From: Ryan Gill (rmgill@mindspring.com)
Date: Mon Feb 03 2003 - 06:58:19 PST
At 1:12 AM -0600 2/3/03, Timothy Smith wrote:
>
>I heard an astronaut (who was a qualified and experienced shuttle
>crewmember) state in an interview that (at least in the case of Columbia)
>there was no way for the crew to make a visual examination of the exterior
>surfaces of the craft.
The orbiter's arm was not fitted. This was a spacelab mission. They
could not gain orbit altitude to reach the space station for them to
take a look because the Columbia is the oldest orbiter and is the
heaviest. It doesn't have the fuel reserve to reach the station. I
don't know this for a fact, but, its my understanding that they don't
always have an airlock for EVA type maneuvers, nor do they have the
back pack EVA thruster units on every mission.
--
--
Ryan Gill rmgill@SPAMmindspring.com
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'60 Daimler Ferret '42 Daimler Dingo '42 Humber MkIV (1/2)
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