The Construction of Space Shuttle Launch Complex 39-B
A very personal and technical written and photographic history, by James MacLaren.
Home Life: Page 2 - In The Atlas Motors... Hands-On With Fire.
| Pad B Stories - Table of Contents |
When it was built, it was one of the most powerful flying machines the world had ever seen. Your father has lifted you up, and you are now standing inside of the exhaust nozzle of one of the two outboard Booster Engines on an Atlas missile, where the torrent of flame that shoved it into the sky was created and sprayed downward against the force of gravity. Where the energy was created. This is Flight Hardware. The Real Thing. Behind you, the impossible complexity of the turbomachinery which drives the engine you're standing in lies exposed, its metal covering removed, revealing a mare's nest of incomprehensible metal piping and components. There is no one else around. Just you and your father. You have the whole place to yourselves. And despite your young age, you are fully aware of your circumstances and surroundings, and you appreciate them commensurately. It is good.
And now Kai is sitting in the center sustainer engine of the Atlas. To save weight and increase acceleration efficiency on the uphill climb into space, the outboard booster engines were dropped off of the ascending missile, mid-flight, after the bulk of the fuel had been consumed, and from there on, the center sustainer engine did all the work by itself. This design principle was sometimes called "stage and a half" and was an intermediate solution to the problem of continuing to accelerate no-longer-needed hardware dead weight, in between the design principles of a single-stage rocket (which is no solution at all), and a two-stage (or more) rocket. Kai is holding the flier which was handed out for the museum in his right hand, and peeking up above the bottom of the Atlas, on the left, the top of the red gantry which serviced launches from Complex 26, hosting Redstone-derived launch vehicles. Atlas variants were tested and flown from other launch pads along "ICBM Row" at Cape Canaveral from the late 1950's extending into the mid 2000's, and Kai was eyewitness to many of them.
These photographs.
How am I even supposed to deal with these photographs?
I cannot. I do not have the strength for this. It is beyond me. Beyond my abilities.
Kai.
I will tell you a story of Kai, instead.
Kai took to this stuff at an astoundingly early age, and showed clear understanding of what was involved, what was going on at an age that I will not even bother to tell you. None of you would believe the least of it.
As a toddler, still working out the details of how to stay above his feet and traverse distances via the use of his legs, he ran afoul of the hot top of a stove.
It was not dire, and it did not require professional medical attention nor leave a mark or scar, but he remembered.
He was from then on, fully checked-out on fire. On heat. On hot objects of any kind. He knew, and that was that.
Ok, fine.
I will tell you that at age three, I was with him in the Salick brother's surf shop on the corner of 3rd Street North and Orlando Avenue in Cocoa Beach, and Rich Salick was in there, and the three of us were considering the airbrushed artwork on the bottom of a surfboard that depicted a Space Shuttle launch in a fair level of detail.
And Rich Salick very accommodatingly inquired of this tiny person, this three-year-old, standing there beside him, well below waist-level, saying with a kindly uncle's smile, "What's that Kai?" while pointing to the air-brushed Space Shuttle on the surfboard.
And the look of flummoxment and stupefaction on his face, a thing rare and sublime, a thing I'll never forget for as long as I live, was profound as he stood there slack-jawed and listened to Kai, in a tiny-child's voice, point to each component in its turn, and with level tones indicate, "That's the Space Shuttle, that's the external tank, and that's the solid rocket boosters." Perhaps you might have needed to be there to appreciate the fullness of it all, but it's enough to know, that as a very small child indeed, Kai was already up to speed on what rockets were, and what made them go.
Fire made them go, and he knew it with the assurance and aplomb of a seasoned propulsion engineer.
Cut to the Air Force Space and Missile Museum.
Same kid. Earlier time than the visit with Rich Salick. Significantly before the above, and below, photographs were taken. Can not, will not, divulge an age of this kid, but we're definitely talking about a teeny tiny little Kai.
Kai, me, and his mother are all together, and we're taking him for his first visit to the place, and he was stoked as only a little kid can get stoked about things.
The (small) parking area was in front of, and to the left of, the blockhouse area you see behind me in the image of me holding Kai, on the previous page.
Place is mostly deserted, maybe one or two other cars in the lot, but it's a large enough area that for all intents and purposes, there's nobody there.
Out of the car.
And right there in front of us, first thing you encounter as you walk on to the property, supported on a pair of stanchions about four feet tall or so, is a RASCAL.
Kai knows exactly what it is, and is mightily excited to be in close proximity to it, and eagerly runs toward the rear end of it. The business end of it. The end of it where the motors are.
And as he gets close to it, looks upward from his child's-eye viewpoint and sees those motors from close range, realization sets in and in the twinkling of an eye, he goes from eager, excited, and overjoyed to be there, to a howling mass of wails and tears, and he immediately makes a beeline away from the damn thing at a dead run, back to mom and dad.
And somehow, through some telepathic father-son communications channel that I did not even know we possessed, I almost as quickly knew.
I knew what was upsetting him so much.
I knew that in his little-kid's mind, he had not yet reached the point of being able to distinguish between a piece of flight hardware on outdoor display in a museum, and a real, live, missile.
He had already been fully checked out on fire, and he harbored no doubts whatsoever that fire was what came out of those awful nozzles at the back of that thing, and he wanted nothing to do with any of it.
I scooped him up in my arms and told him it was going to be ok, that the rocket was not going to spit a torrent of fire and burn him, but it was to no avail.
Our happy trip to the museum was over before it had even begun, and perplexment was upon me as I tried to figure out what to do next.
And then, once again through some sort of telepathy, I suddenly had the answer, and once again I knew, without knowing how I knew, and I took prompt action without cracking my brain any further over things.
The RASCAL was not the only missile on display.
Not by a long shot.
Atlas, Titan, Snark, Redstone, Thor-Able, Bull Goose, World War II German V-1, and plenty more. Lots and lots and lots of terrifying missiles and all of them complete with motors and nozzles that would spit enough fire to put the flames of hell to shame.
From Kai's point of view, we were quite likely in the Worst Place in the World.
And more or less right in the middle of all of it, sitting on a flat concrete expanse, the Thor-Able stood high above its surroundings, on a stand that left the bottom edge of its quite-large engine nozzle just above the concrete. Maybe a full foot above, maybe not. And it was unfenced, accessible, and completely exposed to the elements and the people who might pay this place a visit.
And so I continued to hold Kai in my arms, and against his strident protests, and not allowing him to escape, I marched off past the RASCAL and out into the heart of things.
Kai had no doubt whatsoever that I had lost my mind and we were all going to die, and he was not shy in the slightest about letting me know this with a flurry of howls, wails, and escape attempts, but despite it all, I soldiered on until we came to that dreadfully large nozzle at the bottom of the Thor-Able.
Kai was one unhappy little kid. Very very unhappy.
His fit had not subsided in the slightest when I firmly took his wrist in my right hand, and from about a foot away, forcibly placed the palm of his unwilling hand directly upon the metal of that horrifying nozzle and kept it there.
And all of a sudden, everything changed.
Despite his continued onslaught of wails and tears up to this point, Kai had been keeping his eye on things (and he is very much that way, and he very much keeps his eye on things), and through it all he had not lost any of his awareness about his surroundings.
And as his hand continued to rest upon the cool metal of the nozzle, further realization set in, and all of a sudden he knew that no fire was going to be coming out of this, or any other missile in the field which we were standing in the middle of.
And the tears went away instantly, and the howls and wails went away instantly, and the squirms and wiggles were altered in a way that told me to put him down right away and let go of him.
Which I did.
And he took off like he himself was a rocket.
A tiny guided missile flying just above the grass and concrete from first one rocket on display, to another, and another, and another.
To see them all.
To touch them all.
And his joy, and my joy, knew no bounds that day.
And now perhaps, you can look at the images above these words once again, and understand why I do not have the strength to deal with it.
In the image above, on the right, Kai is very happily sitting deep inside the nozzle of the sustainer engine on this Atlas rocket. A piece of flight hardware. And he knows exactly what it is.
And he is very happy indeed to be here after I lifted him up, placed him inside of it, and backed away with my camera far enough to get this frame.
Let Croesus have his riches.
Let the famous have their fame, let the powerful have their power.
I have something vastly greater, and I am both humbled and stupefied that a thing as great as this could have fallen to me.
And on a day as glorious as this, of course we shall move from the sustainer engine to one of the booster engines.
How could we not?
Kai continues to happily clutch the flier they hand out (the contents of which, by this time, he was possibly more knowledgeable about than the people who wrote the damn thing) when you come to this place.
In this frame, you can see that they have very kindly removed some of the covering which ordinarily shrouds the entire engine compartment of the Atlas, and we spent no end of time examining, marveling at, and just generally admiring things in there.
These pictures were taken on a day when it was just the two of us, and in order to pick him up and hold him close to the inner-workings of the motors on the Atlas, I had to put the camera down, so... no picture of that. But I would hold him up, and let him guide me, telling me where to move him, so he could gain better access to things in that exposed engine compartment on his own terms, and I held him for as long as he wished to be held, allowing him to drink his fill of the wonders there.
You cannot see it in this image, but some of the welds in the piping in there were just beyond belief. Uncannily beautiful and symmetric. Master Craftsman stuff.
Beneath it all, painted in the ubiquitous shade of bright yellow which was commonplace for all such similar equipment back in those days, the stretcher bears its load.
Look closely in the bottom left corner of this image and you'll see, just forward of the wheels, a very small cab, complete with a side window.
Perhaps later on, we'll get a bit further into the particulars of this small cab.
How am I even supposed to deal with these photographs?
I cannot. I do not have the strength for this. It is beyond me. Beyond my abilities.
Kai.
I will tell you a story of Kai, instead.
Kai took to this stuff at an astoundingly early age, and showed clear understanding of what was involved, what was going on at an age that I will not even bother to tell you. None of you would believe the least of it.
As a toddler, still working out the details of how to stay above his feet and traverse distances via the use of his legs, he ran afoul of the hot top of a stove.
It was not dire, and it did not require professional medical attention nor leave a mark or scar, but he remembered.
He was from then on, fully checked-out on fire. On heat. On hot objects of any kind. He knew, and that was that.
Ok, fine.
I will tell you that at age three, I was with him in the Salick brother's surf shop on the corner of 3rd Street North and Orlando Avenue in Cocoa Beach, and Rich Salick was in there, and the three of us were considering the airbrushed artwork on the bottom of a surfboard that depicted a Space Shuttle launch in a fair level of detail.
And Rich Salick very accommodatingly inquired of this tiny person, this three-year-old, standing there beside him, well below waist-level, saying with a kindly uncle's smile, "What's that Kai?" while pointing to the air-brushed Space Shuttle on the surfboard.
And the look of flummoxment and stupefaction on his face, a thing rare and sublime, a thing I'll never forget for as long as I live, was profound as he stood there slack-jawed and listened to Kai, in a tiny-child's voice, point to each component in its turn, and with level tones indicate, "That's the Space Shuttle, that's the external tank, and that's the solid rocket boosters." Perhaps you might have needed to be there to appreciate the fullness of it all, but it's enough to know, that as a very small child indeed, Kai was already up to speed on what rockets were, and what made them go.
Fire made them go, and he knew it with the assurance and aplomb of a seasoned propulsion engineer.
Cut to the Air Force Space and Missile Museum.
Same kid. Earlier time than the visit with Rich Salick. Significantly before the above, and below, photographs were taken. Can not, will not, divulge an age of this kid, but we're definitely talking about a teeny tiny little Kai.
Kai, me, and his mother are all together, and we're taking him for his first visit to the place, and he was stoked as only a little kid can get stoked about things.
The (small) parking area was in front of, and to the left of, the blockhouse area you see behind me in the image of me holding Kai, on the previous page.
Place is mostly deserted, maybe one or two other cars in the lot, but it's a large enough area that for all intents and purposes, there's nobody there.
Out of the car.
And right there in front of us, first thing you encounter as you walk on to the property, supported on a pair of stanchions about four feet tall or so, is a RASCAL.
Kai knows exactly what it is, and is mightily excited to be in close proximity to it, and eagerly runs toward the rear end of it. The business end of it. The end of it where the motors are.
And as he gets close to it, looks upward from his child's-eye viewpoint and sees those motors from close range, realization sets in and in the twinkling of an eye, he goes from eager, excited, and overjoyed to be there, to a howling mass of wails and tears, and he immediately makes a beeline away from the damn thing at a dead run, back to mom and dad.
And somehow, through some telepathic father-son communications channel that I did not even know we possessed, I almost as quickly knew.
I knew what was upsetting him so much.
I knew that in his little-kid's mind, he had not yet reached the point of being able to distinguish between a piece of flight hardware on outdoor display in a museum, and a real, live, missile.
He had already been fully checked out on fire, and he harbored no doubts whatsoever that fire was what came out of those awful nozzles at the back of that thing, and he wanted nothing to do with any of it.
I scooped him up in my arms and told him it was going to be ok, that the rocket was not going to spit a torrent of fire and burn him, but it was to no avail.
Our happy trip to the museum was over before it had even begun, and perplexment was upon me as I tried to figure out what to do next.
And then, once again through some sort of telepathy, I suddenly had the answer, and once again I knew, without knowing how I knew, and I took prompt action without cracking my brain any further over things.
The RASCAL was not the only missile on display.
Not by a long shot.
Atlas, Titan, Snark, Redstone, Thor-Able, Bull Goose, World War II German V-1, and plenty more. Lots and lots and lots of terrifying missiles and all of them complete with motors and nozzles that would spit enough fire to put the flames of hell to shame.
From Kai's point of view, we were quite likely in the Worst Place in the World.
And more or less right in the middle of all of it, sitting on a flat concrete expanse, the Thor-Able stood high above its surroundings, on a stand that left the bottom edge of its quite-large engine nozzle just above the concrete. Maybe a full foot above, maybe not. And it was unfenced, accessible, and completely exposed to the elements and the people who might pay this place a visit.
And so I continued to hold Kai in my arms, and against his strident protests, and not allowing him to escape, I marched off past the RASCAL and out into the heart of things.
Kai had no doubt whatsoever that I had lost my mind and we were all going to die, and he was not shy in the slightest about letting me know this with a flurry of howls, wails, and escape attempts, but despite it all, I soldiered on until we came to that dreadfully large nozzle at the bottom of the Thor-Able.
Kai was one unhappy little kid. Very very unhappy.
His fit had not subsided in the slightest when I firmly took his wrist in my right hand, and from about a foot away, forcibly placed the palm of his unwilling hand directly upon the metal of that horrifying nozzle and kept it there.
And all of a sudden, everything changed.
Despite his continued onslaught of wails and tears up to this point, Kai had been keeping his eye on things (and he is very much that way, and he very much keeps his eye on things), and through it all he had not lost any of his awareness about his surroundings.
And as his hand continued to rest upon the cool metal of the nozzle, further realization set in, and all of a sudden he knew that no fire was going to be coming out of this, or any other missile in the field which we were standing in the middle of.
And the tears went away instantly, and the howls and wails went away instantly, and the squirms and wiggles were altered in a way that told me to put him down right away and let go of him.
Which I did.
And he took off like he himself was a rocket.
A tiny guided missile flying just above the grass and concrete from first one rocket on display, to another, and another, and another.
To see them all.
To touch them all.
And his joy, and my joy, knew no bounds that day.
And now perhaps, you can look at the images above these words once again, and understand why I do not have the strength to deal with it.
In the image above, on the right, Kai is very happily sitting deep inside the nozzle of the sustainer engine on this Atlas rocket. A piece of flight hardware. And he knows exactly what it is.
And he is very happy indeed to be here after I lifted him up, placed him inside of it, and backed away with my camera far enough to get this frame.
Let Croesus have his riches.
Let the famous have their fame, let the powerful have their power.
I have something vastly greater, and I am both humbled and stupefied that a thing as great as this could have fallen to me.
And on a day as glorious as this, of course we shall move from the sustainer engine to one of the booster engines.
How could we not?
Kai continues to happily clutch the flier they hand out (the contents of which, by this time, he was possibly more knowledgeable about than the people who wrote the damn thing) when you come to this place.
In this frame, you can see that they have very kindly removed some of the covering which ordinarily shrouds the entire engine compartment of the Atlas, and we spent no end of time examining, marveling at, and just generally admiring things in there.
These pictures were taken on a day when it was just the two of us, and in order to pick him up and hold him close to the inner-workings of the motors on the Atlas, I had to put the camera down, so... no picture of that. But I would hold him up, and let him guide me, telling me where to move him, so he could gain better access to things in that exposed engine compartment on his own terms, and I held him for as long as he wished to be held, allowing him to drink his fill of the wonders there.
You cannot see it in this image, but some of the welds in the piping in there were just beyond belief. Uncannily beautiful and symmetric. Master Craftsman stuff.
Beneath it all, painted in the ubiquitous shade of bright yellow which was commonplace for all such similar equipment back in those days, the stretcher bears its load.
Look closely in the bottom left corner of this image and you'll see, just forward of the wheels, a very small cab, complete with a side window.
Perhaps later on, we'll get a bit further into the particulars of this small cab.