The Construction of Space Shuttle Launch Complex 39-B
A very personal and technical written and photographic history, by James MacLaren.
Page 9: Looking Back At The Ground, Our First Trip Up On The Tower.
| Pad B Stories - Table of Contents |
We've seen the RSS from both sides, back and front, and have gained a substantial familiarity with it already, so it's time to go up into the air. To go up onto the tower.
And this is the sort of thing you might see shortly after exiting the elevator at one of the higher levels of the FSS, and if, for your first-ever trip up that elevator, you arrived at one of the higher levels of the FSS, and had only moments before been firmly-footed upon an expanse of very-solid concrete, this first view could be more than just a little bit frightening. And that fright was magnified by what it was that you were compelled to walk across, immediately upon passing through the open doors, and exiting that elevator.
So I'll stop, here and now, to give that one some attention, in an effort to convey to you, my reader, the sensations, and this is because some of those sensations could ramp up into some pretty intense territory in the blink of an eye. People who have trouble with heights, in particular, could find themselves very suddenly, without any advance warning, in a place that had the power to freeze them in their tracks, panic-stricken. People would very occasionally be completely unable to proceed. It happened. It was real. So you had to mind.
Look closely at the bottom margin of this photograph, over on the left side of things.
There's part of a small platform down there, protruding up into the frame at an angle, and you're seeing enough of it to further see that it's...
...not quite...
...solidly opaque.
There is a partial transparency to it. Things on the ground, far far below you, are somehow... partially visible!
And this is what you get when you visit a place where all of the flooring, all of that which you are held far up above the ground by, is NOT a solidly-opaque thing, but instead is made of Steel-Bar Grating.
And, depending closely upon the exact angle which you might be looking down upon that steel-bar grating from, it could be anywhere from innocuously-solid opaque, to a deeply-frightening transparent, with only a set of far-too-thin lines impressed across what was all too clearly visible, a literally sickening distance beneath the soles of your boots.
Steel-bar grating is made up of a series of thin bars, side-by-side-by-side, and they're all on edge, and between them there is... nothing, and until you learn that this stuff is actually stronger than normal flooring, it has the power to deeply unsettle your mind, because, when viewed from just the right angle, exactly longways, along the lengths of those edge-up bars, from a strictly visual point of view (which of course is how we all apprehend the world around us, in the main), it may as well not even be there.
And when you come out of the FSS Elevator, for that very-first time, it just so happens that, because of ineluctable structural requirements, you find yourself looking down at the "floor" you are about to set off across as you exit that elevator, from a point of view that has you looking exactly longways along the length of those bars, and all which exists in the gut-wrenching distance below them is horrifyingly visible.
And it is an arresting view, the first time you encounter it.
And you stop dead in your tracks.
And whoever it may be that is with you, escorting you to wherever it is you need to go on your first-ever visit to this house-of-horrors place, had told you in advance about the grating and you told them you understood, and you thought you did, but...
You did not.
And everybody remembers their first steps out onto steel-bar grating in a High Place.
For the rest of their lives.
Vividly.
And that steel-bar grating is what covered damn near all of the platforms and deck levels on both towers, and is what you invariably encountered at every level when you first exited the FSS Elevator, coming up the tower from the nice smooth and solid concrete of the Pad Deck, far below.
Once you got used to it, you never gave it a second thought from then on, and everything was ok. Also, it was incredibly strong and would happily carry some pretty substantial loads without complaint. As far as its very impressive strength goes, I'm pretty sure it would have stopped an anvil dropped off of the top of the Empire State Building, but to my knowledge, no one has ever actually conducted that particular Science Experiment.
It was also extraordinarily light for its high load-bearing strength, which meant that you could cover great tracts of floor-space without introducing unpleasant additional burdens upon the supporting structure which held up that floor-space, as a result of the additional weight which more-normal flooring of an equal bearing strength would introduce into your design and construction particulars.
I'm a big fan of steel-bar grating, and as long as you're not wearing high-heeled shoes (yeah, that happened one time, too, and it went just about as well as you might expect it to have gone, and no, I'm not going to tell you anymore about it than that), you'll be just fine with it too. I never tried high-heel shoes myself, but I did sit down (in the specific absence of any other people being around, who might decide to give me any shit about it), take off my shoes and socks, and try it barefoot a few times (This is who I am. These are the sorts of things I do. These are apparently not the sorts of things most other people do. I offer no explanation for it. I make no apology for it.), and although it's doable (or at least doable for somebody with tough feet that goes barefoot more often than they wear shoes) it's more than just a little bit painful and I wouldn't recommend it.
When you're walking around on steel-bar grating barefoot, you must be very careful with each step, placing your foot down upon it flat, as opposed to heel-first, in order to sufficiently spread the load of your own weight, across enough surface-area of bar-edges such that the bars won't be trying too hard to pass through your skin, into the muscle tissue and other stuff which dwells inside of it. Also, your foot must be traveling vertically and cannot have any transverse motion as it hits the bars. Those bars came from some mill somewhere, and no real effort was made to deburr them or to break their sharp edges, and if your foot hits the bars traveling along the direction of their length, they'll probably find a way to slice you up some, and if your foot hits the bars traveling in a direction perpendicular to their length, they'll try to just sort of potato-peeler the skin off of the bottom of your foot. Toes protruding down into the spaces between the bars constitute another issue, and a toe absentmindedly lifted from such a space with too much transverse motion across the bars, and too little attention paid while doing it, will near-instantaneously demonstrate the physics of steel-strength versus bone-strength, and the steel's gonna win that one, every single time. Snap! So you walk, very carefully, very slowly, minding each and every footfall, and really it's a crummy way to get somewhere, and why don't you just go put your boots back on and knock it off with this nonsense, ok?
And while we're at it here, this is probably the time to guess that we've reached the stage of things with this photograph, and the previous one, where I was now in possession of an official Camera Permit, and could quit skulking around, and instead just carry the camera with me wherever I went, in full view of everyone else, and use it whenever and wherever time and circumstance permitted or dictated.
This image was taken from the camera platform on the southeast corner of the FSS at elevation 260, and the location it was taken from is visible in the photograph from the previous page, Page 8.
Additionally, the location which that image (007 Front of RSS From Crawlerway Past Flame Trench Top Truss), was taken from, can be seen in this image, so now you can get a look at things from the point of view the photographs were taken from, in both directions.
As much as is reasonably possible, I shall attempt to, wherever I can, point out locations that various photographs were taken from, just as an additional aid in helping gain a better sense for the overall layout of things.
And now that I've mentioned that, I shall return to one of the linked images from the previous page, the one where the entire (one hundred fifty feet long, 150,000 pounds in weight) RSS Bottom Truss is being lifted on to the falsework, and we'll take a look at Sheffield Steel's field trailer, which is the viewpoint for the main images on Pages 2, 3, 4, 6, and 7.
Here's the original image, here.
And here's a close crop, which I've tried to enhance as much as I reasonably can, with labels showing RW's car and my car, and where those cars are parked, right in front of the (near-completely obscured) Sheffield Steel field trailer, is where the images of the RSS referred to above were taken from.
Things are none-too sharp and detailed to begin with, and are further obscured by Wilhoit's safety-netting which runs along the back side of the falsework, as well as the falsework itself, but the sense of things is discernible, nonetheless, and it's good to have a sense of location with these photographs, since it helps in understanding what you're seeing in them, with a layout and overall configuration of things that can otherwise become quite confusing in a brutal snarl of overlapping structural steel framing members.
Ok, back to our view from up on the tower.
You are looking down and across at the Rotating Service Structure, from a position just above its "left shoulder" facing more or less due south, which direction can be ascertained by looking at the Crawlerway, which, along with all the rest of the pad, is aligned on an exact north/south axis.
We have gained a familiarity with things based on our shipping list, and let us proceed along those lines, gaining additional familiarity as we go, and of course adding things above and beyond what was on the list, increasing our scope of knowledge and familiarity with things stepwise, in so doing.
The RCS Room is visible, and from this angle, you can see one of the very stout diagonal braces which tie down and across, away from the main envelope of the RCS Room (79K04400, mind the elevations, mind the slight differences), to the RSS Main Framing on Column Line B. The RCS Room, in addition to its job of providing a work area for the exceptionally-dangerous hypergolic propellants used in the Space Shuttle's Forward Reaction Control System, also housed the heavy rigging for the Cannister Hoist System, which we will be learning much more about, as these essays continue, but for now, it's enough to know that the RCS Room needed to be STRONG, and the diagonal brace I am referring to, is certainly that.
Behind the RCS Room, on the roof of the RSS, was the Hoist Equipment Room, which housed the 90-ton Payload Hoist, as well as the LRU Hoist, both of which we will be seeing more of, later on.
A little bit of our Crossover Catwalk, from elevation 220' on the Fixed Service Structure, to elevation 211' on the Rotating Service Structure, can also be seen.
Note the complete lack of handrail on this catwalk at the time the photograph was taken. Wilhoit has put some temporary handrail stanchions on the part of the catwalk that ends on the RSS Roof, but the other branch of this catwalk is completely unguarded.
While the construction was under way, there were a myriad of places that you could get into serious trouble if you were not paying very close attention indeed.
Ironworkers develop a sixth sense for this kind of thing, but mere mortals like you and I need to be extraordinarily vigilant at all times, lest we "step in the hole."
That said, the views were tremendous, and there's something about standing on top of open framing with a clear view of the ground directly beneath you, two hundred feet or more above the surrounding countryside, something very pleasurable, oddly enough, that is completely indescribable to those who have not enjoyed it for themselves, personally.
I wish I had a way to convey this sort of thing, but I despair of ever being able to do so.
But in the cool of the morning, on a clear Florida Day, with calm winds and low slanting golden sunlight bathing the whole world in its balmy glow, being up on high steel is one of the best places in the world you might ever wish to find yourself, and you remember it. You remember it clearly.
And we mentioned it earlier, with a linked image, but it's tiny, so I'm going to show the SRB Access Platform partial support framing again, from up here, where it's quite a bit more visible and easy to pick out from everything else. It's just a single beam, with some of the access catwalk framing tying into it mid-way, and a couple of small stanchions out on the end, where the actual SRB Access Platform will be sitting.
Wilhoit used the area on either side of the Crawlerway, adjacent to the RSS, as their shake-out yard for temporary storage of Sheffield Steel's delivered material. In this image, it's very hard to properly identify any of that material, but it would appear as if there are a lot of caged ladders among all the other items laying within easy reach for the crane to pick up and take to their destinations up in the air, as part of the growing RSS.
Oftentimes, material lifted up onto the tower would not go to its final destination immediately, but would instead be taken to a temporary work area, where the ironworkers would be able to fine-tune things prior to their being finish-connected to the existing steel structure, or simply have them close-by, at the ready, to be taken to their final destinations via any number of means that did not involve tying up the big Manitowoc, which was an expensive piece of equipment to operate, by the hour, and any time you could free it up for other work, you were doing yourself, and your company a significant favor.
The business of threading new iron into the ever-changing labyrinth of existing iron is a devilishly-tricky one, and things take on a vastly different aspect when viewed, and worked-with, from up on the tower as it continues to grow and change.
Things would occasionally be discovered to not be doable, as shown on the drawings, and things would occasionally be discovered to be very doable, despite being shown otherwise on the drawings, and this never-ending dance with existing structure demanded a flexibility of approach, and that flexibility was manifested in how things were worked, in place, up on the tower, in the temporary work areas.
Temporary work areas were also used as staging locations for tools and equipment, transient repair shops, and no end of all the other things that had to be taken care of, as part of the ongoing tasks associated with erecting steel.
In this image, you are seeing one of those temporary work areas, between the RCS Room and Hoist Equipment Rooms, on the RSS Roof.
Ironworkers, by virtue of the fact that they created it in the first place, and it did not even exist until they did, would invoke the "Who got there first?" rule (about which much more, later on), claiming an area for themselves and holding such ground as they had taken, until it was no longer useful to do so, or no longer in their best interests to continue to hold that ground, lest one of the other trades find a way to penalize them with impunity by making things difficult, directly, or in some devious and indirect way, or perhaps with some sort of backcharge (again, about which much more, later) or some other sort of relief that could impact Wilhoit financially, or schedule-wise, or both.
But for now, Wilhoit's Union Ironworkers own the RSS Roof, and have set up shop, and are busily prosecuting their work.
I shall zoom in on this area, here, and shall further label things, here.
It's not the best of images, but it's just going to have to do.
And now that you've got your bearings, more or less, go ahead and click the original from the top of this page, Image 008, be sure to click it again if necessary to get your computer (don't even think about looking at this stuff on a phone, it's not only a waste of time, it's also a travesty to be doing a thing like that) to render it full-size, and then just kind of wander around in there, up on the RSS Roof, beneath a Florida Sky, 200-plus feet up in the air on high steel. There's plenty to be seeing and considering.
You are looking at a day in the life.
One instantaneous sliver of time, gone, never to return.
But memories have a way of hanging on, and this image, of this work area, at this stage of the construction of the RSS, brings an immediate memory of me standing just about right where you can see an ironworker in a red hardhat wearing white work gloves, beneath the arrow coming across from the label "Loose Steel Members."
It was the middle of the day, and it may or may not have been the very day that I took this photograph, but the RCS Room was skeletal, and I was standing there, facing southeast, which places my gaze in the direction of the north wall of the RCS Room, looking down along its length, more or less, and Red Milliken was standing directly in front of me with his back to the RCS Room, and we were talking about something (my memory is good, but it's far from perfect), and from up above, where a couple of ironworkers were going at it, up at the roof level of the RCS Room some 30 feet above us, a small piece of steel (most likely just torched off of something larger), maybe three inches square by a quarter-inch thick, came down out of the sky with a light "tink" as it did so, spinning on-edge, and landed corner-down with sharp bap, pretty much directly in the center of the top of Red's hardhat, punching a nice little divot in the hat, before it completed its journey with an additional little "tink" and clatter as it came to rest at our feet.
Which may not sound like much, but had Red not been wearing that hat, it would have been his exposed skull that would have taken the hit, and although the impact was not enough to cause him to so much as flinch (Ironworkers: Their veins are filled with ice-water, and their level of cool in situations that would cause you or I to come unglued, has to be experienced to be believed.), it was certainly more than enough to cause permanent damage to his exposed skull, had it found that mark.
Red just blinked, took his hat off and briefly examined it, turned, craned his neck to see who it was up there that committed the infraction, gave him a withering look, and then returned his attention to me with a wry smile and a twinkle in his eye, and calmly picked back up with whatever the hell it was that we were talking about.
No big deal, eh?
And I suppose we can finish this one off with a look at my ratty little yellow VW Beetle (purchased not long after Wilhoit had lifted the RSS Bottom Truss into place on the falsework), parked at the edge of the pad slope, up near the shake-out yard.
That I was ever allowed to go to this place.
That I was ever allowed to meet, interact with, and get along on good terms with, these people.
That I was ever allowed to do any of the things they let me do.
I still have trouble believing any of it could possibly have been true.
Was it all just an amazingly vivid and wonderful dream?
It cannot possibly have been true!
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