Space shuttle Enterprise suffers damage in ferocious storm
Space shuttle Enterprise, NASA's original prototype orbiter, is sitting exposed and appears to have been partially damaged by Hurricane Sandy after the severe storm passed over New York City on Monday night.
On public display aboard the Intrepid Sea, Air and Space Museum, a converted aircraft carrier, since July, Enterprise had been protected from the elements inside a pressurized pavilion. Based on photos posted online, the inflatable structure appears to have first deflated and then been torn by the winds of the now post-tropical storm cyclone.
Photographs show the 180-foot-long (55 meters) by 60-foot-high (18 meters) pavilion's cloth exterior now lies draped over Enterprise, although much of the shuttle's nose section and part of its payload bay is uncovered. The orbiter's vertical stabilizer, or tail, is protruding out of the top of the fabric, where it appears part of the spacecraft has been torn away.
The "superstorm" Sandy flooded Pier 86, where the Intrepid is anchored, submerging part of the museum's main entrance under water. Similar extensive damage was seen throughout the city and region, leaving buildings destroyed, millions of people without power and at scores dead.
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/49613297/ns/technology_and_science-space/#.UJDkIY5rp5w
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...to the east coast weather. Why not put it in the hanger deck at least? It it not big enough?
