"David" wrote in message
...
Gidday!

I know that there are a lot more important problems to worry about with
the
return to flight but after trolling through various images on the Nasa
site,
one thing that stands out, in particular with the night shots of Discovery
on the launch pad, is how dirty or marked Discovery appears.

During the time that its taken to prepare for the return to flight,
wouldn't
Nasa have wanted to paint the shuttle, if not for protection, just for
public relations? If you think of Discovery as the Space equivalent of Air
Force 1, then comparatively every shot you ever see of Air Force 1 shows
it
in pristine condition. Are all the Orbiters like Discovery?

As I say, I know there are more important issues but this is just
something
I've noticed and thought that people who know much more in this area than
I
do (I'm just an enthusiast from Oz) could shed some light on.

You're kidding, right? Besides the added weight of the paint (e.g. the
first ET's were painted white, but the paint was dropped when it was decided
it wasn't needed to protect the spray on foam insulation), you really don't
want bits of paint, seared by launch heating, to fleck off while in orbit.
Finally, the paint wouldn't likely survive reentry anyway, at least on the
areas that get the highest heating, so you'd have to paint it after every
flight.

Jeff
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