267. Memorandum From the Director of the Strategic Defense Initiative Organization (Abrahamson) to Secretary of Defense Carlucci1
SUBJECT
- Your Briefing on “Good Citizen” This Afternoon—INFORMATION MEMORANDUM
As I referenced in my earlier paper to you,2 the “Good Citizen” concept for the space based interceptor is innovative, but remains controversial. A good way to look at it is that this concept and the Livermore “skunkworks” operation is our technical analog of the high risk, high pay-off part of a well-balanced investment portfolio.
You will hear some claims that this concept could eliminate all other surveillance and weapons and still meet the Phase I requirement. That represents an optimistic concept that we are examining, but I feel may not eventually be acceptable to the operational community which would want more assured communications, command, and control and separate warning of ballistic missile attack. In a similar vein, the concept and its implementation are excellent and progressing at a very fast pace. I am especially proud of this small team of scientists; however, there is an optimistic assumption that enables the very low cost approach—that is that the ultraviolet signatures of Soviet liquid fuel boosters and post boost vehicles will be adequate to be detected and provide reliable signals during the flight of the “Good Citizen” [Page 963] attacker. We are gathering information to validate that as quickly as possible. The assumption appears reasonable for solid rocket boosters. We have some indications that certain U.S. liquids are adequately visible at particular altitudes as they pass through the atmosphere, but this requires additional validation on both U.S. and Soviet systems. This signature data remains a priority SDI phenomenology effort, but will only be validated slowly over time. Therefore, I am not yet ready to put all of our eggs in this basket.
However, the small investment, a few tens of millions of dollars, and the real progress that is being made warrant strong support of this team. We have tied them to an aerospace contractor so that it is not a one-time, academic/scientific demonstration. My gravest concern is that they be funded, encouraged, and allowed to proceed at the maximum rate without the concept being so oversold that, if a problem develops, it will have a high negative affect on the overall program. You may wish to keep this perspective in mind as you hear the briefing by Dr. Lowell Wood, a senior and very creative scientist at Livermore who heads this support “skunkworks” operation and who is a protégé of Dr. Teller. The briefing this afternoon will concentrate on his concept; however, please keep in mind that we are busily simplifying the other space based interceptor concepts as well. As I indicated in my earlier discussions with you, I believe the SBI concept will become affordable and was poorly served by this spring’s cost estimate.3 The cost estimate did what it was supposed to do . . . focused our next effort . . . it should not be considered the inevitable future weapon system cost. Lowell Wood’s concept, in addition to having merit of its own, is acting as a competitive spur to my other space based interceptor teams.
Lieutenant General, USAF
Director