78-03-A2
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Spaceships[edit]
Transcript[edit]A Russian satellite crashed to earth in the Canadian north woods and the recovered debris was radioactive, but is that all we have to worry about? I'll be right back. When an Earth-orbiting Soviet satellite re-entered the earth's atmosphere, disintegrating and scattering wreckage across the frozen north land of Canada, the White House expressed concern when it developed that the wreckage was giving off radioactive rays, but relief that the orbital path was over sparsely populated country. Others speculated about future accidents in which the debris would land in a crowded city and a few protested that we should stop cluttering up space with our man-made hardware. Without writing off the legitimacy of worrying about radioactivity from whatever source, may I suggest we have a far greater worry. After all, what was the purpose of the space vehicle that crashed to Earth? In what way was it serving its masters in the Kremlin? The answers to those questions give us far more to worry about than radioactivity from a repeat failure. The New York Times carried the answers in a recent story. Kosmos-954 was a naval reconnaissance satellite carrying a powerful radar, able to scan the world's oceans to locate naval vessels of the United States and our allies. Information about location and number of ships could be radioed to soviet ground controllers. We've been pretty smug about our apparently superior sophistication in space technology, but this piece of hardware shows a very high level of sophistication on the part of the Russians. In fact, our own experts didn't believe such a space-born radar was possible because of the tremendous power needed to beam radar signals. The Soviets developed a nuclear reactor small enough to be put on a spacecraft, hence the radioactivity in the snows of Canada. I've said before that while we're trying to avoid a war, the Soviets are preparing to win one. Should it occur it's only been a short time since we learned that they have been developing hunter-killer satellites. The former head of Air Force Intelligence until his retirement, Lieutenant-General George Keegan, has described our strategist as startled two years ago when the Soviets launched a new version of their killer, which could home-in and destroy a target in space during a single earth orbit. The Russians are also believed to be developing orbital bombardment vehicles and laser weapons. Our military leaders fear the destruction of our communication satellites could leave the Pentagon unable to communicate with ships, planes, submarines, missile, silos, even ground forces. Over the past 10 years, the Soviets have launched at least 33 satellies as either killers or targets for the killers. We've embarked on a catch-up program which will have us armed with very sophisticated space weaponry sometime in the early 80s. Let's keep our fingers crossed. This is Ronald Reagan. Thanks for listening. |
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