Seventy-Fifth Year of Publication
trojan
Volume Cll, Number 65
University of Southern California
1912 — 1986
Friday, December 5, 1986
Space expert launches attack on ‘Star Wars’
Calls SDI a ‘gigantic fraud’ against Americans
GURI DHAUWAL DAILY TROJAN
Robert Bowman holds up his book, "Star Wars: Defense or Death Star?”, which is critical of President Reagan's Strategic Defense Intiative.
By Bryon Okada
Staff Writer
Robert Bowman, president and director of research for the Institute for Space and Security Studies, voiced criticisms of President Ronald Reagan's Strategic Defense Initiative Thursday at Bovard Auditorium.
Bowman was the director of the Air Force's Advanced Space Programs Development in the 1970s, which included many of the programs providing the crux of the current SDI programs. He denounced the proposed space defense program as "the most gigantic fraud perpetrated against the American people."
Bowman beseeched the audience to "choose life," saying that SDI would not work, and even if it did, it would serve no purpose other than to increase the chance of an American first strike.
Secretary of Defense Caspar Weinberger's references to a Soviet SDI are false, Bowman said.
"That's disinformation. They (the Soviets) have been building an anti-SDI system."
Reagan may be unaware of the Soviet situation, Bowman said, but his administrators most assuredly are aware of it.
Calling for an end to igno-
Hispanic group helps kids discover college with a unique presentation
By Annabel Cook
Staff Writer
In a diverse society such as ours, it is difficult to make certain that all ethnic groups in a given community are receiving the necessary information needed if they are planning to attend an institution of higher education.
The USC Hispanic Students Speakers Bureau, a university sponsored and directed group, is
The Speakers Bureau. . .is one of many outreach programs at the university; however, the bureau, which is "counseling oriented," differs from other programs that deal with specific areas of study, such as the MESA program for engineers and the MED-COR program for prospective medical school students.
attempting to provide the Hispanic community with essential college information to which many Hispanics may not otherwise have access.
The speakers bureau, which was created in spring 1986, is composed of eight Hispanic undergraduate students, who are trained to deliver a 45-minute presentation on college preparation to local public and private elementary, junior and senior high schools with high Hispanic student enrollments.
Samuel Mark, director of the Hispanic programs at the university, stated that the presentation, which is entirely scripted and utilizes
slides, posters, and written materials, focuses on four aspects of college.
The presentation, which reaches an audience of 25 to 35 students per classroom, begins with biographies of the two speakers that will be leading the presentation. Mark said these speakers are to appear as role models, "showing students they can make it by showing them a successful Spanish student."
Next, the speakers discuss the many advantages of attending college. This information may be new to some students who are recent immigrants or whose parents may not have gone to college.
The presentation then focuses on the affordability of college and "emphasizes that through study, you get scholarships," Mark said.
"Some (students) think college is beyond them," he explained.
Through an in-depth coverage of college financing and the availability of aid, students can see that college is indeed within their grasp.
The speakers then present a slide show that allows students to visualize specific aspects of college and college life.
The speakers conclude their presentation with a question and answer session and the distribution of printed materials. For elementary students, these materials include a coloring book entitled "Color USC Into Your Future." For those in upper grades, a newsletter with an insert that helps students to specifically structure their class schedule with college preparatory courses is distributed.
Though the bulk of the Hispanic students that go through the university registry are identified through the bureau, Mark said that the program is "no hard sell for USC."
The infosmation that is provided can be applied to any university or institution for continuing education:
The Speakers Bureau, funded by the College of Letters, Arts and Sciences, is one of many outreach programs at the university; however, the bureau, which is "counseling oriented," dif-
(Continued on page 6)
ranee and apathy about the subject, Bowman said to his audience, "I will guarantee you that you'll know more about it than most of the people in Washington."
SDI's "boost-phase interception" strategy, destroying nuclear weapons while their rocket boosters can be tracked by infrared heat sensors, does not provide an adequate time frame to realistically obliterate an adversary's weapons, Bowman said.
"The key to success is the possibility of intercepting the (Intercontinental Ballistic Missiles) in the boost phase," he said, indicating the time when the rockets are rising into space. "If you don't get almost all of them there, you'll not get them at all."
Destroying the weapons in the boost phase is necessary because once the weapons are beyond the Earth's atmosphere, they separate into numerous clouds of smaller missiles. Bowman said.
Also in the boost phase, the shielding used on those weapons is more easily penetrated than it is when the weapons approach their targets, he said.
More simply, Bowman said, "You can see them, you can kill them and there are far fewer of them."
The accuracy needed for a space weapons program to work is analogous to "mounting a machine gun on the Empire State Building and shooting at tennis balls in Wimbledon, England."
The other theory, to shoot a laser from Earth and bounce it off rotating mirrors in space, he said, could not work because the atmospheric interference
would cause the laser to lose the energy needed to destroy the land-based weapons. Also, the mirrors would be too delicate to withstand any sort of physical punishment.
A land-based laser system could only be used on a clear day, he said.
"If the Soviets decide to attack on a cloudy day, we might just have to forget it," he said.
However, even if the killing mechanisms Bowman calls "the fists of SDI" work, he said, they would.be impractical.
Because the mirrors would have to orbit the Earth, only one out of every 14 or 15 could be used to destroy a target in the Soviet Union, he said. Each missile has to be destroyed individually, which means that 14 or 15 mirrors would have to be built for every missile the Soviets deployed.
The cost of one missile-de-stroying station is $4 billion, Bowman said. Each nuclear weapon costs the Soviets about $20 million. He said that comes out to about 1,000 warheads for each station.
Also, the space weapons system remains vulnerable to the Soviets, who could eliminate the space stations by destroying one of the critical components in the computer-Iaser-mirror scheme, "probably just before launching their missiles," Bowman said.
Then all SDI would be is "a couple of trillion dollars worth of junk," he said.
"Almost everyone is saying it's impossible," Bowman said of the scientific community's opinion. Yet, he said, it is dan-(Continued on page 3)
BRUCE LE DAILY TROJAN
It’s all done with mirrors in this photo trick. If you want to see the arts and crafts fair today, sorry, yesterday was the last day.