The spectacular fireworks high over Southern California last week couldn't have come at a worse time for the Central Intelligence Agency. Just as Congress was debating the size of the intelligence budget for 1994, $1 billion worth of spying equipment disappeared in a flash above Vandenberg Air Force Base -- the costliest space accident since the 1986 Challenger disaster. A new Titan IV rocket carrying a supersecret intelligence-satellite system inexplicably blew up two minutes after launch. Space-spying expert Jeffrey Richelson, author of America's Secret Eyes in Space, called it a "huge embarrassment for the intelligence community."
The mishap made clear once...
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