Katrina Damage to Delay Shuttle Program

[XNASA]

http://www.chron.com/cs/CDA/ssistory.mpl/nation/3332158

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The devastation caused by Hurricane Katrina in areas surrounding two NASA facilities will likely delay the launch of future shuttle missions, space agency officials said Tuesday.

How long of a delay was unclear, however, as NASA helicoptered personnel in for inspections of the Michoud Assembly Facility in east New Orleans and the Stennis Space Center, 45 miles to the east near Bay St. Louis, Miss.

"All I can tell you is it that it will have an impact," Allard Beutel, a spokesman for NASA's shuttle program, said of the storm damage. "But how much of an impact, we just don't know yet. We're in the early stages of trying to figure all that out."
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AND......Check out this internal NASA memo from the Center Director at Stennis. Looks like Stennis might have been heavily damaged. (Stennis is where NASA test fires the rockets used for the Shuttle.)

http://www.spaceref.com/news/viewsr.html?pid=17915