The Little Rocket Man Presents:
An autobiographical story of the East Pad's VMTS
A comprehensive story containing historical, educational, technical and biographical elements & opinions
by
John Fuhring
An autobiographical story of the East Pad's VMTS
A comprehensive story containing historical, educational, technical and biographical elements & opinions
by
John Fuhring
Introduction
This
is one of many storys about Satellite Complex Three East (or "The East Pad" as we called it) and how it was
"upgraded" from an early Atlas H complex to one that could launch a more
modern model Atlas vehicle, the Atlas 2. This
essay is about a system called the VMTS, the Vehicle Monitor and Test
Set, its design, how it was built and installed, how it was used and
how it was operated. Before I can begin telling the story of the
VMTS, you must learn something about how space boosters like the Atlas
II work. To those people who know a lot about booster rockets and
how they work, this will be pretty basic stuff, but for others it will
be an education. I have no idea of how much you already know, so
I must begin with the basics. Please realize that I hope to not
insult your intelligence, but I must make no assumptions regarding your
background or lack thereof.
There is another thing I should mention before you get started. This is not a "nice" story about nice people doing nice things for one another. Rather the opposite, this is a story of nasty people doing nasty things. This is a true story of what happened to me during one episode in my career as an aerospace electrical engineer and how, to this day, I am proud of, but still resentful of things that happened. This indeed is a story of conflict, but it is in the nature of an adventure and not a tragedy since nobody got killed. I should warn you that I write about strong and unpleasant emotions in this story and I use some expressive language and ugly descriptions that many people will find distasteful and vulgar. I can and will never will completely forgive certain people for the things they did, but in writing this story I have my revenge and their ghosts can be put to rest.
As Iris DeMent so brilliant said in a song: "God may forgive you, but I won't ----- yes, Jesus loves you but I don't."
I should also warn you that this story contains a lot of technical detail, so if you are curious about rocket technology, please read on, but if technical things bore you or are beyond your understanding or interests, you may want to skip this story or this whole section of my website for that matter.
There is another thing I should mention before you get started. This is not a "nice" story about nice people doing nice things for one another. Rather the opposite, this is a story of nasty people doing nasty things. This is a true story of what happened to me during one episode in my career as an aerospace electrical engineer and how, to this day, I am proud of, but still resentful of things that happened. This indeed is a story of conflict, but it is in the nature of an adventure and not a tragedy since nobody got killed. I should warn you that I write about strong and unpleasant emotions in this story and I use some expressive language and ugly descriptions that many people will find distasteful and vulgar. I can and will never will completely forgive certain people for the things they did, but in writing this story I have my revenge and their ghosts can be put to rest.
As Iris DeMent so brilliant said in a song: "God may forgive you, but I won't ----- yes, Jesus loves you but I don't."
I should also warn you that this story contains a lot of technical detail, so if you are curious about rocket technology, please read on, but if technical things bore you or are beyond your understanding or interests, you may want to skip this story or this whole section of my website for that matter.
The Setting
On Vandenberg Air Force Base (AFB) at Central
California's West Coast, there is a large section of land South of the
Santa Ynez River and just inland from
the shore of the Pacific Ocean. This geographic location is ideal
for launching space vehicles carrying satellites into a so-called
"Polar Orbit." The Polar Orbit is extremely useful if the goal is
to enable a satellite to scan the entire world. This is not the
time or place to go into just what a Polar Orbit is, but for such space
missions as global weather satellite coverage, remote sensing of the
global environment and for monitoring the military activities of other
countries around the world, the Polar Orbit is vital.
This part of Vandenberg AFB where most Polar Orbit launches are carried out is known as "South Vandenberg" or "South Base" for short. On South Base there are several launch sites that have been in operation, in various configurations, since the late 1950's The launch site that is the subject of this essay is, as has been mentioned, Satellite Complex Three (SLC-3) and specifically the easternmost launch complex, SLC-3E. As mentioned elsewhere, SLC-3E was originally built as an Atlas E/F launch facility, but it evolved over the years to launch other vehicles too. When General Dynamics first hired me back around 1983, SLC-3E (we called the "East Pad") was configured to launch the then modern Atlas 'H' model. In my early years at SLC-3, I participated in several launches of both the older Atlas E/F on the West Pad (SLC-3W) and the Atlas H on the East Pad.
This part of Vandenberg AFB where most Polar Orbit launches are carried out is known as "South Vandenberg" or "South Base" for short. On South Base there are several launch sites that have been in operation, in various configurations, since the late 1950's The launch site that is the subject of this essay is, as has been mentioned, Satellite Complex Three (SLC-3) and specifically the easternmost launch complex, SLC-3E. As mentioned elsewhere, SLC-3E was originally built as an Atlas E/F launch facility, but it evolved over the years to launch other vehicles too. When General Dynamics first hired me back around 1983, SLC-3E (we called the "East Pad") was configured to launch the then modern Atlas 'H' model. In my early years at SLC-3, I participated in several launches of both the older Atlas E/F on the West Pad (SLC-3W) and the Atlas H on the East Pad.
SLC-3E
With a rocket in the socket
The large white structure at the upper left is the
Mobile Service Tower or MST. The MST is on tracks
and is rolled away for certain tests and for launch. The
various decks in the MST can fold down and are where
assembly and most testing of the vehicle is done before launch.
With a rocket in the socket
The large white structure at the upper left is the
Mobile Service Tower or MST. The MST is on tracks
and is rolled away for certain tests and for launch. The
various decks in the MST can fold down and are where
assembly and most testing of the vehicle is done before launch.
How space boosters are able to do what they do while in flight
All space boosters, including the Atlas family, carry within them many,
many small explosive devices and one relatively large bomb (the
"destruct system" to blow apart the vehicle if it goes out of control).
Collectively these devices are called the vehicle's ordnance,
a very important term that I will be discussing at great length later.
Each piece of ordnance (called a 'squib') contains an explosive
that detonates in response to a precise electrical signal and each
signal is called an "ordnance event." These precise electrical
signals (ordnance events) are sent to each individual squib at highly
specific times during the vehicle's flight. It is the precisely
timed detonation of each squib that controls nearly every event in the
vehicle's flight. Of course, the direction of flight and the
vehicle's orientation is controlled by the Guidance System and its
control of the thrust vectors of the movable (gimbaled) engines and not
by detonation of any squibs. The engines are "gimbaled" (or
swiveled) by the Hydraulic System which is in turned controlled by the
Guidance System, but discussion of all that is another topic altogether.
Ordnance events begin at engine start and proceed all throughout the vehicle's flight. These events include squib detonations that open the engine start and propellant valves (to get the main engines burning), explosive bolt squibs to separate the booster engines from the main vehicle, squibs to shut off the propellant valves at Booster Main Engine Cutoff (MECO 1), squib firings to close valves at Sustainer Engine Cutoff (SECO) and at Vernier Engine Cutoff (VECO) . But wait!! This is only a fraction of all the little explosions that must take place during flight for the mission to be successful.
At a point after the vehicle has left most of the Earth's atmosphere and while the main engines are still running, the protective fairings covering the satellite must be "blown" off by the faring squibs. Later, just after the Sustainer engines have shut down (SECO), the first and second stage must separate and this is accomplished by sending electrical firing signals to the explosive bolts that normally hold the first and second stages together. After the second stage separates, more squibs explode to start the second stage engine and when the second stage it is done firing (MECO 2) more squibs explode to separate the satellite (called "the payload") from the second stage.
What I have presented so far is a simplified outline of some of the events that take place during flight, but I have mentioned only the most common ordnance events and certainly not all of them. In some missions, there are several ordnance events associated with the payload and its deployment and maybe even a third stage too. In short, there are dozens and dozens of ordnance events where small precisely controlled explosions must take place at critical times during flight in order for a booster to get its payload into its proper orbit
The device built into the vehicle that sends all these electrical ordnance signals is called the "Flight Programmer" or "Flight Sequencer" and, in addition to timing, it must be able to supply the correct amount of electrical energy to cause each squib to explode. There is absolutely no room for a "dud" squib or a missing firing signal or for too little electrical energy available to explode the squib. A failure to explode at any of dozens and dozens places or if any squib explodes at the wrong time, the entire mission will be a failure. All our hard work, millions and millions of dollars of hardware together with important and sometimes vital satellite data will be lost and all because a little squib not working as it should.
Because the vehicle ordnance system is so extensive and so absolutely vital to the success of any mission, every aspect of the ordnance system must be tested and retested intensively before other preparations for launch can proceed. Ordnance testing is one of the first things done after the vehicle is fully assembled in the Mobile Service Tower (MST) and one of the last thing tested just before final roll-out for launch can proceed.
Ordnance events begin at engine start and proceed all throughout the vehicle's flight. These events include squib detonations that open the engine start and propellant valves (to get the main engines burning), explosive bolt squibs to separate the booster engines from the main vehicle, squibs to shut off the propellant valves at Booster Main Engine Cutoff (MECO 1), squib firings to close valves at Sustainer Engine Cutoff (SECO) and at Vernier Engine Cutoff (VECO) . But wait!! This is only a fraction of all the little explosions that must take place during flight for the mission to be successful.
At a point after the vehicle has left most of the Earth's atmosphere and while the main engines are still running, the protective fairings covering the satellite must be "blown" off by the faring squibs. Later, just after the Sustainer engines have shut down (SECO), the first and second stage must separate and this is accomplished by sending electrical firing signals to the explosive bolts that normally hold the first and second stages together. After the second stage separates, more squibs explode to start the second stage engine and when the second stage it is done firing (MECO 2) more squibs explode to separate the satellite (called "the payload") from the second stage.
What I have presented so far is a simplified outline of some of the events that take place during flight, but I have mentioned only the most common ordnance events and certainly not all of them. In some missions, there are several ordnance events associated with the payload and its deployment and maybe even a third stage too. In short, there are dozens and dozens of ordnance events where small precisely controlled explosions must take place at critical times during flight in order for a booster to get its payload into its proper orbit
The device built into the vehicle that sends all these electrical ordnance signals is called the "Flight Programmer" or "Flight Sequencer" and, in addition to timing, it must be able to supply the correct amount of electrical energy to cause each squib to explode. There is absolutely no room for a "dud" squib or a missing firing signal or for too little electrical energy available to explode the squib. A failure to explode at any of dozens and dozens places or if any squib explodes at the wrong time, the entire mission will be a failure. All our hard work, millions and millions of dollars of hardware together with important and sometimes vital satellite data will be lost and all because a little squib not working as it should.
Because the vehicle ordnance system is so extensive and so absolutely vital to the success of any mission, every aspect of the ordnance system must be tested and retested intensively before other preparations for launch can proceed. Ordnance testing is one of the first things done after the vehicle is fully assembled in the Mobile Service Tower (MST) and one of the last thing tested just before final roll-out for launch can proceed.
Testing the Atlas Vehicle's Ordnance System without blowing everything up
and a little talk about squib simulators
and a little talk about squib simulators
I loved working for McDonnel Douglas on their Delta space
booster. It was a fine, very reliable rocket system and I really
liked the people I worked with there. While there, in addition to
other tasks, I was put in charge of vehicle ordnance testing and, if I
say so myself, I did it efficiently. In coordination with the
Test Conductor in the "blockhouse" (the Launch Control Center or LCC)
we would commence a semi-formal test procedure called an "ordnance
run." An ordnance run started the vehicle's flight sequencer
running through its paces, but without having any other vehicle systems
turned on or under test and certainly no live squibs connected.
To give the ordnance something to replace the squibs and for us
to see just how well the ordnance system worked, we used "squib
simulators," a very important collection of test boxes that I will say
much more about.
Before an ordnance run could be undertaken, a lot of preparations had to be accomplished. First, those "squib simulators," I mentioned had to be carefully calibrated in my laboratory and then carefully connected to the same vehicle connectors that would be eventually be connected to the live squibs at launch and when in actual vehicle flight. Naturally, the live squibs themselves, already installed in the vehicle, would not be connected, but "capped off" for safety.
The Delta Program's squib simulator boxes contained four simulators, but were small and light and easily portable so that we could carry them up to various places on various levels of the MST. Each simulator box contained their own jumper cables to connect to the vehicle's wiring. After calibration and in preparation for an ordnance run, the simulators would be plugged into the vehicle's ordnance connectors. The boxes would be turned on and made ready to test and record the expected ordnance event. Once everything was ready, everybody would leave the pad and take to the blockhouse (ordnance runs were considered a "hazardous operation"). When the ordnance run was complete we would return to the MST and the lights on the simulators would indicate how well everything went. We would then report our findings to the Test Conductor the status of each simulator. Most of the time everything went well and when it did, we could proceed to disconnect the simulators and cap off the vehicle connectors. If a simulator showed some kind of fault, a detailed investigation would begin to determine just what went wrong, but I won't get into that now. Needless to say that a failure during an ordnance run was serious and we had to track down just exactly what went wrong because there was no room for error during actual flight. For me, the tracking down and solving failures was what made the job fun.
While on the subject of ordnance failures, I want to mention that most failures were not due to actual faults in the vehicle's ordnance wiring, connectors or flight sequencer, but nearly always due to the simulators losing calibration because of all the bouncing around they got while being carried up and down the MST. There were also lots of failures due to the way the simulators were connected to the vehicle's wiring. As mentioned, most failed ordnance runs were due to some problem with the simulators or the way they were connected, but every now and again, something in the vehicle was found to not be working properly and that called for some serious and high level head-scratching, but I won't get into that now.
The Delta program's squib simulators were rather crude, but they worked pretty reliably. As I remember them, they consisted of a load resistor that drew a lot of current (to simulate the resistance of the squib). To simulate a squibs current profile when it exploded, the heavy firing current would be interrupted by a relay breaking (opening) the circuit after a fraction of a second or so. If the relay didn't cut off the heavy current into the load resistor, there were ordinary slow-blow fuses in the circuit that would eventually blow open (to protect the vehicle), but blowing the fuses wasn't supposed to happen. Blown fuses meant we had to do an extensive search to see why they were blown (was it due to a fault in the simulator or a fault in the vehicle?) and did the prolonged current flow damage the vehicle's ordnance devices in any way? Fortunately this only happened a few times.
Actually, I really disliked Delta's relay/fuse system of squib simulation because the heavy current could make the relay contacts stick and I felt I could design something better. I was ready to propose a redesign to replace the mechanical relay switching with solid state (power transistor) switching and a system of actual firing-current measurement, but I got laid off before I could push it through. Oh lord, that was a sad day when I lost that job. The wonderful guy that was my immediate manager tried to get me to take a promotional transfer, but that meant working at the main plant at hot, crowded, freeway choked, smoggy Huntington Beach. In a decision that severely crippled my career, I refused the transfer and accepted the layoff. You see, there was no way I would leave my horses and my way of life here on the Central Coast, so I took the layoff and took a huge step down in job satisfaction by going to work for General Dynamics and their Atlas launchers far away at SLC-3 on South Base.
My first experiences dealing with the crusty old bastards there at SLC-3 Atlas (my "peers" in other words) was not at all happy. These old engineers had worked together on this rocket system for decades and although they didn't especially like each other, they sure as hell didn't like an outsider like me coming in with all my "new fangled" ideas. At first I wasn't given anything to do so I simply observed and tried to learn how to adapt to all things Atlas. I slowly got known and recognized for what I was good at, but it took a while. As it turned out, there was only one other engineer out there who had any understanding of solid state, analogue and digital electronics and so my first assignment was to calibrate the digitally controlled Atlas squib simulators. I should mention that these simulators had a bad reputation and up until now, they were something that nobody could get working reliably and nobody wanted to have anything to do with. Being on a failing project will taint your reputation if you continue to fail at it, but it will enhance your reputation if you can turn it around. Soon I was able to turn the simulator's bad reputation completely around.
Actually I loved the rather advanced design of these boxes. Their design was similar to what I was going to suggest for the Delta program only they were designed with an early generation of digital logic called RTL (Resistor Transistor Logic). My proposed simulators were designed to use the more modern TTL (Transistor Transistor Logic) technology, but RTL works fine if designed correctly. The older family of logic chips not withstanding, these were excellent, solidly designed simulators, but they had a "fatal" flaw. The working electronics and the wiring all inside the boxes was extremely vulnerable to damage once the box was opened for calibration. If the circuits inside the box weren't damaged or knocked out of calibration on removal from the box, they were very likely to be damaged or otherwise messed up when putting everything back in the box after calibration. Taking the guts out and back in the boxes absolutely guaranteed that one or more wires would break and calibration would get all messed up. The first time I watched the simulators being calibrated ("shown how to do it") and I saw how much stress everything was under, I just had to shake my head at how bad this was. I made mental notes on what NOT to do when it was my turn to calibrate these simulators.
Breaking a precedence that wasn't working, I came up with a way of calibrating the boxes without actually opening the box. In a very real sense, I was "thinking outside the box" or boxes as the case may be. I developed a way of testing timing and current flow using a miniature DC current probe connected to an oscilloscope. To accomplish this, I completely rewrote the formal calibration procedure and even typed it myself (at that time I was the only engineer who could type -- thanks to my Radioman training in the Navy). My new procedure made the rounds of Engineering Peer Review, review by the Aerospace Corporation for the Air Force and my new method of safe calibration got accepted. The simulators that now came out of my lab were suddenly 100% reliable. These formerly unreliable simulators became perfectly reliable because my careful observation spotted what we were doing wrong and recognizing what was wrong, I came up with ways of using test equipment in ways that nobody had ever thought of. There is a lot of personal satisfaction a guy feels if he's able to turn something totally unreliable to something totally reliable, even if nobody gives you much credit for it. Nobody at SLC-3 made much mention of my new system of testing, I certainly got no "pat on the back" from my immediate manager, but the guy at the main plant at San Diego, the guy who had designed these boxes years earlier and who had taken a lot of "heat" over them, was delighted that his design was finally vindicated. I remember when he came up to SLC-3, he was elated that his boxes were finally reliable and he made a big deal about how good their design had always been, but he said nothing to me or offer to buy me a beer. Gratitude is such an exceedingly rare commodity, if it was only as common as jealousy and selfishness, the world would be a better place, but I digress - again.
We used these squib simulators on both the Atlas E/F vehicles and on the Atlas H vehicles and they worked superbly. They were "solid as a rock" and so my thinking regarding improved squib simulators got put aside (how can you improve on perfection). As the years went by, I still had ideas in the back of my head regarding a microprocessor based simulator that would tell you everything and I mean everything that went on during ordnance testing, but, in a sense, they were a "solution looking for a problem that just didn't exist." and not a pressing issue. I have designed useless high tech stuff like this before and I even made up one of my infamous 'Old Sayings' about it: "High technology is great, but 'appropriate' technology is better." Still, I kept the idea of really "high tech" squib simulators in the back of my mind perhaps waiting for a time when we would have need for a state of the art simulator that I could apply my solution to.
Finally, finally, finally the Air Force decided that they wanted the Atlas II out here on the West Coast to sort of keep us alive now that the last E/F models were all used up. Wanting to have a new booster program is good, but how to pay for it? Oh yes, how to pay for it, that is the rub because god knows that Lockheed Martin invests their own money in NOTHING. LM's business model is a rather pure form of Socialism in that all capital for making or doing anything must come from the government first. Although the Air Force together with our huge standing military forces has a budget billions of dollars higher than any other military in the entire world, they (the Air Force) didn't seem to have the cash to build a new launch complex just for the new Atlas II. Oh, but don't underestimate the cunning of those in the Military who want something expensive, they will eventually find a way to get the money. While it is true that our Founding Fathers were adamantly opposed to the expense of having a large standing military as a pernicious threat to Liberty, today our huge, huge, huge standing military occupies every crack and crevice of our society and exercises overwhelming powerful influence everywhere. What the military wants the military gets and the people in our government fall all over each other to grant even more than the Pentagon originally asked for. Still, there are spending rules (as silly and illogical as they are) and we all know that "rules are made to be broken" or if not broken, bent into fantastic shapes nobody would have expected.
By some really ... ah ... creative ... budgetary tricks, the Air Force contracts people were able to free up a ton of money out of an obscure "maintenance of existing equipment" budget. From this "petty cash" drawer, they scraped together enough to pay for the Atlas II to come out to Vandenberg's SLC-3E. Since this money was for "maintenance" of existing structures, it could not be used to build something new and so the contract was let to "refurbish" the existing East Pad. As mentioned elsewhere, this was a very costly and very wasteful way to create a launch facility for the Atlas II since everything about the old East Pad was totally inadequate to support this new vehicle and its Centaur upper stage. Everything, from the very underground structural foundations of the launch mount to all the equipment inside the support buildings, to all the fuel and oxidizer tank farms on either side of the complex, all this would have to be "refurbished" instead of built right. This is not the place to go into detail just how absurd all this "maintenance" boondoggle actually was, so I won't get into it any further, but suffice it to say that it would have been much cheaper and very much better if they would have leveled the old East Pad down to the dirt, started fresh and do every thing right. Actually, this whole thing can be considered as one of the best exhibits of how irrationality must coexist with rationality in order to accomplish a desired end. This prompted me to coin another of my Old Sayings: "The Air Force is going to save money no matter how much it costs." It follow on from this initial plan to "save money no matter how much it costs" that forms the setting for my story of the VMTS.
It was also a source of amusement how little my peers seemed to know regarding the actual teaching of Jesus although most of them were "Born Again™" and didn't hesitate to tell you such. These doofuses worshiped their bibles as it were a god in itself, but they were willfully ignorant of many of the important things that Jesus was reported to have taught. Of course they were well versed in those small parts of the bible that supported their Fundamentalist beliefs and their extreme right wing politics but ignorant or in denial about the rest. Agnostic as I was (and am), I had and still have a much better and complete knowledge and understanding of the teaching of Jesus than my Fundamentalist peers did and I can quote verbatim key teachings from memory. I made a serious mistake one time though and quoted Jesus' words in full during a conversational disagreement. The guy suddenly got insanely angry and nearly punched me in the face for daring to use Jesus' words to show how wrong he was. For the True Believers, no one but those blessed (actually cursed) by their fucking religion is allowed to speak to them about the bible or their emotions will become violent. Stupid religions.
Before an ordnance run could be undertaken, a lot of preparations had to be accomplished. First, those "squib simulators," I mentioned had to be carefully calibrated in my laboratory and then carefully connected to the same vehicle connectors that would be eventually be connected to the live squibs at launch and when in actual vehicle flight. Naturally, the live squibs themselves, already installed in the vehicle, would not be connected, but "capped off" for safety.
The Delta Program's squib simulator boxes contained four simulators, but were small and light and easily portable so that we could carry them up to various places on various levels of the MST. Each simulator box contained their own jumper cables to connect to the vehicle's wiring. After calibration and in preparation for an ordnance run, the simulators would be plugged into the vehicle's ordnance connectors. The boxes would be turned on and made ready to test and record the expected ordnance event. Once everything was ready, everybody would leave the pad and take to the blockhouse (ordnance runs were considered a "hazardous operation"). When the ordnance run was complete we would return to the MST and the lights on the simulators would indicate how well everything went. We would then report our findings to the Test Conductor the status of each simulator. Most of the time everything went well and when it did, we could proceed to disconnect the simulators and cap off the vehicle connectors. If a simulator showed some kind of fault, a detailed investigation would begin to determine just what went wrong, but I won't get into that now. Needless to say that a failure during an ordnance run was serious and we had to track down just exactly what went wrong because there was no room for error during actual flight. For me, the tracking down and solving failures was what made the job fun.
While on the subject of ordnance failures, I want to mention that most failures were not due to actual faults in the vehicle's ordnance wiring, connectors or flight sequencer, but nearly always due to the simulators losing calibration because of all the bouncing around they got while being carried up and down the MST. There were also lots of failures due to the way the simulators were connected to the vehicle's wiring. As mentioned, most failed ordnance runs were due to some problem with the simulators or the way they were connected, but every now and again, something in the vehicle was found to not be working properly and that called for some serious and high level head-scratching, but I won't get into that now.
The Delta program's squib simulators were rather crude, but they worked pretty reliably. As I remember them, they consisted of a load resistor that drew a lot of current (to simulate the resistance of the squib). To simulate a squibs current profile when it exploded, the heavy firing current would be interrupted by a relay breaking (opening) the circuit after a fraction of a second or so. If the relay didn't cut off the heavy current into the load resistor, there were ordinary slow-blow fuses in the circuit that would eventually blow open (to protect the vehicle), but blowing the fuses wasn't supposed to happen. Blown fuses meant we had to do an extensive search to see why they were blown (was it due to a fault in the simulator or a fault in the vehicle?) and did the prolonged current flow damage the vehicle's ordnance devices in any way? Fortunately this only happened a few times.
Actually, I really disliked Delta's relay/fuse system of squib simulation because the heavy current could make the relay contacts stick and I felt I could design something better. I was ready to propose a redesign to replace the mechanical relay switching with solid state (power transistor) switching and a system of actual firing-current measurement, but I got laid off before I could push it through. Oh lord, that was a sad day when I lost that job. The wonderful guy that was my immediate manager tried to get me to take a promotional transfer, but that meant working at the main plant at hot, crowded, freeway choked, smoggy Huntington Beach. In a decision that severely crippled my career, I refused the transfer and accepted the layoff. You see, there was no way I would leave my horses and my way of life here on the Central Coast, so I took the layoff and took a huge step down in job satisfaction by going to work for General Dynamics and their Atlas launchers far away at SLC-3 on South Base.
My first experiences dealing with the crusty old bastards there at SLC-3 Atlas (my "peers" in other words) was not at all happy. These old engineers had worked together on this rocket system for decades and although they didn't especially like each other, they sure as hell didn't like an outsider like me coming in with all my "new fangled" ideas. At first I wasn't given anything to do so I simply observed and tried to learn how to adapt to all things Atlas. I slowly got known and recognized for what I was good at, but it took a while. As it turned out, there was only one other engineer out there who had any understanding of solid state, analogue and digital electronics and so my first assignment was to calibrate the digitally controlled Atlas squib simulators. I should mention that these simulators had a bad reputation and up until now, they were something that nobody could get working reliably and nobody wanted to have anything to do with. Being on a failing project will taint your reputation if you continue to fail at it, but it will enhance your reputation if you can turn it around. Soon I was able to turn the simulator's bad reputation completely around.
Actually I loved the rather advanced design of these boxes. Their design was similar to what I was going to suggest for the Delta program only they were designed with an early generation of digital logic called RTL (Resistor Transistor Logic). My proposed simulators were designed to use the more modern TTL (Transistor Transistor Logic) technology, but RTL works fine if designed correctly. The older family of logic chips not withstanding, these were excellent, solidly designed simulators, but they had a "fatal" flaw. The working electronics and the wiring all inside the boxes was extremely vulnerable to damage once the box was opened for calibration. If the circuits inside the box weren't damaged or knocked out of calibration on removal from the box, they were very likely to be damaged or otherwise messed up when putting everything back in the box after calibration. Taking the guts out and back in the boxes absolutely guaranteed that one or more wires would break and calibration would get all messed up. The first time I watched the simulators being calibrated ("shown how to do it") and I saw how much stress everything was under, I just had to shake my head at how bad this was. I made mental notes on what NOT to do when it was my turn to calibrate these simulators.
Breaking a precedence that wasn't working, I came up with a way of calibrating the boxes without actually opening the box. In a very real sense, I was "thinking outside the box" or boxes as the case may be. I developed a way of testing timing and current flow using a miniature DC current probe connected to an oscilloscope. To accomplish this, I completely rewrote the formal calibration procedure and even typed it myself (at that time I was the only engineer who could type -- thanks to my Radioman training in the Navy). My new procedure made the rounds of Engineering Peer Review, review by the Aerospace Corporation for the Air Force and my new method of safe calibration got accepted. The simulators that now came out of my lab were suddenly 100% reliable. These formerly unreliable simulators became perfectly reliable because my careful observation spotted what we were doing wrong and recognizing what was wrong, I came up with ways of using test equipment in ways that nobody had ever thought of. There is a lot of personal satisfaction a guy feels if he's able to turn something totally unreliable to something totally reliable, even if nobody gives you much credit for it. Nobody at SLC-3 made much mention of my new system of testing, I certainly got no "pat on the back" from my immediate manager, but the guy at the main plant at San Diego, the guy who had designed these boxes years earlier and who had taken a lot of "heat" over them, was delighted that his design was finally vindicated. I remember when he came up to SLC-3, he was elated that his boxes were finally reliable and he made a big deal about how good their design had always been, but he said nothing to me or offer to buy me a beer. Gratitude is such an exceedingly rare commodity, if it was only as common as jealousy and selfishness, the world would be a better place, but I digress - again.
We used these squib simulators on both the Atlas E/F vehicles and on the Atlas H vehicles and they worked superbly. They were "solid as a rock" and so my thinking regarding improved squib simulators got put aside (how can you improve on perfection). As the years went by, I still had ideas in the back of my head regarding a microprocessor based simulator that would tell you everything and I mean everything that went on during ordnance testing, but, in a sense, they were a "solution looking for a problem that just didn't exist." and not a pressing issue. I have designed useless high tech stuff like this before and I even made up one of my infamous 'Old Sayings' about it: "High technology is great, but 'appropriate' technology is better." Still, I kept the idea of really "high tech" squib simulators in the back of my mind perhaps waiting for a time when we would have need for a state of the art simulator that I could apply my solution to.
Funding methods for conversion of the East Pad
to accommodate the latest Atlas II/Centaur Space Boosters
Corporate Socialism at its most blatant
Years went by and we launched the last Atlas H off the
East Pad and there it sat all but abandoned, but we still had some old
Atlas E/F rockets to launch off the West Pad. As time went by, we
kept hearing rumors of newer models of the Atlas being launched in
Florida and how maybe we'd get the newer model for our East Pad.
The rumors went back and forth and the company made several
proposals. Even I worked down at San Diego on one of them until I
became disillusioned and wanted to go back home when I saw that it was
all talk and that no real progress was being made. to accommodate the latest Atlas II/Centaur Space Boosters
Corporate Socialism at its most blatant
Finally, finally, finally the Air Force decided that they wanted the Atlas II out here on the West Coast to sort of keep us alive now that the last E/F models were all used up. Wanting to have a new booster program is good, but how to pay for it? Oh yes, how to pay for it, that is the rub because god knows that Lockheed Martin invests their own money in NOTHING. LM's business model is a rather pure form of Socialism in that all capital for making or doing anything must come from the government first. Although the Air Force together with our huge standing military forces has a budget billions of dollars higher than any other military in the entire world, they (the Air Force) didn't seem to have the cash to build a new launch complex just for the new Atlas II. Oh, but don't underestimate the cunning of those in the Military who want something expensive, they will eventually find a way to get the money. While it is true that our Founding Fathers were adamantly opposed to the expense of having a large standing military as a pernicious threat to Liberty, today our huge, huge, huge standing military occupies every crack and crevice of our society and exercises overwhelming powerful influence everywhere. What the military wants the military gets and the people in our government fall all over each other to grant even more than the Pentagon originally asked for. Still, there are spending rules (as silly and illogical as they are) and we all know that "rules are made to be broken" or if not broken, bent into fantastic shapes nobody would have expected.
By some really ... ah ... creative ... budgetary tricks, the Air Force contracts people were able to free up a ton of money out of an obscure "maintenance of existing equipment" budget. From this "petty cash" drawer, they scraped together enough to pay for the Atlas II to come out to Vandenberg's SLC-3E. Since this money was for "maintenance" of existing structures, it could not be used to build something new and so the contract was let to "refurbish" the existing East Pad. As mentioned elsewhere, this was a very costly and very wasteful way to create a launch facility for the Atlas II since everything about the old East Pad was totally inadequate to support this new vehicle and its Centaur upper stage. Everything, from the very underground structural foundations of the launch mount to all the equipment inside the support buildings, to all the fuel and oxidizer tank farms on either side of the complex, all this would have to be "refurbished" instead of built right. This is not the place to go into detail just how absurd all this "maintenance" boondoggle actually was, so I won't get into it any further, but suffice it to say that it would have been much cheaper and very much better if they would have leveled the old East Pad down to the dirt, started fresh and do every thing right. Actually, this whole thing can be considered as one of the best exhibits of how irrationality must coexist with rationality in order to accomplish a desired end. This prompted me to coin another of my Old Sayings: "The Air Force is going to save money no matter how much it costs." It follow on from this initial plan to "save money no matter how much it costs" that forms the setting for my story of the VMTS.
A little trip down sidetrack lane
This is off the subject, but since I mentioned Corporate
Socialism I want to write something about another absurdity of life
here in the good old USA. Almost every engineer at SLC-3 was
politically very right wing. I don't mean simply conservative,
but on the extreme right wing of the political spectrum.
Instinctively and totally without the encumbrance of the thought
process, they had a visceral hatred (and I mean hatred) for anything
labeled "socialist" even if it really wasn't. For example,
President Clinton was a "hated socialist" even though it was clear to
anybody with a marginally functioning brain that he was anything but a
socialist. It amused me no end how they would go into impassioned
diatribes regarding "the evils of socialism" and how "socialism was
destroying our country" and yet, with a supreme irony, here they were,
tools and minions of a company that was a most perfect example of
Corporate Socialism. I could just imagine these very same types
of personalities working for the Soviet Space program back in the old
USSR days and how incredibly similar those two groups of engineers
would have been if placed side by side. It was also a source of amusement how little my peers seemed to know regarding the actual teaching of Jesus although most of them were "Born Again™" and didn't hesitate to tell you such. These doofuses worshiped their bibles as it were a god in itself, but they were willfully ignorant of many of the important things that Jesus was reported to have taught. Of course they were well versed in those small parts of the bible that supported their Fundamentalist beliefs and their extreme right wing politics but ignorant or in denial about the rest. Agnostic as I was (and am), I had and still have a much better and complete knowledge and understanding of the teaching of Jesus than my Fundamentalist peers did and I can quote verbatim key teachings from memory. I made a serious mistake one time though and quoted Jesus' words in full during a conversational disagreement. The guy suddenly got insanely angry and nearly punched me in the face for daring to use Jesus' words to show how wrong he was. For the True Believers, no one but those blessed (actually cursed) by their fucking religion is allowed to speak to them about the bible or their emotions will become violent. Stupid religions.
Conversion of the East Pad begins
While
still negotiating with the Air Force to get them to agree to fund the
East Pad conversion, we were still in the same chains, but now we all
had a new master. General Dynamics Corporation "sold us down the
river" and our new master was the infamous and dastardly Lockheed
Martin Company (LM). For years we prided ourselves that at least
we didn't work for that company. Everybody knew of the many
rumors of underhanded dealings, LM's close (some would say incestuous)
relationship with Air Force Command and how top heavy LM was with
retired Air Force Brass. But then, all of a sudden, the enemy was
us, we was now Lockheed Martin too and if we wanted to have a job, keep being paid
and eat, we had to endure this change -- and like it. At first,
it was bearable because we were promised that our existing General
Dynamics way do doing business would be honored, but just as the
Chinese Government has clamped down on Hong Kong, creeping changes
began soon after the takeover.
Forgive me for this little diversion, but I want to let off a little steam. It seemed that LM was always getting in legal trouble and its operatives (pawns) were constantly being charged with illegal practices. LM's contract negotiators would constantly get caught making bribes or offering kickbacks to the Air Force and so the company was always in the middle of some ethics scandal. So, guess who had to take "ethics training" after every ethical lapse came to light? Yeah, us lowly engineers, we little people who weren't corrupt or even in a position to be corrupt, but we had to take all these stupid "ethics training" courses and be able to pass "ethics examinations" afterwards. This was simply Kabuki Theater for the benefit of the Air Force to "show" that LM was "doing everything possible to be an ethical company" and give the equally corrupt Air Force a "fig-leaf" to allow them to take LM back into their good graces. These "Good graces" took the form of greater and more lucrative military contracts for a company that makes absolutely nothing for the good of humanity in general, but only weapons of murder and mass destruction on a global scale and is strictly a manufacturing arm of our bloated Military.
If I wasn't cynical about LM before, I had every reason to be cynical about them after taking one of their stupid ethics tests. First, I had to get it through my thick skull that LM made a clear distinction between what was (barely) legal and what was the moral. Absolutely, the moral answer was NOT the answer they wanted. At first I kept failing the examinations because I chose the moral answers, but I soon caught on that the 'correct' answers were those actions that promoted the company's best interests, but were still legal. What a complete farce. At first, most of us equated 'ethical' with 'moral' as functionally identical concepts, but we were soon to learn that the company's definition of 'ethical' had nothing to do with morality. For LM, whatever benefited the company without getting the management thrown in jail was the answer they demanded from us. Oh yes, LM is a very 'ethical' company (except for all those times when they're not), but for sure, they are a company that gets a capital 'A' for Amoral. OK, back to the story.
Forgive me for this little diversion, but I want to let off a little steam. It seemed that LM was always getting in legal trouble and its operatives (pawns) were constantly being charged with illegal practices. LM's contract negotiators would constantly get caught making bribes or offering kickbacks to the Air Force and so the company was always in the middle of some ethics scandal. So, guess who had to take "ethics training" after every ethical lapse came to light? Yeah, us lowly engineers, we little people who weren't corrupt or even in a position to be corrupt, but we had to take all these stupid "ethics training" courses and be able to pass "ethics examinations" afterwards. This was simply Kabuki Theater for the benefit of the Air Force to "show" that LM was "doing everything possible to be an ethical company" and give the equally corrupt Air Force a "fig-leaf" to allow them to take LM back into their good graces. These "Good graces" took the form of greater and more lucrative military contracts for a company that makes absolutely nothing for the good of humanity in general, but only weapons of murder and mass destruction on a global scale and is strictly a manufacturing arm of our bloated Military.
If I wasn't cynical about LM before, I had every reason to be cynical about them after taking one of their stupid ethics tests. First, I had to get it through my thick skull that LM made a clear distinction between what was (barely) legal and what was the moral. Absolutely, the moral answer was NOT the answer they wanted. At first I kept failing the examinations because I chose the moral answers, but I soon caught on that the 'correct' answers were those actions that promoted the company's best interests, but were still legal. What a complete farce. At first, most of us equated 'ethical' with 'moral' as functionally identical concepts, but we were soon to learn that the company's definition of 'ethical' had nothing to do with morality. For LM, whatever benefited the company without getting the management thrown in jail was the answer they demanded from us. Oh yes, LM is a very 'ethical' company (except for all those times when they're not), but for sure, they are a company that gets a capital 'A' for Amoral. OK, back to the story.
Over the years while working for General Dynamics I
enjoyed a lot of freedom to design many electronic launch control and
vehicle monitoring systems and I had the pleasure of seeing them built,
installed and used for launch. I, along with the other
engineers, had a lot of authority to act locally and we were supported
by the management at the main facility in San Diego. We had a
superb design department that kept meticulous records of everything
that was built and installed at both pads at SLC-3. If something
needed to be redesigned or new equipment was needed to replace an
obsolete system, we had the authority to make whatever changes and
additions were necessary. All these changes were recorded with
accurate and complete records of every detail. As it turned out,
our design engineering guys, the superbly talented and conscientious
Tak Yamatani and Jim Morris, kept far more detailed and far more
accurate records than did their counterparts at the Florida Atlas
launch site (Space Launch Complex 36 (SLC-36) at Cape Canaveral,
Florida).
Tak and Jim made sure that every tiny wire and connection went
through our extensive review system and that all lists and drawings got
updated and approved before anything got changed. You know, we
engineers believed that this was the way things were done everywhere,
but oh what fools we were.
As we were to later discover to our great chagrin, the Florida site had kept very poor and very incomplete records over the years. These Florida records were not kept up to date and were chuck full or errors as their own SLC-36 evolved into an Atlas II launch facility. I have already written about this in an earlier story regarding the East Pad wiring, but it is important to repeat it here. We didn't have any hint as to just how incomplete and inaccurate SLC-36's design records were until we actually started work on the East Pad. None of us at SLC-3 would have believed that the Florida design department could do such a piss-poor job of it, given the strict aerospace rules we always operated under. As I wrote, what fools we were, but we got a rude awakening and got wised up just as soon as the first switch was thrown and water came out of the light fixtures.
OK, so Florida's design documentation really sucked, but this begs the question: why was Florida's shockingly poor documentation of their pad's present design of such concern to us here on the West Coast? The reason is all due to the idiotic way we were constrained by the Air Force's mindless budgetary requirements that were defined in the contract we had with them. You see, as mandated by the contract we were required to make an exact copy of the Florida's launch site. To save money (no matter how much it cost) we were mandated make our SLC-3 East Pad an exact copy of the existing and operational SLC-36 pad there at Florida. This "exact copy" mandate meant that we had to build clones of all their equipment even their poorly designed and obsolete junk and abandon much of our much better equipment. In theory this would be the cheapest and less risky way to go. Any engineer with a lick of sense knew that making an exact copy of Florida's SLC-36 would be terribly expensive in the long run and would leave us with poorly designed equipment, but we were told that this is the way it must be.
One of the "exact copy" issues that affected me personally was the end of any dreams that I had for designing really excellent squib simulators. I was extremely disappointed when I realized this, but I should have known better. As Lockheed Martin had taken over and imposed its "business model" on us, I saw the my authority to design things being taken away. Instead of allowing the local launch sites to create their own equipment to fit their special needs, now all things had to come from the main plant at Denver and I had to standby as my development laboratory was closed and I was put into a windowless cubicle with three other engineers. Oh God how I hated Lockheed Martin!!
As mentioned earlier, the squib simulator boxes we used to test the ordnance systems of the older model Atlas vehicles were built to (now obsolete) TRL technology, but they were excellent and reliable. Now they had to be thrown in the trash because we were mandated to manufacture, install and use an exact clone of Florida's VMTS system. When I learned this, I was not only disappointed, but I was shocked that we would abandon our better technology for even older and less reliable technology, but the mandate of our contract with the Air Force absolutely demanded we do this.
As we were to later discover to our great chagrin, the Florida site had kept very poor and very incomplete records over the years. These Florida records were not kept up to date and were chuck full or errors as their own SLC-36 evolved into an Atlas II launch facility. I have already written about this in an earlier story regarding the East Pad wiring, but it is important to repeat it here. We didn't have any hint as to just how incomplete and inaccurate SLC-36's design records were until we actually started work on the East Pad. None of us at SLC-3 would have believed that the Florida design department could do such a piss-poor job of it, given the strict aerospace rules we always operated under. As I wrote, what fools we were, but we got a rude awakening and got wised up just as soon as the first switch was thrown and water came out of the light fixtures.
OK, so Florida's design documentation really sucked, but this begs the question: why was Florida's shockingly poor documentation of their pad's present design of such concern to us here on the West Coast? The reason is all due to the idiotic way we were constrained by the Air Force's mindless budgetary requirements that were defined in the contract we had with them. You see, as mandated by the contract we were required to make an exact copy of the Florida's launch site. To save money (no matter how much it cost) we were mandated make our SLC-3 East Pad an exact copy of the existing and operational SLC-36 pad there at Florida. This "exact copy" mandate meant that we had to build clones of all their equipment even their poorly designed and obsolete junk and abandon much of our much better equipment. In theory this would be the cheapest and less risky way to go. Any engineer with a lick of sense knew that making an exact copy of Florida's SLC-36 would be terribly expensive in the long run and would leave us with poorly designed equipment, but we were told that this is the way it must be.
One of the "exact copy" issues that affected me personally was the end of any dreams that I had for designing really excellent squib simulators. I was extremely disappointed when I realized this, but I should have known better. As Lockheed Martin had taken over and imposed its "business model" on us, I saw the my authority to design things being taken away. Instead of allowing the local launch sites to create their own equipment to fit their special needs, now all things had to come from the main plant at Denver and I had to standby as my development laboratory was closed and I was put into a windowless cubicle with three other engineers. Oh God how I hated Lockheed Martin!!
As mentioned earlier, the squib simulator boxes we used to test the ordnance systems of the older model Atlas vehicles were built to (now obsolete) TRL technology, but they were excellent and reliable. Now they had to be thrown in the trash because we were mandated to manufacture, install and use an exact clone of Florida's VMTS system. When I learned this, I was not only disappointed, but I was shocked that we would abandon our better technology for even older and less reliable technology, but the mandate of our contract with the Air Force absolutely demanded we do this.
The Vehicle Test and Monitoring System
(VMTS)
(VMTS)
The VMTS is nothing more than a system of squib simulators
that are all built into large steel boxes that are permanently mounted
on several decks of the mobile service tower (MST). There are
also some small non-ordnance related circuits and devices built in that
support other, non-ordnance testing, but in the main, the VMTS was just
a big squib simulator array that replaced all our simulator boxes.
As mentioned, our old simulator boxes operated with digital logic
and used solid state switching. They also had an array of
indicator lights that indicated if the ordnance event was successful
and other lights to tell us what wasn't good about an ordnance event in
case of a fault. The Florida designed VMTS used -- would you
believe it -- ordinary circuit breakers such as you have in your house.
Yeah, ordinary mechanical circuit breakers and when I first saw
the drawings, I just couldn't believe it!! OH NO, this was so
wrong using junk technology in this way, but I no longer had any say in
how things were done, if I wanted to keep my job, I had to do as I was
told.
I hope you don't mind, but I'd like to describe in a little detail just how the squib simulators of this piece of junk VMTS worked. As mentioned, the main simulation was done by mechanical circuit breakers. Circuit breakers are, by no means, known as precision or accurate devices so I just couldn't understand how they could be used this way. I didn't know it, but some brands of circuit breakers have a little adjustment screw in their back side that allows them to be roughly set to trip at a certain current level. This set screw is so gross, I never would have thought of using circuit breakers this way, but you can get them pretty close to where you need them to "blow" but this adjustment is only good for a short period of time before they again go out of adjustment. After all the circuit breakers were adjusted, a complete ordnance self test would be run. Of course, by this time, one or more circuit breakers would have drifted out of range so those would have to be recalibrate and another run made. Many times this whole process would have to be repeated several times until we got a "clean run." Finally, the VMTS was ready for vehicle testing and everything was quickly bundled up hoping that the VMTS would stay in calibration at least for a while.
I hope you don't mind, but I'd like to describe in a little detail just how the squib simulators of this piece of junk VMTS worked. As mentioned, the main simulation was done by mechanical circuit breakers. Circuit breakers are, by no means, known as precision or accurate devices so I just couldn't understand how they could be used this way. I didn't know it, but some brands of circuit breakers have a little adjustment screw in their back side that allows them to be roughly set to trip at a certain current level. This set screw is so gross, I never would have thought of using circuit breakers this way, but you can get them pretty close to where you need them to "blow" but this adjustment is only good for a short period of time before they again go out of adjustment. After all the circuit breakers were adjusted, a complete ordnance self test would be run. Of course, by this time, one or more circuit breakers would have drifted out of range so those would have to be recalibrate and another run made. Many times this whole process would have to be repeated several times until we got a "clean run." Finally, the VMTS was ready for vehicle testing and everything was quickly bundled up hoping that the VMTS would stay in calibration at least for a while.
To make the VMTS even more unreliable, long cables with
easily damaged wires would have to be strung between the VMTS boxes and
the vehicle's squib connectors. To calibrate each squib simulator
and to have data regarding the performance of each ordnance circuit
during actual vehicle testing, all individual ordnance wires went
through current transformers that put out a voltage that was directly
proportional to how much current actually flowed through each
simulator. This voltages from the current transformers was
recorded by a multi-channel data recorder built into the VMTS box on
the lower MST deck and the data was displayed as a thick stack of paper
printouts. Of course, dozens and dozens of individual wires
carried those current transformer signals from the boxes on the other
decks of the MST. Each of those many, many signals were then
routed to a distribution panel and then interfaced with the
multi-channel data recorder. Once again, the data from an
ordnance run or simulated ordnance run was in the form of a thick stack
of paper that the data recorder would print out. OK, back to the
story.
Since I had proved myself by figuring out all the mistakes in the East Pad's wiring (another story in the series), and because of my extensive experience with squib simulators and ordnance testing (and because I was the only engineer who could get this thing working), I was assigned as lead engineer to make our VMTS operational. As before with the pad wiring, the design documents, wire lists and engineering drawings of our "exact clone" were sadly out of date and so our SLC-3 VMTS would require a vast amount of troubleshooting and fixing before it could be used to test the ordnance systems of an Atlas II. As before, I worked closely with Jim and Tak in our own design department to get all the fixes documented and then made to our system. I carried around a thick portfolio of drawings that I would mark up with all the design corrections that were necessary to make the system right and the changes necessary to make the systems work.
Gradually I made progress getting the VMTS working, but the management at Denver caught wind that we were making changes to the original Florida documentation and that was against the rules. I did not endear myself by insisting that we make these changes. I had to demand that we make these changes or I simply would have to stop all my work and leave the VMTS non-operational. Regardless of the mandate to build our VMTS "exactly like Florida's," it was clear that Florida's design documentation was out of date and our unit needed the changes that I was specifying. I had to force the issue by making changes and then submitting to our design department to cover those changes. Boy did that make the Lockheed Martin management mad!! Finally after a lot of arguing and even some angry shouting, I got the go-ahead to make the changes that enabled our VMTS to actually work.
You may be asking yourself why Lockheed Martin management was so strongly opposed to making changes to make the system actually work. The reason was the contract as mentioned earlier, but the other reason is so they would be able to force the Air Force to cough up even more money to actually make SLC-3E operational. Everybody knew that when we finished the job and handed the AF a launch complex "built exactly like Florida's SLC-36" nothing would work. That was just fine because the contract didn't say anything had to work, only that it would be "built exactly like Florida's SLC-36" and according to the poor design documentation, it was and the Air Force accepted it as such. Besides that, a new contract worth more millions of dollars would be negotiated to have us begin work to make the pad truly operational. To me, this was so utterly dishonest, when we should have insisted on doing it right the first time. But, that's not the way budget rules and contracts work these days. Lockheed Martin does business not regarding what is morally right, but what is "ethical."
Since I had proved myself by figuring out all the mistakes in the East Pad's wiring (another story in the series), and because of my extensive experience with squib simulators and ordnance testing (and because I was the only engineer who could get this thing working), I was assigned as lead engineer to make our VMTS operational. As before with the pad wiring, the design documents, wire lists and engineering drawings of our "exact clone" were sadly out of date and so our SLC-3 VMTS would require a vast amount of troubleshooting and fixing before it could be used to test the ordnance systems of an Atlas II. As before, I worked closely with Jim and Tak in our own design department to get all the fixes documented and then made to our system. I carried around a thick portfolio of drawings that I would mark up with all the design corrections that were necessary to make the system right and the changes necessary to make the systems work.
Gradually I made progress getting the VMTS working, but the management at Denver caught wind that we were making changes to the original Florida documentation and that was against the rules. I did not endear myself by insisting that we make these changes. I had to demand that we make these changes or I simply would have to stop all my work and leave the VMTS non-operational. Regardless of the mandate to build our VMTS "exactly like Florida's," it was clear that Florida's design documentation was out of date and our unit needed the changes that I was specifying. I had to force the issue by making changes and then submitting to our design department to cover those changes. Boy did that make the Lockheed Martin management mad!! Finally after a lot of arguing and even some angry shouting, I got the go-ahead to make the changes that enabled our VMTS to actually work.
You may be asking yourself why Lockheed Martin management was so strongly opposed to making changes to make the system actually work. The reason was the contract as mentioned earlier, but the other reason is so they would be able to force the Air Force to cough up even more money to actually make SLC-3E operational. Everybody knew that when we finished the job and handed the AF a launch complex "built exactly like Florida's SLC-36" nothing would work. That was just fine because the contract didn't say anything had to work, only that it would be "built exactly like Florida's SLC-36" and according to the poor design documentation, it was and the Air Force accepted it as such. Besides that, a new contract worth more millions of dollars would be negotiated to have us begin work to make the pad truly operational. To me, this was so utterly dishonest, when we should have insisted on doing it right the first time. But, that's not the way budget rules and contracts work these days. Lockheed Martin does business not regarding what is morally right, but what is "ethical."
The new VMTS "engineer"
All this time I kept my own complete set of drawings of
the VMTS and kept them in that thick portfolio I mentioned earlier.
As I was getting this system up and working right, I really got
to know every tiny aspect of it. I knew every wire, circuit and
component in the VMTS like nobody at Denver or Florida's SLC-36 could
know it. Any problem, no matter how complex, I could visualize it in my
mind, check it against my extensive portfolio of drawings and have it
fixed within the hour. Of course, with my vast knowledge of the
system and all the thought I had put into it to get it to work, I
assumed that the VMTS would be assigned to me and I would oversee all
future testing using it, fool that I am.
Innocent as a babe, I didn't realize that LM and the Air
Force's sexual politics was a powerful current running through SLC-3 at
this time. This politics was going to screw me and here's how it
was done: the Company had just hired a young woman and it was
politically vital that she be made a "model engineer" in charge of an
important, high profile system. I had made the VMTS a
bullet-proof, "turn key" system and yes, it was now one of the most
high profile systems at SLC-3. What could more perfectly satisfy
all AF and LM's political needs, but to give "my" system to her and
thus elevate her status so quickly and without earning it? This
would be so cool, a young woman "engineer" (a cruel joke calling her an
"engineer") who would work closely with all the young Air Force
Officers on high profile, critical tests that was sure to bring her
lots of glory. Oh Lord, what a coup for Lockheed Martin, all
they would have to do is kick me out of the way and give the fruit of
all my hard work to a young girl that turned out to be a mean, stupid
little bitch. In this story, I shall refer to her as Miss Misty
Swineheart and she was (and probably still is) a nasty piece or work,
as I found out later. You will see, as the story unfolds, that I
have no reason to be nice about her, but even so, I will not use her
real name.
At the time I knew her, Misty Swineheart was a crass and coarse young woman who was very willing to flaunt her sexuality in the most open and shameless ways, but in ways all the managers and lead men couldn't get enough of -- married men though they were. Oh, and these guys also made a big deal about being "Saved™" and being "Conservative Christians™" with "family values™" ordained by Jesus himself. So utterly "Christian" they were in their hypocrisy and harlotry, those married men. It was just plane disgusting. Misty would openly tease people she wanted to impress with double double entendres and expressions such as "do me." When we would gather for an engineering meeting, she would pick out the most powerful person in the room and sit in his lap or as close to being in his lap as was possible and still be in another chair. I mean it was so OPEN and so patently crass, it looked like a funny scene from a melodrama, but it was real. Oh sweet Jesus, the managers really loved this aspect of Misty's unprofessional and swinish and behavior and let her get away with it and absolutely nobody said anything including me. I didn't say anything either because who was I going to say anything to?? I could see in the faces of my peers at these meetings, a longing for Misty to sit in their laps too. Of course, I was always the least powerful person in a meeting, so I didn't have to worry about her putting her crass, low-life, larger-than-life ass in my lap. You may think I was just jealous and that I too lusted after her young body, but you do me wrong to put me in the same class with the Lockheed Management and those other "Saved" engineers we had out there. I wanted absolutely nothing to do with that gold-digging, immoral and crass --- woman --- who used her hoochy-koochy sexuality to make up for her lack of technical competence. Misty was no engineer, but she knew how to flatter older guys in management so as to get ahead.
To lose control of such a prestigious system badly disappointed me, but it wasn't MY personal property protected by law. Everything at SLC-3 belonged to LM and the Air Force and I knew it. Yes, I was disappointed, but I was/am a professional and I felt it was my professional duty to hand over all my work to whoever management directed me to do so. It was not for me to question why, it was not for me to make reply, it was for me to .... ah ... just DO IT. For the sake of professionalism, personal ethics and "knowing my place," I didn't say a word when I was told that the now superbly functioning VMTS would be given to another "more worthy" engineer. I also had to admit that at its core, the VMTS tests were vital, but things that were within the limited understanding of the young Air Force officers. Proud officers who understood almost nothing technical, but liked to pretend they were in charge of launch operations. I had to admit that perhaps I really was the wrong person to be dealing directly with Air Force officers regarding the VMTS, having such a low opinion of them as I did.
At the time I knew her, Misty Swineheart was a crass and coarse young woman who was very willing to flaunt her sexuality in the most open and shameless ways, but in ways all the managers and lead men couldn't get enough of -- married men though they were. Oh, and these guys also made a big deal about being "Saved™" and being "Conservative Christians™" with "family values™" ordained by Jesus himself. So utterly "Christian" they were in their hypocrisy and harlotry, those married men. It was just plane disgusting. Misty would openly tease people she wanted to impress with double double entendres and expressions such as "do me." When we would gather for an engineering meeting, she would pick out the most powerful person in the room and sit in his lap or as close to being in his lap as was possible and still be in another chair. I mean it was so OPEN and so patently crass, it looked like a funny scene from a melodrama, but it was real. Oh sweet Jesus, the managers really loved this aspect of Misty's unprofessional and swinish and behavior and let her get away with it and absolutely nobody said anything including me. I didn't say anything either because who was I going to say anything to?? I could see in the faces of my peers at these meetings, a longing for Misty to sit in their laps too. Of course, I was always the least powerful person in a meeting, so I didn't have to worry about her putting her crass, low-life, larger-than-life ass in my lap. You may think I was just jealous and that I too lusted after her young body, but you do me wrong to put me in the same class with the Lockheed Management and those other "Saved" engineers we had out there. I wanted absolutely nothing to do with that gold-digging, immoral and crass --- woman --- who used her hoochy-koochy sexuality to make up for her lack of technical competence. Misty was no engineer, but she knew how to flatter older guys in management so as to get ahead.
To lose control of such a prestigious system badly disappointed me, but it wasn't MY personal property protected by law. Everything at SLC-3 belonged to LM and the Air Force and I knew it. Yes, I was disappointed, but I was/am a professional and I felt it was my professional duty to hand over all my work to whoever management directed me to do so. It was not for me to question why, it was not for me to make reply, it was for me to .... ah ... just DO IT. For the sake of professionalism, personal ethics and "knowing my place," I didn't say a word when I was told that the now superbly functioning VMTS would be given to another "more worthy" engineer. I also had to admit that at its core, the VMTS tests were vital, but things that were within the limited understanding of the young Air Force officers. Proud officers who understood almost nothing technical, but liked to pretend they were in charge of launch operations. I had to admit that perhaps I really was the wrong person to be dealing directly with Air Force officers regarding the VMTS, having such a low opinion of them as I did.
Let me tell you about Misty the moocher
she was a real hoohy-koocher
she was the meanest, nastiest little frail
with a heart as cold as a snail
she was a real hoohy-koocher
she was the meanest, nastiest little frail
with a heart as cold as a snail
One thing that I do not do
is to judge a person based on "First Impressions." I am somewhat
of a
scientist at heart, so I know that there is no such thing as "TRUTH"
but only confidence based on high probability. Too much
confidence
based on too little data is a total violation of the Scientific Method
and a formula for potentially serious error.
My understanding of a person is never a "first impression"
but must evolve
over time. Yes, I am a skeptic, but I approach people unknown to
me
with friendliness and with the assumption that they are decent and
honorable people that I can deal with to our mutual benefit. All
my experience informs me that the vast majority
of people are basically good*ª and so maintaining a good opinion of
others is my default position. It takes some effort for me
to recognize bad traits in others and in a real sense, they have to
EARN any bad opinions I may form
of them. That is all well and good, but how does this relate to
Miss Swineheart and the VMTS?
When we first met I had yet to develop any animus toward
Miss Swineheart nor did I suspect that she felt any animus (real or
staged) toward me. Rather, I looked forward to
mentoring her in her new
position as Engineering Lead of the VMTS and by doing so, bring her up
to speed regarding all its complexity. Of
course, I knew it was a total farce for her to be called an 'engineer'
and I knew that she didn't have the least background in technology to
immediately and seamlessly step
into the job, but a young person has to start somewhere and I
instinctively wanted to help her succeed as I do everybody that I feel
I can help.
With my thick portfolio of drawings ready and my work schedule at her disposal (within reason), I expected Swineheart to want to sit down with me (but not in my lap) and we would spend however many hours it would take for me to teach her what she could grasp regarding the VMTS. In addition to sharing my knowledge of the system and all my engineering drawings, I was ready and willing to quietly and anonymously help her solve the many problems that would inevitably come up. I knew she was uneducated in electronics and intellectually totally unfit for the job, but I felt it was my professional duty to help her succeed and have her succeed without letting my personal feelings or emotions interfere in any way. I felt I must do this not because I'm some kind of saint, but because my sense of duty and my pride as an engineer compelled me to, as I have said before. To do any less and I would have to admit to myself that I was as weak, selfish and dishonest as LM's oh so "ethical" management was.
For the sake of my professional pride and my sense of duty, I was fully prepared to swallow my disappointments and especially my dislike and distaste for that ... ah ... woman ..., but OH LORD, was I in for a rude awakening. An awakening that was as totally unexpected as it was extremely hurtful. This nasty little bitch came up to me and in the most disrespectful manner possible, told me she didn't want anything from me, not my help, not my drawings, absolutely nothing and that I was to stay completely away from "her" system. Not long after letting me know she would not require my help, she stopped me in the middle of the office, got right into my face and then began to berate me in a very loud and nasty manner. Out of nowhere and for no reason, she came up to me and started yelling at me to keep out of her way and yes, it was right in front of all the other engineers. I was so absolutely and totally shocked to have anybody assault me in this way, I was speechless and didn't say or know what to say as she unleashed this bizarre tantrum on me. She then walked away, but I continued to just stand there in a state of genuine shock. You know it would never have happened, but as I look back I so very much wish that somehow I could have given her a well deserved Bitch Slap for what she had just done.
With my thick portfolio of drawings ready and my work schedule at her disposal (within reason), I expected Swineheart to want to sit down with me (but not in my lap) and we would spend however many hours it would take for me to teach her what she could grasp regarding the VMTS. In addition to sharing my knowledge of the system and all my engineering drawings, I was ready and willing to quietly and anonymously help her solve the many problems that would inevitably come up. I knew she was uneducated in electronics and intellectually totally unfit for the job, but I felt it was my professional duty to help her succeed and have her succeed without letting my personal feelings or emotions interfere in any way. I felt I must do this not because I'm some kind of saint, but because my sense of duty and my pride as an engineer compelled me to, as I have said before. To do any less and I would have to admit to myself that I was as weak, selfish and dishonest as LM's oh so "ethical" management was.
For the sake of my professional pride and my sense of duty, I was fully prepared to swallow my disappointments and especially my dislike and distaste for that ... ah ... woman ..., but OH LORD, was I in for a rude awakening. An awakening that was as totally unexpected as it was extremely hurtful. This nasty little bitch came up to me and in the most disrespectful manner possible, told me she didn't want anything from me, not my help, not my drawings, absolutely nothing and that I was to stay completely away from "her" system. Not long after letting me know she would not require my help, she stopped me in the middle of the office, got right into my face and then began to berate me in a very loud and nasty manner. Out of nowhere and for no reason, she came up to me and started yelling at me to keep out of her way and yes, it was right in front of all the other engineers. I was so absolutely and totally shocked to have anybody assault me in this way, I was speechless and didn't say or know what to say as she unleashed this bizarre tantrum on me. She then walked away, but I continued to just stand there in a state of genuine shock. You know it would never have happened, but as I look back I so very much wish that somehow I could have given her a well deserved Bitch Slap for what she had just done.
Swineheart's handling of the VMTS
and how I just ignored it
and how I just ignored it
For her to attack me like that was a total violation of
our work rules and if I would have dared to have spoken to her that
way, I would deserve to be immediately dismissed from employment.
Nothing was said to her or me from management and I have very
good reason to suspect that she did what she did with the blessing of
and to "get in good" with our so very "Christian" management team.
I should mention that I never advertised that I was an agnostic,
but everybody knew it and I'm sure that was an important reason our
management and I were not all that friendly. I am sure that
Misty's act, eager as she always was to sit in management's lap, was
done to show our management that she hated me too. That incident
scuttled any thought of me mentoring the bitch, so I simply tucked my
drawings away in my desk's drawer (since she didn't want them) and
proceeded to go about my tasks while completely ignoring the unpleasant little bitch.
I'm pretty good at ignoring unpleasant people and I just
wrote her and "her" VMTS off as things of absolutely no concern or
interest of mine any more. Actually, this worked very well and I could do
my various jobs without even thinking about any of this, however, her
desk was on the other side of my cubicle's wall and when I was at my
desk I could her talking to the chief engineers at our Denver
headquarters. She would be on the phone for hour after hour
during the day trying to get educated regarding the VMTS. I would
just roll my eyes and shake my head and smile in amusement to think
that I could teach her in ten minutes what she couldn't seem to grasp
after hours talking on the phone. Well, our management in their
great wisdom had decided to give the VMTS to the little bitch
and she had made abundantly and publicly clear that she
absolutely did not want my help. The Germans have a word,
'schadenfreude,' and thus it was my pleasure to just let the fools stew
in their own juices. This went on for weeks and weeks and the
phone lines were especially busy when there were VMTS calibration and
ordnance tests going on. I greatly suspect that all this time
spent on the phone talking with the head engineers at Denver played
right into Misty's little plans. By being in such close daily
contact with these men, she would get well known and she could then use
them to advance herself later on.
OH NO!! the VMTS won't work and Misty can't possibly fix it!!
We done you wrong John, but please oh please won't you, H-E-L-P-!!!
We done you wrong John, but please oh please won't you, H-E-L-P-!!!
The fact was, I never purposely eavesdropped on any of Misty's
conversations, but I couldn't help but be marginally aware that things
were not going well. I didn't know and didn't want to know just
exactly what it was that was wrong. Finally a big and important
launch was coming up and I started to hear rumors that there was
something seriously wrong with the VMTS and there was a possibility
that it would "slip the launch," which would cost millions and millions
of dollars and give the company a serious black eye. It wasn't
any of my business, so I just made sure all the things I was
responsible for were done on time and done right and left it to
Swineheart and management to worry about the VMTS. Finally even I
started feeling the desperation in air as critical ordnance tests were
unable to proceed. We were within hours of having to do the
unthinkable, scrub and reschedule the launch. Again, the VMTS
wasn't my system and I had no business saying anything to anybody,
especially to that bitch Misty or my managers.
I came to work on the day before the critical "drop dead"
day and I could feel the panic in the office. I felt neither
dread or elation, just neutral, knowing that my crew did good work and
I was doing my job well too. I was typing away on my computer,
working on rewriting one of my detailed test procedures when I felt
somebody was standing over me. I looked around and up and there
(all six feet of him) was my immediate manager looking down at me.
I partially turned around, looked into his face and noticed he
had a pained expression. Before I could get over my surprise and
say anything, he started this little speech: "You don't have to
do this and if you won't do it, I fully understand. But Misty had
(conveniently) called in sick today and can't resume troubleshooting
the VMTS, so it would be a great favor to me if you would step in and
try to fix it." He then went on to tell me that the VMTS had
stopped working two or three weeks earlier and Misty had tried
everything and had even sent parts back to the factory (several times),
but couldn't get the system working. I was flat amazed because I
never suspected that the trouble had been going on for so long. I
was also a bit pissed off that they hadn't called me in before this
because, as muich as she had made me dislike her, as a professional I
would have put aside my feelings. Management knew and had allowed
her to poison the atmosphere so that she would not work with me AND IT
WAS HER SYSTEM, after all. Rather than order her to work with me,
the cowards had her call in sick so I could take over.
Again, my manager repeated that he would understand if I refused
to get involved, knowing how I had been publically humiliated by her in the past.
So, the question remained: WOULD I TAKE ON AND DO THIS FIX THAT ONLY I COULD DO?? WOULD I
SWALLOW MY PERSONAL FEELINGS AND ACT AS A PROFESSIONAL?? Or would
I be petty and say "you have made your bed asshole, now go lie in it."
I was insulted that my manager thought I'd be as petty as he
would be under the circumstances and I replied: "it is my duty as an
engineer to put my responsibilities ahead of my personal feelings, so of course
I will take on the task of fixing the VMTS." The manager looked
very relieved and quickly went back to his office and called up
everybody important to tell them that another (unnamed) engineer would
immediately begin to try to save the launch schedule.
As I learned more details of just how Misty had screwed up while trying to find and fix the malfunction, I was also amazed at how much had gone on and how utterly useless and stupid much of her troubleshooting had been. I mean, I was aghast at Swineheart's incompetence although I wasn't all that surprised. To familiarize myself with the area where the failure was occurring, I got out my wonderful portfolio of drawings and started tracing all the circuits while still sitting at my desk. Soon I found the problem without leaving the office, but I needed to make absolutely sure by running a few simple tests at the main VMTS box in the MST there at the pad. I tucked my portfolio under my arm and walked out to the pad and when I got there I had the VMTS technician (who was personally loyal to Misty) take some measurements. At first this guy, a young man who was otherwise a good technician, refused to do as I directed and told me that I wasn't to touch "Misty's System." I never, never, never ordered my technicians around, but whenever I wanted something done, I always phrased it as a 'request' with a polite 'please' and a 'thank you' afterwards. OH BUT, but this time I had to order this man to do as I directed. I told him that I'm the senior engineer here and that he will do as I say or be taken off the job. He took the measurements as I ordered. Those measurements confirmed my hypothesis and then I had him change some values in a software file that programmed the digital data recorder. Again, he initially refused and again I had to order him to "JUST DO IT!!"
After the simple changes were made to the recorder's file, I ordered a simulated ordnance (self test) VMTS run. Again, the technician didn't want to do it, but I wasn't taking no for an answer so I quietly, but with menace, again said "JUST DO IT!". As the VMTS run proceeded, the data recorder spit out its stack of printouts, printouts that indicated exactly when each event happened and how much current each simulated ordnance event produced. Exactly as I thought, there in the printouts were the missing data channels that had eluded Misty and the Denver engineers for weeks and weeks and the data all looked excellent. There it was, the VMTS working perfectly and all it took was understanding how the system worked and how the data was routed and an understanding of electricity that Misty didn't have. I was back at my desk in less than 30 minutes. Five minutes to check my drawings, five minutes for me to walk to the pad, five minutes to take the measurements, five minutes to make the changes to the recorder's file, five minutes to run a VMTS self test and five minutes to walk back to my desk. I have to say that when the missing channels suddenly appeared in the printout, I did take some pleasure in seeing the puzzled and amazed look on the face of Misty's loyal technician, the guy who had been with her all through their weeks of failed troubleshooting. Misty failing to see the obvious clues I could easily understand since she was so stupid, but the technician I thought should have caught it, so his reputation as a competent electrical technician, in my eyes anyway, really suffered.
"It's fixed"
"No joke, it's fixed"
"No joke, it's fixed"
Carrying the stack of printouts as proof, I wanted to
present my manager with the good news that everything was now working
properly and we could proceed with the launch as scheduled. It
seemed that the gnashing of teeth and rending of garments was still
going on behind the locked door. I couldn't get into his office
with the news, so I placed the printouts on the table near my desk, I
put my drawings back in their drawer and resumed writing the test
procedure I had earlier been working on. I really don't know how
much time had gone by because my mind was occupied with the task at
hand, but again there was my manager looking down at me. This
time he seemed to be almost be in tears and in a very plaintive,
emotional almost whiny voice he said: "John, you told me that you
would get right on this problem, but you're still here. Please,
won't you get started and try to do something about this?!?" I
looked up at him and I swear I wasn't trying to be a smart-ass when I
said, "oh, it's fixed." The guy got angry and said that this was
deadly serious and he didn't appreciate joking about it. Without
saying anything, I got up from my chair, walked over the the stack of
printouts and simply handed them to him. He quickly went through
them and found the missing channels. Without a single word,
without a word of thanks, without an 'if you please sir' or anything,
he immediately snatched them up and ran back to his office and slammed
the door behind him. I didn't know (nor much care) what calls he
made or who he talked to, but his door was closed for the next couple
of hours while I resumed my procedure writing. I can only imagine
that he made dozens of calls to tell the Air Force and our company
brass how, at the 11th second to the 11th minute to the 11th hour, our launch now was back on
schedule.
Epilogue
You know, to me this fix was nothing, absolutely nothing.
It wasn't
even an interesting problem that even lightly taxed my brain to solve.
It
was a stupid, silly problem and one that I had fixed in an instant, so
I
dismissed it from my mind at the time and only later did I think about
how close we had come to disaster and (with some anger) how all of this
could have
been avoided if Swineheart would have had the least bit of intelligence, decency and professionalism to
let me help her when the problem first appeared. A week or so later, I
was
working at my computer, writing test procedures and again my
manager was suddenly standing over me, but this time he was thrusting
an envelope at me. I took the envelope
and opened it and therein was a gift certificate for $50. I was
somewhat insulted by the fact that I had to be given a bonus, a
"tip" if you will, for
just
doing my duty. Deep down I suppose I was a bit pissed that I got
such a tiny bonus after saving the stupid company millions and
millions of dollars they would have otherwise lost because of
Swineheart's incompetence. I strongly believe that "virtue is
its own reward" so, in a very real sense, I felt rewarded, if by nobody in
the company or the Air Force,
at least by myself.
Misty came back to work the next day after a somewhat miraculous recovery from whatever she had. To a huge audience, Misty ran the critical vehicle ordnance test, using a (now) superbly functioning VMTS and everything worked perfectly. She and local management glowed in the praise and adulation of the Air Farce and our own upper management for making this highly successful run in the very nick of time, literally at the 11th hour. Now, through THEIR (but not my) "brilliant and heroic efforts" the launch sequence could proceed on as scheduled. Well, it is true that Misty did "heroically" step aside and let me do the work and management did beg me to help, so I suppose they deserved the thunderous applause they got (and I got $50 to spend on trinkets at our company store). (In fact, we did launch on time and the mission was completely successful in every regard.) Of course, I said nothing and have said nothing until this very day. But now it is said.
The
EndMisty came back to work the next day after a somewhat miraculous recovery from whatever she had. To a huge audience, Misty ran the critical vehicle ordnance test, using a (now) superbly functioning VMTS and everything worked perfectly. She and local management glowed in the praise and adulation of the Air Farce and our own upper management for making this highly successful run in the very nick of time, literally at the 11th hour. Now, through THEIR (but not my) "brilliant and heroic efforts" the launch sequence could proceed on as scheduled. Well, it is true that Misty did "heroically" step aside and let me do the work and management did beg me to help, so I suppose they deserved the thunderous applause they got (and I got $50 to spend on trinkets at our company store). (In fact, we did launch on time and the mission was completely successful in every regard.) Of course, I said nothing and have said nothing until this very day. But now it is said.
*ª I operate on the assumption that our most basic human instincts, honed through millions of years of evolution, is to do what is right by others, to help others and pass our learning to others. Although those right-wing anarchists calling themselves "Libertarians" will disagree, I think the vast civilization that surrounds and infuses every aspect of our lives, together with our unfathomable advances in science and technology that has evolved over the centuries, is incontrovertible proof that the Human Race's most salient characteristic is its members instinct to cooperate, teach and share. Those who harbor functional defects and thus lack this instinct, but won't at least simulate it, make up that subset known as "criminals" and "sociopaths" and I'm not one of them.
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