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Launch Complex 39-B Construction Photos 1980 to 1985 Space Shuttle Modifications by 39B on 07 Jan, 2023 17:03
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MacLaren here, after a long absence.
I'm the guy who originally posted Launch Complex 39-B Construction Photos - Space Shuttle way back in 2011 (Wow, it's really been a long time, hasn't it?), the last reply to which, as of this writing, was in July of 2017 (Hi Manfred!), and a TREMENDOUS amount of stuff has happened since then, the sense of which is the results of a decision to redo the whole thing in much greater detail, so I started in on that, hosting what I was creating on my own web page to allow me to speak my native language (construction work, lotta curse words, lotta attitude, every last bit of which was as true to the actual HISTORY of things as I could possibly make it, in the interests of absolute maximum fidelity, to what really went down out there, and of course all of which makes it completely unsuitable for a more "family friendly" place like nasaspaceflight.com.
Fine.
Get to the point, MacLaren.
Well...
After knocking down 63 pages of it, I was struck by a thunderbolt from out of a clear blue sky in the form of multiple treasure troves (which continue to occasionally fall out of the sky directly into my disbelieving hands) of wholly-unexpected technical documentation which I never dared imagine might ever show up, covering the exact work which I had performed on Pad B at the time as a structural steel guy...
And I found myself having to rewrite the whole thing again, a second time, from scratch, to include the Treasure Trove(s), which allowed me to check and verify my old-man's memories with exquisite accuracy (finding no end of mistakes and omissions along the way, which it pleased me greatly to be able to correct, using the actual contract documents)...
And the second rewrite involved a complete rescanning at higher resolution and re-color-correcting of the original photographs, plus a total reorganization of things into what could now be accurately placed in correct chronological order, and as it just so happens, doing it that way breaks it cleanly into two very large pieces, Part 1 which covers my time working for Sheffield Steel, and Part 2 which covers my time working for Ivey Steel...
And I wanted to finish the thing before drawing everybody's attention to it, but it's turning out to be a much greater task than I had at first imagined, and I finally finished Part 1 a month or two ago, and Part 2, which I originally thought would go much faster, has turned out to be vastly greater than I thought it would be, and is proceeding at a vastly slower pace, and Part 1 alone took two full years to complete...
So I'm stopping here today, and tossing this message to you nice people, advising that there is an INSANELY-DETAILED thing out there, covering the construction of the Rotating Service Structure, and the Fixed Service Structure, and a lot of other stuff, on Pad 39-B, and it's backed up with a huge amount of linked citations to a huge number of different reference and support documents (from original sources), and as far as I've been able to discover as I continue to research my material, nothing anywhere else in the world even comes close, so it's looking like what I've created here is now more or less "The Source" for this information, and that's a humbling thing to consider, but it's really cool to be able to share this stuff, 'cause the read count on my original post is over 100,000 so clearly there's some proper interest out there, and for those people who are interested, what you're about to encounter is likely going to knock you out, because the level of detail is beyond believing, and so far as I can tell, every last detail is historically and technically accurate, complete with all the citations you could ever ask for, and the word count is now over 200,000 and climbing...
So.
Dig in.
Drink deeply.
Linger over small things.
Leave it behind and then return to it later with a refreshed mind and renewed interest and curiousity.
Again and again.
And again.
And you will be rewarded.
With a thing so impossibly information-filled that it can only be described as fractal-like, expanding without sensible end as you delve deeper and deeper into it.
And I do hope you enjoy it.
And I do hope you can make good and proper use of it.
And if you have questions about it, ask them here, and I'll do the best I can for answers.
And here's the Table of Contents.
And here's the first page of Part 1.
And here's the final page of Part 1.
And here's the longest page (so far).
And it's filled to overflowing with wonder, and anger, and joy, and deeply-frightening situations, and the best people you could ever in your life hope to meet, and the worst people you could ever in your life wish that you had never met, and science, and money, and poetry, and politics, and jaw-dropping beauty, and rock-hard technical facts and data, and astonishment, and mistakes, and triumphs, and lucky breaks, and on and on and on it goes without end, and if you find yourself liking it, you will find yourself at a never-ending banquet of it.
And there's so much more....
So very VERY much more...
And I'm not done writing.
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#1 by 39B on 07 Jan, 2023 18:13
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Gonna toss a few representative images from the redone Pad B Stories, to give you an idea of what's in there. Some of these are fairly large file sizes, so I can only hope they work for you.
This one is supposed to render full-size at 6,450 by 10,935 pixels, and requires bringing it up, full-resolution, in order to see the blizzard of identifying labels that are on everything, which, if you read the stories, you will come to understand every one of, and after I uploaded it, and clicked on the image (Firefox and Chrome-based browsers both worked) it opened up in a new tab at full size, so I'm going to presume this works, and I'm gonna toss a few more in here, just so you can see what we're doing here with this stuff.
Here's the RSS and FSS as seen from the Pad Deck, directly across the Flame Trench from them.
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#2 by 39B on 07 Jan, 2023 18:22
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And here's the RSS and the FSS (with labels) viewed from out on the very end of the Hammerhead Crane, looking back down and across at them.
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#3 by 39B on 07 Jan, 2023 18:31
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Here's a view looking down from the Orbiter Left Side Vehicle Access Platform at elevation 191'-0" to the Pad Deck below you at elevation 53'-0" with work proceeding in the Inflatable Seal for the Orbiter Right Side Seal Panel and the el. 135'-7" floor steel cutouts for the Orbiter's OMS Pods below that, with a few people standing on the Pad Deck below, to kind of give you a sense of scale to things. It's a pretty big place.
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#4 by 39B on 07 Jan, 2023 18:40
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And here's another one looking down, this time from the RSS Roof at el. 211'-0" down to the RSS Main Floor Level at el. 135'-7" which shows you how confusing the labyrinth of steel that it was constructed from can become (and also somebody bent over their work, more or less directly below you).
And then here's that same image after I worked it to point out the RSS Main Framing structural members (the stuff that holds the whole tower up), which you would never have a prayer of figuring out on your own, and I'm including this to let you see how I've worked a lot of the original photographs to allow you to follow along with the story as I'm telling you what's going on with stuff, so as you at least stand a fighting chance of understanding it.
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#5 by 39B on 07 Jan, 2023 18:47
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And of course it's a history, so you get to see how things were done, step by step, as the construction proceeded, and this image shows you the more or less completed skeleton of the RSS early on, while it was still supported on the falsework that Whilhoit Steel Erectors built up on top of the Pad to hold it up in the air, before it became self-supporting and could be cut loose, and the falsework get removed.
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#6 by roma847 on 07 Jan, 2023 19:08
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Welcome James,
what a surprise to see you here again!
Congratulations on this decision, I'm happy and stay tuned!
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#7 by 39B on 07 Jan, 2023 19:38
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Welcome James,
what a surprise to see you here again!
Congratulations on this decision, I'm happy and stay tuned!
Aloha my good friend Manfred!
I knew I could count on you to be the first!
Still blazing away at it with Part 2, Page 56, and the PCR Door Hoists have become difficult, just like everything else becomes difficult, and the farther I dig into them, the farther I see that I will have to yet go, to get to the bottom of things (presuming that's even possible in the long run), and it's a pleasure to take a break from it, and get a kind word from you.
One of these days perhaps you'll step far enough back from your own RSS and grab a frame or two of it to show me, so as I might be able to see it, and oh by the way, now that we find ourselves in possession of a Hammerhead Crane Extensible Pipe Boom Spider Basket Trolley Support, are you, as an expression of your own marvelous brand of madness, going to make the damn thing extensible, too? With an extensible trolley for the monorail that hangs from the monorail? And a bizarre "actuator" run hither and thither by threads (or, knowing you, perhaps individual strands of spider web) wrapped around pulleys the size of pinheads?
We are, all of us, quite mad, and I would not have it any other way. -
#8 by roma847 on 07 Jan, 2023 22:51
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Hi James,
as I've mailed you already, this Extensible Pipe Boom System did exist on the Hammerhead Crane of Pad A during STS-6 mission, which is why I'll also try to scratch build this Pipe Boom because it belongs to the crane of my FSS Tower.
Source: NASA (STS-6)
Do you also have technical drawings of this Pipe Boom in your treasure chest?
Thanks for sharing these extraordinary first hand stories, that inspire me again and again!
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#9 by 39B on 07 Jan, 2023 23:22
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Hi James,
as I've mailed you already, this Extensible Pipe Boom System did exist on the Hammerhead Crane of Pad A during STS-6 mission
It existed from Day One, actually. Feast your eyes on this. Enterprise, sitting on the MLP during a deluge test during the summer of 1979! Complete with an Extensible Pipe Boom Nightmare tucked ever-so-innocently away, beneath the Hammerhead Crane Boom.which is why I'll also try to scratch build this Pipe Boom because it belongs to the crane of my FSS Tower.
Excellent!Do you also have technical drawings of this Pipe Boom in your treasure chest?
Oh ye of little faith! And patience. Get thee hie to Page 55, which is now done, and there you shall behold riches untold of a thing so marvelous, a thing so STUPID, as to cause the gods themselves to blush! Click thee, upon the links thou shalt find amongst the text thereunto, and learn its ways. Much there is to consider. Much there is to learn about the wonders of the Extensible Pipe Boom Nightmare!
And also, in exchange for such a wondrous gift as I have just bestowed upon you, could you possibly, by some means, find a way to quit coloring snippets of your text blue? On my end of things, blue text is the sign of a hyperlink that needs clicking to see the thing it links to, and I'm constantly clicking your blue text only to find it does nothing and hyperlinks nowhere, and I am saddened each and every time I fall for it again. Red maybe? Or, better still, no color at all maybe? As an extra special favor to an extra special friend? But even if you cannot bring yourself to do so it will be ok and I'll still be your extra special friend. -
#10 by 39B on 08 Jan, 2023 12:35
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And the suggestion has been made for me to provide only the redone large-format images, for people who might want to simply look at the lead photographs on each page, without having to endure wading through the tremendous amount of information on the corresponding pages of the Pad B Stories, and I think that's a good idea, so I'm going to simply post them here, in the page order they appear, and toss in a link to the page they're taken from for those who want the full story with each one, with perhaps a few descriptive words to help with understanding what's being shown.
Page 1 is the introduction to the Stories, sets up the basic premises, and prepares you for what is coming. It contains two lead photographs, and those are the first two images I've already placed in my initial posting here, so I'll not waste bandwidth with reposting them here as images, and will instead provide links.
The first image shows us the Rotating Service Structure and the Fixed Service Structure on top of the Pad Deck at Launch Complex 39-B, viewed from directly across the Flame Trench at a time when the initial phase of the construction effort of creating the towers was nearly complete, but well before the Pad became Operational. Much is already in place, but there is much more which wound up being added to the two main towers. This image is densely-labeled, identifying much which is shown, but without any explanations for what those labels actually mean. Some of it is pretty straightforward, but a lot of it is more or less opaque, and requires further reading, which is not provided on Page 1, to gain detailed understanding of it.
The second image looks back and down toward the Rotating Service Structure and the Fixed Service Structure at Launch Complex 39-B, as seen from above, at the tip end of the Hammerhead Crane, which is visible in the first image, extending outward toward the photographer, 250 feet above the Pad Deck. It too is densely-labeled, and in similar fashion as the first image, those labels are not further explained on the page, and a full description of things is spread throughout the pages which follow, instead. -
#11 by Jodie Peeler on 08 Jan, 2023 13:15
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Wow. Just...wow. The pictures are priceless, the stories keep making me want to read more and more, and it's all a reminder not only of all the effort that went into this project, but of the human stories behind the work. Thank you for writing all of this up and sharing it with us. This is incredible.
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#12 by 39B on 08 Jan, 2023 14:58
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Wow. Just...wow. The pictures are priceless, the stories keep making me want to read more and more, and it's all a reminder not only of all the effort that went into this project, but of the human stories behind the work. Thank you for writing all of this up and sharing it with us. This is incredible.
And this, of course, is what keeps me going, and your praise is high, and my thanks cannot properly be given to reflect my depth of appreciation for that praise.
This thing has been snowballing tectonically on me for over ten years now, and shows no signs of leveling off.
I knew from the beginning that I was only going to be speaking to a limited number of people, but clearly, those people are deeply interested in a wide variety of included parts to this amazing story, and it's that wide part that has really been driving me, lately.
And I want to get it ALL. Every. Last. Bit. Of. It.
And I'm trying my dead-level best to write the thing in a way that causes those who are properly and deeply interested to want to keep reading, and then here you come along and tell me I'm doing the right thing, the right way, and what more could I ask for?
Nothing. Nothing in this world could I ask for more than I've already been given.
I'll be flipping additional images into these posts, in chronological story-page order, as time goes on. Once I get to the latest image, on whatever page I might be working on at the time, the frequency of those images being added to this will slow waaay down. Each page takes a loooong time to write. It's slow going. It expands on me as I do so, and I cannot in good conscience skip over those places that each page expands into. Each page is a springboard to tell more and more of the story, and a lot of times, the story branches far far away from the subject of whatever photograph might be up at the top of any given page that kicked it into gear, but it's a legitimate part of the story, deserves my full and complete attention and respect, and so I follow it.... wherever it leads me.... and it winds up taking a long time, and so I must apologize for the glacial pace of the writing, but dammit I want the thing to be complete, so...
...yeah.
And with further thanks, I shall pitch right back in to Page 56, where the PRC Door Hoists and the Torque Tube Access Flip-up Platforms are, as ever, expanding fractally on me, with no end in sight, and...
...it's very hard work, but it's so much more fun than anybody can imagine...
...that I'm not even gonna try to explain any of it.
So.
Enjoy. -
#13 by roma847 on 08 Jan, 2023 16:46
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It existed from Day One, actually. Feast your eyes on this. Enterprise, sitting on the MLP during a deluge test during the summer of 1979! Complete with an Extensible Pipe Boom Nightmare tucked ever-so-innocently away, beneath the Hammerhead Crane Boom.
My problem when choosing photos is always the temporal reference to my STS-6 mission, so I always look for STS-6 photos first to study individual details and then to scratch. In the beginning I didn't really pay attention to that and was happy on amazing photos without knowing which mission they came from.
In this sense at the time I was planning to scratch the long stairway at the front of the MLP-2 all the way up to the top deck because that detail would have appealed to me. But then my friend DaveS (don't click!) pointed out to me that during STS-6 didn't have this staircase, which disappointed me at first.
Having seen the Extensible Pipe Boom System in the STS-6 Lift-off photo, I knew that it belongs on my agenda.And also, in exchange for such a wondrous gift as I have just bestowed upon you, could you possibly, by some means, find a way to quit coloring snippets of your text blue? On my end of things, blue text is the sign of a hyperlink that needs clicking to see the thing it links to, and I'm constantly clicking your blue text only to find it does nothing and hyperlinks nowhere, and I am saddened each and every time I fall for it again. Red maybe? Or, better still, no color at all maybe? As an extra special favor to an extra special friend? But even if you cannot bring yourself to do so it will be ok and I'll still be your extra special friend.
BTW, you're the first to be bothered by the blue markers in my build reports.
For me, these markings are nothing more than a stylistic device to point out things that are important or interesting to me, so to speak Eye catcher. On the other hand, they are a guide for me in my meanwhile endless construction report, when I'm looking for specific details to look at how I've built this or that thing back then, what sometimes surprises me, provided I know on which side I have to search.
That's why I've now also created a table of contents for Milestones in my whole report with links to the respective page of the construction report, which is very helpful for such own research.
But you don't need to want to click on the blue spots that bother you, since you can see that they are not linked when you move the cursor over them.
As a rule, my original photos are linked with NASA Hi.Res. photos, what I wouldn't really need, but many are obviously happy about this small customer service. When I link passages of text, they are always blue and bold marked.
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#14 by roma847 on 08 Jan, 2023 16:52
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Wow. Just...wow. The pictures are priceless, the stories keep making me want to read more and more, and it's all a reminder not only of all the effort that went into this project, but of the human stories behind the work. Thank you for writing all of this up and sharing it with us. This is incredible.
I fully agree with Jodie and tip my hat to your space flight historically incredibly valuable work for keeping the legacy of this genial Space Shuttle technology alive.
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#15 by roma847 on 08 Jan, 2023 17:23
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The first image shows us the Rotating Service Structure and the Fixed Service Structure on top of the Pad Deck at Launch Complex 39-B, viewed from directly across the Flame Trench at a time when the initial phase of the construction effort of creating the towers was nearly complete, but well before the Pad became Operational. Much is already in place, but there is much more which wound up being added to the two main towers. This image is densely-labeled, identifying much which is shown, but without any explanations for what those labels actually mean. Some of it is pretty straightforward, but a lot of it is more or less opaque, and requires further reading, which is not provided on Page 1, to gain detailed understanding of it.
The second image looks back and down toward the Rotating Service Structure and the Fixed Service Structure at Launch Complex 39-B, as seen from above, at the tip end of the Hammerhead Crane, which is visible in the first image, extending outward toward the photographer, 250 feet above the Pad Deck. It too is densely-labeled, and in similar fashion as the first image, those labels are not further explained on the page, and a full description of things is spread throughout the pages which follow, instead.
You know, that I have been following your Pad 39B website with great interest for years because it represents a unique source and inspiration for my project.
Just the labels of the individual parts and assemblies of the great FSS and the RSS photo montages alone are unique and extremely interesting for me, since I like to know the technical terms of the parts that I'm building and if possible their function too.
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#16 by 39B on 26 Jan, 2023 14:36
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Ok, let's get going here, with the images, in chronological order.
The image below is the first in the series, and was taken sometime in the summer of 1980.
To the best of my knowledge, this is one of only two existing images remaining, anywhere, that show the RSS on Pad B in partial skeletal form. I have done a lot of searching, and have come up empty-handed every time, looking for other images that show the Pad at this early stage of construction. I wish I had taken more photographs. Sigh.
You're standing in front of Sheffield Steel's field trailer in the contractor's field trailer area west of Launch Complex 39-B, looking to the northeast at the Pad.
Up on top of the concrete body of the Pad, the Fixed Service Structure (red multi-level tower which was constructed using tower segments from an Apollo Program LUT) is complete, and the Rotating Service Structure to its right is being assembled by Union Ironworkers employed by Wilhoit Steel Erectors. In the photograph, it's a bare, partial, skeleton, sitting directly on top of the additional bare skeleton of the Falsework that held it up, before it was completed to the point where it became self-supporting, allowing the Falsework to be removed.
To the left of the base of the FSS, inscrutable, dark, and low, above the concrete of the Pad Deck, a snarl of leftovers from the Apollo Program can be seen (but not in any useful or understandable way), and it includes, left to right, the LOX Tower, the ECS Tower, the 9099 Building, the West Elevator, and the West Stair Tower.
Directly above and a pretty good ways behind that snarl, the Sound Suppression System Water Tower is visible against the sky.
Directly in front of the base of the FSS to the right a little, the concrete blast enclosures protecting the Stair and Freight Elevator that take you up to the Pad Deck from ground level down in the bowels of the Pad in the Pad Terminal Connection Room are visible.
On top of the FSS, the Hammerhead Crane points to the west, and on top of it, the white 80 foot tall shaft of the Lightning Mast is visible.
There's an awful lot of work going on, in, around, and above the concrete structure of the Pad.
And you can click the words in this sentence, and the link will take you to the corresponding Pad B Stories page (Page 4) that goes with this image, if you want a more detailed explanation of what it is you're seeing in the photograph up above. -
#17 by roma847 on 26 Jan, 2023 22:25
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Hi James,
is this the original page 4 you showed back in 2021 or is this a newly revised page with new links to details from the RSS drawing set?
Also the linked article MECHANICAL FEATURES OF THE SHUTTLE ROTATING SERVICE STRUCTURE by John M. Crump is very helpful for briefly understanding the individual RSS structures and equipment.
On your (new?) site I find a lot of things in much more detail that I studied during my diorama analyzes and now can understand better what I asked you about back then.
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#18 by 39B on 26 Jan, 2023 22:58
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is this the original page 4 you showed back in 2021 or is this a newly revised page with new links to details from the RSS drawing set?
It is, but it's not. Every single page has been, and continues to be, refined and updated for accuracy, as well as added to with such new information and citations I find, as I continue to research the material, and this process would appear to be something that's not going to stop, for a long time. I just keep on finding more and more and more stuff, and wherever it adds, clarifies, or corrects the material I've already produced, that material is altered to bring it into agreement with the additional verified information I've found.
So. You've seen the page, but it keeps changing and growing, so going back over the material might not be such a bad idea for yourself, or anybody else who seeks a maximally fine-grained understanding of this stuff.Also the linked article MECHANICAL FEATURES OF THE SHUTTLE ROTATING SERVICE STRUCTURE by John M. Crump is very helpful for briefly understanding the individual RSS structures and equipment.
That one was there from the very beginning. But this is extraordinarily-dense technical, historical, and personal-experience reading, and nobody can be expected to pick it all up, on the first go. So even when it comes to unaltered blocks of text, second and third readings will almost always yield up additional information and insights. This thing is the gift that keeps on giving.On your (new?) site I find a lot of things in much more detail that I studied during my diorama analyzes and now can understand better what I asked you about back then.
You have gotten yourself mixed up with the wrong people, and will pay the price for making such a grave mistake. Before I'm done with it, your diorama will have working flip-up platforms, extensible planks, lifting gear of all shapes and sizes from the smallest hand winch right on up to and including the 90-ton Payload Hoist. Your RSS will roll to and fro along the length of the Rail Beam with fully-functional Truck Drives out on Column Line 7, and fully-functional Bearings on the Hinge Column. On top of the FSS, your Hammerhead crane will swing through 360 degrees of travel, complete with a lifting hook capable of picking things up, and of course our Extensible Pipe Boom Nightmare, complete with a Spider Basket dangling from it which can be lowered, or raised back up again, all the way from the MLP Deckplates to the top of the FSS.
And what about that pair of Torque Tube hoists on the PCR Main Doors? I just this morning put the complete set of drawings for those two things into Page 56, and Page 56 is by no means done, and There Shall Be More. Get ready for a working pair of PCR Main Doors, complete with hinges, track girder and drive mechanism. And that's just the tip of the coming iceberg hidden in the fog, dead ahead of your steamship which is underway at full speed.
You are doomed. -
#19 by D_Dom on 27 Jan, 2023 01:30
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Wow, thank you for the effort you have put into this. Count me as greatly appreciative. My grandfather was an ironworker and I read with interest all the details of fitting that steel.
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#20 by 39B on 27 Jan, 2023 01:49
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Wow, thank you for the effort you have put into this. Count me as greatly appreciative. My grandfather was an ironworker and I read with interest all the details of fitting that steel.
And thank you right back. You are one of the people I am writing this for, and to know that I managed to reach you with it, in some sort of meaningful way that you can appreciate on a personal level, is all I'll ever need to know that all of the time and effort that I've spent so far with it, and will continue to spend in the future with it, was done, is done, and will be done, for the very best reasons possible. For the people. For those who were a part of it, and for those who want to know about the heights they rose to, be it walking on high steel, be it sitting at a desk poring over an intractable problem, or be it anywhere at all in between. So again, my thanks, right back to you. -
#21 by roma847 on 27 Jan, 2023 23:57
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It is, but it's not. Every single page has been, and continues to be, refined and updated for accuracy, as well as added to with such new information and citations I find, as I continue to research the material, and this process would appear to be something that's not going to stop, for a long time. I just keep on finding more and more and more stuff, and wherever it adds, clarifies, or corrects the material I've already produced, that material is altered to bring it into agreement with the additional verified information I've found.
I think that what you are doing is a clever approach for sustainable improvements your historical valuable 39B documentation by addition new knowledge and linking it with high detailed NASA drawings.
You was working in construction management that time during building Launch Complex 39-B and can report the rest of the world first-handed about it, and I'm a Real Space Modeler trying to recreate the entire Launch Pad 39-A in a small Diorama (1:160) during the time of Challenger's maiden flight (STS-6) in order trying to keep the Shuttle legacy alive and keeping it in good memory for all modelers.You have gotten yourself mixed up with the wrong people, and will pay the price for making such a grave mistake.
Are you pulling my leg? On the contrary, I consider myself lucky to have received a deeper insight into many technical details of the unique Shuttle technology and valuable references and sources through your documentation, which I have integrated into my project report to the delight and astonishment of many model builders here in NSF and other forums too, what has always inspired me and has deepened my attention to detail more and more. And the only question that remains is whether that's a curse or a blessing ...
BTW, the image you are drawing of my Pad-A Diorama is simply unrealistic and, in contrast to Real Space Modeling, only existing within the realm of vivid fantasy ...
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#22 by 39B on 29 Jan, 2023 19:11
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Ok, here's the next image in the series, very possibly taken on the same day that the previous image was taken.
This is the second of the only two images of the RSS at Pad 39-B showing the RSS as a partially-constructed skeleton which still exist. This is it. This is all you'll ever get. But who knows, perhaps one day I'll be proven wrong, and I can come back here and edit these words and include additional images taken at the same time. But not yet. Not now.
While driving your car, you've pulled to the side, just off the asphalt, where the road that takes you to Pad B, coming in off of Beach Road north of Pad A, bends to the left just before it meets the Pad Perimeter Fence, looking northwest toward the Pad.
In the distance, a large portion of the entire Pad can be seen beyond the Perimeter Fence, and on top of the raised concrete mass of the Pad itself, visible in left-to-right order:
The skeletal RSS sitting on the Falsework that Wilhoit created to carry it before it became self-supporting.
The red multi-level tower of the FSS with Hammerhead Crane and Lightning Mast on top of it.
The dark low snarl of West Stair Tower / West Elevator / 9099 Building / West Side Flame Deflector (in Park Position).
Starting from above the dark rectangle of the West Side Flame Deflector, the raised trusswork of the North Piping Bridge spans the (unseen) Flame Trench eastward to the right, where it terminates at the LH2 (Liquid Hydrogen) Tower.
In the middle of the North Bridge span, the East Stair Tower rises above the Bridge behind it starting from its location on the Pad Deck, east of the Trench.
Immediately to the right of the East Stair Tower's base, the dark rectangle of the East Side Flame Deflector (also in Park Position) is clearly visible.
Between the East SFD and the LH2 Tower, the High Pressure Gas Tower extends above the top of the SFD.
Directly beneath the East SFD and the High Pressure Gas Tower, some of the white tanks of the Pad High Pressure Gas Storage Area can be seen in the cutout in the Pad Slope where they are located beneath a thick slab of concrete which is there to protect the rest of the facilities, equipment, and possibly even flight hardware, up on top of the Pad, should one of the tanks unexpectedly fail.
Directly in line with the High Pressure Gas Area, extending to either side of it, a row of "fence posts" extends from the Hypergolic Oxidizer Storage Facility partially-obscured by a faded sign on the Perimeter Fence, all the way out to the Pad where it disappears into the (not visible) east/west-running Pad Piping Tunnel. These "posts" are pipe supports, and carry a run of piping for N2O4 Hypergol to the Pad from the tanks where it's stored in the Facility.
Farthest right, the SSW Water Tower (yes, I know, the acronym "SSW" includes the word "Water", but it was NEVER called the SS Water Tower, and instead was invariably referred to as the ssW water tower, and after a while, you get familiar enough with these kinds of linguistic quirks associated with the Pad, and become inured to them).
In the near foreground of this early-morning photograph, just past the Fence, between it and the Pad Perimeter Road, a tractor with a bush hog awaits its daily tasks in the never-ending battle against Florida's wild and weedy vegetation.
It is the beginning of a new workday.
There is much to do.
The corresponding Pad B Stories page (Page 5) associated with this image can be reached by clicking these words, if you'd like a brief description of how this photograph came to be taken, along with an introduction to the layout nomenclature used to locate everything on the growing structure, which is given via use of the contract drawings for the Primary Framing of the RSS, along with its lower main flooring levels, as well as isometric views of the entire pair of structures (RSS and FSS on top of the Pad Deck). Additionally, the Hinge Column Bearings are discussed, and the difficulties associated with the use of revised contract drawings are introduced, also. -
#23 by 39B on 03 Mar, 2023 13:57
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This is taking much longer than I'd like it to, but... ah well, so it must be.
And here is our next image in the series, showing the Rotating Service Structure at Space Shuttle Launch Complex 39-B still in its very early stages of construction, some time in late 1980 or perhaps very early 1981, but sensibly complete insofar as its steel skeleton is now nearly finished, and the business of installing the insulated metal siding panels which enclosed the Payload Changeout Room plus a few other areas, is now well underway.
These words, when clicked, will take you to Page 6 of the Pad B Stories, which this photograph leads, and If you're interested in really learning how Launch Complex 39-B (and 39-A as well) was modified and constructed in order to allow it to service and support Space Shuttle launches, then this is the page where you can really sink your teeth into things for real.
Page 6 is where we really start to bear down on learning how (and why) the Launch Pad was built the way it was, and it uses one of my old Sheffield Steel shipping lists, which I saved, and still have, to dig down deeply into the bewildering nomenclature of the Pad structures, initiating the teaching process whereby you will learn the whole place, and it's not an easy place (It's a Launch Pad, right? It's not supposed to be easy. It never can be easy, right?), but it's an exceptionally rewarding place, and if you read slow, read for comprehension instead of speed, and re-read whenever and wherever things get a little densely-compacted, so as you really do understand what you just read, fully, before moving on the next paragraphs in the narrative, then, in the process of learning about the Launch Pad, you will also find yourself learning about no end of other fascinating real-world stuff, and... knowledge really is power, so... dig in. Drink deeply of it. Sink your teeth all the way down into it, bite each piece off, one at a time, chew each piece thoroughly, and in so doing, each piece will prepare you for the next, and also prepare you for things you may not encounter again for literal years, but which, when you cross paths with them, you will discover to your glee that you're the only one who can handle it, and life rewards greatly, those people who are the only ones who can handle something, especially when that something is worthy.
Page 6 is also where linked citations, in similar form as footnoted citations in a proper technical or scientific paper, start to come into play in a big way, and there's a lot of them, and some of them are simple-enough links to things like Wikipedia articles, and some of them have a little more substance to them, and some of them are most very definitely not "easy" reading, and can get pretty radical in places, and all of them are authoritative, some of which are original material from original technical sources, but again, if you approach them in the correct way, click every damn one of them as you go along, go slow, go back and re-read whenever you're not totally sure you understand something, then they become extraordinarily rewarding, and on top of that, a lot of it is just really cool stuff, and is fun, in and of itself, for purely technical, and sometimes even artistic reasons.
This is where the Engineering Drawings really start to come into play, and if you stay with it and do not allow yourself to succumb to the temptation to skim the damn thing, in the process of learning about The Pad, you're also going to learn about, and become proficient, with the skills involved in reading structural blueprints in particular, and engineering design drawings in general, and oh by the way, they pay quite well for those skills, so here's your chance to learn something that might wind up buying you a house some day, and you get to learn it while having fun with it, learning about How The Launch Pad Was Built.
