I previously used this blog to chastise NASA for painting its main fuel tank orange, but I was entirely wrong. That “O-ring orange” color is not paint, but the result of a lack of paint.
Before you think, as I did, that it’s a “rusted metal orange,” it isn’t. It’s metal covered with orange spray-on insulation.
Early space shuttles covered the orange insulation with white paint, but they stopped that because that amount of paint came to over 300 pounds.
Here’s an interesting link, with photos, so you can see an even more lightweight banana-yellow coated spacecraft fuel tank.
4 responses to “TWIL: Spaceship colors”
Fascinating. The things you learn. and also, yes, paint costs weight, but I never would have thought of it…
KC – It’s odd that the final flight of Columbia used the yellow insulation, and it’s that same insulation that fell off and damaged the wing, and yet I don’t have bad associations with the yellow. It’s a happy banana color.
And if it’s lighter, why isn’t Artemis using it? They have further to go, more fuel, needs to be lighter.
… it fell off, so maybe they don’t want to use it again?
KC – Oh. Well, that makes total sense.