From: utzoo!decvax!harpo!npois!alice!sjb
Newsgroups: net.columbia
Title: A Few Minor Problems and Sinking of Boosters
Article-I.D.: alice.730
Posted: Sun Jun 27 22:21:22 1982
Received: Tue Jun 29 07:28:37 1982

Columbia experienced a few problems with its experiments.  Ken
Mattingly and Henry Hartsfield had problems activating the
experiments, including the first Getaway Special, designed at
the Utah State University.  Also, one of her steering jets
experienced a small leakage, but the shutdown of it and its
three related ones will not affect the flight.  The shuttle's
orbit is five miles lower than projected, due to the fact that
more fuel was consumed in getting it there; this will not affect
the flight either, but she will land 15 minutes earlier.  The
rain that soaked the ship yesterday will be baked out of the
tiles when the ship is turned belly towards the sun.

NASA has also reported that both SRB's have been located --
3,500 feet under the surface of the Atlantic Ocean.  They
would like to get them back, to find out why they sank, but
they have not yet decided if it would be cost-efficient; it
is not known if they could be re-used after that much exposure.
It costs $25 million for a new one and $7 to refurbish a used
one.  the six used previously are now being refurbished.  Factors
that could have caused the sinking of these two include the fact
that their parachutes were not jettisoned and these parachutes
were those used on STS-1.