6
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World ^Nation
Friday, June 7,1991
Astronauts face spacewalk
Engineers may leave shuttle
House saves space station,
grants $2 billion in funding
CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. (AP) — NASA
told Columbia's astronauts Thursday they
may have to make an emergency spacewalk
as early as this weekend to nx a loose seal on
the space shuttle's cargo bay doors.
A special team of engineers was conduct
ing tests to determine whether the flapping
weatherstripping will prevent the doors
from closing tightly at the end of the mis
sion.
"There are no real concerns that we
couldn't today, right now, if we needed to,
crush that seal and latch the doors down,"
NASA flight director Randy Stone said. "But
it's always the better part of valor to analyze
things in their entirety and understand all of
the options you have in front of you, and
that's what we're doing."
The engineers planned to duplicate the
problem Friday on the shuttle Discovery at
Kennedy Space Center.
Stone said a spacewalk, if necessary, prob
ably wouldn't occur before Sunday. The like
liest day would be Tuesday, a slow research
day that would have the least impact on
medical work being conducted by the astro
nauts, he said.
Two of the seven astronauts — Tamara Jer-
nigan and James Bagian — are trained to per
form spacewalking repairs, including man
ual closing of the two cargo bay doors.
Bagian, a physician, is one of four medical
specialists on board who are conducting
blood tests and other experiments on one an
other.
The 60-foot-long cargo bay doors must be
closed tightly for Columbia to safely make
the fiery re-entry through the atmosphere
June 14, after a nine-day mission. Otherwise,
the ship could bum up.
Before a spacewalk, the crew probably
would be asked to try closing the cargo bay
doors, although that could cause more prob
lems, Stone said. He said any spacewalk
would be short and relatively simple — ei
ther trying to put the seal back in place or
clipping off the loose part.
Television images sent down shortly after
Columbia reached orbit Wednesday showed
two crooked strips of reinforced rubber pro
truding from the edge of the doors. Several
white blankets of insulation also came loose
in the payload bay. Stone said the two prob
lems probably were related, possibly caused
by the rush of trapped cargo bay air into the
vacuum of space.
"It's all part of that same phenomenon
that's disturbing those blankets back there,"
Stone said.
The four medical specialists drew more
blood, breathed gases from a pipe and
donned pressure-monitoring collars Thurs
day as they circled the world in the most
elaborate medical clinic ever sent into space.
It is the first shuttle mission devoted to un
derstanding how the body adjusts to weight
lessness. Also aboard were laboratory rats
and jellyfish.
Despite the medical team's expertise with
needles, the blood collection took a little
longer than expected.
"It's still running a little ragged because
WASHINGTON (AP) — The
House rescued the embattled
space station Thursday, voting to
spend nearly $2 billion next year
on NASA's centerpiece program
well into the 21st Century.
By a vote of 240-173, the House
agreed to give President Bush $1.9
billion that the space agency re
quested for the fiscal year that be
gins Oct. 1. The money will be
taken mostly from other NASA
programs.
"If we aim to become a second-
class nahon, then we should go
ahead and kill the space program,
kill the space station and kill it all,"
said Rep. Jack Brooks, D-Texas.
The impassioned debate lasted
six hours. Republicans, prodded
by the Bush administration, voted
for the station, 133-27 while Dem
ocrats split 145-107 against.
A beaming NASA Administra
tor Richard Truly cautioned that
much work remained before a fi
nal 1992 budget for space emerges.
While the space station would
get nearly all the money the
agency sought, the money would
have to be trimmed from other
NASA programs in science, tech
nology, aerodynamics and the
like. "It would oe a very, very dif
ficult problem for us," Truly said.
But he expressed hope that the
Senate, which has yet to act on the
measure, will come to NASA's
aid. Salvaging the space station
was the most important issue, he
said.
Advocates of the space station
invoked the names of space pi
oneer Wemher von Braun, the
moon program, the Bible, "Neil
Armstrong's Spirit," Daniel
Webster and Star Trek.
They warned that America's
manned space program would
end in mid-decade if the project
were cancelled and that America's
young people would turn from sci
ence and engineering education
without a big goal to shoot for.
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Presidential panel
considers closing
of military bases
Judge denies court ordered continuation
of tube feedings to brain-damaged patient
WASHINGTON (AP) — A pres
idential commission opened pub
lic deliberations Thursday on the
process of choosing which military
installations to close across the
country.
"This is an experimentation in
open
govern
ment," said Jim
Courier, a for
mer New Jersey
congressman
who heads the
seven-member
Defense Base
Closure and Re
alignment Com
mission. Jim Courter, com-
Base closings mission head, said
have attracted a final list will be
widespread at- ready June 18.
tention because
military installations play an im
portant economic role in their
communities. Members of Con
gress and local activists have lob
bied to keep their bases open.
The panel's process of targeting
bases got off to a slow start as
members quizzed commission
staff members about the merits of
individual Air Force bases. The
panel will look later at the other
services.
Courter said there was no
timetable on when the panel
would make its decisions, but
public hearings are scheduled
Thursday and Friday. The com
mission's objective is to "whittle
down and pare down" the list.
The panel stopped work Thurs
day without making any decisions
about bases.
The deliberations culminate two -
months of work during which
panel members held public meet
ings around the counhy and vis
ited bases.
Courter said he hoped a final list
would be finished by June 18.
Under law, the panel must pre
sent its target list to President
Bush by July 1. The president and
Congress must then approve the
list as a total package.
Panel members are looking clo
sely at 79 facilities: 43 targeted by
Defense Secretary Dick Cheney
and 36 added by the commission
as alternatives.
Among the major bases on the
commission's list are five of the
Navy's home ports: Staten Island,
N.Y.; Pascagoula, Miss.; Mobile,
Ala.; Everett, Wash.; and Ingle-
side, Texas.
The list also includes the Long
Beach Naval Shipyard in Califor
nia, Fort Drum in New York and
Fort Richardson in Alaska.
Cheney's list includes Carswell
Air Force Base in Fort Worth,
Texas, and the Army's Fort Dix in
Wrightstown, N.J.; and Fort Ord
in Seaside, Calif.
Two Pennsylvania lawmakers
— Democratic Rep. Tom Foglietta
and Republican Sen. Arlen Specter
— said Thursday that Cheney
overrode a Navy memo that rec
ommended keeping open the Phil
adelphia Naval Shipyard.
"Two weeks before Secretary
Cheney released his base closure
report, the Navy's experts said to
keep the yard open," Foglietta
said, adding that the memo was
written by the Naval Sea Systems
Command.
NOBLESVILLE, Ind. (AP) — A
judge denied a request Wednes
day to extend a court order that re
sumed tube feedings to a brain
damaged woman whose parents
want to let her die.
Superior Court Judge Jerry Barr
denied the request from the Na
tional Legal Center for the Medi
cally Dependent and Disabled,
whose attorneys are trying to have
the feedings permanently restored
to Sue Ann Lawrance.
A lawyer for the center, Mary
Nimz, said it will ask the Indiana
Court of Appeals, perhaps as early
as Thursday, to continue the feed
ing order while the case is ap
pealed.
Lawrance's parents obtained an
order from Barr last month allow
ing them to end her feedings, but
he later ordered the feedings to re
sume for 21 days —until Saturday
— pending an appeal.
The center needs more time to
prepare an appeal, Nimz said.
Without an extension, the Law
rance family could withdraw food
and water again, she said.
"I'm hopeful the Court of Ap
peals will recognize the serious
ness of this case and want to make
sure that her condition remains
stable until all the legal issues have
been completely resolved," Nimz
said.
Lawrance, 42, of Indianapolis,
who has had brain damage since
childhood, was left in a persistent
vegetative state in 1987, when she
fell from her wheelchair.
Her parents, William and Bonita
Lawrance, have said their daugh
ter would be better off dead. Law
rance went without nourishment
from May 3 to May 17 after Barr or
dered feedings to resume tempo
rarily.
Because Lawrance became re
tarded while still a child, her case
is different from the landmark case
of Nancy Cruzan, the brain-dam
aged Missouri woman who died
last year.
The U.S. Supreme Court ruled
that Missouri officials could block
the removal Cruzan's feeding tube
unless there was "clear and con
vincing" evidence she wouldn't
want to be kept alive. Her parents
provided the evidence, and her
feeding tube was removed.
Secured
health-care
insurance
proposed
Employees protected
WASHINGTON (AP) — Senate
Democratic leaders on Wednesday
proposed legislation to guarantee
oasic health-care
insurance for all
Americans by
requiring em
ployers to pay
Farmers angry, blame USD A for problems
into a govern
ment-sponsored
plan if they
don't offer their
Weather kills harvests
WASHINGTON (AP) — Rep. Kika de la Garza
chastised Agriculture Department officials Thursday
for not responding to approaching disaster for
wheat and cotton farmers on the parched High
Plains and rice farmers in the muddied fields along
the Coastal Bend.
"Y'all ought to be out there hustling," said a
clearly frustrated de la Garza, chairman of the House
Agriculture Committee. "I know the system is not
responding to the immediate need."
De la Garza, a Mission Democrat, said farmers in
half of the nation's 3,000 counties face problems due
to extreme weather.
"We have to respond. Or do you only act when
it's on the 6 o'clock news," de la Garza told several
high-ranking USDA officials during a hearing on
troubles facing farmers from Minnesota to the Rio
Grande.
But Rep. Glenn English, D-Okla., said that despite
a disastrous year for wheat farmers on the High
Plains of Oklahoma and Texas, it's too early to
"point the finger" at the USDA.
Agency officials also said it was too early to assess
whether the nation's farmers face full-blown disas
ter.
"It may not be the proper time for USDA to say a
disaster situation justifies emergency provisions of
the law or not," English said. In Western Oklahoma,
however, "we've got a disaster and a pretty serious
one, but we don't know the true extent. ... It'll be a
greater disaster than we anticipate today."
English said some farmers may not even harvest
their wheat this year because there is not enough to
start the combines.
"The timing of these disasters could hardly come
at a worse time when grain prices are the lowest in
recent memory, production costs are up, and agri
cultural lenders are becoming more reluctant to pro
vide financial credit to farmers," English said.
New York City passes tough rights bill
NEW YORK (AP) — The City Council on Wednesday passed a
civil rights bill described as one of the toughest in the nation, but
the lone dissenter argued it would encourage racial quotas.
The measure, approved 34-1, shifts to the employer the burden
of proving that employment tests don't discriminate if one group of
individuals — such as women or racial minorities — fails at a dis-
^ro^orhonately high rate. It also provides for civil fines of up to
"While the bill speaks of no quotas ... it nevertheless shifts the
burden on the small business owner to provide the mechanism for
the legal process in proving their hiring practices," said Fred Ce-
rullo of Staten Island, the only Republican in the legislative body,
who also cast the only dissenting vote.
Interior minister questions defector's death
SOFIA, Bulgaria (AP) — The
Bulgarian interior minister said
Wednesday he is convinced that
Bulgarian secret police killed a
prominent defector who was
stabbed with a poison-tipped um
brella in London in 1978.
Two British intelligence officials,
meanwhile, arrived Wednesday
with their files to work with Bul
garian investigators, the state
news agency BTA said.
The murder of the writer and
journalist Georgi Markov has
never been solved, but British in
vestigators long have suspected
that Bulgarian agents carried out
the deed.
"No one can ever convince me
that writer Georgi Markov was not
assassinated by the Bulgarian se
cret services," Interior Minister
Hristo Danov told BTA.
Last month. Deputy Premier Di-
mitar Ludzhev told The Asso
ciated Press that the case was "ty
pical of political terrorism," and
said he was certain the former Bul
garian secret service had had a
hand in the murder.
Ludzhev is co-chairman of a
government commission review
ing the activities of the Bulgarian
secret police under Communist
rule.
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BUAD 489: Issues in International Business (CR 3)
ARTS 350: Art History (CR 3)
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Intro, to Marketing (CR 3)
• Program Faculty from the College of Business:
Steve Salter, 845-1498, 525N Blocker,
Arvind Mahajan, 845-4876, 333F Blocker,
Sam Gillespie, 845-5861, 623B Blocker,
Study Abroad Office, 161 W. Bizzell Hall, 845-0544
own.
The program
is designed to George Mitchell
protect an esti- co-sponsors a bill
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people who now health care plan,
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insurance. Two-thirds of them are
workers or their dependents. And
most have incomes above the fed
eral poverty line and hence don't
qualify for Medicaid, the health
care program for the poor.
"Access to affordable, quality
health care should be a right for ail
Americans, not merely a luxury
for those who have the economic
means to purchase health insuran
ce," said Senate Majority Leader
George Mitchell, D-Maine. Other
co-sponsors were Edward M. Ken
nedy of Massachusetts, Donald
Riegle of Michigan and Jay Rocke
feller of West Virginia.
The program, which would re
place about half of the $60-billion,
federal-state Medicaid program,
was estimated by sponsors to cost
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$6 billion the first year. Medicaid
would continue to provide long
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But sponsors said that cost-con
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gram would actually save the na
tion $78 billion over five years in
combined public and private
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plementing new fee guidelines
and cracking down on unneces
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Employers, meanwhile, would
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