The Rice Thresher an All-student Newspaper for 50 Years

Last Friday night around 10 pm seven Will Rice freshmen and two Baker freshmen launched f rom the stadium parking lot another of Rice's space probes, The vehicle, called Marshgas 1, was lifted by two hydrogen filled balloons. The base, which was held to the balloon with eight guidelines, was covered with f i f t y square feet of tin foil. From this base were hung six f lares thus giving Marshgas 1 a wierd appearance not uncommon to Unidentified Flying Objects. Evil Genius The planning for this project originated in a November bull session of Will Rice freshmen David Beekman, James DePitte, Dewayne Huckaby, Harold Magnus, Mike McParland, Beau Jon Sackett, John Treichler, and Bob Vanzant. These same boys were the masterminds behind such other projects as coloring nearby fountains and feeding ducks gin soaked popcorn. Construction of the ship was in progress fo r most of the last six weeks and manMred to use much of room 110 of^Vill Rice. For the launching the boys had to dismantle and then rebuild the device in the stadium lot. I t was in this stage of operations t ha t Baker freshmen ConUFO Plot; Launched From Stadium rad Boeck and Pat Baum joined the project. UFO Shot Down A projected launching set for April 1 near Ellington Air Force Base failed because of technical difficulties with the gas equipment. This particular location was chosen because the whole project was to be a joke on the Air Force and not the community. According to Beekman this location was discarded for the second launching because of the difficulty in getting out to the base. In the process of planning, several ideas were discussed. In one, ithree balloons were also to carry a fuse with "bombs" at-