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About The Battalion. (College Station, Tex.) 1893-current | View Entire Issue (Nov. 5, 1981)
^ National THE BATTALION Page 13 THURSDAY, NOVEMBER 5, 1981 '• in 305 Applica- Gee, 221 Nov, 2 tefrom3 ^TION: iean Red >aut will Mrs, for Miss ieintfie om 9;30 cutting 2 safety ip meal . 315 N, Military ties mean more secrecy for shuttle flights United Press International CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. — The space shuttle’s military connection is going to change the way some things are done at the Kennedy Space Center. Many of the satellites and experimental equipment the reusable rocket plane hauls into orbit in the future will be secret Defense Department payloads. Some are expected to be spy satellites, some will be missile attack warning spacecraft and others will test experimental space defense systems. That means the National Aeronautics and Space Admi nistration, which operates the space shuttle, will no longer be able to run a completely open space program. Secrecy will be imposed on some operations for the first time in more than a decade. It’s going to make us have to do things differently and be more cautious in certain areas," Richard Smith, director of the NASA’s Kennedy Space Cen ter, said. shuttle launch control center for military missions. The control room’s electronic systems are being changed so the informa tion they process will be avail able only to personnel with the proper security clearance. Similar steps have been taken at the mission control center at NASA’s Johnson Space Center in Houston. The Department of Defense payloads will readied for flight in Air Force facilities at the cape. These facilities already are secure and will be loaded aboard the shuttle on the launch, thus reducing the need for special security precautions in the shuttle’s checkout hangar and assembly building. When the shuttle is flying a military payload, NASA will be able to say little about the mis sion. There even was considera tion at one time of withholding the shuttle launch date from the public and trying to launch the massive space machine in secret. The first Air Force payload, a dassified experiment that will remain in the shuttle’s cargo hold, is scheduled to fly on the shuttle’s fourth test flight next spring. The spaceport already is modifying a firing room in the An example of Air Force secrecy was the launch early Saturday morning of a secret satellite on a Titan 3C rocket. The launch was not announced ahead of time and, even though there were large numbers of re porters in the area to cover the flight of the Columbia, they were not aware of the military launch. The Air Force afterwards would only confirm that a Titan 3C had been launched and said merely that the launching was successful. Sources in Washington said proposals to try to hide a space shuttle launching at the cape were rejected as impractical and excessive. “I think we ll still be able to announce launch dates and have people in to see (the laun chings),” Smith said in an inter view while the shuttle Col umbia was being readied for its second test flight. But Smith said the fact that some missions will be classified is going to make it difficult for NASA officials when they dis cuss shuttle operations with the news media. “If we’re flying a non-DOD payload, there are no inhibi tions about talking about va rious things, ” he said. “And on a DOD payload there will be. “That creates an interesting dilemma for all of us. If I can talk to you about something on one flight and not the next, that’s going to make us awfully cau tious so we don’t trip up. “I think it will cause people to be much more inhibited in talk ing period, even though it’s a non-classified payload.” nt ked for witli active and ey membei y team. Its it last wed motives 1* Tuesday hf Motion filed in protest of KKK camps United Press International HOUSTON — A federal judge ^lans to rule later this year on a equest from the state attorney ffineral to shut down Ku Klux (lan paramilitary training camps. Attorney General Mark White, a written motion submitted Tuesday, described the KKK’s pa ramilitary arm as fully capable of violent action in a petition for a federal order to close its training camps. White filed the shutdown peti tion in a lawsuit by Vietnamese May ordered the Klan to stop harassing Vietnamese fishermen in the Kemah-Seabrook area. dings wortl nunicationsl ;n said: e presidenll lone or sup-1 k-biting idual in bis I the texas a&m classical piano group presents PIANO RECITAL performed by tamu students and faculty jricul- ith us oates ques- irman thursday NOV. 5 RUDDER FORUM 8:00 p.m admission $1 MSC OPAS proudly presents Les Ballets Trockadero November 10/8 p.m. Rudder Auditorium/TAMU Tickets available at MSC Box Office or Telephone MasterCard / VISA orders & pick up at the door 845-1234 16 hini 11 iiiiiiiixiiiiiiirxtl Large farmers get big bucks Farm payments exceed limit fishermen against the Klan. U.S. District Judge Gabrielle McDo nald, who said she would rule on White’s petition later this year, in United Press International WASHINGTON — In spite of a legal limit of $40,000 on the amount of direct federal deficien cy payments that can be paid a farmer, 52 American farmers col lected more than $100,000 in 1978. Overall, large farmers got the bulk of direct payments. These deficiency payments are paid to farmers when market prices fall below target levels. A new U.S. Department of Agriculture study concluded that exceeding the $40,000 limit was possible because the law applied to people rather than farmers. If the responsibility for producing crops on a single farm can be di vided among several individuals, each can qualify for payments. The study was part of former Agriculture Secretary Bob Berg- land’s review of the structure of agriculture that studied economic causes of the increase in the size of American farms and the decline in the number of farms. Some of the studies started by Bergland are still trickling out of the department even though Agri culture Secretary John Block has shown little interest in the struc ture project. The study, entitled “Farm Commodity Programs: Who Parti cipates and Who Benefits?” said that farmers with large holdings collected 53 percent of wheat program benefits. The nation’s largest farmers got 41 percent of feed grains pay ments, 66 percent of cotton prog ram payments and 48 percent of rice payments. Average payments per farmer ranged from $363 for those with less than 70 acres to $36,005 for farmers with 2,500 acres or more. Another way of expressing the bigness bias is that 10 percent of the participants in the program, farmers with 500 acres or more, got nearly half the payments. Fifty percent, farmers with less than 140 acres, received about 10 percent of the benefits. The $40,000 limit on payments was part of the 1977 farm law that expired Sept. 30. By this year, the limit had risen to $50,000. Both the House and Senate ver sions of the pending farm bill con tain a continuation of the $50,000 limit. Rep. Silvio Conte, R-Mass., dropped plans to propose an amendment to reduce the limit to $20,000. The study showed that pay ments were most popular in the North Central and Plains states. For example, 77 percent of North Dakota farmers participated in the program. But in Illinois only 20 percent of farmers participated. Overall, 739,000 farmers, about a third of America’s 2.4 million farmers, participated in the program. The study concluded that the payment limitation had small im pact on payment distributions in 1978. Only 1,184 producers had to give up some money because of the $40,000 limit. They gave up $24 million, a small percentage of the $2 billion paid out to farmers in 1978. The 1,184 producers gave up an average of $20,000. Nearly 90 per cent of them had farms of at least 2,000 acres and most of them were corn and wheat farmers. Study authors William Lin, James Johnson and Linda Calvin concluded, “More severe restric tions on who could qualify for the payments would probably have only a minimal effect on distribut ing the payments more evenly to small farmers.” They said direct payments to farmers can’t be blamed for the trend toward investment in agri culture by absentee owners. “Land appreciation and capital 1 gains taxation appear to be stron ger influences,” they said. Prohibiting payments to corpo- I |j rate farms or absentee owners ' “could have an impact, but would not significantly change the de- | gree of non-farmer investment in | agriculture,” they said. 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