The Battalion Wednesday - July 23,199 Letting go of the wheel Experimenters test automated highway SAN DIEGO (AP) — The nation’s first stretch of automated highway that enables computers to do the driving for you made its debut Tuesday and was proudly declared by its creators to be “really dull.” Once the computer takes over, drivers can take their hands off the steering wheel, their feet off the pedals and their eyes off the road. “It’s really exciting for about the first 15 seconds, then it gets really dull,” said Jim Killings of the National Automated High way System Consortium. “It’s like driving with a chauffeur. You just sit back and let your mind wander.” Tuesday’s test was purely a demonstration, a glimpse of the future. The specially equipped cars necessary are not even avail able to the public. The prototype highway should be running by 2002, but the location has not yet been selected. Test vehicles equipped with video cameras, magnets and radar navigated down the na tion’s first 7.6 miles of experimental automat ed highway on Interstate 15. Tiny magnets embedded in the asphalt on either side of traffic lanes at four-foot in tervals enable the magnetized vehicle to constantly orient itself within the lane’s boundaries. The dozen cars and buses in the demon stration project are equipped with one-inch video cameras on their rearview mirrors or windshields that follow visual aids along the road. Those could be cement barriers or even deep tracks in a snowy road. There is no price tag for the project, but its supporters insist it will save millions of feder al dollars because it relies on existing infra structure and eliminates the need for build ing more freeway lanes. Among the partners working to develop the technology as members of the National Automated Highway System Consortium are General Motors, Lockheed Martin and Carnegie Mellon University. Its genesis was a 1991 federal law that em powered the Transportation Department to develop “fully automated, intelligent vehicle highway systems.” It would cost less than $ 10,000 to equip one mile of freeway with the new technology, compared with anywhere from $1 million to $ 100 million to build one mile of new highway, said Dick Bishop, a Transportation Depart ment spokesman. But will car-dependent Americans be will ing to hand over control to a computer? “We talked to older drivers, and they said it’s because they’ve seen so many technolog ical changes in their life, they’re used to it,” Killings said. “I don’t know, maybe younger people still think driving’s fun.” jfVRk Mir crew begins to prepare for return MOSCOW (AP) — At long last, the crew of the Mir space station spent a quiet day in orbit Tues day, beginning preparations for a long goodbye from the space craft after a wild and unforget table ride. Russia’s defense minister, Igor Sergeyev, said the crew had “set the record for the number of troubles that have occurred,” but praised them for their per severance. Another top defense official was even more upbeat. “One should learn to benefit from any trouble,” Defense Council Secretary Yuri Baturin said, “and a failure in orbit prompts creation of absolutely new, unique technology at the cosmonauts’ training center.” The ITAR-Tass news agency, which reported the remarks, said Baturin didn’t say what technology he had in mind. However, he added, rather mys teriously, “When our crew tests it, we will be its sole owners.” Any tests of new technology will no doubt be left to the next Mir crew, which has been charged with repairing the dam age the current crew incurred when a cargo ship plowed into the space station on June 25. The new team, which blasts off on Aug. 5 and arrives Aug. 7, is also planning a second space- walk outside the station to lo cate and survey the hole. TRY THESE TASTE-TEMPTING m\( V( r ^ ('( >( )D SPECIALS Buy one entree and get a second entree of equal or lesser value FREE! (Good only Sun.-Thurs. from 5pm - closing) not valid with any other offer, expires 08/31/97. (Closed Mondays) 308 N. Main, Bryan 779-8702 Long John ALL you can eat Fish or Chicken. $ 3.99 8081 Texas Ave. College Station and 3224 S. Texas Ave. Bryan We accept checks. PoPcOrN Munchers Sun.thru Weds, (all day long) S 1.79 i#' FIRE SOUTHWBSTEM FOOD July Delivery Special Delivery Daily: 11:00 - 1:00 5:00 - 9:00 2 Pizzas & 2 Soft Drinks $ 11.95 Choose from any of our wood-fired pizzas. 764-8717 1 905 Texas Ave., South Protestant leader withdraws from peace talks with IRA BELFAST, Northern Ireland (AP) — Northern Ireland’s most hard-line Protestant leader, saying the Irish Republican Army’s new cease-fire doesn’t offer any real concessions, declared hope for peace talks “dead in the water” Tuesday. The Rev. Ian Paisley, leader of the Democratic Unionist Party, said after meeting Prime Minister Tony Blair in London that his government was “a slave to the blackmail of IRA violence.” The IRA-allied Sinn Fein party “has made it clear that they’re not giving up a bullet, and that they’re not giving up their commitment to get the British out of Ireland,” Paisley said in a telephone interview with The Associated Press. “And that means tliey want to get me out of Ireland because I’m a Britisher. They’re not giving up anything!” Paisley vowed he would never sit down with Sinn Fein. Blair has invited the party to join peace talks when they resume in earnest Sept. 15 if the IRA cease-fire that began Sunday holds until then. Paisley’s intransigence and other protests from inside Protes tant ranks are heaping pressure on David Trimble, leader of the Ul ster Unionists—Northern Ireland’s largest Protestant party—who thus far is still committed to the talks. Paisley urged all politicians determined to maintain North ern Ireland’s union with Britain to withdraw from the talks be fore Sinn Fein arrives. “You can’t write me out of the picture, because I speak for the vast majority of unionist people in Northern Ireland,” he said. ■'**»*