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martyb writes:

SpaceX and United Launch Alliance have made the construction and launch of space-faring rockets seem almost commonplace. Once in a while things don't go completely right, but it is amazing how much a successful launch is now taken for granted. This was not always the case!

Growing up, I was faced with the daunting prospects of the Cold War and the nuclear arms race. Every couple weeks there seemed to be yet another nuclear weapon test on the nightly news. First with atomic bombs and later with hydrogen bombs. It was common to hear and see daily reminders of Duck and Cover, fallout shelters, and Mutual Assured Destruction. It was a frightening time to be a child. Especially since there were certain "facilities" in the area that would likely put us on the list of Soviet targets.

Juxtaposed with that fear was a sense of hope and destiny. John F. Kennedy had just been elected president. His inaugural address challenged: "Ask not what your country can do for you. Ask what you can do for your country." Then, on the heels of the USSR's Yuri Gagarin becoming the first person in space, Kennedy became "eager for the U.S. to take the lead in the Space Race, for reasons of national security and prestige." A short while later, Kennedy gave his famous speech (transcript and video [NB: He doesn't even seem to sweat!]) in which he uttered the challenge:

We choose to go to the moon. We choose to go to the moon... (interrupted by applause) we choose to go to the moon in this decade and do the other things, not because they are easy, but because they are hard, because that goal will serve to organize and measure the best of our energies and skills, because that challenge is one that we are willing to accept, one we are unwilling to postpone, and one which we intend to win, and the others, too.

The United States thereupon launched headlong on the space race. It was a heady time when it seemed almost anything was possible. Science would continue to unlock countless mysteries. Hope reigned high.

It was during this period I was introduced to model rockets and spent countless hours constructing, launching, and [trying to] recover them. Oh, to be an astronaut someday! Estes rockets got far more of my limited funds at that time than they had any right to!

Eventually, the race to the moon hit a climax with Apollo 11 and Neil Armstrong ("That's one small step for [a] man, one giant leap for mankind.") and Buzz Aldrin becoming the first humans to step upon the moon.

Moon colonies were surely just a matter of time and there was talk of humans making the journey to Mars, as well.

Sadly, although the Apollo Program proved a huge source for gaining scientific knowledge (the moon rocks that were returned are still being examined), the thirst for human space flight abated and the race to the moon became better known as "Flags and Footprints". Sure, there was the ensuing Space Shuttle. Laps around the Earth are, however, a far cry from performing activities on other bodies in our solar system.

So, it is against this backdrop that I came upon Destin Sandlin's YouTube channel called Smarter Every Day and his 54m16s video HOW ROCKETS ARE MADE (Rocket Factory Tour - United Launch Alliance). It is the very first video tour of ULA's largest — 1.6 million square feet (~150,000 square meter) — rocket factory located in Decatur, Alabama. It is where they construct their Delta IV and Atlas V rockets, and soon their Vulcan rockets, too.

In Destin's own words:

How this happened: I messaged Tory[*] "If you ever find yourself with an open lunch I'll buy. No cameras, just rocket geek chat."

A few months later he changed a flight one day so we could grab lunch, but he also carved out a couple of hours before lunch to give me a personal tour.

He's as cool off camera as he is on camera. He allowed me to ask any technical question I had, and I never even got close to the limits of his understanding of rockets. His technical prowess is something I aspire to.

[*] Tory: Tory Bruno who, since August of 2014, has been the CEO of ULA (United Launch Alliance).

Watch the entire process from when raw aluminum and other materials come into one end of the factory through it being cut, planed, machined, curved, welded and finally assembled into a rocket that exits the other end. The simultaneously huge scale and ultra-high precision tolerances are amazing. Having followed all thing space since a youth, actually seeing what it took to make a real life rocket was amazing.

Now I'm hoping to see a similar tour of SpaceX's facilities!

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