It has been more than 50 years since Neil Armstrong famously declared, “That’s one small step for man, one giant leap for mankind,” as he became the first man to step onto the surface of the Moon. Since then, the U.S. Army Engineer Research and Development Center (ERDC) has helped enable the next generation of space exploration.
Even before the launch of Apollo 11 Moon Landing that carried the first humans to the Moon, researchers at the Waterways Experiment Station (WES)—known today as ERDC—were working alongside NASA to prepare for future missions that would help shape America’s space program as we know it today.
ERDC’s contributions to America’s space program are woven throughout the history of lunar exploration. During the Apollo era, scientists at WES developed a simulated lunar soil that allowed engineers to test the unconventional wheels of the Lunar Roving Vehicle, better known as the “Moon Buggy.” This research helped ensure the rover could successfully navigate the Moon’s surface during the Apollo XV, XVI, and XVII missions, expanding astronauts’ ability to explore the lunar landscape.
Today, ERDC continues to provide engineering solutions that support exploration beyond Earth. Most recently, ERDC supported Artemis II, NASA’s first crewed mission around the Moon in more than 50 years. The mission is designed to test critical deep-space systems and pave the way for future lunar landings and eventual missions to Mars.
With decades of expertise in rail infrastructure engineering, ERDC has conducted annual inspections of the critical railroad network at Kennedy Space Center since 2015. This work ensures that the system remains able to support the transport of massive mission hardware at the facility.
“Railroad track inspection is not exactly ‘rocket science,’ but it is highly technical and specialized work that intertwines us with aerospace engineering, rail transportation, infrastructure reliability, and spaceflight history,” said Jonathan Oldenburg, an ERDC program specialist who served as a track inspector in 2023. “Being a small part of that history makes it all more personal. Seeing the launches, footage, and images from space, and knowing that our team had a role in ensuring the safe delivery of cargo, is rewarding. Honestly, it makes me feel like I am tied to history, not just a bystander watching it happen.”
This expertise proved especially critical in 2023, when the Kennedy Space Center rail network was used to transport the enormous Space Launch System booster motor segments required for Artemis II. Each of the 10 booster segments weighed approximately 180 tons and traveled by rail to Kennedy Space Center for assembly. Due to their immense size and weight, rail transportation was the only viable method for moving the components safely and efficiently, making the integrity and reliability of the railroad infrastructure essential to mission success. Because ERDC provides end-to-end technical expertise for transporting extremely heavy and sensitive military payloads, the organization is uniquely equipped to ensure NASA’s rail network can safely handle these massive rocket components.
“It’s truly humbling to play a technical role in supporting lunar space missions through the detailed and thorough inspection of railroad track assets used to transport equipment that will travel to space,
Oldenburg said. “Understanding the magnitude, importance, and impact the cargo moved over railroad assets has on space exploration places an exclamation mark on the importance of sound inspection. It also places a feeling of elevated responsibility upon the shoulders of track inspectors, knowing any deviation in track geometry or rail deficiency could cause delays or negative impacts to missions.”
ERDC’s expertise in railway systems is deeply rooted in its core mission to support military logistics and global force projection. To ensure the military can safely transport massive, high-value equipment, ERDC developed a comprehensive suite of railroad engineering, inspection and research capabilities. For Department of War and other federal customers, ERDC conducts detailed visual inspections, ultrasonic internal flaw evaluations, and subsurface assessments to identify hidden issues before they become failures. ERDC also develops RAILER databases to support Office of the Secretary of War mandates, performs linear segmentation, and provides rigorous quality assurance and quality control oversight for track maintenance activities.
In addition, ERDC teams deploy globally to provide technical support and lead research focused on modernizing railroad inspection and maintenance practices. Researchers conduct laboratory and full-scale field testing of railroad components, continuously updating maintenance and safety criteria to improve reliability and efficiency. ERDC also provides certified track inspector training to civilian personnel, along with bomb damage assessment and rapid repair training for active-duty military members.
From the historic Apollo missions to the ambitious goals of the Artemis program, ERDC has remained a longtime partner to NASA. This decades-long collaboration leverages ERDC’s broad scientific and engineering expertise to solve some of the most complex challenges involving infrastructure, materials, mobility, and operations in extreme environments.
As a result, ERDC researchers are contributing not only to the success of military and civil works missions, but also to the safety of astronauts and the advancement of human space exploration across generations. From launch infrastructure on the ground to mobility systems on the Moon, ERDC engineering continues to help make space exploration a reality.
While Artemis II represents a historic milestone, the broader Artemis program is a continuous, multi-year campaign of increasingly complex flights. For ERDC, our part in this mission is ongoing because we conduct these railroad inspections annually to support future missions. We don't just evaluate the tracks for a single launch; our annual January assessments ensure the Kennedy Space Center rail network maintains the strict structural integrity required to transport the massive solid rocket boosters for Artemis III, IV, and beyond. As long as NASA is moving these heavy payloads to the launchpad, our mission continues year after year to ensure the ground infrastructure is safe and ready.