[Mars-discuss] Fwd: NASA Rounds Up Roadkill

[Thomas Coffee]

If you thought NASA had problems clearing out birds roosting in the VAB ...

>NASA is trying to rid the Kennedy Space Center of vultures after the 
>shuttle struck one of the large birds during lift-off last year on 
>the first flight after the Columbia disaster. The space center has 
>set up what it calls a "road kill posse" to quickly clear as many 
>carcasses as possible from the 6,000-acre site, in hopes of 
>encouraging the vulture population to relocate by cutting off its 
>food supply. Discovery did not suffer any damage from the vulture 
>collision or from the chunks of foam that fell off its fuel tank 
>during launch. But NASA fears collisions with the large, 
>carrion-eating birds could damage shuttle heat shields, leaving the 
>spacecraft vulnerable to an accident like the one that killed 
>Columbia's seven astronauts. About 500 lbs. of animal carcasses have 
>been removed since the program began two weeks ago, the center said.


- Thomas

-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: http://mailman.mit.edu/pipermail/mars-discuss/attachments/20060503/58d71f40/attachment.htm