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About The daily Nebraskan. ([Lincoln, Neb.) 1901-current | View Entire Issue (Nov. 20, 1991)
T i Daily * ^ 57/28 'I 1^1 Ck Yr\K*2k C Yf 2k 1 lvUlCl jACll I, TH^iBiossunny 1 . It s a dirty job MW Anderson Construction employees Rodney Price, Jim Morton and Alvin Boyd tear up the sidewalk at 8th and Q streets Tuesday morning for work on the light poles. Apollo 009 to be handled with care By Dionne Searcey Senior Editor One hundred miles from home. Three thou sand degrees Fahrenheit. No oxygen. Twenty-one thousand pounds of pres sure. Atmospheric friction. That’s nothing compared to the next mis sion planned for the Apollo 009. The Apollo 009 was used for a sub-orbital test flight Feb. 26, 1966. It arrived at UNL in 1972 and has endured Nebraska weather for almost 20 years while on display outside Mor rill Hall. Bill Splinter, interim vice chancellor for research, said the spacecraft soon will travel to the Kansas Space Center and Cosmosphere in Hutchinson, Kan., to undergo complete reno vation. ir On Nov. 13, University of Ncbraska-Lin coin officials announced an agreement with the cosmosphere to trade the Apollo for space artifacts valued at$l .5 million. The University of Nebraska Board of Regents on Saturday delayed approving the trade at its monthly meeting. If the trade isn’t approved by the regents, the university would hire the Kansas-cosmospherc to restore the capsule, Splinter said. The cos mosphcrc is the only center in the world equipped to restore spacecrafts similar to the Apollo, said Max Ary, the center’s director. “We know what we’re getting into,” Ary said, since the Kansas cosmosphere has re stored six similar Apollo capsules. In as soon as one month, restoration of the craft will begin, he said. The capsule’s next liftoff won’t require millions of pounds of thrust to hurl it into the air, Ary said. This time a crane will boost the craft off the ground. The Apollo will travel 249 miles to Hutchinson, riding on the back of a tow-boy semi truck. Two pace cars will escort the truck down the back roads of Nebraska and Kansas. When the capsule lands at the cosmosphcrc, a team of restoration specialists will spray the craft with a blanket of special anti-corrosion material, Ary said. Then the capsule will be placed in a temperature- and humidity-con trolled wailing room. “The key is, as soon as we get it, to stop any further deterioration,” Ary said. If the swap with UNL is approved, major operations on the capsule will be put off until the center finds a way to pay for the nearly $400,000-worlh of repairs to counter years of corrosion. See APOLLO on 6 Official says ROTC cuts offset by raised standards By Sean Green Staff Reporter Proposed military budget cuts will mean reducing the number of active personnel in the Air Force, but the news shouldn’t be viewed as all bad by UNL Air Force ROTC students, an ROTC official said. Lt. Col. Spencer Anderson, chairman of the University of Nebraska-Lincoln Air Force ROTC program, said the cuts in personnel will be made by raising the standards of the entry and advancement that, in turn, will improve the overall quality of the or ganization. Anderson said the Depart ment of Defense budget cuts actually have benefited his organization. Enrollment in the UNL Air Force ROTC program has dropped from 130 during the 1989-90 school year to 75 this year, he said. “I’m not sure why enrollment is down, but it’s not because we’re not trying,” he said. ‘‘(The decline) is good, though, because we don’t have enough spots to put people in any way, so the cuts arc playing right into my hands.” Nationwide, the 150 Air Force ROTC de tachments were commissioning 3,200 officers AIR FORCE a year in 1988. Today that number has been cut in half, to 1,600 annually, Anderson said. However, he said the cuts in commissioned officers, meaning cadets who graduate from the ROTC program and go on to become offi cers in the active Air Force, docs not mean the UNL ROTC program may be cut altogether. ‘‘In 1988, the Air Force announced that the UNL detachment was going to be closed,” Anderson said. “But it didn’t happen, and now See MILITARY on 6 Freedom nears for final three American hostages. Page 2 INDEX Wrestlers set to start season Page Wire 2 7 Opinion 4 Sports 7 Elmer Fudd meets Ozzy Osbourne A&E 9 at Barry’s. Page 9 Classifieds 11 ^s. Some regents say meeting should have been open *» a* By Adeana Leftin Senior Reporter Although a closed meeting of a subcom mittee of the NU Board of Regents is legal according to state public meeting laws, some regents said the meeting should have been open. Regent Charles Wilson of Lincoln said he thought the subcommittee, although not required to comply with the letter of the law, should have com nvsjvlfto plied with the spirit of the law. The subcommittee met Thursday at the Nebraska Center for Continuing Education on the Uni versity of Nebraska’s East Campus to discuss coordinating lobbying efforts among represen tatives from NU campuses. “I think the meeting should all be open unless there’s some compelling reason why it should be closed,” he said. exceptions, Wilson said, would be contract negotiations or personnel negotiations. But he said he thought the meeting Thursday was not about anything that couldn’t have been dis cussed openly. “1 think wc should make an aggressive ef fort to maintain openness,” he said. Regents Chairman Don Blank of McCook disagreed. “I don’t think that was an issue that should have been handled any differently,” he said. The subcommittee was discussing an inter nal issue of lobbying, Blank said. “It wasn’t an issue that needed to be open,” he said. Richard Wood, NU general counsel, said the state public meeting laws requiring public bodies to hold open meetings do not apply to subcommittees of public bodies. He said subcommittee meetings must be ' open only if the subcommittee is holding a hearing, making policy or taking action on behalf of the board. Fire forces Abel evacuation From Staff Reports fire in a trash chute early Tuesday morning forced residents of Abel Residence Hall to evacuate the build ing, an official said. University of Ncbraska-Lincoln Police Sgt. Bill Manning said the fire started at about 4 a.m. Lyle Harris, Abcl-Sando/. maintenance manager, said the fire was contained to the trash chute. The trash chute sprinkler sys lem probably cxiinguishcd ihc fire before the lire deparunent arrived, Harris said. However, Manning said, students could not re-enter the building until 4:45 a.m. because of the smoke. The only damage from the fire, which Harris said wasa minor incident, was incon venience because of the smoke. The source of the fire is unknown. Be cause it is not a fire of suspicious nature, Manning said, it will not be investigated further. Shortage of lettuce ends in UNL residence halls By Virginia Newton Staff Reporter A decrease in produce prices made the serving of lettuce on a regular basis possible again on Monday at Univer sity of Ncbraska-Lincoln residence halls. The serving of the product decreased about two weeks ago after lettuce prices skyrocketed in response to a whitcfly infestation in South ern California, where most consumer lettuce is grown. The whitcfly attaches itself to lettuce leaves and prevents the plant from growing to maturity. Pamphlets reporting that a shortage of let tuce could continue through January were placed on tables in dining halls Nov. 8. On Nov. 11, lettuce, which had been served at both lunch and dinner daily, was taken off the menu and served twice or three times a week. Doug Zatcchka, director of the Office of University Housing, said that in the first weeks of the semester, a 40-pound case of lettuce, which consists of 24 heads, cost about $12 to $13. During the week of Nov. 11, a case of lettuce sold for $27.40, said Robert Cane, vice president of sales at Demma Fruit Company. If UNL had continued to buy lettuce in the same quantities as usual at those prices, the increase would have been $1,600 more a week in expenses, Zatechka said. See FLY on 2