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Original air date:
12.19.07
Second-hand Space Parts may take us Back to the Moon
Norton Sales, a salvage yard and spare-parts shop on a rough industrial strip in North Hollywood, California, looks like the kind of place you'd go on a weekend afternoon to find a replacement item for your Harley. But it's also the kind of junkyard where you can find a spare master panel from Houston Mission Control, a shelf full of valves from a Saturn rocket, or a fuel tank for liquid oxygen.
All this space detritus ended up here courtesy of a federal rule that required government contractors to return all their built hardware - or sell it for scrap. So Norton Sales made discarded space gear the centerpiece of its business. Their customers used to be mostly souvenir hunters and set decorators for science-fiction movies. But now, rocket scientists and engineers are calling, looking for pieces of the intricate rocket plumbing that haven't been made in four decades.
These were the kind of parts that went into the mighty Saturn Five rockets that took men to the moon from the 1960s to the early 1970s. Now, as the United States gears up for a new set of missions to the moon and beyond, NASA is discovering that it has forgotten much about how those original rockets were built. Many of the engineers and contractors who developed the incredible number of pieces of machinery that went into those rockets aren't around anymore. And in many cases, the companies they worked for have changed hands or gone out of business, taking their blueprints and records with them.
NASA engineers and technicians are now busily digging up old rocket parts, cleaning them up and reverse-engineering them to figure out how they worked. So the path back to the moon might just go through Norton Sales' salvage yard.
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12.19.07 5:28 PM PST
daughter of rocket scientist
It might be very useful for NASA et al. to do an e-bay - type search for old engineers! I know it must be difficult because data in those days was transmitted by cab across the desert, from test site to engineers, in briefcases. My father is still around, at 86, and has a superb memory for all details and stories related to how things worked and problems encountered/solved, related to engines, lunar modules, etc. Everything! He gives a superb informal tour of the Air and Space Museums.
12.20.07 12:17 PM PST
son & neighbor or rocket scientist
...also, NASA should be actively supporting various oral history programs, and extending them to include more technical information (eg; http://www.jsc.nasa.gov/history/oral_histories/oral_histories.htm). Sounds like you need to record your father's stories! I've been collecting many of my Dad's old wind tunnel research notebooks from the 1950's.
12.22.07 11:09 PM PST
Archivist
A summary of this episode from another website (Archivopedia) has this suggestion:
"As the U.S. space agenda focuses on returning to the moon, then Mars, and beyond, NASA is reevaluating Apollo era engineering and technology to help them develop new spacecraft capable of reaching beyond earth orbit. However, many archival records from NASA contracting companies have been lost, either because the companies went out of business and may have been destroyed or lost. (Archvists around the country should dig through their collections to see if they have any relevant documents to help NASA and new, private companies seeking to privatize human spaceflight). In lieu of documents, NASA engineers working on the Ares and Orion rockets (the next generation rockets after the space shuttle), as part of the Constellation project, turn to studying old Saturn V "junkyard" parts, like those at Norton Sales in California." (Source: http://archivopedia.com/wiki/index.php?title=News_and_Popular_Culture).
There are several forums in which to post this type of search request. Emailing admin1 at the above mentioned site name dot c o m is an individual who probably can provide more information on where to post requests.
12.24.07 10:10 AM PST
Scott Schneeweis
I have recovered a number of space artifacts from Nortons as well as many other locations; items developed for and representing almost every U.S. Space program since its inception. Its important to recover and preserve this material precisely for the reasons articulated in the show. Even in cases where articulate records are maintained on technology, it is not always easy to back engineer history unless engineers have an opportunity to interact directly with the real hardware. My collection of space artifacts can be viewed here: http://www.SPACEAHOLIC.com/
12.28.07 11:23 AM PST
Raffie
I have been going to Norton Sales for about 15 years now and every time I see something new. This is the mecca for collectors. People are great and very help full. They are finally getting the recognition that they deserve. Best of luck …..
1.3.08 4:10 PM PST
Space Kid of a Space Dad
As a "space kid" who moved to Florida in 1957 as my Dad followed a job in aerospace, this story warmed my heart. A day at Cocoa Beach was not complete without a launch from the (then) nearby pads on Patrick Air Force Base, before the manned programs and larger rockets moved to the the current NASA complexes farther north on Merritt Island. Our Dads then put a man on the moon not to mention keeping the Soviets nicely in check for Europe with the likes of the Pershing missile, also developed nearby in "pre-Disney" Orlando. They relied on both experimentation and pure engineering discipline, with only slide rules and the early phases of ICs and computing systems to help them. My Father is long gone, but others who worked in the 50's, 60's and 70's at the Cape, NASA, Boeing & Lockheed Space Divisions, The Martin Company, as well as Huntsville's Redstone Arsenal are still alive, and should be interviewed and more fully honored as we plan & execute the return to the Moon.
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