KU
76th Year, No. 137
THE UNIVERSITY DAILY kansan Serving KU for 76 of its 100 Years
LAWRENCE, KANSAS
WEATHER: COOLER
Details on Page 3
Tuesday, May 17, 1966
Agena failure halts Gemini
CAPE KENNEDY—(UPI)—An unmanned Atlas-Agena rocket went haywire after liftoff today and jinxed, for the second time, plans to launch two astronauts after a target in space.
The mission of disappointed Gemini 9 pilots Thomas Stafford and Eugene Cernan was canceled.
"Oh shucks," said Stafford, who had this happen to him once before while he was copilot on Gemini 6.
"OH NO! Oh no! Oh no!" echoed rookie Cernan as they were brought out of their waiting capsule atop a Titan rocket.
Officials immediately sought to
determine what caused the Agena to soar in a bright tail of flame from the launch pad and then, about eight minutes later, to fall into the Atlantic Ocean.
Stafford pulled off his space helmet and shook his head disgustedly.
"YOU CANT get your hopes up till that Agena comes across the states in orbit," he said, chewing on a stick of gum. "I've been up here on a launch pad a number of times before."
He and Walter M. Schirra Jr. had the same experience when an Agena target vanished last October 25 while they waited on the pad for liftoff to follow it.
SIX MINUTES after liftoff at 11:15 a.m. EDT the Agena disappeared.
First estimates were it would take at least two weeks to reschedule the Gemini 9 flight. But Dr. George Mueller, chief of the manned spaceflight program, said it would probably take three weeks.
"We have lost the bird," Gemini control reported.
Stafford and Cerman were waiting in their capsule for a launch 99 minutes later to chase the Agena and link up with it. A
spacewalk was to have followed. Now, the two disappointed astronauts would have to wait.
THEY COULD not see the Agena liftoff from their sealed capsule.
The Atlas booster rocket ignited in a burst of smoke and golden flame and it carried the 7,000-pound Agena payload straight into the sky. At the start it looked flawless.
But ground control failed to receive data.
THE AGENA rose on a harsh white cloud of smoke, trailing golden flame.
MYSTERIOUS MOUNTAINEER
Sniper kills FBI agent
SHADE GAP, Pa.—(UPI)—An FBI agent was shot and killed today by a sniper believed to be the "mysterious masked mountain man" who kidnapped a 17-year-old school girl. FBI agents and State Police surrounded the sniper's refuge.
A State Police officer said the missing girl was spotted with the sniper in an area known as Burnt Cabin in adjacent Fulton County, about 10 miles south of this tiny community in the rugged Tuscarora Mountains. The officer
said the girl, Peggy Ann Bradnick, appeared unharmed.
Ian D. Maclennan, in charge of the Pittsburgh FBI office, identified the dead agent as Terry Anderson. Anderson, based at the Harrisburg, Pa., FBI office, was one of the searchers assigned to the area.
"We are marshalling forces to go up there," Maclennan said.
He said state police were "slowly and methodically" surrounding the Burnt Cabin area. Most were armed with machine guns and other heavy weapons.
ASC will discuss Hill cigarette ban
By Eric Morgenthaler
A resolution expressing disapproval of the campus cigarette ban will be the main item of business at tonight's meeting of the
A one-day extension for the sale of season football tickets will go into effect Friday for all students who did not buy tickets on the regular sale days.
Tab sales to reopen on Friday
Tickets will be sold at the east ticket windows in Allen Field House from 8:30 a.m. to noon and from 1:30 p.m. to 4:30 p.m. on Friday.
"We found out last week that some students did not receive their letters telling of the regular ticket sales until after the sales had closed," said Roger Oeschlager, Clay Center junior and Student Athletic Seating Board Chairman. "We felt the students should have a chance to get their tickets."
All Student Council (ASC) in the Kansas Union.
CLASS PRIORITY will still be in effect for the extended sale day, Oeschlager said.
The resolution, which was tabled at last week's ASC meeting, petitions the Board of Regents to reconsider the ban on campus cigarette sales. Similar resolutions are under consideration at Kansas' other state colleges and universities.
According to Jim Prager, Annandale, Va., junior and ASC chairman, Arden Miller, dean of the KU Medical School, and Prof. Max Berry, surgery, will discuss the ban and reasons behind it at 7:30 p.m.
The resolution is an outgrowth of a similar resolution approved by delegates to a recent meeting of the Conference on Higher Education in Kansas (CHEK). Student representatives of all state-supported colleges and universities were present at the meeting.
Students will need only their KU-ID to attend the intra-squad football game Saturday at 2:30 p.m., Oeschlager said.
The region where the abductor and his hostage were spotted was described as extremely rugged mountain country which abounds in big game.
In other council business, Al Martin, Shawnee Mission sophomore and student body president, will seek approval of his appointments to ASC executive committees. The appointments must be confirmed by two-thirds of the ASC members.
"Some data" was lost at mission control when the 7,000-pound Agena was four minutes into the flight. This was unexplained.
Executive committees, composed of non-council members, implement most of the legislation passed by the ASC.
This is the last regularly scheduled Council meeting of the year. At a previous meeting, it was decided that no new business would be introduced at tonight's meeting.
Basketball star signs
Chester Lawrence, Vienna, Ill., described as one of the top high school basketball players in the nation, today signed a national letter of intent to enroll at KU, coach Ted Owens announced.
Lawrence, 6-4, 185 pounds, scored a total of 1,827 points during his three year varsity prep career, averaged 23.1 points per game in his sophomore year, 27.1 points as a junior, and 28.9 points as a senior. In one game this past season he scored 51 points.
He was an Illinois all-state basketball selection, and was named to all conference and all southern Illinois area teams for three years.
"We are flying low with Agena," an official said. Cernan and Stafford were being filled in.
A SOLID night's sleep and a steak breakfast fortified them for the three-day space spectacular. They were in superb physical shape, according to physicians.
Stafford waved and shook hands with officials and technicians. Then he and Cernan rode up the 110-foot gantry in an elevator to slide into the capsule-command pilot Stafford on the left in the driver's seat and copilot Cernan on the right.
CERNAN, A 32-year-old Navy lieutenant commander and rookie astronaut, was set to climb out of the high-flying Gemini capsule Wednesday morning for a two-hour and 25 minute spacewalk, the longest ever. He intended to make two passes over the United States as a human satellite, flying at 17,500 miles an hour and powering himself about with a Buck Rogers-style jet backpack.
He and command pilot Stafford, 35, an Air Force lieutenant colonel and veteran of a previous Gemini flight, were pronounced by space officials as the best-trained astronauts ever, even though they were flying as substitutes for two fellow astronauts killed two and a half months ago.
The astronauts' first scientific task is a hurry-up race to catch up with and latch onto the Agena four hours and four minutes into their ride-faster than ever before.
STAFFORD AND Cernan had only a 32-second margin to make their record-time rendezvous on the third orbit.
Delays up to the six-minute cut-off time would make the rendezvous as late as the fifth orbit.
Chicagoan Cernan and Oklahoma-born Stafford are the nation's first astronauts to enter space since the near tragedy of Gemini 8 last March 16—a trip which ended in a daring emergency splashdown when a short circuit caused the spacecraft to tumble dangerously.
The $1.35 billion Gemini program spent $490 to see that it will not happen again. It installed a switch which enables Cernan and Stafford to shut off their thrusters if the same trouble occurred.
Tragedy put Stafford and Cernan into the skies. They were the backup pilot for astronauts Elliott See and Charles Bassett, who were killed in the crash of a training plane Feb. 28 in St. Louis.
Draft test set again
Applications are now available for a fourth Selective Service Qualification Service Test to be held June 24.
The test is available to those students who did not apply in time for the first series of tests and those who have just decided to take the test.
The test will be considered with class standings to determine a student's eligibility to a II-S deferment next fall.
NUMBER JUMBLE
Who passed draft test
Q. Who will pass the Selective Service Qualification Test?
A. Anyone who attains the score of 70 or more.
Q. What is a score of 70?
In a telephone interview this morning Science Research Associates of Chicago, Ill., lowest bidder and architects for the draft test, explained the scoring system for the Daily Kansan.
According to Marvin Miller, Science Research official, the 70 is not a number of correct answers, nor a percentile ranking, nor a percentage of right answers.
It is a standard number achieved through the transfer of scores statistically and graded through a uniform standard deviation.
RESEARCH Associates explained it this way: "The Document Reader Computer will begin grading the tests tomorrow and rank in order all the scores according to standard deviations from an arbitrary mean, to be selected at random later.
"All of the scores which fall within the
standard deviation of 70 from the arbitrary mean will qualify for the II-S deferment subject to the local Selective Service Boards."
Officials would not say which scores might "pass."
This score of 70 is required for all undergraduates unless they place in previously determined class rankings. Graduates must obtain a score of 80 or more to qualify for a deferment.
"Passing" students will be determined by computers in the next few days. None of the scores have been weighted as yet.
OFFICIALS stressed that all students taking the test on the same day will be graded separately from those tested on other days. The 1,800 men at KU, who took the test Saturday, will be ranked with the 400,000 examinees nationally.
The next testing date is Saturday when slightly less than 1,000 KU men will take the test in Allen Field House. There are 250,000 men scheduled to take the test nationally on this date. Additional testing dates are on Friday June 3 and 24.