Nuking LEO (again)

Subject:      Nuking LEO (again)
From:         thomsona@netcom.com (Allen Thomson)
Date:         1995/05/13
Message-Id:   <thomsonaD8IoKA.CE3@netcom.com>
Newsgroups:   sci.space.policy

Some more details are starting to appear concerning DNA's worries 
about third world nuclear threats to LEO satellites: 
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Flight of Chip Makers Exposes Satellites
by Pat Cooper and Jeff Erlich
Defense News, 8-14 May 1995, pp. 1 & 29.
[Excerpts]
     Without government intervention to stop the exodus of 
computer chip makers from the U.S. military market, the next 
generation of military satellites will be left vulnerable to a 
single nuclear strike, defense and industry officials warn. 
     The U.S. supplier base for radiation-hardened microchips, 
used by the thousands to protect space-based systems from the 
effects of a nuclear blast, has dropped from 20 companies to 
four in the past five years... 
     The market is too small to support even the remaining four 
companies, Robert Webb, Defense Nuclear Agency electronics and 
system technology division chief, said May 4 in an interview... 
    Demand for radiation-hardened chips has dropped to about 
$100 million a year since the end of the Cold War [when it was 
around $750 M/yr]... 
     Meanwhile, the commercial electronics market has boomed to 
$100 billion a year, leading suppliers to abandon hardened 
production lines for more profitable commercial chips, industry 
officials said. 
     Even if suppliers survive, their products are in danger of 
atrophying, Webb said. 
     Microchips are evolving so fast that technologies last just 
a few years before being overtaken by a new generation. With 
this turnover, some worry that companies will not want to make 
new investments to capture a fraction of a market that is so 
small. 
     The consequences of losing a supplier base for radiation-
hardened chips could be devastating. [DNA director Maj. Gen. 
Hagemann] painted this scenario in remarks to reporters April 
26: A nation such as Iraq or North Korea could detonate a 50-
kiloton nuclear warhead above its own territory at 100 
kilometers. 
     The resulting radiation and electromagnetic pulse could 
wipe out the electronics of satellites in the vicinity, and 
shorten the life of every satellite in low-Earth orbit. 
     "We want to retain the ability to produce hardened 
electronics primarily so we are not vulnerable to a cheap shot," 
Harold Smith, assistant to the defense secretary for atomic 
energy, said April 26... 
     As a weapon of war, such a blast could blind U.S. space-
based sensors that are not hardened against the effects of 
radiation. As an economic weapon, it could destroy billions of 
dollars worth of satellites as radiation accumulates in them 
over a period of months.... 
     Should U.S. suppliers stop making radiation-hardened 
components, DoD officials could turn to foreign suppliers, such 
as Asea Brown Boveri AG, Billingstad, Norway; GEC Plessey 
Semiconductors, Cheney Manor, England; or Thomson-CSF, Paris.
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