1 00:00:09,349 --> 00:00:16,349 We're quite lucky today to have Bob Sieck talk to us about launch operations. 2 00:00:17,390 --> 00:00:24,329 Bob joined NASA early in his career after a spell with the Air Force. 3 00:00:24,329 --> 00:00:26,619 This was in the early '60s. 4 00:00:26,619 --> 00:00:31,550 And he worked on prelaunch checkout and servicing of Gemini and Apollo. 5 00:00:31,550 --> 00:00:33,160 Then went into the Shuttle Program. 6 00:00:33,160 --> 00:00:37,260 He worked on ground operations for the Approach and Landing Tests. 7 00:00:37,260 --> 00:00:44,230 We will hear more about that testing when Gordon Fullerton comes here at the beginning 8 00:00:44,230 --> 00:00:46,899 of December. 9 00:00:46,899 --> 00:00:53,899 And then he worked as Launch Director for a lot of the early Shuttle missions, including 10 00:00:54,479 --> 00:00:56,889 my first flight. 11 00:00:56,889 --> 00:01:02,870 And then went to be the Shuttle Operations Director at Kennedy Space Center. 12 00:01:02,870 --> 00:01:08,890 But then after the Challenger accident he came back and worked on another, I don't know, 13 00:01:08,890 --> 00:01:11,159 40 or so launches. 14 00:01:11,159 --> 00:01:13,729 I think my last launch was in '96. 15 00:01:13,729 --> 00:01:15,399 You had already graduated, right? 16 00:01:15,399 --> 00:01:15,799 Yeah. 17 00:01:15,799 --> 00:01:22,799 But Bob was the Launch Director of the first four of my flights. 18 00:01:23,619 --> 00:01:30,619 He is the head of the whole team of really thousands of people who are responsible for 19 00:01:31,189 --> 00:01:37,109 getting the Shuttle ready to fly and for certifying that, in fact, it is ready to fly. 20 00:01:37,109 --> 00:01:44,109 It is a very complicated, critical and from the safety point of view absolutely one of 21 00:01:46,280 --> 00:01:52,908 the most important things we do, is to figure out when this incredibly complex vehicle is 22 00:01:52,908 --> 00:01:54,609 really ready to go. 23 00:01:54,609 --> 00:02:01,609 Bob is going to talk to us both about some of the technical aspects of the launch operations. 24 00:02:04,140 --> 00:02:09,350 But also I hope, from a systems engineering point of view, we will have a chance towards 25 00:02:09,350 --> 00:02:15,330 the end to talk about some of the planning that was going on while the Shuttle was being 26 00:02:15,330 --> 00:02:20,400 designed and some of the compromises which had to be made, some of which we've already 27 00:02:20,400 --> 00:02:26,630 addressed, between the efficiency of turning around and maintaining a vehicle like the 28 00:02:26,630 --> 00:02:33,630 Shuttle vis-à-vis the actually initial upfront cost of it. 29 00:02:34,520 --> 00:02:38,610 With that as an introduction, Bob, I will turn it over to you. 30 00:02:38,610 --> 00:02:41,030 Thanks, Jeff. 31 00:02:41,030 --> 00:02:41,920 And good morning. 32 00:02:41,920 --> 00:02:47,640 As Jeff indicated, I got into the business of launching people and payloads into space 33 00:02:47,640 --> 00:02:49,660 a long time ago. 34 00:02:49,660 --> 00:02:56,660 I was privileged to be part of all of the human space flight programs, so I did a lot 35 00:02:56,690 --> 00:02:57,230 of that. 36 00:02:57,230 --> 00:03:01,260 What I didn't do, I saw most of. 37 00:03:01,260 --> 00:03:05,010 And I have an opinion on all of it, so please ask questions. 38 00:03:05,010 --> 00:03:12,010 If I don't have the answer, I am sure to have an opinion. 39 00:03:12,350 --> 00:03:19,350 I am going to spend a little bit of time, we talk about launch operations, but that's 40 00:03:19,900 --> 00:03:26,700 the final three to four days of a campaign that begins three to four months before you 41 00:03:26,700 --> 00:03:33,300 actually start the countdown clocks and put the astronauts in the vehicle and go fly. 42 00:03:33,300 --> 00:03:38,579 So I am going to spend some time on the background of preparing the Shuttle, the ground systems, 43 00:03:38,579 --> 00:03:45,579 the flight systems prior to the launch count process particularly to talk about the engineering 44 00:03:46,560 --> 00:03:50,420 involvement and the responsibilities in those processes. 45 00:03:50,420 --> 00:03:55,440 But, in order to talk about launching, I have to talk some about the operations of putting 46 00:03:55,440 --> 00:04:01,200 the final pieces together and doing the tests and inspections prior to launch. 47 00:04:01,200 --> 00:04:07,170 And then I want to get into the real meat of it which is the human factors, the role 48 00:04:07,170 --> 00:04:14,170 of the engineer, the role of the managers in the process of testing, inspecting, checking 49 00:04:15,890 --> 00:04:21,899 the flight systems, the ground systems and certifying that it is OK to put the crew in 50 00:04:21,899 --> 00:04:23,150 and go fly. 51 00:04:23,150 --> 00:04:27,390 And that's where we're going to spend most of our time, but I've got to go through some 52 00:04:27,390 --> 00:04:32,190 background first. 53 00:04:32,190 --> 00:04:37,230 I don't know how many of you have been to the Kennedy Space Center. 54 00:04:37,230 --> 00:04:38,700 Anybody been down there? 55 00:04:38,700 --> 00:04:40,610 OK, so you've seen it. 56 00:04:40,610 --> 00:04:47,610 It is a city where we've launched everything since the beginning programs, Mercury, Gemini, 57 00:04:50,480 --> 00:04:51,280 Apollo. 58 00:04:51,280 --> 00:04:56,800 The most prominent fixture is this Vehicle Assembly Building which was used for the Apollo 59 00:04:56,800 --> 00:05:01,960 Program to put together the 300 foot tall Saturn-Apollo rocket. 60 00:05:01,960 --> 00:05:06,570 Shuttle is about half that size but we use this building to do the assembly. 61 00:05:06,570 --> 00:05:08,330 And I will talk a little bit about that later. 62 00:05:08,330 --> 00:05:09,060 But it is a city. 63 00:05:09,060 --> 00:05:11,240 We have our own power systems. 64 00:05:11,240 --> 00:05:16,240 We have facilities to check out the orbiter to process the solid rocket motors. 65 00:05:16,240 --> 00:05:18,540 We have administrative homes for the people. 66 00:05:18,540 --> 00:05:25,540 And, of course, we have the highly visible launch pads that are out on the ocean. 67 00:05:27,010 --> 00:05:28,350 And we also have a runway. 68 00:05:28,350 --> 00:05:33,909 When the weather cooperates and we can bring the shuttles back to Florida, we can take 69 00:05:33,909 --> 00:05:37,770 care of the landing and recovery there. 70 00:05:37,770 --> 00:05:38,810 The process. 71 00:05:38,810 --> 00:05:40,900 We'll talk a little bit about the process. 72 00:05:40,900 --> 00:05:47,900 When an orbiter returns from its previous mission, it goes through essentially a disassembly, 73 00:05:52,090 --> 00:05:58,110 inspection and then build it back up and test it to make sure that it is still within the 74 00:05:58,110 --> 00:06:05,110 certification base that the engineers set up for it that you've already heard from previous 75 00:06:05,240 --> 00:06:08,450 to this lecture. 76 00:06:08,450 --> 00:06:14,889 You would like to think that if the Orbiter flies and the rest of the element is a successful 77 00:06:14,889 --> 00:06:21,889 mission you can just do it like an airplane, take down the down cargo, whatever, get it 78 00:06:21,950 --> 00:06:27,760 configured for the next payload that is going to go up, clean the windshield, so to speak, 79 00:06:27,760 --> 00:06:30,900 and the crew cabin and go fly it again. 80 00:06:30,900 --> 00:06:33,060 But the rules don't allow you to do that. 81 00:06:33,060 --> 00:06:39,900 The rules that the other engineers who have talked to you have set up are such that you 82 00:06:39,900 --> 00:06:44,860 have to assume that in some way, even though during the mission everything seemed to work 83 00:06:44,860 --> 00:06:51,860 OK, that that hardware was compromised through the process of reentering, landing, refurbishing 84 00:06:52,870 --> 00:06:55,760 those systems that have to be refurbished. 85 00:06:55,760 --> 00:06:57,770 Something may have been invalidated. 86 00:06:57,770 --> 00:07:03,850 So you have to test all that stuff that worked just fine in the previous mission, plus all 87 00:07:03,850 --> 00:07:10,169 of the systems that were not used in the previous mission, particularly the backup system, the 88 00:07:10,169 --> 00:07:16,800 things that you would have to rely on in the event that the primary system doesn't cooperate 89 00:07:16,800 --> 00:07:18,060 during the next mission. 90 00:07:18,060 --> 00:07:25,060 And, because of the way the Orbiter was built with its miles of wiring and thousands of 91 00:07:25,260 --> 00:07:32,050 components that are active components, you have to disassemble a lot of that stuff in 92 00:07:32,050 --> 00:07:36,169 order to meet the requirements that the program is levied on. 93 00:07:36,169 --> 00:07:42,270 After the Orbiter lands and you get it safe and the crew is out and you take out the payload, 94 00:07:42,270 --> 00:07:49,230 we spend a minimum of two to three months, roughly a quarter of a million labor hours 95 00:07:49,230 --> 00:07:56,230 of touch labor on the Orbiter to do this disassembly, test, inspection, refurbishment process before 96 00:07:57,800 --> 00:08:04,580 we move it from the hanger, take it to that Vehicle Assembly Building, integrate it with 97 00:08:04,580 --> 00:08:09,610 the tank and the solid rocket boosters and take it on out to the launch pad to go fly 98 00:08:09,610 --> 00:08:11,820 again. 99 00:08:11,820 --> 00:08:14,120 And that's where the lion's share of the work is. 100 00:08:14,120 --> 00:08:21,070 The work on the tank and the payloads and the solid rocket boosters is all peripheral 101 00:08:21,070 --> 00:08:23,990 to the processing of the Orbiter. 102 00:08:23,990 --> 00:08:25,990 Yes, sir. 103 00:08:25,990 --> 00:08:32,149 [AUDIENCE QUESTION] Do you find a lot of failures when you go through? 104 00:08:32,149 --> 00:08:33,838 We find very few. 105 00:08:33,838 --> 00:08:38,250 And you could do the tradeoff of, well, is this effort worth it? 106 00:08:38,250 --> 00:08:44,639 But, on the other hand, the few that you find, you're glad that you found them because if 107 00:08:44,639 --> 00:08:50,309 not you may not have discovered them until you got out to the launch pad and serviced 108 00:08:50,309 --> 00:08:51,670 your hazardous systems. 109 00:08:51,670 --> 00:08:54,550 Or, worse yet, you find out when you get in the mission. 110 00:08:54,550 --> 00:09:01,550 And then the impact of that could be not only a safety impact but could be a higher consequence 111 00:09:02,209 --> 00:09:07,839 than spending the month to two months in an orbiter processing facility doing that work. 112 00:09:07,839 --> 00:09:08,170 Yes? 113 00:09:08,170 --> 00:09:10,170 But is there a learning curve? 114 00:09:10,170 --> 00:09:15,509 I mean after each mission do you know which system you have to look at specifically? 115 00:09:15,509 --> 00:09:22,509 We look at it and say this system is performing just fine so we don't have to do this intense 116 00:09:24,389 --> 00:09:28,449 invasive inspection and test every flight. 117 00:09:28,449 --> 00:09:33,649 Maybe we can just do it once a calendar year or every two to three missions, whatever the 118 00:09:33,649 --> 00:09:40,649 designer thinks is the criteria for checking on the health of this system. 119 00:09:41,660 --> 00:09:43,089 And we've done that over the years. 120 00:09:43,089 --> 00:09:47,920 And after we've had a couple of years of missions where everything is working just fine, we 121 00:09:47,920 --> 00:09:50,709 start relaxing these requirements. 122 00:09:50,709 --> 00:09:57,709 And then something like Challenger happens or something like Columbia happens and the 123 00:09:58,110 --> 00:10:03,680 pendulum of conservatism swings the other direction. 124 00:10:03,680 --> 00:10:10,680 And we do more tests and more inspections to verify the hardware because people want 125 00:10:12,110 --> 00:10:17,040 to be able to say, and we want to be able to say, well, we've done everything possible 126 00:10:17,040 --> 00:10:22,860 to make sure that that's a 100% functional, operating, safe orbiter. 127 00:10:22,860 --> 00:10:29,860 And so getting this process down to where it meets the original advertising brochure 128 00:10:30,990 --> 00:10:37,610 which was we're going to fly these things every two to three weeks, you start in that 129 00:10:37,610 --> 00:10:38,110 direction. 130 00:10:38,110 --> 00:10:43,019 And then events occur either during the mission or you have the really bad incidents like 131 00:10:43,019 --> 00:10:44,259 Challenger and Columbia. 132 00:10:44,259 --> 00:10:47,869 And the conservatism swings the other way and you end up doing more work. 133 00:10:47,869 --> 00:10:54,869 And, in addition to that, engineers, because we are what we are, I was one, we have all 134 00:10:56,990 --> 00:10:59,850 this hardware available, we like to modify it. 135 00:10:59,850 --> 00:11:01,009 We change it. 136 00:11:01,009 --> 00:11:08,009 We upgrade it because there is new technology available in computers or in composite materials. 137 00:11:08,149 --> 00:11:13,100 So, when the orbiter gets to this processing facility, regardless of how well the mission 138 00:11:13,100 --> 00:11:19,059 flew, the designers, with their good intensions, say we want this orbiter to last another five 139 00:11:19,059 --> 00:11:25,189 years or ten years so we want you to do this upgrade to the avionics system or we want 140 00:11:25,189 --> 00:11:29,910 to change out all of the actuators that hold the payload in the payload bay and this and 141 00:11:29,910 --> 00:11:30,160 that. 142 00:11:29,990 --> 00:11:31,889 So you modify. 143 00:11:31,889 --> 00:11:33,079 And that adds more time. 144 00:11:33,079 --> 00:11:40,079 It makes more complexity to the process which invites more tests and inspections. 145 00:11:42,230 --> 00:11:49,230 You're constantly in a mode where unfortunately, if the mission flies perfectly, by the time 146 00:11:52,699 --> 00:11:59,699 you plan your campaign through the processing facility -- You plan your campaign with schedules to last 147 00:12:09,980 --> 00:12:16,980 two months maybe, roughly a third of the work you do is work that you hadn't planned when 148 00:12:18,550 --> 00:12:21,929 you initially brought that orbiter into the orbiter processing facility. 149 00:12:21,929 --> 00:12:22,999 It's nonstandard work. 150 00:12:22,999 --> 00:12:27,329 It is stuff that you uncover in the process of doing your test or inspection or its new 151 00:12:27,329 --> 00:12:32,550 requirements or new changes that come from the designers that have to be implemented. 152 00:12:32,550 --> 00:12:37,959 And, from an efficiency standpoint, if you're in the manufacturing or production business, 153 00:12:37,959 --> 00:12:39,970 that is not efficient. 154 00:12:39,970 --> 00:12:45,850 If a third of your work that you laid out for the next two months, at the end of that 155 00:12:45,850 --> 00:12:50,360 two month period, a third of it was stuff that you had not planned on doing which means 156 00:12:50,360 --> 00:12:55,800 you don't have the parts ready, you don't have the engineering, you don't have the instructions. 157 00:12:55,800 --> 00:12:56,559 Yes? 158 00:12:56,559 --> 00:13:01,889 Do you build in time to cover that now? 159 00:13:01,889 --> 00:13:03,850 Contingency time, yes. 160 00:13:03,850 --> 00:13:09,360 Let me go back to that. 161 00:13:09,360 --> 00:13:16,360 We set up our team and operations to run five days a week, two shifts a day leaving the 162 00:13:16,839 --> 00:13:21,050 weekends free to catch up for this nonstandard stuff. 163 00:13:21,050 --> 00:13:27,980 We essentially end up running a six day work week if we're in a standard template of flying 164 00:13:27,980 --> 00:13:32,509 three missions a year, which we're not now because we're still recovering from the Columbia 165 00:13:32,509 --> 00:13:33,290 accident. 166 00:13:33,290 --> 00:13:40,290 We end up working six days a week and roughly every three or four days we will work a continuous 167 00:13:41,860 --> 00:13:46,019 around the clock 24 hour operation. 168 00:13:46,019 --> 00:13:53,019 We try to maintain that original schedule but we only make it roughly 50% of the time 169 00:13:56,589 --> 00:14:02,100 due to this, again, nonstandard work, the extra stuff that works its way in. 170 00:14:02,100 --> 00:14:05,779 And that's why we have a big team. 171 00:14:05,779 --> 00:14:09,670 Our team is made up of the United Space Alliance as a contractor. 172 00:14:09,670 --> 00:14:10,980 They do the hands-on work. 173 00:14:10,980 --> 00:14:12,179 They have the technicians. 174 00:14:12,179 --> 00:14:15,699 They have the engineers that staff the consoles. 175 00:14:15,699 --> 00:14:21,829 And they are roughly a 6,000 population at Kennedy Space Center. 176 00:14:21,829 --> 00:14:24,589 They take care of the orbiter, the tank, the boosters. 177 00:14:24,589 --> 00:14:30,299 They are responsible for maintaining all of our equipment that hooks into the shuttle 178 00:14:30,299 --> 00:14:33,749 that is required, the process of servicing it. 179 00:14:33,749 --> 00:14:40,529 And they have ties to the contractors, the original equipment manufacturers that built 180 00:14:40,529 --> 00:14:41,879 the hardware. 181 00:14:41,879 --> 00:14:47,239 Technically, they can gain access to all the original manufacturing records for the parts 182 00:14:47,239 --> 00:14:49,790 that are in the shuttle. 183 00:14:49,790 --> 00:14:56,790 NASA's responsibility -- NASA owns the requirements for the Shuttle. 184 00:15:03,439 --> 00:15:09,559 We delegated all the operational work to the contractors, but it's a national resource. 185 00:15:09,559 --> 00:15:11,079 Taxpayers paid for it. 186 00:15:11,079 --> 00:15:13,360 The government has a responsibility. 187 00:15:13,360 --> 00:15:17,639 They cannot divest themselves from that. 188 00:15:17,639 --> 00:15:24,639 NASA owns the requirements for saying what you test, what you inspect and what the specifications 189 00:15:25,149 --> 00:15:27,389 are for acceptable performance of that. 190 00:15:27,389 --> 00:15:31,259 That is controlled by NASA. 191 00:15:31,259 --> 00:15:36,579 The management of the contractor at Kennedy is done by NASA engineers in an organization 192 00:15:36,579 --> 00:15:41,850 that has roughly 500 people out of the 2000 population at Kennedy Space Center of civil 193 00:15:41,850 --> 00:15:42,679 service people. 194 00:15:42,679 --> 00:15:46,569 500 are directly associated with the Shuttle. 195 00:15:46,569 --> 00:15:48,269 The rest do payload work. 196 00:15:48,269 --> 00:15:54,230 The Space Station, of course, is a big work item now at the Kennedy Space Center. 197 00:15:54,230 --> 00:15:55,779 And they are responsible for the requirements. 198 00:15:55,779 --> 00:16:01,769 If somebody wants to change the requirement, a NASA person has to approve that change. 199 00:16:01,769 --> 00:16:04,559 And we do insight and everything the contractor does. 200 00:16:04,559 --> 00:16:11,559 We have at each one of the milestones, when we leave the processing facility, when we 201 00:16:15,829 --> 00:16:19,730 leave the Vehicle Assembly Building and when we get ready to launch, there is a review 202 00:16:19,730 --> 00:16:26,189 conducted by NASA to review the work that was done by the contractor during the preceding 203 00:16:26,189 --> 00:16:28,279 weeks or months. 204 00:16:28,279 --> 00:16:35,279 And NASA approves moving the vehicle onto the next stage of its assembly prior to launch. 205 00:16:35,429 --> 00:16:42,429 And the launch director specifically is responsible not only for those last few days of the campaign, 206 00:16:44,509 --> 00:16:51,339 so to speak, leading up to launch, but also insuring the government contractor team has 207 00:16:51,339 --> 00:16:54,970 all the tools available to them to be successful. 208 00:16:54,970 --> 00:16:59,359 Is the work being scheduled in an orderly fashion? 209 00:16:59,359 --> 00:17:06,130 Is the ever-tightening budget constraining their ability to get their work done? 210 00:17:06,130 --> 00:17:09,339 Is there too much scheduled pressure to meet a milestone? 211 00:17:09,339 --> 00:17:11,380 That is the launch director's job. 212 00:17:11,380 --> 00:17:16,929 The launch director doesn't just come in the last three days of the campaign with a tie 213 00:17:16,929 --> 00:17:20,109 and a suit and orchestrate the countdown. 214 00:17:20,109 --> 00:17:26,459 They have a responsibility from the beginning to the end of the campaign. 215 00:17:26,459 --> 00:17:29,220 Engineering. 216 00:17:29,220 --> 00:17:35,590 I have already addressed this, but the NASA engineers manage the requirements, the changes 217 00:17:35,590 --> 00:17:36,720 to the requirements. 218 00:17:36,720 --> 00:17:42,779 They are the ones in addition to the contractor, this is a check and balance, that look at 219 00:17:42,779 --> 00:17:47,820 all the data, the engineering results of the tests and the inspections. 220 00:17:47,820 --> 00:17:50,630 And they approve that they met the requirements. 221 00:17:50,630 --> 00:17:54,130 Also, they participate in critical operations. 222 00:17:54,130 --> 00:17:59,980 A critical operation is a test on a specific system. 223 00:17:59,980 --> 00:18:04,639 Servicing of the vehicle for launch count or any of the non-standard work that comes 224 00:18:04,639 --> 00:18:07,500 up during the process. 225 00:18:07,500 --> 00:18:09,380 They audit what the contractor does. 226 00:18:09,380 --> 00:18:14,779 And, of course, because we're the customer and they are the contractor, we have a lot 227 00:18:14,779 --> 00:18:20,309 of criteria to grade them on for their award fee performance. 228 00:18:20,309 --> 00:18:24,419 The operations people manage the scheduling. 229 00:18:24,419 --> 00:18:29,000 As I indicated, we like to work five days a week, two shifts a day. 230 00:18:29,000 --> 00:18:33,659 We really end up working six days a week and sometimes around the clock. 231 00:18:33,659 --> 00:18:37,299 The scheduling activity is dynamic. 232 00:18:37,299 --> 00:18:39,139 And NASA approves all the scheduling. 233 00:18:39,139 --> 00:18:41,850 We have to approve all the overtime. 234 00:18:41,850 --> 00:18:48,850 We have the authority to say stop or go not only in launch count but anywhere in the campaign 235 00:18:49,139 --> 00:18:54,799 of processing the hardware, as well as the big picture schedule, you know, how many times 236 00:18:54,799 --> 00:18:59,179 a year you're going to fly and which orbiter is assigned to which payload in those missions. 237 00:18:59,179 --> 00:19:04,880 That is still a NASA responsibility. 238 00:19:04,880 --> 00:19:10,600 Orbiter processing facility, like I mentioned before, it is like a hanger for an airplane. 239 00:19:10,600 --> 00:19:17,600 A big part of the work effort used to be the tile. 240 00:19:17,659 --> 00:19:21,639 I think you already had a presentation on tile. 241 00:19:21,639 --> 00:19:27,850 There are 25,000 to 30,000 of these little bricks glued to the vehicle. 242 00:19:27,850 --> 00:19:34,850 We classically damage about a hundred of them on each mission due to ice and things coming 243 00:19:35,110 --> 00:19:40,600 off the tank that have to be replaced, but we also pull another hundred or so off just 244 00:19:40,600 --> 00:19:45,950 to inspect the integrity of the glue that is holding the tile to the structure of the 245 00:19:45,950 --> 00:19:46,200 vehicle. Because a lot of those little bricks have been glued on there for 25 years and have 246 00:19:53,200 --> 00:19:57,179 flown 25 to 30 missions. 247 00:19:57,179 --> 00:20:04,179 Although we have offline test programs that try to duplicate the environment that the 248 00:20:04,409 --> 00:20:10,440 tile sees either from a calendar standpoint or the thermal cycles of the mission, you 249 00:20:10,440 --> 00:20:14,830 would like to go to the real hardware and see what is happening. 250 00:20:14,830 --> 00:20:20,019 We do that invasive type of work of actually destroying tile, pulling it off the vehicle 251 00:20:20,019 --> 00:20:27,019 just to make sure that the aging process is not causing any degradation of the system. 252 00:20:27,429 --> 00:20:34,429 We pull the engines out and do the maintenance on the engines offline because the aft fuselage 253 00:20:34,659 --> 00:20:38,899 of the orbiter is a terrible place to work. 254 00:20:38,899 --> 00:20:43,210 Any of the hardware we can get out of there and do it on the bench, it is much better 255 00:20:43,210 --> 00:20:48,419 to do that than to try to do it in the vehicle with people crawling all over wire bundles 256 00:20:48,419 --> 00:20:49,850 and structure and that sort of thing. 257 00:20:49,850 --> 00:20:56,090 They are concerned about the collateral damage to do the other work in that compartment of 258 00:20:56,090 --> 00:20:58,299 the vehicle where the engines are. 259 00:20:58,299 --> 00:21:03,340 Of course, you've got to take the accommodations from the previous mission out of the payload 260 00:21:03,340 --> 00:21:07,009 bay and put in the new stuff for the next mission. 261 00:21:07,009 --> 00:21:10,029 I already mentioned modifications. 262 00:21:10,029 --> 00:21:16,600 Unfortunately, we change more stuff than we probably should but in order to keep up with 263 00:21:16,600 --> 00:21:23,600 the aging of the vehicle and the new technology that goes with the territory of flying a system 264 00:21:24,380 --> 00:21:29,080 that was designed over 30 years ago. 265 00:21:29,080 --> 00:21:34,289 And we prepared for the next milestone which was the vehicle assembly building operations. 266 00:21:34,289 --> 00:21:39,820 This is where we put the big pieces together. 267 00:21:39,820 --> 00:21:42,070 The solid rocket boosters are stacked. 268 00:21:42,070 --> 00:21:44,440 There are four segments in each booster. 269 00:21:44,440 --> 00:21:51,440 That is a very critical process but only takes less than a month to do. 270 00:21:52,200 --> 00:21:58,490 The external tank comes in essentially ready to fly from Mississippi. 271 00:21:58,490 --> 00:22:05,490 Except, as you know now, because of the Columbia accident, we are still looking at the ramifications 272 00:22:05,580 --> 00:22:12,580 of these lines and other fittings on the tank. 273 00:22:13,000 --> 00:22:16,940 The acreage foam on the tank, just to digress a little bit, is sprayed on. 274 00:22:16,940 --> 00:22:18,299 And that stuff is tough. 275 00:22:18,299 --> 00:22:25,139 Early in the program we had problems with some of that coming off, but we solved that 276 00:22:25,139 --> 00:22:26,000 years ago. 277 00:22:26,000 --> 00:22:32,690 What we haven't solved is where you have to do a manual application of foam over a fitting 278 00:22:32,690 --> 00:22:37,110 that is there because that is where the crane is attached to it or because there is a line 279 00:22:37,110 --> 00:22:39,730 there that has to be installed at the Kennedy Space Center. 280 00:22:39,730 --> 00:22:42,049 You cannot do it back at the factory. 281 00:22:42,049 --> 00:22:47,980 Putting that thermal protection system foam on there is a labor-intensive process. 282 00:22:47,980 --> 00:22:50,710 It is a critical technique process. 283 00:22:50,710 --> 00:22:56,669 And, obviously, there are still flaws in the process that the engineers haven't sorted 284 00:22:56,669 --> 00:22:57,200 out yet. 285 00:22:57,200 --> 00:23:02,269 And that is why that stuff keeps coming off the tank in those places. 286 00:23:02,269 --> 00:23:09,269 But the solid rocket motors are attached to this mobile launch platform with four bolts 287 00:23:09,350 --> 00:23:12,500 the diameter of my wrist. 288 00:23:12,500 --> 00:23:14,889 The structure engineers really figured this out good. 289 00:23:14,889 --> 00:23:19,980 There are four on each one of those that are attached to the launch platform. 290 00:23:19,980 --> 00:23:25,960 The tank is attached to the boosters with four attach points, and those are bolts, again, 291 00:23:25,960 --> 00:23:28,600 that are the diameter of my wrist. 292 00:23:28,600 --> 00:23:35,259 And then the orbiter is hung on the tank in three places with the same sized bolts. 293 00:23:35,259 --> 00:23:42,230 You've got six million pounds of weight that is attached to the mobile launch platform 294 00:23:42,230 --> 00:23:48,190 that is held up by these four bolts, well, eight total on the solid rocket motors. 295 00:23:48,190 --> 00:23:53,580 And they work out the dynamics of when the engines start because the vehicles sways like 296 00:23:53,580 --> 00:23:58,700 this because the center of gravity is not right over where those eight bolts are attached. 297 00:23:58,700 --> 00:23:59,879 And that system works fine. 298 00:23:59,879 --> 00:24:05,470 It always amazed me that you could hang that much weight on those few bolts that are only 299 00:24:05,470 --> 00:24:09,580 the diameter of this, but it works. 300 00:24:09,580 --> 00:24:16,580 The orbiter is brought over after its campaign, it's hung on the tank and we test all those 301 00:24:19,600 --> 00:24:24,899 connections between the solid rocket booster, the platform, the tank and the orbiter. 302 00:24:24,899 --> 00:24:28,379 And that only takes about a week to do that. 303 00:24:28,379 --> 00:24:31,720 And, if that looks good, we have a review of all of that work. 304 00:24:31,720 --> 00:24:37,429 And if the review says we didn't leave anything undone, that we shouldn't take out the launch 305 00:24:37,429 --> 00:24:40,750 pad then we go out to the launch pad. 306 00:24:40,750 --> 00:24:44,110 [AUDIENCE QUESTION] Sure. 307 00:24:44,110 --> 00:24:51,110 Say a little bit about this difference from just bringing your car into have a 50,000 308 00:24:52,799 --> 00:24:59,799 mile checkup, that is the clean room aspects, the following of procedures, of having a checker. 309 00:25:00,039 --> 00:25:00,289 Sure. 310 00:25:00,289 --> 00:25:05,610 Well, a 50,000 mile checkup on a car is usually an external inspection. 311 00:25:05,610 --> 00:25:10,750 You change the oil and the filter and you check all the belts and the radiator hoses 312 00:25:10,750 --> 00:25:13,399 and you change all the fluids. 313 00:25:13,399 --> 00:25:16,870 Well, you do that with the orbiter also. 314 00:25:16,870 --> 00:25:23,370 But, in the case of the orbiter, you want to know whether you are this far away from 315 00:25:23,370 --> 00:25:30,019 having to do a valve job or the rings in the engine have now got so many thousand miles 316 00:25:30,019 --> 00:25:32,100 on them. 317 00:25:32,100 --> 00:25:33,960 We have the equivalent. 318 00:25:33,960 --> 00:25:38,289 You take the heads off the engine and you give it a valve job. 319 00:25:38,289 --> 00:25:45,289 And you take the pistons out of the block and you check for scoring in the block. 320 00:25:45,830 --> 00:25:50,669 You take the transmission out and you pull the gears out and make sure that the synchronizers 321 00:25:50,669 --> 00:25:52,690 are still OK. 322 00:25:52,690 --> 00:25:53,860 And you go through the rear-end. 323 00:25:53,860 --> 00:25:57,379 And you take all the avionics out. 324 00:25:57,379 --> 00:26:02,129 Or, you take your carry-on test equipment in and you hook it up to these connectors 325 00:26:02,129 --> 00:26:06,419 on the airflow meter and the computer in your vehicle and you run all those diagnostics 326 00:26:06,419 --> 00:26:10,110 to make sure all that stuff, even though it worked fine after you turned that ignition 327 00:26:10,110 --> 00:26:15,970 key off the last time, that all the redundancies and all the capability is still within that 328 00:26:15,970 --> 00:26:18,190 hardware and all the margins are still there. 329 00:26:18,190 --> 00:26:24,360 And then you button it back up and you make sure you button it back up properly, all of 330 00:26:24,360 --> 00:26:29,960 which is pre-established quite rigid flowcharts, checklists. 331 00:26:29,960 --> 00:26:32,320 A checker checking the checker. 332 00:26:32,320 --> 00:26:36,279 Oh, yes, and you have inspectors where there are critical things. 333 00:26:36,279 --> 00:26:41,000 If you're torquing the connecting rods onto the crankshaft, it says that you've got to 334 00:26:41,000 --> 00:26:43,779 do those bolts at 50 something foot pounds. 335 00:26:43,779 --> 00:26:45,139 And the technician will do that. 336 00:26:45,139 --> 00:26:49,860 And there will be an inspector there verifying that he set the torque wrench at 50 foot pounds 337 00:26:49,860 --> 00:26:54,620 and it really clicked there, and they stamp the procedure that it was done that way. 338 00:26:54,620 --> 00:26:58,279 I wanted to just add to that, I mean, even more emphasis. 339 00:26:58,279 --> 00:27:04,840 You don't do anything to the vehicle or to the payload unless you have a written procedure. 340 00:27:04,840 --> 00:27:11,840 What is absolutely not allowed is oh, there is a little problem, something didn't work 341 00:27:13,269 --> 00:27:14,940 the way it was supposed to in the test. 342 00:27:14,940 --> 00:27:15,940 Let's just fiddle around. 343 00:27:15,940 --> 00:27:18,590 Let's throw a few switches and see what happens. 344 00:27:18,590 --> 00:27:23,940 Well, I mean, that is normally the way you work at things if you're in a laboratory or 345 00:27:23,940 --> 00:27:26,480 working on your car. 346 00:27:26,480 --> 00:27:30,330 But the thing is you need absolute traceability. 347 00:27:30,330 --> 00:27:37,330 Because if something later on turns up out of spec or there is an anomaly during flight, 348 00:27:37,940 --> 00:27:42,909 you need to be able to recreate everything that was done to the orbiter. 349 00:27:42,909 --> 00:27:48,090 That is why we keep such good records on parts. 350 00:27:48,090 --> 00:27:54,899 Well, you can tell you that story about the tires that you just mentioned. 351 00:27:54,899 --> 00:27:58,820 People keep track of where all the parts of the orbiter came from, the lot numbers. 352 00:27:58,820 --> 00:28:05,820 And so, if any problem turns up, you can actually then trace on the orbiter and see if it affects 353 00:28:07,249 --> 00:28:08,879 there. 354 00:28:08,879 --> 00:28:15,879 All the work is done for approved work authorization documents, every step, every touch labor item 355 00:28:18,110 --> 00:28:20,480 that is done on the vehicle. 356 00:28:20,480 --> 00:28:24,899 And if you deviate from that procedure, which is approved by engineering, you have to get 357 00:28:24,899 --> 00:28:29,590 engineering approval to deviate from it. 358 00:28:29,590 --> 00:28:35,200 The assembly process, the standard work process of putting the vehicle together after a mission, 359 00:28:35,200 --> 00:28:41,559 there is over two million verifiable work items for the standard flow. 360 00:28:41,559 --> 00:28:48,200 And that doesn't include modifications or the nonstandard work that comes up, the proverbial 361 00:28:48,200 --> 00:28:54,620 glitch that occurs when you're checking out your computer system or when you pressurize 362 00:28:54,620 --> 00:28:59,309 this fluid system and the leak rate is higher than the specification allows. 363 00:28:59,309 --> 00:29:04,139 Well, engineering comes in and says OK, here is the trouble procedure. 364 00:29:04,139 --> 00:29:10,570 Here is what you're going to pursue, but you don't do any of that until the engineers write 365 00:29:10,570 --> 00:29:14,690 the procedure and give it to the technicians or the console operators that say OK, here 366 00:29:14,690 --> 00:29:17,889 is what you're going to do to try to find out the source of this leak. 367 00:29:17,889 --> 00:29:22,929 As Jeff indicated, you don't just start throwing switches and turning valves and say well, 368 00:29:22,929 --> 00:29:24,820 let's see if we can find out what's going on here. 369 00:29:24,820 --> 00:29:26,799 It is all pre-approved. 370 00:29:26,799 --> 00:29:32,679 And the reason for that is when you have these reviews that culminate into final review before 371 00:29:32,679 --> 00:29:38,779 you get ready to fly, you want to be able to say that this vehicle is assembled per 372 00:29:38,779 --> 00:29:44,210 print, that the designer's requirements, the people that you've already heard from that 373 00:29:44,210 --> 00:29:48,539 certified that this system will work just fine in flight if it looks like this when 374 00:29:48,539 --> 00:29:53,110 we launch it, you're trying to prove that this is what it looks like when you launch 375 00:29:53,110 --> 00:29:58,419 it and it is within the certification base and it is per the engineering drawings that 376 00:29:58,419 --> 00:30:00,279 we were given and it met all these requirements. 377 00:30:00,279 --> 00:30:06,330 Otherwise, you are guessing that it is OK to go fly the machine. 378 00:30:06,330 --> 00:30:11,659 And you cannot do that in this business. 379 00:30:11,659 --> 00:30:13,950 [AUDIENCE QUESTION] Yes. 380 00:30:13,950 --> 00:30:20,950 Does that seem to create any sort of tension on the engineers feeling like their hands 381 00:30:22,909 --> 00:30:23,850 are tied to go out and do stuff? 382 00:30:23,850 --> 00:30:28,840 Well, no, because they are the ones that ultimately say what goes in those two million steps. 383 00:30:28,840 --> 00:30:35,840 And if they want to add more tests or checks or inspections it is within their purview 384 00:30:35,980 --> 00:30:37,610 to propose that. 385 00:30:37,610 --> 00:30:42,409 The program, there is a group of senior engineers that are on these what we call control boards 386 00:30:42,409 --> 00:30:47,059 that approve the requirements that are implemented at the Kennedy Space Center. 387 00:30:47,059 --> 00:30:51,919 And they can say yeah, that's a good idea or, no, we don't want to change this, go back 388 00:30:51,919 --> 00:30:58,139 and give us some more rationale for what you think is a good idea to do to this system. 389 00:30:58,139 --> 00:31:05,139 In that respect, it is probably somewhat frustrating for the engineers because they cannot do anything 390 00:31:06,129 --> 00:31:10,570 different from last time unless they can justify the rationale for it. 391 00:31:10,570 --> 00:31:17,570 But that's the way it ought to be. 392 00:31:18,840 --> 00:31:23,330 The launch pad. 393 00:31:23,330 --> 00:31:29,549 The facilities at the launch pad are pretty simple. 394 00:31:29,549 --> 00:31:35,529 These are the same launch pads we flew from in Apollo. 395 00:31:35,529 --> 00:31:40,559 We've got storage facilities for the liquid hydrogen, liquid oxygen. 396 00:31:40,559 --> 00:31:46,679 We try to spend a minimum amount of time at the launch pad because Florida is a nice place 397 00:31:46,679 --> 00:31:53,679 to be on spring break but it's a bad place to have exotic hardware sitting outdoors with 398 00:31:54,039 --> 00:31:59,049 all that salt, humidity and all the other elements that mother nature throws at you 399 00:31:59,049 --> 00:31:59,580 like lightening. 400 00:31:59,580 --> 00:32:06,580 And, I think you can see down here, we have a good lightening protection system. 401 00:32:07,190 --> 00:32:13,779 There is a single mast with two wires that go out about a half a mile from the launch 402 00:32:13,779 --> 00:32:14,129 pad. 403 00:32:14,129 --> 00:32:16,149 It makes a good Faraday shield. 404 00:32:16,149 --> 00:32:21,090 And over the years we've been whacked a lot of times with lightening. 405 00:32:21,090 --> 00:32:23,169 In fact, it's a good attraction for lightening. 406 00:32:23,169 --> 00:32:28,360 And we have never gotten energy inside of that Faraday shield to damage any hardware. 407 00:32:28,360 --> 00:32:32,360 However, when we get lightening down there, we tell the workers to stand down and, of 408 00:32:32,360 --> 00:32:33,669 course, seek safe haven. 409 00:32:33,669 --> 00:32:35,879 But we have instrumented it. 410 00:32:35,879 --> 00:32:42,259 And it has taken some big hits, but we haven't gotten anything major inside that would cause 411 00:32:42,259 --> 00:32:44,169 us a problem from electric. 412 00:32:44,169 --> 00:32:44,779 Yes? 413 00:32:44,779 --> 00:32:50,249 After you take the Shuttle out onto the launch pad, is it very expensive to roll it back 414 00:32:50,249 --> 00:32:53,279 when you find a problem and then bring it back out again? 415 00:32:53,279 --> 00:32:53,529 Yes, it is. 416 00:32:53,509 --> 00:32:59,700 And that's why we have these reviews before we commit it to go to the launch pad to make 417 00:32:59,700 --> 00:33:05,860 sure that we're not taking any unknowns or any work out to the launch pad that should 418 00:33:05,860 --> 00:33:10,879 rightfully be done either in the Vehicle Assembly Building or further back in the Orbiter Processing 419 00:33:10,879 --> 00:33:11,220 Facility. 420 00:33:11,220 --> 00:33:16,820 It is a lengthy process because it takes about a week to hook everything up at the pad and 421 00:33:16,820 --> 00:33:22,799 check it before you go into the process of servicing the propellants and doing the hazardous 422 00:33:22,799 --> 00:33:28,869 work which has to all be undone if you roll back to the Vehicle Assembly Building. 423 00:33:28,869 --> 00:33:34,039 You've got to make sure you're really ready to go before you head on out there. 424 00:33:34,039 --> 00:33:34,570 Yes? 425 00:33:34,570 --> 00:33:38,249 Approximately how many times has that happened? 426 00:33:38,249 --> 00:33:39,309 Going back? 427 00:33:39,309 --> 00:33:46,309 Well, we probably have done it for technical reasons maybe 20% of the time. 428 00:33:52,619 --> 00:33:56,539 For weather reasons like we're worried about a hurricane or something like that the same, 429 00:33:56,539 --> 00:34:01,529 about 20% of the time. 430 00:34:01,529 --> 00:34:04,850 One out of every five times we've gone to the launch pad, we've had to come back for 431 00:34:04,850 --> 00:34:11,719 either a weather problem or a technical problem that either occurred at the launch pad or 432 00:34:11,719 --> 00:34:18,719 it's something that happened with a different vehicle in the fleet that may still be in 433 00:34:18,750 --> 00:34:23,280 the Orbiter Processing Facility or a components that is similar to one that is on the Shuttle 434 00:34:23,280 --> 00:34:28,290 that is at the pad that they were doing testing in the laboratory or doing what we call fleet 435 00:34:28,290 --> 00:34:30,239 leader testing at one of the NASA facilities. 436 00:34:30,239 --> 00:34:37,239 And they said, you know, there is an inherent flaw in this auxiliary power unit and we have 437 00:34:37,909 --> 00:34:43,710 to change the ones that are in the orbiter because they were manufactured at the same 438 00:34:43,710 --> 00:34:47,949 time or they have the same component on them and you cannot do that work out at the launch 439 00:34:47,949 --> 00:34:49,909 pad so you've got to roll it back. 440 00:34:49,909 --> 00:34:55,690 So the hardware at the pad may be just fine from the standpoint that you followed your 441 00:34:55,690 --> 00:35:00,830 processes and they checked out great in the previous part of the campaign. 442 00:35:00,830 --> 00:35:05,440 But an offline issue can cause you to say no, we've got to roll back and go change out 443 00:35:05,440 --> 00:35:12,440 this hardware or fix it or further test it before we can commit it to go fly. 444 00:35:12,620 --> 00:35:16,090 We have a big water tower out there also which I will talk about later. 445 00:35:16,090 --> 00:35:19,330 That is our sound suppression system. 446 00:35:19,330 --> 00:35:25,620 But basically a month is the maximum time you like to spend out there. 447 00:35:25,620 --> 00:35:31,830 We used to put a lot of payloads in the Orbiter Processing Facility when we were flying laboratories 448 00:35:31,830 --> 00:35:32,630 and that sort of thing. 449 00:35:32,630 --> 00:35:39,630 Space Station hardware, we install all that out at the launch pad now. 450 00:35:39,640 --> 00:35:44,790 And we test all the connections at the new facility. 451 00:35:44,790 --> 00:35:47,390 And we have a simulated launch count with the astronauts. 452 00:35:47,390 --> 00:35:51,810 And this is a tradition that goes back to the Mercury program. 453 00:35:51,810 --> 00:35:54,360 They bring the astronauts down to the Cape. 454 00:35:54,360 --> 00:36:01,150 They go through a day, two days of training, emergency egress, familiarization with the 455 00:36:01,150 --> 00:36:04,610 hardware, And then we have a simulated launch count without the propellants and all the 456 00:36:04,610 --> 00:36:11,610 hazardous stuff just to, if nothing else, remind the launch team that this is more than 457 00:36:12,360 --> 00:36:13,030 just a machine. 458 00:36:13,030 --> 00:36:15,770 We are going to fly people in this thing. 459 00:36:15,770 --> 00:36:18,540 And this occurs roughly two weeks before launch. 460 00:36:18,540 --> 00:36:23,070 And it is a good readiness test for the whole team. 461 00:36:23,070 --> 00:36:24,130 It's serious. 462 00:36:24,130 --> 00:36:26,890 We're a couple weeks before flight. 463 00:36:26,890 --> 00:36:27,830 The crew is in town. 464 00:36:27,830 --> 00:36:31,530 This vehicle is going to look the best it ever has. 465 00:36:31,530 --> 00:36:36,860 And we do a simulated launch countdown to within a couple seconds of liftoff. 466 00:36:36,860 --> 00:36:43,860 And then we do a simulated abort with the safeing of the vehicle and the crew gets out. 467 00:36:43,990 --> 00:36:46,450 And I will just add something. 468 00:36:46,450 --> 00:36:51,730 That is always something the crew looked forward to, first of all, because you actually get 469 00:36:51,730 --> 00:36:56,720 to get in the vehicle which, despite the fact that we have pretty good simulators in Houston, 470 00:36:56,720 --> 00:37:03,420 there is nothing like actually crawling inside the shuttle that you're going to fly in. 471 00:37:03,420 --> 00:37:07,060 And there is a lot of safety training that you do down at the Cape which is really kind 472 00:37:07,060 --> 00:37:09,020 of fun. 473 00:37:09,020 --> 00:37:14,470 You don't have any pictures of the launch escape, the pad slide wire basket? 474 00:37:14,470 --> 00:37:15,920 No, I don't think so. 475 00:37:15,920 --> 00:37:20,100 There is a requirement that you need to be able to get off the pad quickly if there is 476 00:37:20,100 --> 00:37:22,090 a launch emergency. 477 00:37:22,090 --> 00:37:27,250 And, of course, on the real launch day, unlike the simulated countdown where the pad is crawling 478 00:37:27,250 --> 00:37:33,780 with people, on launch day there are very few people, even when you're getting into 479 00:37:33,780 --> 00:37:35,360 the vehicle because it is fueled. 480 00:37:35,360 --> 00:37:37,750 And then everybody else leaves. 481 00:37:37,750 --> 00:37:44,630 So they have this big slide wire where if you have to get out of the orbiter in a hurray 482 00:37:44,630 --> 00:37:49,870 you go out and you jump in the bag, hit a little guillotine and it cuts you loose and 483 00:37:49,870 --> 00:37:51,060 you slide all the way down. 484 00:37:51,060 --> 00:37:57,210 Actually, in the early days, the astronauts kept saying we need to try this out. 485 00:37:57,210 --> 00:38:01,420 And they said no, you cannot do it because it hasn't been man rated. 486 00:38:01,420 --> 00:38:03,720 We said wait a minute. 487 00:38:03,720 --> 00:38:09,220 Well, it's rated for emergency use only so you cannot try it out. 488 00:38:09,220 --> 00:38:16,220 And then after Challenger they insisted that somebody actually ride down in it. 489 00:38:17,790 --> 00:38:18,240 Not every crew. 490 00:38:18,240 --> 00:38:21,070 Just one person tried it out. 491 00:38:21,070 --> 00:38:27,140 But the other thing that you do, once you get down to the bottom there is an underground 492 00:38:27,140 --> 00:38:28,780 bunker that you run into. 493 00:38:28,780 --> 00:38:34,540 And either you stay there and wait for help or they have these armored personnel carriers 494 00:38:34,540 --> 00:38:38,250 sitting around there with little tanks which you get in. 495 00:38:38,250 --> 00:38:40,330 And you've got to be able to drive your tank. 496 00:38:40,330 --> 00:38:43,700 They have a breakout section of the fence so you drive the tank through the fence out 497 00:38:43,700 --> 00:38:45,460 to a helicopter pickup point. 498 00:38:45,460 --> 00:38:49,810 So we all have to go out and learn how to drive the tank. 499 00:38:49,810 --> 00:38:53,940 And we drive over the sand dunes and everything. 500 00:38:53,940 --> 00:38:59,160 And then also they have a big pool which they light on fire. 501 00:38:59,160 --> 00:39:05,560 And they give you a big fireman's hose and they show you how to make your way through 502 00:39:05,560 --> 00:39:10,310 a fire by squirting a water path in front of you. 503 00:39:10,310 --> 00:39:15,930 All the little things you dream of as a kid, to be a fireman, drive a tank. 504 00:39:15,930 --> 00:39:17,690 So it's good fun. 505 00:39:17,690 --> 00:39:22,260 But it is part of the extensive safety procedures that they have. 506 00:39:22,260 --> 00:39:26,190 And all these things periodically they have to exercise. 507 00:39:26,190 --> 00:39:30,190 They do go through, every once in a while, a disaster drill down at the Cape where they 508 00:39:30,190 --> 00:39:36,340 simulate an emergency where they have to pick up the crew either outside the launch pad 509 00:39:36,340 --> 00:39:39,290 or either out in the ocean. 510 00:39:39,290 --> 00:39:46,290 And you've got to keep people at full operational readiness. 511 00:39:46,380 --> 00:39:49,410 That's one of the aspects of training. 512 00:39:49,410 --> 00:39:53,640 We train for the anomalies, the nonstandard things. 513 00:39:53,640 --> 00:39:58,380 The standard work, they do so much of that anyway you don't have to train for that. 514 00:39:58,380 --> 00:40:01,990 You don't have to train to put a payload in the payload bay. 515 00:40:01,990 --> 00:40:06,060 You don't have to train to power up your system and run your system checkout because that 516 00:40:06,060 --> 00:40:07,560 is a repetitive thing. 517 00:40:07,560 --> 00:40:14,350 But the nonstandard stuff, when things go wrong, that's where the emphasis of the training 518 00:40:14,350 --> 00:40:14,950 is. 519 00:40:14,950 --> 00:40:16,920 And, like Jeff said, it's a lot of fun. 520 00:40:16,920 --> 00:40:20,150 It's fun for the launch team, too. 521 00:40:20,150 --> 00:40:26,890 We have a control center at the Cape, and it is called the Launch Control Center. 522 00:40:26,890 --> 00:40:29,180 You would think this is where you launch it from. 523 00:40:29,180 --> 00:40:29,820 Well, you do that. 524 00:40:29,820 --> 00:40:35,390 But all of the other work that is done in the preceding three months is controlled from 525 00:40:35,390 --> 00:40:41,750 the Launch Control Center by test conductors and engineers who wrote the procedures and 526 00:40:41,750 --> 00:40:44,760 the software that implement all the requirements. 527 00:40:44,760 --> 00:40:50,030 And they control the activity on the orbiter or the tank or the boosters when it is still 528 00:40:50,030 --> 00:40:53,800 back in the offline facilities or the Vehicle Assembly Building or out to the launch pad. 529 00:40:53,800 --> 00:40:56,030 They do it from the Launch Control Center. 530 00:40:56,030 --> 00:40:58,680 We automate what we can from there. 531 00:40:58,680 --> 00:41:03,420 But for the manual activity -- And a lot of it is manual because regrettably you cannot 532 00:41:03,420 --> 00:41:07,210 do all this refurbishment on the shuttle with automated systems. 533 00:41:07,210 --> 00:41:09,720 It wasn't built that way. 534 00:41:09,720 --> 00:41:16,720 It is all managed from out Launch Control Center with old computers but with a great 535 00:41:17,200 --> 00:41:24,200 team 536 00:41:29,390 --> 00:41:31,320 of people. 537 00:41:31,320 --> 00:41:36,120 The software we use in the computers, I am not going to go into a lot of detail because 538 00:41:36,120 --> 00:41:40,570 it is really old stuff, but it works. 539 00:41:40,570 --> 00:41:46,900 It is like the software program that the FAA uses to track airplanes. 540 00:41:46,900 --> 00:41:48,980 It is hacker-proof. 541 00:41:48,980 --> 00:41:54,430 There are no external interfaces outside of the Launch Control Center firewall. 542 00:41:54,430 --> 00:41:57,640 It works just fine. 543 00:41:57,640 --> 00:42:01,620 And that is where we do the management of our day-to-day operations from our Launch 544 00:42:01,620 --> 00:42:02,200 Control Room. 545 00:42:02,200 --> 00:42:06,240 And we call it the LPS Launch Processing System software. 546 00:42:06,240 --> 00:42:08,910 We've tried to change it a couple of times over the years. 547 00:42:08,910 --> 00:42:10,350 Buy new hardware. 548 00:42:10,350 --> 00:42:17,350 We have supplemented it with laptops so that we can do more human engineering displays, 549 00:42:18,490 --> 00:42:24,410 but the computers are the same ones that we bought back in the late '70s. 550 00:42:24,410 --> 00:42:28,320 But then so are the computers that are on the orbiter that fly the machine. 551 00:42:28,320 --> 00:42:32,310 So it works. 552 00:42:32,310 --> 00:42:37,880 This is a bit repetitive, but I want to go through it again to make sure to emphasize 553 00:42:37,880 --> 00:42:41,170 what the role of the engineering is. 554 00:42:41,170 --> 00:42:45,820 The designers that you've heard from, they certified their design. 555 00:42:45,820 --> 00:42:52,820 And they did extensive testing, just like Detroit does on a car on the door latch. 556 00:42:54,260 --> 00:43:00,530 And they've tested that door latch and said, well, this thing out to be good for 250,000 557 00:43:00,530 --> 00:43:06,140 miles or 20 years or so many gazillion opening and closings of the door before it wears out 558 00:43:06,140 --> 00:43:07,150 and you've got to replace it. 559 00:43:07,150 --> 00:43:08,370 Well, they did all that. 560 00:43:08,370 --> 00:43:13,590 And to make sure that that hardware is still within the certification base, they developed 561 00:43:13,590 --> 00:43:16,370 requirements, sent them down to the Cape. 562 00:43:16,370 --> 00:43:23,150 We put them in the procedures, either manual procedures or software to implement those 563 00:43:23,150 --> 00:43:24,310 requirements. 564 00:43:24,310 --> 00:43:30,870 And the team, United Space Alliance the contractor and the NASA engineers will certify at each 565 00:43:30,870 --> 00:43:35,050 of the milestone reviews and the process of moving the hardware out to the pad they've 566 00:43:35,050 --> 00:43:37,210 met those requirements. 567 00:43:37,210 --> 00:43:43,440 And they did that either by participating in the activity or by reviewing the test data. 568 00:43:43,440 --> 00:43:50,440 And that allows us to sign a certificate of flight readiness a few days before launch 569 00:43:51,940 --> 00:43:54,450 that all the requirements have been met. 570 00:43:54,450 --> 00:43:59,330 When we get into launch count, we take in a subset of those requirements that when everything 571 00:43:59,330 --> 00:44:05,150 is powered up and ready to go fly all of these systems that are active ought to look like 572 00:44:05,150 --> 00:44:06,990 this. 573 00:44:06,990 --> 00:44:11,080 The voltages should be between this upper limit and this lower limit. 574 00:44:11,080 --> 00:44:14,400 The pressure should be between here and here. 575 00:44:14,400 --> 00:44:18,190 These indicators should show that they are open and these indicators should say that 576 00:44:18,190 --> 00:44:21,390 this latch is closed or the valve is closed or whatever. 577 00:44:21,390 --> 00:44:24,750 And we put that in what is called launch commit criteria. 578 00:44:24,750 --> 00:44:31,750 And that is the acceptable limit for the performance of that hardware when you're at that point 579 00:44:31,840 --> 00:44:37,840 which is nine minutes before launch when everybody commits that they are ready to go fly. 580 00:44:37,840 --> 00:44:44,610 And all those requirements, again, are implemented by procedures in software. 581 00:44:44,610 --> 00:44:50,970 And the three days of launch count have roughly, these are numbers, but about 500 requirements. 582 00:44:50,970 --> 00:44:55,520 There are thousands of measurements associated with those requirements. 583 00:44:55,520 --> 00:45:01,140 And most of the looking at those measurements is done by computers, obviously. 584 00:45:01,140 --> 00:45:07,850 But you have the engineer involved because if it is not within limits you turn to the 585 00:45:07,850 --> 00:45:09,300 engineer for what is wrong. 586 00:45:09,300 --> 00:45:12,610 Is there any chance to go fix this or do we have to change hardware? 587 00:45:12,610 --> 00:45:14,750 Do we have to do trouble shooting? 588 00:45:14,750 --> 00:45:16,800 So it's not a hands-off operation, obviously. 589 00:45:16,800 --> 00:45:23,800 The structure of the launch team, the launch director is shown in the middle, but that doesn't mean 590 00:45:31,760 --> 00:45:37,220 he or she is the only one with a go or a no-go button. 591 00:45:37,220 --> 00:45:44,180 The people the implement the requirements, there are roughly 150 of them in our Control 592 00:45:44,180 --> 00:45:50,420 Center, and they are the ones that provide the go, no-go for all the subsystems both 593 00:45:50,420 --> 00:45:54,550 flight and ground that everything is operating within the limits. 594 00:45:54,550 --> 00:46:01,550 They report that to a team of test conductors, NASA and contractor, and that's reported to 595 00:46:02,150 --> 00:46:03,560 the launch director. 596 00:46:03,560 --> 00:46:07,220 We are not along, obviously. 597 00:46:07,220 --> 00:46:14,220 We have an engineering support area, which are all the hidden senior engineers that you 598 00:46:14,270 --> 00:46:15,390 don't see on television. 599 00:46:15,390 --> 00:46:19,330 And there is a room full of about 150 to 200 of those. 600 00:46:19,330 --> 00:46:25,480 And they are looking at the performance of these systems as they are activated in launch 601 00:46:25,480 --> 00:46:25,850 count. 602 00:46:25,850 --> 00:46:30,670 And they've got all the trend data, the previous history of it. 603 00:46:30,670 --> 00:46:34,750 And they're looking at things like, well, all right, everything is in limits, but is 604 00:46:34,750 --> 00:46:36,810 it within family? 605 00:46:36,810 --> 00:46:41,970 The last time the system performed the voltage with this or the pressure was this. 606 00:46:41,970 --> 00:46:43,390 Well, it's still in limits. 607 00:46:43,390 --> 00:46:47,380 But it's not the same as it was before so we go look at it. 608 00:46:47,380 --> 00:46:50,400 Well, that's for this group of engineers over here. 609 00:46:50,400 --> 00:46:53,680 These guys and gals are running through their procedures. 610 00:46:53,680 --> 00:46:59,560 And, if everything was within limits, we just turn to the next page and go onto the next 611 00:46:59,560 --> 00:47:01,000 one. 612 00:47:01,000 --> 00:47:03,100 And they also have the emergency procedures. 613 00:47:03,100 --> 00:47:09,380 If something bad happens these are the people that will implement the emergency procedures. 614 00:47:09,380 --> 00:47:12,700 This offline support, they're out there. 615 00:47:12,700 --> 00:47:16,410 They're the senior people, they've been there before, they've been out there who knows how 616 00:47:16,410 --> 00:47:23,410 many years and they're asking questions like that didn't look right or we missed that step, 617 00:47:26,210 --> 00:47:28,050 go back and check it again. 618 00:47:28,050 --> 00:47:29,820 That's what they are for. 619 00:47:29,820 --> 00:47:35,590 The mission management team over here, these are the people that do the certificate of 620 00:47:35,590 --> 00:47:36,520 flight readiness. 621 00:47:36,520 --> 00:47:41,730 These are the folks that stand up in the readiness reviews and say I gave the Cape folks a good 622 00:47:41,730 --> 00:47:43,180 set of requirements. 623 00:47:43,180 --> 00:47:47,110 There is nothing that happened with the hardware that they're responsible for. 624 00:47:47,110 --> 00:47:50,360 And all those offline facilities are on previous missions. 625 00:47:50,360 --> 00:47:53,140 That shouldn't have any cloud over this mission. 626 00:47:53,140 --> 00:47:56,960 They are responsible for certifying that. 627 00:47:56,960 --> 00:48:02,600 And they do that through a structure of the mission management team. 628 00:48:02,600 --> 00:48:07,010 You've got, of course, the flight director with flight rules and the flight team that 629 00:48:07,010 --> 00:48:09,420 they look at during the launch count process. 630 00:48:09,420 --> 00:48:16,420 And you will hear more about that from Wayne Hale. 631 00:48:17,220 --> 00:48:23,810 And they, obviously, have a go, no-go input to the launch director in the decision process 632 00:48:23,810 --> 00:48:25,670 also. 633 00:48:25,670 --> 00:48:28,670 We have an integration activity. 634 00:48:28,670 --> 00:48:34,470 They system engineers are each responsible for, you know, they have boundary conditions 635 00:48:34,470 --> 00:48:35,940 on what they are responsible for. 636 00:48:35,940 --> 00:48:37,150 It is these pieces of hardware. 637 00:48:37,150 --> 00:48:38,030 It is this wiring. 638 00:48:38,030 --> 00:48:40,250 It is these actuators or latches or whatever. 639 00:48:40,250 --> 00:48:42,580 But a lot of that stuff fits together. 640 00:48:42,580 --> 00:48:47,260 Integration is a technical term for making sure that this person talks to this person 641 00:48:47,260 --> 00:48:49,100 and that they are hooked in with this one. 642 00:48:49,100 --> 00:48:56,100 That activity is done by a console in the Control Room, again, with senior engineers 643 00:48:56,990 --> 00:49:02,470 who actually manage all the automated software that runs the last couple hours of launch 644 00:49:02,470 --> 00:49:04,960 count that really launches the vehicle. 645 00:49:04,960 --> 00:49:06,980 And they are tied in with that. 646 00:49:06,980 --> 00:49:10,890 You also have the more subjective stuff. 647 00:49:10,890 --> 00:49:13,680 We launch on a public range. 648 00:49:13,680 --> 00:49:20,680 Public safety is obviously an issue, so the range has to make sure that it is safe to 649 00:49:20,690 --> 00:49:25,030 fly from a public standpoint, there are no boats in the launch danger area, no airplanes 650 00:49:25,030 --> 00:49:30,930 and that the weather meets the criteria of being able to track the vehicle should it 651 00:49:30,930 --> 00:49:31,640 go off course. 652 00:49:31,640 --> 00:49:38,070 And, of course, the payload has to certify, particularly if there is an active payload, 653 00:49:38,070 --> 00:49:42,320 that all of their launch commit criteria is met. 654 00:49:42,320 --> 00:49:47,910 And last, but certainly not least, you have safety oversight of all of that activity. 655 00:49:47,910 --> 00:49:52,650 And what I don't show on there, of course, is the flight crew, but they are obviously 656 00:49:52,650 --> 00:49:56,990 in communication with all of these people. 657 00:49:56,990 --> 00:50:00,780 So that is the network. 658 00:50:00,780 --> 00:50:05,420 But everybody out here has no-go authority. 659 00:50:05,420 --> 00:50:12,420 Anybody can come on the Net or press their switch and say I've got a problem, we're not 660 00:50:13,220 --> 00:50:14,600 going anywhere. 661 00:50:14,600 --> 00:50:19,450 And it is the launch director and the launch team's responsibility to make sure that problem 662 00:50:19,450 --> 00:50:26,450 is addressed, hold at the convenient, graceful to stop all the activity hold point until 663 00:50:26,800 --> 00:50:28,900 the issue is resolved. 664 00:50:28,900 --> 00:50:33,770 The real job, and I'll get into this later, of the launch director is to say no when everybody 665 00:50:33,770 --> 00:50:40,770 else wants to go because, as you get further into the launch count, the "launch fever" 666 00:50:41,750 --> 00:50:43,410 process sets in. 667 00:50:43,410 --> 00:50:50,410 It is a natural thing, it seems to be. 668 00:50:52,240 --> 00:50:52,580 People want to go. 669 00:50:52,580 --> 00:50:57,480 I want to ask you about that a little bit, I know we'll get into it later on, but flight 670 00:50:57,480 --> 00:51:03,100 rules and the launch decision, there are flight rules that say you must scrub if these conditions 671 00:51:03,100 --> 00:51:04,330 are not met. 672 00:51:04,330 --> 00:51:04,740 Right. 673 00:51:04,740 --> 00:51:08,680 And, yet, there is a tendency to allow judgment to come in. 674 00:51:08,680 --> 00:51:15,680 Let's take an example of a limit on crosswind at you landing to the return to launch site. 675 00:51:19,980 --> 00:51:25,690 You see it go above limits, but the rules strictly says no, you cannot go. 676 00:51:25,690 --> 00:51:26,930 Talk about that a little bit. 677 00:51:26,930 --> 00:51:32,570 That is what we use the mission management team for. 678 00:51:32,570 --> 00:51:34,220 And you bring up the weather example. 679 00:51:34,220 --> 00:51:38,500 Most of this stuff is pretty straightforward. 680 00:51:38,500 --> 00:51:43,450 It is either the voltage pressure temperature is in limits or out of limits. 681 00:51:43,450 --> 00:51:47,510 A person can question that and say I don't like the trend, and you've got to stop and 682 00:51:47,510 --> 00:51:53,900 clear the air if they say I want more discussion on this, I want more data review and that 683 00:51:53,900 --> 00:51:54,820 sort of thing. 684 00:51:54,820 --> 00:52:01,820 If it is a discussion like that involves activity outside of the Control Room beyond the purview 685 00:52:03,050 --> 00:52:07,040 of the console operators that are running through the procedure, we rely on the mission 686 00:52:07,040 --> 00:52:13,240 management team to manage that activity so the console operators can concentrate on their 687 00:52:13,240 --> 00:52:17,410 launch commit criteria and their procedures and their software. 688 00:52:17,410 --> 00:52:22,520 Something like crosswind limits, if there is a debate with the flight director and the 689 00:52:22,520 --> 00:52:28,920 weather people, we hold the clock and say mission management team, that is yours. 690 00:52:28,920 --> 00:52:34,870 You manage it, and whatever you have to do to resolve the decision, we'll scrub if need-be, 691 00:52:34,870 --> 00:52:41,590 we'll hold if need-be, or if the community can get comfortable that these crosswinds 692 00:52:41,590 --> 00:52:46,440 that are peaking occasionally out of spec, that it's OK to go fly anyway, then we will 693 00:52:46,440 --> 00:52:50,550 wait to hear from the flight director that that's OK. 694 00:52:50,550 --> 00:52:55,220 We don't insulate the Control Room from that, but we don't want to burden the control center 695 00:52:55,220 --> 00:52:57,520 with work and what is an offline issue. 696 00:52:57,520 --> 00:53:02,140 And it is up to the mission management team to disposition that. 697 00:53:02,140 --> 00:53:07,200 And you bring up weather because weather is one of the few things that there is really 698 00:53:07,200 --> 00:53:09,290 a lot of judgment still involved. 699 00:53:09,290 --> 00:53:13,250 Is the weather good enough to go fly? 700 00:53:13,250 --> 00:53:18,390 And it is probably the only thing that is in that category because everybody has an 701 00:53:18,390 --> 00:53:19,430 opinion on the weather. 702 00:53:19,430 --> 00:53:20,860 And Florida weather is dynamic. 703 00:53:20,860 --> 00:53:24,880 And usually, unless it is wintertime, there are clouds. 704 00:53:24,880 --> 00:53:29,390 And there is always a tendency, if you've held for weather or the weather is marginal, 705 00:53:29,390 --> 00:53:34,530 to hold longer to see if the weather gets better. 706 00:53:34,530 --> 00:53:40,350 And the real issue for the launch director is to try to convince people, if the weather 707 00:53:40,350 --> 00:53:42,770 is good enough, that this is good enough. 708 00:53:42,770 --> 00:53:46,220 And, yeah, you could wait longer for it to get better but it's good enough. 709 00:53:46,220 --> 00:53:48,990 We're running out of window time. 710 00:53:48,990 --> 00:53:53,910 All the time we sit here on the ground with all these systems humming along, the probability 711 00:53:53,910 --> 00:54:00,540 of some glitch or something coming up to scrub you is increased. 712 00:54:00,540 --> 00:54:06,500 And just as a personal note, when I was I the Air Force, I was a weather forecaster 713 00:54:06,500 --> 00:54:08,600 for Missile Operations. 714 00:54:08,600 --> 00:54:15,520 And I felt that that was a waste of an engineer's time because I was a graduate engineer with 715 00:54:15,520 --> 00:54:17,310 my diploma sticking out of my pocket. 716 00:54:17,310 --> 00:54:21,180 I wanted to go launch missiles and rockets, and the Air Force said Lieutenant Sieck is 717 00:54:21,180 --> 00:54:25,220 going to be a weather forecaster supporting Missile Operations. 718 00:54:25,220 --> 00:54:32,220 I endured that for a couple of years and put all of that experience in my hip pocket. 719 00:54:32,930 --> 00:54:36,940 And I didn't need it until I got into this launch director job. 720 00:54:36,940 --> 00:54:43,940 And I spent many hours talking to the weather people who provide the forecast for the launch 721 00:54:44,860 --> 00:54:51,860 going over all of the data and the technical aspects of the weather situation to see if 722 00:54:52,520 --> 00:54:57,370 there it was prudent to sit here any longer and wait for the weather to improve or whether 723 00:54:57,370 --> 00:55:02,440 it was better to scrub, get these guys out of their uncomfortable suits and send them 724 00:55:02,440 --> 00:55:06,410 back to crew quarters and recycle for the next day. 725 00:55:06,410 --> 00:55:13,410 And they won't necessarily scrub, but you have to disposition their concern. 726 00:55:14,060 --> 00:55:17,950 And you will hold until their concern is taken care of. 727 00:55:17,950 --> 00:55:18,640 Yes? 728 00:55:18,640 --> 00:55:25,640 This is unrelated, but you know how the Russians, in going out to the launch pad, use a rail 729 00:55:28,380 --> 00:55:31,050 track and they have the rocket flat? 730 00:55:31,050 --> 00:55:32,270 Can you do that with the shuttle? 731 00:55:32,270 --> 00:55:39,270 Instead of stacking it like this and then rolling it out, would it be better, easier? 732 00:55:40,360 --> 00:55:46,400 Well, the problem with that are the solid rocket boosters. 733 00:55:46,400 --> 00:55:53,400 They weight approximately, when assembled, a little less than three million pounds a 734 00:55:54,130 --> 00:55:54,880 piece. 735 00:55:54,880 --> 00:55:58,740 And the joints that caused the Challenger accident are critical. 736 00:55:58,740 --> 00:56:04,930 And I don't know if they went through the technical aspects of the design, but these 737 00:56:04,930 --> 00:56:07,650 things are 14 feet in diameter. 738 00:56:07,650 --> 00:56:13,280 Each segment weighs 300,000 pounds and they have these two cleavaces that come together 739 00:56:13,280 --> 00:56:16,230 with O rings in there. 740 00:56:16,230 --> 00:56:21,040 And what caused the Challenger accident was there was rotation in these joints to the 741 00:56:21,040 --> 00:56:25,770 point where the O rings, because of cold weather, weren't making a good seal and caused a gas 742 00:56:25,770 --> 00:56:26,150 path. 743 00:56:26,150 --> 00:56:30,250 And 1200 degree temperature. 744 00:56:30,250 --> 00:56:35,090 Exhaust plume just cut through the metal once it found a path. 745 00:56:35,090 --> 00:56:37,310 So you want to maintain the integrity of these joints. 746 00:56:37,310 --> 00:56:41,250 If you stacked them horizontally, and that could be done, and then you lift this thing 747 00:56:41,250 --> 00:56:47,000 vertically, the joints aren't certified to maintain their integrity doing that. 748 00:56:47,000 --> 00:56:51,720 Plus, you'd need some kind of huge crane to pull this 3 million pounds from horizontal 749 00:56:51,720 --> 00:56:52,480 to vertical. 750 00:56:52,480 --> 00:56:59,480 I think it's something that could have been done, had it been built into the design at 751 00:57:00,450 --> 00:57:00,810 the beginning. 752 00:57:00,810 --> 00:57:04,400 And the Russians have a tradition of doing this. 753 00:57:04,400 --> 00:57:07,760 And so that is the way they design their rockets. 754 00:57:07,760 --> 00:57:10,300 For whatever reason, we never started that way. 755 00:57:10,300 --> 00:57:13,880 From the very beginning, our rockets got stacked vertically. 756 00:57:13,880 --> 00:57:20,880 And that's the way all of the American rockets have been designed. 757 00:57:23,240 --> 00:57:24,920 Yes? 758 00:57:24,920 --> 00:57:31,920 [AUDIENCE QUESTION] The launch director, whether it is flight worthy, actually, that mission 759 00:57:32,750 --> 00:57:38,920 management team is responsible for the flight worthiness because they encompass not only 760 00:57:38,920 --> 00:57:44,430 watching what you did in launch count, but the certification of all this hardware before 761 00:57:44,430 --> 00:57:46,890 it even got to the launch pad. 762 00:57:46,890 --> 00:57:52,880 And, ultimately, the launch director is responsible for conducting an orderly launch and making 763 00:57:52,880 --> 00:57:57,580 sure that this mission management team doesn't have any issues, that that engineering team 764 00:57:57,580 --> 00:58:03,090 doesn't have any issues, that the console operators have really completed their procedures. 765 00:58:03,090 --> 00:58:04,780 That is their responsibility. 766 00:58:04,780 --> 00:58:10,590 And, if there is any fuzz on that, so to speak, even though console operators say they're 767 00:58:10,590 --> 00:58:14,680 go, and the mission management team says they're go and flight says they're go, if there is 768 00:58:14,680 --> 00:58:20,230 any concern about that, it's the launch director's job to say no, we're not going to go fly today. 769 00:58:20,230 --> 00:58:25,910 We are going to give you another day or two days to do more homework, look at more data, 770 00:58:25,910 --> 00:58:27,060 have more discussions. 771 00:58:27,060 --> 00:58:31,680 We're going to scrub today, even though everybody may say we're go. 772 00:58:31,680 --> 00:58:34,220 And that has happened before. 773 00:58:34,220 --> 00:58:41,220 And I always wondered, after not too many times, when I've said no, when everybody wants 774 00:58:41,980 --> 00:58:46,500 to go, whether I'll get the phone call saying well, I'm glad you made it safe today, Sieck, 775 00:58:46,500 --> 00:58:48,060 but you don't have this job tomorrow. 776 00:58:48,060 --> 00:58:50,830 Well, I never got that call. 777 00:58:50,830 --> 00:58:53,170 Never did. 778 00:58:53,170 --> 00:59:00,170 The process, not to bore you with it, but since it is an operation, normally we try 779 00:59:00,290 --> 00:59:02,910 to launch in the middle of a week, Wednesday or Thursday. 780 00:59:02,910 --> 00:59:07,630 We usually take the weekend off before that to clean up everything and give the launch 781 00:59:07,630 --> 00:59:11,140 team a rest, so we power up everything. 782 00:59:11,140 --> 00:59:13,390 And that's the way we start the process. 783 00:59:13,390 --> 00:59:17,990 And that's a couple of shifts worth of work to bring up the ground systems, the flight 784 00:59:17,990 --> 00:59:24,290 systems, make sure that all the avionics hardware really comes to life. 785 00:59:24,290 --> 00:59:28,680 And we put in a no work hold at the end of that to take care of any problems. 786 00:59:28,680 --> 00:59:35,680 If that all goes well then we get into the more critical activity that has time constraints 787 00:59:35,980 --> 00:59:37,780 associated with it. 788 00:59:37,780 --> 00:59:39,200 We load the fuel cell. 789 00:59:39,200 --> 00:59:44,370 That is the power plants and the orbiter reactants, liquid hydrogen and liquid oxygen, because 790 00:59:44,370 --> 00:59:45,440 they have limited life. 791 00:59:45,440 --> 00:59:49,610 Even if you don't have the fuel cells activated that stuff boils off and you lose it and that 792 00:59:49,610 --> 00:59:52,970 could count against your mission capability. 793 00:59:52,970 --> 00:59:56,160 And that is a hazardous operation also. 794 00:59:56,160 --> 01:00:00,420 And then we put in another no work hold at the end of that. 795 01:00:00,420 --> 01:00:07,420 And then we have a period of time where we bring up the final systems, put in the time 796 01:00:10,610 --> 01:00:16,280 critical storage, particularly when we're flying laboratories and you put in plants 797 01:00:16,280 --> 01:00:22,730 or critters or whatever it may be either in the crew module or the payload bay. 798 01:00:22,730 --> 01:00:29,730 And the last 12 hours down here is when you really have got to make sure this is a real 799 01:00:29,800 --> 01:00:32,130 decision point right here. 800 01:00:32,130 --> 01:00:38,220 Are we going to load the external tank, put a cycle on the tank? 801 01:00:38,220 --> 01:00:43,910 And we know that putting liquid hydrogen and liquid oxygen, and there is roughly half a 802 01:00:43,910 --> 01:00:50,710 million gallons in a tank, puts stresses into the hardware. 803 01:00:50,710 --> 01:00:54,460 You really don't want to do that unless you're pretty sure you're going to launch that day 804 01:00:54,460 --> 01:00:56,010 or that night. 805 01:00:56,010 --> 01:01:00,650 We have a meeting before that to make sure the weather looks pretty good and that the 806 01:01:00,650 --> 01:01:05,150 mission management team is not working any offline issues. 807 01:01:05,150 --> 01:01:07,090 And that has happened before. 808 01:01:07,090 --> 01:01:11,090 A war story for you. 809 01:01:11,090 --> 01:01:17,590 In the early '80s, in one of our missions, we assembled the mission management team to 810 01:01:17,590 --> 01:01:20,860 decide whether or not we ought to go load the external tank and go fly. 811 01:01:20,860 --> 01:01:21,470 Everything looked pretty good. 812 01:01:21,470 --> 01:01:24,490 And the orbiter project manager said well, I need to make you aware of this. 813 01:01:24,490 --> 01:01:31,490 I just got a telegram from the manufacturers of the tires. 814 01:01:31,750 --> 01:01:38,750 And the manufacturer said they were inspecting a lot, a lot of the tires of which we have 815 01:01:39,310 --> 01:01:45,380 two of them from the same lot on the Orbiter, and they found some blems on these tires. 816 01:01:45,380 --> 01:01:51,530 And they don't know whether it's a manufacturing flaw or an aging defect. 817 01:01:51,530 --> 01:01:55,560 And we don't know whether it affects the integrity of the tires. 818 01:01:55,560 --> 01:01:59,780 But since we knew you were launching tomorrow, we thought we would share this with you. 819 01:01:59,780 --> 01:02:04,650 Warm regards, BF Goodrich, I think it was at the time. 820 01:02:04,650 --> 01:02:09,190 Well, the mission management team threw on that on the table and said hey, we've got 821 01:02:09,190 --> 01:02:10,400 to go work this. 822 01:02:10,400 --> 01:02:15,310 These people, we don't know, they haven't said they're not certifying the tires. 823 01:02:15,310 --> 01:02:17,080 They just said they've got a problem. 824 01:02:17,080 --> 01:02:19,070 Well, that's fine. 825 01:02:19,070 --> 01:02:25,370 The mission management team, go work that and let's talk about whether or not it's prudent, 826 01:02:25,370 --> 01:02:32,320 under these circumstances, to go load the tank with some probability that we get all 827 01:02:32,320 --> 01:02:35,640 the way down to T minus nine minutes and you folks are going to say hey, we need to look 828 01:02:35,640 --> 01:02:40,210 at more test data on these tires or have more discussions with BF Goodrich on whether or 829 01:02:40,210 --> 01:02:41,470 not we go fly today. 830 01:02:41,470 --> 01:02:45,410 Well, you don't want to load the tank and go through all that if that's what you think 831 01:02:45,410 --> 01:02:50,150 the situation is going to be eight hours away from that. 832 01:02:50,150 --> 01:02:54,930 And you've put a cycle on the tank, you've used up a lot of cryos that you cannot save 833 01:02:54,930 --> 01:02:56,010 because of the heat leak. 834 01:02:56,010 --> 01:03:01,220 Plus, your launch team has put a cycle on, depending on the time of day, they've been 835 01:03:01,220 --> 01:03:02,730 up all day, all night or whatever. 836 01:03:02,730 --> 01:03:08,040 Those are the kinds of issues that you need to make sure get worked. 837 01:03:08,040 --> 01:03:12,540 And the mission management team has to handle that, but the launch director has to decide 838 01:03:12,540 --> 01:03:16,330 just go work that for another day or two. 839 01:03:16,330 --> 01:03:19,430 We're not going to load the tank. 840 01:03:19,430 --> 01:03:25,150 Or, what's the promise of this coming to fruition, the possibility so that it makes sense to 841 01:03:25,150 --> 01:03:27,050 go try to fly? 842 01:03:27,050 --> 01:03:29,900 What did you do with the tires? 843 01:03:29,900 --> 01:03:35,150 In that case, we went ahead and tanked. 844 01:03:35,150 --> 01:03:39,990 The subsystem manager for that, which you may have already heard from, went back to 845 01:03:39,990 --> 01:03:45,350 a lot of the test data that they had run on the tires, that they had been fairly recent. 846 01:03:45,350 --> 01:03:48,380 Langley, I think, was involved in it. 847 01:03:48,380 --> 01:03:53,330 And they said we don't have to worry about those blems being a problem for the tires 848 01:03:53,330 --> 01:03:56,320 that are on the Orbiter which, by the way, you don't have any access to at the launch 849 01:03:56,320 --> 01:03:56,570 pad. 850 01:03:56,560 --> 01:04:00,030 If we were going to change the tires, you would have to roll back to the Orbiter Processing 851 01:04:00,030 --> 01:04:01,900 Facility. 852 01:04:01,900 --> 01:04:08,060 And that would be a couple of month's worth of impact to that flight. 853 01:04:08,060 --> 01:04:13,960 We ended up not doing anything with the tires, but it had the mission management team really 854 01:04:13,960 --> 01:04:17,090 busy for about eight hours. 855 01:04:17,090 --> 01:04:21,670 And this process takes about three days. 856 01:04:21,670 --> 01:04:26,660 And we have refined those procedures, as you might expect over the years, to make this 857 01:04:26,660 --> 01:04:30,900 as an efficient and repetitive a process as we can. 858 01:04:30,900 --> 01:04:37,900 In addition to minimizing the hazards to the people and the equipment. 859 01:04:39,670 --> 01:04:46,670 Before we got to terminal count, usually we take like a two minute break. 860 01:04:48,730 --> 01:04:55,730 This is a good time to do that. 861 01:05:01,520 --> 01:05:08,520 Terminal count phase. 862 01:05:14,779 --> 01:05:19,590 After the tank is loaded, half a million gallons of liquid hydrogen, liquid oxygen, and there 863 01:05:19,590 --> 01:05:24,400 are no leaks, and we have leak detectors all over the vehicle, and we've scrubbed a lot 864 01:05:24,400 --> 01:05:31,400 of launches because of leaks, we give the crew a go to come on out. 865 01:05:33,320 --> 01:05:38,840 And a crew of seven or eight people, it takes an hour and a half to get them all in and 866 01:05:38,840 --> 01:05:42,380 get them connected, check their communications and that sort of thing. 867 01:05:42,380 --> 01:05:48,070 Roughly three hours before launch we bring them out, we get them all connected, we close 868 01:05:48,070 --> 01:05:52,770 the hatch and we verify the integrity of the crew module. 869 01:05:52,770 --> 01:05:59,770 And clockwise we're down to T minus 20 minutes, but if it's a rendezvous window, and most 870 01:06:00,410 --> 01:06:01,380 of them are now. 871 01:06:01,380 --> 01:06:08,050 The launch window is only five to ten minutes long so we have to be in phase with the same 872 01:06:08,050 --> 01:06:13,220 plane that the Space Station is in and we've got to get in phase with being able to catch 873 01:06:13,220 --> 01:06:18,100 the Space Station or have it catch us. 874 01:06:18,100 --> 01:06:22,560 The launch window, we don't have enough energy in the Shuttle to steer to any orbit we'd 875 01:06:22,560 --> 01:06:23,580 like to. 876 01:06:23,580 --> 01:06:28,210 The launch window is only about ten minutes long, so we put in a long hold at T minus 877 01:06:28,210 --> 01:06:32,110 nine minutes for those kinds of missions. 878 01:06:32,110 --> 01:06:37,850 It is the equivalent of the two minute timeout in a professional football game. 879 01:06:37,850 --> 01:06:44,850 Everybody has a chance to review their information, discuss their strategies, if it's a long launch 880 01:06:45,520 --> 01:06:52,010 window, if it was just a lab mission then we only wait for ten minutes at this T minus 881 01:06:52,010 --> 01:06:52,560 nine mark. 882 01:06:52,560 --> 01:06:58,040 But, if it's a short window, we set up the clock such that we hold there for almost an 883 01:06:58,040 --> 01:06:59,330 hour. 884 01:06:59,330 --> 01:07:04,450 And then, as you saw on that previous chart, we do a poll of all those people and make 885 01:07:04,450 --> 01:07:10,050 sure that they are all still go and they're not working any problems or issues. 886 01:07:10,050 --> 01:07:17,050 And then we start this automated software program that looks at, in addition to the 887 01:07:17,070 --> 01:07:21,279 systems engineers and their consoles looking at all their information, we have an automated 888 01:07:21,279 --> 01:07:25,360 program called the Ground Launch Sequencer that looks at all the measurements, all the 889 01:07:25,360 --> 01:07:27,880 parameters to make sure that they are within limits. 890 01:07:27,880 --> 01:07:33,370 And it issues all the commands to the vehicle and the ground support equipment. 891 01:07:33,370 --> 01:07:38,300 And we did that so we could manage the repeatability of that process. 892 01:07:38,300 --> 01:07:45,300 And you had to take the human factor button pressing out of the process as much as possible. 893 01:07:48,520 --> 01:07:51,720 And there is not a lot of work that goes on in there. 894 01:07:51,720 --> 01:07:53,230 And there is very little manual work. 895 01:07:53,230 --> 01:07:54,640 You get five minutes. 896 01:07:54,640 --> 01:07:59,980 The orbiter access arm, their ability o get out of the vehicle in a big hurry is retracted. 897 01:07:59,980 --> 01:08:04,029 It takes two to three minutes to pull that back, but we can get it back up to the vehicle 898 01:08:04,029 --> 01:08:10,750 in less than 30 seconds which is about the amount of time it takes them to unstrap and 899 01:08:10,750 --> 01:08:15,950 get out of there anyway if there's a fire or something bad like that, that they have 900 01:08:15,950 --> 01:08:18,170 to do an emergency egress. 901 01:08:18,170 --> 01:08:23,839 They start the propulsion units on the Orbiter that pressurize the hydraulic system. 902 01:08:23,839 --> 01:08:29,660 Just like on an airplane, there is an automated test of all the aero surfaces like they do 903 01:08:29,660 --> 01:08:30,649 on the end of a runway. 904 01:08:30,649 --> 01:08:36,330 But this is done by the computer and it wiggles the elevons and the rudder and the main engines 905 01:08:36,330 --> 01:08:38,979 to make sure all of that works. 906 01:08:38,979 --> 01:08:45,979 And we also start the conditioning of the propellant at the engine interface. 907 01:08:46,799 --> 01:08:49,770 And they already had the discussion about the main engines. 908 01:08:49,770 --> 01:08:54,440 You have to make sure that the quality of the fluid in the external tank and the quality 909 01:08:54,440 --> 01:09:01,339 of it that's right there at the injector of the engine is within the temperature and density 910 01:09:01,339 --> 01:09:03,779 parameters that the engine was certified at. 911 01:09:03,779 --> 01:09:06,839 Because we have to drain the propellant out of the fill lines. 912 01:09:06,839 --> 01:09:13,000 And, once we've started doing that, that propellant starts heating up right there on those valves 913 01:09:13,000 --> 01:09:16,250 that are going to go into the injector and start the main engines on the Orbiter. 914 01:09:16,250 --> 01:09:19,359 That limits our ability to stop and hold after that. 915 01:09:19,359 --> 01:09:23,940 We are good for four to five minutes after that starts. 916 01:09:23,940 --> 01:09:28,899 And that process starts at T minus five minutes. 917 01:09:28,899 --> 01:09:34,960 After that point in time, we are either going to launch or scrub in the next ten minutes. 918 01:09:34,960 --> 01:09:40,979 And then we pressurize the oxygen tank and we pressurize the hydrogen tank, but anywhere 919 01:09:40,979 --> 01:09:43,750 in this period of time we can stop. 920 01:09:43,750 --> 01:09:49,729 If an engineer or the automated sequencer says something is out of limits, we will stop 921 01:09:49,729 --> 01:09:54,580 at those milestones and disposition that problem if we can. 922 01:09:54,580 --> 01:09:59,540 But, per our rules, we won't waive any requirements at that point. 923 01:09:59,540 --> 01:10:05,440 Even though an engineer may have a perfectly good explanation as to why this temperature, 924 01:10:05,440 --> 01:10:11,260 pressure or whatever, our limit is not being met, if the launch commit criteria, the launch 925 01:10:11,260 --> 01:10:16,059 rules says no, it has to be like this, then we're not going to go launch that day. 926 01:10:16,059 --> 01:10:17,520 We won't. 927 01:10:17,520 --> 01:10:24,380 After 31 seconds, the solid rocket boosters come to life. 928 01:10:24,380 --> 01:10:29,380 The propellant doesn't ignite, but their hydraulic system is powered up. 929 01:10:29,380 --> 01:10:33,110 Their avionics systems are powered up. 930 01:10:33,110 --> 01:10:37,559 Their engine nozzles are checked again in an automatic sequence. 931 01:10:37,559 --> 01:10:43,610 And at 10 seconds, if everything looks good and all these measurements that our Ground 932 01:10:43,610 --> 01:10:50,540 Launch Sequencer has been looking at, we send up the computer data bus a go to the onboard 933 01:10:50,540 --> 01:10:52,940 computers that said all of our stuff has been satisfied. 934 01:10:52,940 --> 01:10:54,460 Now, we're still looking at a few things. 935 01:10:54,460 --> 01:11:00,000 We're looking at those bolts that are holding the solid rocket motors to the launch pad. 936 01:11:00,000 --> 01:11:05,780 And the ability to blow the nuts that are holding them, should that system fail, we 937 01:11:05,780 --> 01:11:09,210 would send the cutoff to the onboard computers. 938 01:11:09,210 --> 01:11:13,400 Regardless of where the engines were in their startup sequence, the three main engines, 939 01:11:13,400 --> 01:11:15,400 everything will stop. 940 01:11:15,400 --> 01:11:20,420 And hopefully it will gracefully come to a stop and we will safe all the systems and 941 01:11:20,420 --> 01:11:21,170 go from there. 942 01:11:21,170 --> 01:11:27,070 But that is the final handshake that is preplanned between flight and ground is that ten seconds 943 01:11:27,070 --> 01:11:29,920 when we send a command up to the computer saying we are all go. 944 01:11:29,920 --> 01:11:33,070 We can still shut you off, and we can shut you off manually, too. 945 01:11:33,070 --> 01:11:40,070 If a console operator sees something happening that they think could compromise the safety 946 01:11:40,440 --> 01:11:42,340 of the launch, they can call for a cutoff. 947 01:11:42,340 --> 01:11:44,190 And we have a switch that says cutoff. 948 01:11:44,190 --> 01:11:51,190 It sends a command to the onboard computers, and it will stop everything within 10 to 20 949 01:11:51,460 --> 01:11:52,240 milliseconds. 950 01:11:52,240 --> 01:11:59,240 But you don't like to put humans in a position to have to make that call. 951 01:11:59,920 --> 01:12:06,920 And that's why all of the critical stuff is done by the computers. 952 01:12:09,670 --> 01:12:11,940 And I mentioned the Ground Launch Sequencer. 953 01:12:11,940 --> 01:12:16,420 That's a console and operators in the back of the Control Room. 954 01:12:16,420 --> 01:12:20,880 And they are the ones, by the way, that determine nobody presses a button for launch. 955 01:12:20,880 --> 01:12:27,880 A woman in the back of the Control Room types the liftoff time into the computer when the 956 01:12:28,790 --> 01:12:31,830 launch director tells her, hey, look, it looks like we're going to come out of our T minus 957 01:12:31,830 --> 01:12:33,780 nine minute hold at this point in time. 958 01:12:33,780 --> 01:12:34,960 So here is the liftoff time. 959 01:12:34,960 --> 01:12:35,920 Put that in the computer. 960 01:12:35,920 --> 01:12:38,230 And after that it's a hands-off operation. 961 01:12:38,230 --> 01:12:45,230 Can I ask, are these commands being physically sent, I mean they're hard line cable? 962 01:12:47,830 --> 01:12:51,460 It's what we call a launch data vest. 963 01:12:51,460 --> 01:12:56,890 It's a cable that is connected from the computers in the Control Room through the liftoff umbilical 964 01:12:56,890 --> 01:13:01,860 into the Orbiter computers. 965 01:13:01,860 --> 01:13:04,790 It's a data train. 966 01:13:04,790 --> 01:13:07,170 And when is that connection broken? 967 01:13:07,170 --> 01:13:08,010 At liftoff. 968 01:13:08,010 --> 01:13:14,360 The onboard computers will check the health of the main engines, and if the three main 969 01:13:14,360 --> 01:13:19,050 engines are within all of their operating parameters, the turbines and the pumps and 970 01:13:19,050 --> 01:13:26,050 the temperatures then it sends a command to those eight bolts that hold the solid rocket 971 01:13:29,240 --> 01:13:35,280 boosters to the mobile launch platform and the bolts that hold the external tank vent 972 01:13:35,280 --> 01:13:36,470 arm to the tank. 973 01:13:36,470 --> 01:13:42,050 And the two Orbiter umbilicals that says fire the nuts, we're going to go. 974 01:13:42,050 --> 01:13:45,400 And that is orchestrated by the onboard computers. 975 01:13:45,400 --> 01:13:50,150 And when that happens you're flying, you're going. 976 01:13:50,150 --> 01:13:57,150 The command to ignite the igniters on the solid rocket motors is sent at that time also 977 01:13:57,820 --> 01:14:02,110 by the onboard computers within a couple of milliseconds. 978 01:14:02,110 --> 01:14:03,510 So all that happens at once. 979 01:14:03,510 --> 01:14:08,440 And it's an onboard automated thing. 980 01:14:08,440 --> 01:14:15,440 I talked about the human factor that repeatability is important. 981 01:14:20,380 --> 01:14:27,270 And I mentioned I gave the engineers, you know, I always threw rocks at them because 982 01:14:27,270 --> 01:14:28,520 they always want to change things. 983 01:14:28,520 --> 01:14:32,890 It is the launch director's responsibility to manage. 984 01:14:32,890 --> 01:14:39,790 They're the owner, so to speak, of the launch count procedures, the 5,000 pages of documentation 985 01:14:39,790 --> 01:14:46,790 and the 500 or so software programs that are executed in the launch count process. 986 01:14:46,809 --> 01:14:49,710 And we discouraged changes to that for obvious reasons. 987 01:14:49,710 --> 01:14:53,360 Unless there is a modification to the flight hardware or the ground hardware or we found 988 01:14:53,360 --> 01:15:00,170 something in our previous launch attempt that said we need to fix this or there's an opportunity 989 01:15:00,170 --> 01:15:05,670 to increase the margins, we don't change it. 990 01:15:05,670 --> 01:15:10,270 We try to maintain the procedure and the hardware the way it always has been. 991 01:15:10,270 --> 01:15:11,960 And it essentially is. 992 01:15:11,960 --> 01:15:17,630 We do training, obviously, but we train for the nonstandard work. 993 01:15:17,630 --> 01:15:24,630 Just like in the flight team, we have a simulation supervisor that throws diabolical failures 994 01:15:25,210 --> 01:15:32,020 out there and we have computer programs and into the control center we bring the launch 995 01:15:32,020 --> 01:15:33,670 team, power up the consoles. 996 01:15:33,670 --> 01:15:39,040 And their displays look like the shuttle is at the pad and it is getting ready to launch 997 01:15:39,040 --> 01:15:46,040 and we throw failures at them to test their reaction and to find bugs in our safing procedures. 998 01:15:47,059 --> 01:15:50,690 And we've done that over the years. 999 01:15:50,690 --> 01:15:57,690 I think the next generation of vehicles will probably have more automation. 1000 01:15:58,130 --> 01:16:04,050 And that will probably be a better thing but you will never take the console operator out 1001 01:16:04,050 --> 01:16:09,150 of the Control Center either, the Launch Control Center or the Flight Control Center. 1002 01:16:09,150 --> 01:16:16,150 You need the person there to disposition the problems, but predictability is what we're 1003 01:16:19,059 --> 01:16:20,830 always after. 1004 01:16:20,830 --> 01:16:27,830 And stable procedures, be they flight or ground, give predictable results. 1005 01:16:27,900 --> 01:16:30,809 And that is why we automate. 1006 01:16:30,809 --> 01:16:37,809 And we control change, too. 1007 01:16:38,140 --> 01:16:40,850 Responsibility. 1008 01:16:40,850 --> 01:16:45,020 I talked about the engineers. 1009 01:16:45,020 --> 01:16:48,710 I didn't mention, I don't think, technicians and inspectors. 1010 01:16:48,710 --> 01:16:55,710 But when a technician stamps a procedure that I torque that bolt and the inspector stamps 1011 01:16:58,260 --> 01:17:02,309 that same procedure and said I saw him torque that bolt, that is their warranty that that 1012 01:17:02,309 --> 01:17:05,480 event really happened. 1013 01:17:05,480 --> 01:17:08,230 And that paper trail and that warranty is very important. 1014 01:17:08,230 --> 01:17:15,230 When an engineer signs a procedure that tested the Flight Control System that said I reviewed 1015 01:17:15,540 --> 01:17:20,690 all the data, didn't see any glitches, everything met specifications, that signature is his 1016 01:17:20,690 --> 01:17:26,960 or her warranty that the procedure ran correctly and that they understood the requirements 1017 01:17:26,960 --> 01:17:28,650 that were implemented by that procedure. 1018 01:17:28,650 --> 01:17:31,540 And the requirements were met. 1019 01:17:31,540 --> 01:17:34,000 And that is important. 1020 01:17:34,000 --> 01:17:41,000 Our whole concept of launch readiness is based on people being responsible for their system, 1021 01:17:44,090 --> 01:17:50,480 be it the designer that signs it that says there is nothing going on offline, there are 1022 01:17:50,480 --> 01:17:54,480 no faxes out there that say there is a cloud over the tires. 1023 01:17:54,480 --> 01:18:00,670 Or, my last test of the main engines at Stennis, there was nothing there that says these three 1024 01:18:00,670 --> 01:18:04,960 engines that are on this orbiter shouldn't work just fine. 1025 01:18:04,960 --> 01:18:07,180 And they do that in a flight readiness process. 1026 01:18:07,180 --> 01:18:10,150 That is their warranty and responsibility. 1027 01:18:10,150 --> 01:18:12,950 And we hammer this home. 1028 01:18:12,950 --> 01:18:19,950 And it probably comes from, I had this quote in my office for years and I am going to bore 1029 01:18:20,330 --> 01:18:26,430 you with it, and maybe some of you can guess where this came from. 1030 01:18:26,430 --> 01:18:27,700 Responsibility is a unique concept. 1031 01:18:27,700 --> 01:18:32,440 It can only reside in here in a single individual. 1032 01:18:32,440 --> 01:18:37,790 You may share it with others, but your portion is not diminished. 1033 01:18:37,790 --> 01:18:41,710 You may delegate it but it is still with you. 1034 01:18:41,710 --> 01:18:47,630 You may disclaim it but you cannot divest yourself of it. 1035 01:18:47,630 --> 01:18:54,630 Even if you do not recognize it or admit its presence, you cannot escape it. 1036 01:18:54,750 --> 01:19:00,920 If responsibility is rightfully yours, no evasion or ignorance or passing the blame 1037 01:19:00,920 --> 01:19:04,220 can shift the burden to someone else. 1038 01:19:04,220 --> 01:19:06,500 And this is what we push home. 1039 01:19:06,500 --> 01:19:13,500 And, by the way, this quote was Admiral Rickover who was testifying before Congress after the 1040 01:19:16,380 --> 01:19:20,130 first nuclear submarine accident. 1041 01:19:20,130 --> 01:19:23,300 And he was saying I am responsible. 1042 01:19:23,300 --> 01:19:28,860 It is my program, it is my submarine, I am responsible. 1043 01:19:28,860 --> 01:19:35,860 Even though somebody else was commanding it, it doesn't matter, I am responsible. 1044 01:19:36,150 --> 01:19:43,090 And we impress that on the managers, the engineers, the technicians, the inspectors, you know, 1045 01:19:43,090 --> 01:19:43,880 you're important. 1046 01:19:43,880 --> 01:19:45,750 And the work you do is important. 1047 01:19:45,750 --> 01:19:50,630 And when you sign or stamp that procedure or give a go on the Net that is your warranty 1048 01:19:50,630 --> 01:19:57,520 that everything is working and you understand the requirements. 1049 01:19:57,520 --> 01:20:04,420 Very important in the business that we're in. 1050 01:20:04,420 --> 01:20:05,110 Decision making. 1051 01:20:05,110 --> 01:20:12,110 On the chart. 1052 01:20:13,030 --> 01:20:19,250 This structure has been in place since the Mercury program. 1053 01:20:19,250 --> 01:20:24,000 There is nothing new here. 1054 01:20:24,000 --> 01:20:31,000 And the only issue comes in when there is a gray area. 1055 01:20:31,130 --> 01:20:37,640 Who makes the call and how much judgment is involved in the call? 1056 01:20:37,640 --> 01:20:42,340 And I gave you the example of weather. 1057 01:20:42,340 --> 01:20:43,350 Everybody has an opinion on it. 1058 01:20:43,350 --> 01:20:44,980 It can be judgmental. 1059 01:20:44,980 --> 01:20:51,980 Well, the weather decision is if it is launch weather related it is the launch director's 1060 01:20:52,650 --> 01:20:54,910 responsibility to determine if it's good enough. 1061 01:20:54,910 --> 01:21:01,910 If the flight director has an issue with the return to launch site winds, that ultimately 1062 01:21:04,770 --> 01:21:07,920 is his or her decision. 1063 01:21:07,920 --> 01:21:14,400 The people may get involved in it and they may have offline discussions with the flight 1064 01:21:14,400 --> 01:21:21,400 director, but it is still ultimately his decision. 1065 01:21:21,860 --> 01:21:25,420 And that is the way it has to be because they are responsible. 1066 01:21:25,420 --> 01:21:32,420 This mission management team is not responsible for the go, no-go decision on weather on launch 1067 01:21:34,390 --> 01:21:34,739 day. 1068 01:21:34,739 --> 01:21:36,910 It's the flight director for the flight stuff. 1069 01:21:36,910 --> 01:21:40,460 It is the launch director for the launch-related stuff. 1070 01:21:40,460 --> 01:21:43,290 And it is set up that way so there is no fuzz on it. 1071 01:21:43,290 --> 01:21:49,770 Other people can have an opinion, other people can have input, but unless this person up 1072 01:21:49,770 --> 01:21:56,710 here says launch director we're no go, it is the launch director's decision in that 1073 01:21:56,710 --> 01:22:01,160 case. 1074 01:22:01,160 --> 01:22:05,610 Communication. 1075 01:22:05,610 --> 01:22:08,800 Real important. 1076 01:22:08,800 --> 01:22:13,650 And I will give you an example of that. 1077 01:22:13,650 --> 01:22:16,080 Apollo 13. 1078 01:22:16,080 --> 01:22:23,080 Most of you probably don't remember Apollo 13, but Apollo 13 was like Challenger and 1079 01:22:24,309 --> 01:22:28,630 the Columbia except we didn't lose the flight crew. 1080 01:22:28,630 --> 01:22:31,059 But it was just as disastrous an event. 1081 01:22:31,059 --> 01:22:37,420 And by all rights the crew shouldn't have made it safety back to earth, but thanks to 1082 01:22:37,420 --> 01:22:44,420 the heroics of the flight crew and the flight team and the timing of when that event occurred 1083 01:22:45,030 --> 01:22:46,640 they were able to get back home. 1084 01:22:46,640 --> 01:22:53,640 But that was all caused by activity that was done on the ground well before the launch. 1085 01:22:55,330 --> 01:22:59,620 And, specifically since I was involved in that, I remember this like it was yesterday. 1086 01:22:59,620 --> 01:23:02,420 Of course, part of that is an old age thing. 1087 01:23:02,420 --> 01:23:06,330 Stuff that happened 40 years ago comes in loud and clear. 1088 01:23:06,330 --> 01:23:12,280 Stuff that happened four days ago, I have a hard time remembering. 1089 01:23:12,280 --> 01:23:19,280 But we had a tank in the spacecraft that we ran our simulated launch count. 1090 01:23:20,239 --> 01:23:23,610 And back then we put propellants in the vehicle, all the hazardous stuff and detanks. 1091 01:23:23,610 --> 01:23:26,610 And we couldn't detank the liquid oxygen out of this tank. 1092 01:23:26,610 --> 01:23:31,070 They had the fuel cells on the spacecraft. 1093 01:23:31,070 --> 01:23:32,750 And just a little more history. 1094 01:23:32,750 --> 01:23:38,670 The tank had been dropped when it was installed back in California, but engineers and managers 1095 01:23:38,670 --> 01:23:42,520 did some tests and some rationale on saying well, it's still OK to install it. 1096 01:23:42,520 --> 01:23:43,400 We got it down the Cape. 1097 01:23:43,400 --> 01:23:46,360 We put the liquid oxygen in it and all the rest of the system. 1098 01:23:46,360 --> 01:23:49,330 We couldn't get it out of this tank. 1099 01:23:49,330 --> 01:23:54,440 And after reviewing it they found, well, the stand pipe in there that is used to drain 1100 01:23:54,440 --> 01:23:58,390 it on the ground was probably bent or damaged and that's why we cannot get it out. 1101 01:23:58,390 --> 01:24:04,520 So the managers and engineers got together for a few days and said turn the heaters on 1102 01:24:04,520 --> 01:24:08,850 in the tank and vent the liquid oxygen off. 1103 01:24:08,850 --> 01:24:14,110 Heat it up and it will boil off as oxygen gas through another loop that takes it through 1104 01:24:14,110 --> 01:24:16,970 the fuel cells and out vent on the vehicle. 1105 01:24:16,970 --> 01:24:19,309 Use the heaters to go do that. 1106 01:24:19,309 --> 01:24:25,940 So they developed the procedure and we went on station at night a week after we had the 1107 01:24:25,940 --> 01:24:30,210 anomaly and turned everything on and turned on the heaters. 1108 01:24:30,210 --> 01:24:32,380 And it is fine. 1109 01:24:32,380 --> 01:24:35,260 You can see the liquid is turning to gas and it is coming out. 1110 01:24:35,260 --> 01:24:41,790 And the console operator in our Control Room said hey, Sieck, I cannot monitor the temperature 1111 01:24:41,790 --> 01:24:42,809 in this tank anymore. 1112 01:24:42,809 --> 01:24:44,750 Well, why is that? 1113 01:24:44,750 --> 01:24:49,980 Well, the range on the temperature is from ambient down to minus 300 degrees because 1114 01:24:49,980 --> 01:24:52,559 it's measured in liquid oxygen. 1115 01:24:52,559 --> 01:24:53,809 And it is upper limits. 1116 01:24:53,809 --> 01:25:00,809 It started heating up, and now I cannot tell you whether it is 50 degrees or 350 degrees. 1117 01:25:01,230 --> 01:25:02,540 I said OK, stop. 1118 01:25:02,540 --> 01:25:07,440 So we stopped the test and got all these managers involved, including the people that built 1119 01:25:07,440 --> 01:25:11,750 the tank and say hey, we've lost visibility. 1120 01:25:11,750 --> 01:25:15,360 We're putting energy into this tank that has liquid oxygen in it. 1121 01:25:15,360 --> 01:25:17,170 We cannot monitor the temperature anymore. 1122 01:25:17,170 --> 01:25:19,400 The pressure seems to be fine. 1123 01:25:19,400 --> 01:25:21,000 They said don't worry about it. 1124 01:25:21,000 --> 01:25:25,790 There is a thermostat in there that is heat sensitive, and it will open up the power to 1125 01:25:25,790 --> 01:25:29,250 the heaters if it gets to some limit in there. 1126 01:25:29,250 --> 01:25:30,400 Just keep your eye on the pressure. 1127 01:25:30,400 --> 01:25:31,820 Make sure the pressure doesn't get too high. 1128 01:25:31,820 --> 01:25:36,510 Well, of course the pressure isn't going to get too high because the vent is open. 1129 01:25:36,510 --> 01:25:37,640 So we said fine. 1130 01:25:37,640 --> 01:25:44,640 We turned the ground power supplies on and let the thing cook for 10 to 12 hours. 1131 01:25:45,390 --> 01:25:51,120 And what we didn't know was that the thermostat wasn't certified to the voltage we were using 1132 01:25:51,120 --> 01:25:56,100 from our ground power supplies because we didn't tell them, although our requirements 1133 01:25:56,100 --> 01:25:59,739 allowed it, that we cranked the power supplies up to 50 volts. 1134 01:25:59,739 --> 01:26:00,770 And why did we do that? 1135 01:26:00,770 --> 01:26:06,670 Well, the more energy you put into the tank the higher the heaters get and the quicker 1136 01:26:06,670 --> 01:26:08,210 the liquid oxygen boils off. 1137 01:26:08,210 --> 01:26:10,800 You know, high school physics. 1138 01:26:10,800 --> 01:26:13,460 But we didn't tell them that. 1139 01:26:13,460 --> 01:26:17,380 And the people that built the tank and built that thermostat had only certified it to the 1140 01:26:17,380 --> 01:26:20,870 voltage of fuel cell supply which is half that value. 1141 01:26:20,870 --> 01:26:25,780 So the thermostat welded together, the points did, and we had continuous power going on 1142 01:26:25,780 --> 01:26:27,860 in there for eight to ten hours. 1143 01:26:27,860 --> 01:26:31,100 It got to 800, 900 degrees in the tank. 1144 01:26:31,100 --> 01:26:35,580 We burned all the insulation off the wires to the fans and the heaters. 1145 01:26:35,580 --> 01:26:41,460 And, from that point on, we were just waiting for something to happen to make those wires 1146 01:26:41,460 --> 01:26:43,000 come together. 1147 01:26:43,000 --> 01:26:48,059 And if you didn't turn the power on you're going to get a spark in an oxygen tank. 1148 01:26:48,059 --> 01:26:49,210 Not a good thing. 1149 01:26:49,210 --> 01:26:56,210 Well, that is what happened a day into the mission when they were heading to the moon. 1150 01:26:57,610 --> 01:27:01,530 And they turned the heaters and the fans on to stir the cryogenics because they were worried 1151 01:27:01,530 --> 01:27:05,130 about stratification and zero gravity. 1152 01:27:05,130 --> 01:27:09,160 And they got the spark and it blew up the service module. 1153 01:27:09,160 --> 01:27:16,160 The point is that communication, we wrote down in our procedures what we did, but we 1154 01:27:16,630 --> 01:27:20,010 didn't communicate that on a real-time basis. 1155 01:27:20,010 --> 01:27:26,090 And, although we reviewed the procedures afterward, as the rest of the team did, the designer 1156 01:27:26,090 --> 01:27:33,090 who was 1500 miles away who had approved what we did over an intercom system didn't review 1157 01:27:33,160 --> 01:27:34,180 our paperwork. 1158 01:27:34,180 --> 01:27:40,210 You hit that thing with 50 volts, it's only certified for 25 volts, even though our requirements 1159 01:27:40,210 --> 01:27:41,790 allowed us to use 50 volts. 1160 01:27:41,790 --> 01:27:48,790 It is a case where requirements didn't preclude us from launching hardware then in hindsight 1161 01:27:49,150 --> 01:27:49,970 was flawed. 1162 01:27:49,970 --> 01:27:54,380 But, on the other hand, communication, we didn't tell them in real-time. 1163 01:27:54,380 --> 01:28:01,380 And, as a result, Apollo 13 happened. 1164 01:28:01,530 --> 01:28:04,970 So I learned that lesson early on. 1165 01:28:04,970 --> 01:28:11,030 I mean even if you're boring them with what appears to be minutia, you're going to tell 1166 01:28:11,030 --> 01:28:15,150 them everything and document everything. 1167 01:28:15,150 --> 01:28:20,510 And, thankfully, they went through our procedures and said well, there it is. 1168 01:28:20,510 --> 01:28:22,260 And I thought we'd get fired. 1169 01:28:22,260 --> 01:28:28,090 And actually we got patted on the back for documenting what we had done so it made it 1170 01:28:28,090 --> 01:28:31,160 easier to zero in on the root cause of the problem. 1171 01:28:31,160 --> 01:28:38,160 And, as a result, we fixed that and we were able to fly again in a few months as opposed 1172 01:28:39,090 --> 01:28:45,570 to having to go through a Challenger or Columbia type of activity. 1173 01:28:45,570 --> 01:28:49,040 Very important. 1174 01:28:49,040 --> 01:28:52,290 Launch fever. 1175 01:28:52,290 --> 01:28:53,809 The human factor. 1176 01:28:53,809 --> 01:29:00,809 It is hard to describe what the environment is in the spacecraft a few minutes before 1177 01:29:03,040 --> 01:29:05,070 launch or in the Control Room. 1178 01:29:05,070 --> 01:29:07,430 But there is a lot of tension and there is a lot of energy. 1179 01:29:07,430 --> 01:29:13,190 And everybody in there, for the most part, has been awake for the last 10 to 12 hours. 1180 01:29:13,190 --> 01:29:20,190 And they came to work that day or that night with all hopes of safely launching the Space 1181 01:29:20,830 --> 01:29:21,680 Shuttle. 1182 01:29:21,680 --> 01:29:27,450 And they really don't want anything to go wrong with their system or somebody else's 1183 01:29:27,450 --> 01:29:27,900 system. 1184 01:29:27,900 --> 01:29:29,760 I mean that's the mood. 1185 01:29:29,760 --> 01:29:34,360 Because, if something goes wrong, you're going to come back tomorrow or the next day or the 1186 01:29:34,360 --> 01:29:35,590 next week. 1187 01:29:35,590 --> 01:29:41,090 So they really want to hear this everybody, you know, when they do the polls they go, 1188 01:29:41,090 --> 01:29:43,190 go, go, go. 1189 01:29:43,190 --> 01:29:48,989 And the hardest thing is saying no when everything sounds like it's go. 1190 01:29:48,989 --> 01:29:55,989 And there are a lot of times when we've had problems with ground support equipment. 1191 01:29:57,230 --> 01:29:58,180 It is old. 1192 01:29:58,180 --> 01:30:00,280 I wish we had all new stuff for Shuttle. 1193 01:30:00,280 --> 01:30:03,110 A lot of this stuff is the same we used on Apollo. 1194 01:30:03,110 --> 01:30:09,450 And, in spite of our efforts to maintain it, it is all out in the corrosive atmosphere 1195 01:30:09,450 --> 01:30:10,940 at the launch pad. 1196 01:30:10,940 --> 01:30:17,120 And that stuff constantly gave us problems. 1197 01:30:17,120 --> 01:30:21,910 And we would lose some of our redundant systems and some of our primary systems. 1198 01:30:21,910 --> 01:30:27,280 And more than once in launch count, when we'd have a problem out there, the team would come 1199 01:30:27,280 --> 01:30:32,210 to the launch director through that organization chart you saw and say we've got an idea. 1200 01:30:32,210 --> 01:30:39,210 We think if we patch around this and then hook this up to this and we throw these switches 1201 01:30:39,220 --> 01:30:46,220 and we get this result that it will be OK and we can go fly without this power supply 1202 01:30:46,770 --> 01:30:51,470 being active or this purge system operating normally and all these other things that we've 1203 01:30:51,470 --> 01:30:52,160 got out there. 1204 01:30:52,160 --> 01:30:58,510 And what you have to do as launch director is say well, just sit back and analyze whether 1205 01:30:58,510 --> 01:31:05,510 or not -- I mean you rely on your engineers to use their Yankee ingenuity to fix a problem, 1206 01:31:06,410 --> 01:31:12,900 but you have to assess whether or not they're literally shot-gunning it and coming up with 1207 01:31:12,900 --> 01:31:19,900 the proverbial quick fix because they want to go home in an hour or so and celebrate 1208 01:31:20,050 --> 01:31:21,090 a good launch. 1209 01:31:21,090 --> 01:31:25,300 Just like these guys want to get out of those uncomfortable suits they have been sitting 1210 01:31:25,300 --> 01:31:29,250 in for the last couple hours and either get out of the spacecraft or get up there in zero 1211 01:31:29,250 --> 01:31:29,500 G. 1212 01:31:29,440 --> 01:31:35,530 As a launch director, you have to assess well, OK, but is this really the right thing to 1213 01:31:35,530 --> 01:31:38,290 do or are they working this too hard? 1214 01:31:38,290 --> 01:31:42,520 If you gave them another 24 hours to look at the data and think about their approach 1215 01:31:42,520 --> 01:31:48,500 to a fix would the answer be any different? 1216 01:31:48,500 --> 01:31:52,390 And there have been a few times when they said well, that sounds pretty good right now 1217 01:31:52,390 --> 01:31:56,930 but I am going to give you another 24 hours to think about it so we're going to scrub 1218 01:31:56,930 --> 01:31:57,470 for the day. 1219 01:31:57,470 --> 01:32:00,510 And you can hear the big groan in the Control Room. 1220 01:32:00,510 --> 01:32:05,390 And you can just see it going through their heads, well, this guy has lost confidence 1221 01:32:05,390 --> 01:32:06,650 in us. 1222 01:32:06,650 --> 01:32:10,809 I mean we all came to work, we get paid to solve problems and get things done, and he 1223 01:32:10,809 --> 01:32:16,500 is telling us that ain't a good answer, that ain't a good fix. 1224 01:32:16,500 --> 01:32:23,500 So you have to balance that when you're in charge, but the real job of the launch director 1225 01:32:23,620 --> 01:32:27,330 is to say no when everybody else wants to go. 1226 01:32:27,330 --> 01:32:29,580 That is really what you are there for. 1227 01:32:29,580 --> 01:32:32,960 Because these guys get tunnel vision. 1228 01:32:32,960 --> 01:32:34,210 They want to go fly. 1229 01:32:34,210 --> 01:32:40,860 The console operators, things are on automatic in that last nine minutes, and they just hope 1230 01:32:40,860 --> 01:32:43,880 they don't get that little red or yellow light on their screen that says hey, you better 1231 01:32:43,880 --> 01:32:46,970 go look at this, it isn't working right. 1232 01:32:46,970 --> 01:32:51,690 The last people you want to ask is it OK to launch is the crew. 1233 01:32:51,690 --> 01:32:54,140 They'll say yes, no matter what is happening. 1234 01:32:54,140 --> 01:32:58,690 And we do ask them, by the way, but it is a formality because we know what the answer 1235 01:32:58,690 --> 01:32:58,940 is. Unless he's got a fire extinguisher up there putting out something in the spacecraft, he 1236 01:33:01,660 --> 01:33:07,450 is going to say we're go. 1237 01:33:07,450 --> 01:33:13,130 And that is also why we put in a rule that says after five minutes, for these critical 1238 01:33:13,130 --> 01:33:18,520 launch commit criteria items, the 500 that you absolutely have to look at and certify, 1239 01:33:18,520 --> 01:33:22,540 you don't proposition us with a change to that after five minutes because we're not 1240 01:33:22,540 --> 01:33:23,300 going to entertain it. 1241 01:33:23,300 --> 01:33:26,710 If they're out of limits we're not going today or tonight. 1242 01:33:26,710 --> 01:33:31,739 It is going to be at least 24 hours. 1243 01:33:31,739 --> 01:33:32,910 A long time. 1244 01:33:32,910 --> 01:33:38,450 But the team that does it, I mean they are good, they are professionals. 1245 01:33:38,450 --> 01:33:43,420 And we talk a lot about the Apollo program and how great things were back then, but I 1246 01:33:43,420 --> 01:33:48,220 just gave you the example of Apollo 13. 1247 01:33:48,220 --> 01:33:55,220 The Shuttle team versus the Apollo team has a much higher degree of difficulty situation 1248 01:33:55,670 --> 01:33:56,400 to deal with. 1249 01:33:56,400 --> 01:34:03,230 There are fewer people on Shuttle, yet it's a more complex vehicle than the whole Apollo 1250 01:34:03,230 --> 01:34:03,480 system. 1251 01:34:03,309 --> 01:34:10,309 The Saturn 5 rocket and the spacecraft were simple compared to the Shuttle system. 1252 01:34:11,450 --> 01:34:18,450 And we had 25,000 people at the Cape in the Apollo program flying two to three times a 1253 01:34:18,660 --> 01:34:20,450 year. 1254 01:34:20,450 --> 01:34:27,450 And in the Shuttle program back in the early '90s we flew seven times a year with 6,000 1255 01:34:28,430 --> 01:34:33,389 people with a vehicle that is more complex, older. 1256 01:34:33,389 --> 01:34:38,090 In the Apollo program our ground equipment was new and all the flight hardware was new. 1257 01:34:38,090 --> 01:34:38,860 It wasn't reused. 1258 01:34:38,860 --> 01:34:43,860 It was fresh out of the box factory pristine stuff. 1259 01:34:43,860 --> 01:34:49,380 And requirements were easy, you know, it had to act and look brand-new or you replaced 1260 01:34:49,380 --> 01:34:50,880 it. 1261 01:34:50,880 --> 01:34:55,800 The Shuttle, because it is 20, 30 years old, depending on which orbiter and the ground 1262 01:34:55,800 --> 01:35:02,800 equipment which is 30 to 40 years old, there are requirements that allow fair wear and 1263 01:35:03,340 --> 01:35:04,989 tear. 1264 01:35:04,989 --> 01:35:09,650 The engineers are constantly pushed with is this good enough? 1265 01:35:09,650 --> 01:35:15,080 These wire bundles are frayed and there are dings in this line and that weld is looking 1266 01:35:15,080 --> 01:35:17,309 like it has corrosion on it, is it good enough? 1267 01:35:17,309 --> 01:35:21,000 Well, they are constantly propositioning where back in the Apollo program you didn't have 1268 01:35:21,000 --> 01:35:23,510 to mess with that gray area stuff. 1269 01:35:23,510 --> 01:35:28,650 It either looked or acted brand-new or you replaced it. 1270 01:35:28,650 --> 01:35:32,809 And replacing it was easy because money was unlimited. 1271 01:35:32,809 --> 01:35:39,809 As a journeyman engineer on Apollo I was told whatever you need you can have. 1272 01:35:39,930 --> 01:35:45,580 System engineers seek more test equipment, you need more technicians to be trained on 1273 01:35:45,580 --> 01:35:48,460 this over here, whatever you need just ask for it. 1274 01:35:48,460 --> 01:35:49,380 Money is not an object. 1275 01:35:49,380 --> 01:35:55,020 As a manager on the Shuttle program when I finally got promoted out of the job I liked 1276 01:35:55,020 --> 01:36:00,160 to launch director, I had to tell the journeymen engineers this is all the money you get for 1277 01:36:00,160 --> 01:36:01,920 next year. 1278 01:36:01,920 --> 01:36:06,180 And be real efficient with this and frugal because next year you're probably going to 1279 01:36:06,180 --> 01:36:08,760 get less. 1280 01:36:08,760 --> 01:36:15,760 And your strategy and approach to issues is much different if you have those two different 1281 01:36:15,800 --> 01:36:18,110 environments to deal with. 1282 01:36:18,110 --> 01:36:23,969 And finally the other thing that Shuttle deals with today versus Apollo is the acceptance 1283 01:36:23,969 --> 01:36:24,780 of risk. 1284 01:36:24,780 --> 01:36:27,219 I mean I already mentioned Apollo 13. 1285 01:36:27,219 --> 01:36:32,020 Back then if you made a mistake you were patted on the back and told hey, nice try. 1286 01:36:32,020 --> 01:36:38,139 Now, is there anything that can be done to better enhance your probability of success? 1287 01:36:38,139 --> 01:36:44,469 Whereas, in the Shuttle program, risk aversion in this country, I don't want to get started 1288 01:36:44,469 --> 01:36:47,040 on that tangent, is becoming more and more a lifestyle. 1289 01:36:47,040 --> 01:36:53,920 We don't want to do things we might lose or we might not win or we may not be successful. 1290 01:36:53,920 --> 01:36:56,610 And risk, you know, there is less tolerance to it. 1291 01:36:56,610 --> 01:37:02,760 And, when you have a problem like Columbia or Challenger, you get half a dozen boarding 1292 01:37:02,760 --> 01:37:07,719 parties coming into NASA saying here is what you need to do differently or this is wrong 1293 01:37:07,719 --> 01:37:11,590 with your agency and this and this and you need to go fix that. 1294 01:37:11,590 --> 01:37:18,590 And, again, back in Apollo, it was what do you need to be successful? 1295 01:37:19,700 --> 01:37:20,510 Much different. 1296 01:37:20,510 --> 01:37:23,210 And it makes it difficult to operate. 1297 01:37:23,210 --> 01:37:30,210 Bob, could you comment upon risk aversion and the launch director and whether there 1298 01:37:30,290 --> 01:37:36,340 were more aggressive and more conservative people who have had your job? 1299 01:37:36,340 --> 01:37:43,340 Well, I would say, before I was launch director, there was one. 1300 01:37:45,719 --> 01:37:49,540 And he was more aggressive than I was. 1301 01:37:49,540 --> 01:37:52,040 He was the console MANOPS person. 1302 01:37:52,040 --> 01:37:57,739 And he would push, and he would push until you would say uncle, I surrender or whatever, 1303 01:37:57,739 --> 01:38:01,760 and then he would make a judgment call. 1304 01:38:01,760 --> 01:38:07,370 I was more conservative than that. 1305 01:38:07,370 --> 01:38:12,950 I trained the one immediately after me. 1306 01:38:12,950 --> 01:38:19,200 And he was pretty much the same but he got the highly visible job, management say that 1307 01:38:19,200 --> 01:38:25,489 this guy was good, we'll take him away from here and go put him over here managing this 1308 01:38:25,489 --> 01:38:27,940 large organization and worrying about budgets and contracts. 1309 01:38:27,940 --> 01:38:30,880 That is the same thing that happened to me. 1310 01:38:30,880 --> 01:38:37,880 And that's unfortunate, but NASA's strongest suit is not succession planning, unfortunately. 1311 01:38:40,130 --> 01:38:40,510 It just isn't. 1312 01:38:40,510 --> 01:38:40,760 Yes? 1313 01:38:40,620 --> 01:38:47,620 Are you saying the Shuttle program is too risk averse? 1314 01:38:49,090 --> 01:38:52,780 Because you also said that, for example, it is your job as launch director to be conservative 1315 01:38:52,780 --> 01:38:57,050 and to say no when everyone else is saying yes. 1316 01:38:57,050 --> 01:39:00,360 No, I wouldn't say that the Shuttle program is risk adverse. 1317 01:39:00,360 --> 01:39:04,400 I would say our society is risk adverse. 1318 01:39:04,400 --> 01:39:11,400 And you see some of that permeating into the Shuttle program, but not to the point where 1319 01:39:13,690 --> 01:39:16,070 I would say it is detrimental. 1320 01:39:16,070 --> 01:39:23,070 I mean asking questions, digging in to understand what your risks are is an important thing 1321 01:39:25,070 --> 01:39:25,430 to do. 1322 01:39:25,430 --> 01:39:27,660 And early in the Shuttle program we didn't do that. 1323 01:39:27,660 --> 01:39:31,239 We had a lot of confidence in hardware after the first few missions. 1324 01:39:31,239 --> 01:39:32,500 It's just like a new car. 1325 01:39:32,500 --> 01:39:37,650 You put 5000 miles on it, you get the bugs out of it and you fully expect it to last 1326 01:39:37,650 --> 01:39:40,530 another so many hundred thousand miles. 1327 01:39:40,530 --> 01:39:43,750 Well, that was the same expectation in the Shuttle program. 1328 01:39:43,750 --> 01:39:50,460 You fly a few flights and you learn that the tiles really stayed glued to the Orbiter and 1329 01:39:50,460 --> 01:39:55,969 the thermal control system really responds as it should on orbit and managing the temperature 1330 01:39:55,969 --> 01:39:57,650 and the coolant leaks and that sort of thing. 1331 01:39:57,650 --> 01:40:03,020 And you build up confidence and you say it should work now. 1332 01:40:03,020 --> 01:40:06,930 We got the bugs out of it and we can go fly this thing as often as those guys at the Cape 1333 01:40:06,930 --> 01:40:09,820 can turn it around. 1334 01:40:09,820 --> 01:40:15,130 But what they didn't consider and what all these engineers, with all due respect that 1335 01:40:15,130 --> 01:40:20,930 you heard from that certify their systems, they didn't totally capture the environment 1336 01:40:20,930 --> 01:40:26,910 that the Shuttle sees over the long period of time in their initial certification. 1337 01:40:26,910 --> 01:40:28,250 They didn't capture it. 1338 01:40:28,250 --> 01:40:33,780 And that environment includes not only what happens in space or the calendar exposure 1339 01:40:33,780 --> 01:40:38,050 to just time on some of these systems that have soft goods in them, for instance, O rings 1340 01:40:38,050 --> 01:40:43,160 and that sort of thing, but it is the environment of the Cape with people constantly removing 1341 01:40:43,160 --> 01:40:47,780 hardware, disconnecting things, moving wire bundles out of the way to get access to this 1342 01:40:47,780 --> 01:40:53,639 or that other component to implement the requirements that were levied on the Cape to do the tests 1343 01:40:53,639 --> 01:40:55,090 and inspections. 1344 01:40:55,090 --> 01:41:00,150 And they are very invasive, and collateral damage is a way of life when you're crawling 1345 01:41:00,150 --> 01:41:04,410 around in the Orbiter. 1346 01:41:04,410 --> 01:41:11,139 To put in policy that tries to compensate for the fact that the certification didn't 1347 01:41:11,139 --> 01:41:18,139 capture that environment that this hardware has seen for the last 20 to 30 years, to reduce 1348 01:41:18,460 --> 01:41:24,469 the unknowns involved in that, that is the right thing to do. 1349 01:41:24,469 --> 01:41:30,580 You're trying to reduce the risk of reflying a very complex vehicle. 1350 01:41:30,580 --> 01:41:35,280 So that is fine, but you take that to a limit. 1351 01:41:35,280 --> 01:41:41,239 I mean you can talk yourself into never flying which would be pretty easy to go do. 1352 01:41:41,239 --> 01:41:48,239 And then this recovery after the Columbia accident, that was starting to happen. 1353 01:41:49,660 --> 01:41:56,660 The managers, because they had this investigation board report that says NASA, you've become 1354 01:41:59,050 --> 01:42:00,050 complacent and overconfident. 1355 01:42:00,050 --> 01:42:05,210 And, by the way, in my opinion that is somewhat of a bum rap to say that NASA in general, 1356 01:42:05,210 --> 01:42:08,489 and particularly the Shuttle program, had fallen into that mode. 1357 01:42:08,489 --> 01:42:13,320 But, to have the pendulum swing the other way to understand what your risks are and 1358 01:42:13,320 --> 01:42:19,920 then you can have knowledge on whether you decide to accept it or not, that is a good 1359 01:42:19,920 --> 01:42:20,860 thing. 1360 01:42:20,860 --> 01:42:25,820 What didn't happen after Columbia, but we did do after Challenger, is after we understood 1361 01:42:25,820 --> 01:42:29,710 the root cause of the accident and some of the other factors like communication that 1362 01:42:29,710 --> 01:42:36,270 we're part of that, reviewed all the systems and all the requirements, the managers said 1363 01:42:36,270 --> 01:42:38,889 look, we're willing to accept some risk. 1364 01:42:38,889 --> 01:42:45,130 You people who are responsible for these systems and these processes at the Cape, you need 1365 01:42:45,130 --> 01:42:48,550 to quantify that for us and bring it to us. 1366 01:42:48,550 --> 01:42:53,440 And we will either say OK, we won't accept that, you go back and change your system or 1367 01:42:53,440 --> 01:42:57,550 change your limits or do more tests or whatever, or we will accept it. 1368 01:42:57,550 --> 01:43:01,770 We will say we'll accept that risk, management will accept some risk. 1369 01:43:01,770 --> 01:43:08,770 That happened after Challenger, and we were able to fly again roughly two years later 1370 01:43:09,680 --> 01:43:13,070 after we recertified the design to the solid rocket motors. 1371 01:43:13,070 --> 01:43:16,880 That didn't happen after Columbia. 1372 01:43:16,880 --> 01:43:23,570 And you can speculate whether or not we could have flown six months ago or a year ago or 1373 01:43:23,570 --> 01:43:26,739 we should have waited longer to fly because we still had a piece of foam come off the 1374 01:43:26,739 --> 01:43:28,530 tank. 1375 01:43:28,530 --> 01:43:29,739 You could debate that. 1376 01:43:29,739 --> 01:43:36,739 But management never acknowledged that they were willing to accept some risk after Columbia. 1377 01:43:37,300 --> 01:43:43,820 They did say tell us what the risk is but we really want you to crank it down to zero. 1378 01:43:43,820 --> 01:43:48,739 We don't want to take any risk, unlike Challenger. 1379 01:43:48,739 --> 01:43:53,410 Now, is that bad? 1380 01:43:53,410 --> 01:44:00,410 See, what really happened with Columbia was the mission management team's discipline had 1381 01:44:01,800 --> 01:44:02,200 eroded. 1382 01:44:02,200 --> 01:44:03,930 There were communication issues. 1383 01:44:03,930 --> 01:44:10,930 And, if you're a student of that investigation, they didn't grade out very well. 1384 01:44:13,250 --> 01:44:19,780 But the investigation said there is complacency and overconfidence in the system. 1385 01:44:19,780 --> 01:44:26,090 Well, having been part of the system prior to my retirement five years ago, you never 1386 01:44:26,090 --> 01:44:31,590 found any complacency or overconfidence with the engineers, technicians, inspectors or 1387 01:44:31,590 --> 01:44:32,730 the managers that I knew. 1388 01:44:32,730 --> 01:44:38,820 Now, they weren't as smart as they thought they were or, in some cases, as smart as they 1389 01:44:38,820 --> 01:44:40,739 needed to be. 1390 01:44:40,739 --> 01:44:44,520 But that is not the same as complacency or overconfidence. 1391 01:44:44,520 --> 01:44:50,200 Because the latter to me implies an attitude problem that I've got it, I know it all, I 1392 01:44:50,200 --> 01:44:52,850 am smart as I need to be. 1393 01:44:52,850 --> 01:44:57,420 And, for the most part, you know, there were some people I didn't like because I thought 1394 01:44:57,420 --> 01:45:02,520 he or she was arrogant or something like that, but I never sensed an attitude problem with 1395 01:45:02,520 --> 01:45:03,590 the Shuttle team. 1396 01:45:03,590 --> 01:45:10,090 From the technicians, many of which I knew and grew up with, to the top managers in the 1397 01:45:10,090 --> 01:45:13,050 Shuttle program, I never sensed that. 1398 01:45:13,050 --> 01:45:17,639 But were we not as smart as we thought we were or as smart as we needed to be? 1399 01:45:17,639 --> 01:45:24,600 Were there signs that there was something going on here that you ought to go fix? 1400 01:45:24,600 --> 01:45:26,510 Yes. 1401 01:45:26,510 --> 01:45:33,510 But, again, they didn't just blow off, so to speak, these problems we were having with 1402 01:45:35,760 --> 01:45:42,760 foam on the tank and these other systems which, to me, would have been complacency or overconfidence. 1403 01:45:42,760 --> 01:45:45,340 Anything else? 1404 01:45:45,340 --> 01:45:50,739 We're just about out of time. 1405 01:45:50,739 --> 01:45:55,520 I've got two announcements. 1406 01:45:55,520 --> 01:45:57,630 I've been working with the Stellar people. 1407 01:45:57,630 --> 01:46:03,410 As you know, some of the pdf files that I've tried to load didn't load. 1408 01:46:03,410 --> 01:46:08,639 They cannot really figure out why, but I have sent them the files, they've loaded most of 1409 01:46:08,639 --> 01:46:11,930 them on so hopefully almost everything is there. 1410 01:46:11,930 --> 01:46:18,430 We're continuing to work at it, but hopefully all the things that you need access to you 1411 01:46:18,430 --> 01:46:20,910 can find. 1412 01:46:20,910 --> 01:46:26,210 I said there were two things, but that's the only one I remember. 1413 01:46:26,210 --> 01:46:30,410 Well, let me close with one note then. 1414 01:46:30,410 --> 01:46:32,550 I am glad you're here. 1415 01:46:32,550 --> 01:46:39,550 Thanks for your choice to pursue an engineering career. 1416 01:46:40,610 --> 01:46:46,730 Doing things that are hard, I have found that in my travels that unfortunately there are 1417 01:46:46,730 --> 01:46:53,139 fewer people deciding to pursue the tough curriculums and the occupations that require 1418 01:46:53,139 --> 01:46:58,570 a lot of work and have some risk associated with them. 1419 01:46:58,570 --> 01:47:05,570 But it is encouraging to see people in graduate school that want to do what I did. 1420 01:47:07,330 --> 01:47:10,580 I am not sure how much engineering I did in my 40 year career. 1421 01:47:10,580 --> 01:47:17,580 I did a lot of managing and a lot of other assignments, but I am sure you can accomplish 1422 01:47:17,850 --> 01:47:18,480 a lot. 1423 01:47:18,480 --> 01:47:25,480 I had a grandmother who was born at the end of the 19th century. 1424 01:47:26,850 --> 01:47:33,850 And, when she was your age, there weren't any computers, airplanes, cars, TV and that 1425 01:47:36,930 --> 01:47:37,830 sort of thing. 1426 01:47:37,830 --> 01:47:44,830 Yet, in her lifetime, she got to see her favorite grandson, Bobby, help put a man on the moon. 1427 01:47:44,960 --> 01:47:51,960 And I don't know what can be done in your lifetime, but you can make great things happen 1428 01:47:52,650 --> 01:47:54,489 with the career you have chosen. 1429 01:47:54,489 --> 01:47:57,250 So thanks for choosing, really. 1430 01:47:57,250 --> 01:48:00,050 Bob, thanks very much. 1431 01:48:00,050 --> 01:48:01,450 A pleasure. 1432 01:48:01,450 --> 01:48:02,139 [APPLAUSE]