Travis and Michelle Fitzgerald's blog

So, Mother Nature proved once again that she can send us to our room any time she wants. Her tool this time? A hail storm that threw golf ball sized chunks of ice at our space shuttle Atlantis, who was sitting pretty out on the pad. Noooooo! Not only did it put thousands of divots into the foam of the external tank, but it also did a couple dozen spots of surface damage to the orbiter's left wing.

So, what does this mean to us? Well, instead of launching around St. Patrick's Day (March 15), we're launching no earlier than late April. So far, management has said the next couple of flights will NOT slip: they'll launch in June (13A.1) and August (10A) as scheduled. We'll see about that. The problem is not so much launching the shuttles, as the work we have to get done on station, moving stuff around so we're ready for the next assembly parts to come up.

So, it will be a little longer before I work my first mission. At this rate, maybe I can certify in the front room before then. We'll see. ;-)

~Michelle