Tag Archives: Space Shuttle

Jacobs Awarded Contract Option Year for Work at NASA Michoud Assembly Facility

By Business Wirevia The Motley Fool

Filed under:

Jacobs Awarded Contract Option Year for Work at NASA Michoud Assembly Facility

PASADENA, Calif.–(BUSINESS WIRE)– Jacobs Engineering Group Inc. (NYS: JEC) announced today that it has been has been awarded a second option year by NASA for its Manufacturing Support and Facility Operations Contract (MSFOC) at the George C. Marshall Space Flight Center‘s Michoud Assembly Facility (MAF) in New Orleans, La.

The option year has a potential value of $138 million.

MAF is managed by the Marshall Space Flight Center and contains one of the largest production buildings in the US, providing the unique capability of manufacturing large aerospace structures at a single location. Widely known for its key role in the design, assembly, and manufacture of the Space Shuttle external tank, MAF now supports the development and manufacture of new hardware including the Space Launch System (SLS), designed to provide transportation for future American space exploration. MAF is operated under a multi-tenant business model to offset operational costs, freeing up funds to support critical space programs like the SLS.

In making the announcement, Jacobs Group Vice President Terry Hagen stated, “We look forward to continuing our work with the Michoud Assembly Facility and supporting MAF‘s high tech manufacturing, which is vital to the future of U.S. space exploration.”

Jacobs is one of the world’s largest and most diverse providers of technical, professional, and construction services.

Statements made in this release that are not based on historical fact are forward-looking statements. We base these forward-looking statements on management’s current estimates and expectations as well as currently available competitive, financial and economic data. Forward-looking statements, however, are inherently uncertain. There are a variety of factors that could cause business results to differ materially from our forward-looking statements. For a description of some of the factors which may occur that could cause actual results to differ from our forward-looking statements please refer to our 2012 Form 10-K, and in particular the discussions contained under Items 1 – Business, 1A – Risk Factors, 3 – Legal Proceedings, and 7 – Management’s Discussion and Analysis of Financial Condition and Results of Operations. We do not undertake to update any forward-looking statements made herein.

Jacobs Engineering Group Inc.
Michelle Jones, 626-578-6968

KEYWORDS:   United States  North America  California  Louisiana

INDUSTRY KEYWORDS:

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Source: FULL ARTICLE at DailyFinance

Linux Foundation Training Prepares the International Space Station for Linux Migration

Linux.com: It’s hard to get tech support 400 kilometers away from the Earth, which is why Keith Chuvala of United Space Alliance, a NASA contractor deeply involved in Space Shuttle and International Space Station (ISS) operations, decided to migrate to Linux.

…read more
Source: FULL ARTICLE at Linux Today

General Dynamics Helps Win Space Race

By Rich Smith, The Motley Fool

Filed under:

The ribbon is cut, and the EDGE Space Innovation Center is open.

On Friday, defense and aerospace giant General Dynamics held the grand opening of its new EDGE center 2 miles from the NASA Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md., wherein NASA and other government workers will interact with more than 350 EDGE Innovation Network members from industry and academia.

For more than 40 years, GD has been a NASA partner. At the EDGE center, the company hopes to facilitate “the free-flow of ideas and solutions for next-generation spacecraft, scientific instruments, in-flight operations, and the critical ground systems that keep missions on course.” In so doing, EDGE will help to promote private commercial solutions to space flight in an era of government budget cuts and pull back from government-centric efforts such as the now-defunct Space Shuttle.

GD shares responded positively to the development, and the potential for GD to take a more active role in, and perhaps a greater share of revenues from, private space exploration efforts. Shares of the company gained 0.6% in Friday trading, closing at $69.29.

The article General Dynamics Helps Win Space Race originally appeared on Fool.com.

Fool contributor Rich Smith has no position in any stocks mentioned. The Motley Fool owns shares of General Dynamics. Try any of our Foolish newsletter services free for 30 days. We Fools don’t all hold the same opinions, but we all believe that considering a diverse range of insights makes us better investors. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy.

Copyright © 1995 – 2013 The Motley Fool, LLC. All rights reserved. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy.

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Source: FULL ARTICLE at DailyFinance

Today in History for 15th March 2013

Historical Events

1729 – Sister St Stanislas Hachard, 1st US nun, takes her vows, N Orleans
1955 – Dutch 2nd Chamber requires TV licenses
1969 – US Supreme Court Justice Abe Fortas resigns
1971 – Chatrooms make their debut on the Internet
1972 – NASA selects 3 part configuration for Space Shuttle
1998 – “Cabaret,” opens at Club Expo Theater NYC

More Historical Events »

Famous Birthdays

1638 – Shunzhi Emperor of China
1933 – Ronald Roseman, composer
1968 – Sabrina [Salerno], Genoa Italy, Miss Italy (1984)/singer (Boys)
1971 – Patrick Reidy, Melbourne VIC Australia, basketball forward (Oly-96)
1974 – Robert Fick, American baseball player
1985 – Eva Amurri, American actress

More Famous Birthdays »

Famous Deaths

1575 – Annibale Padovano, Italian composer (b. 1527)
1940 – Alfred Marr, cricketer (Test for Australia 1885, scored 0 and 5), dies
1959 – Lester Young, American musician (b. 1909)
1975 – Antonino Rocca, professional wrestler/sportscaster, dies at 49
1994 – Mae Zetterling, Swedish actress (Night Games), dies at 68
2003 – Paul Stojanovich, Reality TV pioneer (b. 1956)

More Famous Deaths »

…read more
Source: FULL ARTICLE at HistoryOrb.Com – This Day in History

Lockheed Gets Into the Energy Business

By Rich Smith, The Motley Fool

Filed under:

On Tuesday, Lockheed Martin , long known for its work in aerospace and defense contracting, announced a venture in an entirely different direction, as it tries “leveraging its expertise in the manufacture of Space Shuttle external tanks to meet the rapidly growing demand for liquefied natural gas (LNG) tanks for storage and transportation.”

In a press release, Lockheed said it will begin manufacturing cryogenic fuel tanks for LNG-powered vessels in Louisiana. In addition to fuel tanks, the company says it will “adapt production equipment used to manufacture the external tank for the Space Shuttle” and begin producing for civilian use a variety of equipment useful for “propellant handling; assembly, test and integration; composites manufacturing; and production facility and tooling design.”

Lockheed will be looking up and down the LNG supply chain, and considering entry into the markets for LNG storage and transportation, as well as for vehicle fuel tanks. Actual sales contracts were not announced in the press release, nor did Lockheed lay out a specific timetable for starting up operations in its new field of business.

link

The article Lockheed Gets Into the Energy Business originally appeared on Fool.com.

Fool contributor Rich Smith has no position in any stocks mentioned. The Motley Fool owns shares of Lockheed Martin. Try any of our Foolish newsletter services free for 30 days. We Fools may not all hold the same opinions, but we all believe that considering a diverse range of insights makes us better investors. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy.

Copyright © 1995 – 2013 The Motley Fool, LLC. All rights reserved. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy.

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Railroad track size matters!

Railroads

ATT00001

Railroad tracks.
The U.S. Standard railroad gaug(distance between rails)
is 4 feet, 8.5 inches. That’s an exceedingly odd number.

Why was that gauge used?

Because that’s the way they built them in England, and English expatriates designed the

 U.S. Railroads.

Why did the English build

them like that?

  Because the first
rail lines were built by the same people who built
the pre-railroad tramways, and that’s the gauge they used.

Why did ‘they’ use that gauge then? Because the people who built the tramways used the same jigs and tools that they had used for building wagons, which used that wheel spacing.


ATT00002

Why did the wagons have that particular Odd wheel spacing?

Well, if they tried to use any other spacing, the wagon wheels would break on some of the old, long distance roads in England , because that’s the spacing of the wheel ruts ..

ATT00003

So, who built those old rutted roads?
Imperial Rome built the first long
distance roads in Europe (including England) for their legions. Those roads have been used ever since.

And the ruts in the roads?

 Roman war chariots formed the initial ruts, which everyone else had to match for fear of destroying their wagon wheels.

ATT00004

Since the chariots were made for Imperial Rome ,
they were all alike in the matter of wheel spacing. Therefore, the United States standard railroad gauge of 4 feet, 8.5 inches is derived from the original specifications for an Imperial Roman war chariot. In other words, bureaucracies live forever.

So the next time you are handed a specification, procedure, or process, and wonder, ‘What horse’s ass came up with this?’, you may be exactly right.

Imperial Roman army chariots were made just wide enough to accommodate the rear ends of two war horses …


ATT00005

Now, the twist to the story:

When you see a Space Shuttle sitting on its launch pad, you will notice that there are two big booster rockets attached to the sides of the main fuel tank. These are solid rocket boosters, or SRBs. The SRBs are made by Thiokol at their factory in Utah.


ATT00006

The engineers who designed the SRBs would have preferred to make them a bit larger, but the SRBs had to be shipped by train from the factory to the launch site. The railroad line from the factory happens to run through a tunnel in the mountains, and the SRBs had to it through that tunnel. The tunnel is slightly wider than the railroad track, and the railroad track, as you now know, is about as wide as two horses’ behinds.

ATT00007

So, a major Space Shuttle design feature
Of what is arguably the world’s most advanced transportation system was determined
over two thousand years ago by the width of a horse ‘s ass.

And you thought being a horse’s ass wasn’t important!

Now you know, Horses’ Asses control almost everything…


Explains a whole lot of stuff, doesn’t it?

What's It Like Experiencing Gravity After Being In Space For 6 Months?

By Quora, Contributor The return home is not a smooth transition from weightlessness to 1-g for astronauts that return home via the Soyuz capsule. They can experience anywhere from 4-10 gs during the return. The capsule often hits the ground at 15mph, bounces, and rolls a bit. Return from ISS on the Space Shuttle was a lot smoother. They are also wearing a heavy pressure suit.
Source: FULL ARTICLE at Forbes Latest