Dead Man Crew for the Shuttle Launch

Guy tells a very interesting story. Anyone ever hear about this before?


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The ultimate would be to be on the Dead Man Crew for a shuttle launch. You're about 1000' away when they light that candle. Why is it called the "Dead Man Crew"?

Because you start out the only people on the ground within three and a half miles, and you're there to drive toward and go up to the cockpit when the astronauts are hopefully getting out and riding a zipline to a landing next to a bunker 1200' away, where an APC that accelerates 0-45 in 6.6 seconds is waiting so they can get away as quickly as possible. Again, you have at this point driven up to the launch pad to attempt to rescue the astronauts who you hope escaped before you get there.

I would both love and hate to be on that crew.
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But it's gotta be a hell of a show....

 

Add one more thing the astronauts need to know how to drive-

Rescue crew staff M113 #3 .....but The astronauts took turns driving the M113 armored emergency vehicles during their visit to Kennedy. Several M113 are parked near the launch pad during countdowns, and astronauts can use them to quickly get away from the area in case something goes wrong.
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"There is a "Dead Crew" who work closer for safety assistance, they have special
reinforced and sound proofed bunkers. The reason for their name, "Dead Crew"
is that there is a high risk doing this job. No one has been lost so far.

During launch the popping heard is caused by the solid rocket booster, SRB's
burning their fuel and atmospheric compression. There is no control of the
SRB burn rate, light it up and off it goes. The uneven burning of the solid
fuel contributes to the popping sound. "Uneven" is a harsh sounding term, but
it is just that although the burn rate has been precisely calculated there
are variances. Close up, on the NASA NET replays, somethines you can see
pieces of fuel not completely burnt coming out of the fire stream.

Sometimes, dependent upon the weather the sound can be exceptionally loud,
high humidity, or practically non existent in comparison because of low
humidity and wind directions.

At the 5 km limit you can feel your pants and shirt vibrating against your
body. Open you mouth and you can feel the vibrations in your lungs. Building
fire alarms and car burglar alarms are set off because of the vibrations. The
VAB is covered by huge corrugated sheets which vibrate and start to squeak
during launch. It almost sounds like a scream.

No wonder everyone cheers at launch..."

http://www.sworld.com.au/steven/space/shuttle/guide.txt

 

I like the big "1" and "2". Reminds me of something out of a Dr. Suess book.

 

I'm trying to imagine the scenario where something goes horribly wrong, crew still on the ground, AND they zipline to safety in the refuge of the armored cars...Seems like a very narrow likelihood, although they still need to have the capabilities I suppose.

 

..... or The Thunderbirds.

 

My company makes cast iron phone booths for hazardous places like oil rigs, NASA uses them at a station very close to the bottom of the Shuttle gantry

After every Shuttle launch they call to buy another because its just a pool of melted cast iron after the shuttle launch

 

Just one of many reasons Hubbell wants the Government to continue funding NASA.

 

Vandenberg air force base in the late 80s, I was on the launch team for titan IV, it blew up 300 feet off the pad (a segment of the solid rocket booster burnt thru the casing) - and airforce knew of the defect!. Thought we were all gonna die (back then we launched from a bunkhouse at the pad), now the launch crew is stationed 13 miles away using fiber optics. Came outside when it was clear, only to find out that my rental car got reduced to the size of a trashcan by a hunk of solid fuel , it (whats left of the rental car) is still there as a reminder for Quality Assurance.

 

"0-45 mph in 6.6 seconds".....

Somehow I doubt that. What do they have in them, a engine from a top fuel dragster?

 

Now that's a good experience to talk about later!