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

[User] Yes. No, I don’t. I don’t recall.

[Assistant] Well, Apollo 11, obviously the big mission for landing on the Moon for the first time. As you said, from your standpoint Apollo 8 was a big deal because you beat the Russians to the Moon and that was the big challenge there. But to actually land on the Moon, they did experience some computer alarms during the landing, which they cleared and were handling. But after they landed, there was a blocked fuel line with, I believe, a frozen plug or something that was looked at for a while. Do you recall if that was something that came through the SPAN room at all or maybe after they landed, if they talked about the computer alarms at all?

[User] No. Even in SPAN, we were broken into CSM and LM.

[Assistant] Oh, okay.

[User] So you had one person that was like FOD [Flight Operations Directorate], or whatever we were called back then, head, and then you had a CSM person and a LM person. So I wouldn’t have been very familiar with any of the LM problems that they might be working, unless I just overheard them and was curious. But, no, I don’t recall anything about a fuel line.

[Assistant] How many people were in the SPAN during a mission? You mentioned the division there.


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

[User] In the SPAN, yes. And the CSM probably had two tubes to look at and the LM probably had two tubes, and then probably the FOD manager had a couple of tubes to look at. So probably six tubes across there.

[Assistant] Did you have the capability to look at whatever telemetry that you needed to?

[User] Yes.

[Assistant] You could switch when you needed to?

[User] Yes.

[Assistant] What communication did you have in the SPAN with the flight controllers? Could you talk to which ever ones you needed to?


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

[User] Yes.

[Assistant] You could switch when you needed to?

[User] Yes.

[Assistant] What communication did you have in the SPAN with the flight controllers? Could you talk to which ever ones you needed to?

[User] Yes. We had all the loops, including the flight director’s loop. But that was very, very rare that SPAN ever talked to the flight director, because he was getting all his inputs from the EECOMs and GNCs and what have you. But, yes, we had all the loops, had monitor on the air-to-ground loops, just like everybody else in the control center, only the CapComs had talk on their air to ground. But, yes, we had every loop in the building that we wanted.

[Assistant] Did you run any simulations from the SPAN? Were you there—was anyone there—during simulations runs?


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

[User] Occasionally, yes, we would call up the—this may have happened on Shuttle later on and not so much on Apollo, but, yes, occasionally you would call up the entire team, including the E&D folks and the contractors, and run a simulation. But like I say, I bet that was more Shuttle and we may not have done that on Apollo. SPAN never participated in ascent or entry simulations, just because they were so dynamic you didn’t have time to—

[Assistant] Sure.

[User] Nobody needed to be calling SPAN during that anyway.

[Assistant] Right.

[User] But it made a great place for us as managers to go plug in and listen to the operation and see what’s going on and evaluate the troops, because we had all their lines we could hear what they were talking to their back rooms about. It was a good way to eavesdrop on them, and we had their displays to look at, and you could sort of evaluate how their thought process was going.\n\n Because one of the hardest things when we were moving into SPAN was that you would be sitting in the back room and you could see a problem being worked and you could just tell that the guy out on the console was working this problem in a different way than you would. You’re probably both going to arrive at the same answer, but you were going about it a different way. I can recall that being frustrating the first time or two that I sensed that was going on. But that was a little different life back there.

[Assistant] Yes. Very different. But still an important role to fill.


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

[User] Nobody needed to be calling SPAN during that anyway.

[Assistant] Right.

[User] But it made a great place for us as managers to go plug in and listen to the operation and see what’s going on and evaluate the troops, because we had all their lines we could hear what they were talking to their back rooms about. It was a good way to eavesdrop on them, and we had their displays to look at, and you could sort of evaluate how their thought process was going.\n\n Because one of the hardest things when we were moving into SPAN was that you would be sitting in the back room and you could see a problem being worked and you could just tell that the guy out on the console was working this problem in a different way than you would. You’re probably both going to arrive at the same answer, but you were going about it a different way. I can recall that being frustrating the first time or two that I sensed that was going on. But that was a little different life back there.

[Assistant] Yes. Very different. But still an important role to fill.

[User] Yes. Yes.

[Assistant] Well, on Apollo 11, did you have any thoughts as you were watching the landing?


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

[User] That’s right. I love telling the LM guys that, that we had really done our thing.

[Assistant] That’s right. Well, going on to Apollo 12, you talked about that briefly earlier, how it was struck by lightening during launch. Obviously that was a launch situation where nothing was sent back to the SPAN at that point in time, but once they got into orbit, the spacecraft did need to be evaluated to see if everything was still good for the mission.

[User] My sense was that that was the first mission, now that I think on it, I bet you that was the first mission I had not been in the control center somewhere for launch. Because I think I was home. I think I was watching that on ascent on commercial TV, and, of course, couldn’t hear what was going on in the back rooms or in the flight directorate or anything, but just hearing what was on TV. So I think that was probably the first one I just decided, well, this is going pretty good. I’ll stay home for this one.

[Assistant] Surprise, surprise.

[User] Yes.

[Assistant] Well, did you got a call later informing you as to everything that had gone on?


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

[User] My sense was that that was the first mission, now that I think on it, I bet you that was the first mission I had not been in the control center somewhere for launch. Because I think I was home. I think I was watching that on ascent on commercial TV, and, of course, couldn’t hear what was going on in the back rooms or in the flight directorate or anything, but just hearing what was on TV. So I think that was probably the first one I just decided, well, this is going pretty good. I’ll stay home for this one.

[Assistant] Surprise, surprise.

[User] Yes.

[Assistant] Well, did you got a call later informing you as to everything that had gone on?

[User] No, I don’t think so. Folks didn’t usually call unless they needed you to come in. I’m sure I was due in for the next shift or something like that, so, yes, I was probably in there within a few hours anyway.

[Assistant] What I way to find out.


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

[User] Yes.

[Assistant] Well, did you got a call later informing you as to everything that had gone on?

[User] No, I don’t think so. Folks didn’t usually call unless they needed you to come in. I’m sure I was due in for the next shift or something like that, so, yes, I was probably in there within a few hours anyway.

[Assistant] What I way to find out.

[User] Yes. Well, I did get to see it on TV.

[Assistant] Yes. Well, that’s good. Well, everything did go well with Apollo 12, despite the lightning.


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

[User] No, I don’t think so. Folks didn’t usually call unless they needed you to come in. I’m sure I was due in for the next shift or something like that, so, yes, I was probably in there within a few hours anyway.

[Assistant] What I way to find out.

[User] Yes. Well, I did get to see it on TV.

[Assistant] Yes. Well, that’s good. Well, everything did go well with Apollo 12, despite the lightning.

[User] Yes.

[Assistant] Apollo 13, however, was a different story, which did involve everyone at the center.


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

[User] Yes. Well, I did get to see it on TV.

[Assistant] Yes. Well, that’s good. Well, everything did go well with Apollo 12, despite the lightning.

[User] Yes.

[Assistant] Apollo 13, however, was a different story, which did involve everyone at the center.

[User] That one I did get called, yes.

[Assistant] Were you at home when they—


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

[User] Yes, I stayed in the active. I’m guessing maybe Arnie went off to work with the online bunch, I’m not sure. The SPAN guys back then probably would have been—although I mentioned Larry Canin, but I was thinking it would be Arnie and Neil [B.] Hutchinson and myself, but maybe not. Maybe Arnie wasn’t even working the mission or something. I don’t know. I don’t recall.

[Assistant] I’m sure we can check that in the manning lists.\n\n During Apollo 13, did you stay there at the bunkrooms that were available, or did you go home occasionally, or do you even recall?

[User] No, I never stayed at the bunkrooms. I’d go up there and unwind a lot after getting off consoles, but I always went home. I never figured anybody was going to need me that quick that they’d have to come wake me up in the middle of the night there, that they couldn’t reach me at home. Home was thirty, twenty minutes away, maybe. No, I never stayed there.

[Assistant] Do you recall any particular events during Apollo 13 that you worked specifically, any of the issues? There were so many.

[User] There were. No, I don’t recall any specifics. We worked a lot of them about charging batteries and powering down and powering up and things getting so cold, but, no, I don’t recall any specifics.

[Assistant] I’m sure you were involved with parts of all of everything that was going on and there was so much that needed to be looked at. But it did all go well. The crew did come back or were able to get the crew back, so your confidence there panned out.\n\n After that time frame, obviously a little bit of time was spent investigating what had happened and if anything should change for future missions. Do you recall if there were any particular changes that affected the areas that you worked in, at least?


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

[User] We did then what we probably should have done after\n\n Challenger\n\n ; we should have gotten right back up and flown it again.

[Assistant] Apollo 14 went pretty well, although they did have a few problems, that actually probably one of them that came through the SPAN room at least in your area. They had problems docking at first after they had gotten up into orbit and went to turn the command module around and retrieve the lunar model. They had a docking problem there and had to work through that. Were you at all involved with that discussion?

[User] Yes. I don’t remember a lot of details, but I can remember Larry [Lawrence G.] Williams—I think Larry was the docking guru, and I can remember Larry bringing a docking probe in the SPAN room and demonstrating to all the managers how this thing worked and it’s supposed to work and speculating on what maybe was the problem and stuff. I don’t recall many specifics about it, but I can remember Larry in there with his docking probe.

[Assistant] Sure. I think the ultimate solution was keep trying, hit it a little harder and—

[User] Yes. I think you’re right.

[Assistant] —hold it together.


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

[User] Yes. I don’t remember a lot of details, but I can remember Larry [Lawrence G.] Williams—I think Larry was the docking guru, and I can remember Larry bringing a docking probe in the SPAN room and demonstrating to all the managers how this thing worked and it’s supposed to work and speculating on what maybe was the problem and stuff. I don’t recall many specifics about it, but I can remember Larry in there with his docking probe.

[Assistant] Sure. I think the ultimate solution was keep trying, hit it a little harder and—

[User] Yes. I think you’re right.

[Assistant] —hold it together.

[User] Yes.

[Assistant] Although I think in his book, Alan [B.] Shepard [Jr.] mentions he was ready to go out and pull the spacecraft together. It probably wouldn’t have worked too well. [Laughter]\n\n Well Apollo 14 had a few other—as it was landing, it had, in the lunar module though, they had abort button problem and actually I believe a radar problem as well. That probably wouldn’t have fallen into your area—


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

[User] Yes. I think you’re right.

[Assistant] —hold it together.

[User] Yes.

[Assistant] Although I think in his book, Alan [B.] Shepard [Jr.] mentions he was ready to go out and pull the spacecraft together. It probably wouldn’t have worked too well. [Laughter]\n\n Well Apollo 14 had a few other—as it was landing, it had, in the lunar module though, they had abort button problem and actually I believe a radar problem as well. That probably wouldn’t have fallen into your area—

[User] No.

[Assistant] —since it was lunar module. The rest of the Apollo 14 went pretty well then.\n\n Moving on in our research, in our listings, we didn’t find you listed on the SPAN listing for Apollo 15 and 16. Is that inaccurate, or do you recall if you worked those missions? I know the lists we have were published some days before the mission, so sometimes they were changed.


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

[User] No.

[Assistant] —since it was lunar module. The rest of the Apollo 14 went pretty well then.\n\n Moving on in our research, in our listings, we didn’t find you listed on the SPAN listing for Apollo 15 and 16. Is that inaccurate, or do you recall if you worked those missions? I know the lists we have were published some days before the mission, so sometimes they were changed.

[User] The manning lists?

[Assistant] Yes.

[User] Yes. Yes, I’m sure I was. Some of us may have been off working Skylab by then. But I’m sure I was. In fact, I just ran across a whole bunch of temporary badges from one of those missions. We’d have temporary badges made up. I’d probably get a dozen of them or so each mission. What we’d use them for was guys out at the MER, if we wanted to bring them over to talk to the controllers or talk to us, then we’d send a temporary badge down to the lobby and get them badged to come on up. I just ran across a bunch of those that somehow ended up in my desk, and it ended up coming home with me when I retired. So, yes, I’m sure I was around for 15 and 16. It may not have been on the manning list.

[Assistant] Okay. Well, on 16 they had a problem with the engine on the service module. I think it was a gimbal problem before they went down to the lunar surface after they had undocked though, Ken [Thomas K.] Mattingly [II] was testing the system and found an error there. Do you recall that particular incident?


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

[User] The manning lists?

[Assistant] Yes.

[User] Yes. Yes, I’m sure I was. Some of us may have been off working Skylab by then. But I’m sure I was. In fact, I just ran across a whole bunch of temporary badges from one of those missions. We’d have temporary badges made up. I’d probably get a dozen of them or so each mission. What we’d use them for was guys out at the MER, if we wanted to bring them over to talk to the controllers or talk to us, then we’d send a temporary badge down to the lobby and get them badged to come on up. I just ran across a bunch of those that somehow ended up in my desk, and it ended up coming home with me when I retired. So, yes, I’m sure I was around for 15 and 16. It may not have been on the manning list.

[Assistant] Okay. Well, on 16 they had a problem with the engine on the service module. I think it was a gimbal problem before they went down to the lunar surface after they had undocked though, Ken [Thomas K.] Mattingly [II] was testing the system and found an error there. Do you recall that particular incident?

[User] Just vaguely. I don’t recall any specifics about it.

[Assistant] Okay. I know they did ultimately resolve it, and it was a problem with the backup system, I believe, and they resolved that and went on to have a good mission for both 15 and 16. Both went well. And Apollo 17 was pretty error-free.


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

[User] Yes. Yes, I’m sure I was. Some of us may have been off working Skylab by then. But I’m sure I was. In fact, I just ran across a whole bunch of temporary badges from one of those missions. We’d have temporary badges made up. I’d probably get a dozen of them or so each mission. What we’d use them for was guys out at the MER, if we wanted to bring them over to talk to the controllers or talk to us, then we’d send a temporary badge down to the lobby and get them badged to come on up. I just ran across a bunch of those that somehow ended up in my desk, and it ended up coming home with me when I retired. So, yes, I’m sure I was around for 15 and 16. It may not have been on the manning list.

[Assistant] Okay. Well, on 16 they had a problem with the engine on the service module. I think it was a gimbal problem before they went down to the lunar surface after they had undocked though, Ken [Thomas K.] Mattingly [II] was testing the system and found an error there. Do you recall that particular incident?

[User] Just vaguely. I don’t recall any specifics about it.

[Assistant] Okay. I know they did ultimately resolve it, and it was a problem with the backup system, I believe, and they resolved that and went on to have a good mission for both 15 and 16. Both went well. And Apollo 17 was pretty error-free.

[User] Yes.

[Assistant] But it was the end of the Apollo Program. Did you have any thoughts on the program coming to a close, or were you ready to move on to Skylab and Shuttle?


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

[User] Just vaguely. I don’t recall any specifics about it.

[Assistant] Okay. I know they did ultimately resolve it, and it was a problem with the backup system, I believe, and they resolved that and went on to have a good mission for both 15 and 16. Both went well. And Apollo 17 was pretty error-free.

[User] Yes.

[Assistant] But it was the end of the Apollo Program. Did you have any thoughts on the program coming to a close, or were you ready to move on to Skylab and Shuttle?

[User] Yes, I don’t recall any sadness or anything that Apollo was coming to a close. I’m sure it’s just like that’s the way things are supposed to work, because that’s the way Gemini had worked and that’s the way we heard that Mercury had worked. So it was time to finish this program and go on to another one.\n\n We were heavily involved in Skylab by that time. In fact, I guess I had the branch by then. I had Arnie’s. Arnie had left. Getting ready for Skylab, at some point I was made Carl [B.] Shelley’s deputy branch chief.

[Assistant] Is that in the CSM?


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

[User] Well, the handbooks and the mission rules and everything were exactly like what we had gone through in Gemini and Apollo. I think that’s why Kranz wanted me to go do that, because I had all that experience, or at least that’s the way we approached it, that we would treat an ATM telescope, an X-ray telescope, for instance, we’d treat it just like another system on the spacecraft. We’d write our rules and procedures and draw our schematics and everything, just like it was another system. So that’s sort of the way we approached that. All that fit in very well, I thought.

[Assistant] Did you work with any of the primary investigators on these experiments while you were developing these rules and handbooks?

[User] Our guys did, yes. Yes, our guys did. Here again, we would have contractor support like we’d had all through Gemini and Apollo where we’d have McDonnell and North American people. We had people from Ball Brothers and Naval Research Lab that would come down, and they were our, quote, “experts” on these various instruments. Then, yes, the PIs [Principal Investigators] would come down occasionally and we’d get to meet them, work with them. Our guys worked with them a lot. Carl and I didn’t too much, but the guys did a lot, yes.

[Assistant] The experiments, it was all decided beforehand which they were. You didn’t have any involvement in the selection of them, is that correct?

[User] No. No.

[Assistant] Just the planning on how they were going to be done.


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

[User] Our guys did, yes. Yes, our guys did. Here again, we would have contractor support like we’d had all through Gemini and Apollo where we’d have McDonnell and North American people. We had people from Ball Brothers and Naval Research Lab that would come down, and they were our, quote, “experts” on these various instruments. Then, yes, the PIs [Principal Investigators] would come down occasionally and we’d get to meet them, work with them. Our guys worked with them a lot. Carl and I didn’t too much, but the guys did a lot, yes.

[Assistant] The experiments, it was all decided beforehand which they were. You didn’t have any involvement in the selection of them, is that correct?

[User] No. No.

[Assistant] Just the planning on how they were going to be done.

[User] Yes.

[Assistant] At this point was there discussion on time lines at that point as well for the larger mission as a whole, or was this still more just the initial planning for how the experiments would be done on the—


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

[User] No. No.

[Assistant] Just the planning on how they were going to be done.

[User] Yes.

[Assistant] At this point was there discussion on time lines at that point as well for the larger mission as a whole, or was this still more just the initial planning for how the experiments would be done on the—

[User] My sense is that, yes, that we were starting to time-line some of that stuff, at least in a gross sense, saying we’ll allocate this many hours per day on ATMs and this much on whatever. But, yes, my sense is there was some of that going on.

[Assistant] Okay. When you moved back then to the Systems Branch that then now included the Saturn workshop, did that also include the simulators for the workshop?


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

[User] No.

[Assistant] Okay.

[User] No, that was a different organization back then. They had the sim guys, and then we had the—yes, they were a separate organization.

[Assistant] Okay.

[User] I’m trying to think if we were even tied together at the top. I guess, yes, we were. Yes.

[Assistant] So you were just dealing primarily with still the systems of command module and then system within the Sky—


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

[User] No, that was a different organization back then. They had the sim guys, and then we had the—yes, they were a separate organization.

[Assistant] Okay.

[User] I’m trying to think if we were even tied together at the top. I guess, yes, we were. Yes.

[Assistant] So you were just dealing primarily with still the systems of command module and then system within the Sky—

[User] In the center workshop.

[Assistant] Okay. What were some of the differences with those systems? Here now you’re looking for long-duration flight, obviously very different than what you’d been doing for the orbital missions. Even Apollo, even though some of them were longer duration, they were still very short in comparison. What were some of the systems’ differences to be able to maintain those longer-duration flights?


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

[User] I’m trying to think if we were even tied together at the top. I guess, yes, we were. Yes.

[Assistant] So you were just dealing primarily with still the systems of command module and then system within the Sky—

[User] In the center workshop.

[Assistant] Okay. What were some of the differences with those systems? Here now you’re looking for long-duration flight, obviously very different than what you’d been doing for the orbital missions. Even Apollo, even though some of them were longer duration, they were still very short in comparison. What were some of the systems’ differences to be able to maintain those longer-duration flights?

[User] Well, of course, we didn’t have fuel cells; we had solar arrays. Had solar arrays on the center workshop and solar arrays on the ATM. We had coolant loops on each, on the ATM and also on the workshop. We had a refrigeration loop that maintained our refrigeration equipment. Housekeeping equipment, showers, kitchens, a lot of new stuff like that that we had not really worried about in the past. It was all brand new.\n\n No more cryos. We still had them on the CSM, of course, but not on the workshop. Had a mixed gas atmosphere. I guess we had gotten away from the oxygen that we had at the time of the fire, so we had a mixed gas atmosphere and controllers that controlled the amount of nitrogen that you had in the air and stuff. Yes, there was some new—Skylab was an interesting, really interesting project from the EECOM standpoint because of those different kinds of—it was becoming more and more like the house you lived in, rather than a spacecraft.

[Assistant] They certainly were going to be living for a while, so you want it to be comfortable.


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

[User] In the center workshop.

[Assistant] Okay. What were some of the differences with those systems? Here now you’re looking for long-duration flight, obviously very different than what you’d been doing for the orbital missions. Even Apollo, even though some of them were longer duration, they were still very short in comparison. What were some of the systems’ differences to be able to maintain those longer-duration flights?

[User] Well, of course, we didn’t have fuel cells; we had solar arrays. Had solar arrays on the center workshop and solar arrays on the ATM. We had coolant loops on each, on the ATM and also on the workshop. We had a refrigeration loop that maintained our refrigeration equipment. Housekeeping equipment, showers, kitchens, a lot of new stuff like that that we had not really worried about in the past. It was all brand new.\n\n No more cryos. We still had them on the CSM, of course, but not on the workshop. Had a mixed gas atmosphere. I guess we had gotten away from the oxygen that we had at the time of the fire, so we had a mixed gas atmosphere and controllers that controlled the amount of nitrogen that you had in the air and stuff. Yes, there was some new—Skylab was an interesting, really interesting project from the EECOM standpoint because of those different kinds of—it was becoming more and more like the house you lived in, rather than a spacecraft.

[Assistant] They certainly were going to be living for a while, so you want it to be comfortable.

[User] Right.

[Assistant] Do you recall any of these new systems being particularly challenging during that process of development, any of them causing any particular or having any particular problems?


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

[User] Well, of course, we didn’t have fuel cells; we had solar arrays. Had solar arrays on the center workshop and solar arrays on the ATM. We had coolant loops on each, on the ATM and also on the workshop. We had a refrigeration loop that maintained our refrigeration equipment. Housekeeping equipment, showers, kitchens, a lot of new stuff like that that we had not really worried about in the past. It was all brand new.\n\n No more cryos. We still had them on the CSM, of course, but not on the workshop. Had a mixed gas atmosphere. I guess we had gotten away from the oxygen that we had at the time of the fire, so we had a mixed gas atmosphere and controllers that controlled the amount of nitrogen that you had in the air and stuff. Yes, there was some new—Skylab was an interesting, really interesting project from the EECOM standpoint because of those different kinds of—it was becoming more and more like the house you lived in, rather than a spacecraft.

[Assistant] They certainly were going to be living for a while, so you want it to be comfortable.

[User] Right.

[Assistant] Do you recall any of these new systems being particularly challenging during that process of development, any of them causing any particular or having any particular problems?

[User] No, I don’t recall anything during the development phase.

[Assistant] Or even during missions.


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

[User] No, I don’t recall anything during the development phase.

[Assistant] Or even during missions.

[User] At least specifically. We spent an awful lot of time going back and forth to Marshall. Of course Marshall Space Flight Center [Huntsville, Alabama] was building the Saturn workshop and the ATM. The engineering folks here at JSC were totally not involved in it. Boy, if you had a question of a simulation like the MER, you had to go to Marshall to get that information on Skylab.\n\n So we spent an awful lot of time going back and forth to Marshall on various reviews, whereas on Apollo you could walk across the campus to a meeting. Here you had to go get on an airplane and go to Marshall for the meetings. Even had a charter plane, an old Lockheed Electra that would go out to Marshall twice a week, I think it was. Flew out of Ellington and into the Redstone Arsenal up there that we used, and of course the Marshall guys used coming this way.\n\n Then when we got ready to fly, what used to be SPAN now became the FOMR, the Flying Operations Management Room. We had it broken down similar to what SPAN did. We had the flight control people all on the consoles. We had a FOMR manager. Then I guess we had FOMR systems that sat over here, and we had a FOMR experiments guy, which was also a flight control guy, that sat over here. Then we had, rather than having Apollo Program Office people behind us at the table, we had Marshall people back there.\n\n So, yes, a lot of the Marshall folks came here for the duration. We became very, very good friends with a bunch of them. I’ve got guys I still run around with and play golf with that I met because they were here working in the FOMRs.

[Assistant] That’s good.

[User] Yes.

[Assistant] How was that relationship between Johnson Space Center people and Marshall Space Center people? Did it start out that well?


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

[User] Yes.

[Assistant] How was that relationship between Johnson Space Center people and Marshall Space Center people? Did it start out that well?

[User] It got very strained. Here again, it was almost one of these “who’s in charge” things. The JSC guys, I think our sense was “We’re the flight controllers and we’re going to fly it, and if we need your help, we’ll ask for it.” The Marshall folks, understandably said, “Hey, we built it, we designed it, we know more about it than anybody else, and we’ll make our inputs into it.” They weren’t against if we wouldn’t take their inputs, they’d go to Headquarters and try to bring them down the other way. There was a lot of that.\n\n But we had a remarkably good bunch in the FOMR. I think everybody really got along good, and no lasting enemies. We had our differences for a while, but it was a good time. Everybody worked well together. A few rough edges.

[Assistant] The team came together.

[User] Yes.

[Assistant] Well, as the Skylab then began the missions, the launch obviously was a challenge. Several things went wrong on that.


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

[User] It got very strained. Here again, it was almost one of these “who’s in charge” things. The JSC guys, I think our sense was “We’re the flight controllers and we’re going to fly it, and if we need your help, we’ll ask for it.” The Marshall folks, understandably said, “Hey, we built it, we designed it, we know more about it than anybody else, and we’ll make our inputs into it.” They weren’t against if we wouldn’t take their inputs, they’d go to Headquarters and try to bring them down the other way. There was a lot of that.\n\n But we had a remarkably good bunch in the FOMR. I think everybody really got along good, and no lasting enemies. We had our differences for a while, but it was a good time. Everybody worked well together. A few rough edges.

[Assistant] The team came together.

[User] Yes.

[Assistant] Well, as the Skylab then began the missions, the launch obviously was a challenge. Several things went wrong on that.

[User] Oh, yes, the wing tore off.

[Assistant] Were you in the FOMR at that point during the launch or actually even during the missions?


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

[User] Yes.

[Assistant] Well, as the Skylab then began the missions, the launch obviously was a challenge. Several things went wrong on that.

[User] Oh, yes, the wing tore off.

[Assistant] Were you in the FOMR at that point during the launch or actually even during the missions?

[User] Yes.

[Assistant] Did you still have an active role there?


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

[User] Oh, yes, the wing tore off.

[Assistant] Were you in the FOMR at that point during the launch or actually even during the missions?

[User] Yes.

[Assistant] Did you still have an active role there?

[User] I stayed in the FOMR the whole time. I can’t tell you if I was in there for the launch when the wing came off or not. I just can’t recall.

[Assistant] Once the launch problems were identified, whether you were in the FOMR or working other duties, do you recall what your involvement was with figuring out to help fix the problem, or was that pretty much done through other areas since they knew that it was reengineering basically had to be done?


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

[User] I stayed in the FOMR the whole time. I can’t tell you if I was in there for the launch when the wing came off or not. I just can’t recall.

[Assistant] Once the launch problems were identified, whether you were in the FOMR or working other duties, do you recall what your involvement was with figuring out to help fix the problem, or was that pretty much done through other areas since they knew that it was reengineering basically had to be done?

[User] No. I can recall some of the various EVA tools that were developed and gone over, and helping evaluate those things, watching guys try to cut through what we thought was holding that one wing that hadn’t deployed. Not any real specifics, though, but I know we stayed—

[Assistant] It involved—

[User] —stayed awful busy getting that thing finally settled down and habitable.

[Assistant] Do you recall as the crew got up there and began working and trying to fix it, do you recall that experience?


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

[User] I think that was [Charles “Pete”] Conrad [Jr.] and [Joseph P.] Kerwin.

[Assistant] Yes.

[User] Was that P.J. Weitz on that one?

[Assistant] Yes.

[User] Okay. No specifics. Just way in the back of my mind I can remember the EVA and hearing Pete. When he finally got it loose, I think he let out a big yell or something.

[Assistant] [Laughs] Sounds about right.


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

[User] Was that P.J. Weitz on that one?

[Assistant] Yes.

[User] Okay. No specifics. Just way in the back of my mind I can remember the EVA and hearing Pete. When he finally got it loose, I think he let out a big yell or something.

[Assistant] [Laughs] Sounds about right.

[User] Yes.

[Assistant] Well, as the three missions were up and running, the first one, once they got everything working again, once they got the fixes done, things went pretty well, although there were some I believe gyroscope problems along the way.


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

[User] Okay. No specifics. Just way in the back of my mind I can remember the EVA and hearing Pete. When he finally got it loose, I think he let out a big yell or something.

[Assistant] [Laughs] Sounds about right.

[User] Yes.

[Assistant] Well, as the three missions were up and running, the first one, once they got everything working again, once they got the fixes done, things went pretty well, although there were some I believe gyroscope problems along the way.

[User] The CMGs [control moment gyros], yes.

[Assistant] A few other systems began to have problems throughout the program. I think by the end they were having problems with the dehumidifier and things.


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

[User] Yes.

[Assistant] Well, as the three missions were up and running, the first one, once they got everything working again, once they got the fixes done, things went pretty well, although there were some I believe gyroscope problems along the way.

[User] The CMGs [control moment gyros], yes.

[Assistant] A few other systems began to have problems throughout the program. I think by the end they were having problems with the dehumidifier and things.

[User] Yes.

[Assistant] Do you remember any of the various problems they experienced and some of the effects of those?


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

[User] Yes.

[Assistant] Do you remember any of the various problems they experienced and some of the effects of those?

[User] No, I don’t recall any specifics. We stayed awful busy, not only working with Marshall, and just the distance made it harder than having somebody over in the MER.

[Assistant] Sure.

[User] But Skylab was so massive, there were so many systems onboard that it was—because you also had a CSM, don’t forget, still attached to the thing, so any problems that came up with it had to be worked, but I can’t remember any CSM problems during all of Skylab. That’s amazing.

[Assistant] I think there was one where they had some thrusters that began leaking and actually even talked whether they would need to send up a rescue crew. It was on the second mission. There was leaks in a couple of thrusters and they ended up just turning them off and with the amount of time it would have taken to get the rescue crew turned around, it would have been close to when they would have been coming down anyway.


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

[User] No, I don’t recall any specifics. We stayed awful busy, not only working with Marshall, and just the distance made it harder than having somebody over in the MER.

[Assistant] Sure.

[User] But Skylab was so massive, there were so many systems onboard that it was—because you also had a CSM, don’t forget, still attached to the thing, so any problems that came up with it had to be worked, but I can’t remember any CSM problems during all of Skylab. That’s amazing.

[Assistant] I think there was one where they had some thrusters that began leaking and actually even talked whether they would need to send up a rescue crew. It was on the second mission. There was leaks in a couple of thrusters and they ended up just turning them off and with the amount of time it would have taken to get the rescue crew turned around, it would have been close to when they would have been coming down anyway.

[User] Okay. That vaguely rings a bell.

[Assistant] That’s the only one that I specifically remember—


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

[User] But Skylab was so massive, there were so many systems onboard that it was—because you also had a CSM, don’t forget, still attached to the thing, so any problems that came up with it had to be worked, but I can’t remember any CSM problems during all of Skylab. That’s amazing.

[Assistant] I think there was one where they had some thrusters that began leaking and actually even talked whether they would need to send up a rescue crew. It was on the second mission. There was leaks in a couple of thrusters and they ended up just turning them off and with the amount of time it would have taken to get the rescue crew turned around, it would have been close to when they would have been coming down anyway.

[User] Okay. That vaguely rings a bell.

[Assistant] That’s the only one that I specifically remember—

[User] Okay.

[Assistant] —for the command module.


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

[User] Okay.

[Assistant] —for the command module.

[User] But on Skylab, the thing was so massive and so many systems, it seems like it was always something. It was a fun mission to work. But I can’t recall any specifics.\n\n I can recall one morning we were undocking and we lost our refrigeration loop, I think. I can’t remember now if we got it back or we worked our way around it or something, but I just remember the refrigeration loop going down. Because that happened by the time I was on my way into work and I had just gotten in and somebody said that, I remember, “We just lost our refrigeration loop.”\n\n On Skylab we went to—the guys, somebody went off and studied how oil companies shifted. We came up with a scheme whereby you would work seven days on. If I recall this right, if you were coming off days, you got a day off and then you went to midnights. I guess then you went to evenings, and then you worked the like four to midnight shift and you’d work seven days on. Then I think you got two days off. Then you went into midnights, working midnight to eight. After you came off midnights, then you got four days off before you went back to the day shift.\n\n So Skylab was different than Apollo in that way in that you weren’t—in Apollo and all the other missions we’d ever worked, you were always handing over to somebody that you had just—you had just left the console sixteen hours ago at the most when you came back in to catch up. Here on Skylab, you’d be off for days and you’d come in and you’d have to read through the log and catch up with what was going on.\n\n So that was a big difference, trying to stay abreast of the whole thing. You almost had to force yourself to get out of the office and leave. On your four days off, you didn’t want to be going over in the office and stuff.

[Assistant] Right.

[User] We bought a boat and a camper, and we did a lot of camping during that time.

[Assistant] Well, that’s good.


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

[User] We bought a boat and a camper, and we did a lot of camping during that time.

[Assistant] Well, that’s good.

[User] Yes.

[Assistant] A good way to relax.

[User] Yes.

[Assistant] The individuals then in the FOMR and the Mission Evaluation Room, did they follow that same rotation schedule then?


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

[User] Yes.

[Assistant] A good way to relax.

[User] Yes.

[Assistant] The individuals then in the FOMR and the Mission Evaluation Room, did they follow that same rotation schedule then?

[User] Yes, yes. In fact, we put the FOMR guys on the same shift as the flight control teams. In other words, we called the EECOM EGIL back then. We changed his name to EGIL. That was Electrical, General Instrumentation and Life support, I think was what that stood for. GNC was now called GNS [Guidance Navigation Systems], because we still had EECOMs and GNCs that were taking care of the CSM.\n\n But the FOMR team followed the other team, so we’d work with the same flight director, same EGIL, same GNS for the whole time.

[Assistant] Must have been challenging adjusting your body to that kind of a schedule.


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

[User] Yes.

[Assistant] The individuals then in the FOMR and the Mission Evaluation Room, did they follow that same rotation schedule then?

[User] Yes, yes. In fact, we put the FOMR guys on the same shift as the flight control teams. In other words, we called the EECOM EGIL back then. We changed his name to EGIL. That was Electrical, General Instrumentation and Life support, I think was what that stood for. GNC was now called GNS [Guidance Navigation Systems], because we still had EECOMs and GNCs that were taking care of the CSM.\n\n But the FOMR team followed the other team, so we’d work with the same flight director, same EGIL, same GNS for the whole time.

[Assistant] Must have been challenging adjusting your body to that kind of a schedule.

[User] It wasn’t as bad as I had imagined it was going to be. I always tried to just totally change things around. Like when I got off work, the only place we found you could get a beer at eight o’clock in the morning was the coffee shop at the Ramada Inn, which was across the street. So quite often we’d get off shift and go over there. It’d be like going to the Singing Wheel or something after we got off normal shift we’d go over there. Get some strange looks from—

[Assistant] [Laughs] I bet.


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

[User] Yes, yes. In fact, we put the FOMR guys on the same shift as the flight control teams. In other words, we called the EECOM EGIL back then. We changed his name to EGIL. That was Electrical, General Instrumentation and Life support, I think was what that stood for. GNC was now called GNS [Guidance Navigation Systems], because we still had EECOMs and GNCs that were taking care of the CSM.\n\n But the FOMR team followed the other team, so we’d work with the same flight director, same EGIL, same GNS for the whole time.

[Assistant] Must have been challenging adjusting your body to that kind of a schedule.

[User] It wasn’t as bad as I had imagined it was going to be. I always tried to just totally change things around. Like when I got off work, the only place we found you could get a beer at eight o’clock in the morning was the coffee shop at the Ramada Inn, which was across the street. So quite often we’d get off shift and go over there. It’d be like going to the Singing Wheel or something after we got off normal shift we’d go over there. Get some strange looks from—

[Assistant] [Laughs] I bet.

[User] —the patrons in the place, but go over there and have a few beer and unwind and go home and take care of whatever chores you had around there and then try to go to sleep. But that’s the way that helped me get through is trying to get on a schedule like that.

[Assistant] As long as you found something that worked for you there.


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

[User] It wasn’t as bad as I had imagined it was going to be. I always tried to just totally change things around. Like when I got off work, the only place we found you could get a beer at eight o’clock in the morning was the coffee shop at the Ramada Inn, which was across the street. So quite often we’d get off shift and go over there. It’d be like going to the Singing Wheel or something after we got off normal shift we’d go over there. Get some strange looks from—

[Assistant] [Laughs] I bet.

[User] —the patrons in the place, but go over there and have a few beer and unwind and go home and take care of whatever chores you had around there and then try to go to sleep. But that’s the way that helped me get through is trying to get on a schedule like that.

[Assistant] As long as you found something that worked for you there.

[User] That’s right, yes. Yes, I never had any trouble sleeping during the day. I was one of the lucky ones. Some people did. Some people really found that hard to do.

[Assistant] Certainly get turned in to the light and dark schedule—


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

[User] —the patrons in the place, but go over there and have a few beer and unwind and go home and take care of whatever chores you had around there and then try to go to sleep. But that’s the way that helped me get through is trying to get on a schedule like that.

[Assistant] As long as you found something that worked for you there.

[User] That’s right, yes. Yes, I never had any trouble sleeping during the day. I was one of the lucky ones. Some people did. Some people really found that hard to do.

[Assistant] Certainly get turned in to the light and dark schedule—

[User] Yes.

[Assistant] —and it can throw you off.


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

[User] That’s right, yes. Yes, I never had any trouble sleeping during the day. I was one of the lucky ones. Some people did. Some people really found that hard to do.

[Assistant] Certainly get turned in to the light and dark schedule—

[User] Yes.

[Assistant] —and it can throw you off.

[User] Yes, I think my wife put up dark curtains or something. We could keep the house pretty dark.

[Assistant] The last Skylab crew experienced some difficulty. The first one had had all the recovery from the launch—


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

[User] Yes.

[Assistant] —and it can throw you off.

[User] Yes, I think my wife put up dark curtains or something. We could keep the house pretty dark.

[Assistant] The last Skylab crew experienced some difficulty. The first one had had all the recovery from the launch—

[User] Yes.

[Assistant] —to deal with. The second crew had had more time, they had been able to adapt and get a lot done while up on orbit. The last crew, since they were going to be up longer, had even more tasks. They had some difficulties since they were still adapting to working in space but then trying to do their tasks, so there was some conflict that grew between the crew and the flight controllers. Do you recall that situation?


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

[User] Yes, I think my wife put up dark curtains or something. We could keep the house pretty dark.

[Assistant] The last Skylab crew experienced some difficulty. The first one had had all the recovery from the launch—

[User] Yes.

[Assistant] —to deal with. The second crew had had more time, they had been able to adapt and get a lot done while up on orbit. The last crew, since they were going to be up longer, had even more tasks. They had some difficulties since they were still adapting to working in space but then trying to do their tasks, so there was some conflict that grew between the crew and the flight controllers. Do you recall that situation?

[User] No, I don’t recall any specifics. Now that you mention it, just in the background I can say, yes, I can recall some of that going on, but I don’t recall any specifics about it.

[Assistant] It probably didn’t affect too much. It wasn’t something they could send to you all to find an engineering fix for.


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

[User] Yes.

[Assistant] —to deal with. The second crew had had more time, they had been able to adapt and get a lot done while up on orbit. The last crew, since they were going to be up longer, had even more tasks. They had some difficulties since they were still adapting to working in space but then trying to do their tasks, so there was some conflict that grew between the crew and the flight controllers. Do you recall that situation?

[User] No, I don’t recall any specifics. Now that you mention it, just in the background I can say, yes, I can recall some of that going on, but I don’t recall any specifics about it.

[Assistant] It probably didn’t affect too much. It wasn’t something they could send to you all to find an engineering fix for.

[User] Right.

[Assistant] They did eventually resolve that and work it out, a good schedule that worked for everybody. All three missions were very successful ultimately.


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

[User] No, I don’t recall any specifics. Now that you mention it, just in the background I can say, yes, I can recall some of that going on, but I don’t recall any specifics about it.

[Assistant] It probably didn’t affect too much. It wasn’t something they could send to you all to find an engineering fix for.

[User] Right.

[Assistant] They did eventually resolve that and work it out, a good schedule that worked for everybody. All three missions were very successful ultimately.

[User] Yes.

[Assistant] Skylab went very well.\n\n Well, at this point I think we’re probably at a good point to stop before moving into your work with Shuttle, unless there’s any particular areas that we haven’t touched on from when you were working on any of these early programs or even the transition.\n\n Oh, we didn’t talk about Apollo Soyuz. I don’t how much you were involved in that.


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

[User] Right.

[Assistant] They did eventually resolve that and work it out, a good schedule that worked for everybody. All three missions were very successful ultimately.

[User] Yes.

[Assistant] Skylab went very well.\n\n Well, at this point I think we’re probably at a good point to stop before moving into your work with Shuttle, unless there’s any particular areas that we haven’t touched on from when you were working on any of these early programs or even the transition.\n\n Oh, we didn’t talk about Apollo Soyuz. I don’t how much you were involved in that.

[User] Oh, yes, that came along way at the end of Skylab, about ‘75.

[Assistant] I think at this point you were now chief of the Electrical Environmental Systems Branch.


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

[User] Yes.

[Assistant] Skylab went very well.\n\n Well, at this point I think we’re probably at a good point to stop before moving into your work with Shuttle, unless there’s any particular areas that we haven’t touched on from when you were working on any of these early programs or even the transition.\n\n Oh, we didn’t talk about Apollo Soyuz. I don’t how much you were involved in that.

[User] Oh, yes, that came along way at the end of Skylab, about ‘75.

[Assistant] I think at this point you were now chief of the Electrical Environmental Systems Branch.

[User] Had we split them up by then? Okay.

[Assistant] Apollo Soyuz [Test Project, ASTP] was ‘75, so I think.


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

[User] Had we split them up by then? Okay.

[Assistant] Apollo Soyuz [Test Project, ASTP] was ‘75, so I think.

[User] You’re right, at some point we—up until then, CSM systems had all been one branch and lunar modules systems had all been one branch. Arnie had the branch and then I had the branch. But then comes Shuttle, and maybe we did this for ASTP. The systems were getting so being and so complicated, that we decided that’s at least two branches worth, probably three. Well, three I guess. So we split it up to sort of an EECOM-oriented branch and a GNC-oriented branch and then an INCO kind of oriented branch, instrumentation communications. So that’s what the title of this thing.\n\n Then I guess we could split it by ASTP. Don’t remember a lot about ASTP. We tried very hard to get along with the Russians that were here. I can remember a lot of parties that we had with those guys.\n\n Somebody lived over in the apartments in Nassau Bay, was a bachelor, and so had a swinging bachelor apartment, and knew somebody that was with one of the airlines, Delta or somebody, and some of the Delta folks would come out here and party with the Russians. So we did a lot of socializing with the Russians.\n\n We had done the same thing with the Marshall guys just to get to know them when they first started showing up down here on Skylab. I can recall a number of parties where somebody—over at Clear Lake on the corner of El Camino and Reseda. There’s an apartment complex there.

[Assistant] Okay.

[User] Some of our guys had actually lived there and had access to they had a party room there. But I can remember some people throwing parties for the Marshall guys, and it was just to get to know one another kind of a thing.

[Assistant] Trying to build that time.


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

[User] Some of our guys had actually lived there and had access to they had a party room there. But I can remember some people throwing parties for the Marshall guys, and it was just to get to know one another kind of a thing.

[Assistant] Trying to build that time.

[User] Yes, yes. It was good reason to party, too.\n\n For some reason now that we get to ASTP, we’ve moved, and we’re not partying over here anymore. We’re across the street at Nassau Bay. I can remember some good parties with the Russian guys.\n\n Had a few of our guys that went to Russia. I think Sy went and Steve [J. S.] McLendon, I think, went over. Steve was one of our EGILs on Skylab and Sy was, too. Sy had been an EECOM on Apollo. Steve and another guy, Craig Staresinich, came in right at the end of Apollo, and we started grooming them for Skylab. They were two just absolutely outstanding EGILs on Skylab. But I remember Steve going to Russia and Sy going to Russia.\n\n I can’t recall a lot about the mission. We had a new position that was Frank [C.] Littleton, out of the program office did it. He was sort of a—what did we call him? Joint Flight or something like that, where he was sort of overseeing the joint activities that we did with the Russians. Because I’m sure here again we had this who’s in charge thing. I can imagine it going on amongst ourselves, but then I can also imagine it’s must have been horrible with the Russians. Now, Glynn Lunney went and worked all that, thank goodness, and I didn’t have to get involved with that, but I can just imagine it went on. But other than Frank and that new position in the control center, I don’t remember an awful lot about the mission.

[Assistant] I know from a systems standpoint with the docking module and I believe they had different pressures in the two different—

[User] Yes. Yes.

[Assistant] —spacecraft they had to regulate so I don’t know if that—


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

[User] Yes, yes. It was good reason to party, too.\n\n For some reason now that we get to ASTP, we’ve moved, and we’re not partying over here anymore. We’re across the street at Nassau Bay. I can remember some good parties with the Russian guys.\n\n Had a few of our guys that went to Russia. I think Sy went and Steve [J. S.] McLendon, I think, went over. Steve was one of our EGILs on Skylab and Sy was, too. Sy had been an EECOM on Apollo. Steve and another guy, Craig Staresinich, came in right at the end of Apollo, and we started grooming them for Skylab. They were two just absolutely outstanding EGILs on Skylab. But I remember Steve going to Russia and Sy going to Russia.\n\n I can’t recall a lot about the mission. We had a new position that was Frank [C.] Littleton, out of the program office did it. He was sort of a—what did we call him? Joint Flight or something like that, where he was sort of overseeing the joint activities that we did with the Russians. Because I’m sure here again we had this who’s in charge thing. I can imagine it going on amongst ourselves, but then I can also imagine it’s must have been horrible with the Russians. Now, Glynn Lunney went and worked all that, thank goodness, and I didn’t have to get involved with that, but I can just imagine it went on. But other than Frank and that new position in the control center, I don’t remember an awful lot about the mission.

[Assistant] I know from a systems standpoint with the docking module and I believe they had different pressures in the two different—

[User] Yes. Yes.

[Assistant] —spacecraft they had to regulate so I don’t know if that—

[User] Yes.

[Assistant] —caused any—well, probably some discussion.


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

[User] Yes. Yes.

[Assistant] —spacecraft they had to regulate so I don’t know if that—

[User] Yes.

[Assistant] —caused any—well, probably some discussion.

[User] Yes, you probably right. Probably a lot of discussion, but I can’t remember any big problems or anything with it.

[Assistant] I think everything went pretty well.


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

[User] Yes.

[Assistant] —caused any—well, probably some discussion.

[User] Yes, you probably right. Probably a lot of discussion, but I can’t remember any big problems or anything with it.

[Assistant] I think everything went pretty well.

[User] Nothing that jumps out at me. Yes.

[Assistant] Until landing they did leave open—


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

[User] Yes, you probably right. Probably a lot of discussion, but I can’t remember any big problems or anything with it.

[Assistant] I think everything went pretty well.

[User] Nothing that jumps out at me. Yes.

[Assistant] Until landing they did leave open—

[User] Oh, yes. That’s when Vance [D. Brand]—

[Assistant] —something on landing.


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

[User] Nothing that jumps out at me. Yes.

[Assistant] Until landing they did leave open—

[User] Oh, yes. That’s when Vance [D. Brand]—

[Assistant] —something on landing.

[User] I think it was Vance got blamed for that, left open a valve and, yes, we sucked some fumes in, yes. Yes.

[Assistant] You mentioned working with the Russians and partying with them.


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

[User] Oh, yes. That’s when Vance [D. Brand]—

[Assistant] —something on landing.

[User] I think it was Vance got blamed for that, left open a valve and, yes, we sucked some fumes in, yes. Yes.

[Assistant] You mentioned working with the Russians and partying with them.

[User] Yes.

[Assistant] What were some of the challenges? Were there cultural challenges in working with them and getting to understand each other and getting to know each other and the language barrier?


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

[User] I think it was Vance got blamed for that, left open a valve and, yes, we sucked some fumes in, yes. Yes.

[Assistant] You mentioned working with the Russians and partying with them.

[User] Yes.

[Assistant] What were some of the challenges? Were there cultural challenges in working with them and getting to understand each other and getting to know each other and the language barrier?

[User] Oh, yes. We didn’t—at least I didn’t trust them. I don’t think they trusted us. Yes, they were still the enemy, as far as I was concerned, but an enemy we were at least working with. Enemy is probably many too strong a word.\n\n But my sense was that and I think we had been told that when you get a group of them together, at least one in that group’s going to be KGB [Soviet secret police]. You won’t know which one it is, but count on it. One of them is going to be KGB. So my sense was that they didn’t feel real free and couldn’t be as open maybe as they would have liked to have been or maybe we would have liked them to have been.\n\n My sense is that total project was that they learned an awful lot from us, and we didn’t learn anything from them. Our spacecraft was so much more advanced. They had the luxury ever since they’d started of having the big boosters, so they didn’t have to worry about weight and stuff like we had to fight all those years. So we were just more sophisticated. We had to be. We had to develop that sophistication, and they didn’t. So like I say, my sense was they learned a lot from us, but we didn’t learn anything from them on ASTP. They weren’t as easy to work with just because they weren’t capable or allowed to be as open as you would have liked them to have been.

[Assistant] Well, that formed a foundation that later was built on with the Shuttle-Mir program—


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

[User] Yes.

[Assistant] What were some of the challenges? Were there cultural challenges in working with them and getting to understand each other and getting to know each other and the language barrier?

[User] Oh, yes. We didn’t—at least I didn’t trust them. I don’t think they trusted us. Yes, they were still the enemy, as far as I was concerned, but an enemy we were at least working with. Enemy is probably many too strong a word.\n\n But my sense was that and I think we had been told that when you get a group of them together, at least one in that group’s going to be KGB [Soviet secret police]. You won’t know which one it is, but count on it. One of them is going to be KGB. So my sense was that they didn’t feel real free and couldn’t be as open maybe as they would have liked to have been or maybe we would have liked them to have been.\n\n My sense is that total project was that they learned an awful lot from us, and we didn’t learn anything from them. Our spacecraft was so much more advanced. They had the luxury ever since they’d started of having the big boosters, so they didn’t have to worry about weight and stuff like we had to fight all those years. So we were just more sophisticated. We had to be. We had to develop that sophistication, and they didn’t. So like I say, my sense was they learned a lot from us, but we didn’t learn anything from them on ASTP. They weren’t as easy to work with just because they weren’t capable or allowed to be as open as you would have liked them to have been.

[Assistant] Well, that formed a foundation that later was built on with the Shuttle-Mir program—

[User] Yes. Yes.

[Assistant] —which is interesting, so we’ll probably touch on that at least briefly—


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

[User] Oh, yes. We didn’t—at least I didn’t trust them. I don’t think they trusted us. Yes, they were still the enemy, as far as I was concerned, but an enemy we were at least working with. Enemy is probably many too strong a word.\n\n But my sense was that and I think we had been told that when you get a group of them together, at least one in that group’s going to be KGB [Soviet secret police]. You won’t know which one it is, but count on it. One of them is going to be KGB. So my sense was that they didn’t feel real free and couldn’t be as open maybe as they would have liked to have been or maybe we would have liked them to have been.\n\n My sense is that total project was that they learned an awful lot from us, and we didn’t learn anything from them. Our spacecraft was so much more advanced. They had the luxury ever since they’d started of having the big boosters, so they didn’t have to worry about weight and stuff like we had to fight all those years. So we were just more sophisticated. We had to be. We had to develop that sophistication, and they didn’t. So like I say, my sense was they learned a lot from us, but we didn’t learn anything from them on ASTP. They weren’t as easy to work with just because they weren’t capable or allowed to be as open as you would have liked them to have been.

[Assistant] Well, that formed a foundation that later was built on with the Shuttle-Mir program—

[User] Yes. Yes.

[Assistant] —which is interesting, so we’ll probably touch on that at least briefly—

[User] Okay.

[Assistant] —toward the end as we talk. At this point I’d like to ask Kirk and Kevin if they had any questions on the stuff that we’ve talked about so far—


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

[User] Yes. Yes.

[Assistant] —which is interesting, so we’ll probably touch on that at least briefly—

[User] Okay.

[Assistant] —toward the end as we talk. At this point I’d like to ask Kirk and Kevin if they had any questions on the stuff that we’ve talked about so far—

[User] Sure.

[Assistant] —is that all right?\n\n RUSNAK: Yes, I had couple of general thoughts. When you came here from Boeing, you said you had general through this process where you went through a couple different branches of their engineering, whatever, you thought maybe tests was what you wanted to do. Why did you go into operations when you came here? What were you expecting out of that, and did you consider going into any other areas at the Manned Spacecraft Center?


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

[User] Yes. Hope you had good weather.

[Assistant] We did.

[User] Good.

[Assistant] We did. We went twice. Once we went we had very nice weather, the other time it rained. But even that was kind of nice because it was nice cool rain.

[User] Oh, okay.

[Assistant] We had left nice hot Houston, so—


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

[User] Good.

[Assistant] We did. We went twice. Once we went we had very nice weather, the other time it rained. But even that was kind of nice because it was nice cool rain.

[User] Oh, okay.

[Assistant] We had left nice hot Houston, so—

[User] We moved up in the end of January and first of February. One day in May we were driving to work and all of a sudden there was Mt. Rainier, and that was the first time we’d ever seen it after all those months.

[Assistant] Oh, my goodness.


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

[User] Oh, okay.

[Assistant] We had left nice hot Houston, so—

[User] We moved up in the end of January and first of February. One day in May we were driving to work and all of a sudden there was Mt. Rainier, and that was the first time we’d ever seen it after all those months.

[Assistant] Oh, my goodness.

[User] We almost wrecked the car.

[Assistant] [Laughs] I can see why. That would be rather startling to all of a sudden have a mountain.


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

[User] We knew it was there because we had driven up to it, up into the snow and stuff, but you still couldn’t see anything. Everything was just total clouds.

[Assistant] How interesting.

[User] That was a good experience living in Seattle. We loved it.\n\n My son Greg, when he got married, he presented me with this write-up that he had done. He recalled going with me one day—well, he recalled a lot of things. He recalled going down to the Singing Wheel. That was our hangout then, down in Webster. Going down there with me and playing shuffleboard and stuff.\n\n But then in his little write-up he said he recalled going to—it must been a Mother’s Day, and we were going out to look for flowers and came down to—there was a flower stand. It’s on what is now NASA Road One. He can remember having to go across this bridge over a deep ditch. But there was a guy in this little stand, and [unclear] and Greg said he remembers the guy kneeling down and talking to him and everything. I had totally forgotten this until he wrote this thing up and gave it to me. But he said then he remembers as we were going home in the car me saying, “Do you know who that was?” And Greg said, no, he didn’t know who it was. Turns out it was Neil [A.] Armstrong.

[Assistant] Oh, really.

[User] Yes. So Greg said that really impressed him because that was in May, and I guess his mission was in July.

[Assistant] Oh, that’s neat. That’s neat.\n\n What did your family think about your involvement in the program and were they cognizant of what was really going on?


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

[User] Yes. So Greg said that really impressed him because that was in May, and I guess his mission was in July.

[Assistant] Oh, that’s neat. That’s neat.\n\n What did your family think about your involvement in the program and were they cognizant of what was really going on?

[User] No, I don’t think. It’s funny, we were talking about that the other day. I think the kids’ sense was that Daddy went to work in the mornings and Daddy came home in the afternoons or maybe late at night, and, no, I don’t think they really had a big sense as to what was going on. Because a son of mine, another son, we were talking about that the other day, that they really didn’t. They’re starting to ask questions now about what was this like, what was that like. At the time, no, I don’t think they did.

[Assistant] Well, maybe your oral history here you can pass it on to them and they can—

[User] There you go.

[Assistant] —see what you were involved with.


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

[User] No, I don’t think. It’s funny, we were talking about that the other day. I think the kids’ sense was that Daddy went to work in the mornings and Daddy came home in the afternoons or maybe late at night, and, no, I don’t think they really had a big sense as to what was going on. Because a son of mine, another son, we were talking about that the other day, that they really didn’t. They’re starting to ask questions now about what was this like, what was that like. At the time, no, I don’t think they did.

[Assistant] Well, maybe your oral history here you can pass it on to them and they can—

[User] There you go.

[Assistant] —see what you were involved with.

[User] Yes.

[Assistant] Well, unless you have any other—did you have any other questions? Okay.


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

[User] There you go.

[Assistant] —see what you were involved with.

[User] Yes.

[Assistant] Well, unless you have any other—did you have any other questions? Okay.

[User] No.

[Assistant] Well, if you had any other thoughts from your early part of your career or any other comments you wanted to make there.


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

[User] I just thought a while ago I might mention the evolution of splashdown parties.

[Assistant] Oh, yes.

[User] Back during Gemini, it was all at the Singing Wheel, and it was all guys. There weren’t any lady flight controllers then. All guys. I think on Gemini XII, the Gemini Program is over, we’re getting ready to go into Apollo, and somebody said, “Let’s invite the secretaries to this one. They’ve never been to a splashdown party.” We had a gal that worked for us. She was Arnie’s secretary. She was an ex-Navy, I guess Navy was called WAVES [Women Auxiliary Volunteers for Emergency Service].

[Assistant] Okay.

[User] Gosh, what is her name? Lived up off Edgebrook. But anyway, she came to our splashdown party and had the best time. So to my way of thinking, that was the start of the Apollo-era splashdown parties that then became famous.\n\n So then when Apollo came along, a lot of the hotels around the area got involved, because you had CBS and NBC and all the news places, and they’d open up and you had a press club usually over at the King’s Inn, and so then everybody started getting involved in splashdown parties. Gosh, I guess people from all over Houston were driving down here to partake in splashdown parties. It all started out at the Singing Wheel.\n\n That building is still there. We were talking yesterday about it’s too bad somebody doesn’t open it up again. It was a good place.

[Assistant] Certainly sounds like it. We’ve heard a lot of good times were had there.


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

[User] Back during Gemini, it was all at the Singing Wheel, and it was all guys. There weren’t any lady flight controllers then. All guys. I think on Gemini XII, the Gemini Program is over, we’re getting ready to go into Apollo, and somebody said, “Let’s invite the secretaries to this one. They’ve never been to a splashdown party.” We had a gal that worked for us. She was Arnie’s secretary. She was an ex-Navy, I guess Navy was called WAVES [Women Auxiliary Volunteers for Emergency Service].

[Assistant] Okay.

[User] Gosh, what is her name? Lived up off Edgebrook. But anyway, she came to our splashdown party and had the best time. So to my way of thinking, that was the start of the Apollo-era splashdown parties that then became famous.\n\n So then when Apollo came along, a lot of the hotels around the area got involved, because you had CBS and NBC and all the news places, and they’d open up and you had a press club usually over at the King’s Inn, and so then everybody started getting involved in splashdown parties. Gosh, I guess people from all over Houston were driving down here to partake in splashdown parties. It all started out at the Singing Wheel.\n\n That building is still there. We were talking yesterday about it’s too bad somebody doesn’t open it up again. It was a good place.

[Assistant] Certainly sounds like it. We’ve heard a lot of good times were had there.

[User] Yes. Yes, yes. I see on your list you’ve interviewed [John S.] Llewellyn [Jr.], so Llewellyn could tell you a lot of Singing Wheel stories.

[Assistant] [Laughs] Well, he definitely had a few stories. He did stick mostly to business-oriented approaches, but after a good hard day’s work you do have to unwind and relax a little bit.


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

[User] Yes. Yes, yes. I see on your list you’ve interviewed [John S.] Llewellyn [Jr.], so Llewellyn could tell you a lot of Singing Wheel stories.

[Assistant] [Laughs] Well, he definitely had a few stories. He did stick mostly to business-oriented approaches, but after a good hard day’s work you do have to unwind and relax a little bit.

[User] We did that, and that’s an interesting point. We worked hard, and I think we partied pretty hard too in the afternoons after we’d get through or early evenings or maybe even later some nights.\n\n The young folks nowadays don’t do that so much anymore. A good friend of mine who went on to become the Rockwell head out there within flight control, he said he asked a couple of his young female engineers, said, “Why doesn’t anybody go out and party like we used to do? We used to do that every afternoon. You’d always go stop and have a beer somewhere before you went home or something.” They told him there just wasn’t that much interest in it anymore, said the young guys nowadays go home and get on their computers and play games and stuff.\n\n But we had an awful lot of comradeship. That was a big, big part of our total operation, I think. We were a very, very close-knit group.

[Assistant] Spent so much time working together and putting in—

[User] Yes. That’s right.

[Assistant] —extra hours, that that’s what your life revolved around.


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

[User] We did that, and that’s an interesting point. We worked hard, and I think we partied pretty hard too in the afternoons after we’d get through or early evenings or maybe even later some nights.\n\n The young folks nowadays don’t do that so much anymore. A good friend of mine who went on to become the Rockwell head out there within flight control, he said he asked a couple of his young female engineers, said, “Why doesn’t anybody go out and party like we used to do? We used to do that every afternoon. You’d always go stop and have a beer somewhere before you went home or something.” They told him there just wasn’t that much interest in it anymore, said the young guys nowadays go home and get on their computers and play games and stuff.\n\n But we had an awful lot of comradeship. That was a big, big part of our total operation, I think. We were a very, very close-knit group.

[Assistant] Spent so much time working together and putting in—

[User] Yes. That’s right.

[Assistant] —extra hours, that that’s what your life revolved around.

[User] Yes. Yes.

[Assistant] Certainly was an interesting group of people to work with.


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

[User] Yes. That’s right.

[Assistant] —extra hours, that that’s what your life revolved around.

[User] Yes. Yes.

[Assistant] Certainly was an interesting group of people to work with.

[User] Yes, it was. Bunch of good folks.

[Assistant] Well, we appreciate you coming in—


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

[User] Yes. Yes.

[Assistant] Certainly was an interesting group of people to work with.

[User] Yes, it was. Bunch of good folks.

[Assistant] Well, we appreciate you coming in—

[User] You bet.

[Assistant] —to talk with us today.


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

[User] Yes, it was. Bunch of good folks.

[Assistant] Well, we appreciate you coming in—

[User] You bet.

[Assistant] —to talk with us today.

[User] You bet. I’ve enjoyed it.

[Assistant] We have as well. I’m glad you have.


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

[User] You bet.

[Assistant] —to talk with us today.

[User] You bet. I’ve enjoyed it.

[Assistant] We have as well. I’m glad you have.

[User] You’ve made it very, very painless.

[Assistant] Oh, good. We try to. Shouldn’t be any pain involved, just reflecting on your experiences. Certainly would like to follow up with you on Shuttle oriented—


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

[User] You bet. I’ve enjoyed it.

[Assistant] We have as well. I’m glad you have.

[User] You’ve made it very, very painless.

[Assistant] Oh, good. We try to. Shouldn’t be any pain involved, just reflecting on your experiences. Certainly would like to follow up with you on Shuttle oriented—

[User] Okay.

[Assistant] At whatever time would be good for you. I don’t know if you want to talk about that now or if you would want to look at your calendar.


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

[User] No, in this organization, [the Johnson Space Center, then called the Manned Spacecraft Center].

[Assistant] That certainly changed.

[User] Yes.

[Assistant] Do you think that that's necessary? Has it become so big and so complex that you can't learn fast enough to be [unclear]?

[User] No. I think that nowadays we can hire youngsters who learned in school what we had to learn on the fly, and they're very bright and they're very good, but we've got a very different problem. I'm not sure, for example, that Rocketdyne could have built the SSME [Space Shuttle Main Engines] had they not built the J-2 and the F-1. You had to have come up that learning curve.\n\n I don't think people realize how much better we do things [today]. We fly eight shuttle flights a year and handle the Mir Program and the space station development with less people than it took us to do two Apollo flights a year. Now, a lot of that is just taking advantage of the state of the art in data processing and what have you. We do thermal analyses on the shuttle which are far more complex than those we did on Apollo, and it would take us a year to do a mission on Apollo. They'll do a much more complex shuttle mission in a matter of a few days, but they've got big UNIX workstations and silicon graphics, what have you, to do it all, computational power and visual graphics engineering. So there's a tremendous increase in productivity that has gone on. And the shuttle is just a marvelous piece of equipment. It's probably the most complex thing we've ever built.

[Assistant] How do you see the X-33 and X-38 and local fly-back booster, those kind of things? [Telephone interruption]\n\n Do you really think so?


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

[User] Bob Piland's brother Joe, his older brother. I don't know where Joe is, but our personnel people would be able to help you.

[Assistant] Well, we're talking to Bob Piland.

[User] Essentially, when we moved down here, we were scattered all over southeast Houston in various office buildings. Some of us were in what is now Oshman's warehouse at the corner of I-45 and OST. The office complex just to the south of that was occupied. The Lane Wells Building and buildings all over. If you know where there's a K-Mart and a shopping center on the west side of the freeway and the bayou, Simms Bayou there, that whole complex of apartments on the south side of Simms Bayou was all occupied by what is now MOD. We took up every habitable building at Ellington, and we had a pretty liberal definition of "habitable," because some of them didn't have wall-to-wall floors. [Laughter]\n\n In effect, the [U.S. Army] Corps of Engineers built this place for us, but we had a lot of voice in how to lay out the campus, design the buildings, and see to it that there were enough conference rooms and all these kinds of things. So we didn't get a conventional government campus. And I think the guys who did it did a superb job. It's held up pretty well.

[Assistant] It must be thirty some-odd years old and its in shape.

[User] Yes. Unfortunately we're not putting as much into maintenance as we should.

[Assistant] If we get all these guys interviewed in the next year and a half, I'll be happy. You know you're on our list—you know that, don't you—to be interviewed? That wasn't the purpose of this meeting, but I do have a couple of questions. What is that on there, that rocket?


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

[User] Essentially, when we moved down here, we were scattered all over southeast Houston in various office buildings. Some of us were in what is now Oshman's warehouse at the corner of I-45 and OST. The office complex just to the south of that was occupied. The Lane Wells Building and buildings all over. If you know where there's a K-Mart and a shopping center on the west side of the freeway and the bayou, Simms Bayou there, that whole complex of apartments on the south side of Simms Bayou was all occupied by what is now MOD. We took up every habitable building at Ellington, and we had a pretty liberal definition of "habitable," because some of them didn't have wall-to-wall floors. [Laughter]\n\n In effect, the [U.S. Army] Corps of Engineers built this place for us, but we had a lot of voice in how to lay out the campus, design the buildings, and see to it that there were enough conference rooms and all these kinds of things. So we didn't get a conventional government campus. And I think the guys who did it did a superb job. It's held up pretty well.

[Assistant] It must be thirty some-odd years old and its in shape.

[User] Yes. Unfortunately we're not putting as much into maintenance as we should.

[Assistant] If we get all these guys interviewed in the next year and a half, I'll be happy. You know you're on our list—you know that, don't you—to be interviewed? That wasn't the purpose of this meeting, but I do have a couple of questions. What is that on there, that rocket?

[User] That was one of a number of configurations we looked at for building a heavy lift vehicle out of shuttle derived hardware.

[Assistant] This is shuttle derived hardware—these aren't F-1s. These are SSMEs [Space Shuttle Main Engines]?


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

[User] That was one of a number of configurations we looked at for building a heavy lift vehicle out of shuttle derived hardware.

[Assistant] This is shuttle derived hardware—these aren't F-1s. These are SSMEs [Space Shuttle Main Engines]?

[User] J-2s. They were just cartoons, if you will.

[Assistant] [Unclear]?

[User] It was a fairly serious study, but just not exactly the—

[Assistant] I’m always interested in talking about shuttle replacements. I think Jay Honeycutt puts it well. He says the Shuttle's the DC-3 of the human space flight. It'll be flying forever and ever, basically, until somebody wants something orders of magnitude better.


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

[User] J-2s. They were just cartoons, if you will.

[Assistant] [Unclear]?

[User] It was a fairly serious study, but just not exactly the—

[Assistant] I’m always interested in talking about shuttle replacements. I think Jay Honeycutt puts it well. He says the Shuttle's the DC-3 of the human space flight. It'll be flying forever and ever, basically, until somebody wants something orders of magnitude better.

[User] Well, the rocket equation is extraordinarily straightforward, and you really, really have to change materials technology if you're going to do anything significantly different. I don't think there's anything wrong in trying to design a single stage to orbit, but God didn't mean launch vehicles to be single stage.

[Assistant] The physics don't help to support it. What do you think about a fly-back booster? I was just wondering, because you've been around so long.


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

[User] I didn’t get that sense at all. I believe that most of the senior management at NASA would have been bright enough or wise enough after the business with Ruth Bates Harris not to be unwise in either, if they felt anything like that. I didn’t sense that there was a Center or a Center Director who was particularly against the program or being dragged to participate or anything like that. Also I have a way of operating where I try to show people what is the vision that I have of them, no matter what they may do or say. So I might have been putting on them my perception of what they ought to have been.\n\n The one thing about it, really in this program you worked more closely with their deputies, you see. I knew all of them, and felt that they were very supportive of the program, and that they were interested in making sure NASA did a good job of correcting itself.

[Assistant] Tell me how many people you started working with in 1974. Did those numbers change over the years? Did it ebb and flow as time moved along?

[User] It did change. I’d say it was 18 to 20 during those first years. The number grew to approximately 39 by 1992 that was because we added the Minority University Research. We had three divisions by the time I left. That had been a significant part of our effort in the EO Program. So it practically doubled.

[Assistant] Can you tell us about how the office was structured?

[User] Yes. Certainly by the time I left there were three divisions. One was the Affirmative Action—I think now they call it the Affirmative Action and Diversity Division, but at the time I had the three divisions, one was the Affirmative Action and Evaluation Division, one was the Discrimination Complaint Division, and the third was the Minority University Research and Education Division.

[Assistant] As you started working with the EO Council, did you come up with quotas? Or did you come up with ideas of how you might increase the numbers of women and minorities at these Centers in fields that women and minorities generally didn’t earn degrees in?


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

[User] Very good.

[Assistant] I’ve seen the first one. I hadn’t seen this one. How did you decide who to feature in these publications and why?

[User] Probably by working with NASA Centers and the Jet Propulsion Laboratory [JPL, Pasadena, California] to have as many different NASA installations or as many different NASA occupations represented and/or as many different ethnic groups represented as possible. See that one? I’ll let you read it, and I’m going to ask you what you think of it. So watch yourself. (I’m teasing you.)

[Assistant]
I was going to say I better start reading. There’s a lot of detail. That’s wonderful.

What’s the name of that one?

This one is “Valuing and Attaining Workforce Diversity by Year 2000.”

[User] We wanted to brag a little bit but push people a little and also show the contrast in kinds of positions there. So you see a disabled person in the middle. Did you ever meet Benita Sidwell by chance?

[Assistant] No, that name doesn’t sound familiar.


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

[User] We wanted to brag a little bit but push people a little and also show the contrast in kinds of positions there. So you see a disabled person in the middle. Did you ever meet Benita Sidwell by chance?

[Assistant] No, that name doesn’t sound familiar.

[User] She had held two significant jobs, personnel director out at Goddard [Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, Maryland], and then a significant administrative position at Headquarters. Her picture is on the front. I believe that’s Dr. Bernard [A.] Harris, the astronaut in the middle. This brochure is intended to send a message that diversity is important, that NASA believes that. We prove it by the people who work for us, that we’ve selected. We have exciting programs, and we have a vision and goals. We have policies of fairness. We expect our employees also to carry out these same things that we say as an agency. Not only that, we’ve accomplished things. We can show that these are some examples of accomplishments that we’ve made. These are the kind of people we have working for us. They’re a percent of the workforce. There’s a powerful message by Admiral Richard [H.] Truly, the Administrator at that time, in terms of the objectives of the agency and what we were trying to accomplish. So we really were attempting to inform and persuade the public about what’s really going on at NASA. I’ll let you keep a copy of that because it marked in a way a renewed resolve that was going on at the agency. Because sometimes you get weary of the same GMSR [General Management Status Review] charts, the same message over and over again. We need to do it. We really do want you talented people to come, and we wanted to imbue a renewal of spirit. So that was the purpose of that. Be very open with people about what we were doing, what we were trying to do, and how we were going about it.

[Assistant] So you were happy with the outcome, the selection of Sally Ride and her group?

[User] Indeed, indeed, indeed.

[Assistant] It was a great accomplishment at that point, I can imagine.


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

[User] I digressed. Sorry about that.

[Assistant] That happens when we do interviews.\n\n One of the folks that we had interviewed at JSC talked about a change that he remembered when women started coming on board, becoming engineers, having a talk about how to work with women, which I thought was very interesting. I wondered if this was something that your office promoted.

[User] It depends. Then what did he say? What was he taught?

[Assistant] You know, he didn’t say. He remembered going.

[User] Did he say “. . . and I was enlightened?” Did it have those kinds of tips? Or did he say “Imagine having to go to a training session where I had to learn how to work with women!” Do you recall? What did you interpret was behind that message? [Laughs]

[Assistant] I think it was positive. He remembered who had gone with him. He actually brought me the memo that talked about what they were doing.


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

[User] It depends. Then what did he say? What was he taught?

[Assistant] You know, he didn’t say. He remembered going.

[User] Did he say “. . . and I was enlightened?” Did it have those kinds of tips? Or did he say “Imagine having to go to a training session where I had to learn how to work with women!” Do you recall? What did you interpret was behind that message? [Laughs]

[Assistant] I think it was positive. He remembered who had gone with him. He actually brought me the memo that talked about what they were doing.

[User] Did he say who the trainer was?

[Assistant] He did not, and I don’t remember that the memo identified the person. I thought it was interesting, because that really pointed out this cultural change that you were overseeing at NASA. I’m just curious how that idea was approached with these men who had been working with men for so long, and how to work with women or people of color.


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

[User] [Laughter] Well, I thought that was very ambitious, and I hoped he had some inside information that I didn't have to make that. Although it was certainly something to have the support of the U.S. Government at the highest level for the NASA work, but I wasn't sure how realistic that time frame was. As I mentioned earlier, from that complex—you wonder whether even the computer aspects of a particular software could meet it. But obviously it was a challenge and it was rewarding to discover that that challenge was met.

[Assistant] Do you remember where you were when Apollo 11, when Neil [A.] Armstrong and Buzz [Edwin E.] Aldrin [Jr.] landed on the moon?

[User] No, I don't remember exactly where I was, but I remember watching it closely on television and being very stimulated by the event. It represented a goal of achievement that everyone had been striving for all those years.

[Assistant] If I can go back a little bit to when you were being interviewed for a position at NASA, do you remember who you interviewed with?

[User] Only vaguely. I suspect it was Chris Kraft and perhaps Max [Maxime A.] Faget. There were, I believe, three or four engineers from NASA. Of course, being nervous at the time, the names didn't stick.

[Assistant] Do you remember what they told you about the job you would do, or about the program at that time?