[Milsurplus] NASA Training Centrifuge - the story

[Ray Fantini]

That one is small compared to the one at Goddard, last time I was there they had full size SUV strapped to the centrifuge and were doing test to determine the amount of "G" required to flip them. The vacuum chambers, shake facilities and Hubbell size clean room are very impressive. Most of the facilities are from the sixties and seventies and you would think any agency that can build something like this can do anything, then when you have to deal with the management and layers of procedures and protocols you have to wonder how they can do anything at all.
Ray Fantini KA3EKH

-----Original Message-----
From: milsurplus-bounces at mailman.qth.net [mailto:milsurplus-bounces at mailman.qth.net] On Behalf Of Bill Pileggi
Sent: Tuesday, July 27, 2010 1:45 AM
To: milsurplus at mailman.qth.net
Subject: [Milsurplus] NASA Training Centrifuge - the story

NASA US Navy Space Human Training Centrifuge Johnsville, item # 400137964242.... The story: I saw this listing last week, as I am on a list of former employees of the Navy base. It's in Warminster (the Johnsville area), not Doylestown, PA. Anyway I worked there the last year the base was open - it formally closed in Sept., 1996. The Centrifuge building was sold to a private company who ACTUALLY USED the centrifuge until a few years ago. Last year (2009) a group decided to open up a science museum in the building and held open houses with astronaut Scott Carpenter as a guest. [The facility usually opened on weekends for tours.] It is a really neat place to check out - the monitoring equipment and labs are very cool. And as things are still fairly informal, you can go up and touch things and sit in the chairs, etc...  An interesting note - the spearhead of the museum group doesn't own the building!! Rather hard to make permanent plans when you don't own the facilities. If you'r
 
 e interested in purchase, the parking lot is GIGANTIC, the (rental) offices are large and the centrifuge room itself is HUGE :-) A recording studio (renters) likes to use the centrifuge room for music and jamming...  It's an amazing thing when a place you worked might be a museum.

http://nadcmuseum.org/

The base it is/was located on:

http://www.navairdevcen.org/

 Bill KA3AIS