He sighed. For now, he could do nothing but watch and hope that his crew was up to the task of mounting the last gigantic panel. He heard the sound of metal on metal and looked up. The arms carrying the panel had reached the gap in the sail where it was to be mounted, and the men were bringing it in to be clamped and bolted on to the rest of the sail assembly. This process, which involved inserting several hunderd heavy titanium bolts and fastening four large machanical clamps only took about thrity minutes when done by a well trained crew like Ralphs. But the speed made him nervous. "take your time!" He shouted into his radio. "I don;t want ANYTHING to go wronge this time, ok?"
He frowned when none of his men groaned in the good natured manner of mechanics who were being paid by the hour. Edidently the snafu's had gotten to then as much as they had to him...
The machine
: was made of the hardest and finest steel you could find anywhere on Earth.
: It could lift thousands of pounds with ease. The large square shaped solar
: panel looked like a giant dark ice-block, with it's smooth surface
: reflecting it's surrounds. The solar panel was just one of ten segments
: that made up the gigantic CRIST Sol Orbiter's solar sail. The old sail was
: almost exhausted after the CRIST's many years of service.
: But the sail wasn't the only part that had to be replaced on the huge ship.
: The whole ship needed a lot of maintenance work. It would still take many
: years to get the ship airborn, and ready to go back to transporting
: resources between Earth and Mars.
: The heavy solar panel was swaying gently back and forth as it was transported
: from one side of the maintenance hall to be mounted in the right place as
: a vital part of the solar sail. The machine was driven by pneumatic power
: and made next to no sound as it's long robotic arms were transporting the
: solar panel.
: Ralph had a worried look on his face. He was the one in charge of getting the
: whole sail replaced. Things hadn't gone very smooth. The first solar panel
: had been mounted slightly in the wrong place, and while testing it, the
: crystals inside the panel had been damaged. The fifth panel had been
: defect and refused to function properly. This was the last panel finally,
: but with his luck lately, things were bound to go wrong...
