TechStuff Classic: What does NASA's Mission Control Do?

also young and bright eyed. This episode features Chris Pallette, my co host and editor at the time, and we talk about NASA's mission control I thought this was a good episode to include here since we did that whole suite of space episodes a couple of months ago, and this ties into that NASA's mission control absolutely is one of the most important elements when it comes to the United States space program. So sit back and enjoy this classic episode and I'll talk to you again in just

a moment. We're gonna talk today about mission control center with NASA, and specifically the mission control center associated with Shuttle missions. Seeing as how the final Space Shuttle mission UH launched, well, we're recording this podcast before the launch, but it should publish after that launch. We wanted to kind of talk about the the stuff that goes on on the ground, not necessarily the stuff that's going on inside the orbiter itself. I said, launch, not launch. Sorry

if you can, if you can identify that quote. UM, yeah, we Uh. When Jonathan and I were talking about doing the episode on the Space Shuttle, UM, as we do with some of the complex topics, we decide, you know, to at least have an idea where we're gonna go

with the research. And even before we started doing the research, we figured that this was going to be complex enough that we would have to break it down, and we decided to do an episode specific quicially on mission control because, um, it's not just the astronauts inside the Space Shuttle who are paying attention to everything that's going on in the spacecraft during the mission. I mean, it's of course there they have to sleep. Um, they have a lot of

things to do. They've got science to do. Um. They have they have to prove the cake is a lie, extra vehit extra vehicular activity to perform. Um. They have things to deploy in space um so and spots to record for sesame street occasionally some of those occasionally they have to sing yes, shout out to our parent company. But but yeah, I mean there's there's a lot for them to do, and uh, you know, somebody has to

be keeping an eye on the on the shop. Yeah, and we cuver some of this material on how stuff works dot Com in an article called how NASA Works, But that's really kind of an overview of the agency.

We wanted to talk specifically about mission control, and before we get too far into this, we should probably talk about where mission control is because if you're watching a launch, you may be seeing shots of this, uh group of people all wearing a nice suits and they're all sitting at different consoles and they all looked very busy, and um, the odds are that you're actually looking at the Kennedy

Space Center and they do launch control. They have a launch control center there at Kennedy, but that is not mission control. Mission control is actually located in Houston, as you know immortalized in the phrase Houston, we have a problem. Uh. That's specifically talking about the mission control center at the Johnson's Space Center in Houston, Texas. Yes, and no, that is not the quote used in the movie. Was not

exactly what was said. No, no, but of course right, But just like playing against Sam was never actually said in Casablanca. Um, it actually was said in sits in King so but no, yeah, that's that's those the people who who in Apollo thirteen, And we actually kind of saw what was going on in mission control, even though it was a you know, I guess it's safe to say it was fictionalized to kind of a real event,

although not terribly fictionalized compared to some others. I would guess right, it was more it tried to stay true to the actual unfolding of the the emergency more so than a lot of other movies did. But even so, there was some traumatization going on there. Well you have to it's but but yeah, I mean, if you've seen the movie, you probably have a somewhat reasonable idea of what the people are doing in that center. They're trying

to main maintain communications. They're trying to figure out what's going on with the telemetry, uh, you know, keeping an eye on where the ship is going, mooring the various systems, making sure everything's okay, and in the song quoted before, their just making sure everything's okay with the people up in space. So let's Chris and I both looked at an illustration of the mission Control Center to kind of break it down and see exactly what it looks like

and what people are doing there. And we thought we would be kind of interesting to talk to you and guide you through the mission control room. Now, if you were to look at the room, yeah, if you're just like taking a tour walking around, you would see either all these big desks with consoles at them, and at one end of the room are a bunch of monitors, big monitors, and those monitors are showing things like video feeds from the shuttle as well as just lots and

lots of data and uh. And so we wanted to kind of talk to you about what these uh, these consoles were in their purpose and what the officers who sit at these consoles do. And we're kind of taking you, like, if you imagine this big room with monitors. At one end of the room, the room has a five rows of stations. Okay, the first row has three stations across and the other four rows have four stations across. So what we're going to do is we're going to go

from the end that has the monitors. That's the end that has the three stations in front of it. That's the first row and we're going to go from left to right, and then we're gonna go down a row left or right, and down a row left or right, and just explain what each of those stations are meant to do. And so Chris, I think you were going to take the first one. We're just gonna kind of alternate all the way down. Yeah. That the first person and sitting on the front and you know that's a

terrible place to sit if you're watching a movie. Yeah, but this isn't a movie. Far left in the front row, I got that cricket, the guy with a cricket his neck. Yeah, that's how I saw Lord of the Rings, the felloship of the Ring, and it was tough. Well, the person in in in that corner of the room is uh, the flight dynamics officer. Now I should point out there's there's a lot of information on NASA's website about this and each person, uh, they have a lot of code.

You know, we're talking about extra vehicular activity or e v A, and everybody else calls it spacewalk. Um. Yeah, So every console has a function and there are three they're actually three shifts that work nine hours. Three teams work nine hour shifts. So um, basically, the console has a name, and there's a person an officer that works at console for and we'll talk about the different missions

because some of them don't use all these officers. But and you will see labels on these consoles, and the labels are usually an abbreviation or some initials that stand for whatever the console actually does up. And when we talk talking about three shifts of people, they're typically around twenty people working in the flight control center during a

typical Space Shuttle flight. NASA says about fifty on a team of all of every you know, every who's on there, right right, so, so different shifts exactly, you've got around, on average, around twenty people working in that room during a spatial flight at any particular time during that flight. We should also stress that this is specifically space shuttles.

There's a totally different mission control center for the International Space Station and it has a different group, similar similar stations, like similar consoles to the one that's on the Space Shuttle, but a different set up as far as the team goes. And and uh fewer people are in the flight control room for the International Space Station at any given time than on a Space shuttle mission. Yeah, but each console has a name and so and and a call sign. Uh if you've seen I'm sorry, I'm to go to

the movies again. The most famous example I could think of a call sign is top Gun, where everybody has an essentially a nickname. But this is not not necessarily a nickname, but it's what everybody calls. So if Steve is on the console, you know, in the morning shift, and Jennifers on the console in the afternoon shift, they still have the same call sign because it's actually the station that they refer to, right, not the person, But

the station doesn't matter. Who's there. That person is filling that Yeah, so like dynamics officer yes, and call signed Fido who and that person plans the ship's maneuvers and is watching its trajectory. Um, there's another person that keeps track of that to the guidance officer. Um. But but the Fido is up there in the the bottom left hand corner if you're looking at the screens. Yeah. So, um,

so you've got that. If you move over one station, you have a console that actually could have one of two different officers working there, depending upon what's going on.

In that spatial mission at the time. UH, there's the Rendezvous Guidance and Procedures Officer also known just as Rendezvous UM, and that job is to support the Shuttle mission whenever they are going to have to dock with an other vehicle or with the space station, or perhaps they're coming up to do repairs for example on the Hubble telescope. Anytime the Shuttle is coming into close proximity with another

vehicle or satellite or anything like that. UM, this officer is there to help support the Shuttle's crew and UH and give information and guidance when the Shuttle is going through those sort of maneuvers. Now, in other situations that you might find the ascent slash Intrigue Guidance and Procedures Officer, they're known as guidance. Now. This is the person who is helping again with navigation issues specifically during the the the ascent and descent UH phases of a Shuttle mission.

So when the Shuttle is either entering orbit or is getting ready to re enter the atmosphere YEP and UM. Also that person keeps track of any possibility that they need to abort, so they're they're UM, you know, keeping a close eye on those kinds of situations. UM. The next person is the ground controller anything that would affect hardware, software or support UM. With regard to the facilities UM.

Also UH, this person coordinates the ground space Flight Tracking and Data Network and the tracking and data relay satellite system along with Goddard Space Flight Center, which is in Maryland by the way. So I talked about Houston and Florida, but we didn't talk about Maryland. Yeah, NASA has a number of facilities all over the country UM and and other stations that they work with with countries around the world to keep track of what's going on with the shuttle.

So UM, even though there may be on a given mission up to seven people in the shuttle, there are a whole lot more people on the ground watching out for them. So let's go back a row. So we moved back toward the the UH far left. UM, we're gonna talk about the propulsion officer also prop pr op UM. The propulsion officer's job is to keep an eye on the reaction control and orbital maneuvering system UH that's on

the Space Shuttle. Now, this is all the little jets and the propellants that are used by the Space Shuttle to make maneuvers in orbit or to get into orbit or out of orbit. UM. So that's that's that officer's job is to keep an eye on all those systems and to provide guidance to the shuttle crew. Yeah. And speaking of guidance, UM, the next person is guidance Navigation and Control systems also known as g n C watching

the the guidance navigation and control systems UH. He or she would be in contact with the flight director and crew any time that something again would require aboarding the mission UM. And this I assume could mean any time rather than UM. You know, the guidance officers watching specifically on launch and landing. This would be any time you need to UH cut out and go home. UM. Or any time the not the guidance hardware might be not working correctly. Yes, so that this would be the eyes

on the ground to help guide the shuttle. Let's say that the guidance systems aboard the shuttle for some reason or malfunctioning, perhaps a gyroscope is not is not turning properly. UM. The this officer would be the person who would help guide the shuttle crew into maneuvering the shuttle so that it was going the right way for whatever operation they

needed to perform at that point, most likely coming home. Next, we have the Maintenance Mechanical arm and Crew Systems Officer or Max m M a c. S. Butts pronounced Max um. The This is a person who looks at the shuttles structural mechanical systems to make sure that everything is is nominal. So the also monitors all the equipment, maintenance, and hardware

use aboard the shuttle. So this is the guy who tells the astronauts to put up their toys when they're done playing sexual a little more obviously much more serious than that, but clearly this this is the person who is trying to make sure that that all the procedures are followed aboard the shuttle to make sure everything is stowed away properly and is used the way it was meant to be used and turned off and all that kind of stuff, because clearly anything that's out of the

ordinary could potentially cause a major problem with such a complex mission. Um. Yes, and a lot of jokes. I'm sure like, no, my name is not Max, it's Steve. Yeah. Um. Now they're known for a lot of joking in the Mission Control center. Maybe when it's all over with Hey, guys, we have more to talk about with NASA's mission control system, but first let's take a quick break to thank our sponsor.

Next is Eagle, the Electrical Generation and Illumination Officer, and this person is keeping an eye on the electrical systems, cryogenics, fuel cells, A C and d C power circuits. Both Edison and Tesla are represented um vehicle pyrotechnics and lighting. Actually that always makes me think of rock bands. Yeah when I read that, well, you already talked about e C, d C two and uh any caution and warning systems that might be going on. So yeah, alright, time to

move move back another row. So moving back another road to this is row three. If you're keeping track, we're back back over to the far left. We have the Data Processing System Officer DPS, who looks monitors the status of the the onboard computer systems on the shuttle. Now, if you've listened to our Shuttle episode, you know that we mentioned briefly that there are five on board computer systems.

It's this officer's job to monitor those systems make sure that they are working properly that there is not any sort of malfunction in those systems. UM. They also look at other computer systems that are related to the mission, including the function display system. So that's his job or her tob Yeah. The payload's officer is next, UM, which is just called payload. Yeah. They drop an S. That's that's how they abbreviate that that console as they dropped

the S to payload. I see they don't. They don't get cool U nicknami call signs, at least not most of them, UM like they do in the in the movies. UM. Anyway, that that person coordinates the both the ground system and the onboard shuttle UH system interfaces, so the flight control team and payload user are in contact with another with one another and UM. Payload also keeps an eye on the in cabin and cargo based system experiments and satellites. UM. So yeah, I mean you've got those great big bay

doors and stuff comes out of them. That's who knows what's going on with that. It's the main purpose for the Space Shuttle is to be able to deliver payloads to space. So like a giant cargo up. UH. Next, we have a console where again, two different officers could be operating this console depending upon what is going on in the Space Shuttle mission at that time. You have the Flight Activities Officer or f AO. I like to call him Schwartz. Uh, the Flight Activities officers so nice.

I'm a big, big fan of f AO. So the Flight Activities Officer is their job is to to kind of be a support for the the shuttle crew. Uh. They maintain checklists and procedures and schedules. So whenever you you see a launch or you over here like the the recordings from um missions and you hear the Shuttle crew going down a checklist, this is the person who on the ground is also going through that same checklist to make sure that everything is checked off whenever they're

doing any sort of procedure. UM. They also manage the shuttle orientation, so how it is oriented, uh in relation to the Earth or to really anything else, you know,

it's some other point of reference. And then the other officer who works at that console, depending upon what's going on, is the Visiting Vehicles Officer or vv O. And uh, sometimes the Shuttle has to interact with other vehicles like Russian vehicles or perhaps the Internet, National Space, slower moving ones or slower moving ones UM, and so the the Visiting Vehicles officer is the person who monitors that connection whenever the shuttle is is docked with another vehicle or

the I S S UM the that's that's that officer's job. So a little bit different from the navigation officer. They're they're not necessarily helping the shuttle maneuver next to those They're just monitoring whenever that connection is made because clearly, you know you're sharing an UM airlock connection. You want to make sure that everything is UH is still stable

during that whole process. Yes, So next we have the Emergency Environmental and Consumables Yes, Operations Manager EE calm, Yes that would Yeah, UM is UH and that person UH is responsible for the active and passive thermal control of the vehicle according to NASA UM and the cabin atmosphere control, so like, hey, you know, can you turn down the thermostat could you get a little some of this carbon

dioxide out of our atmosphere? Really avionics, cooling supply and wastewater systems and fire detection and suppression systems, so really you can think of this, this officer is being in UH in charge of monitoring life support systems basic shut Yeah, but see that would be too easy to say and would sound too much like TV, so they had to

call it something obscure. But yeah, whenever we talk about life support systems, this is the officer in charge of making sure everything is is running in the right parameters. So now it's time to move of another row back and back over to the far left. We've got the Instrumentation and Communications Officer inco I n c OH. This person monitors the communications systems and instrumentation systems systems configuration aboard the shuttle. Um. They're also the one who controls

the shuttle television systems from the ground. So the shuttle crew wants to watch Phineas and Ferb and this guy's like, no, no, no, you're going to be watching. Actually, I don't think that's exactly how that works, but I thought it was funny. But no. Yeah, they controlled the television systems aboard the Space Shuttle from the ground, so there they work very closely with the public relations officer as well as other

members of the flight control team. Yeah. I bet, although I didn't read this, I bet that this person is also the one who's responsible for playing the wake up song, which is now sort of semi famous part of a shuttle be kind of a tradition right where you've got this. Uh, each each member of a shuttle crew gets to choose a song that will be played at a particular time

to to signal it's time to wake up and do science. Yes. Yeah, so I guess I got lucky because I got the head of all of this and then on this row. So this person see again, it's sort of the middle of the theater, you can see everything. It's a good seat. It's a flag director, and uh, that person leads the flight control team. This person is responsible for basically all of this, uh, the overall mission and payload operations, any decisions that would impact the safe and successful conduct of

the mission. Um so, actually the flight director has another responsibility you know you might expect with all this sophisticated computer equipment, that has to do with the seven people in space living are dying and you know, on a more sad but real note, the expensive space shuttle. Uh, you know in space that you want to protect. Uh,

they are allowed to bring food and drink inside mission control. Um, well, I mean they only get five to ten minute breaks every ninety minutes, so with you know, shift between eight and twelve hours, Yes, they would need to do this. So an Assa says that the flight controller um takes a day and UH is responsible for choosing a cuisine to buy for everybody in there, so um, he actually

has to do that as well. So I guess if you're in charge, you get to pick what everyone else will eat on their celebratory kind of makes you wonder if if he's like, okay, so who here likes pepperoni and there piece? Fine? Fine, all right, no, no, Johnson, I told you we're not putting ham and pineapple on all the pizza exactly. It's like, well, it is my space center. Um, so do you make me turn this

mission around? Yeah? I mean serious as they are, they do get to have a little fun in the fly director does have that does get to UH to buy when it's time for dinner once. Apparently it just happens once. That's good. Still, that's pretty cool. Yeah. So so next next to the flight director on the other side is the spacecraft communicator or capcom. And you might think, why is it called capcom when it's the actual name of the consoles, the Spacecraft Communicator. Well, it's because they really

love playing Resident Evil. And you know, Resident Evil was made by Capcom, so real those big screens. It's true that it's true that Capcom makes Resident Evil. That's the only true part of that statement though, So why is it called Capcom. Well, it's because back in the day when when the earliest space flights were manned, space flights were being tested, the first capsule they were using was the Mercury Capsule, so it was Capsule Communication. Well, the

shuttle is not a capsule, it's a spacecraft. So they changed the name of the console to Spacecraft Communicator, but they did not change the call sign, which it still remains Capcom. By the way, you're wondering if there is any other connection with Capcom the video game company, I

am sad to inform you there is not. The Capcom video game Company takes its name from a predecessor of that company, the Japan Capsule Computer Company Limited, which you know, you just take Capsule computer and you squish that to Capcom. It's not the same thing as the one that's in um uh NASA's mission control. Now what are they doing? Well, there there may They serve as the primary communication point between flight control and the shuttle itself. That's their job.

Yeah yeah, and uh, spot Colm just doesn't sound as coolm No, spake calm No, that's what you do with your pets. So next we have the PDRs, the Payload, Deployment and Retrievals STEMS officer who is watching the operation of the remote manipulator system. Yeah, the robotic arm NASA. You know, they've got to have a fancy name for everything, and I think that's kind of cool. But at the

same time, it's just easier to say a robotic arm. Yeah, this is the guy who can take over control and make the robotic arm give a big thumbs up to the earth. Why are you hitting yourself? Why are you hitting yourself? Why are you hitting yourself? This is all lies too, but no, it is true that that is that is the officer's job is to monitor the operation of the robotic arm. Now, clearly you might say, well, you know you've got the shuttle crew up there that's

actively operating the robotic arm. Why do you need someone else keeping their eyes on this? Well, remember that this robotic arm is manipulating equipment that costs billions with a B dollars. So you're using this arm to help position satellites, to maybe retrieve a satellite that needs to be brought back down because it's going to either require repairs or even just needs to be taken down because otherwise it's going to crash into the Earth and and you might

want to try and salvage some parts first. Um, it may be helping install new pieces of the International Space Station. So you know that's it's an important, important job, which is why you have to have an extra set of eyes on any kind of operation that's going to involve that. So now we finally gutten to the last row of the the mission control center. On the blast row on the far left, you have the Public Affairs Officer p a O. These days to the Moon you go. That's

where it comes from. And uh, the Public Affairs officers job is to provide mission commentary and also to explain any sort of transmissions that are going between the shuttle and ground control. UM. Primarily this person interfaces with either

the general public or more commonly, the the press. So this is someone who is able to break these things down and explain in normal person speak what the transmissions mean, because you know, we might overhear some transmissions and you can kind of piece together what's going on, but this is the person who can really give it context and

explain why it's important. Yeah, if you watch a NASA launch there, I'm I'm interpolating from all of this, there's a public affairs officer or someone who fills that role.

Let's let's say that on on the launch control team as well, because you'll hear, you know, you'll hear the person the people in the control center, you know, with a very somber, very serious you know, you know, so and so this and then the other thing like that he minus five minutes and waiting and like we're holding the launch at five minutes in order to blah blah blah blah blah, so and and so this. This person

will do this for the mission overall. But yeah, that I'm pretty sure I would launch control centers the officer as well. Yes, I I agree. That's again based upon what I've inferred from the information I've received as well. The next person, um is a holdover from the sixties, the modes. Uh No, I'm kidding. The Mission Operations Directorate groovy dude, that's the person who uh serves as an intermediary between the flight control room and the top NASA

and mission managers. Um so yeah, basically a public affairs officers specifically to the top brass at NASA. Yeah, so you know you it's this way you've maintained a line of communication that does not interfere with anyone else's specific duties.

Because clearly, if you are in a big team and you have a boss who is overseeing the overall operations but is not directly involved in the day to day operations, it would be very distracting to have that person walk from desk to desk and say, hey, what you doing. So this is this is sort of their way of controlling that line of communication. What are you doing? What

are you doing? What are you doing? And then next we have another one of those consoles where we have a rotating cast of characters that use it, Hey, could you get your elbow out of my coffee? They don't all use it at the same time. It all depends upon what the mission is. So one of the potential officers at that position is the Russian interface operator. This is clearly whenever NASA is going to have a mission

that will also involve Russian cosmonauts or the Russian space centers. Uh. This is a person who can say no and dah dah and and then direction is limited. Yeah, yeah, I have Novia Da, Borsh, Pravda and does Vidnia. Alright, that's about all I've got, um, but yeah, presumably the Russian Interface officer speaks more than that. I would hope, yes, I would as well. Houston, we have a sponsor read that's just my way of saying, we're gonna take a

quick break for another sponsor break. The Booster Systems Officer also just known as booster uh. This is a person who monitors the launch systems during pre launching all the way through the ascent of the Shuttle. So this is again someone who has a counterpart at the Kennedy Space Center. I would imagine if I had probably several counterparts, because that is their primary function is to oversee the launches. So this is the person of mission control who who

keeps an eye on that as well. That's back at Houston. And then finally you have the Extra vehicular Systems Officer or e v A, and this is the person who monitors the astronauts during any sort of extra vehicular activity, including spacewalks. Yes, um, I would also have been whomever would monitor the astronauts who are on the moon during the Apollo missions. But of course Shuttle missions could not go to the moon. The Shuttle was not designed to go to the moon. So in this case, extra vehicular

does really mean spacewalks. It also wasn't designed to land on asteroids, that's right. Um. Yeah. That that person also, I find this kind of interesting. This person also keeps an eye on the how the space suits are functioning, um, which is kind of interesting too, because it's not just you know, hey, okay out there, you know, don't forget your hat. It's also you know, is your hat working? Are are the environmental controls within your space suit functioning properly? Yeah?

And yeah, this is serious, serious stuff here. It's no clearly you want to have extra eyes on that as well. Yeah, and you also that person also keeps track of what you're what the astronauts are doing on their spacewalk because they've trained extensively for this mission, and the saying okay, are you doing everything that you need to do? Are having trouble with your space suit. On a side note, I cannot comprehend the level of courage and confidence that

would require to do a spacewalk. It is it is so far beyond my my ability to even imagine. It's just it's phenomenal. Well, they put their lives at risk for science, and I find that admirable. Yeah, certainly. Um. Lastly, we had the doc Bones in the back of the room. The surgeon is watching crew health and surgeons call sign surgeon yeah, yeah, not bones. Yeah. I know, it's just more fun to say, Um, this person. Uh. The surgeon is consulting with the crew, making sure the flight director

knows if there's any health issue that might affect the mission. Um, and uh the person Basically, they have to have a medical doctor in who is specializing in aerospace medicine. UM. Talk about a specialization in the field. Um. And any

time that their weight not likely to do house calls. UM. There are other people, biomedical engineers or bams who know what they you know, know the necessary bits and pieces from medical kits and systems on board the shuttle that keep an eye on the mission around the clock when the astronauts are asleep. But a surgeon has to be on duty while they are awake. UM. There's a team actually a crewisurgeon, deputy crew surgeon, and a bame mission manager according to NASA. UM, and they handle the the

aspects of the flight. UM. And there are extra people who are there while the main team is away from mission control during the launch and landing of the Shuttle. Now, UM, it is important to note that this really is accounts for only ten percent of these people's jobs. Really. UM. They spend about training UM and you know on the Shuttle simulators at Johnson Space Center. UM. And the other of the time, uh, the mission control team works on

planning and organizing the missions. UH. So they're they're really it's not like mission control walks into the room when it's time to take over from the launch control team and runs the mission and then they go home and spend the rest of their time on vacation until six months later when they're needed for another mission. They they are very involved with all aspects of the Shuttle mission. Training.

They know with the the specific science projects they're working on or or deployments they need to make into space. There on all of that part UM, different parts, so they know everything. They need to know because they're also

intimately involved with the particular mission on which they are working. UM. If you were interested in joining a crew like this, you would need some kind of technical degree or engineering degree UM generally you had based on your educational background and your interest and your raining, they would assign you to a specific UH specific role based on those factors. So if you're if this sounds like something you would

like to do. UM. Obviously, the Space Shuttle program is now ending with UM the assumed at this point, since the Shuttle hasn't launched UH safe Return of STS one in July, UM there will probably be something in the future, although the media plans have been put on hold, so I think, you know, it's it's worth investigating if that's something that but it's very specialized, and it may very well be that the future, the future of this center will be working in uh UH in partnership with private

companies that are are creating space missions. Because of course, it's clear through this discussion that that any source of space mission is an incredibly complex affair and it's not something that can be accomplished just by the crew aboard

whatever the spacecraft is. Clearly, I mean they play a critical role obviously in a mission, but that you need those extra people on the ground who are dedicated to very specific tasks to make certain that if anything does happen out of the ordinary, that they can handle it. You know, it's it's such a delicate and and frankly dangerous procedure to do any sort of space mission, manned space mission, you have to have that kind of intense scrutiny on the ground as well as in the sky

or in space as it were. So it may very well be that that NASA works in partnership with private companies in the future. It's a little early for us to talk about that, because frankly, we are just in the very very first stages of private space flight. We've got some people who are taking uh space spacecraft way up into the atmosphere and even all the way up to low orbit. But it's early days yet, so we

will see how that that progresses over time. But I would imagine that that would be something that NASA would be interested in, and because private flight could very well be the next era of space exploration as far as the United States is concerned. We may also see at some point a refunding of NASA, where um, they are refocused on a new space program. And again it won't necessarily be the Shuttle or anything that resembles the Shuttle, but it would use a lot of the same sort

of offices and consoles that they're using now in mission control. Actually, that's a good point. You're probably wondering at this point, Well, it's pretty late in the podcast. You guys haven't really talked about the tech that they use. Um, there's it's kind of difficult to find a lot out about that technology. For one thing, you're talking about all these different consoles. Not all of them are using exactly the same thing.

Some of these are using some consoles are using systems that were specifically designed for that particular task, which means they are so well, I can't say they're so unique. That's ridiculous, right, their unique period and therefore there is nothing to compare them to other than saying this is

a very specialized computer. Yeah, from what from what I've been able to find out, Um, when they were putting these systems together in the nineteen seventies for use in the Shuttle missions of the early nineteen eighties, UM, there wasn't anything available for them to use that did what they wanted it to do. So it wasn't like there were IBM PCs or max or even Amiga's or anything that they could buy off the shelf Commodore sixty four,

you know. But the thing is, they didn't have the same types of systems where they could just go buy a series of machines or or even you know, put together a Linux box that would do what they wanted it to do. So they ended up basically creating these these UH consoles on their own that would handle the specific tasks necessary to complete of these missions. So UM. I imagine that part of the reason it's difficult to

find information on it is because they are unique. And I imagine that that for to some degree, it's probably classified um because you know, the Space Race was for the longest time a competition between the United States and the Soviet Union, UM, and you know, we were sort of in competition with them, so they didn't want people to know, UH in other countries what kinds of technology was used in these machines. So UM, but it is

fascinating stuff. I would assume that basically it is computer hardware used specifically to track or to communicate or whatever it is that that person happens to need. It may actually be somewhat unsophisticated, and that it has a specialized purpose and doesn't need to do a multitude of tasks. Yeah. Why would you need to be able to calculate telemetry when you are looking specifically at an unrelated system aboard the shuttle. Yeah, yeah, it totally makes sense from that perspective.

And again it's that whole specialized focus. You know, you have specialized equipment to monitor a very particular system aboard the Shuttle, and you have a specialized officer that is uh, that is at that console. So yeah, it's again it's one of those things where you want that kind of specialization because again the stakes are really high and uh, you know, in multiple arenas. So that was an interesting

overview of mission control. I mean, if if you ever get a chance, you listeners out there, if you ever get a chance to take a tour of any of the flight centers and NASA, if you go to the Kennedy Space Center, for example, I highly recommend taking these tours and and getting a look. You can actually see, uh, the equipment that was used in the Apollo missions at the Kennedy Space Center. You can see the launch control

facility and uh, it's fascinating. You're looking at these machines that that are almost impenetrable as far as you know. You just glance at them and you're like, I have no idea what that does. It looks amazing, right, And you think that beeps and it blinks, and then you think there was a person sitting at that console who not only had that console, but a slide rule to

make calculations on the fly, and it's just phenomenal. You think about the amount of human ingenuity it takes to get people into space and back home safely, and again, it's one of those those accomplishments that a lot of us take for granted, but I think truly speak to the most amazing things humans are capable of doing. Alright, guys, I hope you enjoyed that classic episode of tech Stuff. Remember if you have any suggestions for episodes that I

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