“You're locked in that passageway, Buckbee. If you try to fire those popguns you're carrying, you'll blow yourselves to pieces.”
“And you too!”
“We're already dead, you prick. Taking you with us is the only joy I'm going to get out of this.”
“You're bluffing!”
Hazard snapped, “Then show me how brave you are, Buckbee. Take a shot at the hatch.”
The six boarders hovered in the misty passageway like figures in a surrealistic painting. Seconds ticked by, each one stretching excruciatingly. Hazard felt a pain in his jaws and realized he was clenching his teeth hard enough to chip them.
He took his eyes from the screen momentarily to glance at his three youngsters. They were just as tense as he was. They knew how long the odds of their gamble were. The passageway was filled with nothing more than aerosol mists from every spray can the crew could locate in the supply magazines.
“What do you want, Hazard?” Buckbee said at last, his voice sullen, like a spoiled little boy who had been denied a cookie.
Hazard let out his breath. Then, as cheerfully as he could manage, “I've got what I want. Six hostages. How much air do your suits carry? Twelve hours?”
“What do you mean?”
“You've got twelve hours to convince Cardillo and the rest of your pals to surrender.”
“You're crazy, Hazard.”
“I've had a tough day, Buckbee. I don't need your insults. Call me when you're ready to deal.”
“You'll be killing your son!”
Hazard had half expected it, but still it hit him like a blow. “Jonnie, are you there?”
“Yes I am, Dad.”
Hazard strained forward, peering hard at the display screen, trying to determine which one of the space-suited figures was his son.
“Well, this is a helluva fix, isn't it?” he said softly.
“Dad, you don't have to wait twelve hours.”
“Shut your mouth!” Buckbee snapped.
“Fuck you,” snarled Jon Jr. “I'm not going to get
myself killed for nothing.”
“I'll shoot you!” Hazard saw Buckbee level his gun at Jon Jr.
“And kill yourself? You haven't got the guts,” Jonnie sneered. Hazard almost smiled. How many times had his son used that tone on him.
Buckbee's hand wavered. He let the gun slip from his gloved fingers. It drifted slowly, weightlessly, away from him.
Hazard swallowed. Hard.
“Dad, in another hour or two the game will be over. Cardillo lied to you. The Russians never came in with us. Half a dozen ships full of troops are lifting off from IPF centers all over the globe.”
“Is that the truth, son?”
“Yes, sir, it is. Our only hope was to grab control of your satellites. Once the coup attempt in Geneva flopped, Cardillo knew that if he could control three or four sets of ABM satellites, he could at least force a stalemate. But all he's got is
Graham
and
Wood
. Nobody else.”
“You damned little traitor!” Buckbee screeched.
Jon Jr. laughed. “Yeah, you're right. But I'm going to be a live traitor. I'm not dying for the likes of you.”
Hazard thought swiftly. Jon Jr. might defy his father, might argue with him, even revile him, but he had never known the lad to lie to him.
“Buckbee, the game's over,” he said slowly. “You'd better get the word to Cardillo before there's more bloodshed.”
It took another six hours before it was all sorted out. A shuttle filled with armed troops and an entire replacement crew finally arrived at the battered hulk of
Hunter
. The relieving commander, a stubby, compactly built black from New Jersey who had been a U.S. Air Force fighter pilot, made a grim tour of inspection with Hazard.
From inside his space suit he whistled in amazement at the battle damage. “Shee-it, you don't need a new crew, you need a new station!”
“It's still functional,” Hazard said quietly, then added proudly, “and so is my crew, or what's left of them. They ran this station and kept control of the satellites.”
“The stuff legends are made of, my man,” said the new commander.
Hazard and his crew filed tiredly into the waiting shuttle, thirteen grimy, exhausted men and women in the pale-blue fatigues of the IPF. Three of them were wrapped in mesh cocoons and attended by medical personnel. Two others were bandaged but ambulatory.
He shook hands with each and every one of them as they stepped from the station's only functional air lock into the shuttle's passenger compartment. Hovering there weightlessly, his creased, craggy face unsmiling, to each of his crew members he said, “Thank you. We couldn't have succeeded without your effort.”
The last three through the hatch were Feeney, Stromsen, and Yang. The Irishman looked embarrassed as Hazard shook his hand.
“I'm recommending you for promotion. You were damned cool under fire.”
“Frozen stiff with fear, you mean.”
To Stromsen, “You, too, Miss Stromsen. You've earned a promotion.”
“Thank you, sir,” was all she could say.
“And you, little lady,” he said to Yang. “You were outstanding.”
She started to say something, then flung her arms around Hazard's neck and squeezed tight. “I was so frightened!” she whispered in his ear. “You kept me from cracking up.”
Hazard held her around the waist for a moment. As they disengaged he felt his face turning flame red. He turned away from the hatch, not wanting to see the expressions on the rest of his crew members.
Buckbee was coming through the air lock. Behind him were his five men. Including Jon Jr.
They passed Hazard in absolute silence, Buckbee's face as cold and angry as an antarctic storm.
Jon Jr. was the last in line. None of the would-be boarders was in handcuffs, but they all had the hangdog look of prisoners. All except Hazard's son.
He stopped before his father and met the older man's gaze. Jon Jr.'s gray eyes were level with his father's, unswerving, unafraid.
He made a bitter little smile. “I still don't agree with you,” he said without preamble. “I don't think the IPF is workableâand it's certainly not in the best interests of the United States.”
“But you threw your lot in with us when it counted,” Hazard said.
“The hell I did!” Jon Jr. looked genuinely aggrieved. “I just didn't see any sense in dying for a lost cause.”
“Really?”
“Cardillo and Buckbee and the rest of them were a bunch of idiots. If I had known how stupid they are I wouldn't ⦔ He stopped himself, grinned ruefully, and shrugged his shoulders. “This isn't over, you know. You won the battle, but the war's not ended yet.”
“I'll do what I can to get them to lighten your sentence,” Hazard said.
“Don't stick your neck out for me! I'm still dead set against you on this.”
Hazard smiled wanly at the youngster. “And you're still my son.”
Jon Jr. blinked, looked away, then ducked through
the hatch and made for a seat in the shuttle.
Hazard formally turned the station over to its new commander, saluted one last time, then went into the shuttle's passenger compartment. He hung there weightlessly a moment as the hatch behind him was swung shut and sealed. Most of the seats were already filled. There was an empty one beside Yang, but after their little scene at the hatch Hazard was hesitant about sitting next to her. He glided down the aisle and picked a seat that had no one next to it. Not one of his crew. Not Jon Jr.
There's a certain amount of loneliness involved in command, he told himself. It's not wise to get too familiar with people you have to order into battle.
He felt, rather than heard, a thump as the shuttle disengaged from the station's air lock. He sensed the winged hypersonic spaceplane turning and angling its nose for reentry into the atmosphere.
Back to ⦠Hazard realized that
home
, for him, was no longer on Earth. For almost all of his adult life, home had been where his command was. Now his home was in space. The time he spent on Earth would be merely waiting time, suspended animation until his new command was ready.
“Sir, may I intrude?”
He looked up and saw Stromsen floating in the aisle by his seat.
“What is it, Miss Stromsen?”
She pulled herself down into the seat next to him but did not bother to latch the safety harness. From a breast pocket in her sweat-stained fatigues she pulled a tiny flat tin. It was marked with a red cross and some printing, hidden by her thumb.
Stromsen opened the tin. “You lost your medication patch,” she said. “I thought you might want a fresh one.”
She was smiling at him, shyly, almost like a daughter might.
Hazard reached up and felt behind his left ear. She was right, the patch was gone.
“I wonder how long ago ⦔
“It's been hours, at least,” said Stromsen.
“Never noticed.”
Her smile brightened. “Perhaps you don't need it anymore.”
He smiled back at her. “Miss Stromsen, I think you're absolutely right. My stomach feels fine. I believe I have finally become adapted to weightlessness.”
“It's rather a shame that we're on our way back to Earth. You'll have to adapt all over again the next time out.”
Hazard nodded. “Somehow I don't think that's going to be much of a problem for me anymore.”
He let his head sink back into the seat cushion and closed his eyes, enjoying for the first time the exhilarating floating sensation of weightlessness.
Somehow I have gotten the reputation of being a hawk.
Apparently this stems from my advocacy of the Strategic Defense Initiative (a.k.a. “Star Wars”). There are some peopleâeven people within the sophisticated science fiction communityâwho pin simpleminded labels on others, based on their own political prejudices.
It is sad to see reviews of my novels begin with statements such as, “Ben Bova, whose proâStar Wars views are well known ⦔ Sad because I know it's going to be an unfavorable review by a writer who lets his politics blind him to the beauties of my prose!
Perhaps this situation stems from the polarization of the Vietnam era. Or maybe it goes even deeper, back to the beginnings of science fiction fandom, in the fractious 1930s.
Whatever the roots, the result is that anyone who suggests that SDI might be a concept worth exploring, that laser-armed satellites might lead to a war-preventing International Peacekeeping Force, is branded as a war-mongering hawk who wants to turn the pristine realms of outer space into a battlefield.
I don't consider myself a hawk. Or a dove. Maybe an owl. The owl is the mascot of my alma mater, Temple University. The owl is also sacred to Athena, the one goddess in all the world's religions who is worth worshiping. Originally a warrior-cult goddess, Athena grew into the patroness of wisdom and civilization, of arts and
industries, of cities and democracy.
The arguments over SDI have been largely political debates. Although many prominent scientists (some of them friends and former colleagues of mine) have publicly claimed that SDI is technically impossible, no one really knows if “Star Wars” will be possible or not; that is why a multiyear research program is needed.
“Space Weapons” examines the heart of the controversy. Can weapons aboard satellites destroy ballistic missiles reliably enough to defend the world against nuclear-missile attack?
I try to give both sides of the technical debate, and show what the political consequences might be. I don't feel terribly hawkishâbut I can't seem to escape the nagging memory that a dove is really a species of pigeon.
Â
Â
When President Reagan gave his “Star Wars” speech, March 23, 1983, he proposed to “counter the awesome Soviet missile threat with measures that are defensive,” measures that would “intercept and destroy strategic ballistic missiles before they reach our own soil or that of our allies.”
Although the President gave no hint in his speech of what these defensive measures might be, aides later revealed to the news media that the basic concept hinges on placing weapons in orbital space.
Satellites in orbit a few hundred miles above the Earth's surface can be in a position to destroy hydrogen-bomb-carrying ballistic missiles within a few minutes after they are launched. While they are still rising above the Earth's atmosphere, and their boosting-rocket engines are still working, the missiles are very vulnerable. If they can be hit then, they can be destroyed relatively easily.
But a defensive shield in space could destabilize the balance of terror that has been the cornerstone of U.S. and Soviet relations for more than twenty years. The policy of mutual assured destruction (MAD) assumes that no defense against missile attack is possible: if one superpower launches a nuclear attack, the other can retaliate in kind. When Reagan proposed a defensive system that would “save lives rather than avenge them,” the typical Russian response was, “Why do you want to attack us?” Soviet leaders see any attempt by the United States to defend itself against nuclear attack as a preparation for American nuclear attack on the Soviet Union.
Thus the arguments over “Star Wars” include questions of politics, policy, and technology. Is it necessary to put weapons in space? Should the Congress appropriate tens or hundreds of billions of dollars to build space-based defenses? Is it wise to shift American strategic policy away from MAD, a policy that âwhatever its risksâhas kept the superpowers from nuclear war for more than twenty years?
Before these questions can be gainfully addressed, the technology question must be considered. Will space-based weapons work? Will they be able to stop a nuclear missile attack?
Among the weapons being considered for the space-based ABM (antiballistic missile) role are high-power lasers, particle beam devices, small missiles, and electrically powered “rail guns” that fire small metal darts at very high velocities. Lasers and particle beam devices are often referred to as directed energy weapons (DEW) or, more simply, beam weapons.
Of these four types of weapons, lasers are the most commonly discussed and may well be the first type actually tested in space. The laser has distinct advantages as a space weapon. It fires a beam of lightâpure
energy. Nothing in the universe moves faster than light's velocity of 186,000 miles per
second
. By comparison, a missile flying at 15,000 to 20,000 miles per hour seems like a turtle. In the vacuum of space, the laser's beam moves in a perfectly straight line, undeflected by gravity, electric or magnetic fields, wind or weather. Not only is the laser “the fastest gun” in the universe; it can be the most accurate as well.
Small missiles are already being tested by the Air Force as an antisatellite (ASAT) weapon. Carried under the wing of a high-altitude F-15 jet fighter, the ASAT missile rockets into space, where it can seek out a satellite and destroy it by direct impact. Similar missiles could be used in the ABM role, carried aboard satellite “trucks” in orbit until they are needed to intercept enemy missiles. Their technology is well understood and highly developed. But missiles cannot give the speed and range that a powerful laser would. Laser beams could cross thousands of miles in a fraction of a second. This means that fewer defensive satellites would be needed, because each laser-armed satellite would have a “reach” that extends far beyond the limited range of small missiles.
Particle beam weapons are somewhat like lasers; they fire streams of subatomic particles such as protons and electrons instead of a beam of light. The particle beam can move at the speed of light. It must be an electrically neutral beam: negatively charged electrons or positively charged protons by themselves would be deflected by the Earth's magnetic field. While some analysts such as retired Air Force Major General George J. Keegan insist that the Soviet Union is pushing development of particle beam weapons, most Western scientists feel that such devices are not yet as fully developed as lasers.
Rail guns, which can accelerate dartlike fléchettes to velocities of better than 11,000 miles per hour in less than a second, are even less developed than particle beam devices.
Lasers have reached power levels where they can be used as weapons, although they may not yet be powerful enough to destroy missiles in space.
In 1983 the Air Force released news that a 400-kilowatt laser flown aboard its Airborne Laser Laboratory (a specially outfitted Boeing cargo jet) had successfully shot down five Sidewinder missiles fired at it by a jet fighter plane. The test took place high above the Navy Weapons Center testing grounds at China Lake, California. Sidewinders are the missiles that U.S. fighters use to destroy other planes: air-to-air missiles. Although the laser did not destroy the Sidewinders, it damaged their heat-seeking sensors so severely that the missiles could not find their target and crashed into the desert.
TRW Corporation has built a laser of 2.2 megawatts (2.2 million watts) output for the U.S. Navy. Although it is not intended to fly, this laser is approaching the power range of interest for orbital ABM weaponry. It is called MIRACL, a somewhat whimsical acronym for mid-infrared advanced chemical laser. Installed at the White Sands Missile Range in New Mexico, it is used by all three armed services to study the mechanisms by which laser energy damages target, materials such as the metals and plastics of which aircraft and missiles are constructed.
Damage mechanisms are an important consideration in deciding which devices may be tested in space and eventually deployed. Missiles and rail-gun fléchettes use the “kinetic kill” approach: like supersophisticated shotgun pellets, they simply smash into the oncoming missile or bomb-carrying warhead. The target's own forward velocity of more than 15,000
miles per hour merely adds more kinetic energy to the shattering collision.
The basic kill mechanism of a laser beam is to heat the target's surface so quickly and intensely that the material is vaporized. A laser that can focus many kilowatts or megawatts of pure energy per square centimeter on its target will cause damage similar to the kind that Buck Rogers's “disintegrator” gun did in the comic strips of fifty years ago. The skin of a missile can be boiled away by the searing finger of a laser beam, which can punch a hole in the missile's skin in a second or less. If the missile's rocket engines are still burning, and its tanks still contain volatile rocket propellants, rupturing the tankage will blow the missile apart in a spectacular explosion.
However, the metal boiled up by the laser beam creates a cloud that tends to absorb incoming laser energy. To counter this, the beam might be pulsed many times per second, so that the cloud created by the first pulse of laser energy dissipates before the next pulse arrives. The pulses could be thousandths of a second in duration, or even shorter. Very high-energy pulses could also damage a missile or warhead by mechanical shock, literally shaking its innards apart. A very energetic pulse would blast a small crater in the target's surface and send a shock wave penetrating into its interior. A train of sufficiently energetic pulses could rattle a missile or hydrogen-bomb warhead to pieces.
A particle beam could also deliver a massive jolt of energy to its target. It would not be absorbed by clouds of gas, as a laser beam would be. Nor would it be reflected by a shiny surface or absorbed by an ablative coating. It could penetrate the metal skin of a missile or even the “hardened” heat shield of a reentry warhead within microseconds. The beam could shock-heat the inner workings of a nuclear
bomb, destroying its electronic controls or damaging the triggering mechanism so badly that the bomb will not detonate.
There are many different kinds of lasers, but the type that appears to be closest to actual testing in space is the chemical laser, so called because its energy is derived from the chemical reaction of two or more “fuels,” such as hydrogen and fluorine. Chemical lasers emit infrared energy, at wavelengths of light that are invisible to the human eye.
Edward Teller, “father of the H-bomb,” is urging the development of a laser that produces X rays. It is powered by the explosion of a small nuclear bomb; thus the X-ray laser has been called a “third-generation nuclear device” (the first two generations being the fission-based atomic bomb and the hydrogen fusion bomb). Since the end product of Teller's third-generation bomb is a laser beam of X rays, the system is also called a “directed nuclear device.”
The technical community is also excited by the more recent development of
excimer
lasers, which can emit energy at ultraviolet wavelengths.
But the basic question remains: Will lasers, or any of the proposed space weapons, actually be able to defend against a full-scale strategic missile attack? Many scientists and strategists believe that it will be impossible to destroy thousands of missiles and their multiple warheads with orbiting weaponry. Dr. Robert Bowman, former director of advanced space programs for the Air Force, says that “every dollar spent on defense can be neutralized by five cents of offense.”
Perhaps the strongest voice speaking against the concept of space-based defense belongs to Kosta Tsipis, associate director of the MIT Physics Department's Program in Science and Technology for International Security.
“We are witnessing a tragedy ⦠a cruel hoax,” he told me, “a repetition of the pattern that saw the government spend two billion dollars on a nuclear-powered airplane in the 1950s.”
Tsipis is convinced that neither lasers nor particle beams can be made to work well enough to serve as ABM weapons. Writing in
Scientific
American's
April 1979 and December 1981 issues (and later including much the same material in his book
Arsenal:
Understanding Weapons in the Nuclear Age
), Tsipis concluded that “it is difficult to see how the development and deployment of such fragile, complex and expensive weapons would improve the military capability of a nation.”
He says quite firmly that the “dream” of orbiting energy weapons capable of destroying ballistic missiles is simply “not physically possible ⦠. There are no weapons applications for existing lasers,” and even if much better lasers are developed, “the operational difficulties” will make orbital ABM systems impractical.
“The President has no sense of the physical reality” of such devices, Tsipis feels. He believes that Reagan is “trying to stampede the country” into pushing ahead with such a program because “it is good for the California industries, and good for negotiations” with the Soviets.
In his writings, Tsipis concludes that a laser ABM weapon cannot put enough energy on a missile to destroy it, especially within the few seconds after launch when the missile's rocket engines are still burning and it is most vulnerable. He believes that a laser-armed satellite would itself be so vulnerable to attack and so expensive that it would have no real military value. “We have concluded that lasers have little or no chance of succeeding as practical, costeffective defensive weapons.”