Before the closing of the Suez
Canal, Egypt’s foreign-exchange
earnings from the canal amounted
to some $200 million a year. Her
earnings from the tourist trade
amounted to some $100 million.
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At The Movies
by Mike Plake
THE BATTALION
Thursday, March 21, 1968
College Station, Texas
Page 3
Trips have been made. Searches
have been conducted. All for the
love of a recent movie. And this
week, at least, all in vain.
Perhaps that’s too broad a
statement. Although “Sergeant
Ryker” is an old television show,
it is a recent release, (of the old
television production).
And although “The Good, the
Bad, and the Ugly” has been
showing in Houston four months,
Dallas, six months, and in Beau
mont, at least two months ago,
it is recent. Well it’s not as old
as “Sergeant Ryker,” anyway.
“The Good, the Bad, and the
Ugly” has been reviewed previ
ously in The Battalion, and that
review has been duly corrected.
Two aspects of the movie, how
ever, deserve a third mention.
THE LENGTH
Almost three hours of shooting,
humor, violence, shooting, and
shooting. Never before have so
many bullets been shot so many
times at so many Italian extras.
PRESENT:
(This statement, if found by the
readers to be in error, may be
corrected by sending a stamped,
self-addressed envelope to Borin
Klosky, P.O. 2333333, Siberian
Salt Flats, Siberia, Siberia.)
TUCO
Eli Wallach should be nomi
nated for an academy award. As
the “Ugly,” he outshines every
one else in the movie. He acts;
Clint Eastwood and Lee Van
Cleef shoot.
Eastwood smokes a stubby
cigar. Lee Van Cleef smokes a
pipe. Tuco eats cigars.
Wallach takes the role of Tuco
and makes it into a funny, dan
gerous, double-crossing rat.
It is Tuco who gets the rope
around his neck in Eastwood’s
con game. It is Tuco who makes
Eastwood walk into the desert
while he rides. It is Tuco again,
who helps Eastwood shoot the
bad guys. And in the end, it is
Tuco who gets the shaft . . . er,
the noose.
For all that, and the beating
he takes from the fat Italian
Union Sergeant, he should at
least have been nominated.
If you calculate your film view
ing pleasure in part by the film
footage and the bad guys shot.
down, see “The Good, the Bad,
and Tuco, the rat.”
“Sergeant Ryker” is listed in
the credits as “based on a tele
vision production.
But if there was anything
added, it’s minor. In it, you see
television heavies you thought
had retired, and you see Bradford
Dillman when he was skinny and
Peter Graves without gray hair.
Lee Marvin, while listed on the
marquee as the star, is over
shadowed by the performance of
Dillman.
Even though it is an old tele
vision production, and it l as the
overall aspects of a film made
for television, “Sergeant Ryker”
keeps the viewer in his seat.
Ryker has been convicted and
sentenced to hang as a Korean
defector. Dillman finds some
reasonable doubt as to Ryker’s
guilt as established by the mili
tary court-martial, and it goes
from there. Ryker’s wife (Vera
Miles) enters the picture, long
enough to convince Dillman he is
in love with her and that Ryker
deserves a new trial.
The end is surprising, if not
spell-binding.
Watch for it, in a re-re-release
on “Saturday Night at the
Movies” next year.
Bogota University Graduate
In Lufkin As IAESTE Visitor
TERRAMECHANICS RESEARCHERS
Dr. Louis Thompson, right, and co-worker Dr. Ayhan Cetiner adjust a camera capable of
taking 1.5 million exposures per second which will be used in studies of earth penetration.
On the table are various projectiles which have been fired into earth materials at Texas
A&M University’s new Terramechanics Laboratory.
Lab Studies Might Bring
Underground Planet Probe
A THOUSAND
CLOWNS
by: HERB GARDNER
director: MR. C. K. ESTEN
International relations struck
oil at Texas A&M with the visit
of Alfinso Salcedo of Colombia,
a Bogota university petroleum
engineering graduate.
Salcedo, 27, is in Lufkin on a
six-month work visit as the result
of A&M student participation in
the International Association for
the Exchange of Students for
Technical Experience (IAESTE).
The distinguished - appearing
Colombian is doing mechanical
shop, field and office work with
the Lufkin Foundry and Machine
Co. through arrangement of the
company president, Robert L.
Poland, a 1942 A&M graduate.
IAESTE EXCHANGES stu
dents on a one-for-one basis.
Since its inception at A&M last
year, five Aggies have become
involved. Eddie Herrera of Edin
burg worked at Madrid, Spain,
with an aircraft firm last sum
mer.
In June, Agustin Fernandez of
Eagle Pass will go to Madrid,
os.
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Chris Kupper of Marlin, Clyde
bank, Scotland; Ron Cox of Dan
ville, 111., London, and Gary Shef
field of Texas City, Trondheim,
Norway.
Salcedo stayed with Fernandez,
visited with A&M’s IAESTE par
ticipants and eight Colombians
studying at A&M and toured the
campus during a three-day week
end visit.
“I AM ENJOYING an excellent
experience,” the recent Univer-
sidad de America graduate re
marked.
With Herrera as guide, Sal
cedo attended a Town Hall per
formance of “The Association,”
dined with Colombian Aggies,
watched the annual drill meet
and made a campus tour with
special emphasis on the Petro
leum Engineering Department.
Dr. W. D. Von Gonten, assist
ant professor, opened the depart
ment’s research and instruction
labs for his observation.
*■ ’ If « * - ft M
“Alfonso was impressed with
the facilities,” Herrera noted.
“This experience is very good
for my English and I’m gaining
valuable technical knowledge
through my work at Lufkin,”
Salcedo added.
Researchers here are going un
derground in a new study which
one day may lead to subsurface
exploration of planets and better
understanding of our earth.
The A&M engineers already
have constructed a laboratory in
a big aircraft hangar at the Re
search Annex where they are us
ing a ispider-legged, 20-foot-tall
“gun” and high-speed recording
equipment for experiments in a
new engineering science dubbed
“terramechanics.”
Specifically, the studies are con
cerned with what happens when
the earth is penetrated by pro
jectiles or is moved with explo
sive suddenness.
Experiments in terramechanics
were begun about seven years
ago by the Sandia Corporation of
Albuquerque, N. M. Sandia, a
Western Electric subsidiary op
erating under a non-profit con
tract with the Atomic Energy
Commission, is also involved in
nuclear weapons research.
ALREADY, a variety of pro
jectiles have been dropped by
Sandia from aircraft in western
states, Florida and Alaska. At
Easterwood Airport tests were
conducted by Sandia engineers
and A&M researchers, including
Dean Fred Benson, dean of en
gineering, and Dr. Louis Thomp
son of the Civil Engineering De
partment.
The heavily-instrumented pro
jectiles have burrowed to sur
prising distances—as much as
220 feet—and have given re
searchers new information about
the forces and reactions of the
earth.
Dean Benson and Dr. Thomp
son have acted as consultants in
theoretical analysis for the com
pany. Around a quarter-million
dollars worth of equipment for
the new laboratory and funding
for the research at A&M have
been provided by Sandia.
OUTSIDE OF possible military
applications of the work, there
are a number of immediate and
long-range scientific and econom
ic possibilities.
With calculations derived from
experiments, engineers may be
able to design a space probe which
would penetrate the surface of
the moon to investigate the struc
ture underneath, or to find out
what lies at and beneath the sur
face of planets like Venus, Jupi
ter and Mars.
“Sandia has shot projectiles
hundreds of feet into cemented
alluvium—ground so hard you
couldn’t dig it with a pick—in
Nevada,” explained Dr. Thomp
son.
“We want to learn more about
how earth materials react in short
times. We might even learn more
about plowing. At the moment,
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it would be very difficult for any
one to describe what a plow does
in mathematical o r theoretical
terms,” he added.
The A&M research engineers
want to work out dependable pre
dictions and formulas for the me
chanics of penetration into every
thing from rock to water.
Some experiments already have
been conducted at the facility.
“WE’RE SHOOTING small pro
jectiles into earth samples in
highly-controlled tests,” said Dr.
Thompson. For some of these
experiments, a tall gun shoots
1 (4-inch projectiles into earth
samples by compressed nitrogen.
Later, the group will work with
larger projectiles and may even
build a rocket sled device.
Included in the lab’s equipment
is a big camera which can take
a million and a half pictures per
second. There is only one other
like it in the world. In addition,
the lab boasts a number of high
speed recording devices and elec
tronic monitors.
Texas A&M provided the funds
with which the aircraft hangar
was rebuilt into th4 laboratory.
A concrete block bunker in one
part of the hangar houses moni
toring equipment and protects the
research engineers during the
tests.
THE*RESEARCHERS are even
shooting projectiles into stacks of
roller, bearings to gather data.
Dean Benson’s specific area of
interest in this project is the as
sembly of data so that immedi
ate, workable principles of earth
penetration can be applied 1 . In ad
dition, Dr. James M. Nash and
Dr. Ayhan Cetiner are program
ming differential equations using
methods developed at Los Alamos
for projectile entry into water.
Dr. Herman Hartley, director
of the Institute of Statistics, and
Charles Gates are designing ex
periments.
Dr. Charles H. Samson Jr.,
head of Civil Engineering and Dr.
Lee L. Lowery Jr. are studying
wave propagation in projectiles
during penetration. Dr. G. D. Hall
mark and Max Adams of Electri
cal Engineering are studying ra
dio wave propagation through the
earth.
IN PREVIOUS work, the re
search engineers have discovered
some interesting effects in drop
ping projectiles into the earth.
Projectiles with fairly blunt noses
form “nose cones” of soil as they
burrow into the earth. Those nose
cones are often highly com
pressed.
“For the present, weTe not in
terested in anything exceeding the
speed of sound,” said Dr. Thomp
son. “Maybe we will be some years
later. Actually the problem in the
supersonic range is theoretically
less difficult.”
The researchers have learned
that the Russians are doing some
what similar work, but the A&M
facility may be unique.
“It is our intention that the
terramechanics laboratory be a
truly outstanding facility. It per
haps will be the only one of its
kind,” said Dr. Samson.
MRMBRR
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