Image provided by: Texas A&M University
About The Battalion. (College Station, Tex.) 1893-current | View Entire Issue (Dec. 2, 1997)
N The Battalion ATION ^iay • December 2, 1997 pa approves second spacewalk space-station equipment PE CANAVERAL, Fla. (AP) — stronauts will go on a second walk Wednesday to conduct d space station tests that had scrapped because of last 3 satellite rescue. iSA managers on Monday >ved the five-hour space- for the crew of space shuttle nbia. It will be NASA’s last iwalk before construction isliext summer on the in- tional space station, we don’t take advantage of Tportunity here, the next time ) it we’ll be doing it for real,” v’slicting chief of spacewalk cts Gregory Harbaugh, told :ew earlier in the day. nong other things, the space cy weighed the risk inherent y spacewalk and also looked iether the mission might have ; extended to allow enough for the extra work. As it turns an additional day was not ed. \SA says it needs all the space- ing experience it can get be- attempting to build the in itio nal space station. It will five years to assemble; once pleted, it will be almost as long idjwider than a football field will weigh 1 million pounds, merican astronauts will have induct more than 1,150 hours of spacewalks to assemble and maintain the station during the first five years. Russian cosmo nauts will perform half that amount. “It sure would be nice to take advantage of being up here now with guys who have already worked with the equipment before we have to do it on station,” said shuttle commander Kevin Kregel. The No. 1 priority for Columbia’s spacewalkers will be to conduct more tests with an extendible, 17 1/2-foot crane, a prototype of what will fly on the international space station. Astronaut Winston Scott had trouble latching a large box onto the end of the crane during his Nov. 24 spacewalk with Japan’s Takao Doi. He ended up having to squeeze the two objects together like a sandwich — a technique that may not always work on the in ternational space station. “We want to come out of this mission with a clear understanding of whether we have a design prob lem ... or whether we have a system that we just needed to learn a little bit more about how to use,” Har baugh explained. Scott and Doi never got a chance to lift a relatively small ob ject with the crane or try out a free- flying robotic camera, also planned for use on the international space station. They will try to squeeze in both during Wednesday’s outing. The crane—especially important to station construction and mainte nance —- was supposed to be tested by another set of spacewalkers in No vember 1996. The hatch on Colum bia jammed, however, and the astro nauts never got outside. This time, a runaway satellite interfered. Scott and Doi had to catch the $10 million Spartan science satellite be fore conducting any station tests. The satellite never got a key computer command before being released from Columbia on Nov. 21 and promptly malfunctioned. To make matters worse, the crew’s attempt to capture the satellite with the shuttle robot arm sent the craft into a slow spin. After grabbing Spartan with their gloved hands, Scott and Doi spent what was left of their seven- and-one-half hour spacewalk working with the crane and a large, batterylike object, and conducting some other station experiments. The tests left space station de signers hungry for more. “We feel like there is some more money to be made here,” Harbaugh told Columbia’s six astronauts. When he asked whether they thought a sec ond spacewalk would be worth “all this time and trouble,” they replied with a definitive yes. tCHITECTURE :inued from Page 1 IKS Architects believes very igly in the close link between Drofessional side and acade- and tries to maintain a men- ig relationship with stu- s,” Skaggs said. “For years, we ; had ongoing projects with College of Architecture. We t the class with a client. )ugh such projects, the stu- Tearn teamwork and strong imunication skills, since they to identify and meet the needs of an actual client.” George J. Mann, the Ronald L. Sk aggs Endowed Professor of Health Fa cilities Design at A&M, directed the project which brings students togeth er with possible employers. “The students worked hard,” Mann said. “They learned teamwork and to help each other. The hospital gets ideas from the students and the architecture firm identifies students for future employment.” LouAnn Kirkpatrick, a senior en vironmental design major, said her group spent around $500 on the project, including $ 100 on pictures. “When it’s all said and done, you forget how much you paid,” Kirkpatrick said. “Fve learned it really doesn’t matter the design process you go through to com plete the project. The final result is what counts.” Dr. Kaname Yanagisawa, a post doctoral fellow in the College of Ar chitecture, helped the students on the medical facility design. “The project is huge and com plicated,” Yanagisawa said. “I think it is a challenging project and a good opportunity for stu dents. There was a great effort from students, and they did an excellent job.” values! Store Hours: *°n. - Thurs.: 8 a.m. - 6 p.m. ‘ r '-: 8 a.m. - 5 p.m. 10 a.m. - 5 p.m. We have something for everyone on your list! Your on-campus bookstore is a great place to start your holiday shopping Right now, we're featuring special purchases for a limited time.., so come down and check it out! E V C £ P T Memorial Student Center 845-8681 of the SEASON! Boll-weevil biology continues to baffle farmers, researchers AUSTIN (AP) —They are rather comical-looking, these quarter- inch-long insects of song and sor row. But they are more likely to move Texas cotton farmers to tears than to laughter. Big-bottomed and long-snouted, the cotton boll weevil looks too un gainly to fly. Yet there is evidence that the yellowish-brown or gray mem bers of the beetle family can fly high enough to hitch long-distance rides on prevailing winds. Mary Ann Rankin speculates the unknown migrate ly patterns of these tropical pests that destroy millions of dollars’ worth of cotton each year in the Americas could be a main reason periodic claims of their impending eradication have proved premature. Rankin, a University of Texas professor of entomology and dean of UT’s College of Natural Sciences, is a pioneer in the physiology of the bugs, which are believed to have en tered the United States through Texas, flying across the Rio Grande from Mexico in 1892. Despite decades of research into controlling them, Rankin says their migratory patterns, life cycle and re production, and their relationship to each other remain poorly understood. “Very little had ever been done with that,” she said. “We had to start from scratch.” Chemical pesticide-based erad ication programs from North Car olina to southern California — and increasingly in Brazil and other South American countries — large ly ignore or dismiss the possible role of migration in boll weevil popula tion dynamics, Rankin said. She has found that it may be par ticularly important in midsummer when weevil population densities are high and their urge to migrate seems to be strong. But cotton growers have to focus on their immediate problems. “Either you get rid of (them), or you get out of the cotton business,” said John Norman, a Texas A&M University entomologist. Adult weevils relentiessly destroy cotton by boring into its seedpods, or bolls, and laying eggs in the hole. Hatching weevil larvae feed on the “Either you get rid of (them), or you get out of the cotton business.” JOHN NORMAN TEXAS A&M ENTOMOLOGIST bolls from the inside. North American cotton produc ers lose an estimated $350 million a year in reduced yields and in spend ing on insecticides and other pesti cides. Even heavy use isn’t always ef fective, sometimes triggering new outbreaks of crop destruction by killing natural enemies of other pests. Some weevils also have evolved re sistance to the sprays. Investigating weevil biology to find ways to use it against them is an increasingly popular scientific alternative. Scientists at Texas Tech Universi ty in Lubbock, for instance, are ex perimenting with insect viruses that kill boll weevils by arresting their de velopment from larvae into adults. This fall, the Texas Advanced Re search/Advanced Technology pro gram, an annual statewide compe tition for up to $60 million in research money, awarded Rankin $181,447 to continue her research. She plans to work with special ists at Texas A&M University and the University of California to clone boll weevil genes that regu late the production of an enzyme called juvenile hormone esterase. Using the cloned gene to make more of the enzyme than can be obtained from the bugs them selves, she will pursue evidence that it is critical to boll weevil re production and, possibly, long distance flight. Her goal is to find ways to reduce the 10 percent or so of the bugs now estimated to survive each winter in a form of insect hibernation called dia pause. Their reproduction in the spring begins the annual assault on cotton crops. Because juvenile hormone es terase plays a major role in diapause, Rankin wants to develop a test for its presence. A test would help target the insects most likely to survive dia pause to explore the use of proteins, hormones and growth regulators to disrupt their ability to reproduce. But her research suggests that whatever method works best, it will have to be universally applied. Con trol of boll weevils in one place may be impossible as long as potential weevil migrants are thriving elsewhere in the hemisphere. “They’ll just re-infest us each year,” Rankin said. Editor Continued from Page 1 “When I started, The Battalion was printed on cam pus,” she said. “We had to do paste-ups in the back. Cartoons and ads were not done on computers then.” Inbody also has been night news editor and man aging editor at The Battalion. Clancy, who worked with Inbody on the night news desk in Fall 1996, said Inbody is easy to work with, or ganized and confident. “She’s one of the few people I’ve seen that hasn’t lost her cool,” Clancy said. “No matter what is going on around her, she’s always calm and collected.” Dr. Charles Self, head of the journalism depart ment and chair of the student publications board, said Inbody has strong ideas about the future of The Battalion. “She will help The Battalion move forward in a good direction,” he said. “She has good leadership qualities. She inspired confidence in the board.” W Boots tKt> tm wsn VO PWMfvtf, vo ivlWKI MB w &WS I wit M lift m OfL/ villi lift tfMS to* MStflWMfl® ISP W tfMS AM MBHK HAStfMAlM® At tlfHt»A$ AM ftfl«$totf, frtvff $ioo 0* Boots AVO Otlfft COOL Stltf AV9 /0M PtlteifASF IS ivtftfSt AvP pA/HKt Wi Mil M BA/S! flv!t its t’Mfr to PA/ Hilt /OtB Boots, itS PBAftiOAUU/ fWt to Stlil tut* BAtt! Wvt wvf W tfMS AM