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

[User] There will always be mission rules.

[Assistant] And serve their purpose well?

[User] There would always be mission rules, and they would always evolve. Each mission would be a little bit different. For the remote controllers, there was always this panic of trying to get copies of the latest mission rules and the latest Flight Controller's Handbook ready, up to date at the point they were going to leave on an airplane. So that was finally solved. We finally got our own duplicating system.

[Assistant] I bet that came in handy.

[User] Yes.

[Assistant] Because we have to remember these were days before computers, where you could make one word change.


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

[User] There would always be mission rules, and they would always evolve. Each mission would be a little bit different. For the remote controllers, there was always this panic of trying to get copies of the latest mission rules and the latest Flight Controller's Handbook ready, up to date at the point they were going to leave on an airplane. So that was finally solved. We finally got our own duplicating system.

[Assistant] I bet that came in handy.

[User] Yes.

[Assistant] Because we have to remember these were days before computers, where you could make one word change.

[User] That's right. Yes. Fortunately, I had three secretaries to help out. I guess I had more secretaries than anybody else. But there were three secretaries there. One was familiar with the Worldwide Network and put messages on it and so forth, and the other two were general typists.

[Assistant] And very busy typists, I'm sure.


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

[User] Yes.

[Assistant] Because we have to remember these were days before computers, where you could make one word change.

[User] That's right. Yes. Fortunately, I had three secretaries to help out. I guess I had more secretaries than anybody else. But there were three secretaries there. One was familiar with the Worldwide Network and put messages on it and so forth, and the other two were general typists.

[Assistant] And very busy typists, I'm sure.

[User] Yes. But there were panics. People would come running in, "How am I going to get this duplicated?" [Laughter] This was before we got our own system.

[Assistant] You left NASA and came to Massachusetts and joined RCA.


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

[User] That's right. Yes. Fortunately, I had three secretaries to help out. I guess I had more secretaries than anybody else. But there were three secretaries there. One was familiar with the Worldwide Network and put messages on it and so forth, and the other two were general typists.

[Assistant] And very busy typists, I'm sure.

[User] Yes. But there were panics. People would come running in, "How am I going to get this duplicated?" [Laughter] This was before we got our own system.

[Assistant] You left NASA and came to Massachusetts and joined RCA.

[User] Yes.

[Assistant] Tell us how you went through that transition.


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

[User] Yes.

[Assistant] Tell us how you went through that transition.

[User] One thing more before we quite get to that. I left and came to RCA, and subsequently there was a report, a document, put out on the results of John Glenn's flight, the first manned orbital, U.S. orbital flight. In it is a paper written by Chris Kraft, Tec Roberts, Gene Kranz, and myself, only I never wrote it.

[Assistant] Ah-oh.

[User] I never contributed to it. Somebody on the team, perhaps Chris, added my name to it because I like to think sort of that because of what I had contributed to the thing. So I've got a copy of that, but, as I say, I didn't write it.

[Assistant] Were you happy with what you didn't write? [Laughter]


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

[User] One thing more before we quite get to that. I left and came to RCA, and subsequently there was a report, a document, put out on the results of John Glenn's flight, the first manned orbital, U.S. orbital flight. In it is a paper written by Chris Kraft, Tec Roberts, Gene Kranz, and myself, only I never wrote it.

[Assistant] Ah-oh.

[User] I never contributed to it. Somebody on the team, perhaps Chris, added my name to it because I like to think sort of that because of what I had contributed to the thing. So I've got a copy of that, but, as I say, I didn't write it.

[Assistant] Were you happy with what you didn't write? [Laughter]

[User] Yes. It was very good.

[Assistant] It was going to have your name on it. Were you okay with that? That's good.


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

[User] Frank Thomas is gone. Gene Duret is gone. Jim Chamberlin. Funny thing about Jim. I'll always remember Jim on Gemini, he disappeared to McDonnell for almost a month when they were first defining what Gemini should do. Came home in the middle of the night, everybody was asleep. He didn't want to wake them up, so he slept on the couch in the living room. He had to get up early in the morning and take a flight to New York, so he didn't want to disturb anybody in the morning, so he just quietly sneaked out of the house and went to the airport before anybody was up. His wife came down, and the only evidence that she had that he'd been home in a month was a pile of dirty laundry sitting in the middle of the room. [Laughter]

[Assistant] Some of these wives had a great amount of patience, didn't they.

[User] Particularly astronauts' wives. They were away more than anybody. We lived right across the street from Wally Schirra's, and he was away more than he was home.

[Assistant] I guess that helped, being part of Stoneybrook extended family.

[User] Yes, particularly with the three astronauts' wives there. They were very close. I saw Deke a couple of years ago. Deke's passed on, too. I saw Deke Slayton a few years ago at Reno Air Races. He had his little Formula One. You could put the airplane in this room. He was racing it in the Formula One race. I had a chance to talk to him for a bit, and that was the last time I'd seen him.

[Assistant] I'm sure that was a good time for both of you to renew those old friendships.


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

[User] Particularly astronauts' wives. They were away more than anybody. We lived right across the street from Wally Schirra's, and he was away more than he was home.

[Assistant] I guess that helped, being part of Stoneybrook extended family.

[User] Yes, particularly with the three astronauts' wives there. They were very close. I saw Deke a couple of years ago. Deke's passed on, too. I saw Deke Slayton a few years ago at Reno Air Races. He had his little Formula One. You could put the airplane in this room. He was racing it in the Formula One race. I had a chance to talk to him for a bit, and that was the last time I'd seen him.

[Assistant] I'm sure that was a good time for both of you to renew those old friendships.

[User] Yes. So anyway, at RCA then I got off into doing other things other than—oh, airplane-related, not space-related, I got involved in configuring and doing a selection for the next version of the Air Force's Advanced Airborne Command Post. They had a command post in EC-135s, and we put the first computer into an EC-135. So we did this study for which airplane should they have, an L-1011, a C-5A, a 747, DC-8, DC-8 stretched, and so forth. They finally picked the 747, so we did some further studies as to how to configure it and so forth.\n\n After that, most of my work was on other things like some intelligence systems and some automatic test systems and so forth. Then I got into doing their engineering procedures for RCA-Burlington [Massachusetts], and they ended up being adopted by GE Aerospace in general.

[Assistant] You started out at pursuing your interest in airplanes, and with RCA you were able to go back and work with that again.


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

[User] Yes, particularly with the three astronauts' wives there. They were very close. I saw Deke a couple of years ago. Deke's passed on, too. I saw Deke Slayton a few years ago at Reno Air Races. He had his little Formula One. You could put the airplane in this room. He was racing it in the Formula One race. I had a chance to talk to him for a bit, and that was the last time I'd seen him.

[Assistant] I'm sure that was a good time for both of you to renew those old friendships.

[User] Yes. So anyway, at RCA then I got off into doing other things other than—oh, airplane-related, not space-related, I got involved in configuring and doing a selection for the next version of the Air Force's Advanced Airborne Command Post. They had a command post in EC-135s, and we put the first computer into an EC-135. So we did this study for which airplane should they have, an L-1011, a C-5A, a 747, DC-8, DC-8 stretched, and so forth. They finally picked the 747, so we did some further studies as to how to configure it and so forth.\n\n After that, most of my work was on other things like some intelligence systems and some automatic test systems and so forth. Then I got into doing their engineering procedures for RCA-Burlington [Massachusetts], and they ended up being adopted by GE Aerospace in general.

[Assistant] You started out at pursuing your interest in airplanes, and with RCA you were able to go back and work with that again.

[User] Yes, for a while there. At the end it got pretty far away from airplanes or space.

[Assistant] Now what are you doing to fill your busy days?


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

[User] Finally cut down to about three days a week.

[Assistant] You certainly have had a diversity since the time from AVRO till the time now.

[User] Yes, yes. I don't think I've ever done anything the same twice.

[Assistant] As long as it's correct each time, right?

[User] Yes.

[Assistant] Looking back through your time with NASA, it seems so long ago, can you remember one of the greatest challenges that you had in that time?


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

[User] Yes, yes. I don't think I've ever done anything the same twice.

[Assistant] As long as it's correct each time, right?

[User] Yes.

[Assistant] Looking back through your time with NASA, it seems so long ago, can you remember one of the greatest challenges that you had in that time?

[User] Yes. The biggest challenge, I sort of hinted at it earlier, was to keep your sense of humor. [Laughter] And not let it all get to you.

[Assistant] Hopefully you didn't have too many encounters with people who maybe didn't have as quick a sense of humor as yours.


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

[User] Yes.

[Assistant] Looking back through your time with NASA, it seems so long ago, can you remember one of the greatest challenges that you had in that time?

[User] Yes. The biggest challenge, I sort of hinted at it earlier, was to keep your sense of humor. [Laughter] And not let it all get to you.

[Assistant] Hopefully you didn't have too many encounters with people who maybe didn't have as quick a sense of humor as yours.

[User] There was only one instance where I had problems with people, and that was the worldwide range was under contract not to the Space Task Group, but was under contract to Langley Research Center Instrument Lab, instrument group, and they were the ones that put the solicitation out and the requirements out and got the bids back and so forth. We were party to the selection process and so forth, but it wasn't our contract.\n\n However, when it came time to evaluate the down-range system configuration for the flight controllers, the consoles and so forth, the contractor set up a—I think it was Westinghouse. I'm not sure now. Set it up at Wallops Island, and somebody from the Instrument Lab and myself went up to evaluate this, as to whether it was acceptable or not. He embarrassed me by stating that all contractors were crooks, and that he was going to make sure that they toed the line and they did things the way he wanted them to do. I accepted the station essentially as it was. I think there were a couple of minor comments I had. All of his comments were essentially ignored. But he was difficult to deal with. Everybody else I had no problems with.

[Assistant] Glad to hear that, with such a varied career, that you were able to have good working conditions and good co-workers and such a good success.


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

[User] Yes. The biggest challenge, I sort of hinted at it earlier, was to keep your sense of humor. [Laughter] And not let it all get to you.

[Assistant] Hopefully you didn't have too many encounters with people who maybe didn't have as quick a sense of humor as yours.

[User] There was only one instance where I had problems with people, and that was the worldwide range was under contract not to the Space Task Group, but was under contract to Langley Research Center Instrument Lab, instrument group, and they were the ones that put the solicitation out and the requirements out and got the bids back and so forth. We were party to the selection process and so forth, but it wasn't our contract.\n\n However, when it came time to evaluate the down-range system configuration for the flight controllers, the consoles and so forth, the contractor set up a—I think it was Westinghouse. I'm not sure now. Set it up at Wallops Island, and somebody from the Instrument Lab and myself went up to evaluate this, as to whether it was acceptable or not. He embarrassed me by stating that all contractors were crooks, and that he was going to make sure that they toed the line and they did things the way he wanted them to do. I accepted the station essentially as it was. I think there were a couple of minor comments I had. All of his comments were essentially ignored. But he was difficult to deal with. Everybody else I had no problems with.

[Assistant] Glad to hear that, with such a varied career, that you were able to have good working conditions and good co-workers and such a good success.

[User] Yes.

[Assistant]
I was going to ask Carol if she had any questions for you, if you don't mind.

I have a couple of questions.


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

[User] There was only one instance where I had problems with people, and that was the worldwide range was under contract not to the Space Task Group, but was under contract to Langley Research Center Instrument Lab, instrument group, and they were the ones that put the solicitation out and the requirements out and got the bids back and so forth. We were party to the selection process and so forth, but it wasn't our contract.\n\n However, when it came time to evaluate the down-range system configuration for the flight controllers, the consoles and so forth, the contractor set up a—I think it was Westinghouse. I'm not sure now. Set it up at Wallops Island, and somebody from the Instrument Lab and myself went up to evaluate this, as to whether it was acceptable or not. He embarrassed me by stating that all contractors were crooks, and that he was going to make sure that they toed the line and they did things the way he wanted them to do. I accepted the station essentially as it was. I think there were a couple of minor comments I had. All of his comments were essentially ignored. But he was difficult to deal with. Everybody else I had no problems with.

[Assistant] Glad to hear that, with such a varied career, that you were able to have good working conditions and good co-workers and such a good success.

[User] Yes.

[Assistant]
I was going to ask Carol if she had any questions for you, if you don't mind.

I have a couple of questions.

[User] Sure thing.

[Assistant] One of them, talking about the Worldwide Network, you mentioned a couple incidences here or there or events going on, and you talked about the arrangement with the Bermuda government, how there were certain arrangements there. When you were trying to set up that network and finding—one is, how did you pick the places to go, and then, two, did you have any problems with the other governments, with bringing people in?


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

[User] Yes.

[Assistant]
I was going to ask Carol if she had any questions for you, if you don't mind.

I have a couple of questions.

[User] Sure thing.

[Assistant] One of them, talking about the Worldwide Network, you mentioned a couple incidences here or there or events going on, and you talked about the arrangement with the Bermuda government, how there were certain arrangements there. When you were trying to set up that network and finding—one is, how did you pick the places to go, and then, two, did you have any problems with the other governments, with bringing people in?

[User] Well, the picking of the sites was done primarily by the contractor, a joint effort between the contractor, Langley Instrument Lab, who were letting contracts, and by the advice and inputs from the Ops Division, having to do with trajectories. It wasn't so much the flight control aspect having much to do with where the sites were, but the trajectory people in the Ops Division had a lot to say about where they should be, because they were the ones that would end up defining the coverage that the communications and radars would have for a given site. "On this trajectory, oops, we missed that. If we put it there, we'll miss it." [Laughter] Okay? But if we put it there, it'll go right through the center of the station coverage. So they had a lot to do with it. Flight control didn't have much to do with it.\n\n The second part of your question was?

[Assistant] Setting it up, were there any problems with the other governments?


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

[User] Well, the picking of the sites was done primarily by the contractor, a joint effort between the contractor, Langley Instrument Lab, who were letting contracts, and by the advice and inputs from the Ops Division, having to do with trajectories. It wasn't so much the flight control aspect having much to do with where the sites were, but the trajectory people in the Ops Division had a lot to say about where they should be, because they were the ones that would end up defining the coverage that the communications and radars would have for a given site. "On this trajectory, oops, we missed that. If we put it there, we'll miss it." [Laughter] Okay? But if we put it there, it'll go right through the center of the station coverage. So they had a lot to do with it. Flight control didn't have much to do with it.\n\n The second part of your question was?

[Assistant] Setting it up, were there any problems with the other governments?

[User] The other governments. That I don't know. That would have been—not that I know of. There was one instance, though, where the State Department gave us, when we started to get involved with the Worldwide Network, State Department gave us some suggested rules of conduct and so forth, as to how to operate in those. A State [Department] representative came down from Washington to give a briefing, in particular about Zanzibar, which there was a lot of unrest, as to what we should do if there was a coup or what have you. The interesting thing was that eventually they moved the station from out of Zanzibar, but before that, we had no problems. But he did. He was captured in a coup. The one that was coming, giving us the warning, was captured in a coup and held for some short period of time.

[Assistant] Well, hopefully his advice paid off for himself, then.

[User] I was thinking that.

[Assistant] Oh, my. That's quite an interesting situation. Luckily, you didn't have any problems.


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

[User] The other governments. That I don't know. That would have been—not that I know of. There was one instance, though, where the State Department gave us, when we started to get involved with the Worldwide Network, State Department gave us some suggested rules of conduct and so forth, as to how to operate in those. A State [Department] representative came down from Washington to give a briefing, in particular about Zanzibar, which there was a lot of unrest, as to what we should do if there was a coup or what have you. The interesting thing was that eventually they moved the station from out of Zanzibar, but before that, we had no problems. But he did. He was captured in a coup. The one that was coming, giving us the warning, was captured in a coup and held for some short period of time.

[Assistant] Well, hopefully his advice paid off for himself, then.

[User] I was thinking that.

[Assistant] Oh, my. That's quite an interesting situation. Luckily, you didn't have any problems.

[User] Yes.

[Assistant] Another question. You mentioned the Redstone was used in most of the early flights, but then for the orbital flights it moved into the Atlas. Was there much discussion or concern about the Atlas, and that in so many of the early tests—


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

[User] Well, eventually some people became citizens, so then they could use their American passport. I can still get a Canadian passport, but if I use it, I've got to go and exit from a Canadian port.

[Assistant] Interesting.

[User] I don't have one, but I could get one.

[Assistant] One last question from me. Even though you weren't involved with NASA and hadn't been for a while, did you watch the moon landing carefully, the Apollo 11 landing? Do you remember watching that at all?

[User] No, I don't think I watched it live. I did after the fact. There's an interesting thing, now that you bring this up. When I left AVRO, having been dumped by the government, I had a hard time thinking about airplanes or getting involved with them in any sense or fashion. I didn't want anything to do with airplanes. Just brought back too many memories. And it was sort of the same way at NASA, softened somewhat because I had contacts. I kept up contacts with so many of the guys and they kept sending me stuff and so on and so forth. But I had a hard time for a long, long time trying to really dig into what was going on, just simply because it brought back too many memories.

[Assistant]
That's completely understandable. You'd put a lot of work into it, to make it all—

Can you pick a favorite time of your career that you're really glad you had an opportunity to be a part of?


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

[User] I don't have one, but I could get one.

[Assistant] One last question from me. Even though you weren't involved with NASA and hadn't been for a while, did you watch the moon landing carefully, the Apollo 11 landing? Do you remember watching that at all?

[User] No, I don't think I watched it live. I did after the fact. There's an interesting thing, now that you bring this up. When I left AVRO, having been dumped by the government, I had a hard time thinking about airplanes or getting involved with them in any sense or fashion. I didn't want anything to do with airplanes. Just brought back too many memories. And it was sort of the same way at NASA, softened somewhat because I had contacts. I kept up contacts with so many of the guys and they kept sending me stuff and so on and so forth. But I had a hard time for a long, long time trying to really dig into what was going on, just simply because it brought back too many memories.

[Assistant]
That's completely understandable. You'd put a lot of work into it, to make it all—

Can you pick a favorite time of your career that you're really glad you had an opportunity to be a part of?

[User] Oh, I think it was all, right from the beginning. The whole thing was something I wouldn't want to give up at all. It was sort of like a mosaic, a little bit here, a little bit there, and a little bit somewhere else, and all made this big experience.

[Assistant] And now we understanding you're going to be traveling in a couple of months to visit Canada. Can you tell us about those festivities and why they're so important to you?


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

[User] AVRO ceased to exist in the sixties, early sixties. It downsized with this big layoff in '59 and tried to struggle back, but didn't. The engine company is still in business. But in spite of this, they keep having reunions periodically, first flight of the Arrow, first flight of the C-100, what have you, or fortieth anniversary of the first flight of the Jetliner.\n\n This year it's the fiftieth anniversary of the first flight of the Jetliner, August 10, 1949, eight to ten years ahead of anything else flying. It was the second jet transport in the continent, I mean in the world. Comet beat us by two weeks to be the first in the world. I say they cheated; they just ran down the runway and lifted off and touched down again. But the chief designer is a little more polite than that, of the Jetliner; he says we were second.\n\n But anyway, it's the fiftieth anniversary of the first flight, so a year or so ago they had an anniversary for something on the Arrow and 600 people showed up. That's since 1959. So I don't know how many people will show up this year. I don't know. There are fewer people left involved with the Jetliner than there were with the Arrow, which was ten years later. So I expect about 200 people will probably show up, 200 or 300 people.

[Assistant] That sounds like it's going to be a great time to be there and a chance to renew old friendships and maybe start a few new ones.

[User] Yes, yes. So it will be interesting.

[Assistant] We wish you a good time.

[User] Thank you. And I appreciate this opportunity to talk with you and put some of the thoughts and memories down so that other people can see some of the aspects of what was going on.

[Assistant] You had to much to offer, so we certainly appreciate the time that you've given us to collect some of those.


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

[User] Yes, yes. So it will be interesting.

[Assistant] We wish you a good time.

[User] Thank you. And I appreciate this opportunity to talk with you and put some of the thoughts and memories down so that other people can see some of the aspects of what was going on.

[Assistant] You had to much to offer, so we certainly appreciate the time that you've given us to collect some of those.

[User] You're welcome.\n\n [discussion of memorabilia, photos, models, etc. follows]

[Assistant] So this is the Project Mercury Flight Controller Handbook.


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

[User] Thank you. And I appreciate this opportunity to talk with you and put some of the thoughts and memories down so that other people can see some of the aspects of what was going on.

[Assistant] You had to much to offer, so we certainly appreciate the time that you've given us to collect some of those.

[User] You're welcome.\n\n [discussion of memorabilia, photos, models, etc. follows]

[Assistant] So this is the Project Mercury Flight Controller Handbook.

[User] Yes. We were talking earlier about the Flight Controller Handbook and how it originated and so forth. When the first copy arrived from the printer's, it was distributed around among the flight controllers, and one of the flight controllers, Arnie Aldrich, came running into my office and saying, "The cover! The cover! There's a mistake on it!" And I looked at it and I looked at it and I looked at it, and I couldn't find it. Finally he pointed it out to me. It says "National Aeronautical and Space Administration" instead of "National Aeronautics and Space Administration." And I never spotted it. So he said, "What are we going to do? Are we going to get them to redo the covers?" And I said, "No. It took me so long to find the mistake, I don't think anybody else is going to notice it." So we distributed it, including headquarters and so forth. We never heard "boo" back from anybody. So I don't know whether anybody else other than Arnie ever caught it. [Laughter]

[Assistant] It showed he was a man for details.


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

[User] Here's the attitude control system, one of the modes. There's the automatic version of it. And here's the direct manual version of it and so forth. You can see what he can see and what he can do, and down here is some notes about the thing and so forth.\n\n We had to get this printed up by McDonnell. The government printing presses couldn't handle it. It's twelve different colors in here.

[Assistant] Many, many years before color printers, that's for sure.

[User] Yes. So anyway, that's all the different—

[Assistant] I noticed on the front page that this is copy number 65. Do you remember the original number, how many were distributed on the first—

[User] No. That's the very first issue.

[Assistant] December 1960. December first.


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

[User] Yes. So anyway, that's all the different—

[Assistant] I noticed on the front page that this is copy number 65. Do you remember the original number, how many were distributed on the first—

[User] No. That's the very first issue.

[Assistant] December 1960. December first.

[User] It went to all the astronauts, went to all the flight controllers, went to the project office, went to headquarters, and so forth.

[Assistant] These were controlled because they were issued?


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

[User] No. That's the very first issue.

[Assistant] December 1960. December first.

[User] It went to all the astronauts, went to all the flight controllers, went to the project office, went to headquarters, and so forth.

[Assistant] These were controlled because they were issued?

[User] Yes. I mentioned the trailer. Here's the trailer. This is all the technical description of the big trailer, that interim Mission Control Center. I've got some photographs of it somewhere. That doesn't mean much there without the—that's Arnie Aldrich. He's from Lexington, by the way. These are some pictures. There's the original astronauts. There they are again. I've got to put captions on some of these things. I'm not sure which one that is. Remember I told you about the "JETT RETRO"—

[Assistant] And the "FIRE RETRO."


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

[User] It went to all the astronauts, went to all the flight controllers, went to the project office, went to headquarters, and so forth.

[Assistant] These were controlled because they were issued?

[User] Yes. I mentioned the trailer. Here's the trailer. This is all the technical description of the big trailer, that interim Mission Control Center. I've got some photographs of it somewhere. That doesn't mean much there without the—that's Arnie Aldrich. He's from Lexington, by the way. These are some pictures. There's the original astronauts. There they are again. I've got to put captions on some of these things. I'm not sure which one that is. Remember I told you about the "JETT RETRO"—

[Assistant] And the "FIRE RETRO."

[User] Yes. "FIRE RETRO," "JETT RETRO."

[Assistant] You could easily confuse those.


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

[User] Yes. I mentioned the trailer. Here's the trailer. This is all the technical description of the big trailer, that interim Mission Control Center. I've got some photographs of it somewhere. That doesn't mean much there without the—that's Arnie Aldrich. He's from Lexington, by the way. These are some pictures. There's the original astronauts. There they are again. I've got to put captions on some of these things. I'm not sure which one that is. Remember I told you about the "JETT RETRO"—

[Assistant] And the "FIRE RETRO."

[User] Yes. "FIRE RETRO," "JETT RETRO."

[Assistant] You could easily confuse those.

[User] Yes. And there's the trailer. There's the big trailer. Here's—where is it? Where did it go? There it is. It's got a little different model on it.

[Assistant] Very small model. What scale is this?


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

[User] Yes. "FIRE RETRO," "JETT RETRO."

[Assistant] You could easily confuse those.

[User] Yes. And there's the trailer. There's the big trailer. Here's—where is it? Where did it go? There it is. It's got a little different model on it.

[Assistant] Very small model. What scale is this?

[User] I have no idea.

[Assistant] Very tiny scale of an 18-wheeler.


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

[User] I have no idea.

[Assistant] Very tiny scale of an 18-wheeler.

[User] That isn't quite that trailer, but it's close enough.

[Assistant] Close enough.

[User] There's Redstone on the launch pad. How simple the gantries are in those days.

[Assistant] Did you witness many of the launches?


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

[User] That isn't quite that trailer, but it's close enough.

[Assistant] Close enough.

[User] There's Redstone on the launch pad. How simple the gantries are in those days.

[Assistant] Did you witness many of the launches?

[User] Several of them. There's the Mission Control Center. Here's Arnie Aldrich again. There's the remote flight monitoring control station. There's the capsule communicator. There's the medical and there's the systems. The medical guy's got a strip chart recorder here, playing out EKGs [electrocardiogram] and things like that.

[Assistant] Something so basic, but yet so important. It's just a small center here, but had to have it.


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

[User] Several of them. There's the Mission Control Center. Here's Arnie Aldrich again. There's the remote flight monitoring control station. There's the capsule communicator. There's the medical and there's the systems. The medical guy's got a strip chart recorder here, playing out EKGs [electrocardiogram] and things like that.

[Assistant] Something so basic, but yet so important. It's just a small center here, but had to have it.

[User] And there's the simulator at Langley Field. I got in there one day and the operator, the trainer here, I was playing the part of an astronaut, and I didn't realize they could—I knew they could put some faults into the thing, but I didn't realize they could put smoke in there as well. All of a sudden I'm sitting there, and all of a sudden there's smoke starts to come up [around]. You never saw anybody get out of anything so fast in all your life. I'm standing over here. [Laughter]\n\n There's the Redstone launch blockhouse. That's where I was thinking of putting the stuff for the interim. This is John Glenn's—

[Assistant] Twentieth day.

[User] And that was off the teletype in my office. This is Saturn V. There are all my flight controllers from Philco-Ford.

[Assistant] Your traveling crew. A lot of these are the traveling crew; they traveled everywhere.


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

[User] And there's the simulator at Langley Field. I got in there one day and the operator, the trainer here, I was playing the part of an astronaut, and I didn't realize they could—I knew they could put some faults into the thing, but I didn't realize they could put smoke in there as well. All of a sudden I'm sitting there, and all of a sudden there's smoke starts to come up [around]. You never saw anybody get out of anything so fast in all your life. I'm standing over here. [Laughter]\n\n There's the Redstone launch blockhouse. That's where I was thinking of putting the stuff for the interim. This is John Glenn's—

[Assistant] Twentieth day.

[User] And that was off the teletype in my office. This is Saturn V. There are all my flight controllers from Philco-Ford.

[Assistant] Your traveling crew. A lot of these are the traveling crew; they traveled everywhere.

[User] Yes. A couple of them ended up down in the Mission Control Center, I think, but most of them were assigned around the world.\n\n I don't know what this is, but this is up in Nashua [New Hampshire]. I found it in the weeds a couple of years ago. [Laughter]

[Assistant] Some former cabinet for—


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

[User] Yes. A couple of them ended up down in the Mission Control Center, I think, but most of them were assigned around the world.\n\n I don't know what this is, but this is up in Nashua [New Hampshire]. I found it in the weeds a couple of years ago. [Laughter]

[Assistant] Some former cabinet for—

[User] Something. There's guess who. There's Dennis [E.] Fielder. There's Bob Ernull, who was a first lieutenant in the Army, who was on loan to NASA.

[Assistant] This is?

[User] That's a globe.

[Assistant] Look at that.


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

[User] Something. There's guess who. There's Dennis [E.] Fielder. There's Bob Ernull, who was a first lieutenant in the Army, who was on loan to NASA.

[Assistant] This is?

[User] That's a globe.

[Assistant] Look at that.

[User] A transparent globe. It's more than that. It's got the star. I guess the globe's down inside. I don't remember. This wasn't really my office. My office was across the hall. I don't know why I'm in this particular—

[Assistant] It's a great picture. It's okay.


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

[User] That's the Air Force for you.

[Assistant]
What a loss.

Unbelievable.

[User] There's Wally Schirra's house across from ours. Our house was right there.

[Assistant] You mentioned Dr. Gilruth. Did you have a chance to work with him very closely?

[User] No, not particularly. He was pretty well far removed from the dirty everyday details of things. But I met him on an airplane several years after I'd left, and I was with RCA four or five years, I guess. So we were chatting, and he remembered I'd gone with RCA, and he said, "You know, I get all sorts of people coming in here saying they're from RCA and want to do studies or work on things." He said, "I've never been able to figure out RCA organization, who does what." This was because RCA was—each plant was its own profit center, so it had limited resources. It was tough for a big project to get these various resource centers together to bid on a big part of the project, so all these little individual profit center salesmen and so forth or engineers would wander in and say they were from RCA and they were representing one little part of it.\n\n There's them pulling Gus Grissom's thing out.

[Assistant] Did you hear a report earlier this year that a gentleman had located the capsule?


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

[User] There's Wally Schirra's house across from ours. Our house was right there.

[Assistant] You mentioned Dr. Gilruth. Did you have a chance to work with him very closely?

[User] No, not particularly. He was pretty well far removed from the dirty everyday details of things. But I met him on an airplane several years after I'd left, and I was with RCA four or five years, I guess. So we were chatting, and he remembered I'd gone with RCA, and he said, "You know, I get all sorts of people coming in here saying they're from RCA and want to do studies or work on things." He said, "I've never been able to figure out RCA organization, who does what." This was because RCA was—each plant was its own profit center, so it had limited resources. It was tough for a big project to get these various resource centers together to bid on a big part of the project, so all these little individual profit center salesmen and so forth or engineers would wander in and say they were from RCA and they were representing one little part of it.\n\n There's them pulling Gus Grissom's thing out.

[Assistant] Did you hear a report earlier this year that a gentleman had located the capsule?

[User] Yes. They haven't got it out yet. Betty Grissom doesn't want the—first of all, said she didn't want them to bring it up, and then she said, well, if they bring it up, she wants it preserved. No, that's Shepard's, because they never did pull Grissom's capsule out.\n\n That's Shepard's, too. There's Shepard climbing up into the helicopter. There he is. There he is there.

[Assistant] That's quite a job to hang out of the helicopter and take those pictures. [Laughter]


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

[User] There's Shepard's as well. These are all Shepard's. There it is, liftoff. There it is, liftoff as well. Here's a whole series of these. This is Grissom's flight. There's the helicopter trying to pull. See where he is in the water? He's got his wheels right in the water and he finally—and Gus is somewhere down in here. This one, you can't quite see him, but there's another picture somewhere that you can see him.\n\n There's Glenn. There's the Mission Control Center again. There's the telemetry back room. There's an anthropomorphic description of how you fit into your seat and so forth.

[Assistant] Speaking of John Glenn, did you watch his latest flight that was just in October?

[User] Yes, I saw it on the TV. I was working at the time, but I saw it on TV afterwards. More power to him. [Laughter]\n\n Here's some more pictures. This is the old CF-100. This is the one, if I hadn't had a cold, when it crashed, I would have been in it.\n\n Here's the inside of a big Mission Control, the interim Mission Control thing, in a truck.\n\n Here's one that will make you laugh. "I know your son is a genius, but I really don't think RCA can afford to start production on its proposal immediately. Plan for rocket. Spring for bouncy landings, one of Mom's dining room chairs, one million firecrackers." [Laughter] My son drew that.

[Assistant] How old was he when he drew that?

[User] Sixteen, seventeen. Seventeen, maybe.

[Assistant] And he inherited that sense of humor.


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

[User] Yes, I saw it on the TV. I was working at the time, but I saw it on TV afterwards. More power to him. [Laughter]\n\n Here's some more pictures. This is the old CF-100. This is the one, if I hadn't had a cold, when it crashed, I would have been in it.\n\n Here's the inside of a big Mission Control, the interim Mission Control thing, in a truck.\n\n Here's one that will make you laugh. "I know your son is a genius, but I really don't think RCA can afford to start production on its proposal immediately. Plan for rocket. Spring for bouncy landings, one of Mom's dining room chairs, one million firecrackers." [Laughter] My son drew that.

[Assistant] How old was he when he drew that?

[User] Sixteen, seventeen. Seventeen, maybe.

[Assistant] And he inherited that sense of humor.

[User] He's a vice president for Warner Brothers, works for Bugs Bunny, which is really weird, because when he was four years old I painted a four-foot Bugs Bunny on this bedroom wall. Now he works for him.\n\n There's the original spec for the interim Mission Control Center. That was from that diagram. That's what they went and built. They built all of that stuff I showed you earlier. If you compare it, it's pretty close.\n\n There's the Control Center layout of who sits where. There's Bermuda's version. I went back to Bermuda six years ago, called them up and said who I was, said, "Can I come down, take a peek?" They said, "Come on down." Sent a car out for me because it's a secure area. They came out to the gate and got me and took me down. The site manager had been there all this time, since the station started, and he remembered me all this time later.

[Assistant]
That's pretty neat.

Is this equipment somewhere still there?


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

[User] Sixteen, seventeen. Seventeen, maybe.

[Assistant] And he inherited that sense of humor.

[User] He's a vice president for Warner Brothers, works for Bugs Bunny, which is really weird, because when he was four years old I painted a four-foot Bugs Bunny on this bedroom wall. Now he works for him.\n\n There's the original spec for the interim Mission Control Center. That was from that diagram. That's what they went and built. They built all of that stuff I showed you earlier. If you compare it, it's pretty close.\n\n There's the Control Center layout of who sits where. There's Bermuda's version. I went back to Bermuda six years ago, called them up and said who I was, said, "Can I come down, take a peek?" They said, "Come on down." Sent a car out for me because it's a secure area. They came out to the gate and got me and took me down. The site manager had been there all this time, since the station started, and he remembered me all this time later.

[Assistant]
That's pretty neat.

Is this equipment somewhere still there?

[User] No, they closed it down last year. The station's closed now.

[Assistant] I wonder where it went off to.


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

[User] He's a vice president for Warner Brothers, works for Bugs Bunny, which is really weird, because when he was four years old I painted a four-foot Bugs Bunny on this bedroom wall. Now he works for him.\n\n There's the original spec for the interim Mission Control Center. That was from that diagram. That's what they went and built. They built all of that stuff I showed you earlier. If you compare it, it's pretty close.\n\n There's the Control Center layout of who sits where. There's Bermuda's version. I went back to Bermuda six years ago, called them up and said who I was, said, "Can I come down, take a peek?" They said, "Come on down." Sent a car out for me because it's a secure area. They came out to the gate and got me and took me down. The site manager had been there all this time, since the station started, and he remembered me all this time later.

[Assistant]
That's pretty neat.

Is this equipment somewhere still there?

[User] No, they closed it down last year. The station's closed now.

[Assistant] I wonder where it went off to.

[User] I don't know. I guess with all the satellite coverage, they don't need it.\n\n There is the trajectory plots at Bermuda. This is just a Redstone flight plan, tentative flight plan.

[Assistant] Is this your sketching?


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

[User] No, they closed it down last year. The station's closed now.

[Assistant] I wonder where it went off to.

[User] I don't know. I guess with all the satellite coverage, they don't need it.\n\n There is the trajectory plots at Bermuda. This is just a Redstone flight plan, tentative flight plan.

[Assistant] Is this your sketching?

[User] Yes. I have no idea what date it is or anything.

[Assistant] There's a date right there. '59.


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

[User] I don't know. I guess with all the satellite coverage, they don't need it.\n\n There is the trajectory plots at Bermuda. This is just a Redstone flight plan, tentative flight plan.

[Assistant] Is this your sketching?

[User] Yes. I have no idea what date it is or anything.

[Assistant] There's a date right there. '59.

[User] '59. 5/6/59. This is that paper I told you that I wrote for the Apollo, and to the publications people it was under Kraft's name.

[Assistant] We notice it's the Apollo Conference in Washington, July 18 through the 20th, 1961.


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

[User] Yes. I have no idea what date it is or anything.

[Assistant] There's a date right there. '59.

[User] '59. 5/6/59. This is that paper I told you that I wrote for the Apollo, and to the publications people it was under Kraft's name.

[Assistant] We notice it's the Apollo Conference in Washington, July 18 through the 20th, 1961.

[User] Yes, that's right. This was the draft that went into the pubs people to make up.\n\n This is the escape rocket.\n\n One of the things I did was, in the early days, I was named as the first chairman of the Cape Safety Committee. It soon became clear that you couldn't do this from up at Langley Field. It had to be somebody from the Cape to do it. So after the first meeting, somebody else picked the chore up. In the first meeting, one of the things we decided to do was to clear the area, the footprint where if you aborted off the pad, where would the capsule land, depending on the wind. So that made a footprint. The idea was to clear that footprint of all the mangrove and all the junk that was in there, because they found they couldn't get in. A rescue team just couldn't penetrate. So the first job was to clear that area out. In clearing it out, they found a six-foot snake.\n\n There's the capsule console again. There's the remote site again. I guess this is after Glenn's flight. There's the astronauts again. There's Gus. There's the capsule down there, and I think that's Gus, but I'm not sure.

[Assistant] That's one happy man to get aboard that carrier, wasn't he.


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

[User] There's a list of the various kinds of training for the flight controllers. Here's the designation of flight directors: Chris Kraft, John Hodge, me, flight surgeon Stan White. I think it was John [James P.] Henry. No, it may have been Jim. I can't remember Henry's first name. He was the one in charge of all the chimpanzees and so forth. And Bill [William S.] Augerson. He was the first doctor for the astronauts. And Tom [Thomas V.] Chambers, he was from Toronto, from AVRO. Tec Roberts. Jack Cohen was from Toronto. Glynn [S.] Lunney. Howard [C.] Kyle. So that was back in 1960, first of 1960.

[Assistant] February of 1960.

[User] Yes. They were starting to get organized. This is George [M.] Low. He's passed away now. This was a conference after John. There's the big hotel on the peninsula. Here's the agenda for that NASA—

[Assistant] Apollo.

[User] Apollo thing. Here is the first Apollo mission design at the time. There's some of the astronauts. Here's some pictures. There's that thing again. Here's this operational flight control system I said that was wishful thinking on Huntsville's part. That's about it.\n\n But there's one interesting thing here. Another small world. This year I was working at AS&E, and talking to one of the physicists there whose father worked at Raytheon, and who had worked on the original concept for Apollo. This is a copy. He ran me off a copy of this hand-drawn thing. "Three Basic Systems on Lunar Landing, Mission Profiles for Comparison." One of these has a LEM-like—yes, I guess that's the one with the LEM. Has it got a LEM on it? It isn't called LEM.

[Assistant] Over here it looks like there's something come up from the surface and docking.


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

[User] Apollo thing. Here is the first Apollo mission design at the time. There's some of the astronauts. Here's some pictures. There's that thing again. Here's this operational flight control system I said that was wishful thinking on Huntsville's part. That's about it.\n\n But there's one interesting thing here. Another small world. This year I was working at AS&E, and talking to one of the physicists there whose father worked at Raytheon, and who had worked on the original concept for Apollo. This is a copy. He ran me off a copy of this hand-drawn thing. "Three Basic Systems on Lunar Landing, Mission Profiles for Comparison." One of these has a LEM-like—yes, I guess that's the one with the LEM. Has it got a LEM on it? It isn't called LEM.

[Assistant] Over here it looks like there's something come up from the surface and docking.

[User] Yes. It's not called the LEM. Isn't that interesting.

[Assistant] That's neat.

[User] Again, small world. This is a series of books called\n\n Canada Heirlooms: Wayfarers, Canadian Achievers\n\n , and there's a whole article in here about "Canada's Gift to NASA." And it talks about Jim Chamberlin and so on. And here's my name in here somewhere. Photographs of NASA via me. My name's in here, Fred Matthews.

[Assistant] That's really nice.


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

[User] Yes. It's not called the LEM. Isn't that interesting.

[Assistant] That's neat.

[User] Again, small world. This is a series of books called\n\n Canada Heirlooms: Wayfarers, Canadian Achievers\n\n , and there's a whole article in here about "Canada's Gift to NASA." And it talks about Jim Chamberlin and so on. And here's my name in here somewhere. Photographs of NASA via me. My name's in here, Fred Matthews.

[Assistant] That's really nice.

[User] John Hodge, Tec Roberts, so forth.

[Assistant] America was blessed with a great group of guys from Canada.


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

[User] John Hodge, Tec Roberts, so forth.

[Assistant] America was blessed with a great group of guys from Canada.

[User] Yes. We tried our best. [Tape recorder turned off.]\n\n Here's the one I wrote. [Laughter] Flight control and flight plans. Didn't write.\n\n There was a whole bunch of Canadian and American legislatures came down for a briefing, and I gave a pitch to them. So I got a letter back from this Canadian senator, which I thought was kind of ironic, because he was one of the principal politicians who canceled the project that caused 14,000 people to get laid off. So I thought it was kind of ironic that he wrote me.\n\n Those are the little horses, wild horses on Chincoteague Island near Wallops Island, where each year they sell them off. They take the proceeds for the local—I think it's for the local fire departments or something.\n\n This is me in the Air Force. [Laughter] Years and years ago.\n\n Here's my reconstruction of that paper that somebody stole. As best I can tell, that's a fair reproduction of it. Fairly close. Yes, I was right. Sixteen stations. What's this?

[Assistant] Medical support.

[User] This is the briefing to Lovelace Committee in Washington, medical briefing. I didn't know I had that. Here's the Navy doctor, flight surgeon who did the appendicitis operation.

[Assistant] I bet that sailor remembers him well.


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

[User] Yes. We tried our best. [Tape recorder turned off.]\n\n Here's the one I wrote. [Laughter] Flight control and flight plans. Didn't write.\n\n There was a whole bunch of Canadian and American legislatures came down for a briefing, and I gave a pitch to them. So I got a letter back from this Canadian senator, which I thought was kind of ironic, because he was one of the principal politicians who canceled the project that caused 14,000 people to get laid off. So I thought it was kind of ironic that he wrote me.\n\n Those are the little horses, wild horses on Chincoteague Island near Wallops Island, where each year they sell them off. They take the proceeds for the local—I think it's for the local fire departments or something.\n\n This is me in the Air Force. [Laughter] Years and years ago.\n\n Here's my reconstruction of that paper that somebody stole. As best I can tell, that's a fair reproduction of it. Fairly close. Yes, I was right. Sixteen stations. What's this?

[Assistant] Medical support.

[User] This is the briefing to Lovelace Committee in Washington, medical briefing. I didn't know I had that. Here's the Navy doctor, flight surgeon who did the appendicitis operation.

[Assistant] I bet that sailor remembers him well.

[User] I'll bet so.

[Assistant] It's a good thing he was there.


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

[User] This is the briefing to Lovelace Committee in Washington, medical briefing. I didn't know I had that. Here's the Navy doctor, flight surgeon who did the appendicitis operation.

[Assistant] I bet that sailor remembers him well.

[User] I'll bet so.

[Assistant] It's a good thing he was there.

[User] These are just all miscellaneous stuff. This is the safety thing. I was chairman of the first one, but later on somebody from the Cape took it over.\n\n Here's some flight controller information. Here's the stuff that I mentioned about the briefing notes for guidance of personnel assigned to overseas locations, put out by the State Department and briefed to us by the guy that got captured. [Laughter]\n\n There's the look-see at trying to stuff our things into the Redstone blockhouse, which I said, "Isn't enough room. Can't do that." So I gave up on that.\n\n There is an overview of the various teams. There's a remote team and so forth. And so it goes. More and more. There's the presentation that Arnie Aldrich and I gave to McDonnell, to tell them how to hook up the—there it is. Flight monitoring trailer. How to hook it up to the rest of the world.

[Assistant] What I think is so interesting, all these documents that you're showing us, they're all mostly drawn by hand and very carefully, where nowadays we just do everything on the computer.


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

[User] These are just all miscellaneous stuff. This is the safety thing. I was chairman of the first one, but later on somebody from the Cape took it over.\n\n Here's some flight controller information. Here's the stuff that I mentioned about the briefing notes for guidance of personnel assigned to overseas locations, put out by the State Department and briefed to us by the guy that got captured. [Laughter]\n\n There's the look-see at trying to stuff our things into the Redstone blockhouse, which I said, "Isn't enough room. Can't do that." So I gave up on that.\n\n There is an overview of the various teams. There's a remote team and so forth. And so it goes. More and more. There's the presentation that Arnie Aldrich and I gave to McDonnell, to tell them how to hook up the—there it is. Flight monitoring trailer. How to hook it up to the rest of the world.

[Assistant] What I think is so interesting, all these documents that you're showing us, they're all mostly drawn by hand and very carefully, where nowadays we just do everything on the computer.

[User] Yes. Exactly.

[Assistant] That's fascinating.

[User] Here's an interesting document. Gilruth. Bob Gilruth. This is when he was in NACA, probably a struggling engineer in NACA back in his early days of working for Langley Research Center. There's no date on it, either.

[Assistant] This is report number 715.


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

[User] Yes. Exactly.

[Assistant] That's fascinating.

[User] Here's an interesting document. Gilruth. Bob Gilruth. This is when he was in NACA, probably a struggling engineer in NACA back in his early days of working for Langley Research Center. There's no date on it, either.

[Assistant] This is report number 715.

[User] Or is there?

[Assistant] Is that 1941?


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

[User] Oh, I think that we were all shocked about it. I certainly was. You know, we hadn’t contemplated anything like that. And here was a routine test on the pad. Who would have suspected anything like that was going to happen in that particular environment. And I think it was a shock that it happened. I think it provided resolve in all of us that we were going to continue and do the things we had to do to accomplish President Kennedy’s edict that we were going to go to the Moon and safely come back before the decade was over. Recognizing we had a problem, the ability to correct and do something about it, and a strong desire to continue with that commitment. Because we could have very easily said, “Well, this isn’t worth it.” But it is worth it.

[Assistant] Absolutely. And it seems like that was a really extensive project for you to be involved with?

[User] Well, I’m sure it was. It was about that time, of course, when I finished my Gemini career in September of ’66, I was reassigned right away to an Apollo crew. So we were involved in that. I was part of Jim [James A.] McDivitt’s crew as a backup Command Module pilot. So were immediately involved in taking the second, excuse me, it was the third Command Module but the first Lunar Module into flight on Apollo 9. So we were happily involved with all of that activity. And we were very concerned with about the weight of the Lunar Module. It was overweight like some of us are today. And we had to go through a super weight reduction program. So that, of course, delayed some of the early Lunar Module flights to the Moon because they were overweight and didn’t have the capability to perform a lunar landing.

[Assistant] I was wondering if we could go back a little bit to Gemini?

[User] You can go back to anywhere you want.

[Assistant] And talk about some of your experience on Gemini. And I understand that you were assigned as part of the backup crew of Gemini 8. And what was your work like in preparing for that mission? Did you work very closely with Neil [A.] Armstrong and Dave [David R.] Scott?


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

[User] Yeah. OK. That was basically the reason for Gemini. And my first crew assignment was backup Gemini 8 with Pete Conrad. And, of course, Neil Armstrong and Dave Scott flew that flight.

[Assistant] And did you work with mission control after you found out that Armstrong and Scott had been gyrating wildly after they got …?

[User] I was actually in Mission Control at the time. We seemed to gravitate toward there and stay up when the crew stayed up. As the backup crew, you're usually behind Capcom, Capsule Communicator. I don't know why they would call it capsule anymore but I guess we still do. But we were there to help them. Interpreting what the crew was doing and where they were at that particular time. That was a little hairy if that is the proper word to describe the event as well.

[Assistant] It sounds like it.

[User] Oh, they were in trouble. We didn't really realize that at the time but when we got a look at the revolution rate that they were experiencing and that thruster staying on, until they got that under control, they had a problem.

[Assistant] And were you available to help them in any way?


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

[User] I was actually in Mission Control at the time. We seemed to gravitate toward there and stay up when the crew stayed up. As the backup crew, you're usually behind Capcom, Capsule Communicator. I don't know why they would call it capsule anymore but I guess we still do. But we were there to help them. Interpreting what the crew was doing and where they were at that particular time. That was a little hairy if that is the proper word to describe the event as well.

[Assistant] It sounds like it.

[User] Oh, they were in trouble. We didn't really realize that at the time but when we got a look at the revolution rate that they were experiencing and that thruster staying on, until they got that under control, they had a problem.

[Assistant] And were you available to help them in any way?

[User] Oh nope, just sitting there helping the Mission Control sort that thing out. And actually they had that problem out of, I think if I recall correctly, basically out of communication. They solved it and they solved it by using the reentry control system. When they came back AOS situation, acquisition of signal. When we learned that they had indeed activated the recovery system, well that was the end of the flight. They were obligated to reenter at the first opportunity. The only Gemini flight that landed in the Pacific Ocean.

[Assistant] And then, moving on. You went onto become a pilot on Gemini 12 then, I'm sorry, Gemini 11?


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

[User] Oh, they were in trouble. We didn't really realize that at the time but when we got a look at the revolution rate that they were experiencing and that thruster staying on, until they got that under control, they had a problem.

[Assistant] And were you available to help them in any way?

[User] Oh nope, just sitting there helping the Mission Control sort that thing out. And actually they had that problem out of, I think if I recall correctly, basically out of communication. They solved it and they solved it by using the reentry control system. When they came back AOS situation, acquisition of signal. When we learned that they had indeed activated the recovery system, well that was the end of the flight. They were obligated to reenter at the first opportunity. The only Gemini flight that landed in the Pacific Ocean.

[Assistant] And then, moving on. You went onto become a pilot on Gemini 12 then, I'm sorry, Gemini 11?

[User] Deke [Donald K. Slayton] had a, apparently, a three flight rotational system set up for crews rotating from prime to backup which didn't hold true in all cases because every now and then, he’d slip somebody else in as he did on our backup crew. I flew our backup on 8. Three more flights later, I was prime on 11. Consequently, it happened with my experience in the Apollo program as well. So we came off the backup crew for 8 and were immediately assigned to Gemini 11.

[Assistant] What was your experience like on 11. Once you got up, I understand, you conducted one of two EVAs [Extravehicular Activity]. And on your first, particular, EVA, I understand that you did some work in trying to create artificial gravity. And I'm wondering if you wouldn't mind elaborating on that EVA and part of your mission?


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

[User] I’m almost sitting back here trying to figure out what we did use. We had the ground providing calculations and the other way we did was to calculate angles against time and I had charts. And I would look into, kind of lookup, enter here, exit here, type thing that would give us the velocity correction that we needed for rendezvousing. And of course, we got that information from the rendezvous radar that was in the Gemini spacecraft.

[Assistant] And did your work on Gemini 11, as far as rendezvous and docking were concerned, really help you out in your mission on Apollo as well?

[User] Almost identical.

[Assistant] Really?

[User] Yeah. Yeah, except, of course, in Apollo you had a partner in the other vehicle that was doing the reciprocal calculations. So then you compared notes. So basically, the techniques were virtually the same. So we, Pete and I, have always felt very comfortable with that kind of rendezvous because it was the only thing we really worked at. Of course, when I worked on backup on 8 and 9, they did things a little different too.

[Assistant] And then I’d like to ask you a little bit about your transition into Apollo. You had mentioned earlier how you were working with the modules themselves and their development. How did you find your transition between the Gemini and Apollo programs since Apollo was already underway once you’d finished up with Gemini 11?


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

[User] Almost identical.

[Assistant] Really?

[User] Yeah. Yeah, except, of course, in Apollo you had a partner in the other vehicle that was doing the reciprocal calculations. So then you compared notes. So basically, the techniques were virtually the same. So we, Pete and I, have always felt very comfortable with that kind of rendezvous because it was the only thing we really worked at. Of course, when I worked on backup on 8 and 9, they did things a little different too.

[Assistant] And then I’d like to ask you a little bit about your transition into Apollo. You had mentioned earlier how you were working with the modules themselves and their development. How did you find your transition between the Gemini and Apollo programs since Apollo was already underway once you’d finished up with Gemini 11?

[User] Well, it was a transition between the two. I was working on the spacecraft and its design on Apollo. I was taken off of that and put in a Gemini. I mean I was assigned to a flight crew. So I was working on Apollo for a period of time up until we started training for Gemini 8, and then I sat on a flight crew. And from that time on, I was on a flight crew until I retired, or virtually until I retired. So then when Gemini 11 flight had finished in September of ’66 then we were right back in the Apollo, picking up virtually on where we had left off before.

[Assistant] And was the training, at all, any different?


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

[User] Yeah. Yeah, except, of course, in Apollo you had a partner in the other vehicle that was doing the reciprocal calculations. So then you compared notes. So basically, the techniques were virtually the same. So we, Pete and I, have always felt very comfortable with that kind of rendezvous because it was the only thing we really worked at. Of course, when I worked on backup on 8 and 9, they did things a little different too.

[Assistant] And then I’d like to ask you a little bit about your transition into Apollo. You had mentioned earlier how you were working with the modules themselves and their development. How did you find your transition between the Gemini and Apollo programs since Apollo was already underway once you’d finished up with Gemini 11?

[User] Well, it was a transition between the two. I was working on the spacecraft and its design on Apollo. I was taken off of that and put in a Gemini. I mean I was assigned to a flight crew. So I was working on Apollo for a period of time up until we started training for Gemini 8, and then I sat on a flight crew. And from that time on, I was on a flight crew until I retired, or virtually until I retired. So then when Gemini 11 flight had finished in September of ’66 then we were right back in the Apollo, picking up virtually on where we had left off before.

[Assistant] And was the training, at all, any different?

[User] No, more the same. You know, more complicated. The vehicles were more complicated. The things that we were trying to do were more complicated. The simulators were much more sophisticated. So the transition was easy. I mean it was not that difficult. You just had a different vehicles and more sophisticated training devices and you stepped right into it. It’s like going from say a DC-9 to a 747 type of transition. And it’s things that you could easily make without any problem.

[Assistant] That’s great. And I understand you were then assigned to the backup crew of Apollo 9?


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

[User] Well, it was a transition between the two. I was working on the spacecraft and its design on Apollo. I was taken off of that and put in a Gemini. I mean I was assigned to a flight crew. So I was working on Apollo for a period of time up until we started training for Gemini 8, and then I sat on a flight crew. And from that time on, I was on a flight crew until I retired, or virtually until I retired. So then when Gemini 11 flight had finished in September of ’66 then we were right back in the Apollo, picking up virtually on where we had left off before.

[Assistant] And was the training, at all, any different?

[User] No, more the same. You know, more complicated. The vehicles were more complicated. The things that we were trying to do were more complicated. The simulators were much more sophisticated. So the transition was easy. I mean it was not that difficult. You just had a different vehicles and more sophisticated training devices and you stepped right into it. It’s like going from say a DC-9 to a 747 type of transition. And it’s things that you could easily make without any problem.

[Assistant] That’s great. And I understand you were then assigned to the backup crew of Apollo 9?

[User] Um huh.

[Assistant] And when you were assigned to that backup crew, was it known as Apollo 9 at that point?


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

[User] No, more the same. You know, more complicated. The vehicles were more complicated. The things that we were trying to do were more complicated. The simulators were much more sophisticated. So the transition was easy. I mean it was not that difficult. You just had a different vehicles and more sophisticated training devices and you stepped right into it. It’s like going from say a DC-9 to a 747 type of transition. And it’s things that you could easily make without any problem.

[Assistant] That’s great. And I understand you were then assigned to the backup crew of Apollo 9?

[User] Um huh.

[Assistant] And when you were assigned to that backup crew, was it known as Apollo 9 at that point?

[User] No, I think not. And I’m just trying go back. I’ve always been mad at Jim McDivitt because we could have been on Apollo 8 instead of Apollo 9. And there’s a significance to that.

[Assistant] Can you tell me a little bit about it?


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

[User] Well, you know, that’s somewhat of a…probably the reason that Mike wasn’t able to track it, he didn’t know where the hell they landed.

[Assistant] Right.

[User] And they didn’t know where they landed. The ground didn’t know where they had landed because of the navigational problems that they experienced. You know, the accuracy with which their state vector was and then Neil had to fly beyond the boulder field. Well, to correct those kinds of problems, we were assigned a specific target called Surveyor 3 which was in a specific crater on the lunar surface. And the reason for learning how to do that was later missions we’re going to land along side thirteen thousand foot mountains and big valleys that were six hundred meters deep and a kilometer across, the highlands of Descartes and Hadley Rille on 15 and Taurus-Littrow on 17. Later on, these sights were not picked but we knew that we wanted to go to other places that were going to require precise navigation.

[Assistant] It sounds very interesting. It sounds like it was probably a difficult job for you.

[User] Well, that and the difference was, I knew where that spacecraft was going to land. And I could see the crater in my optics. I could identify the crater and I saw a source of light, reflected light, on the rim of that crater. And I didn’t see the shape of the LM or anything like that. But I knew that they were going to land on that crater and I knew the only thing that was going to look like that, my own interpretation was that had to be the Lunar Module. Well I stuck my neck out to about here and said, “I see the Lunar Module.” And it was but it was just a source of reflected light off of the Lunar Module that I saw. It didn’t look like anything else down there. I think, who else saw the landing sight, I think Stu [Stuart A.] Roosa claims that he did also on 14. And I think that trick of it was that you had to know where they landed. If you didn’t know where they landed, you’d never find them.

[Assistant] What types of things?


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

[User] Well, yeah. We just had a great time with each other. We have a lot of fun. We’re very comfortable with each other. Pete and I got so that we communicated without speaking and if you know what that means. And we still do that today.

[Assistant] That’s wonderful.

[User] We had a lot of fun. They had a good time on the lunar surface. They came back so damn filthy that I wouldn’t let them in the Command Module. I made them strip, take every bit of clothes off they had. I don’t know what it was about the storm, but it had an extraordinary amount of dust that clung to their suits. When I looked into that Lunar Module when they took that hatch apart, all I could see was a black cloud in there, I didn’t see them at all. I looked in there and said, “Holy smoke. You’re not getting in here and dirtying up my nice clean Command Module. So they passed the rocks over, they took off their suits, passed those over, took off their underwear, and I said, “Okay, you can come in now.” That was something. And, you know, the dust disappeared on the way back.

[Assistant] Did it really?

[User] Never found it. It had migrated outside the bags we had the suits in and everything. Of course, we clogged up all the filters and everything with the dust but it was all gone by the time we got back or we thought it was all gone. Maybe it wasn’t.

[Assistant] And at that time, I understand you went through your reentry procedures after arriving back at the Earth. And were you in charge of those procedures?


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

[User] We had a lot of fun. They had a good time on the lunar surface. They came back so damn filthy that I wouldn’t let them in the Command Module. I made them strip, take every bit of clothes off they had. I don’t know what it was about the storm, but it had an extraordinary amount of dust that clung to their suits. When I looked into that Lunar Module when they took that hatch apart, all I could see was a black cloud in there, I didn’t see them at all. I looked in there and said, “Holy smoke. You’re not getting in here and dirtying up my nice clean Command Module. So they passed the rocks over, they took off their suits, passed those over, took off their underwear, and I said, “Okay, you can come in now.” That was something. And, you know, the dust disappeared on the way back.

[Assistant] Did it really?

[User] Never found it. It had migrated outside the bags we had the suits in and everything. Of course, we clogged up all the filters and everything with the dust but it was all gone by the time we got back or we thought it was all gone. Maybe it wasn’t.

[Assistant] And at that time, I understand you went through your reentry procedures after arriving back at the Earth. And were you in charge of those procedures?

[User] Yeah. Once we got into orbit, the Command Module was mine to fly. So I did the transposition and docking with the Lunar Module. I didn’t do the rendezvous but I did the docking. I was the active participant in the docking. And I occupied the left hand seat when I wasn’t down in the lower equipment bay doing star sightings or whatever. So I was the bus driver, yeah.

[Assistant] It sounds like you had an excellent landing as well.


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

[User] Never found it. It had migrated outside the bags we had the suits in and everything. Of course, we clogged up all the filters and everything with the dust but it was all gone by the time we got back or we thought it was all gone. Maybe it wasn’t.

[Assistant] And at that time, I understand you went through your reentry procedures after arriving back at the Earth. And were you in charge of those procedures?

[User] Yeah. Once we got into orbit, the Command Module was mine to fly. So I did the transposition and docking with the Lunar Module. I didn’t do the rendezvous but I did the docking. I was the active participant in the docking. And I occupied the left hand seat when I wasn’t down in the lower equipment bay doing star sightings or whatever. So I was the bus driver, yeah.

[Assistant] It sounds like you had an excellent landing as well.

[User] Well, yeah. There wasn’t much to do other than monitor the landing. Once you start the reentry, of course, fortunately the computer does very, very well. So you’re sitting there basically monitoring its performance in case something obvious goes wrong, you can take over and manually fly the same kind of reentry that it was going to fly because all the information is there for you to be able to do that. And you just sit there and watch it and it did its thing. It was spectacular, it was absolutely spectacular. Eight minutes from the time you enter the atmosphere at roughly four hundred thousand feet until the chutes open. So it’s a very dynamic time.

[Assistant] …How was it so dynamic in your opinion?


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

[User] We didn’t use the BIGs [Biological Isolation Garments] on 12. We wanted to do as little of that as possible being the kind of people we are although at the same time, appreciating some of the requirements of the medical community and the people on Earth. They found out from 11 that there was nothing there to cause any problems so they eliminated the BIGs but we did have to wear our respirator when we got out … in case we had bad breath. Oh dear. Anyway, that’s all we wore and then we had our blue flight suits on. We went immediately into the … well we didn’t, we had the white coveralls on. We had blue flight suits in the Mobile Quarantine Facility [MQF]. We went directly then into the Mobile Quarantine Facility.

[Assistant] And how long were you in the MQF?

[User] Uh, all the back here from Hawaii. Well in the ship for a day to get back to Hawaii and then the flight back to Houston. I’d have to go back and really look at that. I think we were probably there for three days maybe, two or three days, three days probably. That’s a long flight from Hawaii to here. It was probably fourteen hours, a day and a half. It takes a lot of time just to get off the ship and get into the airplane to get us back here as well. But it was comfortable. We had everything … no, we didn’t have everything we needed but most everything we needed.

[Assistant] That’s great. And then you proceeded onto the Lunar Receiving Laboratory?

[User] Yeah, they backed the MQF up to, what is it, building 37 at that time. I think it was. And we were right in quarantine.

[Assistant] What types of things did you do when you were in quarantine?


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

[User] Uh, all the back here from Hawaii. Well in the ship for a day to get back to Hawaii and then the flight back to Houston. I’d have to go back and really look at that. I think we were probably there for three days maybe, two or three days, three days probably. That’s a long flight from Hawaii to here. It was probably fourteen hours, a day and a half. It takes a lot of time just to get off the ship and get into the airplane to get us back here as well. But it was comfortable. We had everything … no, we didn’t have everything we needed but most everything we needed.

[Assistant] That’s great. And then you proceeded onto the Lunar Receiving Laboratory?

[User] Yeah, they backed the MQF up to, what is it, building 37 at that time. I think it was. And we were right in quarantine.

[Assistant] What types of things did you do when you were in quarantine?

[User] Must you know?

[Assistant] You don’t have to tell me if you wouldn’t like to.


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

[User] Yeah, they backed the MQF up to, what is it, building 37 at that time. I think it was. And we were right in quarantine.

[Assistant] What types of things did you do when you were in quarantine?

[User] Must you know?

[Assistant] You don’t have to tell me if you wouldn’t like to.

[User] No, the normal routine stuff. I think we had some movies and we had some pretty good meals and we worked on … I think Pete worked on a Heath kit at the time. But it gave us the opportunity to write all of the reports that were required of us. All of the pilot reports. In addition to that, all of the briefings. Between a biological barrier, we briefed other flight crews, we briefed Mission Control, Flight Control Division, system engineers. So once we got out of quarantine, we were all done. We didn’t have anything more to do, Apollo 12 was over with except for the studying of the lunar materials that was brought back. So it was an appreciated time. Even though we felt that we didn’t need to be in quarantine, we used it to our advantage. And by the time we got out, all of the reports were written, all of the debriefing had been accomplished and that was it.

[Assistant] That’s great. Now did you have any time for reflection on your flight? It sounds like everyone was so busy.


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

[User] Must you know?

[Assistant] You don’t have to tell me if you wouldn’t like to.

[User] No, the normal routine stuff. I think we had some movies and we had some pretty good meals and we worked on … I think Pete worked on a Heath kit at the time. But it gave us the opportunity to write all of the reports that were required of us. All of the pilot reports. In addition to that, all of the briefings. Between a biological barrier, we briefed other flight crews, we briefed Mission Control, Flight Control Division, system engineers. So once we got out of quarantine, we were all done. We didn’t have anything more to do, Apollo 12 was over with except for the studying of the lunar materials that was brought back. So it was an appreciated time. Even though we felt that we didn’t need to be in quarantine, we used it to our advantage. And by the time we got out, all of the reports were written, all of the debriefing had been accomplished and that was it.

[Assistant] That’s great. Now did you have any time for reflection on your flight? It sounds like everyone was so busy.

[User] Not during the time of flight. I think that you do afterwards. And they’re pieces and parts you remember. You read the transcripts. You [watch] the videos. “Oh yeah, I remember that.” But at the time of the flight, you’re busy enough doing other things that you really don’t have time to look at that. Al Bean didn’t even have time to reflect because he slept most of the way coming back. Crawled into his cocoon and he stayed there. I think most of the reflection of what you saw and what you did probably comes subsequent to the flight, in retrospect. And I think that the best comment. I made it and others have made it. We’ve often been asked, “What did we discover when we went to the Moon?” “We discovered the Earth.” Think about that because you don’t get to see the Earth from that kind of distance before and it takes on a whole new perspective.

[Assistant] And for you, what type of perspective did it take on?


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

[User] Not during the time of flight. I think that you do afterwards. And they’re pieces and parts you remember. You read the transcripts. You [watch] the videos. “Oh yeah, I remember that.” But at the time of the flight, you’re busy enough doing other things that you really don’t have time to look at that. Al Bean didn’t even have time to reflect because he slept most of the way coming back. Crawled into his cocoon and he stayed there. I think most of the reflection of what you saw and what you did probably comes subsequent to the flight, in retrospect. And I think that the best comment. I made it and others have made it. We’ve often been asked, “What did we discover when we went to the Moon?” “We discovered the Earth.” Think about that because you don’t get to see the Earth from that kind of distance before and it takes on a whole new perspective.

[Assistant] And for you, what type of perspective did it take on?

[User] Oh, its beauty. Its apparent fragility. Its uniqueness in the solar system, maybe the universe. Who knows. And I think you look at it, it has been likened to a delicate Christmas tree ornament that’s hanging out there all by itself in a black void of space. Blacker than that black briefcase there. Blackest black that you’ll ever see. It looks like velvet. And it’s the only thing out there that looks like that’s the place you ought to be because it exhibits a tremendous amount of fragility. Which I think environmentally, we‘re probably appreciating more and more. The sheer beauty of this planet is awesome. The blues of the oceans, the whites of the clouds and the khaki color, the appearance of the continent. It’s awesome. It really is.

[Assistant] I would like to ask you, just very quickly, a little bit about your reassignment after you returned from 12 then?

[User] Okay.

[Assistant] I understand that they had plans on going through Apollo 20 at that time?


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

[User] Tough question. What NASA gained from the Apollo program is a how-to attitude. I’m not so sure, I guess we could but I sometimes wonder if we could do that again today. And I’m not sure what they learned. In terms of corporate memory, I sometimes wonder if they had learned anything. I know they have. I’m being somewhat facetious but trying to make a point at the same time.

[Assistant] You’re not alone in that.

[User] Yeah, is that right.

[Assistant] Yeah, you’re not.

[User] Well, it’s changed a lot. And that can-do attitude, the vigor, and the enthusiasm that was experience in the sixties, I don’t know that it exists today. Maybe it does. Maybe I’m just not exposed to it. But I think that’s an era that is gone by.

[Assistant] Where do you think they should go right now?


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

[User] Yeah, is that right.

[Assistant] Yeah, you’re not.

[User] Well, it’s changed a lot. And that can-do attitude, the vigor, and the enthusiasm that was experience in the sixties, I don’t know that it exists today. Maybe it does. Maybe I’m just not exposed to it. But I think that’s an era that is gone by.

[Assistant] Where do you think they should go right now?

[User] Oh, obviously they’ve got to go with the Space Station. No question about that. I’d wished they had at least gone back to the Moon. The Moon is going to be a great training ground for those things that are needed to go to Mars both in terms of hardware and personal experience. All of those things that I’m disappointed that we haven’t done that. So twenty five years this December, the last flight was on the Moon and I would have thought that we’d of been back there before now but times have changed. Politically, economically, leadership, desire, willingness, all that’s different today than it was then.

[Assistant] Well, I would really like to thank you so much. I’m very honored that you agreed to talk to us.


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

[User] Oh, they were ecstatic. My mom and dad and my sister. And we actually had, before I went in, I was originally assigned to Tonga, and I really wanted to go to Tonga because they wanted to start a high school curriculum. And I had taught two years in college, one at Central Washington, where I was did the course, the methods course, for people who were going to teach high school speech and drama.

[Assistant] Mm hmm.

[User] So I was going to be able to develop a speech and drama program for Tonga, and that was just really excited about that. And then irony of ironies, um, we actually had a family trip. My mom and dad went up to Vancouver and I, the three of us went across to the World's Fair. And my sister flew up from New York. She was an attorney and actually at that time a vice president of a chemical company. And she came up. And so we had a family all get-together, which was significant because she died while I was in Peace Corps.

[Assistant] Hmm.

[User] And but anyway, my family was very excited about me going. And they thought that that was a good thing to do.

[Assistant] To avoid the draft or to go explore the world? Or both?


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

[User] So I was going to be able to develop a speech and drama program for Tonga, and that was just really excited about that. And then irony of ironies, um, we actually had a family trip. My mom and dad went up to Vancouver and I, the three of us went across to the World's Fair. And my sister flew up from New York. She was an attorney and actually at that time a vice president of a chemical company. And she came up. And so we had a family all get-together, which was significant because she died while I was in Peace Corps.

[Assistant] Hmm.

[User] And but anyway, my family was very excited about me going. And they thought that that was a good thing to do.

[Assistant] To avoid the draft or to go explore the world? Or both?

[User] Both. Actually, they weren't too excited about the draft motivation, but they thought this was good to be a helping profession.

[Assistant] So you applied for the Peace Corps with, oh, well, this was post girlfriend now?


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

[User] Both. Actually, they weren't too excited about the draft motivation, but they thought this was good to be a helping profession.

[Assistant] So you applied for the Peace Corps with, oh, well, this was post girlfriend now?

[User] Post, well, actually, yes. Post girlfriend now. And I applied and I got accepted and assigned to Tonga. And I was, so when I was at the World's Fair, I spent most of my, a lot of time at the Tonga exhibition, not even looking, thinking about South Korea. And when I got back, I opened the letter that I had been moved because of my high language ability scores and that, that's why I said the irony of irony is because consistently, um, my Korean was, I was a poor student. We had 60 people in our training class, and the first test we had around, I ranked 60th out of 60. And when we left for Korea, I ranked 40 out of 40. I was still at the bottom of the group. And I always used that example when I was teaching research methods. If you use gain scores, always be, because I had the biggest gain score.

[Assistant] Yeah.

[User] My friend Al, who was very fluent in Korean, only went from 5 to 4 and so his gain score was one when mine was 20. No question that I was very poor. And when we left Korea at the end of the two years, I was 36 out of 36. We lost four people, including my friend Al, during that period of time.

[Assistant] So language is not your thing.


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

[User] Post, well, actually, yes. Post girlfriend now. And I applied and I got accepted and assigned to Tonga. And I was, so when I was at the World's Fair, I spent most of my, a lot of time at the Tonga exhibition, not even looking, thinking about South Korea. And when I got back, I opened the letter that I had been moved because of my high language ability scores and that, that's why I said the irony of irony is because consistently, um, my Korean was, I was a poor student. We had 60 people in our training class, and the first test we had around, I ranked 60th out of 60. And when we left for Korea, I ranked 40 out of 40. I was still at the bottom of the group. And I always used that example when I was teaching research methods. If you use gain scores, always be, because I had the biggest gain score.

[Assistant] Yeah.

[User] My friend Al, who was very fluent in Korean, only went from 5 to 4 and so his gain score was one when mine was 20. No question that I was very poor. And when we left Korea at the end of the two years, I was 36 out of 36. We lost four people, including my friend Al, during that period of time.

[Assistant] So language is not your thing.

[User] Language is not my thing. And I at that time regretted very much because I really wanted the professional challenge of developing a high school curriculum. That was my career goal at that time, what I wanted to do was work with high schools, speech teachers, which was where my training, even when I went back for my doctorate afterwards.

[Assistant] So you were, um, where were you living? You were living back in Oregon at that point?


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

[User] My friend Al, who was very fluent in Korean, only went from 5 to 4 and so his gain score was one when mine was 20. No question that I was very poor. And when we left Korea at the end of the two years, I was 36 out of 36. We lost four people, including my friend Al, during that period of time.

[Assistant] So language is not your thing.

[User] Language is not my thing. And I at that time regretted very much because I really wanted the professional challenge of developing a high school curriculum. That was my career goal at that time, what I wanted to do was work with high schools, speech teachers, which was where my training, even when I went back for my doctorate afterwards.

[Assistant] So you were, um, where were you living? You were living back in Oregon at that point?

[User] Yes.

[Assistant] And you had your training in Bisbee?


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

[User] Language is not my thing. And I at that time regretted very much because I really wanted the professional challenge of developing a high school curriculum. That was my career goal at that time, what I wanted to do was work with high schools, speech teachers, which was where my training, even when I went back for my doctorate afterwards.

[Assistant] So you were, um, where were you living? You were living back in Oregon at that point?

[User] Yes.

[Assistant] And you had your training in Bisbee?

[User]
Yes, Bisbee, Arizona. So we did our training, which was one of those great things. We were supposed to go to a ski resort in Pennsylvania, but they canceled the contract right before. And a woman in the national Peace Corps office, they came in and said, what are we going to do about Korea? And she said, let me call my brother, who was an attorney in Bisbee, and see if they could host it, because they're in the middle of a copper strike and they need the money. And our $10 checks for the 60 of us was the big economic, besides the other food and stuff and lodging, but the other big economic input. And again, that was significant.

We went to Bisbee, Arizona, and no relationship at all. We had 12 Koreans come over for the language training and that that was fantastic. But Bisbee had no relationship at all to South Korea in terms of.

[Assistant] Well, neither did the mountains in Pennsylvania.