tested for many years now. And I don't think it poses a major threat to US space systems.
NARRATOR: The US Air Force currently has five anti-satellite weapons. They were placed in
storage after Congress banned testing against objects in space in 1985. The Air Force then canceled the ASAT program because of inadequate funding.
The anti-satellite weapon consisted of the miniature homing vehicle launched from an F-15 fighter aircraft. It used force of impact to destroy its target. Experts usually see this small missile as a more effective anti-satellite weapon than its Soviet counterpart.
Some observers believe the US military should not develop new anti-satellite weapons.
Ms. VAN PRAET: It's, to our mind, an unnecessary destabilizing escalation of an arms race into space. We don't have weapons there now and many US negotiators agree that we don't want to engage in an arms race, a space arms race with the Soviet Union, when weapons can be
developed which would threaten our most valuable military assets.
NARRATOR: Frank Gaffney, Director for the Center for Security Policy, believes the US military needs a new anti-satellite weapon to offset current Soviet capabilities.
FRANK GAFFNEY: For the fact that the Soviets are able to hold at risk American satellites today and could conceivably believe they could do so and not fear similar attacks against their
satellite systems by the United States, I think we need to acquire an anti-satellite weapons as a deterrent to such an attack.
NARRATOR: General John Piotrowski was the commander of the US Space Command from 1987 to 1990.
General JOHN PIOTROWSKI: (At hearing) "And there's another aspect to the Soviet threat that has me concerned, their satellite and anti-satellite capabilities. The threat from Soviet space-based reconnaissance satellite is increasing and of great concern to all of our war-fighting commanders around the world."
NARRATOR: Congressman George Brown disagrees.
Rep. BROWN: The argument that they've got them, so we have to have them, and we have to have it better and more expensive is what drives the arms race, in general. And we have to break
that kind of a situation.
NARRATOR: The Soviets use some of their satellites to track US Navy ships at sea. The US military can do the same thing to the Soviet Navy. To ensure the US Navy's safety, Frank Gaffney proposes to destroy those Soviet satellites in case of war.
Mr. GAFFNEY: And I believe that there is a very real possibility that unless those satellites are neutralized early in a war, that such Soviet systems may well choke off any American effort to reinforce its forces in Europe and to hold back a Soviet invasion.
NARRATOR: There is another way to thwart Soviet attempts to track US ships at sea: electronic countermeasures. Electronic signals can be effectively used to jam Soviet attempts to locate roving Navy ships.
Admiral Noel Gayler was the head of the super-secret National Security Agency from 1969 to 1972.
Adm. GAYLER: Now the business about tracking ships at sea is real, but the defense against that is -- lies in electronic countermeasures rather in attempting to destroy the tracking satellite. NARRATOR: So, the actual need to shoot down Soviet satellites is in question. What about the consequences of such actions?
Mr. PIKE: Unfortunately, our military hasn't come to grips with the implications that space weapons, anti-satellite weapons are going to have for our other military space systems. While the Air Force and the Army are moving ahead with plans to deploy anti-satellite weapons, the operators of our existing intelligence communications and other satellite systems simply haven't come to grips with what this is going to mean for the continuity of services from these satellites to our military forces.
Ms. VAN PRAET: When you're fighting with someone and you poke their eyes, they're bound to start swinging wildly. And that's why we don't want to see anti-satellite weapons be deployed in outer space, because it just raises the hairtrigger.
NARRATOR: General Brent Scowcroft, now National Security Advisor to President Bush, said in a 1987 paper that, "All scenarios involving the use of ASATs, especially those surrounding crises, increase the risk of accident, mis-perception and inadvertent escalation." Admiral Gayler agrees.
Adm. GAYLER: The consequence of using an anti-satellite weapon to knock down a Soviet satellite, or vice versa, would be to heighten tensions enormously, presumably in a time we don't want to heighten tensions.
NARRATOR: Military planners would be left without certain knowledge that a nuclear attack was or was not on the way. The risks of accidental nuclear war would rise astronomically.
Mr. STARES: It is unclear whether we would really gain much from encouraging an arms race in anti- satellite weaponry, which I think, on -- on -- at the end of the day, the US would be the net losers. It is also, at a time when the cold war is winding down on earth, we don't want to be starting up a new cold war in space.
NARRATOR: Does it make sense to start a new arms race in space? President Bush recently agreed to allow American civilian satellites to be launched on Soviet rockets. There seems to be some contradiction here.
Professor Roald Sagdeev is the influential former director of the Soviet Space Research Institute. He thinks an anti-satellite arms race could spill over into other nations.
ROALD SAGDEEV: I would think it would be most dangerous development. There would be reaction from Soviet side and maybe eventually from other space-fighting nations, like China, for example.
NARRATOR: There are several US options for the future. One would be to acquire a new space weapon. Another would be to conduct only research and development of an anti-satellite weapon. This would avoid provoking the Soviets to upgrade their rudimentary system.
Congressman Brown sees a comprehensive ban to be in the US interest. The Soviets have expressed willingness to negotiate on this issue.
Rep. BROWN: The first thing you would do is destroy the existing system, both the Soviet and the US system. And the agreement would have to say then that we will not deploy any additional or -- or follow-on systems, which both sides probably are working on.
NARRATOR: But others disagree, at least for the near- term. Congressman Jon Kyl wants to buy a new ASAT first, then possibly negotiate with the Soviets.
Rep. KYL: So, it would be kind of like calling the an end to the game after one side has scored a couple touchdowns and they saying now let's both stop. At a point where the United States had an -- had an ASAT capability that was at least equal to the Soviets, then it might be appropriate to call for some kind of stop to the process.
NARRATOR: Communications and other valuable military satellites are not currently threatened by any Soviet ASAT system. But the Senate Armed Services Committee authorized over $200 mil- lion for the Army to develop a new anti- satellite weapon. There will be no testing of this weapon in the near future. There are also plans to develop lasers to destroy Soviet satellites. This raises serious questions about how we want to us space and how we work with -- or against -- the Soviets.
The other major issue in the future of space weapons is the Strategic Defense Initiative, SDI. Since it began in 1983, SDI has cost over $22 billion. The SDI budget request for Fiscal 1991 is about $4.5 billion.
There is disagreement about SDI on many points. Mr. PIKE: Well, I think it's increasingly cleat to all of the participants in the SDI debate that while individual gadgets developed under the Star Wars program might be effective against a few missiles or a few warheads, that it's quite clear that SDI isn't going to fulfill President Reagan's original vision of a defense of populations and probably is not a militarily effective way of dealing with other less ambitious missions that have been identified more recently.
NARRATOR: But President Bush is convinced that the United States needs SDI.
PRESIDENT BUSH: (At press conference) "In the 1990s, Strategic Defense makes much more sense than ever before, in my view."
NARRATOR: Frank Gaffney also thinks SDI makes sense now more than ever.
Mr. GAFFNEY: The world in which we are headed into is, if anything, a world in which the possibility of a ballistic missile attack against the United States, to say nothing of against its far flung friends and allies, is much more likely, in my view, than it was in -- in the bad old days of the cold war.
NARRATOR: But Paul Stares thinks that the end of the cold war and current fiscal realities at home make a deployment of SDI an unrealistic option in the near future.
Mr. STARES: I don't think in the current climate of US- Soviet relations and certainly in the current climate of budget constraints and budget reductions, in the US defense budget, that we're going to see any kind of near- term commitment to the development and deployment of -- of the SDI.
NARRATOR: The supporters of SDI give several reasons for moving ahead. The first is insurance against a nuclear strike by the Soviet Union. The second, a more recent justification is to counter advances in ballistic missile technology by Third World nations. Senator Al Gore thinks there are ways for Third World nations to threaten the United States with nuclear or chemical weapons that Star Wars could not counter.
Sen. ALBERT GORE: (At hearing) "And I hope also that you'll reconsider the view that this is the answer to Nth country of third country or terrorist weapons, because the use of a cruise missile or a ship in a harbor or smuggling it in, hidden in bales of marijuana, or some other deployment method would easily defeat this kind of approach.
NARRATOR: Whatever the justifications of a ballistic missile defense system, there still remains one major factor that's impossible to ignore, SDI's staggering cost. How does the US military justify huge spending for Star Wars, while many other parts of the military are going to be scaled back?
The role of space in our lives will grow as time goes on. It can help us communicate, save the environment and bring new scientific discoveries to light. The Congress, the administration and the American people must decide what America's future in space will be.
The United States currently spends about $45 billion on civilian and military uses of space. Will there be cooperation with other countries? Will space become the next battlefield or will we find peaceful uses for that money on Earth and in the heavens?
Adm. LaROCQUE: Well, I don't know about you, but I think there was a lot of interesting material in this program. You know there are five billion of us human beings floating around on this planet Earth through space everyday. We can use that space either to make our lives better or, of course, to destroy the lives we have on this planet. I think the time now has come though for the president of the United States to call a worldwide conference on the use of space in the future, because space may very well be our future. Until next time, I'm Gene LaRocque, for "AMERICA'S DEFENSE MONITOR."
CONDITION OF USE: Credit "AMERICA'S DEFENSE MONITOR."
(Center for Defense Information.)