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Analysts are liquid studying whether the two strips of cloth called breach hireer that are pigeon berry pop from the bottom of the orbiter could cause uneven heating during re-en establish that whitethorn constitute a threat to the craft and crew, the missions lead flight director, capital of Minnesota Hill, said in a press briefing this morning. If the analysts decide that the gap fillers do pose a threat, he said, the mission manager may call for a risky spacewalk and repair maneuver in which astronauts try to pull the tough material the rest of the way out, push it in or cut it off.Mr. Hill said a spacewalk repair was non likely but that his engineers and analysts were looking closely at the issue and that he could not rule one out. Gap fillers, as their name implies, fill the gaps that NASA leaves amongst some shuttle tiles to allow for expansion and contraction of the shuttles be from the extremes of heat and cold that it is exposed to. The fillers themselves are heat resistant, and are do of alumina-borosilicate fiber. Having gap filler poke its way out up from between tiles is not uncommon, but it could be a concern because it causes an uneven advance and can lead to unusual patterns of heating during re-entry. If a filler pokes out too much, especially if it is far forward on the shuttle so that its downstream heating affects a larger part of the shuttles belly, it could be a problem, Mr. Hill said.NASA, through a long examination of all old landings with protruding bits of gap filler, had found a comfort level with protrusions in the same areas that stick out a quarter of an inch, he said. just now the two pieces on this flight are one inch and six-tenths of an inch, he said.This shuttle and the space station open been outfitted with more cameras and sensors than forever before, and so they might be detecting something that has happened many times in the past it is possible that the feltlike material burns down during re-entry, and that longer protrusions have occurred in the past. But one quarter inch is within "our schematic wisdom," Mr. Hill said, and so the little strips of cloth have become an discriminating focus of aerodynamic analysis, he said.Aerodynamics experts have been studying the sizing and the position of the two gap filler protrusions, Mr.