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About The Battalion. (College Station, Tex.) 1893-current | View Entire Issue (Sept. 22, 1981)
Features THE BATTALION Page 11 TUESDAY, SEPTEMBER 22, 1981 I Could benefit future space program kL* «sL* si* "kL* vl-' vL» <JU «JL> «JL* , *T»» «X« ^L* •slf* **sS^' vL^ +&* vL* •JL* <s^ i #jv -T* ^r* -t* ^r* ‘^t'’ -, t > * * , t % *X'* *•'* *x* | China offers U.S. strategic metals ■Tik United Press International HONG KONG — The United States is looking to China for strategic and rare metals vital to President Reagan’s defense buil- Idup plans and the long-term fu ture of the space program. China is thought to be rich in many metals needed by the Un ited States and has been moving boldly to expand exports to the West, Western analysts in Hong Kong and in the United States [said. The Chinese have a double ob- [jective: to earn foreign exchange land to draw a closer strategic re- llationship with Western nations, [said one Hong Kong-based analyst, a leading expert on Chi- I na s economic development. China signed contracts worth close to $300 million in the first half of this year alone for strategic and rare metal deliveries to the United States and western Europe, said the analyst, an esti mate U.S. industry sources con firmed. “They’re in the market,” Elliot J. Smith, president of Bache Halsey Stuart Metal Co., said in New York. “From time to time we do business directly with the Chinese government.” Smith said Bache has purchased quantities of titanium and indium from China for cash or forward contracts for industrial com panies. Titanium is used in the manufacture of aircraft and satel lites, Indium in the manufacture of electrical components and air craft bearings. The United States traditionally has filled most of its strategic met al import requirements from the Soviet Union and politically unst able nations in southern Africa. U.S. purchases from China are expected to double this year com pared with 1980, one estimate said. China offers a desirable diversi fication of supply sources, analysts said, but possibly most important for President Reagan is that pur chases of Chinese metals like tita nium could brighten a tight supply picture for his defense program. Although analysts express optimism about China becoming a “major” metals supplier, they cau tion over too heavy a reliance be cause of the always looming possi- Jupiter's gravity will help satellite see poles of sun bility of political change. Further there is question over China’s ability to develop transportation systems and processing industries to meet the demand for raw mate rials and ores. The Hong Kong analyst said the Chinese “have yet to demonstrate to the U.S. government that they have the kind of supply we need. ” “China has great long-term potential in strategic minerals, but it takes a hell of a lot of capital to exploit them,” said Robert Kil- marx, a Washington-based mining industry expert and senior vice president of Fraser Associates, an international public affairs firm. “It may be a question of decades if not centuries,” said Kilmarx, a minerals consultant to George town University’s Center for Strategic International Studies, said. Building a single major open pit mine, he said, takes eight years and $1 billion to $2 billion dollars. Another U.S. analyst wonders whether China will have sufficient supplies in the future to export as well as meet its own growing domestic requirements as China’s industrial capacity develops. Metals which the United States must import and which Chinese are moving quickly to develop in clude bauxite, used to make toughened aluminum; titanium sponge, essential for alloys used in airplanes, spaceships and sub marines; vanadium in the form of vanadium pentoxide, used in va rious nuclear applications to strengthen steel; chromium for making metal alloys and essential for the manufacture of steel, and germanium, an ingredient in sophisticated military electronics. * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * ■jf * * * * * TIRED OF COOKING 6* WASHING DISHES? * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * little * * Then dine at the MSC each evening. How can anyone prepare a meal for as as $2.19 plus tax? You will * find the answer at the MSC t from 4 p.m. to 7 p.m. evening. “QUALITY FIRST each * * * * ” t * •X* xL* xl* xL» xL» -I- xt" xL* vL* xL» «£« vL» xL* xL* xL» xL* xLf vLf xLf Stf xL» i «T % •'T' 1 •'T'* -T* Sf* ✓Jx ✓JX ✓JX *JX ✓yx #jx vyx »yx ✓yx *>yx ^yx «ryx «»yx ^yx \ Jbreiwymgr... MYTADS s United Press International CHICAGO — The scientists have nicknamed it “Solar Polar” but a better tag might be the Wrong-Way Satellite.” When a 1,100-pound solar re search satellite is launched from a space shuttle in 1986, it will head — not for the sun — but for Jupi ter, more than 390 million miles in the wrong direction. Scientists gathered at the Uni versity of Chicago recently to test equipment for the mission. They said the indirect approach necessary to get the spacecraft eut of “plane of the ecliptic” — the lisc-shaped volume of space in hich all the planets travel — and ift it above the sun. “The reason there has never seen a mission out of the plane of he ecliptic is that you have to lave a spacecraft more powerful an has ever been designed or uiltorwill be built, ” said Univer ity of Chicago physicist John impson, the head of the six- ation research team. “You have :o supply enough push to get up here. So the International Solar Polar Satellite will take a two-year de tour to Jupiter, where it will swing around the southern hemisphere, use the planet’s gravity to pick up momentum, and race back above the sun. By 1989, the satellite will be in orbit about as far out from the sun as the Earth, but circling from North Pole to South Pole, rather than around the equator. That will give scientists a chance to make some unpre cedented observations, Simpson said. “With this probe you can look down at the sun and see all its phenomena going on simul taneously, whereas from earth you can only see one side at a time,” Simpson said. “Things (like solar flares) could be going on on the backside which eventually could affect the earth.” An observation post above the sun’s magnetic poles will allow “a whole new range of interstellar observation,” Simpson said. The sun ’s strong magnetic field attracts cosmic rays, charged particles and even interstellar dust. Analysis of all this will give scientists a better 3 N 8 understanding ofthe solar systems ^ from which it originated, perhaps millions of years ago. “It’s a funnel to interstellar space,” Simpson said. The Solar Polar, a European Space Agency project, was to have been accompanied by a U.S. probe. But, Simpson said, the Reagan N administration has eliminated the C American satellite from the Na- ^ tional Aeronautics and Space ^ Administration budget. Some of us have been fighting ^ to get it back in the budget, Simpson said. “The Europeans are rightfully furious, because there were European experi ments on the American satellite just as there are American experi ments on the European craft. Cer tain Europeans are defining NASA as an unreliable partner. Firewater Dancing Country Music People Watching Billiards (By the Hour) Electronic Games .4 HOURS: Mon.-Fri. 5-12 p Sat. 5 p.m.-l a.m. COWBOY HAPPY HOUR! Monday-Saturday 5 p.m. # til 7 p.m. ALL DRINKS Va PRICE! ADIES! 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