[ijcr]

Firstly the chemical composition of the foam insulation was changed recently due to the ban on the use of freon. The "new" foam doesn't maintain integrity quite as well under high heating conditions and some pieces have been coming off, so NASA sands the foam still thinner to design "minimums" to still protect the aluminum skin, yet decrease the amount of foam that potentially could come off.

Secondly, All the tanks come in from the factory a light tan in color, and can eventually reach a chocolate brown depending on how long it sits on the pad in the sun. Any orange tinting should be very subtle. Actually, the orange influence is attributed more to what the sunlight is contributing that day whether it be close to sunrise or sunset than anything else.

Thirdly,The super-lightweight ET's, which first flew in 1998, have an even lighter color.

Finally, public affairs now shoots a lot of their images with digital cameras and these cameras sometimes have trouble reproducing reds, yellows, and tans.Often in filming a rapid event will go to white,eg fill a balloon with a dark powder and film it being burst...the result is often a white cloud.

[Rightwing Conspiratr1]

Firstly the chemical composition of the foam insulation was changed recently due to the ban on the use of freon.

It's absolutely moronic that NASA would have to use substandard materials because of environmental wackoism. It wouldn't have bothered me in the least if they had decided the best material for the job was spraying asbestos over everything. Freon? Freon? Freon? I have no words for the stupidity of banning a material that isn't dangerous at all to anything in the amounts used.