NASA building suffers heavy damage from hurricane, but shuttles not affected

The shuttles and NASA were spared the Wrath of Francis and escaped relativly unscathed. There was some worry here on ATS that the assembly building was at risk, and about 1000 panels were torn off of it, but it was otherwise okay. However, some concerns were expressed that the damage combined with the previous hurricanes damage could delay the retun to flight of the shuttle

CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. (AP) - Hurricane Frances did more damage to the Kennedy Space Center (news - web sites) than any other storm in history, tearing an estimated 1,000 exterior panels from a giant building where space vehicles are assembled, officials said Monday.

No space shuttles were inside the 160-metre-high building, a familiar landmark. But centre director James Kennedy said he feared the damage could set back NASA (news - web sites)'s effort to resume shuttle launches next spring.

Monday marked the first time anyone from NASA had seen the damage from the storm because the agency completely evacuated the centre - the first time NASA made such a move.

The holes left by the missing panels created 3,700 square metres of "open window" on two sides of the building, Kennedy said. Each panel measures 1.2 metres by three metres.

Kennedy said it was too soon to provide a dollar figure for all the damage. Hurricane Charley three weeks earlier caused $700,000 US worth of damage, and this will be "significantly more," he noted.

But Kennedy expressed relief that the space centre had been spared a direct hit by a storm that was once a Category 4 hurricane with winds of 233 kilometres per hour.

story.news.yahoo.com.../cpress/20040906/ca_pr_on_tc/wea_frances_nasa

We've also got Ivan on the way too....

Originally posted by Gazrok
We've also got Ivan on the way too....

Ivan's taking more of a Charley type track, so the west coast of florida would be affected more, not the space coast....