s aiding reconstruction of the SMS in several ways, including the inventory of parts arriving from Johnson Space Center. Multiple interior walls had to be demolished to install the simulator, and the walls will be rebuilt the full two stories after the simulator’s reconstruction. The student volunteers will continue to assist with every aspect of the up-and-coming SMS program. The next step will be to design and set up the area where the SMS will be housed to ensure that the overall experience is out of this world.
Working with the SMS has reignited the spark that is my passion for aerospace.
When I was a kid, astronauts and the space program fascinated me. I have wanted to know what experiencing spaceflight would be like since the first time I was exposed to the idea of humans going to outer space at Hardin-Simmons University day camp. This interest continued to develop during my sixth-grade field trip to Johnson Space Center. Never in my wildest dreams did I think I might one day fly the SMS, much less be a part of the group maintaining this living piece of history to inspire future space enthusiasts.
I think all college students reach a point in their careers when they ask themselves, “Why am I doing this?” As a senior majoring in aerospace engineering, I have asked myself this very question on many occasions. But experiences such as working with the SMS remind me why I love aerospace engineering, and that’s what gives me the desire to prevail.
Working with the SMS has reignited the spark that is my passion for aerospace. It will be a living piece of history and act as a beacon to future Aggies. We will always be able to remember the significance of the space shuttle program, and having the SMS will allow anybody to experience it firsthand.
Paul Sean Hill ’84
Director, Mission Operations
NASA Johnson Space Center
A Former Student's Perspective
The Shuttle Mission Simulator (SMS) Motion Base Simulator (MBS) is on its way to reactivation in Aggieland by the aerospace engineering department. What a poignant transition for this historic simulator, NASA’s manned space program and Aggies.
As the name implies, the MBS is a full-fidelity cockpit and full-motion space shuttle simulator. In fact, it is the single full-motion shuttle simulator used by every one of the 852 people from 15 nations who flew on shuttle missions throughout that program’s 30-year flight history. This machine, driven by the same software that also controlled the shuttles, was used extensively in preparation for all 135 shuttle missions, from 1977 through July 2011, for spacecraft software testing, piloting technique development, and astronaut and mission control training.
Imagine what it means to more generations who will have access to the touch and feel experienced by real, spacefaring shuttle astronauts.
A primary role of the MBS was to ensure that astronauts flying a shuttle felt as routine and “normal” as possible while riding into space at the tip of millions of pounds of fire, or flying through a cloud of fire during reentry at the end of a mission. More critically, the MBS was a key platform on which to practice a seemingly infinite combination of shuttle system failures and emergencies during all phases of spaceflight, also ensuring that the astronauts and Mission Control were prepared for anything this dangerous business conjured up.
As a freshman aerospace engineering student in the fall of 1980, and just before the first launch the following spring, I watched my dad, Larry Hill ’56, a NASA manager at Johnson Space Center, describe the shuttle flight profile in the Rudder Auditorium to a group of students and professors. More than 30 years later, I managed both the training that employed the MBS and Mission Control. In that same capacity a few months after the last shuttle landed, I signed the legal agreements with Texas A&M President Bowen Loftin that delivered the MBS to my university and my aerospace engineering department. In the space left behind the MBS, NASA has already begun developing simulators for next-generation spacecraft.
In the