Word: shipful
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...troubled space shuttle will get some up-close care tomorrow when astronaut Stephen Robinson ventures outside to trim what?s known as gap filler protruding from tiles at the nose of the ship. The procedure is a straightforward one, but it?s not without risks. What you need to know to follow the operation...
Only hours before the docking, NASA announced that the entire shuttle fleet was being grounded again, after evidence that four pieces of insulating foam--the largest the size of a skateboard--had spun off the ship's external fuel tank during lift-off, just the kind of debris that damaged Columbia's wing and doomed the ship. Only one small piece may have struck the shuttle this time, glancing off a wing with so little force it didn't register on impact sensors. But a camera mounted on the shuttle's 50-ft. arm as well as photos taken from...
...nothing of the astronauts' families--will be anxiously watching for any change in that assessment. If the shuttle were deemed unsafe to fly, the crew could take refuge in the space station, waiting out the five weeks it would take to roll out and gas up sister ship Atlantis for a rescue mission. But Wayne Hale, deputy shuttle manager, dismisses that scenario as "remote...
...news all the same, particularly the 1.5-in. ding that is located on the edge of the door covering the nosewheel well. Any breach there could cause superheated gases to stream into the enclosed space where the landing gear is stowed, forming a vapor bomb inside the ship. NASA, however, is confident that all the chips are minor and is saying so with uncommon certainty. "It looks extremely good," says Shannon. "We don't have anything to worry about." Says Griffin: "The orbiter is a clean bird...
...clean, with 80% fewer chips than shuttles usually sustain--a tribute to the strides the engineers have made. But had the big piece of foam broken off lower in the atmosphere, it would have slammed into a wall of thicker air and could have crashed far harder into the ship. NASA doesn't want to rely on luck again...