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

[User] This was over at Ardis’s.

[Assistant] That does look familiar.

[User] I look like I’m looking for Ardis. What’s she up to? Oh, here, I did have a picture of it. They invited us over to NASA to show us what the space capsule looked like. Here we are. That was shortly after we arrived. Can you find JoAnn Carr?

[Assistant] I do. Yes, I see JoAnn. I love the hairdos. I like your hair, the little flip.

[User] Yes, we did the flip then.

[Assistant] You guys were on a pretty tight budget I’m guessing. Were you ever concerned about how you might have to dress? Like you said, you realized, “Oh my gosh, I’m an astronaut wife now.”


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

[User] I look like I’m looking for Ardis. What’s she up to? Oh, here, I did have a picture of it. They invited us over to NASA to show us what the space capsule looked like. Here we are. That was shortly after we arrived. Can you find JoAnn Carr?

[Assistant] I do. Yes, I see JoAnn. I love the hairdos. I like your hair, the little flip.

[User] Yes, we did the flip then.

[Assistant] You guys were on a pretty tight budget I’m guessing. Were you ever concerned about how you might have to dress? Like you said, you realized, “Oh my gosh, I’m an astronaut wife now.”

[User] I know it. You go into a shop, and you’re going to buy a dress. “Oh, I like that one.” Then someone says, “You can’t have that one because so-and-so has that one.”

[Assistant] That would happen?


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

[User] Yes, we did the flip then.

[Assistant] You guys were on a pretty tight budget I’m guessing. Were you ever concerned about how you might have to dress? Like you said, you realized, “Oh my gosh, I’m an astronaut wife now.”

[User] I know it. You go into a shop, and you’re going to buy a dress. “Oh, I like that one.” Then someone says, “You can’t have that one because so-and-so has that one.”

[Assistant] That would happen?

[User] You can’t have a dress like somebody else. I mean really. But we didn’t have any money. I’d go home and say to Jack, “Well, I don’t have to worry about that, I don’t have any money for their dress anyway.”\n\n I think being raised in the country on a farm with grandparents growing up, I was pretty well-grounded. It was new, but it was not a surprise. I’d lived in Ann Arbor, and of course professors and their wives thought they were the cat’s pajamas too. I’m not making fun of them, but I think I was pretty well prepared.

[Assistant] Tell us about your first get-together with some of the other astronaut wives. What was that like? What did they share with you about being an astronaut wife?


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

[User] I know it. You go into a shop, and you’re going to buy a dress. “Oh, I like that one.” Then someone says, “You can’t have that one because so-and-so has that one.”

[Assistant] That would happen?

[User] You can’t have a dress like somebody else. I mean really. But we didn’t have any money. I’d go home and say to Jack, “Well, I don’t have to worry about that, I don’t have any money for their dress anyway.”\n\n I think being raised in the country on a farm with grandparents growing up, I was pretty well-grounded. It was new, but it was not a surprise. I’d lived in Ann Arbor, and of course professors and their wives thought they were the cat’s pajamas too. I’m not making fun of them, but I think I was pretty well prepared.

[Assistant] Tell us about your first get-together with some of the other astronaut wives. What was that like? What did they share with you about being an astronaut wife?

[User] We had a get-together, I think it was about every month, and we’d meet for lunch over at the [Lakewood Yacht Club]. It’s close to the other end of [Farm to Market Road] 518.

[Assistant] It’s in Seabrook.


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

[User] We had a get-together, I think it was about every month, and we’d meet for lunch over at the [Lakewood Yacht Club]. It’s close to the other end of [Farm to Market Road] 518.

[Assistant] It’s in Seabrook.

[User] Right. We’d meet over there and we’d go. At first we didn’t know each other, and so much was being made about the astronaut thing that you didn’t want to do anything to harm your husband’s career. You wanted to dress just right, and you wanted to try to fit in. A lot of the girls had known each other before, or quite a few of them had. They’d been out at Edwards Air Force Base [California]. [Anne] Lurton Scott and Ada Givens—she was my best friend. She was from Germany, married Ed [Edward G.] Givens, and he was the one that was killed in the car accident. She had two children. We had become friends, because she lived just down the street from us.\n\n We were just kind of feeling our way along. We didn’t know exactly what [to do], but you make your friends. Everybody’s different, and you gravitate toward certain [people], but we were all expected to do certain things. We that were a little bit younger. The older girls always looked at Louise Shepard, who was the picture of perfection and lovely. She really was. Did you girls ever meet her?

[Assistant] Unfortunately no. Would love to have.

[User] Yes. Marge [Marjorie] Slayton?

[Assistant] No. Unfortunately there’s been quite a few who have passed away that we’re not going to get to talk to. How about you share some things about the two of them with us? About Louise Shepard and Marge.


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

[User] Yes. Marge [Marjorie] Slayton?

[Assistant] No. Unfortunately there’s been quite a few who have passed away that we’re not going to get to talk to. How about you share some things about the two of them with us? About Louise Shepard and Marge.

[User] She was lovely. I wouldn’t ever say I was a close friend of hers. In fact the day that we drove to San Antonio to get Joey, our baby, after he was born, we went the next day and picked him up at the hospital right here. Jennifer and I were going to deliver horse manure to Louise Shepard, because she wanted it for her garden, but I couldn’t go, because I was going to go pick up [Joey]. We were going into River Oaks with Jennifer’s truck with horse manure. Just the setting of that whole thing just made us laugh. But Louise would be a gracious lady along a manure truck, that’s the way she was. She was.

[Assistant] What about Marge?

[User] Marge, she was just perfectly herself. Those girls tried for years. Of course there’s lots of stories about everything, and you just don’t want to get into that with people. There’s always two sides to stories, that saying wasn’t true, but there’s funny things.\n\n Marge would say this if she was here. When Deke [Donald K. Slayton] was up, he’d launched that morning. We came back, and then he was getting settled in for the night up there, and I went over to their house to see how she was doing. She said, “Well, I know where he is tonight.”

[Assistant] That would be very true.


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

[User] Marge, she was just perfectly herself. Those girls tried for years. Of course there’s lots of stories about everything, and you just don’t want to get into that with people. There’s always two sides to stories, that saying wasn’t true, but there’s funny things.\n\n Marge would say this if she was here. When Deke [Donald K. Slayton] was up, he’d launched that morning. We came back, and then he was getting settled in for the night up there, and I went over to their house to see how she was doing. She said, “Well, I know where he is tonight.”

[Assistant] That would be very true.

[User] So then you think well, there must be some plus to everything if you have to go into space.

[Assistant] That’s funny.

[User] She was funny. She took care of her mother till she passed away too, Nanabel, and had the one son Kent [Slayton]. I’m going to get that phone number too because you need to talk to Kent.

[Assistant] Did they share anything with you about dealing with the press or just things that they had learned since they had been with NASA?


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

[User] So then you think well, there must be some plus to everything if you have to go into space.

[Assistant] That’s funny.

[User] She was funny. She took care of her mother till she passed away too, Nanabel, and had the one son Kent [Slayton]. I’m going to get that phone number too because you need to talk to Kent.

[Assistant] Did they share anything with you about dealing with the press or just things that they had learned since they had been with NASA?

[User] As time went on people got a little more open. Usually nobody said much of anything. If your husband was put on a certain flight or he was going to do something, it wasn’t something that you told anybody except your very closest friend.

[Assistant] Why was that?


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

[User] They kind of threw up their hands when they saw us coming. “You mean 19 more?” That lasted for a couple years. The way we lived, if you didn’t need a new car, why would you want another new car? We had holes in the floor of our Volkswagen. Why would you get a Corvette?

[Assistant] Right, not very practical with three children.

[User] Yes. But that’s just the way we lived, whether we were at NASA or we weren’t.

[Assistant]
I’m looking at my watch. Would you like to take a break? I didn’t realize we’d been going so long.

It’s been a little over an hour.

You want to take a break?

[User] Whatever you want to do.\n\n [Break]

[Assistant] One of the things that I wanted to ask about was the accidents. You already mentioned Givens and his car accident. But what sort of support would you provide to the other astronaut families? C.C. [Clifton C.] Williams died the same year as Givens. Then of course the Apollo 1 fire. What sort of impact did that have on the families and the community?


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

[User] Yes. But that’s just the way we lived, whether we were at NASA or we weren’t.

[Assistant]
I’m looking at my watch. Would you like to take a break? I didn’t realize we’d been going so long.

It’s been a little over an hour.

You want to take a break?

[User] Whatever you want to do.\n\n [Break]

[Assistant] One of the things that I wanted to ask about was the accidents. You already mentioned Givens and his car accident. But what sort of support would you provide to the other astronaut families? C.C. [Clifton C.] Williams died the same year as Givens. Then of course the Apollo 1 fire. What sort of impact did that have on the families and the community?

[User] C.C. Williams was a Marine. When his plane went down and he was killed, they called Jack from NASA, because Jack is a Marine. Wondered if Jack would go and talk to Beth. Of course I went with [him]. Oh, I know.

[Assistant] A horrible assignment.


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

[User] Whatever you want to do.\n\n [Break]

[Assistant] One of the things that I wanted to ask about was the accidents. You already mentioned Givens and his car accident. But what sort of support would you provide to the other astronaut families? C.C. [Clifton C.] Williams died the same year as Givens. Then of course the Apollo 1 fire. What sort of impact did that have on the families and the community?

[User] C.C. Williams was a Marine. When his plane went down and he was killed, they called Jack from NASA, because Jack is a Marine. Wondered if Jack would go and talk to Beth. Of course I went with [him]. Oh, I know.

[Assistant] A horrible assignment.

[User] I know it. I know. When those things began to happen, then it began to hit me, “Well, maybe this isn’t quite as safe as I thought.” Even the day that Jack went to San Antonio for some of his physicals, that was the day that [Charles A.] Bassett and [Elliott M.] See hit the building and were killed. I thought, “Oh my goodness.” Although we were in the military, we were used to hearing this. In my mind I had thought this is safer, because he’d been flying a lot of reconnaissance missions over Vietnam and those places.\n\n They called Jack to go and talk to Beth, so I went with him. She was having lunch at a neighbors. One of the ladies brought the baby out—their only daughter that they had. Come to find out she was expecting another one. They didn’t know that. I took care of the baby, and Jack was with Beth. That was quite [heartbreaking].

[Assistant] Was he the one that gave her the news? Is he the one that gave her the news?


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

[User] Yes. It’s interesting. I’ve often thought of that, because it’s fascinating to me, how we think people are going to react to things. Then sometimes they don’t act like we thought they were going to. I’ve been in groups and had conversations with Beth. She’s never mentioned that we came. I don’t know if she doesn’t remember.

[Assistant] Maybe not.

[User] I don’t know. You kind of put yourself in her place. If that would have been me I would have just hung on to this person that was telling me this—any news, any word at all. But she has never mentioned it to Jack or I.

[Assistant] That’s interesting.

[User] Yes. I guess it just proves we all handle things differently, but she’s never married. Went into a business of her own and lives over I guess off of Repsdorph [Road] over there, I think.

[Assistant] I think JoAnn had mentioned we could talk to her. I know JoAnn had spent some time with Beth afterwards. Did you spend any time with the family?


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

[User] I don’t know. You kind of put yourself in her place. If that would have been me I would have just hung on to this person that was telling me this—any news, any word at all. But she has never mentioned it to Jack or I.

[Assistant] That’s interesting.

[User] Yes. I guess it just proves we all handle things differently, but she’s never married. Went into a business of her own and lives over I guess off of Repsdorph [Road] over there, I think.

[Assistant] I think JoAnn had mentioned we could talk to her. I know JoAnn had spent some time with Beth afterwards. Did you spend any time with the family?

[User] Actually they were very good friends. I say were. I don’t mean that they’re not friends now at all. JoAnn comes to visit here once in a while. I always felt bad that I wasn’t aware enough to do more for JoAnn. I don’t know how she coped. I absolutely don’t. All those children and her father that was an invalid. Every time I think about her staying up all night I could just weep.

[Assistant] You kept separate lives as astronaut wives?


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

[User] Actually they were very good friends. I say were. I don’t mean that they’re not friends now at all. JoAnn comes to visit here once in a while. I always felt bad that I wasn’t aware enough to do more for JoAnn. I don’t know how she coped. I absolutely don’t. All those children and her father that was an invalid. Every time I think about her staying up all night I could just weep.

[Assistant] You kept separate lives as astronaut wives?

[User] I think we did. Only now we’re beginning to enjoy being together because the competition for these flights, it spilled over into the families, into the wives.

[Assistant] That’s interesting.

[User] You didn’t want to say anything. You didn’t want to hurt anybody’s feelings. I remember saying to one of the girls, we’d gone and done something. We were together at one of our little groups, and I said, “Oh boy, did we ever have fun over the weekend.” Boy, I got chastised for that. Because you don’t talk about those things, I was told. Then I thought, “Well, what can you talk about?” That was just a cardinal sin.

[Assistant] Just talking about your personal life?


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

[User] I think we did. Only now we’re beginning to enjoy being together because the competition for these flights, it spilled over into the families, into the wives.

[Assistant] That’s interesting.

[User] You didn’t want to say anything. You didn’t want to hurt anybody’s feelings. I remember saying to one of the girls, we’d gone and done something. We were together at one of our little groups, and I said, “Oh boy, did we ever have fun over the weekend.” Boy, I got chastised for that. Because you don’t talk about those things, I was told. Then I thought, “Well, what can you talk about?” That was just a cardinal sin.

[Assistant] Just talking about your personal life?

[User] Yes, what you did that was fun. “Oh, so-and-so invited us.”

[Assistant] Did they see it as bragging that you got to go to this event?


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

[User] I guess they did.

[Assistant] That’s interesting.

[User] Some of them never said anything. Of course nothing is ever kept secret when it’s a group like that. It gets around.

[Assistant] That’s true.

[User] But I’ve never had any fusses with anyone. In fact it was heartbreaking when the marriages started breaking up. People were devastated. One of the girls called one morning and said that they’d heard that Jack and I were getting a divorce. They wanted to be sure that before they said anything they would talk to me. I said, “Well, I don’t know. It’s kind of scary around here, but as far as I know when he left for work today it was okay.”

[Assistant] Oh my gosh.


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

[User] Some of them never said anything. Of course nothing is ever kept secret when it’s a group like that. It gets around.

[Assistant] That’s true.

[User] But I’ve never had any fusses with anyone. In fact it was heartbreaking when the marriages started breaking up. People were devastated. One of the girls called one morning and said that they’d heard that Jack and I were getting a divorce. They wanted to be sure that before they said anything they would talk to me. I said, “Well, I don’t know. It’s kind of scary around here, but as far as I know when he left for work today it was okay.”

[Assistant] Oh my gosh.

[User] I know. Then we laughed for a while. Then pretty soon I got mad and I thought, “NASA has got to do something for families. This is ridiculous. We’re going to the Moon, and the families are just falling apart.” It was just one after another. It was just pathetic. People that you thought were doing good, but since they didn’t share anything because [of the competition].\n\n So I got a little speech all ready, and I was going to go talk to Chris [Christopher C.] Kraft.

[Assistant] Was that something that wives would do?


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

[User] But I’ve never had any fusses with anyone. In fact it was heartbreaking when the marriages started breaking up. People were devastated. One of the girls called one morning and said that they’d heard that Jack and I were getting a divorce. They wanted to be sure that before they said anything they would talk to me. I said, “Well, I don’t know. It’s kind of scary around here, but as far as I know when he left for work today it was okay.”

[Assistant] Oh my gosh.

[User] I know. Then we laughed for a while. Then pretty soon I got mad and I thought, “NASA has got to do something for families. This is ridiculous. We’re going to the Moon, and the families are just falling apart.” It was just one after another. It was just pathetic. People that you thought were doing good, but since they didn’t share anything because [of the competition].\n\n So I got a little speech all ready, and I was going to go talk to Chris [Christopher C.] Kraft.

[Assistant] Was that something that wives would do?

[User] No. Just about every day someone was just blowing you away with the fact that their families are splitting up. I’m working over at camp too, so I see all the kids. These kids are miserable, the little Aldrin kids. It was terrible.\n\n I got my nerve up. I was going to go. The day I was going, I went in the clinic, and I was going down the hall. There were offices along the way to Chris’s office, which was up some stairs, and so I was pounding away getting my nerve up. I passed Terry McGuire. He was the psychiatrist that came to NASA to interview the guys. You sound like you’ve heard his name.

[Assistant] I’ve heard his name, yes, from the Shuttle astronauts. They’ve all mentioned him. I didn’t realize he was around back then.


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

[User] Oh yes. We felt like we could call someone and offer to be a support system for them. Of course things like that appeal to some people, and some people it doesn’t appeal to. But I’m sure Harriet—maybe you talked to her already.

[Assistant] We haven’t, but JoAnn suggested her as well, that we might talk with her. She’s in the area, I think. Is she in the Houston area?

[User] Yes, she’s in Clear Lake. I think she’s in one of those garden apartments or something over there. Yes, she’s a good one to talk to. She’d gone through a lot of stuff herself, in losing that little boy. We grew from that, and we learned that we could help each other, which is nice. Our last reunion here was just fun. We all have our stories. If you want to talk about them you can but if you don’t it’s all right. But to show the value of getting together, when Val [Valerie] Anders came [to the reunion], her husband rented a jet and got a couple nurses and rented a house here, so that she could come.

[Assistant] It’s become so important to you to be together now, I guess, to know that you have that shared experience.

[User] That’s right. As we’ve gotten older we’ve gotten more mellow too.

[Assistant] Not so much competition anymore?


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

[User] Yes, she’s in Clear Lake. I think she’s in one of those garden apartments or something over there. Yes, she’s a good one to talk to. She’d gone through a lot of stuff herself, in losing that little boy. We grew from that, and we learned that we could help each other, which is nice. Our last reunion here was just fun. We all have our stories. If you want to talk about them you can but if you don’t it’s all right. But to show the value of getting together, when Val [Valerie] Anders came [to the reunion], her husband rented a jet and got a couple nurses and rented a house here, so that she could come.

[Assistant] It’s become so important to you to be together now, I guess, to know that you have that shared experience.

[User] That’s right. As we’ve gotten older we’ve gotten more mellow too.

[Assistant] Not so much competition anymore?

[User] That’s it.

[Assistant] When we talked to JoAnn she mentioned that she was disappointed because she didn’t feel like she was welcomed the way the military would welcome her.


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

[User] That’s right. As we’ve gotten older we’ve gotten more mellow too.

[Assistant] Not so much competition anymore?

[User] That’s it.

[Assistant] When we talked to JoAnn she mentioned that she was disappointed because she didn’t feel like she was welcomed the way the military would welcome her.

[User] Okay. Yes.

[Assistant] By the squad and part of that feeling. She said that Annie Glenn had welcomed her because she was a Marine [wife], and I wondered was there any sort of cohesion among the Marine astronauts. You mentioned C.C. Williams being a Marine. Was there any sort of cohesion there between you? Or not too much?


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

[User] That’s it.

[Assistant] When we talked to JoAnn she mentioned that she was disappointed because she didn’t feel like she was welcomed the way the military would welcome her.

[User] Okay. Yes.

[Assistant] By the squad and part of that feeling. She said that Annie Glenn had welcomed her because she was a Marine [wife], and I wondered was there any sort of cohesion among the Marine astronauts. You mentioned C.C. Williams being a Marine. Was there any sort of cohesion there between you? Or not too much?

[User] I’m not sure about all of that. Maybe it would be helpful to JoAnn to delve into that a little bit. You folks are good folks to do that too.

[Assistant] She just talked about when they were in the military they would go to a new place and she felt like there were things that were provided for the family, and they felt welcome. When they went to NASA, that NASA didn’t provide those things.


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

[User] Okay. Yes.

[Assistant] By the squad and part of that feeling. She said that Annie Glenn had welcomed her because she was a Marine [wife], and I wondered was there any sort of cohesion among the Marine astronauts. You mentioned C.C. Williams being a Marine. Was there any sort of cohesion there between you? Or not too much?

[User] I’m not sure about all of that. Maybe it would be helpful to JoAnn to delve into that a little bit. You folks are good folks to do that too.

[Assistant] She just talked about when they were in the military they would go to a new place and she felt like there were things that were provided for the family, and they felt welcome. When they went to NASA, that NASA didn’t provide those things.

[User] Nothing. I know. It was like that. Although maybe our experience was a little bit different because we never did live on the base. We always went out into the community, because we felt this is a wonderful experience to live in a different place and find out about it, because we realized soon that some of the military people, that’s all they ever became is military people and didn’t take advantage of the new surroundings. The people are different. It’s good to find out about them, so when your dog kills the neighbor’s dog they’re not going to kill you.

[Assistant] Oh my goodness.


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

[User] I’m not sure about all of that. Maybe it would be helpful to JoAnn to delve into that a little bit. You folks are good folks to do that too.

[Assistant] She just talked about when they were in the military they would go to a new place and she felt like there were things that were provided for the family, and they felt welcome. When they went to NASA, that NASA didn’t provide those things.

[User] Nothing. I know. It was like that. Although maybe our experience was a little bit different because we never did live on the base. We always went out into the community, because we felt this is a wonderful experience to live in a different place and find out about it, because we realized soon that some of the military people, that’s all they ever became is military people and didn’t take advantage of the new surroundings. The people are different. It’s good to find out about them, so when your dog kills the neighbor’s dog they’re not going to kill you.

[Assistant] Oh my goodness.

[User] Not this dog.

[Assistant] I hope not. You’ve mentioned that you and Jack are Christians.


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

[User] Nothing. I know. It was like that. Although maybe our experience was a little bit different because we never did live on the base. We always went out into the community, because we felt this is a wonderful experience to live in a different place and find out about it, because we realized soon that some of the military people, that’s all they ever became is military people and didn’t take advantage of the new surroundings. The people are different. It’s good to find out about them, so when your dog kills the neighbor’s dog they’re not going to kill you.

[Assistant] Oh my goodness.

[User] Not this dog.

[Assistant] I hope not. You’ve mentioned that you and Jack are Christians.

[User] Yes.

[Assistant] You’re people of faith. What church did you end up joining in Clear Lake?


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

[User] Not this dog.

[Assistant] I hope not. You’ve mentioned that you and Jack are Christians.

[User] Yes.

[Assistant] You’re people of faith. What church did you end up joining in Clear Lake?

[User] We went to the Nassau Bay Baptist Church, and then there was a Clear Lake Community Church. Is there such a thing now?

[Assistant] Name doesn’t ring a bell, but it doesn’t mean it doesn’t exist. There’s a lot of churches.


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

[User] Yes.

[Assistant] You’re people of faith. What church did you end up joining in Clear Lake?

[User] We went to the Nassau Bay Baptist Church, and then there was a Clear Lake Community Church. Is there such a thing now?

[Assistant] Name doesn’t ring a bell, but it doesn’t mean it doesn’t exist. There’s a lot of churches.

[User] Yes. Then they were trying to get started, there was just a few people. We branched out with them. Then we started a Bible study with astronauts, which was really good. One of the ones was so helpful, and it’s hard to keep up with her, she’s been so busy, Shannon [W.] Lucid. I love her.

[Assistant]
Jennifer knows her well.

She babysits my son a lot, and she also invites him over to play with her grandsons.


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

[User] We went to the Nassau Bay Baptist Church, and then there was a Clear Lake Community Church. Is there such a thing now?

[Assistant] Name doesn’t ring a bell, but it doesn’t mean it doesn’t exist. There’s a lot of churches.

[User] Yes. Then they were trying to get started, there was just a few people. We branched out with them. Then we started a Bible study with astronauts, which was really good. One of the ones was so helpful, and it’s hard to keep up with her, she’s been so busy, Shannon [W.] Lucid. I love her.

[Assistant]
Jennifer knows her well.

She babysits my son a lot, and she also invites him over to play with her grandsons.

[User] Would you just give her a big hug for me?

[Assistant] I sure will, yes.


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

[User] Yes. Then they were trying to get started, there was just a few people. We branched out with them. Then we started a Bible study with astronauts, which was really good. One of the ones was so helpful, and it’s hard to keep up with her, she’s been so busy, Shannon [W.] Lucid. I love her.

[Assistant]
Jennifer knows her well.

She babysits my son a lot, and she also invites him over to play with her grandsons.

[User] Would you just give her a big hug for me?

[Assistant] I sure will, yes.

[User] Would you?

[Assistant] She is just the nicest person. She really is.


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

[User] Would you?

[Assistant] She is just the nicest person. She really is.

[User] She cared for her husband while he was [sick].

[Assistant] Yes.

[User] I know, I know.

[Assistant] That was so difficult for her to retire but she really wanted to do that.


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

[User] She cared for her husband while he was [sick].

[Assistant] Yes.

[User] I know, I know.

[Assistant] That was so difficult for her to retire but she really wanted to do that.

[User] I know, I know. I’m not in touch with her as much as I’d like to be. When we do we can pick up right where we left off. Since you know her you can appreciate that, because that’s the kind of girl she is.

[Assistant] She’s a very special person.


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

[User] I know, I know.

[Assistant] That was so difficult for her to retire but she really wanted to do that.

[User] I know, I know. I’m not in touch with her as much as I’d like to be. When we do we can pick up right where we left off. Since you know her you can appreciate that, because that’s the kind of girl she is.

[Assistant] She’s a very special person.

[User] I remember we had a little Bible study out in Friendswood, so the neighbors came. Where the astronaut wives hardly knew each other, these people had known each other for generations. [I] got the bright idea of introducing something else into their lives. I had Shannon come out and talk to the group, and it was so good. They could not even imagine her going into space and all that time, but it was so good for them, that women do do this. Because these were women who didn’t even want to invite you over unless they’d done a spring housecleaning.\n\n I had them come, and they could bring their little brown-bag lunch then I’d provide the coffee or drinks and the dessert. They’d come to my house, because they didn’t mind if my house was all cluttered. We had Joey then and he was a baby, so I just couldn’t pick up and go, so they came to my house and I’d pass Joe around to the ladies and they entertained him.\n\n Let’s see now. Where did I end up with that? Seems like there was something else I was going to say.

[Assistant] I was asking you about what church you joined because I was curious what role and what ties there were between the space program and churches, if there were any ties. I’ve seen [at] the Methodist church, the minister was very interested in space. I’ve seen some letters between him and Al [Alan L.] Bean, and the prayers that they had for the missions and the sermons. There’s a lot of interrelatedness I think.


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

[User] I don’t think the churches knew what to do with us either. We didn’t know what to do with each other, and they didn’t know what to do with us. Here we were out in the middle of a cow pasture. We were just feeling our way along. It’s good that some of us are still living that you can [talk to us]. Although I say that we weren’t close, but there was an underlining camaraderie still. I think after having our get-together here last month that it’s beginning to really come out, that these girls really have cared for each other for a long time, and that we missed getting together and sharing our lives more.

[Assistant] I think that happens sometimes when you have a shared history with someone.

[User] Yes.

[Assistant] It does.

[User] I think Terry McGuire, getting back to Terry, that he did a lot for that.

[Assistant] Can you talk about the role that he would play? I know what happened in that room stayed in that room, and I’m not asking what you talked about. But I’m wondering what sort of role did he play in terms of, I don’t know, playing the devil’s advocate or listening or offering advice. I’m just curious about that.


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

[User] Yes.

[Assistant] It does.

[User] I think Terry McGuire, getting back to Terry, that he did a lot for that.

[Assistant] Can you talk about the role that he would play? I know what happened in that room stayed in that room, and I’m not asking what you talked about. But I’m wondering what sort of role did he play in terms of, I don’t know, playing the devil’s advocate or listening or offering advice. I’m just curious about that.

[User] What role he played? I think it was just keeping everybody on track, and realizing that we had strengths that we could draw from. We were all different. We could draw from our own strengths, but we could also draw from each other’s. Sharing our lives was so beneficial. … To me, NASA and the astronaut program and everything has been nothing but joy.

[Assistant]
That’s wonderful.

It is.


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

[User] I think Terry McGuire, getting back to Terry, that he did a lot for that.

[Assistant] Can you talk about the role that he would play? I know what happened in that room stayed in that room, and I’m not asking what you talked about. But I’m wondering what sort of role did he play in terms of, I don’t know, playing the devil’s advocate or listening or offering advice. I’m just curious about that.

[User] What role he played? I think it was just keeping everybody on track, and realizing that we had strengths that we could draw from. We were all different. We could draw from our own strengths, but we could also draw from each other’s. Sharing our lives was so beneficial. … To me, NASA and the astronaut program and everything has been nothing but joy.

[Assistant]
That’s wonderful.

It is.

[User] I know.

[Assistant] That’s really nice to hear.


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

[User] What role he played? I think it was just keeping everybody on track, and realizing that we had strengths that we could draw from. We were all different. We could draw from our own strengths, but we could also draw from each other’s. Sharing our lives was so beneficial. … To me, NASA and the astronaut program and everything has been nothing but joy.

[Assistant]
That’s wonderful.

It is.

[User] I know.

[Assistant] That’s really nice to hear.

[User] Jack can say the same thing. I don’t think we’ve changed much since the day that we left Michigan. I walked away from the farm, and he walked away from living in the city. We put those two things together and great trip.

[Assistant]
Sounds like it.

Thank you so much for today. We appreciate it.


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

[User] It was really an electric day, the day we flew.

[Assistant] It’s about five o’clock. We can stop for today and maybe we can schedule another.

[User] I suddenly realize I hadn’t thought this through. I recollected a lot as we were talking. I wish we could go back. There are some earlier things too. I didn’t talk about the multicenter aspect of Orion.

[Assistant] That’s actually one of the questions I have.

[User] It’s been so long even for me. I forgot some of the things that drove us, like that early on. That was 10 healthy Centers. It was another thing that drove us in a certain direction.

[Assistant] We can talk about that the next time if that’s okay.


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

[User] Oh, I don’t have any idea who it was.

[Assistant] You mentioned John Glenn’s flight and you were aware of the space program, but did you have any idea what you were interviewing for? Did they tell the positions?

[User] Flight controller.

[Assistant] And you were aware of that since you had that background in the Air Force?

[User] Well, not in the Air Force, but it wasn’t too far different from my background in flight test engineering. It helped because you had to be pretty much of an engineer to solve some of the problems we had as a flight controller during Mercury, Gemini, and Apollo. So it was a smooth transition.\n\n And I always liked getting out of the office and doing things. Like flight test engineering, you get out and do things instead of sitting on a drawing board or sitting in an office all day with a slide rule. The flying and doing test work was always fun.\n\n But anyhow, we’ve been here a long time in Sunrise Beach.

[Assistant] Well, in Gene [Eugene F.] Kranz’s book, he mentioned that he hired you and Mel [Melvin F.] Brooks.


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

[User] Flight controller.

[Assistant] And you were aware of that since you had that background in the Air Force?

[User] Well, not in the Air Force, but it wasn’t too far different from my background in flight test engineering. It helped because you had to be pretty much of an engineer to solve some of the problems we had as a flight controller during Mercury, Gemini, and Apollo. So it was a smooth transition.\n\n And I always liked getting out of the office and doing things. Like flight test engineering, you get out and do things instead of sitting on a drawing board or sitting in an office all day with a slide rule. The flying and doing test work was always fun.\n\n But anyhow, we’ve been here a long time in Sunrise Beach.

[Assistant] Well, in Gene [Eugene F.] Kranz’s book, he mentioned that he hired you and Mel [Melvin F.] Brooks.

[User] Yes.

[Assistant] You were the first two engineers that he hired, and one of the reasons he wanted you both is because you were a little bit older and you had more experience.


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

[User] Yes, that was MA-8, Wally [Walter M.] Schirra’s [Jr.] flight.

[Assistant] Can you share with us some details about that flight?

[User] Well, it was a six orbit, six rev [revolution] mission, and it was pretty exciting. We simulated for three weeks. It wasn’t all that exciting being in Africa. Finally we launched, and it was a great mission. It was the longest mission up to that time. The previous ones had only been three revs. This was six revs. And Wally was a fun guy to work with. The flight controllers got to know the astronauts, pretty well, because you had to communicate with them and know the sound of their voices and know and try to detect when they were having problems and maybe would not tell you. Many times you could detect something was not quite right. Plus, you had to know the spacecraft systems also.\n\n We remoted the data in on some—I forgot what flight on Gemini, but there was only one more mission after that MA-8.

[Assistant] It was [L. Gordon] Cooper’s, [Jr.] flight on 9?

[User] Yes, Gordon Cooper, that’s right, MA-9. And I did not go out on that mission.

[Assistant] You didn’t work that mission?


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

[User] Well, it was a six orbit, six rev [revolution] mission, and it was pretty exciting. We simulated for three weeks. It wasn’t all that exciting being in Africa. Finally we launched, and it was a great mission. It was the longest mission up to that time. The previous ones had only been three revs. This was six revs. And Wally was a fun guy to work with. The flight controllers got to know the astronauts, pretty well, because you had to communicate with them and know the sound of their voices and know and try to detect when they were having problems and maybe would not tell you. Many times you could detect something was not quite right. Plus, you had to know the spacecraft systems also.\n\n We remoted the data in on some—I forgot what flight on Gemini, but there was only one more mission after that MA-8.

[Assistant] It was [L. Gordon] Cooper’s, [Jr.] flight on 9?

[User] Yes, Gordon Cooper, that’s right, MA-9. And I did not go out on that mission.

[Assistant] You didn’t work that mission?

[User] No.\n\n I was hoping to go out to the Australian site on MA-10, which was scheduled at one time, but they cancelled the program because the Gemini Program was progressing well and they didn’t want to overlap.

[Assistant] Well, back when you were in Nigeria, you said you simulated for three weeks.


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

[User] Yes, Gordon Cooper, that’s right, MA-9. And I did not go out on that mission.

[Assistant] You didn’t work that mission?

[User] No.\n\n I was hoping to go out to the Australian site on MA-10, which was scheduled at one time, but they cancelled the program because the Gemini Program was progressing well and they didn’t want to overlap.

[Assistant] Well, back when you were in Nigeria, you said you simulated for three weeks.

[User] Yes.

[Assistant] Was that in Nigeria that you were simulating?


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

[User] Yes, and then the branch also. Our job, before the missions, was to prepare the early mission rules, prepare the system mission rules and crew procedures, particularly the system malfunction procedures, what the astronauts would do for certain system failures.

[Assistant] And you were preparing these procedures at the same time that it was being designed and built?

[User] Yes, generically, not detailed stuff, because the design wasn’t that far down in the detail yet, but generic concepts of overall flight procedures.

[Assistant] Had you had experience writing flight procedures and mission rules?

[User] No. The only thing was at Lockheed as a flight test engineer I wrote the flight test plan, what we were going to test and what the procedures were for me as a flight test engineer. But that was all new. It was all new to everybody, Mercury and Gemini.

[Assistant] While you were preparing and, as you said, writing those basic generic plans—


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

[User] Yes, generically, not detailed stuff, because the design wasn’t that far down in the detail yet, but generic concepts of overall flight procedures.

[Assistant] Had you had experience writing flight procedures and mission rules?

[User] No. The only thing was at Lockheed as a flight test engineer I wrote the flight test plan, what we were going to test and what the procedures were for me as a flight test engineer. But that was all new. It was all new to everybody, Mercury and Gemini.

[Assistant] While you were preparing and, as you said, writing those basic generic plans—

[User] Procedures and rules, yes.

[Assistant] —and procedures. If you will, describe that process of beginning to write those types of flight rules and procedures and handbooks for a spacecraft that hadn’t flown yet and one that was still in the design phase and with really no one having those previous experiences. What type of process did it take to get those things written?


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

[User] Yes. We made sure every one of them had Agena experience during Gemini, and in the front room, in the MOCR. The sections heads were generally the—I had eventually in the branch four sections heads and they all were senior people and had a lot of experience. They would be in the MOCR, and then the other people in the branch would be in the staff support room, the SSR, and they would report to our man in the MOCR. So each mission, we had an Agena console position in there, which was carried on into Apollo, the same concept.\n\n The SSR people all specialized in the different systems of the vehicle. This was true on the Command and Service Module [CSM], also. Arnie [Arnold D.] Aldrich was the Branch Chief of the CSM flight controllers, and he had the same responsibilities as I did with the Command and Service Module, so we always had two separate groups of people in the SSR reporting to the two people in the front room. There was a Guidance Navigation and Control [GNC] Officer for both vehicles, and a TELMU [LM Telemetry, Electrical, Environmental, EVA and Mobility Unit Systems].

[Assistant] The EECOM?

[User] It was our version of the EECOM, because the EECOM was a Command and Service Module name, and we couldn’t use the same name. So we called it TELMU, and the EMU part was the backpacks.

[Assistant] Well, you mentioned you had some people from Grumman and Hamilton Standard working with you.

[User] Yes.

[Assistant] Were you still going back and forth to New York at that time?


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

[User] It was our version of the EECOM, because the EECOM was a Command and Service Module name, and we couldn’t use the same name. So we called it TELMU, and the EMU part was the backpacks.

[Assistant] Well, you mentioned you had some people from Grumman and Hamilton Standard working with you.

[User] Yes.

[Assistant] Were you still going back and forth to New York at that time?

[User] Not very often, but we did for program reviews. But I sent guys up there occasionally, but I tried to use the Grumman people I had to be the intermediaries between us and Grumman design people. That’s what they brought to us was their design information from Grumman, and that was why we spent money on hiring contractors to sit with us in the backrooms. And Arnie Aldrich had Rockwell people, in those days it was North American Aviation, in the same way.

[Assistant] How did that relationship work? We’ve heard different people describe it as badgeless, as far as having the contractors in there with you. Was it a good relationship?


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

[User] Yes.

[Assistant] And then you began the simulations. That group of people were throwing things out to give you that experience of working through those possible failures. Did you have a relationship with the people controlling the simulations?

[User] Oh, yes. Yes, they got most of the information from us. They had some contractor people with them, too. We had most of the system knowledge of the spacecraft, and so we worked very closely with the training people, and they did a good job of simulating. Sometimes we thought they went a bit too far! There would be many of them, sometimes two or three weeks of them; simulating launch aborts, on-orbit and entry failures. Without those simulations, we wouldn’t have had any experience in what to do, so they were very necessary. The training simulation people were a very necessary part of the flight control team.

[Assistant] Working up to the Apollo 1 period of time, let’s just talk about that for a minute. Were you actually onsite when the Apollo 1 fire happened?

[User] We didn’t have a Lunar Module on that mission, so I wasn’t assigned on it. None of my people were. However, they monitored the mission, as I did. At times I came in and sat on the LM console in the front room and listened and watched the data, but we had no part of that mission.

[Assistant] Where were you when you heard about the fire?


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

[User] Oh, yes. Yes, they got most of the information from us. They had some contractor people with them, too. We had most of the system knowledge of the spacecraft, and so we worked very closely with the training people, and they did a good job of simulating. Sometimes we thought they went a bit too far! There would be many of them, sometimes two or three weeks of them; simulating launch aborts, on-orbit and entry failures. Without those simulations, we wouldn’t have had any experience in what to do, so they were very necessary. The training simulation people were a very necessary part of the flight control team.

[Assistant] Working up to the Apollo 1 period of time, let’s just talk about that for a minute. Were you actually onsite when the Apollo 1 fire happened?

[User] We didn’t have a Lunar Module on that mission, so I wasn’t assigned on it. None of my people were. However, they monitored the mission, as I did. At times I came in and sat on the LM console in the front room and listened and watched the data, but we had no part of that mission.

[Assistant] Where were you when you heard about the fire?

[User] When the Apollo 1 fire occurred, Gene Kranz and his family were out at a restaurant, and I heard it on the radio at home, and I called in to the guys at the Control Center and they confirmed it. They closed down the communication to and from the Control Center. When we had an accident or some kind of a severe problem, they would pull all the telephone plugs. The flight director would say, “No phone calls.”\n\n But then Gene came home from the restaurant, I went over next door and had to tell him about the Apollo 1 fire and that three astronauts were killed, and he immediately ran out and jumped in his car and went to the Control Center. It was a terrible thing, but, again, there was no LM on that mission, so I had no official position on that flight.

[Assistant] Were any changes made to the LM because of the fire? I know so many things happened as far as getting flammable materials out.


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

[User] We didn’t have a Lunar Module on that mission, so I wasn’t assigned on it. None of my people were. However, they monitored the mission, as I did. At times I came in and sat on the LM console in the front room and listened and watched the data, but we had no part of that mission.

[Assistant] Where were you when you heard about the fire?

[User] When the Apollo 1 fire occurred, Gene Kranz and his family were out at a restaurant, and I heard it on the radio at home, and I called in to the guys at the Control Center and they confirmed it. They closed down the communication to and from the Control Center. When we had an accident or some kind of a severe problem, they would pull all the telephone plugs. The flight director would say, “No phone calls.”\n\n But then Gene came home from the restaurant, I went over next door and had to tell him about the Apollo 1 fire and that three astronauts were killed, and he immediately ran out and jumped in his car and went to the Control Center. It was a terrible thing, but, again, there was no LM on that mission, so I had no official position on that flight.

[Assistant] Were any changes made to the LM because of the fire? I know so many things happened as far as getting flammable materials out.

[User] No design changes were made. The flammable material removal was the big effort. One of the problems on that fire was that the ground crew had left some flammable material in the cockpit during the test. It was not flight hardware, and it burned in the spacecraft.\n\n But it was a terrible day; one of those guys was a particular good friend of mine. We were lucky from then on, and we were able to not have any serious problems during the missions that we couldn’t fix. And, again, it was due to simulation, training, and the efficiency of the flight control people that I had in my branch for the Lunar Module and the engineers in the other branches.

[Assistant] When you were talking about Grumman and their people that you had in the SPAN with you, talking back to the other Grumman people—


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

[User] When the Apollo 1 fire occurred, Gene Kranz and his family were out at a restaurant, and I heard it on the radio at home, and I called in to the guys at the Control Center and they confirmed it. They closed down the communication to and from the Control Center. When we had an accident or some kind of a severe problem, they would pull all the telephone plugs. The flight director would say, “No phone calls.”\n\n But then Gene came home from the restaurant, I went over next door and had to tell him about the Apollo 1 fire and that three astronauts were killed, and he immediately ran out and jumped in his car and went to the Control Center. It was a terrible thing, but, again, there was no LM on that mission, so I had no official position on that flight.

[Assistant] Were any changes made to the LM because of the fire? I know so many things happened as far as getting flammable materials out.

[User] No design changes were made. The flammable material removal was the big effort. One of the problems on that fire was that the ground crew had left some flammable material in the cockpit during the test. It was not flight hardware, and it burned in the spacecraft.\n\n But it was a terrible day; one of those guys was a particular good friend of mine. We were lucky from then on, and we were able to not have any serious problems during the missions that we couldn’t fix. And, again, it was due to simulation, training, and the efficiency of the flight control people that I had in my branch for the Lunar Module and the engineers in the other branches.

[Assistant] When you were talking about Grumman and their people that you had in the SPAN with you, talking back to the other Grumman people—

[User] They talked with Grumman people at Bethpage.

[Assistant] —at Bethpage, did they have their own control room at Grumman?


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

[User] No design changes were made. The flammable material removal was the big effort. One of the problems on that fire was that the ground crew had left some flammable material in the cockpit during the test. It was not flight hardware, and it burned in the spacecraft.\n\n But it was a terrible day; one of those guys was a particular good friend of mine. We were lucky from then on, and we were able to not have any serious problems during the missions that we couldn’t fix. And, again, it was due to simulation, training, and the efficiency of the flight control people that I had in my branch for the Lunar Module and the engineers in the other branches.

[Assistant] When you were talking about Grumman and their people that you had in the SPAN with you, talking back to the other Grumman people—

[User] They talked with Grumman people at Bethpage.

[Assistant] —at Bethpage, did they have their own control room at Grumman?

[User] They could monitor the LM data and the crew voice communications. It was the same with the Rockwell people in the SPAN room and at Downey for the Command Module, so they could keep up with the mission.\n\n We worked with Skylab after Apollo, and I had the Corollary Experiments assigned to my branch. I personally did not have any participation in the Corollary Experiments activities per se, but I had a section that did that work. We also were doing some advance work on the Space Shuttle, early designs, like with the early days in the other spacecraft when they were just conceptual designs. I had half of my people working early Space Shuttle activities while we were flying the Skylab. The corollaries were just one of several kinds of experiments on the Skylab Program. We did not have any of the Skylab systems assigned to my branch.

[Assistant] Let’s go back to the Apollo 5 mission, which was the first—it was unmanned, but it did have the LM involved. Do you have any memories about running that mission?


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

[User] They talked with Grumman people at Bethpage.

[Assistant] —at Bethpage, did they have their own control room at Grumman?

[User] They could monitor the LM data and the crew voice communications. It was the same with the Rockwell people in the SPAN room and at Downey for the Command Module, so they could keep up with the mission.\n\n We worked with Skylab after Apollo, and I had the Corollary Experiments assigned to my branch. I personally did not have any participation in the Corollary Experiments activities per se, but I had a section that did that work. We also were doing some advance work on the Space Shuttle, early designs, like with the early days in the other spacecraft when they were just conceptual designs. I had half of my people working early Space Shuttle activities while we were flying the Skylab. The corollaries were just one of several kinds of experiments on the Skylab Program. We did not have any of the Skylab systems assigned to my branch.

[Assistant] Let’s go back to the Apollo 5 mission, which was the first—it was unmanned, but it did have the LM involved. Do you have any memories about running that mission?

[User] On Apollo 5 we had LM propulsion troubles. There was not Command and Service Module on this mission.

[Assistant] I think in some of the research I saw that there was a problem in LM descent engine.


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

[User] They could monitor the LM data and the crew voice communications. It was the same with the Rockwell people in the SPAN room and at Downey for the Command Module, so they could keep up with the mission.\n\n We worked with Skylab after Apollo, and I had the Corollary Experiments assigned to my branch. I personally did not have any participation in the Corollary Experiments activities per se, but I had a section that did that work. We also were doing some advance work on the Space Shuttle, early designs, like with the early days in the other spacecraft when they were just conceptual designs. I had half of my people working early Space Shuttle activities while we were flying the Skylab. The corollaries were just one of several kinds of experiments on the Skylab Program. We did not have any of the Skylab systems assigned to my branch.

[Assistant] Let’s go back to the Apollo 5 mission, which was the first—it was unmanned, but it did have the LM involved. Do you have any memories about running that mission?

[User] On Apollo 5 we had LM propulsion troubles. There was not Command and Service Module on this mission.

[Assistant] I think in some of the research I saw that there was a problem in LM descent engine.

[User] We had the LM descent engine shut down early and my people sent backup commands to restart the engine. We burned both the descent engine and the ascent engine, attempting to simulate the lunar profile. We ended up getting the data, but the mission didn’t go right.

[Assistant] The MOCR, as far as the relationship between the SPAN and the MOCR, you’ve described that a little bit. But as far as assigning controllers, and I know that all the flight controllers had their teams, like the white team, their different colors.


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

[User] On Apollo 5 we had LM propulsion troubles. There was not Command and Service Module on this mission.

[Assistant] I think in some of the research I saw that there was a problem in LM descent engine.

[User] We had the LM descent engine shut down early and my people sent backup commands to restart the engine. We burned both the descent engine and the ascent engine, attempting to simulate the lunar profile. We ended up getting the data, but the mission didn’t go right.

[Assistant] The MOCR, as far as the relationship between the SPAN and the MOCR, you’ve described that a little bit. But as far as assigning controllers, and I know that all the flight controllers had their teams, like the white team, their different colors.

[User] Yes.

[Assistant] Was part of your duties, or did you have any input into assigning which controllers would be working with which team?


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

[User] Yes.

[Assistant] Was part of your duties, or did you have any input into assigning which controllers would be working with which team?

[User] Yes, working with the Flight Directors. I tried to stay out of that arena as much as possible, but if it got into a management problem, I got involved. But I had four good section heads that were able to handle that pretty well.\n\n During a mission, I had one of my Grumman engineers sit with me back in the SPAN room, as he didn’t have a position otherwise in the Control Center. He was a good person to help me interface with Grumman. The Command and Service Module SPAN engineers had a Rockwell person sitting next them on the console, also.\n\n We had very few problems that required a lot of really tough work. We had a lot of minor problems that bothered us, keeping up with the consumables and things like that. But we got through them all. Simulator training guys helped us get through all those problems with the simulations.\n\n One of the questions was about the ALT Approach and Landing Test Program. I didn’t have any direct mission involvement in that personally. As I have indicated, the Shuttle systems people worked for me, but they were assigned on the console, not I.\n\n One of the questions is my memories of the first Shuttle flight. I was in the SPAN room for prime shift during the flight. That was an exciting mission, being an aeronautical engineer, and to have a spacecraft with wings that landed using aerodynamics. I remember leaving the Control Center after the landing, as was Chris Kraft—everybody had left but Chris and myself, and I said, “Chris, I can’t believe it. It was so perfect. The landing was so good.”\n\n He says, “I can’t believe it either. It just blows my mind.”\n\n And John [W.] Young, by the way, was commander on that flight, and he was a roommate of mine at Georgia Tech.

[Assistant] That’s what I read.

[User] Yes. We were both in the Sigma Chi fraternity.

[Assistant] How long did you room with him?


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

[User] Yes, working with the Flight Directors. I tried to stay out of that arena as much as possible, but if it got into a management problem, I got involved. But I had four good section heads that were able to handle that pretty well.\n\n During a mission, I had one of my Grumman engineers sit with me back in the SPAN room, as he didn’t have a position otherwise in the Control Center. He was a good person to help me interface with Grumman. The Command and Service Module SPAN engineers had a Rockwell person sitting next them on the console, also.\n\n We had very few problems that required a lot of really tough work. We had a lot of minor problems that bothered us, keeping up with the consumables and things like that. But we got through them all. Simulator training guys helped us get through all those problems with the simulations.\n\n One of the questions was about the ALT Approach and Landing Test Program. I didn’t have any direct mission involvement in that personally. As I have indicated, the Shuttle systems people worked for me, but they were assigned on the console, not I.\n\n One of the questions is my memories of the first Shuttle flight. I was in the SPAN room for prime shift during the flight. That was an exciting mission, being an aeronautical engineer, and to have a spacecraft with wings that landed using aerodynamics. I remember leaving the Control Center after the landing, as was Chris Kraft—everybody had left but Chris and myself, and I said, “Chris, I can’t believe it. It was so perfect. The landing was so good.”\n\n He says, “I can’t believe it either. It just blows my mind.”\n\n And John [W.] Young, by the way, was commander on that flight, and he was a roommate of mine at Georgia Tech.

[Assistant] That’s what I read.

[User] Yes. We were both in the Sigma Chi fraternity.

[Assistant] How long did you room with him?

[User] One year.

[Assistant] Did you keep in touch in between college and when you both ended up with NASA?


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

[User] Yes. We were both in the Sigma Chi fraternity.

[Assistant] How long did you room with him?

[User] One year.

[Assistant] Did you keep in touch in between college and when you both ended up with NASA?

[User] Yes, up to a point. He was from Orlando [Florida], and he went back down there. John was not a big talker, but he was smart. He had closest to a 4.0 grade point average at Georgia Tech than of anyone I know.

[Assistant] Well, let’s go back to Apollo again for a second. Apollo 8, you were on the manning list, but there was no LM on Apollo 8.


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

[User] One year.

[Assistant] Did you keep in touch in between college and when you both ended up with NASA?

[User] Yes, up to a point. He was from Orlando [Florida], and he went back down there. John was not a big talker, but he was smart. He had closest to a 4.0 grade point average at Georgia Tech than of anyone I know.

[Assistant] Well, let’s go back to Apollo again for a second. Apollo 8, you were on the manning list, but there was no LM on Apollo 8.

[User] No. That just allowed me to get in the Control Center.

[Assistant] Okay. Do you want to share your memories of that flight? It seemed to be an important flight to so many people that we’ve interviewed because, one thing, it wasn’t planned and there were some delays with the LM, and so they shifted the flights and then flew Apollo 8 instead at that time period.


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

[User] Yes, up to a point. He was from Orlando [Florida], and he went back down there. John was not a big talker, but he was smart. He had closest to a 4.0 grade point average at Georgia Tech than of anyone I know.

[Assistant] Well, let’s go back to Apollo again for a second. Apollo 8, you were on the manning list, but there was no LM on Apollo 8.

[User] No. That just allowed me to get in the Control Center.

[Assistant] Okay. Do you want to share your memories of that flight? It seemed to be an important flight to so many people that we’ve interviewed because, one thing, it wasn’t planned and there were some delays with the LM, and so they shifted the flights and then flew Apollo 8 instead at that time period.

[User] Yes. They had LM delivery problems from Bethpage.

[Assistant] Do you want to talk about those for a minute, or do you have any memories?


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

[User] No. That just allowed me to get in the Control Center.

[Assistant] Okay. Do you want to share your memories of that flight? It seemed to be an important flight to so many people that we’ve interviewed because, one thing, it wasn’t planned and there were some delays with the LM, and so they shifted the flights and then flew Apollo 8 instead at that time period.

[User] Yes. They had LM delivery problems from Bethpage.

[Assistant] Do you want to talk about those for a minute, or do you have any memories?

[User] Grumman was having test and checkout problems. It slipped their delivery and the LM mission was delayed, so they threw in Apollo 8, which carried only the Command and Service Module. I just came in and monitored in the SPAN room just to keep up, as a Branch Chief, just to keep up with what was going on. I’m sure I remember my guys were in also on their consoles, watching the Command Module data.

[Assistant] Were you working on Christmas Eve?


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

[User] Yes. They had LM delivery problems from Bethpage.

[Assistant] Do you want to talk about those for a minute, or do you have any memories?

[User] Grumman was having test and checkout problems. It slipped their delivery and the LM mission was delayed, so they threw in Apollo 8, which carried only the Command and Service Module. I just came in and monitored in the SPAN room just to keep up, as a Branch Chief, just to keep up with what was going on. I’m sure I remember my guys were in also on their consoles, watching the Command Module data.

[Assistant] Were you working on Christmas Eve?

[User] On Apollo 8? No.

[Assistant] On Apollo 8 when they read Genesis?


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

[User] Grumman was having test and checkout problems. It slipped their delivery and the LM mission was delayed, so they threw in Apollo 8, which carried only the Command and Service Module. I just came in and monitored in the SPAN room just to keep up, as a Branch Chief, just to keep up with what was going on. I’m sure I remember my guys were in also on their consoles, watching the Command Module data.

[Assistant] Were you working on Christmas Eve?

[User] On Apollo 8? No.

[Assistant] On Apollo 8 when they read Genesis?

[User] I cannot remember that, honestly. You know, it’s just been so long ago.

[Assistant] We interviewed Dave [David W.] Whittle last week.


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

[User] On Apollo 8? No.

[Assistant] On Apollo 8 when they read Genesis?

[User] I cannot remember that, honestly. You know, it’s just been so long ago.

[Assistant] We interviewed Dave [David W.] Whittle last week.

[User] Oh, yes, he was one of my section heads and a great engineer.

[Assistant] And he said that the pictures that came back from Apollo 8, being so close to the Moon, that people were just “eating them up” as soon as they would come in. Do you remember seeing those first pictures?


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

[User] I cannot remember that, honestly. You know, it’s just been so long ago.

[Assistant] We interviewed Dave [David W.] Whittle last week.

[User] Oh, yes, he was one of my section heads and a great engineer.

[Assistant] And he said that the pictures that came back from Apollo 8, being so close to the Moon, that people were just “eating them up” as soon as they would come in. Do you remember seeing those first pictures?

[User] Well, they had some TV [television] pictures when Apollo 8 orbited the Moon without a LM, and that was the first time we had gotten close to the Moon and everybody was anxious to see what it looked like up close. And the real time TV was just very impressive. Not really high quality, but the photographs after the mission certainly were. Yes, that was exciting to see the Moon close up in real time, and it was also nerve-wracking, particularly during the mission when they went behind the Moon and we lost contact for about two hours. And we were always anxious when we came to the point when voice contact was scheduled. We were waiting on the crew to say, “Houston, this is Apollo 8,” and “Oh, you made it, made it behind the Moon.”

[Assistant] Let’s talk about the first mission, the manned LM mission.


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

[User] Oh, yes, he was one of my section heads and a great engineer.

[Assistant] And he said that the pictures that came back from Apollo 8, being so close to the Moon, that people were just “eating them up” as soon as they would come in. Do you remember seeing those first pictures?

[User] Well, they had some TV [television] pictures when Apollo 8 orbited the Moon without a LM, and that was the first time we had gotten close to the Moon and everybody was anxious to see what it looked like up close. And the real time TV was just very impressive. Not really high quality, but the photographs after the mission certainly were. Yes, that was exciting to see the Moon close up in real time, and it was also nerve-wracking, particularly during the mission when they went behind the Moon and we lost contact for about two hours. And we were always anxious when we came to the point when voice contact was scheduled. We were waiting on the crew to say, “Houston, this is Apollo 8,” and “Oh, you made it, made it behind the Moon.”

[Assistant] Let’s talk about the first mission, the manned LM mission.

[User] That was LM-3 on Apollo 9. It was a manned Earth orbit mission. It was the hardest mission we ever flew because they undocked the LM, manned, but we didn’t have constant contact with it because we didn’t have a communication satellite in orbit in those days. It would go in and out of coverage between sites, and it was kind of a disjointed thing. We didn’t have a continuous flow of data like we did during the translunar coast mission. During a lunar mission, we had data all the way to the Moon and back, so the only time we lost data was when they were behind the Moon. But we had data constantly during the landing.\n\n But Apollo 9 was a headache because of that problem, and we had some LM problems that we got through all right with our mission rules, our procedures and so forth.

[Assistant] You mentioned that your mission rules changed for each flight.


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

[User] Yes. We had very few minor failures on the Lunar Module. We almost came close to calling an abort during the lunar landing, however, because of the descent engine. My people were monitoring the descent engine tank pressure, and when they landed, the heat soak back came in on the helium pressure tank. The descent engine was pressurized by helium to make the propellants flow into the engine. And then the helium tank started going up in temperature and pressure right after touchdown. The temperature causes a rise in pressure in the tank, and we were sweating it out in the LM team. And I could see us calling Flight and saying, “Abort, Recommend Abort,” because we had a mission rule that we would abort if the tank pressure got at a certain level. If the thing blew up, we were all in deep yogurt. The pressure came up, but it didn’t reach that point, and it peaked and everybody went, “Whew,” and that was right after landing. And that never got out. As far as I can remember, it never got out to the press.\n\n But otherwise, that was an outstanding mission. The Lunar Module worked very well, the crew did well, and I think we got most of the mission objectives. As far as I’m concerned, I think they got them all. We were all tense to see the power descent go well and the ascent, rendezvous, docking. It was very exciting, and it helped a lot to have everything work right on both spacecraft, believe me. But we didn’t take any chances. The guys were monitoring very closely the flight.

[Assistant] Bob [Robert L.] Carlton.

[User] Carlton was one of my sections heads, and he was one of the MOCR operators. We called his position “LM Control.” It was an equivalent to the Command and Service Module Guidance, Navigation and Control, “GNC.”

[Assistant] He shared with us the experience of having the stopwatch, counting down for the landing and having only a very few seconds left on that stopwatch.

[User] He was on the powered descent team.

[Assistant] Was that a tense moment waiting for that landing?


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

[User] Carlton was one of my sections heads, and he was one of the MOCR operators. We called his position “LM Control.” It was an equivalent to the Command and Service Module Guidance, Navigation and Control, “GNC.”

[Assistant] He shared with us the experience of having the stopwatch, counting down for the landing and having only a very few seconds left on that stopwatch.

[User] He was on the powered descent team.

[Assistant] Was that a tense moment waiting for that landing?

[User] Yes. We were all very tense, but it worked out very well, except for that helium overpressure after landing.\n\n And I remember that one of the LM propulsion controllers saying, “Whew,” when the pressure leveled off. Apollo 11 was almost a picture-perfect mission, as far as I’m concerned.

[Assistant] Well, as far as the ascent from the Moon, that went well.


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

[User] He was on the powered descent team.

[Assistant] Was that a tense moment waiting for that landing?

[User] Yes. We were all very tense, but it worked out very well, except for that helium overpressure after landing.\n\n And I remember that one of the LM propulsion controllers saying, “Whew,” when the pressure leveled off. Apollo 11 was almost a picture-perfect mission, as far as I’m concerned.

[Assistant] Well, as far as the ascent from the Moon, that went well.

[User] Yes.

[Assistant] Was there anything about that aspect that you remember?


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

[User] Yes. We were all very tense, but it worked out very well, except for that helium overpressure after landing.\n\n And I remember that one of the LM propulsion controllers saying, “Whew,” when the pressure leveled off. Apollo 11 was almost a picture-perfect mission, as far as I’m concerned.

[Assistant] Well, as far as the ascent from the Moon, that went well.

[User] Yes.

[Assistant] Was there anything about that aspect that you remember?

[User] The ascent engine ignition had to work or the crew was stuck on the Moon. But it ignited and they had the normal abort stage, pyrotechnics went off and separated the ascent stage from the descent stage, and the engine was working and up she went. The flight dynamics officers had calculated the right timing and everything, and it just was beautiful. It really was. All the Apollo flights went that way, as far as I’m concerned, except 13, during which we didn’t land. But all the landing missions were really good.\n\n The program had a block two LM starting on Apollo 15, 16, and 17. Those three missions had a more advanced Lunar Module, and it all went so well, with few, if any, problems.

[Assistant] Well, I know Apollo 12, other than the lightning strike at the beginning, but that didn’t affect the LM at all, did it?


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

[User] Yes.

[Assistant] If you can, just walk us through the events and how they unfolded.

[User] The Lunar Module did not transmit any telemetry during translunar coast since it was powered down. So the Command and Service Module engineers were the ones that were watching their spacecraft, and that’s when the problem came. The CSM oxygen tank blew and they lost electric power. That is when the LM people started getting pretty active. One of the first actions was to pull together a team. Gene Kranz called it together. I remember meeting with him, and he called it a contingency mission planning team to figure out what we were going to do next.\n\n So that is when the LM lifeboat cases, we called them, that Don Puddy with this guys had prepared the year before, pulled those off the shelf as part of that contingency team and checked them out. There was a lot of work, lot of work. Not much sleep during that time. We powered up the LM and using these contingency procedures that we had prepared, because the LM was never designed to be a lifeboat. But it worked well. They shut down. The crew left the Command and Service Module, sealed the hatch, and the three guys got in the LM. Since the LM was only designed for two, it got pretty crowded in there.\n\n Then as they approached entry, they opened the hatch and went in the Command Module, powered it up, closed out the LM, and jettisoned it. We hated to see it go because it entered Earth orbit and, of course, burned up. I remember one of the crew saying, “Goodbye, Aquarius. You saved us.”

[Assistant] Were you part of the group that was working on the oxygen and the carbon dioxide buildup?

[User] No, those were Command and Service Module people.\n\n But we did have an engineer working with them, just to know what was going on.

[Assistant] Of course, it was a relief when they did land.\n\n Are there any other memories about Apollo 13 that you’d like to share? I know part of what you did, and you mentioned Don Puddy’s group was looking for the contingency plans.


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

[User] No, those were Command and Service Module people.\n\n But we did have an engineer working with them, just to know what was going on.

[Assistant] Of course, it was a relief when they did land.\n\n Are there any other memories about Apollo 13 that you’d like to share? I know part of what you did, and you mentioned Don Puddy’s group was looking for the contingency plans.

[User] We had a special team that was pulled together that took those old lifeboat procedures, massaged them, brought them up to date, and sent them up to the crew.

[Assistant] Were there any other types of contingency plans as far as using the LM in other types of emergency situations?

[User] No.

[Assistant] Just that one because of the simulation?


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

[User] We had a special team that was pulled together that took those old lifeboat procedures, massaged them, brought them up to date, and sent them up to the crew.

[Assistant] Were there any other types of contingency plans as far as using the LM in other types of emergency situations?

[User] No.

[Assistant] Just that one because of the simulation?

[User] Yes.\n\n We never simulated that exact failure, but the year before, they failed three fuel cells, and the flight director said, don’t worry about it, that’s three failures. But we worried about it, thank goodness.

[Assistant] It’s a good thing you did.


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

[User] No.

[Assistant] Just that one because of the simulation?

[User] Yes.\n\n We never simulated that exact failure, but the year before, they failed three fuel cells, and the flight director said, don’t worry about it, that’s three failures. But we worried about it, thank goodness.

[Assistant] It’s a good thing you did.

[User] Yes.

[Assistant] During Apollo 11, of course, there was a lot of attention from the world. Apollo 12, not so much. By the time Apollo 13, it wasn’t quite getting as much attention until the accident happened. Were you surprised or were you aware of the amount of attention? Since you were onsite so much during Apollo 13, were you aware of what was going on as far as the world following this?


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

[User] Yes.\n\n We never simulated that exact failure, but the year before, they failed three fuel cells, and the flight director said, don’t worry about it, that’s three failures. But we worried about it, thank goodness.

[Assistant] It’s a good thing you did.

[User] Yes.

[Assistant] During Apollo 11, of course, there was a lot of attention from the world. Apollo 12, not so much. By the time Apollo 13, it wasn’t quite getting as much attention until the accident happened. Were you surprised or were you aware of the amount of attention? Since you were onsite so much during Apollo 13, were you aware of what was going on as far as the world following this?

[User] No, not much.

[Assistant] Were you surprised that it got that much attention?


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

[User] Yes.

[Assistant] During Apollo 11, of course, there was a lot of attention from the world. Apollo 12, not so much. By the time Apollo 13, it wasn’t quite getting as much attention until the accident happened. Were you surprised or were you aware of the amount of attention? Since you were onsite so much during Apollo 13, were you aware of what was going on as far as the world following this?

[User] No, not much.

[Assistant] Were you surprised that it got that much attention?

[User] No, I really wasn’t. I was pleased that the public was concerned about our mission and what we were doing. The failure happened on the way out to the Moon, so we had to go to the Moon in the LM and circle around it and come back. You just couldn’t turn around and come home, because we didn’t have enough propellant in the engines to get a retrograde firing to come directly back home. So we just had to continue on.\n\n The Command and Service Module was separated from the LM. Both spacecraft went around the Moon separately. Everybody had their eyeballs glued on every parameter that was telemetered on the CSM when it came around into view. Apparently, there were a lot of people interested in it all around the world. But we didn’t have time to think about that. We were too busy with the vehicle.

[Assistant] Well, on Apollo 14, part of our research shows that an abort switch lit up on the panel, and there was a situation where, I believe, it was a flight controller was told to tell the astronauts to hit the panel. Do you recall that instance?


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

[User] No, not much.

[Assistant] Were you surprised that it got that much attention?

[User] No, I really wasn’t. I was pleased that the public was concerned about our mission and what we were doing. The failure happened on the way out to the Moon, so we had to go to the Moon in the LM and circle around it and come back. You just couldn’t turn around and come home, because we didn’t have enough propellant in the engines to get a retrograde firing to come directly back home. So we just had to continue on.\n\n The Command and Service Module was separated from the LM. Both spacecraft went around the Moon separately. Everybody had their eyeballs glued on every parameter that was telemetered on the CSM when it came around into view. Apparently, there were a lot of people interested in it all around the world. But we didn’t have time to think about that. We were too busy with the vehicle.

[Assistant] Well, on Apollo 14, part of our research shows that an abort switch lit up on the panel, and there was a situation where, I believe, it was a flight controller was told to tell the astronauts to hit the panel. Do you recall that instance?

[User] To jar loose a relay or something? Yes. I don’t remember the results of that, because I don’t think the switch had failed.

[Assistant] No. It was just a thread or something.


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

[User] No, I really wasn’t. I was pleased that the public was concerned about our mission and what we were doing. The failure happened on the way out to the Moon, so we had to go to the Moon in the LM and circle around it and come back. You just couldn’t turn around and come home, because we didn’t have enough propellant in the engines to get a retrograde firing to come directly back home. So we just had to continue on.\n\n The Command and Service Module was separated from the LM. Both spacecraft went around the Moon separately. Everybody had their eyeballs glued on every parameter that was telemetered on the CSM when it came around into view. Apparently, there were a lot of people interested in it all around the world. But we didn’t have time to think about that. We were too busy with the vehicle.

[Assistant] Well, on Apollo 14, part of our research shows that an abort switch lit up on the panel, and there was a situation where, I believe, it was a flight controller was told to tell the astronauts to hit the panel. Do you recall that instance?

[User] To jar loose a relay or something? Yes. I don’t remember the results of that, because I don’t think the switch had failed.

[Assistant] No. It was just a thread or something.

[User] Yes, and ascent went smoothly.

[Assistant] The rest of the Apollo missions went fairly smoothly.


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

[User] To jar loose a relay or something? Yes. I don’t remember the results of that, because I don’t think the switch had failed.

[Assistant] No. It was just a thread or something.

[User] Yes, and ascent went smoothly.

[Assistant] The rest of the Apollo missions went fairly smoothly.

[User] Very good.

[Assistant] Some changes had to be done to the LM as far as carrying the Lunar Rover and for extended stays on the Moon.


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

[User] Yes, and ascent went smoothly.

[Assistant] The rest of the Apollo missions went fairly smoothly.

[User] Very good.

[Assistant] Some changes had to be done to the LM as far as carrying the Lunar Rover and for extended stays on the Moon.

[User] Yes, that was the “block two” LM that I mentioned previously. It was heavier, and carried more fuel, the LRV, Lunar Roving Vehicle, and the ALSEP Apollo Lunar Surface Experiments Package. The crew set up the ALSEP on the Moon. That was a very heavy vehicle, starting with 15.\n\n Watching them set up and assemble the Rover, not assemble it, but “unpackage” it, get on it, check it out, and ride it was pretty exciting to watch. But I didn’t have anything to do with that vehicle at all. The EMU [Extravehicular Mobility Unit], the backpack, was all, the only other thing besides the LM that we had in my branch.\n\n But those were excellent missions, 15, 16, 17. I wish we could have finished the last three missions.

[Assistant] Do you have any specific memories of any of those missions or instances or anecdotes that you recall as far as during the missions or simulating for those missions?


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

[User] Very good.

[Assistant] Some changes had to be done to the LM as far as carrying the Lunar Rover and for extended stays on the Moon.

[User] Yes, that was the “block two” LM that I mentioned previously. It was heavier, and carried more fuel, the LRV, Lunar Roving Vehicle, and the ALSEP Apollo Lunar Surface Experiments Package. The crew set up the ALSEP on the Moon. That was a very heavy vehicle, starting with 15.\n\n Watching them set up and assemble the Rover, not assemble it, but “unpackage” it, get on it, check it out, and ride it was pretty exciting to watch. But I didn’t have anything to do with that vehicle at all. The EMU [Extravehicular Mobility Unit], the backpack, was all, the only other thing besides the LM that we had in my branch.\n\n But those were excellent missions, 15, 16, 17. I wish we could have finished the last three missions.

[Assistant] Do you have any specific memories of any of those missions or instances or anecdotes that you recall as far as during the missions or simulating for those missions?

[User] I wasn’t involved in most of the simulations. I only sat in on a few of them. But I can’t recall anything that’s worthwhile talking about. I just remember that everything went so well, amazingly well, for the intricate technology and the systems, and the flight planning effort that went into it, the trajectory work. Everything was done so well.

[Assistant] Well, after the flights, and I know it started with Mercury and Gemini and continued with Apollo, after the flights, it was somewhat traditional to have splashdown parties?


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

[User] Yes, that was the “block two” LM that I mentioned previously. It was heavier, and carried more fuel, the LRV, Lunar Roving Vehicle, and the ALSEP Apollo Lunar Surface Experiments Package. The crew set up the ALSEP on the Moon. That was a very heavy vehicle, starting with 15.\n\n Watching them set up and assemble the Rover, not assemble it, but “unpackage” it, get on it, check it out, and ride it was pretty exciting to watch. But I didn’t have anything to do with that vehicle at all. The EMU [Extravehicular Mobility Unit], the backpack, was all, the only other thing besides the LM that we had in my branch.\n\n But those were excellent missions, 15, 16, 17. I wish we could have finished the last three missions.

[Assistant] Do you have any specific memories of any of those missions or instances or anecdotes that you recall as far as during the missions or simulating for those missions?

[User] I wasn’t involved in most of the simulations. I only sat in on a few of them. But I can’t recall anything that’s worthwhile talking about. I just remember that everything went so well, amazingly well, for the intricate technology and the systems, and the flight planning effort that went into it, the trajectory work. Everything was done so well.

[Assistant] Well, after the flights, and I know it started with Mercury and Gemini and continued with Apollo, after the flights, it was somewhat traditional to have splashdown parties?

[User] Yes.

[Assistant] Do you recall any of those or did you go to those?


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

[User] Oh, yes. I don’t remember much of what was going on in the world most of the time. If we weren’t on the console, we were busy in the mission rules review or something else, or sleeping. You’re right. We were somewhat insulated. I should say “isolated,” maybe is a better word, from everything else.

[Assistant] You lived in Dickinson [Texas] next to Gene Kranz, and there were different areas that seemed to be a large concentration of people that worked at NASA living in areas together.

[User] Yes, but Dickinson didn’t have that many.

[Assistant] There were communities built up and, as you mentioned, a lot of the men were gone so many hours and a lot of the wives in the communities kind of picked up and shared those duties that maybe some of the men would have been taking part in if they hadn’t been working such long hours. Do you have any memories about the community feeling or anything that was going on during that time?

[User] No, we didn’t have many astronauts and NASA people in Dickinson where I lived. A lot of that was going on up in Clear Lake City [Texas] and adjacent to the

[Assistant]
Space Center.

Why did you choose Dickinson when you moved in?


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

[User] Okay.\n\n [pause]

[Assistant] When we stopped, we were going to talk about your involvement in the Shuttle. You mentioned that you didn’t have a lot to do with the ALT Program?

[User] No I did not. I had the Shuttle systems people in the branch, but I was on the SPAN console on STS-1. And it was such a good flight. There were a lot of concerns with failure modes, but they didn’t happen. We had a superior crew that knew what they were doing, and it was just one of the most exciting flights I can ever remember, as I said, because it had wings, and I liked that!. Having studied aerodynamics, I liked the airplane with wings on it. STS-1 began the whole Shuttle experience.

[Assistant] Well, during that time between the end of Apollo and the beginning of Shuttle and, of course, there was ASTP [Apollo-Soyuz Test Project] and Skylab.

[User] Skylab and then ASTP, yes.

[Assistant] And you were working on some of the mission rules and procedures and everything for Shuttle?


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

[User] No I did not. I had the Shuttle systems people in the branch, but I was on the SPAN console on STS-1. And it was such a good flight. There were a lot of concerns with failure modes, but they didn’t happen. We had a superior crew that knew what they were doing, and it was just one of the most exciting flights I can ever remember, as I said, because it had wings, and I liked that!. Having studied aerodynamics, I liked the airplane with wings on it. STS-1 began the whole Shuttle experience.

[Assistant] Well, during that time between the end of Apollo and the beginning of Shuttle and, of course, there was ASTP [Apollo-Soyuz Test Project] and Skylab.

[User] Skylab and then ASTP, yes.

[Assistant] And you were working on some of the mission rules and procedures and everything for Shuttle?

[User] We were already working on the early Shuttle flight rules and mission rules and procedures as we did on Apollo. My people were in the Shuttle systems early and were making trips back and forth to California, while still working on the latter part of Apollo and ASTP. But the Shuttle, it was a lot of development time on that program, because it was a much more complicated vehicle.

[Assistant] I was going to ask you about that. Considering the LM, which obviously was a complicated vehicle, but then going—


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

[User] Skylab and then ASTP, yes.

[Assistant] And you were working on some of the mission rules and procedures and everything for Shuttle?

[User] We were already working on the early Shuttle flight rules and mission rules and procedures as we did on Apollo. My people were in the Shuttle systems early and were making trips back and forth to California, while still working on the latter part of Apollo and ASTP. But the Shuttle, it was a lot of development time on that program, because it was a much more complicated vehicle.

[Assistant] I was going to ask you about that. Considering the LM, which obviously was a complicated vehicle, but then going—

[User] Nothing like the Shuttle.

[Assistant] —going to the Shuttle, which was so complicated, and having to develop all those procedures and rules.