This is a non-professional video, so no complaining about the focusing of the camera - it always had a hard time with low light, bright lights, and reflective surfaces.
After an early morning class I took a cursory walk-around in OPF Bay 3 with my video camera. It was both to take a look at the Orbiter that had just returned from a mission and to capture some footage for personal use. I thought it would be nice someday to show someone what it was like to work for the space program and interact with Shuttle System hardware. As part of a planned move to Helena, Montana, I had volunteered for layoff several months previous and once you turn in your badge, that’s it, you will probably never have this kind of access to this type of hardware and personnel again. Since the Shuttle program is no longer operational this video can be viewed by the general public.
I am not a Shuttle systems expert. While I was introduced to much, and knew some bits in great detail, there are simply too many pieces, parts and things to know for me to provide an in-depth discussion, especially at an engineering level, and certainly not in this video. Among several courses/subjects, I was tasked primarily to teach SRB and ET related courses, platforms and bridge bucket, and the GSE involved with this hardware.
At this time, there was an enhancement being fabricated and installed on top of the Bridge Bucket system to allow increased access to the payload bay, without the necessity of a union crane crew for the overhead crane. I won’t get into the politics of that ;-)
In addition to my regular courses, we were in the process of filming and capturing my knowledge of these systems and procedures before I left, to be used by other instructors, or to be integrated into computer aided training classes. In total, I was responsible for over 30 classes on all three shifts, staying up to date with changes, and meeting ISO 9000 standards; both exhilarating and exhausting, and sometimes when going the extra mile rewarded with a gift of a hat or plaque from another department’s supervisor (I recently lost my “Space Hab” hat at Cedar Point - left it at the Mac Daddy Cheese Shack, darn it!) And sometimes the not so welcome feedback from another department when there continued incorrect use of critical support equipment was pointed out to them (Thanks, Ron, for sticking up for me and pushing to get these things corrected).
The day previous to this walkdown, I had noted what appeared to me to be unusual slumping of the forward TPS tiles and cheek pads just aft of the CC nose cap. There was also colorful streaking on other underbody tiles indicating heating and breakdown of TPS material. I tried to capture that on this video but no longer had up close access as the vehicle was now raised on jack stands. I never did hear anything through our grapevine related to this apparent anomaly.
Teaching platforms was a challenging set of courses. First, each OPF Bay is different; with Bay 3 quite different from Bay 1 & 2. Second, there are several levels of platforms divided into Forward, Midbody, and Aft Orbiter maintenance shops. Due to the reduction in force taking place over several years, TPS technicians were also now being trained to safely and correctly move OPF Orbiter platforms. They took on this added responsibility with the attention to detail and maturity one could expect from a seasoned crew. In spite of some muttering from Orbiter techs, the TPS techs stepped up and took on this challenge. They were also quite excited to be tasked this responsibility, in addition to their existing tile work. It also just made sense, as they could now move platforms as required to perform their tile work without having to make a request to the maintenance shops and then wait.
Anyway, I hope someone finds the contents of this video of interest. It is all gone now.
I may add more later....
Негізгі бет Спорт Orbiter Discovery - OPF Bay 3 Walkdown -August 21, 1997
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