Battle Station

by Ben Bova

  The biggest point of difference between Tsipis and Gerry is over how many ABM satellites would actually be in position to engage an attacking force of one thousand ICBMs. With fifty satellites in orbits about six hundred miles high, Tsipis assumes that only one will be in the right place at the right time, and therefore one laser weapon must take on the entire attacking force.

  “But the missiles don’t all come from the same point,” Gerry maintains. Soviet ICBM silo “farms” are strung out over thousands of miles, mainly along the Trans-Siberian Railroad. Gerry feels that at least one quarter of the satellites—say, twelve of them —will be in position to engage the attacking missiles. This means that each laser weapon will have to engage between eighty-three and eighty-four missiles within a time period of roughly three hundred to four hundred seconds. That gives each laser somewhat more than one second to attack each missile, with another second to locate and target the next missile. “That’s not pushing any physical limits whatever,” Gerry claims.

  One second is a very long time for modern electronic equipment. Human comprehension of time is based on the human pulse rate, less than one hundred beats per minute. Computers can perform operations in nanoseconds, billionths of a second, or less. There are as many nanoseconds in one second as there are seconds in thirty-two years.

  Gerry flatly contradicts Tsipis’s statement that a four-meter (thirteen-foot) mirror is “beyond the technical capabilities of the U.S. or any other nation.” For a hundred-megawatt chemical laser, a four-meter-wide mirror would reflect eight hundred watts from each square centimeter of its surface. “Mirrors that handle a hundred times that flux have already been operated,” Gerry says, although he admits that such mirrors have been considerably smaller than four meters. “But there’s no reason why such mirrors can’t be built.”

  Gerry agrees that it would take roughly a metric ton of laser fuels to shoot down a missile. But since he envisions a dozen satellites engaging the attacking missiles, it is not necessary to provide each and every satellite with enough fuel to destroy all one thousand ICBMs. One shuttle payload should be enough to down twenty-five missiles. Forty shuttle flights could carry the laser fuels to destroy a thousand missiles. But since only a quarter of the satellites in orbit will be in position to engage the attacker, each satellite must then carry four times as much laser fuel as the simple numbers would at first indicate. This means 160 shuttle flights should bring the fifty-satellite system to a state of readiness.

  One hundred sixty shuttle flights is a formidable task. If all four existing space shuttles were devoted to nothing but such “fuel runs,” and they were launched at a rate of one mission per week, it would still take slightly more than three years to “top off” all fifty satellites.

  Lowell Wood, of the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in California, where the work on Teller’s nuclear-powered X-ray laser is being carried out, is even harsher in his criticism of “Tsipis and his group at MIT.” In an interview in Defense Science and Electronics magazine, Wood stated that Tsipis’s December 1981 article in Scientific American “was premised on political and not technical grounds. It was riddled with fundamental technical faults … . These were not fundamental, unavoidable physics problems that Tsipis was pointing out. They were technological hurdles to be cleared. They have all been cleared. Tsipis was flogging a dead horse.”

  Although the scientists are at odds about the possibility of making laser weapons work well enough, and at powers high enough, to destroy ballistic missiles, the government is pushing ahead with its plans to do enough research and engineering to reach the point where decisions can be made about deploying a space-based system. Based on studies by panels of scientists and strategic analysts headed by Defense Under Secretaries Richard DeLauer and Fred Ikle, the research and engineering are estimated to cost between $18 billion and $27 billion.

  Space-based defenses may one day be able to destroy ballistic missiles within minutes after they are launched. But what about nuclear bombs carried by airplanes or low-flying cruise missiles? What about nuclear devices smuggled into a city by terrorists aboard a ship or even in a smallish van?

  There are three points to be made:

  First, if space-based defenses do nothing more than prevent missile attack, they will have made an enormous contribution to peace and survival. They will have moved humankind away from the fearful specter of a thirty-minute push-button war that ends with the entire northern hemisphere devastated and the onset of Nuclear Winter.

  Second, if missiles can be destroyed within minutes, much the same technology can be used to stop the slower airplanes and drones that might carry nuclear bombs. The defensive weaponry can be based on the ground, at sea, or aboard aircraft just as well as in satellites. While atmospheric effects may trouble laser and particle beam systems, the “kinetic kill” weapons will work just fine here on Earth. And the electronic detection, pointing, and tracking “brains” that run the ABM satellites will find supersonic aircraft easy targets. There are even a few bold scientists like Wood who hint that lasers will be able to destroy targets despite the absorption and beamdisrupting problems of the atmosphere.

  Third, this kind of defensive weaponry will probably be of little use against suicidal terrorists armed with nuclear bombs. But that is a different order of problem. Terrorists may one day destroy a city, or several cities. But they will not be able to produce the kind of instantaneous holocaust that is threatened by the thousands of warheads resting atop their ballistic missiles today. Stopping terrorism calls for political action.

  Space-based defenses can stop World War III. That should be a powerful incentive for moving ahead with the research needed to prove out the fundamental concepts.

  We may be witnessing a new era in international politics, the first real change since the reign of nuclear terror began at Hiroshima. As Winston Churchill once said, “This is not the end. It is not even the beginning of the end. But it is, perhaps, the end of the beginning.”

  Nuclear Autumn

  The alternative to strategic defenses in space is no defense against nuclear attack, the policy called mutual assured destruction. MAD is essentially a mutual suicide pact between the superpowers: attack is deterred because neither side dares risk the other’s devastating counterattack.

  But there might be another way for a ruthless and calculating enemy to launch a nuclear attack and confidently expect no counterstrike at all.

  The arguments over Nuclear Winter—the idea that a sufficient number of nuclear explosions in the atmosphere will plunge the whole world into an era of freezing darkness that will extinguish all life on Earth—is being hotly debated among scientists today.

  Strangely, very little of this debate is being reported in the media. Even the science press is largely ignoring it. To the media, Nuclear Winter is a Truth. It was revealed through press conferences, a slickly illustrated book, and videotapes. No matter that the basic scientific underpinnings of the idea are under attack by many atmospheric physicists and other scientists. It is now embedded in cement in the mind-sets of the world’s media—and many science fiction writers, too.

  Critics of Nuclear Winter claim that its proponents used Joe McCarthy tactics to publicize what, to them, is a political idea rather than a scientific theory. They claim that Carl Sagan, Paul Ehrlich, et al made their publicity splash and “sold” the idea to the media, and only afterward quietly admitted that there are some doubts about the models and calculations they used.

  On their side, Sagan, Ehrlich, and their colleagues insist that Nuclear Winter has been verified by extensive computer simulations, and is absolute proof that even a relatively small nuclear war threatens to end not only human life on Earth, but all life.

  “Nuclear Autumn” takes it for granted that the Nuclear Winter theory is right. It shows one of the possible consequences. A very likely one, I fear.

  “They’re bluffing,” said the President of the United States.

  “Of course they’re blu
ffing,” agreed her science advisor. “They have to be.”

  The chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, a grizzled old infantry general, looked grimly skeptical.

  For a long, silent moment they faced each other in the cool, quiet confines of the Oval Office. The science advisor looked young and handsome enough to be a television personality, and indeed had been one for a while before he allied himself with the politician who sat behind the desk. The President looked younger than she actually was, thanks to modern cosmetics and a ruthless self-discipline. Only the general seemed to be old, a man of an earlier generation, gray-haired and wrinkled, with light brown eyes that seemed sad and weary.

  “I don’t believe they’re bluffing,” he said. “I think they mean exactly what they say—either we cave in to them or they launch their missiles.”

  The science advisor gave him his most patronizing smile. “General, they have to be bluffing. The numbers prove it.”

  “The only numbers that count,” said the general, “are that we have cut our strategic ballistic missile force by half since this Administration came into office.”

  “And made the world that much safer,” said the President. Her voice was firm, with a sharp edge to it.

  The general shook his head. “Ma’am, the only reason I have not tendered my resignation is that I know full well the nincompoop you intend to appoint in my place.”

  The science advisor laughed. Even the President smiled at the old man.

  “The Soviets are not bluffing,” the general repeated. “They mean exactly what they say.”

  With a patient sigh, the science advisor explained, “General, they cannot—repeat, cannot—launch a nuclear strike at us or anyone else. They know the numbers as well as we do. A large nuclear strike, in the three-thousand-megaton range, will so damage the environment that the world will be plunged into a Nuclear Winter. Crops and animal life will be wiped out by months of subfreezing temperatures. The sky will be dark with soot and grains of pulverized soil. The sun will be blotted out. All life on Earth will die.”

  The general waved an impatient hand. “I know your story. I’ve seen your presentations.”

  “Then how can the Russians attack us, when they know they’ll be killing themselves even if we don’t retaliate?”

  “Maybe they haven’t seen your television specials. Maybe they don’t believe in Nuclear Winter.”

  “But they have to!” said the science advisor. “The numbers are the same for them as they are for us.”

  “Numbers,” grumbled the general.

  “Those numbers describe reality,” the science advisor insisted. “And the men in the Kremlin are realists. They understand what Nuclear Winter means. Their own scientists have told them exactly what I’ve told you.”

  “Then why did they insist on this hot-line call?”

  Spreading his hands in the gesture millions had come to know from his television series, the science advisor replied, “They’re reasonable men. Now that they know nuclear weapons are unusable, they are undoubtedly trying to begin negotiations to resolve our differences without threatening nuclear war.”

  “You think so?” muttered the general.

  The President leaned back in her swivel chair. “We’ll find out what they want soon enough,” she said. “Kolgoroff will be on the hot line in another minute or so.”

  The science advisor smiled at her. “I imagine he’ll suggest a summit meeting to negotiate a new disarmament treaty.”

  The general said nothing.

  The President touched a green square on the keypad built into the desk’s surface. A door opened and three more people—a man and two women —entered the Oval Office: the Secretary of State, the Secretary of Defense, and the National Security Advisor.

  Exactly when the digital clock on the President’s desk read 12:00:00, the large display screen that took up much of the wall opposite her desk lit up to reveal the face of Yuri Kolgoroff, General Secretary of the Communist Party and President of the Soviet Union. He was much younger than his predecessors had been, barely in his midfifties, and rather handsome in a Slavic way. If his hair had been a few shades darker and his chin just a little rounder, he would have looked strikingly like the President’s science advisor.

  “Madam President,” said Kolgoroff, in flawless American-accented English, “it is good of you to accept my invitation to discuss the differences between our two nations.”

  “I am always eager to resolve differences,” said the President.

  “I believe we can accomplish much.” Kolgoroff smiled, revealing large white teeth.

  “I have before me,” said the President, glancing at the computer screen on her desk, “the agenda that our ministers worked out …”

  “There is no need for that,” said the Soviet leader. “Why encumber ourselves with such formalities?”

  The President smiled. “Very well. What do you have in mind?”

  “It is very simple. We want the United States to withdraw all its troops from Europe and to dismantle NATO. Also, your military and naval bases in Japan, Taiwan, and the Philippines must be disbanded. Finally, your injunctions against the Soviet Union concerning trade in high-technology items must be ended.”

  The President’s face went white. It took her a moment to gather the wits to say, “And what do you propose to offer in exchange for these … concessions?”

  “In exchange?” Kolgoroff laughed. “Why, we will allow you to live. We will refrain from bombing your cities.”

  “You’re insane!” snapped the President.

  Still grinning, Kolgoroff replied, “We will see who is sane and who is mad. One minute before this conversation began, I ordered a limited nuclear attack against every NATO base in Europe, and a counterforce attack against the ballistic missiles still remaining in your silos in the American Midwest.”

  The red panic light on the President’s communications console began flashing frantically.

  “But that’s impossible!” burst the science advisor. He leaped from his chair and pointed at Kolgoroff’s image in the big display screen. “An attack of that size will bring on Nuclear Winter! You’ll be killing yourselves as well as us!”

  Kolgoroff smiled pityingly at the scientist. “We have computers also, Professor. We know how to count. The attack we have launched is just below the threshold for Nuclear Winter. It will not blot out the sun everywhere on Earth. Believe me, we are not such fools as you think.”

  “But …”

  “But,” the Soviet leader went on, smile vanished and voice iron-hard, “should you be foolish enough to launch a counterstrike with your remaining missiles or bombers, that will break the camel’s back, so to speak. The additional explosions of your counterstrike will bring on Nuclear Winter.”

  “You can’t be serious!”

  “I am deadly serious,” Kolgoroff replied. Then a faint hint of his smile returned. “But do not be afraid. We have not targeted Washington. Or any of your cities, for that matter. You will live—under Soviet governance.”

  The President turned to the science advisor. “What should I do?”

  The science advisor shook his head.

  “What should I do?” she asked the others seated around her.

  They said nothing. Not a word.

  She turned to the general. “What should I do?”

  He got to his feet and headed for the door. Over his shoulder he answered, “Learn Russian.”

  Freedom From Fear

  I stepped down from the editorship of Analog magazine in 1978, yet even to this day I am frequently introduced to science fiction audiences as “the man who filled John Campbell’s shoes.” (To those who are not familiar with the inner workings of science fiction, John Campbell was the editor of Analog from 1937—when it was known as Astounding Stories—until his sudden and totally unexpected death in 1971.)

  One wag mused that since Campbell was an acknowledged giant of the field, I must therefore have extremely large feet. Which led me to
ask myself, Since I also sat in Campbell’s chair (literally), what does that mean about the size of my rump?

  Be that as it may, while I was in the midst of writing Star Peace: Assured Survival, Stanley Schmidt (my successor at Analog) hinted to me that he was planning to take a short vacation from his duties as editor, and would appreciate it if someone would volunteer to write a guest editorial for the magazine.

  After seven years of running Analog, I knew the pressures of coming up each month with an editorial that will excite the readers to send in angry letters and impel the writers to generate stories. So I volunteered and wrote the following guest editorial. Sure enough, it generated some waspish letters—and some supportive ones, too.

  Did it generate any good stories? Well, there’s one I know of that I think of rather fondly. It is a novel called Privateers. I wrote it.

  Shakespeare’s Hamlet, brooding on the attractions of suicide over a continued life of anguish, concluded that the fear of what lies beyond death is the great deterrent to self-destruction:

  And makes us rather bear those ills we have

  Than fly to others we know not of …

  So, too, much of today’s academic community, including many scholars who have spent most of their professional lives in the field of nuclear strategy, have decided they would rather “bear those ills” of our twenty-year-old policy of mutual assured destruction than “fly to others we know not of”: namely, the possibility of a space-based defense against nuclear attack.

  Most of these academics are so firmly wedded to MAD that they view any attempt to protect ourselves against nuclear devastation as not only politically destabilizing, but morally reprehensible.