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Show Campnas News V, Westminster Players5 By Randy Sullivant Will the Star Wars defense against Soviet ballistic missiles work? If so, when will It be ready for military use? Former Secretary of Defense Caspar Weinberger predicted the goal of having a 99 percent effective" system fully deployed by the mld-- 1 990s. But is this hope realistic, or are the American people being duped Into the Reagan adminstra-tlon- s costly cosmic cowboy-and-India- n scenario? In 1988, the Idea of a space- - based weapons system is unfeasible for the simple reason that none of the existing complex military systems In America come close to this standard for reliability and lethality. Consider these examples: None of the Army's existing inventory of anti-tan- k missiles Is 99 percent effective. In various practice shoots, thestate-of-the-aTOW missile has hit Its STATIONARY targets only 80 to 90 percent of the time. Moving targets have provided much greater difficulty. Not one of our fleets of tactical jets meets its stated full mission-capable- " goal, that is, the percentage of aircraft that are fully operational and ready to fly. There are more jets available now than there were fouryears ago. but they still dont meet the Pentagons reliability goals, which are much less than 99 percent. Defending our Navy carrier battle groups is a much less challenging task than knocking out waves of Soviet nuclear warheads. Yet. we have never achieved a 99 percent effective defense for patrolling ships. The Navy relies on three defensive layers" 4 fighter, AEGIS missile cruisers, and close-i- n rapid-fir- e cannon. But these do not add up to invincible ships, especially when under saturation attack. One ship would stand little chance if attacked with 7.500 warheads. Moreover, this is all mllitaiy hardware. It does not take into account the men involved in operating and regularly maintaining these systems. With Star Wars, there is a reverse situation. The military expects to launch highly complex, unmanned armed satellites, leave them floating in space for years with little or no maintenance, and have them work perfectly the first time better that earth-boun- d forces, in fact. rt high-performan- ce - F-1- - Almost all of the technical arguments in favor of Star Wars are based on computer studies, each loaded with as yet unprovable assumptions. As Thomas Edison once said. "We don't know of one percent" about the effects of lasers and one-milliont- h Upcomimg One-Ac- ts Nice People , Dancing to Good Country Music 99 particle beam weapons on nuclear warheads in flight. Then there is the problem of the computers themselves. We have no techniques for the correctness of programs in the proving presence of unknown hardware failures and errors in input data." David Pamas, a professor computer science at the University of Victoria and SDI consultant, said. Similar criticism has come from Anthony Ralston, a professor of computer science at "Quite aside from any technical. political or economic objections which might be raised about the Star Wars system, its computer software problems doom it to failure. In no foreseeable future ... is there any valid prospect of writing 10 million or 100 million or anything approaching this number of correct lines of code," he said. SUNY-Buffal- o. assume that a 99 percent effective defense system is acheived. The Soviets today have about7,500 nuclear warheads mounted have about 7,500 nuclearwarheads mounted atop 1.400 land-base- d and 1,000 submarine-base- d missiles. By 1990 they will possess about 12.500 warheads. If just ONE PERCENT gets through, that amounts to 1 25 hydrogen bombs penetrating the shield. Even if many miss their primaxy target of rail to explode, there would still be an unimaginable level of destruction and tens of millions of casualities. After spending anywhere from 1 00 billion to more than $ 1 trillion to research, develop, and deploy a Star Wars defense system, we have not moved one inch from the dire dilemma of mutually assured destruction. It is necessaiy to recognize that there is no technological solution to this problem. The constructive path out of the shadow of nuclear war is marked by mutually advantageous political agreements and treaties that limit deployment and testing. The recent American-Sovie- t arms reduction pact s a step in the right direction. itLv.am -- AMMciovinortlwMf Generally, the new tax law requires children and other dependents to file tax returns for 1987 if: they have any investment income, such as interest on savings, and CEiara this investment income plus any wages is more than $500. Publication 922 contains detailed information. To get one, call the IRS Forms number in your local telephone directory. Name change? You bet. The staff of Ellipsis. Westminster Colleges student-edite- d magazine of arts and literature, Is considering changing the magazines name in the Interest of more effectively representing its regional scope and iden- Demonstration Continued from pg. 1 Despite this variance from the norm, Goodman noted that many officers were at least coldly polite, if not carefully friendly. Some officer, Goodman said, refused to speak to the prisoners, others showed a secretive approval of the protestors. The arrested trespassers were transported on police buses 160 miles away to Tonopah. Nevada. Though this response was unexpected to the activists at the camp, hundreds of cars and vans made the six hour round trip to "bring our people home." This demonstration is vital because our government promotes war and oppression , that many people aren't into. People have to speak out to live peacefully," said Rhinehart in conclusion. 4 Forum tity. But, what do you think? In hopes of finding the best name for what is becoming the best journal of its kind, the staff is actively soliciting suggestions and comments from the entire student population. The staff has come up with the following possible choices: Wasatch Review Mountain West Review 13 th Street Review High Desert Review Desert Pump Westminster Review Sego Lily Please pick one of the above, or suggest another possiblity, and enter you choice one of the Ellipsis Name Change boxes in Syme Lounge. Issue 14 - March 29, 1988 |