ge 10 THE BATTALION
MONDAY, NOVEMBER 2, 1981
National
S
Engineers study possibilities
NASA plans space station
i United Press International
1 CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. —
ced with unprecedented
dget problems, space agency
gineers in Houston are lower-
1 ' their sights for what they hope
II become the nation’s next big
ace project — an orbiting space
j ition.
The goal remains the same — to
pitalize on the space shuttle’s
fnsportation capabilities and
^struct a permanent modular
fembly able to support several
bple doing useful work for
onths at a time a few hundred
lies above Earth.
Such a station, called a Space
perations Center by Johnson
^ace Center engineers, would be
le to service satellites in orbit,
rve as a way station for spacec-
ft bound for higher orbits or
iep space missions and conduct a
iety of research operations.
The basic plan that JSC en
gineers have been studying for the
past couple of years has been a
station that would require six
space shuttle flights. That project
“Before we are going to
get a commitment from
this administration, it
will require that the
thing be studied thor
oughly and the budget
ary effects of such a deci
sion are clearly laid out. ”
— James Beggs, NASA
administra tor.
would have required peak annual
funding of well over $1 billion.
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In an effort to get the costs down
and get a space station in opera
tion with fewer shuttle laun
chings, a team directed by Allan
Louviere has come up with a new
concept that could get a station
working with perhaps two or three
shuttle flights and maximum
annual costs of an estimated $700
million.
The plan, known as Concept C,
is still in the tentative thinking
stage, and has not yet been en
dorsed by space agency officials.
NASA administrator James
Beggs said after he took over as
agency chief in July that any space
station plan would require lengthy
study before it could receive a go-
ahead. He said the Reagan admi
nistration appeared receptive to
such a station in a generalized
way.
“Before we are going to get a
commitment from this administra
tion it will require that the thing
be studied thoroughly and the
budgetary effects of such a deci
sion are clearly laid out,’’ Beggs
said.
The money squeeze has since
worsened for NASA and agency
officials acknowledge that there
will be no money to start a space
station project for at least two or
three years.
But NASA officials are con
vinced there will be a need for
such a permanent outpost in orbit
sooner or later.
Louviere said in a recent inter
view in Houston that the newly
proposed station would start off
with the launch of a sun-power
energy module. It would be car
ried into orbit in the 15-by-60
space shuttle cargo bay and once
in orbit would unfold large solar
panels to convert sunshine into
electricity.
He said the energy module,
which might be 11.5 feet in dia
meter and 10 feet long, would fly
unmanned for a while. Then
NASA would use the shuttle to
carry up a command module up to
14 feet in diameter and 40 feet
long.
This would be manned by two
or three people and, once hooked
up to the energy module, would
be able to begin limited opera
tions in space. It would be fol
lowed by the launch of an identical
module that would increase the
station’s capability to four to six
people and provide extra redun
dancy for safety.
Louviere, who has worked on
space station plans since 1964,
said the modules could be manu
factured in smaller segments with
common systems to reduce con
struction costs and simplify in-
orbit maintenance.
Smaller modules also could be
constructed and placed in harder-
to-reach orbits such as the north-
south polar orbits the Defense
Department uses for military sur
veillance spacecraft.
By starting off on a small, step-
by-step scale, Louviere said im
provements and changes could be
as the station was enlarged.
“We think this offers a lot of
potential,” he said. “You can
aggregate a lot of operational capa
bilities.”
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appdfintment and ^ducational requirements.
PLOYER.
Saudis find AW ACS sale
also includes fine print
United Press International
WASHINGTON — As the
applause dies away and the
house lights come up, all sides
have begun to look at the cost of
the presidential victory on the
sale of A WAGS radar planes to
Saudi Arabia.
Although a defeat would
have been immeasurably more
expensive, victory also has its
price.
In the general celebration
about the administration’s Sen
ate victory, one point has been
overlooked that may come back
to haunt the Saudis and the
Americans.
The congressional failure to
disapprove the $8.5 million deal
does not require the president
to sell the airplanes and the
additional equipment. It only
permits him to go ahead with
the sale.
In the fine print, the Saudis
are now discovering, is an obli
gation for the kingdom to give
up its present aloof attitude ab
out the Middle East negotia
tions.
“What we are really saying is
simply that we will not deliver
the aircraft if at that time there
has been no progress toward the
peace process,” White House
chief of staff James Baker said
the day after the Senate vote.
The delivery is scheduled in
late 1985.
In fact. President Reagan’s
letter to the Senate outlining
the sale arrangments says the
planes will be delivered only if
there is peace or progress to
ward it with the susbtantial
assistance of Saudi Arabia.
At some point, the Saudi
monarchy is going to have to
realize it will not receive the
U.S. planes unless it takes
approximately the same step
that Anwar Sadat took by recog
nizing the reality of the state of
Israel and dealing with it.
That will be a risky and auda
cious step for the Saudi royal
family, which remains in power
because it is seen to be the
keeper of Moslem orthodoxy
and Arab ideological purity.
In terms of relations with
Israel, the price is equally un
certain. It is known that the
president, in the wake of the
sale, renewed the commitment
that the United States will not
permit Israel’s technical milit
ary edge to be eroded.
That letter to Israel can be
seen as a blank check that will
add some amount — no one can
say how much — to the $2.2
billion in gifts and loans the Un
ited States makes to Israel ever)
year.
At home, both the White
House and the members of the
Senate who changed their votes
in the final hours of the debate
insist there was no political
horse-trading involved. But
such an intensive campaign for
votes always implies a contract.
That unwritten agreement
says that the White House will
return the favor some day.
Perhaps it will require only a
presidential appearance at a
fund-raiser, or favorable con
sideration of a candidate for a
judgeship or an embassy, but
such lOUs are the invisiblecur-
rency of power politics in
Washington.
Both sides of the implied, un
written contract are aware ofit
and a violated agreement -
even though unspoken — can
create a blood feud.
I TOl
THAI
CH
24-month safety record
reached by U.S. airlines
P
By F
Students who plan to Pre-Register for the Spring s
Semester in the General Studies Program are URGED ~
to pick up a Pre-registration Form in Room 100 of
Harrington Tower from Oct. 26 thru Nov. 6.
United Press International
WASHINGTON —The Feder
al Aviation Administration said
U.S. airlines set a new safety re
cord Saturday by going 24 months
without a fatal accident involving a
large passenger jet.
The last fatal accident involving
a passenger jet operated by a U.S.
airline occurred Oct. 31, 1979, in
Mexico City. In that accident,
only 17 of the 87 people aboard
survived when a DC-10 landed on
a closed runway.
The previous record covered an
18-month period, from February
1964 to August 1965.
The new record was set during
a period when airlines flew more
than half a billion passengers on 10
million flights, which works out to
half a trillion revenue passenger
miles — enough to take every
man, woman and child in the Un
ited States on a flight of more than
2,000 miles.
During most of this period, up
to the start of the air traffic control
lers strike, there was an airliner
taking off somewhere in the coun
try once every six seconds.
In the same 24 months, then
were only two fatal accidents in
volving any kind of aircraft opei
ated by the country’s scheduled
flag, trunk and local service air
lines. One was on June 12, 1980,
when 13 people were killed in as
accident involving a small twin-
turbo prop plane. The other was
on Jan. 20, 1981, when seven peo
ple were killed in another small
propeller-driven aircraft.
TV producers clean up
with soap opera products
The S
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United Press International
NEW YORK — Soap operas
these days are seen not only on
television but on everything from
T-shirts to night shirts — a new
bonanza for the licensing industry
that now brings in $10 billion at
retail.
ABC Merchandising, Inc.,
Procter & Gamble, Columbia Pic
tures Industries and a number of
independent producers of televi
sion soap operas are licensing
rights to the titles and characters
of their shows to makers of a wide
range of products.
ABC alone is licensing mer
chandise with a retail value of $5
million on its soapy serials this
year, said Denise Shapiro, associ
ate director of ABC Merchan
dising.
Merchandise licensing of soap
operas actually grew out of the
successful sale of novelizations of
the serial programs in book form,
which began about five years ago,
said Glen Dyckoff of Columbia
Pictures.
He said Columbia now licenses
about 20 merchandise items, in
cluding jigsaw puzzles and
apparel, under the names of its
two current soap operas.
Licensing of merchandise tied
to the company’s six soap operas is
quite new and so far has been li
mited pretty much to T-shirts and
night shirts, said Sydney McHugh
of Procter & Gamble.
“All I can tell you about the re
sults, so far, is that we are quite
pleased with the sales,” she said.
General Hospital is king of the
soap operas from the licensing
point of view, said Shapiro of
ABC. “The green General Hospit
al scrub suits are outselling every
thing else.”
There was little or no licensing
of merchandise by the programs in
the heyday of radio soap operas in
the 1930s and ‘40s. Licensing
promotions then were confined to
shows like Superman, the Lone
Ranger and Edgar Bergen’s Char
lie McCarthy show.
Shapiro said film merchandise
licensing was given its big impetus
by the late Walt Disney — with
Mickey Mouse and his other car
toon characters. It flourished alter
World War II with the Davy
Crockett, Beatles and other prom
otions.
The radio soap operas did not
have the visual appeal symbols for
merchandise licensing of the big
ger shows and it took a long time
for the televised soap opera to
achieve a big hold on daytime
viewers.
But now, they are watched by at
least 40 million persons even
week and most of them have suc
ceeded in attracting fanatical
viewer followings to whom it is
easy to sell licensed goods, Sha
piro said.
She added the manufacturer
wasn’t enthusiastic when she first
suggested promoting the green
scrub suit from General Hospital
But when he read that young fans
of the soap opera were stealing the
scrub suits from hospital linen
rooms, he was sold on the idea.
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