Page 2/The BattalionThursday, November 21,1985
Opinion
The worst enemy
More devastating than the AIDS epidemic that is sweeping
the nation, is the epidemic of fear that is following in the wake of
the virus. It’s time to stop denying people civil liberties every
time someone cries AIDS.
Now insurance companies are getting sucked into the tem
pest of anti-AIDS sent iments. Many are refusing coverage to
applicants who show symptoms of AIDS.
But the methods most of these companies are using to find
symptoms is unreliable. Blood tests have been found to Be up to
80 percent inaccurate in determining if a person has AIDS.
Obviously, AIDS victims could have a devastating effect on
the insurance market. But companies could limit such exclusion
from coverage to people who have a manifestation of the virus,
not people who merely show symptoms or are at high risk for
contracting the disease.
Dr. lames Mason, acting assistant secretary for health an
nounced Nov. 14, in the first set of federal AIDS guidelines, that
the virus should be dealt with in much the same manner as he-
patitis-B.
The guidelines also deemed blood testing of employees un
necessary, stressing that AIDS cannot be spread through casual
contact.
AIDS is a serious problem, but its time to put the AIDSopho-
bia in the country to rest. Progress has been made in under
standing and curtailing the spread of the virus.
The Worst enemy now is not the virus itself, but the fear of it.
The Battalion Editorial Board
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FROM ROWfP
Seeing NASA from the other side of the ropes
I swung my legs
through the small
round hole that
led into the cabin
of the space shut
tle.
I swung with
authority, playing
up to the expecta
tions of the cam
era-toting tourists
watching from be-
Camille
Brown
hind a red rope about 100 feet away.
Maybe they thought I was an astronaut.
I waved to them from the windows in
side the shuttle and they excitedly
waved back.
neering, teaches astronauts how to cook,
clean, go to the restroom, and familiar
izes them with loose equipment they’ll
use on the trip. He also teaches pre-
launch and post landing emergency exit
procedures.
He teaches the astronauts the new set
of rules they’ll have to live by during the
mission. In zero gravity, basic things like
sitting in a chair become obsolete, and
setting things down becomes impossible.
Velcro and gray tape are as essential
as food.
covered a colored picture in toddler’s
scrawlings and an Auburn University
sticker that the last shuttle crew had for
gotten to recover. One of the strangest
pieces of flight hardware they’ve han
dled was an economy-size package of
oatmeal.
will fly on the shuttle. It’s pampered,
protected, carefully packed and wrap
ped in plastic before it’s shipped to Flor
ida.
The actual flight hardware is packed
1 could identify with the tourists
trapped behind the red rope, but this
time I had a pass to go beyond it. I was
touring the National Aeronautics and
Space Administration’s training facili
ties at the Lyndon B. Johnson Space
Center in Houston. It was a tour which
lead to a first-hand encounter with
space suits, mock-up • space shuttles,
space toilets, clean rooms and boot
legged cargo. It was also my attempt at
finding out what’s behind one of those
shuttle missions.
Yellow-painted handles on the walls
replace walkways.
Ceilings and floors simply become
walls. Days and nights are realized by
the digital read-out on a clock. Techni
cal jargon, switches, dials and screens
are the astronauts’ lifeblood.
Every item on board is accounted for.
Even the toothpaste has been weighed,
checked, cleared, cleaned and eval
uated.
After five hours of walking through
the training facilities, I found myself sit
ting in the driver’s seat of the G-l
Trainer, a high fidelity mock-up of the
space shuttle.
This white plywood space shuttle is
one of the final stops in a training proc
ess followed by every astronaut who
goes into space. Before astronauts go
on a shuttle mission, they have to be
taught the basics of living all over again.
Zero gravity has a new set of rules which
have to be learned.
One of the trainers, Phil Mongan, was
my guide. Mongan, a 1983 A&M grad
uate with a degree in mechanical engi-
And checked again.
But there are always surprises. Like
the “I love Tom Selleck” bumper sticker
that astronaut Judy Resnik sneaked on
board her shuttle trip.
Childrens’ artwork, Cabbage Patch
dolls, airplane models, stickers, pins,
charms, wedding rings and flags are
some of the stuff found in the lockers
on the shuttle. Some of the junk has
clearance, some of it is bootlegged on
board. The people who find the contra
band are workers in NASA’s pre-pack
facility, where shuttle cargo is unloaded
and packed for each mission. The engi
neers who work there will say bootleg
ging is serious, but that doesn’t stop the
astronauts from sneaking or the pre
pack people from laughing at the crazy
things they find.
When I was there, they had just un-
Most of the cargo had already been
shipped when I was there in prepara
tion for the Nov. 27 shuttle flight, offi
cially called STS 61-B.
Outside the Clean Room, and
throughout all the numbered NASA
buildings, it seemed to be sterile as well.
Everything was clean and clipped and
everyone wore at least one plastic identi
fication badge. Tour groups hustled
from one viewing area to the next.
My next stop was the Waste Control
Systems building. Mongan led me
straight to the toilet trainer room. Two
space toilets sat side by side: one
worked, one was rigged with a camera.
To teach an astronaut the correct sitting
position on the toilet seat, a video cam
era and lights were placed inside the toi
let — pointing up. When an astronaut
sits on the seat, he can look at a tele
vision screen in front of him and see if
he made it over the hole.
respect for the astronauts who have to
get anything accomplished from the
confines of a space suit.
Outside the shuttle cabin, training
was going on. One of the astronauts
from the upcoming mission was doing
some last minute practice on maneuver
ing the Canadian space arm. The mis
sion commander for the Nov. 27 mis
sion, Lt. Col. Brewster Shaw, was sitting
on some steps watching.
Between sips of coffee, Shaw looked
up shyly and said that his part of the
mission is fun — the guys on the ground
do all the work. But the serious look be
hind his calm eyes told me he felt the
pressure.
As the astronauts were going through
the last phases of training for the next
mission, no one could believe the launch
date was a week away. Mongan had fin
ished conducting his last training class
for the STS 61-B flight, and would start
with a new crew of astronauts the same
week.
into lockers in a special environment
called the Clean Room. From here it is
shipped to the Kennedy Space Center,
then loaded onto the shuttle. Getting
into the Clean Room is like preparing
for surgery.
After walking through two machines
built for the sole purpose of brushing
dirt off shoes, I scrubbed my hands and
entered the dressing room. The pieces
to a white'suit were wrapped in plastic
bags, which meant the hats, gloves and
booties were sterile. A shiny white lab
coat finished off the suit, and after a
quick air showei I could enter the Clean
Room.
Inside the controlled environment is
actual flight hardware — the stuff that
Mongan said most of the time they
miss. After they master the position,
they graduate to the real toilet and put
in some practice.
I ended up on the mock-up of the
shuttle, sitting behind a sea of buttons,
Screens and gadgets on the flight deck.
Velcro patches were everywhere.
Living quarters were tight — smaller
than the average dorm room.
In the airlock, a space suit hung on a
rack. Two people helped me struggle
into the suit from the bottom up. It felt
like I’d just been put into metal box, be
cause it weighed so much I could just
hang there and try to flap my arms. I
probably lost five pounds trying to move
in that bulky suit of armor, and five
more trying to get out of it. I have new
Mongan said, “When we’re all inhere
(the G-l Trainer) talking, the astronauts
are all excited and deciding who’s going
to do what and what they’re going to
bring. It’s like we’re preparing for a
camping trip, and I don’t get to go."
That’s one camping trip my girl scout
troop never took. I would’ve been the
first to sign up.
But last Friday, I got a close look at
what it might be like to go into space. It
was a glimpse of N ASA from behind the
threatening signs that read “Authorized
Personnel Only,” and it was a shot at un
derstanding the mystique behind those
space heroes, the astronauts.
Now I’ve walked a mile in their space
boots.
Camille Brown is a senior journalism
major and a columnist for The Battal
ion.
Mail Call
Simultaneous solutions
EDITOR:
Having been to Berlin a couple of times arid having
seen the effectiveness of the Berlin Wall in keeping
the people of the East bloc behind the iron curtain, a
marvelous simultaneous solution to several interna
tional problems has dawned on me.
Provided the domino effect is as threatening as we
are led to believe by right-wing politicians, the follow
ing plan should work admirably. First, we solve the
tensions in Central America by unilaterally withdraw
ing all support from the region. One after the other,
El Salvador, Guatemala and Mexico will fall into com
munist hands.
The new Russian puppets in power in Mexico, hav
ing learned the lesson of Berlin from 1961, will imme
diately begin construction of a wall on their side of the
Rio Grande to prevent their labor force from escaping
to freedom, and viola! We have not only solved the
problems of Central America but also our own immi
gration problem.
We will be able to rest assured that the new Mexican
border patrol (trained in East Germany) —equipped
with roving searchlights and machine guns, not to
mention the impenetrable wall designed with the lat
est German engineering — will be far more effective
than our INS.
Not only will this solution not cost us a cent, it will
actually save us millions of dollars in aid to our south
ern neighbors (which we will have slyly forced the So
viet Union to pick up), as well as almost all of the INS
budget!
Brian Sterling ’86
Replies missed the point
EDITOR:
A sharp criticism of bonfire drew a reply which
missed the point. The clearing of land for food pro
duction or energy extraction does not justify the de
struction of the timber; more food production is just
what American agriculture does not need, and wood,
too, is energy. It’s naive to take as our own values the
profit motives of land-exploitation companies.
The criticism was not of the joy students find in
working together toward a common goal, but of an act
of destruction unnecessary to this goal. Immense
blazes, and A-bombs, are indeed awesome displays of
power, but the real power is in the heart. The burning
desire doesn’t turn into ashes.
If the wood harvested by enthusiastic Aggies were
split into 250 cords having a sale value to homeowners
of $80-120 apiece, each replacing 8,000 kwh of electri
city or 11,000 cubic feet of propane — energy from
non-renewable sources — the profit after expenses
should be at least $16,000 and there should be several
truckloads of small stuff left for a respectable bonfire.
Suppose this gift were put into a scholarship fund
for agronomy and ecology students from among the
two and a half billion people who depend on wood for
50 to 100 percent of their energy and are destroying
forests necessary for soil and water retention, climate
moderation and genetic reservoirs at a disastrous
pace.
At A&M these students could study the establish
ment and management of multi-use plantations of
tree varieties under study here.
If we can make a difference to many people by scal
ing down our costly self-entertainment, will it not
bring far more honor to us and our school than per
sisting in a tradition started at a time when ecological
foresight and technology were limited?
Jim Nelson
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The Battalion Editorial Board
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Loren Steffy, Opinion Page Editor
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The Battalion Staff
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