VAB's Flag, Logo Receive Badly Needed Paint Jobs

NASA tells ANN the star-spangled banner will shine a little brighter in the rocket's glare -- at least at NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Florida. On the massive 52-story Vehicle Assembly Building, the American flag and the NASA logo that adorn the south face of the building are receiving a badly needed paint job.

The 209-foot-tall, 110-foot-wide flag was first painted on the building in 1976 in celebration of the American Revolution bicentennial. To make sure NASA planners got it right, the agency consulted the Department of the Army's Institute of Heraldry at the Pentagon in Washington, DC. The result was the largest American flag ever depicted, with its stripes 9 feet wide and stars measuring 6 feet in diameter. In addition to the flag, a 110-foot symbol of the bicentennial was also added to the building at that time and remained there for the next 22 years. 

In 1998, to commemorate NASA's 40th anniversary, the fading flag was repainted and the 12,300-square-foot NASA logo -- known as the "meatball" -- replaced the bicentennial emblem.

Since then, time and weather -- especially the harsh 2004 hurricane season -- took their toll on the flag and the meatball. During back-to-back hurricanes, the building lost nearly 850 of its panels that each measure 14 by 6 feet, and not even the flag was spared. The strong storm winds took a "bite" out of Old Glory's stripes until repairs were completed.

Things are now looking brighter, though, for the building that has served human spaceflight for more than 40 years. Painters' elevated platforms once again dangle high on the side of the 525-foot-high structure while workers use rollers and brushes to spruce up the flag and meatball -- not a task for the faint of heart.

In the end, the results will be seen for miles, and one of the most visible symbols of the launch complex will shine once more.

FMI: www.nasa.gov