Page 2
College Station, Texas
Wednesday, May 26, 1971
Rep. Bill Presnal Reports
fr' r '
‘Significant’ bills have seen
The House of Representatives
has been working on many bills
of extreme interest and impor
tance as it starts the countdown
to end the session. This column
will be devoted to brief summaries
of some of the significant bills
that the House has recently acted
upon.
★ ★ ★
A proposed constitutional
amendment, H.J.R. 61, passed the
House last week recommending
that the 63rd Legislature sit as a
constitutional convention in 1974.
The proposed amendment, if the
Senate accepts it, will be submit
ted to Texas voters in the Novem
ber 1972 general election.
If voters approve, the 63rd Leg
islature in 1973 would appoint a
constitutional commission to work
with the legislative council in
studying the state constitution
and proposing changes. The com
mission would report its findings
and recommendations to the 63rd
Legislature no later than Novem
ber 1, 1973. The Legislature would
then meet in special session in
January, 1974, to act on these
recommendations.
All 181 members of the Legis
lature would sit as a plenary body
to either revise the present 96-
year-old constitution or write an
entirely new constitution.
Either way, it would take a
two-thirds vote of the Legislative
Convention to submit a constitu
tional issue to the voters. The
new document would have to con
tain the existing Bill of Rights.
★ ★ ★
The House has under consider
ation a bill which has passed in
the Senate allowing the state to
underwrite tuition in private
schools for persons to attend pri
vate colleges and universities.
The tuition grant bill would
permit up to $300 per semester in
state assistance for Texas resi
dents attending private but ac
credited colleges. The tuition
grants would be made on the ba
sis of economic need, as designat
ed under the rules set by the
State Coordinating Board of Col
leges and Universities.
This bill giving state tutition-
equalization grants to Texas stu
dents who prefer private rather
than state colleges but cannot af
ford the higher tuition rates has
had some problems in the House
of Representatives.
★ ★ ★
The Senate and the House of
Representatives repealed the 2-
cents-per-gallon gas tax that was
included in the general tax pack
age to sent to the Governor’s of
fice two weeks ago. Gov. Smith
came forth last week after xe-
maining silent during the bitter
tax fight for weeks and said flatly
he would veto the tax bill unless
it was cut.
A tax bill veto could have
thrown the Legislature into a
costly special session. After the
legislative gas tax reepal, this
will not be necessary.
The 2-cents-per-gallon tax orig
inated in the Senate and was later
approved by the House. The gas
tax repeal eliminates about $72
million that would have gone into
the general revenue fun.
In addition, the gas tax, if it
had become law, would have giv
en financial relief to our city and
county governments by the state
assuming 100 per cent of the cost
of obtaining highway right-of-
way.
★ ★ ★
Redistricting of U.S. Congres
sional seats, State House seats
and State Senate seats is ap
proaching the final stages. As
expected, there will be much last-
minute shuffling of district lines
that have been previously drawn
and re-drawn. Decisions on re
districting are probably the most
dificult to deal with of any the
Legislature encounters.
Situations arise that pit friend
against friend and neighbor
Students propose satellites
to help control air traffic
; Texas A&M students engineer
ed preliminary designs of satellite
air traffic control systems dur
ing the spring semester.
Aerospace engineering teams
composed of 13 senior design
course students formulated the
systems, wrote proposals such as
would be submitted by an in
dustrial firm and made oral pre
sentations heard by Texas A&M
faculty members.
Proposals met design criteria
established by associate professor
S&an Lowy, instructor of the
spacecraft design course.
* Both systems employ the satel
lite as a repeater or relay for
signals from ground control
points and transponders (auto
matic transmitter's) in each air-
ci'aft over the continental U. S.
Data from each craft—identifi
cation, altitude, position, air speed
and heading—are fed to comput
ers at the control center.
The computer compares the
data with the plane’s flight plan,
noting any deviation. Automatic
coi’rections would be radioed di
rectly to offending aircraft. Com-
pai’ison of the plane’s position
with others in the area would re
veal need for course and altitude
changes to prevent collisions.
A team composed of Gary Ja-
kubowski of Damascus, Md.; Lar
ry Lewis and Russell Mask, San
Antonio; Steve Henry, College
Station; David Vaughn, Long
view; Doug McGowen, Mansfield
and Paul Tabbert, Bridgman,
Mich., arranged for the satellite
to “probe” planes in the air one
at a time, feeding positional data
to a computer for rapid analysis
and possible corrections.
The satellite Jakubowski’s team
designed, called SATAN (for
satellite air traffic avoidance and
navigation system), is a three-
foot octogonal craft weighing 615
pounds. The team called for one
each to be inserted by Atlas
Centaur booster in 22,300-mile-
high synchronous equatorial or
bits over the Eastern and West
ern U. S.
To keep the satellites on station
a minimum of thx-ee years, the
team incorporated into the design
a 100-pound thrust monopropel
lant engine and nitrogen gas
positional thrusters to take care
of orbital discrepancies caused by
the earth, sun, moon and major
planets.
Electronics in the solar panel-
powered satellite would give
SATAN “a position fix accuracy
of a tenth of a mile and 100 feet
altitude accuracy for 15,000 sim
ultaneously controlled aircraft,”
the Jakubowski team said. They
computed 18 months design and
testing cost at $1.5 million.
The other team designed a
slightly different system, utiliz
ing continuous transmission from
the aircraft transponder connected
to an inertial guidance system.
The satellite, a cylinderical 380
pound, 51 inch long and 30-inch
wide package, serves as an activer
repeated to a central processing
center.
The team composed of Frankie
D. Allen, Robert H. Matthews and
Richard N. Sharp of Amarillo;
Rayford G. Broussard, Houston;
James H. Johnson, Friendswood,
and Raymond Serna, Robstown,
indicated their system could
handle more than 2,000 commer
cial aircraft per minute during
peak traffic hours. They figured
its cost at $1.14 billion.
Both systems store data on
corrective measures, flight plan
violations and collisions for future
investigation, tie in ground con
trol and air traffic control radar
systems and use existing compon
ents.
Team proposals included ve
hicle specifications, structural an
alyses and performance estimates,
the launch vehicle and trajectory
computations, orbit modifications
and drawings.
Lowy said faculty members who
heard the oral reports “all had
good comments about the work.”
Statisticians help route Navy
Navy tankers soon may be sail
ing on a scheduling system cre
ated here.
Such an operating system could
save taxpayers at least $10,000 a
day.
The system was devised by Tex
as A&M’s Institute of Statistics
as part of an optimization grant
from the Office of Naval Re
search. ONR has just announced
a $90,000 supplement to extend
the grant through August 1974.
Dr. H. O. Hartley, Institute of
Statistics director, said implemen
tation of the new system is ten
tatively planned about the first
of next year.
Texas A&M statisticians have
been working approximately 18
months with two key organiza
tions in the petroleum products
distribution system, the Defense
Fuel Supply Center (DFSC) and
the Military Sea transportation
Service (MSTS).
DFSC, part of the Defense Sup
ply Agency, procures 14 petro
leum products at 35 different
ports throughout the world.
MSTS controls a fleet of approxi
mately 60 tankers which transport
the products to 100 destinations.
Slightly over half the vessels be
long to the Navy, with the re
mainder rented from commercial
shipping firms.
“Our goal is to minimize the
combined transportation and pur
chasing cost for the shipments
and still maintain scheduled de
livery times,” said Hartley, who
had responsibility for technical di
rection of the project.
He explained transportation
costs alone currently run $360,000
per day.
“I believe we ultimately can re
duce that cost five to 10 percent,”
he claimed.
Funds would be saved primar
ily on the rented vessels, Hartley
explained, because opei'ating ex
penses are continuous on the Na
vy craft.
He said no estimate is avail
able on savings on purchasing
costs.
When the project is in full op
eration, a schedule will be pro
vided for each tanker, relating
where it should go and what
products should be loaded in spe
cific ports, with all assignments
accomplished within the shced-
uled time.
Included in the system are com
puterized techniques to determine
comparative costs for purchasing
petroleum products in such wide
ly separated areas as Houston,
Arabia or Caracas, Venezuela.
Taken into consideration will be
the expense of obtaining and
transporting the products as well
as the time factor.
be Battalion
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EDITOR DAVID S. MIDDLEBROOKE
THE BATTALION
action in House
against neighbor. Legislators who
have worked together on numer
ous issues and problems in the
past will find themselves running
against each other in the 1971
elections. Many of these situations
are inevitable following the
court’s one man-one vote deci
sions.
★ ★ ★
Only one of the four constitu
tional amendments submitted to
the voters last week received
statewide approval. This was
amendment number 4. This
amendment provides for $100 mil
lion of bonding authority under a
six per cent ceiling in order to
meet new matching-grant formu
las for sewer installations and
treatment facilities.
With the passage of this
amendment, substantial improve
ments can be mad® in sewer treat
ment facilities which will provide
cleaner streams in Texas.
★ ★ ★
A bill recently passed by the
House, H.B. 261, would create the
presumption of intoxication at .10
per cent and the information
would be admissable at trials of
driving - while - intoxicated cases.
The jury would also receive a re
port of the level of alcohol in the
blood of a defendant at the time
of the arrest.
Opponents of the bill argued
that it takes from a citizen the
right of being considered inno
cent until proven guilty.
★ ★ ★
The House tacked a 10 per cent
gross receipts tax back onto its
liquor tax package this week. Ap
proval of the increased taxes on
all alcoholic beverages came as
voters in 46 Texas counties were
deciding whether to authorize the
sale of liquor by the drink for the
first time since before prohibi
tion. This bill has now been sent
to the Senate.
★ ★ ★
A Senate-House conference
committee has been appointed to
work on the general appropria
tions bill. A liquor tax and pos
sibly an out-of-state tuition in
crease, in addition to the general
tak bill, should provide the state
sufficient funding for the next
two years, with one exception.
The welfare program has only
been funded for the first year of
the biennium. As it stands now,
there will probably need to be a
special session of the Legislature
during the summer of 1972 to fund
welfare for the second year of the
biennium.
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