How Many Engineers Worked on Space Shuttle

When you add all the facility support engineering staff and NASA subcontractors it's gonna be a big number, a lot down there (near) with you at the Michoud plant.

First off, I don't know. but I'm willing to bet that there were not as many as one might think. Endeavor was built after the Challenger disaster using mostly spare parts.

Most of the parts were intended to be duplicates of parts on existing shuttles. Therefor most of the actual design work would have been done for shuttles other than Endeavor. I would think from a projects standpoint, Endeavor was the cheapest of all the shuttles to build BECAUSE it had very little design expense.

Please correct me if I am wrong.

-A-

I don't know how many and I don't care! What a great job!

It depends how far back in time one goes. Here's a little suggestion for entertainment purposes.

According to legend, the booster rockets are the diameter they are because they have to pass through a railway tunnel between where they are assembled and where they are positioned ready for launch. On the basis that

• the tunnel clearance is determined by the size of the trains that ordinarily pass through it, which is a function of the track gauge
• Stephenson's gauge of 4ft 8¹/₂in (1435mm) is determined by the carts that rumbled around the collieries in Northumberland,
• these in turn are direct descendents of the carts that the Romans used in terms of the axle length,
• these in turn are determined by the distance between two horses' derrières that were first used to produce a 2hp chariot in pre-Roman times to improve speed and acceleration of more primitive 1hp war machines

arguably, the number is much higher than the one first thought of...

There are no railway underpasses between Plant 42 (where the shuttles were constructed) and Edwards AFB in California. There is a road formerly called 10th Street East, now renamed Challenger Way. From Edwards AFB the shuttle was originally to be flown to Vandenberg AFB on the coast. Again, no railway underpasses between the landing strip and the original launch site.

Has anyone else heard of the railway tunnel legend? It could be that the original boosters were not built at Plant 42. I dunno. Please comment.

-A-

Here's the legend that was sent to me. Can't vouch for accuracy!

***********************************

Does the statement, "We've always done it that way" ring any bells?

Subject: space shuttle measurements

The US standard railroad gauge (distance between the 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 built the US 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 used for building wagons, which used that wheel spacing. Okay! 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.

So who built those old rutted roads? Imperial Rome built the first long distance roads in Europe (and England) for their legions. The 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. Since the chariots were made for Imperial Rome, they were all alike in the matter of wheel spacing. The United States standard railroad gauge of 4 feet, 8.5 inches is derived from the original specifications for an Imperial Roman war chariot. And bureaucracies live forever.

So the next time you are handed a specification and wonder what horse's ass came up with it, you may be exactly right, because the Imperial Roman war chariots were made just wide enough to accommodate the back ends of two war horses.

Now the twist to the story. When you see a Space Shuttle sitting on its launch pad, 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. The engineers who designed the SRBs would have preferred to make them a bit fatter, 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. The SRBs had to fit 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.

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!

Coooooool........

I suppose it makes me a Negative Nancy, but I'm not buying it.

-A-

I'm not debating whether it's true or not, it's just a cool piece of reasoning.

-A-

In response I have read same. It was quite some time ago and I'm surely not going to defend or deny but it does seem like an elegant bit of reasoning. Kinda gets us all closer to the original "engineers" who built the wheel.

As to how many engineers participated in the program..............I still maintain it's a really big number probably requiring federal financial assistance to ferret out an answer.

Pepper et al.

This form of reasoning is not elegant. It is flawed. Saying the booster rockets had to pass through a mountain tunnel determined their diameter? I find this hard to believe. Why not just fly the oversized parts? We 're talking about sections 12 1/2' in diameter. The reasoning her is that is they had been designed at 14' in diameter, the boosters could not have been shipped to the assembly site? Poppycock.

This is the same internet hoax mumbo jumbo that says Word War II was caused by Stalin loosing a card game, or Hitler being attacked by a Jewish dog.

This sort of thing does not come from MIT, but from some moron sitting at home pretending to be clever. There are way too many "facts" floating around the internet that no one is bothering to check.

Pepper's quote for example. I am sure some hipster heard a clever quote and attributed it to someone he thought was clever. When everyone over fifty knows Groucho Marks said it before ol' Van Zandt was ever born!

Anyone can start a hoax. All that is required is an ignorant audience. Here, watch this. . .

"Outside of a dog, a book is man's best friend. Inside of a dog, it's too dark to read." -George Bush-

OK folks, I'm sorry for ranting. I suppose all I'm trying to say is that, a falsehood should not be given credence because it is clever.

-A-

A

Seems I have raised your bile in commenting as you requested to Bob B's legend. Please recall my comment "not going to defend or deny". Believe or not........... I do not care.

I might better have used the word entertaining in place of elegant, my bad.

Ohh. Thanks for the correction on my comment line. I had only heard the that line from the former Texas singer / songwriter Townes Van Zandt (Live and Obscure, 1985). I wrongly attributed the quote to him. There are those of us over the age of 50 who might not have followed the works of Groucho Marks.

Pepper,

I obviously need to apologise again for my ranting. Sometimes my frustration comes across as ire and bile. I apologise.

When all is said and done, it will probably turn out that they did in fact size the boosters to fit under some bridge and I will feel like a complete arse. And really, it doesn't matter a hoot to me one way or the other. I just get my knickers in a twist some times. Sorry again.

-A-

-A-

Accepted good Sir.

Pepper

.................still wondering how many engineers worked on Endeavor.........

That I can't find, but this may help...this is the organisation chart for NASA, they also have up to 5500 qualified suppliers.

netmaker,

Whether or not we will ever successfully answer your post let's all take a moment to say thanks to everyone of the engineers who made todays beautiful launch a success. Lets add to that every person right down to the janitorial staff who has ever had a hand in putting a vehicle into space.

Thanks for the thread,

A NASA kid.

Dear Pepper,

My old high school buddy graduated from Tulane and went on to work at the Michoud plant. He was "drafted" to Washington state where he worked on the first Moon Rover.

Indeed the Space program is a marvel and a fascination to me.

Many is the night I laid up in a huge coil of deck line on the bow of some fishing vessel or another and watched the stars,the meteor showers and the circling satelites........all against a pitch black outline.

One night a UN-FAO scientist came on deck and pointed out to me that one of the moving lights was the space shuttle. I am not sure which one it was.

Although I make my living helping search out (and preserve) the inner sanctums of the planet's oceans and water ways, space still fascinates me.

We had an argument at the shop and I stated that I thought there were at least 500 engineers of all types that worked on the last shuttle..........

The (guesses)numbers ran from less than 500 to over 1500 engineers......... so naturally I asked CR4.

netmaker,

I couldn't adequately guess at the number of engineers involved in the shuttle program. I'm confident the number is well in excess of the numbers you and your associates are discussing.

The cool point is the discussing..........the wonder and amazement of it all whether it be the observation from the deck of a boat or any number of topics addressed here which, quoting you "naturally I asked CR4" when a topic is at hand.

May be it that none of us stop asking the questions.

I don't know, but I could have a guess as to how many railway gauges have been used.