German industry seeks ‘star wars’ contracts

Press, 11 January 1986, Page 16

German industry seeks ‘star wars’ contracts

By

MARK WOOD,

of Reuter, in Bonn

West Germany’s high-tech industries look well placed to bid for a lucrative share of President Reagan’s “star wars” space defence research following the German Government’s decision to seek a formal accord on joining the programme. Aside from the lure of multimillion dollar contracts, officials and industrialists believe involvement will give an invaluable boost to Bonn’s drive to secure a leading place in the march into a new technological era. Boasting the world’s most advanced research in some areas of satellite technology, lasers and optics, many high-tech concerns appear confident that Washington will inevitably turn to them for help with central elements of President Reagan’s project. As soon as the Bonn Government announced last month that it would negotiate an agreement on participation, the Munich firm Messerschmitt-Boelkow-Blohm (M. 8.8. declared it was aiming to become the main European contractor in the programme. The United States Ambassador in Bonn, Richard Burt, confirmed that Washington was interested in sensors developed by M. 8.8. and other German firms like Zeiss, saying they could be useful for tracking and targeting equipment in the proposed defence programme.

Official sources in Bonn said “star wars” planners had also been investigating two other major German high-tech projects. One is the SPAS observation satellite developed by M. 8.8. and costing around 50 million marks (SNZ4O million). American space chiefs had been delighted with trials of the SPAS and indicated it was ideal for use in tests on elements of the socalled strategic defence initiative, they said. The other is a high-precision radar known as the Instrument Pointing System, developed by Dornier, which has also received top marks in United States trials. Bonn was optimistic the Pentagon might order several of the systems, which cost 60 million marks (SNZ4B million) each, the sources said.

They said there were also good chances the Americans would want to buy specialised German know-how in laser technology to speed up development of the laser guns which will be a central element in the proposed antisatellite shield.

Neither industrialists nor officials dare to put a price tag on potential United States investment, but most say it could run into hundreds of millions of dollars.

Industry chiefs say such sums would not only fill order books but underline and defend West Ger-

many’s gradual emergence as a high-tech power after a tardy entry into the new era of robots and computers. Helmut Lohr, head of the Association of Electro-technical Industries, said the exchange of research findings within the programme would bring an enormous technical boost to German firms and escalate their own development projects. He warned that a refusal to participate would force the Americans to refine their own expertise instead and eliminate West Germany’s hard-won lead in many areas. It was the sudden realisation that they were lagging in the hightech race which prompted a burst of energy by the Germans in the early 1980 s, and only recently have the Government and businesses begun to talk with pride of the results. “We certainly woke up late to the technological revolution,” a Research Ministry spokesman, Gert Scharrenberg said. “We wouldn’t perhaps claim to be world champions now, but we’ve come a long way in five years,” he added.

As well as areas which may attract the gaze of strategic defence initiative planners, rapid progress has been made in robotics, bio-technology, and computer chips. The unveiling of a new range of multi-talented robots this year brought orders from Japanese firms which had previously never looked outside their country for such equipment. The creation of five bio-techno-logy research centres has made West Germany a leader in efforts to design new drugs with pinpoint accuracy and new strains of disease-resistant crops. In an effort to catch up with Japan and the United States in computers, the German concern Siemens, will launch a joint project with Philips of the Netherlands this month, to develop a high-capacity “megachip” for the next generation of hardware. Nevertheless, it is the reach into outer space which has grabbed the public imagination. A German-funded mission, the D-l, carried aboard the United States shuttle in October, generated nationwide enthusiasm and proud claims that the country which made the first working rockets 40 years ago was reemerging as a power in space exploration. Many appear to believe that a link-up with some of the most advanced United States research programmes through the strategic defence initiative may be a key to ensuring that West Germany enters the 21st century as one of the world’s technological giants. y