Early
review of the Solar Powered Satellite Project
began in around 1978, and I (Rosalie Bertell) was
on the review panel. Although this was proposed as an energy program,
it had significant military implications. One of the most significant,
first pointed out by Michael J. Ozeroff,
was the possibility of developing a satellite-borne beam weapon for
anti-ballistic missile (ABM) use. The satellites were to be in geosynchronous
orbits, each providing an excellent vantage point from which an entire
hemisphere can be surveyed continuously. It was speculated that a high-energy
laser beam could function as a thermal weapon to disable or destroy
enemy missiles. There was some discussion of electron weapon beams,
through the use of a laser beam to preheat a path for the following
electron beam.
The
SPS was also described as a psychological and anti- personnel weapon,
which could be directed toward an enemy. If
the main microwave beam was redirected away from its rectenna, toward
enemy personnel, it could use an infrared radiation wave-length (invisible)
as an anti-personnel weapon. It might also be possible to transmit high
enough energy to ignite combustible materials. Laser beam power relays
could be made from the SPS satellite to other satellites or platforms,
for example aircraft, for military purposes. One application might be
a laser powered turbofan engine which would receive the laser beam directly
in its combustion chamber, producing the required high temperature gas
for its cruising operation. This would allow unlimited on-station cruise
time. As a psychological weapon, the SPS was
capable of causing general panic.
The SPS
would be able to transmit power to remote military operations anywhere
needed on earth. The manned platform of the SPS would provide surveillance
and early warning capability, and ELF linkage to submarines. It would
also provide the capability of jamming enemy communications. The
potential for jamming and creating communications is significant. The
SPS was also capable of causing physical changes in the ionosphere.
President
Carter approved the SPS Project and gave it a go- ahead, in spite of
the reservation which many reviewers, myself included, expressed. Fortunately,
it was so expensive, exceeding the entire Department of Energy budget,
that funding was denied by the Congress. I
approached the United Nations Committee on Disarmament on this project,
but was told that as long as the program was called Solar Energy by
the United States, it could not be considered a weapons project. The
same project resurfaced in the US under President Reagan. He moved it
to the much larger budget of the Department of Defense and called it
Star Wars. Since this is more recent history, I will not
discuss the debate which raged over this phase of the plan.
By 1978,
it was apparent to the US Military that communications
in a nuclear hostile environment would not be possible using traditional
methods of radio and television technology (Jane's Military
Communications 1978). By 1982, GTE Sylvania (Needham Heights, Massachusetts)
had developed a command control electronic sub-system for the US Air
Force's Ground Launch Cruise Missiles (GLCM) that would enable military
commanders to monitor and control the missile prior to launch both in
hostile and non-hostile environments. The system contains six radio
subsystems, created with visible light using a dark beam (not visible)
and is resistant to the disruptions experienced by radio and television.
Dark beams contribute to the formation of
energetic plasma in the atmosphere. This plasma can become visible as
smog or fog. Some has a different charge than the sun's energy,
and accumulates in places where the sun's energy is absent, like the
polar regions in the winter. When the polar spring occurs, the sun appears
and repels this plasma, contributing to holes in the ozone layer. This
military system is called: Ground Wave Emergency Network (GWEN). (See
The SECOMII Communication System, by Wayne Olsen, SAND 78- 0391,Sandia
Laboratories, Albuquerque, New Mexico, April 1978.) This
innovative emergency radio system was apparently never implemented in
Europe, and exists only in North America.
