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President Barack Obama: We'll start by sending astronauts to an asteroid for the first time in history.
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NARRATOR: Capturing and repositioning an asteroid in space and then sending a crew of astronauts up to
it to collect samples will test NASA on levels of innovation and ability unmatched since the 1960s.
Back then, America's space agency invented launch vehicles, spacecraft and numerous technologies
needed to make their cutting edge exploration missions possible.
Today, engineers, designers and technicians are re-inventing what it takes to operate a
space program with multiple goals and many new machines capable of carrying them out.
At Kennedy Space Center, an effort called the Ground Systems Development and Operations Program
focuses on updating the agency's infrastructure to host the future of rocketry and spaceflight.
Every day, engineers and designers who specialize in aerospace are creating, testing and putting
into place the hardware necessary to assemble,
transport and launch the next generation of rockets and spacecraft.
TOM HOFFMANN, Vehicle Integration and Launch Team: This is a very busy time for NASA.
I came from shuttle and most of the people in my group came from shuttle and
we're busier now than we were with shuttle.
NARRATOR: Based at Kennedy Space Center in Florida, GSDO is primarily focused on the ground support
structure that will be needed by rockets as large and powerful as the Space Launch System.
The structures, ranging from the iconic Vehicle Assembly Building, or VAB,
to the historic Launch Complex 39 could also be used by much smaller launchers,
including those under development by private space companies.
Mobile launch platforms that will move between the VAB and launch pads are expected to
get facelifts, too, to meet a variety of new demands. Even the crawler-transporters that
rolled the Saturn V and space shuttle to the launchpads are getting additional changes for new roles.
HOFFMAN: It's very difficult to design facilities for multi-users. This is new to NASA and
in fact new to the space business. Traditionally, all of these facilities are
built with one vehicle in mind and they interface to that vehicle very specifically.
NARRATOR: Launch Pad 39B, the starting point for many missions during Apollo and the shuttle era,
already proved its flexibility in launching the Ares I-X Flight Test in 2009.
Since then, the dominant features of the pad were removed to make way for the centerpiece of the
21st century launch concept: a clean pad.
HOFFMAN: To get pad B ready for the multi-user, what we're doing is we're going with the clean pad concept.
The vehicle will come out with all of its support structure. It's not unique to one vehicle.
NARRATOR: In the VAB, work platforms several stories tall have been removed to make way for a new system of
platforms that adjust to different dimensions - again a new development modeled to
accommodate different kinds of rockets. A full-size replica of the Orion spacecraft that is being
developed to take astronauts into deep space is already aiding designers in the VAB.
HOFFMAN: It helps us because we have to be able to figure out how to process these vehicles.
We have mockups like this vehicle here, this mockup here, that we can use to practice lifting,
for sizing, put scaffolding up to them and all the processing that we need to do,
all the handling and access.
NARRATOR: Changes are taking place at Kennedy's runway, too, where facilities are being
established to host high-flying air and spaceships that can take off like an airplane and
soar to the edge of space before returning to a safe landing.
HOFFMAN: So out at the runway, what we're doing is we're changing the infrastructure there to support
a whole lot more customers. Right now, we have a lot of customers that are using the runway
for aircraft, for race cars, all kinds of things.
NARRATOR: While the task is new to the engineers, the solutions can often be found in NASA's heralded past.
HOFFMAN: We have a lot of issues where we're trying to figure out a way of doing things
and we say, well how did the old guys do it in Apollo? And we'll look up how they did it
and those guys were pretty smart. A lot of times we'll end up doing things similar to the
way they did them in the old days.
NARRATOR: With an eye toward using concepts that worked in the past,
the Vehicle Integration and Launch team is blending in new and unique elements of spaceflight
to bring to reality a future of success and innovation.
HOFFMAN: By this retooling effort, we're going to have the infrastructure we need to
take us through many years into the future. We're going to be much more efficient,
we're going to have much more capability, and we'll be ready to go.
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