Tanking up for a space flight
It was a happy group of UAW Local 1921 members who watched the revamped space
shuttle external fuel tank roll out Dec. 31 at the Lockheed-Martin Michoud Space
System in New Orleans.
“I was very proud because we had met a challenge,” said Verna Freeman, a 24-year UAW member. “We had a deadline and we met it.”
The fuel tank was taken by barge across the Gulf of Mexico and around Florida to the Kennedy Space Center at Cape Canaveral. Lockheed has an order for about 35 tanks through December 2008. Each tank takes about 18 months to build, though there can be several in production at one time.
It’s one of the few bright stories in a U.S. aerospace industry that is seeing tough times and competition from foreign companies.
“Seeing that, I felt like our jobs are going to last here,” said Steve Ruple, the plant bargaining chair. “I was proud of our members. They worked long hours to get that out on time. They took a lot of pride in it going out.”
They’re already back at it. NASA needs a backup tank on hand for the next Space Shuttle Discovery launch sometime between May 12 and June 3. It will take about 30 more shuttle launches to finish building the International Space Station. Each tank has one flight; it’s the only part of the shuttle that is not reusable.
“We feel like we are a part of manned space flight,” said Dennis Fauver, president of Local 1921. “It starts here on the ground.”
Tank facts
The space shuttle
external fuel tank is 154 feet long and 27.6 feet in diameter.
It weighs 58,500
pounds empty and 1.6 million pounds when loaded.
It takes eight
hours to fill it with 535,000 gallons of fuel.
