Auburn faculty preserving history of Alabama’s NASA facilities

Auburn University Professor Junshan Liu has digitally preserved some amazing history: the Petra ruins in Jordan, the Nigua Sugar Mill in the Dominican Republic and a World War II battleship and submarine in Mobile, Alabama. 

Now, Liu and his colleague Richard Burt, McWhorter Endowed Chair and head of the McWhorter School of Building Science, are using cutting-edge technology to create comprehensive digital archives of three historic NASA structures right here in Alabama — structures that are already gone.  

“One was demolished late last year, and the other two were imploded in January,” said Liu. “We were really fortunate to hear about it when we did, because it gave us enough time to digitally document these significant historic structures.”

Liu, the JE Wilborn Endowed Chair in the College of Architecture, Design and Construction, and Burt were meeting with a historian at NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama, last fall when they learned about the scheduled demolitions and asked to document the buildings. Under a Space Act Agreement with NASA, Liu and Burt digitally preserved the three structures, all of which were critical to the United States’ Space Race efforts in the 1960s.

“We’re really grateful to NASA for partnering with us,” Burt said. “These structures played an important role in American history, and getting to explore them up close while digitally preserving them was genuinely exciting.”

Working with colleague Danielle Willkens of the Georgia Institute of Technology, Burt and Liu used cutting-edge reality capture technologies, such as terrestrial laser scanning and 360-degree photography and photogrammetry, to collect images of the three structures: the Propulsion and Structural Test Facility, the Dynamic Test Facility and the Neutral Buoyancy Simulator.

The ‘T-Tower’

The Propulsion and Structural Test Facility, also known as the T-Tower due to its shape, was a rocket testing facility built in 1957. Standing 175 feet tall, it was used during the 1960s to support solid and liquid-fueled rocket testing. The T-Tower was home to the development of the Saturn family of rockets, including the Saturn V rocket that launched the first astronauts to the moon.

This aerial view of the space shuttle orbiter Enterprise from 1978 shows the shuttle orbiter being hoisted into Marshall's Dynamic Test Stand for vibration tests. Photo courtesy of NASA.

Auburn alumna and retired NASA astronaut Kathryn Thornton preparing for work on the Hubble Space Telescope in the Neutral Buoyancy Simulator in 1993. Photo courtesy of NASA.

Liu, seen here in front of the T-Tower, sees his work documenting historic buildings as a tangible and meaningful way to connect people with the past.

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Dynamic Test Facility a.k.a. The Rocket Shaker

Built in 1964 to house a fully assembled Saturn V rocket, the Dynamic Test Facility stood more than 360 feet tall and was once the tallest structure in the state. Used to mimic the vibrations of a launch before a rocket’s first flight and affectionately known as “the rocket shaker,” it was the first facility to house and test a complete space shuttle stack that included the shuttle, external fuel tank and solid rocket boosters.

The Neutral Buoyancy Simulator

A state-of-the-art facility when it opened in 1969, the Neutral Buoyancy Simulator (NBS) was a large microgravity simulation tank where NASA engineers and astronauts went underwater to mimic weightlessness. At 40 feet deep and holding approximately 1.25 million gallons of water, the NBS helped NASA prepare for astronauts' activities outside space shuttles and other spacecraft in orbit high above Earth, like making repairs while on a spacewalk.

Now what?

Liu and Burt are fusing their high-resolution digital data with NASA’s archival resources, integrating historical photographs, technical schematics and oral histories into final interactive virtual tours. And while they love the work of documenting historical structures, it’s sharing that final product with others that really inspires Burt and Liu. They’re hoping they’ll soon see their virtual tours on NASA’s website, where they can help readers understand the value of NASA’s work during a time when spaceflight capability advanced quickly.

“I grew up in the 1960s during the Apollo missions; you only see the results on TV of what has been many years of research and preparation,” Burt said. “Recording all of the equipment and instrumentation around these structures really brought home how complex and challenging this essential training was."

Liu sees his work documenting historic buildings as a tangible and meaningful way to connect people with the past, and he is grateful to NASA for the opportunity to document history before it disappeared.

“Their team was incredibly supportive and passionate about the history,” he said. “I’m really proud to be part of this effort that uses technology to bring these hidden landmarks to life for future generations. It felt incredibly special to help document such an important piece of American history.”