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About The Battalion. (College Station, Tex.) 1893-current | View Entire Issue (April 15, 1981)
he Battalion Vol. 74 No. 135 16 Pages Serving the Texas A&M University community Wednesday, April 15, 1981 College Station, Texas USPS 045 360 Phone 845-2611 The Weather Today Tomorrow High 78 High 79 Low .61 Low 63 Chance of rain. 10% Chance of rain. . . . . . . 10% Shuttle landing opens new era in space flight United Press International EDWARDS AIR FORCE BASE, Calif. —Astronauts John W. Young and Robert L. Crippen flew America’s first space shuttle flawlessly through the fire of re-entry Tuesday to the first airport landing from orbit, opening a new era of space travel. The shuttle Columbia, gliding with out power, touched down on a long dry lake bed runway at 1:21 p.m. EST. “What a way to come to California, ” Crippen said. The ship, bearing the American flag and “USA” on its wings, swept in over the coast of California north of San Luis Obispo and flew a flawless approach to their landing strip. The ship made a wide left turn as it crossed the desert and coasted to a gen tle touchdown, kicking up a long plume of dust. “Touchdown,” said communicator Joe Allen. “Welcome home Columbia. Beautiful. Beautiful. ” “It was super,” said veteran flight commander Young, first man to make five flights into space. A cheer went up inside the mission control center in Houston when the 122-foot long ship rolled to a stop. The astronauts, apparently in excel lent shape, remained in the ship while technicians prepared to check it for tox ic gases and prepare for their exit. Crippen joked, “Do I have to take it in the hangar, Joe?” “We’ll have to dust it off first,” Allen replied. The ship’s landing was shown clearly by television cameras monitoring the historic event. It was a spectacular end to America’s first spaceflight in nearly six years. The astronauts spent 54 hours in orbit on the first flight test of America’s spaceship of the future. The flight went off without a significant hitch and was a major boost to America’s spaceflight program. The shuttle, with a cargo bay big enough to hold a bus, is the key to America’s future in space. There was some concern before the ship left orbit about the state of the 30,000 heat shield tiles blanketing the black and white spaceship. But it was obvious while the ship was still over the Pacific that the shuttle had gone through the 2,600-degree Fahrenheit fire of re-entry without a problem. Controllers gave a running account of the ship’s approach to the landing site. “Right on the money,” reported Allen from mission control in Houston after the 104-ton space freighter crossed the sound barrier, generating a sonic boom west of this vast Air Force test center. As a picture of their spacecraft appeared on a television screen in the control center in Houston, the astro nauts were reported crossing the coast of California at an altitude of about 136,000 feet, moving more than six times the speed of sound. “You’re coming right down the chute,” Allen told the astronauts when they were 79,000 feet above Southern California. The crewmen began their decent at 3:17 a.m. — about 40 minutes early — and immediately faced a new problem — a heating difficulty with one of three turbines used to power the ship’s hyd raulic system. The concern was that if it got too cold it might be difficult to start. Mission control said there were indica tions, however, the temperature was stabilizing. Even though the astronauts were already up and at work, controllers radioed up a humorous wake-up song that among other things, said it was “time for a big splashdown Tuesday.” “We’d like you to scratch out the splashdown and insert touchdown,” communicator Dan Brandenstein said. “We sure appreciate that,” replied Crippen. After a brief welcome at Edwards Air Force Base, the astronauts were to be flown to Houston for five to eight days of intensive debriefing. their front yard to entertain motorists at the intersection of Barak Lane and Carter Creek. Their parents, Robert and Carolyn Odstrcil, are both Texas A&M University graduates. TAMU fall enrollment could reach 35,000 mark &M’s budget taking shape; fJniversity officials optimistic By LIZ NEWLIN Battalion Staff AUSTIN — Like a ship coming out of the fog, the budget for Texas A&M Uni versity System is slowly taking shape. The ship seems in no danger of sinking. This week action on both sides of the Tapitol should determine its tonnage more clearly. Rep. Bill Presnal, D-Bryan and chairman of the House Appropriations Committee, is optimistic Texas A&M get what it needs. His committee considered appropriations for the academic institutions in the System late Sunday. T think that we’ve got a pretty good package,” he said coming off the House floor Monday night. “A&M was only affected in the broad-brush things,” he said, such as faculty salaries. The committee changed the faculty , salary increases to 15 percent for the first year of the biennium and 10 per cent for the second. Earlier the figures were 18.6 and 8.7. The committee did not decide anything on vacation policy or merit raises. “We cut some money from utilities. but A&M didn’t lose much because it’s been frugal,” he said. “What we were trying to do was pare down the bill so that it can be certifi able.” By law, the appropriations bill must be below a certain dollar amount before it can be “certified” to go to the House floor for debate. Amounts within that budget can be changed, however, during debate. If legislators have questions about the budget or its justifications they will probably ask Wayne Roberts, a budget examiner for the Legislative Budget Board. He becomes the expert on the Texas A&M budget as it moves from dreamy requests by administrators in August to the real dollar and cents fi gure decided by legislators in June and signed by the governor. Right now, though, he’s not sure how much is in the Texas A&M budget, especially after the House Appropria tions Committee dealt with it Sunday night. “It’s as hectic as I’ve ever seen,” he said Monday in his Capitol office. “We had five people taking notes, and we’re going to have to get together to see what happened. “Generally, they basically 7 went back to the LBB recommendation, and took off what the (House Higher Education) Committee recommended. “A&M probably fared as well as any other institution.” Bob Cherry, an assistant to the chan cellor for the System, said the House Appropriations Committee did little to the budget in a session Tuesday dealing with the agriculture and engineering services. The committee granted an adjust ment to the Texas Agricultural Exten sion Service, Cherry said, which means the agency will get more general re venue funds. Another session is sche duled this afternoon to discuss the Texas A&M budget again. The Senate Finance Committee also seems to be staying close to the LBB recommendation, he said, which was “a pretty good bill for us.” Another session is also set today in that committee. “We should have more definitive fi gures by tomorrow,” Cherry said Tuesday. By BELINDA McCOY Battalion Staff If you thought Texas A&M University was crowded last fall, wait until next fall, University officials say. An enrollment of35,000 students has been officially projected for next fall by the University administration, said Dr. Charles McCandless, associate vice president for academic affairs at Texas A&M. Statistics from the Graduate College, Admissions and Records Office and Planning and Management Analysis Department were used to determine the projected number of students, McCandless said. As of Friday, 7,075 freshman appli cants and 1,862 transfer applicants had been accepted for next fall, Billy G. Lay, director of admissions, said. Some 270 returning students have also been admitted to the University. Applications for fall semester admis sion to Texas A&M will be accepted until July 31, Lay said. Between 8,500 and 9,000 freshmen are predicted to be admitted before that date. Of those admitted, however, only about 6,200 freshmen will actually attend Texas A&M, Lay predicts. The Graduate College will probably have an enrollment of 5,300 next fall, said Dr. George W. Kunze, dean of the Graduate College. Kunze said that 1,200 to 1,400 of those students will be new students in the' college. The cohort-survival technique com pares the enrollment of one class to the enrollment during the previous year of the same class. For instance, the num ber of juniors is compared to the num ber of sophomores from the year before, McCandless said. Using this technique, a ratio of the number of students remaining at Texas A&M is calculated. The three-year ratio involves the freshmen, sophomore and junior class enrollment. Comparing the second number to the first number will show how many students are remaining at Texas A&M, how many students are transferring into the University, and how many students the University can expect to be enrolled the next fall. New senate faces two bills The newly elected 1981-82 student senate will hold its first meeting at 7:30 tonight in 113 Heldenfels Hall. Much of the new senate’s business will consist of “setting up house,” including electing a speaker of the senate, the post held in the last term by new student body president Ken Johnson. Two bills are referred from last term to the incoming senate for action: — A study of the student financial aid office and the recommendation of improvements in the system to be made to University officials. — A recommendation to build an addition to the A. P. Beutel Health Center. The new senate will also have to deal with a bill proposing official University recognition of the Inter-Fraternity Council and the Panhellenic Association, representative umbrella groups for Greek fraternities and sororities, respectively. A bill passed by the 1980-81 senate established a commit tee of student leaders to evaluate Greek recognition. The committee will consist of the Residence Halls Association president, the Off-Campus Aggies president, the Cadet Corps commander, the SG vice president student services and two representatives each from the Panhellenic Associa tion and the Inter-Fraternity Council. The committee, chaired by the student body president, will report back to the senate at the next to last meeting before the 1981 Christmas holidays. Fire compensa tion hill ^ {delayed on Senate floor 7 .m. with By BERNIE FETTE I Battalion Staff A bill calling for $812,000 compensa tion to Texas A&M University for fire losses to buildings and other properties during the last two years is stalled in the state Senate. It was passed with little opposition by the House of Representatives in March. “We’re still very hopeful,” said Ro ger Miller, a legislative assistant on the staff of Sen. Kent Caperton, D-Bryan. “1 won’t say we’ll be able to clear all the money, but I believe we’ll be able to secure most of it. ” The legislation (H. B. 1002) being car ried by Caperton would provide 5812,000 for damages caused by fires to Texas A&M buildings which had no fire insurance. When the bill was first introduced in the Senate, some senators raised ques tions regarding how the figures were calculated. But, Miller said, questions are often raised about a bill when such a large amount of money is involved. Miller said he did not know the de tails of any of the questions regarding the bill. Since then, the Senate has received detailed information from the Universi ty, he said, and all questions will hope fully be answered at a meeting with the Senate Finance Committee within a week. Miller said there are two courses of action which can be taken with the bill: either the bill can be pursued as is or the money can be applied to other approp riations the University is scheduled to receive as part of the state’s budget. Miller said he did not know which method will be used until after the meeting with the Finance Committee. The buildings had no insurance be cause the state has had a policy of “self- insurance” in the past, he said. For a building to be self-insured means the state considers it more eco nomical to pay for losses due to fires than to pay the premiums for fire insur ance. According to a press release from state Rep. Bill Presnal, D-Bryan, that practice should be continued. “I feel we need to continue the policy of the state being self-insured,” said Presnal, who is also the chairman of the House Appropriations Committee. “Overall, our losses to state-owned buildings and property have been much less year in and year out than fire insur ance would have cost us to cover those same facilities.” The state will not allow state- supported facilities to be insured in the conventional manner, Howard Vestal, the University vice president for busi ness affairs, said. In general, such facili ties include buildings used for academic or educational purposes. Miller said approxiamately $600,000 of the appropriation would be used for a new building for the University Press. Middle of the road gang Staff photo by Brian Tate Safety engineering graduate students from left to right, Don Ryan, Ken Steele, Jim Sorel and Jimmy Summers are sitting in the middle of University Drive during the 5 p.m. rush-hour traffic to conduct a noise study for their Safety Engineering 686 class. The statistical analysis includes recording the number of cars going by, and the decibels of noise each car emits. The study is taken for 100 total minutes. After only 25 minutes, 850 cars had passed the group, and the average noise emission was 77 decibels per car.