4SPORTS
Season
opener
Nebraska
plays its first
game Saturday
against North
Texas.
Friday
75/40
Fair today. Dry
Satuday, with a
slight chance of rain
on Sunday.
September 3, 1993
University of Nebraska-Lincoln
Vol. 93 No. 11
Space capsule out of sight but not out of mind
By Dionne Searcey
Senior Reporter
At the Museum of Flight in Seattle, a
spacecraft from the Apollo mission is
proudly displayed as the center of a
1500-square-foot exhibit.
The command module that never actually
flew in space is cradled inside the nation’s top
flight museum.
At the University of Nebraska-Lincoln, a
spacecraft from the same mission is in a comer
of a storage shed next to several bags of fertil
izer.
Regents have no immediate plans for Apollo 009
UNL officials have no plans to move it
elsewhere, said NU Regent Don Blank of
McCook.
“Nothing in the near future,” Blank said.
The Apollo 009 was used in an unmanned,
suborbital test flight in part of a mission that put
man on the moon. UNL officials obtained the
capsule in 1972 and displayed it outside Morrill
Hall where rain, humidity and snow badly
damaged it. Last year, officials moved it to a
storage garage.
Spacecraft similar to UNL’s capsule are
prized artifacts at many space museums.
In Seattle, for example, a command module
is the centerpiece of a space-flight display, said
Bill Hayes, a marketing manager at the Muse
um of Flight.
“The Apollo is the main focus of our space
exhibit,” r s said.
That c is surrounded by exhibits of a
moon rock, a space suit and items from space
shuttle orbiters.
UNL’s Apollo craft is surrounded by lawn
mowers, landscaping equipment and a small
yellow tractor.
The Apollo 009 was moved to East Campus,
where it rests on sandbags in a rusting silver
Quonset hut that once stored surplus com from
Nebraska farmers.
Cobwebs and a layer of dust cover the
weather-beaten, vandalized capsule that zipped
through space in 1966.
UNL officials moved the capsule indoors to
rescue it from 20 years of heat, humidity, rain,
snow and vandalism that have severely dam
aged it.
The Apollo 009 capsule is out of sight, but
See APOLLO on 6
Bjorklund’s
lawyers file
23 motions
By Alan Phelps
Senior Reporter
Attorneys for Roger Bjorklund
filed motions Tuesday request
ing Bjorklund be allowed to
appear in court wearing civilian
clothes and without leg shackles.
Bjorklund is charged with first
degree murder in the slaying of Uni
versity of Nebraska-Lincoln student
Candice Harms.
During pretrial evidence-suppres
sion hearings. Bjorklund wore a blue
jail jumpsuitandlegshackles in court.
When he was led in and out of the
courtroom by deputy sheriffs,
Bjorklund also wore handcuffs.
ChiefPublic Defender Scott Hel vie
declined comment to the Daily Ne
braskan, but he told The Associated
Press his office did not want
Bjorklund’s presumption of innocence
to be damaged by the fact he was
forced to wear prisoner garb.
A separate motion requested sher
iffs’ deputies guarding the courtroom
also be compelled to wear civilian
clothes.
Helvie and Public Defender Rich
ard Goos filed 23 motions altogether
to be considered by Lancaster County
District Judge Donald Endacott when
the pretrial hearings continue on Sept.
8,9 and 10.
The hearings are to determine
whether Bjorklund’s statements to
police and on wiretaps will be al
lowed as evidence in the trial.
Among the other motions filed this
week were requests to prohibit the
gublication of jurors’ names and, if
jorklund is convicted, to bar the use
of trial transcripts during sentencing.
Helvie told The Associated Press
he thought there should be a separate
sentencing trial in cases where the
death penalty was possible.
Jury selection in the Sidney area is
set to begin Oct. 18. The trial is sched
uled for Oct. 25 in Lincoln.
JUM MIKOtajCtK/UN
Bruce Kopplln, a meteorologist at 10-11 News, stands In the KOLN-KGIN-TV studio, where he broadcasts twice a day.
Kopplin is also a UNL assistant geography professor.
Double duty
Weatherman uses newscasts, lectures to teach geography
By Jeff Singer
Senior Editor
For 14 years, Channel 10-11
weatherman Bruce Kopplin has
been leading a double life.
After Kopplin gives Lincoln its
daily forecast on the morning and
midday news shows, he switches
gears and becomes an assistant
geography professor at the Univer
sity of Nebraska-Lincoin.
The double duty lets him change
not only professions, but also iden
tities.
Kopplin has been teaching stu
dents at UNL about geography since
he came to Lincoln in 1976. And he
has been spreading his meteoro
logical messages throughout most
of eastern Nebraska since 1979.
While working on television
every morning brings more fame,
he said, working with students has
definite advantages.
“In teaching you get a reaction,”
he said. “But in TV you have 50,000
people watching, and you don ’ t get
much feedback. It’s more imper
sonal.”
While his delivery of the weath
er is straightforward, Kopplin uses
humor as a teaching technique in
his classes.
“Humor helps people remem
ber the points you’re trying to get
across,” he said.
The Eau Claire, Wis., native’s
dual identities merge occasionally,
he said. A bit of teaching goes into
his work on TV.
“In teaching, it’s nice to know
See KOPPLIN on 6
Simpler
By Shane Tucker
UNL students who qualify for
Stafford loans will save some
money in the 1996 school
year, Director of Scholarships and
Financial Aid John Beacon said.
Under the present loan program,
students spec ify which bank they want
jtheir loans to come from. The univer
sity then has the loan guaranteed by
the Nebraska Student Loan Program.
The bank sends a check to the Univer
sity of Nebraska-Lincoln for verifica
tion, and UNL sends the check to the
student.
system will benefit students with Stafford loans
The new system will eliminate two
steps — the bank and the NSLP.
“By eliminating the middleman
you will save money,” Beacon said.
“If it saves students money,” he
said, “it’s better.”
The federal government currently
sends the loan to the institution, which
then sends a check to the student, he
said.
Students are charged a start-up fee
of 5 percent and a guaranteed fee of 3
Grcent. For a freshman with a $2,625
in, that translates to an extra $210 in
fees.
The new system will have a small
er $10 administrative fee that will go
to the institution to cover processing.
The loan program began in 1992
under the assumption that it would
begin as a pilot program at select
universities. After a five-year trial
period, the program would have been
instituted on a broader basis.
President Clinton altered that
course by eliminating the trial phase
and increasing the number of schools
included in the program, Beacon said.
By 1998, the government plans to
have at least 60 percent of the total
loan program under the new system.
Skeptics worry the loan payments
will not reach the institution in time,
Beacon said. They argue that under
the old system, thousands of financial
institutions and 44 guarantors cover
the loan.
Some people think the program
will be too big for the government to
handle, he said. They fear that when
schools try to award the loan, they
won’t have federal money to draw
from.
But Beacon said a smaller-scalc
version of the new program already
was working. The Perkins loan, also a
direct-lender program, has run
smoothly for 25 years.
Beacon said the administrative fee
might not be large enough to cover
loan-processing costs at small uni ver
sities.
But that won’t be the case at UNL.
Beacon said he was confident the
program would work because it had
congressional backing. Congress is in
the spotlight, he said, and will work
hard to make it effective.
The program will be available to
universities next year, but UNL is
waiting until 1995-96 to become in
volved Beacon said new projects,
such as the Student Information Sys
tem, left the office with little time to
commit to direct lending. Waiting a
year will allow the kinks in the new
system to be worked out of the project
before UNL takes it on, he said.
