sjb (07/01/82)
The doors of the cargo bay are still not closed all the way, as had been reported earlier. The problem came when the belly of the ship was exposed to the extreme heat of the sun while the top was exposed to the deep cold of space (all these adjectives!) This caused the edge of one door to warp slightly, preventing the latched that hold the doors closed from hooking together. As with the last flight, the astronauts put the ship in top-side-toward-sun format before going to bed; the night of heat is expected to alleviate the problem. If not, they are prepare to put on pressure suits and take a little space walk to fix the problem manually. It is possible to land with the doors open, but it is likened to doing so in a jet plane; they'd rather not. It would unbalance the aerodynamics of the craft (then a rock) and also expose the inside to the heat of reentry.
davidson (07/02/82)
"the deep cold of space" indeed! I hope that was facetious, but anyway, I feel I should remind people that space at the distance the Columbia is flying is a much better vacuum than that of a Thermos bottle. Other than in esoteric measures (the temperature of the background radiation, or the "temperature" of the solar wind), space can be thought of as not having any temperature. The only way you can lose (or gain) heat in space is through radiative transfer. Does anyone have any data on to what extent the Columbia's coloring is due to the intended effects on its albedo, how much is has to do with other desired properties of the materials, and how much is due to esthetics? Greg Davidson usenet: ...!ucbvax!sdcsvax!davidson arpanet: davidson@nprdc