Reaching for the stars —and nuke accuracy?

Press, 18 February 1986, Page 13

Reaching for the stars —and nuke accuracy?

KEN COATES

backgrounds the United States

Navy’s observatory at Black Birch, Marlborough, in the wake of protests held there on Saturday.

Accurately mapping the positions of stars by the United States Naval Observatory’s telescopes 1500 metres high in the Black Birch range in Marlborough, will provide vital help for the precise guidance systems of submarine-launched nuclear missiles.

Not only that, it is claimed, accurate star-maps are essential in planning President Reagan’s “star wars” strategy whereby satellites carrying laser or other beam energy weapons will knock out enemy missiles in flight. Fanciful? Anti-American propaganda? A perversion of the purpose of a peaceful and purely scientific project?

The Christchurch-based watchdog group, Campaign Against Foreign Control in New Zealand, and Scientists Against Nuclear Arms in Auckland have assembled an Impressive array of official documentation to back these claims.

They have delved behind the emphasis in New Zealand Government and official American statements on the role of the observatory in world-wide research into the positions and movements of stars visible from the Southern Hemisphere. It is not denied that the Black Birch station, run by the U.S. Naval Observatory which has functions akin to Britain’s Greenwich observatory, has legitimate civilian astronomical functions.

It is acknowledged that the observatory is open to the public, but it is held to be only partially true that findings are freely available. No claim is made that the project is part of any nuclear war system, nor that is constitutes a nuclear target. It is not viewed as a threat to New Zealand or any other country. Objections are moral, based on the claim that the observatory provides information necessary for military purposes. The U.S. Navy’s 1981 Senate appropriation document, presented to procure funding for the Black Birch station, stated that the “mission or major function” was to “operate an observatory to obtain locations of stars in the Southern Hemisphere with the increased accuracy required for military purposes.” While American spokesmen have said the observatory in Marlborough has not been conceived for military purposes, the controlling U.S. Naval Observatory in Washington states that its functions include research into provision of the astronomical and timing data required by the U.S. Navy and other components of the Department of Defence.

The strategic military use of astrometric data is outlined in a Naval Observatory briefing document (astrometry being the branch of astronomy dealing with the position and motion of celestial objects.) The group of scientists observes that accurate targeting of new missiles requires a refinement of the co-ordinate grid. Such refinement, it says, will be the main application of data from Black Birch. Some missiles, such as the Trident, actually navigate by taking a fix on a

particular star. American documents also show that the United States pays only a nominal rental of $lOO a year for the lease of the Black Birch site.

The scientists point out that a claim by the previous Foreign Affairs Minister, Mr Warren Cooper, that Black Birch would have impact on navigation of shipping and aircraft was nonsense.

The refinement of navigational accuracy which new data will afford is of use only to the sophisticated weapon systems developed. Outspoken C.A.F.C.I.N.Z. makes no bones about the conclusions it has drawn. It claims that the U.S. Navy wants accurate star maps of 200,000 Southern Hemisphere stars to assist the navigational capabilities of nuclear missiles. Submarine-launched ballistic missiles have a stellar guidance system built into their nose cones.

“Extremely accurate targeting ability has become vital to U.S. nuclear strategists because, in the Reagan years, America has developed a new ‘counter-force first strike stratey,’ C.A.F.C.I.N.Z. says. “This involves targeting Soviet missile silos and other direct military targets, rather than simply obliterating cities.” America's new generation of ballistic missile launchers are the massive Trident submarines, says C.A.F.C.I.N.Z. They can launch nearly 200 independently targeted nuclear warheads from positions thousands of miles from their intended targets.

"These Trident missiles are among the primary beneficiaries of Black Birch’s star maps, and those of its counterparts, worldwide.”

The group says accurate starmaps are a critical component in the science of geodesy which studies the earth’s curvature, its shape, size and gravity field.

Geodetic information is important in calculating missile trajectories which have to be tailored to fit the curve of the earth and its gravitational pull.

This has immediate military benefit for both Trident and MX missile systems. C.A.F.C.I.N.Z. says it is not fanciful to link Black Birch information with President Reagan’s “star-wars” strategy. Defence contractors openly refer to the “exquisite accuracy” required by satellites carrying laser or other beam energy weapons to knock out enemy satellites or missiles in flight. The anti-nuclear scientists say extravagant claims have been made by- the Minister of Foreign Affairs, Mr David Lange, including that all data from Black Birch will be available all the time.

“There is every reason to believe this is false,” they say, “and that U.S. Department of Defence users will be able to make use of it before it is

incorporated into an internationally available catalogue in the early 1990’5.” C.A.F.C.I.N.Z. goes further. It says Black Birch information is certainly fed into an FK (Fundamental Katalog compiled in West Germany) catalogue, copies of which are publicly available. But information also goes into a catalogue maintained by the Dahlgren Naval Weapons Laboratory, which has the job of maintaining and improving the accuracy of submarine-launched missiles.

It therefore needs geodetic and other information produced by Black Birch and its counterparts, and this comes from the U.S. Naval Observatory which runs the Marlborough installation.

“The Dahlgren Catalogue is a classified document that is not available to foreign nationals, even if they have U.S. security 'clearances,” says the group. The scientist group recalls a U.S. Embassy claim that the original Congressional document for funding Black Birch erroneously gave the observatory a military purpose. But is has on file a letter from U.S. Congressman Ronald Dellums who states that the observa-

tory was being built for military use, or else it would not have been funded with military com struction funds. “Its main purpose,” wrote the Congressman, “will be to help ships navigate in the Southern Hemisphere, and the U.S Navy recently increased its presence in this area.” He also said celestial positioning was important in other uses, both military and civilian. He added that the important issue (in 1984) was whether the information gathered would be available to all nations regardless of political ideology. The scientists’ group says the U.S. Embassy has repeatedly claimed all stellar data required for Trident submarine-launched missile navigation is currently available. While this claim may be assumed true for the C-4 Trident missile, a new Trident, the D-5, with accuracy expected to approach that of the MX missile, is under development. New navigation systems such as that incorporated into the new Trident D-5, work at the edge of available accuracy. The group says the Black Birch programme is part of a general effort to improve military systems which use stellar data. And it observes that knowledge of the positions of selected stars used in Trident navigation is only as good as the co-ordinate grid which the programme is des