Cowley College - Tiger Daze Yearbook (Arkansas City, KS)

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Star Wars • Bettina Heinz FROM SHOOTING STARS TO SHO OTING WARS Cowley student re ' lects on the impact of the new military SDI defense system Star Wars is the new United States proposed defense strategy aimed at replacing the current strategy of Mutual Assured Destruction (MAD). The power forces of the world have existed under the MAD strategy for some time and as a citizen of America ' s closest ally in continental Europe, West Germany, I am con- cerned that the US is considering adopting Star Wars. Under the MAD strategy, a balance between East and West has been maintained by United States Pershing II and Cruise Missiles being installed in allied European countries including West Germany. Currently, they work as a counterweight to the Soviet SS 20 missiles. My family and I live in the Rhineland Palatinate, and we are literally sitting on top of these American weapons. No one knows better than we do, how un- comfortable it can be living under a constant threat of nuclear war, but the MAD strategy is one which has been proven to work. The strategic concept for Star Wars, on the other hand, may be one which is unrealistic. President Ronald Reagan describes Star Wars this way: A nuclear free world is an ultimate objective to which we (the United States), the Soviet Union, and all other nations can agree. Reagan ' s description sounds good,

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Jaws ' success paved the way for a personal Spielberg film project, Close Encounters of the Third Kind. He began work on the story as early as 1972. After an arduous two years of production Close Encounters of the Third Kind, was released in 1977. It became another profitable movie. While on vacation in Hawaii, Spielberg met up with George Lucas, the creator of Star Wars, and began discussing a new project titled Raiders of the Lost Ark. Lucas produced and Spielberg directed. The result quickly became another major box office hit. Another ambitious project Spielberg helmed was E.T. Spielberg called E.T. a personal film. The film reflects the energy and feeling he put into it. The last day on production of E.T. was very touching. The scene when Elliot was saying his last goodbyes to the thought-to- be-dead E.T. was being filmed. As Spielberg and the production crew watched the scene being played out, tears began streaming from their eyes. When Elliot said E.T., I love you, everyone burst into tears. E.T. became the most money- making film of all time. This past summer has seen two Spielberg presentations, Goonies and Back to the Future. Back to the Future has provided well for the box office becoming the summer ' s hottest movie. Locally, the movie continues to CINEMAGIC As pools of mist drift over the lawn under a full noon, midnight sky, the dreadful Jerry Dandridge, the vam- pire, and his estranged assistant move a coffin into the cobweb-ridden house next door to horror movie fan, Charlie Brewster, thus the terror begins. Finally, after a long dormancy, the vampire returns to the screen in Fright Night, a chilling, thrilling escapade into the unknown. Charile Brewster played by William Ragsdale, accidentally witnesses Jerry Dahdridge (Chris Sarandon) baring his gleaming, white fangs on the neck of a soon-to-be victim. Brewster, fully convinced of Dan- dndge ' s virulent intentions becomes C jur ' the target of his friends. , Brewster enlists the help of actor and host of his favorite television show Fright Night. Together they launch onto a dangerous fight against the vampire threat. The movie is literally a journey back to the horror thrills of yesteryear. Missing is Peter Cushing but the performance and special ef- fects compensate. Fright Night marks the dramatic return of what makes horror movies exciting and maybe the end of quickie B horror movies such as the latter Friday the 13th films. Worth your money and time is Fright Night. bring in the crowds. It ' s been held over for four weeks now, said Eric Olson, manager of the Burford Cinemas. I had to move the movie back to our larger theatre. Olson ' s experience working at other theaters is similar to that in Arkansas City. Every time a new Steven Spielberg film comes, we anticipate more business than usual. Spielberg ' s future as a filmmaker is becoming even brighter. He is presently directing The Color Pur- ple, a film set in the old south with a theme on the human will to survive. Last month Amazing Stories began airing on Sunday nights on NBC. Amazing Stories is an an- thology series similar to The Twilight Zone. NBC has agreed to buy 44 shows paying nearly $1 million per episode. In TIME magazine, Spielberg ex- plains the series ' origin. I get too many ideas and I want to act on them all. Amazing Stories is a foster home for the ideas that will never grow into adulthood. At 37, Steven Spielberg, always bursting with enthusiasm and ideas, promises more dramatic thrills for the cinema, television and viewers of all ages. Union State Bank FDIi }1 S SUMWII AI KANSAS SUMMIT : .— -— 442-5200 Daulton Construction Residental Commercial New and Remodeling 442-4391 PO Box 21 Arkansas City

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STARTLING FACTS (The following explanation of the technolo gical aspects of the Strategic Defense Initiative (SDI), unofficially called Star Wars, is based on George Church ' s article Exploring the High- Tech Frontier in the TIME magazine of March 11, 1985.) The basic idea of the SDI concept is to come up with a strategy which, in the end, leads away from offensive nuclear weapons. SDI suggests a defensive shield in space that provides a layered defense. Under the plan, enemy warheads should be attacked during their flight and at each stage, a greater number should be destroyed. In the end, only 10 percent or less would explode on targets which could leave the US retaliatory capacity in tact. To understand the functioning of the SDI concept, it is necessary to know that a Soviet warhead goes through four stages: 1. Boost Phase-the missile is pushed into space 2. Post-Boost Phase- 10 Multiple In- dependently Targetable Re-Entry Vehicles (MIRV) are fired 3. Mid-Course Phase-the warhead speeds through space 4. Re-Entry Phase-the vehicles re- enter the atmosphere andhead toward their targets SDI is most effective during the Boost Phase because the warheads are then easiest to be made out and the hits have the strongest effects. The effectiveness of the SDI therefore, depends on the ef- fectiveness of the warhead killers. Scientists are still researching and discussing what kind of warhead killer would be possible. Three kinds of potential missile and warhead killers are in the center of discussion. LASER beams travel at the speed of light and can be focused over great distances into space to attack the Soviet missiles. Three kinds of lasers are possible. CHEMICAL LASERS are the most powerful, but they would still have to be 10 million times as powerful as the ones being tested now to be ef- fective. They require seven seconds of constant aiming at the target which is quite impossible as the targets are speeding through space. As ground- based lasers cannot send beams around the earth, they would require a generating apparatus in space, with satellites weighing 100 tons each. EXCIMER LASERS need only one second for focusing, but their generating apparatus is so heavy that it could not be lifted into space. Laser stations would have to be installed on mountain tops, from where, in case of an attack, beams would be sent to relay mirrors in orbit and from there to battle mirrors which direct the beams at the target. These mirrors would have to be permanently in- stalled, they would have to be of a gigantic size and of almost unimaginable perfection. X-RAY LASERS need less precision to aim and are very powerful, but the way they are produced creates a problem. A nuclear explosion is initiated and part of the energy released is transformed into x-rays. To use x-rays would either mean to install hundreds of nuclear bombs in orbit, always ready to explode, or to station similar nuclear devices on submarines which launch them into space where they detonate. The submarines would have to be stationed along the Soviet coastline to be effective and would, in case of a Soviet attack, be the first target of aggression. Also, x-ray lasers are the slowest lasers and would reach the warheads during their last stages and so be nearly ineffective. Besides the different kinds of lasers, PARTICLE BEAMS are in the discussion. They work by frying the innards of missiles and consist of streams of atoms. They are very slow and would need accelerators weighing 500 tons each. Other disad- vantages are that they can hardly penetrate the atmosphere and will be distracted from their course by the earth ' s magnetism. KINETIC ENERGY WEAPONS are simply rockets and pellets fired at the warheads. In this field, technology is better developed. They can function ground or air based and are effective on every stage of the enemy warhead ' s flight. They could be in- stalled by 1990. The problem is that kinetic energy weapons are not able to differ between decoys and warheads and that consequently too many warheads might survive the at- tack. Because of the difficulties involved and because it doesn ' t seem as if scientists will be able to come up with a feasible project for SDI in the next few years, many experts doubt that SDI is feasible. Countermeasures are easy to take. The Soviet Union could simply enlarge the number of warheads and decoys. It is also possible to reduce the vulnerability of missiles by shortening the boost phase and by making them rotate or by employing devices to dif- fuse the beams. The most obvious and simple coun- termeasure would be to attack the system itself. It is relatively easy to attack fixed satellites and even easier to destroy the mirrors, which have to be 100 percent perfect to work.