Exploring Closer to Home

This week I'm going to share a little about the Operations and Checkout building (O&C), which is where Myca and I live during normal working hours. The O&C is located in what we call "The KSC Industrial Area" between Headquarters (HQ) and the Space Station Processing Facility (SSPF), and is a 10-15 minute drive from some of the other places we have visited.

The lobby is much smaller than the one we saw over in the Launch Control Center (LCC), but there are still a few cool things to look at.

This is a model of the Mars Rovers made out of Lego.

And I guess these birds have something to do with a weather satellite.

If you walk straight back you'll find the Mission Briefing Room, or MBR. This is where they hold some of the big reviews before countdown begins to decide if we're ready to launch. Myca wanted to know what it looked like from the podium.

When you go out of the MBR and turn left there is a set of double doors that lead to the back half of the building. This is where the high bay is located.

The O&C High Bay has been used for testing many spacecraft before launch, including Gemini capsules, Lunar Modules and Command Modules for the Apollo program, Skylab, and Spacelab Modules for the shuttle program. Recently Lockheed Martin decided they will use the building for their work on Orion, the new crew exploration vehicle.

Right now the high bay is empty. All of the old workstands have been removed so that new ones can be built for the new program.

One of the only things still there are the altitude chambers, which are used to test how the spacecraft will perform outside of Earth's atmosphere. The picture with Myca in it came out blurry, so here are the chambers by themselves.

Up on the 3rd floor we have an observation area where you can look out into the high bay. When there's activity I imagine it gives a great view.

Also on the 3rd floor is...

Unfortunately it's not someplace I can just walk into, but maybe one day Myca will get a peek inside. Instead I took her to the elevator and out the door like a real astronaut on their way to the launch pad.

Notice the mission stickers along the door frame.


She even found her own parking spot.

So the next time you see pictures of astronauts in their orange suits waving to people as they walk outside, that's our building they're leaving. Pretty cool, huh?

I may not get a chance to update next week because I am going to Virgina for a conference. If I have a chance to take Myca out I will be sure to post, otherwise I'll see you in two weeks with the next part of our adventure. Take care until then.

A Patch of Paradise - The KSC Beach House

This week I took Myca with me to a three day meeting for one of my projects. Normally that would not be very exciting, but what made this special was that we held it at the one and only KSC Beach House.


What little information I can find says the beach house was built in 1962 and was called the Astronaut Training and Rehabilitation Building. It's far away from most everything at Kennedy Space Center and is right on the ocean tucked between rocket launch pads. Old pictures show the two story building as a dull grey color, but after it was damaged during the hurricanes of 2004 the whole thing had to be remodeled. It's now bright yellow.


The building has a large deck with a great view of the ocean, several rocket pads and the shuttle launch pads.



The beach house is still used by the astronauts around launch time, but the rest of the year it's used as a conference center for employees to have classes and meetings. The inside is decorated to look beachy or Floridian. It's cute, and I have not found an uncomfortable couch in the place.




One of the neat things they have in the beach house is a pair of glass cases. Inside are empty bottles from the alcohol of choice (wine, champagne, whiskey, etc.) each crew drank in celebration of their upcoming mission. Most have mission stickers on them and several are signed by crew members.


The best part of being out at the beach house is when you get to go out and walk on the beach. It's one of the few strips of coastline in Florida you can look up or down and not see a condo anywhere. It's fantastic!



Myca and I also made a new friend on this trip. His name is Terrell (pronounced TAIR-ull).

That about sums up the beach house. Thanks this week go to Bill for picking a great location for our meeting, and for both spotting and naming the tortoise. It's always nice to have a friend to play with.

Sign Here...

I have a short detour from the planned stop this week, but I think it's pretty cool. For every shuttle that goes up a large banner is made that the employess sign or write messages on to show their support for the mission. Sometimes they're carried in front of the orbiter when it rolls from the Orbiter Processing Facility (OPF) to the Vehicle Assembly Building (VAB) or hung on the Mobile Launcher Platform (MLP) when it rolls from the VAB to the Pad. I have also seen them hanging where the astronauts walk out on launch day.

This week was the first time I have ever walked into a building and found the banner there for people to sign.

Yes, I did put my name on it. More importantly, I put Myca's on there too:


This week's planned stop was Kennedy Space Center's annual All-American Picnic. This is an event we do every spring where everybody on the space center can bring their families for a day of music, games, demonstrations and food. This year my group was responsible for planning the whole thing and they gave me the best job out there: Astronaut support.

Our base for the day was the back part of what we called the "Virtual Astronaut Trailer".

People visiting the picnic could go in the front of the trailer and play with a computer game where you got to be an astronaut walking or driving around Mars.


When we weren't at the base we were managing things over at the astronaut autograph tent.


The Astronaut Office at Johnson Space Center (JSC) sent me three wonderful people to support this event. I introduced all of them to Myca, and at the end of their visit they even let me take her picture with them.

Thanks this week to go Eric , Megan and Janice for making the trip to come to the picnic and being so great to work with. It was a fun event to be part of and we had a great time with them.

Things Don't Always Go As Planned

By now you have probably heard that we're not launching in two weeks because of a hail storm that hit KSC. The funny thing about this storm is that it only hit part of the space center. My building and the ones around it didn't get any of the weather that hit the pad.

The picture below is from one of the TV cameras we have pointing at the External Tank (ET). All of the white spots are damage from the storm. The tank looks sick. :(

Photo: NASA

And this is some of the hail that fell during the storm. I'm told many of the stones were about the size of a golf ball. The coin in the picture is a nickel to give some idea of the actual size. If you want to know what makes hail, a simple answer is here.

Photo: ?

The shuttle is rolling back to the VAB this weekend. We'll know more about how bad the damage is in a few days, and if we can fix it hopefully we will fly in April.

Friday afternoon the power went out in my building as we were eating lunch. It turns out the whole area lost power and we were sent home because it was going to be a while before they could fix the problem. I hadn't taken Myca out during the week and now that we were all being told to leave I didn't want to poke around too much, so I decided to enjoy my free time and go to the beach. Now Myca has also seen the ocean.



I know it's not a stop at KSC, but I think this week's lesson is to make the most of whatever comes up because it all works out sooner or later. It was nice to have a free afternoon and it was a beauitful day to be outside. I can't complain.

Thanks this week go to Teresa for sending me the hail pictures. Next week's update will probably be late because I have to work at the KSC picnic all day Saturday. Hopefully it will be with good news about the ET and more cool pictures from the space program. Until then...