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

To: zebraspot who wrote (3491)	5/29/1998 12:22:00 PM
From: dougjn	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 10852

As more info comes out, it looks less and less as though Loral did anything clearly illegal, or clearly injurious. Instead, Loral's insurance review may have transmitted to the Chinese limited low level info, and perhaps tended to confirm to them that their basic guidance system was serviceable, if production quality (better soldering) was enhanced. Some hard line Air Force personnel had a real problem with this and recommended prosecution. I would bet those same personnel were dead set against any Chinese launches of US satellites, period. It appears that the rules by no means made it clear that Loral could not do the accident review. (Subsequently rules were promulgated to make it clear that missile accident reviews require a prior license.) It also appears very unclear that any new or important information was passed to the Chinese. If it had been, I can't imagine that the granting of another launch license to Loral would have deterred Justice from prosecuting. The more that comes out, the less it appears likely that Loral will be significantly damaged. And the more it appears that in reality Loral was caught up in an internal debate between some hard-liners in the Air Force and elsewhere who were against any Chinese launches of US satellites, and others, who believed the Chinese already had missile capacity, and that commercial co-operation was a way of building stronger relations, and opening up Chinese telecommunications. Doug

To: zebraspot who wrote (3491)	5/29/1998 2:16:00 PM
From: waitwatchwander	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 10852

"When you see what happened with the rocket, it's pretty impressive," Stephen Bryen, one of the advisers, said. "It lifts off, turns, goes over the fence. And then there's a huge fireball, an inferno." Didn't sleep well last night. Is it conceivable, maybe just a little bit, that there is something going on here that folks (the political types) don't want to deal with? Was their evidence that the satellite was destroyed? How high was the fence? I remember someone saying they didn't recover a certain part. Did anyone actual see and report on the destruction of the satellite? There is little real evidence of anything untoward by Loral or Hughes. Why doesn't this thing die? nf Crazy thoughts from a tired canuck. PS Dragonfly, Thanx in advance for not flaming me.