The Construction of Space Shuttle Launch Complex 39-B
A very personal and technical written and photographic history, by James MacLaren.
Page 39: Of Silence and Symphonies. Of Dew and Good Sports.
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There is a Space Shuttle sitting on Pad A.
Its name is Columbia.
We wish the photograph was better.
We wish the photograph could better capture the golden glow of a Florida Sun just barely above the distant horizon line of the Atlantic Ocean, bathing everything in a fierce blast of horizontal light.
It is the beginning of another day of radiant heat being poured into everything beneath the sky at a scarcely-believable rate.
But not yet.
Not this moment.
A heavy coat of dew covers all the world and all the things in the world.
But the photograph, alas, cannot show us this, and we must take someone's word for it.
Because that's all we'll ever have.
Someone's word.
And nothing else remains of this morning.
Except the photograph.
That we wish was better.
But is not.
At our hip, extending slantwise across the lower right region of the frame, the orange handrail pipes of the Fixed Service Structure hem us in, keeping us from going over the side.
I have no direct recollection of taking this image, but my guess is that we're up on the 260' elevation of the FSS, and, if nothing else, we can be assured that we have moved sensibly higher on the tower than where we were when we took Image 039 on the previous page, because a close look at the alignment of the tops of the telephone poles near Perimeter Road in both images compared to exactly what is behind them, shows the viewpoint to be distinctly higher in this image. And me, being me, I would imagine I would have taken the elevator to elevation 260'-0", which is the highest elevation on the tower with an easily-accessed unobstructed view in this direction, short of taking the extra time and effort to climb up on the FSS Roof at 300'-0" and walk around the Hammerhead Crane to the other side for a clear view of Pad A, and also, had I done that, I'm pretty sure I would have remembered doing so, but in the end we'll never know with absolute certainty, and I'm going to stick with 260'-0", even though I cannot prove it.
The photograph has nothing extra to tell us about any of this, and like it or not we shall never know for sure.
But we do know that the handrail pipe was cool.
Covered in dew and cool to the touch, wet, smooth, rock-solid, steel.
The day is just beginning, and the Symphony is just about to be played, but Wilhoit's Manitowoc has yet to begin roaring.
Needle scalers have yet to begin hitting their dissonant notes in a harsh metallic staccato played at high volume, fortissimo, 𝆑𝆑.
The musicians are taking their places in the orchestra pit, but have yet to begin tuning their instruments, and the symphony remains on the cusp, as-yet unplayed.
No compressors running. No reciprocating roar from that quarter, either.
The crackle and hiss of arc welding will be added in, at a much lower volume (comparatively speaking), intermittently, here and there across the depth and breadth of the steel, inaudible unless it's going on close-enough by, accompanied by the uncanny light it puts out, on, and off, and then on again, as the welders work their way through their rods, stopping now and again to lift their hood and examine what they've done so far, and then back at it, with the cauterizingly-bright blue-white light flickering and dancing as they go.
It brings back a day, up on the FSS somewhere on its south side, and I had a bit of time, and a pair of ironworkers in leathers with hoods (alas I cannot remember either name, but they were both Good People and although the names are gone, in my mind, the people are still right here with me) were up on work scaffolding beneath the floor steel in the area up above the elevator doors, welding some small thing to the underside of the floor steel it attached to (alas, I cannot remember exactly what, but it was a trifling item, whatever it was, or otherwise I would never have been allowed anywhere near it), and I happened to saunter by as they were momentarily inactive, and I do not recall if I was offered, or if I asked, but either way, I was shortly, laughingly, up on the scaffolding beneath the steel with a borrowed hood on, having no idea whatsoever as to what I was about to do, and we were all laughing about it, and it just kept getting funnier and funnier, and here I am in a button-down shirt, just about to spray molten welding slag all over myself from above, in a comically-clumsy attempt to strike an arc and lay a bead, and as we were laughing, just before I pulled the hood down and blindly stabbed the rod above my head at what I thought might be the right place (which turned out to be surprisingly accurate, once the arc struck, and the light came on), one of them advised me to get the tip of the rod down in as close to the puddle of molten steel it was making as I possibly could without quite actually touching it, causing the arc to go out, and said, "Make it fry like bacon," telling me what I would hear, if I was doing it correctly.
I'm no welder, and what I did could never be called a "weld" using anybody's definition, and my damage to the worksite was less than a half inch in overall length, and it was totally forbidden that I do such a thing, but the location of the weld was an especially forgiving one, and there were no concerns of any kind (except possibly being discovered by someone without a sense of humor in a position to cause trouble about it if they somehow found us out), or otherwise, as I just said, I would have never been allowed anywhere near active welding.
And I didn't manage to get the rod tip down close enough to the work, and I didn't make it fry like bacon, and it did pop and spew and sputter in a crazed fountain of liquid drops, and the sparks and the molten slag rained down all over me, burning holes through my shirt, and into my otherwise completely unprotected skin, and the whole little tableau wound up being hilarious in the goofiest and most unintentional way possible, and all I heard was harsh white-noise and sputtering and popping and everything but the sound of bacon frying, and after I'd laid down my "weld" and pulled the hood back up to view the damage I'd done and marvel at just how far I'd managed to get the slag to spray in all directions, we were all laughing so hard that none of us could breathe, and the moment was burned into my memory in similar fashion as the rain of molten steel was burned into my up-facing skin.
And one of them, still wiping tears of laughter from his eyes after I'd come back down off the scaffold and was standing there right in front of him, gave me a look, and the look spoke volumes and contained far more than I will ever be able to put down in words, and he looked me squarely in the eye and laughingly drawled, "You're a sport, Jim," and in so doing...
...he let me know.
And I would not be surprised in the slightest to learn that someone's grandfather, to this very day, will still occasionally tell the tale, stopping periodically to try and control his laughter, of the time out at the Shuttle Pad when one of the office people, dressed in a button-down shirt, took a stab at welding, and failed miserably, while simultaneously burning the hell out of himself in the attempt. But he was a sport. He was a good sport about it, even in burned failure.
It's not all grit and sweat up there all the time. Laughter and camaraderie have their places on the tower, too.
And so, as you passed by, you'd hear it...
...frying like bacon.
But the morning is still cool, and the work has yet to begin, and the quiet holds sway for just a bit longer.
And one day the Symphony will be finished, and the Sounds of The Work will grow quiet one last time, and the orchestra will disband one last time, and there will be a Space Shuttle sitting here, its External Tank completely blocking this view of Pad A.
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