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About The Battalion. (College Station, Tex.) 1893-current | View Entire Issue (June 26, 1984)
Democratic candidates to have summit meeting See page 6 John McEnroe wins Wimbledon opener Supreme Court decision favors ERA See page 9 See page 3 ■MB m The Battalio Serving the University community Vol 79 No. 163 CJSPS 045360 10 pages College Station, Texas Tuesday, June 26, 1984 buttle launch elayed ETER ROCHt United Press International CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. — A illion-dollar computer aboard the |pace shuttle Discovery failed Mon- y, prompting frustrated mission mners to reschedule the maiden lunch of the nation’s third space- ■ane for T uesday. j| The countdown had been run- ■ing smoothly toward the scheduled ■:43 a.m. EDT launch of Discovery esthatare Bhen a backup computer aboard the ner camp. Bllion-doUar shuttle failed a crucial Best about 20 minutes before launch. I The countdown was stopped min- 1 lies later, marking the first delay of tore than 24 hours in the shuttle ^ O rogram since November 1981. Discovery is equipped with four | light computers and one backup in I £ ase the others break down or “dis- J i| ^ | gree’on a course of action. T NASA engineer Carroll Dawson laid the $ 1.2-million computer, t, who ow»hich is based on designs more than lias and Houwy years old, worked properly dur- citizenship It jnga t es t Saturday and probably suf- ual. ■red a hardware failure between court did iDBien and when it was turned back on of whether K'lionday. can be denis* “A hardware failure is the failure ■fa component within the machine, ivided the Nemnie electronic component actually e 9th U.S, dBaiiirtg,” he said. > in Califon»B A replacement computer from e shuttle Challenger was installed Discovery Monday afternoon and e spaceplane’s blastoff for a seven- San FrancistiP a y mission was rescheduled for its observed*l'I uesday. I Engineers used the time to trou- leshoot the balky computer while Krecasters kept a sharp eye on a leather system that dumped tor- enls of rain on the Kennedy Space lenter Monday afternoon. Disappointed shuttle commander MbAjI k nr y H ar tsfield, co-pilot Michael ■ ill Ms and crew members Judy Res- I llw ik, Steven Hawley, Richard “Mike” Biullane and Charles Walker left liscovery’s flight cabin about 9:39 Top Job Photo by PETER ROCHA Workers continue renovating the Academic Building under overcast skies. Today’s forecast calls for a high near 100, with little or no rain. When the renovation is completed, the building will look as it did when it was first built. House, Senate conferees disagree janel ruling ilily is insuffi ng citizenship ophole, to him. Teacher salaries snag talks rillo said healers clain igic and lome orassud e)” in crimind rear Reynos ished in hai letnam war ! They returned to their quarters watched a training film before hiring early in hopes of a Tuesday hunch. "Everyone agreed they would ther wait and fly with a very clean men whovtBachine with a good backup flight Grande Valwstem,” said NASA spokesman to the Arnapark Hess. Workers at the launch pad lioners do nx [rained the shuttle’s huge external nel tank and its half-million gallon the pins in# *ad of super cold liquid hydrogen pd liquid oxygen and planned to re- ill it early Tuesday. Weather was satisfactory Monday |ut Air Force spokesman Lt. Marty jlauser said the prospects might not »e as good Tuesday because of a leather system moving slowly east Ifrom the Florida panhandle. When news of the blastoff delay cached the VIP site 5 miles from he launch pad, a collective groan tent up from the 4,000 observers * here, including Marc Garneau, a 1J J Canadian astronaut scheduled for a buttle flight in October aboard Challenger. JG IONS United Press International AUSTIN — House and Senate conferees were unable to agree Monday on a career ladder pay plan for Texas teachers — one of the ma jor proposals in education reform — while trying to resolve the conflicts in two versions of the education bills. The conferees are trying to reach an accord on a bill in the final full week of the special legislative ses sion, but even with the presence of Lt. Gov. Bill Hobby and House Speaker Gib Lewis the committee made little progress. Senate members of the confer ence committee rebuffed efforts by the House side to adopt a career lad der plan that would reward the best and most experienced teachers through a supplemental four-step system. The House plan would have al lowed one-fourth of the state’s tea chers to enter level II of the ladder in 1984-85. But Sen. Carl Parker, D-Port Ar thur, said the House plan amounted to merit pay based on longevity and would lead to favoritism because tea chers could not appeal their assign ment within the ladder. “All this means is that you’re going to get more because you’ve been there a little longer,” he said. “We’re going right back to where we started. “The way you improve a profes sion is that you assure that nobody but the highly qualified you want gets in it,” Parker added. The House, in turn, voted down the Senate proposal, which would require teachers to undergo a one- year probationary period before en tering the career ladder. Senate says‘no, no, no’ to nuclear dump in Texas United Press International AUSTIN — The Texas Senate said “no, no, no” Monday to the federal government’s consider ation of two West Texas counties as potential sites for a high-level nuclear waste repository. On a voice vote, the 31-mem ber body adopted a strongly- worded resolution that urges the U.S. Department of Energy to drop plans for drilling an explor atory shaft in either Deaf Smith or Swisher counties in the Texas Panhandle. “I think in the strongest possi ble way we are saying we don’t want a nuclear waste dump here,” said Sen. Lloyd Dogged, an Aus tin Democrat and candidate for the U.S, Senate seat hieing vacated by the retirement of Sen. John Tower. “Our answer is no, no, no when it comes to locating a nuclear waste site in Texas.” The resolution also was spon sored by West Texas Setts. John Montforcl, D-Lubbock; Bill Sar- palius, D-Amarillo, and Bill Sims, D-San Angelo. The Deaf Smith and Swisher county locations —- two of Texas’ most agriculturally rich areas —^ are among two of five sites being considered by the DOE for the high-level waste dump, Doggett said. “I just don’t think they have de veloped the expertise in terms of containment to start dumping this stuff on the people,” Montford said. “And secondly, they’re plac ing it in the Panhandle, right squarely in the middle of the great Ogallala Aquifer.” Under a 1982 federal law, the governor and legislature of a state picked as a waste repository have limited powers to veto or block the selection. The conferees did compromise, however, on a phased-in student- teacher ratio plan that will even tually lower the ratio to 1:22 in the lower grades. The panel also agreed Monday on opting for the House bill’s require ment that school districts offer pre kindergarten to poor and Spanish speaking 4-year-olds if at least 15 children wish to attend. The Senate bill made the program optional for school districts. The state’s share of the cost of the program, however, would be capped at $50 million over the first three years. The conferees remained at log gerheads on a proposal to govern participation in extracurricular ac tivities. Several other major areas of dis agreement also remained to he re solved, including teacher compe tency testing and the dates of elections of a temporarily-appointed state school hoard. The 10-member conference com mittee was formed alter marathon sessions in the House and Senate last week produced divergent versions of an education reform bill esti mated to cost the state between $2.8 billion and $3.6 billion over the next three years. “The mood (of the conference committee) is more to get the best of the two (hills) than to go with one or the other,” said Rep. Bill Haley, au thor of the House bill and chairman of the conference committee. “We’re moving right along, but I would have thought things would have gone a little faster,” he added. Haley, D-Center, said a unified measure would he presented to both the House and Senate for members’ approval no sooner than Tuesday. The hill then would go to Gov. Mark White for his signature. With work on the education re form hill moving toward a conclu sion, House members next turn their attention to a tax bill to finance the reforms and highway im provements. The House Ways and Means Committee scheduled hearings on White’s $4.8 billion tax plan Tues day and Wednesday with Flouse de bate expected to begin late this week. The 30-day special session is sched uled to close at midnight July 3. Banks boost prime United Press International NEW YORK — Several major banks Monday raised their prime lending rate to 13 percent from 12 'Ai percent, an action that quickly drew fire from Latin American countries who stand to have their debt servicing costs boosted dramati cally. “The actual boost is not a surprise, but perhaps the timing is more ag gressive than one would have sus pected,” said William V. sullivan Jr., senior vice president at Dean Witter Reynolds, Inc. Reaction from Latin American countries was swift. “This (the prime hike) is disas trous for Latin America,” said Ro drigo Cepeda Yzaga, head of Peru’s external debt committee. “It affects us all enormously, and it is some thing over which we have no con trol.” Cepeda called the decision “in credible” and said U.S. interest rate hikes and incfeasing U.S. protectio nism that is reducing Peru’s export income “is what is strangling us.” First National Bank of Chicago led the way and was followed by Citi bank, Chase Manhattan, Morgan Guaranty, Chemical Bank, Marine Midland, all New York, Chicago’s Continental Illinois National Bank and Mellon Bank, Pittsburgh. The increase was the fourth one- half point jump this year to Lake the prime from 11 percent to its highest since Oct. 7, 1982. On hearing the news, President Reagan told a gathering of the Agri culture Communicators Congress, “interest rates are still higher than you and I would like. “To get them down I think they just have to realize we’re serious about keeping inflation under con trol. There is no excuse for interest rates being at the level they are right now, other than just fear of the fu ture,” he said. The rise was expected in view of an increase in the overnight federal funds arid in jumbo certificates of deposit, the two major sources of bank money. The federal funds have been trading above 11 percent and the CD rate has risen to 11 V4 percent the past week. But the prime increase came as banks were negotiating a refinanc ing package with Argentina, which is behind in its interest payments — $350-$450 million of which has al ready been reported as earnings and will have to be deducted from sec ond-quarter profits of U.S. banks if it isn’t paid by the end of the week. The hike also came following a meeting last week of top officials from major Latin American debtor countries. Argentina was the main force behind the meeting, at which the key topic was the cost of high U.S. interest rates. One Buenos Aires banker called the timing of the increase “terrible,” and said it was bound to hurt efforts to reschedule Argentina’s $46 billion in debt. Aggie 'hams' meet at Lake Somerville Radio operators hold 24-hour contest In Today’s Battalion By KAREN GILES Reporter Mix a little swimming, sailing, and 24-hour amateur radio operating ontest at Lake Somerville, and you [et the MSC Amateur Ratlio Com- nittee’s Field Day. The annual contest, held last veek-end, included more than 100,000 group and individual en- rants who tried to contact as many 3dio operators around the nation as tossible, said Al White, a junior elec- rical engineering major and chair- nan for MSC Amateur Radio Com mittee. “We all had a lot of fun, but the main idea behind the trip was to practice emergency preparedness and to operate from remote loca tions without commercial power,” said White. “For instance, if we were wiped out by a hurricane and our power was down, we’d be able to op erate with generators.” White said participants verbally contacted about 400 stations through a microphone, and about 300 through morse code. “We contacted a Japanese opera tor who spoke English, but the fur thest location we got was Australia.” “A few people set up radios and antennas at the lake on Friday, and the contest ran from 1 p.m. Sat. to 1 p.m. Sun.,” White said. Clay Schlichting, MSC vice-presi dent of recreational programs, said he enjoyed contacting and logging information with operators as far away as Canada, but his favorite part of Field Day was sailing during his break. “When were not getting general information from our contacts, we’ll ‘ragchew’ (casually converse) with them,” said Schlichting. “We log their location, and entry code for the contest, then send it to the American Radio Relay League, who prints the results in the QST-Amateur Radio Journal in three months. This was a good chance for our new members to get experience, but most of all, the contest was good practice for all of us to set up quickly under emer gency conditions.” The committee provided emer gency communications during hur ricane Alicia by passing information from students to parents who lived far away, White said. The committee also has provided communications for many local events, including con struction of the Aggie bonfire, the Texas Triathalon, and the Big Event. Local • Speech students surveyed Texas A&M students and found that they want a campus pub. See story page 4. National • The funeral of Miami Dolphins running back David Overstreet will be attended by other football players and coaches. See story page 4.