Friday, 23 October 1987 Washington, DC
1.
TELLER AND WOOD ARE ACCUSED OF FALSIFYING X-RAY LASER DATA
by Roy Woodruff, the former Director of Weapons Development at
Lawrence Livermore. Woodruff is in Washington today at the
summoning of Rep. George Brown (D-CA) to discuss the charges with
Congressional leaders. Rumors that tests of the x-ray laser
concept have been at best inconclusive have been circulating for
a long time. In an April letter to the president of the
University of California, Woodruff complained that Roger Batzel,
the laboratory director, had refused to allow him to correct
falsely optimistic research reports that Teller and Wood
communicated directly to President Reagan and other top policy
makers. As a result, Woodruff felt compelled to step down from
his position. Wood and Teller have been uncharacteristically shy
since Woodruff's grievance became public this week. However, in
Congressional testimony just last month (WN 18 Sep 87), Lowell
Wood angrily accused the APS report on directed energy weapons of
being overly pessimistic about the prospects for x-ray lasers.
2
. MORE BAD NEWS FOR SDI
is contained in a recent study by the
Congressional Office of Technology Assessment. "SDI: Technology,
Survivability and Software," was delivered to members of the
Appropriations and Armed Services Committees of Congress on
August 31 -- in classified form. Inevitably, however, the OTA
report has begun to spring leaks. An Administration source, who
has seen the OTA study, describes it as "devastating," and says
it reinforces the APS report. It is not clear when, if ever, the
rest of us will be allowed to see it.
3. THE FOUNDERING US SPACE SCIENCE PROGRAM
has been told to
stay out of the only lifeboat. The Soviet Union, anxious to
display its technical achievements and new scientific freedom,
has invited several US researchers to put experiments on Soviet
launches. With US launch capacity at zero and a long queue of
high-priority military launches extending as far as the eye can
see, American space scientists view this as the only way to avoid
the loss of a generation of new researchers. But, it has only
worked once. "Space components" fall under the provisions of the
International Traffic in Arms Regulations (ITAR), administered by
the State Department. John Simpson, an astrophysicist at the
University of Chicago, convinced the State Department to grant
him a licence to fly a dust experiment on the Soviet Halley's
Comet probe. He was so elated by the outcome of this venture
into east-west cooperation that he called a press conference.
Bad mistake! Richard Perle, the Pentagon's resident xenophobe
(now a novelist), promptly demanded that NASA terminate its
contracts with Chicago. A NASA Advisory Council Task Force on
International Space Relations, however, in a report that has not
yet been released, found that the Pentagon's perception that
there have been serious losses of US technology through
cooperative space programs is simply not based on reality.
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