The Orlando Sentinel from Orlando, Florida • Page 14

A-1 4 The Orlando Sentinel, Sunday, January 22. 1 995 NASA resets its shot clock in latest space race Shuttle's launch record Only 18 of NASA 's 66. space shuttle flights have lifted off on the first try during the first five minutes of the launch 'window. Another 2 1 eventually took off during the first five minutes of a subsequent launch window, after one or more delays. Number of successful launches Number launched during first five minutes 40 35 30 25 20 15 10 Killer wants victim's mom to execute him REUTERS RALEIGH, N.C.

A convicted murderer condemned to die Tuesday has asked that his victim's mother administer the lethal injection that will kill him. But the warden at the prison Saturday refused his request. Kermit Smith, convicted for the December 1980 rape and murder of college cheerleader Whelette Collins asked that Collins' mother, Marjorie Collins, be allowed to operate the machine that will inject him. He also asked that she be joined by two women who escaped after he kidnapped them along with Collins. In a handwritten appeal to Warden James French, Smith wrote that his death at the hands of his victim's mother "is simply my way of trying to atone for the crime." The warden refused Smith's request in writing.

"We have a process in place that had been used for every execution carried out at this institution, and I have no compelling reason to change that process," the warden wrote. Smith, whose appeals have been rejected by the governor and the Supreme Court, is scheduled to die at 2 a.m. Tuesday morning, i ever, there's only one bus, so if you aren't there on time, you miss that day's ride completely. To compensate, KSC managers are doing the equivalent of leaving home a little early but they won't run to avoid missing the bus, because they don't want to cause an accident, Sofge said. "We're not going to launch until we're ready to launch," he said.

"It's better to be sitting on the ground wishing you were flying, than flying wishing you were on the ground." NASA has come up with a couple of ways to increase its chances of making the five-minute windows, Sofge said: When a countdown reaches T-minus six hours until liftoff, launch directors will hold the count for two hours instead of the usual one. When the countdown reaches T-minus nine minutes until launch, the count will be held for 40 minutes instead of the usual 10. If a problem exists at T-minus five minutes before launch, but the problem is likely to be fixed within a few minutes, the countdown will proceed toward T-minus 31 seconds. Normally, launch managers hold a countdown at T-minus five minutes until any problem is resolved. If Discovery doesn't go off as scheduled at 12:48 a.m.

on Feb. 2, NASA will try again at 12:24 a.m. on Feb. 3 or about 12:01 a.m. on Feb.

4, Sofge said. To catch up with a Russian space station orbiting the Earth, Discovery will have only five minutes to lift off. By Seth Borenstein OF THE SENTINEL STAFF i CAPE CANAVERAL NASA Is getting ready to play the space shuttle version of Beat The Clock. Instead of having a leisurely 2V4 hours in which to launch a shuttle before having to quit for the day, the space agency will have only five minutes to get the shuttle Discovery off the ground Feb. 2.

If launch managers at Kennedy Space Center can't make that five-minute "window," they'll have to wait a day to try again and still have only five minutes in which to work. So if you're planning to stay up late to watch Discovery's 12:48 a.m. launch, be prepared for a quick disappointment. And you better get used to it, shuttle watchers: At least five such missions are on the schedule this year and next, and more than a dozen more are planned between now and the end of the decade. The shorter a launch window, the less likely a shuttle's chances of getting off the ground that day.

Only 18 of NASA's 66 shuttle flights have lifted off on the first try during the first five minutes of the launch window. An additional 21 have taken off during the first five minutes of a subsequent launch window, after one or more delays. Because Discovery is to rendezvous with the Russian space station Mir, NASA has to send it aloft within five minutes of the appointed time to ensure the right trajectory. Otherwise, the shuttle would burn too much fuel catching up with the orbiting Russian station, said Phil Engelhauf, the mission's lead flight director. There are three Mir missions this year and at least two in 1996.

And because the National Aeronautics and Space Administration is planning to build its international space station with Russian help in the same orbit as Mir, all shuttle launches related to its construction and use will be governed by the same five-minute limit. If nothing goes wrong during a countdown, the size of a launch window is not important. But if anything other than the simplest problem crops up be it a suspicious sensor reading or an errant rain cloud a five-minute launch window soon evaporates, forcing the cancellation, or "scrub," of a liftoff, said Al Sofge, KSC's shuttle test director. "There's nothing magic about the five-minute window," Sofge said. "If we make it, we make it.

If we don't, we don't." Only two shuttle missions 18 'T IS 6th 5th 2nd 3rd 4th LAUNCH ATTEMPT 1st Source: NASA DAVID W. WERSINGEFVTHE ORLANDO SENTINEL Working with a smaller launch window is like walking a couple of miles to a bus stop to catch a ride: Normally, if you miss the first bus, there's a second one 10 minutes later, another 10 minutes after that, and so on for a couple of hours. This time, how have had shorter windows: a June 1985 Discovery flight had only four minutes to get off the launch pad, and an April 1984 Challenger flight had 3Vfc minutes in which to launch. In the 1960s, Gemini 8 had only a two-second window. Expert panel dethrones Napoleon wine rankings i gmmmMammmmL -rr -h tpv -r.

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I iTiT.JHUHICIIl" A H-TLt 1 iH, li 4- 1U iln" Lf-' mi highest have changed hands, replanted vines or made other changes that, in many cases, drastically affected quality. In addition, they say, the list was flawed from the beginning because Napoleon's panel didn't do side-by-side tastings. Instead, it used the prices the wines got at the time, basically upholding the status quo without question. To test whether the order still holds true, the San Francisco panelists, led by billionaire philanthropist Gordon Getty, spent four days doing taste testing of $50,000 worth of 1986 and 1990 Bordeaux shipped straight from France. The wines cost an average of $25 to $125 a bottle.

Some of their conclusions: The panel was strongly divided on a few well-known wines, including No. 1-ranked Chateau La-fite-Rothschild, with some saying it no longer is as good as should be expected. Some of the best wines didn't even make the Top 10, such as 1990 vintages of No. 18 Chateau Cos d'Estournel and No. 16 Chateau Pichon Laland.

Some top-ranked Bordeaux wines didn't hold up to taste-tests. ASSOCIATED PRESS SAN FRANCISCO Maybe it's time to retire Emperor Napoleon III as a judge of good wine. A distinguished collection of international wine experts is challenging the traditional ranking of Bordeaux that dates back to the emperor's regime. The 10-person panel did a blind taste-test of the 160 wines that have long been thought to be the best of the rich, red wines in the Bordeaux region of France. The rankings have been in place since Napoleon commissioned a panel in 1855 to list the region's best for the world exposition in Paris.

The list has determined those wines' prices and status ever since. Wine experts have complained for years that the ranking is no longer relevant because many chateaus whose wines ranked i i fciiTff ilHtf.iTiiim..iriiit.li.iiiiiirinill-.iii; I 1 -jLmUii. IN OLYMPIC TRAINING OR IN THE BUSINESS WORLD, SECONDS COUNT GET UP TO 36 THOUSAND SECONDS. FREE SAVE 45-79 ON FINE ORIENTAL Before it's too Late! BellSouth Mobility is a proud sponsor of the 1996 U.S. Olympic Team.

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