WHAT'S NEW Friday, 21 Mar 03

WHAT'S NEW   Robert L. Park   Friday, 21 Mar 03   Washington, DC

1. MISSILE DEFENSE: WILL NORTH KOREA PUT BEACONS ON ITS MISSILES?
Undersecretary of Defense Pete Aldridge assured the Senate Armed
Services Committee on Tuesday that a rudimentary missile defense
in Ft. Greely Alaska would be 90 percent effective in stopping
North Korean ballistic missiles.  Senators were openly skeptical,
and the ranking Democrat, Carl Levin (D-MI), suggested Aldridge
go back and look at the numbers.  The most notable success of the
missile defense was to destroy the ABM Treaty (WN 14 Jun 02), but
against ballistic missiles its success rate is only 62%   and
that was with homing beacons on the missiles.  The Pentagon plans
to go ahead and deploy 10 interceptors near Ft. Greely anyway.  A
1983 law prohibits deployment of systems that have not been shown
to work, but Secretary Rumsfeld argues that missile defense is so
important we should deploy while we're testing (WN 28 Feb 03).

2. SECRECY: BUSH POLICY RETURNS TO "WHEN IN DOUBT, CLASSIFY." 
Faced with a mountain of classified documents created in the
Reagan years, President Clinton issued an order in 1995 requiring
automatic declassification of most documents after 25 years and
directing that nothing be classified unless the need for secrecy
is perfectly clear.  The draft of a new executive order being
circulated among federal agencies makes classification once again
the default position and postpones automatic declassification to
2007.  Every government seeks the power to keep whatever it wants
secret.  Bad news is kept secret, while good news is leaked.

3. ENVIRONMENT: SENATE VOTES AGAINST DRILLING IN WILDLIFE REFUGE. 
In spite of rising gas prices and rising concern over the effect
of war with Iraq on energy supplies the Republican-controlled
Senate voted against opening the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge
to drilling.  It was a major defeat for President Bush, who had
made opening of the Refuge one of his top priorities.  But it's
Senator Ted Stevens (R-AK), the powerful chair of Appropriations,
who decides which Senators get a slice of pork, and he promised
payback.  "People who vote against it [drilling] are voting
against me, and I will not forget it."  Brr, I feel a cold draft.

4. DIVERSITY: STATE REPRESENTATIVE IN NEW MEXICO REACHES OUT. 
State Rep. Daniel R. Foley (R), whose district includes Roswell,
introduced a bill in the New Mexico Legislature to designate an
annual Extraterrestrial Culture Day to recognize contributions of
space aliens to the culture and economy of Roswell.

5. COLUMBIA HEARING POSTPONED: IRAQ WAR PREOCCUPIES WASHINGTON.  
The Senate Committee on Commerce, Science and Transportation,
chaired by John McCain, had scheduled a hearing for yesterday,
March 20, 2003 on the Space Station Columbia Investigation and
Future Space Policy.  WN notes that since the safe return of
Apollo 17 from the moon in 1972, no human has been any further
from Earth than Baltimore is from New York.  Assignment:  What
has been learned in the space program that has led to the quiet
shelving of the dream of interplanetary space travel by humans?

THE UNIVERSITY OF MARYLAND and THE AMERICAN PHYSICAL SOCIETY.  
Opinions are the author's and are not necessarily shared by the
University or the American Physical Society, but they should be.
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