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|
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she said
nguez ’(1C
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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
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fed in join
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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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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
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