Daily hansan
58th Year, No. 135
LAWRENCE, KANSAS
Friday, May 5, 1961
Mercury Shoot Is Success
Drama on The Wire
CAPE CANAVERAL, May 5 — (UPI) "T minus 10."
Standby for final cutoff command at 10:26 A.M. FDT.
T-2:40 second and holding on test 108. Standby.
T-2:40 and counting at 10:31 A.M. EDT.
SPACE GEAR—A coated spacesuit and air supply pack like those pictured here helped astronaut Alan Shepard survive his trip to space.
Firsting command
T-30 seconds and counting.
5-4-3-2-1 Blast Off.
Rocket roar audible seven miles away.
Trajectory is okay, the pilot is in good voice communication.
Now out of sight.
Astronaut okay.
Periscope coming out.
Capsule separated.
From capsule "what a beautiful view."
Pilot reports mission "very smooth" at 300 seconds.
The Mercury space-craft is beginning to re-enter the earth's atmosphere.
At one-500ths of a G.
9G now coming down
His words are "okay."
Going through peak G now he is still talking, saving "okay."
All data now at the Mercury Control Center is excellent at 540 seconds.
Voice communications still good.
The retro rocket package jet-tisoned at 390 seconds at $ 10:40^{12} $ A.M. EDT.
The mission is now 6 minutes and 40 seconds old.
FLASH—Cape Canaveral—NASA says space flight is success.
Weather
The weather will be cloudy with occasional rain today and tonight. There is a possibility of thunderstorms. The high today will be in the upper 50s. The low tonight will be in the middle 40s. It will be partly cloudy and warmer tomorrow with a high near 60.
World News Today
By United Press International
LAOS — Representatives of the pro-Western Royal Government of Laos and the Communist backed Pathet Lao rebels met at Ban Hin Heup to begin peace talks. The early conversations were marked by abusive language heaped on the government representatives by the Pathet Lao.
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WASHINGTON — President Kennedy today signed into law a bill increasing the minimum wage to $1.25 an hour and extending its benefits to 3.6 million additional workers. The bill narrowly avoided defeat in the house. The law will go into effect Sept. 5 and will raise the pay of some 2.5 million workers to $1.15 an hour to start. These are workers already under the wage-hour law.
JERUSALEM — The prosecutor in the trial of Adolf Eichmann today introduced documents which he alleged were proof that Eichmann had personal charge of the extermination of Jews in Eastern Europe. The court also barred safe conduct to four more witnesses for Eichmann, saying they were war criminals and would be arrested if they came to Israel. This number brought to eight the total of defense witnesses that have been denied safe conduct.
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--distribute a resolution on student's rights and one on racial justice.
WASHINGTON — A Senate investigating subcommittee today continued its investigation into price fixing and heard a Washington executive testify that he met with competitors to discover their trade secrets and not to fix prices. Committee members were incredulous. Chairman Estes Kefauver, D-Tenn., said the witness, J. Barry Walker, must have been "pretty naive" if he thought the subcommittee believed him.
Astronaut Has Control During 115-Mile Journey
CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla.—(UPI)—America's first astronaut leaped 115 miles into space today aboard a spacecraft named "Freedom 7" and won for America and mankind a historic breakthrough: the first flight in space controlled by the pilot himself.
The astronaut, 37-year-old Cmdr. Alan B. Shepard Jr., was plucked from the sea 21 minutes later by Marine Lt. Wayne Koons of Lyons, Kan.
Shepard was not only alive but in all respects, "okay" and thousands were witnesses to the fact of his feat.
ANOTHER SPACEMAN, Russia's Yuri Gagarin, had gone higher and farther and faster. But Alan Shepard was the first man in history to exercise control over the motions of a craft he was riding in space.
Shepard and Freedom 7 rose from the launch pad 5 at 8:34 a.m. on the nose of a 66,000-pound Redstone missile. The launch, postponed since Tuesday, came 2 hours and 34 minutes after the planned shot time of 6 a.m.
SHEPARD. DURING much of his ride, put the capsule through various maneuvers.
- He changed the way it pointed in space.
- He controlled its pitch, roll, and yaw.
- He reported what was happening to him when gravity forces multiplied his weight some six times during powered flight and 11 times when he came back down through the atmosphere.
Reactions from Washington to Los Angeles poured over the wires of UPI all morning.
PRESIDENT KENNEDY personally congratulated astronaut Shepard by radio telephone from the White House shortly after he completed his successful sub-orbital flight.
The White House said Kennedy contacted Shepard at 9:43 a.m. and "extended personal congratulations."
Fight on Conservatism Disrupts NSA Meeting
By Carrie Merryfield
Final approval of discussion papers for the National Student Association regional conference here this weekend was suspended last night while NSA members hassled over permission to distribute material explaining the conservative NSA viewpoint
The 37 minute argument started when Tom Kurt, Pratt first year medical student, asked permission to
Charles Menghini, Pittsburg junior, said he did not believe Kurt should be given permission, since the conservative view was not the stand some members held.
"I read the entire paper to the NSA last January," Kurt said. "And last Monday I mentioned it again. I see no reason for anyone on this council to be surprised."
Show Little Interest
Student Religious Apathy Indicated
(Editor's Note: This is the first in a
series of articles discussing religion and
the KU student.
By William Mullins
The majority of KU students have no interest in religious activities.
A total of slightly more than 1,000 of the 5,000 students whose denominations these student leaders and ministers represent are active at some time in the school term in one of the groups. This is the maximum number.
This is the opinion of student leaders and ministers of religious groups and clubs representing the faiths of over 5,000 KU students.
Let us examine the groups that represent these more than 5,000 students individually.
THERE ARE ABOUT 2,000 students on campus who indicated they are Methodists on their religious preference cards during enrollment.
John McCabe, Lawrence senior and nest president of the Wesley Foundation, the Methodist student group, says the foundation's Sunday evening group begins at about 100 in the fall semester and drops to about 50 by the second semester.
Of the 1,500 to 1,600 Presbyterian students on campus, 400 to 500 are active in one or more of the student groups forming the Westminster Center Council, according to Robert Grantham, Lawrence senior and moderator of the council.
Grantham explained that the 400 to 500 students he described as active were distributed among several programs: the United Presbyterian Women, the United Presbyterian Men, the Mariner's Club, the Sunday Evening Fellowship and the Sunday Morning Fellowship.
There are 840 Catholic students on campus. The Rev. Gerard Goetz, head of the Newman Club, said 30 to 35 per cent of them are active in the club's activities, if Mass is excluded. About half of the Catholic students attend Mass, but they are required to by the Church.
The Rev. Ronald E. Smith, director of the United Student Fellowship, the student program for the United Church of Christ, said about 80 of the 508 students of that denation are active in the fellowship at some time in the school term.
Duane Postlethwaite, assistant instructor of chemistry, director of labs, and board director of the Lawrence Unitarian Fellowship, said a group of 25 students at the fellowship's Sunday evening meeting was above average. There are about 200 students indicating the
Unitarian faith on their preference cards.
Burton Huber, Prairie Village junior and a member of the Christian Science College Organization for four years, said there were between 60 and 70 students indicating that preference on campus. The membership of the organization is 19.
JAMES L. ANDERSON. Lawrence junior and past president of the Lutheran Student Association, said the total attendance at the association's Sunday morning and evening groups averaged about 35. There are about 300 Lutheran students on campus, he said.
(Continued on page 12)
The clubs representing the two largest groups, the Wesley Foundation and the Westminster Center Council, both hold several meetings each week and conduct small study groups on religious questions and the Bible
Carol McMillen, Coldwater junior and KU-NSA co-ordinator, said Kurt had read them, but that no action had been taken on the paper.
Miss McMillen asked Kurt to allow the papers to be included in the packet each conference delegate will receive.
Kurt declined to allow that, saying he wanted to hand them out personally.
Kurt did not say with what action he planned to co-ordinate his distribution of the papers.
Jerry Palmer, El Dorado junior, Jerry Dickson, Newton sophomore, and Fred Morrison, Colby senior, said they did not think the majority of the council's views were included in the papers.
They asked that a notation be made, stating that the papers were the opinion of those who wrote them, not the majority of the council.
Kurt abruptly withdrew his papers.
Falmer was appointed to write a notation stating the council, as a whole, did not subscribe to the viewpoint set forth in the Kurt papers. It was accepted and the papers on conservatism were placed in the delegates' folders.