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

[User] No, they were all in the same room. They were just, you know, these students would be facing east and these students would be facing west and these students would be facing. And the, you know, they're all trying, they're all focused on their teacher and trying to understand what she's saying. And sometimes the teachers would coordinate kind of a quiet activity, having the children read over here, of all these children are being lectured to. But sometimes all four teachers were lecturing at once and the students are trying to help one another, so they're a little bit noisy. They were really, there were essentially no discipline problems in school. The kids just loved going to school.

[Assistant] Yeah.

[User] And their idea of being educated was to be very quiet. They didn't always understand what the teacher was saying, especially since they didn't have a good program from transition from English to Sesotho.

[Assistant] Uh huh.

[User] So some of the children, especially the girls, were left behind almost immediately.

[Assistant] The teachers were speaking English?


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

[User] So some of the children, especially the girls, were left behind almost immediately.

[Assistant] The teachers were speaking English?

[User] They did speak English. And sometimes I wondered, was it just because I was there? And if that was the case, I could tell immediately because the students weren't used to English being spoken.

[Assistant] Uh huh.

[User] But generally, you know, by at least fourth and fifth grade, they were, they were supposed to be teaching in English all the time. And since kids helped one another, they, you know. They, they, it was an immersion, it was an immersion English program. Yeah.

[Assistant] And what sort of materials would the teacher? Was there a chalkboard and chalk, were the textbooks?


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

[User] They did speak English. And sometimes I wondered, was it just because I was there? And if that was the case, I could tell immediately because the students weren't used to English being spoken.

[Assistant] Uh huh.

[User] But generally, you know, by at least fourth and fifth grade, they were, they were supposed to be teaching in English all the time. And since kids helped one another, they, you know. They, they, it was an immersion, it was an immersion English program. Yeah.

[Assistant] And what sort of materials would the teacher? Was there a chalkboard and chalk, were the textbooks?

[User]
There was, the teacher had a textbook. The kids either didn't have them or else they were a set of textbooks kept in the principal's office under lock and key, would only be taken out on special occasions and were at all costs supposed to be kept clean. That was more important than anyone would even use them. There were very few teachers that used textbooks, the classroom set, every day. They might use them once a week, and they might only use the science textbooks once a week. They wouldn't use all the textbooks once a week. And they had a chalkboard. But the chalkboards needed to be painted with a resurfacing, which costs like $50. That would have been one of the best gifts for schools to get. That you take the chalk and it wouldn't stick to the board. It just slides off because it's so, so useless.

Yeah, the kids didn't have little things themselves. The kids were supposed to have a pencil and the teachers would frequently send them home to get their pencil if they forgot it. They were tired of hearing the kids forgot their pencil because the, the Department of Education issued them a pencil or two pencils and a notebook at the beginning of the school year, and they were told that they were responsible for their pencils. And there would be boxes of pencils locked up under the key, but they would still make the kid go home.

[Assistant] Go home and get that pencil.


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

[User]
There was, the teacher had a textbook. The kids either didn't have them or else they were a set of textbooks kept in the principal's office under lock and key, would only be taken out on special occasions and were at all costs supposed to be kept clean. That was more important than anyone would even use them. There were very few teachers that used textbooks, the classroom set, every day. They might use them once a week, and they might only use the science textbooks once a week. They wouldn't use all the textbooks once a week. And they had a chalkboard. But the chalkboards needed to be painted with a resurfacing, which costs like $50. That would have been one of the best gifts for schools to get. That you take the chalk and it wouldn't stick to the board. It just slides off because it's so, so useless.

Yeah, the kids didn't have little things themselves. The kids were supposed to have a pencil and the teachers would frequently send them home to get their pencil if they forgot it. They were tired of hearing the kids forgot their pencil because the, the Department of Education issued them a pencil or two pencils and a notebook at the beginning of the school year, and they were told that they were responsible for their pencils. And there would be boxes of pencils locked up under the key, but they would still make the kid go home.

[Assistant] Go home and get that pencil.

[User] And they would miss, of course, the whole day of school, you know, because they, the kids walked miles to school. They, they really walked. Teachers walked. It's not quite like Nepal, like a walking country, but it's, there are just not roads or people can't afford motorized transportation to, to places.

[Assistant] And the teachers were expected to teach their children some math?

[User] There was a curriculum. There was a national curriculum.

[Assistant] Yeah, yeah. And the social studies, maybe map reading?


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

[User] There was a curriculum. There was a national curriculum.

[Assistant] Yeah, yeah. And the social studies, maybe map reading?

[User] No, no one knew what a map was, including the teachers. Yeah. What was social studies? Um, social studies was that people have different jobs. Some people are farmers, some people are, you know, they would talk about the jobs in the city or that there are cities and there are country people or. Yeah. And we get, we depend on animals for our food, we have. They would draw a map of Lesotho. Yeah. Yeah. It was, uh, it was not a, a thrilling curriculum. So I did really learn how inferior, you know, you might have a millennium challenge goal to have all children have eighth grade or six years of schooling. But that does not mean that sixth grade, a sixth grader in America does what a sixth grader in Lesotho does.

[Assistant] Right.

[User] Yeah. So seeing how inferior education was, and then the kids would be, might be a couple of years behind. And then high school, which started at eighth grade, was a fee based.

[Assistant] And would it be a boarding school? To go to high school, did they have to spend a week someplace else?


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

[User] No, no one knew what a map was, including the teachers. Yeah. What was social studies? Um, social studies was that people have different jobs. Some people are farmers, some people are, you know, they would talk about the jobs in the city or that there are cities and there are country people or. Yeah. And we get, we depend on animals for our food, we have. They would draw a map of Lesotho. Yeah. Yeah. It was, uh, it was not a, a thrilling curriculum. So I did really learn how inferior, you know, you might have a millennium challenge goal to have all children have eighth grade or six years of schooling. But that does not mean that sixth grade, a sixth grader in America does what a sixth grader in Lesotho does.

[Assistant] Right.

[User] Yeah. So seeing how inferior education was, and then the kids would be, might be a couple of years behind. And then high school, which started at eighth grade, was a fee based.

[Assistant] And would it be a boarding school? To go to high school, did they have to spend a week someplace else?

[User] Yeah. Some were boarding schools. The one up the hill from me was pretty much a boarding school. Some kids walked, but a lot of kids were there.

[Assistant] So if it was fee based, only those who had money could send their children.


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

[User] Yeah. So seeing how inferior education was, and then the kids would be, might be a couple of years behind. And then high school, which started at eighth grade, was a fee based.

[Assistant] And would it be a boarding school? To go to high school, did they have to spend a week someplace else?

[User] Yeah. Some were boarding schools. The one up the hill from me was pretty much a boarding school. Some kids walked, but a lot of kids were there.

[Assistant] So if it was fee based, only those who had money could send their children.

[User] Right. And it's pretty, I've been paying $416 a year for a couple of kids to go to school. But that, that's a chunk. You know, even just for me, $400 a year for a couple of kids and so on. It's almost imaginable, unimaginable, how kids. Yeah.

[Assistant] What a sacrifice for them.


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

[User] Yeah. Some were boarding schools. The one up the hill from me was pretty much a boarding school. Some kids walked, but a lot of kids were there.

[Assistant] So if it was fee based, only those who had money could send their children.

[User] Right. And it's pretty, I've been paying $416 a year for a couple of kids to go to school. But that, that's a chunk. You know, even just for me, $400 a year for a couple of kids and so on. It's almost imaginable, unimaginable, how kids. Yeah.

[Assistant] What a sacrifice for them.

[User] Yeah. So it was like, you know, really just such a small group of kids, less than 50 percent, maybe like 20 percent went to high school and then half of those didn't pass. The passing grade is like 20 percent or 30 percent. They were really low standards, but still kids didn't pass.

[Assistant] I'm trying to imagine what, I'm trying to imagine being you and arriving at the school and walking in the classroom door. What on earth do you do? What? Um. You want to move the teacher a little bit in a new direction somehow. But the teacher has virtually nothing to work with.


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

[User] Right. And it's pretty, I've been paying $416 a year for a couple of kids to go to school. But that, that's a chunk. You know, even just for me, $400 a year for a couple of kids and so on. It's almost imaginable, unimaginable, how kids. Yeah.

[Assistant] What a sacrifice for them.

[User] Yeah. So it was like, you know, really just such a small group of kids, less than 50 percent, maybe like 20 percent went to high school and then half of those didn't pass. The passing grade is like 20 percent or 30 percent. They were really low standards, but still kids didn't pass.

[Assistant] I'm trying to imagine what, I'm trying to imagine being you and arriving at the school and walking in the classroom door. What on earth do you do? What? Um. You want to move the teacher a little bit in a new direction somehow. But the teacher has virtually nothing to work with.

[User] Mm hmm.

[Assistant] What was your, how did you see your role and what did you do with your time in that during? You'd be there for a couple of hours and then you'd go away unless you were spending the night. What did you do?


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

[User] Mm hmm.

[Assistant] What was your, how did you see your role and what did you do with your time in that during? You'd be there for a couple of hours and then you'd go away unless you were spending the night. What did you do?

[User] Well, you're. You've kind of hit on it in that I didn't have an extensive exposure to the teacher, so my longest exposure would be when they came to campus.

[Assistant] Yeah.

[User] In Maseru. And we weren't able to do enough of what we wanted to do. We wanted to show the teachers how teaching can be done. But the way the curriculum was focused was just kind of questions and answers and, you know, the test was coming up next week. So they had to cram through their 12 chapters of social studies or something like that.

[Assistant] So from the teachers' point of view, what the reason they were going into Maseru for your classes was to.


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

[User] Well, you're. You've kind of hit on it in that I didn't have an extensive exposure to the teacher, so my longest exposure would be when they came to campus.

[Assistant] Yeah.

[User] In Maseru. And we weren't able to do enough of what we wanted to do. We wanted to show the teachers how teaching can be done. But the way the curriculum was focused was just kind of questions and answers and, you know, the test was coming up next week. So they had to cram through their 12 chapters of social studies or something like that.

[Assistant] So from the teachers' point of view, what the reason they were going into Maseru for your classes was to.

[User] Get their degree.

[Assistant] Do test prep.


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

[User] Get their degree.

[Assistant] Do test prep.

[User] Uh huh. They'd get their degree and then their salary would go up.

[Assistant] Oh, yeah.

[User] So they were very motivated, um, but we wanted to show them more techniques so we would have these kind of little education fairs and we would invite all of the, the, um, teachers, Peace Corps volunteers, to help us. But it was, it was, those were optional. And so they were so-so attended. Some of them were well attended and people were interested. They would attend something once, but that was cutting into their free time. And that was my big chance for, for making different points. And what I would try to do at that point was to teach, demonstrate the way I taught, instead of lecture to them, have them do pair work or, you know. And then say, now your kids won't be doing pair work about development studies, but they can do pair work about many things, like what's an example, what kind of pair work could you do?

[Assistant] And then you have to get them.


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

[User] So they were very motivated, um, but we wanted to show them more techniques so we would have these kind of little education fairs and we would invite all of the, the, um, teachers, Peace Corps volunteers, to help us. But it was, it was, those were optional. And so they were so-so attended. Some of them were well attended and people were interested. They would attend something once, but that was cutting into their free time. And that was my big chance for, for making different points. And what I would try to do at that point was to teach, demonstrate the way I taught, instead of lecture to them, have them do pair work or, you know. And then say, now your kids won't be doing pair work about development studies, but they can do pair work about many things, like what's an example, what kind of pair work could you do?

[Assistant] And then you have to get them.

[User] But still, this is 100 people, you know, that you're, that you're, that you're working with. But anyway, yeah, so that was my biggest chance. When I came to see them, they were usually just really, really frightened because I was supposed to, quote, evaluate them.

[Assistant] Mm hmm.

[User] So to relax them, the first, the first time, I would just try to be a human being and I would really try to see what they were doing. You know, you can't really evaluate what you haven't yet seen. And then there was this funny thing that I would arrive in the evening or, you know, in the late afternoon. School would be out. And they would fix me dinner and then I would sleep with them in the same bed.

[Assistant] In their home? Oh, in the same bed?


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

[User] You know, kind of know your strengths. And then pretty soon they'd be just begging, well, tell me at least one thing I could do differently.

[Assistant] Better, yeah.

[User] And on a separate sheet, more like for myself, I would have pages of notes of things that she could or should be doing, but I would try to pick like a game or something. And then I would try to, um, like I would give her immediate feedback because it was usually lunch time and the kids would be coming back in. So then in the afternoon I would try to do the games and show, you know, show her how she could do those things.

[Assistant] Yeah.

[User] And usually we either didn't have time to prepare exactly, but after a while I started taking vocabulary cards in sets of 20 in my backpack. So I'd say, well, let's, let's do the vocabulary, you know. And I would just. Didn't always work out because sometimes my teacher was a sixth grade teacher and sometimes was a second grade teacher and didn't always know in advance. But would try to make suggestions for those kind of things. And they thought those things were fun. But, you know, those were drop in the bucket kind of, you know, you don't really change your whole teaching philosophy with a, um, you know, one visit.

[Assistant] One visit. Right.


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

[User] And on a separate sheet, more like for myself, I would have pages of notes of things that she could or should be doing, but I would try to pick like a game or something. And then I would try to, um, like I would give her immediate feedback because it was usually lunch time and the kids would be coming back in. So then in the afternoon I would try to do the games and show, you know, show her how she could do those things.

[Assistant] Yeah.

[User] And usually we either didn't have time to prepare exactly, but after a while I started taking vocabulary cards in sets of 20 in my backpack. So I'd say, well, let's, let's do the vocabulary, you know. And I would just. Didn't always work out because sometimes my teacher was a sixth grade teacher and sometimes was a second grade teacher and didn't always know in advance. But would try to make suggestions for those kind of things. And they thought those things were fun. But, you know, those were drop in the bucket kind of, you know, you don't really change your whole teaching philosophy with a, um, you know, one visit.

[Assistant] One visit. Right.

[User] But, you know, the idea of beating children, you know. Or what to do with naughty children, that kind of thing. We would talk about how good teaching eliminates discipline problems or how to use the kids' energy and.

[Assistant] Yeah. Yeah, yeah.


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

[User] And usually we either didn't have time to prepare exactly, but after a while I started taking vocabulary cards in sets of 20 in my backpack. So I'd say, well, let's, let's do the vocabulary, you know. And I would just. Didn't always work out because sometimes my teacher was a sixth grade teacher and sometimes was a second grade teacher and didn't always know in advance. But would try to make suggestions for those kind of things. And they thought those things were fun. But, you know, those were drop in the bucket kind of, you know, you don't really change your whole teaching philosophy with a, um, you know, one visit.

[Assistant] One visit. Right.

[User] But, you know, the idea of beating children, you know. Or what to do with naughty children, that kind of thing. We would talk about how good teaching eliminates discipline problems or how to use the kids' energy and.

[Assistant] Yeah. Yeah, yeah.

[User] They were awesome though. I so admired my teachers and I think my admiration really, really showed. And yeah, so people really looked forward to my visits and if I skipped someone for some reason, they were really hurt and insulted and wanted to know when I was going to do my makeup visit and.

[Assistant] I'm guessing that all this came from within yourself, that Peace Corps training didn't teach you how to use this approach of focusing on the positive and all that. I think you brought that with you.


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

[User] But, you know, the idea of beating children, you know. Or what to do with naughty children, that kind of thing. We would talk about how good teaching eliminates discipline problems or how to use the kids' energy and.

[Assistant] Yeah. Yeah, yeah.

[User] They were awesome though. I so admired my teachers and I think my admiration really, really showed. And yeah, so people really looked forward to my visits and if I skipped someone for some reason, they were really hurt and insulted and wanted to know when I was going to do my makeup visit and.

[Assistant] I'm guessing that all this came from within yourself, that Peace Corps training didn't teach you how to use this approach of focusing on the positive and all that. I think you brought that with you.

[User] Yeah, somewhat. Somewhat. Although my friend Craig, I think he also was very, very positive with his teachers. You know, we didn't want to go in and be, and be hard ass. And it was hard, you know, in this kind of factory, factory education system. And what they really learned is they learned a lot from one another when they came to the campus. They would say, you know, I hate teaching science. How do you do it?

[Assistant] Oh, yeah, yeah.


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

[User] Yeah, somewhat. Somewhat. Although my friend Craig, I think he also was very, very positive with his teachers. You know, we didn't want to go in and be, and be hard ass. And it was hard, you know, in this kind of factory, factory education system. And what they really learned is they learned a lot from one another when they came to the campus. They would say, you know, I hate teaching science. How do you do it?

[Assistant] Oh, yeah, yeah.

[User] And then someone would say, oh, I've got this really good lesson. I went to one science lesson and it was like how detergent keeps, gets your clothes clean. And this was kind of the before and the after.

[Assistant] Uh huh.

[User] You know, I just sort of. Things were so basic, you know, I never thought of that as, you know, like, well, it definitely is science.

[Assistant] Yeah, right, right. In the laundry room. Did Peace Corps come up and visit you, or Peace Corps staff, to see how you were doing, find out what you needed, help you any?


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

[User] And then someone would say, oh, I've got this really good lesson. I went to one science lesson and it was like how detergent keeps, gets your clothes clean. And this was kind of the before and the after.

[Assistant] Uh huh.

[User] You know, I just sort of. Things were so basic, you know, I never thought of that as, you know, like, well, it definitely is science.

[Assistant] Yeah, right, right. In the laundry room. Did Peace Corps come up and visit you, or Peace Corps staff, to see how you were doing, find out what you needed, help you any?

[User] They did, but they never. They were never willing to hike 3 hours to see me at one of my schools. So I can't remember whether they ever did that. They had to do it kind of when it was convenient for them. They had, they had to see several people on the road so they would see the couple down, you know, 20 miles down after me. So they would spend like a couple of hours with me and then a couple. So usually I remember when they happened to come, I would be in my rondavel and they would talk to Me Ma Bokong, and they would talk to me either separately or together. And I might sit down and tell them how things were going, but I don't think they really saw me at work that much.

[Assistant] Did they ask you questions?


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

[User] You know, I just sort of. Things were so basic, you know, I never thought of that as, you know, like, well, it definitely is science.

[Assistant] Yeah, right, right. In the laundry room. Did Peace Corps come up and visit you, or Peace Corps staff, to see how you were doing, find out what you needed, help you any?

[User] They did, but they never. They were never willing to hike 3 hours to see me at one of my schools. So I can't remember whether they ever did that. They had to do it kind of when it was convenient for them. They had, they had to see several people on the road so they would see the couple down, you know, 20 miles down after me. So they would spend like a couple of hours with me and then a couple. So usually I remember when they happened to come, I would be in my rondavel and they would talk to Me Ma Bokong, and they would talk to me either separately or together. And I might sit down and tell them how things were going, but I don't think they really saw me at work that much.

[Assistant] Did they ask you questions?

[User] Yeah, they did.

[Assistant] Did they offer to help with, uh, how could they have helped?


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

[User] They did, but they never. They were never willing to hike 3 hours to see me at one of my schools. So I can't remember whether they ever did that. They had to do it kind of when it was convenient for them. They had, they had to see several people on the road so they would see the couple down, you know, 20 miles down after me. So they would spend like a couple of hours with me and then a couple. So usually I remember when they happened to come, I would be in my rondavel and they would talk to Me Ma Bokong, and they would talk to me either separately or together. And I might sit down and tell them how things were going, but I don't think they really saw me at work that much.

[Assistant] Did they ask you questions?

[User] Yeah, they did.

[Assistant] Did they offer to help with, uh, how could they have helped?

[User] I think, you know, as much as, as much as they could help they did, you know.

[Assistant] Was it, was there any, was there ever discussion of Peace Corps somehow procuring funds to get that chalkboard, paint the blackboard?


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

[User] Yeah, they did.

[Assistant] Did they offer to help with, uh, how could they have helped?

[User] I think, you know, as much as, as much as they could help they did, you know.

[Assistant] Was it, was there any, was there ever discussion of Peace Corps somehow procuring funds to get that chalkboard, paint the blackboard?

[User] No.

[Assistant] Or chalk or notebooks or pencils or? It wasn't providing materials?


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

[User] Yeah, we did that. We probably did that in 4 to 6 places, and that was good.

[Assistant] Sounds wonderful. So. So you're in contact with other Peace Corps volunteers and that sort of setting. For the, I get the sense that for the most part, you are quite alone in your site up there.

[User] I had a wonderful volunteer named Sarah. She was probably still in her twenties, maybe upper twenties, who was up the hill at the high school, who taught English at the high school. And I would go up there every time my computer needed charging, because it would run on batteries for 2 hours and I would do all the writing I could for 2 hours, and then I would go up and charge it. And then while I was up there, I could.

[Assistant] Because she had electricity?

[User] She had electricity and somehow.

[Assistant] And you didn't.


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

[User] I had a wonderful volunteer named Sarah. She was probably still in her twenties, maybe upper twenties, who was up the hill at the high school, who taught English at the high school. And I would go up there every time my computer needed charging, because it would run on batteries for 2 hours and I would do all the writing I could for 2 hours, and then I would go up and charge it. And then while I was up there, I could.

[Assistant] Because she had electricity?

[User] She had electricity and somehow.

[Assistant] And you didn't.

[User] How did she? It seemed like I, no, I wouldn't answer my email until I was back in, uh, at headquarters in Maseru that had computer, computers we could use. Yeah.

[Assistant] How often did you get into Maseru?


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

[User] She had electricity and somehow.

[Assistant] And you didn't.

[User] How did she? It seemed like I, no, I wouldn't answer my email until I was back in, uh, at headquarters in Maseru that had computer, computers we could use. Yeah.

[Assistant] How often did you get into Maseru?

[User] Oh, maybe once every six weeks or something like that.

[Assistant] Oh wow, that's a long space in between.


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

[User] Oh, maybe once every six weeks or something like that.

[Assistant] Oh wow, that's a long space in between.

[User] Yeah, but I went to Sarah's a couple of times a week and then she was Catholic and across the ravine from me was a Catholic church. I never would have gone to it if it hadn't been for Sarah, just because I haven't been raised with any kind of religion. And, um, but she really wanted to go to service. And there's a really long service that lasted from 10:00 until 1:00.

[Assistant] Oh!

[User] And then there was sort of the short service from 8:00 to 9:00, although sometimes it would be 8:00 to 9:30. So we would go, we established a tradition of going to church and then we would fix ourself a really nice Sunday dinner. That was nice.

[Assistant] That's good. That keeps you sane.


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

[User] Yeah, but I went to Sarah's a couple of times a week and then she was Catholic and across the ravine from me was a Catholic church. I never would have gone to it if it hadn't been for Sarah, just because I haven't been raised with any kind of religion. And, um, but she really wanted to go to service. And there's a really long service that lasted from 10:00 until 1:00.

[Assistant] Oh!

[User] And then there was sort of the short service from 8:00 to 9:00, although sometimes it would be 8:00 to 9:30. So we would go, we established a tradition of going to church and then we would fix ourself a really nice Sunday dinner. That was nice.

[Assistant] That's good. That keeps you sane.

[User]
Yeah.

So she was, she was great.

[Assistant] Did you have any way to, um, listen to music or did you have books to read or things just to maintain your own sanity when you had time alone?


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

[User] And then there was sort of the short service from 8:00 to 9:00, although sometimes it would be 8:00 to 9:30. So we would go, we established a tradition of going to church and then we would fix ourself a really nice Sunday dinner. That was nice.

[Assistant] That's good. That keeps you sane.

[User]
Yeah.

So she was, she was great.

[Assistant] Did you have any way to, um, listen to music or did you have books to read or things just to maintain your own sanity when you had time alone?

[User] I think I was the only volunteer that came without a music system. They were having the MP3 players had just come out. Everyone had one of those and they had tons of music and they had headphones. But I just didn't get into the MP3 players. I didn't lug a cassette tape. I didn't have solar powered speakers or players or. But I read, yeah, I read like 150 books during my time there.

[Assistant] How did you get the books?


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

[User] I think I was the only volunteer that came without a music system. They were having the MP3 players had just come out. Everyone had one of those and they had tons of music and they had headphones. But I just didn't get into the MP3 players. I didn't lug a cassette tape. I didn't have solar powered speakers or players or. But I read, yeah, I read like 150 books during my time there.

[Assistant] How did you get the books?

[User] We had a wonderful library at the Peace Corps office.

[Assistant] Okay.

[User] So you could just go to Maseru and you would come back with six books.

[Assistant] And you'd bring back the six books that you read before.


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

[User] We had a wonderful library at the Peace Corps office.

[Assistant] Okay.

[User] So you could just go to Maseru and you would come back with six books.

[Assistant] And you'd bring back the six books that you read before.

[User] Yeah. Yeah.

[Assistant] That sounds terrific. And your health throughout these, wait a second. You extended for a third year?


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

[User] So you could just go to Maseru and you would come back with six books.

[Assistant] And you'd bring back the six books that you read before.

[User] Yeah. Yeah.

[Assistant] That sounds terrific. And your health throughout these, wait a second. You extended for a third year?

[User] Yeah.

[Assistant] How was that? How did that come about?


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

[User] Yeah. Yeah.

[Assistant] That sounds terrific. And your health throughout these, wait a second. You extended for a third year?

[User] Yeah.

[Assistant] How was that? How did that come about?

[User] Yeah, well, we haven't talked about HIV at all.

[Assistant] Okay, let's talk about that.


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

[User] And if they were HIV positive, they didn't want to know.

[Assistant] Yeah.

[User]
And because as soon as they knew, neighbors discriminated against them. Parents didn't want their teachers, their students to be their teacher. No one would play with their children. It would get around. No one would sleep with them anymore. They would lose their love life. Their husband would leave them. Uh, you know, the fact that the husband had given them AIDS in the first place was irrelevant. But yeah, it was still a totally, totally taboo subject.

And so our Peace Corps doctor, a wonderful man, Dr. Johnson, told us, and the education volunteers were working on science and social studies and stuff. He says, if you aren't devoting your time in Lesotho to HIV AIDS prevention, you're wasting your time here. This is no time to be, you know, doing vocabulary games and this kind of thing. You should be, you should be on the front lines. So all of us started working more with life skills, both for teachers, because teachers were supposed to be teaching it and they weren't. And teachers are supposed to be telling students how AIDS is transmitted, HIV is transmitted, and they weren't. And so we had to start focusing more on that. And the teachers were really interested.

[Assistant] So getting the teachers to, to understand what, what's a myth and what's fact.

[User] Right.

[Assistant] Would be really critical.


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

[User] But then I did go to seven funerals. Not all of them were teachers who died of AIDS, but all of them were teachers. Plus the little orphan behind, behind me who also died of AIDS.

[Assistant] Yeah.

[User] So I, yeah, I was getting into it, and all of us in my cohort were affected by funerals that we went to. We went to, to funerals. And they were very emotional. The Basotho allowed themselves to be emotional only at a funeral. Other than that, it was stiff upper lip and God wanted him to go.

[Assistant] God's will.

[User] Yeah, it's God's will so. How are we doing?

[Assistant] We've got about 20 minutes.


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

[User] So I, yeah, I was getting into it, and all of us in my cohort were affected by funerals that we went to. We went to, to funerals. And they were very emotional. The Basotho allowed themselves to be emotional only at a funeral. Other than that, it was stiff upper lip and God wanted him to go.

[Assistant] God's will.

[User] Yeah, it's God's will so. How are we doing?

[Assistant] We've got about 20 minutes.

[User] Okay.

[Assistant] I do want to talk with you about, um, why you chose to stay a third year. I want to talk with you about your, your work as Peace Corps staff after your three years as a volunteer ended. And I'm wondering if you want to talk a little bit about the very difficult situation of taking care of the orphaned child.


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

[User] Yeah, it's God's will so. How are we doing?

[Assistant] We've got about 20 minutes.

[User] Okay.

[Assistant] I do want to talk with you about, um, why you chose to stay a third year. I want to talk with you about your, your work as Peace Corps staff after your three years as a volunteer ended. And I'm wondering if you want to talk a little bit about the very difficult situation of taking care of the orphaned child.

[User] Yeah. All those are. The orphaned child, the orphaned child is kind of a 20 minute story just by herself. But yeah, my.

[Assistant] Let's go beyond 20 minutes.


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

[User] Yeah. All those are. The orphaned child, the orphaned child is kind of a 20 minute story just by herself. But yeah, my.

[Assistant] Let's go beyond 20 minutes.

[User] My Me wanted me to become active in the lives of these two little girls who are orphans who lived behind me. And maybe because I don't have children, or maybe because they were young girls, my heart really went out to them.

[Assistant] Yeah.

[User] And one of them was running around with the taxi drivers and was going not only to Maseru but all the way to Johannesburg, and somehow wasn't pregnant.

[Assistant] She was working in the sex trade?


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

[User] My Me wanted me to become active in the lives of these two little girls who are orphans who lived behind me. And maybe because I don't have children, or maybe because they were young girls, my heart really went out to them.

[Assistant] Yeah.

[User] And one of them was running around with the taxi drivers and was going not only to Maseru but all the way to Johannesburg, and somehow wasn't pregnant.

[Assistant] She was working in the sex trade?

[User] Uh, more like sex in the back seat in exchange for a cell phone, or sex in the backseat. It was more like she called these people her boyfriends, you know, they would kind of pass her around. And so she was a little bit over my head.

[Assistant] And she was how old?


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

[User] Uh, more like sex in the back seat in exchange for a cell phone, or sex in the backseat. It was more like she called these people her boyfriends, you know, they would kind of pass her around. And so she was a little bit over my head.

[Assistant] And she was how old?

[User] She was maybe 16. But her sister, who was 14, was smaller and sweeter. And both of them had had parents who had had AIDS and had been out of school for three or four years caring for their parents full time. First their father died and then their mother died. The father had worked in the mines. And so one of my biggest accomplishments was getting the younger one who was gently into school.

[Assistant] Yeah.

[User] We had to find a school uniform for her, and then I had to talk to the teacher and then they put her in the sixth grade. But the last time she'd been in school, she was second grade, so she didn't have those skills. So every week they would demote her and I would try to tutor her. And, you know, it was, it was a lot of fun. So she would come to my house after school for tutoring every day, and all the other children would come. I would kind of have, uh, Me Lerato, I was Me Lerato.

[Assistant] Oh, explain that name.


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

[User] She was maybe 16. But her sister, who was 14, was smaller and sweeter. And both of them had had parents who had had AIDS and had been out of school for three or four years caring for their parents full time. First their father died and then their mother died. The father had worked in the mines. And so one of my biggest accomplishments was getting the younger one who was gently into school.

[Assistant] Yeah.

[User] We had to find a school uniform for her, and then I had to talk to the teacher and then they put her in the sixth grade. But the last time she'd been in school, she was second grade, so she didn't have those skills. So every week they would demote her and I would try to tutor her. And, you know, it was, it was a lot of fun. So she would come to my house after school for tutoring every day, and all the other children would come. I would kind of have, uh, Me Lerato, I was Me Lerato.

[Assistant] Oh, explain that name.

[User] Oh, Me Lerato means love. It was a common name.

[Assistant] It was the name that your villagers gave to you?


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

[User] We had to find a school uniform for her, and then I had to talk to the teacher and then they put her in the sixth grade. But the last time she'd been in school, she was second grade, so she didn't have those skills. So every week they would demote her and I would try to tutor her. And, you know, it was, it was a lot of fun. So she would come to my house after school for tutoring every day, and all the other children would come. I would kind of have, uh, Me Lerato, I was Me Lerato.

[Assistant] Oh, explain that name.

[User] Oh, Me Lerato means love. It was a common name.

[Assistant] It was the name that your villagers gave to you?

[User] Yes, yes. So. So it was, it was a common name. Yeah. They, the names were like love or hope or courage for the boys, or intelligence for the boys, obedient for the girls. Yeah.

[Assistant] And these two sisters who, who did they live with?


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

[User] Yes, yes. So. So it was, it was a common name. Yeah. They, the names were like love or hope or courage for the boys, or intelligence for the boys, obedient for the girls. Yeah.

[Assistant] And these two sisters who, who did they live with?

[User] They lived alone.

[Assistant] Alone?

[User] They had a grandmother who had some younger children. So they were the grandmothers' daughters' children. And the grandmother had, the son had also died of AIDS. So she also had his children who were younger. And the grandmother would come around sometimes and wanting to know, how could I buy a pair of shoes for this kid, or could I buy some pants for this kid? And yeah.

[Assistant] Yeah. Did you, if somebody asked, somebody was desperately poor, asked you if you could buy them a pair of shoes?


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

[User] I did. I did. Yeah. Sometimes, you know, we weren't supposed to do that. That's not sustainable practice. But I remember this lady came. She was, she was. I didn't even know who brought her, but someone brought her who I didn't even know who it was. And this lady just said, you know, I'm, I'm sore, I need to get to the hospital. It cost 30 rand, which would have been like $5, you know, to go to the hospital. Could you please give me 30 rand? And I did, really reluctantly. You know, if you're going to give money, you should give it generously and with a good heart. But I gave it reluctantly. And then I just sat there and I went like, now there'll be a line of them. People will come.

[Assistant] Yeah.

[User] Everyone needs to go, you know. And no one ever came again.

[Assistant] Oh.

[User] The whole time I was there. And then I've always been so glad I helped this woman get to the hospital. How many $5 have I wasted on a cup of coffee and a, and a bagel? I'm so happy that, you know, they were almost cried. You know, they were just so happy that money had fallen out of the sky.

[Assistant] You made it possible to get help. So back to Dently.


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

[User] And so I had enlisted six volunteers, you know, trying to keep Dently alive and her family. And, yeah, it was, it was a big effort, but it was, you know, it was just seeing a child go downhill.

[Assistant] Yeah.

[User] Yeah. She, her AIDS was already too far. She was fourth stage AIDS by the time she, by the time she got there.

[Assistant] Yeah.

[User] Yeah.

[Assistant] I'm reminded that I did read that story and that you wrote public letters maybe once a month from Lesotho that we then got to read because you'd put them up online.


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

[User] Yeah. She, her AIDS was already too far. She was fourth stage AIDS by the time she, by the time she got there.

[Assistant] Yeah.

[User] Yeah.

[Assistant] I'm reminded that I did read that story and that you wrote public letters maybe once a month from Lesotho that we then got to read because you'd put them up online.

[User] Mm hmm.

[Assistant] And I'm hoping that you can give those, that you'd consider giving those public letters to the JFK Library.


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

[User] Yeah.

[Assistant] I'm reminded that I did read that story and that you wrote public letters maybe once a month from Lesotho that we then got to read because you'd put them up online.

[User] Mm hmm.

[Assistant] And I'm hoping that you can give those, that you'd consider giving those public letters to the JFK Library.

[User] Yeah.

[Assistant] Perhaps at some point, I'll try to make that happen. They're beautifully written.


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

[User] Yeah.

[Assistant] Perhaps at some point, I'll try to make that happen. They're beautifully written.

[User] Yeah. They're all on the web now, so actually you could just put up a link to them.

[Assistant] Okay.

[User] There are 20 letters.

[Assistant] Yeah. So you stayed an extra year?


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

[User] In Washington. And they had a division called OPAT, which is Overseas Programing and Training. And they said, you have a background in teaching English. We're going to roll out an English curriculum for all of the countries, and we're going to, we're going to make these Peace Corps people start teaching English better. And so anyway, I worked with another person on that program who is really well respected all over the nation. He had all of the credentials. And I did more of the Peace Corps part of it, you know, setting up Peace Corps, I don't know. Headquarters was a lot of paperwork, and teaching English wasn't really my focus. I didn't really want to be doing that as a next career move. I mean, this was just a perfect opportunity if you wanted to be an expert in teaching English, to have this on your resume. But I was going more for that international development thing.

[Assistant] Yes.

[User] So I applied again for the director of programing and training and someone said, you know, just be patient. Eventually there will be, there will be an opening in Africa. And in retrospect, I do wish I had waited, but I took the first one that came along, which was Turkmenistan.

[Assistant] Yeah.

[User] And, uh, and so I went off to a country that was completely non-African, completely I had no background in Central Asia history, language, you know, everything I'm reading, you're reading, but State Department people do that too. They get these huge fact sheets and they cram like, like crazy. And then I went to a country that was within my two years of being there would be phased out, that the.

[Assistant] The Peace Corps would be phased out?


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

[User] They had many rules that applied to all the people in the, in their, their country, but applied to us too, that n more than five people can meet, can assemble at a time.

[Assistant] Oh.

[User] So if five Peace Corps people, volunteers, came from their site to meet in town to have a beer or a cup of coffee and a sixth person came, then he was supposed to sit over.

[Assistant] Someplace else.

[User] At someplace else because five foreigners are so conspicuous in town that someone would report it to the police, right? So anyway, it was very. I hadn't been accustomed to that kind of, that kind of totalitarian government with curfews and everything either. But it was, it was very interesting. And so one year I lived in a rondavel, and less than a year later I lived in a five story luxury apartment across from the American Embassy compound.

[Assistant] As Peace Corps staff.


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

[User] So if five Peace Corps people, volunteers, came from their site to meet in town to have a beer or a cup of coffee and a sixth person came, then he was supposed to sit over.

[Assistant] Someplace else.

[User] At someplace else because five foreigners are so conspicuous in town that someone would report it to the police, right? So anyway, it was very. I hadn't been accustomed to that kind of, that kind of totalitarian government with curfews and everything either. But it was, it was very interesting. And so one year I lived in a rondavel, and less than a year later I lived in a five story luxury apartment across from the American Embassy compound.

[Assistant] As Peace Corps staff.

[User]
As Peace Corps staff. So yeah, of the two experiences being a volunteer and being a staff, I really loved being a volunteer. It had so much freedom. And every night I would just think so hard. Like, I have all this education, I have all these contacts, I have fundraising experience, I'm in this village. Like, what if people said, you know, Madeline Uraneck, you can eliminate poverty, go to it! You know, we'll give you seven years or 15 years or, you know, you're educated, do it. Use every bit of education you have or, you know, use it to improve this one school or something like that.

And I went like, God, these are such a worthy things to think about. You know, no paper that I ever wrote in college, you know, gave you the big questions. You know, how does poverty develop? How do you get rid of it? How do you create good education in a, in a country where, you know, you have a blank slate, where you just have 100 kids in a room and no books?

[Assistant] And lots of myths.


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

[User] So. And I went off to Kyrgyzstan. They were short, they were short of staff. Their DPT had left early, so I filled in.

[Assistant] DPT was?

[User] The director of programing and training, the same job that I had working with all the volunteers, working with all the native trainers.

[Assistant] Yeah.

[User] To make sure that they were doing the training. They had some really creative things going on. They had some, a fantastic country director. It was really different than Turkmenistan. Turkmenistan was kind of in a low and, you know, I came in and tried to be really positive. But Kyrgyzstan was just 90 miles an hour, you know, and they wanted me to be as good as their last DPT, which I was trying to catch up to speed or something like that. They could have hired me and I could have stayed, but they didn't hire me. Then I went back to, uh, I went back to Turkmenistan.

[Assistant] Oh, wait a minute. You were in Kyrgyzstan for how long?


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

[User] Just met amazing people. Loved, loved every bit of it. I would have stayed, but I just didn't. I didn't, I don't think I got enough. I don't think I got a say in it. I think some decisions were made. I don't know. They wanted Joe instead or, you know, sometimes you don't know why you weren't chosen for something or another, but that was that. And then I came back to Turkmenistan, and then I decided to leave. I had an opportunity to, to, uh. Let's see, Turkmenistan. I had an opportunity to travel in Iran.

[Assistant] Ah.

[User] And Iran bordered Turkmenistan. I could see it. It was 15 miles from my kitchen window.

[Assistant] Oh, wow.

[User] But I was not allowed on my Peace Corps contract or U.S. government contract to travel to Iran because we, it was one of the countries in the front of the passport that you can't travel to.

[Assistant] As a, as an employee of the U.S. government?


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

[User] And Iran bordered Turkmenistan. I could see it. It was 15 miles from my kitchen window.

[Assistant] Oh, wow.

[User] But I was not allowed on my Peace Corps contract or U.S. government contract to travel to Iran because we, it was one of the countries in the front of the passport that you can't travel to.

[Assistant] As a, as an employee of the U.S. government?

[User] Right. Right. And, you know, they were kidnapping.

[Assistant] But ordinary people could go?


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

[User] And Peace Corps has this ridiculous rule that if you're in Peace Corps as staff for four years, then you have to be out of Peace Corps staff for four years.

[Assistant] Oh, yeah.

[User] So I'd been in for, I don't know, two and a half years, so I was going to have to be out for two and a half years. So I came back to Wisconsin and then Wisconsin has just kind of taken over. I started writing and I'm really enjoying that, so I'm going to pursue that for a little bit. But I do think that DPT is one of the most incredible jobs. I've had so many incredible jobs, and it's just as good as, uh, my job was at the Department of Public Instruction. It doesn't have the freedom to create everything new, but it does have this amazing opportunity to see the world because, you know, you're, you're doing this. And then all the DPTs meet in Mongolia and then they have to have another conference in Thailand and then they have to go back to Washington, D.C. And that might all happen in one year or a space of two years. And then you use your vacation you, whenever you change countries, you're in a completely different configuration of countries.

[Assistant] Yes.

[User] So when you're in Turkmenistan, then all of a sudden you realize you could see, you could visit Tajikistan, you know, which is right there.

[Assistant] Yes. So do you think you might, um, get back into that?


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

[User] So when you're in Turkmenistan, then all of a sudden you realize you could see, you could visit Tajikistan, you know, which is right there.

[Assistant] Yes. So do you think you might, um, get back into that?

[User] You know, I would love to. The thing is, is that in an international development field, writing books, which is what I'm doing now, working on two books, doesn't position me in international relations, that the books aren't about international relations. So I don't know whether I would be competitive enough. In all fairness, I think, I think I could do the job. But they're always younger, more energetic, blah, blah, blah. So I'll, I'll. I would, I would consider it. And I do see the job openings come by and I do have a couple of friends that I envy so much, who were my colleagues at the time, but now they've done all those conferences and they've been reassigned to all those countries. And my next country would have been Uganda.

[Assistant] Oh.

[User] Yeah, I, every time I hear the word Uganda, I kind of go, oh my God, I could, I could be there. I could have known that. But I don't know there's, that's part of living. It's like, be where you are, be fully where you are. And if you're going to spend time regretting what you're not doing, it means you're not fully where you are.

[Assistant] So there you go.


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

[User] You know, I would love to. The thing is, is that in an international development field, writing books, which is what I'm doing now, working on two books, doesn't position me in international relations, that the books aren't about international relations. So I don't know whether I would be competitive enough. In all fairness, I think, I think I could do the job. But they're always younger, more energetic, blah, blah, blah. So I'll, I'll. I would, I would consider it. And I do see the job openings come by and I do have a couple of friends that I envy so much, who were my colleagues at the time, but now they've done all those conferences and they've been reassigned to all those countries. And my next country would have been Uganda.

[Assistant] Oh.

[User] Yeah, I, every time I hear the word Uganda, I kind of go, oh my God, I could, I could be there. I could have known that. But I don't know there's, that's part of living. It's like, be where you are, be fully where you are. And if you're going to spend time regretting what you're not doing, it means you're not fully where you are.

[Assistant] So there you go.

[User] I've been trying to be fully where I am.

[Assistant] And you're in a beautiful place. Do you have any last thoughts about Peace Corps?


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

[User] Yeah, I, every time I hear the word Uganda, I kind of go, oh my God, I could, I could be there. I could have known that. But I don't know there's, that's part of living. It's like, be where you are, be fully where you are. And if you're going to spend time regretting what you're not doing, it means you're not fully where you are.

[Assistant] So there you go.

[User] I've been trying to be fully where I am.

[Assistant] And you're in a beautiful place. Do you have any last thoughts about Peace Corps?

[User] I loved the Peace Corps. I'm a great poster child for older people going into Peace Corps. I think going in with as much experience as I had was good for Peace Corps and good for carrying out what I carry out. So I do talk to a lot of people who are older and advise them definitely to consider doing that. From Peace Corps' point of view, I see, I see our problems. We're much more opinionated and, uh, slower language learners, and some people insist on giving young people advice. Don't catch on to, you know, that kind of relationship. But, but in general, I just think it's a wonderful, wonderful thing to do with your life at any time and certainly when you're older.

[Assistant] Thank you, Madeline.


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

[User] We did a lot of things after sims and flights at the Gilruth Center, so the Gilruth Center was a place. There were a couple places where in town people would go. Bill and Marie’s [Ice House] and some other places, the Outpost [Tavern]. There were places where the teams would get together periodically and they would move around. I don’t think we had any one in particular. Some flight directors would order burritos from a certain place for the whole team, and we would eat burritos.\n\n There was that sense of doing things together, and certain locations to go together. It’s maybe the flight test mentality, the test pilot mentality, of going someplace to just kick back and do some things that you wouldn’t normally do. Get a chance also to tweak each other a little bit and do pranks on each other. We used to do that periodically even in the building with each other.

[Assistant] Were you over in Building 4?

[User] Yes. I remember when Dick Truly flew, they recycled a bunch of his official astronaut pictures, so they put them out in the hall in a stack to be disposed of. We took his pictures—and he was in an EVA [extravehicular activity] suit—and we took his head and his arms. We took all the clocks, and where the arms were on the clocks we put his arms from the spacesuit on, and we put his head in the middle. We changed all the clocks in Building 4 to have Dick Truly’s head and arms on every clock in Building 4. I remember that as being pretty humorous when Dick came in the next day. Every meeting he went to, there he was on the wall on the clock with his arms and his head, courtesy of the pictures they were throwing away from upstairs. We did silly things like that.

[Assistant] I think we’re coming close to the end of our time today, so unless there’s anything else you’d like to talk about this might be a good stopping point.

[User] I think that’s good.

[Assistant] Thank you very much.


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

[User] What happened was that I was interviewed in Chicago, and I received an offer to work for them, and that was as a GS-14 [General Schedule, pay scale], which was supposed to be a pretty good rank.

[Assistant] Was that better than that University of Chicago professor job?

[User] It was. It was better. What shocked me was the University of Chicago had a fine reputation, but to offer me that small an amount of money. Now maybe the professor who offered it to me wondered why I turned it down, but I felt that wasn't enough money to satisfy anything. I've talked with doctors since, and they said it's true, the salaries for teachers at medical schools in those days were very low, but they've gone up and up and up since then. So they're probably very high now. But at that time, that's what it was. That was the reason I said no. But I felt NASA was just as interesting.

[Assistant] Did you move right away from Chicago to the Hampton [Virginia] area when you got the offer?

[User] Yes. When I got the offer, I moved from Chicago to Newport News [Virginia]. I stayed in Newport News for, it seems to me, a long time. Yes, until we moved to Houston. This area [reference to home address], first of all, is very close to Telephone Road. Telephone Road was where NASA engineering first started.

[Assistant] Before you moved to Houston, did you spend a lot of hours working at Langley when you first started?


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

[User] It was. It was better. What shocked me was the University of Chicago had a fine reputation, but to offer me that small an amount of money. Now maybe the professor who offered it to me wondered why I turned it down, but I felt that wasn't enough money to satisfy anything. I've talked with doctors since, and they said it's true, the salaries for teachers at medical schools in those days were very low, but they've gone up and up and up since then. So they're probably very high now. But at that time, that's what it was. That was the reason I said no. But I felt NASA was just as interesting.

[Assistant] Did you move right away from Chicago to the Hampton [Virginia] area when you got the offer?

[User] Yes. When I got the offer, I moved from Chicago to Newport News [Virginia]. I stayed in Newport News for, it seems to me, a long time. Yes, until we moved to Houston. This area [reference to home address], first of all, is very close to Telephone Road. Telephone Road was where NASA engineering first started.

[Assistant] Before you moved to Houston, did you spend a lot of hours working at Langley when you first started?

[User] I had been assigned positions representing Langley at McDonnell Aircraft and then at Downey [California]. That was at St. Louis, [Missouri], McDonnell, and then I think I spent a year there, and then I spent a year or two at Downey on the Apollo Program. But at the same time I was living—part of the time I was at Langley, my home base in Newport News, and then part of the time we'd moved and I was here in Houston, when I think I went to Downey.\n\n Originally, I am from Boston.

[Assistant] Well, that was nice for you to be able to go to Harvard, because you were close to home.


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

[User] Yes. When I got the offer, I moved from Chicago to Newport News [Virginia]. I stayed in Newport News for, it seems to me, a long time. Yes, until we moved to Houston. This area [reference to home address], first of all, is very close to Telephone Road. Telephone Road was where NASA engineering first started.

[Assistant] Before you moved to Houston, did you spend a lot of hours working at Langley when you first started?

[User] I had been assigned positions representing Langley at McDonnell Aircraft and then at Downey [California]. That was at St. Louis, [Missouri], McDonnell, and then I think I spent a year there, and then I spent a year or two at Downey on the Apollo Program. But at the same time I was living—part of the time I was at Langley, my home base in Newport News, and then part of the time we'd moved and I was here in Houston, when I think I went to Downey.\n\n Originally, I am from Boston.

[Assistant] Well, that was nice for you to be able to go to Harvard, because you were close to home.

[User] That's right, that's right. But I didn't live at home, though, because I lived too far away. My family's home was too far from Cambridge, so I would live where the other students lived, in rooming houses in Cambridge. Meantime I had cousins who worked in Newton. They had their offices there, and they were practicing medicine.

[Assistant] Do you want to talk at length about working with McDonnell in St. Louis?


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

[User] No, it's real easy.

[Assistant] Is it easy?

[User] Actually I preferred working, because most of the people I worked with were interesting, pretty smart, and very exhilarating to work with the scientists and outstanding engineers that they put on the programs. I miss that.

[Assistant] Let's go back and talk about those first days when you came from New York to Hampton.

[User] When I first started here at NACA, I started working in the field of aircraft instrumentation. I became head of the local instrument calibration lab right after I came, which was in 1942. I headed the instrument calibration lab. Then in '49 I became head of a flight instrument design group, which essentially started to design instruments rather than just calibrate them. Then 1959 to '63 I headed the navigation and communication sections in instrument research division. Then in '63 to '67 I became Spacecraft Manager for Lunar Orbiter.

[Assistant] Mr. Taback, let me ask you, when you came here what kind of experience did you bring? Were you right out of college, or did you have experience in your field before you got to NACA?


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

[User] Actually I preferred working, because most of the people I worked with were interesting, pretty smart, and very exhilarating to work with the scientists and outstanding engineers that they put on the programs. I miss that.

[Assistant] Let's go back and talk about those first days when you came from New York to Hampton.

[User] When I first started here at NACA, I started working in the field of aircraft instrumentation. I became head of the local instrument calibration lab right after I came, which was in 1942. I headed the instrument calibration lab. Then in '49 I became head of a flight instrument design group, which essentially started to design instruments rather than just calibrate them. Then 1959 to '63 I headed the navigation and communication sections in instrument research division. Then in '63 to '67 I became Spacecraft Manager for Lunar Orbiter.

[Assistant] Mr. Taback, let me ask you, when you came here what kind of experience did you bring? Were you right out of college, or did you have experience in your field before you got to NACA?

[User] I had no experience in the field that I was interested in.

[Assistant] When you mention you became head of those areas, how many people were working for you at that time?


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

[User] When I first started here at NACA, I started working in the field of aircraft instrumentation. I became head of the local instrument calibration lab right after I came, which was in 1942. I headed the instrument calibration lab. Then in '49 I became head of a flight instrument design group, which essentially started to design instruments rather than just calibrate them. Then 1959 to '63 I headed the navigation and communication sections in instrument research division. Then in '63 to '67 I became Spacecraft Manager for Lunar Orbiter.

[Assistant] Mr. Taback, let me ask you, when you came here what kind of experience did you bring? Were you right out of college, or did you have experience in your field before you got to NACA?

[User] I had no experience in the field that I was interested in.

[Assistant] When you mention you became head of those areas, how many people were working for you at that time?

[User] Well, in the calibration lab about 20 or 30. In the instrument design group, similar numbers, small group of people. Of course in the Lunar Orbiter Program, when I headed the spacecraft team, there was probably closer to about 100 people, including a lot of the lab that helped out, although they were not part of the project office.

[Assistant] Was that a big change or risk for you to move from the aeronautics side over?


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

[User] I can give you one or two illustrations. When we flew Lunar Orbiter, we had no computers. The spacecraft was commanded by a sequencer. In other words, it went through a prefixed program and did all the things it was supposed to. When we did Viking we had a computer on board, and we were very proud of the fact that it had 25,000 words. That's not kilobits. That's 1,000 words. We used essentially wire recording. All the words were strung out on wires that had been plated and were magnetic. That worked, and the computers operated nicely. But we had a hard time getting them. Of course the capacity was very small compared to what we can do today.\n\n Today we fly kilobits of computers mostly on spacecraft, many kilobits, sometimes terabits in capacity of memory. So it made an enormous change in capacity of what you can attempt to do. The same is true in all the other fields like communication, control, structures, and so forth. Made enormous advances in almost every field. So one can get pretty obsolete in 30 years.

[Assistant] What about the processes? Are the processes pretty much the same that were in place when you were at NACA?

[User] Manufacturing processes?

[Assistant] No, evaluation for making decisions, decision-making processes, did they change a lot from when you were at NACA, because Langley had been so much an in-house research facility.

[User] Well, they are changing. When we did Viking, most of the actual work was accomplished by Martin Marietta in Denver, and we were in a supervisory role, and that had gotten even harder I think. NASA is primarily a contracting agency, with most of the work being done by commercial firms with some intent of overseeing the work by the Langley engineers and technicians. To a large degree most of that work is now accomplished by contractors, including the work out in the field itself, with Langley being a supervisory group. So there's a lot more administrative work and a lot less technical competence than there used to be.

[Assistant] Was that an adjustment for you?


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

[User] Manufacturing processes?

[Assistant] No, evaluation for making decisions, decision-making processes, did they change a lot from when you were at NACA, because Langley had been so much an in-house research facility.

[User] Well, they are changing. When we did Viking, most of the actual work was accomplished by Martin Marietta in Denver, and we were in a supervisory role, and that had gotten even harder I think. NASA is primarily a contracting agency, with most of the work being done by commercial firms with some intent of overseeing the work by the Langley engineers and technicians. To a large degree most of that work is now accomplished by contractors, including the work out in the field itself, with Langley being a supervisory group. So there's a lot more administrative work and a lot less technical competence than there used to be.

[Assistant] Was that an adjustment for you?

[User] Well, I didn't mind it, because I could do either and they were both interesting. Although I enjoyed the technical challenge a lot more than most people, I think. But it did change, but I didn't mind it at all.

[Assistant] It's interesting to me that you came from New York to Hampton to Langley to work on airplanes, and then within 20 years you began working on spacecraft, and then not too long after that you were working on spacecraft that was going to go to Mars.


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

[User] Well, they are changing. When we did Viking, most of the actual work was accomplished by Martin Marietta in Denver, and we were in a supervisory role, and that had gotten even harder I think. NASA is primarily a contracting agency, with most of the work being done by commercial firms with some intent of overseeing the work by the Langley engineers and technicians. To a large degree most of that work is now accomplished by contractors, including the work out in the field itself, with Langley being a supervisory group. So there's a lot more administrative work and a lot less technical competence than there used to be.

[Assistant] Was that an adjustment for you?

[User] Well, I didn't mind it, because I could do either and they were both interesting. Although I enjoyed the technical challenge a lot more than most people, I think. But it did change, but I didn't mind it at all.

[Assistant] It's interesting to me that you came from New York to Hampton to Langley to work on airplanes, and then within 20 years you began working on spacecraft, and then not too long after that you were working on spacecraft that was going to go to Mars.

[User] Actually things caught up with me, not the other way around. The airplane didn't become obsolete, but the research on airplanes became obsolete, especially when the Russians showed that they could put a Sputnik around Earth and everybody got real excited about what NASA could do.

[Assistant] What were your thoughts on that, when you heard that Sputnik had launched?


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

[User] Well, I didn't mind it, because I could do either and they were both interesting. Although I enjoyed the technical challenge a lot more than most people, I think. But it did change, but I didn't mind it at all.

[Assistant] It's interesting to me that you came from New York to Hampton to Langley to work on airplanes, and then within 20 years you began working on spacecraft, and then not too long after that you were working on spacecraft that was going to go to Mars.

[User] Actually things caught up with me, not the other way around. The airplane didn't become obsolete, but the research on airplanes became obsolete, especially when the Russians showed that they could put a Sputnik around Earth and everybody got real excited about what NASA could do.

[Assistant] What were your thoughts on that, when you heard that Sputnik had launched?

[User] Well, we went through the standard program. We took a lot of courses locally, math and orbital mechanics and things like that. That was fairly interesting. I didn't use most of it, but it was interesting. In the process of doing that, of course, we lost all the competence we may have had at one time with aerodynamics and instrumentation and so forth. Probably not lost, it's probably up to par but not used as much.

[Assistant] Did you ever go back and do any more research and work on the aeronautics side?


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

[User] Actually things caught up with me, not the other way around. The airplane didn't become obsolete, but the research on airplanes became obsolete, especially when the Russians showed that they could put a Sputnik around Earth and everybody got real excited about what NASA could do.

[Assistant] What were your thoughts on that, when you heard that Sputnik had launched?

[User] Well, we went through the standard program. We took a lot of courses locally, math and orbital mechanics and things like that. That was fairly interesting. I didn't use most of it, but it was interesting. In the process of doing that, of course, we lost all the competence we may have had at one time with aerodynamics and instrumentation and so forth. Probably not lost, it's probably up to par but not used as much.

[Assistant] Did you ever go back and do any more research and work on the aeronautics side?

[User] No, actually I should have, but I didn't. Mostly a matter of opportunity. As I said, I worked somewhat on balloons with the Wallops people, and I went back to work for NASA on composites for a number of years and ran a large group under the Bionetics Corporation that looked into composites. Eventually began consulting with NASA on new programs. One thing just worked into another in just the passage of time. Airplanes became obsolete. I was lucky enough to have gotten into airplanes when we were just coming out of the subsonic range. We built all the D airplanes, the experimental airplanes. The last one I did, which was the X-15, finally got to be supersonic. In fact it went up to Mach 6, which was unusual at the time. Since then everybody flies supersonically.

[Assistant] Did you get to see the X-15 fly?


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

[User] Well, we went through the standard program. We took a lot of courses locally, math and orbital mechanics and things like that. That was fairly interesting. I didn't use most of it, but it was interesting. In the process of doing that, of course, we lost all the competence we may have had at one time with aerodynamics and instrumentation and so forth. Probably not lost, it's probably up to par but not used as much.

[Assistant] Did you ever go back and do any more research and work on the aeronautics side?

[User] No, actually I should have, but I didn't. Mostly a matter of opportunity. As I said, I worked somewhat on balloons with the Wallops people, and I went back to work for NASA on composites for a number of years and ran a large group under the Bionetics Corporation that looked into composites. Eventually began consulting with NASA on new programs. One thing just worked into another in just the passage of time. Airplanes became obsolete. I was lucky enough to have gotten into airplanes when we were just coming out of the subsonic range. We built all the D airplanes, the experimental airplanes. The last one I did, which was the X-15, finally got to be supersonic. In fact it went up to Mach 6, which was unusual at the time. Since then everybody flies supersonically.

[Assistant] Did you get to see the X-15 fly?

[User] Yes, I've seen it fly. It flew mostly out of Wallops Air Force Base where NASA has an installation. I helped a little bit with the determination of the ground range, which had to be enlarged because of the X-15 range. That's installed and working now properly. Radars are better. Communication is better. Communication with the pilot is better. Everything has gotten better just with the passage of time and because people are smarter I think, get better educations. We have better things to learn with, computers, and we learn how to do things a lot easier than we used to.

[Assistant] I guess that is a difference. Some of the methods to come up with answers, took you a little bit longer.


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

[User] Yes, I've seen it fly. It flew mostly out of Wallops Air Force Base where NASA has an installation. I helped a little bit with the determination of the ground range, which had to be enlarged because of the X-15 range. That's installed and working now properly. Radars are better. Communication is better. Communication with the pilot is better. Everything has gotten better just with the passage of time and because people are smarter I think, get better educations. We have better things to learn with, computers, and we learn how to do things a lot easier than we used to.

[Assistant] I guess that is a difference. Some of the methods to come up with answers, took you a little bit longer.

[User] The methods are a little bit different. But the one thing that strikes me in all the consulting that I've done is how technically competent the people are, and yet they lack experience. The new people on the block can answer a lot of technical questions but haven't got enough sense to do the right things at the right time, which is interesting. Which you can only learn by having done some things yourself. There are very few, handful of people that have done a lot of things. Luckily I was lucky enough to get the right experiences, I think.

[Assistant] Do you have a favorite project you worked on?

[User] I like Viking. I like Lunar Orbiter first because it was a first for Langley. It was the first space program that Langley did after airplanes. So we were pioneering in many instances in spacecraft, spacecraft design, orbital mechanics, how to use spacecraft, and mission design. When I did Viking then subsequently it was also interesting, but different.

[Assistant] Can you share with us some of those discussions of how you were able to work through those designs? It fascinates me about what research is available. I was reading before I came here about the different theories of what, for instance, the lunar surface was going to be, because you really didn't know. So if you could share some of those experiences.


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

[User] Yes. JPL has been mostly active in going to Mars. Europeans are going to Mars, and JPL of course has got two Rovers on the surface now that apparently lived through the latest no-power problems and are still operating, which is good. I'm amazed at what they've been able to accomplish. They did a lovely job on it.

[Assistant] It's pretty amazing what you guys were able to put in place in the early 70s.

[User] Yeah, we really had a design that was guaranteed for 90 days. But it lived for eight years, which is a bad design, of course. We were very much afraid of the sandstorms on Mars, so we used RTGs, radioactive thermal generators, no solar panels. Most of the latest spacecraft that land on Mars use solar panels, and it turns out that dust isn't the big problem that we thought it was. But that's how you learn things, you go and try. So everything seems to be working okay, including the solar panels on the Orbiters and the Landers.

[Assistant] How much did you learn from the Lunar Orbiter Project that you were able to apply when you got ready to do Viking?

[User] Well, first of all it was the first space program that Langley did, and we learned how a space program operates. It did help quite a bit. We got a lot of experience in running a major technical contract and overlooking all his work, and making sure that he went off in the right direction and didn't spend too much money on any one thing. So that experience was very worthwhile. That is largely where I think JPL and NASA institutions are headed in general in the future, which will be mostly oversight committees, technical competence to some degree. But most of that is going out into industry rather than to a government center like NASA.

[Assistant] Well, what were your thoughts when you saw those pictures come back from Lunar Orbiter?


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

[User] No, we were at JPL watching for the photos to come back. We had a spacecraft operations area at JPL. Most of the local Langley technical people, the program office went out for the lunar encounters. At that time we had no switch to switch them off, so they all landed on the back of the Moon. We got rid of them somehow. The Australians were very cute about that. After we thought we had put them all in on the back, they played a couple of tapes that indicated that they came out from behind the Moon. They had us fooled for a while. But it was obvious they were tapes after a little bit. It was exciting. We had some beautiful pictures, lots of magnification. I enjoyed every bit of that, including the data return that we got back. We'll look at that in a little while.

[Assistant] How did the data that you collected from the Lunar Orbiter Program impact the Apollo Program?

[User] I think that they used the landing site information. They claimed they didn't need it of course, but I believe we had the first valid surface pictures of the Moon, and I believe they used them to some extent to get intelligent landings on the surface. I believe they went to one of the sites that we examined beforehand. Subsequent to that, I don't know, they went various places. But they too were restricted to almost equatorial landings as we were. That was fairly interesting. But I think we got more of a return by going to the Moon and photographing the entire Moon than we did out of the Apollo site selection. In fact, from a scientific point of view, that return was a lot more interesting and probably will be used for another 100 years or so before anything new is found out.

[Assistant] Might be used as part of the new program that NASA's doing right now.

[User] Absolutely. Although I think it's a mistake to go back. It's a waste of money.

[Assistant] Where do you think they should go?


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

[User] Absolutely. Although I think it's a mistake to go back. It's a waste of money.

[Assistant] Where do you think they should go?

[User] Well, the Moon is okay, but this idea of making a research program, how to live on the surface, doesn't sound enticing enough to warrant a lot of money. That's about all we're going to do that's different, keeping people alive and making sure they have a place to live. Other than that, the scientific return has already been gotten from the Moon I think. So we'll have longer stays and we'll learn a lot more about how to keep people alive, but that's about it. We're going to learn that anyhow on the [International] Space Station, so I'm not too excited about it.\n\n But I am excited about going back to Mars with people. That should be more interesting. I do like the rest of the NASA program, which is primarily scientific and going to the planets. One thing is really fascinating, and that's the latest thing, which I believe NASA is doing, which is looking for planets. I consulted on a couple of schemes for planetary surveys that were fascinating. One of them looks for the decrement in light as the planet goes on the front surface of things. The other one looks for planetary lensing, it looks for images of things that come past gravitational disturbances. That seems to work pretty well. What's interesting is that the ground-based telescopes have gotten almost as good. They now know how to take care of the atmosphere by shining a laser through it and then correcting for the atmospheric disturbances. So you'd think you were out in space.

[Assistant] Have you had an opportunity to see through those telescopes yourself?

[User] I haven't looked through a telescope, but we have found about 200 planets. Mostly big ones about the size of Jupiter, but we're still continuing to look, and we're looking forward to finding something similar to Earth, or anyhow a planet that would support life. We haven't found any yet.

[Assistant] We're back to where you started with Viking, looking for life on other planets, aren't we?


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

[User] Well, the Moon is okay, but this idea of making a research program, how to live on the surface, doesn't sound enticing enough to warrant a lot of money. That's about all we're going to do that's different, keeping people alive and making sure they have a place to live. Other than that, the scientific return has already been gotten from the Moon I think. So we'll have longer stays and we'll learn a lot more about how to keep people alive, but that's about it. We're going to learn that anyhow on the [International] Space Station, so I'm not too excited about it.\n\n But I am excited about going back to Mars with people. That should be more interesting. I do like the rest of the NASA program, which is primarily scientific and going to the planets. One thing is really fascinating, and that's the latest thing, which I believe NASA is doing, which is looking for planets. I consulted on a couple of schemes for planetary surveys that were fascinating. One of them looks for the decrement in light as the planet goes on the front surface of things. The other one looks for planetary lensing, it looks for images of things that come past gravitational disturbances. That seems to work pretty well. What's interesting is that the ground-based telescopes have gotten almost as good. They now know how to take care of the atmosphere by shining a laser through it and then correcting for the atmospheric disturbances. So you'd think you were out in space.

[Assistant] Have you had an opportunity to see through those telescopes yourself?

[User] I haven't looked through a telescope, but we have found about 200 planets. Mostly big ones about the size of Jupiter, but we're still continuing to look, and we're looking forward to finding something similar to Earth, or anyhow a planet that would support life. We haven't found any yet.

[Assistant] We're back to where you started with Viking, looking for life on other planets, aren't we?

[User] I guess we will for a long time, won't we, yes. Do you suppose there's intelligent life on Earth?

[Assistant] We need to look here first, huh.


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

[User] I haven't looked through a telescope, but we have found about 200 planets. Mostly big ones about the size of Jupiter, but we're still continuing to look, and we're looking forward to finding something similar to Earth, or anyhow a planet that would support life. We haven't found any yet.

[Assistant] We're back to where you started with Viking, looking for life on other planets, aren't we?

[User] I guess we will for a long time, won't we, yes. Do you suppose there's intelligent life on Earth?

[Assistant] We need to look here first, huh.

[User] Yeah we're going to continue to look, right.

[Assistant] When you were finished with the Lunar Orbiter Project, how soon afterward did you start on Viking?


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

[User] I guess we will for a long time, won't we, yes. Do you suppose there's intelligent life on Earth?

[Assistant] We need to look here first, huh.

[User] Yeah we're going to continue to look, right.

[Assistant] When you were finished with the Lunar Orbiter Project, how soon afterward did you start on Viking?

[User] Viking didn't start till the early 70s, and Lunar Orbiter finished in '67, so we had about two or three years studying Mars before we actually hooked up with a contractor to get the job done.

[Assistant] So you went right into that program.


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

[User] Yeah we're going to continue to look, right.

[Assistant] When you were finished with the Lunar Orbiter Project, how soon afterward did you start on Viking?

[User] Viking didn't start till the early 70s, and Lunar Orbiter finished in '67, so we had about two or three years studying Mars before we actually hooked up with a contractor to get the job done.

[Assistant] So you went right into that program.

[User] Yes, we did locally. We went from Lunar Orbiter into the Mars Viking Program, essentially. It wasn't called Viking at the time, it was just a study of Mars.

[Assistant] Where did you get your information to study Mars? Was it published papers?


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

[User] Viking didn't start till the early 70s, and Lunar Orbiter finished in '67, so we had about two or three years studying Mars before we actually hooked up with a contractor to get the job done.

[Assistant] So you went right into that program.

[User] Yes, we did locally. We went from Lunar Orbiter into the Mars Viking Program, essentially. It wasn't called Viking at the time, it was just a study of Mars.

[Assistant] Where did you get your information to study Mars? Was it published papers?

[User] Books, papers, technical treatises, students' theses that were graduating from college. Very hard to find information at the time.

[Assistant] I would think so.


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

[User] Yes, we did locally. We went from Lunar Orbiter into the Mars Viking Program, essentially. It wasn't called Viking at the time, it was just a study of Mars.

[Assistant] Where did you get your information to study Mars? Was it published papers?

[User] Books, papers, technical treatises, students' theses that were graduating from college. Very hard to find information at the time.

[Assistant] I would think so.

[User] Yes, except we knew that Mars was one of the few planets that could have supported life at one time or might have supported life at one time. That's probably still true. Everything else looks desolate, too hot, too cold, too barren, too something. So that's us and Mars.

[Assistant] Was there any other NASA Centers other than Langley and JPL that were looking at the Mars adventure?


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

[User] Books, papers, technical treatises, students' theses that were graduating from college. Very hard to find information at the time.

[Assistant] I would think so.

[User] Yes, except we knew that Mars was one of the few planets that could have supported life at one time or might have supported life at one time. That's probably still true. Everything else looks desolate, too hot, too cold, too barren, too something. So that's us and Mars.

[Assistant] Was there any other NASA Centers other than Langley and JPL that were looking at the Mars adventure?

[User] Any other people looking at Mars? Yeah, all over Earth. People in universities, scientists. The Earth by and large was very conscious of Mars as being a good bet for having supported life at one time. For all I know about it, it's still a good bet.

[Assistant] Still a good bet.


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

[User] Yes, except we knew that Mars was one of the few planets that could have supported life at one time or might have supported life at one time. That's probably still true. Everything else looks desolate, too hot, too cold, too barren, too something. So that's us and Mars.

[Assistant] Was there any other NASA Centers other than Langley and JPL that were looking at the Mars adventure?

[User] Any other people looking at Mars? Yeah, all over Earth. People in universities, scientists. The Earth by and large was very conscious of Mars as being a good bet for having supported life at one time. For all I know about it, it's still a good bet.

[Assistant] Still a good bet.

[User] Yeah, I hope.

[Assistant] When you first started, like you said, you mentioned you came in with the instrument calibration lab.


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

[User] Any other people looking at Mars? Yeah, all over Earth. People in universities, scientists. The Earth by and large was very conscious of Mars as being a good bet for having supported life at one time. For all I know about it, it's still a good bet.

[Assistant] Still a good bet.

[User] Yeah, I hope.

[Assistant] When you first started, like you said, you mentioned you came in with the instrument calibration lab.

[User] I was moved into the instrument design laboratory, partially because we were already in instruments. Then in the instrument research division I got moved into a navigation and communication section and took charge of that, mostly because the field was widening at the time, a lot of stuff going on.

[Assistant] Had you planned to go so quickly into a leadership position when you arrived?


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

[User] Yeah, I hope.

[Assistant] When you first started, like you said, you mentioned you came in with the instrument calibration lab.

[User] I was moved into the instrument design laboratory, partially because we were already in instruments. Then in the instrument research division I got moved into a navigation and communication section and took charge of that, mostly because the field was widening at the time, a lot of stuff going on.

[Assistant] Had you planned to go so quickly into a leadership position when you arrived?

[User] Never. Catch as catch can. Better salaries.

[Assistant] So that was just a good move for you then.


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

[User] I was moved into the instrument design laboratory, partially because we were already in instruments. Then in the instrument research division I got moved into a navigation and communication section and took charge of that, mostly because the field was widening at the time, a lot of stuff going on.

[Assistant] Had you planned to go so quickly into a leadership position when you arrived?

[User] Never. Catch as catch can. Better salaries.

[Assistant] So that was just a good move for you then.

[User] Yes. In fact salaries were interesting, because I think when I came down here the yearly salary was something like $1,700 a year, and when I quit NASA it was closer to $70,000 a year, which is about what I'm making as a retiree out of Langley. So that's gotten an awful lot better. I remember when the salary went up to something like $2,600. That was enormous. It was fantastic. But that's all useless now. Money doesn't mean anything. Decimal points have shifted.

[Assistant] Yes, they have. What kind of hours did you have? Did your hours that you spent at the Center change after the aeronautics shifted over?