Word: pal
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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Most of the debris came from a nettlesome area of the tank known as the protuberance air load (PAL) ramp, a ridge designed to minimize turbulence around cables and fuel lines. Tests and earlier flights convinced NASA that the PAL could withstand lift-off. "Obviously," says flight operations manager John Shannon, "we were wrong...
...minimum, the PAL ridge will have to be redesigned. Currently, foam in that area is applied by hand instead of machine, which had seemed like the better method but clearly may not be. Engineers might also replace the ridge with a metal guard. "There is a very good chance the impact on the next flight could be minimal," says Phil Engelauf of the mission operations team. Still, the September flight of Atlantis will almost surely be delayed. How badly the schedule will back up after that is unknown...
...about 1 ft. long (0.3 m) and up to 8 in. (20 cm) thick; it probably weighed 0.9 lbs. (0.4 kg), about half the size of the piece that downed Columbia ?THE TROUBLESOME RAMP Most of the falling bits came from the so-called PAL ramp, a ridge of hand-sprayed foam designed to protect fuel lines from buffeting on takeoff ?EXTERNAL FUEL TANK The tank, 154 ft. (47 m) tall and 27.6 ft. (8.4 m) wide, carries 535,000 gal. (2 million liters) of frigid liquid oxygen and hydrogen fuel. It is covered by polyurethane-like foam...
...with his hurling an orange at Timmy's head and splattering a classroom wall instead. Called to account in the principal's office, he argued that the classroom mess was "all Timmy's fault--if he hadn't ducked, the orange wouldn't have hit the wall." His longtime pal Richard Lazarus, now a law professor at Georgetown, laughs as he tells the story, which has become a piece of family legend. "What truly astounded the principal at the time," he says, "is that he actually had been persuaded it was Timmy's fault...
...after shopping, pointed the Honda south. I decided to take the shunpikes down to Brattleboro, hotting village after village. In funky Jamacia, Vermont, I stopped and bought the kids some maple moose pops at the general store. The longhaired kid at the cash register was talking Sox with his pal as he made change. ?I don?t think we?re gonna get there this year,? he said...