Abstract
It is almost a standard question in a job interview to ask prospective employees their expectations if they were hired. During his interview with the McDonnell Douglas Astronautics Company in St. Louis, Missouri, 29-year-old aerospace engineer Charles D. Walker had a crystal clear view of the type of career he was seeking. His answer was simple, “Technical work, design development for a few years, opportunity to move into management and oh, by the way, along the way, if anything I’m working on has the opportunity to fly into space, I would like the opportunity to approach NASA to go fly with it.” Walker had graduated in 1971 from Purdue University, Indiana, with a degree in aeronautical and astronautical engineering. Since then, he had endeavoured to work not merely in the space industry but for those projects that would offer a commercial aspect.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Notes
- 1.
Henry “Hank” Warren Hartsfield Jr, was STS-4’s pilot.
- 2.
The buffer liquid is the carrier of the substances to be separated via electrophoresis.
- 3.
Since the first US manned flight in space up to those early years of Space Shuttle program, it was habitual to have backup crews to guarantee that a given flight would take place if one of the astronauts of the primary crew could not be present. NASA convinced McDonnell Douglas that they too should have a backup for Walker otherwise it might be difficult for a mission specialist to work on the CFES in the case Walker was unable to participate.
- 4.
See Chapter 2 for details.
- 5.
A prismatic hull was initially considered as it would provide some savings in manufacturing costs. However, such shape would also result in an 8% of compartment volume reduction and in a 16% reduction in the diameter of the payload canister. The shape and size of the initial MEC, made for a product that would fit nicely inside the Orbiter’s payload bay.
REFERENCES
Astronautix.com. Industrial Space Facility. Available at: http://www.astronautix.com/i/industrialspacefacility.html
NASA (1983) Materials experiment carrier concepts definition study. Volume 1: Executive summary, part 2. Available at: https://ntrs.nasa.gov/citations/19830002884
NASA (1983) Materials experiment carrier concepts definition study. Volume II: Technical Report, part 2. Available at: https://ntrs.nasa.gov/citations/19830002885
NASA (1983) Design of the materials experiment carrier for on-orbit servicing. Available at: https://ntrs.nasa.gov/citations/19830002919
Sivolella (2017) The Space Shuttle Program: Technologies and Accomplishments. – Springer International Publishing; ISBN 978-3319549446; Paperback: 372 pages.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2022 The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Sivolella, D. (2022). Factories in Space. In: The Untold Stories of the Space Shuttle Program. Springer Praxis Books(). Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-19653-9_6
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-19653-9_6
Published:
Publisher Name: Springer, Cham
Print ISBN: 978-3-031-19652-2
Online ISBN: 978-3-031-19653-9
eBook Packages: Physics and AstronomyPhysics and Astronomy (R0)