Showing papers in "Science & Global Security in 1989"

Background on space nuclear power

Abstract: This paper introduces the technology of space nuclear power, reviews the history of its deployment, provides background information on current development programs, and examines the proposed applications of space nuclear power systems.

Verified elimination of nuclear warheads

Abstract: No nuclear warheads have yet been eliminated by treaty. This paper examines possibilities for verified dismantlement and elimination of nuclear warheads as called for by possible future nuclear disarmament treaties. After warheads have been removed from missiles, the INF treaty allows each country to retain them, without restrictions.1 According to present expectations similar conditions will apply to the START treaty now under negotiation to reduce numbers of Soviet and American deliverable strategic ballistic missile warheads by half. Nevertheless, given recent advances in cooperative methods verification, as well as progress in technical capabilities of detection and monitoring, it is reasonable to hope and expect that dismantlement of nuclear warheads, not just the means for their delivery, will be called for sometime in the future. This possibility has prompted a number of studies.2 The principal focus of this paper is on procedures to verify that warheads specified by treaty for elimination are, in ...

Civilian uses of nuclear reactors in space

Abstract: The potential for civilian mission applications of space nuclear reactor power systems is addressed in this paper. A wide range of possible civilian missions, including human and unmanned solar system exploration, are identified, along with earth-orbit applications. These missions would require versatile, high-capacity space power systems whose attributes can best be provided by nuclear technology. The long mission durations, the high power levels required to fulfill many of the challenging mission objectives, and in some instances the lack of solar energy render the use of nuclear power sources as either mission-enabling or very advantageous.

Verification of Limits on Long-range Nuclear SLCMs

Abstract: Arms control negotiators have identified a number of problems in verifying limits on long‐range nuclear sea‐launched cruise missiles (SLCMs). These are the difficulties of counting deployed SLCMs, of distinguishing nuclear from non‐nuclear SLCMs, and the possibility of secret production or stockpiles. On‐site inspection measures to monitor either a limit or a ban on nuclear SLCMs could include inspection of: ships and submarines where SLCMs are deployed or being loaded; production facilities; maintenance operations; and storage sites. While verification plans that involved either very few inspections or, at the other extreme, frequent inspections of ships and submarines might be acceptable, a reasonably effective verification plan with an intermediate level of in‐trusiveness is also possible. This would include monitoring of the production and maintenance of any non‐nuclear long‐range SLCMs and any nuclear long‐range SLCMs not banned by the agreement. Tagging of these missiles to allow identification at s...

Space Reactor Arms Control: Overview

Abstract: Unshielded nuclear reactors provide the lightest and most survivable long-lived sources of electric power available to support military satellites. Restricting their use now, before a new generation of larger space reactors is tested and deployed by the US and USSR, could help prevent an arms race in space. Space nuclear power systems have been used by the United States and the Soviet Union since the 1960s. The Soviet Union has used orbiting nuclear reactors to power more than 30 radar ocean reconnaissance satellites (RORSATs). Two RORSATs have accidentally re-entered and released their radioactivity into the environment, and a third, Cosmos 1900, narrowly avoided a similar fate. The United States is developing much more powerful space reactors, of which the SP-100 is farthest along, primarily to power satellite components of the Strategic Defense Initiative (SDI). A working group associated with the Federation of American Scientists (FAS) and the Committee of Soviet Scientists for Peace and Against the Nuclear Threat (CSS) has been studying a proposed ban on orbiting reactors. A proposal by the FAS/CSS group that includes such a ban is attached in the appendix to the Overview. The first five papers in this section, all by members of the working group, summarize the technological and historical background to nuclear power in space and show that restrictions on orbiting reactors are verifiable. The final paper, by Rosen and Schnyer of NASA, surveys the civilian uses of nuclear power in space. The overview is a nontechnical introduction to the issues of space reactor arms control, including the proposed ban on orbiting reactors.

Infrared monitoring of nuclear power in space

Abstract: This paper assesses the level of confidence for monitoring a ban on nuclear power in earth orbit using unclassified information from astronomical observatories based on Maui, Hawaii, and from the Kuiper Airborne Observatory. It is concluded that existing military and astronomical observatories can detect and identify operating nuclear reactor sources, such as the Soviet RORSAT and US SP‐100, on satellites with a very high level of confidence out to distances beyond geosynchronous orbit. The smaller radioisotope thermal sources, RTG and DIPS, could be detected with a medium level of confidence under certain conditions.

Detection of space reactors by their gamma‐ray and positron emissions

Abstract: A ban on nuclear reactors in orbit could be verified using the tremendous flux of gamma rays and positrons that such reactors emit when operating. Indeed, these radiations already constitute a significant background for orbiting gamma‐ray astronomical satellites. In this paper, we estimate the gamma‐ray flux from reactors on spacecraft, using the design parameters for the US SP‐100 space reactor as an example. We then summarize the sensitivities of several existing and planned gamma‐ray detectors. We give special attention to the COMPTEL Compton telescope, one of the four instruments that will be included on the US Gamma Ray Observatory (GRO) satellite, which is scheduled for launch in 1990. We show that the gamma flux from an SP‐100 could be detected at thousands of kilometers with COMPTEL, and demonstrate that COMPTEL would typically detect a reactor in low earth orbit several times per day. Finally, we briefly discuss positrons from orbiting reactors both as a signal for verification and as an undesira...

The military connection and environmental hazards of space-based nuclear power

Abstract: The potential dangers associated with space-based nuclear power have alarmedmany specialists. There are two principal reasons:.Space-based nuclear energy sources have been declared to be a key part of themilitary Strategic Defense Initiative (8m) program. Even in the absence of cur-rent military interest in space nuclear reactors, the existence in space of a con-siderable number of civilian nuclear sources would always provide a temptationfor ideas of space militarization..Nuclear reactors deployed in near-earth orbits are a potential source of radio-active fallout that would be dangerous for the population of the entire earth.Multi-kilogram plutonium-238 radioisotope thermal generators (RTGs) would alsobe a dangerous source of radioactive contamination on a global scale.Below, we consider these objections in more detail.a. Committee of Soviet Scientists for Peace and Against the Nuclear Threat and InstiMeof Space Research of the USSR Academy of Sciences. Profsoyuznala 88.117810 Moscow.

Every profession needs its own journal

Abstract: Since the development of nuclear weapons, it has been clear to an increasing number of scientists that the future of civilization depends on the way in which their expertise is used. Some have gone further and decided that public policy for technology is too important to be made behind closed doors. This belief comes naturally in science-which owes its great success in the past few centuries to the overthrow of authoritarianism. Modern science is ruled by the democratic principles that everyone's work is subject to question and that no one knows who may achieve the next breakthrough. In the past decades, a small but growing community of scientists have been trying to extend that same openness to discussions of the technical basis of public policy for technology. This movement began in the US immediately after the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki with the nuclear scientists' movement. Their message to the public was simple, but critical to the formulation of a sound nuclear-weapons policy: 'urhere is no secret and there is no defense.\" In the 1960s, Rachel Carson and other scientists added their own message explaining that technology was becoming powerful enough to threaten many of the environmental processes that sustain us. As public concern about the nuclear arms race and environmental degradation has strengthened, private foundations and member-supported public-interest groups have supported a small but growing number of US careers in \"public-interest science.\" And, as the anti-nuclear weapons and