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About The Battalion. (College Station, Tex.) 1893-current | View Entire Issue (Jan. 28, 1988)
St '3: The Battalion lemsentfPVol- 87 No. 83 USPS 045360 16 Pages f Oklahor College Station, Texas Thursday, January 28,1988 °f Sowl I eduledt b. 3 and i fay. 3 y DemocJ awyer aids astronauts’ widows Rtl wcanwhilt proves f State 0 Its niih s during America Nicaragu, discussioni) See related stories, Page 3 HOUSTON (AP) — A Houston lattorney says that widows of astro- |nauts killed in space disasters are ickly forgotten as the tragedies Ifade from the national conscious- Apollo 1 capsule fire in which three astronauts died. “Yes, I know how it went then, and I know how it goes now,” said Ronald D. Krist, who represented astronaut widows seeking compensa tion in both tragedies. asked i tz would a; ;<>tiatingp antral k led a August. Today is the second anniversary lof the space shuttle Challenger di saster, but Wednesday was another [tragic space anniversary — the 1967 “The president attends your hus band’s funeral,” he said. “Congress lowers all the flags to half mast. The president delivers the eulogy. “Every television station in the world talks about it. You are in 3,000 headlines around the world. “But in three years you are forgot ten. NASA doesn’t care. You have to present your identification at a 7- Eleven to cash a $5 check. Tears are cheap, and memories fade, and you better look out for yourself. And that’s how that cookie crumbles.” On Jan. 27, 1967, astronauts Vir gil I. “Gus” Grissom, Roger B. Chaf fee and Edward H. White II were killed in an electrical fire, trapped inside the Apollo 1 capsule at the Kennedy Space Center in Florida. Like the Challenger accident in which all seven crew members were killed, the Apollo 1 fire was shocking not only because of the deaths, but also because the accident erupted af ter 16 consecutive successful flights of the Mercury and Gemini series. Krist won a landmark case and a financial settlement in 1972 for Betty Grissom, widow of Gus Gris som, just as the case’s statute of limi tations was expiring in Florida. “Betty never doubted that she was doing the right thing,” Krist said. “She never wavered. Up until then, no one — least of all an astronaut’s wife — had ever challenged NASA or any aerospace company, and it was not until four years after the fire had killed the astronaut trio that I took the case.” More than a decade later, Krist won a out-of-court financial set tlement for another astronan widow: Cheryl McNair, whose hu: band, Ronald McNair, died in th Challenger disaster on Jan. 28, 1981 In each case, Krist went after th company responsible for the acc dent. In the 1960s it was North Ameri can Rockwell, prime contractor of problem-plagued Apollo capsule. Ii the 1980s it was Morton Thiokc Inc., prime contractor of a fault rocket booster. esideni's iclude agreemt nierican ith. security I lie Re| 1 pro] ’ ol tne would s w ?rican h a di Reagan requests aid for Nicaraguan rebels vouldr for lethil r replet n and I rcraft ii poi ;hes bai - The:) flying I i ogham.] ,s of si* 1 she* in Augi the fon eleasedl :r I r Force:* ■ a bop line lo ] ie the: f York. I 7, is fo« ler bro: nd Cha| :ess tnd Pel and 1 y were ( impendj rch’s li| : state® ty re seail ilantsj ■ssess the M torne'j decisi'f lered d irguedl cal i >r m rtial 1 bjecti'J llrei» berio I df (: 'i ree° l.se j WASHING I ON (AP) — Presi dent Reagan sent Congress a scaled- down request Wednesday for $36.2 million in aid for Nicaraguan rebels, reserving for himself the power to determine if any of the money could be spent for arms and ammunition. Reagan promised he would con sult with four Central American presidents before releasing any arms money. The arms money, totaling $3.6 million out of the $36.2 million, would be held in escrow until March 31 pending an assessment of Nicara gua’s steps toward peace. His proposal sets the stage for a major congressional battle next week that the administration argues will make or break the Contra rebel force, which relies on U.S. aid for the battle against Nicaragua’s leftist Sandinista government. Vowing to wage an all-out battle to win approval of his request, Rea gan declared, “I didn’t come to Washington to preside over the com- munization of Central America.” plements, Mattox agree |on need for more prisons By Kimberly House Staff Writer Attorney General Jim Mattox and [Gov. Bill Clements agreed Wednes- Iday that an addition of 10,400 new [beds for the Texas Department of [Corrections over the next two years I will not end the overcrowding in I Texas prisons. ‘It’s not going to solve the prob- llem,” Mattox said. “We’re going to continue to let far more folks out of the penitentiary than ought to get ! out.” Clements said he has “set out a plan calling for the allocation of funding for more than 20,000 new prison beds in the next four years, which is an unprecedented expan sion in Texas.” An appropriations hill provision that permits the transfer of prison funds will give the state enough money to begin construction on Texas’ second maximum-security prison. Construction on the first one has already been approved. The provision was made as a re sult of Clements’ declaration of emergency in the TDC. Clements and Mattox spoke at the 30th annual County Judges and Commissioners’ Conference at the College Station Hilton. Clements also highlighted the re- Clements plans expansion of education for minorities AUSTIN (AP) — Gov. Bill Clem ents called on state officials Wednes day to begin a new drive to expand higher eclucation opportunities for minority students. An equal opportunity plan or dered by the federal courts is sched uled to expire this year. The current plan has sought to re cruit more black and Hispanic stu dents into undergraduate, graduate and professional studies, officials said. Special programs also have been created — including tutoring, peer counseling and others — to keep minority students in colleges and universities. cent success of the Texas Depart ment of Commerce, a combination of nine related agencies and boards, in attracting Sematech, a national semi-conductor research consor tium, to Texas. He said the project will bring an annual $250 million operating bud get and 800 jobs to the state when it moves to Austin. “With this type of partnership — combining the talent of the depart ment, my administration, the private sector, our academic institutions and our congressional delegation — we can bat a thousand when critical pro jects such as the superconducting su percollider consider locating in Tex as,” Clements said. Clements referred to Texas’ eco nomic condition and the days when “energy” was the mainstay. He said Texans must respond to current economic reality like they are re sponding to prison overcrowding. Mattox said Texans must move forward and face the challenge of meeting their objectives for the fu ture — bringing about the options, the diversification and the balanced economy they need for the state. The conference had workshops keyed to special needs of county em ployees and was sponsored by the V.G. Young Institute of County Government, which is part of the Texas Agricultural Extension Serv- Spokesmen Photo by Shelly Schluter Before hitting the backroads, members of the Texas A&M cycle team discuss their 2'/a hour route. These bicyclists meet daily at 3 p.m. behind the MSG to ride and prepare for the Southwest Conference Collegiate Competitions scheduled throughout the spring. Apartments lose power after fire grea dents of eight units of the Doux Chene apartments, including four students, without electricity Wednesday night. The fire was reported at 7:42 p.m. and was under control by 3:11 p.m. after five units of the College Station Fire Department responded to the call, Lt. Thomas Goeho of the Fire Department said. The apartment complex is lo cated at 1401 EM 2818, on the outskirts of Southwood Valley. Geoho said fire damage to one apartment and smoke damage to two others resulted from the blaze. Barbara Jones, manager of the apartment complex, said the fire started when a woman cooking dinner tried to extinguish a grease fire with water. She said residents would not be able to return to their apartments until this morning for safety pur poses. Specialist sees problems with 65 mph By Jamie Russell Staff Writer Highway commission raises speed limits “It was a fire in the kitchen, and part of it was electrical in na ture, and they asked that we leave the electricity off to the entire building until morning,” Jones said. A Texas A&M research specialist at the Texas Transportation Insti tute forsees problems with raising the speed limit on some non-inter state roads in Texas. “There are two parameters of speed distribution of concern — speed variance, related to accident frequency, and absolute speed, re lated to accident severity,” said Dr. Quinn Brackett also said. It is obvious that the faster a driver goes, the greater the forces generated should he have an acci dent, he said. The Texas Highway Commission voted Wednesday to increase the speed limit to 65 mph on some Texas roads that are similar in safety design to rural interstates, which have had a 65 mph speed limit since last spring. John Chagle, public information fficer for the Texas Highway De partment, said the highway commis sion voted to extend the higher limit to include 74 miles of non-interstate roadway with interstate quality and design. The increased speed limits will not affect any roads in Brazos County, Chagle said. According to Texas Department of Public Safety figures quoted in the Dallas Morning News, the number of fatalities on Texas roadways has been declining since 1981, which was the worst year in Texas traffic his tory. But some researchers are con- AUSTIN (AP) — The speed limit on 74 miles of ru ral, non-interstate highways in Texas will be raised to 65 mph under action taken Wednesday by the State Highway and Public Transportation Commission. The change follows federal law and should take ef fect by Feb. 5, said Byron Blaschke, deputy engineer-di rector of the State Department of Highways and Public T ransportation. This is the second time speed limits have been raised on some Texas highways since the national speed limit was set at 55 mph by Congress in 1973. Last May, Texas exercised its option under federal law and raised the speed limit to 65 mph on more than 2,000 miles of rural interstate highways. Jim Sykes of Houston, a member of Citizens for Ra tional Traffic Laws, urged the higher speed limit. “We want to encourage you to raise speed limits to reasonable levels throughout the state of Texas, where practical,” Sykes said. The commission action, with the governor’s consent, will hike the speed limit to 65 mph on U.S. 75 from the Sherman-Denison urban limits to the Dallas urban lim its, 29.554 miles; U.S. 60 in Randall County near Can yon, from Interstate 27 to U.S. 87, 2.507 miles; and U.S. 190 in Bell County from Nolanville to the Temple- Belton urban limit, 5.531 miles. This limit doesn’t apply to vehicles with lower limits set by law, including trucks, school buses and trailers. For the speed limit to be raised to 65 mph, a road had to be located outside an urban area with a population of 50,000 or more. It also must have been constructed to interstate highway standards, connect to an interstate posted at 65 mph and be a divided, four-lane, con- trolled-access highway. mph. In this situation, he said, the potential for conflict increases. But in some cases, Brackett said, motorists in a situation like this may be traveling at similar speeds, be cause most people tend to exceed the 55 mph limit anyway. “There has been some indication we have reduced speed variance on roadways because of the large por tion of people exceeding the 55 mph speed limit by about 5 to 10 mph,” Brackett said. The 65 mph speed limit is also a problem from the enforcement standpoint, Brackett said. cerned that the 65 mph speed limit implemented by the Texas Legis lature last year for rural interstates is causing the state’s roadway fatalities to increase or worsen in severity. The number of fatalities on rural interstates in Texas, before the law changed, stood at about 213 per year. “There has been no kind of signif icant increase in fatal accidents on rural interstates,” David Wells, spokesman for the DPS in Austin, said. From May 9, 1987, when the speed law went into effect, to Aug. 31, 1987, the DPS calculated 74 fatal accidents on interstates zoned 65 mph. In contrast, during the same period in 1986, there were 69 fatal accidents. “It’s going to take two to three years before we see really what kind of change there will be in the num ber of accidents,” Wells said. “It’s very early to be looking at the statistics,” he said. “We’re hopeful not to see a dramatic increase.” But other people are less opti mistic about the change in the speed limit. Unfortunately, over a period of time, the driving population will ex ceed its speed well over 65 mph, Brackett said. There is a tendency for motorists to drive about 5 to 10 mph over the speed limit. “I have no problem with motorists driving 60 mph, but I do have diffi culty with motorists driving 70 mph,” he said. Motorists who adapt to travel at high rates of speed on rural road ways designed for speed and then move off onto roadways designed for 55 mph need to be aware of the transition, he said. Brackett calls this transition “speed-creep” speed generalization. “A motorist creeps up to mean speed and generalizes to non-inter state highways,” he said. Because of this tendency, Brackett said, motorists are now driving at more varied speeds — for example, one motorist may be driving 55 mph on the same road as another motor ist who has just exited a rural inter state and may still be driving 70 It’s difficult for motorists to dis tinguish one speed zone from the next, he said, so the chance of get ting a speeding ticket is much greater. Wells said this problem can be corrected if motorists are more ob servant. “Motorists need to develop a men tality to watch for changing speed limits in rural areas — just like watching speed limits in the city,” Wells said. Wells said the DPS still is keeping motorists obeying the speed law. But he said that seat belt use is another important issue, especially since the speed limit has been raised. “We need to keep motorists wear ing their seat belts,” Wells said. Texas is one of the top states in fa vorable response to the seat belt law, Wells said; about 66 percent of mo torists wore seat belts in Texas in 1986.