[System] Act as an information elicitation agent for oral history.

[User] Ghana. And so, you know, people told me there was going to be a, I was going to have trouble with the border and getting by and they were going to give me trouble at the border. But actually, the border guards were very friendly. I was, you know, I'm six, I was 6'7", 6'8" at that time. And one of the border guards was almost as tall as I was. And so he was joking around with me. And they were very, they were very friendly to me at the border. Sometimes you get away with the height and sometimes it hurts. But in Nigeria, sometimes they want to pick on you because you're tall. But in Nigeria, I had really no difficulties and they were, to me, most of them were very friendly. Although they were a little more intense.

[Assistant] Did it seem culturally? More intense?

[User] The town, you know, like Lagos is just packed. And, you know, some, you know, you'll see big buildings, but off in the distance, you'll see squalor, you know, just huts.

[Assistant] And you don't have that in Ghana?

[User] Not so much.

[Assistant] You didn't have that?


[System] Act as an information elicitation agent for oral history.

[User] The town, you know, like Lagos is just packed. And, you know, some, you know, you'll see big buildings, but off in the distance, you'll see squalor, you know, just huts.

[Assistant] And you don't have that in Ghana?

[User] Not so much.

[Assistant] You didn't have that?

[User] Not so much in Ghana. Accra was crowded, but didn't have the feel of Nigeria, didn't have the feel of squalor in Nigeria, that Nigeria had. Kind of some. One person told me this, I guess my friend who had been in Kenya, my British friend who'd been in Kenya, said that Nairobi, Kenya, is very modern and looks like a European city. Accra looks like the rest of, in a lot of ways, it looks like the rest of the country. But the villages in Nigeria are very primitive, and whereas the villages in Ghana are much better. So it's a more even distribution of things. The city, Accra, had open sewers and things so.

[Assistant] Where was this?


[System] Act as an information elicitation agent for oral history.

[User] Not so much.

[Assistant] You didn't have that?

[User] Not so much in Ghana. Accra was crowded, but didn't have the feel of Nigeria, didn't have the feel of squalor in Nigeria, that Nigeria had. Kind of some. One person told me this, I guess my friend who had been in Kenya, my British friend who'd been in Kenya, said that Nairobi, Kenya, is very modern and looks like a European city. Accra looks like the rest of, in a lot of ways, it looks like the rest of the country. But the villages in Nigeria are very primitive, and whereas the villages in Ghana are much better. So it's a more even distribution of things. The city, Accra, had open sewers and things so.

[Assistant] Where was this?

[User] In Accra, in the capital. And Kumasi, which is the, which is the other big tribal town. Kumasi is K-U-M-A-S-I. So they're a little different. And Nigeria was just, you know, they had oil at the time and it was just a kind of a very crowded. And I think they're doing better now, as is Ghana, actually. But it's just very crowded. Very crowded.

[Assistant] You spent two years teaching.


[System] Act as an information elicitation agent for oral history.

[User] Not so much in Ghana. Accra was crowded, but didn't have the feel of Nigeria, didn't have the feel of squalor in Nigeria, that Nigeria had. Kind of some. One person told me this, I guess my friend who had been in Kenya, my British friend who'd been in Kenya, said that Nairobi, Kenya, is very modern and looks like a European city. Accra looks like the rest of, in a lot of ways, it looks like the rest of the country. But the villages in Nigeria are very primitive, and whereas the villages in Ghana are much better. So it's a more even distribution of things. The city, Accra, had open sewers and things so.

[Assistant] Where was this?

[User] In Accra, in the capital. And Kumasi, which is the, which is the other big tribal town. Kumasi is K-U-M-A-S-I. So they're a little different. And Nigeria was just, you know, they had oil at the time and it was just a kind of a very crowded. And I think they're doing better now, as is Ghana, actually. But it's just very crowded. Very crowded.

[Assistant] You spent two years teaching.

[User] Pardon?

[Assistant] You spent two years teaching.


[System] Act as an information elicitation agent for oral history.

[User] In Accra, in the capital. And Kumasi, which is the, which is the other big tribal town. Kumasi is K-U-M-A-S-I. So they're a little different. And Nigeria was just, you know, they had oil at the time and it was just a kind of a very crowded. And I think they're doing better now, as is Ghana, actually. But it's just very crowded. Very crowded.

[Assistant] You spent two years teaching.

[User] Pardon?

[Assistant] You spent two years teaching.

[User] Two years teaching, yeah.

[Assistant] And then what happened after Peace Corps?


[System] Act as an information elicitation agent for oral history.

[User] Pardon?

[Assistant] You spent two years teaching.

[User] Two years teaching, yeah.

[Assistant] And then what happened after Peace Corps?

[User] After Peace Corps, I came home and, well, actually, I spent about three months in Europe. London, France. Went down to visit my friends in southern France, trying to think of the town, but I can't right now. And then went to Switzerland and Germany. I'm German. So actually I did go back to, I did not go back to visit my relatives there, but I kind of would have liked to. But did some hitchhiking and took trains and.

[Assistant] Were you on your own then?


[System] Act as an information elicitation agent for oral history.

[User] Yeah, pretty much on my own, yeah. I did hook up with a person in Germany who had a car and gave me a ride for a little while. Hooked up with a few people here and there, but pretty much on my own. I could have made it more interesting had I planned it out a little better. I was kind of just doing a wandering, a little bit of a wandering trip, but it was interesting. And then I got tickets to fly back on Icelandic Airlines. So I went to, uh, at that time I was flying out of Luxembourg, pretty much flying out of Luxembourg only for Europe. And I flew from Luxembourg and spent about three or four days in Iceland and then flew back to New York, visited a friend, and came home on the bus.

[Assistant] To Indiana?

[User] Fort Wayne.

[Assistant] Right. Yeah.

[User] In fact, I didn't. My mother was going to go down to the bus station, pick me up. I didn't know that. But I took the, I took the regular Fort Wayne busses home and just showed up. So, so.

[Assistant] And what did you do then?


[System] Act as an information elicitation agent for oral history.

[User] Fort Wayne.

[Assistant] Right. Yeah.

[User] In fact, I didn't. My mother was going to go down to the bus station, pick me up. I didn't know that. But I took the, I took the regular Fort Wayne busses home and just showed up. So, so.

[Assistant] And what did you do then?

[User] Um.

[Assistant] What was the reentry hard?


[System] Act as an information elicitation agent for oral history.

[User] But what Chemical Abstracts does is abstract and index the chemical literature.

[Assistant] Oh.

[User]
And uh, they had started computerizing everything because there are, well, now there's I think a million documents published. I believe there are half a million documents that they index and abstract every year. Patents, articles, conference proceedings, everything in chemistry. Chemistry is very big. And it was growing after the World War II, it was growing very rapidly. And so it was taking, they had almost shut down their operation for four months to create a five year index. They had an index, I believe, that was every six months that they published. And it took them like four months to do, to insert cards by hand to, because there are millions of, you know, there are millions of entries. And so and, you know, doing the compounds and things was difficult. So in the early sixties, actually, there were three organizations, I'm kind of going off topic.

But there were three organizations, British, Germans, and American Chemical Society, that published indexing and half drafting books. The other two went out of business in the late sixties because they didn't computerize. But from very smart thing, they computerized and even put compounds via connection tables. What atoms connected to what atoms. So now what that did for them is it speeded up their indexing tremendously. But it also created a file, a computerized file of chemical compounds. And now that file is probably 125 million different compounds.

[Assistant] My goodness.

[User] And you can search it by a picture basically. You can say, I want a molecule that has this as a part. And then you go into the whole file and it comes up with all the molecules that have that as a part, which is useful to a drug. For example, it's useful to a drug company who may say, I want this, I want a, this is not quite working. It has a bad side effect that's putting you asleep. And have there been other things made like it that we could, you know, we could consider and test or? So that you can find everything.

[Assistant] So you are involved in all that?


[System] Act as an information elicitation agent for oral history.

[User] And you can search it by a picture basically. You can say, I want a molecule that has this as a part. And then you go into the whole file and it comes up with all the molecules that have that as a part, which is useful to a drug. For example, it's useful to a drug company who may say, I want this, I want a, this is not quite working. It has a bad side effect that's putting you asleep. And have there been other things made like it that we could, you know, we could consider and test or? So that you can find everything.

[Assistant] So you are involved in all that?

[User] Yeah, I got lucky. I originally started by drawing the compounds from the article, but I got moved into marketing and coordinated their workshop program for a while, which was a boring, senseless type of job. But eventually I got, um, I got a chance to get out of there and get into product development. And actually one of the things I pushed first was they used to come. Besides doing the workshops, they used to call me with technical questions about how to search for this or how to find this so. And I started seeing that we don't, we really didn't have a complete search service that would allow us to do that. So I said, you know, we had to get a search service and do this for people and, you know, get paid for it.

[Assistant] Hmm.

[User] And so I started that and we hired some. They said, do you want to run it? And I said, I don't know. It just doesn't seem like, it's interesting but doesn't seem like it's going to go anywhere. So we hired somebody. I helped him coordinate it and let him do it. Actually, it's grown to about 12 to 15 employees. I thought it had some potential, but at the time to grow. But now it's a really big thing. And they've actually not only have their files online, but they have a whole bunch of other people's files online. So it's a.

[Assistant] It's a big deal.


[System] Act as an information elicitation agent for oral history.

[User] And so I started that and we hired some. They said, do you want to run it? And I said, I don't know. It just doesn't seem like, it's interesting but doesn't seem like it's going to go anywhere. So we hired somebody. I helped him coordinate it and let him do it. Actually, it's grown to about 12 to 15 employees. I thought it had some potential, but at the time to grow. But now it's a really big thing. And they've actually not only have their files online, but they have a whole bunch of other people's files online. So it's a.

[Assistant] It's a big deal.

[User] Not big there, but not big in the total scheme of the organization. But it is, but it got, grew a lot more than I did. And then I got to, then I took over projects that connected reactants with products, chemical reaction file. And I didn't do the technical part of that, but I was a business marketing coordinator and project leader for those things, and also a thing that covers patent formulas, which are vague formulas. You know, it has an X and says X can be chlorine, bromine, methyl and things like that. And so it covered those. So I coordinated both of those projects until I left in '76? '86. And both of them are at least, I don't know how they're doing, but they're at least still running. So that's nice.

[Assistant] So how did Peace Corps have an impact on your life? You've gone back to teaching I hear.

[User] Yeah.

[Assistant] Has it had an, do you think it's had an impact on your life?


[System] Act as an information elicitation agent for oral history.

[User] Not big there, but not big in the total scheme of the organization. But it is, but it got, grew a lot more than I did. And then I got to, then I took over projects that connected reactants with products, chemical reaction file. And I didn't do the technical part of that, but I was a business marketing coordinator and project leader for those things, and also a thing that covers patent formulas, which are vague formulas. You know, it has an X and says X can be chlorine, bromine, methyl and things like that. And so it covered those. So I coordinated both of those projects until I left in '76? '86. And both of them are at least, I don't know how they're doing, but they're at least still running. So that's nice.

[Assistant] So how did Peace Corps have an impact on your life? You've gone back to teaching I hear.

[User] Yeah.

[Assistant] Has it had an, do you think it's had an impact on your life?

[User] Yeah, I think it's, you know, I feel that it's an experience that, um. You know, you can't just visit a country and really understand it. I felt that I got to know people, got to know students at least, not people quite as, not the regular town people, which I wish I had done better. I had more chance to do. But you get to know the kids in the countries and their goals and things like that, that I don't think anybody can do by just visiting for a week or two. And so maybe I'm not even that thrilled about travel. Just, you know, I'm not a real, let's go see this art museum thing. So maybe I don't appreciate travel as much as I could because I feel you're not getting much of an experience sometimes. But it was a good experience. I mean, it's kind of hard to look back and say, oh, I did this.

[Assistant] Well, for some people, they, you know, they became teachers or whatever it is that they did. They spent the rest of their careers overseas. But that really didn't happen with you.


[System] Act as an information elicitation agent for oral history.

[User] Yeah.

[Assistant] Has it had an, do you think it's had an impact on your life?

[User] Yeah, I think it's, you know, I feel that it's an experience that, um. You know, you can't just visit a country and really understand it. I felt that I got to know people, got to know students at least, not people quite as, not the regular town people, which I wish I had done better. I had more chance to do. But you get to know the kids in the countries and their goals and things like that, that I don't think anybody can do by just visiting for a week or two. And so maybe I'm not even that thrilled about travel. Just, you know, I'm not a real, let's go see this art museum thing. So maybe I don't appreciate travel as much as I could because I feel you're not getting much of an experience sometimes. But it was a good experience. I mean, it's kind of hard to look back and say, oh, I did this.

[Assistant] Well, for some people, they, you know, they became teachers or whatever it is that they did. They spent the rest of their careers overseas. But that really didn't happen with you.

[User] No. I don't know. I just.

[Assistant] It was a good experience.


[System] Act as an information elicitation agent for oral history.

[User] Yeah, I think it's, you know, I feel that it's an experience that, um. You know, you can't just visit a country and really understand it. I felt that I got to know people, got to know students at least, not people quite as, not the regular town people, which I wish I had done better. I had more chance to do. But you get to know the kids in the countries and their goals and things like that, that I don't think anybody can do by just visiting for a week or two. And so maybe I'm not even that thrilled about travel. Just, you know, I'm not a real, let's go see this art museum thing. So maybe I don't appreciate travel as much as I could because I feel you're not getting much of an experience sometimes. But it was a good experience. I mean, it's kind of hard to look back and say, oh, I did this.

[Assistant] Well, for some people, they, you know, they became teachers or whatever it is that they did. They spent the rest of their careers overseas. But that really didn't happen with you.

[User] No. I don't know. I just.

[Assistant] It was a good experience.

[User] It was a good experience. And, you know, I actually I did interview for some jobs overseas, but by that time I had friends and things and didn't really go. I could have taught in a Saudi Arabian school. Actually I had an interview with a, with somebody from Saudi Arabia and I thought he asked me all sorts of difficult questions and I thought, oh, he's, we're not connecting at all. And it was about three or four months later, they wrote and said, are you interested? By then I just didn't.

[Assistant] Want to do that.


[System] Act as an information elicitation agent for oral history.

[User] No. I don't know. I just.

[Assistant] It was a good experience.

[User] It was a good experience. And, you know, I actually I did interview for some jobs overseas, but by that time I had friends and things and didn't really go. I could have taught in a Saudi Arabian school. Actually I had an interview with a, with somebody from Saudi Arabia and I thought he asked me all sorts of difficult questions and I thought, oh, he's, we're not connecting at all. And it was about three or four months later, they wrote and said, are you interested? By then I just didn't.

[Assistant] Want to do that.

[User] Probably could have made some decent money there, but just didn't, uh, by that time I was just kind of connected in Columbus and didn't want to.

[Assistant] Do you think your Peace Corps experience had any impact on the country itself, or more broadly, all the teachers that were there and your students? You're a good chemistry teacher.


[System] Act as an information elicitation agent for oral history.

[User] It was a good experience. And, you know, I actually I did interview for some jobs overseas, but by that time I had friends and things and didn't really go. I could have taught in a Saudi Arabian school. Actually I had an interview with a, with somebody from Saudi Arabia and I thought he asked me all sorts of difficult questions and I thought, oh, he's, we're not connecting at all. And it was about three or four months later, they wrote and said, are you interested? By then I just didn't.

[Assistant] Want to do that.

[User] Probably could have made some decent money there, but just didn't, uh, by that time I was just kind of connected in Columbus and didn't want to.

[Assistant] Do you think your Peace Corps experience had any impact on the country itself, or more broadly, all the teachers that were there and your students? You're a good chemistry teacher.

[User] Yeah, I think hopefully I, you know, kind of set an example of, you know, working hard and digging into things. I think that, um, that had hopefully had an influence on some of the students.

[Assistant] And any thoughts about Peace Corps, its impact on the United States? Has it had any, do you think?


[System] Act as an information elicitation agent for oral history.

[User] Probably could have made some decent money there, but just didn't, uh, by that time I was just kind of connected in Columbus and didn't want to.

[Assistant] Do you think your Peace Corps experience had any impact on the country itself, or more broadly, all the teachers that were there and your students? You're a good chemistry teacher.

[User] Yeah, I think hopefully I, you know, kind of set an example of, you know, working hard and digging into things. I think that, um, that had hopefully had an influence on some of the students.

[Assistant] And any thoughts about Peace Corps, its impact on the United States? Has it had any, do you think?

[User] Well, I think, you know, when you see all. When you go to these big meetings and see a lot of people and probably not all of them are there, and what they've done afterwards, I think it's, you know, I think it is. And, you know, I don't know how many. I know you were busy with different things, but one speaker had been, had a high position with the United Nations.

[Assistant] Kul Chandra Gautam of Nepal.


[System] Act as an information elicitation agent for oral history.

[User] Yeah, I think hopefully I, you know, kind of set an example of, you know, working hard and digging into things. I think that, um, that had hopefully had an influence on some of the students.

[Assistant] And any thoughts about Peace Corps, its impact on the United States? Has it had any, do you think?

[User] Well, I think, you know, when you see all. When you go to these big meetings and see a lot of people and probably not all of them are there, and what they've done afterwards, I think it's, you know, I think it is. And, you know, I don't know how many. I know you were busy with different things, but one speaker had been, had a high position with the United Nations.

[Assistant] Kul Chandra Gautam of Nepal.

[User] Nepal. Had Peace Corps teachers, and they had a great influence in what was it, Ecuador? What country was it? That somebody, the head of state, you know, had a real good experience with and felt that the Peace Corps volunteer had made a real difference in his life. So I think there are a lot of them. I wish I would have followed more of my students to find out. I did run into one person. I don't know that I ever had him in class, but he kind of remembers me. I don't remember him.

[Assistant] You met him here?


[System] Act as an information elicitation agent for oral history.

[User] Well, I think, you know, when you see all. When you go to these big meetings and see a lot of people and probably not all of them are there, and what they've done afterwards, I think it's, you know, I think it is. And, you know, I don't know how many. I know you were busy with different things, but one speaker had been, had a high position with the United Nations.

[Assistant] Kul Chandra Gautam of Nepal.

[User] Nepal. Had Peace Corps teachers, and they had a great influence in what was it, Ecuador? What country was it? That somebody, the head of state, you know, had a real good experience with and felt that the Peace Corps volunteer had made a real difference in his life. So I think there are a lot of them. I wish I would have followed more of my students to find out. I did run into one person. I don't know that I ever had him in class, but he kind of remembers me. I don't remember him.

[Assistant] You met him here?

[User] I didn't really meet him, you know, I ran into him on LinkedIn.

[Assistant] Oh, I see.


[System] Act as an information elicitation agent for oral history.

[User] Nepal. Had Peace Corps teachers, and they had a great influence in what was it, Ecuador? What country was it? That somebody, the head of state, you know, had a real good experience with and felt that the Peace Corps volunteer had made a real difference in his life. So I think there are a lot of them. I wish I would have followed more of my students to find out. I did run into one person. I don't know that I ever had him in class, but he kind of remembers me. I don't remember him.

[Assistant] You met him here?

[User] I didn't really meet him, you know, I ran into him on LinkedIn.

[Assistant] Oh, I see.

[User] And we talked a little bit. But, um, but I, again, if I can still. I'm going to have to go back and see if I can find my grade books and things and see if I can look some of these kids up on the internet and see what they're, if I can figure out what they're doing but uh.

[Assistant] Yeah, great. So are you in touch with any of the people from your Nigeria group?


[System] Act as an information elicitation agent for oral history.

[User] I didn't really meet him, you know, I ran into him on LinkedIn.

[Assistant] Oh, I see.

[User] And we talked a little bit. But, um, but I, again, if I can still. I'm going to have to go back and see if I can find my grade books and things and see if I can look some of these kids up on the internet and see what they're, if I can figure out what they're doing but uh.

[Assistant] Yeah, great. So are you in touch with any of the people from your Nigeria group?

[User] Uh, Ghana group.

[Assistant] Oh, I meant Ghana group. I'm sorry.


[System] Act as an information elicitation agent for oral history.

[User] And we talked a little bit. But, um, but I, again, if I can still. I'm going to have to go back and see if I can find my grade books and things and see if I can look some of these kids up on the internet and see what they're, if I can figure out what they're doing but uh.

[Assistant] Yeah, great. So are you in touch with any of the people from your Nigeria group?

[User] Uh, Ghana group.

[Assistant] Oh, I meant Ghana group. I'm sorry.

[User] A few of my Peace Corps friends there, but not with any of my students. Actually, I had the interesting. I had the son of the head of state while I, in Ghana, was in our school. And I taught him math, I believe, and his dad eventually was overthrown and executed. But I guess he got to Europe for a while. And I happened to run into somebody who knew him and had been going to military school, you know, young military school, when he was young. And they were saying that he's going kind of crazy, I guess, over the whole thing. I guess he's back in Ghana and I don't know. I think I was reading about him, which is a very sad story because he seemed like a pretty nice kid, I guess a little off I read somewhere.

[Assistant] And his father was?


[System] Act as an information elicitation agent for oral history.

[User] Uh, Ghana group.

[Assistant] Oh, I meant Ghana group. I'm sorry.

[User] A few of my Peace Corps friends there, but not with any of my students. Actually, I had the interesting. I had the son of the head of state while I, in Ghana, was in our school. And I taught him math, I believe, and his dad eventually was overthrown and executed. But I guess he got to Europe for a while. And I happened to run into somebody who knew him and had been going to military school, you know, young military school, when he was young. And they were saying that he's going kind of crazy, I guess, over the whole thing. I guess he's back in Ghana and I don't know. I think I was reading about him, which is a very sad story because he seemed like a pretty nice kid, I guess a little off I read somewhere.

[Assistant] And his father was?

[User] His father was basically president.

[Assistant] Who was that?


[System] Act as an information elicitation agent for oral history.

[User] His father was basically president.

[Assistant] Who was that?

[User] Acheampong.

[Assistant] Was overthrown?

[User] In the early ‘70s, he was overthrown by, uh, shoot, somebody with an American name who has since been, who has since left. But he's the guy who took over was in power for a long time. There was always articles at the, in the newspapers, full of articles that the previous administration, Tu Acheampong, had been corrupt. And it, uh, which isn't unlike the United States especially today.

[Assistant] Right. So are there any other, anything else you want to talk about your experience? I'm basically out of questions.


[System] Act as an information elicitation agent for oral history.

[User] In the early ‘70s, he was overthrown by, uh, shoot, somebody with an American name who has since been, who has since left. But he's the guy who took over was in power for a long time. There was always articles at the, in the newspapers, full of articles that the previous administration, Tu Acheampong, had been corrupt. And it, uh, which isn't unlike the United States especially today.

[Assistant] Right. So are there any other, anything else you want to talk about your experience? I'm basically out of questions.

[User] Yeah, um. It was a good experience and I'm glad I did it. And, you know, there were things during and afterwards I wish I had, you know, had followed up on, done better. I did have one. I'll give you one more experience.

[Assistant] Sure.

[User] My next-door neighbor was Ghanaian and he was a biology teacher. And we got along pretty well.

[Assistant] Your next-door neighbor in Ghana?


[System] Act as an information elicitation agent for oral history.

[User] Yeah, um. It was a good experience and I'm glad I did it. And, you know, there were things during and afterwards I wish I had, you know, had followed up on, done better. I did have one. I'll give you one more experience.

[Assistant] Sure.

[User] My next-door neighbor was Ghanaian and he was a biology teacher. And we got along pretty well.

[Assistant] Your next-door neighbor in Ghana?

[User] In Ghana, you know, he was a teacher and had a place. Anyway, he, um. I was over. The Irish couple and their daughter were over at his place one day and I had my camera and wanted to take a picture of the daughter who was, I don't know, near the chicken coops or something. But so I took a picture of her and he got very upset. And eventually I had to give up the camera and the film because he said, had done, had some, had stayed with or and had, you know, was friends with some other Peace Corps people who had taken pictures of him while he was asleep. And I don't know, that was kind of taboo. And he was very upset by that. So he was upset with my having taken picture.

[Assistant] Takes your spirit away.


[System] Act as an information elicitation agent for oral history.

[User] And so, I don't know. It kind of, it was kind of upsetting to me that I. And we didn't talk much, although we worked very close together. But eventually we became friends and he helped me, you know, eventually we got back together and he helped me. He took me down to get the chemicals I needed for the final laboratory exam. And they did actually, I think I mentioned before, they did actual laboratory exams for their final exams in both ordinary. And so at the advanced level, you had to find some strange chemicals and things sometimes. So he had taken me down and we got to be, our relationship got a little bit.

[Assistant] That's good.

[User] Got a little better again. But, uh. And there was also, we had a snake. He had had a snake in his place. It was a Gaboon viper, which is very poisonous. And he kept it in his lab and the students were supposed to feed it, go out and get mice or whatever, and they didn't do it. So it was a very hungry Gaboon viper. And he'd come in there. It wanted to eat you. But uh.

[Assistant] Great pet.

[User] Yeah. Yeah. And we were always a little, I guess, another little thing. We were always a little. We were supposed to take flashlights and things, but sometimes I couldn't find mine, so I'd go through the. You had to watch out because they could be under a rock or anything.

[Assistant] These vipers, right?


[System] Act as an information elicitation agent for oral history.

[User] Got a little better again. But, uh. And there was also, we had a snake. He had had a snake in his place. It was a Gaboon viper, which is very poisonous. And he kept it in his lab and the students were supposed to feed it, go out and get mice or whatever, and they didn't do it. So it was a very hungry Gaboon viper. And he'd come in there. It wanted to eat you. But uh.

[Assistant] Great pet.

[User] Yeah. Yeah. And we were always a little, I guess, another little thing. We were always a little. We were supposed to take flashlights and things, but sometimes I couldn't find mine, so I'd go through the. You had to watch out because they could be under a rock or anything.

[Assistant] These vipers, right?

[User] Yeah, Gaboon vipers. But, um, so I used to remember, I used to kind of stomp if I. I didn't go over to the chemistry lab too much at night, but if I did, I'd kind of stomp a lot, wake them up and things. I didn't want to surprise any of them. And then when I got back, I was playing tennis one night. And now I have somewhat of an idea what flashbacks, because this wasn't a really terrifying experience in Ghana. But I kind of have an idea of what flashbacks are. I was playing tennis and I went to get some balls out in the, and all of a sudden I had a flashback of, you know, I'd better stomp and things because there may be snakes out here. And this was in Columbus, in the middle of Columbus, Ohio. So I can see how people who have been in, you know, attacked and things like that have terrible flashbacks and things. But that's all, I guess.

[Assistant] So keep stomping, keep stomping.


[System] Act as an information elicitation agent for oral history.

[User] Yeah. Yeah. And we were always a little, I guess, another little thing. We were always a little. We were supposed to take flashlights and things, but sometimes I couldn't find mine, so I'd go through the. You had to watch out because they could be under a rock or anything.

[Assistant] These vipers, right?

[User] Yeah, Gaboon vipers. But, um, so I used to remember, I used to kind of stomp if I. I didn't go over to the chemistry lab too much at night, but if I did, I'd kind of stomp a lot, wake them up and things. I didn't want to surprise any of them. And then when I got back, I was playing tennis one night. And now I have somewhat of an idea what flashbacks, because this wasn't a really terrifying experience in Ghana. But I kind of have an idea of what flashbacks are. I was playing tennis and I went to get some balls out in the, and all of a sudden I had a flashback of, you know, I'd better stomp and things because there may be snakes out here. And this was in Columbus, in the middle of Columbus, Ohio. So I can see how people who have been in, you know, attacked and things like that have terrible flashbacks and things. But that's all, I guess.

[Assistant] So keep stomping, keep stomping.

[User] I've told you all the little details. I've told you a lot of little detail, a lot of little trivia tonight.

[Assistant] Well, it's good. It was a good interview, so thank you.


[System] Act as an information elicitation agent for oral history.

[User] Okay. Thank you.

[Assistant] You may be up at the lake house in six years.

[User] Yes, you'll come interview me in about six years up there.

[Assistant] We'll do that.

[User] I love what I do, but I'm looking forward to moving up to the country.

[Assistant] I can understand why. Thanks, Tommy.


[System] Act as an information elicitation agent for oral history.

[User] I think NASA's central impact is really it's helped define America and Americans as a sense that we lead on frontiers, and that the frontier remains part of our psyche. There is nobody else that does that. Yes, there are scientific frontiers and so on, but real physical frontiers matter. NASA is continuing that character of America which makes it unique. America would obviously exist if NASA went away tomorrow, but it wouldn't be our America I think. The idea that others are now leading on frontiers would change our view of ourselves, and I think much to the worse. So that's the single most important thing that we can do, is to say if you're an American we are there, we're at the very edge of the known moving into the unknown.

[Assistant] Well, as it begins its next phase of its life of the agency and people are needed to accomplish the goals that have been set out, why would you encourage someone to begin a career with NASA?

[User] First of all, you'll have a lot of fun, and you'll have the most interesting intellectual and stimulating job, and you'll be part of the future of mankind, and that's worth a lot. You don't come and work for the government for the pay. You certainly don't come for all of the side benefits and the short hours. But in the end it's really that intellectual high that one gets for being on the edge of the unknown. That takes a special person, but there's a lot of them in America. I think that especially with the Vision for Space Exploration we have no shortage of people, the very finest the country has to offer, and the world for that matter, wanting to come and work for us.

[Assistant] Well, as we close out this afternoon's session, is there anything you'd like to add, or any other thoughts that have come to mind?

[User] No. Again this has been the coolest job I ever had, and I hope I don't get fired, and continue to be able to make progress.

[Assistant] Well, we wish you the best of luck in the next years.


[System] Act as an information elicitation agent for oral history.

[User] I was living in Forest Park, Georgia, just south of Atlanta.

[Assistant] Why did you decide to join?

[User] My father had been a sergeant major in the Army, and was a Vietnam veteran, so from an early age, I knew that I would also go into the military. My dad was actually an Army veteran, and I was looking at what service that I was going to join myself, and you might think that I would have tended to join the Army, since he had been in the Army, but a story he told me actually sent me towards the Marines. He told me that when he enlisted, he had wanted to join the Marines, and he had a buddy program, he was signing up for the Marines with a friend of his, and that friend backed out, and when his friend backed out, my dad backed out also. He was too nervous to go into the Marines without his friend, and so he decided to go into the Army instead, and so for me, part of choosing the Marines was probably to honor his original desire to be a Marine.

[Assistant] Do you remember your first days in the service?

[User] Oh, yes. My three months at Paris Island are certainly burned into my brain, I think pretty much every minute of those three months is right there, I can recall from memory very quickly, because it was all so very intense, and it was probably the most defining period of my life, though, in terms of the things that it taught me, and the characteristics that it gave me.

[Assistant] What did it feel like when you were going through that?


[System] Act as an information elicitation agent for oral history.

[User] My father had been a sergeant major in the Army, and was a Vietnam veteran, so from an early age, I knew that I would also go into the military. My dad was actually an Army veteran, and I was looking at what service that I was going to join myself, and you might think that I would have tended to join the Army, since he had been in the Army, but a story he told me actually sent me towards the Marines. He told me that when he enlisted, he had wanted to join the Marines, and he had a buddy program, he was signing up for the Marines with a friend of his, and that friend backed out, and when his friend backed out, my dad backed out also. He was too nervous to go into the Marines without his friend, and so he decided to go into the Army instead, and so for me, part of choosing the Marines was probably to honor his original desire to be a Marine.

[Assistant] Do you remember your first days in the service?

[User] Oh, yes. My three months at Paris Island are certainly burned into my brain, I think pretty much every minute of those three months is right there, I can recall from memory very quickly, because it was all so very intense, and it was probably the most defining period of my life, though, in terms of the things that it taught me, and the characteristics that it gave me.

[Assistant] What did it feel like when you were going through that?

[User] It was hard. It was very difficult. I had been kind of the nerdy or geeky high school kid. I was a little bit chubby. I wasn’t your stereotypical jock that was joining the Marines to be the macho Marine guy. For me, it was a challenge. It was something outside of my comfort zone, and so boot camp was very hard. Physically, it was difficult, and mentally, it was taxing, but I persevered, and it was very rewarding at the end of those three months.

[Assistant] Do you remember your instructors?


[System] Act as an information elicitation agent for oral history.

[User] Yes, the GI Bill was probably one of the best things that came out of my military service, besides the character development that I received. The GI Bill was amazing, and it was amazing in part because Georgia had a scholarship program, funded by the Georgia lottery, that allowed me to actually go to school for free. I was able to capitalize on my GI Bill and utilize it to help with additional school-related expenses, like a place to live, a vehicle, you know, extra in dues, and things like that, that the Georgia lottery scholarship didn’t cover. If it had it not been for the GI Bill, this would definitely have been much harder, those years at college.

[Assistant] Did you continue any of those close relationships and friendships that you had outside the military?

[User] I kept in touch with some guys while I was finishing up school, MySpace and then Facebook were starting up, and so I was able to reach out and find some guys, but really, there was only one person that I kept in real contact with. That was my friend from Boston who had been in the six-man brawl with me. Him and I remained close for several years, was in his wedding, took some trips to Boston with him, and we kept a pretty close friendship. Eventually, we drifted apart a little bit, I think because of him continuing to live in the DC area and me having moved down to Atlanta, and him pursuing an occupation as a police officer, and me moving into civil service, I think eventually, we drifted apart a little bit. I still maintained some contact with him and some other guys via social media these days, but not much beyond that.

[Assistant] Did you join a veterans’ organization?

[User] No, I’ve thought about it before, about the Marine Corps League in particular, but I’m married with three small boys of my own now, and I have enough going on with those guys these days that I haven’t really had much time to think about joining something for myself.

[Assistant] How did your services and experiences affect your life overall?


[System] Act as an information elicitation agent for oral history.

[User] When we merged the NASA and Thiokol teams in Utah, both approached the redesign open-mindedly. We evaluated all design solutions, using analyses and testing, to select the best of all approaches. There was not necessarily always consensus, but we moved on as I had the final vote.

[Assistant] How many people originally worked on the design team here at Marshall? Then you mentioned you’d taken some of your team out to Utah—how many people was that?

[User] It varied with time, but the average would be on the order of 120 locally. We were using mostly the engineering subject matter experts in materials, design, analysis, and safety disciplines. We had an integrated, co-located team with few managers and extraordinarily talented engineers. When we merged the teams in Utah we had eight to ten people that established residence there.

[Assistant] How long did you stay in Utah before you came back to Alabama?

[User] Our team relocated there in late ’86, early ’87, and most returned to Huntsville after the DM [Development Motor]-8 test, which I believe was in August of ’87. I had planned to return to MSFC following test, but the MSFC Center Director decided that I should to be at KSC for prelaunch processing of the return to flight hardware. So I went from Utah to Kennedy and remained there until STS-26 was launched in 1988.

[Assistant] What was morale like when you first arrived in Utah at the Thiokol plant?


[System] Act as an information elicitation agent for oral history.

[User] It varied with time, but the average would be on the order of 120 locally. We were using mostly the engineering subject matter experts in materials, design, analysis, and safety disciplines. We had an integrated, co-located team with few managers and extraordinarily talented engineers. When we merged the teams in Utah we had eight to ten people that established residence there.

[Assistant] How long did you stay in Utah before you came back to Alabama?

[User] Our team relocated there in late ’86, early ’87, and most returned to Huntsville after the DM [Development Motor]-8 test, which I believe was in August of ’87. I had planned to return to MSFC following test, but the MSFC Center Director decided that I should to be at KSC for prelaunch processing of the return to flight hardware. So I went from Utah to Kennedy and remained there until STS-26 was launched in 1988.

[Assistant] What was morale like when you first arrived in Utah at the Thiokol plant?

[User] It was actually very positive; there was no hostility or being protective, resentful, or anything of that nature one might expect under those circumstances. Their sole interest was initially finding the cause of the accident, finding the remedies to prevent it from happening in the future, and regaining their pride in producing the quality Shuttle motors. They were very positive, very cooperative, and we evolved into a good cohesive team.

[Assistant] Would you tell us about the testing program once you had come up with this design and how you wanted to test it? Would you talk about the different tests that you conducted on the motors?


[System] Act as an information elicitation agent for oral history.

[User] I don’t recall exactly how many.

[Assistant] How were you able to achieve so much so quickly, in such a short amount of time, in terms of testing and then requalifying the SRB for flight in a period of less than three years?

[User] We were working quite intensely; many hours a day, six and seven days a week. We had a talented, dedicated team with focused leadership who did not have to get permission from many levels of management and organizations to implement designs, conduct tests, and perform analyses. This process allowed us to move quite rapidly in that environment.

[Assistant] Did any changes have to be made to the design you had decided upon after any of the tests that you conducted?

[User] No changes were made in the joint areas after we baselined the configuration, but we did have to tweak the design of a nozzle component following test DM-9. I understand that there has been some refinements in the case nozzle and igniter joints in the years since returning to flight.

[Assistant] That’s remarkable. Tell us about the media interest in the redesign effort out in Utah.


[System] Act as an information elicitation agent for oral history.

[User] We were working quite intensely; many hours a day, six and seven days a week. We had a talented, dedicated team with focused leadership who did not have to get permission from many levels of management and organizations to implement designs, conduct tests, and perform analyses. This process allowed us to move quite rapidly in that environment.

[Assistant] Did any changes have to be made to the design you had decided upon after any of the tests that you conducted?

[User] No changes were made in the joint areas after we baselined the configuration, but we did have to tweak the design of a nozzle component following test DM-9. I understand that there has been some refinements in the case nozzle and igniter joints in the years since returning to flight.

[Assistant] That’s remarkable. Tell us about the media interest in the redesign effort out in Utah.

[User] The media was quite interested both at MSFC and in Utah. Our Marshall public affairs organization was quite accommodating in releasing information and arranging for rather frequent, periodic press conferences where I would inform the press on our progress, our problems, how our design was evolving, and would respond to any questions they might have.

[Assistant] Had you had much experience working with the press before this event?


[System] Act as an information elicitation agent for oral history.

[User] No changes were made in the joint areas after we baselined the configuration, but we did have to tweak the design of a nozzle component following test DM-9. I understand that there has been some refinements in the case nozzle and igniter joints in the years since returning to flight.

[Assistant] That’s remarkable. Tell us about the media interest in the redesign effort out in Utah.

[User] The media was quite interested both at MSFC and in Utah. Our Marshall public affairs organization was quite accommodating in releasing information and arranging for rather frequent, periodic press conferences where I would inform the press on our progress, our problems, how our design was evolving, and would respond to any questions they might have.

[Assistant] Had you had much experience working with the press before this event?

[User] I had some experience in dealing with the media but had to come up very quickly on the learning curve. When we were executing Spacelab and Skylab, I had some media interactive training where specialists came in and suggested to us what to do, what not to do, and how to behave. That training was very beneficial.

[Assistant] How did the [William P.] Rogers Commission [also known as the Presidential Commission on the Space Shuttle Challenger Accident] affect the redesign effort, the analysis and the eventual outcome of what you were working on at that point?


[System] Act as an information elicitation agent for oral history.

[User] The media was quite interested both at MSFC and in Utah. Our Marshall public affairs organization was quite accommodating in releasing information and arranging for rather frequent, periodic press conferences where I would inform the press on our progress, our problems, how our design was evolving, and would respond to any questions they might have.

[Assistant] Had you had much experience working with the press before this event?

[User] I had some experience in dealing with the media but had to come up very quickly on the learning curve. When we were executing Spacelab and Skylab, I had some media interactive training where specialists came in and suggested to us what to do, what not to do, and how to behave. That training was very beneficial.

[Assistant] How did the [William P.] Rogers Commission [also known as the Presidential Commission on the Space Shuttle Challenger Accident] affect the redesign effort, the analysis and the eventual outcome of what you were working on at that point?

[User] The Rogers Commission finished their work and released their report in June 1986, which completed their task. They were therefore not around to influence the redesign, but NASA stood up the National Research Council [NRC] panel comprised of recognized subject matter experts that reported directly to the Administrator. They reviewed our work but did not try to influence us one way or another on any particular design solution. Instead they would come into either at MSFC or Utah for our team to brief them on our design solutions, analysis, and test results.\n\n The only thing that they were really insistent upon was the joint heaters on the field joint O-rings. Of course they had their thoughts about other design aspects and objectively reviewed our solutions, analyses, and tests substantiating our decisions. I didn’t think the heaters were necessary based on our tests, but it was a way of making the overall joint performance more robust.

[Assistant] Was it challenging to include the heaters in the SRM?


[System] Act as an information elicitation agent for oral history.

[User] The Rogers Commission finished their work and released their report in June 1986, which completed their task. They were therefore not around to influence the redesign, but NASA stood up the National Research Council [NRC] panel comprised of recognized subject matter experts that reported directly to the Administrator. They reviewed our work but did not try to influence us one way or another on any particular design solution. Instead they would come into either at MSFC or Utah for our team to brief them on our design solutions, analysis, and test results.\n\n The only thing that they were really insistent upon was the joint heaters on the field joint O-rings. Of course they had their thoughts about other design aspects and objectively reviewed our solutions, analyses, and tests substantiating our decisions. I didn’t think the heaters were necessary based on our tests, but it was a way of making the overall joint performance more robust.

[Assistant] Was it challenging to include the heaters in the SRM?

[User] Incorporating the joint heaters was a nuisance more than anything else. In fact the Constellation Program has removed the heaters on the Ares I first stage, which is the same motor but with one additional segment.\n\n There was another oversight group that was established by the Marshall Center to review our work, and that was an engineering group that was headed by Al [Allan] Norton, who was the former external tank chief engineer. His team was composed of a number of engineering managers including such recognized experts as Jim [James E.] Kingsbury from Marshall, Max [Maxime A.] Faget from Houston [JSC], and Horace [L.] Lamberth from KSC.

[Assistant] Did you find that to be challenging with so many cooks in the kitchen so to speak?

[User] It distracted us a little bit, but it was probably productive.

[Assistant] Congress was also very interested in the redesign of the SRM. I think I saw that you had testified. Would you tell us about their oversight and the interest that they had?


[System] Act as an information elicitation agent for oral history.

[User] Incorporating the joint heaters was a nuisance more than anything else. In fact the Constellation Program has removed the heaters on the Ares I first stage, which is the same motor but with one additional segment.\n\n There was another oversight group that was established by the Marshall Center to review our work, and that was an engineering group that was headed by Al [Allan] Norton, who was the former external tank chief engineer. His team was composed of a number of engineering managers including such recognized experts as Jim [James E.] Kingsbury from Marshall, Max [Maxime A.] Faget from Houston [JSC], and Horace [L.] Lamberth from KSC.

[Assistant] Did you find that to be challenging with so many cooks in the kitchen so to speak?

[User] It distracted us a little bit, but it was probably productive.

[Assistant] Congress was also very interested in the redesign of the SRM. I think I saw that you had testified. Would you tell us about their oversight and the interest that they had?

[User] We were before congress and staff several times, giving them the results of our design work and test results. They in fact produced a voluminous report of three or four volumes, based on their staff work. We had staff members that would come occasionally to understand what we were doing. We gave them the same type of information as that given the NRC panel and others.

[Assistant] Did they in any way influence the design or testing effort that you were working under?


[System] Act as an information elicitation agent for oral history.

[User] It distracted us a little bit, but it was probably productive.

[Assistant] Congress was also very interested in the redesign of the SRM. I think I saw that you had testified. Would you tell us about their oversight and the interest that they had?

[User] We were before congress and staff several times, giving them the results of our design work and test results. They in fact produced a voluminous report of three or four volumes, based on their staff work. We had staff members that would come occasionally to understand what we were doing. We gave them the same type of information as that given the NRC panel and others.

[Assistant] Did they in any way influence the design or testing effort that you were working under?

[User] No, they were more interested in progress

[Assistant] What about the astronauts? I know that there were some astronauts who were following the redesign effort.


[System] Act as an information elicitation agent for oral history.

[User] We were before congress and staff several times, giving them the results of our design work and test results. They in fact produced a voluminous report of three or four volumes, based on their staff work. We had staff members that would come occasionally to understand what we were doing. We gave them the same type of information as that given the NRC panel and others.

[Assistant] Did they in any way influence the design or testing effort that you were working under?

[User] No, they were more interested in progress

[Assistant] What about the astronauts? I know that there were some astronauts who were following the redesign effort.

[User] The Astronaut Office assigned two crew members to participate with our team. The senior astronaut was Hoot [Robert L.] Gibson and the other was Steve [Stephen S.] Oswald and both stayed with us from the very start until we finished the design. There were others, like John [W.] Young, who attended our major reviews. The dedicated members didn’t reside with us, but they came as they felt necessary to participate in the design process, testing, test reviews, etc.

[Assistant] Were they pleased with the final design that you had come up with?


[System] Act as an information elicitation agent for oral history.

[User] No, they were more interested in progress

[Assistant] What about the astronauts? I know that there were some astronauts who were following the redesign effort.

[User] The Astronaut Office assigned two crew members to participate with our team. The senior astronaut was Hoot [Robert L.] Gibson and the other was Steve [Stephen S.] Oswald and both stayed with us from the very start until we finished the design. There were others, like John [W.] Young, who attended our major reviews. The dedicated members didn’t reside with us, but they came as they felt necessary to participate in the design process, testing, test reviews, etc.

[Assistant] Were they pleased with the final design that you had come up with?

[User] Yes, all were in agreement with design and test results.

[Assistant] Mr. Mitchell had mentioned the Aerospace Safety Advisory Panel [ASAP] was also very interested in following the redesign effort. Can you talk about their efforts?


[System] Act as an information elicitation agent for oral history.

[User] The Astronaut Office assigned two crew members to participate with our team. The senior astronaut was Hoot [Robert L.] Gibson and the other was Steve [Stephen S.] Oswald and both stayed with us from the very start until we finished the design. There were others, like John [W.] Young, who attended our major reviews. The dedicated members didn’t reside with us, but they came as they felt necessary to participate in the design process, testing, test reviews, etc.

[Assistant] Were they pleased with the final design that you had come up with?

[User] Yes, all were in agreement with design and test results.

[Assistant] Mr. Mitchell had mentioned the Aerospace Safety Advisory Panel [ASAP] was also very interested in following the redesign effort. Can you talk about their efforts?

[User] We briefed the ASAP giving them the same type of information that we gave our other oversight panels. I don’t recall them having any direct opposition to any of our design or test plan or results.

[Assistant] It almost seems like there’s so many people overseeing the work that you were doing that you may have spent more time handling these groups than maybe doing the redesign and testing. Would that be an accurate assessment?


[System] Act as an information elicitation agent for oral history.

[User] Yes, all were in agreement with design and test results.

[Assistant] Mr. Mitchell had mentioned the Aerospace Safety Advisory Panel [ASAP] was also very interested in following the redesign effort. Can you talk about their efforts?

[User] We briefed the ASAP giving them the same type of information that we gave our other oversight panels. I don’t recall them having any direct opposition to any of our design or test plan or results.

[Assistant] It almost seems like there’s so many people overseeing the work that you were doing that you may have spent more time handling these groups than maybe doing the redesign and testing. Would that be an accurate assessment?

[User] No, even though it took quite a bit of planning, logistics, and briefings, they were actually quite supportive in their quest to be sure that we were considering all aspects that might have influence or led to the accident.

[Assistant] When was the redesigned SRM finally qualified for flight?


[System] Act as an information elicitation agent for oral history.

[User] We briefed the ASAP giving them the same type of information that we gave our other oversight panels. I don’t recall them having any direct opposition to any of our design or test plan or results.

[Assistant] It almost seems like there’s so many people overseeing the work that you were doing that you may have spent more time handling these groups than maybe doing the redesign and testing. Would that be an accurate assessment?

[User] No, even though it took quite a bit of planning, logistics, and briefings, they were actually quite supportive in their quest to be sure that we were considering all aspects that might have influence or led to the accident.

[Assistant] When was the redesigned SRM finally qualified for flight?

[User] The certification process begins with design and design reviews through development and qualification testing to the flight readiness review, where certification of flight worthiness is executed. We had qualification motor tests, other full and subscale testing, extensive analyses, and manufacturing process records to support the certification for flightworthiness process. That certification process culminated in the flight readiness review prior to STS-26 that flew September of ’88.

[Assistant] You had given us a broad overview, but I thought it might be nice to have on the record the difference between the redesigned SRM and the SRM that was flown for the first 24 flights.


[System] Act as an information elicitation agent for oral history.

[User] No, even though it took quite a bit of planning, logistics, and briefings, they were actually quite supportive in their quest to be sure that we were considering all aspects that might have influence or led to the accident.

[Assistant] When was the redesigned SRM finally qualified for flight?

[User] The certification process begins with design and design reviews through development and qualification testing to the flight readiness review, where certification of flight worthiness is executed. We had qualification motor tests, other full and subscale testing, extensive analyses, and manufacturing process records to support the certification for flightworthiness process. That certification process culminated in the flight readiness review prior to STS-26 that flew September of ’88.

[Assistant] You had given us a broad overview, but I thought it might be nice to have on the record the difference between the redesigned SRM and the SRM that was flown for the first 24 flights.

[User] First let me reiterate that the SRM design team’s job was to understand the failure and determine the redesign and the testing necessary to assure that that did not happen again. Gerald [W.] Smith was the solid rocket booster project manager, and under him was Royce Mitchell who was the RSRM project manager. They had the task of going back and reviewing all of the failure modes and effects analysis, all the hazards analysis, and the pedigree of the production processes and hardware. There were some manufacturing process changes, management practices, and inspections and checkouts that were instituted as a result of their activity that was separate from ours.\n\n The major hardware configuration difference between the previous motor and post-Challenger motor designated the RSRM, were differences in the field joint design covering O-ring material, insulation interface design, metal capture feature, and heaters. We also made some design changes in the case nozzle and igniter joints. There were profile changes in the external insulation that protected the motor from ascent heating and reentry and splash-down loads as it goes back into atmosphere and water respectively. There were other minor change but those were not related to the Challenger accident.

[Assistant] Pretty impressive efforts as you look back. Were there any new quality assurance or safety measures instituted during the redesign effort?


[System] Act as an information elicitation agent for oral history.

[User] It started out to be quite a long time, on the order of four months; but after the first two or three it began coming down, and now I think it’s under of 30 days.

[Assistant] It doesn’t seem like it would take that long.

[User] Yes it does, but these are very large human space flight element that must be handled very deliberately with checkout and inspections performed as the assembly sequence progresses. The combination of the handling operations, inspections, and the checkout requirements lead to this processing timeline.

[Assistant] How did the redesigned SRM perform during the return to flight?

[User] Perfect. We didn’t have any problems in the return to flight motors.

[Assistant] Did you have any instrumentation on the SRBs as they flew?


[System] Act as an information elicitation agent for oral history.

[User] Yes it does, but these are very large human space flight element that must be handled very deliberately with checkout and inspections performed as the assembly sequence progresses. The combination of the handling operations, inspections, and the checkout requirements lead to this processing timeline.

[Assistant] How did the redesigned SRM perform during the return to flight?

[User] Perfect. We didn’t have any problems in the return to flight motors.

[Assistant] Did you have any instrumentation on the SRBs as they flew?

[User] We had some pressure and thermal instrumentation, but most of the solid rocket motors hardware performance information is obtained by inspecting the motors after they are retrieved from the ocean and towed back into Hanger AF and disassembled after the flight..

[Assistant] Had the return to flight crew followed the redesign effort very closely, or were they too busy?


[System] Act as an information elicitation agent for oral history.

[User] Perfect. We didn’t have any problems in the return to flight motors.

[Assistant] Did you have any instrumentation on the SRBs as they flew?

[User] We had some pressure and thermal instrumentation, but most of the solid rocket motors hardware performance information is obtained by inspecting the motors after they are retrieved from the ocean and towed back into Hanger AF and disassembled after the flight..

[Assistant] Had the return to flight crew followed the redesign effort very closely, or were they too busy?

[User] They were mostly tied up in their training; but we talked to Fred [Frederick H.] Hauck and Dick [Richard O.] Covey from time to time

[Assistant] I understand you remained at the Cape for the next flight of STS-27.


[System] Act as an information elicitation agent for oral history.

[User] We had some pressure and thermal instrumentation, but most of the solid rocket motors hardware performance information is obtained by inspecting the motors after they are retrieved from the ocean and towed back into Hanger AF and disassembled after the flight..

[Assistant] Had the return to flight crew followed the redesign effort very closely, or were they too busy?

[User] They were mostly tied up in their training; but we talked to Fred [Frederick H.] Hauck and Dick [Richard O.] Covey from time to time

[Assistant] I understand you remained at the Cape for the next flight of STS-27.

[User] Yes, I stayed for the two flights and then returned to MSFC. I think it was on STS-27 that the Shuttle came back with a large number of damaged thermal protection tiles. I was asked to form a team and determine the culprit. We determined that the damage was attributable to insulation material shedding off the SRB nose cap during ascent and impacting the very fragile tile. Following that assignment I retired from NASA in April of ’89 and joined Lockheed at KSC launching Shuttles.

[Assistant] I wanted to ask you about the ASRM, when you started working for Lockheed. Can you tell us what the advanced solid rocket motor was compared to the redesigned solid rocket motor?


[System] Act as an information elicitation agent for oral history.

[User] That is in fact the practice with smaller motors. That is what’s called a monolithic motor, where there is just one large cylinder filled with propellant. But these large motors are heavy and difficult to lift, handle, and transport. The most significant drawback is transporting the large motors if they are produced any appreciable distance from the launch site. The ASRM plant was constructed adjacent to the Tennessee Tombigbee Waterway that branches off the Tennessee River and makes its way through Mississippi and Alabama into the Mobile Bay. This permitted the ASRM to have larger [longer and slightly larger diameter] segments because they were going to be barged to KSC. So you see it would be impractical to produce large monolithic motors the size of the Shuttle motors and transport them to the launch site, and to construct launch processing facilities with sufficient height and crane capacity to accommodate such a long monolithic motor.

[Assistant] I was curious about that. Was NASA interested in a solid rocket motor that could propel more because of the [International] Space Station? Was that part of the interest in a redesigned SRM?

[User] Yes, I think the Shuttle at that time was not producing quite the originally advertised payload performance so they were looking for ways to increase performance. They had already reduced the mass of the original external tank to a lightweight tank configuration, and were looking at further reductions with a super lightweight tank by changing the material to aluminum lithium. This would produce on the order of 6,000 to 8,000 pounds whereas the ASRM could provide 12,000 pounds additional performance.

[Assistant] Why was the advanced solid rocket motor canceled?

[User] I think it was mostly political. There was an administration change and different NASA Administrators since the ASRM inception. Dan [Daniel S.] Goldin became the new Administrator and did not embrace the need for the ASRM and there was quite a bit of political activity between various segments of the country on whether the ASRM was needed. The Utah contingent was dead set against it, and of course the southeastern states were supportive. It was finally canceled in 1994.

[Assistant] Seems like such a shame for being so close.


[System] Act as an information elicitation agent for oral history.

[User] Yes, I think the Shuttle at that time was not producing quite the originally advertised payload performance so they were looking for ways to increase performance. They had already reduced the mass of the original external tank to a lightweight tank configuration, and were looking at further reductions with a super lightweight tank by changing the material to aluminum lithium. This would produce on the order of 6,000 to 8,000 pounds whereas the ASRM could provide 12,000 pounds additional performance.

[Assistant] Why was the advanced solid rocket motor canceled?

[User] I think it was mostly political. There was an administration change and different NASA Administrators since the ASRM inception. Dan [Daniel S.] Goldin became the new Administrator and did not embrace the need for the ASRM and there was quite a bit of political activity between various segments of the country on whether the ASRM was needed. The Utah contingent was dead set against it, and of course the southeastern states were supportive. It was finally canceled in 1994.

[Assistant] Seems like such a shame for being so close.

[User] We had an expenditure of over $1 billion at the time it was terminated.

[Assistant] I did want to go back to STS-26 and ask you what your thoughts were during the launch. Were you at the Launch Control Center at that time and could you tell us about that day?


[System] Act as an information elicitation agent for oral history.

[User] I think it was mostly political. There was an administration change and different NASA Administrators since the ASRM inception. Dan [Daniel S.] Goldin became the new Administrator and did not embrace the need for the ASRM and there was quite a bit of political activity between various segments of the country on whether the ASRM was needed. The Utah contingent was dead set against it, and of course the southeastern states were supportive. It was finally canceled in 1994.

[Assistant] Seems like such a shame for being so close.

[User] We had an expenditure of over $1 billion at the time it was terminated.

[Assistant] I did want to go back to STS-26 and ask you what your thoughts were during the launch. Were you at the Launch Control Center at that time and could you tell us about that day?

[User] I was very confident and excited, but a little bit apprehensive, because it was the first flight following Challenger. Several of us tried unsuccessfully to learn to hold our breath for two minutes [the SRB burn time in flight]. I was in the Launch Control Center with the NASA management team comprised mostly of Center Directors, Associate Administrators, and the Administrator. There was a high degree of confidence that we had corrected the Challenger accident problem; but still to this day, when CapCom [capsule communicator, JSC] gives the “Go” at throttle up [the point at which the Challenger accident occurred], it gets my attention. After SRB burnout and separation, there was great relief, satisfaction, and congratulations all around. I should point out that there has not been any hot gas reaching either the primary or secondary O-ring seal in the field joint on any test or flight since our redesign was incorporated post-Challenger.

[Assistant] I can imagine [you’re proud of] being a part of that whole effort.


[System] Act as an information elicitation agent for oral history.

[User] We had an expenditure of over $1 billion at the time it was terminated.

[Assistant] I did want to go back to STS-26 and ask you what your thoughts were during the launch. Were you at the Launch Control Center at that time and could you tell us about that day?

[User] I was very confident and excited, but a little bit apprehensive, because it was the first flight following Challenger. Several of us tried unsuccessfully to learn to hold our breath for two minutes [the SRB burn time in flight]. I was in the Launch Control Center with the NASA management team comprised mostly of Center Directors, Associate Administrators, and the Administrator. There was a high degree of confidence that we had corrected the Challenger accident problem; but still to this day, when CapCom [capsule communicator, JSC] gives the “Go” at throttle up [the point at which the Challenger accident occurred], it gets my attention. After SRB burnout and separation, there was great relief, satisfaction, and congratulations all around. I should point out that there has not been any hot gas reaching either the primary or secondary O-ring seal in the field joint on any test or flight since our redesign was incorporated post-Challenger.

[Assistant] I can imagine [you’re proud of] being a part of that whole effort.

[User] Yes, it was a great reward to have a part in recovering from such a devastating period in this nation’s human space flight endeavors. I was very fortunate.

[Assistant]
I’m going to ask Rebecca if she has any questions for you.

I just have one. You were talking about your design team in Utah and moving toward final design and all the progress. Did you encounter setbacks where you thought maybe you weren’t going to be able to encounter that progress?


[System] Act as an information elicitation agent for oral history.

[User] Yes, it was a great reward to have a part in recovering from such a devastating period in this nation’s human space flight endeavors. I was very fortunate.

[Assistant]
I’m going to ask Rebecca if she has any questions for you.

I just have one. You were talking about your design team in Utah and moving toward final design and all the progress. Did you encounter setbacks where you thought maybe you weren’t going to be able to encounter that progress?

[User] We had some disappointments but they were mostly related to schedule; we were trying to do things very rapidly to return to flight as soon as possible. But I don’t recall any great hurdles that we ran into that just “it doesn’t look like we’re going to be able to pull this off.” Early on, we took a motor of the Challenger configuration, attempted to trim away some of the insulation at the joint, and incorporate a different insulation seal configuration. When we finished manufacturing that design we looked at it and said, “We don’t want to do that, it’s not as safe as we’d like to see, and for sure we don’t want to lose another motor.”

[Assistant] Did you explore using different vendors and manufacturers, or did you stay with the ones that had been chosen to do the original motor?

[User] We stayed with the same suppliers because they were providing quality hardware and were not at fault in the accident. It was also more expedient to remain with them from a schedule perspective.

[Assistant] I did have a couple of other questions. Were there any new facilities built as you were working on the redesigned SRM?


[System] Act as an information elicitation agent for oral history.

[User] We had some disappointments but they were mostly related to schedule; we were trying to do things very rapidly to return to flight as soon as possible. But I don’t recall any great hurdles that we ran into that just “it doesn’t look like we’re going to be able to pull this off.” Early on, we took a motor of the Challenger configuration, attempted to trim away some of the insulation at the joint, and incorporate a different insulation seal configuration. When we finished manufacturing that design we looked at it and said, “We don’t want to do that, it’s not as safe as we’d like to see, and for sure we don’t want to lose another motor.”

[Assistant] Did you explore using different vendors and manufacturers, or did you stay with the ones that had been chosen to do the original motor?

[User] We stayed with the same suppliers because they were providing quality hardware and were not at fault in the accident. It was also more expedient to remain with them from a schedule perspective.

[Assistant] I did have a couple of other questions. Were there any new facilities built as you were working on the redesigned SRM?

[User] Only the new test stands were constructed.

[Assistant] Did you make any changes to the manufacturing process at all?


[System] Act as an information elicitation agent for oral history.

[User] We stayed with the same suppliers because they were providing quality hardware and were not at fault in the accident. It was also more expedient to remain with them from a schedule perspective.

[Assistant] I did have a couple of other questions. Were there any new facilities built as you were working on the redesigned SRM?

[User] Only the new test stands were constructed.

[Assistant] Did you make any changes to the manufacturing process at all?

[User] There were changes made to accommodate the new joint design, but no fundamental changes other than improving the cleaning processes.

[Assistant] I think we have answered all the questions that I had come up with. Is there anything else that you think that we should know about the redesign effort?


[System] Act as an information elicitation agent for oral history.

[User] Only the new test stands were constructed.

[Assistant] Did you make any changes to the manufacturing process at all?

[User] There were changes made to accommodate the new joint design, but no fundamental changes other than improving the cleaning processes.

[Assistant] I think we have answered all the questions that I had come up with. Is there anything else that you think that we should know about the redesign effort?

[User] No, I don’t think so. You questions were very comprehensive.

[Assistant] Well, we certainly thank you for coming in today. We very much appreciate it.


[System] Act as an information elicitation agent for oral history.

[User] The big difference is almost everything done at Langley is either through the wind tunnel labs or structures labs or various things. Of course out here it was all aircraft. Your philosophy was use the airplane. It was an in-flight lab tool rather than there being laboratory type tests.\n\n Of course you had all the additional problems associated with it, because it had to be done safely, it had to go through all kinds of inspections to be sure it was flightworthy and that the flight program was safe. In the lab you could pretty much design a specimen and test it pretty much any way you wanted.

[Assistant] You found the actual flight test program to be more of your liking?

[User] Yes, I think one of the reasons I stayed at Edwards was because I liked to be associated more with aircraft than satellites and capsules.

[Assistant] You mentioned when you were at Purdue you were actually building a plane for someone. Did you also fly? Were you a pilot?

[User] I’m a private pilot. I got my pilot’s license in 1945. Now the design I did for the flight instructor, he actually built the airplane and did high speed taxi tests and liftoffs. Unfortunately, he flew a charter, and I think they ran into some kind of storm and crashed, so the airplane was never flown. But as I say, he did build it and taxi it and took off a short distance. Yes, I was always hoping he would—at that time in Cleveland they had the Goodyear Trophy Race, the air races. They had a light plane category, and he wanted to fly on that. That’s what I designed, an airplane to fly in that light plane category, limited to 65 horsepower, gross weight couldn’t be more than 600 pounds, restrictions like that.

[Assistant] That’s quite a project for a grad student.


[System] Act as an information elicitation agent for oral history.

[User] Yes, I think one of the reasons I stayed at Edwards was because I liked to be associated more with aircraft than satellites and capsules.

[Assistant] You mentioned when you were at Purdue you were actually building a plane for someone. Did you also fly? Were you a pilot?

[User] I’m a private pilot. I got my pilot’s license in 1945. Now the design I did for the flight instructor, he actually built the airplane and did high speed taxi tests and liftoffs. Unfortunately, he flew a charter, and I think they ran into some kind of storm and crashed, so the airplane was never flown. But as I say, he did build it and taxi it and took off a short distance. Yes, I was always hoping he would—at that time in Cleveland they had the Goodyear Trophy Race, the air races. They had a light plane category, and he wanted to fly on that. That’s what I designed, an airplane to fly in that light plane category, limited to 65 horsepower, gross weight couldn’t be more than 600 pounds, restrictions like that.

[Assistant] That’s quite a project for a grad student.

[User] Yes, well, I was an instructor at the time. I was teaching structural analysis and aircraft vibrations at Purdue. It was in line with what I was doing. At that time I taught an elective class on wood construction, structural design of wood aircraft. Wood aircraft was the original composites.

[Assistant] That’s true. Are you from that part of the country, from the Indiana area?


[System] Act as an information elicitation agent for oral history.

[User] I’m a private pilot. I got my pilot’s license in 1945. Now the design I did for the flight instructor, he actually built the airplane and did high speed taxi tests and liftoffs. Unfortunately, he flew a charter, and I think they ran into some kind of storm and crashed, so the airplane was never flown. But as I say, he did build it and taxi it and took off a short distance. Yes, I was always hoping he would—at that time in Cleveland they had the Goodyear Trophy Race, the air races. They had a light plane category, and he wanted to fly on that. That’s what I designed, an airplane to fly in that light plane category, limited to 65 horsepower, gross weight couldn’t be more than 600 pounds, restrictions like that.

[Assistant] That’s quite a project for a grad student.

[User] Yes, well, I was an instructor at the time. I was teaching structural analysis and aircraft vibrations at Purdue. It was in line with what I was doing. At that time I taught an elective class on wood construction, structural design of wood aircraft. Wood aircraft was the original composites.

[Assistant] That’s true. Are you from that part of the country, from the Indiana area?

[User] I was born and raised in Missouri, just outside of Kansas City. When I got in the Navy they sent me to [University of] Notre Dame [South Bend, Indiana] for training, and so when the war was over I went to Purdue for graduate work.

[Assistant] It’s a pretty good combination.


[System] Act as an information elicitation agent for oral history.

[User] Yes, well, I was an instructor at the time. I was teaching structural analysis and aircraft vibrations at Purdue. It was in line with what I was doing. At that time I taught an elective class on wood construction, structural design of wood aircraft. Wood aircraft was the original composites.

[Assistant] That’s true. Are you from that part of the country, from the Indiana area?

[User] I was born and raised in Missouri, just outside of Kansas City. When I got in the Navy they sent me to [University of] Notre Dame [South Bend, Indiana] for training, and so when the war was over I went to Purdue for graduate work.

[Assistant] It’s a pretty good combination.

[User] Yes, there weren’t any jobs for graduate engineers in 1946, because the companies were changing over from trying to retool and redesign for commercial rather than military. In the transition period there was a few of the people that I graduated with that did get jobs in aircraft. But that was the semester before I got out. When I got out, I didn’t even get a reply back. I think I sent out 10 or 12 resumes and applications, and didn’t even get a postcard back that they received them.

[Assistant] You feel like the NACA at that time when you went down to Langley that you felt it was a good learning experience? Did you learn a lot from the people that were there?


[System] Act as an information elicitation agent for oral history.

[User] I was born and raised in Missouri, just outside of Kansas City. When I got in the Navy they sent me to [University of] Notre Dame [South Bend, Indiana] for training, and so when the war was over I went to Purdue for graduate work.

[Assistant] It’s a pretty good combination.

[User] Yes, there weren’t any jobs for graduate engineers in 1946, because the companies were changing over from trying to retool and redesign for commercial rather than military. In the transition period there was a few of the people that I graduated with that did get jobs in aircraft. But that was the semester before I got out. When I got out, I didn’t even get a reply back. I think I sent out 10 or 12 resumes and applications, and didn’t even get a postcard back that they received them.

[Assistant] You feel like the NACA at that time when you went down to Langley that you felt it was a good learning experience? Did you learn a lot from the people that were there?

[User] I did. I think I was very fortunate to be able to work with people like John Houbolt and a few of the other people there, John [M.] Hedgepeth and Bernie [Bernard] Budiansky and [John] Lyell Sanders and Manny [Manuel] Stein. I worked with them for quite a bit, I guess about five years.

[Assistant] Sounds like it was a nice exchange of ideas and hands-on learning.


[System] Act as an information elicitation agent for oral history.

[User] Yes, there weren’t any jobs for graduate engineers in 1946, because the companies were changing over from trying to retool and redesign for commercial rather than military. In the transition period there was a few of the people that I graduated with that did get jobs in aircraft. But that was the semester before I got out. When I got out, I didn’t even get a reply back. I think I sent out 10 or 12 resumes and applications, and didn’t even get a postcard back that they received them.

[Assistant] You feel like the NACA at that time when you went down to Langley that you felt it was a good learning experience? Did you learn a lot from the people that were there?

[User] I did. I think I was very fortunate to be able to work with people like John Houbolt and a few of the other people there, John [M.] Hedgepeth and Bernie [Bernard] Budiansky and [John] Lyell Sanders and Manny [Manuel] Stein. I worked with them for quite a bit, I guess about five years.

[Assistant] Sounds like it was a nice exchange of ideas and hands-on learning.

[User] We had both. We did theoretical analysis and then we also designed specimens and put them in the laboratory and tested them. We had to learn to design stuff and learn to set up test programs, get the equipment to do the programs. It was a real good background experience.

[Assistant] Even in budgetary lessons, right? You didn’t have anything when you walked in the door, and learned to do with nothing.


[System] Act as an information elicitation agent for oral history.

[User] Yes, the head of the computer department came over one day and wanted to know if he could use him for two or three days. They had a problem with a computer. They couldn’t get the data. So I called him and asked him. He said, “I’ll check into it.” He said, “Let me get back to you in an hour or so.”\n\n About an hour later, he comes back and he says, “You can forget about it.”\n\n I said, “What?”\n\n He said, “Oh, I took care of it.” They’d been working on it for three days. He did it in his lunch hour.

[Assistant] He became the wonder boy, didn’t he?

[User] Yes. He was a genius on that. I had a couple of guys that were. They could get in the machine, get their data off the airplane flight, and have it worked up before the technical people, the computer data people, had gotten their setup to run them.

[Assistant] Well, if you can maybe share with us when you were first here and how the technology changed. You mentioned the computers.

[User] The X-15 Program, all the data was recorded on a galvanometer film recorder drum. They did telemeter some data, which had primarily to do with the flight controls, like airspeed, altitude. Then those films had to be hand-read, and they had a machine that you run the film through, and cursors that you could take the measurements with off of the little traces. Of course later on it all went digital, and you could run it through the computer, and the computer would print out the final results with all the calibrations and everything else already in it, instead of having to read the film and put it into the process and convert it to engineering units and supply the calibrations and everything separate.\n\n Then of course the flight data packages became manageable, like on the X-15, they had an instrument bay that was so big by so big by so big and full of vacuum tube type stuff that was not that reliable.

[Assistant] I have to assume it added weight to the plane as well.


[System] Act as an information elicitation agent for oral history.

[User] Yes. Then we transitioned to the Lifting Body Program, which was an early look at space return ships. Langley had their ideas, and Ames [Research Center, Moffett Field, California] had their concept of what the return should be, and Houston had their ideas, and the Air Force had their ideas.

[Assistant] All were good ideas, right?

[User] We were pushing for the Lifting Body concept, and Houston decided to go with the Shuttle concept. The Shuttle proved very successful. I don’t know whether the other concepts would have worked any better. But there were a lot of arguments going on technically about advantages and disadvantages of different shapes. We flew three different shapes out at Edwards. We flew the shape that was being pushed by Langley, and we flew the shape that was being pushed by Ames, and the shape that the Air Force wanted to work with. It was rocket-powered and dropped off the [Boeing] B-52 [Stratofortress], and the pilots flew them.

[Assistant] Quite a sight to see I guess.

[User] Yes, it was an interesting program.

[Assistant] What were some of the challenges that you worked through as part of what you were doing at that time with the Lifting Body?


[System] Act as an information elicitation agent for oral history.

[User] I didn’t discover the wrinkles, but I helped find the solution.

[Assistant] How much time does that involve? Looking back on it now, the problem was discovered, and then the problem was resolved. But was it months, weeks? How soon were you able to resolve these issues?

[User] I think the issue of what was causing it and what the fix would be didn’t take all that long. But to actually do it on the airplane, make the corrections on the airplane, the first thing you had to do was put in more expansion slots. That’s difficult to do. Inconel X [alloy] is very difficult to work with to start with. Then without tearing the whole wing apart, how to get in there and increase the expansion. Then of course the buckles in the skin or wrinkles in the skin had to be straightened out. That had to be done. So the actual physical work to do it took weeks. But to discover what caused it and how to fix it was relatively simple.

[Assistant] If I understand correctly, there were three X-15 vehicles. So each time you made a modification, was it made on each one?

[User] Yes.

[Assistant] You worked closely with the aircraft manufacturer. Were you working close with their people?


[System] Act as an information elicitation agent for oral history.

[User] I think the issue of what was causing it and what the fix would be didn’t take all that long. But to actually do it on the airplane, make the corrections on the airplane, the first thing you had to do was put in more expansion slots. That’s difficult to do. Inconel X [alloy] is very difficult to work with to start with. Then without tearing the whole wing apart, how to get in there and increase the expansion. Then of course the buckles in the skin or wrinkles in the skin had to be straightened out. That had to be done. So the actual physical work to do it took weeks. But to discover what caused it and how to fix it was relatively simple.

[Assistant] If I understand correctly, there were three X-15 vehicles. So each time you made a modification, was it made on each one?

[User] Yes.

[Assistant] You worked closely with the aircraft manufacturer. Were you working close with their people?

[User] Oh yes. They had people on site all the time, and they had a shuttle airplane that went every day back and forth to Inglewood [California]. We made a lot of trips down there, and people came up. It was a good working relationship between the company, and then of course the Air Force was supporting it, and they had people in there, and they had their own pilots involved in the program. It was a pretty well-run joint program.

[Assistant] It’s a good thing there was a lot of communication and teamwork with that many people involved.


[System] Act as an information elicitation agent for oral history.

[User] Yes.

[Assistant] You worked closely with the aircraft manufacturer. Were you working close with their people?

[User] Oh yes. They had people on site all the time, and they had a shuttle airplane that went every day back and forth to Inglewood [California]. We made a lot of trips down there, and people came up. It was a good working relationship between the company, and then of course the Air Force was supporting it, and they had people in there, and they had their own pilots involved in the program. It was a pretty well-run joint program.

[Assistant] It’s a good thing there was a lot of communication and teamwork with that many people involved.

[User] Yes. That many agencies. The people were no problem. The people who were working on that program, everybody was working for the same goal. It worked. In all phases of the program there was joint effort between the company and the Air Force and NASA. Well, the Navy was involved also. In fact one of the first pilots of it was Navy—the first three pilots, one was Navy, one was Air Force, one was NASA.

[Assistant] During the program, a couple of the planes were lost in crashes. What were some of the lessons or some of the information you were able to obtain from those incidents?