Loose Ends

A few weeks ago my uncle emailed me to let me know that this website made the monthly newsletter for Ichabod Crane Primary School, which Emma attends. Welcome to all of you who have joined us as a result of that publication. I'm glad to see you following along with us.

Before I left for Virginia I was taken to see the hail damage to the External Tank (ET). Unfortunately cameras were not allowed so I don't have any pictures to share. I think the most amazing thing to me is how you look at one side of the tank and it's dinged up badly, but when you walk around to the other there's little sign of damage. The left side got the worst of it because the storm blew from west to east. There were also a few little dents in odd places.

I do not work on the ET and am not an expert on it, but seeing it up close made me a little sad. Fixing everything is going to take time and I really wanted us to fly soon. The most important thing is making sure the vehicle is as safe as possible for our astronauts, though. We don't want anything to happen to them.

The new ET arrived at Kennedy Space Center on Friday. I was off for family reasons so I couldn't get Myca out there. If you'd like to see a few pictures of the barge arriving I recommend the KSC Multimedia Archive. The site is always up to date with pictures of the latest things going on at the space center, and they can follow things much better than I can because they have people they pay to photograph the events. My pictures generally come out well, but I'm just playing in comparison.

My apologies for not having something more exciting to share this time around. The past two weeks have been tough to work with, so Myca's biggest adventure was getting moved to a new wall when I rearranged my cubicle. She seems to like it, but it's not really worth posting pictures of. I'll find something better for the next update.

Until then...