From: ddoyle9570@aol.com
Date: Mon Feb 03 2003 - 06:10:11 PST
In a message dated 2/3/2003 2:28:28 AM Eastern Standard Time, wa6ube@tactical-link.com writes:
> It is surprising, however, that while the shuttle was in orbit,
> an EVA could not have been made in order to inspect the underside
> of the shuttle. It is also surprising that some number of additional
> tiles, and fastening media of some type is not kept on
> board in
> order to replace one, or a few, if a few tiles were found to
> be missing via an EVA inspection.
The latter part I can speak on knowledgably. Several years ago, when the shuttle was a new thing, I watched a special on it. Each tile is custom fit to its position on the craft. Remember, there are compound curves involved. If a tile needs to be replaced, its position has to be noted and that specific tile duplicated. The show also discussed the bonding process, which I seem to remember was a bit more complicated than slathering on epoxy and putting the new tile on. Thus, it would be impractical to try to carry replacement tiles. Kind of like being allowed to take spares for your MV.....by the governments standard, an army truck can't carry enough parts to support itself. I have read somewhere how many tons per vehicle of supplies were deployed in WWII.
The bit that I saw in the past couple days said that the concern about having an EVA under the shuttle was that the spacewalker couldn't be tethered to the ship.
DD
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