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The University Daily
University of Kansas Lawrence, Kansas
KANSAN
Monday, April 13, 1981 Vol. 91, No. 131 USPS 650-640
Columbia's launch is picture-perfect
By United Press International
CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. — Astronaut John W. Young and Robert L. Craiman, starting the maiden voyage of their orbital freighter Columbia with the most spectacular manned blast-off Americans have ever seen, set out thereby to prove space travel can become routine.
In a late afternoon television show beamed to earth, Young said the revolutionary reusable spacecraft the size of a small airliner was performing "much better than anyone ever expected on a first flight . . . like a champ," despite several nagging problems.
As thousands jammed the spaceport area and millions more watched on television, the space shuttle offed the launch pad on a brilliant Florida morning. Its five rocket engines, belching orange flame, blanketed the Cape with crackles thunder and a twisting trail of clouds.
Within 45 minutes, Young and Crippen were in orbit for the first time, Young for the fifth.
THEY WERE HEADED toward an airplane-style landing, the first ever for a manned spacecraft.
About 7 p.m. CST, the pilots put on blindfolds, plugged their ears and settled into their seats for some well-deserved sleep after a demanding 17-hour day.
The shuttle, America's spacecraft of the fureur, is designed to take even non-astronauts into orbit and to fly as often as every two weeks, hauling freight and passengers.
Young and Crippen found their first day filled
with test-pilot trouble-shooting. Mission control the problems as "little nits."
Otherwise, the mission that was included in piece because of computer trouble was pieced together.
THE THIN INSULATING tiles that torte off maneuvering rocket pods on either side of Columbia's tail during launch posed no threat, because they were needed primarily to protect against takeoff heat. Analysis in mission control opposed no other, more vital tiles likely were lost.
Once in orbit, the astronauts fired the shuttle's maneuvering rockets four times over a period of six hours to nudge their craft, step by careful step, into an orbit ranging between 169.7 and 171.7 miles high. They planned to remain there, circling the globe at 17,500 mph, until re-entry.
The astronauts, particularly Crippen, obviously were enjoying their trip.
The Soviet news agency Tass responded to Columbia's flight by denouncing the shuttle as a military vehicle that would carry the arms race into orbit. A Russian trawer floated near the solid-booster recovery area, about 170 miles east of the coast where it was shot away by a Coast Guard cutter.
Tass said the space shuttle was a creature of the Pentagon that would be testing a laser weapon guidance system and eventually launch-ship satellites into orbit.
Space Agency officials say success on this mission could let Columbia and three sister ships—Challenger, Discovery, and Atlantis—fly as often as every two weeks by the mid-1800s.
They would carry scientists into orbit, haul up new unmanned satellites and retrieve old,
MARK MCDONALD/Kansan staff
Windy and warm temperatures brought everybody out to the tennis courts last week, including people like Gary Eubank, Lawrence graduate student, who took time off from studying to relax with some outdoor activity.
Resident holds vigil against repository
By ROB STROUD Staff Reporter
But he doesn't think that's likely.
ELMDALE—MaC Dowell wishes he were wrong. He yarns to wake up one morning without the shadow that has hung over his rural utopia the last two years.
Every day, this latter-day Paul Revere continues his one-man crusade from his peaceful Elmldale home to warn Kansans of coming danger in the form of nuclear waste canisters.
BUT SO FAR, McDowell has been frustrated by the results of his crusade.
"I think this story is bigger than any job," he said. "So I'd just as soon tune pianos and keep the music running."
The former reporter and press secretary for Gov. Robert Docking now tunes钢琴 to earn a living while working four to six hours a day in a job with high-level nuclear waste being stored in Kansas.
But McDowell, who has devoted two years toward researching the situation and has stockpiled hundreds of government documents, said that not enough people had needed his assistance.
McDowell said the U.S. government planned to establish a national repository for high-level radioactive waste in the Lyons salt mines, 180 miles west of Lawrence and 300 miles west of
"A lot of times people have problems they don't think they can deal with, they try to avoid it," he said. "I just want people to know what's going on."
But he hasn't received much support. "I'm just one, yahoo out here in the middle of it," she said.
McDOWELL SAID that the government is lying when it said it is not considering locating the repository in the Lyons mines, which the
government shut down in 1948 to conduct radioactive waste storage testing.
"The government set Lyons aside in 14B and has been waiting on it ever since," he said. "You keep coming back to the same thing, they've only got data for one site."
McDowell also has that data.
Using the Freedom of Information Act, McDowell obtained designs from government contractors for the national repository, which will house the highly radioactive waste produced by all the commercial nuclear plants in the nation.
the designs are all based on a research
Monday Morning
"They've spent 20 years researching Lyons," McDowell said. "They don't have time to research anyplace else."
project, Project Salt Vault, done at the Lyons site during the 1960s.
GOVERNMENT ESTIMATES show that in four years, 24 commercial nuclear plants will have exceeded the temporary storage facilities now holding their waste.
McDowell has presented his documents to several state legislators, who have been impressed by his arguments, but have not formally investigated McDowell's claims.
McDowell has a wife and three children, and said that they considered giving up his wifey's upward trajectory.
"I'd be ticked to death if they'd fully in-
terrogated me, or not one totally wrong," he
said. "I wilt it wanna it."
"You can give it up," he said. "I have a dozen
options. You don't go away. It's very
frustrating."
And it's all the more frustrating for McDowell
because he sees his peaceful life disrupted by the possibility of the Lyons project.
ONE BLOCK from McDowell's house, where his 4-year-old daughter pauses to play with her kittens, a train rumbles toward Lyons.
McDowell says that 90 percent of the Lyons are to be transported by train, most of it coming from Florida.
"I spent fuel trains are coming through every day, I won't want to live here." The words stick to Clowell's throat, he said he liked living in New York, where his number of about 10 in which he had lived since 1971.
"We finally got the place paid for," he says. "It was a kind of living, and it's a good place to raise the kids."
McDowell steps outside to survey his one-acre lot, filled with ducks and hens and vegetable gardens. He lammets the changing times—the closing of the old schoolhouse, the decline of his former profession of reporting and most of all, the dangers of nuclear radiation.
"Sometimes I think I was aborn about 100 years too late," he said. "I wish I had lived in quiet times. I would prefer not to live in the atomic age.
"But there are no options."
MCDOWELL CONTINUES to gather information, "I get a couple of documents every day," he said. And he continues to try to warn Kansans that the repository is coming.
The New York Times and CBS's 60 Minutes
contacted McDowell several times about his
breathtaking novel.
The U.S. Department of Energy has also shown interest in McDowell's claims, and denies considering the Lyons site for its repository. The U.S. Department of Agriculture ways to store the waste other than in salt beds.
U.S. Sens. Bob Dole and Nancy Kassebaum,
both Kansas Republicans, have also denied
See McDOWELL page 5
Employee complaints a factor in cleaning service dismissal
By BRIAN LEVINSON
Staff Reporter
AMS was forced to phase out its operation after employee complaints forced KU administrators to reconsider the merits of the company. The company run its housekeeping operation.
KANSAS CITY, Kan — American Management Services left the University of Kansas Medical Center at the beginning of this year, where housekeeping operation there for four years.
While AMS was still at the Med Center, housekeeping employees alleged that they were harassed and denied their rights by housekeeping supervisors.
AMS is gone but the problems may remain.
AMS is gone but the problems may remain. IN A PETITION presented to KU administrators last fall, faculty at their institutions used employee counseling forms, commonly called write-ups, and threats of dismissals to harass the employees.
Last week the Kansan learned that seven employees in the Facilities Operations department at the Med Center had filed discrimination complaints against their supervisors with the Department of Employment Protection Commission. The EEC is still investigating six of those complaints.
The housekeeping employees also alleged that housekeeping administrators violated equal treatment regulations and punished them with punitive benefits, such as sick leave and vacation time.
Housekeeping administrators have denied the allegations.
The specific incidents employees said caused them to sign the petition occurred last year, while AMSTERS was leaving the Med Center and KU administrators were taking over.
FROM MAY 1, 1980 to Dec. 31, 1980, AMS worked at the Med Center under a "phase-out" contract, the first the company ever work with a major center. The Center housekeeping director for AMS, said.
"Throughout that time our management personnel were phased out and KU's were phased in," Halidwin said. "Our assistant was also phased out, the day manager and the night manager."
KU and AMS continue to exchange accusations about who was responsible for the problems that resulted in AMS' leaving the Med Center.
Baldwin said one possible reason for the petition is that U custodians resented theft of their belongings.
"They resented outsiders in the role of managers," he said. "We made them work."
LARRY DENTON, assistant housekeeping director, said he thought the problem was not resentment toward AMS personnel, but rather a lack of the necessary qualifications to do the job.
"I don't believe AMS had the knowledge or experience to do the job." Denton said. "Their people thought they were gods. Supervisors were not allowed to think on their
Denton also said he did not think the allegations made in the petition were true.
Gary Cockrell, housekeeping director, said he was unaware of the petition. Cockrell has
See PETITION page 5
Budig meets KU officials during visit
"He visited with some members of faculty governance committees and some academic deans," Cobb said. "Next month he'll spend some time at the University of Kansas Medical Center. I don't know if he'll spend all of his time there, but he'll spend some part of it there."
Budig also discussed the search for a vice chancellor for academic affairs. Cobb has a list of final candidates for the position and expects to announce the new vice chancellor's name later.
Chancellor-designate Gene Budig visited the University of Kansas this past weekend for a three-day work session, Robert Cobb, executive vice chancellor, said yesterday.
"We talked about the various candidates and what their qualifications were," Cobb said.
Before coming to Kansas last week, Buddy corral's prediction that he would have little time to play was true.
to talk about the work. "My highest priority is to learn as much about the academic process as possible," he said. "I must do this if I am to be effective. I'm really going to have very little to say until I assume office in August."
ROB POOLE/Kansan staff
Gretchen Budig, (left), wife of Chancellor-designate Gene Budig and her daughter Mary Frances, (center), visit with Carol Shankel, (right), wife of Acting Chancellor Del Shankel, Friday during the Budig's visit to campus last weekend. Chancellor-designate Budig visited the campus for a three-day work session
Mrs. Budig visits residence, discusses daisies and history
It was Gretchen Budig's second visit to the chancelor's residence on Lilac Lane last Friday and she had forrotten her daisies.
By KATHRYN KASE Staff Reporter
"Oh, I can't believe I forgot them," she said, putting palm to forehead while Carol Shankel called the gardener. "I guess we'll just have to plant them next time."
Budig, wanted to root the family daisies while her husband learned the duties of his new job. She also wanted to peruse the garden that will be bers Aug. 1.
Mrs. Budig, wife of Chancellor-designate Gene
You see, these are no ordinary daisies. Mrs. Budig uprooted them in Nebraska after her mother died and has planted them wherever her mother has lived, including Illinois and West Virginia.
'They're really very hard,' she said. 'I meant to dig them up this morning, throw them
See CHANCELLOR page
Weather
It will be partly cloudy and warm today with a high in the mid-70s, but it may become hotter Service in Teopeta. Winds will be from the west-northwest at 15 mph.
There is a 20 percent chance of thunderstorms tonight with the low near 50.
Tomorrow will be continued partly cloudy with a high of 70.
.