Letter: Cold War-era fears recur with space weapons race

I still remember October 1962 and the Cuban Missile Crisis: Russian ships sailing toward a U.S. blockade of Cuba. We held our breath fearing that World War III had come between two nuclear powers. Afterward, we learned how terribly close it came to war.

This left some of us “survivors” with lifelong anxiety about nukes. And over the years other nations joined the “nukes club.” Now, in the Sept. 16 Star-Advertiser, we read that the Trump administration, as part of its military buildup, is deploying weapons in space (“U.S. deploys weapons in space to contend with China, Russia”) to circle the globe, awaiting human command to hit other orbital targets. Of course, China and Russia will surely build their own space-based arsenals.

Did we learn nothing from the Cuban Missile Crisis about how insanely dangerous this is? Why aren’t we demanding that our leaders instead promote international disarmament of nuclear weapons?

Noel Kent

Manoa

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