From: utzoo!decvax!harpo!npois!alice!sjb Newsgroups: net.columbia Title: Ooops! Doors Still Not Closed Article-I.D.: alice.749 Posted: Thu Jul 1 07:44:02 1982 Received: Fri Jul 2 01:46:26 1982 The doors of the cargo bay are still not closed all the way, as had been reported earlier. The problem came when the belly of the ship was exposed to the extreme heat of the sun while the top was exposed to the deep cold of space (all these adjectives!) This caused the edge of one door to warp slightly, preventing the latched that hold the doors closed from hooking together. As with the last flight, the astronauts put the ship in top-side-toward-sun format before going to bed; the night of heat is expected to alleviate the problem. If not, they are prepare to put on pressure suits and take a little space walk to fix the problem manually. It is possible to land with the doors open, but it is likened to doing so in a jet plane; they'd rather not. It would unbalance the aerodynamics of the craft (then a rock) and also expose the inside to the heat of reentry.