> Ok...I'll play the what is it game...not space hardware because of the > slotted holes...my guess is washing machine.
Oh it's space hardware alright. I'm pretty sure it was destined to be a part of a Shuttle Spacelab rack or an MPESS (Mission Peculiar Equipment Support Structure) for the Shuttle's main bay. I was hired on the Payload Mission Integration Contract, and those were the two big projects of the day. Indeed, Spacelab was two walls of racks of experiments that we integrated into the Shuttle, and we designed and built some experiments as well. That "hunk of metal" (Larry Flesner called it an "anvil") was either a reject or part of a "mass simulator", used for vibration tests on a shaker table. I've had it around for 15 years....it's just too gorgeous to recycle...sitting on a bookshelf. The slots are not uncommon either. Because of the size of the rack assemblies and the tolerance stackup of "stick built" racks, the experiment panels often had only one round hole, with the other corners being slotted. See http://ntrs.nasa.gov/archive/nasa/casi.ntrs.nasa.gov/19800002032.pdf if you've got a couple of hours to kill looking at Spacelab racks, and you'll see examples. In fact, the temperature extremes in the cargo bay when the doors are open "on orbit" make the racks grow in length to the extent that the astronauts have to loosen all the bolts in the slotted holes so the assembly could slide around without damaging itself. It's a six hour job that has to be accomplished before the bay doors can be opened, and then another 8 hours to retorque them all at mission's end. Few people realize the effort involved with that. Y'all do believe me don't you? Would I lie to you? OK, maybe on the bolt loosening thing. It was too easy... I've been waiting to spring that flap hinge one for almost a year! And I had to lay low for a few years so people would forget about the plane burning to the ground. That was probably 15 years ago, because it doesn't even show up in the archive. It was a doozy though! Quite the tale. I haven't mounted (or even built) the belly flap yet, but my real "hinge bracket" is actually a piece of 5/8" square spruce epoxied between the bottom of the aft spar and the bottom skin, and the aluminum piano hinge will be screwed into that with about ten number six wood screws that have been "T-88'd" into their holes to reinforce the surrounding wood and prevent loosening. I figure between the spruce and all the epoxy, that will weigh about four ounces total. I may fly it before I fabricate and install the belly board though, just to see if there's a speed penalty. There shouldn't be, if properly faired in, but I'm really itching to get it back in the air. I just filled the engine with oil, and startup is coming soon. More later on saving weight, but suffice it to say, I've seen a lot of heavy stuff on KRs over the years that had no business being there. Just realize that there have been no in-flight structural failures in KR history, so it's not something you need to add more weight to prevent. Happy April 1st... Mark Langford ML at N56ML.com website at http://www.N56ML.com --------------------------------------------------------
