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

[User] Definitely, in those early years we did, yes.

[Assistant] Some people may not have enjoyed that, because like you never escape from that whole work environment, but was it more than just that, where you had a chance to get to know these people as, like I said, family members?

[User] Well, pretty much. In fact, we not only worked in the same place, but of course, we lived in the same place. At first we lived in Mojave and those housing places, and then when we did actually build a house, all the neighbors around were [NACA] people, too, so all their children were our children's friends, so it was like a family. I think in more recent years it's not, but back in those days it was.

[Assistant] One of the pieces of research that we read was that, of course, many single men and many single women, or not many, but some single women were out there, and because of the times and the social climate, they really didn't want to go places without chaperones. Did you and your husband, as a married couple, ever work in that job status, where you all would go with the single people to kind of be the chaperone on a social level?

[User] Well, I never recognized that. [Laughter] Seems to me like the men and women went everywhere together. I never knew any women that were worried about going anywhere, that I can remember. But they were there, you know, at the parties and things, and women would come and the men would come. But there probably were some, maybe, they worried about that, but I never heard about it if they did.

[Assistant] You also mentioned, as you were going through some of the places that you'd gone, that some people even admitted to going out to Pancho Barnes'. Was that something you'd like to admit as well?


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

[User] Okay, all right.

[Assistant] Let's do that.

[User] Really, when I was working at [NACA], I was working in a group, and the leader of that group actually passed out the work to people, and it was fairly routine work. I know that the data was important to someone in describing what the aircraft was doing and what they could go on and try to do next, but I can't honestly myself relate what I did to a particular project. In fact, no matter what airplane it was, we just about did the same thing.

[Assistant] Did you know what data you were working on for what project at the time?

[User]
Probably I did, yes.

I'm sure you did, but you just don't remember it.

[Assistant] There were many projects going on at one time that you were involved in, or were you maybe assigned to a team that was working on one plane and another team was working on another plane?


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

[User] Really, when I was working at [NACA], I was working in a group, and the leader of that group actually passed out the work to people, and it was fairly routine work. I know that the data was important to someone in describing what the aircraft was doing and what they could go on and try to do next, but I can't honestly myself relate what I did to a particular project. In fact, no matter what airplane it was, we just about did the same thing.

[Assistant] Did you know what data you were working on for what project at the time?

[User]
Probably I did, yes.

I'm sure you did, but you just don't remember it.

[Assistant] There were many projects going on at one time that you were involved in, or were you maybe assigned to a team that was working on one plane and another team was working on another plane?

[User]
No, I'll tell you, I think that I was pretty well spread around among whatever was going on then.

It was basically a pool of people under Roxanah Yancey, and she would distribute work as needed to be done by different people, and then it would be double-checked, and then she double-checked.

And then they'd give it back to her and she was the one who talked to the—

She was a very thorough person.

She was.

[Assistant] She sounded like she must have been a strong personality in being one of the first women here and helping to set that up. Did you work for her for many years?


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

[User]
Probably I did, yes.

I'm sure you did, but you just don't remember it.

[Assistant] There were many projects going on at one time that you were involved in, or were you maybe assigned to a team that was working on one plane and another team was working on another plane?

[User]
No, I'll tell you, I think that I was pretty well spread around among whatever was going on then.

It was basically a pool of people under Roxanah Yancey, and she would distribute work as needed to be done by different people, and then it would be double-checked, and then she double-checked.

And then they'd give it back to her and she was the one who talked to the—

She was a very thorough person.

She was.

[Assistant] She sounded like she must have been a strong personality in being one of the first women here and helping to set that up. Did you work for her for many years?

[User]
Oh, no. How long after we came to Edwards before I—four years, three years, maybe?

Well, we came out in '48, and then you left—

Early '53. About four years.

[Assistant] One of the things in the book they talk about—I'm not sure if I'm pronouncing it right—oscillograph film, is that one of the things you did was read the film?


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

[User] We went to laundromats. We didn't have a washer and dryer or anything like that, so anything like that we had to go to the laundromat.

[Assistant] Everything was in town then?

[User] In the little town of Mojave. There wasn't much in town, the little town Mojave, and there's still not now. But it's just a small place.

[Assistant] Speaking of that, I was wondering about the dress code at that time. Were the women required to wear dresses and hose?

[User]
I don't believe that women were required to in any way by [NACA], but at that stage of our lives, women just did. Women didn't wear pants, you know. I think the first time I wore pants to work was after I was working for the Air Force, and they had a picnic or something at lunch, and I took a pair of pants to put on at work and went to the picnic and I came back and put a skirt back on.

Something I do remember is that it used to be that all men had to wear suits to work, and if you can visualize the type of temperature, swamp coolers, and men sitting around in suits, jacket, ties, and choking and dying on the spot, they came out and said, "From now on, there will be no more coats and ties. Shirts only, and pants."

At work today, people can wear shorts, but we didn't do that then. But of course, you see that same thing in church today. We used to wear a dress all the time, and people just aren't doing it. In fact, my sister is married to a minister and he retired here about two years ago. My sister Betty told me that she got rid of every dress that she had. She said she told Lyman she was never wearing a dress. She got rid of them altogether and all she has are pants now. But that's just a change in how we did. But, no, we did not wear pants to work in those days. Nobody told us we couldn't, it's just that we didn't wear them.

[Assistant] It wasn't socially acceptable.


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

[User] In the little town of Mojave. There wasn't much in town, the little town Mojave, and there's still not now. But it's just a small place.

[Assistant] Speaking of that, I was wondering about the dress code at that time. Were the women required to wear dresses and hose?

[User]
I don't believe that women were required to in any way by [NACA], but at that stage of our lives, women just did. Women didn't wear pants, you know. I think the first time I wore pants to work was after I was working for the Air Force, and they had a picnic or something at lunch, and I took a pair of pants to put on at work and went to the picnic and I came back and put a skirt back on.

Something I do remember is that it used to be that all men had to wear suits to work, and if you can visualize the type of temperature, swamp coolers, and men sitting around in suits, jacket, ties, and choking and dying on the spot, they came out and said, "From now on, there will be no more coats and ties. Shirts only, and pants."

At work today, people can wear shorts, but we didn't do that then. But of course, you see that same thing in church today. We used to wear a dress all the time, and people just aren't doing it. In fact, my sister is married to a minister and he retired here about two years ago. My sister Betty told me that she got rid of every dress that she had. She said she told Lyman she was never wearing a dress. She got rid of them altogether and all she has are pants now. But that's just a change in how we did. But, no, we did not wear pants to work in those days. Nobody told us we couldn't, it's just that we didn't wear them.

[Assistant] It wasn't socially acceptable.

[User] It wasn't the thing to do, right.

[Assistant] Also in the book we've heard them refer to the "mole hole," where the computers were. Was that during your time or was that after? That may have been after you left.


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

[User] It wasn't the thing to do, right.

[Assistant] Also in the book we've heard them refer to the "mole hole," where the computers were. Was that during your time or was that after? That may have been after you left.

[User] Must have been. I never heard that expression, and we didn't have any computers. You mean people computers?

[Assistant] People computers.

[User] I never heard it.

[Assistant] That may have been after you left.


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

[User] Must have been. I never heard that expression, and we didn't have any computers. You mean people computers?

[Assistant] People computers.

[User] I never heard it.

[Assistant] That may have been after you left.

[User] It might have been. That's interesting. I think it would have been before. I never heard the expression and I don't know how it could have come about with regard to where we—you know, we had an office that was on the ground floor, and didn't have windows and that, but I don't know what that came from.

[Assistant]
I believe it was a reference when the assignments tended to shift where the computers were not working so closely with the engineers on a day-to-day basis, that they had put a lot of the computers into another room, and they were basically separated.

It refers to in the early fifties some time, so I didn't know if you were involved in it.


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

[User] I never heard it.

[Assistant] That may have been after you left.

[User] It might have been. That's interesting. I think it would have been before. I never heard the expression and I don't know how it could have come about with regard to where we—you know, we had an office that was on the ground floor, and didn't have windows and that, but I don't know what that came from.

[Assistant]
I believe it was a reference when the assignments tended to shift where the computers were not working so closely with the engineers on a day-to-day basis, that they had put a lot of the computers into another room, and they were basically separated.

It refers to in the early fifties some time, so I didn't know if you were involved in it.

[User] No, I wouldn't have been. Maybe. I didn't go to the Air Force till '53. But that was the case, that when I got there, we didn't work very closely with the engineers. Occasionally, one of them would come in and work with us individually, but mostly Roxanah Yancey was the one that had any interface with anybody. We worked through her and she'd talk to them. Somebody could have referred to it like that. I hadn't thought about that, but that is the way it was. That's for sure.

[Assistant] We've talked about it being warm or hot during the day. Was it cool when you were working there in the evenings or early in the mornings when you would get there, were the temperatures such that—


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

[User]
Yes, I did. I don't think it's perfect yet, but yes, I did see that things were changing for women. It is better but it still—not too long ago, Johnny was retired and I was still working. He went to the bank most of the time because I was at work, but one day I needed to go and get a check cashed for something or other and I went into the bank. The person I talked to at the bank was a woman—this made it worse even, you know. I wrote my check and I went up to cash it and this woman looked at me and she said, "Are you able to write checks from your husband's account?"\n\n I said, "My husband's account? It's our combined account. Of course I'm able to write a check on this account." And she actually went and checked on that before she gave me my money. I told him later, if it had been a man, I would have thought little of it, but a woman. And this must have been in the 1990s. I tell you, I just can't understand how some people—my name was right on the account, but "on your husband's account."

I told you I went over and told her to do that.

Yes, he told me that.

Just to make sure she doesn't give her too much.

[Assistant] Got to keep some humor in it.

[User] Yes, that's right.

[Assistant] Something to talk about. Well, we have certainly enjoyed learning about the aspects of your life that certainly have shaped it, and shaped so many lives as well.

[User] Thank you for letting me participate in your program.

[Assistant] We've enjoyed it.


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

[User] Yes, that's right.

[Assistant] Something to talk about. Well, we have certainly enjoyed learning about the aspects of your life that certainly have shaped it, and shaped so many lives as well.

[User] Thank you for letting me participate in your program.

[Assistant] We've enjoyed it.

[User]
It's certainly interesting. We think it's so funny because so many people have gone now that are not available to talk to about different things, and we feel real fortunate at our ages that we feel as healthy as we are, you know what I mean? We've slowed down a little bit, but pretty much do as we always have done. When we get ready to go somewhere, we do it and just enjoy it as much as we ever did.

We're both seventy-six now. We used to think that people [our age] were old, and we don't feel old.

[Assistant] We thank you for taking time out of that busy life to make time for us this morning.


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

[User] Thank you for letting me participate in your program.

[Assistant] We've enjoyed it.

[User]
It's certainly interesting. We think it's so funny because so many people have gone now that are not available to talk to about different things, and we feel real fortunate at our ages that we feel as healthy as we are, you know what I mean? We've slowed down a little bit, but pretty much do as we always have done. When we get ready to go somewhere, we do it and just enjoy it as much as we ever did.

We're both seventy-six now. We used to think that people [our age] were old, and we don't feel old.

[Assistant] We thank you for taking time out of that busy life to make time for us this morning.

[User] Thank you.

[Assistant] Thank you and we look forward to sending you the materials for you to review and enjoy it for yourself.


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

[User] Read about it, heard about it, read the newspaper, heard people talking about it. I was going to school at Duke in Durham, North Carolina, and my last year of school I did do some voter registration work in the black community. But my parents lived in Sweden and I had my godparents lived in Alexandria, Virginia, and my other family was sort of spread all around. So I just sort of came into this on my own. And as an aside, after I joined the Peace Corps, I heard it described that I was a communist.

[Assistant] And who described you as a communist?

[User] A cousin of my father. They were very conservative, strong military officers.

[Assistant] How did your family feel about it? How did your father?

[User]
I don't know that my parents felt anything about it. They didn't say yes or no, or it just sort of evolved as I was sort of planning on what to do after I graduated. And I think they understood my motivation as I understood it. And I don't think they viewed it as insurrectionist or whatnot, but I think they, I think they viewed it. My father had been the air attaché in Sweden for three years, and I think they viewed it as sort of a baby diplomatic effort. I think both while I was in Costa Rica and then even before I was going, I thought in the sense of being a goodwill ambassador, not to promote America, but certainly to bring what we could from America that might be helpful or interesting to people in other countries and learn from them about their lives and cultures. And in a way it would be do no harm, but hopefully do good.

And I realized we didn't have money as AID did to create infrastructure and we weren't diplomats. I turned in my family diplomatic passport and got my regular green U.S. passport. But we were, I think, expected, I don't know if there were any official rules, but we were expected not to actively promote and be in the forefront of political organizing lobbying. Our job was to encourage and create bridges and information.

[Assistant] Did you have this sense of Peace Corps before you went in or is this what developed during training?


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

[User]
I don't know that my parents felt anything about it. They didn't say yes or no, or it just sort of evolved as I was sort of planning on what to do after I graduated. And I think they understood my motivation as I understood it. And I don't think they viewed it as insurrectionist or whatnot, but I think they, I think they viewed it. My father had been the air attaché in Sweden for three years, and I think they viewed it as sort of a baby diplomatic effort. I think both while I was in Costa Rica and then even before I was going, I thought in the sense of being a goodwill ambassador, not to promote America, but certainly to bring what we could from America that might be helpful or interesting to people in other countries and learn from them about their lives and cultures. And in a way it would be do no harm, but hopefully do good.

And I realized we didn't have money as AID did to create infrastructure and we weren't diplomats. I turned in my family diplomatic passport and got my regular green U.S. passport. But we were, I think, expected, I don't know if there were any official rules, but we were expected not to actively promote and be in the forefront of political organizing lobbying. Our job was to encourage and create bridges and information.

[Assistant] Did you have this sense of Peace Corps before you went in or is this what developed during training?

[User] No, I think my idea before I went was, if I had imagined what my work would be or where it would be, would probably not have been in a totally extremely remote rural area as I found myself. Because that really didn't fit in with the concept of what our group turned out to be in this community development, working in what they call teams where we had one person in our culture.

[Assistant] OK, you're getting ahead of me just a little bit. Talk a little bit about training, what the training was like, what the selection process was like, and how you envisioned after your training what you would be doing.

[User] Well, the training, um.

[Assistant] Where did you train?


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

[User] I want to say somewhere between six and eight, and we sat around in a circle in these little sort of chickee huts. Only they weren't chickee huts with palm thatch like we have in Florida where I live, but they were miniature versions of our little bags.

[Assistant] How long did the group last? How long were the sessions?

[User] I assume we got there at 8:30 or 9:00 in the morning and we'd go till noon or 11:30 or something. That would be the morning. And then maybe the afternoon was the Spanish class after lunch.

[Assistant] Would these groups be every day during training?

[User] Yes.

[Assistant] The whole time of training?


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

[User] I assume we got there at 8:30 or 9:00 in the morning and we'd go till noon or 11:30 or something. That would be the morning. And then maybe the afternoon was the Spanish class after lunch.

[Assistant] Would these groups be every day during training?

[User] Yes.

[Assistant] The whole time of training?

[User] The whole time, except when we had two in particular, extraordinary experiences. I'm getting a little bit ahead of myself, but two times we were asked during training to go away from the camp on our own to find a place to stay. The first time it was for a weekend, and the second time was for a week.

[Assistant] And this would be in the community?


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

[User] Yes.

[Assistant] The whole time of training?

[User] The whole time, except when we had two in particular, extraordinary experiences. I'm getting a little bit ahead of myself, but two times we were asked during training to go away from the camp on our own to find a place to stay. The first time it was for a weekend, and the second time was for a week.

[Assistant] And this would be in the community?

[User] All over the island, the whole island of Puerto Rico.

[Assistant] What was your transportation?


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

[User] Deselection or selection? Well, selection, as I understand it was, you could be asked to join the Peace Corps as a volunteer and you would go to your training. And during the training, somebody would determine whether or not you fit in with either the work they thought you would be doing or they intended you to do, both in terms of your language skills and in terms of the particular quote unquote mission of the work. And I think those decisions turned on the evaluation as I think I glean, certainly at the end of the training. The Spanish teachers were not just teaching Spanish, they were also submitting some sort of review or evaluation of some kind. The D group business, as I recall it, we might be the volunteers or the prospective volunteers. I guess you would say the trainees would be sitting around a little group and discussing, and I got to get back to that in a minute what we discussed or why, but I don't remember that there was a staff member who sat there.

[Assistant] Ah.

[User] I think staff members, when I say staff and I'll come back to that in a minute, came by or sometimes participated or gave us topics or gave us scenarios. But I don't think at all times there was a staff person there, and I don't remember Mr. Tucker coming in sitting down with our group. He may have come by or something, but not really participating as I recall it. But what he was sort of this. I thought he was an albino, quite frankly, because of his coloring. But this very strange looking person with a very reserved manner with a clipboard. And every time he wrote something down, it was not good. So you didn't want him to write down anything about anybody or about you or about what you really thought about anything.

[Assistant] So when he was around, you were very.

[User] Very circumspect, very circumspect.

[Assistant] So you would, this would not be, you would not say how you felt about this particular experience.


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

[User] I think staff members, when I say staff and I'll come back to that in a minute, came by or sometimes participated or gave us topics or gave us scenarios. But I don't think at all times there was a staff person there, and I don't remember Mr. Tucker coming in sitting down with our group. He may have come by or something, but not really participating as I recall it. But what he was sort of this. I thought he was an albino, quite frankly, because of his coloring. But this very strange looking person with a very reserved manner with a clipboard. And every time he wrote something down, it was not good. So you didn't want him to write down anything about anybody or about you or about what you really thought about anything.

[Assistant] So when he was around, you were very.

[User] Very circumspect, very circumspect.

[Assistant] So you would, this would not be, you would not say how you felt about this particular experience.

[User] At the same time, I don't think he was the person who organized the training as training, the bigger picture of the training, the elements of the training. So he had his segment of it, which he used to great harm. And then there was the purpose of going in the Peace Corps.

[Assistant] When you say great harm, would you expand a little bit on why you think it was such great? Now there were men in the group that if they were selected out, they would automatically become eligible for the draft.


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

[User] Very circumspect, very circumspect.

[Assistant] So you would, this would not be, you would not say how you felt about this particular experience.

[User] At the same time, I don't think he was the person who organized the training as training, the bigger picture of the training, the elements of the training. So he had his segment of it, which he used to great harm. And then there was the purpose of going in the Peace Corps.

[Assistant] When you say great harm, would you expand a little bit on why you think it was such great? Now there were men in the group that if they were selected out, they would automatically become eligible for the draft.

[User] Well, some came in with high numbers and low numbers as I mentioned. Some of their draft boards said would recognize Peace Corps service as service. Some said their draft boards would not, so it was just a matter of when their numbers came up.

[Assistant] So that some had draft deferments and some did not.


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

[User] At the same time, I don't think he was the person who organized the training as training, the bigger picture of the training, the elements of the training. So he had his segment of it, which he used to great harm. And then there was the purpose of going in the Peace Corps.

[Assistant] When you say great harm, would you expand a little bit on why you think it was such great? Now there were men in the group that if they were selected out, they would automatically become eligible for the draft.

[User] Well, some came in with high numbers and low numbers as I mentioned. Some of their draft boards said would recognize Peace Corps service as service. Some said their draft boards would not, so it was just a matter of when their numbers came up.

[Assistant] So that some had draft deferments and some did not.

[User] Well, I'm not sure if you would call them draft deferments, but as I understood it, if the number came up, some draft boards would call and did.

[Assistant] And get them right out of training?


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

[User] Well, some came in with high numbers and low numbers as I mentioned. Some of their draft boards said would recognize Peace Corps service as service. Some said their draft boards would not, so it was just a matter of when their numbers came up.

[Assistant] So that some had draft deferments and some did not.

[User] Well, I'm not sure if you would call them draft deferments, but as I understood it, if the number came up, some draft boards would call and did.

[Assistant] And get them right out of training?

[User] And they took them right back to the draft board and whatever happened had to happen. Others, as I understood, if their number came up, the deferment would be recognized and then they'd be recycled in some fashion. As I recall it, and I am not sure I have the right names or timing of the events. One boy was called back from our group in training and his Peace Corps service would not be allowed.

[Assistant] Didn't have a deferment.


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

[User] Well, I'm not sure if you would call them draft deferments, but as I understood it, if the number came up, some draft boards would call and did.

[Assistant] And get them right out of training?

[User] And they took them right back to the draft board and whatever happened had to happen. Others, as I understood, if their number came up, the deferment would be recognized and then they'd be recycled in some fashion. As I recall it, and I am not sure I have the right names or timing of the events. One boy was called back from our group in training and his Peace Corps service would not be allowed.

[Assistant] Didn't have a deferment.

[User] I don't know if he ended up, where he ended up serving, but I think he did go in the military. One volunteer, whom I hold in extraordinary regard, said that he would not serve. I don't know if he would call himself a pacifist, but he had come to the conclusion that he could not serve in that war. And if he had to, he would go to Canada, and indeed he did. I think he came into country and perhaps then his number came up and he had to make the decision. As I understand it, he did go and I would use his name because I remember who he is, but I don't know, so I don't want to say.

[Assistant] But how does Tucker play into this?


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

[User] And they took them right back to the draft board and whatever happened had to happen. Others, as I understood, if their number came up, the deferment would be recognized and then they'd be recycled in some fashion. As I recall it, and I am not sure I have the right names or timing of the events. One boy was called back from our group in training and his Peace Corps service would not be allowed.

[Assistant] Didn't have a deferment.

[User] I don't know if he ended up, where he ended up serving, but I think he did go in the military. One volunteer, whom I hold in extraordinary regard, said that he would not serve. I don't know if he would call himself a pacifist, but he had come to the conclusion that he could not serve in that war. And if he had to, he would go to Canada, and indeed he did. I think he came into country and perhaps then his number came up and he had to make the decision. As I understand it, he did go and I would use his name because I remember who he is, but I don't know, so I don't want to say.

[Assistant] But how does Tucker play into this?

[User] Well, he is this person who is designing, I guess, or had designed, some sort of process for analyzing each person. And I don't know if his process of analyzing each person really was the ultimate decision making of whether you went into country or not, or whether his analysis was only sort of gathered with, for example, the Spanish teachers and these other more, to me are not perfectly memorable, people who were more work-based, you know. These were teaching us about what we would actually do in country, which seemed kind of more important than whatever this D group business was. But whatever data was being collected on comments, there was a session at some point where we were supposed to write down comments about other people.

[Assistant] In the group?


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

[User] But we weren't sure how we were selected in, except we had to choose an area. And they said, well, there are only so many slots. And so if you don't choose an area that has a slot, then you can't go.

[Assistant] Was this in Puerto Rico?

[User] This is in training in Puerto Rico. We didn't have any training in Costa Rica.

[Assistant] So you chose your site when you were still in training?

[User] We didn't choose it. Actually, they were showed us some sites on a map and they described them. And as it turned out, John Dellaverson, my dear friend John, Frankson Sally, whom we call Paco, my dear friend, and I made a team. And you couldn't have had three more disparate people in the world, and we adore each other to this day.

[Assistant] You were allowed to choose your partner.


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

[User] We didn't choose it. Actually, they were showed us some sites on a map and they described them. And as it turned out, John Dellaverson, my dear friend John, Frankson Sally, whom we call Paco, my dear friend, and I made a team. And you couldn't have had three more disparate people in the world, and we adore each other to this day.

[Assistant] You were allowed to choose your partner.

[User] I'm not sure actually whether we sort of fell into it because we were not, you know, close personal friends coming into the Peace Corps together or anything. We obviously didn't room together. But somehow in shifting out these little groups, the three of us said, great. And Frank, unfortunately, is not here for this reunion where we're doing this taping. John is coming and I am just beside myself to see him because I haven't seen him in many, many years. I have seen John and Paco since we finished our Peace Corps service, but not anywhere recently, and certainly not enough. I thank them because although we hardly ever saw each other as it turned out, because our sights were far apart and because of the rainy season and riding the horses you couldn't get through, and all this. We really didn't see each other, but we had a bond that transcends the Peace Corps. It's transcended the vagaries of life. It's as though they are annealed to me, and I have only two other people I can describe like that. One would be my law partner and the other is my new husband. And John and Paco and Jennifer. But John and Paco is my teammates. We had a great theory about what we were going to do.

[Assistant] What happened?

[User] And a site we were going to go do it in. And then it just changed.

[Assistant] But this all happened in training in Puerto Rico? And then how and describe how you got to Costa Rica, what your initial impression was, and what happened to your team.


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

[User] Well, if you had a horse, I later had a horse, but I mean, everybody rode horses there. I mean, we're in the middle of nowhere. Nobody has any motorized vehicles. This is a rural setting. What I would compare it to, not having been in the Midwest in the United States, a little bit like Colorado or Wyoming, Montana. Um, corn, dry rice, and beans.

[Assistant] How many people?

[User] Cattle. I was looking at my letters. I would have said about five hundred people in a five-mile radius. One of my letters said maybe it was a guess on my part. Seven hundred. Most families had between two and 13 children. The men, well, the people who live there are primarily of Indian descent, Nicaraguan in great part. There were certain tribes that came and I can't remember, I'm embarrassed to say, the principal tribe. But they were small, lithe, beautiful dark glossy hair, very deeply brown skin, extraordinarily mild mannered, not with the drinking and a few other things, kind, shy, gracious, quiet.

[Assistant] They spoke Spanish?

[User] They speak Spanish. There was no Indian dialect that I know of. And they spoke very nice Spanish, very formal Spanish. In Costa Rica, I did not learn the form of tu. Everything was usted. And we even talked to the trees and the tables and chairs in usted, you know? So it was wonderful in that sense because it was a Spanish that you could take with you. And the vocabulary I thought was, although I talk about it, my letters I was reading, it was a, I mean, I guess, a vocabulary focused on that world, which was an agrarian world. But it was a community, very spread out, little tiny little shacks people lived in. Just you never knew where you might find one, just sort of scattered. And the landscape was flat, cattle grazing. Most of the land was owned by absentee landlord.

[Assistant] How far were you from the water, from either the gulf or?


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

[User] Cattle. I was looking at my letters. I would have said about five hundred people in a five-mile radius. One of my letters said maybe it was a guess on my part. Seven hundred. Most families had between two and 13 children. The men, well, the people who live there are primarily of Indian descent, Nicaraguan in great part. There were certain tribes that came and I can't remember, I'm embarrassed to say, the principal tribe. But they were small, lithe, beautiful dark glossy hair, very deeply brown skin, extraordinarily mild mannered, not with the drinking and a few other things, kind, shy, gracious, quiet.

[Assistant] They spoke Spanish?

[User] They speak Spanish. There was no Indian dialect that I know of. And they spoke very nice Spanish, very formal Spanish. In Costa Rica, I did not learn the form of tu. Everything was usted. And we even talked to the trees and the tables and chairs in usted, you know? So it was wonderful in that sense because it was a Spanish that you could take with you. And the vocabulary I thought was, although I talk about it, my letters I was reading, it was a, I mean, I guess, a vocabulary focused on that world, which was an agrarian world. But it was a community, very spread out, little tiny little shacks people lived in. Just you never knew where you might find one, just sort of scattered. And the landscape was flat, cattle grazing. Most of the land was owned by absentee landlord.

[Assistant] How far were you from the water, from either the gulf or?

[User] No, no. I was way inland. I was way away from water. Nicoya is about right in the middle of the peninsula. And although I was northeast of it, I never saw the water. I mean, it was miles and miles, and they didn't even have any roads. I mean, there was no way to go to the water.

[Assistant] When you first arrived in your site, was there a place for you to stay? Was there a little hotel?


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

[User] No, nothing.

[Assistant] Did anyone without electricity that was. With any kind of, was there any?

[User] Um, the two families that had the tiendas. And I mean, people did, they didn't have gas or anything like that, but they cooked with leña, with wood. But it was very expensive to get and it was hard to get and you had to go out and cut it and bring it and dry it and all this. And so it really wasn't used a lot. When I was teaching my health and nutrition classes, the problem was they had lots of orange trees. Not like our oranges in America, but a variation or cousin. And they were called naranjas, and they didn't have much flavor. So when you cut the juice and you drank it, it was almost like water with a slight, just a touch of flavoring and a touch of color barely. The oranges weren't orange like ours. They were more green with a little orange and yellow color. So the juice was very, very pale. And if they drank the juice, it would have been great, but they would drink the juice mixed with the water. So all the children had parasites, and that was part of my deal was to talk about boiling the water. Boil it before you use it.

[Assistant] How realistic do you think that was?

[User] Other people drank coffee. A lot of, they drink, and I don't drink coffee, which was in a way a shame because that would, of course, been boiled.

[Assistant] Was their coffee boiled?


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

[User] Well, there wasn't anything more for me to do.

[Assistant] OK.

[User] Either they would put it back together as a community.

[Assistant] Right.

[User] And I didn't walk out the next day. I mean, this is several months later, and so I didn't even know what I could do or where I could go. And as it turned out, John and Paco ended up going to the very south of the country to the site that they had told us was not a site. And it turned out to be, as I understood, a great experience for them. I don't think I ever got there. I went to the capital city and I had a choice of either going to Nicoya to work with the high school. I can't remember quite now exactly what the job would be, or something involving kids. I had a choice of going to the capital city and working at the National School for Special Education, Enseñanza Especial. Or there was some other kind of job, maybe in the capital city. I had written them down in my letters to my parents, and I thought, no, I've never. Knew nothing about education, nothing about children, nothing about blindness. I'd like to go and do this job. And so that was a second chapter.

[Assistant] So did you keep any contact with your original site when you went?


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

[User] Either they would put it back together as a community.

[Assistant] Right.

[User] And I didn't walk out the next day. I mean, this is several months later, and so I didn't even know what I could do or where I could go. And as it turned out, John and Paco ended up going to the very south of the country to the site that they had told us was not a site. And it turned out to be, as I understood, a great experience for them. I don't think I ever got there. I went to the capital city and I had a choice of either going to Nicoya to work with the high school. I can't remember quite now exactly what the job would be, or something involving kids. I had a choice of going to the capital city and working at the National School for Special Education, Enseñanza Especial. Or there was some other kind of job, maybe in the capital city. I had written them down in my letters to my parents, and I thought, no, I've never. Knew nothing about education, nothing about children, nothing about blindness. I'd like to go and do this job. And so that was a second chapter.

[Assistant] So did you keep any contact with your original site when you went?

[User] I went back to my site several times. I can't remember if I stayed overnight or when. My parents had come to visit before I left, and that was a big, a big deal. I came back and had a big party for the children. Excuse me, I think I'm noting in my letter. I remember when I left, I think it meant maybe it was for the inauguration of the nutrition center was the last time I went, at least to see it, and it was almost finished. There was no great despedida either, great big goodbye. And maybe they thought I had left them or abandoned them. And I think I sort of felt as though it was, it had ended. It was over.

[Assistant] So what about your time in San Jose?


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

[User] I went back to my site several times. I can't remember if I stayed overnight or when. My parents had come to visit before I left, and that was a big, a big deal. I came back and had a big party for the children. Excuse me, I think I'm noting in my letter. I remember when I left, I think it meant maybe it was for the inauguration of the nutrition center was the last time I went, at least to see it, and it was almost finished. There was no great despedida either, great big goodbye. And maybe they thought I had left them or abandoned them. And I think I sort of felt as though it was, it had ended. It was over.

[Assistant] So what about your time in San Jose?

[User] I taught at the National School for Special Education, teaching blind children, and I help them with their schoolwork, and I took them on little excursions around town and took them to the swimming pool, which was a big deal, across town on the bus. And I lost one child one day and that was all. That's a complicated story, but I found the child. These were children, I would have to say, all some of them, I think, perhaps came from families that were fairly poor. I think they were basically on scholarship. They boarded, so they didn't go home to their homes. I was more of, uh, an assistant like you would have in a school room, I think, going around helping them with their schoolwork, helping them with their little daily living skills, playing with them, talking with them. I learned about children and learned about visual impairment and gained great respect for the effort that was being made.

[Assistant] Sounds like it was a totally different experience in terms of responsibility, in terms of support, in terms of?

[User] Well, I had no Peace Corps support there either, but I made my own job.

[Assistant] Yeah, and you had other people to be with that were.


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

[User] The older pilots who were qualified on those airplanes served as instructor pilots, and they checked me out. Of course I had the Navy flying experience, so I wasn’t a complete novice or beginner, but it was nice to have these very experienced guys in these different airplanes give you the checkout. One fellow on the amphibian, the pilot that checked me out, Bill [William L.] Alford, he was a [Consolidated] PBY [Catalina] pilot in World War II. He flew them all over the Pacific and tremendous background before he went into research. So that was the idea, that people [with more experience] were training the new people coming in.

[Assistant] You mentioned the helicopter. You hadn’t flown helicopters before that?

[User] I had not flown helicopters before, and that was a new checkout for me there too, was flying helicopters. That was interesting, and that was a challenge. When I was in the Navy flying fighters, I thought the helicopter pilots were just to pick us up out of the ocean when we ejected, but then I found they did a lot more with helicopters and research, and Langley was doing a lot of helicopter research. One of the first programs I had was a little Bell 47 helicopter, and it was a hand-me-down program. It wasn’t finished, but two or three of the other pilots had flown a portion of it. They put me on it to close it out, so I had to gather up all their data, figure out what was tested, figure out what I was going to flight test to fill in the blanks, and then get a report on it. That was one of my first applications of research in helicopters.

[Assistant] Was that the first report you had written?

[User] Probably the first tech [technical] report I was involved in, yes.

[Assistant] After reading them when you were in college and then actually getting to write one.


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

[User] I had not flown helicopters before, and that was a new checkout for me there too, was flying helicopters. That was interesting, and that was a challenge. When I was in the Navy flying fighters, I thought the helicopter pilots were just to pick us up out of the ocean when we ejected, but then I found they did a lot more with helicopters and research, and Langley was doing a lot of helicopter research. One of the first programs I had was a little Bell 47 helicopter, and it was a hand-me-down program. It wasn’t finished, but two or three of the other pilots had flown a portion of it. They put me on it to close it out, so I had to gather up all their data, figure out what was tested, figure out what I was going to flight test to fill in the blanks, and then get a report on it. That was one of my first applications of research in helicopters.

[Assistant] Was that the first report you had written?

[User] Probably the first tech [technical] report I was involved in, yes.

[Assistant] After reading them when you were in college and then actually getting to write one.

[User] That’s right, and reports at NACA, and NASA, they were really massaged. When something hit the streets, was published, it had been through a lot of review boards, a lot of exercise, and a lot of critics and contributions along the way. It was an interesting exposure, and that was part of my training, part of my getting ready with the system. I went through the whole process with review boards and changes and updates and on and on.

[Assistant] In your book [The Smell of Kerosene: A Test Pilot’s Odyssey], you mention that—this is a quote from your book: “Accomplishing a task involves both art and science, especially true of flying.” I thought that was a pretty interesting way of describing it, and I didn’t know if you wanted to expand on that a little bit and explain what you meant about that combination of art and science.


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

[User] Probably the first tech [technical] report I was involved in, yes.

[Assistant] After reading them when you were in college and then actually getting to write one.

[User] That’s right, and reports at NACA, and NASA, they were really massaged. When something hit the streets, was published, it had been through a lot of review boards, a lot of exercise, and a lot of critics and contributions along the way. It was an interesting exposure, and that was part of my training, part of my getting ready with the system. I went through the whole process with review boards and changes and updates and on and on.

[Assistant] In your book [The Smell of Kerosene: A Test Pilot’s Odyssey], you mention that—this is a quote from your book: “Accomplishing a task involves both art and science, especially true of flying.” I thought that was a pretty interesting way of describing it, and I didn’t know if you wanted to expand on that a little bit and explain what you meant about that combination of art and science.

[User] Well, the science part is probably the knowledge of the equations, like in aircraft, equations in motion; the dynamics of aircraft; the numbers of aircraft; the systems of aircraft. And the art is the ability of a person to integrate this all into the flying inputs and the controlling of the aircraft and operating the aircraft. Just like driving a race car or other coordination tasks, there’s variation between people. We all have to have a certain ability to accomplish a task, but there are variations in pilot’s performance abilities. I used to refer to a pilot that learned quickly and adapted to the flight task, as a natural. It seemed like the art of flying was easy and natural for him. He was like the Smiling Jack, a cartoon aviator, who flew everything and did everything well. You’d look at a fellow like that and say, “Well, he’s a natural.” And there were people that were almost natural in the flying ability, or what I consider the art of flying.

[Assistant] You did mention that in your book, too, those natural pilots, but I don’t think you considered yourself a natural pilot.


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

[User] You could breathe, yes. We ran several two- or three-day programs before the final one-week program. We worked up to it. Then the final one was the trip to the Moon and back.

[Assistant] Did you find anything out about yourself? I mean, did you do okay with that?

[User] Not too much. It sort of came out as the pilots expected it would. After a while—we slept in four-hour cycles, and that’s the way it was scheduled. You always had the humming of the motors and instrumentation in the background to help you sleep, and at first you didn’t sleep that well, and then later on you got used to it. We had sleep cycles, work cycles, all that was part of the program. I think everybody came through pretty good. The psychologist was sort of cute. He would interview everybody afterwards, and he asked the pilot from Ames, he said, “Why were you still taking your antihistamine pills? You know you were in a controlled environment, there was no dust in there.” They had air-conditioning and all this going on. I think He was just trying to see if the guy would get upset, but he didn’t.\n\n He said, “I took them out of habit, I guess.”

[Assistant] Were there simulators for the different aircraft that you flew at Langley?

[User] I started out with the [Bell] H-13 [Sioux] helicopters, HRS, which was a helicopter that we used to launch models of different military aircraft.

[Assistant] I was going to ask you about that. That’s interesting, that you took the models up and launched them from the helicopters?


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

[User] Well, I think I had enough background and experience flying Navy planes and knowing what they did with the planes in the service, that it wasn’t a good thing to do until they really were sure what was going on.

[Assistant] I think you mentioned, too, that the [North American] JF-100-C [Super Sabre] was another lesson. You were talking about flying difficult-to-handle aircraft over and over, and the pilots start compensating for that, which isn’t helpful when you’re trying to determine those safety issues.

[User] It’s interesting in that they used to claim that—and it’s true—that the military pilots flew some of the airplanes during World War II, like the [Republic] P-47 Thunderbolt, and the ones that flew them in combat, they swore by them, that they were great airplanes, and they were. They did a super job with them. But on some of the stability and control tests, they were borderline. The idea was, when a fellow flew something like that long enough, he adapted to it, he became accustomed to it, and he supplied the stability and control, but perhaps a new guy, just off the street or just starting, might not. So from the designer’s standpoint, you wanted the best handling qualities you could design into the airplane, along with the fact that it could perform and do its mission too. That came up and it was obvious.

[Assistant] I thought that was an interesting point, because people do tend to do that, and you compensate for things.

[User] And test pilots do, too, I think, with time. You try to learn not to, you try to be very positive in your evaluations, but sometimes if you’ve been working with it for a long time, it sort of becomes old hat, you have adapted to it yourself. Doesn’t make it that good, your handling of it.

[Assistant] I assume that you would have to step back sometimes and realize that you’re doing that.


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

[User] It’s interesting in that they used to claim that—and it’s true—that the military pilots flew some of the airplanes during World War II, like the [Republic] P-47 Thunderbolt, and the ones that flew them in combat, they swore by them, that they were great airplanes, and they were. They did a super job with them. But on some of the stability and control tests, they were borderline. The idea was, when a fellow flew something like that long enough, he adapted to it, he became accustomed to it, and he supplied the stability and control, but perhaps a new guy, just off the street or just starting, might not. So from the designer’s standpoint, you wanted the best handling qualities you could design into the airplane, along with the fact that it could perform and do its mission too. That came up and it was obvious.

[Assistant] I thought that was an interesting point, because people do tend to do that, and you compensate for things.

[User] And test pilots do, too, I think, with time. You try to learn not to, you try to be very positive in your evaluations, but sometimes if you’ve been working with it for a long time, it sort of becomes old hat, you have adapted to it yourself. Doesn’t make it that good, your handling of it.

[Assistant] I assume that you would have to step back sometimes and realize that you’re doing that.

[User] You have to approach everything very critically and use the numbers that you see, the quantitative data, along with your qualitative data to verify what was going on.

[Assistant] I can see where that would be a problem over time.\n\n You also did some flying for the Little Joe project for the early rocket research. Didn’t you fly some of those planes? You were carrying photographers, I believe?


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

[User] And test pilots do, too, I think, with time. You try to learn not to, you try to be very positive in your evaluations, but sometimes if you’ve been working with it for a long time, it sort of becomes old hat, you have adapted to it yourself. Doesn’t make it that good, your handling of it.

[Assistant] I assume that you would have to step back sometimes and realize that you’re doing that.

[User] You have to approach everything very critically and use the numbers that you see, the quantitative data, along with your qualitative data to verify what was going on.

[Assistant] I can see where that would be a problem over time.\n\n You also did some flying for the Little Joe project for the early rocket research. Didn’t you fly some of those planes? You were carrying photographers, I believe?

[User] I did photo missions for Little Joe, yes.

[Assistant] Do you want to talk about that for a second. That’s pretty interesting.


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

[User] Fred Haise went with me, yes. They had two slots at that time for NASA, and I forgot how much it cost in those days, but it was very expensive, and NASA Headquarters came up with that money for that training.

[Assistant] Chuck [Charles E.] Yeager was the Commandant at the time, wasn’t he?

[User] He happened to be the Commandant at that time, yes, at the school. We didn’t see that much of him. He was doing a lot of politics. I never flew with him at the school. I flew with all the instructors and the pilots there, and he had a lot of talented people over at the school. I came back and flew over at NASA on the Lifting Body one day with Yeager.

[Assistant] That’s an interesting story.

[User] Yes, that was sort of interesting. We each took our turn flying it.

[Assistant] The LLRV, being that was such an unusual vehicle—the flying bedstead—and the fact that, to simulate landing on the Moon, they had other options and other types of simulators that they were going to try, but this one really, from what the other pilots and the astronauts said, this one is the one that simulated the actual event so well.


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

[User] Yes, I think so. Dan said—of course, you've probably chatted with him and George, but they had their own set of travails and risks, etc., but I think it's always been on a positive upward-leaning slope, that they really are making progress. We are all making progress. I still harbor the hope that we're going to get back to the Space Exploration Initiative and soon. I think it's about time. I think there's no question that the American public has an appetite and expectation for further exploration, human exploration, and I think the day is coming soon when we'll get another opportunity to put some more energy into that. Clearly, the assembly phase and initial phase of the Space Station is going to be an impetus. Soon people are going to ask, "What's next?" And I think we know the answer to what's next. It's just a matter of unveiling it at the proper time.

[Assistant] It must be a very good compliment for you. If they're asking "What's next?" then that means we're thinking ahead.

[User] I hope so. Like I said, it's an enormous opportunity to be part of. I was real lucky to be there at an interesting time. As the Chinese say, be careful, may you live in interesting times. And I certainly got a chance to.

[Assistant] You have managed to provide so much information for us, and again in such a small amount of time. Do you have anything else that you would like to add?

[User] No.

[Assistant] Any contributions that you felt need to be noted?


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

[User] Yes. In fact, the gentleman who was the recruiter ended up being one of my line supervisors for probably five or six years when I first came to work here. His name was Charlie [C.] Allen. So that was the way I got here.

[Assistant] What did you know about trajectory before you came to JSC?

[User] That’s an interesting question. I remember in college when there was going to be a launch, because I was basically in college for the Mercury Program, we would always gather in a room with a big TV, and we would all watch it, so it was fascinating to me. I had an innate feeling about trajectory. I guess I always felt like—it felt right to me. If you add energy in the posigrade direction, the thing is going to go faster; it’s going to go up higher. That always felt—it was just an innate feeling. So I always enjoyed it when I got to work here. It felt like I was kind of made to do that or something. It worked out well.

[Assistant] When they interviewed you, was that specifically what they were interviewing you to do was to work in the trajectory area?

[User] Yes, it was. But until I got here and saw what it was, I’m not sure I really understood what trajectory meant.

[Assistant] Well, you mentioned they told you that there would be apartments. When you first came to this area, it was at that same time that they were moving from those leased buildings in Houston to actually the site here, which was then the Manned Spacecraft Center [MSC]. Did you report at the buildings, or was the site open at that point?


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

[User] That’s an interesting question. I remember in college when there was going to be a launch, because I was basically in college for the Mercury Program, we would always gather in a room with a big TV, and we would all watch it, so it was fascinating to me. I had an innate feeling about trajectory. I guess I always felt like—it felt right to me. If you add energy in the posigrade direction, the thing is going to go faster; it’s going to go up higher. That always felt—it was just an innate feeling. So I always enjoyed it when I got to work here. It felt like I was kind of made to do that or something. It worked out well.

[Assistant] When they interviewed you, was that specifically what they were interviewing you to do was to work in the trajectory area?

[User] Yes, it was. But until I got here and saw what it was, I’m not sure I really understood what trajectory meant.

[Assistant] Well, you mentioned they told you that there would be apartments. When you first came to this area, it was at that same time that they were moving from those leased buildings in Houston to actually the site here, which was then the Manned Spacecraft Center [MSC]. Did you report at the buildings, or was the site open at that point?

[User] Another good question. The first day I was at work was the day they were moving from HPC [Houston Petroleum Center] to Building 30, so everybody was in chaos. There were boxes everywhere; no work was really going on, and that’s kind of the way it was for the first week here. But my first day was the first day in Building 30, so I never had the experience of working up the freeway.

[Assistant] You mentioned it was a little chaotic, but are there any other memories of that first week that stand out in your mind as far as some of the experiences of coming to this new place and in the heat?


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

[User] Yes, and that was probably part of it. Yes, it probably was. That’s a good insight.

[Assistant] Well, let’s talk about some of those other missions you mentioned, the unmanned mission. Were there other unmanned missions before Apollo 7 that you worked on?

[User] That I worked on—no. That was that other group that was off doing the Apollo unmanned high-velocity reentries, and I really did not work on those. I came back and did some Apollo 7 work, but it was peripheral. The guy that was doing the trajectory design for that had been working on Apollo Earth orbit for years, so it was normal for him to continue to do that.\n\n Kind of an interesting sideline; after he did that [flight, he] left NASA, and became a State Farm Insurance salesman in Nassau Bay [Texas] for the next twenty-five years. Dave [J.] Griffith. You probably saw his sign.

[Assistant] Yes. That’s a different transition. I wouldn’t have expected that. [Laughs]

[User] Yes, I might mention when I came to work, there was no aerospace engineers. It did not exist in 1964. One of the guys I worked with was a math teacher. Another one was a civil engineer. I was an engineering-physics graduate, which was kind of a combination of physics and electrical engineering. But we had no aero-engineers. It was anybody that understood math they would hire.

[Assistant] As you mentioned, you came from a small town, and then you went to a university in the same state you lived in, and then moving to Houston. People from all over, including Canada and England and with the AVRO [Aircraft, Ltd.] engineers that were coming in, and people from all over were coming in to work on these projects with you. What was that like to meet all these people from all over and get to work with them?


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

[User] Oh, that’s okay. That Apollo 8 saved 1968.

[Assistant] Yes, we’ve heard that before.

[User] In retrospect, that was as meaningful as really what we did, because there was a lot of bad stuff. It was all negative. So that was really neat.

[Assistant] To be a part of that.

[User] Yes.

[Assistant] To be able to be proud of the fact that you had helped save the year, and save the nation at that point.


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

[User] In retrospect, that was as meaningful as really what we did, because there was a lot of bad stuff. It was all negative. So that was really neat.

[Assistant] To be a part of that.

[User] Yes.

[Assistant] To be able to be proud of the fact that you had helped save the year, and save the nation at that point.

[User] Yes. It was a positive thing. I knew I was going to have trouble with it. [Laughter]

[Assistant] That’s okay. Most people have problems with Apollo 8. We’ve had a lot of people. It was an emotional time for everyone.


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

[User] Yes.

[Assistant] To be able to be proud of the fact that you had helped save the year, and save the nation at that point.

[User] Yes. It was a positive thing. I knew I was going to have trouble with it. [Laughter]

[Assistant] That’s okay. Most people have problems with Apollo 8. We’ve had a lot of people. It was an emotional time for everyone.

[User] That year was tough. You almost have to look back on it to appreciate that. When we get close to the end of this, I think you—I feel like when I was in the middle of it, it was fun, but you don’t have perspective on what you’re really doing and how it fits in. So that was something that I think was more emotional to me in perspective versus when I was just down in and doing it.

[Assistant] Well, when you were in it, I’m sure you were just focused on doing your job, and that was the most important thing at that point.


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

[User] Yes. It was a positive thing. I knew I was going to have trouble with it. [Laughter]

[Assistant] That’s okay. Most people have problems with Apollo 8. We’ve had a lot of people. It was an emotional time for everyone.

[User] That year was tough. You almost have to look back on it to appreciate that. When we get close to the end of this, I think you—I feel like when I was in the middle of it, it was fun, but you don’t have perspective on what you’re really doing and how it fits in. So that was something that I think was more emotional to me in perspective versus when I was just down in and doing it.

[Assistant] Well, when you were in it, I’m sure you were just focused on doing your job, and that was the most important thing at that point.

[User] Yes.

[Assistant] Of course, Apollo 8, being Christmas Eve and the reading and everything, it was a special time.


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

[User] That year was tough. You almost have to look back on it to appreciate that. When we get close to the end of this, I think you—I feel like when I was in the middle of it, it was fun, but you don’t have perspective on what you’re really doing and how it fits in. So that was something that I think was more emotional to me in perspective versus when I was just down in and doing it.

[Assistant] Well, when you were in it, I’m sure you were just focused on doing your job, and that was the most important thing at that point.

[User] Yes.

[Assistant] Of course, Apollo 8, being Christmas Eve and the reading and everything, it was a special time.

[User] I think it was really unbelievable. We just sat there in the Control Center and watched the pictures coming back of the lunar surface. People were just in awe. People would talk about what they were seeing, because a lot of the times—because I was on the shift when we went into orbit and then they came from behind the Moon, and they started showing pictures. I got to be the prime shift, so that was neat. But there was a lot of times where people were just totally quiet. I don’t think anybody knew exactly what to say. It was a meaningful time.

[Assistant] Being in the back room, you could see the pictures at the same time they could in the Mission Control Room?


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

[User] Yes.

[Assistant] Of course, Apollo 8, being Christmas Eve and the reading and everything, it was a special time.

[User] I think it was really unbelievable. We just sat there in the Control Center and watched the pictures coming back of the lunar surface. People were just in awe. People would talk about what they were seeing, because a lot of the times—because I was on the shift when we went into orbit and then they came from behind the Moon, and they started showing pictures. I got to be the prime shift, so that was neat. But there was a lot of times where people were just totally quiet. I don’t think anybody knew exactly what to say. It was a meaningful time.

[Assistant] Being in the back room, you could see the pictures at the same time they could in the Mission Control Room?

[User] Yes. Yes, it was piped to all of us, and there was a lot of people there then that—I don’t know; it was entirely different. I think it was back to doing something first and being part of that. It had been a couple of years since we’d had that feeling, so it was good to get it back. If you think about it, it had probably been in late ’66, and here it was late ’68, and we finally felt like we were back on track again.\n\n Apollo 7 was important, but it kind of was hardware related, and trajectory-wise, we had done that several times. This was entirely different.

[Assistant] And it was that free-return trajectory. Maybe for a minute, if you don’t mind just talk about the free-return as opposed to a non-free-return trajectory?


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

[User] Yes, it was. Basically, it was assembling trajectory work that had been done by a variety of people, and it wasn’t that I was doing hands-on generating of the data. I had some responsibility to verify it and be sure it was consistent, but it wasn’t the hands-on work that I had done for early Gemini. So the feeling of contributing was a degree or so less.

[Assistant] And that’s what you did through the rest of the Apollo Program?

[User] The truth is that I went once and told my boss I needed more to do, and his response was, “Well, don’t tell anybody that. We’re trying to get more work.”\n\n I didn’t want to go behind his back, but that was part of what motivated me to go and say, “Hey, I’d like to go back and work in this other branch,” and kind of start over where I was three or four years ago, because I felt like I could contribute more. I don’t think it made anybody upset, because I think the area I was in had too many people. The fact that I chose to go find something else was probably okay with them.

[Assistant] When did you move into that other area?

[User] I don’t remember exactly. I would say ’77 or ’78. So there was a period of about five years there where I felt adrift.

[Assistant] Did you have any involvement at all with Apollo-Soyuz [Test Project, ASTP] or Skylab?


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

[User] The truth is that I went once and told my boss I needed more to do, and his response was, “Well, don’t tell anybody that. We’re trying to get more work.”\n\n I didn’t want to go behind his back, but that was part of what motivated me to go and say, “Hey, I’d like to go back and work in this other branch,” and kind of start over where I was three or four years ago, because I felt like I could contribute more. I don’t think it made anybody upset, because I think the area I was in had too many people. The fact that I chose to go find something else was probably okay with them.

[Assistant] When did you move into that other area?

[User] I don’t remember exactly. I would say ’77 or ’78. So there was a period of about five years there where I felt adrift.

[Assistant] Did you have any involvement at all with Apollo-Soyuz [Test Project, ASTP] or Skylab?

[User] The data management time, yes. That was another example of—and I’ll throw stones here—where the Branch Chief wound up doing some of the basic work and wound up doing the travel to Russia and that sort of thing. I might have done the same thing if I had been Branch Chief; I’m not being holier than thou. I would say, roughly, we had work to keep 25 percent of the people busy, and so it was not a good time for a lot of people as far as having heavy work content.

[Assistant] As you mentioned, the seventies was a little bit different time as far as that transition, and there were a lot of people, and I think some of the RIFs [Reduction in Force] were starting in the seventies. So the whole atmosphere at the Center, not in just your area, was a little different. Do you feel like everyone was feeling that everywhere?


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

[User] I’ll just mention that I tended to get more involved with activities outside of JSC because I wasn’t challenged as much at work. I was active in church. I was active in things like the Indian Princess and Indian Guides. The JSC community has what they call the EAA, Employees Activities Association. I wound up being Vice President and President of that off and on for ten years, so looking back in perspective, not being challenged totally at work, I think I went outside that environment to get some challenges. And I actually wound up, I think, educating myself, taking some courses and having some personal growth in that time period. So it wasn’t maybe a total loss, but it was so different from the sixties. The work environment was just very frustrating.

[Assistant] Well, I did see your name quite a few times in the [Space News] Roundup as far as the picnic and organizing those things.

[User] Yes. I think I developed some skills there that eventually wound up back at work, and I took some courses, like I said, but it was kind of filling the void.

[Assistant] Well, if you’d like, we can stop for today before we move on into Shuttle. It’s getting close to the time. Do you think that would be a good breaking point?

[User] That’s a good breaking point.

[Assistant] Okay. Why don’t we do that?


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

[User] Oh yes, it’s quite different. But in its own way just as effective, and a heck of a lot of fun.

[Assistant] Do you enjoy that part? Obviously you enjoyed that one, but some of the others, like 60 Minutes or Nova, or any of the ones that are more of a mass audience instead of, say, at a conference or smaller market.

[User] I do enjoy it. I do it out of a sense of responsibility, it’s part of the job that I signed up for. But yes, I do enjoy it. I like teaching. I teach courses at Cornell that have 200, 300 students sometimes. I enjoy taking the stuff that I feel passionate about and sharing it with people. That’s fun for me.\n\n If I had to go on television and get interviewed about something I didn’t care about or some topic I wasn’t happy about, that would not be any fun, no. But getting to share something I’m deeply passionate about with people, yes, what’s wrong with that? That’s fun.

[Assistant] I bet it would be. Because of that you actually won an award in 2009, the Carl Sagan Medal [for Excellence in Public Communication in Planetary Science] of the American Astronomical Society. They recognized you as a planetary scientist for excellence in public communication. Knowing him, and knowing that that was important to him and then to win that prize, I would imagine would be amazing.

[User] That was a good feeling, just because that award was inspired by Carl and named after him. To be one of the many recipients of that was a real honor.

[Assistant] We talked about some of the other things that you were an investigator on, some of the other missions. There were a few that we didn’t really discuss I thought maybe you might want to mention a few things about. One of them was the Mars Express mission in 2003 for ESA [European Space Agency]. You were a coinvestigator on the High Resolution Stereo Camera.


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

[User] Both that and the Cassini mission to Saturn—my participation in those two were effectively casualties of the long life of the MER mission. All of those happened in more or less the same timeframe, 2003, 2004. I thought we’d get more than three months—I thought we’d get six months, maybe a year out of Spirit and Opportunity. And then once that was done and we wrote some papers, then I would be able to turn my attention to these other missions, Cassini and Mars Express, that I was involved in.\n\n That opportunity never came. So while I was originally part of those teams and made the contributions I could make during the formulation phases of those missions, once they actually arrived at the destinations and started doing science, I was still so busy with the rovers that I didn’t have much opportunity to participate. Unfortunately, my participation in those two missions and also the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter—that’s another one—has been very, very limited. Simply because the rovers have lasted so much longer than ever anticipated.

[Assistant] Is that the same with Odyssey also?

[User] Yes, Mars Odyssey is another one. I was more involved in that one than I was in some of the others. But all of them, my participation wound up being much more limited than I would have liked it to be, simply because my role in the rover mission is of course very different. All those other missions, I’m a coinvestigator. I’m one of many making small contributions to the project, that’s the idea. Whereas the role that I have on MER is all-consuming. It didn’t end when I thought, hasn’t ended yet. We’re doing flight operations tomorrow.

[Assistant] One that is coming to the end right now is Cassini, which is pretty interesting.

[User] Yes. What a magnificent mission that has been. Just hats off, man. That has been absolutely spectacular in every way. Just a brilliant piece of work.

[Assistant] It really has, just unbelievable.


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

[User] Yes, Mars Odyssey is another one. I was more involved in that one than I was in some of the others. But all of them, my participation wound up being much more limited than I would have liked it to be, simply because my role in the rover mission is of course very different. All those other missions, I’m a coinvestigator. I’m one of many making small contributions to the project, that’s the idea. Whereas the role that I have on MER is all-consuming. It didn’t end when I thought, hasn’t ended yet. We’re doing flight operations tomorrow.

[Assistant] One that is coming to the end right now is Cassini, which is pretty interesting.

[User] Yes. What a magnificent mission that has been. Just hats off, man. That has been absolutely spectacular in every way. Just a brilliant piece of work.

[Assistant] It really has, just unbelievable.

[User] Going out in style, too. It’s great.

[Assistant] Yes, definitely. One of the things, I guess we can talk about it—I’m not sure exactly what your involvement has been, other than with the decadal study, but the research on the habitability or the existence of liquid water on Europa.


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

[User] Oh my goodness, no. It is such a privilege to be part of a NEEMO crew, and then to be on two—hardly anyone has gotten a chance to do that. I was so lucky to be on two crews. I would do anything to go back and be a support diver, if I could make it work with my schedule.\n\n You’ve got to realize—you got this crew of four in the habitat. There are two more individuals in the habitat whose job it is to run the habitat, be safety divers, keep everything working. But then there’s a top-side crew, mission control, the submarine pilots. There’s a huge top-side crew that’s working, and a lot of support divers.\n\n The support divers are bringing down groceries and taking up our trash and just looking after things. We would dive with helmets and then there would be these hoses, these tethers, that would bring air into our helmets, and there’d be a diver just tending your tether, just holding your tether so it doesn’t get tangled up.\n\n These are scuba divers who are just working, working, working, doing two, three dives a day, on a boat that’s pitching and rolling around in the waves overhead. It’s hard, hard work. We were completely dependent on those support divers who just did an amazing job for us. I would love to go back as a support diver someday and just do that to pay off that debt, because they took very good care of us down there.

[Assistant] The Aquarius, does it stay there?

[User] Yes.

[Assistant] So with this most recent storm I’m hoping everything’s okay with it.

[User] I have not heard. I have not heard, and believe me I’ve been worried about it. When Hurricane Irma came through—the thing is designed to withstand a substantial hurricane, but I simply have not heard what’s happened as a consequence of Irma.

[Assistant] Yes. I hadn’t either until we’re doing this, and I haven’t seen anything online about it, so I was just curious. Because that was a substantial hurricane.


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

[User] Yes.

[Assistant] So with this most recent storm I’m hoping everything’s okay with it.

[User] I have not heard. I have not heard, and believe me I’ve been worried about it. When Hurricane Irma came through—the thing is designed to withstand a substantial hurricane, but I simply have not heard what’s happened as a consequence of Irma.

[Assistant] Yes. I hadn’t either until we’re doing this, and I haven’t seen anything online about it, so I was just curious. Because that was a substantial hurricane.

[User] Yes.

[Assistant] It sounds like it would be just such an interesting thing to do. There are so many things that you’ve done that you probably did not imagine doing when you first started out going to school and becoming a planetary geologist. Are there any other projects that you’ve worked on that we haven’t talked about that you’d like to mention?


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

[User] I have not heard. I have not heard, and believe me I’ve been worried about it. When Hurricane Irma came through—the thing is designed to withstand a substantial hurricane, but I simply have not heard what’s happened as a consequence of Irma.

[Assistant] Yes. I hadn’t either until we’re doing this, and I haven’t seen anything online about it, so I was just curious. Because that was a substantial hurricane.

[User] Yes.

[Assistant] It sounds like it would be just such an interesting thing to do. There are so many things that you’ve done that you probably did not imagine doing when you first started out going to school and becoming a planetary geologist. Are there any other projects that you’ve worked on that we haven’t talked about that you’d like to mention?

[User] Not really, I think we’ve hit most of them. I’m sort of at the stage in my career now where I’m still busy paying off debts. I had the good fortune to have so many people help me at different stages of my career, give me opportunities to do things. Right now I feel like the best thing for me to do is what I can to provide opportunities for young scientists and young engineers to advance their careers, give them opportunities, find ways to create things that’ll benefit other scientists.\n\n Back in the early days when I worked on Voyager, there were very senior scientists on Voyager. They were late enough in their career, they weren’t going to get anything out of it. It wasn’t like it was going to get them elected to the National Academy of Sciences, they already had been. They were just in it for the love of the game and for what they could do for ambitious youngsters.\n\n I’m at the point where if I can help some ambitious talented youngsters, that’s a good thing to do. So that’s where I’m focusing a lot of my energy these days.

[Assistant] That’s very good to hear, because we need people to do that. We definitely do, and to instill that interest and that excitement.


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

[User] Yes.

[Assistant] It sounds like it would be just such an interesting thing to do. There are so many things that you’ve done that you probably did not imagine doing when you first started out going to school and becoming a planetary geologist. Are there any other projects that you’ve worked on that we haven’t talked about that you’d like to mention?

[User] Not really, I think we’ve hit most of them. I’m sort of at the stage in my career now where I’m still busy paying off debts. I had the good fortune to have so many people help me at different stages of my career, give me opportunities to do things. Right now I feel like the best thing for me to do is what I can to provide opportunities for young scientists and young engineers to advance their careers, give them opportunities, find ways to create things that’ll benefit other scientists.\n\n Back in the early days when I worked on Voyager, there were very senior scientists on Voyager. They were late enough in their career, they weren’t going to get anything out of it. It wasn’t like it was going to get them elected to the National Academy of Sciences, they already had been. They were just in it for the love of the game and for what they could do for ambitious youngsters.\n\n I’m at the point where if I can help some ambitious talented youngsters, that’s a good thing to do. So that’s where I’m focusing a lot of my energy these days.

[Assistant] That’s very good to hear, because we need people to do that. We definitely do, and to instill that interest and that excitement.

[User] Believe me, I’m still having fun. Like I said, I was doing Opportunity rover operations all day yesterday, I’ll be doing it all day tomorrow, and I just love it.

[Assistant] That’s exciting. I do appreciate you giving us this time again and giving your time for this project. It really means a lot and we appreciate it.


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

[User] A pleasure.

[Assistant] Last time we talked a lot about your early days at NASA, a lot with the communications and your work in that area. We did talk some about your work in the advanced planning as well, future planning, but I wanted to go back first and ask you a couple of questions just on some of your thoughts on Apollo, even though you weren’t specifically involved with some of the missions. I’m sure you followed them as they were going along. Actually, when did you first learn about the lunar mission studies and their first efforts toward getting involved in that?

[User] I was still at Langley [Research Center, Hampton Virginia], probably ’61, ’62, and I’m sure just after the President [John F. Kennedy] had made his grand announcement, and I was not privy to any of that work that was done before that at the time. Chuck [Charles W.] Mathews pulled me aside one day and said, “We need to look at Apollo’s ground support system.” That’s about the earliest I can recall. I don’t even really remember what we did about it, other than I’m sure that got us involved in the Deep Space Network [DSN], which up until that time had been virtually dedicated to the unmanned exploration satellites. You’re familiar with the Deep Space Network?

[Assistant] Yes, run from JPL [Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, California]?

[User] Right. That became a major element of the network to support the lunar missions, but it had not yet been integrated into the manned spaceflight program at that time.

[Assistant] Were you involved in that whole integration process then?


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

[User] I was still at Langley [Research Center, Hampton Virginia], probably ’61, ’62, and I’m sure just after the President [John F. Kennedy] had made his grand announcement, and I was not privy to any of that work that was done before that at the time. Chuck [Charles W.] Mathews pulled me aside one day and said, “We need to look at Apollo’s ground support system.” That’s about the earliest I can recall. I don’t even really remember what we did about it, other than I’m sure that got us involved in the Deep Space Network [DSN], which up until that time had been virtually dedicated to the unmanned exploration satellites. You’re familiar with the Deep Space Network?

[Assistant] Yes, run from JPL [Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, California]?

[User] Right. That became a major element of the network to support the lunar missions, but it had not yet been integrated into the manned spaceflight program at that time.

[Assistant] Were you involved in that whole integration process then?

[User] I believe so. Can’t remember much of the details on that. That’s about as early as I can recall getting involved in the Apollo Program. I was never hands-on on the Apollo Program. I was always downstream, upstream, in front of the Apollo Program, to some extent, which is the destiny of a person who’s in the planning business, I guess. So I just followed along behind the activities.

[Assistant] How closely did you follow any of the missions, even though you weren’t directly hands-on or directly involved?


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

[User] Right. That became a major element of the network to support the lunar missions, but it had not yet been integrated into the manned spaceflight program at that time.

[Assistant] Were you involved in that whole integration process then?

[User] I believe so. Can’t remember much of the details on that. That’s about as early as I can recall getting involved in the Apollo Program. I was never hands-on on the Apollo Program. I was always downstream, upstream, in front of the Apollo Program, to some extent, which is the destiny of a person who’s in the planning business, I guess. So I just followed along behind the activities.

[Assistant] How closely did you follow any of the missions, even though you weren’t directly hands-on or directly involved?

[User] Just sitting in the back room of the control center, not always. Most of the major events I was elsewhere. I know you asked me where was I when we landed on the Moon, and to this day, I cannot recall that. It didn’t register that significantly, I guess, although I can remember looking up at the Moon at that time, and it was a bit impressive.

[Assistant] Did you think back at all during that time as they were in the process of landing on the Moon and think back to just the few years previous when Kennedy had made the announcement to go and all the things that had been done in between?


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

[User] I believe so. Can’t remember much of the details on that. That’s about as early as I can recall getting involved in the Apollo Program. I was never hands-on on the Apollo Program. I was always downstream, upstream, in front of the Apollo Program, to some extent, which is the destiny of a person who’s in the planning business, I guess. So I just followed along behind the activities.

[Assistant] How closely did you follow any of the missions, even though you weren’t directly hands-on or directly involved?

[User] Just sitting in the back room of the control center, not always. Most of the major events I was elsewhere. I know you asked me where was I when we landed on the Moon, and to this day, I cannot recall that. It didn’t register that significantly, I guess, although I can remember looking up at the Moon at that time, and it was a bit impressive.

[Assistant] Did you think back at all during that time as they were in the process of landing on the Moon and think back to just the few years previous when Kennedy had made the announcement to go and all the things that had been done in between?

[User] I don’t recall. I don’t really recall that in that context.

[Assistant] Just working on and doing your job then. It was all part of it.


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

[User] Just sitting in the back room of the control center, not always. Most of the major events I was elsewhere. I know you asked me where was I when we landed on the Moon, and to this day, I cannot recall that. It didn’t register that significantly, I guess, although I can remember looking up at the Moon at that time, and it was a bit impressive.

[Assistant] Did you think back at all during that time as they were in the process of landing on the Moon and think back to just the few years previous when Kennedy had made the announcement to go and all the things that had been done in between?

[User] I don’t recall. I don’t really recall that in that context.

[Assistant] Just working on and doing your job then. It was all part of it.

[User] Something like that.

[Assistant] You said you don’t recall specifically when they landed on the Moon. Do you recall anything surrounding the decision of Apollo 8 to go to the Moon?


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

[User] I don’t recall. I don’t really recall that in that context.

[Assistant] Just working on and doing your job then. It was all part of it.

[User] Something like that.

[Assistant] You said you don’t recall specifically when they landed on the Moon. Do you recall anything surrounding the decision of Apollo 8 to go to the Moon?

[User] No, that was all done—I was not involved in that set of decision-making activities. I was probably wrestling with AAP [Apollo Applications Program] at that time and with the Marshall [Space Flight Center, Huntsville, Alabama] crowd, who were for the disabling, making the Skylab from a spent Saturn stage as opposed to launching a developed stage.

[Assistant] That’s the wet workshop versus the dry workshop?


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

[User] Something like that.

[Assistant] You said you don’t recall specifically when they landed on the Moon. Do you recall anything surrounding the decision of Apollo 8 to go to the Moon?

[User] No, that was all done—I was not involved in that set of decision-making activities. I was probably wrestling with AAP [Apollo Applications Program] at that time and with the Marshall [Space Flight Center, Huntsville, Alabama] crowd, who were for the disabling, making the Skylab from a spent Saturn stage as opposed to launching a developed stage.

[Assistant] That’s the wet workshop versus the dry workshop?

[User] Yes, that’s the game.

[Assistant] Could you explain a little bit about that and some of the differences and some of the pros and cons of each approach and how that process came about?


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

[User] I don’t remember. Doesn’t ring a bell.

[Assistant] Okay. That’s fine. It’s certainly several years back and there was a lot going on, so we don’t expect you to remember everything in full detail.\n\n When you were beginning to look at it being Skylab, what were some of the other key issues? You talked about the wet workshop versus dry workshop and tying in some of the Earth observations work. Were there other issues you looked at at all, like dealing with the long-duration flights or how any of that would be different from Apollo and Mercury and Gemini?

[User] It just doesn’t ring a bell. I know my problem is, I’m always ahead of the programs, or was ahead of the programs. None of that comes back to me. It probably will later on.

[Assistant] That’s fine. You mentioned some of the other applications that you had been involved with, such as some of the satellites and even getting into solar energy, satellites of some of the other programs you’d been involved with. Were there others, too, that came along during this time frame that you were working on for applications or were those pretty much the primary—

[User] Rephrase the question.

[Assistant] Okay. Basically, what were some of the other areas of applications that you explored besides like the Earth satellites? You had talked before about some communications satellites and solar energy satellites. Were there any other areas of focus for the Apollo applications?