TheBakersfieldCalifornian.com

Kennedy Space Center in Florida has for three decades borne witness to the fiery ascent of America's space shuttles.

Houston, too, has earned its own mark of distinction as the home of the flight control center for each of the 135 missions.

But when the history of the shuttle program is finally written, a key location in eastern Kern County will be shown to have played a crucial role in the development and testing of the shuttle and the safe return of hundreds of NASA astronauts.

"Though it's been an unheralded role, it turns out Dryden and Edwards Air Force Base have been absolutely critical to the shuttle program," said NASA historian Christian Gelzer, who works for NASA contractor Tybrin Corp.

Dryden Flight Research Center, located about 75 miles east of Bakersfield on Edwards Air Force Base, has admirably performed this role, Gelzer said, "without the public knowing it -- and frankly, without NASA knowing it."

This week, even as the crew of the shuttle Atlantis works on the international space station more than 170 miles above the surface of the earth, employees at NASA Dryden are preparing for the always-possible weather-related detour of the shuttle landing from Florida to the desert location where the shuttle program was born.

Although most shuttle flights touch down at Kennedy, the dry lake bed at Edwards has been the site of 54 shuttle landings, about 40 percent of the total.

Some feel it would be a fitting end to the shuttle program to see the final flight land in Kern County -- the birthplace of the shuttle.

Rocketman

Tehachapi resident and former test pilot Vance Brand had a close-up and a bird's-eye view of Dryden for several years. As a NASA astronaut, Brand has flown in space four times, first as command module pilot on the Apollo-Soyuz mission in 1975, and later as commander of three shuttle missions. Two of those three missions touched down at Edwards.

It's not a stretch to say his life depended on the professionalism of the NASA staff and private contractors who supported the shuttle at Dryden.

"We had absolute confidence in that team," he said. "They never let us down."

The Mojave Desert location will always have an advantage, weather-wise, over Kennedy, Brand said. The weather at Edwards is more predictable and is less subject to short-term changes.

In addition, the huge dry lake beds at Edwards provide options in the event something goes wrong during the approach to landing.

Despite those advantages, no one's suggesting it's easy.

"I still remember the first time I landed the shuttle (in 1982)," he recalled. "It was just after sunrise.

"We came through a cloud deck at 17,000 feet."

It meant the crew couldn't see their destination until they were right over it.

And there are no do-overs when flying the shuttle orbiter. Once it re-enters the earth's atmosphere, it becomes a big, heavy, unpowered glider. Shuttle pilots only get one shot at landing the 204,000-pound glider.

"It was a thrill to land there," Brand said. "Once you landed, the ground team took over."

The foundation

Although the space shuttle has been flying for three decades, it would be a mistake to call it a 30-year program.

"This center (Dryden) turns out to be more important than it appears at first glance," Gelzer said. "The story begins long before the shuttle itself. It begins in the 1950s."

The experimental rocket plane known as the X-15 -- and daring X-15 pilots like Kern County's own Bill Dana -- laid the foundation for the shuttle, Gelzer said.

"It was the first airplane to leave the atmosphere and re-enter the atmosphere, yet it preceded the shuttle by years," he said.

And like the shuttle, it landed unpowered, as a glider. But unlike the shuttle, it launched from beneath the wing of a B-52 mothership.

NASA was barely a year old when the first X-15 flew in 1959. But the hypersonic aircraft helped agency engineers take advantage of a concept called "energy management."

"It's a technique developed first -- and I mean first -- here at Edwards," Gelzer said.

And it would prove crucial to making the shuttle program viable, by harnessing the energy contained in the velocity and weight of the orbiter as it glided back to earth.

Early engineers "did not believe you could fly a plane that big on energy management alone," the historian said. In fact, until Dryden and Edwards proved otherwise, it was believed the shuttle would need jet engines and jet fuel to safely return to a designated runway.

The advancements made by Dryden and Edwards are too numerous to detail here, but one development critical to the shuttle program included "fly-by-wire" technology.

These systems replaced an aircraft's conventional manual flight controls with an electronic system transmitted by wires and computers. Dryden pioneered the first digital fly-by-wire aircraft without a mechanical backup when engineers converted an F-8 Crusader in the early 1970s.

Even the fundamentals of the control room, like the one that figured so prominently in the movie "Apollo 13," were developed in the creative engineering and flight-control environment that blossomed in the Mojave Desert in those heady days.

'Tremendous pride'

George Grimshaw was barely in his 20s when he began working with NASA's space shuttle support team at Dryden in 1979.

Thirty-two years later at age 53, he's the program manager for shuttle support at the flight research center.

"As kids, we were raised with the early space program: Mercury, Gemini, Apollo," he remembered. "For my kids, the shuttle has been a part of their lives."

Grimshaw hopes succeeding generations will have their own pioneering space program to look up to -- something that will inspire wonder and awe and pride.

A sense of pride in what has been accomplished at Dryden is common among those who have worked there.

Larry Biscayart started there in 1973. Now he's employed as a contracted management consultant.

But he's not ready to acknowledge the shuttle's swan song.

"As crazy as it sounds, our job isn't done yet," he said. "Not until we get that final wheel stopped and everyone is home safe.

"I'm sure the reality will hit, but right now, we need to be ready to support the landing should she come this way."

Biscayart said he was lucky to be in the right place at the right time when he went to work for NASA.

"To the people who work out here, the shuttle is in their blood," he said. "There's such a tremendous pride."

Sniffing for toxics

Ted Mosteller has been involved in the shuttle program at Kennedy and at Dryden. He's based in Florida, but as NASA Dryden convoy commander, he comes to Edwards before each landing to manage the convoy of vehicles and people who meet the orbiter upon its return.

One key job?

"We sniff for toxics on board the orbiter," he said.

The orbiter's thrusters are fueled by some nasty chemicals that can be harmful, so Mosteller's team uses equipment that samples the air around the shuttle.

"Making sure the crew is safe," he said. "As convoy commander, that's my primary job."

But safety efforts can extend for miles. Although it's never happened, the chance of an emergency landing off-base has led NASA safety experts to reach out to civilian search-and-rescue operations.

"We've trained firefighters in Kern County on how to get the crew out of the vehicle or how to get a crewmember safely out of a spacesuit," he said.

Kern County has definitely played a big part in supporting the shuttle program, he said.

Both Biscayart and Mosteller feel deeply about safeguarding the shuttle crews, and they still can get emotional when talking about the Challenger disaster in 1986 and the loss of the Columbia crew in 2003.

"We lost friends," Biscayart said quietly.

Mosteller remembers waiting on that cool Saturday morning in February for Columbia to re-enter the atmosphere. It seemed surreal when it was learned the orbiter burned up upon re-entry.

"One thing about NASA is we have made space travel look easy -- and it's not."

Flying into the future

Inevitably, the end of the shuttle program will change the lives of thousands.

Mosteller said about 2,000 people at Kennedy Space Center could lose their jobs as the shuttle program winds down.

At Dryden, the number is closer to 25, Grimshaw said, but some of those may be able to transition to different jobs. Others, he said, may simply be able to retire.

Now at 80, former astronaut Brand can look back at his time at NASA with pride and with the knowledge that America's space program has not only inspired millions, but also has enabled the development of cellphones, GPS technology, microwave technology and countless other commercial and scientific applications.

But he's worried about the future.

Yes, it's time for the Burt Rutans of the world to develop commercial applications for space flight in space tourism and other areas.

"That's good," he said. "But I'm disturbed. It seems like this may be the end of human space exploration.

"Hopefully it's not, but we don't have anything on the dock to replace it," he said.

Yes, plans are on the drawing board to land humans on an asteroid and to bring home samples and new data. And later, Mars is the stated goal.

"But there's nothing backing up the words right now," he lamented.

Brand hopes a new generation will be inspired to study science and engineering, with aspirations to take the accomplishments of the Dryden team to the next level. But if real jobs are not available in the field of space exploration, he said, they will be forced to go elsewhere.

After three decades at Dryden, Biscayart still feels that inspiration.

"This has been something I thought I'd never be a part of," he said of his time at Dryden. "I hope people understand that we have really accomplished something as a nation."