🚀 go-pugleaf

Greetings and Salutations:

From: mritter@access.digex.com
>We were sitting around after dinner when the subject of possible
>damage to the shuttle's gantry came up.  How much damage does it sustain

Ahh.  It gets even batter.  Since the pad is located near the coast, you get
all of that nice sea salt spray all over everything all of the time.  After a
launch a team goes out and acesses the damage.

Most of the FSS (Fixed Service Structure) is made of grating and round poles,
so you only have to repaint the parts that get hit.  You also have to replace
alot of lights.  The elevator (which is still working, amazingly) has had the
doors ripped off.  As you can imagine, the ride up is awful squeeky...

The MLP (Mobile Launch Platform) probably gets hit the worst.  After a launch
and before the pad washdown (FSS & MLP) the top of the MLP has been basically
sandblasted by the SRB (Solid Rocket Booster) exhaust.  Within a few hours the
sea spray has started a fine rust surface on all of the exposed surfaces.  The
cameras are housed in a box that has a protective lens, and the lens is nothing
but a white glaze. There is a very fine white powder over everything.  All is
sandblasted.  Quite impressive.

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Ken Hollis  INTERNET: HOLLIS@TITAN.KSC.NASA.GOV
            SPAN/HEPnet: KSCP00::HOLLIS