A Visit To KSC

I was a young engineer working in North Carolina and my boss asked me to fly down to Kennedy Space Center, then go to our company’s Launch Center (I don’t remember its official name but Launch Center sounds good), and assemble some test equipment that was shipped to them in pieces. Okay, boss, I’ll visit the Travel Department and get a plane ticket and some cash and I’ll be on my way.

The company I worked for had a division called Defense Activities, and one of its jobs was to manufacture missile guidance equipment. We also operated the ground equipment at Kennedy that guided the missile into orbit. I worked in the department that was responsible for the design of the guidance system. The site in Florida was run by a different department but they used the guidance systems that we built, and they had additional equipment like radar and ground-based guidance equipment.

When I arrived, one of their engineers gave me a tour of Kennedy. I got to stand beside a Saturn 5 moon rocket’s first stage (it was lying horizontal on the ground). I got to see the “crawler” that transported the Saturn 5 rocket to the launch site at 1 mph. I got to see a Redstone rocket like the one that lofted the first American into sub-orbital spaceflight in 1961. The escape rocket on the Apollo capsule was more powerful than the Redstone, I was told. (More thrust, but I’m sure the duration of that thrust was much shorter than that of the Redstone.)

I got a little tour of our company facility. I saw the 150 kilowatt diesel generator that supplied backup power in the event that electric power went off during a launch. And finally, I got my first look at the equipment that I had come to assemble, test, and debug if necessary.

I set up the equipment and cabled it all together. I powered it up and ran through some tests. It worked, except for one problem. There was a relay inside one of the units and its spring had weakened with age. The relay wouldn’t operate when it was supposed to—the spring was just too weak. What to do, what to do? I needed to get this thing working long enough to show them it works. Then I could go home.

I had an inspiration. I got a paper clip and sprung it apart, then squeezed it and inserted it into the spring inside the relay. When I let it go, the paper clip returned to its sprung position and boosted the relay spring enough to close the relay. The equipment worked.

“Okay guys, I’ve connected all the units and it’s working” I announced. My job was done and I left Kennedy and flew back to North Carolina. I never knew if they used the equipment, nor did I learn for how long that paper clip continued to work. But I never heard any complaints from the guys at Kennedy.