JP writes:
Nearly half a million Floridians were
ordered to leave their homes today. Kennedy Space Center employees were
sent home leaving the Space Shuttle Orbiters to fend for themselves… Frances
threatens but where will she land?
Various models predict different scenarios. The folks on Space.com's
message board are keeping watch. "Shuttle_guy" sez "We are
securing the facility and the Shuttle Orbiters for the storm. For everything
up to a category IV hurricane we have a "ride out" crew on the base
during the storm to do what they can safely do to protect the Flight hardware.
However for category IV and V the hardware is on it's own. No one will be on
the KSC property for this storm which is expected to remain a strong Cat. IV."
According to "najaB" all three orbiters are in the Orbiter Processing
Facility (OPF) which is the least protected of KSC facilities. Most ominously
"najaB" reports that "…in the original plan, the Orbiters weren't
supposed to be in the OPF during a storm – they're supposed to be transferred
over to ride out the storm in the [40-year-old Vehicle Assembly Building]. I
guess nobody ever thought that all the Orbiters would be immovable in the OPF
at the same time that KSC would be staring down the barrel of a Cat
4 storm…"As of this writing NOAA
is predicting Frances will hit south of the Kennedy Space Center with her
counter-clockwise punch hitting the space port the hardest. Or perhaps she is
targeting Disneyworld? In any case, prayers to all the people in the way…
Link to previous post.
