University Daily Kansan / Wednesday, October 18, 1989
Nation/World
7
NASA hopes to get shuttle flying today
Launch window will close about noon
The Associated Press
CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. — Thunderstorms posed a threat today as space shuttle Atlantis was once again readied for an afternoon launch with the Jupiter-bound Galileo probe.
The winged spaceship, grounded yesterday by rain, was scheduled to lift off with its crew of five astronauts at 11:50 a.m. The launch period, dictated by the alignment of Earth and Jupiter, closes at 12:21 p.m.
Weather forecasters said early today there was a 60 percent chance conditions would be favorable at launch time, but that a cold front advancing on Florida could bring rain showers and thunderstorms.
Senior launch officials met at 3 a.m. and decided to be ready in case the weather permitted. An hour later, crews began filling the shuttle's fuel tank with a half-million gallons of liquid oxygen and liquid hydrogen.
NASA officials also had been concerned whether an Air Force control center in Sunnyvale, Calif., in the midst of yesterday's earthquake zone, be up and running to command the solid fuel rocket that sends Galeille into deep space once it leaves the shuttle's cargo bay.
They received assurances at the early morning meeting that the Consolidated Space Test Center at Omiuzka Air Force Base would be ready to monitor the rocket and to issue radio commands.
"At this point, all systems seem viable and ready to support launch," said Pat Phillips, a Kennedy Space Center spokeswoman.
NASA's last opportunity to launch the space probe is Nov. 21, when Earth and Jupiter lose their favorable alignment.
"July 1991 would be the next Jupiter window," said Lennard Fisk, NASA's chief scientist. "So this present window is in a sense a do or die. It's expensive to keep a spacecraft on the ground, and the RTG (nuclear power pack) is running down."
The odds for yesterday's scheduled launch had been 80 percent favorable, but showers 20 miles out over the Atlantic failed to move away as expected and the shot was scrubbed.
The showers were in an area that Atlantis would have to pass through if an engine were lost shortly after liftoff and the shuttle had to attempt an emergency landing on a 15,000-foot runway near the launch pad.
Atlantis' commander on its five-day mission is astronaut Donald Williams. The others are pilot Mike McCulley and mission specialists Ellen Baker, Franklin Chal-Diaz and Shannon Lucid. They had been aboard the spaceship for three hours before yesterday's postponement.
About 200 armed security guards again were on the alert for antinuclear demonstrators who had said they might try to halt the liftoff by infiltrating the launch area.
World Briefs
FLAG-BURNING, DEBATE: A Senate sponsor of the proposed constitutional amendment to ban flag burning reversed course yesterday and declared he would vote against the measure.
"it was a mistake of the heart but nonetheless it was a mistake," Sen. John C.丹forth, R-Mo, said of his earlier sponsorship as the Senate began a second day of action on the proposed amendment.
Critics for the first time expressed a measure of confidence that they could defeat the amendment when it comes to a vote, perhaps Wednesday.
If adopted, the measure would authorize the federal and state governments to outlaw burning and other desecration of the U.S.
COUP RESTRICTIONS: The Bush administration said yesterday that it was seeking an understanding with Congress to ease restrictions
on U.S. involvement in foreign coups that might result in the death of a country's leader.
White House Press Secretary Martin Fitzwater said the proposed changes would not alter a long-standing executive order banning U.S. involvement in assassinations but would allow the CIA to investigate with plotters of a coup in which a foreign leader might be killed.
CHILD CARE THREATENED:
Quality at most child care centers is being threatened as low pay drives trained instructors away in droves, according to a national study released yesterday.
The issue took on new urgency in the wake of the failed coup attempt against Panamanian ruler Manuel Antonio Noriega on Oct. 3.
The National Child Care Staffing Study was issued as Congress tries to work out differences on child care legislation.
Bush promises to veto bill financing abortions
The Associated Press
Pro-choice activists immediately denounced the decision as "embarrassing" and "immoral."
WASHINGTON — President Bush will veto a bill allowing federally financed abortions for rape and murder. Marlin Flirzwater, said yesterday.
"I think it is unfortunate and regrettable," said House Speaker Thomas S. Folev. D-Wash.
The threatened veto was all but assured when talks between the White House and Congress on finding a compromise broke down Monday.
Foley and other Democratic leaders vowed to fight to override the veto. But the bill passed the House by 216-160, short of the two-thirds margin necessary to override a veto.
At issue is a provision that extends the use of Medicaid money to pay for abortions. Medicaid payments currently are restricted to abortions to protect the mother's life.
The abortion provison is part of a spending bill for the departments of Labor and Health and Human Services that has already been approved by a House-Senate conference committee and by the full House. The bill awaits final Senate approval.
Rep. Les AnCoin, D-Ore., said, "I think it's embarrassing for the Republican Party to have this timid president, who wouldn't lift a glove to get rid of Norllege when we had Norlige cornered, who now tries to show his political backbone by pushing around poor women who are the victims of rape and incest, and that's the issue."
Colombian drug gang linked to judge's killing
The Associated Press
BOGOTA, Colombia — An assassin apparently sent by drug · barons climbed off a motorcycle yesterday and calmly killed a federal judge with six gunshots as he waited outside his Medellín home for a ride to work. witnesses said.
tion for the extradition of Colombians wanted in the United States on drug charges.
An anonymous telephone caller to Caracol radio in Medellin, base of the most notorious cocaine cartel, said "the Extraditables" killed Judge Hector Jimenez Rodriguez in retaliation.
Jimenez, 55, is among scores of judges and court employees slain by drug gangs. After his murder, the 14,000-member members of a court workers' union, which includes federal judges, called a three-day strike
pected traffickers wanted in the United States. Colombia has extradited four suspects since a government crackdown on drug gangs began Aug. 19.
Union spokesman Consulso Hererra said about 3,000 of the estimated 9,000 non-union court employees had decided to join the strike.
Jimenez spent 20 years as a judge on the federal appeals court in Medellin, 150 miles northwest of Bogota.
"The Extraditables" refers to sus-
Yesterday, the judge was waiting in front of his house when a colleague, Jaime Ardila Urrea, called for him. As he prepared to step into Ardila's car shortly before 6 a.m.,
two men pulled up on a motorcycle,
witnesses told Caracol.
The motorcycle's passenger got off, strolled to Jimenez, pulled out a revolver and fired six shots, the witnesses said.
Police said that Ardila was not injured and that the assailants sped away on the motorcycle.
Officials of the National Association of Court Workers, which called the strike, had threatened a mass resignation of judges and court workers if another judge was killed.
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