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

[User] No, no.

[Assistant] Talk about that next assignment with the Propulsion and Power Division. That was right when the [Space] Shuttle was beginning to fly at that point, in 1981.

[User] Yes, yes. That was pretty exciting. I ended up in the Power Branch. I was assigned to work on the fuel cells and the cryogenic storage system. The PRSD, Power Reactant Storage and Distribution system, I think is what it stands for. I was learning that system, and I actually worked the night shift on the second flight. That was one of the flights where the fuel cell had failed, so that mission was cut short by several days. I worked on that for a number of years.

[Assistant] By working on the night shift, were you in the support room?

[User] I was graveyard. Yes, I was in the Mission Evaluation [Control] Room, 10 p.m. to 6 a.m. shift.

[Assistant] Were you working when they realized they had the problem?


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

[User] Yes, yes. That was pretty exciting. I ended up in the Power Branch. I was assigned to work on the fuel cells and the cryogenic storage system. The PRSD, Power Reactant Storage and Distribution system, I think is what it stands for. I was learning that system, and I actually worked the night shift on the second flight. That was one of the flights where the fuel cell had failed, so that mission was cut short by several days. I worked on that for a number of years.

[Assistant] By working on the night shift, were you in the support room?

[User] I was graveyard. Yes, I was in the Mission Evaluation [Control] Room, 10 p.m. to 6 a.m. shift.

[Assistant] Were you working when they realized they had the problem?

[User] No, actually I was at home asleep, and then trying to get back into the mode of working days again, because you almost skip a day because of that. I had to catch up on my sleep, and get back into work, and try to put in 40 hours. I worked the Shuttle flights from basically then, that second Shuttle mission, up through 1989. I worked the first four flights after we got back from [the Space Shuttle] Challenger [accident, STS-51L].

[Assistant] Also during that time, you went back to school to get your master’s degree.


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

[User] I was graveyard. Yes, I was in the Mission Evaluation [Control] Room, 10 p.m. to 6 a.m. shift.

[Assistant] Were you working when they realized they had the problem?

[User] No, actually I was at home asleep, and then trying to get back into the mode of working days again, because you almost skip a day because of that. I had to catch up on my sleep, and get back into work, and try to put in 40 hours. I worked the Shuttle flights from basically then, that second Shuttle mission, up through 1989. I worked the first four flights after we got back from [the Space Shuttle] Challenger [accident, STS-51L].

[Assistant] Also during that time, you went back to school to get your master’s degree.

[User] Yes, I started the master’s degree in 1980, and finished it in 1983.

[Assistant] Did they give you time off to go class, or was this all after hours?


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

[User] No, actually I was at home asleep, and then trying to get back into the mode of working days again, because you almost skip a day because of that. I had to catch up on my sleep, and get back into work, and try to put in 40 hours. I worked the Shuttle flights from basically then, that second Shuttle mission, up through 1989. I worked the first four flights after we got back from [the Space Shuttle] Challenger [accident, STS-51L].

[Assistant] Also during that time, you went back to school to get your master’s degree.

[User] Yes, I started the master’s degree in 1980, and finished it in 1983.

[Assistant] Did they give you time off to go class, or was this all after hours?

[User] No, I did it all at night. All night classes, and a couple of Saturdays. There was one class I took on Saturdays, and most of the classes were covered by the government underneath the continuing education program, or whatever they called it. That was just something I wanted to do. I wanted to get a master’s degree.

[Assistant] As far as engineers go, is that something that most engineers have, or is it just something you personally wanted to do?


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

[User] Yes, I started the master’s degree in 1980, and finished it in 1983.

[Assistant] Did they give you time off to go class, or was this all after hours?

[User] No, I did it all at night. All night classes, and a couple of Saturdays. There was one class I took on Saturdays, and most of the classes were covered by the government underneath the continuing education program, or whatever they called it. That was just something I wanted to do. I wanted to get a master’s degree.

[Assistant] As far as engineers go, is that something that most engineers have, or is it just something you personally wanted to do?

[User] Well it’s something I wanted to do. There’s quite a number that have master’s degrees, but most of them just stop at the bachelor’s degree. I’ve even known some engineers that were lawyers, which is really weird.

[Assistant] Maybe it’s that analytical brain. It works in law as well as engineering.


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

[User] No, I did it all at night. All night classes, and a couple of Saturdays. There was one class I took on Saturdays, and most of the classes were covered by the government underneath the continuing education program, or whatever they called it. That was just something I wanted to do. I wanted to get a master’s degree.

[Assistant] As far as engineers go, is that something that most engineers have, or is it just something you personally wanted to do?

[User] Well it’s something I wanted to do. There’s quite a number that have master’s degrees, but most of them just stop at the bachelor’s degree. I’ve even known some engineers that were lawyers, which is really weird.

[Assistant] Maybe it’s that analytical brain. It works in law as well as engineering.

[User] Well, there’s a lot to do with that, I think. Especially when you start reading contracts. There’s a lot of that.

[Assistant] You mentioned the Challenger, so let’s talk about the Challenger accident and what your memories are around that time period. Then you, I believe after that, you went to the Program Engineering Office, but you were still there. You said you worked four missions after Challenger, still in that Propulsion and Power Division. Let’s talk about that time period a little bit and what you remember about the accident, and what you were doing during the time that we weren’t flying.


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

[User] I have no idea. Dan just said, “No, I think we’ll just have them all come out here.” In all the years I worked at NASA, I never went out to Downey, which is weird for somebody who worked on the Shuttle and Station for so long, that I never went out to Downey. I never had to.

[Assistant] During that time period, though, was that when you were starting your family too?

[User] [My first daughter] was born in 1985. The accident happened when she was about seven months old. She was very young.

[Assistant] Being a working, professional woman with a young child and then after Challenger, were your hours extended because of the accident, or were you just working normal hours?

[User] No, I just basically worked normal hours. I’ve always been one to pretty much work eight, nine hours a day, and then go home and do that thing, and then come back and do the next eight, nine hours. I’ve been able to, fairly successfully, keep those two separate. That’s what I’ve always intended to do, and I’ve made sure that I was able to do that. I just worked really hard. I worked eight hours when I was here, working eight hours. I didn’t do the coffee club, water cooler stuff so much, or the socializing. I was hard at work, eight hours a day, so I got done what I needed to do. I planned things out so that I could get done by the deadlines that were there.

[Assistant] You mentioned that you were also starting to work on the Space Station Freedom, some of those projects. Was that the assembly sequence team?


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

[User] [My first daughter] was born in 1985. The accident happened when she was about seven months old. She was very young.

[Assistant] Being a working, professional woman with a young child and then after Challenger, were your hours extended because of the accident, or were you just working normal hours?

[User] No, I just basically worked normal hours. I’ve always been one to pretty much work eight, nine hours a day, and then go home and do that thing, and then come back and do the next eight, nine hours. I’ve been able to, fairly successfully, keep those two separate. That’s what I’ve always intended to do, and I’ve made sure that I was able to do that. I just worked really hard. I worked eight hours when I was here, working eight hours. I didn’t do the coffee club, water cooler stuff so much, or the socializing. I was hard at work, eight hours a day, so I got done what I needed to do. I planned things out so that I could get done by the deadlines that were there.

[Assistant] You mentioned that you were also starting to work on the Space Station Freedom, some of those projects. Was that the assembly sequence team?

[User] Yes.

[Assistant] Do you want to talk about that and the systems design team during that time period?


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

[User] No, no, I wasn’t working on that anymore.

[Assistant] Is there anything else about that time period that you can remember? Any anecdotes or during that whole working team, with the System Design Team [SDT] and the assembly team?

[User] The SDT was a slightly different thing. One of the things I also had responsibility for was doing the integrated drawings for the Space Station Freedom. I had a Lockheed SEAT [Science, Engineering, Analysis, and Test] contract task order doing that. This is kind of funny. The guys who were doing the drawings—I knew the sequence so well, that I knew exactly what items were on which segment, and there were times when they would make a mistake, and I’d say, “Um, guys, that’s not there yet,” or “You put it in the wrong place,” or something.\n\n At one point they brought me a drawing and put it on the table, and said, “Well, where’s the mistake?”\n\n I looked at it, and I said, “Well there’s one there, and there’s one there, there’s one there.” I just had it down pat, but they were trying to catch me. I said, “No, don’t think so.”

[Assistant] They were testing you, right?

[User] Yes, they were testing me.

[Assistant] Irene, what kind of tools were they using then?


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

[User] Yes, oh yes. We started going out there in September, and by Christmas, we had pretty much wrapped up the bulk of it. That was a lot of travel. That was two weeks there, a few days back here, two weeks there, a few days back here. Very intense, and we were working 70-hour weeks.

[Assistant] This was people from all the Centers that were involved in that, so you were working with people from various Centers?

[User] Yes. We even had the Canoga Park [California, Rocketdyne] guys there, and of course McDonnell Douglas, and the contractor for Huntsville. Yes, I mean everybody was out there.

[Assistant] Were they responsive to changing and to doing this, since you said they weren’t working together well before this started.

[User] Oh yes. Yes. Well, the IBM and McDonnell Douglas weren’t, but because this was a NASA initiative, then once we figured out how we were going to do this, we were able to give technical, contractual direction to go and do that to the various contractors. That’s how that generally works. Yes, we had contractors involved because they’re obviously the ones who know the nuts and bolts of things, but once NASA figured out which parts of this we were going to do and how were we doing to do it, then we can give contractual direction and fix it.

[Assistant] Can you give us some insight how a group of engineers, with the types of expertise that you have, can sit down and start to figure out where you start to figure it out?


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

[User] Yes, so there’s different constraints, but when you think about building a deck. Well, okay, so how big is the deck going to be? How much do I have available to spend? When do I want the deck to be built? Do I have the right skills to build the deck? Do I want to hire out to build the deck? Hire a contractor. I hired a contractor to do my backyard. There was no way I was doing that myself.\n\n Those are the same kinds of constraints you have in building space stuff. What’s your problem? What kind of money do I have? What are my time constraints? What are the physical parameters that I have to deal with? They’re a little bit different. Obviously you have to deal with the cold or the heat. You have zero gravity. Does that affect anything at all? It’s the same kind of thing, you just have different parameters that constrain you, or to work with. It’s not magic.\n\n When I got into the process stuff later on, it was like, “Well, it’s the process, it’s magic.” Guys, brushing your teeth is a process. I mean really, you think about it. “Well how are we going to train people?” You teach your kids how to brush your teeth, don’t you?

[Assistant] Break it down into steps.

[User] Bingo.

[Assistant] You were in the systems engineering office until ’99?

[User] I think 1994 is when they reorganized again.

[Assistant] Were you working with Station that whole time, as far as did you work anything with Shuttle-Mir, or any of those different programs?


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

[User] Bingo.

[Assistant] You were in the systems engineering office until ’99?

[User] I think 1994 is when they reorganized again.

[Assistant] Were you working with Station that whole time, as far as did you work anything with Shuttle-Mir, or any of those different programs?

[User] No, I wasn’t really involved in the Shuttle-Mir activities. I did do some lunar studies with some other branches in there, but I became Deputy Branch Chief during that time, in that division. That’s also when we did the assembly and operations engineering assessment, which was after we did the Space Station Freedom assembly sequence, then it was the next layer down, of filling in the blanks. Now we’ve got these big chunks of things that are going to go up into the Shuttle. How are we going to connect them together? What kind of EVAs [extravehicular activities] is it going to take? What kind of flight attitudes are we going to have? All that stuff.\n\n That’s where I really got to work with Bill Gerstenmaier, because he was in the MOD [Mission Operations Directorate] at the time. I was the engineering head of that study, and he was the MOD head. We worked together and put together that assessment, again, that next layer down of the engineering and operations associated with that assembly sequence.

[Assistant] How long were you doing that?


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

[User] I think 1994 is when they reorganized again.

[Assistant] Were you working with Station that whole time, as far as did you work anything with Shuttle-Mir, or any of those different programs?

[User] No, I wasn’t really involved in the Shuttle-Mir activities. I did do some lunar studies with some other branches in there, but I became Deputy Branch Chief during that time, in that division. That’s also when we did the assembly and operations engineering assessment, which was after we did the Space Station Freedom assembly sequence, then it was the next layer down, of filling in the blanks. Now we’ve got these big chunks of things that are going to go up into the Shuttle. How are we going to connect them together? What kind of EVAs [extravehicular activities] is it going to take? What kind of flight attitudes are we going to have? All that stuff.\n\n That’s where I really got to work with Bill Gerstenmaier, because he was in the MOD [Mission Operations Directorate] at the time. I was the engineering head of that study, and he was the MOD head. We worked together and put together that assessment, again, that next layer down of the engineering and operations associated with that assembly sequence.

[Assistant] How long were you doing that?

[User] That was at least six to eight months. It may have been longer. We did publish a document on it, so that was fun. That’s basically when we did the whole thing at the SES with the astronauts and trying to make sure we could smack these things together and make them stick. There were times when they would bounce off, and you’re just like, “Well, I guess we can’t do that.”

[Assistant] A little trial and error.


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

[User] No, I wasn’t really involved in the Shuttle-Mir activities. I did do some lunar studies with some other branches in there, but I became Deputy Branch Chief during that time, in that division. That’s also when we did the assembly and operations engineering assessment, which was after we did the Space Station Freedom assembly sequence, then it was the next layer down, of filling in the blanks. Now we’ve got these big chunks of things that are going to go up into the Shuttle. How are we going to connect them together? What kind of EVAs [extravehicular activities] is it going to take? What kind of flight attitudes are we going to have? All that stuff.\n\n That’s where I really got to work with Bill Gerstenmaier, because he was in the MOD [Mission Operations Directorate] at the time. I was the engineering head of that study, and he was the MOD head. We worked together and put together that assessment, again, that next layer down of the engineering and operations associated with that assembly sequence.

[Assistant] How long were you doing that?

[User] That was at least six to eight months. It may have been longer. We did publish a document on it, so that was fun. That’s basically when we did the whole thing at the SES with the astronauts and trying to make sure we could smack these things together and make them stick. There were times when they would bounce off, and you’re just like, “Well, I guess we can’t do that.”

[Assistant] A little trial and error.

[User] Yes. Well one of the big concerns was if you did grab it and bring it down, would it bounce off and go skittering off into some weird direction? Did we have to have a pyrotechnic release just in case something went wrong? We found that we didn’t have to do any of that. It was actually a quite successful assessment.

[Assistant] Like you said, you were Deputy Branch Chief of the Systems and Engineering and Integration. You moved into manager for the Station Engineering Office after that, according to your resume.


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

[User] That was at least six to eight months. It may have been longer. We did publish a document on it, so that was fun. That’s basically when we did the whole thing at the SES with the astronauts and trying to make sure we could smack these things together and make them stick. There were times when they would bounce off, and you’re just like, “Well, I guess we can’t do that.”

[Assistant] A little trial and error.

[User] Yes. Well one of the big concerns was if you did grab it and bring it down, would it bounce off and go skittering off into some weird direction? Did we have to have a pyrotechnic release just in case something went wrong? We found that we didn’t have to do any of that. It was actually a quite successful assessment.

[Assistant] Like you said, you were Deputy Branch Chief of the Systems and Engineering and Integration. You moved into manager for the Station Engineering Office after that, according to your resume.

[User] Yes, yes. There was stuff in between there.

[Assistant] What was happening in between that time, or were there other projects you were working on?


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

[User] Yes. Well one of the big concerns was if you did grab it and bring it down, would it bounce off and go skittering off into some weird direction? Did we have to have a pyrotechnic release just in case something went wrong? We found that we didn’t have to do any of that. It was actually a quite successful assessment.

[Assistant] Like you said, you were Deputy Branch Chief of the Systems and Engineering and Integration. You moved into manager for the Station Engineering Office after that, according to your resume.

[User] Yes, yes. There was stuff in between there.

[Assistant] What was happening in between that time, or were there other projects you were working on?

[User] That’s when we first went into EA4 [Space Shuttle/Space Station Engineering Integration Office]. John Aaron was the manager. I started working, actually, the Joint Integrated schedule. Somebody figured out that we’ve got this Space Station thing, and we’ve got this Shuttle thing, and they depend on each other, so maybe we ought to put together a group so that the schedules mesh up. That’s when I got heavily involved in working schedules.\n\n John [C.] Coggeshall, he worked for the Shuttle Program at the time. He’s a wizard at doing schedules. The man was brilliant with working out flight schedules. I did that for about a year and a half, I think. Not that I enjoyed it all the time, because that’s not where my talents lie, but it was a good learning experience, and it really helped me later on in my career to know that schedules really worked, and they weren’t something that was just boring that somebody put up on a screen. They really are important.

[Assistant] What was the process for determining those schedules, or any details on what you were doing during that time?


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

[User] Well, you know, of course the Space Station was going through the development phase. Development is a rocky phase to be in, because you never know what’s going to happen, and when things get delayed. It was a matter of saying, “Okay, well this is our boilerplate. Our draft.” Then the Shuttle would have problems, the Station would have problems. We’d get together once a week and discuss where things were slipping to or getting ahead of things, and we would put together, “Okay, so we think on this date, we’re going to get a Shuttle flight and a Space Station piece ready at the same time.”\n\n Then, of course, that would be presented to management and they would have to sign off on it. It was the technical guys sitting down together and going, “Well, you know, the Space Station’s running behind by a couple months because of x, y, z. We’re not going to be able to make that flight, so what can we do in the meantime?” Shuttle was launching other things, too, in the beginning. They weren’t just doing Space Station flights, so it was a matter of juggling things and pushing things around.

[Assistant] I can imagine that was almost sometimes changing hour to hour, as far as the way things were falling into place.

[User] It wasn’t that rapid. Thank goodness.

[Assistant] It seems there were a lot of things happening during that time period. Was that when you were working also on the Shuttle wireless video system?

[User] That’s when I started the wireless video.

[Assistant] Do you want to talk about that? This was sort of revolutionary as far as freeing their hands up to do more.


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

[User] Okay. The solar arrays, one of them didn’t want to deploy correctly. That was the first time we used the wireless video system. It really helped. They were able to figure out, using visuals?actual camera shots?what was going on, and to be able to resolve the problem and get the solar array deployed. Since then, it’s just been wonderful. The ground people, and the astronauts, and everybody just love using it. It was a fun project.

[Assistant] Yes, and now thinking about it, that was only 15 years ago. It just seems like we’ve always had that ability.

[User] Yes, and the really wonderful thing about it, if you will, is that the Space Station folks didn’t want to put the system on the Space Station. One of the knockdown drag-outs I had was with the manifesting people in the ISS Program office. They said, “Well your system’s a Crit 3, that means it’s not needed.”\n\n I’m going, “Whoa. Time out. Criticality 3 means that if it fails, you don’t stop doing what you’re doing. It doesn’t mean that it’s not needed.” I said, “I will go all the way to your program manager. I’m going to drag you with me, and you’re going to tell him why he just spent $15 million on a system that you’re not going to fly.” That changed their minds a little bit. Oh, I was pissed. I was so angry.

[Assistant] Well especially because it was so successful. Why wouldn’t they want to use it?

[User] Manifesting is a hard thing to do, and the Space Station component is not a small piece of equipment. The piece that goes outside on the truss is roughly two feet tall with the antenna on top of it and 18 inches in diameter. It weighs 120 pounds. It’s not a small piece of equipment, and trying to find space, when you have limited manifest capabilities is difficult. Now, I could appreciate that, but to say they’re just not going to manifest it at all is just dumb.

[Assistant] That piece, is that to get the signal from the helmet?


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

[User] Yes, and the really wonderful thing about it, if you will, is that the Space Station folks didn’t want to put the system on the Space Station. One of the knockdown drag-outs I had was with the manifesting people in the ISS Program office. They said, “Well your system’s a Crit 3, that means it’s not needed.”\n\n I’m going, “Whoa. Time out. Criticality 3 means that if it fails, you don’t stop doing what you’re doing. It doesn’t mean that it’s not needed.” I said, “I will go all the way to your program manager. I’m going to drag you with me, and you’re going to tell him why he just spent $15 million on a system that you’re not going to fly.” That changed their minds a little bit. Oh, I was pissed. I was so angry.

[Assistant] Well especially because it was so successful. Why wouldn’t they want to use it?

[User] Manifesting is a hard thing to do, and the Space Station component is not a small piece of equipment. The piece that goes outside on the truss is roughly two feet tall with the antenna on top of it and 18 inches in diameter. It weighs 120 pounds. It’s not a small piece of equipment, and trying to find space, when you have limited manifest capabilities is difficult. Now, I could appreciate that, but to say they’re just not going to manifest it at all is just dumb.

[Assistant] That piece, is that to get the signal from the helmet?

[User] Yes, that gets the signal from the helmet into the video system on the Space Station. Even though it’s called wireless, there’s still a lot of wires associated with it.

[Assistant] There’s a lot of equipment there.


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

[User] Manifesting is a hard thing to do, and the Space Station component is not a small piece of equipment. The piece that goes outside on the truss is roughly two feet tall with the antenna on top of it and 18 inches in diameter. It weighs 120 pounds. It’s not a small piece of equipment, and trying to find space, when you have limited manifest capabilities is difficult. Now, I could appreciate that, but to say they’re just not going to manifest it at all is just dumb.

[Assistant] That piece, is that to get the signal from the helmet?

[User] Yes, that gets the signal from the helmet into the video system on the Space Station. Even though it’s called wireless, there’s still a lot of wires associated with it.

[Assistant] There’s a lot of equipment there.

[User] We were working with the Rockwell Downey people on putting the antennas on the Shuttle sill, and there were seven of them on the sill. There was one on the back, and then there were six, three on each side. It’s a highly integrated system, no matter which vehicle it’s on. One of the Rockwell guys made the comment one time, he says, “You know, for a wireless system, this has an awful lot of cable.” You had to run wires from all the antennas to the transceiver box underneath the payload bay liner so that this thing would work. The only wireless bit is from the antennas to the EVA crew. Everything else is all wired up.

[Assistant] Something has to receive those signals, and then it has to go somewhere.


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

[User] Yes, that gets the signal from the helmet into the video system on the Space Station. Even though it’s called wireless, there’s still a lot of wires associated with it.

[Assistant] There’s a lot of equipment there.

[User] We were working with the Rockwell Downey people on putting the antennas on the Shuttle sill, and there were seven of them on the sill. There was one on the back, and then there were six, three on each side. It’s a highly integrated system, no matter which vehicle it’s on. One of the Rockwell guys made the comment one time, he says, “You know, for a wireless system, this has an awful lot of cable.” You had to run wires from all the antennas to the transceiver box underneath the payload bay liner so that this thing would work. The only wireless bit is from the antennas to the EVA crew. Everything else is all wired up.

[Assistant] Something has to receive those signals, and then it has to go somewhere.

[User] They have to go somewhere.

[Assistant] It is controlled from inside the Shuttle or the ISS.


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

[User] We were working with the Rockwell Downey people on putting the antennas on the Shuttle sill, and there were seven of them on the sill. There was one on the back, and then there were six, three on each side. It’s a highly integrated system, no matter which vehicle it’s on. One of the Rockwell guys made the comment one time, he says, “You know, for a wireless system, this has an awful lot of cable.” You had to run wires from all the antennas to the transceiver box underneath the payload bay liner so that this thing would work. The only wireless bit is from the antennas to the EVA crew. Everything else is all wired up.

[Assistant] Something has to receive those signals, and then it has to go somewhere.

[User] They have to go somewhere.

[Assistant] It is controlled from inside the Shuttle or the ISS.

[User] Yes. The EVA crew, the only control they have is the on/off button. Every now and again, they would bump the helmet and turn it off. The guys then go, “Um, uh, we’re not getting any signal. Could you push your helmet button?” You will hear that every now and again. They had just accidentally bumped into it and turned it off.

[Assistant] How many people were working on that team, to work on that?


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

[User] They have to go somewhere.

[Assistant] It is controlled from inside the Shuttle or the ISS.

[User] Yes. The EVA crew, the only control they have is the on/off button. Every now and again, they would bump the helmet and turn it off. The guys then go, “Um, uh, we’re not getting any signal. Could you push your helmet button?” You will hear that every now and again. They had just accidentally bumped into it and turned it off.

[Assistant] How many people were working on that team, to work on that?

[User] Oh, let’s see. We had, probably off and on, somewhere between 70 to 100. The main components actually came out of the racecar system. There was a company in Baltimore, Maryland?Broadcast Sports?and they built this system, but to run on NASCAR cars, so they could have video of what the race was like from inside the car. We adapted that for space. It actually came out of the sports world. It was owned at the time by a Canadian company, and they were just as pleased as punch that they had hardware flying in space. That was a big deal to them. From a PR perspective, they really cashed in on that.

[Assistant] Did NASA approach the company, do you know?


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

[User] Yes. The EVA crew, the only control they have is the on/off button. Every now and again, they would bump the helmet and turn it off. The guys then go, “Um, uh, we’re not getting any signal. Could you push your helmet button?” You will hear that every now and again. They had just accidentally bumped into it and turned it off.

[Assistant] How many people were working on that team, to work on that?

[User] Oh, let’s see. We had, probably off and on, somewhere between 70 to 100. The main components actually came out of the racecar system. There was a company in Baltimore, Maryland?Broadcast Sports?and they built this system, but to run on NASCAR cars, so they could have video of what the race was like from inside the car. We adapted that for space. It actually came out of the sports world. It was owned at the time by a Canadian company, and they were just as pleased as punch that they had hardware flying in space. That was a big deal to them. From a PR perspective, they really cashed in on that.

[Assistant] Did NASA approach the company, do you know?

[User] Actually I think when we wrote the request for proposal for the task order for Lockheed, I think they were the ones that found them. We basically took their hardware and made it suitable for working in a vacuum and the high and cold temperatures of space.

[Assistant] That’s interesting. It’s that behind-the-scenes stuff you don’t always know about what happens up there.


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

[User] Actually I think when we wrote the request for proposal for the task order for Lockheed, I think they were the ones that found them. We basically took their hardware and made it suitable for working in a vacuum and the high and cold temperatures of space.

[Assistant] That’s interesting. It’s that behind-the-scenes stuff you don’t always know about what happens up there.

[User] When we were building the Space Station version, we were having trouble getting some components. I talked to our Lockheed project manager. I said, “Carol, where are these components?” She went back to her procurement office, tried to [find out from them where the components were]. They were getting to be a long pole in the tent. We needed to get them in so that we could keep building the system. They found out, “Well, they’re on a slow boat from China.” They really were. They were coming from China, and it was on a freighter somewhere, in between there and California, wherever they were supposed to be received. That can happen.\n\n Another time we sent back a transceiver to Broadcast Sports in Baltimore, Maryland. It was sent by one of the overnight carriers. I won't tell you which one. It ended up in like, Baluchistan. We’re going, “Um, uh, you need to get that back to the United States.”

[Assistant] Quickly.

[User] “Yes, really, how are you going to get it through Russian customs? I don’t want to know. Just get it back.” Yes, that was weird.

[Assistant] Were you there when the first picture started coming through?


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

[User] When we were building the Space Station version, we were having trouble getting some components. I talked to our Lockheed project manager. I said, “Carol, where are these components?” She went back to her procurement office, tried to [find out from them where the components were]. They were getting to be a long pole in the tent. We needed to get them in so that we could keep building the system. They found out, “Well, they’re on a slow boat from China.” They really were. They were coming from China, and it was on a freighter somewhere, in between there and California, wherever they were supposed to be received. That can happen.\n\n Another time we sent back a transceiver to Broadcast Sports in Baltimore, Maryland. It was sent by one of the overnight carriers. I won't tell you which one. It ended up in like, Baluchistan. We’re going, “Um, uh, you need to get that back to the United States.”

[Assistant] Quickly.

[User] “Yes, really, how are you going to get it through Russian customs? I don’t want to know. Just get it back.” Yes, that was weird.

[Assistant] Were you there when the first picture started coming through?

[User] Oh yes, yes. We actually had one of the backrooms in Building 30. They had set up so we could monitor what was going on. On that particular mission, we did have a failure of one of the helmet cameras. It turns out that there was a component in the helmet piece that needed a particular kind of electronic protection. It needed a diode in it, and we didn’t put that in there. We had to go back in and rework those.

[Assistant] It had to be pretty rewarding, to be able to get that kind of a view.


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

[User] There aren’t. The UHF band is particularly, and the S band is getting to be the same way. It’s particularly crowded. You really have to figure out how to get what you want, or change your design, like we ended up having to do, so we wouldn’t interfere with these other satellites and systems.

[Assistant] That’s the way it still works? It just bounces around?

[User] That’s the way it still works. In fact, the Space Station?we flew that, in what? 2002? I think the first one went up? It’s still flying today. We have, knock wood, not had any failures.

[Assistant] Has the system changed since then?

[User] Nope. Still the same system.

[Assistant] It’s durable. That says a lot, considering that was thirteen years ago.


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

[User] If you use it right, it worked great. It’s still working great today. I wouldn’t call that a failure. There wasn’t obviously enough communication between what the operators were going to do with it. They just didn’t bother telling us, “Oh, we’re going to keep trying to open the iris, or close the iris.” It turns out that the camera system has an automatic gain control, so it automatically compensates for light to darkness things anyway. I don’t think those open and close iris commands have been used very much at all, now that we understand how the system works.

[Assistant] How the camera itself works.

[User] How the camera itself works, yes. It’s a Sony camera. It’s a little bitty thing. It’s only about three or four inches long, and half-inch in diameter, maybe? It uses a CCD [charge-coupled device].

[Assistant] Is it the same camera, or is one of them still, and the other one video?

[User] No, it’s all video. It’s all video. You could take a still from it, but it’s real-time video. It’s not HD [high definition] or anything like that. I don’t know if they’ll ever convert to doing something like that, but obviously they use it every time they go out. In fact, they even adapted it for use on the Russian space suit, and the Russian space suit doesn’t look anything like the American space suit, but they’ve adapted it. I don’t know how they put it on their helmet, whether they zip-tie it down, or something. It’s kludged. The Russians conducted a space walk the other day, and you can see the wireless video system sitting on their helmet. They figured out how to stick it on there, and how to power it.

[Assistant] Share it with the neighbors?


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

[User] How the camera itself works, yes. It’s a Sony camera. It’s a little bitty thing. It’s only about three or four inches long, and half-inch in diameter, maybe? It uses a CCD [charge-coupled device].

[Assistant] Is it the same camera, or is one of them still, and the other one video?

[User] No, it’s all video. It’s all video. You could take a still from it, but it’s real-time video. It’s not HD [high definition] or anything like that. I don’t know if they’ll ever convert to doing something like that, but obviously they use it every time they go out. In fact, they even adapted it for use on the Russian space suit, and the Russian space suit doesn’t look anything like the American space suit, but they’ve adapted it. I don’t know how they put it on their helmet, whether they zip-tie it down, or something. It’s kludged. The Russians conducted a space walk the other day, and you can see the wireless video system sitting on their helmet. They figured out how to stick it on there, and how to power it.

[Assistant] Share it with the neighbors?

[User] Yes.

[Assistant] I saw it described in an article that it was a “situational awareness tool.” I thought that was pretty interesting, that that’s what it’s for.


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

[User] No, it’s all video. It’s all video. You could take a still from it, but it’s real-time video. It’s not HD [high definition] or anything like that. I don’t know if they’ll ever convert to doing something like that, but obviously they use it every time they go out. In fact, they even adapted it for use on the Russian space suit, and the Russian space suit doesn’t look anything like the American space suit, but they’ve adapted it. I don’t know how they put it on their helmet, whether they zip-tie it down, or something. It’s kludged. The Russians conducted a space walk the other day, and you can see the wireless video system sitting on their helmet. They figured out how to stick it on there, and how to power it.

[Assistant] Share it with the neighbors?

[User] Yes.

[Assistant] I saw it described in an article that it was a “situational awareness tool.” I thought that was pretty interesting, that that’s what it’s for.

[User] It is, because if it failed during EVA, they’re not going to stop the EVA. It’s just going to make it harder for them because now they can’t see what’s going on, especially if something goes wrong. On Space Station when they had to fold up the arrays in order to move that piece of truss, they could see what was going on, and why it wasn’t working. They could watch the astronaut as he was way out on the end of the arm, trying to?I think they didn’t zip-tie it together, so it wouldn’t fold up again. Yes, it’s been a remarkable system.

[Assistant] An interesting project to get a chance to work on, too.


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

[User] Yes.

[Assistant] I saw it described in an article that it was a “situational awareness tool.” I thought that was pretty interesting, that that’s what it’s for.

[User] It is, because if it failed during EVA, they’re not going to stop the EVA. It’s just going to make it harder for them because now they can’t see what’s going on, especially if something goes wrong. On Space Station when they had to fold up the arrays in order to move that piece of truss, they could see what was going on, and why it wasn’t working. They could watch the astronaut as he was way out on the end of the arm, trying to?I think they didn’t zip-tie it together, so it wouldn’t fold up again. Yes, it’s been a remarkable system.

[Assistant] An interesting project to get a chance to work on, too.

[User] It was a lot of fun. I really enjoyed working with the people on it. That’s one of the best things about working on projects like that. You work with folks?pretty intensely?for several years at a time. Then to see the fruition of what you’ve done. Flying is really very satisfying.

[Assistant] It sounds like throughout your career, you were doing the same type of engineering, but like you said, you didn’t know anything about avionics. Then you had to do that. You were learning things in the moment as you were working on these different teams.\n\n Is the environment pretty conducive to that? You became a manager in the ‘90s. Did they send you to training to help you learn management skills, or because you’re an engineer, you’re supposed to be able to do management? I’ve heard that that doesn’t necessarily work all the time.


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

[User] It is, because if it failed during EVA, they’re not going to stop the EVA. It’s just going to make it harder for them because now they can’t see what’s going on, especially if something goes wrong. On Space Station when they had to fold up the arrays in order to move that piece of truss, they could see what was going on, and why it wasn’t working. They could watch the astronaut as he was way out on the end of the arm, trying to?I think they didn’t zip-tie it together, so it wouldn’t fold up again. Yes, it’s been a remarkable system.

[Assistant] An interesting project to get a chance to work on, too.

[User] It was a lot of fun. I really enjoyed working with the people on it. That’s one of the best things about working on projects like that. You work with folks?pretty intensely?for several years at a time. Then to see the fruition of what you’ve done. Flying is really very satisfying.

[Assistant] It sounds like throughout your career, you were doing the same type of engineering, but like you said, you didn’t know anything about avionics. Then you had to do that. You were learning things in the moment as you were working on these different teams.\n\n Is the environment pretty conducive to that? You became a manager in the ‘90s. Did they send you to training to help you learn management skills, or because you’re an engineer, you’re supposed to be able to do management? I’ve heard that that doesn’t necessarily work all the time.

[User] Can I say it as a sarcastic laugh? No. Just because you’re an engineer does not mean you can manage your way out of a paper bag.

[Assistant] I’ve heard other people say that, but I just wanted to throw that out there.


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

[User] Can I say it as a sarcastic laugh? No. Just because you’re an engineer does not mean you can manage your way out of a paper bag.

[Assistant] I’ve heard other people say that, but I just wanted to throw that out there.

[User] No, there have been some really brilliant engineers, just fantastic engineers, but as managers, they just fail miserably. I won't name any names, but I’ve worked for some of them. They are fantastic. They can scribble equations from here and back again, but can they manage anything? No, I’m sorry to say.\n\n Once you get selected for a management position, there’s a mandatory set of training classes you have to have, so you go through all of that. In fact, when you’re first selected, you’re on a probation period. Not every engineer can be a manager. Not every engineer can be a project manager, either. Some of them are really good at project engineering. They’re really good engineers, but then put them into a project management position where you have to keep track of schedules, and budgets, and all the icky things. I don’t know if you want to call it that.

[Assistant] Details.

[User] They’re necessary. They’re very different from tinkering in the lab. If you can’t do those things, then you can’t be project manager. You have to be able to delegate, work with people, understand what they’re doing. You don’t have to know all the nitty gritty details as a project manger, but you have to understand how the system is supposed to work.

[Assistant] I guess you have to accept that, too. You don’t have to know all those details. I guess, sometimes it’s hard, especially for someone who’s worked in details, like an engineer, who has their hand on all the pieces of it, to back off and let somebody else do it.


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

[User] No, there have been some really brilliant engineers, just fantastic engineers, but as managers, they just fail miserably. I won't name any names, but I’ve worked for some of them. They are fantastic. They can scribble equations from here and back again, but can they manage anything? No, I’m sorry to say.\n\n Once you get selected for a management position, there’s a mandatory set of training classes you have to have, so you go through all of that. In fact, when you’re first selected, you’re on a probation period. Not every engineer can be a manager. Not every engineer can be a project manager, either. Some of them are really good at project engineering. They’re really good engineers, but then put them into a project management position where you have to keep track of schedules, and budgets, and all the icky things. I don’t know if you want to call it that.

[Assistant] Details.

[User] They’re necessary. They’re very different from tinkering in the lab. If you can’t do those things, then you can’t be project manager. You have to be able to delegate, work with people, understand what they’re doing. You don’t have to know all the nitty gritty details as a project manger, but you have to understand how the system is supposed to work.

[Assistant] I guess you have to accept that, too. You don’t have to know all those details. I guess, sometimes it’s hard, especially for someone who’s worked in details, like an engineer, who has their hand on all the pieces of it, to back off and let somebody else do it.

[User] I think it takes a certain personality type, or you have to be able to learn to work that way, and that’s harder to do than having it innate.

[Assistant] Do you enjoy project management?


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

[User] They’re necessary. They’re very different from tinkering in the lab. If you can’t do those things, then you can’t be project manager. You have to be able to delegate, work with people, understand what they’re doing. You don’t have to know all the nitty gritty details as a project manger, but you have to understand how the system is supposed to work.

[Assistant] I guess you have to accept that, too. You don’t have to know all those details. I guess, sometimes it’s hard, especially for someone who’s worked in details, like an engineer, who has their hand on all the pieces of it, to back off and let somebody else do it.

[User] I think it takes a certain personality type, or you have to be able to learn to work that way, and that’s harder to do than having it innate.

[Assistant] Do you enjoy project management?

[User] Oh, I loved it. Most fun I’ve ever had working at NASA’s been being a project manager. It’s just a lot of fun.

[Assistant] In that time period after that one, I guess it was around 2002, 2003. You were on a rotational position?


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

[User] I think it takes a certain personality type, or you have to be able to learn to work that way, and that’s harder to do than having it innate.

[Assistant] Do you enjoy project management?

[User] Oh, I loved it. Most fun I’ve ever had working at NASA’s been being a project manager. It’s just a lot of fun.

[Assistant] In that time period after that one, I guess it was around 2002, 2003. You were on a rotational position?

[User] Yes, I spent a year over in the Space Station Program Office in OB [Vehicle Office].

[Assistant] What were you doing over there?


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

[User] Oh, I loved it. Most fun I’ve ever had working at NASA’s been being a project manager. It’s just a lot of fun.

[Assistant] In that time period after that one, I guess it was around 2002, 2003. You were on a rotational position?

[User] Yes, I spent a year over in the Space Station Program Office in OB [Vehicle Office].

[Assistant] What were you doing over there?

[User] I actually was doing risk management with the very first iteration of the IRMA risk management system. The Integrated Risk Management Application. Space Station had developed it to start figuring out how to manage risk, and I was in charge of getting the system managers to input the risks, and all the details about the risk, and getting presented in front of the Space Station program manager.\n\n It was a big, huge learning curve, because people were not used to that kind of structured approach to risk management, and felt it was somewhat frivolous, and not important, and why am I doing this? I can’t say I didn’t have the same opinion at the time, but once you go through the rationale behind things, it helps you think about where do I spend my resources?whether it’s time, money, or people?relative to the problem at hand? Is this going to be a problem that’s going to cause me severe heartburn down the road?\n\n For years, the biggest Space Station risk had to do with working with the Russians. In fact, for all I know, that’s still the biggest Space Station risk. The mitigation of it is day to day as to how we deal with it. Then there’s the ones that, yes, we think that could happen, but it doesn’t have a big impact. Or this is kind of moderate, if I just throw a little money in solving this particular part of the problem, then my chances of being successful go way up. It’s a very structured approach to understanding where the problems might lie. That’s what was I was doing for that year in OB.

[Assistant] And identifying those risks.


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

[User] Yes, I spent a year over in the Space Station Program Office in OB [Vehicle Office].

[Assistant] What were you doing over there?

[User] I actually was doing risk management with the very first iteration of the IRMA risk management system. The Integrated Risk Management Application. Space Station had developed it to start figuring out how to manage risk, and I was in charge of getting the system managers to input the risks, and all the details about the risk, and getting presented in front of the Space Station program manager.\n\n It was a big, huge learning curve, because people were not used to that kind of structured approach to risk management, and felt it was somewhat frivolous, and not important, and why am I doing this? I can’t say I didn’t have the same opinion at the time, but once you go through the rationale behind things, it helps you think about where do I spend my resources?whether it’s time, money, or people?relative to the problem at hand? Is this going to be a problem that’s going to cause me severe heartburn down the road?\n\n For years, the biggest Space Station risk had to do with working with the Russians. In fact, for all I know, that’s still the biggest Space Station risk. The mitigation of it is day to day as to how we deal with it. Then there’s the ones that, yes, we think that could happen, but it doesn’t have a big impact. Or this is kind of moderate, if I just throw a little money in solving this particular part of the problem, then my chances of being successful go way up. It’s a very structured approach to understanding where the problems might lie. That’s what was I was doing for that year in OB.

[Assistant] And identifying those risks.

[User] Yes. Helping people understand how to use the system.

[Assistant] Where did the identification of the risks come from? Was that a team approach?


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

[User] Well, I spent the month or so, twiddling my thumbs, in a way. That’s when I wrote the history of the Orbiter Boom Sensor System. That’s an SP document. You should be able to find it. Then a guy who I worked with on the wireless video system from the Orbiter Project Office had transitioned over to the Orion activity. He was on the proposal evaluation team. In fact, two of them approached me, and said, “How would you like to come work GFE [Government Furnished Equipment] in the Orion Project area?”\n\n I said, “Well, hmm, that sounds interesting. Let’s go to talk to Brian [L.] Anderson.”\n\n They said, “Let’s go talk to Brian.” I went and talked to Brian, and we decided that that might be a good thing, that he would like me to be on his team, and so off I went. Sometimes things happen.

[Assistant] Explain what that was going to entail, or what you were moving into.

[User] The Orion, at that time, had a pretty significant chunk of advance development work going on that was not going to be from the prime contractors. There was also some pretty significant Government Furnished Equipment activities, the parachute system being the biggest one. They wanted to have someone come in and manage those advance development activities, and any of the other GFE, and so that’s what I was being hired to do.

[Assistant] That was during the same time period of when [President George W.] Bush announced the Vision for Space Exploration, and the CEV [Crew Exploration Vehicle]. That office actually reorged, or it became the Crew Module Office?

[User] Yes. Once Skip came in?Skip [Caris A.] Hatfield came in?he reorganized and then he offered me the Crew Module Office job. I said, “Are you sure?” Not in quite those words, but yes.

[Assistant] Do you want to talk more about what you were doing during that time period in that office?


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

[User] The rockets? Yes, we had that as part of the study as well. Retrorockets. The Russians have?part of their engineering process is to over-design. They make things really very sturdy, and end up being very heavy as a result, because they don’t optimize the way our engineering culture as evolved. Their systems are generally?and I’m speaking broadly here?can generally be simple, and not complicated, but being very heavy as a result. Whereas we tend to optimize things for weight because we want to put up as much as we can, so we tend to make things very lightweight, which can also include a lot of complexity. Things like retrorockets can be very complex in our engineering culture. We looked at them, but not for very long because of the complexity, and the system actually ends up weighing more, because you have to have propellant then, and have to have tanks, and have valves, and plumbing. It adds up very quickly. The simpler is usually lighter, if you’re worried about weight.

[Assistant] What about the parachute assembly system? That was one of those four that you were talking about.

[User] Yes. The parachutes have been used on the test flights that we’ve had already. The PA-1 test that happened out at White Sands [Test Facility, New Mexico] and the first one that they launched out of Kennedy a couple years ago. Those were the parachutes that we developed here at JSC, with parachute companies out in California. They do a lot of test flights on the parachute systems out at Yuma [U.S. Army Yuma Proving Ground, Arizona], so we have a contract with the military to use their bases and airplanes to throw the sleds out the backs of the airplanes and watch the parachutes go out. It’s really very neat.

[Assistant] Have you been out there for the testing then?

[User] No, I was never able to go out there for the testing. I’ve only seen the videos of it.

[Assistant] Was there anything else during that? I think we talked about three of them. What was the fourth one you mentioned?


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

[User] Yes. The parachutes have been used on the test flights that we’ve had already. The PA-1 test that happened out at White Sands [Test Facility, New Mexico] and the first one that they launched out of Kennedy a couple years ago. Those were the parachutes that we developed here at JSC, with parachute companies out in California. They do a lot of test flights on the parachute systems out at Yuma [U.S. Army Yuma Proving Ground, Arizona], so we have a contract with the military to use their bases and airplanes to throw the sleds out the backs of the airplanes and watch the parachutes go out. It’s really very neat.

[Assistant] Have you been out there for the testing then?

[User] No, I was never able to go out there for the testing. I’ve only seen the videos of it.

[Assistant] Was there anything else during that? I think we talked about three of them. What was the fourth one you mentioned?

[User] The fourth one the LOX/methane. That ended up getting cancelled in January of 2006, shortly after we started, because of budget issues. [NASA] Headquarters [Washington, DC] decided that they didn’t want to spend money on that aspect of things, which was a huge disappointment to a lot of people. That’s, unfortunately, the business of this side of space. We don’t spend money in space. We spend money on Earth. There’s no Walmart on the Moon yet.

[Assistant] No, not yet.


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

[User] The fourth one the LOX/methane. That ended up getting cancelled in January of 2006, shortly after we started, because of budget issues. [NASA] Headquarters [Washington, DC] decided that they didn’t want to spend money on that aspect of things, which was a huge disappointment to a lot of people. That’s, unfortunately, the business of this side of space. We don’t spend money in space. We spend money on Earth. There’s no Walmart on the Moon yet.

[Assistant] No, not yet.

[User] They might be able to figure it out. Elon Musk is working on it really hard. One of the interesting things about when we were doing the crew module, was?obviously that was after Columbia?and they had done a medical study of what happened to the crew. That is highly sensitive information, and only a limited amount of people have been able to see the results of that report. I was able to see the results of that report, only to help us understand how we could make it safer for the crew. I was also the manager of the crew module. Obviously I had responsibility for everything that goes inside the capsule, which one of things was the seats. I had to understand, as the manager of that, what happened during Columbia and what could be done to mitigate what happened to the crew in case of an accident. That was very emotionally taxing, to understand truly what happened to those people when Columbia disintegrated. It was very sad.\n\n When we were taking a break, we talked about NASCAR some. NASCAR also has what’s called the head and neck system, where they have a way of attaching the helmet to the structure of the car, so that you don’t have the head snapping back and forth or side to side. That’s one of the things that was being considered to help keep the crew safe in the capsule, is some way of stabilizing the head.

[Assistant] Was it adopted, or was something similar done?

[User] I don’t know. I don’t know, because I had left the program by the time those decisions were being made.

[Assistant] As you mentioned, after a couple of years, you were moving on again.


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

[User] They might be able to figure it out. Elon Musk is working on it really hard. One of the interesting things about when we were doing the crew module, was?obviously that was after Columbia?and they had done a medical study of what happened to the crew. That is highly sensitive information, and only a limited amount of people have been able to see the results of that report. I was able to see the results of that report, only to help us understand how we could make it safer for the crew. I was also the manager of the crew module. Obviously I had responsibility for everything that goes inside the capsule, which one of things was the seats. I had to understand, as the manager of that, what happened during Columbia and what could be done to mitigate what happened to the crew in case of an accident. That was very emotionally taxing, to understand truly what happened to those people when Columbia disintegrated. It was very sad.\n\n When we were taking a break, we talked about NASCAR some. NASCAR also has what’s called the head and neck system, where they have a way of attaching the helmet to the structure of the car, so that you don’t have the head snapping back and forth or side to side. That’s one of the things that was being considered to help keep the crew safe in the capsule, is some way of stabilizing the head.

[Assistant] Was it adopted, or was something similar done?

[User] I don’t know. I don’t know, because I had left the program by the time those decisions were being made.

[Assistant] As you mentioned, after a couple of years, you were moving on again.

[User] Actually, when Skip Hatfield was relieved of his management duties, then Mark [S.] Geyer came in, and he basically tossed everybody out on their ear, and I was one of them. That wasn’t of my own volition. I had to move. I was told, “You’re gone.”

[Assistant] Is that when Constellation was cancelled?


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

[User] I don’t know. I don’t know, because I had left the program by the time those decisions were being made.

[Assistant] As you mentioned, after a couple of years, you were moving on again.

[User] Actually, when Skip Hatfield was relieved of his management duties, then Mark [S.] Geyer came in, and he basically tossed everybody out on their ear, and I was one of them. That wasn’t of my own volition. I had to move. I was told, “You’re gone.”

[Assistant] Is that when Constellation was cancelled?

[User] This was before that.

[Assistant] That would have been around the 2008 time period? When you went to the next position?


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

[User] Actually, when Skip Hatfield was relieved of his management duties, then Mark [S.] Geyer came in, and he basically tossed everybody out on their ear, and I was one of them. That wasn’t of my own volition. I had to move. I was told, “You’re gone.”

[Assistant] Is that when Constellation was cancelled?

[User] This was before that.

[Assistant] That would have been around the 2008 time period? When you went to the next position?

[User] Yes. It was pretty close. That was, personally, very distressing, but having Constellation being cancelled at nearly the same time just threw the whole monkey wrench into things. It was just unbelievably ungodly.

[Assistant] Bad year all the way around, wasn’t it?


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

[User] This was before that.

[Assistant] That would have been around the 2008 time period? When you went to the next position?

[User] Yes. It was pretty close. That was, personally, very distressing, but having Constellation being cancelled at nearly the same time just threw the whole monkey wrench into things. It was just unbelievably ungodly.

[Assistant] Bad year all the way around, wasn’t it?

[User] It really was. I’m glad that the design and development is proceeding, but it was not a personally happy time, to say the least.

[Assistant] I could imagine that it was a little stressful. You moved into the assistant to the manager of the Program Engineering and Integration Office? Do you want to talk about some of your experiences working there for a couple of years?


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

[User] Yes, you have to kind of go through the logic chain with them. “Oh, okay. I get it now.”

[Assistant] I imagine there’s all kinds of engineers.

[User] Well, there are. I did the 4D assessment stuff for a long time through CEV, and then again in Engineering to some extent. You do find out that there’s people who are very people-oriented. You have to make the people happy. Then there are people like me, who we get totally task-focused. Yes, we know there are people out there, but we don’t care how they feel. I’m exaggerating to a degree. Then there are engineers who are so detailed-oriented you can’t get them out of their equations to save their lives. Then there’s the folks?there’s another category that I can’t remember what it is right off hand, but again, it’s a more people-oriented side of things. Most of the people at JSC might surprise you?or maybe not?that they’re all detail-oriented. There are times when I’ve have had to sit up in front of meetings and listen to presentations and go, “Oh, okay, so your point is x?” They’re going through all this detail, and I’ve snoozed off long ago.

[Assistant] Let’s get to the bottom line.

[User] Get to the bottom line. What’s your answer? I don’t necessarily care all the details of how you got there. To the person presenting, it’s very important that you know all that tedious stuff. You have to be able to work with the different kinds of people and how they function, and not try to offend them.

[Assistant] I would think that’s part of being a good project manager, too, is understanding your team and being able to work with all kinds of people. I can imagine a lot of people aren’t able to do that.


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

[User] Well, there are. I did the 4D assessment stuff for a long time through CEV, and then again in Engineering to some extent. You do find out that there’s people who are very people-oriented. You have to make the people happy. Then there are people like me, who we get totally task-focused. Yes, we know there are people out there, but we don’t care how they feel. I’m exaggerating to a degree. Then there are engineers who are so detailed-oriented you can’t get them out of their equations to save their lives. Then there’s the folks?there’s another category that I can’t remember what it is right off hand, but again, it’s a more people-oriented side of things. Most of the people at JSC might surprise you?or maybe not?that they’re all detail-oriented. There are times when I’ve have had to sit up in front of meetings and listen to presentations and go, “Oh, okay, so your point is x?” They’re going through all this detail, and I’ve snoozed off long ago.

[Assistant] Let’s get to the bottom line.

[User] Get to the bottom line. What’s your answer? I don’t necessarily care all the details of how you got there. To the person presenting, it’s very important that you know all that tedious stuff. You have to be able to work with the different kinds of people and how they function, and not try to offend them.

[Assistant] I would think that’s part of being a good project manager, too, is understanding your team and being able to work with all kinds of people. I can imagine a lot of people aren’t able to do that.

[User] No, there are some who are not so good at that.

[Assistant] You mentioned iLIDS. That project was actually something that you started working on, and then was cancelled while you were working as a project manager. Do you want to talk about that for a minute, and the process, which is maybe not pleasant, but it is something that has to be done when a project is cancelled. You have to shut it down, or it has to be transitioned.


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

[User] Everything has been challenging. Doing the OBSS has probably been the most because of the technical issues, the schedule issues, the environment they were working on, and the reasons why we were doing it. Starting up the CEV, when I started in there, we were trying to run a project at the same time that we were trying to build a program office with its infrastructure. We didn’t have a way to write a CR [change request]. Here we’re trying to write CRs, just like we’re trying to make a change. Well wait a minute, we don’t have a system to make a change. It was hitting the ground running, and trying to do all that. From overall, I’d have to say it was OBSS.

[Assistant] Is there anything you’re most proud of?

[User] I think wireless video, frankly. I mean, OBSS was useful in that it proved that we could do that, and that we didn’t find anything, thank God, but wireless video’s probably been the most useful project that I was involved in.

[Assistant] Yes, and still being used.

[User] It’s still being used today, and I expect that whatever suits or whatever EVA equipment is built in the future, they’re going to put cameras on it. They’re not going to go cameraless anymore. It may be only for situational awareness, but by God, a picture’s worth a thousand words.

[Assistant] A big change from when you walked in the door to what’s happening now at JSC is there’s a female Director of Engineering. I believe you’ve worked with Lauri [N.] Hansen in the past.


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

[User] I think wireless video, frankly. I mean, OBSS was useful in that it proved that we could do that, and that we didn’t find anything, thank God, but wireless video’s probably been the most useful project that I was involved in.

[Assistant] Yes, and still being used.

[User] It’s still being used today, and I expect that whatever suits or whatever EVA equipment is built in the future, they’re going to put cameras on it. They’re not going to go cameraless anymore. It may be only for situational awareness, but by God, a picture’s worth a thousand words.

[Assistant] A big change from when you walked in the door to what’s happening now at JSC is there’s a female Director of Engineering. I believe you’ve worked with Lauri [N.] Hansen in the past.

[User] Yes.

[Assistant] That’s a big change, and of course, as you mentioned, there’s been more females involved, and just a lot of different work situations. Are there other changes? You’ve talked about some of the culture, we’ve talked a little bit about technology, but if you were looking back, some of the things that you’ve seen the evolution of, the progression that you feel might have made a great impact on how engineering field within space exploration or at JSC has been able to advance, and been able to get their work done so much more whether efficiently, or comprehensively? Are there technology tools and the different way that you do communication? Any of those types of those things that you can think of that have made significant impacts on how you were able to get your work done? I’m sure it was all the reorgs that you went through.


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

[User] It’s still being used today, and I expect that whatever suits or whatever EVA equipment is built in the future, they’re going to put cameras on it. They’re not going to go cameraless anymore. It may be only for situational awareness, but by God, a picture’s worth a thousand words.

[Assistant] A big change from when you walked in the door to what’s happening now at JSC is there’s a female Director of Engineering. I believe you’ve worked with Lauri [N.] Hansen in the past.

[User] Yes.

[Assistant] That’s a big change, and of course, as you mentioned, there’s been more females involved, and just a lot of different work situations. Are there other changes? You’ve talked about some of the culture, we’ve talked a little bit about technology, but if you were looking back, some of the things that you’ve seen the evolution of, the progression that you feel might have made a great impact on how engineering field within space exploration or at JSC has been able to advance, and been able to get their work done so much more whether efficiently, or comprehensively? Are there technology tools and the different way that you do communication? Any of those types of those things that you can think of that have made significant impacts on how you were able to get your work done? I’m sure it was all the reorgs that you went through.

[User] Oh yes, yes. All the reorgs. I started in [Building] 15, moved to 45, came back to 15, went to 13. Yes, nevermind.

[Assistant] Talk about the difference of how you communicated when you first came here to how you end up communicating when you left. Email seemed to make such a big difference on how people started talking to each other.


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

[User] Oh, yes. Yes, I knew all those guys. Jay [H.] Greene?had my run-ins with Jay. John [F.] Muratore, that was a fun one. One thing, I guess, just from a personal perspective, is that I am an introvert by nature. I get tired of people after a while, so that’s when I want to go home, and just crawl into my corner, and be by myself, and recharge. I tell people that at work, and I have a very different aspect to my personality when I’m at work, and dealing with people, and building projects, and working. They go, “You’re a what? No.”\n\n It is possible for introverts to be extremely effective in what they do. You don’t have to be an extrovert to be successful. Unfortunately most of the world are extroverts, and they don’t believe us. That’s one of the things that I’ve found, is that I’m an “I.” I’m not an “E.” I can still utilize everything that I know and be very effective, but at the end of the day, it’s like “No, I don’t want to deal with you anymore.”

[Assistant] That’s probably why you remained as sane as you did. That and the needlepoint, right?

[User] Yes, that’s what’s in here [pointing at bag].

[Assistant] You have to have that other part of your life to go back to.

[User] That’s right. You have to have something outside of work. I’ve known far too many people that all they know is work. In fact, there was a woman I ran into a few weeks ago, she’s worked at JSC for 40-some-odd years. She’s afraid to retire because she doesn’t know what she’s going to do. That’s all she’s ever done is work. She’s got children, but she’s never developed any outside interests. To me, that’s really sad. That’s not balance in life.

[Assistant] Yes, it goes back to that whole work/life balance. You have to have a balance.


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

[User] Yes, that’s what’s in here [pointing at bag].

[Assistant] You have to have that other part of your life to go back to.

[User] That’s right. You have to have something outside of work. I’ve known far too many people that all they know is work. In fact, there was a woman I ran into a few weeks ago, she’s worked at JSC for 40-some-odd years. She’s afraid to retire because she doesn’t know what she’s going to do. That’s all she’s ever done is work. She’s got children, but she’s never developed any outside interests. To me, that’s really sad. That’s not balance in life.

[Assistant] Yes, it goes back to that whole work/life balance. You have to have a balance.

[User] There have been people who literally died at their desks because they don’t have any outside anything to do. I don’t care whether it’s gardening or whatever. You need to have something outside of work.

[Assistant] Well thank you very much for coming in today and talking to us. We appreciate it.


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

[User] I grew up in Silver Spring, Maryland, born and raised in Silver Spring, Maryland, in the same house I grew up in for the first 14 years of my life. So quite sedentary, the product of a British mother and an American father. But then in high school, my parents, my father got a job with USAID and he took his family over to Kenya to work for him to be the deputy director of an agricultural USAID project. And for the mother, myself and my brother to be in Nairobi and attending the International School of Kenya. So did the last part of my growing up there. And I well, the last I would say a year and a half, I think in Chicago, after that project ended for him, he decided to relocate his family to North Shore Chicago. So did the last part of me growing up there.

[Assistant] So you had some international experience before that as well?

[User] I did, which I think certainly. In, you know, especially the time in Kenya bumping around in in Land Rovers on safari with my family really planted that seed of wild, really instilled in me a love of nature and nature, desire to protect it and a love of cultures. I think that's really what I got from my kids.

[Assistant] Well, can you tell me about that later on?

[User] Sure.

[Assistant] As long as we go through all of this. So you applied for the Peace Corps. How long did it take to get into the Peace Corps?


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

[User] I did, which I think certainly. In, you know, especially the time in Kenya bumping around in in Land Rovers on safari with my family really planted that seed of wild, really instilled in me a love of nature and nature, desire to protect it and a love of cultures. I think that's really what I got from my kids.

[Assistant] Well, can you tell me about that later on?

[User] Sure.

[Assistant] As long as we go through all of this. So you applied for the Peace Corps. How long did it take to get into the Peace Corps?

[User] I think it took me about a year. I think maybe, maybe a little shy of a year. We were about nine or 10 months. But I applied, I think, in the fall of 2000, I think by summer of 2001 and received acceptance. It wasn't a fluid process or a quick process necessarily, because they offered me initially the opportunity to go to, I had initially wanted to go to Latin America. I had grown up with Spanish as my second language and in formal, formal school. But they didn't have any slots in Latin America. And I said, well, OK, well, the next best thing is maybe Francophone. I knew that I wanted to use the Peace Corps as an opportunity to get some language skills. And so they said Francophone Africa.

[Assistant] But they, where had they offered before?


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

[User] Sure.

[Assistant] As long as we go through all of this. So you applied for the Peace Corps. How long did it take to get into the Peace Corps?

[User] I think it took me about a year. I think maybe, maybe a little shy of a year. We were about nine or 10 months. But I applied, I think, in the fall of 2000, I think by summer of 2001 and received acceptance. It wasn't a fluid process or a quick process necessarily, because they offered me initially the opportunity to go to, I had initially wanted to go to Latin America. I had grown up with Spanish as my second language and in formal, formal school. But they didn't have any slots in Latin America. And I said, well, OK, well, the next best thing is maybe Francophone. I knew that I wanted to use the Peace Corps as an opportunity to get some language skills. And so they said Francophone Africa.

[Assistant] But they, where had they offered before?

[User] The first one that they offered me, they weren't able to offer me anything in my first choice, which is Latin America. But so the second one was Francophone Africa, sub-Saharan Africa somewhere. And the one that they offered me was Morocco, first Mauritania. And I said, I think I would early terminate if I went to MIT, but then Morocco. But in that case, I felt I really wanted to I was concerned that I would learn more Berber and less French because the French had spoken mainly in the cities of Morocco, whereas the Berber and Arabic are spoken more in the hinterland. So I felt like it would be enough for me to come out with some solid skills that would translate well into a professional context. I wanted to go to more of a black African sub- Saharan African country. So then the third choice they offered me was Benin. And I said, absolutely.

[Assistant] And what kind of a program were you in?


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

[User] It was in country there was a two day staging, I think is what they called it in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, an opportunity for us to get together and really just go around the room and introduce ourselves, I believe, and get some basic nuts, bolts things before we boarded a plane. And then from there we boarded a plane. We went to Cotonou, the commercial capital of Benin, which, by the way, was a country I'd never heard of before. I was invited to go to this country. I had to look it up on a map when I went. But we landed in Benin and spent a couple of days and then, well, perhaps maybe more than a couple of days, about a week, I would say. And then before we were we were divided into our groups. And then we had different trainings based on different programs in different parts of the country for the environmental action.

[Assistant] Which group were you in?

[User] I was in the environmental action program and that one.

[Assistant] Not education. But you were.

[User] It was yeah. It was not education. Most of the education, as I recall, there was an education program in Benin was English education.

[Assistant] When you said you were diverted, divided into your groups, what group were you part of? Was it just dividing you in different sections, different concentration?


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

[User] I was in the environmental action program and that one.

[Assistant] Not education. But you were.

[User] It was yeah. It was not education. Most of the education, as I recall, there was an education program in Benin was English education.

[Assistant] When you said you were diverted, divided into your groups, what group were you part of? Was it just dividing you in different sections, different concentration?

[User] No, what was actually just still it was still everybody in the environmental program. But in my case, a number of programs went in at the same time. So we had volunteers who were small business enterprise volunteers, volunteers who were education volunteers, mainly English education and community health, and then us, which is the environmental action, many of which were there. And there was, I would say, about 40, 40 or 50.

[Assistant] For environmental or education?


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

[User] It was yeah. It was not education. Most of the education, as I recall, there was an education program in Benin was English education.

[Assistant] When you said you were diverted, divided into your groups, what group were you part of? Was it just dividing you in different sections, different concentration?

[User] No, what was actually just still it was still everybody in the environmental program. But in my case, a number of programs went in at the same time. So we had volunteers who were small business enterprise volunteers, volunteers who were education volunteers, mainly English education and community health, and then us, which is the environmental action, many of which were there. And there was, I would say, about 40, 40 or 50.

[Assistant] For environmental or education?

[User] For the environmental it was much smaller. It was about, I would say thirteen oh thirteen of us in that. But as a as a class, as an entire class that was then divided into various programs, it was about 50 people, I think at the time. Benin enjoyed the distinction of being the country in the world with the highest per capita concentration of volunteers in the world. Yeah, it's a very small country, Benin, but there are well, it was relatively peaceful and open to receiving US foreign aid and assistance of any kind. And so I think because of that, we there was always a robust Peace Corps presence in in Benin. But so we flew into Cotonou. We can continue. And then for the Environmental Action Team, we then splintered off and did the remaining three months training in a city called Parakou, which is about smack dab in the middle of the country in the north.

[Assistant] And what was the training like there?


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

[User] We learned we learned the language for sure. We also did it was the cultural cross-cultural training was also quite significant. I mean, I have to hand it to the Peace Corps for really putting an emphasis on that. There was quite a lot of attention on the kinds of things that we might expect or might be coming up with and might be confronting when we got to our sites. It was, you know, from religious rituals to knowing how to greet people to, you know, how important small talk is in certain contexts to how you eat and which hand you eat it with, you know, eat with and all of these things. So there was there's quite a lot of emphasis and rightly so, on cross-cultural training.

[Assistant] Good. So you finished the training. Did everybody in your group finish and did some people drop out, leave?

[User] Everybody in our group did finish. Yes, everybody was successful in that regard. Maybe there was one person who decided to ET and terminate early. But we Benin and we were certainly a good example of this. Benin did not have a of a high rate. Most everybody stayed their term. And for us, I think that was the case, that there's one person who dropped off.

[Assistant] So what happened after training?

[User] So I got to my village, my village was a village called Toucountouna, which I like to say was the most colorful that's the best name for a village in all of Benin.

[Assistant] And talk a little bit about this village.


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

[User] I was. There had been previously. I wasn't the first. There was somebody who had been there before I was. And somebody I think two volunteers. It was one long ago and I think in the 60s, 70s, and there was a period of time where there was no volunteer. And then another one came a few years before I had he had gone off and married somebody from the village, actually, no. And so he you can imagine the big shoes I was had to fill if the first person or the last volunteers was Marinus, it was regarded in high esteem. And everybody knew him by his both his Anglo-Saxon name, but also his local name. About two months in, I also was given a local name, and that is Yakupov, Yorta.

[Assistant] Yorta? Yorta.

[User] Yorta, it translated roughly to something like he for whom no one else can talk, can speak or something like this, that he who speaks well or something like this. It was it was an honor to have been given a local name. He was even more of an honor to have been given the name Yata ApoB, because the person who gave it was the super he was the mayor of the town. And guess what? His name was Yakupov. So it was sort of it was quite an honor to have been, you know, bequeathed the name of the person giving it. And very few people are called Yorta Yorta by.

[Assistant] The well-spoken one.

[User] Well-spoken one, something like that.

[Assistant] How did you where did you live?


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

[User] Yorta, it translated roughly to something like he for whom no one else can talk, can speak or something like this, that he who speaks well or something like this. It was it was an honor to have been given a local name. He was even more of an honor to have been given the name Yata ApoB, because the person who gave it was the super he was the mayor of the town. And guess what? His name was Yakupov. So it was sort of it was quite an honor to have been, you know, bequeathed the name of the person giving it. And very few people are called Yorta Yorta by.

[Assistant] The well-spoken one.

[User] Well-spoken one, something like that.

[Assistant] How did you where did you live?

[User] In the town. I lived in the sort of on the outskirts of town near the mayor. I had my own compound. I was given my own compound.

[Assistant] A mud hut?


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

[User] Well-spoken one, something like that.

[Assistant] How did you where did you live?

[User] In the town. I lived in the sort of on the outskirts of town near the mayor. I had my own compound. I was given my own compound.

[Assistant] A mud hut?

[User] In my case, I was considered a VIP. And so they had actually constructed a cement block house for me, a you could say there was one big room, there was a small kitchen, a bedroom and a very and even smaller bathroom, just really just some place where you could put a bucket for a bucket shower and a colobus, you know, a gourd for the pouring mechanism. And that was my, and then when, when I got there, I realized there was no source of water point source for any water that I might need. So they had said that I could have a young girl bring massive Beadle's, massive pitchers of water on her small little head and drop them off in a cistern by my by my house every day. And I said, forget it. No way am I going to have some small girl do that for me. So I. I actually spent some of my own little money. I had the Peace Corps allowed us to have as a as a stipend to build a well on the property. So I helped to build the well on the property.

[Assistant] So there was water.


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

[User] In the town. I lived in the sort of on the outskirts of town near the mayor. I had my own compound. I was given my own compound.

[Assistant] A mud hut?

[User] In my case, I was considered a VIP. And so they had actually constructed a cement block house for me, a you could say there was one big room, there was a small kitchen, a bedroom and a very and even smaller bathroom, just really just some place where you could put a bucket for a bucket shower and a colobus, you know, a gourd for the pouring mechanism. And that was my, and then when, when I got there, I realized there was no source of water point source for any water that I might need. So they had said that I could have a young girl bring massive Beadle's, massive pitchers of water on her small little head and drop them off in a cistern by my by my house every day. And I said, forget it. No way am I going to have some small girl do that for me. So I. I actually spent some of my own little money. I had the Peace Corps allowed us to have as a as a stipend to build a well on the property. So I helped to build the well on the property.

[Assistant] So there was water.

[User] There was then then after that there was a point source for water and a small latrine near there as well.

[Assistant] So that was had fancy digs,


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

[User] In my case, I was considered a VIP. And so they had actually constructed a cement block house for me, a you could say there was one big room, there was a small kitchen, a bedroom and a very and even smaller bathroom, just really just some place where you could put a bucket for a bucket shower and a colobus, you know, a gourd for the pouring mechanism. And that was my, and then when, when I got there, I realized there was no source of water point source for any water that I might need. So they had said that I could have a young girl bring massive Beadle's, massive pitchers of water on her small little head and drop them off in a cistern by my by my house every day. And I said, forget it. No way am I going to have some small girl do that for me. So I. I actually spent some of my own little money. I had the Peace Corps allowed us to have as a as a stipend to build a well on the property. So I helped to build the well on the property.

[Assistant] So there was water.

[User] There was then then after that there was a point source for water and a small latrine near there as well.

[Assistant] So that was had fancy digs,

[User] Fancy digs, comparatively speaking. But I think compared to many of my other volunteers, you know, some sort of I got, you know, living, living, hard living compared to I think what I heard the other volunteers had, you know, I mean, remember, no electricity, no running water. And so those were two handicaps, if you like. But compared to I think there's other volunteers who had those sorts of amenities.

[Assistant] So let's talk a little bit about what your job was. What were you intended to do when you got there? And then what did you end up, in fact, doing?


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

[User] There was then then after that there was a point source for water and a small latrine near there as well.

[Assistant] So that was had fancy digs,

[User] Fancy digs, comparatively speaking. But I think compared to many of my other volunteers, you know, some sort of I got, you know, living, living, hard living compared to I think what I heard the other volunteers had, you know, I mean, remember, no electricity, no running water. And so those were two handicaps, if you like. But compared to I think there's other volunteers who had those sorts of amenities.

[Assistant] So let's talk a little bit about what your job was. What were you intended to do when you got there? And then what did you end up, in fact, doing?

[User] I was paired with the local forestry officer of Toucountouna superfecture, and I, to be honest, quite honest, I. We didn't connect, we didn't click. He was drunk 90 percent of the time and seemed to not be doing that much. So the other thing that happened was that while the other the other thing that I was charged with doing was to try to do environmental education in the classes.

[Assistant] In high school and secondary?


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

[User] From the U.S. embassy. It was an embassy small grant and a another local Dutch NGO whose name escapes me now.

[Assistant] Doesn’t matter. Yeah, that's great.

[User] Yeah, it was awesome.

[Assistant] And Peace Corps was fine with your switching off from environmental education.

[User] They I mean, yes, absolutely. I mean, they you know, you do check in with them not often, mind you, but, you know, in the few times that you check in with your supervisor or in my case was the Associate Peace Corps director APCD for environmental action. You know, you, you report to them what, what you've been up to. And I think it was quite clear that I wasn't as if I was sitting on my desk the whole time. I was I was quite active. I was one of the more active volunteers. So they were quite happy with what I'd done. And in fact, so much so that the ambassador came up to inaugurate and this was after my service. But the ambassador came up after the building had been constructed. The ambassador came up to cut the ribbon, as it were, to open up the small facility for Furminger Dry.

[Assistant] So how was the building built, where you involved in building it or who did the building?