Star Wars means U.S. will strike first

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A DOCIALIT ACTIOM MHPMLET Jim Heaphy is the editor of Space for all People magazine. We are printing below major excerpts from Heaphy's presentation to a May 30, 1986, symposium on "The Movement Against Nuclear War and Nuclear Power." The symposium was sponsored by the San Francisco branch of Socialist Action.

I think it would be easy for most moderately informed supporters of the peace movement to see the connections between Star Wars [the Strategic Defense Initiative] and nuclear war. But the connections between nuclear power and Star Wars might be more difficult to see.

Ever since the very earliest days of the space age, the United States and the Soviet Union have been planning and implementing the use of nuclear power in space. Both programs started in the late 1950s.

In its use of nuclear power in space, the United States has basically concentrated on devices that are called RTGs—or radio-thermal generators. Without getting into a lot of technical detail, these devices are not nuclear reactors. Basically they are chunks of plutonium which give off heat to drive a thermocouple that generates electricity.

These devices are somewhat compact and don't have complex control systems. So they have some appeal for use in spacecraft. But the plutonium they run on is just about the most poisonous substance on the face of the earth.

The Soviet Union, on the other hand, has emphasized the use of actual nuclear reactors in its space program. To date it has launched 27 nuclear reactors into space. Twenty-five of those nuclear reactors are still in orbit around the earth. Two of them suffered catastrophic reentries.

Nuclear accidents in space I'd like to go into a little detail about the history of space- and nuclear-power accidents. The first and perhaps most severe space accident took place in April 1964. Back in the early 1960s, the U.S. government had a series of military navigation satellites called the transit series, and they were powered by RTG devices.

They launched one from Vandenberg Air Force Base in California. The thing got about 95 percent of the way A Marxist analysis.

Order your copy toda $1.10 includes postage. Socialist Action, 3435 Army St., Rm. 308, San Francisco CA., 94110 A SOCIALIST ACTION PAMPHLET 2 SOCIALIST ACTION AUGUST 1986 into orbit and there was a rocket failure. When it reentered the atmosphere it burned up, and all of the plutonium that was on that craft dispersed into the upper atmosphere over the Southern Hemisphere of the planet.

That single incident, which wasn't even reported to the public until it emerged in scientific journals about twoand-a-half years later, was reponsible for between 5 percent and 10 percent of the plutonium fallout that resulted from all atmospheric nuclear testing during the 1950s and 1960s. So that was the first in a long string of space/nuclear-power accidents that have taken place.

These devices since then have been used basically for two purposes: First, to power military satellites in orbit around the earth. Second, to power planetary probes out into further reaches of the solar system.

The reason they use them for planetary probes is that the further you get away from the sun, the less intense the solar energy is. Solar cells—one of the more normal ways of powering satellites—are less useful. And so they have to rely more on nuclear power.

Apollo 13 explodes

All the Apollo spacecraft that landed on the moon had nuclear-powered devices. In 1970, however, there was a flight that was called Apollo 13. That was an unlucky number and that was the ill-fated mission.

When they were halfway to the moon, there was an explosion on the spacecraft and they thought they might lose the astronauts. What they did was to loop the spacecraft around the moon to use the moon's gravity to catapult it back toward earth.

They managed to save the astronauts, but normally they would have landed the nuclear device on the moon and left it there. Instead, they had to bring it back to earth with them. So they had the same situation they had in '64 except that this time the RTG device was in a protective cask and it survived entry through the atmosphere.

It did not burn up but fell into an ocean trench about a thousand miles off the Philippines-something like 29,000 feet deep. It is still there-far deeper than any submarines are capable of going.

The Soviets do not have a much better safety record, unfortunately. In the mid-1970s, they had a failure of one of their spacecraft shortly after launch with a nuclear reactor aboard. It burned up over the Pacific Ocean. The incident got virtually no publicity whatever.

Big publicity did take place in 1978, however, when one of their satellites re-entered the atmosphere over the Canadian Yukon. In that incident the nuclear reactor only partially burned out and large pieces of radioactivity were strewn all over the Canadian wilderness. If it had been a more widely populated area, it might have been an incident comparable to Chernobyl.

In 1982, they lost another one. The same thing happened, the reactor burned up in the atmosphere. The radioctive debris in that case came down over the Indian Ocean. None of the debris fell on land areas, however.

So that is the sordid history of the safety record of nuclear power devices in space. It is coincidental at this That means dramatic improvements in the accuracy of the missiles. We are talking about navigational satellites that can give the guidance information allowing a nuclear weapon to home in on its target. We are talking about very accurate satellite-mapping information programmed into the brains of cruise missiles. We are talking about using blue-grain lasers from satellites to detect submarines and destroy them.

We are talking about instantaneous worldwide command control so that military forces can be sent out on their mission with total coordination. That is possible only with satellite communication.

Star Wars is the keystone of this whole edifice of high-technology weapons systems—many of which are space based. Star Wars has the mop-up role of defense after the majority of the other sides' retaliatory capability has already been destroyed in a first-strike launch.

I don't believe that they are actually planning overtly to launch a first strike. But I believe that they are engaging in a systematic military buildup to convincingly demonstrate that capability in a crisis situation, in order to force the Soviet Union or any contender against U.S. power to back down in a crisis situation.

I feel that confronting Star Wars and building a movement to oppose Star Wars is needed to punch holes in the misty, superficial, emotional type of appeal "to defend our grandchildren" that Reagan has been putting out. If we can rip a hole in that facade, I think it would be a real defeat of Reagan's policies. I think that this must be done.

LOS ANGELES—On July 20, well over 1000 people joined together in a rally to end U.S. intervention and for self-determination throughout Central America.

This date was chosen to celebrate the 7th anniversary of the 1979 Nicaraguan Revolution. The rally sponsors included the Office of the Americas, CISPES, South Africa Support Committee, Guatemala Information Center, and the Nicaraguan Task Force. It was also endorsed by a wide range of groups such as Architects and Planners in Support of Nicaragua, the Alliance for Survival, the Labor Committee on Central America, and Socialist Action, to name just a few.

The event, which took place at Los Angeles High School Sports Stadium, was publicized with the slogan "Hands Off the Americas," satirizing the recent highly publicized event "Hands Across America."

The point was well made that joining hands with President Reagan will not solve the problems facing the American people; but rather that independent mass action by the people is needed to end U.S. intervention in Central America and to end U.S. support to the racist government of South Africa.

The rally, which included music, dance, and poetry, featured speakers from a wide spectrum of thought and background such as Bishop Walter Grumm and Sister Pat Krommer; Gus Newport, mayor of Berkeley; Ramona Ripston of the ACLU; Francisco Campbell, Nicaraguan Ambassador to the United States; and Alexander Cockburn, well-known social and political commentator.

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L.A. rally celebrates Nicaraguan Revolution