DoraLives
doralives.bsky.social
DoraLives
@doralives.bsky.social
Writing. Photography. Computer repair and optimizing (get Linux, ok?). Surfing. And above all else, Kai.

home.16streets.com
The Steel Bones of the Great Rotating Service Structure at Space Shuttle Launch Complex 39-B.

This is what it looked like when we were building it, early 1980's, sitting on the falswork that held it up temporarily, before all of the siding enclosed the Steel Bones, and the falsework got removed.
September 1, 2025 at 12:28 AM
Ok. I took the OAA Lift shot I posted a couple of weeks ago, and LABELED it. Very difficult to research some of it. Not yet done with every teeny tiny detail, but I figure we're in good enough shape to share it with you.

Full-resolution version at this link: www.16streets.com/39-B/Renamed...
May 25, 2025 at 9:02 PM
Beyond describing, but I try anyway. Click on the Alt text for the image for a few details, or click the link below for all of it.

Hanging the Orbiter Access Arm on the side of the FSS at Space Shuttle Pad 39-B, Kennedy Space Center, back in the early 1980's.

www.16streets.com/39-B/39-B%20...
May 10, 2025 at 9:36 PM
My old pad.

It's been forty years.

And yet I still miss the place.
May 8, 2025 at 7:43 PM
And sometimes when you're headed out there, the VAB somehow becomes even more enigmatic, and even more gigantic, and all you can do is to just stand there, taking it in, not knowing... how, or why, or sometimes even what.
May 7, 2025 at 6:20 PM
This is not Mars.

And that a matter-of-fact statement like that would A.) make sense, and B.) seem perfectly sane and understandable, completely blows my mind.

Aeolian beach sand features seen at Ponce Inlet, Florida on April 23, 2025. Photograph by myself.
April 25, 2025 at 12:23 AM
One of the Big Ones. Labeled. Fully labeled. Click the link for full size. Take your time with it. Go slow. Space Shuttle Launch Complex 39-B, under construction. This is a montage of three photographs I took at the time, and placed into an album.

www.16streets.com/39-B/Renamed...
April 18, 2025 at 7:10 PM
Reminded by @dutchspace.bsky.social who posted an image yesterday, of the Last Saturn. And afterwards, the LUT stood alone, unused, destined to be cut up for scrap. Which saddens me. But I was lucky, and I managed to see it with my own eyes at work, and photograph it too, before it was gone forever.
March 26, 2025 at 1:18 PM
This is probably cheating, but it's not Star Wars and it's not Star Trek. And it's also a photo that I took myself, bright and early at 7:30am, August 10, 1984.
March 26, 2025 at 1:00 AM
And sometimes when you go outside one of these guys is across the road, in the field, gathering nesting material, and you run back inside and grab your camera, and you manage to get back outside in time, and you walk across the road to get closer and you get to take a few pictures.
March 17, 2025 at 6:20 PM
March 12, 2025 at 1:36 AM
Skeletal RSS under construction, on its temporary falsework, next to the completed FSS in 1980. when Pad 39-B was being modified from Apollo Saturn V to Space Shuttle.

First photo I ever took of it.

NASA seems to have taken none.

Steel fabricated by Sheffield Steel, and erected by Wilhoit.
February 24, 2025 at 12:29 AM
You are on top of the Fixed Service Structure, 300 feet above the bottom of the Flame Trench at Space Shuttle Launch Complex 39-B, Kennedy Space Center, Florida, on the boom of the Hammerhead Crane, which projects outward to the east of the main body of the FSS.
February 4, 2025 at 10:13 PM
Dennis Ryder, original shaper for Morey Pope. Hand-shapes. Triplet of Peck Penetrators at Core Surf. As good as it ever gets.
February 4, 2025 at 10:11 PM
Abandoned Settler Shack in Wonder Valley, California.

Hard, ugly, mercilessly-unforgiving desert. The only available water had to be brought up from wells, and it was contaminated with arsenic.
February 4, 2025 at 10:09 PM
Surf check with Dennis, right after Hurricane Ian exited into the Atlantic Ocean, centered more or less directly overhead. 2nd Light. The shorebreak at high tide. This one might have been head high or so. Nobody out.
February 4, 2025 at 10:07 PM
Sebastian Baker, perfect trim, perfect positioning, sliding down and into a place we'd all like to be.
February 4, 2025 at 10:03 PM
What it's like out there some days.

Clearwater Beach, going off.
February 4, 2025 at 10:01 PM
You've got mail.
February 3, 2025 at 12:44 AM
Lisa holds her crystal ball up to the sunrise.
February 3, 2025 at 12:41 AM
I used to live in this thing.
February 3, 2025 at 12:34 AM
Claude Codgen exiting Narragansett Surf and Skate. Rhode Island Soul. Just about as classic as it gets, all the way around.
February 3, 2025 at 12:31 AM
There's a lot going with this picture, which was taken in late 1975.
February 3, 2025 at 12:21 AM
But then on other days...

...I feel more like this.
February 2, 2025 at 7:54 PM
Some days...

...this is exactly how i feel.
February 2, 2025 at 7:52 PM