The Construction of Space Shuttle Launch Complex 39-B

A very personal and technical written and photographic history, by James MacLaren.


Home Life: Page 6 - Generations... Oh, The Places You'll Go!
Pad B Stories - Table of Contents
Kai MacLaren stands next to the lower drive and support portion of the Redstone Gantry at Complex 26, Cape Canaveral Air Force Station, Florida. Visible through the chain-link fencing in the shadowed area to his right, the rails that this gantry traveled upon can be seen. Photograph by James MacLaren.
Kai, with his ever-present Museum flier in hand, getting nice and close to the Redstone Gantry at the Air Force Space and Missile Museum, Cape Canaveral, Florida
Kai at the Air Force Space and Missile Museum, Cape Canaveral Air Force Station, Florida, standing in front of the Gemini 2 capsule. This is Flight Hardware, and was sent into space on two different occasions, being the first American crew-capable spacecraft to do so. Photograph by James MacLaren.
Kai, standing in front of the Gemini 2 capsule in the exhibit hall at the Air Force Space and Missile Museum. This was the capsule that was flown on the final uncrewed systems test flight before Gus Grissom and John Young rode into space on the first crewed mission using this type of flight hardware, on Gemini 3.
Kai at the Air Force Space and Missile Museum, Cape Canaveral Air Force Station, Florida. Behind him, the heat shield of the Gemini 2 capsule showing the effects of the hellish heat of re-entry which must be safely endured, to bring a thing, to bring people, back from orbit around the Earth. Photograph by James MacLaren.
Kai on the other end of the Gemini 2 capsule, in front of the (very used) ablative heat-shield which protects the body of the capsule against the metal-vaporizing heat of orbital re-entry. This same capsule was flown a second time in 1967 on top of a Titan 3C with an MOL mockup. The main purpose of the flight was to test out the heat shield that would have been used on the Gemini B capsules for the MOL program. On MOL flights, the crew would have entered the MOL by passing through a hatch that was cut into the Gemini B heat shield. This was the first American space capsule to be reused.
My own mother and father. Space Shuttle Team. There is nothing more that needs to be said, other than this. Photograph by James MacLaren.
And along the way, we stop to visit my mother and my father at their home, where I can give dad a nice windbreaker, to let him tell the whole world that he too is a member of the Space Shuttle Team.
Your very first day at kindergarten. The world has suddenly opened up a vast new vista, filled with endless new things for seeing, learning, and enjoying. The world will keep on suddenly opening up vast new vistas over the course of your life, and continues without end to do so to this very day. It is a Good World, and it contains endless Good People and endless Good Things all waiting there to be discovered. Photograph by James MacLaren.
First Day of Kindergarten at Cocoa Beach Elementary School. Oh, the places you'll go!
A very self-contained Kai, with everything he needs, complete. All is well with the world. At right, a bit of an overlapping frame, a different photograph in the scanned photo album, can be seen. You can see that full image by going to Page 6 if you’d like. Photograph by James MacLaren.
At home.
Your own desk.
Your own chair.
Your own book.
Your own life.
And so perhaps we'll wrap up this little diversion into our Home Life with a few more frames, and then return once again, the the proper construction of our Launch Pad. It's been fun, and we'll return to it again, later on, but for now, work calls, and we cannot be late. There are people who are depending on us and we'll not be letting them down.

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