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A day in the life
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Serving the University community
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College Station, Texas
Friday, April 8,1983
Shuttle mission winds down
United Press International
CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. — The
crewmen of the shuttle Challenger
cruised into their fifth and last full
day of flight today, with space officials
confident the mission’s spectacular
space walk has paved the way for
more ambitious outside ventures.
Paul Weitz, Karol Bobko, Story
Musgrave and Donald Peterson re
turn to Earth Saturday from a mission
that must rank as one of the most
successful yet in the two years the
space planes have been flying.
Musgrave and Peterson spent
nearly four hours space-walking in
Challenger’s cargo bay late Thursday
to cap the achievements of this sixth
flight in the $10 billion shuttle
program.
“It was quite a spectacular show,”
flight director Harold Draughon said
Thursday night. “Everything was
really smooth. It was .really a clock
work procedure.
“The crews were quite well re
hearsed and obviously very prepared
to do the tasks we asked them to do.
They went through them in a very
timely fashion.”
The spacemen ended their busy
day about 10:30 p.m. during the
Challenger’s 55th orbit.
Challenger is scheduled to end its
maiden, 2.1-million-mile voyage with
a 12:47 p.m. landing Saturday on a
paved runway at Edwards Air Force
Base in the high desert northeast of
Los Angeles.
‘Dial-a-Shuttle’ lets people listen
in on astronauts’ conversation
by Dorm Friedman
Battalion Reporter
“This is Mission Control, Hous
ton. Do you copy, space shuttle?”
There was no immediate re
sponse to the beckon, but in the
background a space-walking astro
naut could be heard talking to his
partner inside the craft.
“If you guys get a chance, turn
your lights off,” the astronaut said
as he floated outside the shuttle.
Then the signal blacked-out as the
shuttle passed over Guam.
The signal, which had traveled
from space to a phone in The Bat
talion newsroom, then was re
placed by a promotion for the orga
nization that was sponsoring the
“dial-a-shuttle” connection.
By Thursday, more than
552,000 people had listened — the
astronauts can’t hear you — to the
conversations of the Space Shuttle
by calling 1-900-410-6272.
“Dial-a-Shuttle” — like all 900
phone numbers — is charged to the
caller. But instead of being charged
a rate calculated on the distance,
which fluctuates with the orbit, the
listener is billed 50 cents for the
first minute and 35 cents for each
additional minute.
When man first landed on the
moon July 21, 1969, Americans
watched on television, but what
they saw looked like an Arctic bliz
zard. Now, because of advances
made in telecommunications, the
astronauts’ conversations sound as
if they could be speaking from
across the country rather than
from across the ionosphere.
The space-line is sponsored by
the National Space Institute, a non
profit organization. The organiza
tion’s purpose is to inform the pub
lic of the importance of the scien-
tific exploration of space.
The National Space Institute is
operating the line from a trailer
behind the Johnson Space Center
near Houston. Their signal is fed
live from Mission Control — under
the name of NASA Select Mission
Audio. It’s one of five lines of com
munication that the shuttle sends
from space, and is the same line
that is sent into the press room.
With less than a 0.25 second de
lay, audio is fed into hard-wired
phone lines that transfer the calls to
the American Telegraph and Tele
phone “Dial-It” center in Kansas
City. When a person calls the “Dial
a-Shuttle” number, they’re directly
hooked into the conversation. Up
to 18,000 space buffs can listen to
the space jargon at one time.
The 24-hour-a-day phone cov
erage began Monday at 5 a.m. and
will continue until landing — sche-
duled for just past noon Saturday.
China-U.S. cultural ties cut
staff photo by David Fisher
Does he bleed red or maroon?
Texas A&M head football coach Jackie Sherrill applies
pressure to the spot where the needle went in when he
gave blood Friday, while Mitzi Muirhead, Omega Phi Alpha
member, ties a balloon to his wrist as a reward. The
blood drive ended Thursday and 2291 people showed up
to give blood. Muirhead is a junior from Plano studying
education, and was helping out with the blood drive.
United Press International
PEKING (UPI) — China cut off all
cultural and sports exchanges with
the United States for the rest of the
year Thursday in retaliation for the
administration’s decision to grant
political asylum to Chinese tennis star
Hu Na.
The decision announced by the
official Xinhua news agency plunged
Sino-U.S. relations to a new low.
“The Chinese government will
stop implementing all the remaining
items of cultural exchange with the
United States” for 1983, said the
agency, quoting a statement by Chi
na’s Ministry of Culture.
The Chinese decision is effective
immediately, the agency said.
Affected were at least eight official
exchanges ranging from art exhibi
tions and film weeks to scheduled
visits by Americanjournalists, Xinhua
said.
Commenting on the Chinese move,
a U.S. Embassy spokesman said in a
terse statement, “We consider it to be
an overreaction on the Chinese side
and a matter of regret to us.”
The embassy spokesman refused
to elaborate, saying subsequent state
ments would have to come from
Washington.
Miss Hu, 19, who defected last July
during a tennis tournament in Santa
Clara, Calif., was granted political
asylum by the United States Monday.
China’s retaliation was announced
less than 24 hours after Peking, acting
with unusual speed, lodged an ex
tremely bitter protest with the United
States over the decision and warned
U.S. relations with the communist
giant would suffer.
Diplomatic sources said U.S.
Charge d’Affaires Charles Freeman
and an embassy cultural officer were
summoned to the Culture Ministry to
receive the decision from Ding Gu,
director of the ministry’s Bureau for
Cultural Relations with Foreign
Countries.
New group to discuss local
omsumers ’ cable problems
by Kelley Smith
Battalion Staff
The newly formed Cable Improve-
nent Association will meet at 7:30
ra. Sunday in the Bryan-College
tation Eagle meeting room to discuss
problems consumers face with local
able companies.
“We are going to put together a
jomplete and comprehensive list of
problems consumers are having with
lie cable companies and present it to
Ihe cable companies and the city
loiincils (of Bryan and College Sta-
lon),” said David Hill, a founding
'member of CIA.
I The meeting, which is open to the
jmblic, will start a petition drive re
vesting that the councils investigate
pe complaints.
Hill, a political science professor at
Texas A&M, said there has been sim
pering discontent with the quality of
fable service for some time, but said
pat the recent deletion of some sta
tions was the blow that got the group
ogether.
Rodger L. Lewis, educational tele
vision program director at KAMU-
TV, said programming decisions
were made without regard to the
community. The companies made no
attempt to talk with the subscribers
about the programming and did not
offer any options, he said.
Lewis said customers paid for extra
channels, but when the channels were
removed, the rates did not go down.
Several other communities reprog
rammed or dropped stations because
of a new copyright law requiring cable
companies to pay royalties on the
programs they broadcast from other
stations.
Hill said many consumers are con
cerned about the quality of service
they receive from the companies.
Cable company employees often
seem discourteous to customers and
are slow to take care of service prob
lems, he said.
The first priority of a cable com
pany should be high quality broad
casting, Hill said. However, many
parts of the city are receiving cable of
poor quality, he said.
Lewis, a cable subscriber who says
he cannot watch three of his channels
because they are so bad, said technical
standards should be established.
Midwest Video and Community
Cable, the two companies servicing
the area, were granted franchises by
the cities more than 20 years ago,
Lewis said, and the franchise agree
ments are too broad and outdated.
Since the boom in the cable busi
ness, newer franchise agreements for
other companies have become leng
thy and specific, Lewis said.
“We need to show the cities there is
enough citizen interest and legitimate
complaints to call the franchises in to
question,” he said.
Hill said he would like to hear from
on-campus Texas A&M students who
receive the cable service.
“Students sort of think they are not
a part of the community so they don’t
complain,” he said.
Two-alarm fire destroys
house behind North gate
A two-alarm fire destroyed a
one-story house behind the North-
gate area early today. The cause of
the fire has not yet been deter
mined.
The house, in the 300 block of
Patricia Street, was vacant.
The College Station Fire De
partment arrived at the fire at 1:48
a.m. and had the blaze under con
trol by 2:29 a.m., Fire Chief Doug
las W. Landua said.
The blaze charred overhead
electrical wires and light winds
blew embers onto the roofs of near
by buildings.
“It was pretty dangerous there
for a while on the west side of the
building, but the electrical depart
ment finally got here and cut (the
power) off,” Landua said.
Power in other neighborhood
buildings was not affected.
“(Northgate) certainly was in
danger for a while, but we had peo
ple up on the roofs trying to watch
for (the spread of fire),” Landua
said. “We were fortunate that it
didn’t hit a spot that would catch on
fire. But so far, there is no damage
to those (buildings) across the
street.
Most Northgate merchants and
revelers had gone home, but the
fire quickly drew a crowd of about
200.
A group of students held an im
promptu yell practice in front of
Chanello’s Pizza — about 30 feet
from the fire. Several other specta
tors snapped photographs in front
of one of the four fire trucks that
responded to the alarm.
But Landua said the crowd
didn’t pose too great a problem.
“They really didn’t bother us
that much this time,” he said. “I
have seen it when it will hamper
you — when it gets too noisy, the
firemen talking back and forth
aren’t really getting all the mes
sages they need to get.”
inside
Around Town 4
Classified 6
Local 3
Opinions . 2
Sports 11
State 5
National 9
Police Beat 4
What’s up. ... 10
forecast
Continued cool today with a 20
percent chance of showers and a
high of 58. Northerly winds of
around 15 mph. Cloudy to partly
cloudy tonight with a low near 40
and a 20 percent chance of show
ers. Mostly clear skies Saturday
with a high near 66.
Bill to aid farmers
wins endorsement
United Press International
AUSTIN — Proposed legislation
designed to stem the flow of raw agri
cultural products out of Texas and
give farmers a greater share of the
consumer food dollar has drawn the
endorsement qf Agriculture Com
missioner Jim Hightower.
The measure, introduced by state
Sen. Ted Lyon, D-Rockwall, would
authorize low-interest financing so in
dependent producers could form
agricultural processing industries on
the county level, Hightower said
Thursday.
“Texas is losing hundreds of mil
lions of dollars annually because we
find ourselves in the unenviable posi
tion of exporting raw agricultural
products at a cheap price and import
ing processed food and fiber at a high
price,” Hightower said. “That’s where
the money is.”
Lyon’s bill would authorize coun
ties to create Agriculture Develop
ment Corporations to sell tax-exempt
revenue bonds. Proceeds from the
bond sales would be available through
low-interest loans to producers want
ing to begin processing and market
ing operations.
College station firemen battle a two-alarm
blaze early Friday morning in the 300 block
Staff photo by Diana Sultenfuss
of Patricia. No one was hurt in the fire.
The house was vacant at the time.