Me too. That's why I'm making sure everyone knows we ARE NOT using NASA's budget for this project - we are using private financing to rebuild the tower. -Ross B Tierney, Chief Operating Officer, The Space Restoration Society, www.savethelut.org
Just a thought, but wouldn't you like to go up in the elevator to the 320ft level, walk out on the Crew Service Arm, in the footsteps of the crew of Apollo 11, and look down at a Saturn-V from that unique perspective? And at the same time you could look all around you and see the Shuttle-pads off in the distance all at the same time? Not interested? Oh well, I'm sure looking forward to it! -Ross B Tierney, Chief Operating Officer, The Space Restoration Society, www.savethelut.org
Private funding will be used. The tower has already had a Section 106 applied in 1994, so no permit is required. And we are looking at both re-building it on Federal land (KSC) and outside of the Center too. The issue currently is that heavy metals and PCBs are leeching into the soil in the immediate viscinity of the tower, so something must be done and done soon. We plan to clean the tower up, encapsulate it and rebuild it somewhere. Hopefully EPA will give us a little bit of leeway because we are talking to potential donors already. -Ross B Tierney, Chief Operating Officer, The Space Restoration Society, www.savethelut.org
I agree and so do the rest of the board of the Space Restoration Society. We are using private funding to save the tower, not government. We DO NOT want tax-payers to foot this bill. Ross B Tierney, Chief Operating Officer, The Space Restoration Society, www.savethelut.org
Come to the dedication in a few years time and share a glass of champaign with me at the top of the tower. Then decide for yourself.
I've walked on this tower and it inspired me more than the rocket! It's certainly far more complex and to me is even more of a wonder of what we can achieve.
And it represents the last item of unchanged, recoverable Apollo Hardware (the only other being the tiny Command Module which splashed into the sea) from the Apollo 11 flight that we could use to pay tribute to one of the most incredible achievements the world has ever witnessed. I think a Monument is appropriate for such a significant event - especially if it can create the kind of inspiration in people which I was able to get... I can't think of a better monument to those people than this.
Ross B Tierney, Chief Operating Officer, The Space Restoration Society, www.savethelut.org
I'd agree other than the fact it was the very first time we sent a human to another world. That event never happen again. It will be repeated, but it won't be the first time.
Oh, and the vehicle he was taken to the pad in actualy HAS been preserved and is currenty on display next to the Saturn-V at the Kennedy Space Center.
The Pad, the Crawlerway, the Crawler Transporters, the VAB and the whole of Launch Complex 39 are on the National Register of Historic Places, but somehow the actual tower which launched the rocket itself has somehow slipped through the cracks and is being disposed of. Surely that can't be right...
Ross B Tierney, Chief Operating Officer, The Space Restoration Society, www.savethelut.org
Get ready to hear their opinions from their own mouths. We are arranging a series of interviews with the astronauts who flew from this tower and the other two.
Watch this space (excuse the pun!).
Ross B Tierney.
Chief Operating Officer
The Space Restoration Society
www.savethelut.org
I'd like to just clarify something - this will be funded 100% by private donations, NOT by the government and so NOT by the Tax-payer.
We are already speaking with a number of serious people and organizations who want to save this piece of America's history from being turned into just paperclips and razor blades.
Ross B Tierney.
Chief Operating Officer
The Space Restoration Society
www.savethelut.org
NASA is NOT spending its money on this. In fact we're trying to save them some of the $2m they have to spend on the disposal effort, so they can use it to develop new rockets instead!
This effort will be completely privately funded.
Ross B Tierney.
Chief Operating Officer
The Space Restoration Society
www.savethelut.org
I had the priviledge of examining the tower up close in the storage yard behind the O&C building at KSC last June and I'll guarantee you that the main structure is in good shape still. I have some photos from that visit here.
Sure there's rust (its been sat in KSC's salt air for 21 years!)- but it's all surface stuff and nothing that can't be removed relatively easily.
LUT 1 had to be taken off of the grey Launcher Platform so that it could be re-used for Shuttle launches.
But the same happened to the other two LUT's too - most of those towers today form the backbones of the structures out at the Shuttle Pads and are still strong enough to withstand the effects from the shuttle SRB's during launch - even though they too were 'cut up' in a similar fashion to this.
Ross B Tierney.
Chief Operating Officer
The Space Restoration Society
www.savethelut.org
For the record, this will NOT use any of NASA's money.
We want NASA to dediceate their resource to the job of putting people and craft 'up there' just as much as anyone.
This is a privately funded restoration effort we are working on right now.
Ross B Tierney.
Chief Operating Officer
The Space Restoration Society
www.savethelut.org
From Steve Coaster, an engineer fueling Apollo 11 at the Pad on 16th July 1969:
http://usna63.topcities.com/home/SpaceMemories.htm
"My favorite Apollo memory was performing my final walkdown of the LUT just before launching Apollo 11. We were so aware of the enormity of what we were about to do. The MSS had been rolled back revealing the enormous Saturn V to full view. It was after dark and the spotlights were casting their cones of illumination on the stack. I was virtually alone on the tower as I examined every component of the LH2 system to be as sure as I could that "my" system would do its job. It was just me and the Saturn V with a bright moon overhead. I would look at the moon , then at the rocket and think, "I don't want to be anywhere but right where I am right now"
I was twenty-eight years old when we landed on the moon, responsible for loading 600000 gallons of LH2 on the "moon rocket". The managers were in their early thirties and someone over forty was "the old man". Exciting times! "
With all due respect, the Saturn-V rockets on display around the country never flew or participated in the actual missions to the Moon.
The closest any of them actually came to a flight was the 1st stage on display at Kennedy - it was the test-firing engineering mule and was at least lit-up.
Check this link for what IS actually on display.
This tower is the last thing fixed to the ground which Neil Armstrong stood upon before getting into his tiny Apollo capsule (the only real bit of that rocket which we recovered).
This tower is the last part of real flight-related Apollo hardware which could be restored to the quality it was in for that historic flight.
That's why its important. Virtually nothing of the REAL Apollo hardware exists any more.
Apart from anything else I am working with the teams behind the Saturn-V restoration efforts at Johnson and Marshall Space Centers and we are sharing resources. If we can find the money for this project it will be simple to find the relatively small amount required for those projects too.
Just to let you all know - the server appears to currently be down. The volume of hits today has been astonishing with over 1200 sigs in just a few hours. If you can't get through right now, please, please try again in an hour or so.
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Me too. That's why I'm making sure everyone knows we ARE NOT using NASA's budget for this project - we are using private financing to rebuild the tower. -Ross B Tierney, Chief Operating Officer, The Space Restoration Society, www.savethelut.org
Just a thought, but wouldn't you like to go up in the elevator to the 320ft level, walk out on the Crew Service Arm, in the footsteps of the crew of Apollo 11, and look down at a Saturn-V from that unique perspective? And at the same time you could look all around you and see the Shuttle-pads off in the distance all at the same time? Not interested? Oh well, I'm sure looking forward to it! -Ross B Tierney, Chief Operating Officer, The Space Restoration Society, www.savethelut.org
Private funding will be used. The tower has already had a Section 106 applied in 1994, so no permit is required. And we are looking at both re-building it on Federal land (KSC) and outside of the Center too. The issue currently is that heavy metals and PCBs are leeching into the soil in the immediate viscinity of the tower, so something must be done and done soon. We plan to clean the tower up, encapsulate it and rebuild it somewhere. Hopefully EPA will give us a little bit of leeway because we are talking to potential donors already. -Ross B Tierney, Chief Operating Officer, The Space Restoration Society, www.savethelut.org
I agree and so do the rest of the board of the Space Restoration Society. We are using private funding to save the tower, not government. We DO NOT want tax-payers to foot this bill. Ross B Tierney, Chief Operating Officer, The Space Restoration Society, www.savethelut.org
Come to the dedication in a few years time and share a glass of champaign with me at the top of the tower. Then decide for yourself. I've walked on this tower and it inspired me more than the rocket! It's certainly far more complex and to me is even more of a wonder of what we can achieve. And it represents the last item of unchanged, recoverable Apollo Hardware (the only other being the tiny Command Module which splashed into the sea) from the Apollo 11 flight that we could use to pay tribute to one of the most incredible achievements the world has ever witnessed. I think a Monument is appropriate for such a significant event - especially if it can create the kind of inspiration in people which I was able to get... I can't think of a better monument to those people than this. Ross B Tierney, Chief Operating Officer, The Space Restoration Society, www.savethelut.org
I'd agree other than the fact it was the very first time we sent a human to another world. That event never happen again. It will be repeated, but it won't be the first time. Oh, and the vehicle he was taken to the pad in actualy HAS been preserved and is currenty on display next to the Saturn-V at the Kennedy Space Center. The Pad, the Crawlerway, the Crawler Transporters, the VAB and the whole of Launch Complex 39 are on the National Register of Historic Places, but somehow the actual tower which launched the rocket itself has somehow slipped through the cracks and is being disposed of. Surely that can't be right... Ross B Tierney, Chief Operating Officer, The Space Restoration Society, www.savethelut.org
Get ready to hear their opinions from their own mouths. We are arranging a series of interviews with the astronauts who flew from this tower and the other two. Watch this space (excuse the pun!). Ross B Tierney. Chief Operating Officer The Space Restoration Society www.savethelut.org
I'd like to just clarify something - this will be funded 100% by private donations, NOT by the government and so NOT by the Tax-payer. We are already speaking with a number of serious people and organizations who want to save this piece of America's history from being turned into just paperclips and razor blades. Ross B Tierney. Chief Operating Officer The Space Restoration Society www.savethelut.org
NASA is NOT spending its money on this. In fact we're trying to save them some of the $2m they have to spend on the disposal effort, so they can use it to develop new rockets instead! This effort will be completely privately funded. Ross B Tierney. Chief Operating Officer The Space Restoration Society www.savethelut.org
I had the priviledge of examining the tower up close in the storage yard behind the O&C building at KSC last June and I'll guarantee you that the main structure is in good shape still. I have some photos from that visit here. Sure there's rust (its been sat in KSC's salt air for 21 years!)- but it's all surface stuff and nothing that can't be removed relatively easily. LUT 1 had to be taken off of the grey Launcher Platform so that it could be re-used for Shuttle launches. But the same happened to the other two LUT's too - most of those towers today form the backbones of the structures out at the Shuttle Pads and are still strong enough to withstand the effects from the shuttle SRB's during launch - even though they too were 'cut up' in a similar fashion to this. Ross B Tierney. Chief Operating Officer The Space Restoration Society www.savethelut.org
For the record, this will NOT use any of NASA's money. We want NASA to dediceate their resource to the job of putting people and craft 'up there' just as much as anyone. This is a privately funded restoration effort we are working on right now. Ross B Tierney. Chief Operating Officer The Space Restoration Society www.savethelut.org
From Steve Coaster, an engineer fueling Apollo 11 at the Pad on 16th July 1969: http://usna63.topcities.com/home/SpaceMemories.htm
"My favorite Apollo memory was performing my final walkdown of the LUT just before launching Apollo 11. We were so aware of the enormity of what we were about to do. The MSS had been rolled back revealing the enormous Saturn V to full view. It was after dark and the spotlights were casting their cones of illumination on the stack. I was virtually alone on the tower as I examined every component of the LH2 system to be as sure as I could that "my" system would do its job. It was just me and the Saturn V with a bright moon overhead. I would look at the moon , then at the rocket and think, "I don't want to be anywhere but right where I am right now"
I was twenty-eight years old when we landed on the moon, responsible for loading 600000 gallons of LH2 on the "moon rocket". The managers were in their early thirties and someone over forty was "the old man". Exciting times! "
With all due respect, the Saturn-V rockets on display around the country never flew or participated in the actual missions to the Moon. The closest any of them actually came to a flight was the 1st stage on display at Kennedy - it was the test-firing engineering mule and was at least lit-up. Check this link for what IS actually on display. This tower is the last thing fixed to the ground which Neil Armstrong stood upon before getting into his tiny Apollo capsule (the only real bit of that rocket which we recovered). This tower is the last part of real flight-related Apollo hardware which could be restored to the quality it was in for that historic flight. That's why its important. Virtually nothing of the REAL Apollo hardware exists any more. Apart from anything else I am working with the teams behind the Saturn-V restoration efforts at Johnson and Marshall Space Centers and we are sharing resources. If we can find the money for this project it will be simple to find the relatively small amount required for those projects too.
Just to let you all know - the server appears to currently be down. The volume of hits today has been astonishing with over 1200 sigs in just a few hours. If you can't get through right now, please, please try again in an hour or so.