Battalion
Vol. 87 No. 82 GSRS 045360 12 Pages
College Station, Texas
Wednesday, January 27, 1988
ntarctic
ould train
stronauts
By Mary-Lynne Rice
Staff Writer
IConditions endured during Ant-
an lie expeditions could be used as
tin'dels, in astronaut training, to sim
ulate the physically and mentally rig
orous challenges of extended space
missions, Austin Mardon, a doctoral
■ndidate in education at Texas
A&M, says.
I Mardon, who spent November
H SG through February 1987 with
■ an Antarctic research team, pre-
rjiented his proposal — to include
Mo-month stays in the Antarctic as
But of the astronauts’ training cur-
rioulum — at the Johnson Space
Ginter in Houston last week.
(“NASA is now planning to stage a
'S|ace station, and they’re talking
Bout a lunar base and a Mars mis-
lion,” he says. “There has been some
I Mish to use isolated human set-
Btnents as models for these long-
.fange missions.”
I A space station’s support system
ffliuld be significantly simplified,
fardon says, by testing the astro-
tjiauts’ capabilities in an extremely
demanding environment and condi-
gjoning them for comparable diffi
culties in space before the mission
Begins.
I “Part of the reason it (the propo-
fel) was spurred was that there were
very easy design parameters,” he
si vs. “For example, people say, ‘Oh,
these poor astronauts, they won’t be
|ble to take a shower for two
tonths.’ But we all got along fine in
le Antarctic for two months with-
ut a shower.
“They also wanted the tempera
ture to be 70 degrees. I can show
Item that they can take that down at
least 15 degrees.”
Any reduction in such comfort
(actors — in turn reducing the pay-
load of the craft — will bring NASA
loser to its goal of building a space
Itation, Mardon says.
“People are shocked that people
can live in conditions other than
what we have here,” he says. “But if
they set the design parameters to be
very comfortable, it will take a lot of
weight.
“At 55 degrees, however, with no
shower, and with cramped quarters,
they might get a space station within
five years. By designing it to be small
. and frugal, they’ll have it operating
cheaply, and it will be easier to put
U P”
Antarctic training before space
missions, Mardon says, would insure
that the astronauts could perform
well under Spartan conditions.
Such new selection requirements
might possibly change the character
and respect of the American astro
naut, he says.
“In the old days, the astronauts
were war heroes, real honest-to-
goodness heroes — the ‘Right
Stuff,’ ” he says.
Today, astronauts face much
more stringent requirements, he
says. NASA’s question now, he says,
is how to train astronauts for crisis.
“Looking at the selection process
for a long-range Mars mission,” he
says, “we might want to stick them in
the Antarctic or in the Rocky Moun
tains and say, ‘Walk 500 miles.’
“That’s not so we develop a great
mountaineer; that’s so they develop
certain internal emotional character
istics. We can then say that this per
son, under this amount of pressure
and this amount of boredom, will
not crack.”
Once the astronaut completes his
training, he has proved superior
physical endurance, Mardon says.
But more important than the
physical accomplishment, he says, is
the mental triumph.
“The barrier isn’t your body,” he
says. “The barrier is your mind. The
only thing that can really ever stop
you is your mind. The space mis
sions are not going to be that physi
cally rigorous, but they will be very
difficult mentally.
iRobertson plans
[possible challenge
lot forgery decision
(AP) — Republican presidential
[candidate Pat Robertson, threaten-
[ing a lawsuit over the party’s cam-
Ipaign petition forgery woes, said he
[would “absolutely love” a head-to-
Ihead race in Texas against Vice
[President George Bush.
In interviews with the Houston
\ Chronicle and the Dallas Morning
JVevvs, published Tuesday, Rob
ertson said his staff is researching a
legal challenge to the state OOP’s de
cision to make all six major Republi
can presidential candidates eligible
to win delegates in the March 8 pri-
| mary.
“We’re going to challenge it,”
Robertson said. “If we have to take it
to court, we’re going to do it.”
John Weaver, executive director
[ of the Texas GOP, on Tuesday said
party officials had discussed the ac
tion with all six campaigns before
the decision was announced last
week.
“We talked with all six at the time
of the decision, and no one had any
objections at that time,” Weaver said.
“If he (Robertson) wants to sue,
that’s his prerogative.”
Qualifying petitions submitted by
four of the Republican presidential
candidates— Kansas Sen. Bob Dole,
Alexander Haig, former Delaware
Gov. Pete du Pont and New York
Rep. Jack Kemp — contained hun
dreds of bogus signatures.
But GOP Chairman George
Strake last week abandoned an ex
pensive and time-consuming signa
ture verification process, saying all
candidates would be on the ballot
and eligible to win a share of the
state’s 111 national convention dele
gates.
Robertson said, “I frankly think it
should be challenged and chal
lenged quickly . . . It’s like a filing fee
that’s paid with counterfeit money.
Because he submitted over 9,000
signatures and Bush submitted more
than 35,000, Robertson acknowl
edged that a legal challenge could
result in a head-to-head race against
Bush in the vice president’s home
state of Texas.
Robertson questioned Bush’s
Texas roots.
“I know that he’s been here for a
while, but I don’t know that he’s as
Texan as he would like to say he is,”
Robertson said.
Noting that the vice president
owns a home in Maine, while his le
gal voting residence is a Houston ho
tel, Robertson scoffed, “Anybody
can rent a room at the Houstonian
Club, if he can afford it.”
■"SI
Ml M
ZZ'-
Miles to go ...
Construction workers at the new parking garage site smooth out cement.
Photo by Jay Janner
Aggies remain missing in Vietnam
on anniversary of peace accord
By Shane Hall
Reporter
January 27, 1973: In an act to end
the war in Vietnam, the United
States, North Vietnam and the Viet
Cong sign the Paris Peace Accord,
which included a provision for the
release of all American prisoners of
war and any remains of American
servicemen held by the Vietnamese.
January 27, 1988: It is the 15th
anniversary of the signing of the Pa
ris Peace Accord and there are more
than 2,400 Americans who remain
unaccounted for.
Three men from the Bryan-College
Station area — two of whom are
Texas A&M graduates — are in
cluded in the number of those miss
ing in action from the Vietnam War.
The missing men are Marine
Capt. Carl Edwin Long, of College
Station; Air Force 1st Lt. Sammy Ar
thur Martin, of Bryan; and Air
Force 1st Lt. Neal Clinton Ward, of
College Station.
Long, A&M Class of ’66, was re
ported missing in December, 1969,
in South Vietnam. His body has
never been recovered. Kappel says
the U.S. government usually as
sumes such men have been killed in
action (KIA).
Martin was shot down over North
Vietnam in December, 1967. Like in
Long’s case, Martin’s body has never
been recovered.
Ward, A&M Class of ’67, is listed
as missing. He was shot down over
Laos in June, 1969.
Gary Kappel, Brazos Valley chap
ter president of the Forget-Me-Not
Association, leads the non-profit or
ganization in supporting efforts
aimed at learning the whereabouts
of these Americans who are often re
ferred to as MI As.
Kappel says the Paris Peace
Accord was not signed with Laos, so
there was no provision for the re
turn of any Americans that may be
held by Laos.
“There are 559 MI As in Laos, and
I want them accounted for,” Kappel
says.
Kappel says the Vietnamese gov
ernment had maintained that all
prisoners of war, alive or dead, had
either been returned or accounted
for.
“Now they’ve done a complete
180, and are saying that there may
be some Americans living in their
country,” he explains. One reason
for the Vietnamese government’s
change in position, he says, could be
the reports of sightings of American
prisoners of war (POWs) by refu
gees.
Kappel says there have been over
by the U.S. government. In other
Aides: Public backs Bush after clash
WASHINGTON (AP) —
George Bush’s campaign aides
said Tuesday the public backs
Bush in his televised clash with
CBS anchorman Dan Rather and
they moved quickly to exploit
what they called a case of “an un
fair journalist trying to mug the
vice president.”
“I don’t want to have a big run
ning fight with Dan Rather,”
Bush said when asked about the
incident while campaigning in
Cheyenne, Wyo.
“He’s got to do his thing, he’s
got to do it his way, and I’ve got to
defend my record and get my
case to the people,” he said.
However, Bush campaign
aides saw nothing wrong with
crossing swords with the CBS
anchorman, long viewed with
contempt by many Republicans.
“Any time any Republican gets
into a fight with Dan Rather and
wins, he’s going to come out very
well with Republican primary vot
ers,” Lee Atwater, Bush’s cam
paign manager, said.
“I got powder burns,” former
secretary of state Alexander M.
Haig Jr. said when asked if he
had watched the confrontation.
During Republican presidential
debates, Haig has aggressively
questioned Bush about his Iran-
Contra role.
Bush calls clash ‘combat’
(AP) — George Bush called his
clash with CBS anchor Dan
Rather “kind of like combat” but
said he had no hard feelings
Tuesday, while Democrats ex
tended their own disagreement
over help for the poor and home
less.
“It’s kind of like combat — he’s
got to do his thing, he’s got to do
it his way, and I’ve got to defend
my record and get my case to the
people,” Bush said. “I still like the
guy.”
Bush had taken strong excep
tion to Rather’s questioning him
about the vice president’s knowl
edge of the Iran-Contra affair.
But Rather said Tuesday, “I saw
my job as asking questions about
the central story . . . the central
story being how did he get in
volved in sending missiles to the
Ayatollah and what about these
inconsistencies in the record.”
Bush’s refusal to reveal what
advice he gave President Reagan
about selling arms to Iran drew
support from Reagan himself,
who previously had said he
wanted everyone in his adminis
tration to lay out the facts.
During a picture-taking session
at the White House, Reagan en
dorsed Bush’s refusal to reveal
the substance of his private con
versations with Reagan.
“I think in the near-term Bush
came out ahead,” Haig said. “But
in the longer term, they’ll both
lose.”
In Iowa, where presidential ri
val Bob Dole leads Bush in most
polls, the Kansas senator’s cam
paign chairman, Stephen Rob
erts, said running against Rather
in the state was “not a bad bet.”
Atwater said that even if the
confrontation does not boost
Bush enough to beat Dole in
Iowa, it will help the vice presi
dent in the next big contest, the
New Hampshire primary.
“And I guarantee you, it’ll play
stronger than grits in the South,”
he said.
In the clash with Rather and in
an earlier debate confrontation
with Des Moines Register editor
James Gannon, what triggered
the vice president’s ire were sug
gestions he had not answered all
questions about his involvement
in the Iran-Contra affair.
During the nine-minute live
segment on the evening news,
Bush said, “You know what I’m
hiding? What I told the presi
dent. That’s the only thing. And
I’ve answered every question put
before me.”
The questions dealt entirely
with Iran-Contra despite Bush’s
protest that the network had told
his campaign it was part of a se
ries of profiles of 1988 candi
dates.
When the interview ended,
CBS sources said Bush declared,
“The b d didn’t lay a glove on
me.”
Obviously angry, Bush told
CBS technicians in his office,
“Tell your god d network that
if they want to talk to me to raise
their hands at a press conference.
No more Mr. Inside stuff after
that.”
Tom Bettag, executive pro
ducer of the news show, said he
saw no reason why Rather should
apologize.
“I can’t imagine a reason why
he should apologize,” said Bettag.
“He did his best under extremely
difficult circumstances. I think
the vice president set the tone for
the aggressiveness.”
words, he says, the government is
certain that these 100 sightings hold
up under close scrutiny.
“We can convict somebody off of
one man’s testimony, but we can’t
convict Vietnam of holding Ameri
cans on the testimony of 100,” Kap
pel says.
Kappel says he became involved
with the Forget-Me-Not Association
about a year ago after hearing a ra
dio broadcast by former POW “Red”
McDaniel, who he says was one of
the most tortured POWs in Vietnam.
Although he did not serve in Viet
nam, Kappel says he served in the
Marine Corps from 1975 to 1979.
He says the Forget-Me-Not Associa
tion is made up of veterans, non-vet
erans, family members of MI As and
others. The common denominator,
he says, is concerned citizens.
“If you care about these guys, you
can get involved,” Kappel says.
A list of Aggie MIAs compiled by
The Battalion in November 1986 in
cluded the following men:
Maj. William Fuller, ’57
Lt. Michael Dunn, ’63
Capt. Ronald Forrester, ’69
Maj. Murray Wortham, ’65
Col. Robert Wilke, ’65
Capt. Dennis Graham, ’63
Lt. John Baldridge Jr., ’68
Lt. Col. Donald Luna, ’60
Capt. Greg Hartness, ’60
Capt. Henry Mundt II, ’64
Col. William Campbell, ’52.
According to Battalion files, an
additional 101 A&M graduates who
fought in the Vietnam War — rang
ing from the Class of’35 to the Class
of ’72 — are listed as KIA.
Clements
clears way
for prisons
AUSTIN (AP) — Gov. Bill Clem
ents on Tuesday issued an emer
gency declaration that should clear
the way for the construction of a sec
ond maximum security prison
planned by the Board of Correc
tions.
Plans for building two, 2,250-bed
maximum security prisons were
stalled last week when Attorney
General Jim Mattox said the current
appropriations bill only allows the is
suance of state bonds for one of the
new prisons.
But the Board of Corrections and
Clements on Tuesday turned to an
appropriations bill provision allow
ing the transfer of prison funds if
the governor determines that an
“unforeseen emergency exists.” The
board requested the declaration and
Clements responded quickly.
“The safety of our citizens is at
stake,” Clements said.