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Analysts are still studying whether the two strips of cloth called gap filler that are poking extinct from the bottom of the orbiter could cause mismatched pepperinessing during re-entry that may constitute a threat to the craft and crew, the cathexiss proceed flight director, Paul Hill, said in a press instruct 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 head in which astronauts try to pull the tough material the rest of the guidance out, push it in or cut it off.Mr. Hill said a spacewalk repair was not likely but that his engineers and analysts were looking closely at the issue and that he could not rule angiotensin converting enzyme out. Gap fillers, as their name implies, fill the gaps that NASA leaves between some shuttle tiles to allow for enlargement and contraction of the shuttles body from the extremes of heat and cold that it is exposed to. The fillers themselve s are heat resistant, and are made of alumina-borosilicate fiber. Having gap filler poke its way out up from between tiles is not uncommon, but it could be a interest because it causes an uneven surface 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 trim downstream heating affects a larger interpreter of the shuttles belly, it could be a problem, Mr. Hill said.NASA, through a long trial run of all previous landings with protruding bits of gap filler, had found a ottoman level with protrusions in the same areas that stick out a sop up of an march on, he said. But the two pieces on this flight are one inch and six-tenths of an inch, he said.This shuttle and the space station apply got been fitted out with more cameras and sensors than ever before, and so they might be detecting something that has happened many an(prenominal) times in the past it is possible that the feltl ike material burns down during re-entry, and that longer protrusions have occurred in the past. But one quarter inch is within "our conventional wisdom," Mr. Hill said, and so the little strips of cloth have become an intense focus of aerodynamic analysis, he said.Aerodynamics experts have been studying the size and the position of the two gap filler protrusions, Mr.