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Pat Duggins
Pat Duggins
Senior News Analyst
pduggins@wmfe.org

 

June 25, 2007—NASA is preparing Space Shuttle Atlantis for its cross-country ferry flight following Friday’s landing at Edwards Air Force Base in California. Chief Astronaut Steve Lindsey was optimistic that the weather would cooperate at the Kennedy Space Center, but mission managers couldn’t get comfortable about it. So, the astronauts headed to California. Now, the Shuttle has to be carried "piggy back" on a 747 jumbo jet to make the trip back to Florida.

The Shuttle is currently sitting out in the open on the dry lake bed of the Mojave Desert, where Edwards is located. That brings up a problem that has plagued previous Shuttles on previous California landings. The Shuttle’s crew cabin is air-tight in orbit, but the spacecraft’s payload bay isn’t water-tight on Earth, even with the clam shell cargo bay doors shut.

Cloudbursts following past California Shuttle landings have left engineers with the very low-tech problem of bailing out the cargo bay and drying out the interior. Let’s hope Atlantis has a nice dry visit to the Golden State. It’s scheduled for an December flight to carry up the new European built Columbus lab for the International Space Station.

 

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