Author Topic: Launch Complex 39-B Construction Photos - Space Shuttle  (Read 127694 times)

Offline Downix

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Re: Launch Complex 39-B Construction Photos - Space Shuttle
« Reply #60 on: 06/12/2011 04:26 pm »
Prober: 39B do you still have the negatives on these photos? The pics are great and might be even better.  You can get the negs scanned and make some great pics on your printer.

Yes, I have the negatives, but the last time I looked at 'em, it broke my heart to see that they have not aged very well. Many of them look to be irretrievably damaged. I may look into getting them scanned one day, but it will take an equipment upgrade, and for the time being that's not going to happen on my very limited budget.
I have a negative scanner and the tools for repairing damaged negatives, holdovers from my younger days in filmmaking.  If you need any help, let me know.
chuck - Toilet paper has no real value? Try living with 5 other adults for 6 months in a can with no toilet paper. Man oh man. Toilet paper would be worth it's weight in gold!

Offline 39B

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Re: Launch Complex 39-B Construction Photos - Space Shuttle
« Reply #61 on: 06/12/2011 09:47 pm »
Prober: You might be surprised how cheap you can do this now ...... Wish you all the best.

Thanks for the kind thoughts.


Downix: I have a negative scanner and the tools for repairing damaged negatives, holdovers from my younger days in filmmaking.  If you need any help, let me know.

This is an astounding offer, and I do not quite know how to reply. Just so you know, I'm living on Merritt Island, none too far from where these photographs were taken. I'm sure I could use help, but I do not know exactly how to go about things. A part of me does not even believe that I actually own these shots. From the beginning, they've sort of just been using me as a conduit to get themselves taken, and then follow an unknown road to somewhere else, wherever that may be. My son shall be their ultimate steward, but how the road may twist and turn to that point I cannot know. A thousand and one thanks, no matter how it shakes out.


Ok, after a morning of surfing in surprisingly nice waves (especially for around here in the month of June), and an afternoon of computer repair with a very happy customer taking possession of a newly revitalized machine, it's time to get back on the scanner. So here I go.
« Last Edit: 06/12/2011 09:49 pm by 39B »

Offline 39B

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Re: Launch Complex 39-B Construction Photos - Space Shuttle
« Reply #62 on: 06/12/2011 09:58 pm »
Top: STS-2 rolled out and sitting on Pad 39-A

Middle: RCS Room and RSS below, skeletal framing. These are shots I took before I worked at Ivey Steel, when I was working for Sheffield Steel, who was the supplier for the primary structural elements for the RSS. A look at the pad deck reveals a lot of steel in the “shake out” area. Trucks would come down from Palatka (which is where Sheffield’s fab shop was) with 25,000 pound loads of all kinds of stuff, and it would be deposited in the shake out area. Part of my job was to take a list of each delivery, and then physically go and locate each piece, and then scratch through it on the list to indicate it was actually delivered. Then I would return to the field trailer, and go find the same pieces on the bill of materials on each of the detail drawings, and highlight them with a yellow highlighter to indicate the same thing. Then, after each of these pieces was lifted into place and attached to the growing structure, I’d go up on the iron, verify that the pieces were in fact installed, and then go back down to the field trailer with yet another list and then highlight the piece on the erection drawings to indicate that it was up and in place. Now, please go back through these photos and take another look at the welter of beams, columns, diagonals, braces, platforms, handrails, and all the rest of it, and you’ll get an idea of how much work was involved.

Bottom: My desk in the Sheffield Steel field trailer. This was in the days before there were any pagers or answering machines, and I was originally hired to just sit there like a sack of potatoes and answer the phone whenever my boss, Richard Walls, was out of the trailer.

Sum and total, that was my entire job.

But RW saw that I was interested, and began to hand me things to do, and in a surprisingly short time, with exactly zero by way of previous training for anything even remotely resembling this kind of work, we discovered that I had an innate aptitude for reading structural steel blueprints, and a lot of other stuff, too. And before too long, I was doing things I'd never in my wildest dreams imagined I'd be doing.
« Last Edit: 06/12/2011 10:08 pm by 39B »

Offline Downix

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Re: Launch Complex 39-B Construction Photos - Space Shuttle
« Reply #63 on: 06/12/2011 10:04 pm »
Prober: You might be surprised how cheap you can do this now ...... Wish you all the best.

Thanks for the kind thoughts.


Downix: I have a negative scanner and the tools for repairing damaged negatives, holdovers from my younger days in filmmaking.  If you need any help, let me know.

This is an astounding offer, and I do not quite know how to reply. Just so you know, I'm living on Merritt Island, none too far from where these photographs were taken. I'm sure I could use help, but I do not know exactly how to go about things. A part of me does not even believe that I actually own these shots. From the beginning, they've sort of just been using me as a conduit to get themselves taken, and then follow an unknown road to somewhere else, wherever that may be. My son shall be their ultimate steward, but how the road may twist and turn to that point I cannot know. A thousand and one thanks, no matter how it shakes out.


Ok, after a morning of surfing in surprisingly nice waves (especially for around here in the month of June), and an afternoon of computer repair with a very happy customer taking possession of a newly revitalized machine, it's time to get back on the scanner. So here I go.
I'll go dig the tools out, been sitting in storage for awhile.
chuck - Toilet paper has no real value? Try living with 5 other adults for 6 months in a can with no toilet paper. Man oh man. Toilet paper would be worth it's weight in gold!

Offline 39B

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Re: Launch Complex 39-B Construction Photos - Space Shuttle
« Reply #64 on: 06/12/2011 10:16 pm »
Downix: I'll go dig the tools out, been sitting in storage for awhile.

I am flabbergasted. You are too kind, sir.

Offline 39B

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Re: Launch Complex 39-B Construction Photos - Space Shuttle
« Reply #65 on: 06/12/2011 10:23 pm »
Top: STS-2 rolled out and sitting on Pad 39-A

All others: RSS still sitting on falsework.

When I first arrived at the pad, there was no RSS, and Wilhoit (who was the steel erector for the steel that Sheffield had fabricated) had only put up a single line of falsework. A total of five lines were put up and the first major thing that happened next was the setting of the RSS 135 level Bottom Truss upon it. Imagine an enormous cats-cradle of steel, well over a hundred feet long, made of 36 inch diameter structural pipe, being lifted by a pair of cranes, until it was suspended with its lower members above the falsework. Then imagine both cranes, in synchrony, booming down, letting this cycloptic pipe truss down onto the near edge of the five falsework frames.  Pretty radical, right? But it gets even more radical. On each falsework frame was an ironworker with a come-along and a bit of rigging, which was tied to that bottom line of structural pipe which was now resting across all five falsework frames, supported from above by the two cranes, still hooked to the top of the truss. And then, using nothing more than those five ironworkers with come-alongs, they started dragging that bottom line of pipe across the falsework, toward the rear of where the RSS would soon appear, and as the cranes let out on their runners with exquisite slowness, they come-alonged that damned truss all the way across the falsework and by the time they’d gotten it to the far side, the cranes had let down to the point where the top of the truss was now resting as pretty as you please, right where the bottom of the truss had been a few hours before. Cut it all loose, get the cranes out of the way, and thank you very much, you now have yourself an RSS Bottom Truss right where it belongs. Five guys and two cranes. To this day I marvel at the simplicity, economy, and elegance of it all.
« Last Edit: 06/12/2011 10:32 pm by 39B »

Offline Mark Dave

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Re: Launch Complex 39-B Construction Photos - Space Shuttle
« Reply #66 on: 06/12/2011 10:32 pm »
I see in the photos of the RSS above part of the FSS access arm strong backs included in part of the lattice work. If I had to guess, probably taken from an unused section of the former LUT of Saturn V.
« Last Edit: 06/12/2011 11:58 pm by MarkD »

Offline 39B

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Re: Launch Complex 39-B Construction Photos - Space Shuttle
« Reply #67 on: 06/12/2011 10:45 pm »
OMS Pod Heated Purge Cover lift from bottom of Flame Trench.

These things were a bear. Really contrapted shape, with foam-in-place insulation, and temperature probes, and who-knows-what-else. Fabbed by a subcontractor (SMCI, I think) and delivered to the pad. Hung up on either side of the RSS down at the 135 level, on a weirdie smooth haunch that they could be maneuvered around a little bit on using actuators in several places, because of the ridiculously tight clearances with the OMS Pods on the orbiter they were there to “protect.” As I recall, one of these took a fall to the pad deck after I had departed (cannot remember if it was Pad A or Pad B this happened on), and by blind dumb luck, nobody got killed in the process, and they didn’t break an orbiter, either. Shortly thereafter, the damned things disappeared and they were not missed by anyone except maybe the folks who went to all the horrendous work involved in designing and fabricating them.
« Last Edit: 06/12/2011 10:52 pm by 39B »

Offline 39B

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Re: Launch Complex 39-B Construction Photos - Space Shuttle
« Reply #68 on: 06/12/2011 10:51 pm »
MarkD: I see in the photos of the RSS above part of the FSS access arm strong backs included in part of the lattice work.

If you're referring to the photograph: STS-2 on A Pad, RSS still on falsework.jpg, then no, that's just part of the falsework under the RSS. Sometimes different jobs will result in surprisingly similar structural solutions to a given problem.

Offline 39B

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Re: Launch Complex 39-B Construction Photos - Space Shuttle
« Reply #69 on: 06/12/2011 11:02 pm »
Me and my son, just because I can.

Has nothing to do with Pad 39-B, and I do not care.

Kai had a blast growing up here, with a father who was into space and space hardware just as much as he was, and he well-appreciates every last bit of it, to this very day. We did this kind of stuff every chance we got, and we got an awful lot of chances. And, by the way, that’s a real Atlas that he’s standing inside the motors of. Never flew, but it was a flight article. Real Stuff. Lucky kid, huh?

And I was lucky beyond belief to get such a neato kid.
« Last Edit: 06/12/2011 11:03 pm by 39B »

Offline 39B

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Re: Launch Complex 39-B Construction Photos - Space Shuttle
« Reply #70 on: 06/12/2011 11:15 pm »
Top left: OMS Pod Heated Purge Covers installed on B Pad.

Top right: Gene Lockamy and I wish I remember the name, but I cannot. Sigh. But I remember the person. Both of these guys were straight-shooters. Really good people.

Bottom left: Up under the RSS 135 level, getting ready to hang the Purge Cover. Note the goofy turnbuckle “actuator” system that the engineers had cooked up to tweak the location of the Purge Cover to account for slight variances in where the orbiter actually wound up when the MLP was set down on its support pedestals (which is just a wee bit different, each time they did it). It must have looked good on paper, I suppose.

Bottom right: Purge Cover installation.
« Last Edit: 06/12/2011 11:16 pm by 39B »

Offline 39B

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Re: Launch Complex 39-B Construction Photos - Space Shuttle
« Reply #71 on: 06/12/2011 11:24 pm »
FSS and RSS panorama as viewed from one of the MLP access stairtowers on the east side of the Flame Trench.

Note the difference in the gray paint on the FSS. That darker gray, down near the bottom, is because there’s no topcoat of paint in this area. Blast from the SRB’s and SSME’s impinges on the structure here, and they realized there was no hope in keeping a finish-coated paint system on the steel in this area. Just let it get blown away and repaint to suit after the launch.

And please do not get me started on the idiocy and psychosis of some of the “corrosion control” codswallop that we had to swallow at the behest of certain people who, to judge from their behaviors, had never, and never intended to, go outdoors where there are things like weather lurking about, and where people actually get their hands dirty touching things.
« Last Edit: 06/12/2011 11:26 pm by 39B »

Offline Mark Dave

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Re: Launch Complex 39-B Construction Photos - Space Shuttle
« Reply #72 on: 06/12/2011 11:28 pm »
Yeah, I noticed the false work with what it looks to be part of the strong back in the bottom left photo below STS-2's photo.


Offline 39B

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Re: Launch Complex 39-B Construction Photos - Space Shuttle
« Reply #73 on: 06/12/2011 11:41 pm »
Flame Trench panorama from east MLP access stair tower.

The Flame Deflector, in the middle of the trench, has a nice new coat of Fondu Fyre on it, but the rest of the trench shows the effects of the beatings it took from Saturn V’s and Saturn 1-B’s, pretty well. Especially the south end of it. The fire bricks had a slick glassy surface which was produced by the accumulated effects of the exhaust from each launch. Almost like volcanic glass or something. Not quite obsidian, but it was thinking about it.
« Last Edit: 06/12/2011 11:42 pm by 39B »

Offline 39B

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Re: Launch Complex 39-B Construction Photos - Space Shuttle
« Reply #74 on: 06/12/2011 11:53 pm »
GOX Arm lift 1.

Top photographs show the ironworkers hooking things up, and in the bottom two shots the lift gets underway. Note that the Vent Hood, or Beanie Cap, is not installed. That went on later as a separate operation. The GOX Arm was a nightmare for us, and some of the stuff that went on during our attempts to assemble the thing down in the Flame Trench were almost beyond belief. Suffice it to say that the arm went up and was hung on the tower, and then it came back down again. I'm pretty sure this is the first lift, but I cannot be absolutely certain. Cost us a bundle in wasted time and effort, as a result of less-than-sterling engineering. I wound up writing what a few people took to calling “The pitchfork letter” and in the end we got compensated. But it was, shall we say, interesting, while it was going on. Fortunately, the lift itself went as smooth as silk.
« Last Edit: 06/12/2011 11:57 pm by 39B »

Offline 39B

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Re: Launch Complex 39-B Construction Photos - Space Shuttle
« Reply #75 on: 06/13/2011 12:09 am »
GOX Arm lift 2.

Offline 39B

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Re: Launch Complex 39-B Construction Photos - Space Shuttle
« Reply #76 on: 06/13/2011 12:20 am »
GOX Arm lift 3.

Notice how in the bottom right photo, I had to be standing directly beneath the suspended load to get this shot.

Don't do that, ok?

It didn't happen this day, but every once in a while they lose something during a lift.

You don't want to be under something when they lose it. It's not good for your complexion.

Offline 39B

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Re: Launch Complex 39-B Construction Photos - Space Shuttle
« Reply #77 on: 06/13/2011 12:28 am »
GOX Arm lift 4.

Offline 39B

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Re: Launch Complex 39-B Construction Photos - Space Shuttle
« Reply #78 on: 06/13/2011 12:36 am »
GOX Arm lift 5.

Offline 39B

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Re: Launch Complex 39-B Construction Photos - Space Shuttle
« Reply #79 on: 06/13/2011 12:38 am »
Ok, this looks like a pretty good stopping place.

Hope everyone is enjoying this stuff.

More to come, later.

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