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

[User] Yeah. And then I did one year in the factory and then the second year in the factory, I did night school at Newhaven University of Southern Connecticut. So I worked from 7:00 in the morning until 3:30.

[Assistant] And what kind of factory?

[User] Wheeler Electronics. They made electronical components for other things. And I was in the material handling department, which means I go to the stockroom and get the pieces that people need to make their things. So I was up and down all over the place.

[Assistant] So you did that for?

[User] I did that for a year and realized that I'm only going to get one year. I got a half year of credits going to night school. That means I'll be going to school forever. So I quit and went to full time. So in ‘62 I started at the University of New Haven, which was New Haven College at that time, but eventually became University of New Haven. And I graduated June of ‘66. In fact, next year is what, 50 years. Yeah.

[Assistant] And working part time?


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

[User] Wheeler Electronics. They made electronical components for other things. And I was in the material handling department, which means I go to the stockroom and get the pieces that people need to make their things. So I was up and down all over the place.

[Assistant] So you did that for?

[User] I did that for a year and realized that I'm only going to get one year. I got a half year of credits going to night school. That means I'll be going to school forever. So I quit and went to full time. So in ‘62 I started at the University of New Haven, which was New Haven College at that time, but eventually became University of New Haven. And I graduated June of ‘66. In fact, next year is what, 50 years. Yeah.

[Assistant] And working part time?

[User] All the time. In fact, in my junior year I lived on two hours sleep a day.

[Assistant] Oh my goodness. So you were working full time hours.


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

[User] I did that for a year and realized that I'm only going to get one year. I got a half year of credits going to night school. That means I'll be going to school forever. So I quit and went to full time. So in ‘62 I started at the University of New Haven, which was New Haven College at that time, but eventually became University of New Haven. And I graduated June of ‘66. In fact, next year is what, 50 years. Yeah.

[Assistant] And working part time?

[User] All the time. In fact, in my junior year I lived on two hours sleep a day.

[Assistant] Oh my goodness. So you were working full time hours.

[User] Yeah, I worked in Second National Bank of New Haven from 11:00 to 7:00. Then I went to school until around noon or 1:00. Then I worked in the cafeteria for an hour to get my lunch free. Then in the afternoon I was doing cross-country or intramural softball, intramural football, intramural basketball, student, newspaper student government. And then I come back to the cafeteria at 6:00 to work for an hour to get my dinner. And then I went home and went to bed and I slept basically from 8:00 at night till 10:00. And then I had a series of phone calls at 10:00, 10:05, 10:10. The girls from the bank would call me to wake me up so I can get to work at 11:00. And then the ball started rolling all over again. And then on Saturdays instead of sleeping, that was our day for cross-country meets when we go out and run five miles or six miles.

[Assistant] Incredible. How did you have the strength to do that?


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

[User] All the time. In fact, in my junior year I lived on two hours sleep a day.

[Assistant] Oh my goodness. So you were working full time hours.

[User] Yeah, I worked in Second National Bank of New Haven from 11:00 to 7:00. Then I went to school until around noon or 1:00. Then I worked in the cafeteria for an hour to get my lunch free. Then in the afternoon I was doing cross-country or intramural softball, intramural football, intramural basketball, student, newspaper student government. And then I come back to the cafeteria at 6:00 to work for an hour to get my dinner. And then I went home and went to bed and I slept basically from 8:00 at night till 10:00. And then I had a series of phone calls at 10:00, 10:05, 10:10. The girls from the bank would call me to wake me up so I can get to work at 11:00. And then the ball started rolling all over again. And then on Saturdays instead of sleeping, that was our day for cross-country meets when we go out and run five miles or six miles.

[Assistant] Incredible. How did you have the strength to do that?

[User] I was young and I was in very good shape because I was active in sports all the time. Yeah, and well, I didn't last. I did it eleven months and then I had a problem with my back and that scared me because I couldn't walk for three days. And ended up with, it was just stress.

[Assistant] Yeah. And it's gone away. You needed a good night's sleep.


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

[User] Yeah, I worked in Second National Bank of New Haven from 11:00 to 7:00. Then I went to school until around noon or 1:00. Then I worked in the cafeteria for an hour to get my lunch free. Then in the afternoon I was doing cross-country or intramural softball, intramural football, intramural basketball, student, newspaper student government. And then I come back to the cafeteria at 6:00 to work for an hour to get my dinner. And then I went home and went to bed and I slept basically from 8:00 at night till 10:00. And then I had a series of phone calls at 10:00, 10:05, 10:10. The girls from the bank would call me to wake me up so I can get to work at 11:00. And then the ball started rolling all over again. And then on Saturdays instead of sleeping, that was our day for cross-country meets when we go out and run five miles or six miles.

[Assistant] Incredible. How did you have the strength to do that?

[User] I was young and I was in very good shape because I was active in sports all the time. Yeah, and well, I didn't last. I did it eleven months and then I had a problem with my back and that scared me because I couldn't walk for three days. And ended up with, it was just stress.

[Assistant] Yeah. And it's gone away. You needed a good night's sleep.

[User] That's what I needed.

[Assistant] And so you wound up. What were you studying when you were in school. What was your major?


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

[User] I was young and I was in very good shape because I was active in sports all the time. Yeah, and well, I didn't last. I did it eleven months and then I had a problem with my back and that scared me because I couldn't walk for three days. And ended up with, it was just stress.

[Assistant] Yeah. And it's gone away. You needed a good night's sleep.

[User] That's what I needed.

[Assistant] And so you wound up. What were you studying when you were in school. What was your major?

[User] Industrial administration. Business administration mostly had to do with industry administration, methods and motion study, strength of the materials. Production methods, things like that.

[Assistant] You got a degree in 1966?


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

[User] That's what I needed.

[Assistant] And so you wound up. What were you studying when you were in school. What was your major?

[User] Industrial administration. Business administration mostly had to do with industry administration, methods and motion study, strength of the materials. Production methods, things like that.

[Assistant] You got a degree in 1966?

[User] 1966, yeah. June 19.

[Assistant] June, and you went into the Peace Corps in August, so what did you do that? Why you decide to join the Peace Corps?


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

[User] I think so. I can't remember. It's a little long time ago.

[Assistant] Yeah.

[User] So while all I remember is I had to have a hernia operation. Between the time I finished university and the time I reported for the Peace Corps, because if I reported with a hernia, they would have rejected me. So I had the hernia about two and a half, three weeks before I reported.

[Assistant] For training.

[User] So that they wouldn't reject me.

[Assistant] Before we talk about training, what was the response of your family to your when you told them you were you had applied to the Peace Corps and you were going to go to Africa?


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

[User] So while all I remember is I had to have a hernia operation. Between the time I finished university and the time I reported for the Peace Corps, because if I reported with a hernia, they would have rejected me. So I had the hernia about two and a half, three weeks before I reported.

[Assistant] For training.

[User] So that they wouldn't reject me.

[Assistant] Before we talk about training, what was the response of your family to your when you told them you were you had applied to the Peace Corps and you were going to go to Africa?

[User] Good question. I can't recall a direct answer, but because I had been on my own going to university, they just figured it was a natural extrapolation of the way I was becoming. There was some question about going into the Army and stuff like that.

[Assistant] Well, yeah, there was a draft going on. Had your father been in the military?


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

[User] So that they wouldn't reject me.

[Assistant] Before we talk about training, what was the response of your family to your when you told them you were you had applied to the Peace Corps and you were going to go to Africa?

[User] Good question. I can't recall a direct answer, but because I had been on my own going to university, they just figured it was a natural extrapolation of the way I was becoming. There was some question about going into the Army and stuff like that.

[Assistant] Well, yeah, there was a draft going on. Had your father been in the military?

[User] Oh, yeah. But you see, my father, by the time he was drafted in World War II, already had three kids. So he was in the last batches of people to get drafted. So he had no military career to speak of. In fact, his best story was that he was on his way to Europe when the war ended and he said Hitler heard he was coming. So, you know, he didn't have a military career and I didn't either. Well, I'll tell you about that later.

[Assistant] Yeah. So you.


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

[User] Good question. I can't recall a direct answer, but because I had been on my own going to university, they just figured it was a natural extrapolation of the way I was becoming. There was some question about going into the Army and stuff like that.

[Assistant] Well, yeah, there was a draft going on. Had your father been in the military?

[User] Oh, yeah. But you see, my father, by the time he was drafted in World War II, already had three kids. So he was in the last batches of people to get drafted. So he had no military career to speak of. In fact, his best story was that he was on his way to Europe when the war ended and he said Hitler heard he was coming. So, you know, he didn't have a military career and I didn't either. Well, I'll tell you about that later.

[Assistant] Yeah. So you.

[User] There was no initial or noticeable reaction from them. It was something I wanted to do. I was qualified to do it. Go ahead.

[Assistant] Yeah. So where did you go? Where was training?


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

[User] There was no initial or noticeable reaction from them. It was something I wanted to do. I was qualified to do it. Go ahead.

[Assistant] Yeah. So where did you go? Where was training?

[User] La Jolla.

[Assistant] What?

[User] La Jolla, San Diego. University of California San Diego campus at La Jolla.

[Assistant] That's on the beach, isn't it?


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

[User] La Jolla.

[Assistant] What?

[User] La Jolla, San Diego. University of California San Diego campus at La Jolla.

[Assistant] That's on the beach, isn't it?

[User] Well, pretty close, I mean the whole of San Diego is on the beach as far as I know.

[Assistant] Well, La Jolla means the jewel.


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

[User] La Jolla, San Diego. University of California San Diego campus at La Jolla.

[Assistant] That's on the beach, isn't it?

[User] Well, pretty close, I mean the whole of San Diego is on the beach as far as I know.

[Assistant] Well, La Jolla means the jewel.

[User] Well, I don't know. But my uncle, my namesake uncle said, if you get a taxi at the airport, don't say La Jolla, because if you say La Jolla, they'll take you all over the place. So he's the one that told me to say “La Hoya.” And when we got to our camp or the university and we were comparing notes, those that said La Jolla paid fifteen dollars for the taxi. Me, I said La Hoya, it cost me $3.50. So it was a good piece of advice I got from my uncle.

[Assistant] No kidding. So you show up to training and how many other trainees are there?


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

[User] Well, pretty close, I mean the whole of San Diego is on the beach as far as I know.

[Assistant] Well, La Jolla means the jewel.

[User] Well, I don't know. But my uncle, my namesake uncle said, if you get a taxi at the airport, don't say La Jolla, because if you say La Jolla, they'll take you all over the place. So he's the one that told me to say “La Hoya.” And when we got to our camp or the university and we were comparing notes, those that said La Jolla paid fifteen dollars for the taxi. Me, I said La Hoya, it cost me $3.50. So it was a good piece of advice I got from my uncle.

[Assistant] No kidding. So you show up to training and how many other trainees are there?

[User] We were a combined group. The Ag-RD was together with some health people.

[Assistant] And you were all going to Nigeria?


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

[User] Well, I don't know. But my uncle, my namesake uncle said, if you get a taxi at the airport, don't say La Jolla, because if you say La Jolla, they'll take you all over the place. So he's the one that told me to say “La Hoya.” And when we got to our camp or the university and we were comparing notes, those that said La Jolla paid fifteen dollars for the taxi. Me, I said La Hoya, it cost me $3.50. So it was a good piece of advice I got from my uncle.

[Assistant] No kidding. So you show up to training and how many other trainees are there?

[User] We were a combined group. The Ag-RD was together with some health people.

[Assistant] And you were all going to Nigeria?

[User] Yeah, but eventually it helped the health people were sent to Mali, I think, or someplace else because of the situation in Nigeria and also because most of them would have been in the southeast. So there was no point. So they sent them to Mali, I believe.

[Assistant] But when they started training, they thought they were going to Nigeria? When they began training, I think they were thinking?


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

[User] We were a combined group. The Ag-RD was together with some health people.

[Assistant] And you were all going to Nigeria?

[User] Yeah, but eventually it helped the health people were sent to Mali, I think, or someplace else because of the situation in Nigeria and also because most of them would have been in the southeast. So there was no point. So they sent them to Mali, I believe.

[Assistant] But when they started training, they thought they were going to Nigeria? When they began training, I think they were thinking?

[User] I think so. We were kind of separate. We had our curriculum, they had theirs.

[Assistant] And when had come together for things like what language?


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

[User] I think so. We were kind of separate. We had our curriculum, they had theirs.

[Assistant] And when had come together for things like what language?

[User] No, we came together for meals.

[Assistant] That's it?

[User] And sharing dorms.

[Assistant] But nothing else. No kidding. Huh.


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

[User] No, we came together for meals.

[Assistant] That's it?

[User] And sharing dorms.

[Assistant] But nothing else. No kidding. Huh.

[User] They had their program and we had ours.

[Assistant] OK, so let’s hear about your program. How many people, was it both men and women or was it all guys?


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

[User] And sharing dorms.

[Assistant] But nothing else. No kidding. Huh.

[User] They had their program and we had ours.

[Assistant] OK, so let’s hear about your program. How many people, was it both men and women or was it all guys?

[User] We were men because Ag-RD was considered to be a male thing. And we were about 50 to 60 in our group and it was subdivided into community development, rural development, and whatever else there. We were business and there were four of us, one in Maiduguri, one in Kano, one in Kaduna, and one in Gusau.

[Assistant] And so where is that last place?


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

[User] They had their program and we had ours.

[Assistant] OK, so let’s hear about your program. How many people, was it both men and women or was it all guys?

[User] We were men because Ag-RD was considered to be a male thing. And we were about 50 to 60 in our group and it was subdivided into community development, rural development, and whatever else there. We were business and there were four of us, one in Maiduguri, one in Kano, one in Kaduna, and one in Gusau.

[Assistant] And so where is that last place?

[User] Gusau. It's now in, what's the name of the state now, they changed the state. It’s not Kebbi. Zamfara, Zamfara state. The old Sokoto state was carved up.

[Assistant] And so these are all places in the north.


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

[User] We were men because Ag-RD was considered to be a male thing. And we were about 50 to 60 in our group and it was subdivided into community development, rural development, and whatever else there. We were business and there were four of us, one in Maiduguri, one in Kano, one in Kaduna, and one in Gusau.

[Assistant] And so where is that last place?

[User] Gusau. It's now in, what's the name of the state now, they changed the state. It’s not Kebbi. Zamfara, Zamfara state. The old Sokoto state was carved up.

[Assistant] And so these are all places in the north.

[User] Oh yeah. We were going to the north.

[Assistant] Yes, you knew that. And so you're, the language you were being taught?


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

[User] Gusau. It's now in, what's the name of the state now, they changed the state. It’s not Kebbi. Zamfara, Zamfara state. The old Sokoto state was carved up.

[Assistant] And so these are all places in the north.

[User] Oh yeah. We were going to the north.

[Assistant] Yes, you knew that. And so you're, the language you were being taught?

[User] We were taught Hausa on printed mimeograph sheets and Hausa instructor, but we didn't get very far. Because one of our group members was the son of a missionary who grew up in Niger, in Nigeria. So everybody is going, [speaks Hausa slowly]. And when it came his turn to read the papers, [speaks rapidly]. So it embarrassed everybody right off the bat. We couldn't match him. So it kind of stifled the development of our language. So we didn't go very far. In fact, I went farther in Tagatu with my Spanish than I did with Hausa in the training.

[Assistant] And what else did the training consist of?


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

[User] Oh yeah. We were going to the north.

[Assistant] Yes, you knew that. And so you're, the language you were being taught?

[User] We were taught Hausa on printed mimeograph sheets and Hausa instructor, but we didn't get very far. Because one of our group members was the son of a missionary who grew up in Niger, in Nigeria. So everybody is going, [speaks Hausa slowly]. And when it came his turn to read the papers, [speaks rapidly]. So it embarrassed everybody right off the bat. We couldn't match him. So it kind of stifled the development of our language. So we didn't go very far. In fact, I went farther in Tagatu with my Spanish than I did with Hausa in the training.

[Assistant] And what else did the training consist of?

[User] A lot of my specialty was bookkeeping and production control systems and things of that nature.

[Assistant] Ok, so they were related to the job.


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

[User] We were taught Hausa on printed mimeograph sheets and Hausa instructor, but we didn't get very far. Because one of our group members was the son of a missionary who grew up in Niger, in Nigeria. So everybody is going, [speaks Hausa slowly]. And when it came his turn to read the papers, [speaks rapidly]. So it embarrassed everybody right off the bat. We couldn't match him. So it kind of stifled the development of our language. So we didn't go very far. In fact, I went farther in Tagatu with my Spanish than I did with Hausa in the training.

[Assistant] And what else did the training consist of?

[User] A lot of my specialty was bookkeeping and production control systems and things of that nature.

[Assistant] Ok, so they were related to the job.

[User] Yeah, it was all job related. Because we were going into a program which was set up by the Ford Foundation. The Ford Foundation had a contract with the federal government of Nigeria to institute a loan scheme. They call it the Small Industries Credit Loan Scheme, and they had an outpost in each of the provinces of the north. So when we got to our post, we were in charge of that project and we were also in the bureaucracy of the northern Nigerian government. We were the Two-IZ to the provincial commercial officer. The Two-IZ mean second in charge. The provincial commercial officer was the guy in charge of the overall project.

[Assistant] And had this had this system, this organizational system been explained to you in training?


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

[User] A lot of my specialty was bookkeeping and production control systems and things of that nature.

[Assistant] Ok, so they were related to the job.

[User] Yeah, it was all job related. Because we were going into a program which was set up by the Ford Foundation. The Ford Foundation had a contract with the federal government of Nigeria to institute a loan scheme. They call it the Small Industries Credit Loan Scheme, and they had an outpost in each of the provinces of the north. So when we got to our post, we were in charge of that project and we were also in the bureaucracy of the northern Nigerian government. We were the Two-IZ to the provincial commercial officer. The Two-IZ mean second in charge. The provincial commercial officer was the guy in charge of the overall project.

[Assistant] And had this had this system, this organizational system been explained to you in training?

[User] It was our curriculum, as it were.

[Assistant] So they included, they talked about how the government was involved?


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

[User] It was our curriculum, as it were.

[Assistant] So they included, they talked about how the government was involved?

[User] No, they talked about what we were going to do. Not what the government involvement, because they were indicating to us that we were going to be doing it and there was no counterpart from the government. We were under the office of the provincial commercial officer. We were the second in charge and we were in charge because we're going to run the Ford Foundation small industries credit loans. So when we were training, we were trained towards that objective. And then, you know, 1966, Nigeria was in a bit of a problem.

[Assistant] Yes.

[User] They just had their second coup at the end of July. And our instructor was sent back to Nigeria to find work for us so that we would have something to do when we got there. So they now appointed me to be the instructor. So I was an instructor and trainee for the second half of our program.

[Assistant] Had the other trainees had a background similar to yours, had they been to university and studied business?


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

[User] No, they talked about what we were going to do. Not what the government involvement, because they were indicating to us that we were going to be doing it and there was no counterpart from the government. We were under the office of the provincial commercial officer. We were the second in charge and we were in charge because we're going to run the Ford Foundation small industries credit loans. So when we were training, we were trained towards that objective. And then, you know, 1966, Nigeria was in a bit of a problem.

[Assistant] Yes.

[User] They just had their second coup at the end of July. And our instructor was sent back to Nigeria to find work for us so that we would have something to do when we got there. So they now appointed me to be the instructor. So I was an instructor and trainee for the second half of our program.

[Assistant] Had the other trainees had a background similar to yours, had they been to university and studied business?

[User] Yeah, they're all grads and I'm sure business grads too. I can remember I could have asked Mike, he just left, but that was basically it. But for some reason they picked me to be the instructor.

[Assistant] And what sorts of things were you teaching your fellow trainees?


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

[User] They just had their second coup at the end of July. And our instructor was sent back to Nigeria to find work for us so that we would have something to do when we got there. So they now appointed me to be the instructor. So I was an instructor and trainee for the second half of our program.

[Assistant] Had the other trainees had a background similar to yours, had they been to university and studied business?

[User] Yeah, they're all grads and I'm sure business grads too. I can remember I could have asked Mike, he just left, but that was basically it. But for some reason they picked me to be the instructor.

[Assistant] And what sorts of things were you teaching your fellow trainees?

[User] Well, I can't really remember. You're talking 50 years ago, and basically it was to make sure you touch all the bases and that you understand what the problems are of the people you're dealing with, not just be dictatorial and telling them what to do, but help them deal with what they had to deal with.

[Assistant] That sounds like wisdom from someone who's older than you were at that time.


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

[User] Yeah, they're all grads and I'm sure business grads too. I can remember I could have asked Mike, he just left, but that was basically it. But for some reason they picked me to be the instructor.

[Assistant] And what sorts of things were you teaching your fellow trainees?

[User] Well, I can't really remember. You're talking 50 years ago, and basically it was to make sure you touch all the bases and that you understand what the problems are of the people you're dealing with, not just be dictatorial and telling them what to do, but help them deal with what they had to deal with.

[Assistant] That sounds like wisdom from someone who's older than you were at that time.

[User] Well, I've never been dumb.

[Assistant] That's pretty profound.


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

[User] Well, I've never been dumb.

[Assistant] That's pretty profound.

[User] But I was high risk, high gain, so they did not send me with the rest of the group. The rest of the group left on the 6th of December and I left on the 13th with Pan Am. They had chartered a jet for them, but I went on my own.

[Assistant] Why?

[User] Because they couldn't decide if they're going to send me to Nigeria because I was a high risk, high gain candidate, but I got there.

[Assistant] What did they what do you think they thought was risky about you?


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

[User] Oh, yes. Oh, I remember the three, I remember the third guy. He was the one who was questioned my motivation. I said, why are you questioning my motivation? He says, because you don't wake up in the morning. I said, I know that's the way I am. It's got nothing to do with motivation. I said I grew up in a house with seven kids. They all had to wake me up. I'm in a dorm now with 25 other guys. There's at least 20 alarms going off between 6:00 and 6:30. I don't hear one of them. If you don't believe me, come there tomorrow morning and see. But I am more motivated than you are. I want to go to Nigeria. Don't question my head, not wake up in the morning as a gauge for my motivation. So I got him too.

[Assistant] I think a lot of the subtle psychological interviews which we didn't ask for, have been one of several tools for deselecting people.

[User] Yeah. You know, surprisingly, there are some university graduates who are very naive and unsocial. They find it difficult to relate inside of groups and some people were deselected because they couldn't meld in with their particular group. So we had no objection to most of the deselections. Not that we had a voice, but we could see why people who were deselected were deselected.

[Assistant] Yeah. Were you asked to evaluate your peers?

[User] I probably think so, but I can't remember specifically being asked to do so. Yeah, it sounds like something they were doing. Because they had all the psychological aspects to it. I don't know if I should give you the WBSI story or not because you're ladies but.

[Assistant] Oh, go ahead.


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

[User] First one in five or six years. It’s a new Science and Exploration Building.

[Assistant] And very green.

[User] And very green. It’s going to be the greenest building in Goddard. We’re a very green center. I’m very proud of this. Half of the natural gas we burn here is actually produced by trash, garbage.\n\n We made a contract many, many years ago with a local dump. [Laughs] They stopped dumping in the dump, and they covered it up, and we hooked gas lines into it. Of course, dumps, when they decay put out methane, which, the last time I checked, is natural gas, which a gas furnace loves to burn. So half of the natural gas we burn here is basically free, and it’s produced by decaying trash. So we’re very proud of that.\n\n We had to cut through a forest to build a new road here. We planted two trees for every one we took down. We do as much as we can. We don’t use fertilizer here. The grass grows or it doesn’t grow; it depends on whomever controls those things. So we’re pretty proud of our environmental effort here at Goddard.

[Assistant] One of the recent trees planted, you had a little help from the Queen of England [Elizabeth II].

[User] The Queen, yes.

[Assistant] It would be remiss of us to talk about your history here without mentioning the visit from the Queen of England.


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

[User] It was.

[Assistant] How much time had you spent with Al Shepard?

[User] We spent a lot of time in the spacecraft doing tests, and making inputs to it changing things, so we were deeply involved with the design. Gus, before we ever got there, he went up, they called it the Gusmobile. He spent, it was nearly full-time. It was a lot like a fighter plane.

[Assistant] Can you explain that? What do you mean that it was a lot like a fighter plane?

[User] It was small, like a [Lockheed F-]104 [Starfighter], but all the switches and things, it was just like a regular airplane. The Soviets, after we got working with them, we could fly the whole thing from the ground. They had backups where they could do manual and all this, but the ground couldn’t do anything in Gemini. All they could do is update the computer for navigation, that’s all. Same way in Apollo. We flew the Apollo. The computer, the ground could update the computer for navigation, that’s it.

[Assistant] Was that because of the way Gus wanted the spacecraft to be designed? He wanted to fly it?


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

[User] We spent a lot of time in the spacecraft doing tests, and making inputs to it changing things, so we were deeply involved with the design. Gus, before we ever got there, he went up, they called it the Gusmobile. He spent, it was nearly full-time. It was a lot like a fighter plane.

[Assistant] Can you explain that? What do you mean that it was a lot like a fighter plane?

[User] It was small, like a [Lockheed F-]104 [Starfighter], but all the switches and things, it was just like a regular airplane. The Soviets, after we got working with them, we could fly the whole thing from the ground. They had backups where they could do manual and all this, but the ground couldn’t do anything in Gemini. All they could do is update the computer for navigation, that’s all. Same way in Apollo. We flew the Apollo. The computer, the ground could update the computer for navigation, that’s it.

[Assistant] Was that because of the way Gus wanted the spacecraft to be designed? He wanted to fly it?

[User] It would be like an airplane. We were all test pilots. Without the crew there, it couldn’t fly.

[Assistant] What was your involvement? I understand you were working on range safety and communications and instrumentation. What was your focus?


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

[User] It was small, like a [Lockheed F-]104 [Starfighter], but all the switches and things, it was just like a regular airplane. The Soviets, after we got working with them, we could fly the whole thing from the ground. They had backups where they could do manual and all this, but the ground couldn’t do anything in Gemini. All they could do is update the computer for navigation, that’s all. Same way in Apollo. We flew the Apollo. The computer, the ground could update the computer for navigation, that’s it.

[Assistant] Was that because of the way Gus wanted the spacecraft to be designed? He wanted to fly it?

[User] It would be like an airplane. We were all test pilots. Without the crew there, it couldn’t fly.

[Assistant] What was your involvement? I understand you were working on range safety and communications and instrumentation. What was your focus?

[User] Every one of my group, and it carried on through other ones, Deke Slayton would assign us to certain things, like John Young had pressure suits. [James A.] McDivitt had guidance and control. I had range safety, instrumentation, communications. I interfaced a lot with the Cape [Canaveral, Florida], and the communications, how that would work, and the various instrumentation modes, telemetry.

[Assistant] Did you find that that was helpful when you eventually flew on Gemini?


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

[User] It would be like an airplane. We were all test pilots. Without the crew there, it couldn’t fly.

[Assistant] What was your involvement? I understand you were working on range safety and communications and instrumentation. What was your focus?

[User] Every one of my group, and it carried on through other ones, Deke Slayton would assign us to certain things, like John Young had pressure suits. [James A.] McDivitt had guidance and control. I had range safety, instrumentation, communications. I interfaced a lot with the Cape [Canaveral, Florida], and the communications, how that would work, and the various instrumentation modes, telemetry.

[Assistant] Did you find that that was helpful when you eventually flew on Gemini?

[User] Oh, sure.

[Assistant] Did it pay off in any way, do you think?


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

[User] Every one of my group, and it carried on through other ones, Deke Slayton would assign us to certain things, like John Young had pressure suits. [James A.] McDivitt had guidance and control. I had range safety, instrumentation, communications. I interfaced a lot with the Cape [Canaveral, Florida], and the communications, how that would work, and the various instrumentation modes, telemetry.

[Assistant] Did you find that that was helpful when you eventually flew on Gemini?

[User] Oh, sure.

[Assistant] Did it pay off in any way, do you think?

[User] I don’t think I had any emergency where I had to use it, but it was a good background, because it interfaced with all the other systems too.

[Assistant] I understand from your book that the commanders got to pick their crewmates.


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

[User] Oh, sure.

[Assistant] Did it pay off in any way, do you think?

[User] I don’t think I had any emergency where I had to use it, but it was a good background, because it interfaced with all the other systems too.

[Assistant] I understand from your book that the commanders got to pick their crewmates.

[User] Pretty much so.

[Assistant] You were pretty close with Alan Shepard, since you were picked for that first mission?


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

[User] I don’t think I had any emergency where I had to use it, but it was a good background, because it interfaced with all the other systems too.

[Assistant] I understand from your book that the commanders got to pick their crewmates.

[User] Pretty much so.

[Assistant] You were pretty close with Alan Shepard, since you were picked for that first mission?

[User] Real close. Yes.

[Assistant] Would you talk about your relationship with him and how much time you had spent with him before you were selected?


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

[User] Pretty much so.

[Assistant] You were pretty close with Alan Shepard, since you were picked for that first mission?

[User] Real close. Yes.

[Assistant] Would you talk about your relationship with him and how much time you had spent with him before you were selected?

[User] I didn’t spend a lot of time with him, because we were busy going through systems training and all this. Our personalities, we hit it off good together. Both Naval Academy grads. Our personalities were very compatible.

[Assistant] What about Wally Schirra, when you went to work with him? How was that similar or different for you?


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

[User] Real close. Yes.

[Assistant] Would you talk about your relationship with him and how much time you had spent with him before you were selected?

[User] I didn’t spend a lot of time with him, because we were busy going through systems training and all this. Our personalities, we hit it off good together. Both Naval Academy grads. Our personalities were very compatible.

[Assistant] What about Wally Schirra, when you went to work with him? How was that similar or different for you?

[User] Wally was a real joker. I take myself too serious, Wally was really fun. Everything that Wally—he can think up jokes like that [snapping fingers]. So it was a good balance.

[Assistant] You mentioned that you spent a lot of time in Saint Louis, not much time here in Houston.


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

[User] I didn’t spend a lot of time with him, because we were busy going through systems training and all this. Our personalities, we hit it off good together. Both Naval Academy grads. Our personalities were very compatible.

[Assistant] What about Wally Schirra, when you went to work with him? How was that similar or different for you?

[User] Wally was a real joker. I take myself too serious, Wally was really fun. Everything that Wally—he can think up jokes like that [snapping fingers]. So it was a good balance.

[Assistant] You mentioned that you spent a lot of time in Saint Louis, not much time here in Houston.

[User] That was up until we shipped the Gemini III spacecraft to the Cape. After that, the only real rendezvous simulator was a mock-up, a hybrid that they had in the basement of McDonnell Aircraft. We’d work that till two and three o’clock in the morning. See, you had a radar, you had a guidance, and you had the computer. If everything worked fine, you could just follow the maneuvers it would tell you. The ground would call up maneuvers too. But what happens if you lose your radar? What happens if you lose your platform? What happens if you lose the computer? We worked up all these procedures, and that’s where I really got deeply into it.

[Assistant] I found that interesting in the book, because today, astronauts have trainers and they have people who write up checklists and cue cards, but it sounded as if you were writing the procedures.


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

[User] Wally was a real joker. I take myself too serious, Wally was really fun. Everything that Wally—he can think up jokes like that [snapping fingers]. So it was a good balance.

[Assistant] You mentioned that you spent a lot of time in Saint Louis, not much time here in Houston.

[User] That was up until we shipped the Gemini III spacecraft to the Cape. After that, the only real rendezvous simulator was a mock-up, a hybrid that they had in the basement of McDonnell Aircraft. We’d work that till two and three o’clock in the morning. See, you had a radar, you had a guidance, and you had the computer. If everything worked fine, you could just follow the maneuvers it would tell you. The ground would call up maneuvers too. But what happens if you lose your radar? What happens if you lose your platform? What happens if you lose the computer? We worked up all these procedures, and that’s where I really got deeply into it.

[Assistant] I found that interesting in the book, because today, astronauts have trainers and they have people who write up checklists and cue cards, but it sounded as if you were writing the procedures.

[User] We were writing the checklist as we went. See, things have gotten rather sophisticated now, the computers. Our computer, the only one that had a full readout was on the right side. Like the orbital velocity, you’d hit it, it would come up like a slot machine, pa-ting, pa ting, pa-ting, pa-ting, pa-ting, pa-ting. It wasn’t a big readout like now. The commander had three-digit things for X, Y, and Z for velocity change. He had to maneuver. But I wanted to have a chance to be able to fly it too, with a center stick. So I got them to put in a maneuver controller on the right side. Did you hear about the Stafford bump?

[Assistant] I did, but tell us about it.


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

[User] Yes.

[Assistant] Did you finally migrate into something beyond the cardboard and plywood that you had?

[User] Well, yes. We finally got it going better and better and better. It wasn’t a real star field, it was just symbolic stars. But it got better and better and better.

[Assistant] Did you have to convince Deke Slayton or Bob Gilruth that you needed something more high-fidelity than what you had? Did they come over and watch you in these simulations?

[User] Well, we’d talk to Deke, and of course simulators were under Flight Crew Operations. Those people, we’d tell them. Riley [D.] McCafferty was the Chief Training Officer, and we’d tell him, and they were working on it, they knew the shortfall.

[Assistant] Would you talk about launch for Gemini VI, that first attempt?


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

[User] Oh, yes. That’s all those charts we had. The charts, and we didn’t have the computer. We had the range and the inertial platform. The toughest thing was—or if we had to—was losing a platform, that was a bear. If we lost the radar, and we could angle-track, we could do it. The easiest thing is just losing the computer, because we had radar and we had the angles. The next one down is if we lost the radar. Losing the computer was the easiest, because we still had the radar to tell you how far you were out, and the rate you were going, and then you could angle. When you got within about 70 miles, you could see it, because you always—except if you go in the complete nighttime. They had a flashing strobe on it too, you could see that from about 20 miles out. The worst thing is if you lose that platform, because then your reference, exactly what degree do you make the angle of thrust. We worked all these out in the charts.

[Assistant] It’s amazing.

[User] It’s what they still use today, exactly, except they didn’t do it now for the [International] Space Station. They do a phantom rendezvous, come up and do a phantom rendezvous, like, here’s your Space Station, with your solar panels. Say it’s going this way. They come up and you do a rendezvous about three miles behind to a phantom point, and stop. Here’s the Space Station. Then, you just push a down vector so many feet, a few feet per second. If you didn’t do anything relative, you’d do this type of thing. You come ride her from below. All you got to do is thrust down, at very low brake, see. We started braking 25 feet, see, as the target is going like this, you’re braking in a posigrade manner. The vector is going this way, so you’re braking. You’re still inertially aligned with the stars.

[Assistant] You make it sound easy.

[User] We did a lot of work on it.

[Assistant] It sounds like it.


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

[User] It’s what they still use today, exactly, except they didn’t do it now for the [International] Space Station. They do a phantom rendezvous, come up and do a phantom rendezvous, like, here’s your Space Station, with your solar panels. Say it’s going this way. They come up and you do a rendezvous about three miles behind to a phantom point, and stop. Here’s the Space Station. Then, you just push a down vector so many feet, a few feet per second. If you didn’t do anything relative, you’d do this type of thing. You come ride her from below. All you got to do is thrust down, at very low brake, see. We started braking 25 feet, see, as the target is going like this, you’re braking in a posigrade manner. The vector is going this way, so you’re braking. You’re still inertially aligned with the stars.

[Assistant] You make it sound easy.

[User] We did a lot of work on it.

[Assistant] It sounds like it.

[User] Everybody still uses the same thing, I hear. Then only they just use, it’s called a phantom rendezvous, and it would go around.

[Assistant] It’s amazing. You had mentioned something in the books that I thought was interesting, is there was always an astronaut at liftoff for Gemini in the blockhouse called Stony.


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

[User] We did a lot of work on it.

[Assistant] It sounds like it.

[User] Everybody still uses the same thing, I hear. Then only they just use, it’s called a phantom rendezvous, and it would go around.

[Assistant] It’s amazing. You had mentioned something in the books that I thought was interesting, is there was always an astronaut at liftoff for Gemini in the blockhouse called Stony.

[User] Oh, yes, yes, yes, yes.

[Assistant] You had to say, “Liftoff.”


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

[User] Everybody still uses the same thing, I hear. Then only they just use, it’s called a phantom rendezvous, and it would go around.

[Assistant] It’s amazing. You had mentioned something in the books that I thought was interesting, is there was always an astronaut at liftoff for Gemini in the blockhouse called Stony.

[User] Oh, yes, yes, yes, yes.

[Assistant] You had to say, “Liftoff.”

[User] He’s the only one who could call, “Liftoff.”

[Assistant] Why is that? Why was that important?


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

[User] Oh, yes, yes, yes, yes.

[Assistant] You had to say, “Liftoff.”

[User] He’s the only one who could call, “Liftoff.”

[Assistant] Why is that? Why was that important?

[User] We had a TV camera aimed at the base of the booster, and only he was the one who could call, “Liftoff,” when he saw first motion. Agena vehicle blew up, we put the transponder on VII, launched that. We were to go nine days later. Wally and I were all set to go. Also, he said if the clock starts, boom, the clock starts and the computer goes, it means that disconnect plug on the base is pulled out, and you have lifted off, you got to eject. We got T minus three seconds, started to shake, rattle, three, two, one, zip, it shut out and zero. The clock started, computer started.\n\n It was Wally’s responsibility to pull the ejection seat, my responsibility to back him up. We didn’t do a thing. We had lots of simulations of hold kills, but none exactly like that. But we knew in the seat of our pants that we hadn’t lifted off. We also didn’t know about 100 percent oxygen, we were about 16 psi [pounds per square inch]. We had been soaking like that for two hours. Shoot, if we’d fired that, bang, pyrotechnics, open the hatches and snub them, fire the rockets, boy, you’d see two Roman candles going up. But three, two, one, and Al [Alan L.] Bean was our CapCom. There wasn’t a word said, and that’s exactly the right thing to do is don’t say a thing. Bean didn’t say a thing.

[Assistant] I’m not sure, though, why it was important to have someone there to say that you had lifted off the pad. Was it just so then you would know you had to eject? Was that the whole purpose behind that person? I know you served in that role yourself.


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

[User] No, it was just another positive indication that you had lifted off. They said you’re supposed to have 50 pounds’ pull, some wire you break like that. The high speed camera showed, and it started going, and this plug just fell out. That, in a way, helped save our lives too. And here’s the thrust chamber pressure building up. Then when that plug fell out, just to stop things before it shot out, and here, there’s two engines on Gemini. Here’s one, and here’s the second one. They noticed the second one did that. Why didn’t this one do that? Then they found in the gas generator, every engine has—pump your fuel and oxidizer and you start with a pyro charge, then it takes fuel and oxidizer into it, burns that.\n\n Well, they all had it covered with dust caps, the hose, everything, keep everything clean. In installing it, in the gas generator on the engine, you’re supposed to hook up the fuel and the oxygen, take those things off. Some technician—you’re supposed to have a buddy system. I forgot what happened to him, whether they filed charges against him or what, but here was a cap. He just screwed the fuel line right in on top of it. The pyro spun on this engine. It built up, and then there was no fuel flowing into it. Down it came. We went out, found the problem, worked on it, fixed it. Three days later, we lifted off, finally.

[Assistant] Yes. What did you guys do for those three days at the Cape?

[User] We’d go to the simulator.

[Assistant] Just more work?

[User] Have a drink, work out. I designed the gym. The astronaut gym at the Cape, I designed that.

[Assistant] Oh, did you? I didn’t know that.


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

[User] We’d go to the simulator.

[Assistant] Just more work?

[User] Have a drink, work out. I designed the gym. The astronaut gym at the Cape, I designed that.

[Assistant] Oh, did you? I didn’t know that.

[User] Yes, in the O&C [Operations and Checkout] Building, when it was built, in the astronaut quarters, I liked this health club that this person let us—we were kind of rock stars around here then. He invited us down to work out at his gym free downtown. It was a posh gym. So I designed a little gym up there around his.

[Assistant] What are your memories of the actual launch of Gemini VI-A?


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

[User] Yes, that was the name of the manager at the Rice Hotel. I walked in, I had security with me. I had gone to Harvard, and I stopped off in Wright-Patterson [Air Force Base, Ohio], saw Ed White, who had been a student. He was at [United States Military Academy at] West Point the same year I graduated the Naval Academy. Saw him at Wright-Pat and then went to Boston for a while. Three days, turned around and stopped at Wright-Patterson, saw him again on the way back. No, wait a minute, did I see him? Yes, I did too, because I flew down to Houston and back, and then of course it was announced, and I saw him on the way back.

[Assistant] How did that influence the Astronaut Office, having been friends, or an instructor-student relationship with some of those guys, when you got down here?

[User] I had Charlie Bassett, Ted Freeman were students of mine. Jim [James A.] Lovell was a classmate of mine from the Naval Academy. Pete Conrad was a good friend, I met him because he was head of the Performance Section of the Navy Test Pilot School. I was head of the Performance Section of the Air Force Test Pilot School. I used to go back there and I’d fly Navy planes, and he’d come out to Edwards [Air Force Base, California] and we’d talk back and forth about the manuals we’d write, and all of this. I knew Conrad before. I knew Jim Lovell real well, John Young had been with me on the battleship Missouri. Pete Conrad. Neil [A.] Armstrong I’d met, but didn’t really know him. Let’s see, McDivitt was a student of mine, and Borman was a student of mine even though he’s a couple of years older. So one, two, three, four, five—we had nine people. Elliot [M.] See I didn’t know. Who did I miss out of my group?

[Assistant] Did you count yourself?

[User] Oh, no. That makes nine.

[Assistant] Did you know him very well?


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

[User] I had Charlie Bassett, Ted Freeman were students of mine. Jim [James A.] Lovell was a classmate of mine from the Naval Academy. Pete Conrad was a good friend, I met him because he was head of the Performance Section of the Navy Test Pilot School. I was head of the Performance Section of the Air Force Test Pilot School. I used to go back there and I’d fly Navy planes, and he’d come out to Edwards [Air Force Base, California] and we’d talk back and forth about the manuals we’d write, and all of this. I knew Conrad before. I knew Jim Lovell real well, John Young had been with me on the battleship Missouri. Pete Conrad. Neil [A.] Armstrong I’d met, but didn’t really know him. Let’s see, McDivitt was a student of mine, and Borman was a student of mine even though he’s a couple of years older. So one, two, three, four, five—we had nine people. Elliot [M.] See I didn’t know. Who did I miss out of my group?

[Assistant] Did you count yourself?

[User] Oh, no. That makes nine.

[Assistant] Did you know him very well?

[User] Yes.

[Assistant] Deke called you about all of those guys then, I take it, and asked you what you thought of those guys? No? He didn’t call you for recommendations?


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

[User] Yes.

[Assistant] Deke called you about all of those guys then, I take it, and asked you what you thought of those guys? No? He didn’t call you for recommendations?

[User] For a reference?

[Assistant] Yes.

[User] No. When we saw each other, we knew we were in the finals, because we had a big group. I don’t remember who else were in the finals, but they had more than nine in the finals that met down in Houston. We weren’t all together at the same time, we’d get different batches to come.

[Assistant] It made it pretty easy when you got here to Houston, you all had some sort of—not all, but most of you had some sort of relationship before then, so it was pretty easy to work together?


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

[User] For a reference?

[Assistant] Yes.

[User] No. When we saw each other, we knew we were in the finals, because we had a big group. I don’t remember who else were in the finals, but they had more than nine in the finals that met down in Houston. We weren’t all together at the same time, we’d get different batches to come.

[Assistant] It made it pretty easy when you got here to Houston, you all had some sort of—not all, but most of you had some sort of relationship before then, so it was pretty easy to work together?

[User] Yes, I knew McDivitt, I knew Borman as students. I knew John Young from the battleship Missouri, I had seen him before. Pete Conrad, Jim Lovell. See I didn’t know. Neil I had met, but didn’t know him well.

[Assistant] There was a lot of camaraderie there, before you even got here.


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

[User] No. When we saw each other, we knew we were in the finals, because we had a big group. I don’t remember who else were in the finals, but they had more than nine in the finals that met down in Houston. We weren’t all together at the same time, we’d get different batches to come.

[Assistant] It made it pretty easy when you got here to Houston, you all had some sort of—not all, but most of you had some sort of relationship before then, so it was pretty easy to work together?

[User] Yes, I knew McDivitt, I knew Borman as students. I knew John Young from the battleship Missouri, I had seen him before. Pete Conrad, Jim Lovell. See I didn’t know. Neil I had met, but didn’t know him well.

[Assistant] There was a lot of camaraderie there, before you even got here.

[User] Yes.

[Assistant] Was there a lot of competition between all of you for flights?


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

[User] Yes, I knew McDivitt, I knew Borman as students. I knew John Young from the battleship Missouri, I had seen him before. Pete Conrad, Jim Lovell. See I didn’t know. Neil I had met, but didn’t know him well.

[Assistant] There was a lot of camaraderie there, before you even got here.

[User] Yes.

[Assistant] Was there a lot of competition between all of you for flights?

[User] Of course.

[Assistant] Would you talk about that?


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

[User] Yes.

[Assistant] Was there a lot of competition between all of you for flights?

[User] Of course.

[Assistant] Would you talk about that?

[User] No. We didn’t talk among ourselves, just everybody worked hard. Deke and Al made a decision.

[Assistant] Would you talk about Deke’s leadership in the office, and how he helped to shape that office?


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

[User] Of course.

[Assistant] Would you talk about that?

[User] No. We didn’t talk among ourselves, just everybody worked hard. Deke and Al made a decision.

[Assistant] Would you talk about Deke’s leadership in the office, and how he helped to shape that office?

[User] Oh, yes, Deke was tremendous. Had great integrity.

[Assistant] Did you guys ever play any pranks on Deke Slayton?


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

[User] No. We didn’t talk among ourselves, just everybody worked hard. Deke and Al made a decision.

[Assistant] Would you talk about Deke’s leadership in the office, and how he helped to shape that office?

[User] Oh, yes, Deke was tremendous. Had great integrity.

[Assistant] Did you guys ever play any pranks on Deke Slayton?

[User] I don’t think so. We played—well, first, we played pranks on each other—I don’t think we were—the occasion didn’t come up. I can’t think of any. Maybe we did. I know the original seven played around a lot. Shepard and Schirra and Gordo [Gordon Cooper] were always pulling something off. Our group didn’t mess around.

[Assistant] You were a more serious bunch?


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

[User] I don’t think so. We played—well, first, we played pranks on each other—I don’t think we were—the occasion didn’t come up. I can’t think of any. Maybe we did. I know the original seven played around a lot. Shepard and Schirra and Gordo [Gordon Cooper] were always pulling something off. Our group didn’t mess around.

[Assistant] You were a more serious bunch?

[User] The original seven, they were very friendly to us. Gordo Cooper, particularly since we were both from Oklahoma.\n\n [pause in recording]\n\n On that EVA [Extravehicular Activity], as soon as Leonov did that, we had to react. It was really amazing the way our program drove their program. Do you know, I could talk a lot, and while I was to do the first EVA, we had to respond, so real fast, they kludged up this umbilical, a squirt gun, and this chest pack for Ed White. Ed nearly got killed coming back in. His heart rate went to 220. His suit ballooned, but see, it ballooned this way, besides this way. He couldn’t get the hatch closed. He finally got it closed. I think Ed was out 22 minutes, Alexey was out 12 minutes.\n\n The next one coming up was going to be Gemini VIII, but they had a roll thruster, that was a close one. Have you talked to [David R.] Scott?

[Assistant] No.

[User] Did you ever talk to Neil [Armstrong]?

[Assistant] Yes. We did get to talk to him.


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

[User] The original seven, they were very friendly to us. Gordo Cooper, particularly since we were both from Oklahoma.\n\n [pause in recording]\n\n On that EVA [Extravehicular Activity], as soon as Leonov did that, we had to react. It was really amazing the way our program drove their program. Do you know, I could talk a lot, and while I was to do the first EVA, we had to respond, so real fast, they kludged up this umbilical, a squirt gun, and this chest pack for Ed White. Ed nearly got killed coming back in. His heart rate went to 220. His suit ballooned, but see, it ballooned this way, besides this way. He couldn’t get the hatch closed. He finally got it closed. I think Ed was out 22 minutes, Alexey was out 12 minutes.\n\n The next one coming up was going to be Gemini VIII, but they had a roll thruster, that was a close one. Have you talked to [David R.] Scott?

[Assistant] No.

[User] Did you ever talk to Neil [Armstrong]?

[Assistant] Yes. We did get to talk to him.

[User] Good, because that was a close one. We had two close calls in Gemini. That shutdown on Gemini VI, and then the spin-up on Gemini VIII. Scott was fairly tall too. They came up with an invention after Gemini IV, very simple. It was an aluminum I-beam about this long you would hook to the hatch, then here you had a steel cable you hooked over here. The commander could take it and do this over the center, so it was a crunch. That’s what got [Eugene A.] Cernan in. The hatch was about that far, he couldn’t get the hatch closed, where he could ratchet it on. Thank God we came up with that device. Then it was after Gemini IX, we started thinking, well, how can we be better simulate walking and working in space.

[Assistant] That was a pretty bad spacewalk that you had on your mission.


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

[User] Did you ever talk to Neil [Armstrong]?

[Assistant] Yes. We did get to talk to him.

[User] Good, because that was a close one. We had two close calls in Gemini. That shutdown on Gemini VI, and then the spin-up on Gemini VIII. Scott was fairly tall too. They came up with an invention after Gemini IV, very simple. It was an aluminum I-beam about this long you would hook to the hatch, then here you had a steel cable you hooked over here. The commander could take it and do this over the center, so it was a crunch. That’s what got [Eugene A.] Cernan in. The hatch was about that far, he couldn’t get the hatch closed, where he could ratchet it on. Thank God we came up with that device. Then it was after Gemini IX, we started thinking, well, how can we be better simulate walking and working in space.

[Assistant] That was a pretty bad spacewalk that you had on your mission.

[User] Have you read Cernan’s book?

[Assistant] Yes. I did read about Cernan. It still makes my toes tingle.


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

[User] Good, because that was a close one. We had two close calls in Gemini. That shutdown on Gemini VI, and then the spin-up on Gemini VIII. Scott was fairly tall too. They came up with an invention after Gemini IV, very simple. It was an aluminum I-beam about this long you would hook to the hatch, then here you had a steel cable you hooked over here. The commander could take it and do this over the center, so it was a crunch. That’s what got [Eugene A.] Cernan in. The hatch was about that far, he couldn’t get the hatch closed, where he could ratchet it on. Thank God we came up with that device. Then it was after Gemini IX, we started thinking, well, how can we be better simulate walking and working in space.

[Assistant] That was a pretty bad spacewalk that you had on your mission.

[User] Have you read Cernan’s book?

[Assistant] Yes. I did read about Cernan. It still makes my toes tingle.

[User] You’ve talked to him?

[Assistant] Yes, we have.


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

[User] Have you read Cernan’s book?

[Assistant] Yes. I did read about Cernan. It still makes my toes tingle.

[User] You’ve talked to him?

[Assistant] Yes, we have.

[User] Good.

[Assistant] That conversation you recorded with Deke in your book about what was going to happen if something happened to Gene on orbit, were you thinking about that when he was out there struggling so much?


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

[User] You’ve talked to him?

[Assistant] Yes, we have.

[User] Good.

[Assistant] That conversation you recorded with Deke in your book about what was going to happen if something happened to Gene on orbit, were you thinking about that when he was out there struggling so much?

[User] What it is, you focus on the job at hand.

[Assistant] It was good to be home after that one, wasn’t it?


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

[User] Good.

[Assistant] That conversation you recorded with Deke in your book about what was going to happen if something happened to Gene on orbit, were you thinking about that when he was out there struggling so much?

[User] What it is, you focus on the job at hand.

[Assistant] It was good to be home after that one, wasn’t it?

[User] Oh, will either one forget that spacewalk? It was—Jesus. We were so naive, we didn’t even think about putting defog on the visor, like you do when you go snorkeling or scuba diving. He had his old chest pack, I could tell he was—Gemini was a real—it weighed about 25 pounds a suit. When it was inflated, it was rigid, you have to put it out like this, boom. You had to expend a lot of work. Where Apollo weighed 55 pounds, you move your arm and it stayed there.\n\n That was a real tragedy when we lost Elliot. I think Elliot was—he had never flown in weather a lot. I guess I’d never flown with him much, I flew with Conrad—great pilot. But I flew with Wally a lot. Young and I—see, backup [crew] couldn’t fly with the prime [crew]. I flew with Ed White a few times. But See was kind of—I think of all the pilots, Deke rated him—he had been at Edwards for years. He hadn’t been in a cloud [weather]. He was 60 knots too fast on the final approach. That’s why he missed the runway. Then he tried to stay underneath it. Now, Charlie Bassett was an outstanding pilot. He was the second one in his group to be chosen to fly. I think psychologically, he didn’t want to tell his commander, “Hey, get the speed down and knock it off, and try to stay in the clouds and bend it around like that.”

[Assistant] What impact did the loss of those crewmen have on the astronaut corps? Or were you all just accustomed to seeing people lose their lives?


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

[User] So anyway, I just thought they were pictures that I’ve always liked so much.

[Assistant] I have a couple of quick questions that I just wanted to ask you. Are you still talking photos today?

[User] Only with my point-and-shoot. [Laughs]

[Assistant] I was going to ask you what type of camera are you using?

[User] I have a nice Nikon, but you have to do some figuring when you use it, because it’s not totally automatic, and you have to get your f-stop and your speed. I used it for a long time, and after I got a point-and-shoot, and the quality of that little thing is so good, that years went by and the Nikon’s just been sitting there and sitting there. Now, I will take it out when I want to take something special like indirect lighting, that gives you the best picture. If I was taking a picture of you, the best picture I could take would be point the light to the ceiling and then that gives good, or better, face quality. The light all spreads and it doesn’t burn up any one point or nothing. So sometimes when I want to take a good picture, I will get the Nikon out, but I’ve gotten spoiled.\n\n Now, after I retired, I did try to take pictures, pretty scenery pictures. Now when I go traveling, and we’ve been to Europe several times since I retired, I take both my camcorder and my still point and shoot camera, and I do take good travel pictures, but that’s about it.

[Assistant] Have you gotten interested in digital at all or that technology?


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

[User] Only with my point-and-shoot. [Laughs]

[Assistant] I was going to ask you what type of camera are you using?

[User] I have a nice Nikon, but you have to do some figuring when you use it, because it’s not totally automatic, and you have to get your f-stop and your speed. I used it for a long time, and after I got a point-and-shoot, and the quality of that little thing is so good, that years went by and the Nikon’s just been sitting there and sitting there. Now, I will take it out when I want to take something special like indirect lighting, that gives you the best picture. If I was taking a picture of you, the best picture I could take would be point the light to the ceiling and then that gives good, or better, face quality. The light all spreads and it doesn’t burn up any one point or nothing. So sometimes when I want to take a good picture, I will get the Nikon out, but I’ve gotten spoiled.\n\n Now, after I retired, I did try to take pictures, pretty scenery pictures. Now when I go traveling, and we’ve been to Europe several times since I retired, I take both my camcorder and my still point and shoot camera, and I do take good travel pictures, but that’s about it.

[Assistant] Have you gotten interested in digital at all or that technology?

[User] No. I had to make a big decision on it and I said no. I may change my mind, but I don’t think so, because I don’t really have enough reason to do it. I don’t have enough pictures to take. I have nobody but my wife and I. Well, I have my little grandson and I just take still pictures of his birthday and Christmas and stuff like that. But I don’t have enough reason for digital. I really don’t take enough pictures to justify getting one.

[Assistant] I read in your memoirs that you took the first official portraits of the first seven astronauts.


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

[User] I have a nice Nikon, but you have to do some figuring when you use it, because it’s not totally automatic, and you have to get your f-stop and your speed. I used it for a long time, and after I got a point-and-shoot, and the quality of that little thing is so good, that years went by and the Nikon’s just been sitting there and sitting there. Now, I will take it out when I want to take something special like indirect lighting, that gives you the best picture. If I was taking a picture of you, the best picture I could take would be point the light to the ceiling and then that gives good, or better, face quality. The light all spreads and it doesn’t burn up any one point or nothing. So sometimes when I want to take a good picture, I will get the Nikon out, but I’ve gotten spoiled.\n\n Now, after I retired, I did try to take pictures, pretty scenery pictures. Now when I go traveling, and we’ve been to Europe several times since I retired, I take both my camcorder and my still point and shoot camera, and I do take good travel pictures, but that’s about it.

[Assistant] Have you gotten interested in digital at all or that technology?

[User] No. I had to make a big decision on it and I said no. I may change my mind, but I don’t think so, because I don’t really have enough reason to do it. I don’t have enough pictures to take. I have nobody but my wife and I. Well, I have my little grandson and I just take still pictures of his birthday and Christmas and stuff like that. But I don’t have enough reason for digital. I really don’t take enough pictures to justify getting one.

[Assistant] I read in your memoirs that you took the first official portraits of the first seven astronauts.

[User] No.

[Assistant] I thought that’s what it said.


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

[User] Yes. Well, that’s what the idea of the Center of excellence was, because really that was the focus. We wanted to continue to do the fundamental research in a very specialized way, and with that Center being responsible for that discipline, whatever it might be. Then again with the focus on doing the things that we could do better than anybody else. That was the hard part, because no one agreed that what they were doing wasn’t better than everybody, that we weren’t the Center of excellence for the country in that.\n\n As a program would end then we just wouldn’t start another one in that center, if we were trying to get away from it. Again the limiter was the funding. We couldn’t just have everybody get up and move to a new location to make it. That would have been the most efficient way of doing it, so we did it through attrition. I actually don’t know how hard they’re pressing that now or not, but there’s a tendency for the Centers to diversify because they get an opportunity. They’ll get funding or whatever it is. They’ve got the workforce available and that sort of thing.\n\n I hope nothing that I’ve said would be considered derogatory, because I don’t mean to criticize. I’m in awe of NASA and what it can do as an agency and as a team. I wouldn’t be the only one to ever refer to Johnson as the evil empire.

[Assistant] I think I hadn’t heard that before, but we’re from Johnson too.

[User] You haven’t heard that before?

[Assistant] No, I’ve never heard that, no.

[User] Really.

[Assistant] I just have one other question. You’ve talked a lot about civil service and things that were being changed on that side, but would you talk a little bit about privatization and efforts towards moving things into contractor positions?


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

[User] My pleasure. My pleasure.

[Assistant] I'd like to start by just asking how you began your interest in aeronautics.

[User] Probably as a result of [Charles A.] Lindbergh's flight across the ocean and the great interest that everyone had in aeronautics for the few years after that. When I was a young boy, I started building model airplanes and I've been interested in aviation and space all my life.

[Assistant] Did that cause you to go a certain direction with your education?

[User] Yes, it sure did. I wanted to do something in aeronautics and I wanted to be an engineer, so I put the two together and became an aeronautical engineer at the time.

[Assistant] You went to several different universities for postgraduate work.


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

[User] Probably as a result of [Charles A.] Lindbergh's flight across the ocean and the great interest that everyone had in aeronautics for the few years after that. When I was a young boy, I started building model airplanes and I've been interested in aviation and space all my life.

[Assistant] Did that cause you to go a certain direction with your education?

[User] Yes, it sure did. I wanted to do something in aeronautics and I wanted to be an engineer, so I put the two together and became an aeronautical engineer at the time.

[Assistant] You went to several different universities for postgraduate work.

[User] The postgraduate work was mostly in residence at NACA [National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics], Langley Field [Langley Research Center, Hampton, Virginia]. The University of Virginia, Virginia Poly Tech, and the College of William and Mary all offered courses there, which were taught by the research scientists at the Center. That's where most of my graduate work, after the master's degree, most of the graduate work was done there. My master's degree was from the University of Oklahoma.

[Assistant] I noticed you were in the Naval Reserve. With your interest in aeronautics, how did you end up in the Navy?


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

[User] Yes, it sure did. I wanted to do something in aeronautics and I wanted to be an engineer, so I put the two together and became an aeronautical engineer at the time.

[Assistant] You went to several different universities for postgraduate work.

[User] The postgraduate work was mostly in residence at NACA [National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics], Langley Field [Langley Research Center, Hampton, Virginia]. The University of Virginia, Virginia Poly Tech, and the College of William and Mary all offered courses there, which were taught by the research scientists at the Center. That's where most of my graduate work, after the master's degree, most of the graduate work was done there. My master's degree was from the University of Oklahoma.

[Assistant] I noticed you were in the Naval Reserve. With your interest in aeronautics, how did you end up in the Navy?

[User] Well, during the war I was in the Navy, a Naval Reserve officer, and everybody was in one of the armed forces at that time, just about, so I wound up being in the Navy, but I had nothing to do with aeronautics at that time, during that period of time.

[Assistant] How did you end up at Langley Field?


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

[User] The postgraduate work was mostly in residence at NACA [National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics], Langley Field [Langley Research Center, Hampton, Virginia]. The University of Virginia, Virginia Poly Tech, and the College of William and Mary all offered courses there, which were taught by the research scientists at the Center. That's where most of my graduate work, after the master's degree, most of the graduate work was done there. My master's degree was from the University of Oklahoma.

[Assistant] I noticed you were in the Naval Reserve. With your interest in aeronautics, how did you end up in the Navy?

[User] Well, during the war I was in the Navy, a Naval Reserve officer, and everybody was in one of the armed forces at that time, just about, so I wound up being in the Navy, but I had nothing to do with aeronautics at that time, during that period of time.

[Assistant] How did you end up at Langley Field?

[User] It was an interview at the University of Oklahoma as I was getting ready to graduate, they had an interview session, and I went to that. I had read and heard about NACA for a long period of time and so it was kind of the top of the line, as far as I was concerned, and someplace to go where I could further my education as well as do interesting work. So when they offered me a job, it was very easy to accept.

[Assistant] When you got there, what did you do in your first job?


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

[User] Well, during the war I was in the Navy, a Naval Reserve officer, and everybody was in one of the armed forces at that time, just about, so I wound up being in the Navy, but I had nothing to do with aeronautics at that time, during that period of time.

[Assistant] How did you end up at Langley Field?

[User] It was an interview at the University of Oklahoma as I was getting ready to graduate, they had an interview session, and I went to that. I had read and heard about NACA for a long period of time and so it was kind of the top of the line, as far as I was concerned, and someplace to go where I could further my education as well as do interesting work. So when they offered me a job, it was very easy to accept.

[Assistant] When you got there, what did you do in your first job?

[User] First job I had was in a very small group of three engineers, two computers. In those days, computers were usually ladies with a calculator that they punched the keys on. We had two computers and a secretary and we were designing a very large, high-powered supersonic wind tunnel, which was later built and still is running at Langley, as a matter of fact.

[Assistant] Why were you building this wind tunnel?


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

[User] It was an interview at the University of Oklahoma as I was getting ready to graduate, they had an interview session, and I went to that. I had read and heard about NACA for a long period of time and so it was kind of the top of the line, as far as I was concerned, and someplace to go where I could further my education as well as do interesting work. So when they offered me a job, it was very easy to accept.

[Assistant] When you got there, what did you do in your first job?

[User] First job I had was in a very small group of three engineers, two computers. In those days, computers were usually ladies with a calculator that they punched the keys on. We had two computers and a secretary and we were designing a very large, high-powered supersonic wind tunnel, which was later built and still is running at Langley, as a matter of fact.

[Assistant] Why were you building this wind tunnel?

[User] At that time we had not really broken the sound barrier in flight, in free flight, and there was a big push on supersonic aerodynamics to understand how you design vehicles to operate supersonically. This interest was all over the world. Congress passed a bill sponsoring three wind tunnels for NACA, one at Langley, one at Ames [Research Center, Mountain View, California], and one at Lewis [Research Center (now Glenn Research Center, Cleveland, Ohio].\n\n The one I was working on, of course, was the one at Langley. It was a four-foot-square test section that went from Mach number 1.5 to Mach number 5. It had a drive horsepower of 100,000 horsepower [hp], which at that time was a lot of power and we could only run it from midnight to about six in the morning. During the day, other users of electricity used so much that we couldn't get on the line and operate high power.

[Assistant] Did you actually do some work in that tunnel after you helped—


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

[User] First job I had was in a very small group of three engineers, two computers. In those days, computers were usually ladies with a calculator that they punched the keys on. We had two computers and a secretary and we were designing a very large, high-powered supersonic wind tunnel, which was later built and still is running at Langley, as a matter of fact.

[Assistant] Why were you building this wind tunnel?

[User] At that time we had not really broken the sound barrier in flight, in free flight, and there was a big push on supersonic aerodynamics to understand how you design vehicles to operate supersonically. This interest was all over the world. Congress passed a bill sponsoring three wind tunnels for NACA, one at Langley, one at Ames [Research Center, Mountain View, California], and one at Lewis [Research Center (now Glenn Research Center, Cleveland, Ohio].\n\n The one I was working on, of course, was the one at Langley. It was a four-foot-square test section that went from Mach number 1.5 to Mach number 5. It had a drive horsepower of 100,000 horsepower [hp], which at that time was a lot of power and we could only run it from midnight to about six in the morning. During the day, other users of electricity used so much that we couldn't get on the line and operate high power.

[Assistant] Did you actually do some work in that tunnel after you helped—

[User] Yes, I was in charge of the calibration of the tunnel when we initially put it into operation. Then I was a section head of a group of aerodynamacists working on the Century Series fighters that were coming along at that time, and other advanced military programs, as well as the very early workings on the supersonic transport.

[Assistant] After you worked on this wind tunnel, what other projects did you work on at Langley?


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

[User] Yes, I was in charge of the calibration of the tunnel when we initially put it into operation. Then I was a section head of a group of aerodynamacists working on the Century Series fighters that were coming along at that time, and other advanced military programs, as well as the very early workings on the supersonic transport.

[Assistant] After you worked on this wind tunnel, what other projects did you work on at Langley?

[User] I was in the wind tunnel until I transferred over to the Space Task Group [STG] in 1959. I went to work at Langley in 1948. No, it was actually 1960 I transferred to the Space Task Group, which was at that time just starting to think about the Apollo Program. At the time I transferred, John [H.] Glenn [Jr.] had not made the first orbital flight yet. That occurred shortly after I got there. But we were already working on the Apollo Program, thinking about how we could get to the Moon and what was the best way to go at it.

[Assistant] While you were working on the wind tunnel, then Sputnik was launched. What kind of impact did that have on you and the people you worked with at Langley?

[User] Well, we were all very chagrinned, of course, that we weren't the first to get one up. NACA did not really have a real active interest in space up until the Sputnik was launched. We did support work for the military, for the Air Force and Navy both, as well as the Army, but there was very little active activity within NASA itself. Far different than the X Series airplanes when we were trying to first go supersonic, Langley had a very leading role at that time in making the early supersonic flights. The interest in space was much, much less than that.

[Assistant] When the Space Task Group first formed, what did you think about that idea and that direction?


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

[User] I was in the wind tunnel until I transferred over to the Space Task Group [STG] in 1959. I went to work at Langley in 1948. No, it was actually 1960 I transferred to the Space Task Group, which was at that time just starting to think about the Apollo Program. At the time I transferred, John [H.] Glenn [Jr.] had not made the first orbital flight yet. That occurred shortly after I got there. But we were already working on the Apollo Program, thinking about how we could get to the Moon and what was the best way to go at it.

[Assistant] While you were working on the wind tunnel, then Sputnik was launched. What kind of impact did that have on you and the people you worked with at Langley?

[User] Well, we were all very chagrinned, of course, that we weren't the first to get one up. NACA did not really have a real active interest in space up until the Sputnik was launched. We did support work for the military, for the Air Force and Navy both, as well as the Army, but there was very little active activity within NASA itself. Far different than the X Series airplanes when we were trying to first go supersonic, Langley had a very leading role at that time in making the early supersonic flights. The interest in space was much, much less than that.

[Assistant] When the Space Task Group first formed, what did you think about that idea and that direction?

[User] Well, when it was first formed, I thought it probably was just a—for a short period of time it would be a year or two years they would make a flight and then it would be all be over. Of course, it turned out to be a lot more than that. But that was my impression at the time, that it was probably just a transient thing that they formed a special group to go do, and once they did it, then it would probably be disbanded and that would be all of it.

[Assistant] You said in 1960 you joined the Space Task Group.


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

[User] Well, we were all very chagrinned, of course, that we weren't the first to get one up. NACA did not really have a real active interest in space up until the Sputnik was launched. We did support work for the military, for the Air Force and Navy both, as well as the Army, but there was very little active activity within NASA itself. Far different than the X Series airplanes when we were trying to first go supersonic, Langley had a very leading role at that time in making the early supersonic flights. The interest in space was much, much less than that.

[Assistant] When the Space Task Group first formed, what did you think about that idea and that direction?

[User] Well, when it was first formed, I thought it probably was just a—for a short period of time it would be a year or two years they would make a flight and then it would be all be over. Of course, it turned out to be a lot more than that. But that was my impression at the time, that it was probably just a transient thing that they formed a special group to go do, and once they did it, then it would probably be disbanded and that would be all of it.

[Assistant] You said in 1960 you joined the Space Task Group.

[User] Yes.

[Assistant] What caused you to join that? Was that a voluntary thing or did someone ask you to?


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

[User] Well, when it was first formed, I thought it probably was just a—for a short period of time it would be a year or two years they would make a flight and then it would be all be over. Of course, it turned out to be a lot more than that. But that was my impression at the time, that it was probably just a transient thing that they formed a special group to go do, and once they did it, then it would probably be disbanded and that would be all of it.

[Assistant] You said in 1960 you joined the Space Task Group.

[User] Yes.

[Assistant] What caused you to join that? Was that a voluntary thing or did someone ask you to?

[User] No, it was voluntary on my part. Project Apollo had been announced at that point in time and the President [John F. Kennedy] had committed the country to make a lunar flight, and I wanted to be a part of that. Also being initially from Oklahoma when I found out the Johnson Space Center was going to be in Houston [Texas], that was getting back closer to home, so I volunteered at that point in time to transfer over.

[Assistant] So did you continue to work at Langley for a period of time?


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

[User] Yes.

[Assistant] What caused you to join that? Was that a voluntary thing or did someone ask you to?

[User] No, it was voluntary on my part. Project Apollo had been announced at that point in time and the President [John F. Kennedy] had committed the country to make a lunar flight, and I wanted to be a part of that. Also being initially from Oklahoma when I found out the Johnson Space Center was going to be in Houston [Texas], that was getting back closer to home, so I volunteered at that point in time to transfer over.

[Assistant] So did you continue to work at Langley for a period of time?

[User] Yes. We moved down here in 1961, among the first people that came down to form the Center here. But between the time I transferred and the time we moved, I worked in the task group there at Langley.

[Assistant] When you first came to be part of the Space Task Group, what were your responsibilities?


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

[User] No, it was voluntary on my part. Project Apollo had been announced at that point in time and the President [John F. Kennedy] had committed the country to make a lunar flight, and I wanted to be a part of that. Also being initially from Oklahoma when I found out the Johnson Space Center was going to be in Houston [Texas], that was getting back closer to home, so I volunteered at that point in time to transfer over.

[Assistant] So did you continue to work at Langley for a period of time?

[User] Yes. We moved down here in 1961, among the first people that came down to form the Center here. But between the time I transferred and the time we moved, I worked in the task group there at Langley.

[Assistant] When you first came to be part of the Space Task Group, what were your responsibilities?

[User] I was, again, a part of a relatively small group at that time that was starting as the project office for the Apollo Program. There were not too many of us and a lot to do, so we didn't really have very much of a formal organization. Everybody just pitched in and did whatever was needed. One interesting thing I did was to make a cost estimate for the entire Apollo Program before we even knew how we were going to get to the Moon. We had a period of about a day and a half to get the final answer and get it back up to Congress.

[Assistant] How did you go about estimating something like that that had never been—


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

[User] Yes. We moved down here in 1961, among the first people that came down to form the Center here. But between the time I transferred and the time we moved, I worked in the task group there at Langley.

[Assistant] When you first came to be part of the Space Task Group, what were your responsibilities?

[User] I was, again, a part of a relatively small group at that time that was starting as the project office for the Apollo Program. There were not too many of us and a lot to do, so we didn't really have very much of a formal organization. Everybody just pitched in and did whatever was needed. One interesting thing I did was to make a cost estimate for the entire Apollo Program before we even knew how we were going to get to the Moon. We had a period of about a day and a half to get the final answer and get it back up to Congress.

[Assistant] How did you go about estimating something like that that had never been—

[User] We just started thinking about—two of us did most of that work for the day and a half. We just starting thinking about the kind of things that you would do, about how many people would it take, about how much would it cost to design and build the kind of hardware. They were just wild guesses at the time, obviously, because we didn't even know what hardware we had to build. We knew we had to build a great big rocket, but as far as the spacecraft goes, we didn't really know how we were going. So we took the experience from Mercury and a little bit of Gemini that had gone on at that time and went away from that and developed what we thought might be a reasonable estimate for the cost.

[Assistant] Did it turn out to be close?


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

[User] I was, again, a part of a relatively small group at that time that was starting as the project office for the Apollo Program. There were not too many of us and a lot to do, so we didn't really have very much of a formal organization. Everybody just pitched in and did whatever was needed. One interesting thing I did was to make a cost estimate for the entire Apollo Program before we even knew how we were going to get to the Moon. We had a period of about a day and a half to get the final answer and get it back up to Congress.

[Assistant] How did you go about estimating something like that that had never been—

[User] We just started thinking about—two of us did most of that work for the day and a half. We just starting thinking about the kind of things that you would do, about how many people would it take, about how much would it cost to design and build the kind of hardware. They were just wild guesses at the time, obviously, because we didn't even know what hardware we had to build. We knew we had to build a great big rocket, but as far as the spacecraft goes, we didn't really know how we were going. So we took the experience from Mercury and a little bit of Gemini that had gone on at that time and went away from that and developed what we thought might be a reasonable estimate for the cost.

[Assistant] Did it turn out to be close?

[User] No. [Laughter] No, it wound up costing a lot more than we thought at that time.

[Assistant] It's not surprising, there was so little known at that time.


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

[User] We just started thinking about—two of us did most of that work for the day and a half. We just starting thinking about the kind of things that you would do, about how many people would it take, about how much would it cost to design and build the kind of hardware. They were just wild guesses at the time, obviously, because we didn't even know what hardware we had to build. We knew we had to build a great big rocket, but as far as the spacecraft goes, we didn't really know how we were going. So we took the experience from Mercury and a little bit of Gemini that had gone on at that time and went away from that and developed what we thought might be a reasonable estimate for the cost.

[Assistant] Did it turn out to be close?

[User] No. [Laughter] No, it wound up costing a lot more than we thought at that time.

[Assistant] It's not surprising, there was so little known at that time.

[User] Yes, and we didn't spend very much time on it, because we had to get an answer back out for congressional committee, so we just did it. But that was kind of one of the interesting things we did at that time. Looking back on it, it looks pretty darn foolish for two people to go try to do that.

[Assistant] It was a start.