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

[User] Yes.

[Assistant] Were you aware beforehand of the possibility? And then how did you hear about that coming about?

[User] Yes, we had heard a year, half a year ahead or so of time…The Prime Minister had threatened to cancel it, and I knew that, and I think everybody in the country realized that, but the people inside the company were kind of blinded by the [length of time] the project had been going thus far, and they managed to persuade me that it wasn't going to happen. [Laughter] But, of course, it did happen. If you ask me what was my response to that, my response was to run all the way to the Credit Union and sell my AVRO stock.. [Laughter] And I managed to catch it just before it went fwttttt, and got my money out, just exactly what I paid for it. [Laughter]

[Assistant] That's good. Quick thinking. [Laughter] Very quick thinking.

[User] Okay. On a more serious vein, it was a disappointment, of course, but we did have a year—'59. Let me see. About a year of flight testing. So we had shown the machine to do everything we had hoped it would do, and we'd learned our lessons as engineers from it, so that we were more or less finished with that machine except for, from a structural point of view, finding out those important things about how long will the structure last before [it] fatigue fails and things like that. We never got those questions answered. As far as all the other technical things, they were pretty well answered, and the machine performed—I think the word "flawlessly" might be a bit of a misnomer, but virtually flawlessly. It did everything we expected it to do, without any major modifications.

[Assistant] That must have been very satisfying for you.


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

[User] It was. Yes, it was. As a matter of fact, when it was canceled, I got home and I told my wife, "You know, I've been laid off." Everybody in the plant was laid off. Fourteen thousand people were laid off at three o'clock in the afternoon.

[Assistant] Unbelievable.

[User] And she looked at me and she laughed. It wasn't until the next day that she finally realized I was telling her the truth, when I was looking through the paper for jobs. A friend of mine who ran a poultry processing operation, I mean designing of equipment for poultry processing, offered me a job at about a quarter of the pay I'd been making at AVRO. [Laughter]

[Assistant] Oh, dear.

[User] But that was very good of him, anyway. But that Sunday evening I received a call from AVRO and they asked me to come back, so I didn't even miss one day of work. About 1,000 of the 14,000 were brought back. The reason they were brought back was to help shut the place down in an orderly fashion. The company had some ideas of organizing the out-of-work engineers into teams and letting them out to do other tasks. So I had the most unpleasant task of interviewing my comrades and asking them about their education and their experience and so forth, and writing it down. It almost would have been better to be with them than to have done that. As far as I know, I don't think they ever got any other jobs.\n\n So about two months after that, the opportunity came. I stayed on to work on some large radar antennas that were going to be put up on the northern part of Canada. And we got the job offer to go to NASA.

[Assistant] How did you hear about that opportunity?


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

[User] —doing very poorly. After two or three months with me phoning her and making one or two trips back, telling her about how wonderful it was swimming down on the nice beaches in Buckroe Beach, she said, "Look. I'm not sitting here any longer." As soon as the kids got out of school, she came down and we rented the house for a few years until we could sell it.

[Assistant] That's good. That's good. It must have been hard having the family up in—

[User] It really was tough. I remember, I guess, about fifteen years after we were married, we were talking at a New Year's party or something, I said, "You know, those first fifteen years of my life (this was quite a few years later) were the happiest of my life." And out of the dead silence in there, my wife said, "They weren't for me." [Laughter] Sitting at home, settling arguments between two little children in the dead of winter, with no car sometimes. It was awful. And here I thought I was a very sensitive, caring person, and I had never realized that.

[Assistant] Oh, my.

[User] Am I getting off the track?

[Assistant] Not at all. Not at all. To jump back just a little bit, Sputnik was launched while actually the Arrow was still active and you were working up there.


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

[User] It really was tough. I remember, I guess, about fifteen years after we were married, we were talking at a New Year's party or something, I said, "You know, those first fifteen years of my life (this was quite a few years later) were the happiest of my life." And out of the dead silence in there, my wife said, "They weren't for me." [Laughter] Sitting at home, settling arguments between two little children in the dead of winter, with no car sometimes. It was awful. And here I thought I was a very sensitive, caring person, and I had never realized that.

[Assistant] Oh, my.

[User] Am I getting off the track?

[Assistant] Not at all. Not at all. To jump back just a little bit, Sputnik was launched while actually the Arrow was still active and you were working up there.

[User] That's correct.

[Assistant] Did that have at the time any impact on you? Or was there any discussion about it around AVRO?


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

[User] They did not have our good interests at heart. To think of them orbiting something right over our cities—of course, at that time we didn't know it was a small basketball-shaped thing—but that was very scary. It was very scary.

[Assistant] I'm sure.

[User] And we knew the moon orbited the Earth, but we didn't think of man being able to make artificial satellites like that. The word "satellite" was hardly used. "Environment" was a new word in those days. We didn't even talk about the environment at all.

[Assistant] Wow.

[User] To give you an idea of the lack of discussion or knowledge or interest in what we now call the environment, my father, as I said, worked for the Inspection Board [of] the United Kingdom and Canada, and one of his jobs was to supervise the manufacture of mustard gas in Canada, which was never used, of course. But we were ready. If the Germans used it, they would have got it back very fast, and I guess they knew that. But to give you an idea of what happened, the entire production of that plant during the war was put on two large barges and towed out into the Atlantic Ocean and sunk.

[Assistant] Really? Oh, my.


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

[User] And we knew the moon orbited the Earth, but we didn't think of man being able to make artificial satellites like that. The word "satellite" was hardly used. "Environment" was a new word in those days. We didn't even talk about the environment at all.

[Assistant] Wow.

[User] To give you an idea of the lack of discussion or knowledge or interest in what we now call the environment, my father, as I said, worked for the Inspection Board [of] the United Kingdom and Canada, and one of his jobs was to supervise the manufacture of mustard gas in Canada, which was never used, of course. But we were ready. If the Germans used it, they would have got it back very fast, and I guess they knew that. But to give you an idea of what happened, the entire production of that plant during the war was put on two large barges and towed out into the Atlantic Ocean and sunk.

[Assistant] Really? Oh, my.

[User] The logic being, the cans, barrels, will corrode in time and gradually release the contents and it shouldn't hurt anything. And that was it. But can you imagine that happening today? [Laughter]

[Assistant] Oh, that would cause a little furor. That's interesting.


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

[User] The logic being, the cans, barrels, will corrode in time and gradually release the contents and it shouldn't hurt anything. And that was it. But can you imagine that happening today? [Laughter]

[Assistant] Oh, that would cause a little furor. That's interesting.

[User] As a historian, you must realize that people's perceptions of things were greatly different then than they are today.

[Assistant] Absolutely.

[User] The manned bomber was our threat then, although about that time I did become aware that there had been work on ICBMs [Intercontinental Ballistic Missiles] going on, just in magazines, and I didn't quite know what they were at first. So that was my introduction to suddenly it's in your face space, you know. [Laughter]

[Assistant] When the U.S. started making attempts to get a satellite up and those were unsuccessful at first, was that a cause for concern as well?


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

[User] The manned bomber was our threat then, although about that time I did become aware that there had been work on ICBMs [Intercontinental Ballistic Missiles] going on, just in magazines, and I didn't quite know what they were at first. So that was my introduction to suddenly it's in your face space, you know. [Laughter]

[Assistant] When the U.S. started making attempts to get a satellite up and those were unsuccessful at first, was that a cause for concern as well?

[User] Well, it was more of like watching a Charlie Chaplin movie to us. We just laughed. [Laughter] It was at the Vanguard Project by the Navy, wasn't it?

[Assistant] Yes.

[User] A week or month after month, there it would go, blow up on the pad, full of glory. So they were sort of the laughingstock at the time.

[Assistant] Do you remember when you heard about Explorer going up and being successful?


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

[User] Well, it was more of like watching a Charlie Chaplin movie to us. We just laughed. [Laughter] It was at the Vanguard Project by the Navy, wasn't it?

[Assistant] Yes.

[User] A week or month after month, there it would go, blow up on the pad, full of glory. So they were sort of the laughingstock at the time.

[Assistant] Do you remember when you heard about Explorer going up and being successful?

[User] I do recall that, but I didn't know much about it. That was Redstone arsenal. Yes. In fact, it was Wernher von Braun that finally got into the act and got something up into space. They used a Redstone or something like a Redstone, didn't they?

[Assistant] Yes. Jupiter C, just a modified version.


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

[User] A week or month after month, there it would go, blow up on the pad, full of glory. So they were sort of the laughingstock at the time.

[Assistant] Do you remember when you heard about Explorer going up and being successful?

[User] I do recall that, but I didn't know much about it. That was Redstone arsenal. Yes. In fact, it was Wernher von Braun that finally got into the act and got something up into space. They used a Redstone or something like a Redstone, didn't they?

[Assistant] Yes. Jupiter C, just a modified version.

[User] Yes. That was the first. Mercury shot was on a Redstone. I remember that very well.

[Assistant] Talking about Mercury, we talked about how you came down to NASA and went down to Virginia. When you came down, what was the reception like for you coming into the newly formed Space Task Group?


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

[User] I do recall that, but I didn't know much about it. That was Redstone arsenal. Yes. In fact, it was Wernher von Braun that finally got into the act and got something up into space. They used a Redstone or something like a Redstone, didn't they?

[Assistant] Yes. Jupiter C, just a modified version.

[User] Yes. That was the first. Mercury shot was on a Redstone. I remember that very well.

[Assistant] Talking about Mercury, we talked about how you came down to NASA and went down to Virginia. When you came down, what was the reception like for you coming into the newly formed Space Task Group?

[User] Okay. Did I mention before how we actually came across?

[Assistant] No. Why don't you tell us about that.


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

[User] Okay. Did I mention before how we actually came across?

[Assistant] No. Why don't you tell us about that.

[User] Okay. The U.S. Consulate in Toronto was shut down in the afternoons until the thirty of us were processed through, and we came through on a special act of Congress, the first thirty of us.

[Assistant] Wow.

[User] The reason that we were hired, I think, was partly because the pay scale in the rest of industry in the U.S. was about 30 percent greater than NASA was paying in those days, and they couldn't really attract anyone from U.S. aviation to go and work there. I'm sorry, I said 30. The pay scales in the rest of industry were about 15 percent higher than NASA could pay, but ours were about 15 percent lower in Canada, but 30 percent lower than U.S. industry. So we could go to NASA for a pay increase. Of course, the fact that we were out of work also had something to do with it. [Laughter]

[Assistant] Big incentive. [Laughter]


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

[User] Okay. The U.S. Consulate in Toronto was shut down in the afternoons until the thirty of us were processed through, and we came through on a special act of Congress, the first thirty of us.

[Assistant] Wow.

[User] The reason that we were hired, I think, was partly because the pay scale in the rest of industry in the U.S. was about 30 percent greater than NASA was paying in those days, and they couldn't really attract anyone from U.S. aviation to go and work there. I'm sorry, I said 30. The pay scales in the rest of industry were about 15 percent higher than NASA could pay, but ours were about 15 percent lower in Canada, but 30 percent lower than U.S. industry. So we could go to NASA for a pay increase. Of course, the fact that we were out of work also had something to do with it. [Laughter]

[Assistant] Big incentive. [Laughter]

[User] So I think that they recognized—actually, we didn't do the design of Project Mercury. That was done by Max [Maxime A.] Faget and the people from Wallops Island, I think under Bob Gilruth, even at that time. And those guys were really brilliant, not only technically but in their ability to handle the government of the United States and get funds. That I take my hat off to them. That was a really creditable job they did. But they did not have the engineering manpower, and that's what they needed, and that's why we were hired to come down, to make their ideas work. And that's what we did.

[Assistant] And you did make them work, that's for sure.


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

[User] The reason that we were hired, I think, was partly because the pay scale in the rest of industry in the U.S. was about 30 percent greater than NASA was paying in those days, and they couldn't really attract anyone from U.S. aviation to go and work there. I'm sorry, I said 30. The pay scales in the rest of industry were about 15 percent higher than NASA could pay, but ours were about 15 percent lower in Canada, but 30 percent lower than U.S. industry. So we could go to NASA for a pay increase. Of course, the fact that we were out of work also had something to do with it. [Laughter]

[Assistant] Big incentive. [Laughter]

[User] So I think that they recognized—actually, we didn't do the design of Project Mercury. That was done by Max [Maxime A.] Faget and the people from Wallops Island, I think under Bob Gilruth, even at that time. And those guys were really brilliant, not only technically but in their ability to handle the government of the United States and get funds. That I take my hat off to them. That was a really creditable job they did. But they did not have the engineering manpower, and that's what they needed, and that's why we were hired to come down, to make their ideas work. And that's what we did.

[Assistant] And you did make them work, that's for sure.

[User] Yes, it was quite an interesting whole thing.

[Assistant] Many people have said that without your group that came down, without the AVRO group, that NASA wouldn't have gotten where it did in the amount of time it did. Do you have any thoughts on that?


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

[User] It was great. My job on that test was to look at—what do you call it? The organ-pipe mode in the [inlets]. The shock ingested into it would result in an oscillation of the air inside that gave overpressures, and I had to keep track of when that happened.\n\n The only thing we changed was this reverse scoop underneath. We made it larger. What this did was suck air [off] the perforated inlet, the boundary-layer air, and then it went out through [the] reverse scoop. That's so that the shock boundary layer interaction going into the inlet wouldn't be too severe. It was called intake buzz. I was trying to remember the word. Intake buzz is what I looked after on that test. We actually had high-speed 12,000-frames-per-second movies showing the shock buzzing in and out of the inlet…The machine itself—John [D.] Hodge actually did the design of the inlet. He had, for some strange reason, had been looking after the loads [group]. He was my predecessor in flight loads at AVRO, and I took the job over from him. I worked in the loads group while he was the group leader, and then he went on to operations at Arrow operations, and later on he went to NASA as operations. Have you spoken to John?

[Assistant] We haven't had a chance to speak to him yet, although we are hoping to do so soon, possibly later this spring.

[User] He was a very close friend of ours.

[Assistant] I'll make sure to mention—

[User] Say hi to him.

[Assistant] Absolutely. We're hoping to get up there, so if I do, I'll let you know that we are going to go see him. We're always glad to do what we can to pass words on for you.


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

[User] He was a very close friend of ours.

[Assistant] I'll make sure to mention—

[User] Say hi to him.

[Assistant] Absolutely. We're hoping to get up there, so if I do, I'll let you know that we are going to go see him. We're always glad to do what we can to pass words on for you.

[User] His family and my family, way back then and up till the time I left the Manned Spacecraft Center [MSC] in Houston, then we went to Rocky Mountain National Park once after that, and that's the last time I guess I saw him…maybe '6[6], I think. I can't remember. A few years later was the last time we saw him.

[Assistant] It's been a few years.


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

[User] Say hi to him.

[Assistant] Absolutely. We're hoping to get up there, so if I do, I'll let you know that we are going to go see him. We're always glad to do what we can to pass words on for you.

[User] His family and my family, way back then and up till the time I left the Manned Spacecraft Center [MSC] in Houston, then we went to Rocky Mountain National Park once after that, and that's the last time I guess I saw him…maybe '6[6], I think. I can't remember. A few years later was the last time we saw him.

[Assistant] It's been a few years.

[User] It's been a while, yes. So I got off the track there. What was the question again?

[Assistant] We were talking about—that's a good question, what the question was. I think we were talking about the AVRO group coming into NASA and how you fit in and how you were accepted.


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

[User] His family and my family, way back then and up till the time I left the Manned Spacecraft Center [MSC] in Houston, then we went to Rocky Mountain National Park once after that, and that's the last time I guess I saw him…maybe '6[6], I think. I can't remember. A few years later was the last time we saw him.

[Assistant] It's been a few years.

[User] It's been a while, yes. So I got off the track there. What was the question again?

[Assistant] We were talking about—that's a good question, what the question was. I think we were talking about the AVRO group coming into NASA and how you fit in and how you were accepted.

[User] Well, I noticed that things were a lot different at NASA than I'd expected them to be. I'd read a lot of NASA reports and had tremendous respect for [the authors], and I found that there were some very, very—well, there were a lot of older, better, very knowledgeable engineers, scientists, really, and I got along with them. Houbolt was one of them. I took courses from him.

[Assistant] While you were at NASA, you took courses from him?


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

[User] It's been a while, yes. So I got off the track there. What was the question again?

[Assistant] We were talking about—that's a good question, what the question was. I think we were talking about the AVRO group coming into NASA and how you fit in and how you were accepted.

[User] Well, I noticed that things were a lot different at NASA than I'd expected them to be. I'd read a lot of NASA reports and had tremendous respect for [the authors], and I found that there were some very, very—well, there were a lot of older, better, very knowledgeable engineers, scientists, really, and I got along with them. Houbolt was one of them. I took courses from him.

[Assistant] While you were at NASA, you took courses from him?

[User] Yes. [NASA] offered very good training programs there through the University of Virginia and the Virginia Polytechnic Institute. They were offered at NASA [Langley], so we could just go over there and take these courses. I took several courses from him, and later on he wrote the letter of recommendation that allowed me to go to school at Caltech.

[Assistant] Oh, that's great.


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

[User] Well, I noticed that things were a lot different at NASA than I'd expected them to be. I'd read a lot of NASA reports and had tremendous respect for [the authors], and I found that there were some very, very—well, there were a lot of older, better, very knowledgeable engineers, scientists, really, and I got along with them. Houbolt was one of them. I took courses from him.

[Assistant] While you were at NASA, you took courses from him?

[User] Yes. [NASA] offered very good training programs there through the University of Virginia and the Virginia Polytechnic Institute. They were offered at NASA [Langley], so we could just go over there and take these courses. I took several courses from him, and later on he wrote the letter of recommendation that allowed me to go to school at Caltech.

[Assistant] Oh, that's great.

[User] He helped me to go there. So that was great. So we had a corps of people that were quite experienced, and in supersonic flight…Some of Project Mercury's flight [path] was at subsonic speed and [some at] supersonic speed...How to test, what to do, and what was important and what wasn't important…Some of the inexperienced new people [were from] NASA—NASA was one year old at that time, [and] they didn't know much about engineering, and that really kind of dumbfounded us a bit, that some of the things they did not appreciate, but then again, that wasn't their work [and they were very young too].\n\n So, I don't know, I guess I can't answer your question whether it could have been done or not. I just know that we were there and we did it.

[Assistant] That's good enough. Just looking for your thoughts on it.


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

[User] Yes. [NASA] offered very good training programs there through the University of Virginia and the Virginia Polytechnic Institute. They were offered at NASA [Langley], so we could just go over there and take these courses. I took several courses from him, and later on he wrote the letter of recommendation that allowed me to go to school at Caltech.

[Assistant] Oh, that's great.

[User] He helped me to go there. So that was great. So we had a corps of people that were quite experienced, and in supersonic flight…Some of Project Mercury's flight [path] was at subsonic speed and [some at] supersonic speed...How to test, what to do, and what was important and what wasn't important…Some of the inexperienced new people [were from] NASA—NASA was one year old at that time, [and] they didn't know much about engineering, and that really kind of dumbfounded us a bit, that some of the things they did not appreciate, but then again, that wasn't their work [and they were very young too].\n\n So, I don't know, I guess I can't answer your question whether it could have been done or not. I just know that we were there and we did it.

[Assistant] That's good enough. Just looking for your thoughts on it.

[User] There were a lot of very good guys at NASA, like Al [Alan B.] Kehlet. Have you spoken to him?

[Assistant] No, not yet. Not yet.


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

[User] He helped me to go there. So that was great. So we had a corps of people that were quite experienced, and in supersonic flight…Some of Project Mercury's flight [path] was at subsonic speed and [some at] supersonic speed...How to test, what to do, and what was important and what wasn't important…Some of the inexperienced new people [were from] NASA—NASA was one year old at that time, [and] they didn't know much about engineering, and that really kind of dumbfounded us a bit, that some of the things they did not appreciate, but then again, that wasn't their work [and they were very young too].\n\n So, I don't know, I guess I can't answer your question whether it could have been done or not. I just know that we were there and we did it.

[Assistant] That's good enough. Just looking for your thoughts on it.

[User] There were a lot of very good guys at NASA, like Al [Alan B.] Kehlet. Have you spoken to him?

[Assistant] No, not yet. Not yet.

[User] Well, say hi to him. He…designed the Apollo capsule, reentry capsule. I was there when he designed that, the aerodynamic design of that. He later became a high muckamuck in North American. I haven't seen him. I just saw something in the paper about him one day a couple of years ago.\n\n To get back to your question about how we were treated by NASA, and I guess we were talking about Al Kehlet. That's a good place to answer your question. We were very warmly received into NASA, very warmly received, and we were treated very well. Al Kehlet particularly, he and his wife [Lois], took my wife and myself and the kids out in their motorboat, out to an island out in the sound, where we had a barbecue.

[Assistant] Well, that's nice.


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

[User] There were a lot of very good guys at NASA, like Al [Alan B.] Kehlet. Have you spoken to him?

[Assistant] No, not yet. Not yet.

[User] Well, say hi to him. He…designed the Apollo capsule, reentry capsule. I was there when he designed that, the aerodynamic design of that. He later became a high muckamuck in North American. I haven't seen him. I just saw something in the paper about him one day a couple of years ago.\n\n To get back to your question about how we were treated by NASA, and I guess we were talking about Al Kehlet. That's a good place to answer your question. We were very warmly received into NASA, very warmly received, and we were treated very well. Al Kehlet particularly, he and his wife [Lois], took my wife and myself and the kids out in their motorboat, out to an island out in the sound, where we had a barbecue.

[Assistant] Well, that's nice.

[User] You know, it was really very nice, a picnic. I had a section there and I had people, NASA people, some new hires in the group. May Meadows worked for me. She had worked at NASA a long time. I'd read papers that she'd co-authored, in fact, on turbulence response.

[Assistant] May Meadows was a woman engineer?


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

[User] Well, say hi to him. He…designed the Apollo capsule, reentry capsule. I was there when he designed that, the aerodynamic design of that. He later became a high muckamuck in North American. I haven't seen him. I just saw something in the paper about him one day a couple of years ago.\n\n To get back to your question about how we were treated by NASA, and I guess we were talking about Al Kehlet. That's a good place to answer your question. We were very warmly received into NASA, very warmly received, and we were treated very well. Al Kehlet particularly, he and his wife [Lois], took my wife and myself and the kids out in their motorboat, out to an island out in the sound, where we had a barbecue.

[Assistant] Well, that's nice.

[User] You know, it was really very nice, a picnic. I had a section there and I had people, NASA people, some new hires in the group. May Meadows worked for me. She had worked at NASA a long time. I'd read papers that she'd co-authored, in fact, on turbulence response.

[Assistant] May Meadows was a woman engineer?

[User] Yes.

[Assistant] That must have been different at the time.


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

[User] You know, it was really very nice, a picnic. I had a section there and I had people, NASA people, some new hires in the group. May Meadows worked for me. She had worked at NASA a long time. I'd read papers that she'd co-authored, in fact, on turbulence response.

[Assistant] May Meadows was a woman engineer?

[User] Yes.

[Assistant] That must have been different at the time.

[User] There were a few women engineers there, or scientists, I guess, more properly. She particularly welcomed us. The kids loved her. She introduced us to Southern cooking. She was from North Carolina. She became a very warm friend of the whole family's. Dick Carley knew her, too. She was very nice, a very nice person.\n\n So the answer, it was very nice to go there.

[Assistant] It must have been nice to see after having just had this massive layoff and trying to find a job, and being so well accepted.


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

[User] Yes.

[Assistant] That must have been different at the time.

[User] There were a few women engineers there, or scientists, I guess, more properly. She particularly welcomed us. The kids loved her. She introduced us to Southern cooking. She was from North Carolina. She became a very warm friend of the whole family's. Dick Carley knew her, too. She was very nice, a very nice person.\n\n So the answer, it was very nice to go there.

[Assistant] It must have been nice to see after having just had this massive layoff and trying to find a job, and being so well accepted.

[User] Yes. We lived on Foxhill Road there, and the kids went to a little school out at the end of the road, and they loved that. [Our house] was only about two miles from the south gate at Langley, where we worked, so it was just idyllic, just beautiful.

[Assistant] The family liked coming down to Virginia?


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

[User] There were a few women engineers there, or scientists, I guess, more properly. She particularly welcomed us. The kids loved her. She introduced us to Southern cooking. She was from North Carolina. She became a very warm friend of the whole family's. Dick Carley knew her, too. She was very nice, a very nice person.\n\n So the answer, it was very nice to go there.

[Assistant] It must have been nice to see after having just had this massive layoff and trying to find a job, and being so well accepted.

[User] Yes. We lived on Foxhill Road there, and the kids went to a little school out at the end of the road, and they loved that. [Our house] was only about two miles from the south gate at Langley, where we worked, so it was just idyllic, just beautiful.

[Assistant] The family liked coming down to Virginia?

[User] Oh, yes, they really loved that. Fish fries and things. Yes. The kids used to love catching crabs with a piece of chicken neck on a string, [lower] it down and then swoop a net underneath and catch the crab, and boil them and have them for dinner.

[Assistant] That must have been fun for them.


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

[User] Yes. We lived on Foxhill Road there, and the kids went to a little school out at the end of the road, and they loved that. [Our house] was only about two miles from the south gate at Langley, where we worked, so it was just idyllic, just beautiful.

[Assistant] The family liked coming down to Virginia?

[User] Oh, yes, they really loved that. Fish fries and things. Yes. The kids used to love catching crabs with a piece of chicken neck on a string, [lower] it down and then swoop a net underneath and catch the crab, and boil them and have them for dinner.

[Assistant] That must have been fun for them.

[User] It was, yes.

[Assistant] When you did come to NASA, what did you first work on there, or what division were you in?


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

[User] Oh, yes, they really loved that. Fish fries and things. Yes. The kids used to love catching crabs with a piece of chicken neck on a string, [lower] it down and then swoop a net underneath and catch the crab, and boil them and have them for dinner.

[Assistant] That must have been fun for them.

[User] It was, yes.

[Assistant] When you did come to NASA, what did you first work on there, or what division were you in?

[User] Okay.

[Assistant] Want to take a break?


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

[User] It was, yes.

[Assistant] When you did come to NASA, what did you first work on there, or what division were you in?

[User] Okay.

[Assistant] Want to take a break?

[User] I'd like a little bit of water.

[Assistant] Absolutely. [Brief interruption.]\n\n I guess now we could move into what you did when you first came to NASA and what you were involved with.


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

[User] Okay.

[Assistant] Want to take a break?

[User] I'd like a little bit of water.

[Assistant] Absolutely. [Brief interruption.]\n\n I guess now we could move into what you did when you first came to NASA and what you were involved with.

[User] Essentially my duties were very similar to those at AVRO. I was put in charge of flight loads analysis on Project Mercury. I was the section head of loads. That was my title. I worked under Max Faget. Jim Chamberlin, I guess, arranged that, and I went to work for Max. Then Bob [Robert O.] Piland—do you know him?

[Assistant] Yes, we've been able to talk to him.


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

[User] In the early days, NASA was so penurious or so out of money, or whatever, that we didn't even fly on commercial airliners, which were all propeller [driven] in those days. NASA had its own DC-3, and it used to fly us around from place to place and a whole group of us from Langley Field to St. Louis or to Cleveland or to Florida.

[Assistant] That must have been an experience.

[User] And we shared motel rooms. I remember, in fact…I shared a motel room with John [H.] Glenn [Jr.] one day. Of course, he was just a brand-new astronaut, ex-Marine pilot, and wasn't famous at that time. But, I mean, it was a no-nonsense operation. It was done very efficiently, economically.

[Assistant] It must have helped to be able to get things done when you needed them to.

[User] Yes. It was important, too, that we had a great deal of flexibility to make changes, and without that we would have been totally dead. They were always debated beforehand, and we used to have a big meeting downstairs in the—I've forgotten the number of the building now. You probably know it. On the south side of—let's see. Which side? On the Hampton side of the field, anyway. Have you been there?

[Assistant] No, I have not been to Langley. I've been up to Goddard once, briefly, but I haven't had the opportunity to get to Langley yet, although we're hoping to make a trip out to the East Coast sometime this spring, so hopefully then.


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

[User] The only person I knew from Goddard was a man whose name, by the way, was also Butler. Tom Butler. He was the person who first acquainted me with the idea that NASTRAN, a structural analysis model, would be required on all contracts submitted to the government for adjudication. But I won't go into that here, I guess.

[Assistant] Okay.

[User] Where was I? I was talking about how they operated. So I had a little office upstairs with my people in it, and aerodynamics, with Al Kehlet, was next door. The thermodynamics, with Ken [Kenneth C.] Weston, was up there also. The operations people were in another building. That's where John Hodge and Tom [Thomas V.] Chambers and all those guys were, Fred [C. Frederick] Matthews. So I wasn't very intimate with the astronauts. We had occasional problems we had to deal with.\n\n I remember one time a funny one, in a way, and that was that a pogo-stick oscillation in Mercury Redstone. I was asked to look into it a little bit by Jim Chamberlin, who was a very modest gentleman, but, I mean, superb man, my idol, I guess. I said, "Okay, fine, I'll look into it. What's the problem?" He says, "Well, the astronauts don't like what's going on?" I said, "Well, what is it?" Oscillations [can] cause your eyeballs so you can't focus and you get tunnel vision. That's one thing in fighter airplanes that happens on the older airplanes, [in] the low altitude gust penetration. He wouldn't tell me. Finally, I said, "Look, I've got to know." He says, "It's testicular pain." [Laughter] "Okay."

[Assistant] "Okay, we'll work on that one." [Laughter]

[User] That was funny. I just had to tell you that one story.

[Assistant] It's good to hear.


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

[User] Where was I? I was talking about how they operated. So I had a little office upstairs with my people in it, and aerodynamics, with Al Kehlet, was next door. The thermodynamics, with Ken [Kenneth C.] Weston, was up there also. The operations people were in another building. That's where John Hodge and Tom [Thomas V.] Chambers and all those guys were, Fred [C. Frederick] Matthews. So I wasn't very intimate with the astronauts. We had occasional problems we had to deal with.\n\n I remember one time a funny one, in a way, and that was that a pogo-stick oscillation in Mercury Redstone. I was asked to look into it a little bit by Jim Chamberlin, who was a very modest gentleman, but, I mean, superb man, my idol, I guess. I said, "Okay, fine, I'll look into it. What's the problem?" He says, "Well, the astronauts don't like what's going on?" I said, "Well, what is it?" Oscillations [can] cause your eyeballs so you can't focus and you get tunnel vision. That's one thing in fighter airplanes that happens on the older airplanes, [in] the low altitude gust penetration. He wouldn't tell me. Finally, I said, "Look, I've got to know." He says, "It's testicular pain." [Laughter] "Okay."

[Assistant] "Okay, we'll work on that one." [Laughter]

[User] That was funny. I just had to tell you that one story.

[Assistant] It's good to hear.

[User] Okay.

[Assistant] Share some of the intricacies of—


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

[User] Okay.

[Assistant] Share some of the intricacies of—

[User] Yes. [Laughter] How modest people don't wish to discuss things like that.

[Assistant] That's right.

[User] The aeromedical problems, they did a lot, and I used to hear about a lot of these things because I had to go to the meetings on loads, where they covered a lot of subjects. They were very interesting, too.

[Assistant] I'm sure. This was all very new, because we hadn't put men in space before. Coming up with a new design for the capsule, to do that, figuring out how to get them up there without too many little problems here and there, and getting them through it alive.


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

[User] Yes. [Laughter] How modest people don't wish to discuss things like that.

[Assistant] That's right.

[User] The aeromedical problems, they did a lot, and I used to hear about a lot of these things because I had to go to the meetings on loads, where they covered a lot of subjects. They were very interesting, too.

[Assistant] I'm sure. This was all very new, because we hadn't put men in space before. Coming up with a new design for the capsule, to do that, figuring out how to get them up there without too many little problems here and there, and getting them through it alive.

[User] Yes, yes. We took elaborate pains to see that—as far as safety was concerned. Not just structural safety, which is what I was involved in, but safety from every other aspect, too. So we would have multiple backup systems. If one system failed, we would switch to another system. We tried to have them all operating under different physical principles. I mean, if they're all electrical and you had electrical failure, you'd lose them all. So we'd have, say, an electrical one and a hydraulic and then a manual backup. So we had at least three backups for every conceivable failure that we could think of. And I think it was that meticulous attention to safety that resulted in no astronauts being killed in flight.

[Assistant] That's good. That's very good.


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

[User] The aeromedical problems, they did a lot, and I used to hear about a lot of these things because I had to go to the meetings on loads, where they covered a lot of subjects. They were very interesting, too.

[Assistant] I'm sure. This was all very new, because we hadn't put men in space before. Coming up with a new design for the capsule, to do that, figuring out how to get them up there without too many little problems here and there, and getting them through it alive.

[User] Yes, yes. We took elaborate pains to see that—as far as safety was concerned. Not just structural safety, which is what I was involved in, but safety from every other aspect, too. So we would have multiple backup systems. If one system failed, we would switch to another system. We tried to have them all operating under different physical principles. I mean, if they're all electrical and you had electrical failure, you'd lose them all. So we'd have, say, an electrical one and a hydraulic and then a manual backup. So we had at least three backups for every conceivable failure that we could think of. And I think it was that meticulous attention to safety that resulted in no astronauts being killed in flight.

[Assistant] That's good. That's very good.

[User] One of the questions farther down was, what did I find [to be] the most important thing to me, and that was that there were no structural failures that led to any death or serious injury on anything I worked on. So that was my greatest reward on the projects.

[Assistant] That's definitely rewarding.


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

[User] Yes, yes. We took elaborate pains to see that—as far as safety was concerned. Not just structural safety, which is what I was involved in, but safety from every other aspect, too. So we would have multiple backup systems. If one system failed, we would switch to another system. We tried to have them all operating under different physical principles. I mean, if they're all electrical and you had electrical failure, you'd lose them all. So we'd have, say, an electrical one and a hydraulic and then a manual backup. So we had at least three backups for every conceivable failure that we could think of. And I think it was that meticulous attention to safety that resulted in no astronauts being killed in flight.

[Assistant] That's good. That's very good.

[User] One of the questions farther down was, what did I find [to be] the most important thing to me, and that was that there were no structural failures that led to any death or serious injury on anything I worked on. So that was my greatest reward on the projects.

[Assistant] That's definitely rewarding.

[User] I had seen, at AVRO, a pilot eject at low altitude after having both wingtips break off, and he got entangled with his oxygen mask, and saw [him], or his life [support] system fall into the weeds. I didn't see it myself personally, but somebody had taken photographs on an 8-millimeter movie camera at an air show, and I analyzed those frame by frame to find out what had happened. Once you've seen that, you take your work very, very seriously.

[Assistant] Absolutely. That's a hard way to have to go about it.


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

[User] It was the simplest and most direct way to do it, and with the small lifting capacity of the Atlas, which was, I think, about the only booster they had in those days, they didn't have a lot of choice. So that became very clear. In fact, one of my chief worries on that project was that the weight would grow too high to go into orbit, and I was responsible for increasing the weight a couple of times when the radiation shingles had [to be] made of thicker material to resist burn-through on reentry, and that bothered me a lot. I did wind-tunnel tests on panel flutter, [in the] Unitary Plan Tunnel on another side of the field [at Langley]. We did tests at Daingerfield, Texas, in a Navy Hotshot Tunnel, where we actually had heated air that simulated the reentry, and you could just see it knifing though the thin panel. So we did recommend thicker ones, and they were used on the machine.

[Assistant] This is the paneling on the side?

[User] Yes, the radiation shingles. It had a beryllium heat sink on the tail cone back there, and so they actually had both kinds of heat shields. I notice you later asked about that. Walt West…supervised the tests at Daingerfield, Texas. I think he's retired now. I heard that a few years ago. I haven't heard of Bill Rogers. Do you know of him?

[Assistant] No.

[User] He may still be there, for all I know. He was a little younger than I was.

[Assistant] We can look and see what we can find.


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

[User] Yes, the radiation shingles. It had a beryllium heat sink on the tail cone back there, and so they actually had both kinds of heat shields. I notice you later asked about that. Walt West…supervised the tests at Daingerfield, Texas. I think he's retired now. I heard that a few years ago. I haven't heard of Bill Rogers. Do you know of him?

[Assistant] No.

[User] He may still be there, for all I know. He was a little younger than I was.

[Assistant] We can look and see what we can find.

[User] He could sure give you a lot of information about that period, and if you can dig up Walt West, you'll probably find him fishing on some bayou…somewhere. [Laughter] I remember he and I were running along the beach in Florida one night during one of the shots, just for exercise, and we got really hot, so I ran into the water. He came out swimming with me and came back to shore, and he says, "You know, George, that isn't a very good idea. The sharks come in to shore to feed at night." [Laughter] "Oh, thanks."

[Assistant] That's good of him to warn you, although it would have been good to know earlier. [Laughter]


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

[User] He may still be there, for all I know. He was a little younger than I was.

[Assistant] We can look and see what we can find.

[User] He could sure give you a lot of information about that period, and if you can dig up Walt West, you'll probably find him fishing on some bayou…somewhere. [Laughter] I remember he and I were running along the beach in Florida one night during one of the shots, just for exercise, and we got really hot, so I ran into the water. He came out swimming with me and came back to shore, and he says, "You know, George, that isn't a very good idea. The sharks come in to shore to feed at night." [Laughter] "Oh, thanks."

[Assistant] That's good of him to warn you, although it would have been good to know earlier. [Laughter]

[User] Yes.

[Assistant] Talking about some of the structural and talking about the Atlas a little bit, I know you weren't directly involved with the Atlas part, but did you have any concerns or was there anything you did knowing that the Atlas was having some problems with stability and being able to launch successfully and so forth? Were you at all involved in—


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

[User] It worked fine, came down on the parachute and everything. Somewhere I have a copy of a 16-millimeter movie of that, and I don't know where it is. If I find it, I'll let you know, unless you have a copy of it.

[Assistant] No, not that I'm aware of.

[User] I used it in a lecture at University of Houston on structural loads, and I ended it by saying, "And if you're not successful, this is what happens." [Laughter]

[Assistant]
[Laughter] That's a big incentive. That's great. I think we'll take a quick break here and change the tape over.

... some of the work you've been doing. At this time were you also working on the parachute work with Mercury? Was that some of what you were doing?

[User] Of course, we used parachutes, but most of the parachute design work was under John Lee, John B. Lee. Have you spoken with him?

[Assistant] No, not yet.


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

[User] Get Ken Weston and Bob Ried. I can't remember the other man's name [John Bertin]. He's now a professor at the University of Texas, has written books on aerodynamics. I should remember his name. [Laughter]

[Assistant] It'll probably come to you. That's W-E-S-T-O-N?

[User] T-O-N. Ken. A student of W. E. Moekel.

[Assistant] As we're talking about the heat shields and the stresses on entry and so forth, during John Glenn's flight there was indications of potentially the heat shield had deployed.

[User] You mean his Mercury flight.

[Assistant] His Mercury flight, yes. I guess I need to remind myself now he's had two of them. During his Mercury flight, there was indications that the heat shield had deployed and then there was talk about leaving on the retrorocket pack. Were you involved at all in looking at how that could affect his reentry?


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

[User] T-O-N. Ken. A student of W. E. Moekel.

[Assistant] As we're talking about the heat shields and the stresses on entry and so forth, during John Glenn's flight there was indications of potentially the heat shield had deployed.

[User] You mean his Mercury flight.

[Assistant] His Mercury flight, yes. I guess I need to remind myself now he's had two of them. During his Mercury flight, there was indications that the heat shield had deployed and then there was talk about leaving on the retrorocket pack. Were you involved at all in looking at how that could affect his reentry?

[User] No. I remember that now that you mention it. I hadn't remembered it. I can't remember whether they left it on or not. Did they leave it on?

[Assistant] They ended up leaving it on.


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

[User] You mean his Mercury flight.

[Assistant] His Mercury flight, yes. I guess I need to remind myself now he's had two of them. During his Mercury flight, there was indications that the heat shield had deployed and then there was talk about leaving on the retrorocket pack. Were you involved at all in looking at how that could affect his reentry?

[User] No. I remember that now that you mention it. I hadn't remembered it. I can't remember whether they left it on or not. Did they leave it on?

[Assistant] They ended up leaving it on.

[User] What was the question again?

[Assistant] I was wondering if maybe you were involved in any discussion.


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

[User] No. I remember that now that you mention it. I hadn't remembered it. I can't remember whether they left it on or not. Did they leave it on?

[Assistant] They ended up leaving it on.

[User] What was the question again?

[Assistant] I was wondering if maybe you were involved in any discussion.

[User] In the thermodynamics of that problem?

[Assistant] Even as to if they left it on, would it cause any loads or stresses that would affect—


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

[User] In the thermodynamics of that problem?

[Assistant] Even as to if they left it on, would it cause any loads or stresses that would affect—

[User] It would have to be burned off in that case, and the question is then what happens to the products of that as they impinge on the heat shield. I wasn't in on the discussions of what to do. I guess it was just it came up and was during the flight, and they had to—I couldn't remember whether they elected to come in with it on or not. They did, didn't they?

[Assistant] They did.

[User] I think what they were afraid of, and this is really speculation on my part, was that if they released the retrorocket, they might have also released the heat shield, which was deployable on a big accordion-like thing that broke the water impact shock. If that had happened and the heat shield were not attached, he's a cooked goose. [Laughter] So I can understand why they would elect to take that alternative and try it, rather than take the risk of it being fatal the other way. I guess they feel [at] the end that it really hadn't deployed, the heat shield hadn't deployed in flight.

[Assistant] Yes, I believe they found it was a faulty signal. Always better safe than sorry, I guess.


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

[User] It would have to be burned off in that case, and the question is then what happens to the products of that as they impinge on the heat shield. I wasn't in on the discussions of what to do. I guess it was just it came up and was during the flight, and they had to—I couldn't remember whether they elected to come in with it on or not. They did, didn't they?

[Assistant] They did.

[User] I think what they were afraid of, and this is really speculation on my part, was that if they released the retrorocket, they might have also released the heat shield, which was deployable on a big accordion-like thing that broke the water impact shock. If that had happened and the heat shield were not attached, he's a cooked goose. [Laughter] So I can understand why they would elect to take that alternative and try it, rather than take the risk of it being fatal the other way. I guess they feel [at] the end that it really hadn't deployed, the heat shield hadn't deployed in flight.

[Assistant] Yes, I believe they found it was a faulty signal. Always better safe than sorry, I guess.

[User] Yes, you have to do what you think is the best course of action usually of two bad choices. [Laughter]

[Assistant] Absolutely. We talked briefly about the launch escape system and that it was used at one time and did work successfully. How did you study that in relation to the capsule and how it would affect the flight and so forth?


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

[User] Probably the launch, parachute swing, and that sort of thing also…carried over.

[Assistant] You mentioned going out to Caltech. When did you go out there?

[User] '61, in the fall, and back in the spring of '62.

[Assistant] In 1961, as Mercury was just getting up to speed—

[User] That's right.

[Assistant] —President [John F.] Kennedy said, "We're going to go to the moon by the end of the decade and we're going to bring a man safely back, too." What did you think when you heard that?


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

[User] That's right.

[Assistant] —President [John F.] Kennedy said, "We're going to go to the moon by the end of the decade and we're going to bring a man safely back, too." What did you think when you heard that?

[User] Well, of course, I had known that we were planning to do that for some time, but, still, it was very stirring to hear him announce it…on a television set. But there's also sort of a little story there. John Hodge and his family were down in our back yard on Foxhill Road having a cookout or a picnic or a dinner…on a picnic table, a redwood table, I [made]. But anyway, as the moon came up over the horizon, John and I said to our wives, "That's where we're going next." It was very emotional.

[Assistant] I bet.

[User] Because we really were going to the moon.

[Assistant] That must have been something not just at that moment, but all throughout the years, as you were working on this, to see the moon most every night and see that as your target.


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

[User] Well, of course, I had known that we were planning to do that for some time, but, still, it was very stirring to hear him announce it…on a television set. But there's also sort of a little story there. John Hodge and his family were down in our back yard on Foxhill Road having a cookout or a picnic or a dinner…on a picnic table, a redwood table, I [made]. But anyway, as the moon came up over the horizon, John and I said to our wives, "That's where we're going next." It was very emotional.

[Assistant] I bet.

[User] Because we really were going to the moon.

[Assistant] That must have been something not just at that moment, but all throughout the years, as you were working on this, to see the moon most every night and see that as your target.

[User] It was a beautiful yellow moon. I remember it clearly. I remember the trees over the swamp…It was very wet, tidelands Virginia, and it was very impressive. Yes.

[Assistant] That's great. Were your families excited about the opportunity?


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

[User] Because we really were going to the moon.

[Assistant] That must have been something not just at that moment, but all throughout the years, as you were working on this, to see the moon most every night and see that as your target.

[User] It was a beautiful yellow moon. I remember it clearly. I remember the trees over the swamp…It was very wet, tidelands Virginia, and it was very impressive. Yes.

[Assistant] That's great. Were your families excited about the opportunity?

[User] Oh, I think so. They said, "Would you like some more potato salad?" [Laughter] They were used to us, of course.

[Assistant] As you were working on Mercury and Apollo, did you have any involvement with Gemini?


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

[User] It was a beautiful yellow moon. I remember it clearly. I remember the trees over the swamp…It was very wet, tidelands Virginia, and it was very impressive. Yes.

[Assistant] That's great. Were your families excited about the opportunity?

[User] Oh, I think so. They said, "Would you like some more potato salad?" [Laughter] They were used to us, of course.

[Assistant] As you were working on Mercury and Apollo, did you have any involvement with Gemini?

[User] A little bit. Jim Chamberlin was…the man behind Gemini. It was…his planning and his doing that it came into being. Dick Carley had a lot to do with it, but I had very little to do with it. [Jim] had one problem on the Gemini adapter, which…had a large piece of equipment hanging off the inside of it, and he was worried about that vibrating loose during launch. So he and I sat on a plane and calculated the dynamic response of that, with the tools that I'd developed at Caltech, on the way to Florida. We decided that it was safe. They actually instrumented it, and when they flew it they found that the vibration response was about a third of what we'd predicted, so we were quite conservative, but at least we weren't unconservative.\n\n And I knew what was going on in Gemini. At least I knew some of what was going on with Gemini, but I didn't really do any loads on Gemini. That's strange, because Jim Chamberlin—in fact, sometimes they referred to Gemini as "Jim and I." [Laughter] For Jim Chamberlin. He and I had worked very closely at AVRO since about 1951, so I had known him for a long, long time. He was always a controversial person, but he knew what he was doing. He knew what needed to be done, and he was very determined as well, but in a very nice way.

[Assistant] Very good. You've mentioned Jim Chamberlin a few times and some of the other individuals you worked with. It must have been good to work with such a group.


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

[User] I'll take a look, if that's okay.

[Assistant] Absolutely.

[User] There's this many pages, by the way.

[Assistant] Oh, my.

[User] Of notes.

[Assistant] It looks like you could be ready to put together a book of your own.


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

[User] There's this many pages, by the way.

[Assistant] Oh, my.

[User] Of notes.

[Assistant] It looks like you could be ready to put together a book of your own.

[User] Probably. I had often thought I was going to do that, so I was very glad when you came along and volunteered to relieve me of a lot of that work.

[Assistant] Well, hopefully what we do here can help you if you do decide to pursue such an avenue.


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

[User] Of notes.

[Assistant] It looks like you could be ready to put together a book of your own.

[User] Probably. I had often thought I was going to do that, so I was very glad when you came along and volunteered to relieve me of a lot of that work.

[Assistant] Well, hopefully what we do here can help you if you do decide to pursue such an avenue.

[User] To let you know what I come up with?

[Assistant] Yes, absolutely let us know what—


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

[User] Probably. I had often thought I was going to do that, so I was very glad when you came along and volunteered to relieve me of a lot of that work.

[Assistant] Well, hopefully what we do here can help you if you do decide to pursue such an avenue.

[User] To let you know what I come up with?

[Assistant] Yes, absolutely let us know what—

[User] Probably more of the philosophical things is what I would put in a work of my own, I think, if I had more time to think about them.\n\n We rented the Pregnant Guppy to fly that adapter from Huntsville to Houston. I remember the number. It cost $28,000.

[Assistant] Oh, really. That must have been interesting.


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

[User] To let you know what I come up with?

[Assistant] Yes, absolutely let us know what—

[User] Probably more of the philosophical things is what I would put in a work of my own, I think, if I had more time to think about them.\n\n We rented the Pregnant Guppy to fly that adapter from Huntsville to Houston. I remember the number. It cost $28,000.

[Assistant] Oh, really. That must have been interesting.

[User] I remember seeing it coming into view, flying along this huge, monstrous, bulbous body, and landing.

[Assistant] That must have been—of course, that has its own aerodynamic challenges.


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

[User] Probably more of the philosophical things is what I would put in a work of my own, I think, if I had more time to think about them.\n\n We rented the Pregnant Guppy to fly that adapter from Huntsville to Houston. I remember the number. It cost $28,000.

[Assistant] Oh, really. That must have been interesting.

[User] I remember seeing it coming into view, flying along this huge, monstrous, bulbous body, and landing.

[Assistant] That must have been—of course, that has its own aerodynamic challenges.

[User] Well, just another thing. Just to continue a little bit with how things developed, we didn't get into Apollo yet too much, did we here? On Apollo, when I came back from Caltech, a few—I don't remember exactly when, but a few months after that, I guess maybe a year, a few months after that, I was promoted to the branch as assistant branch chief, so I just got a little bit away from the actual daily loads work, and Milt Silveira took over my work from that point.\n\n A few other things I did. The last—okay. I was also a member of the TAG, the Technical Advisory Group, for SVAE, Shock Vibration and Associated Environments. That was a U.S. Navy civilian group with representatives from NASA Centers and a lot of naval centers that were in charge of recommending the release of classified documents related to shock and vibration. So that was kind of an interesting experience, working there. As a matter of fact, it was on a meeting with them up in California in 1964, at Asilomar up in—do you know where that is, up here at Monterey?

[Assistant] No, I haven't been up there.


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

[User] I remember seeing it coming into view, flying along this huge, monstrous, bulbous body, and landing.

[Assistant] That must have been—of course, that has its own aerodynamic challenges.

[User] Well, just another thing. Just to continue a little bit with how things developed, we didn't get into Apollo yet too much, did we here? On Apollo, when I came back from Caltech, a few—I don't remember exactly when, but a few months after that, I guess maybe a year, a few months after that, I was promoted to the branch as assistant branch chief, so I just got a little bit away from the actual daily loads work, and Milt Silveira took over my work from that point.\n\n A few other things I did. The last—okay. I was also a member of the TAG, the Technical Advisory Group, for SVAE, Shock Vibration and Associated Environments. That was a U.S. Navy civilian group with representatives from NASA Centers and a lot of naval centers that were in charge of recommending the release of classified documents related to shock and vibration. So that was kind of an interesting experience, working there. As a matter of fact, it was on a meeting with them up in California in 1964, at Asilomar up in—do you know where that is, up here at Monterey?

[Assistant] No, I haven't been up there.

[User] Monterey Peninsula. It's a beautiful place. I was walking along the beach and I found a dime on the sand, and I picked it up and I said, "Mmm, is this an omen?" And that fall I came to California. I don't know if that had a lot to do with it, but it was kind of cute.\n\n I think we've covered most of the things. My last job out there was as the assistant chief. I was also structures subsystem manager on the lunar excursion module. That was just for a few months before I left to go to Lockheed. Went to Grumman to see the machine and so forth. I also looked at—

[Assistant] What did you look at on that?


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

[User] Mostly propellant tanks at that time. The short time I was working on it, it was mostly the liquid propellant tanks, these spherical, beautifully machined and designed tanks.\n\n But one thing I would like to also mention, relative to flight tests at the Cape, one of my jobs on Mercury and Apollo was to advise flight test instrumentation for structural test purposes, so we planned that. That was one of our tasks…to review the data as it was being accumulated during the flight and then analyze it afterwards and publish the results.\n\n I'll make a comment on that, something I recommended that was never followed, and that was the structural flight test instrumentation load levels were set so that if there had been a failure, they would have recorded what happened, but most of the flights, the loads were exceedingly small, so small that the instrumentation was not sensitive enough to pick up the information. So for most of the flights the instrumentation yielded nothing of scientific value. And one of the things I recommended, but wasn't able to [implement]—I said, "Look. Let's take 10 percent of the instrumentation and set it for the levels we expect, so we can find out what's going on." You know, money being what it is, they didn't want to waste 10 percent on that. It "was seen as a waste." So they didn't follow that.

[Assistant] That's too bad. That would have been interesting, I'm sure.

[User] It would have been interesting, but whether it would have helped the project, perhaps not. Maybe they were wise to save money. But you never know. And it's the curiosity, you know. The things you learn today serve you well on the next program, wherever you are. And I perhaps was preparing for the future.

[Assistant] When you were working with Apollo, were you also involved on the selection board for picking the contractors?

[User] Yes. Yes, I was.

[Assistant] What were the criteria that you looked at?


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

[User] It would have been interesting, but whether it would have helped the project, perhaps not. Maybe they were wise to save money. But you never know. And it's the curiosity, you know. The things you learn today serve you well on the next program, wherever you are. And I perhaps was preparing for the future.

[Assistant] When you were working with Apollo, were you also involved on the selection board for picking the contractors?

[User] Yes. Yes, I was.

[Assistant] What were the criteria that you looked at?

[User] The way the proposal would come in, there was a business proposal, of course, and technical proposal. Then that technical proposal was broken up into each different discipline. I participated in the review of those dealing with structural loads, of course with a lot of other NASA scientists and so forth doing the same thing. And so that's where I played a little part in the review of the proposals.

[Assistant] When you were reviewing them, do you remember how many companies had turned in proposals?


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

[User] Yes. Yes, I was.

[Assistant] What were the criteria that you looked at?

[User] The way the proposal would come in, there was a business proposal, of course, and technical proposal. Then that technical proposal was broken up into each different discipline. I participated in the review of those dealing with structural loads, of course with a lot of other NASA scientists and so forth doing the same thing. And so that's where I played a little part in the review of the proposals.

[Assistant] When you were reviewing them, do you remember how many companies had turned in proposals?

[User] Boy, I'm trying to remember. It was about four, I think, but I really honestly don't remember. I think Lockheed [Aircraft Corporation in conjunction with McDonnell Aircraft Corporation, Hughes Aircraft Company, and Chance-Vought Corporation] turned in and, of course, North American [Aviation, Inc.], and I don't remember what the other two were now. [Three others—Grumman Aircraft Engineering Corporation in conjunction with Space Technology Laboratories, Inc., General Electric Company, and Douglas Aircraft Company; The Martin Company; and General Dynamics/Astronautics in conjunction with the Avco Corporation.]

[Assistant] I'm sure that's in the records.


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

[User] The way the proposal would come in, there was a business proposal, of course, and technical proposal. Then that technical proposal was broken up into each different discipline. I participated in the review of those dealing with structural loads, of course with a lot of other NASA scientists and so forth doing the same thing. And so that's where I played a little part in the review of the proposals.

[Assistant] When you were reviewing them, do you remember how many companies had turned in proposals?

[User] Boy, I'm trying to remember. It was about four, I think, but I really honestly don't remember. I think Lockheed [Aircraft Corporation in conjunction with McDonnell Aircraft Corporation, Hughes Aircraft Company, and Chance-Vought Corporation] turned in and, of course, North American [Aviation, Inc.], and I don't remember what the other two were now. [Three others—Grumman Aircraft Engineering Corporation in conjunction with Space Technology Laboratories, Inc., General Electric Company, and Douglas Aircraft Company; The Martin Company; and General Dynamics/Astronautics in conjunction with the Avco Corporation.]

[Assistant] I'm sure that's in the records.

[User] I'm sure it is, yes.

[Assistant] Do you remember anything that stuck out about the reports or your recommendations to it?


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

[User] I'm sure it is, yes.

[Assistant] Do you remember anything that stuck out about the reports or your recommendations to it?

[User] It seemed to be almost a universal adjudication that North American, who won, put out the worst proposal of all, and we could not understand why they were chosen. But, of course, it was for political reasons. There was a perceived need to put that money in that contract in California, I would presume. I think North American itself—I'd spoken to North American people, and they were amazed that they had won. [Laughter] That's the one significant thing I do remember about it. The only other one I remember much about or any at all about was the Lockheed one, which I thought was probably pretty good. But they [North American] did actually make it work, so it turned out.\n\n The one feeling I had about that was that I felt that they were extremely wasteful in expenditure of money, and I think that we spent probably—in my own view, maybe ten times as much money to do what we did as was necessary, and that was one of the reasons I left NASA. I did not want to be part of that anymore. That's rather painful, but I have to say that.\n\n Boilerplate Little Joe 2, I think Little Joe 2, one of those, they charged 14 million dollars for the thing and they could have got it in a shipyard for about 140,000 dollars.

[Assistant] Oh, my.

[User] It was 100 times as much. But I'd say on an average [that] on everything, they probably came out about ten times what could have been done if you'd had a really efficient organization as we had on Mercury.

[Assistant] That must have been frustrating, having seen the success of Mercury.


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

[User] It seemed to be almost a universal adjudication that North American, who won, put out the worst proposal of all, and we could not understand why they were chosen. But, of course, it was for political reasons. There was a perceived need to put that money in that contract in California, I would presume. I think North American itself—I'd spoken to North American people, and they were amazed that they had won. [Laughter] That's the one significant thing I do remember about it. The only other one I remember much about or any at all about was the Lockheed one, which I thought was probably pretty good. But they [North American] did actually make it work, so it turned out.\n\n The one feeling I had about that was that I felt that they were extremely wasteful in expenditure of money, and I think that we spent probably—in my own view, maybe ten times as much money to do what we did as was necessary, and that was one of the reasons I left NASA. I did not want to be part of that anymore. That's rather painful, but I have to say that.\n\n Boilerplate Little Joe 2, I think Little Joe 2, one of those, they charged 14 million dollars for the thing and they could have got it in a shipyard for about 140,000 dollars.

[Assistant] Oh, my.

[User] It was 100 times as much. But I'd say on an average [that] on everything, they probably came out about ten times what could have been done if you'd had a really efficient organization as we had on Mercury.

[Assistant] That must have been frustrating, having seen the success of Mercury.

[User] Yes, it really was very frustrating, but the only thing that made it, in retrospect years later, seem not so bad was that they spent four times as much bombing the hell out of Vietnam, and this was an infinitely better way to spend the money.

[Assistant] That's true. That's really true. It's much better to spend it on such a good goal, to get to the moon.


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

[User] It was 100 times as much. But I'd say on an average [that] on everything, they probably came out about ten times what could have been done if you'd had a really efficient organization as we had on Mercury.

[Assistant] That must have been frustrating, having seen the success of Mercury.

[User] Yes, it really was very frustrating, but the only thing that made it, in retrospect years later, seem not so bad was that they spent four times as much bombing the hell out of Vietnam, and this was an infinitely better way to spend the money.

[Assistant] That's true. That's really true. It's much better to spend it on such a good goal, to get to the moon.

[User] Yes. But also now it's part of history and that's what I noticed about it. Of course, I was very young then. I was about half the age I am now. I must admit I have mellowed a bit since then and don't feel so strongly about that, but just for the record, that's the way I felt at that time. I don't know if many others did. Maybe it's my Scottish background, I'm not sure.

[Assistant] Maybe so. Were there other reasons that you did decide to move on from NASA?


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

[User] I didn't know him, I don't think. But Owen, he and I were in a car pool, I remember, when he first started to work at AVRO. He and I rode together in a little Morris Minor, if you can imagine, smaller than a Volkswagen, English car.

[Assistant] Oh, my.

[User] And there were four of us in it. So I've known Owen for a long time. He always loves to kid me. He used to say of me, "I'm as strong as an ox and every bit as clever." [Laughter]

[Assistant] [Laughter] Oh, my.

[User] But we had a lot of fun. He actually looked after the design of the Gemini—not the Gemini, the lunar excursion module. He pretty well was in charge of the design of the lunar excursion module, [and] he did an excellent job on that, too.

[Assistant] We'll be sure to ask him about that when we do get a chance to sit down with him.


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

[User] And there were four of us in it. So I've known Owen for a long time. He always loves to kid me. He used to say of me, "I'm as strong as an ox and every bit as clever." [Laughter]

[Assistant] [Laughter] Oh, my.

[User] But we had a lot of fun. He actually looked after the design of the Gemini—not the Gemini, the lunar excursion module. He pretty well was in charge of the design of the lunar excursion module, [and] he did an excellent job on that, too.

[Assistant] We'll be sure to ask him about that when we do get a chance to sit down with him.

[User] You tell him he's no longer as strong as an ox, but still just as clever. [Laughter]

[Assistant] Okay. [Laughter] We'll be glad to do that. We'll be glad to.\n\n Did you ever work down at the Manned Spacecraft Center or did you leave NASA as they were—


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

[User] But we had a lot of fun. He actually looked after the design of the Gemini—not the Gemini, the lunar excursion module. He pretty well was in charge of the design of the lunar excursion module, [and] he did an excellent job on that, too.

[Assistant] We'll be sure to ask him about that when we do get a chance to sit down with him.

[User] You tell him he's no longer as strong as an ox, but still just as clever. [Laughter]

[Assistant] Okay. [Laughter] We'll be glad to do that. We'll be glad to.\n\n Did you ever work down at the Manned Spacecraft Center or did you leave NASA as they were—

[User] No. No, when I returned from Caltech, I went to Houston, so I worked there for the next two and a half years or so. That's where we did the Apollo adapter and a few of the other things.

[Assistant] What was it like to come down to Houston? Here you'd come from Canada, then to Virginia, now all the way down south to Houston.


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

[User] Yes. And at that time the oil refineries, in the wintertime, used to just pump pollution into the atmosphere until it wouldn't hold any more, I think. I remember one day in the middle of winter, going out. We lived in—where did we live at that time? We lived just north of the old airport. That was\n\n the\n\n airport at that time. The houses had little white pillars out in front and all that sort of thing. The next day after this tremendous, terrible bout of smog or whatever it was, in which my wife collapsed and fell face forward into a bowl of cereal on the table—

[Assistant] Oh, my!

[User] —I noticed that all the white paint had turned gray. [Laughter]

[Assistant] Oh, my.

[User] So it was really bad. But the summers were very nice. The vertical convection carried all that away and we were hot, but it was very nice. The most beautiful clouds I've ever seen were in Houston. So we were adapting to it, finally, but California beckoned. [Laughter]

[Assistant] California still has some nice weather.


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

[User] —I noticed that all the white paint had turned gray. [Laughter]

[Assistant] Oh, my.

[User] So it was really bad. But the summers were very nice. The vertical convection carried all that away and we were hot, but it was very nice. The most beautiful clouds I've ever seen were in Houston. So we were adapting to it, finally, but California beckoned. [Laughter]

[Assistant] California still has some nice weather.

[User] I had somebody apply to work in Houston from California. We didn't hire him, and the reason for that was, [he] said, as a reason for wanting to work there he was trying to escape from his wife. [Laughter] So when [we] move[d] to California with the high divorce rate, I thought, well, I'd better start treating Norma a lot better. [Laughter]

[Assistant] I'm sure she would appreciate the thought.


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

[User] I had somebody apply to work in Houston from California. We didn't hire him, and the reason for that was, [he] said, as a reason for wanting to work there he was trying to escape from his wife. [Laughter] So when [we] move[d] to California with the high divorce rate, I thought, well, I'd better start treating Norma a lot better. [Laughter]

[Assistant] I'm sure she would appreciate the thought.

[User] She had visited Los Angeles in 1948 when she was just a young girl, on a tour around the country, and she said she hoped she never lived there. It was really smoggy in those days. They used to burn garbage in incinerators, and there's an inversion layer that traps all that stuff about a couple of thousand feet below that altitude. And if you climb to the tops of these mountains around here, you can see where the layer begins. Of course, inversion layer is caused by the Earth not being heated enough to [produce] vertical convection to carry that stuff away, so the more socked in it gets down there, the sun reaches the ground less and less and it really is stable. So it used to be really terrible. They've cleaned it up enormously since then.

[Assistant] That's good.

[User] And out here, of course, we're outside of that, a valley ringed by mountains. So it's not bad. I got a lot into meteorology, and I hope to give a course on meteorology for airplane designers before too long.

[Assistant] That should be fascinating.


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

[User] And out here, of course, we're outside of that, a valley ringed by mountains. So it's not bad. I got a lot into meteorology, and I hope to give a course on meteorology for airplane designers before too long.

[Assistant] That should be fascinating.

[User] Surprising. They don't know a lot about the sea they sail through, and they should.

[Assistant] Absolutely. Absolutely.

[User] I think I strayed from your question, didn't I?

[Assistant] No. We were talking about Houston.


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

[User] Surprising. They don't know a lot about the sea they sail through, and they should.

[Assistant] Absolutely. Absolutely.

[User] I think I strayed from your question, didn't I?

[Assistant] No. We were talking about Houston.

[User] Yes. Houston. That was before the Space Center was built. I guess I was there when they were planning it and during the planning and doing all the other work as well.

[Assistant] Do you remember whereabouts in Houston you were posted at the time?


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

[User] I think I strayed from your question, didn't I?

[Assistant] No. We were talking about Houston.

[User] Yes. Houston. That was before the Space Center was built. I guess I was there when they were planning it and during the planning and doing all the other work as well.

[Assistant] Do you remember whereabouts in Houston you were posted at the time?

[User] It was in a motel that was converted into offices. It was a brand-new motel that had never been opened, and it was on a little creek. I've forgotten the name of it. It was a brand-new system and they just left out some of the walls and made them into offices. Gilruth's office was in a great palatial plant, an office, single-story. I shouldn't have said "palatial." It was very elegant, but it was not extravagant. It was within walking distance of where our motel was, where we had our offices.\n\n I remember I wanted to walk up and talk to him one day, and while I was walking, it started pouring rain. I was wearing one of these new wash-and-wear suits in those days, and I was soaked right through the skin when I walked into his office. [I] said, "I'm afraid I've been taking some liberties," and he looked shocked when I said that. "With the wash-and-wear concept." [Laughter]

[Assistant] [Laughter] Oh, my.


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

[User] Yes. Houston. That was before the Space Center was built. I guess I was there when they were planning it and during the planning and doing all the other work as well.

[Assistant] Do you remember whereabouts in Houston you were posted at the time?

[User] It was in a motel that was converted into offices. It was a brand-new motel that had never been opened, and it was on a little creek. I've forgotten the name of it. It was a brand-new system and they just left out some of the walls and made them into offices. Gilruth's office was in a great palatial plant, an office, single-story. I shouldn't have said "palatial." It was very elegant, but it was not extravagant. It was within walking distance of where our motel was, where we had our offices.\n\n I remember I wanted to walk up and talk to him one day, and while I was walking, it started pouring rain. I was wearing one of these new wash-and-wear suits in those days, and I was soaked right through the skin when I walked into his office. [I] said, "I'm afraid I've been taking some liberties," and he looked shocked when I said that. "With the wash-and-wear concept." [Laughter]

[Assistant] [Laughter] Oh, my.

[User] We had a lot of fun. It was a lot of fun.

[Assistant] Talking about Dr. Gilruth, did you work with him frequently, on a daily basis?


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

[User] We had a lot of fun. It was a lot of fun.

[Assistant] Talking about Dr. Gilruth, did you work with him frequently, on a daily basis?

[User] Not on a daily basis. Well, a weekly basis. There was a meeting that he presided over at the Capsule Coordination Office. He was usually there. Max [Faget] was there, Bob Piland, too. Yes, I knew him very well. In fact, I'm not sure whether it was that day or another day, he was flying to Washington [DC], and I had to go to Washington. He said, "Well, come with me," and he took me in his private airplane, or his NASA Gulfstream, and we flew there. We actually made it in this turbine propeller-driven airplane faster than the jet transports, because we could go right close to our destination and take off very close. He and I were the only two passengers on it that day.

[Assistant] That's nice.

[User] He was a very, very fine gentleman. I have some reports right here that he wrote when he was in NACA around 1938 on an airplane roll, what constitutes adequate roll rates in aircraft, an NACA report he'd written.\n\n I remember going to some of the meetings. I will tell you this because it was true. The aeromedical people were there giving a dissertation or a talk on the progress they'd made, and they had all these wonderful things they were doing and so forth. He got a little bit tired of all this. When they were telling him about putting a new sensor they had for body temperature they could put in their mouths, he said, "In two years, all you guys have done is taken the thermocouple and taken it out of their asses and stuck it in their mouths." [Laughter] I don't know if I should be letting all this sort of stuff out, but these are things that really happened.

[Assistant] It adds some of the human interest to the story.


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

[User] Not on a daily basis. Well, a weekly basis. There was a meeting that he presided over at the Capsule Coordination Office. He was usually there. Max [Faget] was there, Bob Piland, too. Yes, I knew him very well. In fact, I'm not sure whether it was that day or another day, he was flying to Washington [DC], and I had to go to Washington. He said, "Well, come with me," and he took me in his private airplane, or his NASA Gulfstream, and we flew there. We actually made it in this turbine propeller-driven airplane faster than the jet transports, because we could go right close to our destination and take off very close. He and I were the only two passengers on it that day.

[Assistant] That's nice.

[User] He was a very, very fine gentleman. I have some reports right here that he wrote when he was in NACA around 1938 on an airplane roll, what constitutes adequate roll rates in aircraft, an NACA report he'd written.\n\n I remember going to some of the meetings. I will tell you this because it was true. The aeromedical people were there giving a dissertation or a talk on the progress they'd made, and they had all these wonderful things they were doing and so forth. He got a little bit tired of all this. When they were telling him about putting a new sensor they had for body temperature they could put in their mouths, he said, "In two years, all you guys have done is taken the thermocouple and taken it out of their asses and stuck it in their mouths." [Laughter] I don't know if I should be letting all this sort of stuff out, but these are things that really happened.

[Assistant] It adds some of the human interest to the story.

[User] Of course, the aeromedical people weren't enthusiastic about that response. [Laughter]

[Assistant] [Laughter] Oh, my. He seems like he had a good sense of humor.


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

[User] He was a very, very fine gentleman. I have some reports right here that he wrote when he was in NACA around 1938 on an airplane roll, what constitutes adequate roll rates in aircraft, an NACA report he'd written.\n\n I remember going to some of the meetings. I will tell you this because it was true. The aeromedical people were there giving a dissertation or a talk on the progress they'd made, and they had all these wonderful things they were doing and so forth. He got a little bit tired of all this. When they were telling him about putting a new sensor they had for body temperature they could put in their mouths, he said, "In two years, all you guys have done is taken the thermocouple and taken it out of their asses and stuck it in their mouths." [Laughter] I don't know if I should be letting all this sort of stuff out, but these are things that really happened.

[Assistant] It adds some of the human interest to the story.

[User] Of course, the aeromedical people weren't enthusiastic about that response. [Laughter]

[Assistant] [Laughter] Oh, my. He seems like he had a good sense of humor.

[User] Oh, yes. And he was very responsible, too. He listened to everybody. Bob Gilruth.

[Assistant] I've heard a lot of good things about him. It's good to hear.


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

[User] As a matter of fact, if you go over to the Space Museum over in New Mexico—what's the name of the place, where they did some of the launch testing, I think, there?

[Assistant] White Sands?

[User] Just right next door to White [Sands]—Alamagordo. They've got some nice write-ups on Gilruth and Max Faget and a few of the others in there, as well as all the other rocket scientists that ever tested or had their things tested out there. It's a worthwhile place to go some day. You get some visual views as to what was going on. They have a Little Joe 2 rocket mounted outside of the building.

[Assistant] That's good.

[User] On a stand.

[Assistant] That's where they were testing those, from that region. That's good.


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

[User] Just right next door to White [Sands]—Alamagordo. They've got some nice write-ups on Gilruth and Max Faget and a few of the others in there, as well as all the other rocket scientists that ever tested or had their things tested out there. It's a worthwhile place to go some day. You get some visual views as to what was going on. They have a Little Joe 2 rocket mounted outside of the building.

[Assistant] That's good.

[User] On a stand.

[Assistant] That's where they were testing those, from that region. That's good.

[User] I had to do the loads on those things, too, of course. And kind of interesting, we were firing—I can't remember whether it was the one for Mercury or the one for Apollo, but we were worried about flutter of the fins and NASA engineers had done some flutter analyses and said, "Nah, they're fine." And the next time [we] fired one of these things—it had four rockets and they were supposed to be fired one after the other, but somehow or other, I don't know how this could have happened, but apparently two of the rockets ignited the other two, and so the whole thing went off together at one time. The thing went to very, very high dynamic pressures. I mean, like four times the dynamic pressure they were supposed to have had. [They] said it wouldn't flutter up to that speed [but] there was no need to test it. [Laughter] We did have fun.

[Assistant] That's good. Talking about fun and interesting events, after you left, we did finally get to the moon and landed on the moon. Do you remember watching Apollo 11 or where you were at the time?


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

[User] On a stand.

[Assistant] That's where they were testing those, from that region. That's good.

[User] I had to do the loads on those things, too, of course. And kind of interesting, we were firing—I can't remember whether it was the one for Mercury or the one for Apollo, but we were worried about flutter of the fins and NASA engineers had done some flutter analyses and said, "Nah, they're fine." And the next time [we] fired one of these things—it had four rockets and they were supposed to be fired one after the other, but somehow or other, I don't know how this could have happened, but apparently two of the rockets ignited the other two, and so the whole thing went off together at one time. The thing went to very, very high dynamic pressures. I mean, like four times the dynamic pressure they were supposed to have had. [They] said it wouldn't flutter up to that speed [but] there was no need to test it. [Laughter] We did have fun.

[Assistant] That's good. Talking about fun and interesting events, after you left, we did finally get to the moon and landed on the moon. Do you remember watching Apollo 11 or where you were at the time?

[User] Yes. I don't remember exactly where I was, but I remember I took several days off work to watch it, because it was probably the most significant event in human history, I think, in the technical human history, anyway. It was very stirring, as well as exciting and scary and everything else. I'd been out of there for several years by the time that took place. I left at the end of '64, and I think that was, what, about '68?

[Assistant] '69. Must have been rewarding to see that something you had put so many year into—