Barry L. Bond

Who am I? | Atlantis being towed | Atlantis in front of OPF | Atlantis entering OPF | Atlantis in OPF | Re-Vita | My mother

Who am I? Well, first, and most important, I am a genuine, Lordship-salvation Christian. Jesus Christ is the Lord of my life, and, as a result, He is my savior, which everyone needs, because we have all broken the law of God.

It is unfortunately necessary to indicate the genuine and Lordship-salvation above, because there are so many people who claim to be a Christian, but as I talk with them, I discover they are not. (Labeling yourself, by yourself, a Christian does not make you a Christian. You are a Christian if God considers you a Christian. God will only consider people who are disciples of Jesus Christ a Christian, as described in the only book we have that is 100% truth: the Bible.)

Some may be deceived. And, I can speak on this, from first-hand experience, myself! (First-hand experience is the only thing that allows a person to speak with any knowledge on most things. I started attending church in late 1998, and I did, truly, believe I was a Christian from that time on. Now, I see I wasn't. When it comes to Christianity, please do not assume or presume that all is okay! Your eternal destiny depends on it: you will either be in heaven or in hell! [There is no other possible location.] Being born-again [which Jesus Christ says we must be, to enter the Kingdom of heaven, John 3:3] does not depend on saying a prayer, walking an aisle, or even saying the words that you give your life to Jesus Christ, that you consider Him to be your Lord. [It requires a lot more than just saying the words! You must live it!] He is Lord, whether you recognize Him as that or not! And, everyone will see that, for themselves, one day, and will not have any control over the fact that He is Lord! We can't escape the effects of the law of gravity, whether we want to believe in it or not; It is present, and there is no way to escape it. Similarly, whether we want to believe that Jesus Christ is Lord over everyone or not, He is, and that fact will not be able to be escaped.)

How do you become a Christian? REPENT! That's it. It is that simple! However, it is also our responsibility. (Salvation is only of God. He has responsibilities -- and He will most certainly do His, HE's faithful! -- and we have responsibilities. Unless we both do our responsibilities, we will not be saved.) The first words from Jesus' mouth when He began His public ministry: "Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is near." (Matthew 4:17, NIV) Jesus began to denounce the cities in which most of his miracles had been performed, because they did not repent. (Matthew 11:20, NIV) The men of Nineveh will stand up at the judgment with this generation and condemn it; for they repented at the preaching of Jonah... (Matthew 12:41, NIV) For John came to you to show you the way of righteousness, and you did not believe him, but the tax collectors and the prostitutes did. And even after you saw this, you did not repent and believe him. (Matthew 12:32, NIV) They went out and preached that people should repent. (Mark 6:12, NIV) I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance. (Luke 5:32, NIV) But unless you repent, you too will all perish. (Luke 13:3, NIV) I tell you that in the same way there will be more rejoicing in heaven over one sinner who repents than over ninety-nine righteous persons who do not need to repent. (Luke 15:7, NIV) Repent, then, and turn to God, so that your sins may be wiped out, that times of refreshing may come from the Lord. (Acts 3:19, NIV) In the past God overlooked such ignorance, but now he commands all people everywhere to repent. (Acts 17:30, NIV) I have given her time to repent of her immorality, but she is unwilling. (Revelation 2:21, NIV) So I will cast her on a bed of suffering, and I will make those who commit adultery with her suffer intensely, unless they repent of her ways. (Revelation 2:22, NIV)

These are but a few excerpts from the Bible indicating the need of repentance. If you do not know how to repent, please ask me, or anyone else whom you trust. (And, the anyone else whom you trust most certainly should be born-again.) If you're not already in one, look for a church full of people who do their best to live the Bible, rather than one full of hypocrites, who will tell you to live holy while they are not.

KSC Pictures

Okay! With that said, who else am I? Well, I used to work, as a Software Engineer, for Lockheed Martin, at Kennedy Space Center. I have taken, over the nearly four years I was there, a number of pictures, and I'm sharing some via this web site, a couple to few at a time.

In past updates, I've included pictures of orbiters on the pad, and, the last time, Discovery coming from the Orbiter Processing Facility (OPF) to the Vehicle Assembly Building (VAB). An orbiter lands at the Shuttle Landing Facility (SLF) -- if it is able to land at Kennedy Space Center. (The other possible landing strip for every mission has been used for every landing except one, and it is at Edwards Air Force Base, in California).

In the first picture, Atlantis is being towed (by a small vehicle which will be visible in a later picture) and will eventually be placed in OPF3. This is approximately 8:30 in the morning, so around four and a half hours after the orbiter landed on the SLF. (The SLF is not very far from here, but there is a lot to do before the towing vehicle arrives and even once it is attached to the towing vehicle, movement is slow.)

On the right-hand side of the picture, you can see the back of Atlantis (the tail fin, engine and Orbital Maneuvering System [OMS] bells, parts of the wings, etc.). There are two very large trucks following closely behind Atlantis. The people literally wear hearing protection, because there are generators, as well as a host of other things, on the trucks, and they are very loud! The truck on the right side has three "tubes" which connect to the right-hand side of the orbiter, a place on the rear, right next to the back/engine portion. And, the truck on the left has two "tubes" which connect to the left-hand side of the shuttle, also at the very back. You can see the two trucks are "flat-bed" types of trucks. I am not positive exactly what or everything that these connections provide, but I know some of it is power (which explains the generators) and monitoring for toxic gas leaks.

There were a large variety of other trucks and vehicles in line behind Atlantis. You can see one of the Kennedy Space Center Fire/Rescue trucks in this picture. Atlantis is just beginning to turn to the left, to head toward OPF3 -- the very edge of which is visible at the very left-hand side of this picture.

In the second picture, you can see the left side of Atlantis. You can see the towing vehicle just in front of Atlantis. It attaches to the front landing gear and tows. It may appear that "that yellowish thing" isn't large enough for a person, but it is. I'm a distance from Atlantis, and I didn't have a good camera for further distances in 2000. You can perhaps get an idea of scale by noticing a man just below the engine bells. Something that I want you to notice, you can see on the left-hand side the two "tubes" attached to the large truck following on the left side. The "tubes" are from the "crane-like" projection, and they can be seen being attached to the side of the orbiter at the back.

In this third picture, Atlantis is being towed into the OPF. (You'll notice that the orbiter is on its landing gear at this point. In my last web page, you saw Discovery being backed out of this very same OPF, but it was on a 76-wheel orbiter transport vehicle. An orbiter prepared for lift-off has its landing gear up inside the orbiter, and the gear is not placed down until the orbiter is landing on the runway.) This was approximately 1 hour after it first arrived in front of the OPF. The large trucks with the "tubes" are still attached.

And, lastly, for this update, this fourth picture is about a half hour later. Atlantis is fully in position inside the OPF, the OPF doors (described in the last update) have been closed as much as they can be, until the orbiter is properly powered down and the trucks and "tubes" can be removed.

NASA cancelled CLCS, the project I was on, at the end of 2002, so nearly everyone who was working there (from Lockheed Martin or United Space Alliance) was laid off.

Re-Vita SuperFood

I am a SuperFood distributor. If you want to see what this is, please access the Re-Vita link, for the products, or, if you are interested in looking into becoming a distributor yourself, you can access this link.

My mother

My mother (Ethel) lives with me. (My father has passed away, so she moved in with me now nearly 6 years ago.) Here is a picture of her standing at the side of her "used to be" house (in Lake Placid, near Venus, FL). This picture was taken June 30, 2003. (We were visiting.)

If you like seeing the KSC pictures, or anything else you can see or access from this web page, I wouldn't mind hearing from you! You can reach me at: bbond@cfl.rr.com

God bless you!

Last Modified: February 17, 2005