Salute to Discovery

This is my salute to Discovery, with a vintage 1960's Astronaut Snoopy and my mission cup from Discovery's STS-51 in the foreground, and one of the big test stands out my office window in the background. Snoopy is somewhat worse for wear, because he was a gift from my father, and my brother and I enjoyed him as kids.

FEA of Stringer Test Fixture

Here are some clips from a stress report I collaborated on. The hardware was designed specifically for the ET-137 Intertank that flew with STS-133. The fixture was used during the effort to repair and qualify the tank for flight, after a fracture was found in the stringer at the rivet line.

Hardware description:

This test fixture is designed to test a one-stringer section of STS External Tank panel under loading conditions similar to those experienced during tanking. The simulated loads are experienced when the bottom of the tank contracts under the cryogenic thermal load, but the top of the tank is at ambient temperature. This fixture uses mechanical means to deliver the simulated load without applying any actual thermal load to the test panel. The loading is intended to cause cracking in the stringers similar to that of the flight article. 

Common Bulkhead test Rapid Prototype model

Here's a desktop-sized rapid prototype of our test fixture. It is made of plastic, and painted. The actual fixture will be about 20 feet across.

This is the Common Bulkhead sandwiched between my barrels. You can see the barrels in the above assembly, where the Upper Dome covers the Common Bulkhead.

Ares 1-X

A nice shot of Ares 1_X on launch morning. This is the one with a live first stage, and dummy upper stage and booster. The fisrt stage is made of five SRB segments, which makes it the longest solid rocket stage used to date. The shuttle SRB's are four segments each.

Common Bulkhead Test poster

This is a poster I made, using the Pro/E models of our designs. It's of a test fixture we're designing for testing the ARES I common bulkhead. The common bulkhead is a dome that will serve as the top of the LOX tank, and the bottom of the LH2 tank.

Ares photos

Here's a link to some good photos, and ARIES I stackup time-lapse for the first-stage test, with dummy upper stage and dummy Orion.

Cool shot of an engine test

They tested the launch abort motor in Utah. I like the four distinct plumes. Here's the article, with some videos too.

Shell Buckling

This is from my first project at TBE/NASA. I used some of my real-time modeling skills to make the CAD models look more realistic. The test article, lit so brightly that it looks like a warp engine, was a scale version of a rocket skin, and built with greatest care. Then, we squeezed it until it buckled with a wonderful boom, all in the name of science. They got some very good data from it. Here's an article about it. I call it the "Can Crusher".

They have buckled a second and third article, with plans to do more. We may also build another one of these, twice the size, without the brown towers.

My poster, rendered from my Pro/E model.



The actual article, built from my prints, all ready for the first test.

From Swamp Castle

Focus on Marshall video

Cool! My test is in Focus on Marshall, episode 31, November 2008! Mine is the shell buckling, which they talk about in the video, after the ullage motor bit. I guess I didn't rate for the interview, but whatever. Fist test may be tomorrow!

Shuttle Photo

Two Shuttles ready for launch to repair the Hubble Space Telescope in October.

MSFC Dynamic Test Stand Photos

Here are some photos Bryan took the day we went up on the dynamic test stand, and then spliced together later. In these photos, the floor is still configured for shaking the shuttle "Enterprise". You can see roughly shuttle-shaped holes in the floor, where it was suspended.

They are currently removing the shuttle floors, and will be reconfiguring to hold ARES I. This tower is one of a pair that make a familiar part of the Huntsville skyline. Until recent years, it was the tallest structure in Alabama. The view from the top is awe inspiring.

The crane on top, as seen from the roof:



Looking down from the roof, through the open door.



At the level of the door threshold, looking up at the roof crane.



Looking across the door opening. Looks like the door is 7 floors tall. Here you can see that the bottom of the doorway is still pretty high above the ground.



Looking up, you see the side of the test stand, then the door slid down, then the door opening, and the cranes on top.



A shot from the inside, looking at the layers of walkways.



Looking down through a shuttle-shaped hole.



Imagine slipping a shuttle, nose first, down through this hole.

Surface Treatment Shop

A sampling of all the surface treatments originally available in the shop. Several have been discontinued due to EPA regulations.



Some baskets for dipping items into the plating baths.



Some of Steve's parts, before surface treat.



And after.



Kind of hard to see, but some of them hanging on a titanium dipping tool. The titanium turned purple in the bath.



Something being dipped in a small bath.



The large baths are a bit scary.



This is an empty one. Amazing how deep it is.



One filled to the top, and bubbling.



More small baths.



The paint booth. Large fans draw the paint down through the grating in the floor. Note the large crane hook in the ceiling, and the garage door at the back.

NASA's Small Sewing Room

Spools of thermal blanket material. Yes, one roll is like those "space blankets" you can buy in a sporting goods store.





A thermal blanket, that became obsolete when the design changed.



Some more examples of thermal blanket work.

The Shop at NASA/MSFC, Huntsville, Bld 4705

Walking towards the big machine shop, which is on the left, you can see a rocket on display in the distance. The building to the right is the "surface treatment" shop.



I just imagine seeing a Saturn V roll out these doors... how cool that must have been.



The neutral buoyancy simulator is attached to the shop. The control room is in the low part of the building.



The buoyancy tank is in this huge building. It is an indoor "swimming pool" large enough to hold a mock-up of the shuttle bay. It was equipped for training the crew for EVA (space walks). There would be one or two suited MSFC employees in the tank, with several scuba divers to assist, for the "dress rehearsals", before the astronauts came and suited up.

Sadly, the facility is now "mothballed". It has "historical landmark" status, so at least it will not be dismantled. Von Broun had a suit, and would go in himself whenever he chose to. Dad says Von Broun would ask Cooper to suit him up, and Cooper would say "I don't know if I have one that will fit you", then he'd go get Von Braun's custom-fit suit. JSC now has their own facility, which is at least partially why this one has been shut down.



Check my other posts for what's inside the shop.

A Variety of Tools

Here are some of the items we saw on the tour. The first is a piece of hardware designed by Brian, I believe.


One of the ceiling cranes, moving over to pick up the above part, and take it to a milling machine for further work.






Following is a new machine they are installing. It has one rotating chuck for holding a part, one large multi-tooled head, and a second head for another tool. It is capable of cutting hexagons, for example, by spinning and maneuvering in unison. I wish it was running, so we could have seen it, but we'd probably only have seen a bunch of coolant spraying the window if it was.






This one cuts with a wire.




And this oddity was electrically burning an elliptical hole into a part, while submurged in a special fluid. Puffs of smoke come up out of the fluid bath as the machine hisses up and down, and smells of solder or "magic smoke". They showed us that drops of water sink to the bottom, and sit beaded up at the bottom of the tank.