Technical Problems Delay Shuttle Liftoff

A crucial data processor failed just hours before space shuttle Columbia was to lift off, forcing a one-day delay and the hurried replacement of 1,514 crickets and 18 pregnant mice. NASA said it would replace the processor and try again today to send Columbia on a two-week mission to study the nervous systems of seven astronauts and more than 2,000 animals. The crickets aboard Columbia, nearly half of them still in the egg stage, had to be replaced with fresh substitutes. If the eggs hatch before liftoff, it will spoil the experiment to observe how space-born crickets develop in a weightless environment. The processors send voice communication and computer data to and from the shuttle.