NARRATOR: There aren't many fire stations in the world with a fleet of armored personnel carriers
available, but there aren't many fire stations that have to serve the space shuttle fleet
and its astronauts, either. NASA's Kennedy Space Center firefighters used four of the tank-like M113s
to protect them and the astronauts in case of an emergency.
On launch day, two would stand ready with teams of firefighters inside to dash in and
rescue the astronauts. Another was based near the launch pad, empty, set up so the crews could drive
away from danger themselves. The fourth was a spare.
David Seymour, Battalion Chief, KSC Fire Department: The reason for the M113 is for our rescue
teams. For the astronauts, we needed an armored vehicle in order for us to go from where we're
stationed for launch to the pad and then up to the top of the pad to perform
a rescue of the astronauts.
NARRATOR: An M113 weighs 11 tons and it is steered with two levers that control the respective
track. With its rumbling six-cylinder engine, the vehicle doesn't accelerate so much as lunge.
But it can go practically anywhere and offers considerable protection. It's also amphibious,
so it can go into the water and swim, although that aspect is rarely employed for Kennedy's vehicles.
David Seymour: This just gives us the protection from whatever environment we may be going into
and then be evacuating from an emergency. The drivers themselves, they are squeezed in there like
sardines, into where the drivers are. It's very difficult to drive the M113 with your full protection on.
With the mask on, with the helmet on top of that, with the hatches closed, in the M113,
the driver's field of vision is very limited. They're looking through about a six-inch by two and a half-inch prism as
they're driving down the road or going to the pad. During a launch, we're stationed about nine-tenths
of a mile from the pad, we're the closest people, humans, to the pad when the shuttle launches.
Right around T-10, we will don the rest of our gear put our air packs on, we'll get inside
the M113s, we'll call, let's button them up. We'll close all the hatches, we'll close all the ramps.
We'll go on our intercom system so we can talk to each other within the M113,
but also we have radios that we can hear out to the, excuse me, to the NTDs if they were
to call us up for an emergency. They kind of keep us informed about what's going on at the pad because other
than the driver, and one person that's standing in the commander's hatch to see,
no one else can see what's going on. We don?t actually know it's launched until you see
it light up inside the M113.
NARRATOR: Every astronaut that has gone into space on a shuttle had learned to drive an
M113 during training. Many have driven them several times.
The training was a standard part of the terminal countdown demonstration test, a launch day
dress rehearsal known as the TCDT.
David Seymour: We get them in there, we go through the procedures, we go through the
capabilities of the M113 and then they each get a chance to actually drive the vehicle in an emergency
situation where they're driving it over rough terrain, down roads, and I would say every single crewmember
absolutely loves it and we always invite back another time when they're not scheduled for a mission.
NARRATOR: The M113s were never used in a launch pad emergency, but were based near the pad
for each launch of the shuttle program's 30 years. Although never called on, the firefighters
who stood ready never felt the training or machinery were wasted.
David Seymour: We are the only country in the world that has a specialized rescue team
for the astronauts. So yes, all of us, and I think I can speak for the whole team, are very proud
of what we do and what we accomplish here and what we protect, I mean, We're protecting the United States
space program and their astronauts.