6 ms·
Inside NASA’s Mysterious Rubber Room
- JagMicker 14y agoVery cool! And, if you like this, you'd probably also enjoy learning about the Plutonium Pit storage areas at the Pantex plant: http://cryptome.org/pantex-nukes.htm http://cryptome.org/pantex-nukes.htm http://www.texasradiation.org/pantex.html http://www.texasradiation.org/pantex.html http://www.princeton.edu/~ota/disk1/1993/9320/932010.PDF http://www.princeton.edu/~ota/disk1/1993/9320/932010.PDF
- regularfry 14y agoFrom your second link: On February 2, warning lights on a radiation warning system failed due to previous software modifications to the fail-safe system. It was discovered that no records of the revisions to the software were ever required or maintained, so the direct cause of the malfunction was unclear. I have no words.
- deleted 14y ago[deleted]
- jrockway 14y agoYou're surprised that people write buggy software without discipline?
- DanBC 14y agoI'm gently surprised that people write buggy software without discipline when they're dealing with something that can kill many people.
- incision 14y agoI have some small experience with this... My impression is that you end up with bad code in critical systems due to the exact same forces as anywhere else. Difference is, rather than ramping up the quality of the development / testing with the seriousness of the application, people tend to ramp up the requirement hair-splitting, ass-covering and accountability obfuscating. Fighting this requires a rare, uncompromising attitude that often isn't conducive to remaining employed.
- wladimir 14y agoThat's my experience too. In addition to that, there are hardware companies that have always seen software as necessary but uninteresting, thus trying to cut costs on it as much as possible, and not knowing how to set up an environment conductive to good software development (like having non-programmer physicists code in C, or still being stuck using 80's source control tools).
- jrockway 14y agoThis reminds me that I should start asking Therac-25 questions in interviews.
- DanBC 14y agoSearching for that led me to this website about a variety of serious bugs. http://www5.in.tum.de/~huckle/bugse.html http://www5.in.tum.de/~huckle/bugse.html
- Wingman4l7 14y ago(A classic case study -- a radiation therapy machine that was badly programmed, resulting in several accidents where patients were given massive overdoses of radiation). http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Therac-25 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Therac-25
- wlll 14y agoThis is one of the reasons I opt-out of airport scans. The less I stand in-front of something emitting radiation the less chance there is for a software error to cause me to get a higher dosage than was intended.
- regularfry 14y agoI am surprised that discipline wasn't an externally-applied requirement. Seriously, change management wasn't part of the contract? WTF?
- amckenna 14y ago"A study by the DOE Plutonium Vulnerability Working Group concluded that the storage containers used to store pits do not provide an effective containment barrier, and that the effects of aging on the pits, such as corrosion and cracking, are unknown." Lovely. Glad to see they are taking the necessary precautions to protect the 12k+ pits of plutonium at the Pantex site
- jtchang 14y agoLesson to all: If the word Plutonium appears anywhere in a statement of work that is usually sign you need to adhere to more stringent coding standards.
- jstanley 14y agoI'm not sure if it's the camera or the lighting, but these images all look suspiciously raytraced to me.
- dangrossman 14y agoThere are other photos by other photographers of these same rooms -- http://www.theatlantic.com/infocus/2011/04/dismantling-the-space-shuttle-program/100045/#img13 http://www.theatlantic.com/infocus/2011/04/dismantling-the-s... Edit: Same room at the other launch pad, 39A vs 39B. Both had identical blast rooms per the article.
- jstanley 14y agoLooking at those just makes me even more suspicious. Compare http://scriptunasimages.files.wordpress.com/2012/11/wscriptunasii_rubberroom-9330.jpg http://scriptunasimages.files.wordpress.com/2012/11/wscriptu... to http://cdn.theatlantic.com/static/infocus/shuttle041311/s_d15_20104664.jpg http://cdn.theatlantic.com/static/infocus/shuttle041311/s_d1... Perhaps things were repainted, but then why does the handle on the door work in the opposite direction? EDIT: Also, the "emergency egress route" has changed direction? In the Atlantic image, it is pointing "up" the door, indicating that people walk through it towards the camera (when the door is closed). In the Scriptunas image, it points to the left, which doesn't even make sense when the door is closed.
- deleted 14y ago[deleted]
- majormajor 14y agoMy reading is that when the door's closed you don't need the sign at all since if you can see it, you're already in the blast room. The left-pointing arrow seems like the better way to do it to me, when viewing the open door from the hall (though either is probably perfectly clear). The two sites being built by different contractors seems enough to cover the differences in painting/finishing touches (unless there's a standard open/close direction for vault doors, I wouldn't know :) ). But then, "raytraced" never occured to me looking at the photos, just "taken by an actual good camera, not a phone, with a fast lens so that it can take good indoors photos without flash."
- shabble 14y agoI think this is the end part of the "Emergency Egress System" which included a slide-wire basket from the top of the vehicle support structure/gantry. Some of the images at http://history.nasa.gov/ap10fj/as10-image-library.htm http://history.nasa.gov/ap10fj/as10-image-library.htm do look a lot like the arched solid concrete room entrances, and there are a few of the wire system as well. I recall (on HN I think) a while back there was an article about the slide part of the system and the crazy specifications required to attain some level of plausible survivability. Edit: some more images at http://www.collectspace.com/ubb/Forum40/HTML/000164.html http://www.collectspace.com/ubb/Forum40/HTML/000164.html including the armoured personnel carrier as a last hope contingency. Edit 2: Found it! http://americandigest.org/mt-archives/american_studies/how_to_get_out.php http://americandigest.org/mt-archives/american_studies/how_t...
- URSpider94 14y agoNo, not exactly. The author points that out in the piece. The zip-line is a later addition that takes you some distance away from the launch pad. The "rubber room" and blast room are, literally, directly underneath the rocket.
- gridspy 14y agoThe Rubber Room is intended for critical ground crews. The zip line is intended for astronauts. This is mentioned in the piece as the zip-line is the safer option when you're at the top of the tower and the base of the rocket is on fire.
- hymloth 14y agoSome photos remind me of the MYST series..
- scott_usa 14y ago2min youtube film from Saturn V days -reporter takes the slide. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jx2BobKku-c http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jx2BobKku-c
- chiph 14y agoThat's James Burke, in the years before he created his excellent "Connections" and "The Day The Universe Changed" series. Highly recommended - I watched every episode when they came out starting in the late 1970s.
- njharman 14y agoShould have known that guy was awesome before Connections.
- guyzero 14y agoIt's still not clear to me at all why the first room is rubberized. There's an escape slide, a rubber room and the actual chamber that's blast-proof. Why does the middle room need to be rubberized?
- ISL 14y agoFrom the article: "I quickly noticed how the room got it name as the walls and floor are completely covered in rubber over a soft cushion that was meant to absorb the blast." The seats in the room also have seat belts. Looks like the room's designers expected a violent experience.
- guyzero 14y agoSo I am not being facetious when I say I don't understand I I guess your comment makes sense, but honestly... I still don't understand. The rocket explodes, a massive shockwave of expanding gas gets pushed down the chute into the middle room. The actual protected room has a vault-like door, is on springs, has massive padded chairs with seatbelts. That I get. But how does rubberizing the middle room help? How much of the shockwave can it possibly absorb? I'm not rhetorically trying to say it's useless. I'm perfectly happy to admit that NASA's engineers have a better grasp of this situation than I do. I just don't get how it helps.
- eddieroger 14y agoMy guess: The room was supported by springs according the article. It also said the blasts rivaled small nuclear explosions. If something that big goes boom right over you, those springs are going to be tested. I assume the rubber helps prevent the room from bottoming out should the springs be insufficient. If anything, I think they didn't know what to expect, so they planned for the worst. Also, that small, 24-hr safe room was lacking in 24 hours worth of amenities, like a bathroom and water supply. But I guess being thirsty or having to urinate is better than exploding.
- snogglethorpe 14y ago
- finnw 14y ago> An exploding Saturn V was calculated to have the power of a small nuclear bomb So all you need is a lead-lined refrigerator
- mdanger 14y ago"Rubber Room", for me, at least, conjures up a whole different set of images: http://www.thisamericanlife.org/radio-archives/episode/350/human-resources http://www.thisamericanlife.org/radio-archives/episode/350/h...
- Aardwolf 14y agoThe pictures remind me of the Area 51 levels of Tombraider III.
- shawn-butler 14y agoI wonder how much of this was designed not so much to ensure the safety of the astronauts and ground crew but rather to ease the mind of the people who had to make the decision to put them at risk that they at least tried to do something? 30 seconds down a chute seems like well, not a realistic survival scenario in the case of catastrophic explosion on the pad.
- Daniel_Newby 14y agoRockets are a lot like skyscrapers: they burn slowly and sedately for several minutes until the structural members overheat and collapse. (Assuming kerosene fuel like the Apollo rockets used.)
- caf 14y agoThe upper stages used hydrogen - if that leaks (or the LOX) then your bad day is going to proceed much more rapidly.
- seanp2k2 14y ago[ this was meant as a response to people calling out the image looking weird ] EXIF of http://scriptunasimages.files.wordpress.com/2012/11/wscriptunasii_rubberroom-9330.jpg http://scriptunasimages.files.wordpress.com/2012/11/wscriptu... : Make Canon Model Canon EOS 5D Mark III Date 2012:11:19 09:37:43 Serial Number 022021008570 ApertureValue 3.356144 Artist Walter Scriptunas II CustomRendered Normal process DateTime 2012:11:22 15:39:32 DateTimeDigitized 2012:11:19 09:37:43 DateTimeOriginal 2012:11:19 09:37:43 ExifIFDPointer 354 ExifVersion 0230 ExposureBias 0 ExposureMode 1 ExposureProgram Manual ExposureTime 0.06666666666666667 FNumber 3.2 Flash Flash did not fire, compulsory flash mode FocalLength 16 FocalPlaneResolutionUnit 4 FocalPlaneXResolution 160 FocalPlaneYResolution 160 ISOSpeedRatings 3200 ImageDescription This massive blast door would seal off the bunker from all the violence happening outside. LensSerialNumber 000082f82b Make Canon MaxApertureValue 3 MeteringMode Pattern Model Canon EOS 5D Mark III ResolutionUnit 2 SceneCaptureType Standard SerialNumber 022021008570 ShutterSpeedValue 3.906891 Software Adobe Photoshop Lightroom 4.2 (Macintosh) SubsecTimeDigitized 26 SubsecTimeOriginal 26 WhiteBalance Auto white balance XResolution 9000 YResolution 9000
- WalterS 14y agoNo clue why people thought these were heavily photoshopped... Most of the photos I had seen of these rooms the photographer had used a flash, I preferred how the natural lighting looked. It added to the eeriness of the place I think.
- imglorp 14y agoWho says NASA doesn't have a sense of humor. The occupants are shielded from the blast by many yards of concrete, steel, and sand but the very last line of defense is... a gauze curtain.