From: Mary Shafer <shafer@orville.dfrc.nasa.gov>
Newsgroups: sci.space.shuttle,sci.space
Subject: Re: Astronauts May Be Forced to Land at Seldom Used Strip, Reuters 
	press   release
Date: 29 Feb 2000 13:01:02 -0800

"Greg D. Moore" <mooregr@greenms.com> writes:

> > By Brad Liston
> >
> > CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. (Reuters) - Astronauts aboard the space shuttle
> > Endeavour ended their ambitious Earth-mapping
> > work on Monday after some anxious moments closing a hatch and prepared
> > to come home, possibly at a seldom used landing
> > strip in New Mexico because of bad weather.

> 	Seldom used.... if you count ONCE as seldom. :-)

And never again, if the people who did it the first time have written
any reports about how miserable the recovery was.

The "White Sands" aren't sand (silica) but are soluble in water.  The
stuff is so fine it gets into everything and then turns into a gooey
white paste in the presence of moisture.  When the paste dries, it's
somewhat like cement and is very difficult to remove completely.

--
Mary Shafer    http://www.dfrc.nasa.gov/People/Shafer/mary.html
shafer@orville.dfrc.nasa.gov Of course I don't speak for NASA
Senior Handling Qualities Research Engineer
NASA Dryden Flight Research Center, Edwards, CA
For non-aerospace mail, use shafer@spdcc.com please

From: Steve Wachowski <stevew99@bellsouth.net>
Newsgroups: sci.space.shuttle,sci.space
Subject: Re: Astronauts May Be Forced to Land at Seldom Used Strip, Reuters
Date: Tue, 29 Feb 2000 22:01:30 -0500

Mary Shafer wrote:
> And never again, if the people who did it the first time have written
> any reports about how miserable the recovery was.
>
> The "White Sands" aren't sand (silica) but are soluble in water.  The
> stuff is so fine it gets into everything and then turns into a gooey
> white paste in the presence of moisture.  When the paste dries, it's
> somewhat like cement and is very difficult to remove completely.

Exactly like cement. We had to change out quite a few RCS thrusters when
the gypsum dust got into the combustion chamber injector plates.
--
Steve Wachowski
-------------------------------------------
The above opinions are mine and mine alone,
mainly because no one else would want them.
-------------------------------------------

Newsgroups: sci.space.shuttle,sci.space
From: henry@spsystems.net (Henry Spencer)
Subject: Re: Astronauts May Be Forced to Land at Seldom Used Strip, Reuters 
	press   release
Date: Thu, 2 Mar 2000 16:56:03 GMT

In article <vJ0v4.39918$G91.355231@news1.rdc1.az.home.com>,
Dave Cawdell <davecawdell@home.com> wrote:
>> > The "White Sands" aren't sand (silica) but are soluble in water.  The
>> > stuff is so fine it gets into everything and then turns into a gooey
>> > white paste in the presence of moisture.  When the paste dries, it's
>> > somewhat like cement and is very difficult to remove completely...
>
>Is this a problem for rocket launches at White Sands?

Not a big one, because there the dust usually stays dry.  The problem
comes when your rocket sits out in the blowing dust at White Sands for a
few days, and then you ship it to some nice humid place like Florida
without cleaning the dust out first.
--
Computer disaster in February?  Oh, you |  Henry Spencer   henry@spsystems.net
must mean the release of Windows 2000.  |      (aka henry@zoo.toronto.edu)

From: Mary Shafer <shafer@orville.dfrc.nasa.gov>
Newsgroups: sci.space.shuttle,sci.space
Subject: Re: Astronauts May Be Forced to Land at Seldom Used Strip, Reuters 
	press   release
Date: 02 Mar 2000 12:40:23 -0800

henry@spsystems.net (Henry Spencer) writes:

> Not a big one, because there the dust usually stays dry.  The
> problem comes when your rocket sits out in the blowing dust at White
> Sands for a few days, and then you ship it to some nice humid place
> like Florida without cleaning the dust out first.

It wasn't that they didn't try to clean the dust out, by the way, but
that the Orbiter wasn't dust-tight and more dust kept appearing.
There was a lot of wind while the Orbiter was being recovered; I'm not
familiar enough with the area to know if this is usual.

One of the members of the recovery team described the process as "You
get the dust out of an area in the morning and by evening it's just as
dusty as when you started".

--
Mary Shafer    http://www.dfrc.nasa.gov/People/Shafer/mary.html
shafer@orville.dfrc.nasa.gov Of course I don't speak for NASA
Senior Handling Qualities Research Engineer
NASA Dryden Flight Research Center, Edwards, CA
For non-aerospace mail, use shafer@spdcc.com please