3. Utility Ownership of Power Satellites and Rectennas. We have assumed that, upon completion of construction of a power satellite and rectenna, the SPS construction organization(s) will sell them outright to utility companies or government agencies, whether in the United States or abroad, rather than retaining ownership of the hardware and selling the power. Once a power satellite and rectenna is sold outright to a foreign entity, the SPS construction entity would have no further control over it, although the builders may continue to provide maintenance and repair services to the owners on a contract basis, as is the case today for the builders of nuclear powerplants. While the U.S. commitment to participation in building power satellites may be purely civilian in nature, the same cannot be assumed for all foreign purchasers of power satellites. Given this assumption of ownership of power satellites and ancillary facilities by many different nations, it is perhaps even more difficult to provide credible safeguards against military adaptations of portions of the SPS than if only one nation (e.g., the United States) owned such facilities. It will clearly be necessary to look outside the operational entities for means to assure the nonmilitary nature of SPS elements, and additional actors (including utility companies, foreign owners, and national governments abroad) must also be considered in devising safeguards for SPS. 4. Plural Presence in Space. In the time period after about 1990, we assume the presence in space of spacecraft and personnel from many nations, not just the U.S. and the U.S.S.R. Both the People's Republic of China and Japan have declared their intentions of achieving manned capabilities in space by the end of the century. At least another dozen countries will have the capability of launching satellites to LEO and GEO in the late 1980's and 1990's. One or more private enterprise ventures (such as OTRAG in West Germany) are likely to succeed in bringing new launch vehicles into operational use by that time. Extensive manned operations in space imply the possible access of terrorists to space systems as well as to ground facilities, especially if the costs of • transportation become low enough (less than $20-40 per kilogram) to permit development of space tourism. Such tourists-turned-terrorists, however, would have to be technically highly trained to be very effective.
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