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that's it that's a long day

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hours about three hours of sleep in

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there somewhere half of it on a bus half

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put on the plane

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as we led up to that whole operation we

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had a huge set of work ahead of us

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stowing the rover and getting it ready

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for shipment meant a lot of shifts in a

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row a lot of complex operations with the

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vehicle and you have to remind yourself

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every time you pick that Rover up it's

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almost a billion dollars worth of

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hardware that that you're watching out

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for every time you do something with it

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so that that part got to be really white

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knuckles for us it makes us a little

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nervous sometimes I mean you worry about

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the environment it's it's on a forklift

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it gets put on the on the back of a

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flatbed truck and then run down the

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highway to March Air Force Base from JPL

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and that whole transport is is just like

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you're you're driving any other any

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other truck down the highway so it's

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it's full of pumps and it takes lumps

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and and so it's it's one of those that

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it's a very impressive operation to get

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the shipping containers up into the

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aircraft these boxes are incredibly

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large and and even as big as as big an

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aircraft as the c-17 is it is barely big

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there's an entire team of Air Force

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reservists who help us load this led by

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the Load Master who was in charge of the

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lynching operation basically they use

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the aircraft cable system a hydraulic

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winch to hook up to the container and

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as that happens you have a team of about

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eight other Air Force crew members plus

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all of the payload crew members all of

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the MSL crew members that we had with us

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watching all of the corners making sure

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that that everything was clearing and

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that the measurements were right and

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that we weren't going to run into a

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problem as the if the shipping container

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got off line for any reason

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even despite the best planning we can

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find ourselves in a spot where we still

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have to solve some of the problems we

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need thick plywood to reduce the contact

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pressure on the wheels the shipping

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container you have this this thing which

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weighs you know 10,000 pounds or more

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and you have to be make sure you don't

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punch a hole in the aircraft floor so we

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had to get thicker plywood we had to

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make emergency calls out here at a

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Kennedy Space Center to make sure that

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enough plywood was on hand when we

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landed so that we would actually have

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that same accommodation on the way off

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all of those operations had to be undone

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once we got down to the ground here at

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KSC and so the operations on the tarmac

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including the offloading of the shipping

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containers had to be done just in the

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same way the same crew then after the

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five hour flight stepped up and had to

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check all of those clearances again make

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sure all of the rigging was was out of

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the way and that the winch system was

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ready to help lower the the shipping

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containers down the ramp even wanted to

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get the shipping container to get away

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from you and roll out onto the tarmac

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you know he'd get get out of control so

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but they did a really nice careful job

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and again we had all of the same crew

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that were there at March Air Force Base

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here at KSC plus our arrival crews we

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had a fresh crew of folks who are

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well-rested to be able to take care of a

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lot of the ground operations once we

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arrived here so that those of us who had

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been going for almost 48 hours straight

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didn't have to also finish out that part

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of the job we're about to send our baby

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on a very long journey to go spend its

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life exploring the surface of Mars

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that's that's it's a big leap of faith

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to be able to hand off the vehicle they

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have a great team on the launch vehicle

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side and they're there ready to take