Columbia passes first trial with flying colors By ROBERT LOCKE Associated Press Writer EDWARDS AIR FORCE BASE, Calif. (AP) Space shuttle Columbia, brilliantly and gracefully, passed her first trial by spaceflight yesterday, sailing hypersonic through the heat of re-entry to a wheels down, center-stripe landing on a sunbaked desert runway The moment of triumph 1:22 p.m. EST belonged to astronauts John Young and Robert Crippen, who inaugurated a revolutionary space transportation system with a mission lasting two days, 6 1 / 2 hours. •.** o ° - •:' \ N..' ..1 ' -:.„.....,....-.1.. ' . . 1, r- f i `-- 1 P , - A V: f . ^ , ^1 Capt. Robert Crippen leads his wife Virginia off a NASA jet following Cmdr. John Young and his wife Suzy as they arrive at California's Ellington Air Force Base yesterday after the astronauts successfully landed the space shuttle Columbia. Consumers By JAN CORWIN Daily Collegian Staff Writer American automobile manufacturers are in trouble. With gasoline prices at $1.30 a gallon, consumers are looking for fuel-efficiency, and abandoning the American tradition of big, luxu rious cars Unfortunately for domestic car manufactur ers, the most efficient producers of Small cars are foreign countries, particularly Japan. So it comes as no surprise that Chrysler Corporation's new fuel-efficient K-cars were billed as "a matter of corporate survival." Of Detroit's big three General Motors, Ford and Chrysler it is the latter that has made the headlines since the government bailed it out in 1979. Frank Uller, business and strategy plans man ager for Chrysler, last week told the Marketing Club that long planning time and difficulty in forecasting economic conditions and consumer tastes can cause even the most carefully-planned ;.I.o** At the helm Chris Calkins and Karen Graylin began their terms as president and vice president of the Association of Residence Hall Students last night. Calkins and Gavlin replace former ARHS executives Fran Kenawell and Maryann Deno. See story on ' ,wO,l the daily The shuttle, two years delayed, a $lO-billion question mark, a white and black ship with the American flag on its left side, landed precisely as scheduled. "You can't believe what a flying machine this is!" Young exulted. "It's really something special." As he left the shuttle, he looked over the ship's lifesaver thermal tiles, and punched the air with gusto. Young and Crippen made history: They were the first ever to return from space without having to splashdown in water, 'American-style, or bounce on the ground, as the Russians do it. After landing, the astronauts fidgeted in their cockpit for an hour while ground crews made sure no dangerous gases lingered. "If we're going to get this thing operational, this is one of the parts we're going to have to work on a little more," Young kidded Shuttle Control. "Do you realize we could have gone a whole orbit?" He was two-thirds right. An orbit Columbia made 36 of them takes about 90 minutes. Both Young and Crippen moved down the steps of the portable ramp with a bounce in their step and broad'smiles on their faces. Young impulsively circled the front of the ship on a personal inspection tour. He liked what he saw, jabbed the air in delight and flashed a thumbs up to recovery crew. The "astrovan" took the astronauts to a nearby space agency facility for physical examination, although froth ap pearances they were the healthiest as well as the happiest of men. For the next week, the astronauts will undergo extensive debriefings as experts evaluate the ship's maiden flight. "I think we've got a fantastic and remarkable capability here," Young said at a brief welcoming ceremony. "We really are not to far in the human race from going to the stars and Bob and I are mighty proud to have been part of this revolution " Wei§ And Crippen, a space veteran at last, said that "as the rookie of the group, I can say that waiting 12 years to get my flight in space was really worth it. I'll go stand in line for another 12 years if that is what it will take, but I don't think it will. I think we're back in the space business to stay." Then the two astronauts were flown in NASA planes to the space center in Houston. Flight One of STS-1 (the official title of the shuttle, Space Transportation System One) was an astounding success. . A message awaited the crew from President Reagan in Washington: "Your brave adventure has opened a new era in space travel . . . You p2ut new worlds within closer reach and more knowledge within our grasp." opt. -. . - for : . -- ma118.r . .645 , t5;10i/vrer - :fuel.bilis cars to'be failures witness the 1958 Edsel. Chrysler's K-car was a $2.8 million, six-year project which Chusler expects to account for 60 percent of its sales in the next few years. analysis But are fluctuations in the economy and fickle consumer tastes the only reasons why Chrysler and Ford recently went before the International Trade Commission to seek tariff protection?.Or is it why the government would like to negotiate voluntary export restraints on small cars with Japan the acknowledged top competitor in the small car market? . . Uller said that during the second energy crisis, in 1979, the car market shifted rapidly as consum ers gave up big cars in favor of smaller, fuel efficient ones. American auto makers, producing olle • lan Only large cars, were suddenly faced with a loss of market and increased competition from foreign manufactuiers of small cars. What was happening, according to associate professor of economics Mack Ott, was the merg ing of two markets —the large car market in the United States and the small car market in Europe —that until 1973 had been almost completely separate. The situation is both simple and complex, but, as Ott explained, the car developed different uses in the two markets. In Europe, cities are closer, streets are narrower and mass transit is inexpen sive, so small cars were used for short trips. In the United States, cities are farther apart, streets are wider and mass transit does not really compete with the automobile, so Americans de manded larger cars that were comfortable and more suited to long trips, he said. "What maintained this separation of markets was inexpensive gasoline," Ott said. From 1948 to 1968, gasoline prices rose at about the same rate .; . . , e ; t , I 'r f. , f ' ~ .. -...,,,,-, s ix i i - -- i i'.-,::)'-.4!"': - t, . : & , 4r.".,.t.%',,i,-,:t•.?;:i.', :,y; 4: - =.:1.,,i?,j . .. --1i."....0,,-.'"fe„:;•-.!?:4',';';:`:700-1'..7';', '...r.,:;'.')''''. . Z;.!-4.i.: Nivlt: - . i .,:f... i ..::.,,.: . ;-: . .. , .:.:. f...i?::ko-:;.fi..,:_':-.:-'.':•"-." ' UPI wlrephold The space shuttle Columbia settled down for a supersonic, super-successful landing yesterday after its maiden flight. In the background is a small chase plane. Heat waves rising from the dry lake bed at Edwards Air Force Base distort the NASA hanger in the background. The Soviet Union, too, took note of the successful voyage of a ship that someday will carry defense satellites aloft. The news agency Tass said the flight was "of special significance, not so much for research and academic organiza tion, as for the Pentagon." Enormous crowds, estimated at 170,000, came to the desert in cars and campers to cheer Columbia to its finale. Flags by the thousands waved the ship in; the desert was bathed in a brilliant mid-morning sun. Chase planes were aloft to escort the shuttle in and tephotograph the moment. The,flight director, Donald Puddy, gave Shuttle Control in Houston "15 seconds of whoopee," and told then to get back to work on urgent post-landing checks. Joe Allen, the control room's radio contact with the space craft, assured the astronauts that their test was "Beautiful. Beautiful." "Do we have to take it to the. hangar, Joe,?" asked Young after the ship came to a stop. , "We have to dust,it off first," Allen replied. The astronauts came out of a 15-minute communications New race with Moscow U.S. gave more supplies to WASHINGTON (AP) The United States already this year has shipped more tons of weapons to El Salvador's junta than the overall amount which leftist guerrillas have received from So viet-bloc countries, according to govern ment figures. The Defense Department said yester day that from Jan. 1 to the present, the United States has sent 343.2 tons of mili tary supplies to El Salvador. Earlier, the State Department estimated that the guerrillas had received 200 tons of Soviet bloc weapons. That figure applied to covert ship ments, mostly late last year and through January's failed "general offensive," but since then, the State Department says, the communist flow has dwindled to an insignificant trickle. The U.S. military aid is also only a fraction of assistance ranging from helicopters to radios to M-16 automatic rifles currently in the pipeline for El Salvador. "There's a heckuva lot more in terms of money" to come, said Lt. Col. Jerry Grahowski, a Pentagon spokesman. The weapons shipments counted in the Defense Department report include the $5 million in emergency assistance re leased by former President Jimmy Car ter in January and about $4 million of the $25 million in aid promised by President Reagan, Grahowski said. That would leave about $2l million in aid still to be sent to the junta. In its Feb. 23 "white paper," the State Department charged Soviet-bloc coun- M=M ~.,.'1.':.;. . ', ; . ' ..4i ; i&, ,=,,' , ' . .' : , -. ..,.',-Y , ''''..q - ' , . 1:- . 1 ' 1 4 , ''• • ••• , .4fA1"(. , :;' ,: . .! , ..:;1.-ci:;' • 7 •."-r.' , !":. ki:".i.',,i1:.: -, , , :? - - , . 7. • ~.,',..7...,..i.::•.'.3....qi.:5';:',.';. ~!,...;.!,-.g.:".....-..-.,-;::',.':.'f,.*79 as other prices. But from 1968 to 1973, gasoline prices rose more slowly than the general price index "It wasn't the case that U.S. producers could not produce an automobile of smaller dimensions it was just that the market was not demanding it," Ott said. U.S. producers were successfully competing in Europe with their foreign-built cars, such as GM's German-made Opel, which was later imported to the United States. But there was no reason for domestic auto manufacturers to change their production patterns until 1973, when the oil em bargo sent gasoline prices skyrocketing. "Even if the government had not done any thing, the domestic producers would have been in trouble for awhile," Ott said; because changing over to the production of smaller cars would have been costly. . _ _ But the government did step in, imposing price controls on petroleum, regulations on automobile pollution control and safety features and mileage tries had pledged nearly 800 tons of military aid to the guerrillas and that 200 tons had actually been received, largely through Cuba and Nicaragua. Accusing "communist powers" of "in direct armed aggression," the Reagan administration announced the sending of 20 additional U.S. military advisers to El Salvador bringing the total to 56 and the dispatching of $25 million in U.S. weapons and equipment. Critics of the "white paper," however, note the State Department presents no firm evidence that the 200 tons in alleged Soviet-bloc aid ever reached the tiny Central American nation. And they say even if the 200 tons did arrive, it is a relatively small amount of equipment that would last the insurgents for only a couple of weeks of fighting. Grahowski conceded that 200 tons would . be used up "rather quickly" in continuous fighting, but said the guerril las appear to be conserving their supply of weapons by avoiding major battles. In another development, State Depart ment officials said privately they are skeptical of the explanation from Salva doran authorities on how about two dozen people were killed last week in a San Salvador suburb. The treasury police, who reportedly were involved in the killings, told U.S. officials that the deaths resulted from a gun battle which began when guerrillas opened fire on police. Eyewitnesses, however, said the police dragged the victims from their homes and shot them. A State Department official, who asked 15° Wednesday April 15, 1981 Vol. 81, No. 151 24 pages University Park, Pa. 16802 Published by Students of The Pennsylvania State University blackout, the most danger-filled time, with a tension-breaking message for the shuttle team: "Hello Houston, Columbia • here." "You're coming right down the chute," Houston said. "you're coming right down the track." They were and they stayed exactly on target. , - Down, down, the Columbia went, dipping first to one side; then another. From a hypersonic speed in space it went to supersonic and then to subsonic. Two sonic booms exploded over the Rogers Dry Lake. • "Looking beautiful," Allen said. And she was. The ship rolled to a stop on the Rogers Dry Lake runway on the Mojave Desert, right on the runway centerline. It had been aloft exactly 2 days 6 hours, 20 minutes and 52 seconds. "Welcome home Columbia," Allen said. - - From Johnson Space Center director Christopher Kraft, who hopes to send Columbia up for test flight No. 2 in September, "We just got infinitely smarter." standards on domestic producers. The result, Ott said, was that the gasoline price controls removed the incentive for consumers to give up their large cars, while the auto regula tions forced manufacturers to produce smaller cars at a time when the market was not ready for small cars. And as Uller pointed out, the timing of product introduction is critical to product survival. The Honda Civic, introduced in 1974, gained a substan tial foothold in the market because it came off the assembly line during the oil embargo, when consumers were looking for fuel-efficient cars. When Chrysler started planning the K-car in 1977, gasoline was 66 cents a gallon, the prime rate was 6.8 percent and the consumer confidence index was 86.8. By 1979, the year of Chrysler's near-bankruptcy, gas was $l.OB a gallon, the prime rate was 12.7 percent, and the consumer confidence index had dropped to 66. eip4 See related story on Page 4: Continued on Page 16. El Salvador not to be named, said U.S. officials were "tending to doubt" the treasury police story and believe that the police probably "overreacted" to shots fired at a 21-man police force when it moved into the area. inside Your tax returns are due today • State College municipality takes over operation of Centre Cab from the Centre Area Transporta tion Authority today Page 6 • The Phildilelphia Flyers beat the Quebec Nordiques to win their first round Stanley Cup playoff series game Page 8 • WDFM's weekly Comedy Show features original collegiate, humor Page 17 weather Bright sunshine today along with breezy and cool conditions •and a high near 54. Clear, calm and cold tonight with a low of 31. After a chilly start tomorrow, sunshine wijt produce a quick warmup, push temperatures to unseasonably mild levels in the upper 60s. Consider able cloudiness and continued mild Friday, with showers possible. :; :~; >,;. ~ ~:. `..',,..
Significant historical Pennsylvania newspapers