Shuttle Tank Repaired
The external fuel tank for the space shuttle Atlantis, which sustained damage to the foam insulation of the main fuel tank in a freak February hailstorm, has been repaired and is ready to roll out onto the launch pad. But NASA officials held a special news conference to warn the media that the repairs to the foam make the tank look a bit odd.
CAPE CANAVERAL, Florida (Reuters) - The U.S. space shuttle and its newly repaired hail-damaged fuel tank are ready to return to the launch pad for a June 8 launch, NASA managers said on Friday, even though the tank is a bit of an eyesore.
Instead of being a uniform orange color, Atlantis's tank now has a patchwork of white spots where technicians sprayed, scraped and filled fresh foam into more than 4,200 areas that
were damaged during a freak hail storm in February."I want to prepare all of you for what this tank is going to look like when we roll it out," fuel tank manager John Chapman told reporters on a teleconference call. "It's going to look pretty speckly."
We here at Blue Crab Boulevard managed to obtained spy pictures of the repaired tank. We think it looks kind of festive.
By Purple Avenger, Friday, 11 May , 2007 @ 6:37 pm
You know the budget is tight when they can’t afford to whip down to Home Depot and buy a 5gal pail of paint.
By curtis, Friday, 11 May , 2007 @ 6:56 pm
Who cares how it looks or works? As long as the EPA is happy. As long as there is no asbestos, it dosen’t matter if people die. We’ve only lost two crews to the gorebots, what’s another couple? /s
By skh.pcola, Saturday, 12 May , 2007 @ 12:25 pm
Like Curtis said, as long as there are no eeeevil CFCs in the foam, the greenie weenies are happy, and our astronauts are in greater danger. The new foam is vastly inferior to the old, CFC-based variety.