I'll tell you something that always frosts my ass. It's when I hear statements like "why are we spending all this money on space?". Here's some news: Not one f-ing penny was ever spent on space. It was all spent right here, giving people jobs, bettering their education, and right down the supply chain to the poor bastard who cleans out the rocket scientist's septic tank. All that money....was....spent....here....on EARTH! And I would rather spend one hundred of my tax dollars on NASA than one funding the goddamn lifer bureaucrat slackers down at the DMV. Damn I feel better now.
This thread, although a bit off topic, has been revealing. It's great to find the similarities in interests here. If many of us had had the opportunity to participate in the space program you can bet we would have because most HAMBstr's are self made men and women. Those were mostly first generation engineers in their 20s with WWII fathers who made damned sure their kids got the best education they could get them. They were way in over their heads but made up for it by working their asses off. People knew what hard work was then. Guys like Kelly Johnson who told the president that to build the U-2 and SR-71 he had to have an unlimited budget and no interference. When he had "meetings" it wasn't setting around a big table pontificating on various design parameters, etc.. They walked over to the plane and tried stuff untill it worked - right there. That's how we are in this hobby and you have to be pretty hard headed to build this stuff. That independent thinking also make's us a little hard to get along with each other sometimes. And as for the like minded aviation & space interests, its only natural for us speed freaks. Aviation and space are the next levels.
Pretty good insight. There are not too many threads where I read every single entry. This is a great thread, and it is ON TOPIC because it speaks to things that bind many of us together.
I took this over the High Sierras a few years ago. Just north of Edwards AFB on the way to Las Vegas. We use GPS to navigate now, thanks to the efforts of NASA in years past.
Doc, Dean Kamen and his good pal Woodie Flowers started FIRST around 1988. FIRST, For Inspiration and Recognition of Science and Technology, teams high school kids with engineering mentors. We have 6 weeks to build complex, high tech robots (120 pound, ~ 3' by 4' by 5') to complete a game/task that NASA and the Game Design Committee dream up. We all hear about the game Jan in the first week and then all 1800 teams worldwide work until abut mid Feb. to complete it. This year, we earned the highest award given at a Regional event, the Regional Chairman's Award and then we went on to compete in the Super Dome in Atlanta. We have 3D drawing requirements, PR work, fund raising (cost us $12,000 to get all 30 of us to Denver for three days), tools, prototypes, etc. etc. Kids do pretty much all the real work and design and fabrication, we are there to guide and advise and keep them focused and safe. Dean Kamen is hero amongst these thousands of kids for giving them and their schools and parents something to be proud of other than sporting events. Hiring folks do well when they can grab FIRST alumni because it is very tough and intense to do this in six short weeks. It flies by too! Go to www.usfirst.org and then look for FRC (First Robotics Competition). Tom
Clarence 'Kelly' Johnson is an aviation god, right up there with the likes of Sr Barnes Wallis, Sir Reginald Mitchell, Sir Sydney Camm, Harry Hawker, Kurt Tank, Willy Messerschmidt, Jack Northrop and of course Kelly's replacement at the Skunk Works, Ben Rich. Man that list can get long! While Kelly was responsible for the overall design of the SR71 Ben designed the high energy spikes that allowed enough air to enter the motors at altitude for sustained Mach 3+ rides. He was a thermodynamicist and reading his story is incredible. Kelly is also responsible for greats like the P38 and the Constellation, designed to parameters ask by another aviation great H. Hughes. Barnes Wallis was responsible for the Dam Busters bouncing bomb. He also came up with the geodetic structure used in many late 30s early WWII aircraft, mainly his own Wellington bomber. He went on to design the Tall Boy and Grand slam bombs (Earthquake bombs) the only thing that could destroy Hitlers immense concrete fortifications such as the U-Boat pens. With the Tall Boy (6 Tonnes) he realised that it needed to be released at a higher altitude than was obtainable by current (At the time) aircraft to be totally successful, so he sat down and worked non stop (ie, night and day) until he had designed a new bomber that could do what he needed!! Luckily the Lancaster was just about to be released into service so his V-Bomber was never built! Doc. Another totally useless history lesson bought to you by Doc Watson.
QUOTE=hugh m;4148823]Sorry,thought this was a Hotrod site,not a space geek forum] Boy you really don't get do you I know you are trying to justify your first remark, but think about this[ Rocket scientist and Car builders are cut from the same cloth, creating something magical out of a bunch of parts and pieces, always reaching for a little more speed or altitude, Astronauts and hot-rodders, particularly Bonneville types are the ones that strap themselves into these machines to push the envelope as far as they can. Knowing the dangers but facing the demon head on I think if you will look beyond your short sightedness you will see that these two fields have very much in common. If this thread bothers you so much why do you come back here? simply fix, don;t click on it.
Ps, on thinking about it, I believe the V-Bomber was designed to carry the Grand Slam? The Tall Boy was 6 tonnes and the Grand Slam was 10 tonnes. I'm really not sure, no matter what the Tall Boy was never able to be dropped from the intended height of approx 40 thousand feet but a much lower 25 thou, even then the 617 Sqn Lancaster's had to be stripped of all amour and even lost the mid upper turret and gunner to save weight to get that high. Im sure someone will look it up and correct me. Doc.
I'm an aerospace/ aviation/ militay history freak. I worked at Rockwell International for 20 years, built a bunch of Space Shuttle parts. I absolutely break down to tears when I see videos of that beautiful thing, think about the greatness of our capabilities as a nation, the people who have given all to it. I hate what we've become, afraid to challenge those things anymore, instead pouring our riches down the drain to the least common denominators who live amoung us. Rockwell helped me build my hot rods, bikes, and even guns over the years. If it wasn't through using their equipment at the plant on my spare time, it was through being able to buy exotic materials through the salvage sales yards at pennies on the dollar. How I'd love to see us return to those great challenges agian.
Does anyone remember the photos of the Apollo crew and their new silver Corvettes. I saw it when I was a kid, and never forgot it. Have not seen it in many many years.
That's a VERY good point. Scratch that dream of my own flying saucer... unless Plowboy goes into mass production. I'll have one of those.
That Corvette photo is cool, but the 'Mercury 7' look cooler. These silver space suits look like something right out of a Hollywood Sci-Fi adventure. Seven military test pilots were recruited by NASA to be the nations first astronauts. Americans were captivated by the Mercury Seventhe silver-suited, techno-speaking astronauts who blasted off into space with impossible coolness, pursuing one of the deepest and most ancient dreams of mankind. Their achievements made it possible for the United States to advance to the Gemini and Apollo projects. Their great public appeal helped to sustain support of the space program in its early years. This photograph was taken at B.F. Goodrich, the company that manufactured the space suits. It was the only occasion that all seven appeared together in the suits. Front row, left to right: Walter M. Schirra, Jr., Donald K. Deke Slayton, John H. Glenn, Jr., and M. Scott Carpenter Back row: Alan B. Shepard, Jr., Virgil I. Gus Grissom, and L. Gordon Cooper, Jr. Geez... if I were 'Deke' and John Glenn Jr, I'd be pissed about not getting the silver boots. Maybe it was case of: "Look... you can be the first man to orbit the Earth or you can have the silver boots. Maybe John Glenn was the last one to get to the pile of silver boots.
WTF??!! There just standard desert Combat Boots of the day! I can see them in the dressing room....... "Manwell! Where are my boots?" "Sorry Senor...... I leave them on night stand." "Manwell, when I get back from outer space, your fired you foreign son-ov-a-bitch". Even then it was hard to get good help. Or.. "Sure, nothing to worry about, they'll be fine. Just do em up real tight and maybe two pairs of socks......." Doc.
Doc, I doubt if we'd correct you if you WERE wrong...ha ha! BTW another example of kick ass engineering (other than Doc) exists "Down Under". In that true spirit of "By God I'll do it!" tell us about the guy that holds the world water speed record and look at the garage he built the boat in! HIJACK TIME.....
Face it, if we could, we'd all be building our own jet planes and rockets instead of hot rods. Traditional, of course.
That would be Ken Warby (www.kenwarby.com) but let's not hijack this thread, please. Here's a pic of the boat. I'm pretty sure there's a little bit of hot rod in it.
My dad worked in the tool and die dept. at the Lockheed Skunk Works plant, I have one of his old hats here somewhere. The logo is just the cartoon skunk, doesn't say "Lockheed" anywhere on it. I think the sign on the building was the same way, and there were dudes in plain black uniforms with guns guarding the main gate. No clue what he worked on, because he took the security deal there pretty seriously. We were in Burbank from about 1967 to 1975, pretty much full-time, then from 1977 or '78 to 1980. Whatever they were doing then. The little story you hear on the History Channel is true, the engineers would bring out drawings for parts, tools, whatever, on notebook paper or even Mcdonald's napkins, have the fab guys make the shit, then want the sketch back so they could make the engineering drawing after the fact. Lol.
I love stories like this. I have a Skunk Works book I had started reading, and it was just awesome! I try to catch those shows on TV any time I can.
They just had an open house up by me at Johnsville Naval Air Station in Pa. now closed and turned into a commercial park. Any how the astronauts trained there and i was in the centrifuge room the history is unbelievable. The site was chosen because of the type of bed rock that is in Warminster. There is a another one in Southampton Pa down the road that Charles Branson is involved in and just got some kind of grant for 3.2 million. Breaf History of it.http://explorepahistory.com/hmarker.php?markerId=976 If you look at this link there are pictures the whole inside of were the centerfuge was lined in copper.http://everywheremag.com/articles/65 Other History of near buy feilds and some pics of the Warminster site. http://www.airfields-freeman.com/PA/Airfields_PA_Philly_NW.htm
TANG was invented in 1956, five years before America's first manned spaceflight, and totally unrelated to NASA. It was not an official part of the space program, but astronauts DID bring it into space!
My contribution was small but exciting nonetheless to me. I worked at TI and Geotech in the mid 60s. Because of my military secret clearance I was chosen to design and environmentally test a small reel to reel data recorder used on the Apolo missions.
Your dad was there through the F117 program, for the best Skunk Works book find, "Sunk Works' by Ben Rich, he took over the reigns of the works when Kelly retired it is an awesome book!
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Dad worked in prototype R&D at Douglas aircraft, IIRC at the Long Beach plant when he got out of the Navy ('51?), then got hired by Lockheed when the contracts at Douglas played out in the mid-50's. Oddly, one of his big interests was watching those dumb TV shows about UFO's. Shortly before he passed away he explained it by telling me some of the "credible UFO sightings" on TV sounded vaguely like projects he had worked on or heard about, being described by somebody who didn't know what the hell they were looking at. "UFO's are real, they just ain't from other planets" ROFL.
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