Whatever You See Here, Keep a Lid On It (#sctweetup – Part 3)

By this time, while existing the bus, I was noticing that maybe it is a little hot and humid in Huntsville too.  Everyone else had been complaining since 9am in the morning, but I’m a Florida native, so it didn’t seem all that bad to me. However, at some point, hot is still hot and I’ll concede it was hot.  Good thing we are going inside as that usually means air conditioning.

We entered the large grey lifeless building and entered into a small lobby that connected to a long hallway that ran right up the center of the building.  The lobby obviously didn’t see many visitors and was definitely not designed for many.  We clustered together as Ron came out to greet us and give us an official introduction to the Advanced Manufacturing Facility. Like all the other NASA employees we had met so far, Ron was very friendly and seemed genuinely excited by our presence.  Ron lead us down that central hall which to me felt like more like a tunnel than a hallway, as we passed one closed door after another of windowless rooms.  What was behind those doors?  As we came to a T at the end of the hallway we took a left turn and eventually came to a set of double doors.  Ron lead us inside telling us not to touch anything and to stay inside the yellow lines on the floor.  As the rest of us poured in behind filling the space between the lines, Ron authorized us some creative license with those lines.  Robert and Mike were already beyond the yellow lines as their attention was pouring over the large space of the high bay we had just entered into and all the large industrial machines it housed.  When I think space flight and exploration, I’m still more in the instant gratification stage of give me a rocket launch, so I don’t think “hey, I wonder what type of welding device helped build that rocket?”  Things like that simply pre-date the fun that comes later after the rocket is already built.  But admittedly, I lack the true knowledge base of the rest of the crew with me.

“This is fantastic!”

“Wow, I’ve seen this place so many times on NASA TV.  I never thought I’d ever get a chance to see this in person.”

“Really?” I thought.  I am so under qualified for this group as I had no idea what we were looking at.

The first set of machines to catch my attention were the two big blue ones directly in front of us.  Of course, referring to the adjective of “blue” is not really a good way to differentiate between the machinery in the high bay as everything was blue.  And speaking of high bay, it is named that for a reason.  The roofing was way above us and the expanse of the room was very large.  With the hangar door and all the large, over-sized machinery, I felt like a mouse in a giant’s workshop.  You could have one heck of a garage band in here.

Ron introduced them as the world’s largest (known) robotic welder and the friction stir welder.  The friction stir welder was currently active with a handful of technicians manning the computer controls so Ron herded us over to get a better look at this machine in action.  The process of friction stir welding is actually quite fascinating.  Two sheets of metal are lined up side by side and a small bit the exact depth of the metal spins at a high rate of speed between them turning the edges of the metal sheets into a molecular stew.  The bit runs up the entire edge of the two metal sheets permanently bonding them into one.  Virtual Von Braun even posed for a picture or two in front of the welder.

Virtual Von Braun is a mascot carried by Krissy (@KTVee).  Krissy is a teacher who puts a big emphasis on STEM studies (Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics) and Virtual Von Braun travels with her to get his picture taken at places that deal with STEM.  The real Wernher Von Braun was the brilliant rocket scientist for NASA in the 50′s and 60′s that designed the Saturn V rocket that took men to the moon.  Obviously, that’s a pretty good candidate for an inspiration STEM mascot. Virtual Von Braun is simply a paper cutout of his likeness.  Ironically, Huntsville was the home to the real Von Braun which helped Huntsville to become known as “Rocket City”. Krissy uses the photos of Virtual Von Braun in his different locations of interest as a basis for classroom discussion and learning.  I really admired Krissy’s passion for her students.  As an interesting side note, Krissy had just come to our Tweetup from the White House Tweetup with the President himself just days earlier.  We had a chance to talk later about which Tweetup was more fun to attend, but I’ll let the readers come to their own preferred conclusions on that one.

After our lengthy demonstration of the friction stir welder, Ron showed us around to the other machines in the high bay.  This continued to be beyond my level of comprehension as to what exactly these machines did, but still was quite fascinating.  More things made sense as Ron continued to describe them to us, but without Ron around as I write this over a month later, I find it hard to describe them in words as he expertly did.  Lets say they were big and helped to build rockets and other items that make their way to space.

We finished up our tour of the high bay and were escorted to the opposite side of the building to a second high bay.  This high bay handled environmental systems for the International Space Station.  Here they had mockups of the space station modules so they could test the environmental control systems that kept the astronauts healthy.  It would seem that a large part of their job was dealing with the disposal and treatment of astronaut excrement as we spent a lot of time getting detailed explanations of how they treat astro pee.  As an added bonus, they had various samples in clear jars for us to see as they showed us the different treatment states of the pee.  I watched in amusement as everyone hovered around our hosts, cameras in hand to take photos of the astro pee.  Even our news crews that were still in tow repositioned themselves for the best angle.  I just couldn’t help but wonder what the lady in red was thinking: “I’m over-dressed, carrying a heavy camera, following around space geeks and taking video of pee.”  Our hosts even had a fresh supply of astro pee from the International Space Station, which they unboxed for us.

By now you’re probably wondering why the ISS is sending their space pee here.  NASA analyzes everything, and space pee has to be analyzed to ensure the health of the astronauts on-board.  Unfortunately, the astronauts can’t just pee in a cup and leave it on the sink for the nurse to collect.  So, it gets boxed up and sent back to earth.  Even less appealing is the fact the astro pee gets recycled.  Yep, it gets purified and made back into drinking water aboard the ISS.  Yum.  Some of the samples sent to this high bay in Huntsville is samples of the astro pee in different states of treatment so it can be analyzed to ensure the environmental systems that are purifying this pee are working as they should.

After getting more than my fill of space pee it was time to leave.  As proof that the building really had no windows, to our surprise as we exited the front lobby from where we came in, the scorching sun from what we last remembered had been replaced by dark clouds and a healthy rain.  ”Oh great, instead of boxing up their pee for shipment, the astronauts are just dumping it overboard now!”

We returned back to the Space Camp facilities a little after noon.  Lunch was up next and for this we were herded deep into the administrative offices to a more formal conference room than the one we were using as our command center.  There was a large BBQ buffet setup as we arrived.  We filled our plate and found a seat around a large conference table.  At one end of the room was a large projected image of historical space photos and the words “The Real Space Cowboys”.  It was obvious that we were going to have a special presentation with our meal.

I was starting to wonder how our married couple was doing after the long morning in the hot sun and constant moving around.  The reason was because Angela (@oreotookie) was at least 8 months pregnant.  Both her and her husband Mike (@MikeLeeSoftware) had gotten selected for the Tweetup.  Angela was a real trooper, no complaining and she obviously wanted to be there.  I was very excited for the both of them and happy to report Angela gave birth less than a month later.  How much you want to bet that kid gets enrolled into Space Camp by the time they are 5!

As we started consuming our lunch a quiet man who had been sitting in a chair against the wall stood up to address us.  I had a feeling he was the presenter and sure enough he was.  He turned out as none other than Ed Buckbee, author and NASA public affairs officer dating back to 1959.  Ed worked with Wernher Von Braun (the real one, not the virtual one) and established Space Camp.  I have to say, Ed looked great for his age – not that I know how old he is, but if he started his NASA career in 1959, then he’s seen a few years.  Ed’s presentation was great, showing just how much knowledge this man had acquired over the years.  Afterwards he gave everyone a signed copy of his book “The Real Space Cowboys” that he wrote with the legendary Wally Schirra, the only astronaut to fly the Mercury, Gemini and Apollo programs.

The day was only half way over by now.  Just as I was starting to wonder what was scheduled next we were called back to our original conference room – it was time to be briefed on our shuttle mission.