U.S. Budget Woes Will Force SDI Curtailing, Soviets Predict

A Soviet military bulletin predicted Friday that the Reagan Administration’s space-based Strategic Defense Initiative is likely to be curtailed because of budgetary problems.

The bulletin, published by the Novosti news agency, said that the U.S. Congress is beginning to listen to arguments that the SDI, or “Star Wars” program, is almost impossible to create, and if deployed, could be harmful to all mankind.

As envisioned by its proponents, the SDI program would establish an umbrella of weaponry--satellites, lasers, sensors and other devices--designed to detect and destroy incoming missiles.

Opponents argue that the cost is astronomical and the results problematical, and that deployment would serve only to destabilize the nuclear balance between the United States and the Soviet Union.

Key Sticking Point

The SDI has been one of the principal sticking points between President Reagan and Soviet leader Mikhail S. Gorbachev in their discussions on reducing intercontinental ballistic missiles.

In the Kremlin’s view, there is no point in reducing long-range missiles if a substantial number of such missiles would be needed to penetrate a new U.S. space-based defense system.

The Soviet military bulletin said that a recent reduction in funds approved by the U.S. Congress for SDI--the Administration’s request for $5.7 billion was reduced to $3.9 billion--showed that the “arguments of skeptics have been heeded.”

“Indeed,” the bulletin said, “Pentagon officials are saying that there are plans for major cuts in the allocation and for a suspension of key experiments and projects for a couple of years. That will apparently delay the deployment of the first stage of the space defense system, which was announced by the former Pentagon chief.”

This was apparently a reference to former Defense Secretary Caspar W. Weinberger’s statement that the SDI could be operational in the 1990s.

Same Effect as War

The bulletin asserted that intercepting nuclear missiles in space would have the same effect as nuclear war itself.

The bulletin said that the radioactive material released in space by a defensive explosion might not threaten all mankind but added that “it is indisputable . . . that gamma and beta radiation are high-risk radiological effects of a nuclear explosion and subsequent radioactive contamination.”

Such radioactive material, it said, could be released by accident or mistake in computer programming that might set off an explosion above the earth.

“Analytical data and experts’ estimates show explicitly that it is impossible to develop error-free software for controlling a space defense system of the SDI type,” the bulletin said. “The system will either commit catastrophic errors or prove totally useless.”