Star Wars' Heavy Load

Assume that research on the Strategic Defense Initiative is so successful that the U.S. can begin deploying the first elements of a missile-killing system by the mid-1990s. At that point, Star Wars will require launching objects into space on a scale far beyond anything ever before attempted--up to 50 times the weight of military payloads that were going up when the American shuttles and rockets were flying. How to put all those sensors, computers, laser mirrors, rocket-firing satellite battle stations and even miniature nuclear reactors into the heavens, and at what cost?

These questions have been largely obscured by the national debate about the technical feasibility of Star Wars weapons and the political and military , consequences of building an antimissile shield. Yet a key problem of SDI from its inception has been the weight and quantity of equipment that would have to be put into space. The hardware would vary enormously according to what types of weapons were selected for deployment. It makes a big difference, for example, whether laser beams are generated by millions of pounds of chemicals aboard satellites or produced on earth and bounced off mirrors in space.

Even the minimal forecasts, though, are striking. When they were operating, U.S. shuttles and one-way rockets probably lifted no more than 500,000 lbs. per year (the exact weight is secret) of military payloads into space, at an estimated cost of $3,000 per lb. In the first year of deployment of a relatively primitive Star Wars system, according to Lieut. Colonel Louis Kouts, Air Force deputy for space plans and policy, some 2.6 million lbs. of SDI weapons, sensors and other gear would have to be rocketed up. That, says Kouts, would grow to 4.4 million lbs. annually around the year 2000, as more exotic weapons are put in orbit.

Other estimates go much higher: 4 million lbs. per year to start and vastly more than that if, for example, satellites were armored and made maneuverable to protect them against Soviet attack. SDI officials, says John Pike of the Federation of American Scientists, "are looking at increasing their annual to-orbit weight by a factor of ten to 50 times, and that assumes survivability apart from armor. If they go to armor, the numbers quickly become bizarre as opposed to just daunting."

The weights involved seem well beyond the lifting potential of any launchers the U.S. now has. Says Colonel George Hess of the Pentagon's SDI organization: "We cannot handle this volume with shuttles and Titans and Delta rockets. Something new will have to come along." More precisely, the U.S. will have to design and build far more powerful launching vehicles: perhaps new unmanned rockets, or an upgraded "space truck" version of the shuttle, or President Reagan's "Orient Express" space plane. An SDI report to Congress says the cost could approach $60 billion just for lift, without counting a penny spent on the actual weapons.

Lieut. General James Abrahamson, head of SDI, says that lift costs must be cut to one-tenth of current levels for SDI to succeed. Nevertheless, the general, who once ran the shuttle program, takes the can-do approach: "The present difficulties of several of our launch systems are temporary setbacks - that do not resemble the real potential of our technology over the coming years." But the looming questions about lift potential and costs will not help him hold the line against congressional budget cutters. A group of 46 Senators signed a letter last month advocating that SDI research spending be held to just over $3 billion in fiscal 1987, far below the $5.4 billion total Reagan has requested. Neither figure includes any spending to develop new launchers. When the estimates on those costs become more widely known, predicts Colonel Hess, "they will drive the green-eyeshade guys right up the wall."