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Technology Stocks : Loral Space & Communications -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: DMaA who wrote (2476)	4/4/1998 1:38:00 PM
From: dougjn	Respond to of 10852

I read the Times article before I noticed your post. Owning a heap of Lor lead me to read it rather closely. Buried at the end of the story is the information that the conduct objected to -- helping the Chinese figure out why a rocket carrying an (insured) Lor sat blew up in 1996 --- was made explicitly illegal only afterwards. At the time, Loral gave the Chinese their white paper report of the reasons for the accident, and then immediately voluntarily copied the US State Dept. Last two graphs of the Times story: <<The State Department license issued several years ago for the Loral satellite was silent on the issue of what role, if any, the U.S. experts could play in an analysis of a failed launch. <<After U.S. companies participated in more than one study of failed Chinese launches, the federal government changed its regulations and now requires companies to obtain a separate license to participate in any accident review, according to an administration official. As a saga of Lor criminality, I think this story is BS. However, it could become a pretty big political / future policy story. (This AM it was a Times exclusive, apparently. So we'll see.) Apparently the guidance and release mechanism technology that could help China loft multiple satellites into orbit without blowing up, might also give them a boost at accurately chucking a couple of MIRV's at, say, Los Angeles, should the mood strike. Times didn't quite play the story that way, but it seems to be there. Under current rewritten regs, the technology supposedly goes to China sealed in a black box which only the Lor boyos are allowed to open over there and pack into a Chinese rocket pre launch. Nor sure that's wholly reassuring. <g> Doug