To Pad A. It seems as though, after we'd taken enough construction-work fact-finding trips to Space Shuttle Launch Pad 39A, that all the folks over there on A-pad had gotten pretty used to seeing Jack Petty and me come rattling up in Jack's car.
Maybe even a little too used to us.
So one fine day out on Pad 39B, way back when, in the mid-eighties, when the ironworkers are trying to make a square connection for the KU band antenna access platform mounting haunch onto the angled level #5 PCR (Payload Change‑out Room) interior platforms support steel, and the stupid thing won't go, the answer was obvious.
Road trip!
To Pad A.
Well ok. Here we go. Down beach road and onto the Pad A access road. Past the flashing amber warning lights out on the pad perimeter road.
"Flashing lights?" says Jack with a darkening face.
"Aw shit," says I.
"Hazardous operation in progress."
"They're never gonna let us in there today. Paying for a whole crew of ironworkers to sit around with their thumbs up their asses waiting for an answer to this is gonna be pricey."
"Well wait a minute, maybe the op is over in some remote corner of the pad like the LOX tank or something. Maybe they'll let us in the PCR. It's worth a try."
"Ok. Let's try."
And up to the Pad A guard shack we go.
Jack questions the guard with a look of pure innocence, "Hey, is the PCR open?"
"Yeah, but you'll have to park the car down here and walk the rest of the way up the pad slope to get there."
"No problem, here's our badges. Thanks."
And so we park the car by the badge board and get out, ready to go do our thing up on the steel structure of Launch Complex 39A.
‑*-
Now, at this point you'll need to stop and try to visualize the situation.
The pad's a Big Place. Just about a half mile across, perimeter fence to perimeter fence. The part we're interested in today is called the RSS (Rotating Service Structure) and you get to that by riding the elevator up from the pad deck to the elevation 135 foot level of the FSS (Fixed Service Structure) and taking a catwalk across a lethal drop of empty space to get to it. Inside the RSS is the PCR (Payload Change‑out Room if you've forgotten).
The PCR is the holiest of holies. It's cleaner than anywhere you've ever been. Including the operating room at the hospital. It's where high-priced technicians do the final check out and service on 100 million dollar satellites just before they're launched. Stuff that's gonna go up in space and take pictures of Fidel Castro's beard and things like that. Everything inside is absolutely spotless. The technicians are covered from head to toe in "bunny suits" so they won't gum up the satellites with terrible contaminants like maybe a hair. Or a single grain of sand.
Got the picture? Good. Lets get back to the story.
‑*-
So there we are.
Right next to the guard shack where the guy who just gave us authorization to enter the PCR was sitting. Right next to the group of ambulances and fire trucks that was parked on the crawlerway up against the closed crawlerway gate there at the foot of the pad slope. With drivers and paramedics and guys like that sitting around on standby. Right next to the Lockheed security monitor sitting there in his van parked near the bottom of the pad slope roadway where the pad perimeter road crosses it. Right next to the flashing warning light. And the portable sign that said `STOP'. And the other portable sign right next to it that said `personnel not permitted beyond this point'.
If we'd had a brain in our heads we wouldda just said to hell with it and gone straight back to Pad B. But we didn't.
So ok, let's go. Trudging up the pad slope in the hot Florida sun. From where we started, there by the assembled security, rescue, and fire personnel, the direct route up the pad was right through those two portable signs that said `STOP' and `personnel not permitted beyond this point'. Those signs were close enough to each other that I touched 'em both as I walked through.
And right past the Lockheed security monitor in his van as we headed on up the slope. He waved at us as we went by. We waved back and smiled.
And as we get farther and farther up the pad slope toward the cyclopean steel tangle that looms over our heads, it's getting quieter and quieter. Real quiet. No machinery running. Not a soul around. Echoey. Lonesome. Spooky.
"Umhh, kimosabe. Heap big quiet around here. Me thinkum too quiet."
Jack laughed.
And here we are at the foot of the great steel tower that is the FSS.
Right where the guard that checks your badge to be sure you're allowed to be up there (being allowed inside the pad perimeter fence don't mean you're allowed up on the tower, you gotta have the proper numbers on your badge) sits in his/her little cubicle.
Except that there's nobody there.
I'm nonplussed. "Think we oughtta tell somebody about this?"
"Nah...maybe after we get back down. We got work to do."
"Ok."
Press the button and the elevator door opens up, and up we go. And out at the 135 level. Not a soul to be seen or heard. Just a light breeze whispering through the steel structure.
We walk a cross the catwalk to the PCR anteroom for another badge check and sign in ceremony. Once again, just being up on the tower don't mean you're authorized entry into the PCR. Gotta have the good numbers on your badge. And open the door and there at the security desk sits....
Nobody.
Now I'm very nonplussed. "Boy, I don't like this. This is gettin weird."
"Me neither. Where the hell is everybody, anyway?"
"I dunno. Whatta ya wanna do?"
"I dunno. May as well go on in. We got work to do."
"Ok."
And then through the air shower. It's a little phone booth of a room with doors on both sides (ya gotta walk through it to get into the PCR) where strong jets of filtered air blow dirt and contaminants off ya. So as you don't ruin the sensitive payloads that may or may not be stashed in the PCR. Which of course we don't bother to turn on. After all, there's nobody around. Nothin's goin on. Not required. No air shower today, boys.
And into the PCR airlock. Where you put on your bunny suit and stuff so as to keep the PCR in its pristine state of
cleaner‑than‑an‑operating‑room‑at‑the‑hospital cleanliness. Hundred million dollar payloads don't like to get dirty.
So Jack, God love him, says "Well let's at least put on the booties."
The booties are sittin there on a shelf in the airlock for anybody to pick up and put on. For the rest of the bunny suit you gotta go down into the bowels of the pad, inside that hulking concrete hill, to an obscure place called the PTCR (Pad Terminal Connection Room) where you requisition it. They hand it to you hermetically sealed in a plastic bag you gotta tear open.
Putting on the booties makes not a lick of sense to me. Regardless, I go ahead and pull those spotless little slippers over the bottoms of my big, clunky, filthy construction boots anyway. Just to make Jack happy. Otherwise we are in no way different from the way we were an hour ago, crawlin around on the grungy, half‑built structure of Pad 39B.
_*_
Now, once again we've gotta stop and visualize this.
There we were in the airlock.
On the other side of those doors, yeah those double ones right there , on the other side of those doors is the holiest of holies.
The PCR. The Payload Changeout Room.
Where human hair isn't allowed fer chrissakes.
Where you can't hardly breathe for fear of ruining some damn thing or other that costs more than the gross national product of half the countries in the world.
And we're filthy! Little clouds of dust are comin off us as we walk. And hair. And dirt. And who knows what the hell else that satellites that are so expensive it'll make you vomit are allergic to.
We've been crawlin around on a half built structure with tobacco-spittin ironworkers just a half hour ago.
We're cruddy.
We're crusty.
We're covered in dirt as only a construction site can produce.
And we're going on in!
Pray for us.
-*-
While we're on the subject, and I can see people out there scratchin their heads and goin `What on God's good Earth did these two yo‑yos think they were doin by going in there?'; please allow me to explain what we were doin by going in there.
The PCR ain't always so holy. Sometimes it's about as holy as your neighbor's tool shed in his back yard. I'm assuming your neighbor ain't the Pope. When there's no gillion dollar machines to fool around with, or no Space Shuttle on the pad, they take down all that fancy security apparatus and the place is basically open to all comers who get past the guard at the fence way down there at the foot of the pad slope.
Lots of work gets done during these periods and we'd been around for more than our share of it. If it hadn't been for the assembled emergency vehicles, the flashing amber warning lights, the utter lack of people on the pad, and the deathly silence, it would have been just another day when the pad was open to all comers.
And we open the airlock doors to the PCR and...the PGHM's in the way. It's rolled forward and we can't see diddly. The PGHM (Payload Ground Handling Mechanism, pronounced `piggum') is a whacking-big five-story tall machine with more knobs, levers, stairways, platforms, shiny metal, and mysterious protuberances of all kinds than you can imagine. Looks like something from out of one of those old cheap Japanese science fiction movies. It rolls back and forth inside the PCR.
When the PGHM's rolled forward, it basically fills up the whole damn PCR, which is a BIG room by the way. The PCR's about 70 feet tall, by maybe 50 feet square. A little like one of those atrium things in a fancy hotel where the elevators are made outta glass and ride up and down on the walls. It's kinda hard to imagine something as big and goofy-looking as the PGHM even fitting inside the PCR. But it does.
The PGHM's job is to grab hold of the squillion dollar, twenty-foot tall, metallic insects that are gonna fly in space and hang on to 'em in its rolled-back position towards the rear of the PCR, where the technicians can give 'em the real thorough going over that they all get before they fly. After that's done, the PGHM rolls forward to where the 60 foot tall doors on the front of the PCR are open, and then deposits the insects inside the payload bay of the Space Shuttle. We're talking some seriously fancy shit here.
So anyhow, we open the airlock doors and there sits the PGHM. Just sittin' there about two-thirds forward, filling up the whole room to where you can't see around inside.
The place we wanna go is right up on the underside of the set of fixed platforms at level 5 on the platform set (there really IS a lot of goddamned crap inside the PCR) that are over on the far side of the PCR from where we were comin' through the doors. That's where the KU band antenna platform mounting haunch was supposed to go, back on B-Pad. Except the drawing was all fucked up (as usual, and don't get me started on fucking design engineers here, ok?) and it wouldn't fit at all. You get where we wanted to go by taking the PCR interior elevator, and you get to the elevator by walkin' around in front of the PGHM to the far side of the PCR.
So that's what we did. Well, almost anyway.
We didn't make it to the elevator right away 'cause when we rounded the front of the PGHM we both liked to shit in our pants and stopped dead in our tracks.
There, right there in front of us, right there where we coulda carved our initials in it if we'd wanted to, right there bein held up by the good old PGHM, was 60 feet of live payload stack for the next Space Shuttle mission. RIGHT THERE!!
Right there next to Jack and me standing there in our incredibly filthy clothes.
Protected by nuthin more than those little covers we'd just slipped over our boots.
To say the least, we couldn't believe what our eyes were telling us.
No way!
In fact, with very little mental effort, I very quickly convinced myself that it musta been some kind of mock up or simulator or...anything but what it really was. Yeah, that's it, it's just some kind of mock up for a fit check or something. Yeah. But it was a really good mock up.
Fucker had everything.
At about waist level, three feet from my bulging eyeballs, was the rocket nozzle on the bottom of the IUS (Inertial Upper Stage) that was gonna propel the next TDRSS (Tracking Data Relay Satellite, I dunno what that second S stands for, pronounced `teedress') into geosynchronous orbit 22 thousand and some loose change miles straight up.
Up from the nozzle was the main body of the IUS. Nice and round. And kinda got a ribbed look to it on the body panels (or whatever they call them). Didn't look very spacey or aerodynamic or anything like that. Just a big piece of hardware. And up at the very top of it, it got wider. Kinda flared out a little so as the very widest point was also the very toppest. Made it look upside down or something. Like maybe they put the nozzle on the wrong end. Looked funny.
Above that (and ya gotta remember we're talkin fifteen, twenty feet above the floor where we were standing with our jaws hanging open) was the bottom of the TDRSS itself.
Weird lookin.
I mean really weird.
All slick shiny blue black. And not round. Kinda square or hexagonal or something. And on top of all that shiny blue black was more damn gold than I'll ever see again in my life. Gold by the square yard. Gold foil, gold sheets, gold boxes, and gold antennas, all folded up and looking really spacey, and spindly, and weirdly delicate.
And scary.
Very fucking scary.
Lotta goddamned gold!
And way up above the TDRSS, up in the rafters of the PCR, safely tucked in the arms of mother PGHM, was an ANIK (I think) resting atop its upper stage rocket bottle. ANIK's a Canadian Eskimo word for hideously expensive or something. It was a Canadian communications satellite. But since it was so far away up there, it didn't look like much. That same shiny blue black but smooth round. And without all that gold all over the place. Or at least not where we could see it from where we were standing in slack‑jawed amazement.
So after what seemed like forever, we both turn around and look at each other.
"That's gotta be a mock up." I said, trying more to convince myself than Jack.
"Ya think?"
"Yeah! Has to be!"
"Howcum?"
"Because if it was real, there's no way theyda let us in here like this!"
"Ya think?"
"Yeah! Has to be! Get serious."
Jack wasn't so sure, "Well....I don't know. Sure looks real to me."
"Yeah...it does, doesn't it? I'm gonna go back to the car and get my camera so I can take a picture of it."
"WHAT?!!"
"Sure, why not? I've got a camera permit. Why shouldn't I?"
"Because you're a lunatic, that's why!"
"Whatta ya mean?"
"Look, if this thing's real then they're probably gonna throw us both in jail forever when they find out what we've done by going in here. And if you go takin pictures of it, that'll just make it worse."
"Ya think?"
"Yes!"
"I'll tell ya what, if we get finished with our work in here, and no sirens or horns go off, and they don't carry us off in the back seat of a car with no inside doorhandles, we'll just go back down to the car and get the camera and bring it back. Tell 'em we forgot to get a lay‑out of the haunch or something. Ok?"
Jack wasn't doing too well with these hair-brained suggestions from me. "Boy...I don't know."
"Aw come on. As long as they don't arrest us then it must be ok. Right?"
"Well...."
"Not until we're completely finished with the work. Ok?"
"Oh....ok. Come on, we got work to do."
"Ok."
And so it's off to the PCR elevator. Press the button and up we go. And out at PCR interior platform level number 4.
So ok, out of the elevator and through the doorway.
"Whoooooo....lookit that!"
As it happened, we had come out on the platforms at the exact level of all that gold on top of the TDRSS.
Veeerrrry impressive.
It was big, too. Filled up the whole space between the two sets of fixed platforms on either side of the PCR to the point where you couldn't even see the other platform set on the other side of the room.
Gobs and gobs of ultra high-tech lookin stuff all covered in shiny shiny gold. Gold boxes, gold wires, an acre of gold foil. And really weird lookin gold plated antennas and stuff. And whenever you moved, it glittered and sparkled with reflections from the very ample lighting inside the PCR.
-*-
It was stupefying.
-*-
It took us a while to recover our senses.
My earlier job of convincing myself that it had to be a mock up was wearing off. "Now I really AM starting to think it's real."
"Yeah."
"Wouldja just look at all that stuff!"
"Phew."
"Ever see anything like that before in your life?"
"Oh yeah sure, I got three of these back in my garage at home."
"Ya think anybody'd believe us if we told 'em about it?"
"Nope."
"Yeah, not to mention the fact that we'll probably never get out of jail to do any talkin about it."
"Hey, get back you idiot! You wanna contaminate it?"
"Sorry. I forgot."
"We've probably already ruined it."
"Don't say that!"
"Look, whatever's gonna happen is gonna happen. Quit staring at it. We got work to do."
"Ok."
And it's off to work we go.
"Let's see here, how'd they put this haunch in here anyway?"
"Look!"
"Unh huh. They kluged it in there."
"Yep. Just like what we wanted to do over on B."
"Yeah. Cut to suit, beat to fit, and paint to match."
"Got your sketch pad?"
"Yeah, right here. Go over there with my tape and measure that."
"Ok."
And on and on.
And then we're done.
"When we get back, I'm gonna come up here and take some pictures of this, too."
"You're outta your goddamned mind!"
All those thoughts of taking pictures got to me, and I just had to look around some more. So we both kinda walked over to the very front corner of the platform so we could kinda look around to the other side of the TDRSS and see more gold and stuff.
And also see the other platform set across the way there, on the other side of the PCR.
-*-
And there, on the other platform, right there on the same level we were on, not more than 25 feet away from us, was a guy!
-*-
But he's not a normal guy. He's in SCAPE. A full, by God, with-all-the-hoses-and-everything, SCAPE suit.
A word or two at this point about SCAPE (Self Contained Atmospheric Protective Ensemble). In a word, it's death. You die.
SCAPE suits are worn around the Cape by folks who have to do things to equipment and such like when the air is rendered unbreathable by the horribly poisonous and corrosive rocket fuel and who knows what the hell other kind of secret things that are stored all over the place out on the Cape. Some of the stuff out there is beyond belief. Really nasty. You sure as hell don't wanna pour it over your corn flakes. And so, in order to ward off the evil effects of this stuff on human flesh, they dress up in SCAPE. And when they say `self contained' they're not kidding. A SCAPE suit is EXACTLY like a space suit but not as pretty. It's TOTALLY enclosed. Totally.
The one this guy was wearing was a kinda greenish slick-plastic job with a great big clear face shield. And hoses hooked up to it to bring him air and stuff. And lotsa lotsa tape wrapped around where things like gloves connected to other things like sleeves. Lotsa serious sealant tape over joints that were already designed and built to be sealed up nice and good without any tape. This gentleman was not fooling around. His butt was covered. Totally.
And Jack and I turned around and looked at each other and at the same time, said the exact same thing:
"Oh shit!"
And our friend in SCAPE was saying things too. Screaming in fact, by the look of him. From a mere 25 feet away. But we couldn't hear him. Not so much as a whisper. 'Cause he was totally enclosed. In SCAPE.
Totally.
And that's why he never knew we were in there with him till he saw us. Not only can sound not get out of a SCAPE suit, but it can't get in either. They talk through radios when they're in SCAPE.
But although sound couldn't penetrate his contraption, light could certainly go right through that nice big face shield of his. And I could see his face. Really good. And it was contorted in some bizarre combination of paralyzing fear and raging hostility while his mouth worked furiously forming words we couldn't hear. The veins were popping out on his neck so bad that I thought they were gonna burst. It didn't matter that we couldn't hear whatever it was that he was trying to share with us. We pretty much got the main idea on looks alone.
He looked really, really, REALLY scary.They don't put SCAPE suits on just for the fun of it. It's always for a reason. Always. And so I just figured that whatever terrible chemical I was pumping in and out of my poor unfortunate lungs was of the odorless and colorless variety.
-*-
And back to the PCR elevator.
HURRY!!!
And as we're spending the eternity it took for the elevator to arrive, I'm listening for alarm bells and sirens to start going off all over the place.
Into the elevator and press the button.
"God, can you believe how slow this thing is?"
"Hurry the fuck up you lousy piece of shit!"
And the door opens up and out across the PCR floor to the airlock doors we go. At a very very fast walk. Don't wanna start a panicky sprint and fall down or bang into a post or something. Stay calm. Don't lose it now. Right past all that fancy hardware that was so damn interesting just a little while ago. 'Bout a year ago. Without so much as an over‑the‑shoulder glance at it.
And still no alarm bells. No warning horns. Dead silent.
And no dizzy spell, or headache, or funny twinges of pain.
Through the airlock doors. And incredibly, we both stop to pull off those stupid booties and toss them properly into the used booty can. Good troops to the bitter end. Forget the air shower and security anteroom, through the emergency outer doors.
Still no flashing lights. No buzzers going off. Nobody careening up the pad slope doing 85 in an ambulance.
-*-
Just the silence of death.
-*-
Across the catwalk to the tower at that same very very fast walk. Don't wanna panic. Don't wanna go over the railing 80 feet above an unfeeling concrete slab. Clankclankclankclank go your feet on the steel grating. Press the button for the elevator and wait. And wait.
And wait.
Time creeping by like molasses is driving me crazy. "God, is it ever gonna get here?"
"Where is everybody?"
"I dunno. Seems like by now there oughtta be swat teams and guard dogs and machine guns and..."
"Get in!"
On the ride down, my mind really started running. Jack didn't say too much other than a few comments along the lines of `If I ever get out of this alive, I'm NEVER comin back here'. But I'm starting to think of all kinds of weird stuff. I just KNEW that there was gonna be a very unfriendly reception committee at the foot of the tower when we got out. With handcuffs and everything.
But I'm not puking my guts out, or getting faint, or dizzy, or anything. Maybe we're not gonna die after all. Wouldn't that be nice? No doubt now about whether or not that sonofabitch was real. All too real. They don't work on mock ups in SCAPE.
Where's all the sirens and alarms?
Ok, the elevator's stopping. Doors open, and out. And waiting for us there at the foot of the tower is....
Nobody.
-*-
It's starting to get to Jack now, too. "What the hell's going on here anyway!? Where is everybody?"
"I dunno. This is crazy. Where's the swat team? Where's the guard dogs and machine guns? Where's all the sirens and alarms?"
"I mean, that guy in the SCAPE suit was real wasn't he?"
"Yeah, he was real alright. Oh damn was he ever real!"
"So how come he hasn't called Security and Safety and President Reagan and everybody else?"
"Beats me."
"Well, lets head on down back to the gate."
"Ok."
And we start back across the pad. By now it's been a little while since the festivities have begun and we're still not feeling like we've been poisoned. We're just walking along the pad deck all by ourselves with NOTHING going on around us.
Things start to look funny to me.
Suddenly EVERYTHING is hilariously funny. Hysterically funny. And I think that's just what was going on with me. The onset of hysteria. But I didn't know that at the time and so I just kept laughing at everything. Jack, by contrast, is sliding into some kind of depression. Nothing at all looks funny to him. Who could blame him?
So we keep on walking, down towards the gate. And all the firetrucks and ambulances and security monitors and guards and everything, and they're all JUST SITTING THERE. We can see 'em plain as day, way off down there at the foot of the pad slope. And we know they can see us too. Also plain as day. And we keep trudging and they keep sitting. Weird.
By now, Jack has perked up a little and he's saying things like "Maybe they don't know what happened. If they don't say anything lets just get the hell out of here and get back to Pad B.", and I'm still laughing about everything but I keep saying "No way, we've gotta let somebody know about this. Somebody's gonna get killed if it happens again."
And down the slope we go. Till we get to the Lockheed security monitor who's STILL sitting there in that damn van when I walk over to him and say "Hey, we've got a problem here."
"We sure do, you want to tell me about it?"
So apparently, somewhere along the line somebody said SOMETHING.
Somewhere.
But not much, judging by the very relaxed attitude of all the participants.
At this point, we all (Jack, me, and the Lockheed security guy) walked over towards the guard shack where the Lockheed guy said in a theatrically loud voice "Who gave you authorization to go up there?". And Jack and I, at the same time and saying the same thing, pointed over to the white‑haired kindly‑looking gentleman manning the post and fairly shouted "He did!."
Now before we all pounce on that poor guard, let us remember that the very Lockheed security guy who just got finished asking who it was that gave us permission to `go up there' and who was now posturing like some kind of detective who's cornered the prime suspect, is also the very same dingbat who looked over at us from his van when we started up there in the first place and WAVED to us.
The same guy.
So anyhow the poor guard is asked to explain himself. And as he stammers and stutters through his version of things, he involves Jack in the discussion. Now Jack ain't doin too damn good either, right now, and during his recounting of the events leading up to the near disaster spits out a remark along the lines of "We asked the guard if the PTCR (Remember the PTCR?, it's that place down in the bowels of the pad where you get your bunny suits. Remember?) was open and he said `yes'."
No such kind of thing ever happened of course, but it was too late. The guard, with thoughts of `How the hell am I gonna make the next mortgage payment after I get fired for this?' running through his head, instantly jumped on the PTCR bandwagon and we're off to the races. The issue was sufficiently clouded at this point that there was no way anybody was ever gonna prove that anyone said anything.
So over we go to the OPS (operations) building just outside the gate to try and sort things out. They took us into a room and we sat down and had a very short little chat. Jack's looking really glum about things again so the security guy says to him, "You think you got problems? I gotta explain all this to my boss tomorrow!" Jack didn't think too much of this attempt at reducing the tension in the room but I burst into loud laughter.
Nothing much happened after that. They asked us to write down a recounting of what happened and we did. Jack did his in 25 words or less and I filled up a full page or two. Everything was still funny.
And incredibly, that was it. It struck me as though everyone was of the opinion that if we all ignored it, it might just go away. No further follow up. No instructions. No nuthin. They just went ahead and let us go. So we went.
Jack swore over and over during the whole drive back to Pad B that he was never going to return to Pad A again. And I just kept laughing at everything and thinking of all the fun I was gonna have telling people THIS ONE.
Jack went home that night and barfed his guts up from all the tension. I just went home. Hours later I Finally quit laughing at everything and started wondering what we had been breathing in there.
They never did tell us.
About a week later our bosses got this snotty-sounding letter from NASA with a copy of the incident report (they called it a `near miss') and a typewritten description of what happened (which looked suspiciously like a thinly disguised paraphrasing of the description of the events I'd written there in the ops building). In the closing paragraph, the wise and wonderful NASA safety operative summed up his understanding of how things went as follows: "Request you advise this office as to what precautionary measures will be taken to prevent inadvertent access to controlled areas in the future."
I've got the damn thing framed and hanging on the wall. It's a great conversation piece. My boss is still working out the details of the "precautionary measures" he's gonna take that will ensure that the pitiful safety/security apparatus that's in place out at the pad will do its job and maybe keep some poor slob like myself from stumbling into a lethal cloud of poisonous gas or ruining an irreplaceable payload.
The Space Shuttle's still flying and I'm still alive and healthy, so I guess everything's been taken care of.
I hope.