ABSTRACT
The distances and time delays involved and the large amount of energy needed to boost mass up to orbit would make the storage of weapons in space a slow and expensive way to deploy munitions against earth targets. So far as earth battles are concerned, however, the most significant military uses of space are likely to be to provide warning, reconnaissance, communications, and other information. All Soviet satellites must communicate with the earth and therefore all space systems require earth stations to send and receive radio signals between the earth and the satellites. Turning to the satellites themselves, several kinds of satellite systems may be thought representative of a wide range of defense satellite systems. In the case of space systems as in the case of strategic weapons, the development of survivable systems is not only an essential requirement for strategic stability, it is probably also a prerequisite to meaningful arms control.
