Space Test Detection

After less than three weeks of discussion at Geneva, U.S., British and Russian scientists reached agreement last week on how to detect nuclear tests far out in space. There was no assurance that the recommendations will be put into effect, since each government must agree to the system by treaty. The report made clear that space test detection will increase the already enormous cost of any test detection system.

For the future, when nuclear tests are feasible far from the earth, the scientists recommended a patrol of five or six highly instrumented satellites, weighing several thousand pounds, shot into a huge orbit 18,000 miles from earth. Such surveillance would cover the entire earth and surrounding space--at least until someone learns how to carry out tests behind the moon or the sun. A second, less ambitious system would be to orbit more satellites (possibly as many as ten) at lower altitudes of 300 to 450 miles, which would monitor all but a few areas, leaving the blind spots to ground stations.

Though the satellite idea grabbed all the headlines, the bulk of the report concentrated on the immediate potential of ground detection. A satellite patrol is within the present state of the art, but as the Geneva scientists noted, it will take some hard engineering to pull it off. The U.S. has achieved an essentially permanent 400-2,000-mile orbit with a grapefruit-sized sphere; the Reds have put up a 2,000-lb. weight. But no one has yet been able to get any sizable mass out into space and keep it there, and keep it on a reporting basis.

Until they do, the major effort lies in the area of ground monitors. Nuclear explosions, even small ones, are conspicuous events. They release in a small fraction of a second an enormous amount of light. They send powerful radio waves, and ionized particles that come from them have electrical effects on the earth's high atmosphere. Gamma rays from the explosion have their effects too, and so do the vaporized remains of the bomb and its carrier. With proper instruments, all these characteristics can be detected from the ground, even when the explosion is far beyond the horizon.

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