{"id":4328,"date":"2021-07-02T08:11:21","date_gmt":"2021-07-02T13:11:21","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/garyborders.com\/pages\/?p=4328"},"modified":"2021-07-02T08:12:48","modified_gmt":"2021-07-02T13:12:48","slug":"this-company-builds-mockups-for-nasa","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/garyborders.com\/pages\/this-company-builds-mockups-for-nasa\/","title":{"rendered":"Building A Gateway to the Moon"},"content":{"rendered":"

Print this entry<\/a><\/p>

\u201cThis is the only job I\u2019ve ever had.\u201d<\/p>\n

With that preface, Paul Johnson, president of USM, Inc., begins explaining what goes on inside a nondescript building located in south Houston. about 10 miles from the Johnson Space Center. The company was founded in 1956 by his father, Steve Johnson, and is now run by Paul and his brother, Chris. When founded, it was known as United Scale Models and built models of petrochemical plants and offshore oil platforms, which were used to create the actual product. It is exacting, intricate work.<\/p>\n

\u201cBefore auto-cad, everything that was built used a model first,\u201d Paul said.<\/p>\n

Steve Johnson, in the 1960s, saw a market in the defense industry and began building mockups, which are full-scale replicas, that were used for training. The company built mockups to train maintenance personnel\u00a0 on the Chinook helicopter and has been doing the same for various components, as well as simulated cockpit pilot trainers, of the F-22 fighter jet since 1999. These are all very sophisticated models.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe mockup has to look, smell and feel like the real thing,\u201d Paul said. \u201cThe real piece could cost $1 million. If you set the two pieces side-by-side, you can\u2019t tell the difference from the model and the real thing.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Paul and Chris started working at what became known as USM in high school, as janitors. \u201cWe did everything in the summer \u2013 welding, machining,\u201d Paul said. Their father urged them to go to college and then come back to ultimately buy him out, completely by 2011. Paul majored in economics and marketing while Chris earned a double engineering degree. Now, Paul oversees sales and marketing and some projects, while Chris runs the production end. USM averages between 20-30 full-time employees but ramps up with contract engineers during large projects, such as while producing mockups of various components of the F-22, when 120 workers were crammed into the facility.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe had three full-size fuselage trainers in the building, plus four to five cockpits,\u201d Paul said.<\/p>\n

USM essentially has two markets \u2013 work for the military and NASA, and scale models for companies to use at trade shows. Naturally, the latter dried up during the pandemic, when there were no trade shows. That side of the business is picking up, Paul said, as he took me on a tour of the facility, which is filled with 3D printers, machining tools, a paint booth and all manner of high-tech equipment.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe do interactive exhibits, animate in 3D, augmented reality, and virtual reality,\u201d Paul said. \u201cThe product our client is trying to sell might be too big, too heavy, to take to trade shows.\u201d USM couples interactive models with actual models for companies such as Halliburton and Schlumberger for use in trade shows.<\/p>\n

Certainly the most eye-catching project USM is working on is Gateway<\/a>, which will be an \u201coutpost orbiting the Moon to provide support for a sustainable, long-term human return to the lunar surface, as well as a staging point for deep space exploration,\u201d as explained on the NASA website. Gateway is a critical component of NASA\u2019s Artemis program to eventually send astronauts to Mars. USM is building the full-size HALO (Habitation and Logistics Outpost) astronaut training device for Northrop Grumman. It will be located at the Johnson Space Center in Bldg. 9, the space vehicle mockup facility.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis is probably my favorite so far,\u201d Paul said. \u201cIt\u2019s pretty great when you have actual astronauts in your building.\u201d<\/p>\n

He also mentioned working on the F-22, which the company has been providing training mockups for Boeing since 1999.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re still doing the work,\u201d he said. \u201cThat was a new-generation fighter. It\u2019s still the best military aircraft in the sky.\u201d<\/p>\n

USM\u2019s slogan is \u201cTurning Concepts Into Reality.\u201d The company has been doing so for 65 years and shows no sign of slowing down, whether it\u2019s a full-scale mockup of the Space Station of a prototype for a computer case, as its website notes. Getting a tour of the facility from its president was an unexpected treat.<\/p>\n

Print this entry<\/a><\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Print this entry\u201cThis is the only job I\u2019ve ever had.\u201d With that preface, Paul Johnson, president of USM, Inc., begins explaining what goes on inside a nondescript building located in […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_active":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_note":"","_exactmetrics_sitenote_category":0,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[74],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4328","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-74"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/garyborders.com\/pages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4328","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/garyborders.com\/pages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/garyborders.com\/pages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/garyborders.com\/pages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/garyborders.com\/pages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4328"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/garyborders.com\/pages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4328\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4332,"href":"https:\/\/garyborders.com\/pages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4328\/revisions\/4332"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/garyborders.com\/pages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4328"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/garyborders.com\/pages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4328"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/garyborders.com\/pages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4328"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}