Historical Newspapers of South Carolina

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Challenge 2003 The Amazing Race , LAST DAY FOR FILING!!! March 4th-5th from 8:30am-4:30pm Student Government Office Mandatory Candidate meeting March 18th at 5:00pm Russell House 315 SENATE NEWS: Legislation update from February 26th, 2003: • The motion to bring forth SBL(03) 043 did not pass. • SBL(03)041 was brought forth to be reconsidered. It passed. • Sen. Wright brought forth SBL(03)044 & 45 as a slate. The slate passed with a majority vote. Committee Reports Academics- no report Athletics- Two pieces of legislation will be brought to the floor by Sen. Odom. Finance- Thanks to the whole committee for their help on budget allocations. Judiciary- no report Minority Affairs- no report Powers & Responsibilities- they are still taking applications for the remaining 8 open senate seats. 1 1 Rules- Placed SBL(03)046 & 047 on the docket. Student Services- no report .jESSssmSkibp. 4 \ 41 CABINET NEWSfc'^/ Thanks to Freshman Council for painting the Cocky on the wall across from the mailboxes in the Russell House! Announcements from Interfaith Council Chair, Rachel Rosansky: • The Interfaith Council wishes to thank Ankit Patel and Student Government for supporting the Interfaith Panel, which was very successful with an attendance around 100 people. • We are planning another Panel event, similar to this past one, for the end of April. The date should be April 23rd, at 7 pm, and the topic will relate to Science and Religion: Are They Compatible? • Also, the Interfaith Council is planning another Interfaith Potluck Dinner for March 19th. The topic of discussion/storytelling at this dinner will be Creation. Announcements from Elections Commissioner, Brooke Vickery: • The General Election will be held March 31st-April 1st • Inauguration will be held on April 16th at 3:00pm in Rutledge Chapel. **If you would like to have a speaker attend a meeting of your organization for more information or to answer questions, please email Brooke Vickery at vickery@gwm.sc.edu. Katie McClendon, Director of Womens Affairs, would like to announce that tickets for the Vagina Monologues are on sale now at the Russell House Information Desk and the Roger Center. The show will take place at the Roger Center at 8:00pm on March 6th. All proceeds benefit violence prevention programs. Chief of Staff, Jessica Steadman, would like to remind the Student Body that the new University Committee applications are available in the Student Government Office or online at www.sg.sc.edu. These positions are for the Fall and Spring semester of the next academic year. The committees are a great way to get involved on campus and a unique way to voice your opinion over important university policy such as safety, parking, and disability affairs or have input in various awards, the Horseshoe, and Orientation. Applications are due April 4 at 4:00 p.m. in the Student Government Office in the basement of the Russell House. Contact Jessica with any questions at steadman@gwm.sc.edu. Want to find out more about what’s going on in Student Government? Please visit us at www.sg.sc.edu! Student Government exists to act as a liaison between the students and the administration of the University of South Carolina. ) kr V Investigation board says molten aluminum found on Columbia’s thermal tiles BY MARCIA DUNN THE ASSOCIATED PRESS HOUSTON — Molten aluminum was found on Columbia’s thermal tiles and inside the leading edge of the left wing, bolstering the theory that the shuttle was destroyed by hot gases that penetrated a dam aged spot on the wing, the accident investigation board said Tuesday. Roger Tetrault, a board member, said he suspects the melting oc curred because of the penetrating gases and also because of the in tense heat of falling through the at mosphere. “My best guess would be that eventually we’ll probably find both,” he said. The melted alu minum, or slag, looks like black soot, and is present on both the right and left sides of the spacecraft, especially the left, Tetrault said. “Many of the tiles on the left side have a thin, black deposit on them, and that deposit has never been seen on any previous flight,” he said. Tetrault said both tires from the left main landing gear also show evidence of unusual and extreme trauma: They are flat with torn fabric, possibly from a rupture in the final seconds of the spaceship’s flight, Tetrault said. He said the damage to the tires could also have been caused by heat penetrating the wing. That heat may have set off the small ex plosives that are used to free the landing gear if it gets stuck right before touchdown. The tire fibers may have been pulled apart by the heat of re-entry, he said. “I would not speculate that it blew out the door or blew down the landing gear and that caused the ac cident. It is the result, not the initi ating event,” said Tetrault, a retired corporate executive with experi ence in nuclear submarines. He not ed that rupturing tires “could have been the ultimate breakup event — but we don’t know that.” Investigators have theorized that foam or other debris that -- broke off the shuttle’s big external fuel tank during liftoff Jan. 16 damaged the wing — perhaps the leading edge, perhaps the area around the wheel well — and al lowed hot gases to penetrate the wing and destroy the shuttle. Tetrault would not speculate whether the wing’s leading edge or wheel well was the location of that breach, but said both options were “equally alive.” “Everybody on the board has their own theory. I’m going to be patient and not express my theo ry at this time,” he said. What is particularly intriguing, Tetrault said, is that deposits of stainless steel were found along with molten aluminum on the in side of one of the carbon panels that protected the leading edge of the left wing. “How do you get that stainless steel and the aluminum up onto the back edge ... when in fact that stainless steel is behind the area,” he said, adding that maybe it had something to do with the tires rupturing. A sizable hole — 4 inches by 2 inches — was found burned into a left inboard elevon actuator, likely the result of the heat from re-en try, Tetrault said. Traces of hy draulic fluid that leaked from that hole surprisingly showed no sig nificant overheating, he added. More than 32,000 pounds of Columbia wreckage has been col lected so far, representing about 13.7 percent of the returning space ship. It is crucial to discover iden tical pieces from both sides of the ship for comparison, said the board’s chairman, retired Navy Adm. Harold Gehman Jr. “That’s why the tires are so im portant,” he said. Investigators have recovered most of the pieces of the right land ing gear door, for instance, but only three pieces of the frame of the left door and nothing from the door itself. “We have more questions than answers right now. But we’re get ting smarter fast and I believe that there’s a very good chance that we will, in fact, be able to localize the breach that occurred in the left wing,” Tetrault said. “Until we have determined that location of the breach, every postulated cause of the accident is really just a theory.” ( Gehman, meanwhile, said the board will delve into what role NASA management and the agen cy’s institutional culture played in the tragedy. But he said it is more important, for now, to find out what caused the accident. He was referring to the flurry of e-mails among flight controllers and other engineers in the last few days of Columbia’s flight, in which they discussed the possibility that the launch debris severely dam aged the left wing. They said they were merely “what-iffing” and did not suspect any serious problems, even though some of them accu rately predicted what might hap pen if a breach occurred. “You’ve got to remember that at this point in the Challenger in vestigation, they knew what went wrong and so the review of who did what to whom and who did his job well and who didn’t do a job well was relatively fairly focused,” Gehman said. “I’m really not in terested ... without any particular focus or without any particular reason, for just casting about and casting some big chill over NASA.” For the first time, the board’s weekly news conference was not held at Johnson Space Center, but rather a few miles away, off NASA property. The panel wants to distance itself from the space agency and, in fact, has asked NASA’s chief, Sean O’Keefe, to re move some top shuttle program officials from the investigation. Gehman said he is satisfied that O’Keefe will comply with his re quest. He refused to name which NASA officials he wanted off the investigation. - ■ The Amazing Race! Student Body Elections Filing for Candidacy March 5 th at the Office of Student Government from 9:00am to 4:00pm Offices Available: Student Body President, Student Body Vice President, Student Body Treasurer, and All Senate Seats The Road Less Traveled... For more information visit www.sg.sc.edu , . "■ ' 11 ■ —■—■■■ — III'B ■! ! ! — T.l _. : . :...: