Oh, and a very tiny very sharp bit.
prisoner6
What’s disturbing is someone was sloppy enough to drop a knob off a work light while working inside the shuttle, then the person failed to report it.
Six months to change a window? MUST be a union job.
Thats nothing, one of my yard workers left a $250 Bosch rotary concrete drill inside a concrete septic tank which was sold, installed and is now full of crap.
So, shrinking the knob didn’t work, why not stretch the shuttle?
They already admitted that it expands while in orbit, and the only thing I can think that would cause that is the internal/external pressure difference.
Just pump the sucker up and go pull the offending knob out.
I mean, that is how it got in there, isn’t it?
Don’t think its the worst case, may well be the best.
The Shuttle is beyond its safe life expectancy operating schedule. Witness the myriad issues over the past few years.
Because the past few administrations and NASA and the lack of urgency have stymied any efforts at a replacement, the chickens have come home to roost.
Better not to risk the lives of the Astronauts, kludge some solutions with the Russian Soyuz and decide do we want to be in space at all.