and Other Celestial Bodies could be invoked to allow a hostile or potentially hostile nation to deploy NEARSATs ("killer" satellites or even remotely controlled mines) in close proximity to a solar power satellite. The actual degree of military involvement in an SPS program will naturally have a significant impact on threat and vulnerability issues. Any source of energy, of course, plays an indirect supporting role in national security and military preparedness. Such use of the SPS would not be considered directly military, unless the receiver antenna arrays were located predominantly or exclusively on military bases or defense-oriented installations such as uranium enrichment plants. Conversely, should each power satellite be equipped with long-range beam weapons, or with additional electronic equipment permitting the use of the microwave transmitting array as a deep space surveillance radar, or with laser communications equipment permitting the SPS to act as a relay to and from military communications, reconnaissance, or surveillance satellites, the significance of the SPS as a target for attack in time of hostilities would be altered drastically as might the ability of the SPS to protect itself from certain types of attacks. We must thus consider, at a minimum, the two extreme cases of a SPS with enhanced military capabilities and of a SPS with minimized military support capabilities. Once the potential threats and vulnerabilities of a SPS have been developed, various methods of safeguarding the system must be developed, and it is the aim of this study to identify and discuss potential safeguards. Safeguards in the most general sense could include preventive measures (i.e., action taken to forestall concerns about SPS threats and to inhibit other nations or terrorist groups from attacking the SPS) and neutralizing measures (i.e., actions taken to allow the SPS to survive attack, or to prevent an SPS with enhanced military capabilities from using those capabilities for aggression.) Safeguards can be purely technological (such as hardening of electronic components against radiation from nuclear explosions, laser beams, particle beams, or induced surge currents), or institutional (such as international treaties on just how close space vehicles or satellites of different nations may come to one another without prior mutual consent). The vulnerability and threat issues associated with SPS are to a significant extent shaped by the hardware itself. A thorough analysis of military implications then requires consideration of all the factors mentioned above with respect to each
RkJQdWJsaXNoZXIy MTU5NjU0Mg==