>> I: Hi everybody.
Josh Farley here inside Mission Control Houston.
Most of you probably know the guy sitting beside me.
This is Bill Foster.
He's sort of a legend around these parts.
He is a mission control ground controller or GC
as they call it here; that's the call sign,
but what those guys do there's an entire team
that does it they basically run everything inside this building,
all of our communication networks they help us interface
with the tracking and data relay satellite system.
They've got the console back there at the back that looks
like something out of the future.
It's got lots of buttons on it; it's quite impressive.
It's a little less than what we do over here, but Bill is here
to talk about mission control and sort
of some activity that's been taking place.
You guys are probably not seeing the space shuttle flight control
room, which is down the hall from us here
in the space station room in quite a long time.
So, Bill, let's talk about this is what it looks like now.
We're taking a live shot of it.
It looks quite a bit different
than it did last time we saw it, doesn't it?
>> Bill: It is quite a bit different.
It takes some getting used to.
We started running some of our first testing
out of there a couple of days ago.
In fact, I think you've got a shot from that a little later.
>> I: Yeah.
>> Bill: But the control center itself is
in a big evolutionary process where we are moving
from the current architecture which everybody is familiar
with with the blue consoles.
>> I: Big blue consoles, yes.
>> Bill: Into what we're calling MCC 21
or 21st Century Control Center.
Part of that is changing out the hardware,
which is like you can see the brown more clean type consoles
and that's something we're going to have to get used
to because we don't have a lot of storage in there.
We've been trying for years to get away from a lot
of paper media in front of us.
>> I: Big binders.
As a matter of fact you can't see them,
but we've got tons of them over here.
>> Bill: Right.
When we brought in the last version, the blue console,
back in the mid-90s, that was one of the big goals
of that is pure electronic documentation.
>> I: Yeah.
>> Bill: Well, we're just not built that way.
We don't think that way and the monitors in front of us
that we were planning on using
for the documentation is what we used to look at data coming
down from the space craft
and monitor real estate is pretty valuable.
So we didn't want to take away what we needed to look
at onboard or in my case what's happening in the network
or the equipment in the control center to look at procedures.
So we never really got away from that.
With the new control center we're going
to have even less space to store documents.
>> I: Many more monitors though.
>> Bill: But many more monitors.
In fact, that's one of the things we're still struggling
with is how to configure the monitors
so that we can see the front screens
and the positions behind the scenes.
>> I: [inaudible], yeah, yeah.
>> Bill: Even now at our console we have a layout
of monitors going horizontally but there's one side
of the console where it's stacked up to
where if you're sitting on that side you don't see the front
of the room.
So it's always a challenge, always working towards that.
>> I: Let's take a look at these pictures.
I think we've got some photos of what the room used like and kind
of the build out of it.
So that's 135, that's July, it's hard to believe that's been more
than 2 years ago, but that's kind of the shock
that everybody is familiar with; that's sort of the role thing
that mission control shot that we've seen
and like you've talked about you see the blue consoles.
>> Bill: Right.
>> I: And there's the [inaudible] console
and you guys are up there at the front.
>> Bill: Yes, it was a great room.
It served its purpose for many years.
We started flying shuttle out of there in 1995.
>> I: And we flew about half the shuttle missions didn't we?
>> Bill: It was very close.
I'm not sure of the exact division,
but STS-70 was the first mission that was supported
out of the white [inaudible].
>> I: Yeah, just keep checking these photos.
We can put them up there and see what all happened
as you guys started to tear out the equipment and things
like that because you basically had to come in there
and basically strip the room bare, right?
>> Bill: Correct.
So here we're looking at it probably
from last late wintertime frame
when the blue consoles were just about all out.
>> I: What people don't realize you see this is what's
so funny the first time you walk
in the room you see those big squares in the floor.
We actually have floating floors here in mission control.
They kind of give a little bit when you step in there, right?
>> Bill: Yeah, hopefully they'll give,
sorry about that, I cut myself off.
Hopefully don't give too much.
It's got a good base foundation, but we are walking about 28,
30 inches off of the actual floor.
>> I: Yeah, there's lots of wires up under there
so let's keep going through the pictures
and take a look at what was next.
>> Bill: Okay.
Now here we're bringing in the new equipment
into the control room.
So you're seeing the wooden consoles and --
>> I: -- new paint job on the walls.
>> Bill: New paint job.
They took all the plaques down and put them back up afterwards
and so we do like to keep a history
of what was supported out of the room.
The screens got wider.
Yeah, that's one thing I'm going to miss is
in the white [inaudible] we had room on either side
of the screens for the flags to go up.
So now they're going to go back on poles again just
like they are in this room.
>> I: Yeah.
>> Bill: But it was kind of nice for a while having the US Flag
up on the wall with light flooding it
so it was visible to all.
>> I: So there's a look
at it during the testing this week, right?
>> Bill: Right.
So, here we have all the displays up and most
of the displays you see right now are not functional yet.
We're still starting to populate that with the new capabilities.
On Tuesday, we ran for the first time
with the upgraded training system simulator,
which we're calling Training Systems 21.
That was very successful, able to command, able to get data
in so the developers that were in working that were very happy
with the results and the progress that we're making.
If things go as planned, then sometime in June or July
of next year, 2014, the ISS support will move
out of this room down the hall
to the white [inaudible] shuttle control room
and for the next few months
after that this room will be upgraded.
>> I: And this will end up looking just like it.
>> Bill: It will end up looking very much like it.
>> I: We'll keep looking at these live shots of the room
because I mean it's a different look, it's a different look.
It has a different sort of feel to it, but it's more modern
and everybody knows that Orion will be run
out of this room eventually.
Let's talk about EFT 1 very quickly.
EFT 1 is going to be run not actually out of that room,
it's going to be run out of what we call the blue [inaudible],
right?
>> Bill: It's going to be out of the blue [inaudible].
It's the original room that we flew station out of.
It's a smaller control room.
It's also been upgraded to the NCC21 configuration.
In fact, I'm down there today I stepped down the hall
from that running tests with the test rigs for Orion
for the EFT 1 mission.
>> I: Yeah.
>> Bill: Currently that's planned to launch
in about a year from now, September of 2014.
It'll eventually run, it'll eventually fly off
of the space launch system.
NASA's new rocket Heavy Lifter,
but for this first mission it's going to go off of a Delta IV
out of Cape Canaveral.
It will not have humans onboard,
but we'll do two orbits of the earth.
The second orbit going up to a high altitude
of close to 4,000 miles.
>> I: It's way out there, yeah.
>> Bill: So that when it re-enters it can re-enter close
to the speed you would re-enter if you're coming back
from the moon or any - -
>> I: -- way out there.
>> Bill: Way out there.
>> I: Mars or [inaudible] or something like that.
>> Bill: Exactly.
>> I: We were talking before we came on the air about,
and let's talk about the history
of this place real quick before we wrap up,
but people know mission control, they know that name and it's
in movies and things like that.
The Mission Control Center is actually the whole building.
This is what we call a flight control room.
You'll hear us call it a [inaudible].
Of course, we love our acronyms around here, right?
>> Bill: Yes, we do.
>> I: So let's tell everybody this is [inaudible] 1
that we're in right now.
This is the space station room and it used to be --
>> Bill: -- this used to be MOCR 1.
>> I: It used to be MOCR 1.
Mission Operations Control Room, right.
Actually Apollo 7 was flown out of this room;
the one that we're sitting in now.
>> Bill: That's correct.
>> I: Of course it looked quite a bit different than it did back
in the day and then shuttle started in this room.
As a matter of fact, the patch is right
above our head up here STS1.
>> Bill: First four shuttle missions out of this room.
>> I: Yeah, and then we ran some shuttle missions upstairs
in what used to MOCR 2 and the [inaudible] --
>> Bill: -- for the last part of the, I say the last part,
the last part of the first half
of the shuttle program it became FICR 2.
It's kind of funny because we, when the building opened up,
these were MOCRs, Mission Operation Control Rooms,
and after the first four shuttle flights the decision was made
that we're no longer running missions these are more flights,
which is why we changed the names to FICR instead of MOCR.
So, from that time these were FICR 1 and FICR 2
and we ran the first four shuttle flights out of this one
and then we moved upstairs to FICR 2 while we tore this room
out and upgraded it
to the shuttle era consoles back in the early 80s.
Once this room was upgraded we then started moving back
and forth between the rooms because it was a big job
to reconfigure since everything was running off mainframes,
all the buttons were individually wired
to outputs of the mainframe.
So it took literally months to reconfigure
from one shuttle mission to the next,
but later in the shuttle program
after the Challenger accident the third floor was dedicated
to Department of Defense missions
and so we ran the last few Department of Defense missions
out of the third floor and when those were finished,
it was shut down and it had already been designated a
national historic landmark.
>> I: That's the one you see in the movies,
the famous Apollo room and the big green consoles and things
like that, but in the mid 90s,
we built the new section of mission control.
>> Bill: Yes.
>> I: And for some reason didn't call it FICR 3
or FICR 4 it became the white FICR and the blue FICR
and there's a red FICR too but it's just a training room.
>> Bill: Right.
Red FICR is not going to be with us much longer.
Once MCC21 is complete the training room
on the third floor will be re-utilized for other purposes
and we'll use the blue FICR for training.
>> I: Yeah, so you've got blue and white down there.
The white one is the famous one
that we just showed you a minute ago the live shot
that was the shuttle.
I think it was just a coincidence probably
that we call it white and the shuttles are white,
but that is you want to be the Orion flight control room
and these guys have been just working like crazy trying to get
that room back up and running and modernize it.
There's a change like we talked about but, of course,
this building has been migrating and morphing and changing.
>> Bill: The story of this building is change
from the original days to the mid-90s until now
and this won't be the last one.
>> I: No.
>> Bill: The evolution will continue as technology improves.
>> I: So, our chairs may be a little bit different
but it's still an extremely cool feeling whenever you walk
in there.
I think all of us probably still get chills whenever we walk
in these rooms.
>> Bill: It's great walking in particularly if you're coming
in for mission support.
I know in the shuttle days when I was coming in for a launch,
you know, you just have a feeling the whole hallways,
everything feels different in the building
when it's ready for mission.
>> I: Yeah.
Well, Bill, thanks a lot for coming along.
It's been cool to see this room and see it change.
I'm glad it's almost ready to go.
>> Bill: It's exciting.
A lot of things coming.
Thanks, Josh, appreciate it.
>> I: Thank you guys for joining us.
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