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The University Daily
KANSAN
University of Kansas Lawrence, Kansas
Friday, April 10, 1981 Vol. 91, No.130 USPS 650-640
Computer problems delay blast-off
NASA expects lift-off to be soon
By United Press International
CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla.—Two problems in the countdown stalled by more than an hour the launch of astronauts John W. Young and Christine Koehler. The first test flight of the space shuttle Columbia.
Controllers told the astronauts at 7:27 a.m.
that the delay could last an hour and a half or
more. The pilots were asked how they felt
about that.
The countdown was first held at nine minutes before launch, and then moved back to the minus-23-minute mark while engineers dealt with a problem with the ship's backup computer.
"We feel like we'll be here," replied Young, adding he and Criffen were strapped in their skins.
The countdown was first held because of a fuel cell generator problem that turned out to be insignificant. But there was more concern about the computer problem.
Launch had been scheduled for 6:50 a.m. EST. The ship could be launched as late as early afternoon, depending on the nature of the computer problem.
They were the first problems of any significance in the final hours of the countdown for the off-delayed launch of the winged space freighter.
r oung and Crippen remained in the cockpit of a plane while engineers sought the help of Duffield.
The pilots ran through a series of switch and communication checks with controllers at the Kennedy Space Center firing room and the Mission Control Center in Houston. The weather was excellent for the maiden flight of America's new space transport.
The astronauts' heart beats of 75 per minute
indicated both crewmen were calm during final flight preparations, Mission Control spokesman Hugh Harris said.
The 184-foot tall space machine weighed 2,227 tons on the launch pad with its solid fueled boosters and external fuel tank attached.
Young, 50-year-old veteran of four spaceflights, and space rookie Crippen, 43, crawled into Columbia's two-level cabin at 4:19 a.m. after smiling and waving to spaceport workers when they left their quarters.
"We wouldn't believe all the show we have packed on this thing." Young said on a communications link to ground control center shortly after entering the spaceship's lower deck.
"The crew is in fine shape," said George Abbey, director of flight crew operations. "They had a good rest last night. We're looking for a real good flight."
They are the first Americans to venture into space since 1975, and the first to fly a spaceship not preceded by an unmanned test flight
Successful completion of the 54-hour orbital flight will open a new era of lower cost space travel and increased space capability. The shuttle will become the nation's orbital workhorse, hauling civilian and military satellites regularly to and from orbit.
Engineers following a relatively smooth countdown had the Columbia's massive external fuel tank filled with more than 500,000 gallons of frigid liquid hydrogen and liquid oxygen more than three hours before launch time.
President Reagan, who before the attempt on his life had planned to watch the blastin off in
See SHUTTLE page 5
KU graduates Engle, Hawley on space team
JIM HAWLEY Staff Reporter
Joe Engle, a 1955 KU graduate in aeronautical engineering, understudied one of the leading players in this morning's technological drama on the Florida coast.
For a week, back-up pilot Engle waited in quarantine, with sharpened skills that were not used when John Young and Robert Crionno took the first space shuttle up.
NASA Photo
But Engle is scheduled to test his knowledge and abilities this fall in the space shuttle, Challenger, the second tentatively scheduled shuttle mission.
This morning, Engle was assigned to pilot a T-38 jet high above the Florida coast just as the sun began to peek above the horizon. He was checking on weather conditions from the launch site. Afterward, he took his position in mission control in Houston.
Four years after he participated in the approach and landing test at Edwards Air Force Base in California, Engle eagerly awaited the first launch.
"I am damn proud to be a part of this tremendous program." Engle said recently. "It's a great honor to be able to be in the cockpit."
Engle is joined on the shuttle astronaut team by Steve Hawley, a 1973 KU graduate in physics and astronomy.
See PILOT page 3
U.S. sub may have sunk ship
By United Press International
TOKYO—the submarine that sailed away from a collision that sank a Japanese freighter and left 13 crew members drifting on the East Churun coast, belonging to the U.S. Navy, navy
Officials of Japan's Maritime Safety Agency said the 13 survivors from the 2,350-ton Nissho Maru were found in a rubber dingy 18 hours after this morning's collision, only 40 miles off the Japanese coast. Two crewmembers were missing.
"We received a communication from the American Embassy saying that an American submarine could have been involved in the collision." A spokesman for the Japanese Foreign Ministry said, "They said they are launching an investigation."
There was no immediate comment from the Pentagon.
Officials quoted the survivors as saying they saw a 'stargin insignia bordered with a white line' painted on the submarine, which surfaced after the collision but then dived and disappeared.
Military experts noted the area is one of the routes used by warships from the Soviet base at Blavostok. The Soviet Union now has 125 submarines, including 60 nuclear-powered ones, operating in the Far East, according to Western military figures.
A spokesman for the defense agency said no Japanese submarine operated in the area and military sources said they could not identify the submarine by the insignia alone.
The accident occurred about 94 miles west of the southern Japanese island of Kyushu. A marine safety official said the spot was 40 miles northwest of the island and outside Japan's 12-mile territorial sea.
Carlin prepares tactics to save severance tax
By GENE GEORGE
Staff Reporter
By GENE GEORGE
budge Carlin's press secretary, however, hinted that Carlin might make liberal use of his veto powers this year.
TOPEKA-As the Legislature was winding toward its adjournment yesterday, Gov. John Carlin closely guarded any remaining options that would save the severance tax or to restore money that lawmakers cut from next year's budget.
THE GOVERNOR, in a briefing for the Kansan, said yesterday that he would not make any decisions until lawmakers left on the 10-day vacation.
He said, however, that he would not give up on the possibility of passing a severance tax on the production of oil, natural gas and coal.
"I'm not ready to concede this session," Carlin said. "We're working on the severance tax, but that's all I'll say."
Late in the session, the Senate killed Carlin's proposed tax, which was expected to raise money for schools and highway repair, and keep property taxes from increasing.
Carlin said the Legislature's only remaining option without a waiver of tax was raising the minimum wage.
In a debate that lasted two days this week, the Legislature agreed to the 1982 school finance bill.
which calls for an estimated property tax increase of $88 million statewide.
The governor is reportedly looking for another bill that could be amended to include the severance tax. He will have time to do that in the spring and convenes April 29 for a three-day wrap-up session.
THAT SESSION is commonly called the veto session, because lawmakers are given the chance to try to override the governor's veto of any bill.
Press Secretary Bill Hoch said that session's title an, until this session, had not been correct.
"It's hardly ever been that (a veto session),"
Hoch said, "but it could be this year."
Carlin said that voter support for a severance building, but that the support had not filtered out voters.
"We're rapidly approaching that time in the state however," he said.
Carlin linked the Republican-dominated Legislature's stand on the severance tax with the deep cuts it made in his proposed $2.78 billion budget for next year.
He said the motives of the lawmakers in cutting the budget were wrong, and they hurt.
"The cuts made were not to find money for them, but to play games with the opposite lax." *Hesperus*
said. "The budget I sent them was responsible."
Although critical of the Legislature's actions, Carlin would not comment on whether he would veto the Regents' budget or any other state agency's budget.
LAWMAKERS, IN AN ATTEMPT to meet Senate Ways and Means Committee Chairman Paul Hess' goal of trimming $23 million from the governor's budget, trimmed $9 million from the federal tax bill.
Gov. John Carlin
Along with the Legislature's desire to kill the severance tax, state Tax. Jane. S. Menue Eldredr, R.
Lawrence, alleged that the Senate Ways and Means Committee was using the Kansas University Medical Center as a reason to cut the Regents' budget.
HOCSE HAD, "The governor never commented on that; we never saw the correlation."
Eldredge, in a speech made in Lawrence, said that Hess, R-Wichita, and other seniors used the findings of a surprise inspection to the campus as an excuse for cutting the budget.
ROR GREENSPAN/Kansan staff
"We didn't see it in that light, exactly," Hoch said.
The Senators allegedly found poor building conditions and mismanagement problems.
At one point in the session, State Ed. Sen Fd. Applauding the efforts of applifting the Med Center from the Regents system.
But Carlin said yesterday he would not support such a move.
"There are problems, yes, but we're working on them," he said.
Postcards sent to protest increase
Weather
It will be clear today with a high of 75, according to the KU Weather Service. Winds will be from the south at 10-15 mph.
There is a slight chance of showers tonight, with the low near 50.
By CORAL BEACH Staff Reporter
The Board of Regents will have a full mailbox next week when several hundred postcards from KU students decrying the recent tuition increase are delivered.
The Student Senate organized the postcard campaign to show that KU students were upset about the tuition increases, Loren Busby, student senator, said yesterday.
Mostly clear skies are expected through the weekend with highs in the mid-78s tomorrow and Sunday.
The Regents are expected to approve the proposed tuition increase of $40 a semester for instate students next week. The out-of-state fee increase has yet to be determined.
"The Board of Regents think the students will be by and take it," he said. "We want to let them know."
The Legislature trimmed $5.8 million from the
crease he had just received.
general fund money and voted to replace it with the revenue generated from the 15 percent average increase in tuition at the Regents institutions.
The tuition increase, part of the Regents system-wide budget in 1982, is awaiting the approval of John Carl.
Besides the money cut from the tuition fund, the Legislature cut $3 million from proposed faculty pay raises, operating expense budget cuts and other measures to cover unexcended increases in enrollments.
LAWMAKERS WILL LET the Regents decide whether they will be apportioned to the various universities.
"We want this increase spread out over the next two or three years instead of all at once."
The Senate set up a table on campus Wed-
See POSTCARDS page 5
Surprise nursing home legislation introduced
RvRRADSTERTZ
TOPEKA- She virtually staggered into the office of a fellow legislator exhausted, upset and shaking from her efforts to halt a piece of legislation that had arraigned into law by a special interest group.
Staff Reporter
"I am just shaking," a frustrated State Rep. Jessie Branson, a first-term Lawrence Democrat, said. "I just don't understand how this got by everybody. It's just lucky that we could head it off before it got all the way past as."
Branson, a former nurse, had trouble believing, but not understanding, how a strongly worded resolution that would organize nursing teams could nearly slipped through the Kansas Legislature.
"This is just a good example of how certain special interest groups try to get things through the Legislature in all of the confusion and rush of the last day of the session," Branson said. "It is just a strategy on the part of these groups to get something unpopular through."
THE SCENARIO of the last-minute act ran as follows:
It was a resolution that caught many members of the Senate by surprise, including State Sen. Jan Meyers who veneriously fought the motion to pass the bill to the House. As Meyers, R-
Senate Concurrent Resolution No. 1637, as proposed by the Senate Ways and Means Committee, was read yesterday on the Senate floor and was passed on by the upper chamber.
Overland Park, spoke from the Senate floor,
senators discussed lunch, other bills or planned
"I should have known," Branson said. "I had heard of a concurrent resolution that was coming in the bill to repeal the law."
the out went on to the equally fast-paced
house of Representatives. Business in the lower
chamber was sporadic, with the last day of the
week being the day and adjourning for
conference committee results.
But when he announced the committee most of the representatives had already left.
Just as the House adjourned for that very reason in the morning, State Rep. W. Edgar Moore, chairman of the House Public Health and Welfare Committee, announced a surprise committee meeting. The subject was Senate Concurrent Resolution 1637.
**THAT BRANSON had heard about the Senate action at all was by chance. She had been attending a 7 a.m. House Ways and Means Committee meeting, the beginning of the week when she was tipped.**
"Watch out for this resolution," the lobystoy told Branson after the Ways and Means meeting.
She had planned to meet the hearing to hear about her teaching at University of Kansas College Scholarship program.
While that item received little attention in the meeting, the committee did discuss changes in hospital funding. It was then that Branson was told about the resolution by a lobbyist for the Board.
Although he did not say which resolution was "bad," Branson had been alerted, albeit alerted by chance, to the resolution.
"No one really had any idea that this was coming," Branson said. "I was suspicious about this coming, but I did not know what it was."
An session Branson had championed the cause of nursing home reforms, child safety regulations and medical improvements throughout the state. One specific successful measure of hers was the child passenger safety bill that a waits Gov. John Carlin's signature.
This resolution horrified her.
"What this would do is to dilute and weaken the rules and regulations concerning the management of nursing homes," she said, "and because they are poorly worsened conditions in the nursing homes."
Branson said that nursing home represent- that they were concerned with 'root contamination'
In English, she said, this meant that they were concerned that the regulatory conditions, enforced by state law, were hurting their profits.
WHAT THE RESOLUTION says in its own language is that a task force would be set up to review the regulations of the nursing homes.
The task force would be composed of a senator, a representative, the secretary of health and environment, the secretary of social and rehabilitation services, a member of the Kansas Health Care Association, a representative from the Kansas Association of Homes for the Aging
See HURRY page 5