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What we are doing today is we're

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actually making our first

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self-reacting friction stir weld

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of the ring to the body of the

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adapter. We're building at

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Marshall the actual piece of

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hardware that adapts the Delta IV

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rocket to the MPCV spacecraft.

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This is an important milestone

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because this is the first time

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we'll be doing a full

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circumferential weld on our

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multi-purpose crew vehicle

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spacecraft adapter 'pathfinder'

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hardware. The Pathfinder is being

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used to develop the processes and

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the techniques that we're going

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to use on the actual flight

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hardware that will fly on the

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EFT-1 test flight. You don't want

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to go into building flight

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hardware with any questions, so

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that's what you do in development.

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You're actually answering questions

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and providing risk mitigation for

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when you actually do get into

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production or building the flight

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hardware. We've made the vertical

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welds on a different tool and those

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turned out very well. However, a

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circumferential weld is a little

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more difficult. For one thing, it

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goes the entire circumference, so

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it's much longer. Once you start,

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you need to complete the whole weld.

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We want to make sure, with our

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pathfinder, that we've got the

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processes in place to do this

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successfully on the flight hardware.

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We do not compete with private

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industry in terms of building

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hardware. That's production. The

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government doesn't do production,

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but we do do the development. If

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you build the expertise, you have

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the expertise in terms of the

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welding engineers, the materials

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engineers, the mechanical engineers,

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the welders, the technicians and

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the hardware people, you build

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that type of expertise and you

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can actually manage your programs

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better because you have the