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About The Battalion. (College Station, Tex.) 1893-current | View Entire Issue (Sept. 6, 1988)
The Battalion ;Vol.88 No. 7 USPS 045360 16 Pages College Station, Texas Tuesday, September 6, 1988 it % ' 11 r # > i m i ill If m I m- Ml ? ‘ yLT / I t- 1 1 u F / 1 M ® I A' Brother, can you spare a dime? Texas A&M coaches Charlie Thomas, R.C. Slocum and Mark John son answer telephones during the local portion of the Jerry Lewis Photo by Phelan M. Ebenhack MDA Labor Day Telethon. The funds are used to aid people with muscular diseases and to support research. Rocket carries secret payload toward space aval ,$1 UT engineers [successfully fire rail gun AUSTIN (AP) — A new 90-mil limeter electromagnetic rail gun that may someday replace conventional gas-expansion cannons on Army tanks and other armored vehicles has been successfully fired by Uni versity of Texas engineers. “For a brand new gun, it couldn’t ! have worked better,” Bill Weldon, director of the Center for Electro mechanics, where the weapon is be ing developed in the second year of a two-year test program, said. Weldon says he now has a new doorstop because of the successful I test firings last month. It’s steel, 3 " inches thick and has a large hole through it. The doorstop is half of a 300- pound target that was twice punc tured by blunt, 2.5 pound aluminum plugs in the test firings of the 90-mil- limeter gun. The electromagnetic gun is being operated in a vertical firing range 150 feet deep at the center. Targets are placed at the bottom of the hole, about 100 feet from the gun’s muz zle. Researchers expect to have a 1989 shootout with competing labs in Cal ifornia and Connecticut for devel opment of a revolutionary anti-tank weapon. “Obviously, the size of our gun might change but, for the foresee able future, it’s the size we’ll use,” Weldon said. The electomagnetic gun’s alumi num plugs thus far have been fired at speeds of more than 6,500 feet per second. Those are about the speeds of projectiles from conventio nal, gas-expansion tank guns. By comparison, an M-16 rifle bullet travels at just over 3,000 feet per sec ond. CS gets offshore technology hub By Kathleen Reilly Staff Writer The only offshore technology center in the United States will be es tablished College Station. The National Science Foundation will provide more than $28 million over the next five years to sponsor the construction of the new Engi neering Research Center for Off shore Technology. “It (the center) will provide re search for students in this area and enhance the university’s capability in offshore engineering research,” says Dr. Y. K. Jack Lou, the Texas A&M associate director of the center. The center will begin its research by identifying critical technological needs in the industry and devel oping methods to meet them. Texas A&M and the University of Texas will share the main facility, lo cated in A&M’s Research Park. The University of Texas will con tribute laboratories, faculty and the Cray supercomputer complex to the project. John Flipse, distinguished profes sor of civil engineering and ocean engineering and director of the cen ter, said the schools’ research capabi lities will complement each other. Data will be processed in Austin, and results will be applied at the A&M research facility. “A&M will be the school for off shore technology,” Flipse says. The center will work to develop a research program that will employ students and give them hands-on ex perience. Faculty and graduate students will be provided equipment to improve their studies. Lou, a civil and ocean engineering professor, said the center will rival those in Europe or Japan and be come the focal point of the U.S. off shore industry. The center is the only facility in the United States working on marine hydrodynamics research, testing wave forces on structures in the Results will be used to improve the stability of oil platforms in the Gulf. The center will work closely with the offshore oil industry to improve both research and education, Lou said. Internships, seminars, design projects and lectures will be offered to students through the center. Research will also affect the class curriculum. The results of research will be brought into classroom study imme diately. Geological surveys have found two oil deposits in the Gulf of Mex ico, each as large as the original Saudi Arabian deposit. Yet current technology is incapa ble of recovering the oil, which is 4,000-6,000 feet below sea level. The new facility will test equip ment that can reach depths in excess of 4,000 feet. A wave tank, equipped with direc tional wave makers and a 49-foot- deep pit, will test stability, especially the tension legs, by simulating the currents, wave forces and pressure the equipment will be subjected to in the ocean. The majority of the $28 million will be used to pay academic and re search expenses: fees for publica tions costs, workshops and salaries for researchers, teachers, graduate students and undergraduate work ers. The building and equipment will cost about $4.5 million. Consulting companies and oil companies have pledged to support the program with donations of cash and services. More than $3 million already has been pledged. The projected completion date of the building is Spring 1990, with full operation of the equipment and building planned for the end of that year. VANDENBERG AIR FORCE BASE, Calif. (AP) — A Titan 2 rocket that once sat in a silo armed with a nuclear warhead was launched into space Monday, carry ing a secret Air Force payload be lieved to be four spy satellites de signed to eavesdrop on Soviet ships. The launch marked the First time one of the refurbished missiles had been used as a space booster, and ap parently was the second time U.S. spy satellites had been sent into orbit in less than a week. “It was a spectacular launch with all systems operating as expected,” Air Force Capt. Norma Payne said. But the spokesman added that of ficials would not know for two to three days whether the classified payload achieved its intended polar orbit circling the Earth from North to South poles. The rocket almost certainly car ried a four-satellite addition to the Navy’s White Cloud Navy Ocean Surveillance System, an electronic eavesdropping system that locates and identifies Soviet and other ships by detecting radio and radar trans missions, space policy analyst John Pike said before the launch. “The Navy really likes them,” said Pike, of the Washington-based Fed eration of American Scientists. “They are very important for being able to keep track of the Soviet fleet.” Pike said a White Cloud launch consists of one mother satellite and three subsatellites, and that when or bit is reached, the mother satellite deploys the other three spacecraft so all four are strung out a few hun dred miles from each other in orbit. The $37.5 million Titan 2 roared off Space Launch Complex 4 West and into fog-shrouded skies at 2:25 a.m. PDT, Payne said at this sprawl ing military base 140 miles north west of Los Angeles. The liquid-fueled, two-stage rocket is 103 feet high and capable of lifting 4,200 pounds into a 100- nautical-mile circular orbit. Starting in the 1960s, Titan 2 rockets were kept in silos in Arkan sas, Kansas and Arizona, where they served as intercontinental ballistic missiles, each carrying a nine-mega ton hydrogen warhead. But the missiles were removed from service because the propellants were corroding the innards of the missile and they had a tendency to blow up. Pike said. The Air Force then ordered 13 Titan 2s reconditioned as space boosters under a $528.9 million con tract with Martin Marietta Corp. Air Force officials have said more are likely to be refurbished because re cycling the old ICBMs is cheaper than building new rockets. On Friday, a satellite said to be de signed for intercepting Soviet com munications was launched by a $65 million Titan 34D rocket from Cape Canaveral, Fla. But a source close to the project, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said the spacecraft failed to achieve its desired station ary orbit 22,300 miles high when the upper stage of the rocket failed to re-ignite. He said there was little hope of salvaging that mission. Despite that failure. Air Force Secretary Edward C. “Pete” Al dridge issued a prepared statement after Monday’s launch, declaring, “This is the year of space launch re covery.” “Today’s successful Titan 2 launch is the first of three new boost ers the Air Force will launch in the coming year,” Aldridge said. “The Titan 2, Titan 4 and the Delta 2 . . . will ensure this nation’s access to spa ce.” Gadhafi expects relations to improve with Washington TRIPOLI, Libya (AP) — Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi on Mon day challenged the United States to prove accusations he sponsors ter rorism and said he expects relations with Washington to improve under the next administration. Gadhafi said in an interview with the Associated Press that he would tike to visit the United States “if things were different” and that Li bya remains a close friend of the So viet Union despite improved U.S.- Soviet relations. Gadhafi said Americans who be lieve President Reagan’s charge that he sponsors terrorism are very sim ple, ignorant people. Reagan accused Gadhafi of spon soring the December 1985 attacks that left 20 people dead at airports in Rome and Vienna. U.S. warplanes bombed Libya in April 1986 in an attack that killed 37 people, including Gadhafi’s 15- month-old adopted daughter. The raid was intended to punish Libya for its role in the April 5 bombing of a West German nightclub in which two American soldiers and a Turk ish woman were killed. A July 11 terrorist attack that killed nine people on a Greek cruise ship was linked to Abu Nidal, who is believed to travel frequently to Li bya. “Of course, we are against imperi alism, racism and Zionism,” Gadhafi said. “We are not wrong, we are right to defend our interests. “We are ready to improve our re lations with America if the policy of America is changed. I expect this re lation to improve.” Gadhafi fielded questions in his office at the Bab el-Aziziya, or Heav enly Gate, military compound in Tripoli. Soldiers w-ere posted in watchtowers nearby and tanks were housed in camouflaged garages. Sources say Gadhafi has agreed to give Tunisia a cut of the Buri oil field, a 10-by-6 mile tract that lies 80 miles northwest of Tripoli and is ex pected to yield up to 150,000 barrels per day by mid-1989. Under an arrangement, Libya gets 81 percent of the production, which began last month and is now yielding about 20,000 barrels per day. On Sunday, during the cruise with the Tunisian president to the oil field, Gadhafi was asked whether he preferred Republican nominee George Bush or Democratic hopeful Michael Dukakis as president of the United States. “The one I would back would lose,” Gadhafi said laughing. lof'' Holiday weekend accidents claim at least 24 including police officer Traffic accidents on Texas roads killed at least 24 people during the three-day Labor Day week end, including a longtime Garland policeman who was one of four to die in motorcycle acci dents. The Texas Department of Public Safety has es timated that at as many as 35 people will die be fore the fatality count ends at midnight Monday. The count began at 6 p.m. Friday. Last year, 26 people died in Texas during the same period. Eugene V. Fuller, 48, a longtime Garland offi cer, was killed at 4:49 p.m. Sunday when his mo torcycle was struck by a car in the 3400 block of Bobtown Road in Garland. Fuller was off duty at the time. Two people were killed shortly after 4 a.m. Monday when Israel Antonio Martinez, 28, of Port Isabel, lost control of his car and it left the road. Martinez, and a passenger, Angela Danielle Nevils, 24, of South Padre Island, both died when they were thrown out of their car just north of South Padre Island in Cameron County. Nei ther was wearing a seat belt. David Wayne Thomas, 29, of Plano, died early Saturday after his car was hit by a car coming out of a private drive in the 9700 block of Harry Hines Blvd. in Dallas. Police said Thomas was thrown from his vehicle. Louis Garza, 19, of Harris County, died of in juries suffered when the pickup in which he was riding struck a brick mailbox. Garza’s arm was severed and he suffered head lacerations in the accident which occurred about 7 p.m Sunday on Grace Lane in Harris County. The truck’s driver was in stable condition, offi cials said. Joan Hansen, 48, of Houston, died Sunday when the car in which she was riding collided with another vehicle at a Houston intersection. Irma Marie Cabasas, 18, also of Houston, was killed Sunday afternoon in Houston when the car in which she was riding collided with a bus and hit a traffic signal pole. Corey Box, 4, of Pecos, died Monday of inju ries suffered Sunday in a single-vehicle rollover on Farm-Market Road 869 10 miles south of In terstate 20 in Reeves County. Baylor students Ronald Hugh Morris, 21, of Conway, Ark., and Elizabeth Lynn Munson, 20, of Houston, were killed Sunday about U/s miles east of Robinson in McLennan County, said DPS spokesman Tom Mobley. Morris and Munson were riding a motorcycle on Loop 340 when the vehicle changed lanes and was struck by an approaching car, Mobley said. A Pottsboro motorcyclist was killed about Sun day in a collision on a farm-to-market road near Sherman. Authorities identified the victim as 22- year-old Darren Ray Carpenter. Two people were killed in a head-on crash at 4:30 a.m. Sunday south of Floresville. Jimmy K. Payne, 39, of Poth was killed when his south bound vehicle veered into the northbound lane and struck another vehicle, officials said. Gardenia S. Hetzer, 34, of San Antonio, who was in the northbound vehicle, also was killed in the accident, which occurred on U.S. Highway 181 in Wilson. In Longview, Jimmie Wayne Gibson, 39, was standing by a parked vehicle when he was struck and killed by another vehicle about five miles west of Hawkins at 2:55 a.m. Sunday. Ten others, including three pedestrians, were killed earlier in the weekend, DPS officials said. Silver Taps honors deceased students The solemn sound of buglers playing “Taps” and the sharp ring of gunfire will be heard on campus tonight as eight Texas A&M students who died during the summer months are honored in a Silver Taps ceremony at 10:30 in front of the Academic Build ing. The deceased students being hon ored are: • Srinivas Yimada- battuni Rao, 19, a junior chemistry major from Temple, who died April 14. • Kevin Joseph Creel, 21, a junior civil engi neering major from Ar lington, who died April . 30. • Scott Michael Star ling, 29, a graduate student in wildlife and fisheries science from College Station, who died May 28. •Bryan Scott Munson, 21, a junior physical education major from Spring, who died June 17. • Manuel Martinez Jr., 19, a sophomore general studies major from San Antonio, who died July 20. • Robert Franklin Kruse, 44, a graduate student in educational curriculum and instruction from College Station, who died July 30. • William Craig Calk, 23, a se nior journalism major from Cuero, who died Aug. 5. • William Morris Hostetler, 22, a senior wildlife and fisheries science major from Blanco, who died Aug. 24. Dating back almost a century, the stately tradition of Silver Taps is practiced on the first Tuesday of each month from September through April, when necessary. The names of the deceased stu dents are posted at the base of the flag pole in front of the Academic Building, and the flag is flown at half-mast the day of the cere mony. Lights will be extinguished and the campus hushed as Aggies pay final tribute to fellow Aggies. The Ross Volunteer Firing Squad begins the ceremony, marching in slow cadence toward the statue of Lawrence Sullivan Ross. Shortly after, three volleys are fired in a 21-gun salute and six buglers play a special arrange ment of “Taps” three times — to the north, south and west.