brody@eos.UUCP (Adam Brody) (12/20/89)
Anybody know if space station contractors are busy building hardware after the contracts were let several years ago. If not, why not? Did they ever get the $$$?
amichiel@rodan.acs.syr.edu (Michielsen) (12/21/89)
In article <5851@eos.UUCP> brody@eos.UUCP (Adam Brody) writes: >Anybody know if space station contractors are busy building hardware >.... The last time I was down to Singer Link in Binhamton NY, who is making the simulator & stuff for it, Work was feverishly being done. They had built a new 'balloon' trailer city, which would & could be moved quickly to any other site. The mainframes were kicking out plots & drawing to go to the machine shop & vendors for parts. And, a roomful of Engineers were (supossedly) having a meeting working/discussing this project. I believe a lot of what they do depends on other Engineering groups/vendors/companies, and so the logical assumption is that work is not at a stand still elsewhere either. BTW, Quantis was also there doing a acceptance flight of their first 747-400 sim. Can't give all the details, but understand they had been there for a long long time. The standing joke at the time was that this was the only 'flying' 400 in the world, and they just wanted to see what they would really fly like. (true at that time... nobody outside boeing & government employees had yet flown a 400). Needless to say, the next 400 on the assembly line was much less along in construction & not impressive as a finished product. BUT if one isn't allowed in boeing assembly line, IS TERRIBLY educational in all regards of cockpit assembly/design/construction techniques/methods/procedures/ .... It rather is like watching a plane being assembled. AL