Various comments on yesterday.

I've read most of what has been sensibly written on here since sts114 launch
yesterday, may have missed a few but there are a lot of messages...

First, the bird strike on launch which was talked about. Apparently, this
has occurred before, now at airports, they go to great pains to discourage
birds near runways, but do they do the same at the Cape? Admittedly, this
one was low speed and low altitude and was maybe harmless, but who can
predict.

The sliver of tile mentioned from near the gear door at the front,
according to the press conference was seen, but nobody would comment on the
seriousness. I got he impression that even now, the media were not that
clued up on the amount of tile damage sustained by most flights, due in
part, to the poor mechanical strength of the tile material, but at least its
designed with a margin, which, as we know, the rcc's apparently were not.

As for the debris events at srb sep, well, I, being blind was worried to
hear the admission that nobody had seen this sort of detail before, ever..
Really? You mean in the early test flights, nobody had thought to look for
debris at this violent stage of flight?

Now on the slightly lighter side, those of us who said they would fly with
the sensor problem still unexplained want to know if we get a prise...:-)

Incidentally, What is this about cooling for the APU's now containing
antifreeze? What is that all about?

Also, comms break up due to RFI was claimed a lot during the early part of
the flight, was this due to the fact that they were using the inferior link
because of the undeployed antenna, or have the terrestrial pagers and other
signals now reached such an intensity that they give problems on flights.

Brian

--
Brian Gaff....Note, this account does not accept Bcc: email.
graphics are great, but the blind can't hear them
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Brian Gaff wrote:
I've read most of what has been sensibly written on here since sts114 launch
yesterday, may have missed a few but there are a lot of messages...

First, the bird strike on launch which was talked about. Apparently, this
has occurred before, now at airports, they go to great pains to discourage
birds near runways, but do they do the same at the Cape? Admittedly, this
one was low speed and low altitude and was maybe harmless, but who can
predict.


IIRC, this was discussed here before...there is a sound system designed
to discourage the birds, with partial success. Doesn't work against
the alligators.

Tim -- is that right?

/dps