ARMS-D-Request@MIT-MC.ARPA (Moderator) (12/14/85)
Arms-Discussion Digest Saturday, December 14, 1985 12:45PM
Volume 5, Issue 60
Today's Topics:
SDI Debate at Stanford, 12/19/85
Re: Arms-Discussion Digest V5 #44
Star Wars misnomer, call it Lion Wars
LOWC is violation of war powers act?
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Date: Fri 13 Dec 85 17:56:01-PST
From: Joan Feigenbaum <JF@SU-SUSHI.ARPA>
Subject: SDI Debate at Stanford, 12/19/85
APOLOGIES TO THOSE WHOSE BBOARDS RECEIVED MULTIPLE COPIES OF THIS.
____________________________________________________________________________
``SDI: How Feasible, How Useful, How Robust?''
This will be a technical debate, covering both hardware and software aspects
of SDI.
Sponsor: Stanford Computer Science Department
Date: December 19, 1985
Time: 8:00 p.m.
Place: Terman Auditorium
Organizer: Barbara Simons, IBM-SJ
Moderator: Dr. Marvin L. Goldberger, President of Cal Tech.
Former member of President's Science Advisory Committee
and Consultant on Arms Control and International Security.
Panelists:
Advocates:
Professor Richard Lipton, Professor of Computer Science at Princeton
University, Current member of SDIO's Panel on Computing and Support of Battle
Management.
Major Simon Peter Warden, the Special Assistant to the Director of the SDIO
and Technical Advisor to the Nuclear and Space Arms Talk with the USSR
in Geneva.
Opponents:
Dr. Richard L. Garwin, IBM Fellow and Adjunct Professor of Physics at
Columbia University, Physicist and Defense Consultant.
Professor David Parnas, Lansdown Professor of Computer Science at the
University of Victoria, Former member of the SDI Organization's
Panel on Computing and Support of Battle Management.
------------------------------
Date: Sat, 14 Dec 85 00:32:17 pst
From: amdcad!phil@ucbvax.berkeley.edu (Phil Ngai)
Subject: Re: Arms-Discussion Digest V5 #44
>From: delftcc!sam@nyu.arpa
>Subject: Not a C-5 (Re: Smuggling bombs)
>
>As several people have pointed out, C-5's are really huge. My mistake;
>I had read about either C-3's or DC-3's. In either case, large enough
>to carry a small nuclear bomb, as I understand it.
You don't need even a DC-3 to carry a nuke. From "The Arsenal of
Democracy-III: The Pursuit of Global Dominance", page 116.
"M-129 or M-159 SADM (Special Atomic Demolition Munition) with W-54
warhead. Weight: 163 lbs. It can be carried by a soldier in a back
pack. Length: 2 ft, 10 inches. Yield 100 tons to 1 kiloton. First
deployed: 1964. Number produced: 308. Number deployed: 93 in Europe.
215 are stored in the United States."
Also of interest to this group is the following on page 212:
"Perhaps the most interesting piece of equipment aboard the Combat
Talon (a C-130 modified for supporting Special Forces or Navy SEAL
teams on clandestine missions, and to recover them from hostile
territory afterwards) is its Personnel Recovery System, made by the
Robert Fulton Company. An inflatable balloon, nylon line, gas bottle
and harness are dropped to the ground. The user straps on the harness,
attaches the line to the harness and balloon, inflates the balloon and
releases it, carrying the line several hundred feet aloft. The Combat
Talon is fitted with a nose boom which intercepts the line, secures
it, snaps the man in the harness off the ground and eventually hauls
him in. The system can simultaneously recover two men or 500 lbs of
cargo."
Note that THE BALLOON DOES NOT LIFT THE USER OFF THE GROUND. The balloon
is snagged by the plane which yanks the user up. Rather a rough ride,
I'd expect.
--
Even lefties have rights!
Phil Ngai +1 408 749-5720
UUCP: {ucbvax,decwrl,ihnp4,allegra}!amdcad!phil
ARPA: amdcad!phil@decwrl.dec.com
------------------------------
Date: 14 Dec 1985 0314-PST
From: Rem@IMSSS
Subject: Star Wars misnomer, call it Lion Wars
"Star Wars" is a gross misnomer for SDI because it has nothing to
do with the stars which are mostly hundreds of lightyears away,
nor even with the Oort cloud of comets lighthours away nor even
with the planets mere light minutes away. In fact, being planned for
just a couple hundred miles above the Earth's surface, it doesn't reach
anywhere near even the Moon, nor even more than 1% of the way from the
Earth's surface to geosynchronous orbit.
It would be more proper to nickname it "Space Wars", since it really
is putting warfare out into space, or else call it "LEO Wars" because
it is planned for Low Earth Orbit mostly.
But how about calling it "Lion Wars", a pun on "Leo Wars", and also
a pun on the way Reagan is always lying about it?
Reply via Arms-D or to REM%IMSSS@SU-SCORE.ARPA
------------------------------
Date: 14 Dec 1985 0513-PST
From: Rem@IMSSS
Subject: LOWC is violation of war powers act?
Perhaps it could be argued that whereas standby staffing of missile
silos and bombers and subs etc. whereby staff are ready to launch
when they receive appropriate notification of hostilities, are a valid
peacetime preparation for the event of war, turning all control over to
computers such as LOWC constitutes an act of active hostilities and
thus would be covered under the war powers act? Then within a few weeks
of LOWC the President would have to ask Congress for permission to
maintain LOWC or else abandon it.
------------------------------
End of Arms-Discussion Digest
*****************************