It was January 1978 when the Pentagon received a call from the Soviet High Command. The Soviets would never do something that could willingly reveal one of their closely held secrets, but this was an emergency of unprecedented scale.One of their state-of-the-art nuclear-powered satellites, designed to spy on the Americans, was quickly veering out of orbit. Worse yet, the security system that ejected the nuclear reactor in case of malfunction had failed; the satellite was coming down with an active reactor on board.The satellite would likely fall on the North American continent. The storm of radiation it would unleash would be a blight, so much so the Soviets feared it might trigger World War 3. —