Things Don't Always Go As Planned

By now you have probably heard that we're not launching in two weeks because of a hail storm that hit KSC. The funny thing about this storm is that it only hit part of the space center. My building and the ones around it didn't get any of the weather that hit the pad.

The picture below is from one of the TV cameras we have pointing at the External Tank (ET). All of the white spots are damage from the storm. The tank looks sick. :(

Photo: NASA

And this is some of the hail that fell during the storm. I'm told many of the stones were about the size of a golf ball. The coin in the picture is a nickel to give some idea of the actual size. If you want to know what makes hail, a simple answer is here.

Photo: ?

The shuttle is rolling back to the VAB this weekend. We'll know more about how bad the damage is in a few days, and if we can fix it hopefully we will fly in April.

Friday afternoon the power went out in my building as we were eating lunch. It turns out the whole area lost power and we were sent home because it was going to be a while before they could fix the problem. I hadn't taken Myca out during the week and now that we were all being told to leave I didn't want to poke around too much, so I decided to enjoy my free time and go to the beach. Now Myca has also seen the ocean.



I know it's not a stop at KSC, but I think this week's lesson is to make the most of whatever comes up because it all works out sooner or later. It was nice to have a free afternoon and it was a beauitful day to be outside. I can't complain.

Thanks this week go to Teresa for sending me the hail pictures. Next week's update will probably be late because I have to work at the KSC picnic all day Saturday. Hopefully it will be with good news about the ET and more cool pictures from the space program. Until then...