Space Craftsmanship
May 16, 2011
It occurred to me yesterday, as I was stuffed into the anchor locker diagnosing why I had to raise the anchor by hand last time, that humans are on a quest or two for things other than the stars or perhaps distant shores. The ultimate quest is for space, not the Final Frontier, but simple room. For that, the aviation gods have determined that the standard human is about 170 pounds and something like five feet six or seven. Methinks that is used by every designer on the planet to build human holding stuff. Take that anchor locker in which I spent the better part of yesterday attempting to get at, diagnose and remove the windlass controller. Those that know me also know I exceed the standard human criteria. The anchor locker would have accommodated said standard human quite well but not this lumpy, oversized carcass.
The challenge yesterday, and for that matter again today, was/is to get deep enough in the locker to see the controller and all the wires that connect to it. It did not happen. I could stuff myself deep enough into the locker to peer under the windlass deck but could not look up enough to actually see the controller directly. Yes, all the anchor chain and rode and related stuff were removed before I got in. I had two choices: work by touch or use a mirror. I chose the latter although it put the object of my attention upside down and somewhat backward. Try even running a screw driver under those conditions. A few hours into it and I removed all the wire ties and clamps some standard human used to make the installation pretty and the two screws holding the controller up behind the windlass deck. It only took four hours and some serious new language. I kept getting cramps in the old legs and had to extract myself several times to let things settle. Toward the end of the day, said cramps almost trapped me in there and Bear was occupied elsewhere. I had visions of her finding me in a day or two permanently pretzelfied. The only good thing about the adventure was the fact that the wind was cool.
As mentioned before, we are currently located just about 45 miles north of the Shuttle Launch Facility. We have never seen a live launch before but that changed today. I am sure those on the NASA grounds had a far greater experience during the launch but from this distance I was questioning if we would be able to see anything. Oh yea, we saw the launch. In fact, this perspective gave us an appreciation for speed. The launch was visible to us about 5 seconds after liftoff. I thought I would step out and see if we could see it. It was one of the most striking things I have ever seen, to include huge explosions of combat. The Shuttle was trailing a rocket blast that resembled one very big tracer. It was so bright against the gray skies that it caught my attention instantly. That thing went from the ground to out of sight in a minute or so. Last flight of Endeavor.