The Construction of Space Shuttle Launch Complex 39-B
A very personal and technical written and photographic history, by James MacLaren.
Page 32: Aft Payload Bay Area and Aft Fuselage Area.
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Down once again we go, to the other end of an Orbiter which is not there, to an area where we've been before, but we've learned a few things more about how it's done, and can therefore understand better, what we're seeing now.
We are standing on the steel-bar grating once again, at the lowest main level of the RSS, elevation 112'-0" and we're over on the Column Line 7 side of things, looking across and upward toward the platforming cutouts that accommodate the OMS Pods at elevations 125'-0" and 135'-7", which fit against the left side of the Space Shuttle.
You are back inboard a little from the far face of the RSS at Column Line B.7, and your point of view encompasses an area on the Hinge Column side of things from roughly mid-height on the PCR Doors, down to the handrails on the TSM Access Stair, which is just barely out of view, off the bottom of the frame, with the tank of the SSW Water Tower in the distance behind it.
And as with the area in the vicinity of the Crew Cabin and Forward Reaction Control System which we just departed, there is a lot going on in this photograph.
We'll work our way downward from high to low, as before.
And since it's something you've already dealt with, more than once in fact, and since it extends down into the frame beyond the top margin, let us identify the Left Side Seal Panel, first.
And maybe it doesn't look like all that much in this photograph, but the bottom end of this thing was complicated and I'm pretty sure we're never going to be getting a photograph that shows things down at the bottom well enough, down where the air supply for the inflatable seals entered the panel (through some sort of clearly-temporary white fabric ducting material which reaches up and connects to the panel on its underside, placed there for unknown reasons at this unfinished stage of the work-effort by the mechanical contractor), and down where the actuators that rotated them were tied back to the fixed framing steel in this area, and down where the panels tucked in to the existing fixed framing steel and the flip-up platform that lived here, sort of like they did up at the Antenna Access Platform, along with other very nearby items like the Canister Guide Rail, the PBK & Contingency Platforms along with their monorail and hoist, the big vertical W36 doing its job holding the whole tower together, and other things, too, so I'll toss in a few drawings (but never forget, this whole area down here at elevation 135'-7" was heavily modified, and none of the drawings will be showing it, pre-modifications, as it was when we built it, and when I photographed it), but really, this stuff was nasty to have to deal with and to get to all play nice together.
Here's the PBK & Contingency Platforms, with the Side Seal Panel and its Actuator.
And here's the bottom end of things, just the Side Seal Panel actuator part of it. Please note, if you will, the outrageous output shaft torque of 3,500 foot-pounds at one-half RPM. Whoa! Yeah, that oughtta do it. That oughtta do it just fine in fact.
And here's the structural framing for the whole 63'-4¾" length of the entire panel.
This won't be the last we'll be seeing of the Side Seal Panels. We will definitely be seeing them again, so for now we can move on to something else, and by this point, you have an improved idea of the complexities that come with the business of simply keeping the PCR Clean-Room Environment clean, by sealing it against the outside environment when the Orbiter is mated with the RSS, which, on its surface, seems like such a simple thing to do. But of course it's not, right?
Extending down from out of view, from above the top of the frame on our photograph, to the left of the Side Seal Panel, you can see both panels of the RSS Side 4 Payload Changeout Room Door (which is the side closest to the Hinge Column, and you may have already noticed this "RSS Side" nomenclature on many of the drawings you've already seen, and ordinarily I do not use it because we almost never used it on the job and there were times when it could be misleading, but in this instance things will get confusing otherwise, so we may as well here and now get used to the fact that we have an RSS Side 2 PCR Door and an RSS Side 4 PCR Door, which is the one you're seeing in the photograph).
And while we're here, introducing RSS Sides 2 and 4 into the discussion, I may as well tell you, right now, why I'm NOT going to be using "right" and "left" for the PCR Doors, and the reason is that we, so far, have been tying "right" and "left" to the Orbiter, and "left" things go with the Orbiter's LEFT wing, and "right" things go with the Orbiter's RIGHT wing, and that's a nice way to keep track of things, except that, infuriatingly, for some bizarre reason, with the PCR Doors, they decided to REVERSE left and right, and the LEFT PCR DOOR CORRESPONDS TO THE Orbiter'S RIGHT WING, and vice versa, and...
...NO. This I shall not be a party to. This I shall not agree to. And this I will not subject you to, as you are already more than overwhelmed with the firehose of information you're attempting to drink from and...
...no.
So it's going to be RSS Side 2 (which is the side over on the Column Line 7 side of things) and RSS Side 4 (which is the Hinge Column side of things), and that's that, and that's the way that's going to stay for the duration.
Here's their daffy left/right system for the Doors, just so you'll be ready for it when you see it on any other drawings of the PCR Doors you'll be encountering later on.
Sigh.
As with the Side Seal Panels, the PCR Doors have more than just a few tricks up their sleeves, and we'll also be seeing them more than once again, in different photographs to come, so for now, we'll just kind of hit the high spots with them to give you a general sense of where and how they fit into the overall scheme of things.
In this photograph, the PCR Doors are partially open, and since they're bi-fold doors, this means that they're retracted away from the centerline of the Payload Changeout Room, and folded back on themselves with a tight angle between the two panels of each bi-fold door, so this is how you're seeing your Side 4 Door in the photograph.
And there will be much more to deal with regarding the doors...
...but not now.
And below the partially-open door, blocking our view of its bottom margin, the uncanny shape of the edge of the RSS Main Floor at elevation 135'-7" where the steel stops... and the Orbiter's Aft Fuselage, OMS Pods, and Tail... begin.
You're already pretty familiar with this part of the RSS at elevation 135'-7" and we're certainly nowhere near being done with it, so for now, we can move on to something below it which you've never met before.
And this is the Canister Access Flip-up Platform, and it provides access to the top of the Canister, and it's there because people had to step out on top of the Canister, when it first arrived beneath the RSS, to hook the heavy lift-rigging to it, before it could be taken up to its working elevation, and this little platform was what they walked out on, to get to it, and when it wasn't being used (which was almost all the time), it would be flipped back up and out of the way and you'd never even notice it unless somebody pointed it out to you. Very anonymous, but very vital, part of the overall system, and without it, no payload work could ever get done.
To the right of the Canister Access Flip-up Platform, draped up and around the face of the RSS, forward of, and external to, the envelope of the Payload Changeout Room, the bizarre complexity of the PBK & Contingency Platforms can be seen filling the area between where the Orbiter's left wing would be, and the rest of the RSS would be, if the RSS was swung around, mated with the Space Shuttle.
We first met the PBK & Contingency Platforms back on Page 6 of these essays. Here they are again, highlighted on our photograph, but only the actual flip-ups themselves. Nothing else, just the flip-ups.
And we received our first referral to the PBK & Contingency Platforms on the drawings, in detail, when we were down in Lower Hypergol World, looking at the APU Service Platforms at elevation 112'-0", and here's that same marked-up drawing again, if you need to refamiliarize yourself with this steel. We also took another quite-detailed look at the folding-platforms-end of this steel, up near the top of this page when we were getting familiarized with the complexities of the area surrounding the bottom end of the Side Seal Panels, and here's that same drawing once again for reference, marked up for the platforms this time, now that your understanding of things has once again been stepped up a little farther than it was before.
On-pad servicing access to this system would have been gained through a pair of doors, one on either side of the Orbiter's fuselage, for which the PBK Platforms were constructed to gain access to.
But although the platform system was constructed and completed, in similar fashion to the Monorail Transfer Doors and the large hoist monorail that dictated their implementation, no Payload Bay Kit was ever constructed or flown, and so far as I know, the Payload Bay Kit Access Door was never used with the Orbiter out on the Pad.
There was much that proceeded by fits and starts with the entire Space Transportation System Program, and here again we have mute witness to something which was begun, reconsidered, and never completed.
Something that never made the transition. From lines on paper to real hardware.
In the photograph, out at the very end of things beneath the main body of the PBK Platform, you can see the "Contingency Platform," which is a small thing, hung as a double flip-up beneath the main platform framing above it, and the monorail beam above that, with its very-unusual and very-distinctive curved and pointed end, and this particular small double-flip platform carries a story with it, and the story is a cautionary tale, and people died that day.
And it occurred off of this exact same platform, over on Pad A, one year and 2 days after the day I had first set foot in the Sheffield Steel field trailer at Pad B, and I'm pretty sure it had already occurred by the time our photograph was taken.
And before they had even launched for the first time, STS-1, which people were greatly worried about, and were fearful of things going wrong with a completely untested system, the hidden dangers inherent in this sort of work had already had their chance, and took their chance, and claimed their victims.
Not long afterwards, we lost an ironworker. On B Pad. Who's father my boss Dick Walls had to physically restrain, up on the FSS, to keep him from going down to the Pad Deck and encountering the crumpled body of his son, as emergency vehicles raced futilely toward the Pad.
I have trouble with the Contingency Platform that gave access to the 50-1 Door, sometimes.
It brings things back, sometimes.
You cannot know.
You.
Can.
Not.
Know.
And I have told you much.
But there is much I will not tell you.
Out of respect.
Respect for those people.
Who know.
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