| > states and would be very interested in visiting the Marshall Space
> Flight Centre in Huntsville Alabama. I have searched this conference
Having returned last week from SpaceCamp some of this is still fresh on my mind.
First off, unless you *know* somebody you just can't go out to Marshall. You
have to go through the Nasa Visitor Center which is NOT colocated with the
Marshall Space Flight Center.
>
> Q. 1.Could someone enlighten me as to whether it is visitable?
Yes, the official Nasa Visitor center at the Space and Rocket
Center have tours going out there daily (I think.) I will try
and get the telephone number for you.
> Q. 2.What sort of work goes on there?
Marshall is located on the grounds of the Redstone Arsenal (U.S. Army).
This was where many of the rocket engines were developed and where
most (if not all) were tested. A lot of work for the "ever shrinking
space station" FREEDOM is done at Marshall or with contractors who have
offices located in Huntsville (MacDac, Lockheed, United Tech,
Loral, etc
etc). Marshall also has one of the larger Neutral Bouyancy tanks that
NASA owns. (The largest is at JSC I think.) Depending on what mission
training is going on there you may or may not get to see it. As an
aside most of the German Rocket Scientists have lived (or still are) in
Huntsville. W. Von Braun lived in Huntsville and worked at Marshall.
I got to attend a lecture by one of them while I was at Space Academy.
> Q. 3.Is this the same place that operates the Spacecamp?
No, not really. Marshall is a NASA facility. SpaceCamp/Space Academy
are run by "The Space and Rocket Center". Spacecamp is mostly for
kids, Space Academy is for teenagers and Adults. (The new 8 day level
II is gonna be awesome, folks! I had a blast testing it!). There
are adult sessions which run from Thursday night till Sunday noon. On
Saturday and Sunday there is often an Astronaut or former astronaut
giving a lecture for an hour or so. If you attend SA you will most
likely get to see the Blue Planet in the OmniMax Theatre. I don't
believe it will be shown to the public till sometime in 1991 at the
space and rocket center.
> Q. 4. can anybody provide details of Spacecamp
yes. I will do so in the Space Camp note.
> Q. 5. My route is roughly Atlanta-Helen (GA), Knoxville, Huntsville
> Little Rock, New Orleans, Orlando, Atlanta. Are there any
> other Space type places on that route, apart from Cape Canaveral
> and Huntsville?
>
do you mean the Kennedy Space Center or Cape Canaveral Air
Force Station. they are two different places and I don't thnk the AFS has tours.
If you can sneak a flight to Houston I know it is possible to arrange tours of
JSC. Also, if you can get to Washington DC, Goddard and
Wallups Island are good places to visit (though wallups is a good 4 hour drive
from DC).
> Any help greatly appreciated.
>
|
| You used to be able to tour some of Canaveral AFS. The alternatives
were a bus tour on weekdays that stops at the museum/display area and
the blockhouse for the original Saturn I launch complex. On Sundays you
could drive yourself around the same basic tour minus the blockhouse,
but you could spend as much time as you wanted in the museum/display. I
did both, mostly to spend a lot of time photographing the various
missiles in the display area (and to wander into a few places I
probably wasn't supposed to be).
gary
|
| I work in the Huntsville office, just about a mile from the Space and Rocket
Center and 7 from the heart of Marshall. If you want to just see the sights
via a tour bus, you can always do that through the visitor's center as referred
to in .1, but we're on the arsenal all day every day. I'm sure that we could
come up with an excuse for bringing another Digit out there to see how US
Civil Servants work. 8^) (Bringing your family may be a different story!)
"Marshall does motors" probably covers the everyday type things that they do
out here. Once every couple of months we get a SME test that usually lasts for
a few seconds, but occasionally you'll hear one go for at least 2 minutes. In
the old Saturn V days, they used to have to be careful of the weather
characteristics as they were known to blow out windows in Birmingham, 90 miles
away! (This led to the development of the world's largest and most powerful
speaker system, capable of blowing holes through foot thick concrete. The
system was used to test the atmospheric conditions between here and Birmingham
to see if they should postpone the test!!!)
The neutral buoyancy tank is _the_ largest in the world. Johnson's is just
more politicized. The tank is over 32' deep, requiring a decompression chamber
in it! It is large enough to hold a full size mockup of the Hubble Space
Telescope _inside_ a mockup of a shuttle cargo bay!
Which leads me to some other things MSFC does: Hubble, Space Lab integration,
Freedom, Shuttle-C, materiels processing and motors (e.g., the first 2 minutes
of each shuttle launch are monitored by a VAXcluster here to watch the SRB
performance, and the Advanced Solid Rocket Motor (ASRM) is being managed out of
here).
Information is available from both the Space and Rocket Center and MSFC from
the following addresses:
Space and Rocket Center
1 Tranquility Base
Huntsville, AL USA 35805
(205) 837-7400
George C. Marshall Space Flight Center
Public Affairs Office
Marshall Space Flight Center, AL USA 35812
(205) 544-0038
Other points of space interest along your route would include the Iuka,
Mississippi ASRM plant (still under construction, but we've got residents
out there who might be able to get you more info), the Slidell Computer Complex
in Slidell, Louisiana, and the John C. Stennis Space Center where they do
more motor testing.
If you'd like to get in touch with me about any more information (I could
always scan in a brochure and EMail it to you or put it here in the notes
file), drop me a line at SNOMAN::AARON (aka Aaron Sakovich @HVO).
Have a great trip -- stop in the office when you get here!
Aaron
|
| I've just got back o the office after a week's training! Many thanks
for all the replies on this subject. It was certainly enlightening
to understand what actually happens at Marshall, that speaker system
sounds incredible, reminds of the walls of Jerico(sp), Von Danikan
et al. Aaron, I would certainly like to take up your offer of a
visit to Marshal! it would be fantastic. I'll mail you to discuss
it, many thanks again, Richard.
|