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About The Battalion. (College Station, Tex.) 1893-current | View Entire Issue (June 19, 1974)
1,000 Balloons launched Adventure in science THE BATTALION WEDNESDAY, JUNE 19, 1971 Page 9 continued sequent I adventure in science that solos for I egan in November, 1783 in 'rench cow pasture is continuing in piece of t[| f 'alestine, Texas, through the efforts ' , isionary. , | fresearch engineers from TAMU’s le Ganges! exas Engineering Experiment Sta- ‘ impressioj i° n (TEES). i and col|r The National Scientific Balloon lightly siajacility (NSBF) continues balloon- ^ths intoaiiJng activities started nearly 200 a n solo.lm n empty ^ - of a dfi *°n, "Seij and thej *al music, 1 ears ago by the Montgolfier rothers, the first men to build and |y man-carrying objects. While the more than 1,000 bal- oons launched by the Palestine icility crew in the past 11 years do e andpe^ iot resemble the historic French hsturbimd Joons, they operate in a similar 't unrest'll ishion except that they use helium 'vith aslij saliftinggas and a plastic film gas h the meld ia 8' it awaylj TAMU engineers are probing the ealmoflighter-than-air flight at the is Franlte,! jpihty to develop better materials jrthe balloons, more efficient insu- JrnentaUj ‘t' 011 f° r the payloads they carry, 'thesizersi aid better overall balloon design, entsissupeij Coordinated by Alfred Cronk, replaceh irofessor and head of TAMU’s Oiovatives group, i music tlu| •\lanypeoj intl >' ear - •s the tyiie in theiij ‘ music is j the sunn h* suchago r efresliini while. nial ator Will sene i-’ s centemi id ng it l n incorrec H, shred it’ ie manage the TAMI onsion See bill—aloi ■tion—in a to the con > person! st a hanl gnored. ‘Outilatetl e compute she said nguez ’(1C ta ’74- /I search to begin, in the near future, pending National Science Founda tion funding. The balloon center typically Hies payloads of approximately 2,000 pounds, including equipment used in X-ray, gamma ray and infrared astronomy. Some optical astronomy and cosmic ray particle study is also involved. The average balloon launched at Palestine contains a volume of about 11 million cubic feet, and the largest launched to date had a volume of 36 million cubic feet. To make a com parison, a balloon that size would hold Kyle Field in its entirety. While TAMU personnel are in terested predominately in improv ing the balloon structure, they also hold interest in some of the experi ments being undertaken at the facil ity. “One of the areas our balloons are used in is the study of our solar sys tem and other galaxies, ” Pavey said. “Our balloons attain an average al titude of about 25 miles. This al titude places about 99 percent of the earth’s atmosphere—which tends to distort earthbound telescopic activity-—below the payload. ’’ According to NSBF engineers, the idea of using balloons for atmos pheric research is appealing, espe cially since many of the experiments performed with the gas bags replace those done from satellites, at a frac tion of satelite cost. They estimate the average payload costs about $150,000 which in itself is far less than a satellite. The 2,000-pound average weight payloads are typically used five or six times, representing a tremend ous savings to taxpayers in research dollar expenditure. One problem does present itself during the parts of the year that prevailing upper-level winds drive the balloons eastward. “When our balloons travel west, we don’t have much of a problem, but when they travel east, the number of UFO sightings increases rapidly, ” Pavey said. “One possible explanation is that areas to the east are more densely populated. ” Pavey, along with Al Shipley, NSBF facility manager, visited the TAMU campus last week, spending most of their time reviewing re search done by TEES personnel for the Palestine center. Plans were also discussed for upcoming re search which involves TAMU. 300,000-year-old man Study of preserved feces seeks Homo erectus diet lerospace Engineering Depart- nent, the project, principally nded by NASA, is now in its see- More than $62,000 in research imds have been awarded to the pro- sctsince its inception in 1972. Prof. Ironk and his research team have leveloped improved balloon de- see abstrj '8 ns ’ k ctter materials, and more ef- icient insulation for the large ayloads the balloons carry. ^Wallow ili Pave y> head of the En- kleffWalu !’ neer ' n 8 Department at the Pales- ^fagged c ' ne facility, said that TAMU was tosoarij ^ osen to unt f e rtake the extensive esearch because of the facilities, nanpower, and interdisciplinary ipproach to engineering research he TEES structure offers. One factor in our choice of TAMU in this project was the fact hat the various research groups and lepartments on campus are able to mk so well together,” Pavey said. J The research structure here also C0(1 provided ballooning experience and (esearch facilities no one else has. The research has involved about 12 engineers plus a number of Preside ?rad ua t e students from various en gineering departments at TAMU. first public) Plans call for extended flight Plication, i h anniverj) a ios said p| major obs dtion's reefs 3 r the fata dU gradual! m to Drill Willcontin ty in conji mnsibilife. editor of I ’'s and earl fi assistant! 3 oage. fed in join >ident of tl n 1970-71. which is d will wor 'taff-studeit' 'fiich begin the TAI A 300,000-year-old relative of modern man will almost come to life at TAMU while under examination by a team of scientists. The preserved feces (coprolites) of Homo erectus have been sent from their discovery location at the Terra Amata site near Nice in southern France to be analyzed by TAMU anthropologist Dr. Vaughn Bryant and Dr. Burleigh Trevor- Deutsch, who is a professor of biol ogy at Laurentian University, Sud bury, Ontario. They will work on the only exist ing coprolites ever found of Homo erectus that are still in their original organic form. The 495 samples ar rived from France this week. “They’re the first to be released to the hands of science,” Bryant said. “The coprolites were found near the site of the earliest example of human architecture, Trevor- Deutsch began. “They made huts of boughs bent over to form a roof. This particular site was used for ap proximately eleven years by the nomads during the late spring and early summer. "This is the only chance we have to determine what these early men ate,” continued Bryant, standing among boxes of unpacked samples. “We’ve never known for sure what he ate. We hope to know more about what his world and diet were like when we identify the undi gested pieces of food in the copro lites.’ “To give some perspective to time, it was two ice ages ago,” said Trevor-Deutsch. “During that period in France there were all sorts of animals that are now extinct, such as the mammoth, wooly rhinoceros, ibex, giant stag and wild ox. We don’t expect to find charred meat since it decomposes rapidly but, we hope to find hair samples which we can then examine and identify with the electron microscope. ” Bryant, tossing comments over his shoulder while he unpacked the boxes of samples, said that in the four samples they’ve examined so far, there was hair, snail and clam shell fragments. So far they haven’t found any seed or plant fiber re mains. “The site was discovered while bulldozers were digging a house foundation,” he continued. “It was about 300 yards from the commer cial shipyard in Nice. During exca vation of the site, archeologists un covered more than 30,000 artifacts. “We know from the pollen con tents of these feces that they oc cupied the site in the late spring or early summer and that they proba bly chose the site for its nearby freshwater supply,” Bryant pointed out. “It looks like they set up their huts, built a fire hearth, hunted for a few days, gathered seafood, made some tools and then left.” “It’s worth noting that the hearths are among the oldest yet discovered in the world,” Trevor-Deutsch added. “The Homo erectus visitors often dug the fire hearths exactly where the last year’s had been and built their fires on the ashes of the: previous season. The 11 living floors at the site are so precisely superim posed that they almost certainly represent 11 consecutive yearly vis its.” With this, the two researchers disappeared into their maze of sam ples to work against a six-week dead line. 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All You Can Eat. 413 Texas Ave PiZZ3 llllt 846-6164 COME AND DISCOVER THE MOST MODERN CAFETERIA IN THE WORLD KRUEGER DUNN CAFETERIA TWO ICE AGES OLD--TAMU’s Dr. Vaughn Bryant and Canada’s Dr. Burleigh Trevor-Deutsch (left) have teamed up to examine the world’s only samples of feces from 300,000-year-old Homo erectus. MAZDA HARRY DISHMAN Sales <fr Service HO:! Texas Ave. C.S. across from campus — 816-3316 amined, and analyzed the conduct of her e pre citize Keeping Americans free and informed is the constant respons | ity of the press, and The Battalion is proud to be part of J Join in this effort. News eritors, copy editors, city reportei I feature writers, student life reporters, photographers, artis I reviewers, and stringers are all needed by The Battalion I in person at the Student Publications Office, Reed | Building, between 8 & 5, or call 845-2226. on. 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