[South Florida DX Association] Shuttle film

[Kai Siwiak]

Its the end of an era, with just 2 or 3 more shuttle launches left, I 
thought that this film my be of interest:

  http://www.youtube.com/watch_popup?v=KZrFC988Thc

My first visit to the OPF, shown early in the film, was in support of 
the SAREX project.  I was first led to the "crispy critter" board to 
surrender my ID, contractor badge and OPF passes. This is the first 
place they would go for positive ID of victims in case of an accident in 
the OPF. I was led to what at first impression was darkened lab with a 
curiously warp black ceiling. Everything was unfamiliar.  I noticed that 
each of the ceiling tiles had some sort of a serial number - I finally 
realized that these were Orbiter tiles!  I was under the suspended Space 
Shuttle Orbiter! The unfamiliar scene took some adjusting. During 
preparations for several SAREX missions, we did the testing of SAREX 
radio hardware to verify non-interference with other on board 
experiments, and to verify radio performance when new capabilities were 
added. I've been lucky to have been on board every Shuttle except 
Endeavor (and Enterprise) for this testing in support the approximately 
28 SAREX shuttle missions.

The second set of scenes is in the VAB (Vehicle assembly Building) which 
was originally sized for the Saturn 5 moon rocket assembly.  On one 
visit , from a vantage point on level 27 (about half way to the top) of 
the VAB, I looked down as saw what to first impression was a sausage at 
my feet. Its amazing what images go through the mind when there is no 
previous basis in memory or experience, and there is no ready reference 
for the scale of objects. Once I focused on a person down below and got 
the sense of scale and distance, the "sausage" was not at my feet, but 
rather was one of the solid rocket boosters on the ground level a few 
hundred feet below us. Directly across was the Shuttle fuel tank being 
readied to accept the boosters. Later we walked among space hardware at 
ground level - labels warned of live pyrotechnics - there is an 
explosive strip running the length of the booster - the self-destruct 
device - exercised just once to tame the runaway boosters after 
Challenger self destructed. It was an eerie scene, made stranger still 
by the glow of the sodium vapor lighting.

At the launch pad scene you can briefly see the fire pit. One of the 
press tours that we took, rode us into a currently unused launch pad, 
right into the tunnel and fire pit under the launch pad. It looked like 
a giant furnace with glazed and charred ceramic tiles on the walls. The 
scale is massive.

On another mission I had a press pass to view the rolling back of the 
gantry surrounding the shuttle on the launch pad. It was a hot sticky 
and steamy Florida night. Search lights illuminated the Launch pad. Most 
of us were in T-shirts and shorts -- except for one Britt who wore a 
jungle suit complete with pith helmet and mosquito netting. Most of us 
had a pithy comment or two on the press bus ride to the launch pad.  He 
had the last laugh of course, the mosquitoes at the pad appeared in 
large numbers and some of them were large enough to pass for small 
helicopters. To this day I'll swear that I saw "Sikorsky" printer on the 
side of a few of them! Anyhow, the Brit got the best pictures while the 
rest of us swatted and cried "ow!" from the multiple bites.

I've viewed many launches up close - including a pre-dawn launch from 
2.1 miles away at the "Static Test Road" press site. This site was 
closed after the Challenger explosion. I remember viewing the pre-dawn 
ignition, then the lighting of the solids through binoculars. The solids 
were blindingly bright! My attention was drawn back into the swamp. I 
saw an ever expanding circle of swamp birds lifting off as the launch 
blast hit them.  I was observing the shuttle launch noise approaching us 
at the speed of sound!  Just then the rumble hit us physically. You 
could feel the noise before you could hear it!

SAREX, originally "Shuttle Amateur Radio Experiment" during the more 
than 2 dozen successful shuttle missions, has now become "Space Amateur 
Radio Experiment" once the experiment transitioned to the ISS 
(International Space Station). The original radios are now in the 
Astronaut's Hall of Fame Museum at Cape Canaveral.

Several Motorola ARC members including SFDXA's Chuck, W4ROA, were 
instrumental in the SAREX progarm.

73,
Kai, KE4PT