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

[User] No. Most of those studies that I was associated with were paperwork or software exercises. Some of the universities were running parallel R&D programs in some of these directions. But the advanced studies, depending on how far into the future they go, they don’t get a lot of funding. A lot of it’s done because of the intellectual challenge of those things. Small groups sit on the side lines and do that kind of thing, but for awhile NASA—and probably still does—put seed money into this game, which is mostly in the form of travel and supporting the appropriate documentation and publications and stuff like that. It’s a communications program, really. However, there was one—I don’t remember it well. No. Not coming.

[Assistant] Okay. Going back, jumping back to Skylab briefly, did you have any initial thoughts about the Skylab itself? We did talk some about space station in general last time, but just the idea of having a space station up there and how long it should be there dealing with some of these human issues on the long-duration flight?

[User] Well, it was the first time they put anybody up there longer than whatever the length of the lunar mission was. So that was a great excitement for the physiological information. I know I was enthusiastic about the fact that they were going to do that program and that they did it. I think they visited three times. But it was somebody else’s program at that point in time. It was hardware and people and operations and all that good world. We were an advanced frame for all that, at that time.

[Assistant] At some point in the planning for Skylab, you did have a little bit of involvement in proposing some names for some of the missions. I don’t know if you recall that at all. Some of those are quite entertaining choices [referring to documentation].

[User] Good heavens. Is that right?

[Assistant] We came across that when we were doing some of our research.


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

[User] Well, it was the first time they put anybody up there longer than whatever the length of the lunar mission was. So that was a great excitement for the physiological information. I know I was enthusiastic about the fact that they were going to do that program and that they did it. I think they visited three times. But it was somebody else’s program at that point in time. It was hardware and people and operations and all that good world. We were an advanced frame for all that, at that time.

[Assistant] At some point in the planning for Skylab, you did have a little bit of involvement in proposing some names for some of the missions. I don’t know if you recall that at all. Some of those are quite entertaining choices [referring to documentation].

[User] Good heavens. Is that right?

[Assistant] We came across that when we were doing some of our research.

[User] What were the names of the three missions?

[Assistant] All we’ve ever found is that they called them just Skylab. They called the first unmanned launch Skylab 1 and then the manned ones, Skylab 2, 3, and 4 and never had any specific names applied to them.


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

[User] Good heavens. Is that right?

[Assistant] We came across that when we were doing some of our research.

[User] What were the names of the three missions?

[Assistant] All we’ve ever found is that they called them just Skylab. They called the first unmanned launch Skylab 1 and then the manned ones, Skylab 2, 3, and 4 and never had any specific names applied to them.

[User] Good heavens. I don’t remember any of that.

[Assistant] No? I was going to ask if you had any favorites off of that list.


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

[User] What were the names of the three missions?

[Assistant] All we’ve ever found is that they called them just Skylab. They called the first unmanned launch Skylab 1 and then the manned ones, Skylab 2, 3, and 4 and never had any specific names applied to them.

[User] Good heavens. I don’t remember any of that.

[Assistant] No? I was going to ask if you had any favorites off of that list.

[User] [Laughter] Abraham, Martin, and John. Wasn’t that a song in the sixties?

[Assistant] Abraham Lincoln and Martin Luther King [Jr.] and John [F.] Kennedy.


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

[User] [Laughter] Abraham, Martin, and John. Wasn’t that a song in the sixties?

[Assistant] Abraham Lincoln and Martin Luther King [Jr.] and John [F.] Kennedy.

[User] No, there was a song in the era that was “Abraham, Martin, and John.”

[Assistant] Yes.

[User] “The Three Graces.” Wow. That would have been a good set. “The Three Fates.”

[Assistant] Yes, I thought that one was kind of interesting.


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

[User] No, there was a song in the era that was “Abraham, Martin, and John.”

[Assistant] Yes.

[User] “The Three Graces.” Wow. That would have been a good set. “The Three Fates.”

[Assistant] Yes, I thought that one was kind of interesting.

[User] I know I used to play these games every now and again, but I don’t remember this. In fact, in there [referring to documentation] you mentioned the business about a memo proposing to build something out of spent stages.

[Assistant] Yes, we did run across that as well. I don’t have that one handy, where you talked about using spent stages of the Apollo missions to build this space station. Actually, later on, probably after you had already left the office, there were some studies about using the external tanks off the Shuttle, boosting them into orbit and using those—are you familiar with those as well? I wonder what some of your thought would be on those.


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

[User] I know I used to play these games every now and again, but I don’t remember this. In fact, in there [referring to documentation] you mentioned the business about a memo proposing to build something out of spent stages.

[Assistant] Yes, we did run across that as well. I don’t have that one handy, where you talked about using spent stages of the Apollo missions to build this space station. Actually, later on, probably after you had already left the office, there were some studies about using the external tanks off the Shuttle, boosting them into orbit and using those—are you familiar with those as well? I wonder what some of your thought would be on those.

[User] Well, it was just shortly after I’d actually started with NASA with the business about using the spent stages. It’s simply because you can do so many things with just tubes, okay, and they were there. The last stage actually went into orbit, but rapidly decayed back down. It didn’t go very far. It wasn’t really a very intensive exercise, as I recall. Everybody was so busy trying to get things done back in those days, so that memo didn’t go very far.\n\n Was Skylab a sister of Apollo? I remember I had a book of Greek mythology sitting on the desk, and a lot of this stuff comes from not my in-depth knowledge of Greek mythology, but they always give it the names of the gods, whatever the gods are, right? [Laughter]

[Assistant] Absolutely.

[User] And most of the project names were being given Greek names at that point in time. How about that? Sneezy, Dopey, and Doc. [Laughter]

[Assistant] I think that shows some of the spirit, too, that surrounded, seems like NASA as a whole. Even though there was always the job to be done, and—


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

[User] Well, it was just shortly after I’d actually started with NASA with the business about using the spent stages. It’s simply because you can do so many things with just tubes, okay, and they were there. The last stage actually went into orbit, but rapidly decayed back down. It didn’t go very far. It wasn’t really a very intensive exercise, as I recall. Everybody was so busy trying to get things done back in those days, so that memo didn’t go very far.\n\n Was Skylab a sister of Apollo? I remember I had a book of Greek mythology sitting on the desk, and a lot of this stuff comes from not my in-depth knowledge of Greek mythology, but they always give it the names of the gods, whatever the gods are, right? [Laughter]

[Assistant] Absolutely.

[User] And most of the project names were being given Greek names at that point in time. How about that? Sneezy, Dopey, and Doc. [Laughter]

[Assistant] I think that shows some of the spirit, too, that surrounded, seems like NASA as a whole. Even though there was always the job to be done, and—

[User] You didn’t find the memo about crossing the International Date Line?

[Assistant] I didn’t run across it, but it may be there.


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

[User] And most of the project names were being given Greek names at that point in time. How about that? Sneezy, Dopey, and Doc. [Laughter]

[Assistant] I think that shows some of the spirit, too, that surrounded, seems like NASA as a whole. Even though there was always the job to be done, and—

[User] You didn’t find the memo about crossing the International Date Line?

[Assistant] I didn’t run across it, but it may be there.

[User] I vaguely recall writing one about the International Date Line.

[Assistant] For the Skylab?


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

[User] I vaguely recall writing one about the International Date Line.

[Assistant] For the Skylab?

[User] No, it was something to do with the fact that people were traveling all over the world back then, and the Apollo and the Mercury crossed the International Date Line. As you cross the International Date Line, you lose a day or gain a way, whichever way it is.

[Assistant] True.

[User] So if you do that nine times in twelve hours, then— [Laughter]

[Assistant] That’s a good point. That’s a very good point. Things could get very confused that way.


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

[User] No, it was something to do with the fact that people were traveling all over the world back then, and the Apollo and the Mercury crossed the International Date Line. As you cross the International Date Line, you lose a day or gain a way, whichever way it is.

[Assistant] True.

[User] So if you do that nine times in twelve hours, then— [Laughter]

[Assistant] That’s a good point. That’s a very good point. Things could get very confused that way.

[User] Well, yes, it was an interesting exercise if you didn’t realize that while you’re crossing the International Date Line and pick up a day, while you’re traveling the rest of the orbit, you’re losing a day, so you lose the same day you pick up as you cross, but nobody really tells you that. [Laughter] But it’s something about coming back to where you were before you left.

[Assistant] It's one of those concepts of orbital mechanics coming into play there.


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

[User] Perhaps this is a digression. Did you go to Dr. [Robert R.] Gilruth’s memorial service at the center?

[Assistant] I did.

[User] Do you remember the story that Max [Maxime A.] Faget told about crossing the International Date Line and “taking all day”? [Laughter]

[Assistant] Yes.

[User] There you go. That’s the kind of thing we used to play with.

[Assistant] Yes, that’s a pretty good one.


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

[User] Do you remember the story that Max [Maxime A.] Faget told about crossing the International Date Line and “taking all day”? [Laughter]

[Assistant] Yes.

[User] There you go. That’s the kind of thing we used to play with.

[Assistant] Yes, that’s a pretty good one.

[User] How neat. Do we know who K.A. is? And who A.V.L. is [referring to same document]?

[Assistant] Not immediately offhand, but we can check. The phone books would be good, or the org charts.


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

[User] There you go. That’s the kind of thing we used to play with.

[Assistant] Yes, that’s a pretty good one.

[User] How neat. Do we know who K.A. is? And who A.V.L. is [referring to same document]?

[Assistant] Not immediately offhand, but we can check. The phone books would be good, or the org charts.

[User] E.R.

[Assistant] We can certainly get you a copy of that and we can locate who those people might have been.


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

[User] How neat. Do we know who K.A. is? And who A.V.L. is [referring to same document]?

[Assistant] Not immediately offhand, but we can check. The phone books would be good, or the org charts.

[User] E.R.

[Assistant] We can certainly get you a copy of that and we can locate who those people might have been.

[User] When did Skylab fly?

[Assistant] Skylab was in ’73. The first launch went up in May, and then the last one came down—


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

[User] When did Skylab fly?

[Assistant] Skylab was in ’73. The first launch went up in May, and then the last one came down—

[User] And this is ’71.

[Assistant] Yes.

[User] Two years’ lead time. Was this out of the blue, or was this called? [Laughter]

[Assistant] That I don’t know. We just found it in the files. I think it says at the bottom which particular files it might have been. I’m guessing the Skylab chronological files maybe.


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

[User] And this is ’71.

[Assistant] Yes.

[User] Two years’ lead time. Was this out of the blue, or was this called? [Laughter]

[Assistant] That I don’t know. We just found it in the files. I think it says at the bottom which particular files it might have been. I’m guessing the Skylab chronological files maybe.

[User] I can’t really read that.

[Assistant] I think we have another copy of it.


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

[User] Two years’ lead time. Was this out of the blue, or was this called? [Laughter]

[Assistant] That I don’t know. We just found it in the files. I think it says at the bottom which particular files it might have been. I’m guessing the Skylab chronological files maybe.

[User] I can’t really read that.

[Assistant] I think we have another copy of it.

[User] A.V.L. Who is A.V.L.? You gave me a list of places I worked for. Here we go. Is this out of what I said, or did you actually get this from other sources?

[Assistant] This actually we got from a variety of sources, including we did go through some of the files over in the history collection and they’ve got like official NASA bios, and then also out of the phone books is how we get some of that, is by looking in to see—


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

[User] I can’t really read that.

[Assistant] I think we have another copy of it.

[User] A.V.L. Who is A.V.L.? You gave me a list of places I worked for. Here we go. Is this out of what I said, or did you actually get this from other sources?

[Assistant] This actually we got from a variety of sources, including we did go through some of the files over in the history collection and they’ve got like official NASA bios, and then also out of the phone books is how we get some of that, is by looking in to see—

[User] Somewhere in a vault in a box I did a timeline of all the places I have worked for, all the number of people that have worked for me and how much money I was making. Because there was a lot of motion between the Flight Operations Directorate and the Engineering Directorate about who did planning in a directly responsible way, because as soon as the planning process becomes large enough to involve more than one person, it becomes an institutional element and politics suddenly become an issue, because you’re now talking about a number of people and a supervisor and a new grade and all sorts of other issues.\n\n We moved to E&D under Max Faget for a while. Then we got moved out of that whenever John [D.] Hodge created the Program Planning Office. When was that? Program Planning Office, John Hodge, it was a separate entity. Who did it report to?

[Assistant] I know we could check on that, because we talked with John Hodge, so I’m sure we’d have some research pulled on that that we could find that date.


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

[User] A.V.L. Who is A.V.L.? You gave me a list of places I worked for. Here we go. Is this out of what I said, or did you actually get this from other sources?

[Assistant] This actually we got from a variety of sources, including we did go through some of the files over in the history collection and they’ve got like official NASA bios, and then also out of the phone books is how we get some of that, is by looking in to see—

[User] Somewhere in a vault in a box I did a timeline of all the places I have worked for, all the number of people that have worked for me and how much money I was making. Because there was a lot of motion between the Flight Operations Directorate and the Engineering Directorate about who did planning in a directly responsible way, because as soon as the planning process becomes large enough to involve more than one person, it becomes an institutional element and politics suddenly become an issue, because you’re now talking about a number of people and a supervisor and a new grade and all sorts of other issues.\n\n We moved to E&D under Max Faget for a while. Then we got moved out of that whenever John [D.] Hodge created the Program Planning Office. When was that? Program Planning Office, John Hodge, it was a separate entity. Who did it report to?

[Assistant] I know we could check on that, because we talked with John Hodge, so I’m sure we’d have some research pulled on that that we could find that date.

[User] It looks like it’s ’71, ’72, somewhere like that, because I know I went up on Chris [Christopher C.] Kraft’s staff, Flight Operations Directorate. That must have been ’66, ’68—Program Planning, Advanced Mission Program [Office], APO. Okay, 1968, that was APO. That was John Hodges’ program planning office, which is where the memo came from in 1971. So we must have been involved in setting it up at that point in time. No, I think that was probably just a distraction of the moment. [Laughter]

[Assistant] Probably. We just thought it was interesting.


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

[User] Somewhere in a vault in a box I did a timeline of all the places I have worked for, all the number of people that have worked for me and how much money I was making. Because there was a lot of motion between the Flight Operations Directorate and the Engineering Directorate about who did planning in a directly responsible way, because as soon as the planning process becomes large enough to involve more than one person, it becomes an institutional element and politics suddenly become an issue, because you’re now talking about a number of people and a supervisor and a new grade and all sorts of other issues.\n\n We moved to E&D under Max Faget for a while. Then we got moved out of that whenever John [D.] Hodge created the Program Planning Office. When was that? Program Planning Office, John Hodge, it was a separate entity. Who did it report to?

[Assistant] I know we could check on that, because we talked with John Hodge, so I’m sure we’d have some research pulled on that that we could find that date.

[User] It looks like it’s ’71, ’72, somewhere like that, because I know I went up on Chris [Christopher C.] Kraft’s staff, Flight Operations Directorate. That must have been ’66, ’68—Program Planning, Advanced Mission Program [Office], APO. Okay, 1968, that was APO. That was John Hodges’ program planning office, which is where the memo came from in 1971. So we must have been involved in setting it up at that point in time. No, I think that was probably just a distraction of the moment. [Laughter]

[Assistant] Probably. We just thought it was interesting.

[User] Yes. There must be some remarkable things in the archives.

[Assistant] There are. There’s a lot of interesting information there, some of which are a little human interest like this, and others that have got more technical information to them. It's pretty good.


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

[User] It looks like it’s ’71, ’72, somewhere like that, because I know I went up on Chris [Christopher C.] Kraft’s staff, Flight Operations Directorate. That must have been ’66, ’68—Program Planning, Advanced Mission Program [Office], APO. Okay, 1968, that was APO. That was John Hodges’ program planning office, which is where the memo came from in 1971. So we must have been involved in setting it up at that point in time. No, I think that was probably just a distraction of the moment. [Laughter]

[Assistant] Probably. We just thought it was interesting.

[User] Yes. There must be some remarkable things in the archives.

[Assistant] There are. There’s a lot of interesting information there, some of which are a little human interest like this, and others that have got more technical information to them. It's pretty good.

[User] John Hodges’ Advanced Missions Program Office had three units to it, and Andre [J.] Meyer [Jr.]—there’s a name out of the blue—Andre Meyer ran one of those units. I believe Andre Meyer was the guy who was most involved in the definition of these near-term programs. My unit was probably involved in the longer-term programs, in a planning program sense, but we always used to meet in John’s staff meetings, and we all discussed each other’s business. That’s where that kind of thing came from. John would know the name of the other lad. Ray—no, Berglund—[Rene A.] Berglund?

[Assistant] Bill [William B.] Bergen?


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

[User] Yes. There must be some remarkable things in the archives.

[Assistant] There are. There’s a lot of interesting information there, some of which are a little human interest like this, and others that have got more technical information to them. It's pretty good.

[User] John Hodges’ Advanced Missions Program Office had three units to it, and Andre [J.] Meyer [Jr.]—there’s a name out of the blue—Andre Meyer ran one of those units. I believe Andre Meyer was the guy who was most involved in the definition of these near-term programs. My unit was probably involved in the longer-term programs, in a planning program sense, but we always used to meet in John’s staff meetings, and we all discussed each other’s business. That’s where that kind of thing came from. John would know the name of the other lad. Ray—no, Berglund—[Rene A.] Berglund?

[Assistant] Bill [William B.] Bergen?

[User] Here’s where you have to have some telephone books.

[Assistant] We can pull some of those here after we’re done and flip through them and see if the names come to mind.\n\n Speaking of different people that you worked with, were there certain individuals—


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

[User] John Hodges’ Advanced Missions Program Office had three units to it, and Andre [J.] Meyer [Jr.]—there’s a name out of the blue—Andre Meyer ran one of those units. I believe Andre Meyer was the guy who was most involved in the definition of these near-term programs. My unit was probably involved in the longer-term programs, in a planning program sense, but we always used to meet in John’s staff meetings, and we all discussed each other’s business. That’s where that kind of thing came from. John would know the name of the other lad. Ray—no, Berglund—[Rene A.] Berglund?

[Assistant] Bill [William B.] Bergen?

[User] Here’s where you have to have some telephone books.

[Assistant] We can pull some of those here after we’re done and flip through them and see if the names come to mind.\n\n Speaking of different people that you worked with, were there certain individuals—

[User] Rene Berglund. There you go.

[Assistant] Were there some of these people through your career at NASA that had a big influence on you or your career that you’d like to mention?


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

[User] Yes, and if you want some more on it, you ought to talk to Joe [Loftus]. There’s institutional elements all over the place now that relate to that subject, and it’s well published. In fact, periodically Joe sends me the latest epic on orbital debris.

[Assistant] Certainly going to become quite an issue in future years, I’m sure.

[User] I think it’s an issue now. You’ll find it’s an element of space station design, spacecraft design, because it’s there. The shuttle is impacting it every time it goes up.

[Assistant] I think I read an article recently that one of the very first satellites, it may have even been Explorer I, is still up there and it’s going to be for quite a few years to come.

[User] Yes. High-altitude, small, high-density satellites, they decay very slowly.

[Assistant] Need places like NORAD [North American Aerospace Defense Command] to help keep track of a lot of that.


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

[User] I think it’s an issue now. You’ll find it’s an element of space station design, spacecraft design, because it’s there. The shuttle is impacting it every time it goes up.

[Assistant] I think I read an article recently that one of the very first satellites, it may have even been Explorer I, is still up there and it’s going to be for quite a few years to come.

[User] Yes. High-altitude, small, high-density satellites, they decay very slowly.

[Assistant] Need places like NORAD [North American Aerospace Defense Command] to help keep track of a lot of that.

[User] Yes, the original surveys that they do—and they still do it, I’m sure—just by the frequency of the radar equipment, would limit you to some resolution in terms of an arbitrary diameter. That was ten centimeters, which meant theoretically you would spot everything that was ten centimeters or above. But ten centimeters is a big chunk, and there was lots of that, okay. Then it gets exponentially higher as you go down looking for smaller particles, which are just equally as damaging. I know now they’ve been searching at the one- and two-centimeter range. Then the statistical exercises go on to fill in the gaps under that. So there’s a lot of it. All man-made. No, not true. Lots of it man-made.

[Assistant] A large quantity of it.


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

[User] Yes. High-altitude, small, high-density satellites, they decay very slowly.

[Assistant] Need places like NORAD [North American Aerospace Defense Command] to help keep track of a lot of that.

[User] Yes, the original surveys that they do—and they still do it, I’m sure—just by the frequency of the radar equipment, would limit you to some resolution in terms of an arbitrary diameter. That was ten centimeters, which meant theoretically you would spot everything that was ten centimeters or above. But ten centimeters is a big chunk, and there was lots of that, okay. Then it gets exponentially higher as you go down looking for smaller particles, which are just equally as damaging. I know now they’ve been searching at the one- and two-centimeter range. Then the statistical exercises go on to fill in the gaps under that. So there’s a lot of it. All man-made. No, not true. Lots of it man-made.

[Assistant] A large quantity of it.

[User] And man-made is the stuff that tends to stay in orbit. Most of the natural stuff, meteroids, etc., tend to penetrate, but there’s lots of that, too.

[Assistant] Space isn’t as empty as it seems.


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

[User] Yes, the original surveys that they do—and they still do it, I’m sure—just by the frequency of the radar equipment, would limit you to some resolution in terms of an arbitrary diameter. That was ten centimeters, which meant theoretically you would spot everything that was ten centimeters or above. But ten centimeters is a big chunk, and there was lots of that, okay. Then it gets exponentially higher as you go down looking for smaller particles, which are just equally as damaging. I know now they’ve been searching at the one- and two-centimeter range. Then the statistical exercises go on to fill in the gaps under that. So there’s a lot of it. All man-made. No, not true. Lots of it man-made.

[Assistant] A large quantity of it.

[User] And man-made is the stuff that tends to stay in orbit. Most of the natural stuff, meteroids, etc., tend to penetrate, but there’s lots of that, too.

[Assistant] Space isn’t as empty as it seems.

[User] That’s true.

[Assistant] Looking back over your career with NASA, what would you say was the biggest challenge for you?


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

[User] And man-made is the stuff that tends to stay in orbit. Most of the natural stuff, meteroids, etc., tend to penetrate, but there’s lots of that, too.

[Assistant] Space isn’t as empty as it seems.

[User] That’s true.

[Assistant] Looking back over your career with NASA, what would you say was the biggest challenge for you?

[User] The only one I remember—challenge, challenge. Gosh. Public speaking. No doubt. [Laughter]

[Assistant] That is a big challenge.


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

[User] I was never good at that, initially, anyway. It did not come as part of my persona to do a lot of public speaking, not necessarily public, but, you know, professional presentations and that good stuff. That came the hard way. There was no other option. You had to get up, so you would grab your self-consciousness and just charge. It’s always been a challenge. I come at it kind of naturally in this day and age just by association, but it’s like stage fright, I guess, that kind of thing. Don’t know what the source or the origin of that issue could be, but ultimately nobody even thought that you would have some reservation. Some weakness in your makeup perhaps is what it is. So you were just commissioned to go talk to this crowd, wherever they were. There was a lot of public speaking built into the business back in those days, and if you ever went on travel, invariably you got tagged to make a detour to go speak to this group, that group, or whatever.\n\n One of the more interesting—but it’s only a little side issue, side comment. Let’s see, I’ve forgotten their name. The female side of Masonry. Who are the Masons? Women’s Mason group.

[Assistant] Eastern Star.

[User] Daughters of the Eastern Star. I got tagged to talk to the Daughters of the Eastern Star here in Houston. I had never heard of them before, okay. [Laughter] One of the contractors around here tagged me one day. Two days’ notice. Would I come talk to the Daughters of the Eastern Star? Sure. It turned out to be their national convention.

[Assistant] Oh, my.

[User] And they chose the space program as the theme for their meeting. It was in—where was it in? A hotel that got torn down.

[Assistant] One down in Houston?


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

[User] Daughters of the Eastern Star. I got tagged to talk to the Daughters of the Eastern Star here in Houston. I had never heard of them before, okay. [Laughter] One of the contractors around here tagged me one day. Two days’ notice. Would I come talk to the Daughters of the Eastern Star? Sure. It turned out to be their national convention.

[Assistant] Oh, my.

[User] And they chose the space program as the theme for their meeting. It was in—where was it in? A hotel that got torn down.

[Assistant] One down in Houston?

[User] In Houston. The old classic hotel that—anyway, it was a huge ballroom.

[Assistant] Has a Irish name. Shamrock, the Shamrock.


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

[User] And they chose the space program as the theme for their meeting. It was in—where was it in? A hotel that got torn down.

[Assistant] One down in Houston?

[User] In Houston. The old classic hotel that—anyway, it was a huge ballroom.

[Assistant] Has a Irish name. Shamrock, the Shamrock.

[User] Yes, the Shamrock. The Shamrock, that’s it. It had a huge ballroom. So I showed up at the hotel reception area, and this guy called to me, and all of a sudden I was in this procession that marched through this huge—it was like a political convention. Anyway, they had this huge tier of people sitting up, VIP, two ranks. The floor was covered with all these wonderful circular tables, each one designated as a different country involved in the space program. I have never seen so much jewelry in my life. I mean, they were all beautiful people, but they really go all the way when they go for that kind of show. That was awesome, really awesome. They clapped at every word I said, and I don’t think they heard any of it. [Laughter] It was just national pride, that’s essentially what it was. We just talked about—and I had a movie clip on—it was just after the manned landing. Must have been, or at least I had a clip of the manned landing that was relatively short-term from that. That tends to stick in my mind. I don’t think I was their best speaker by any means, but it was an awesome show.

[Assistant] I’m sure you did very well.


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

[User] Yes, having started this whole business with you and realizing that it takes all sorts of triggers that made me remember these things, I started writing my own history, if that’s the right word for it.

[Assistant] Good. Sure it is.

[User] And there are these target things keep cropping out and there are other things that spin off that. But the biggest trouble I have is putting them in chronological order. You know, I can roughly bracket them related the one to the other, but actually getting them in the right order takes all sorts of time and venture. Good it’s in a word processor so you take a chunk of it and move it up and down in the sequence. But sometimes you wind up bracketing in a subject matter that you just collectively discuss for a lifetime in one place, and you can’t spread it out because it’s a discipline of some kind or a specific subject of some kind. But it’s becoming an interesting exercise. There are still total blanks, like I don’t remember that [referring to earlier document] at all.

[Assistant] Well, that’s okay. That’s something pretty small.

[User] Yes, but there’s total blanks, but sometimes something triggers you and cracks it open a little and you can get inside it.

[Assistant] I’m sure as you do more or more of it and more of those triggers go off, it’ll come back. Maybe as you, once you do get moved in, like you said, and are able to go through some of your boxes and papers, maybe that’ll even bring some stuff back, too.


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

[User] And there are these target things keep cropping out and there are other things that spin off that. But the biggest trouble I have is putting them in chronological order. You know, I can roughly bracket them related the one to the other, but actually getting them in the right order takes all sorts of time and venture. Good it’s in a word processor so you take a chunk of it and move it up and down in the sequence. But sometimes you wind up bracketing in a subject matter that you just collectively discuss for a lifetime in one place, and you can’t spread it out because it’s a discipline of some kind or a specific subject of some kind. But it’s becoming an interesting exercise. There are still total blanks, like I don’t remember that [referring to earlier document] at all.

[Assistant] Well, that’s okay. That’s something pretty small.

[User] Yes, but there’s total blanks, but sometimes something triggers you and cracks it open a little and you can get inside it.

[Assistant] I’m sure as you do more or more of it and more of those triggers go off, it’ll come back. Maybe as you, once you do get moved in, like you said, and are able to go through some of your boxes and papers, maybe that’ll even bring some stuff back, too.

[User] Maybe, maybe.

[Assistant] Well, we wish all the luck with that and hope you have fun working on it.


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

[User] Yes, but there’s total blanks, but sometimes something triggers you and cracks it open a little and you can get inside it.

[Assistant] I’m sure as you do more or more of it and more of those triggers go off, it’ll come back. Maybe as you, once you do get moved in, like you said, and are able to go through some of your boxes and papers, maybe that’ll even bring some stuff back, too.

[User] Maybe, maybe.

[Assistant] Well, we wish all the luck with that and hope you have fun working on it.

[User] I’ll keep you posted. I’ll keep you posted.

[Assistant] Absolutely, and thank you so much for sharing this with us, and hopefully this does give you a good launching platform.


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

[User] Yes, I really don’t understand. I did other studies, some of which were I’m not sure very important. Some of those took place after NACA. I went on with this analytical type stuff after NACA terminated. It continued, and then I got into various things, and that’s where I am. Now, I’ve been working for nothing for the last 30 years, no, not quite. I worked for a contractor after I retired from NASA. I retired in ’79, worked for a contractor for eight years, then I just donate my services because I didn’t feel I needed the income anymore.

[Assistant] How many reports do you think you’ve written?

[User] Maybe 30 or 40—I’m not sure.

[Assistant] You published all of those, either in some form or another?

[User] Yes.

[Assistant] It’s pretty interesting, especially when you can go back, after all those years, and take a look at them now.\n\n Looking back at that time at the NACA, and you were talking about this one, you said you self-educated yourself on thermionics. Did you do that on other subjects as well, that you ended up having to do your own self-educating?


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

[User] Maybe 30 or 40—I’m not sure.

[Assistant] You published all of those, either in some form or another?

[User] Yes.

[Assistant] It’s pretty interesting, especially when you can go back, after all those years, and take a look at them now.\n\n Looking back at that time at the NACA, and you were talking about this one, you said you self-educated yourself on thermionics. Did you do that on other subjects as well, that you ended up having to do your own self-educating?

[User] Mostly no. Mostly, the rest of it was through courses that I took. My education at Antioch, for two-and-a-half or three years, was very weak. Then, I took the courses at Case and found out, well, hey, I’m in fact capable of what the other people were doing. I really felt, when I started, way at the bottom of the heap. All these kids were all educated. They were young. I had just started working at NACA in ’44, and they were all very young, and knew all about engines and reciprocating engines. No idea, so I’ve been self-educating or getting education from there on. It was really a struggle.

[Assistant] What do you think you learned from the NACA members that had been here for a while? What was the atmosphere for learning and for knowledge exchange?


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

[User] Mostly no. Mostly, the rest of it was through courses that I took. My education at Antioch, for two-and-a-half or three years, was very weak. Then, I took the courses at Case and found out, well, hey, I’m in fact capable of what the other people were doing. I really felt, when I started, way at the bottom of the heap. All these kids were all educated. They were young. I had just started working at NACA in ’44, and they were all very young, and knew all about engines and reciprocating engines. No idea, so I’ve been self-educating or getting education from there on. It was really a struggle.

[Assistant] What do you think you learned from the NACA members that had been here for a while? What was the atmosphere for learning and for knowledge exchange?

[User] It was good. They had courses, training courses, that you could take. I took many, many. I think even back—this time goes into the NASA days—it started early on, courses in the operation of jet engines. I don’t know that I took any of those, but at some point, I took a couple of courses in quantum mechanics. They had fellows here that were teaching courses on site, and they were very valuable. They started in the NACA days, continued on, I don’t know whether they still exist now. I have no knowledge of what is done because I’m often in isolation, now. They were educating people on lab time, and I participated early on in a little of that, and the people that were hired in, some of them were very skilled in certain disciplines and were teaching people those things. Particularly in the days of the jet engines, how jet engines work. Maybe I took a course—I don’t remember now whether I took courses in that or not.

[Assistant] Have you always been in the field of engines?

[User] No.

[Assistant] That’s just kind of where you started?


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

[User] It was good. They had courses, training courses, that you could take. I took many, many. I think even back—this time goes into the NASA days—it started early on, courses in the operation of jet engines. I don’t know that I took any of those, but at some point, I took a couple of courses in quantum mechanics. They had fellows here that were teaching courses on site, and they were very valuable. They started in the NACA days, continued on, I don’t know whether they still exist now. I have no knowledge of what is done because I’m often in isolation, now. They were educating people on lab time, and I participated early on in a little of that, and the people that were hired in, some of them were very skilled in certain disciplines and were teaching people those things. Particularly in the days of the jet engines, how jet engines work. Maybe I took a course—I don’t remember now whether I took courses in that or not.

[Assistant] Have you always been in the field of engines?

[User] No.

[Assistant] That’s just kind of where you started?

[User] Yes.

[Assistant] Could you share with us, where else have you been through these 70 years? Maybe give us some of the highlights of where you really enjoyed working and using your talents?


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

[User] No.

[Assistant] That’s just kind of where you started?

[User] Yes.

[Assistant] Could you share with us, where else have you been through these 70 years? Maybe give us some of the highlights of where you really enjoyed working and using your talents?

[User] We got into space power, and an issue there was heat transfer. Efficient mechanisms of heat transfer were discovered someplace along the line, so we got into something called heat pipes. I became very interested in that. In fact, basically, I’m stuck in that now because I wrote a code for analyzing heat pipes. About the year 2000 I did an analysis, and extended it and extended it and extended it, to analyze the operation of a heat pipe. This was nothing new, but I formalized it in a fashion that hadn’t been done before, and I wrote code. At this point, because it was now my own time, I didn’t care anymore. I just kept working on it and working on it and working on it, using the lab space and a lab computer, but not being paid anymore. Did what I felt like, which is basically what I’m doing now.\n\n The only thing is that the code recently became obsolete because of changes in computers, so now I’m trying to update the code to work in the latest computers. It’s really giving me difficulty because the code got to be very complicated, and it’s so complicated, I don’t understand it myself. I know that it works, but I can’t figure it out, and I wrote it. For me, what other people my age would be doing would be crossword puzzles or—

[Assistant] Those math games, sudokus and all those, crosswords and cards?


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

[User] I’m finding this to be still challenging, since I just turned 91 last Sunday.

[Assistant] Happy birthday.

[User] Thank you. I figured I’m possibly performing a service because this could be used again. They’re still working on space power and the code that I wrote is useful to people. I want to make sure that it’s republished in the modern form, and the same time, NASA can say that they’re friendly to senior citizens—which I don’t really consider myself.

[Assistant] I don’t think so. Maybe in about 30 years, but I think you’re still going. You’re talking about it, to make it more efficient, in the heat transfer and the heat pumps: I know you want to update your code, but when you get your code updated, how does it impact space power? How’s it going to help?

[User] If they are going to transfer heat from, say, a little nuclear reactor or nuclear heat source to a little engine that’s going to produce the power, you have to have a mechanism of efficient transfer of heat. A heat pipe is the most efficient transfer of heat that exists because for one thing, it has no moving parts. There’s no engine that is required to force the hot fluid that’s actually a gas from the heat source to the engine. There’s nothing required in that heat pipe—it’s a self-contained device that has no moving parts. It’s extremely efficient, and is then a candidate for insertion in the system to transfer the heat without requiring moving parts. Not having moving parts is very beneficial because moving parts fail.

[Assistant] Although missions get changed, there still is a desire for power to explore in space, isn’t it?


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

[User] Thank you. I figured I’m possibly performing a service because this could be used again. They’re still working on space power and the code that I wrote is useful to people. I want to make sure that it’s republished in the modern form, and the same time, NASA can say that they’re friendly to senior citizens—which I don’t really consider myself.

[Assistant] I don’t think so. Maybe in about 30 years, but I think you’re still going. You’re talking about it, to make it more efficient, in the heat transfer and the heat pumps: I know you want to update your code, but when you get your code updated, how does it impact space power? How’s it going to help?

[User] If they are going to transfer heat from, say, a little nuclear reactor or nuclear heat source to a little engine that’s going to produce the power, you have to have a mechanism of efficient transfer of heat. A heat pipe is the most efficient transfer of heat that exists because for one thing, it has no moving parts. There’s no engine that is required to force the hot fluid that’s actually a gas from the heat source to the engine. There’s nothing required in that heat pipe—it’s a self-contained device that has no moving parts. It’s extremely efficient, and is then a candidate for insertion in the system to transfer the heat without requiring moving parts. Not having moving parts is very beneficial because moving parts fail.

[Assistant] Although missions get changed, there still is a desire for power to explore in space, isn’t it?

[User] Yes.

[Assistant] Can you give us some examples of some of the other work that you’ve done, and how it’s been used by NACA or NASA or industry? We know that industry looks to NASA, and for years, looked to the NACA for research information that they could apply for development.


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

[User] If they are going to transfer heat from, say, a little nuclear reactor or nuclear heat source to a little engine that’s going to produce the power, you have to have a mechanism of efficient transfer of heat. A heat pipe is the most efficient transfer of heat that exists because for one thing, it has no moving parts. There’s no engine that is required to force the hot fluid that’s actually a gas from the heat source to the engine. There’s nothing required in that heat pipe—it’s a self-contained device that has no moving parts. It’s extremely efficient, and is then a candidate for insertion in the system to transfer the heat without requiring moving parts. Not having moving parts is very beneficial because moving parts fail.

[Assistant] Although missions get changed, there still is a desire for power to explore in space, isn’t it?

[User] Yes.

[Assistant] Can you give us some examples of some of the other work that you’ve done, and how it’s been used by NACA or NASA or industry? We know that industry looks to NASA, and for years, looked to the NACA for research information that they could apply for development.

[User] How it’s used in industry? That’s kind of hard to say. What we do is published and what people do with it, I don’t know. I really don’t know.

[Assistant] That’s right, but it certainly is used to help base for what they have done. What are some of the other favorite things that you’ve worked on, other than this heat transfer?


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

[User] Yes.

[Assistant] Can you give us some examples of some of the other work that you’ve done, and how it’s been used by NACA or NASA or industry? We know that industry looks to NASA, and for years, looked to the NACA for research information that they could apply for development.

[User] How it’s used in industry? That’s kind of hard to say. What we do is published and what people do with it, I don’t know. I really don’t know.

[Assistant] That’s right, but it certainly is used to help base for what they have done. What are some of the other favorite things that you’ve worked on, other than this heat transfer?

[User] I’m going back—it’s too bad I don’t have this stack of all the papers.

[Assistant] Your cheat notes, yes. I’d like to have seen those. You made a statement earlier about in the beginning, you were able to choose some of the areas that you wanted to research and analyze. At some point, it shifted, where now work was done for a greater mission. What kind of projects were you tapped at certain times? Did you work, for instance, on some of the space programs, or did you work on some things that were exploratory?


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

[User] How it’s used in industry? That’s kind of hard to say. What we do is published and what people do with it, I don’t know. I really don’t know.

[Assistant] That’s right, but it certainly is used to help base for what they have done. What are some of the other favorite things that you’ve worked on, other than this heat transfer?

[User] I’m going back—it’s too bad I don’t have this stack of all the papers.

[Assistant] Your cheat notes, yes. I’d like to have seen those. You made a statement earlier about in the beginning, you were able to choose some of the areas that you wanted to research and analyze. At some point, it shifted, where now work was done for a greater mission. What kind of projects were you tapped at certain times? Did you work, for instance, on some of the space programs, or did you work on some things that were exploratory?

[User] Most of it was like exploratory. Probably the closest we got to really the large projects was when we were working on fuels for jet engines. We worked as a group, so there would be a group, somebody working on a certain kind of a fuel for a jet engine. I told you about the magnesium slurry business, and somebody was working on basically a metal hydride, I forget what they got, I don’t even recall what it was, working next door. I was doing a thermal chemistry for that project, too, doing computations for the combustion of the fuel that was being used in that project, again, to augment thrust for a jet engine. All that kind of work basically came to an end when jet engines got big enough and powerful enough, they didn’t need to be augmented anymore by special fuels. That kind of brought an end to that kind of a project. The group I worked with, another test was done here, again, putting a cloud over the airport where they burned the fuel. It was a metal hydride of some kind. I absolutely forget what it was, now.

[Assistant] You’re just lucky you were on the good end of those experiments, weren’t you?


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

[User] Yes. I was doing the computations and analysis for some of that, the thermochemistry for some of that project, so those basically were aimed at the Air Force. A large sum of money was spent here on that project, and it was eventually terminated. That’s when we got into the work with space power. The boss that we had at that time, the branch chief, was always looking for something defensive, something that he could get his group working on. I’ve never been a leader—I’ve been a follower—but I’ve been a follower in that I went off in my directions, wherever possible, to supplement whatever was being done.

[Assistant] When you were first in school, back in Antioch, what were you working toward? What did you want to do?

[User] How I ended up at Antioch, I don’t know. My folks thought that’s where I should go. Initially, I wanted to be a railroad mechanical engineer, which is not taught at Antioch. I was accepted at Purdue [University, West Lafayette, Indiana]; never went to Purdue. That’s where they were doing railroad mechanical engineering. I went to Antioch to be a mechanical engineer. They had a little engineering department there. I don’t know—you’ve never heard of Antioch?

[Assistant] I’ve heard of it, yes, sir.

[User] It just folded and it’s being reborn, now. The alumni are being actively solicited for money, and we may give them some, I don’t know. They closed and reorganized because it was badly managed, for a while. They had huge ambitions and wasted all their money.

[Assistant] You stayed here quite a long time. You never had any thoughts about maybe taking your skills someplace else?


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

[User] How I ended up at Antioch, I don’t know. My folks thought that’s where I should go. Initially, I wanted to be a railroad mechanical engineer, which is not taught at Antioch. I was accepted at Purdue [University, West Lafayette, Indiana]; never went to Purdue. That’s where they were doing railroad mechanical engineering. I went to Antioch to be a mechanical engineer. They had a little engineering department there. I don’t know—you’ve never heard of Antioch?

[Assistant] I’ve heard of it, yes, sir.

[User] It just folded and it’s being reborn, now. The alumni are being actively solicited for money, and we may give them some, I don’t know. They closed and reorganized because it was badly managed, for a while. They had huge ambitions and wasted all their money.

[Assistant] You stayed here quite a long time. You never had any thoughts about maybe taking your skills someplace else?

[User] I had solicitations, yes, several times, but by that time, I’d been here quite a few years. I had roots in Cleveland. I married a woman. I was 43 when I got married the first time—not first time, it’s the only time, because I’m still married—and then I had kids. Then, when I had kids, when I retired from NASA, TRW solicited me to work in Redondo Beach, California. I thought, “Hey, of all the places I don’t want to go, that’s the worst place in the world to raise a kid.” We had kids that were then just early teens, and I thought, “No, no, no. California, no.” That was the end of that.

[Assistant] What do you think is probably the most challenging time that you’ve had since you’ve been here at the lab or the Center? What has brought you challenges in getting your work done? What’s some of the most challenging work that you had?


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

[User] Yes. When I was testing the magnesium slurry program, we had large equipment that had to be built, and they had the technical services people design the equipment that was required for that kind of a test. We were working with design engineers all the time, and other people in our group even got to the point where they built a rocket that was fired at Wallops Island, using fuel that our group developed. It was boron hydride. That was another fuel, boron hydrides were tested by our group, and I did some calculations on the boron hydride. I never ran those experiments myself.\n\n That was a really dangerous period of life right there, when we were handling those fuels, and we didn’t really know what we were doing. One day, in the test cells that we use for testing, it was testing boron hydride fuels. The guys were working in the test cell and had just set things up to do a test and had left the test chamber and gone to a control room where they were doing the test. I wasn’t there, thank God I wasn’t there. I came in the next morning and they’d had a huge explosion, and blew the roof off the building. A foot thick wall got cracked on account of this, so I mean, it was a dangerous period.

[Assistant]
Yes, it was.

Definitely. That’s interesting, because you were doing the testing and you didn’t know until you did the test, just how dangerous it was.

[User] Nowadays, those kinds of tests are impossible. People now are worrying about what in the old days we figured would have been just like nitpicking.

[Assistant] Yes, there’s standard operating procedure, now.

[User] It’s critical.

[Assistant]
I appreciate it.

When you look back over these 70 years, are there other areas that you would like to share with us, or some of the other accomplishments that you would like for us to know about?


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

[User] Nowadays, those kinds of tests are impossible. People now are worrying about what in the old days we figured would have been just like nitpicking.

[Assistant] Yes, there’s standard operating procedure, now.

[User] It’s critical.

[Assistant]
I appreciate it.

When you look back over these 70 years, are there other areas that you would like to share with us, or some of the other accomplishments that you would like for us to know about?

[User] In broad terms, I covered pretty much everything. I diddled a little bit with physics. At one point, when we were working on thermionics, I did some analytical surface studies that were of no real consequence, except they were interesting to me. The physics of molecules on surfaces, I messed with that but really didn’t have the background to do it. It was interesting, and I thought, “Well, gee, sometime when I retire, I’d like to do that,” but no, by that time, I’m through.\n\n I wrote two or three papers that were published in the physics journals as letters to editors, and found errors that other people had done, or did the first computation on something or another—molecules on surfaces. This physics of molecules on surfaces, I did that as kind of a sideline. Without really enough background, it was correct, but not really earth-shaking in any sense, but just interesting to me, and tolerated at that time. I wouldn’t even start something like that today. You couldn’t start it—how would you justify starting it? We were working on engineering studies involving that kind of stuff, so I thought, “Well, this is interesting, I’ll do this on the side,” and did it on the side.

[Assistant] When you get through with your updating code for your heat transfer, what’s your next project?


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

[User] Next project, I will probably start staying home, because I have deferred stuff at home for a long time. I will have been retired now, as long as I worked, I worked 35 years, when you figure it out, and 35 more years is 70. Except that I did work for Sverdrup Engineering for eight years. That, this is not now involving NACA, but that was the smartest thing I ever did because I met people that I still know, and that I’m still friends with, and that I’m still working with, that I met then when I was a contractor. Actually, that’s why I got started with my code.

[Assistant] It sounds like you were fortunate to have a little bit of all the things that you were interested in.

[User] I’ve had a huge variety of experiences, huge variety.

[Assistant] We thank you for sharing them with us this morning.

[User] Nothing real important.

[Assistant] I think it’s all just a smaller piece of a bigger puzzle that all came together, so we appreciate it.


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

[User] I’ve had a huge variety of experiences, huge variety.

[Assistant] We thank you for sharing them with us this morning.

[User] Nothing real important.

[Assistant] I think it’s all just a smaller piece of a bigger puzzle that all came together, so we appreciate it.

[User] NASA, I feel one thing that keeps me here is that when I started out, I started at such a low level and I was tolerated as an SP-5 at a very low level. I feel, somehow, I owe something back. Now, I’m stuck giving back.

[Assistant] I think you’ve given a lot, and just the insight of all that you’ve seen has to help all of those who haven’t come yet to see anything.


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

[User] Nothing real important.

[Assistant] I think it’s all just a smaller piece of a bigger puzzle that all came together, so we appreciate it.

[User] NASA, I feel one thing that keeps me here is that when I started out, I started at such a low level and I was tolerated as an SP-5 at a very low level. I feel, somehow, I owe something back. Now, I’m stuck giving back.

[Assistant] I think you’ve given a lot, and just the insight of all that you’ve seen has to help all of those who haven’t come yet to see anything.

[User] It’s been an interesting place and there are interesting people here, and my best friends are here, still. I, frankly, don’t like being around people my age.

[Assistant] Old people? Yes.


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

[User] NASA, I feel one thing that keeps me here is that when I started out, I started at such a low level and I was tolerated as an SP-5 at a very low level. I feel, somehow, I owe something back. Now, I’m stuck giving back.

[Assistant] I think you’ve given a lot, and just the insight of all that you’ve seen has to help all of those who haven’t come yet to see anything.

[User] It’s been an interesting place and there are interesting people here, and my best friends are here, still. I, frankly, don’t like being around people my age.

[Assistant] Old people? Yes.

[User] They’re boring. All they do is talk about their aches. It’s unfortunate.

[Assistant] It’s so fortunate for those that are younger that are able to tap into your brain on what’s worked and what hasn’t worked because analyzing is analyzing. It’s not just computer.


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

[User] It’s been an interesting place and there are interesting people here, and my best friends are here, still. I, frankly, don’t like being around people my age.

[Assistant] Old people? Yes.

[User] They’re boring. All they do is talk about their aches. It’s unfortunate.

[Assistant] It’s so fortunate for those that are younger that are able to tap into your brain on what’s worked and what hasn’t worked because analyzing is analyzing. It’s not just computer.

[User] Some do. There’s a young girl here—she’s not young anymore; I mean young to me—she’s 40, to me, my kids are 45. She has been using my inputs. I think basically what I am now is a senior mascot.

[Assistant] A go-to guy. “I’ll go to him and ask him what he thinks,” see? You’re still analyzing for them, so that’s the good news. Thank you so much for making the travels over here and spending some time with us this morning.


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

[User] Wind tunnels tend to be better characterized. The flow tends to be more uniform. There’s a lot of systems that have been set up over the decades that people have been using wind tunnels to actually understand the flow field which you’re exposing your test article to. Not so much with an Arc Jet, and, of course, the energy levels are so much higher. Wind tunnels, some are subsonic, some of them are supersonic, some of them are hypersonic, but you go to an Arc Jet and you’re talking megawatts of power. The power level is much, much higher, and the flow fields are not well characterized. You’re not quite sure what you’re exposing your test article to.

[Assistant] That’s quite a change.

[User] Yes, it’s a big change. The other part of it, too, is that your options for determining or characterizing that flow field are much reduced, just because of the survivability. You cannot stick everything in the flow field and expect it to survive; it won’t. There’s many a time when we stuck probes in, and there was not adequate cooling water or somebody forgot to turn the cooling water on. Of course, then you lose the probe or whatever very quickly. Water leaks generate snow cones in the Arc Jet. There’s a vacuum chamber, so you dump a lot of water in there and generate snow.

[Assistant] You generate snow?

[User] Yes.

[Assistant] I wouldn’t think that [was possible].


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

[User] Yes, it’s a big change. The other part of it, too, is that your options for determining or characterizing that flow field are much reduced, just because of the survivability. You cannot stick everything in the flow field and expect it to survive; it won’t. There’s many a time when we stuck probes in, and there was not adequate cooling water or somebody forgot to turn the cooling water on. Of course, then you lose the probe or whatever very quickly. Water leaks generate snow cones in the Arc Jet. There’s a vacuum chamber, so you dump a lot of water in there and generate snow.

[Assistant] You generate snow?

[User] Yes.

[Assistant] I wouldn’t think that [was possible].

[User] Yes, you can get a lot of it real quick.

[Assistant] How does it generate snow?


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

[User] Yes.

[Assistant] I wouldn’t think that [was possible].

[User] Yes, you can get a lot of it real quick.

[Assistant] How does it generate snow?

[User] Just because it’s a near-vacuum. We don’t get down to vacuum, but we get very low pressure in the test chamber, and then you dump water into that and it wants to expand very quickly and cool off the water. So it just freezes. You get little particles of ice everywhere, so it sort of looks like snow.

[Assistant] That’s interesting because, when I was listening to everyone [at the videotaping], I thought you went up to about 3,000 degrees.


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

[User] Yes, you can get a lot of it real quick.

[Assistant] How does it generate snow?

[User] Just because it’s a near-vacuum. We don’t get down to vacuum, but we get very low pressure in the test chamber, and then you dump water into that and it wants to expand very quickly and cool off the water. So it just freezes. You get little particles of ice everywhere, so it sort of looks like snow.

[Assistant] That’s interesting because, when I was listening to everyone [at the videotaping], I thought you went up to about 3,000 degrees.

[User] Right, when the arc’s on, that’s correct. Of course, that’s only in the core of the flow field, and the 3,000 degrees Fahrenheit, that’s not even real high temperatures for an Arc Jet. That’s actually surface temperatures. The flow field itself is much, much higher. Unfortunately, we always use inconsistent units, but we usually talk about 5-10,000 degrees Kelvin in the actual flow field itself, where the test articles are placed. We shy away from temperatures after a while because temperature is just a measure of your energy. It’s very confusing and not very accurate to talk about temperatures when you get to real high temperatures. The reason being is that a lot of chemistry goes on. Now, a lot of energy is tied up in the disassociation or even ionization of the gas, so it’s not real accurate to talk about temperatures. We shy away from temperatures, except for surface temperatures, of the test articles. There, yes, we still talk about it. Even that’s very difficult for test articles that ablate, that change state, but we still try to get a measure of the surface temperatures but it’s much more difficult.

[Assistant] Any memorable tests when you were working with Carl Scott?


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

[User] Not sure. I guess part of it’s because our plans for NASA going to Mars are not really very detailed or set in concrete, and so I guess maybe it was before its time. If we had been earnestly working towards a mission to Mars, people may have been more aware of this capability.

[Assistant] Any other technological developments that stand out?

[User] No, not the ones that I can say that really stand out. There’s all sorts of minor ones. The people at the JSC Arc Jet facility were very good about modifying the arc heaters, et cetera, to get them to generate environments that we were looking for, as test engineers. They really looked for flexibility in the hardware and trying to get the capability to change things quickly to produce the test environments we were looking for. Again, people wouldn’t say it ranks up there real high as a technological advance, but it was very important to us to be able to have that flexibility in the test hardware.

[Assistant] That building was open in ’67, and you start working out there around ’88. Have things changed over time? Do things look different since you started working out there?

[User] Yes. While I’ve been involved in that Arc Jet, they actually did install a new test chamber. That was a big event. I think it was, I forgot, exactly, right around 1990. Right around there is when they installed a new test chamber. That gave us a lot of capability, to have that bigger chamber, so that made things look a little bit different. Then, the addition of the laser block house for the LIF system, the Laser-Induced Fluorescence System, that was added on. Over time, yes, things changed a little bit. The basic high bay there and, of course, the one test chamber was the same one that was there when I arrived.

[Assistant] It’s an interesting building, when you walk in and think it’s been there since ’67.


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

[User] One thing was that first of all, we got what we called generic test articles built, and we had a cage where we kept all of those, and a lot of TPS supplies we kept. We had a lot of hardware that was actually dedicated to supporting flight. The other thing, of course, right before flight, we would make sure that everything was operating fine in the Arc Jet. We wouldn’t suspend testing; we would just not do any risky testing because we didn’t want to damage the facility. Then, of course, put people on standby to say, “Hey, you could get called in,” and that was engineers and technicians. Of course we did several times, and usually people were put on around the clock, 12-hour shifts, so we had crews supporting the Arc Jet. If there was an inkling that something was going wrong, then we’d start manning the Arc Jet facility, just getting preparations.\n\n There’s a few times, I don’t remember the specifics, where we would actually get some test articles ready, put them in, install them, and get ready to do calibrations. That’s always the first thing you do in an Arc Jet test is do a calibration to get the test conditions you’re looking for, before you actually expose the real test article. We would do that. We would get the technicians, et cetera, ready to go; we’d get the test articles ready to go. Sometimes install the calibration models in the facility, and maybe do a couple of runs to support a flight, just to make sure that we were ready to go if needed.

[Assistant] This continued all the way to end, through [STS]-135?

[User] Absolutely, yes, absolutely.

[Assistant] How did you report—you did a test and here is your findings—did you go to the Mission Management Team [MMT]?

[User] Yes. I mentioned earlier, the Damage Assessment Team, the DAT team; all the Arc Jet testing was coordinated through the DAT team. The results of the Arc Jet test, then, would be included in the Damage Assessment Team report and reported out to the MMT.

[Assistant] Did you ever have to go to any meetings?


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

[User] Absolutely, yes, absolutely.

[Assistant] How did you report—you did a test and here is your findings—did you go to the Mission Management Team [MMT]?

[User] Yes. I mentioned earlier, the Damage Assessment Team, the DAT team; all the Arc Jet testing was coordinated through the DAT team. The results of the Arc Jet test, then, would be included in the Damage Assessment Team report and reported out to the MMT.

[Assistant] Did you ever have to go to any meetings?

[User] We had to go quite often. The way we’re operating there, Boeing was actually the lead from engineering for the thermal protection system. The subsystem manager at Boeing was essentially the head of the DAT team. He was the person that usually did the briefings to the MMT. So it was usually a Boeing person or a USA person, and usually, we were there as backup, the NASA folks. There was a couple of times that myself and others had to go in there and just support them.

[Assistant] Any memorable discussions that you recall?


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

[User] Yes. I mentioned earlier, the Damage Assessment Team, the DAT team; all the Arc Jet testing was coordinated through the DAT team. The results of the Arc Jet test, then, would be included in the Damage Assessment Team report and reported out to the MMT.

[Assistant] Did you ever have to go to any meetings?

[User] We had to go quite often. The way we’re operating there, Boeing was actually the lead from engineering for the thermal protection system. The subsystem manager at Boeing was essentially the head of the DAT team. He was the person that usually did the briefings to the MMT. So it was usually a Boeing person or a USA person, and usually, we were there as backup, the NASA folks. There was a couple of times that myself and others had to go in there and just support them.

[Assistant] Any memorable discussions that you recall?

[User] Some of them you probably don’t want to admit.

[Assistant] You don’t want to put those on the recording?


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

[User] We had to go quite often. The way we’re operating there, Boeing was actually the lead from engineering for the thermal protection system. The subsystem manager at Boeing was essentially the head of the DAT team. He was the person that usually did the briefings to the MMT. So it was usually a Boeing person or a USA person, and usually, we were there as backup, the NASA folks. There was a couple of times that myself and others had to go in there and just support them.

[Assistant] Any memorable discussions that you recall?

[User] Some of them you probably don’t want to admit.

[Assistant] You don’t want to put those on the recording?

[User] Somebody could do some sociological study of it. Groups of people can work very effectively together, but sometimes they joke around. People on the outside, if they heard that, they’d think that’s not appropriate. It’s just the way people work together, and it didn’t degrade or deter from their capabilities. We would try to get people to say certain phrases, even during an MMT, just joking around. It’s not a matter of disrespect, it was just the way people handle crises sometimes. We did that also; we would go in there and joke around, and just the way some people handle stress and crises.\n\n We had a good team. We had lots of food in our DAT room, [which was] very close to Mission Evaluation, the MER. We were always notorious for having lots of food there, and the big bosses, [N.] Wayne Hale and Bill [William H.] Gerstenmaier would come by and eat some of our food. We’d talk to them, and they probably also wanted to come and find out what was going on. That was really, I think, good and exciting times. It was a good team of folks; they all did their job very well, even though we joked around.

[Assistant] You had mentioned you worked on the X-38. Were you doing testing out at the Arc Jet for that?


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

[User] No. Actually, they were still there at the time because the Space Task Group was on the other side of Langley and to tell you the truth, I don’t know I thought about it one way or the other, to be absolutely honest about it. The Space Task Group had been set up, and when I was there, the original seven astronauts were at Langley. It was an exciting time, with a lot going on.

[Assistant] I know you were busy working on other projects as well. I think the Lunar Orbiter Project you started in the mid ’60s?

[User] Yes, after Vector, I went to work on the Lunar Orbiter, which was an interesting experience also for a young engineer—and I really was young, at the time. Actually, the guy who had been the section head where the Vector Project was had gone over to Lunar Orbiter, and he asked me to come over. I remember thinking about it and trying to figure out what are the pros and the cons of doing it? I met with my branch head. I still remember what he said. He said, “If you’re good here, you’ll probably be good there, and if you’re not good here, you probably won’t be good there.” I’ve never quite figured out where that fit in, but it must have been profound enough!

[Assistant] It stayed with you.

[User] I sat down with a piece of paper and I said, “Okay, what are the pros and what are the cons?” I wasn’t very good at that because my thoughts were, “Good gracious, that’s a big space project. I mean, somebody could really fail there.” I really concluded, you will never be satisfied if you didn’t try it, so I went to work on Lunar Orbiter, which was a fantastic experience. I had an enormous amount of interaction with JSC at that time.

[Assistant] You got pretty much a responsible role. Didn’t you start to define that?


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

[User] Yes, I do, actually. We had some programs that were in serious trouble, Landsat being one I remember. Again, from the learning experience standpoint, there’s a guy there named John [H.] Boeckel. John was head of Engineering at the time, but he really was looked at as the best technical person at Goddard. I remember on Landsat, we were having meetings all the time, trying to solve the Landsat problems. I remember John saying, “If you function tomorrow the same way you function today, you probably should expect about the same result.” He said, “If we’re going to solve the trouble, we’ve got to do something different.”\n\n They were just good people at Goddard, and I think the thing that I probably brought—and I don’t want to get carried away with this—was that I identified very much with the kind of work they were trying to do. I really was quite supportive of what they were doing, and I think that we went about correcting a lot of the project kinds of problems that existed. It was one of my personal better experiences. My best experience, there’s nothing that beats being a project manager. I knew when I finished Viking that I would never do anything like that again in my life.

[Assistant] Never have that same feeling.

[User] Yes, never have that same feeling. I remember, I’m really deviating, John Naugle, one time, he was now the number three guy at NASA, whatever he was called at the time, and John said, “You have had the opportunity to have the thrill of being on the project, and the rest of your life, your job is to create that opportunity for other people.”

[Assistant] That’s a good legacy to leave, yes.

[User] It is, yes, it is.

[Assistant] Where we are is basically closing up your years at NASA, and those 21 years you were there were pretty full.


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

[User] Yes, there will be a new one coming in. Then, they do have the MARS activity, as you said, and they put together a new board and I’m on that. I have a little background with that. It’s interesting, when I was in Florida, the governor at that time—this was mid to late ’80s—became interested in how space could be a larger part of the Florida economy, even though it was booming at that time. I chaired a review for the governor. My co-chair was Jeb [John Ellis] Bush, so Jeb Bush and I spent a year working together, doing it. We recommended, which is now the competitor, that Florida have a space port.

[Assistant] It all comes back to haunt you, doesn’t it?

[User] Yes, and put it together, yes.

[Assistant] Wallops became part of Goddard when you were there in that time brief time.

[User] They did, that’s right.

[Assistant] It must just be in your stars, that’s what happened.


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

[User] Yes, and put it together, yes.

[Assistant] Wallops became part of Goddard when you were there in that time brief time.

[User] They did, that’s right.

[Assistant] It must just be in your stars, that’s what happened.

[User] That was interesting. There was a lot of pressure on NASA at the time, they had too many Centers, so they got rid of two Centers by making Wallops part of Goddard and [NASA] Dryden [Flight Research Center, Edwards, California] part of Ames. I don’t know whether that did anything or not, but I know that the Director of Wallops didn’t think that was a very good idea. I’ve seen a lot in the process, and it’s been an exciting time. It can be a great time in the future, if we’re up to it. The country right now, in many ways, we’re trying to find our way on some of this new stuff.

[Assistant] No easy path, is there?


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

[User] I remember we pulled the LCVGs out of the locker. I recall Dave standing on my left. I’m standing here. We’re just facing the lockers. There just suddenly is this notable pause and notable silence. I have this fleeting sense that everyone has just realized that we’re about to go boldly where no man has gone before—there’s a woman in this mix. You have this sense that every trainer there is going, “Okay, so I always knew how this worked when it was just guys in the locker room and they peel down to their skivvies and on we go. What happens now that she’s here?” Blank. No idea. So I looked over at Dave and said, “Dave, let me tell you my philosophy about modesty in circumstances like this.” He shifts a bit and says, “Okay.” I said, “I have none.” He said, “Fine.” We start peeling off clothes. The trainers dove out of the mockup head first. We got in the LCVGs and said, “You can come back in now.” That was just how we seemed to do things on our crews. “Good. Right. Never mind. Let’s go!”

[Assistant] Probably worked out better.

[User] Yes.

[Assistant] This mission was using a new system of brakes. There seemed to be an almost longer landing pattern. Any recollections in terms of landing?

[User] No, nothing stands out. Other than you remind me of the other bookend that I chuckled about with STS-125, because STS-31 launched from Florida of course, and had a weather wave-off and landed in California. I don’t think we got an extension day. I think it was just a couple of revs’ wave-off, and we landed out there. So I thought it was intriguing that the very first Shuttle flight and the very final Shuttle flight to Hubble both waved off for weather and then ended up in California.

[Assistant] Any major differences you noticed?


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

[User] End of SEPAC! They got like two or three doses off. We all each managed to see at least one. We joked around a lot, and I still joke sometimes, that I’m sure we are the only Space Shuttle crew to ever fire photon torpedoes, because that’s what this was. It was like firing photon torpedoes down towards the atmosphere. Then it died, and we were distraught.

[Assistant] How disappointing!

[User] Oh, it was terrible. It was terrible. We told them it was the wrong fuse. Our photon torpedoes were much better than George Lucas’s photon torpedoes.

[Assistant] This as I understand it, was the first Mission to Planet Earth.

[User] The first Spacelab Mission to Planet Earth.

[Assistant] Oh, it was the first Spacelab Mission to Planet Earth.


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

[User] Oh, it was terrible. It was terrible. We told them it was the wrong fuse. Our photon torpedoes were much better than George Lucas’s photon torpedoes.

[Assistant] This as I understand it, was the first Mission to Planet Earth.

[User] The first Spacelab Mission to Planet Earth.

[Assistant] Oh, it was the first Spacelab Mission to Planet Earth.

[User] Yes, the whole Mission to Planet Earth Program thrust had already come out. It was somewhat teed up by the Paine Commission report, really crystallized and taken by the agency I think first in Sally’s report, the Ride Report, in the rather early days after the Challenger accident. Remember, this mission actually had been planned and committed as a reflight back in 1983. This was not a mission originally conceived of as a Mission to Planet Earth, but the nature of its scientific work really genuinely did align with the purposes of that new program, which was gaining momentum and clarity. That was appropriate, but it was a late addition of a moniker.

[Assistant] Your crew, as you pointed out, was broken up into two shifts. Was there any competition between the two teams?


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

[User] The first Spacelab Mission to Planet Earth.

[Assistant] Oh, it was the first Spacelab Mission to Planet Earth.

[User] Yes, the whole Mission to Planet Earth Program thrust had already come out. It was somewhat teed up by the Paine Commission report, really crystallized and taken by the agency I think first in Sally’s report, the Ride Report, in the rather early days after the Challenger accident. Remember, this mission actually had been planned and committed as a reflight back in 1983. This was not a mission originally conceived of as a Mission to Planet Earth, but the nature of its scientific work really genuinely did align with the purposes of that new program, which was gaining momentum and clarity. That was appropriate, but it was a late addition of a moniker.

[Assistant] Your crew, as you pointed out, was broken up into two shifts. Was there any competition between the two teams?

[User] No. No, there really wasn’t. Not really. None of us were really of that sort of personality, “Got to prove to the other guy.” I was just looking around to see if I had any of those reprints. Charlie didn’t ever really use a device like that to drive performance. Commitment to each other, commitment to the mission, the intrinsic factors that he exemplified and reinforced. You want to do right by the mission. You want to do right by the opportunity you’ve been given. You want to certainly do right by, live up to, and deliver on the expectations of a leader like Charlie. He wouldn’t have needed to set up some fake game for me to make me do anything better.

[Assistant] One of the things Charlie pointed out in regards to this mission that he did that was unusual, I think, was that he had the crew participate in some sort of Myers-Briggs or personality type testing. Did you find that helpful?


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

[User] Yes, we needed one. Yes, and I also remember Dave and Duffy doing a golf tournament. Balling up a sock, and tying it up with gray tape—they’re both avid golfers—taking the inspection mirror out, and Dave did a little chip shot across from one side of the middeck to the other. Then he tried to get clever and calculate how many seconds. They made the cup. They took a roll of gray tape and put it on the galley wall with a pencil sticking out of it, as if that was the hole and the greens flag. So just monkeying around and having a bit of a good time.

[Assistant] Charlie told us that he agreed to have the crew taken off on gurneys. Do you recall this? Were you one of the participants?

[User] I wasn’t taken off on a gurney.

[Assistant] No? Okay.

[User] No. Walked into the crew transfer van and sat on the brown Barcaloungers.

[Assistant] He had mentioned that there was some study. Somebody wanted to study the impact of zero G on the human body, and that it would be better if people came off in gurneys rather than experiencing too much gravity.


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

[User] Yes. It’s fun stuff. They’re neat. The events are sometimes very fun. Like I said, oftentimes they really introduce you to someone who comes to matter to you or teach you something really neat in the long run. That’s the real benefit out of it. Bullets on resumes are okay. So what?

[Assistant] Have you donated any items that they’ve used in any of the museums for any of the hall of fames?

[User] The Astronaut Hall of Fame is the one that had requested things. I haven’t. It’s partly just not having gotten around to it. I did a pass through some of the stuff I have. A) I am not a great packrat, so I’m just not the person that’s going to have every little thing I put my fingers on while I was getting ready for 41G. Of course early Shuttle is a different era than Mercury or Gemini, the range of things that we as crew members were allowed to take with us as personal mementos is way smaller. John [H.] Glenn’s hand controller, the rotational hand controller from the Friendship 7 capsule, is above us here in this building. It’s a one-time-use capsule. It’s unequivocally his. When he says, “I had to steer this thing, I’d like that hand controller,” they carved it off and they gave it to him. You try to take one of the hand controllers out of the Space Shuttle sometime, you’re not going to get the same reaction.

[Assistant] Maybe when it’s retired.

[User] Maybe when it’s retired. I think there might be a fight for that.

[Assistant] Is that something that COSI is considering once the Shuttle retires, putting in for one of the retired Orbiters?


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

[User] Lingerie?

[Assistant] Obviously you wore the polos.

[User] Yes, the outerwear standard stuff. I’m just trying to remember if this was the way it was the first time Sally flew; I think it headed down a different path and then got adjusted. Maybe informed by their success with tampons—bra and underwear things, it’s just different. People have certain preferences, styles, and comforts. Even when there’s six of us, much less when there’s going to be more than six, it’s silly to go make a standardized decision for women’s lingerie.\n\n I think the program started first to go down the, “We will order—like we do for the guys—briefs or boxers. What more is there, we’ll order this or that, you guys pick.” This is really a bad idea. So what came back around by the time I flew was a set of specs [specifications], restrictions, on basically the kinds of fabric and designs that were acceptable from flammability and other point of view. Then it became, “You go buy what you want, charge it back, and it will be yours, what you want, your fit. Then we’ll stow it, as long as it’s cotton and this and that. Just stay in those bounds, go get what you want.” Fine. We’ll do that. That sounds a whole lot better.

[Assistant] Much better than a NASA engineer or tech coming up with their own design.

[User] Oh yes. Oh, it’s a frightening thought.

[Assistant] That could be something you could put on eBay. Looking back over your class, you just had your reunion here, what do you think are some of its accomplishments?


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

[User] Yes, the outerwear standard stuff. I’m just trying to remember if this was the way it was the first time Sally flew; I think it headed down a different path and then got adjusted. Maybe informed by their success with tampons—bra and underwear things, it’s just different. People have certain preferences, styles, and comforts. Even when there’s six of us, much less when there’s going to be more than six, it’s silly to go make a standardized decision for women’s lingerie.\n\n I think the program started first to go down the, “We will order—like we do for the guys—briefs or boxers. What more is there, we’ll order this or that, you guys pick.” This is really a bad idea. So what came back around by the time I flew was a set of specs [specifications], restrictions, on basically the kinds of fabric and designs that were acceptable from flammability and other point of view. Then it became, “You go buy what you want, charge it back, and it will be yours, what you want, your fit. Then we’ll stow it, as long as it’s cotton and this and that. Just stay in those bounds, go get what you want.” Fine. We’ll do that. That sounds a whole lot better.

[Assistant] Much better than a NASA engineer or tech coming up with their own design.

[User] Oh yes. Oh, it’s a frightening thought.

[Assistant] That could be something you could put on eBay. Looking back over your class, you just had your reunion here, what do you think are some of its accomplishments?

[User] Oh, wow. [Daniel C.] Brandenstein and company actually pulled some of that together. Shame on them. They haven’t gotten a summary of it all back out to us.

[Assistant] That’d be nice to have.


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

[User] I think we always wanted to maintain competition, so that was kind of a driving principle in the whole project. There wasn’t that much entertaining of giving it all to one participant. I’m trying to remember what the rational was for opening the competition up again. Probably because the scope had changed, and the dollars and the schedule were tighter. It seemed like they were going to need to get some updated proposals anyway, so in general it was just easier to open it up to a full and open [competition].

[Assistant] From what I understand, SpaceX did compete in that second round, but they weren’t awarded any additional funds. Were you aware of that at all, or have any involvement?

[User] I was busy managing the current contract and all the other unfunded partners that we had. I was busy doing the work while they were off in the bunker on that second round, holding down the fort.

[Assistant] Did you not have any involvement in the CCDev [Commercial Crew Development] competition, either?

[User] No.

[Assistant] We heard from legal that as both the COTS office and the commercial partners learned more about the Space Act Agreements and how to use them, the proposal process evolved a little bit. I didn’t know if you had heard any of that from your perspective?


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

[User] I was busy managing the current contract and all the other unfunded partners that we had. I was busy doing the work while they were off in the bunker on that second round, holding down the fort.

[Assistant] Did you not have any involvement in the CCDev [Commercial Crew Development] competition, either?

[User] No.

[Assistant] We heard from legal that as both the COTS office and the commercial partners learned more about the Space Act Agreements and how to use them, the proposal process evolved a little bit. I didn’t know if you had heard any of that from your perspective?

[User] No, not really.

[Assistant] Then later on, the budget for COTS was augmented with an additional [Congressional] appropriation. Did you have any role in allocating those funds, or helping define the milestones that were updated? I think it was $128 million extra for each partner.


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

[User] I think the biggest drawback was late in the development we found out that they had a weight problem, and it resulted in lack of total performance of cargo to Space Station. They’re mitigating that by upgrading the rocket. They’ve had plans to do an upgrade to the rocket anyway, and once they’ve come up with the Falcon 9 1.1, supposedly all our major mass constraints are going to go away.\n\n There’s some disadvantages. If you’re continually evolving the design, it’s a real good way to go. If you’ve got one shot at it, then you tend more toward the traditional NASA method of doing a lot more analysis up front, and making sure you’ve optimized early.

[Assistant] Are you also involved with the development of the 1.1?

[User] That’s what I’m out here watching now, the development of the 1.1. And there’s some big upgrades to the capsule itself that are being done to accommodate more payloads. I’m primarily overseeing and providing insight back to the CRS [Commercial Resupply Services] office for those big changes.

[Assistant] SpaceX is a very well-publicized company. They get a lot of media attention, and you also did some interviews with the media. Can you talk about that experience, because I don’t imagine you were trained for that as a NASA engineer. Especially when the second demonstration flight was flying [C2+], there was a lot more focus in the public eye.

[User] The first one or two on camera got me a little bit nervous, but our PAO [Public Affairs Office] folks coached me through what to typically do.

[Assistant] Was that the NASA PAO or from SpaceX?