5. Diffusion of Advanced Technologies. In discussing the potential threats which the SPS could wield under a United States program, we made projections of certain technologies to obtain some idea of the capabilities space weaponry may achieve in the next 20 to 50 years. Over such a time span, we must assume that anything which U.S. technology could devise will be matched by that of other countries, with no more than a few years delay. 6. Normal Technology Growth. While unimaginable breakthroughs could occur in the next fifty years, leading to whole new transporation systems, communications systems, and weapons systems, we have assumed that anything actually deployable in the next five decades will already exist today, at least in conceptual form with a reasonable technical basis. We thus admit high energy lasers, laser propulsion, and microelectronic technologies advanced by several orders of magnitude in capability beyond those available today. 1.4 Method of Approach Threat and vulnerability, whether potentially real or only imagined because of some misperceptions, are the most basic of considerations in assessing military implications of the SPS concept. That some threat possibilities can be perceived rather than real is shown by the common misconception about the Reference Design that if the microwave power beam to the ground were to wander away from its designated receiver antenna array (rectenna), it would leave in its wake countless "cooked" people, wildlife, and vegetation, along with "scorched" cities should it cross any. (Such misconceptions can only be countered by public discussion about SPS.) More realistic threats include the addition of directed energy weapons (either laser or particle beam devices) to the power satellite, or substitution of laser power transmission for microwave power transmission to the ground. The possibility that a network of SPS facilities was being covertly equipped with a high energy laser ballistic missile defense (ABM) system of high efficiency would be viewed with considerable alarm by any other nation whose strategic military doctrine depended heavily on intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBM). On the vulnerability side, the right of free passage in space of vehicles launched by states which are parties to the 1967 Treaty on Principles Governing the Activities of States in the Exploration and Use of Outer Space, Including the Moon
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