The Vehicle Assembly Building (sort of OT)

[Peter B]

According to one book on Apollo, the VAB is large enough that clouds form inside, and that it can rain inside even when it's fine outside.

Another book on Apollo says this doesn't happen.

Given the sort of activities which take place in the VAB, I thought NASA would do what they could to inhibit this if it did happen naturally, but with two books having such diametric views, I don't know who to believe. What's the story?

(The two books are, respectively, "Chariots for Apollo" by Pellegrino and "Apollo" by Murray and Cox. At least, I think I got the authors right...)

[Jigsaw]

Pic of VAB.
http://science.ksc.nasa.gov/facilities/vab.html

These kids took a tour and evidently NASA told them that, yes, clouds and rain can form inside the building. It's posted on the NASA website.

www.jsc.nasa.gov/pao/roundup/weekly/070299p6.pdf+vehicle+assembly+building+clouds+rain&hl=en&lr=lang_en&ie=UTF8]View (http://216.239.35.100/search?q=cache:6Am9xym06F8C: because otherwise it's a PDF file.


Gee Whiz Facts that the co-ops learned!

The VAB is so large that clouds can form and rain inside thebuilding.!
Here's the PDF link.
[url]http://www.jsc.nasa.gov/pao/roundup/weekly/070299p6.pdf

[Donnie B.]

Clouds, I'll buy. But rain? It takes a pretty darn big cloud to produce rain. I'm skeptical that an intra-VAB cloud could be big enough to rain out.

I suspect that a guy with a garden hose on an upper level was responsible for this myth...

[Jim]

On 2002-06-11 10:21, Donnie B. wrote:
Clouds, I'll buy. But rain? It takes a pretty darn big cloud to produce rain. ...


Not really. Any enclosure with the right humidity and temperature conditions will experience condensation. If there is enough condensation on the right surfaces (ceiling), then the water will drop, much like rain.