To begin with, the Guptas -- father Chaitan, 62, and son Vipin, 32, -- are experts in their respective fields: Mathematics and Physics.

The father, who earned his Ph.D. from the University of Rochester, has been teaching mathematics at U.S. universities for nearly 40 years. The son, a physicist trained at the Imperial College in London, is a pioneer in the application of civilian and commercial satellite imagery to international security problems. He is a senior member of the technical staff at a US weapons lab since 1996.

The father, a professor at the University of Nevada in Reno, is an expert in mathematical modeling, which he currently shares with his students. The son is currently working on assignment in the Advanced Concepts Group at the Livermore branch of Sandia National Laboratories where he is focusing on U.S.- Mexico border security.

The father, with top-secret security clearance, uses his expertise in mathematical modeling to engage in classified work for the Bureau of Verification and Compliance at the U.S. State Department. Specifically, he used mathematics to help the U.S. in its disarmament programs and nuclear war projections. The son has used his expertise in Applied Physics to probe covert nuclear testing activities in India and China.

The father has calculated the human cost of a possible nuclear exchange between India and Pakistan -- projected in millions of lives. The son was the first to blow the cover off preparations for India’s 1998 nuclear test at Pokhran – more than two years before it actually transpired. He can pinpoint the exact locations in India and China where underground nuclear testing has taken place. He has also the uncanny expertise to predict where such nuclear testing might occur in the future.

The father believes that a world without weapons is necessary and possible. The son, on assignment in the US Mexican border has the concept of a Bi-National Sustainability Laboratory, designed to create a new engine for economic development on both sides of the border, jointly staffed by U.S. and Mexican scientists, engineers, and business people. He hopes it will serve as a template for other regions of the world -- regions in or on the verge of violent conflicts. His goal: using sustainable economic development as a tool for conflict prevention and poverty reduction.

Both affirm that mathematics and physics are key components of American foreign policy, leading to arms control and to the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty – and, eventually, to a world without weapons and without war.

Tracking India’s Nuclear Testing Activities

If Vipin Gupta were to give you an "intelligence briefing", he might very well pinpoint the exact location of Indian nuclear test sites of 1974 and 1998 on a satellite image, name the villages in its periphery, point to the roads that lead to the site, the tracks made by military vehicles, the houses nearby and the animal shelters.

Mind you, this is not classified information. Gupta used his expertise to simply extract information from the public domain by sifting through commercial satellite data. He then filtered out the noise, and blended logic, official accounts, and hard evidence to make available the kind of detailed information that becomes necessary for arms control and verification. Even though he uses only public-domain information, those who are familiar with military intelligence admit that Gupta’s briefing is usually better than most based on classified sources.

As far as Vipin is concerned, his foray into the exciting world of remote sensing began ten years ago when he started tracking China’s nuclear program, for his dissertation project, by using commercial satellite imagery, seismic data, and computer programs. That project at Imperial College, he recalls, turned out to be “a mixed bag of techno-detective work, policy inference, bureaucratic hassles, and electromechanical glitches.”

But it also paved the way for a pioneering study with Frank Pabian at the Lawrence Livermore National Lab. A key finding in their 1996 report, "Investigating the Allegations of Indian Nuclear Test Preparations in the Rajasthan Desert," was that commercial satellite imagery, when used in concert with data from other sources, is an effective tool for monitoring compliance with the CTBT. The work was submitted as an invited paper for the international symposium on "Global Security & Global Competitiveness: Open Source Solutions," and received one of 10 "Golden Candle" awards for making the most of open sources outside traditional intelligence applications.

The point is, together with US military spy satellite data, we can now be certain that the U.S. had intimate knowledge of India’s nuclear test plans, though it was widely acknowledged that the tests in 1998 came as a surprise. And much of the hard evidence came from the analytical work of Gupta.

Gupta’s research has proven that commercial imaging satellites have added a new dimension to nuclear test monitoring from space. These satellites, currently provide imagery at one to four meters resolution, are sold on the open market for $30 to $300 per square mile of mapped surface, and provide a unique space-based capability of remotely verifying compliance with the CTBT.

For example, the most precise imagery now available on the commercial market has a resolution of one or two meters. It is made by the American system Ikonos, which recently provided evidence of nuclear weapons being stored in the U.S. Naval Base in the Indian Ocean island of Diego Garcia.

Since satellite imaging is a form of non-intrusive remote sensing, Gupta says it can be done without the consent of the observed. Furthermore, because satellite imaging can be used to detect “pre-test” as well as “post-test” activities, it is useful for watching nuclear test preparations -- which are not prohibited under the CTBT-- and making sure the observed state does not cross the threshold from allowed to illicit activity. If images reveal possible or probable nuclear test preparations, such a revelation could trigger intensified monitoring of the suspect site with the “post-test” technologies (e.g., seismic, radionuclide sensors) best suited for determining if and when the line of legality has been crossed.

There is a considerable potential for detecting changes in a scene owing to nuclear tests both by eye and with the use of mathematical techniques using computers. The latter are most useful for detecting spectral changes in a scene. It has often been argued that optical sensors are very limited because clouds frequently cover the earth´s surface. Civil radar satellites that have day and night and all-weather capabilities now overcome this obstacle and can be used to detect changes, by interferometric methods, before and after a test. More recently, in an article in ‘Science and Global Security’, Gupta discovered that antineutrino detection could be an important tool for monitoring nuclear explosions.

The key to satellite imagery is that it offers the possibility of monitoring a large area of the Earth quickly and repeatedly. They could also provide an improved factor of at least 7, in terms of area coverage, compared with that obtained from aerial surveillance by aircraft. And unlike over-flights by aircraft, no permission would be required from States over which satellites pass. Furthermore, since a satellite orbits at an altitude of at least 150km, well beyond national airspace, and since it is unmanned, humans are not exposed to retaliation from an adversary, unlike reconnaissance aircraft pilots. Moreover, the quality of data from commercial observation satellites has improved some 100 fold since 1972 when the first such spacecraft was launched by the US.

Gupta argues that there are two important aspects of monitoring from space; it is non intrusive and it could be used by anyone because satellite imageries can be acquired commercially. For example, he used satellite imagery data in conjunction with other open sources to help unveil India’s nuclear activities since 1995.

According to Gupta’s report for the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, the Khetolai military range at Pokhran, where the tests were conducted, is an active military exercise and testing area. He noted: ‘there have been reports that shafts may have been constructed in the early 1980s for two additional tests. Vigorous preparatory activity between March 1995 and March 1996 near the site of the 1974 nuclear test was analyzed and it appeared to be consistent with nuclear test preparations, missile tests, or both.’ He also suggests that transferring India´s test-control center to an underground location and missile test preparations in another part of India had been used deliberately to lure U.S. satellites away from focusing on the Khetolai site.

Gupta gathered evidence into sets and used a logic tool called a Venn diagram to group the sets into overlapping circles that show relationships between them. This turned out to be a "very effective" tool that hadn´t been used in remote-sensing analysis, says Gupta.

The analysis concluded that activity in the Rajasthan Desert could be consistent with planned Prithvi missile field-testing, or nuclear test preparations, or a combination of both. Gupta was also able to locate India´s first nuclear test site with pinpoint accuracy. Beside the subsidence crater, he discovered a military range near the Khetolai village.

Interpreting the images required a certain amount of common sense and deduction, says Gupta. For instance, he found clues that the land around the area of the alleged nuclear test preparations had been taken out of farm production because it was converted to military activities. A rural village was found to be abandoned because the dwellings had dark spaces where roofs should be. The village also lacked adjoining animal pens. A nearby village, that is known to be occupied, showed white intact roofs alongside rectangular animal pens.

"It really took time to sift through the information," Vipin recalls. "It was complicated, very challenging from a technical standpoint. I couldn´t stop thinking about it; it was a blast."

Gupta’s technical inquiry was the first to produce a series of findings on India´s nuclear testing history. These findings included the exact location of the subsidence crater created by the May 18, 1974 nuclear test, the discovery of an adjacent military range near Khetolai village, and the observation of large-scale, unusual activity at this military range in the immediate vicinity of the 1974 test site. The image-derived information was used to sift fact from fiction in the conflicting media reports. It was then integrated into the collection of credible evidence and analyzed to determine whether the observed activity at the Khetolai military range was conventional, missile testing, nuclear, or innocuous.

Gupta’s analysis led to three main conclusions. ‘First, the Khetolai military range has a history of nuclear test activity. It was used for the May 18, 1974 nuclear test, and there is credible evidence from four different sources that indicates shafts were constructed in the early 1980s for two additional nuclear tests there. Second, there is believable evidence that supports the claim of planned Prithvi field-testing at the Khetolai military range. Third, a significant fraction of the image-derived evidence was consistent with nuclear test preparations, planned Prithvi missile testing, or a combination of both. Thus, nuclear test preparations and planned Prithvi field-testing are each plausible, non-exclusive explanations for the observed new activity at the Khetolai military range.’

Viewing the collected body of evidence as a whole, Gupta concludes, ‘it is clear that the Khetolai military range is configured for unconventional purposes. It contains all of the large-scale components for nuclear testing, and several of the large-scale components for field missile testing. Thus, nuclear test preparations and planned Prithvi field-testing are each plausible, non-exclusive explanations for the activity at the Khetolai military range.’

The key to understanding the work of a physicist and arms control specialist like Vipin Gupta is that he may have a hand in transforming the US military-industrial complex from pushing a great deal of technology which had been available only for offensive weapon systems just a decade ago, and reinventing them for international arms control and verification purposes.

The Gupta Family

It is not just the father and son who are serving America well. Younger son Kaitan, a graduate of the U.S. Naval Academy, is an Officer in the US Navy. He recently returned from a tour of duty on the USS Abraham Lincoln and is presently stationed at Pt. Mugu, CA. Gupta’s daughter Kavita is working as a registered nurse in rural Nevada and is involved with hospice and geriatric care, while his wife Savita has retired as a lecturer in Mathematics.

Chaitan Gupta is quick to acknowledge that he comes “from a very humble background in India.” He explains, “I always worked hard, doing (it) with the best of my abilities and the rest is the blessings of God.”

He told Indolink: “I feel really feel blessed that we are contributing something useful to the country and the society we live in.” And echoing the Gita, he adds: “We really never thought this way that we are doing something for somebody or some country. We only thought of working hard, struggling to survive and be able to say that we have led our lives with dignity. “

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