Want to watch the Space Station come together?

[Tom]

This link takes you to an animation that is pretty cool.  Watch the station come together and the documentation of each piece on the right.

[Brucer]

That is pretty cool. You can take it apart, too, by dragging the slider to the left ;D.

[fishpharmer]

That there is cool.  8) I wonder if they have one stick of lumber on that space station?  Somehow I doubt it. :

[Brucer]

I wonder if they have one stick of lumber on that space station?  Somehow I doubt it. :

Lumber? They got trees on the station! Well, the did last fall, anyway.

http://www.cbc.ca/technology/story/2009/11/16/space-shuttle-atlantis.html

Don't think anyone's manage to get a sawmill up there, though.

[fishpharmer]

Interesting stuff Brucer, Thanks.

Suppose it will be a few years before they need a sawmill. ;)

[tree-farmer]

Really cool web site, thanks for sharing it.
Looking at parts going together makes me think of some of the old farmhouses around here, rooms were added on as kids were born, mother in laws moved in (this one was out past the wood lot if possible ;D), and more stuff needed a place to stay dry. No master plan, just add it where it will fit.
Wife owned such a place when we met. It was over a 100 yrs old and not a straight line in it anywhere, wiring and plumbing were a much later addition, as you can imagine working on this mess was a real treat ;). We sold it to her son who still lives there (poor bugger)

[pineywoods]

Thanks Tom, very interesting. I still miss working with the folks that design and build all that cool stuff. One of the high points of my earlier years was working with Verner von Braun's group developing the hardware that put men on the moon. Some very sharp people, and most of them had plenty of common sense, very few egg heads..

[metalspinner]

Alright, Piney.

Now you've peeked my interest. You can't elude to something like thay without leaving us wanting more.  Have you talked about your work before on the forum that I can look up and read about?  Care to share any stories? ;D

[pineywoods]

Well I might have casually mentioned it in one or two posts, but nothing extensive. It was a rather unique opportunity for an old country boy. Most of that equipment was developed at the Marshal Space Flight center near Huntsville, Ala. Lots of big mainframe computers involved, scattered around in various departments, used for many different purposes. The company I worked for had a whole bunch of  mainframes there. Those early mainframes were'nt all that reliable, so a sizable crew of maintenance people were required, on call 24/7,me being one of them. We had open access to the whole place. When nothing was broke we tended to hang around the various shops, just observing, BS'ing with everbody. Got to know some real interesting people and observe some really interesting stuff. Most of the early astronaunts were in and out. They'd tell you in a heartbeat, "if I'm gonna ride this thing, I wanna know how it works". Every project had a deadline to meet, so when something broke, there was a lot of pressure to get it fixed asap. 24-36 hour days were common.

The public generally thinks that Werner Von Braun was the technical genius that put men on the moon, and to some extent that is true. His real genius wasn't technical, but managing teams of technical experts and project management. At that, he was the absolute best..His rocketry developments  were actually based on the pioneering work of an american named Robert Goddard.
It isn't generally known, but we could have beaten the Russians into space by a good 6 months. The equipment was ready, but JFK squashed the launch. Let the russians get there first, then we can get the money out of congress to put men on the moon...politics..