Episode 11 -- Les Hanks

In this episode, host Rick Houston sits down for a chat with longtime friend Les Hanks, who served for many years as a quality control inspector, technician and industrial engineering and safety engineer on the Space Shuttle at Kennedy Space Center in Florida. After an absence of a few years, Les is back at KSC and working on the Space Launch System program.

SHOW NOTES:

*Rick and Les first met when Rick accompanied Busch Series driver Ashton Lewis on a tour of the Orbiter Processing Facility. Ashton got to go in the Shuttle and visit the flight deck. Rick got to stick his head in the hatch and see the Waste Containment System ... the potty.

Ashton Lewis, about to head into the Space Shuttle. Photo by a very disappointed Rick Houston!

*After serving as an F-16 crew chief in the United States Air Force, Les planned to go to work for one of the major airlines. An on-the-spot offer to work on the Shuttle, however, changed the course of his career.

*Les describes the exquisite attention to detail Shuttle technicians gave to their work, and how it all paid off on launch day.

*Although he might have been assigned to a particular Orbiter Processing Facility, Les' work in all reality was spread across each facility and all of the vehicles in the Shuttle fleet.

*The astronauts who flew on board the machines Les and his co-workers labored on made it a point to thank the Shuttle workforce for their expertise. After all, it was their lives on the line if something went wrong.

*Les remembers where he was and what he was doing February 1, 2003 -- the day Columbia went down.

*After the tragedy, Les copes with the emotions of the accident and the uncertainties of the program itself while serving on the reconstruction team at the Cape.

*Forced into a decision to leave the Shuttle workforce by the looming end of the program, Les takes a job with Siemens Wind Power. He describes the melancholy feeling of leaving KSC for the last time, and stopping to take a picture of the Vehicle Assembly Building in his rear-view mirror.

*After working with aircraft in the Air Force and, of course, the Space Shuttle for so long, the new job turned out to be quite an adjustment for Les.

*Les' story does not end there, however. Earlier this year, he returned to work at Kennedy Space Center on the Space Launch System program and once again sees the VAB through the windshield of his car ... instead of the rear-view mirror.

*Les gives his take on the relationship between NASA and companies like Space X.

*The rebirth of the Space Coast ...