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

[User] My immediate supervisor at that point was Tom [Thomas P.] Lins, and my Branch Chief at that time was Kenneth [J.] Cox, and that basically was my chain of command for quite a while.

[Assistant] What was your first assignment when you started working in the Directorate?

[User] I guess my first assignment was to help a guy put together a simulation of the lunar landing module, a guy named, and another name for you, Clarke [T.] Hackler was the guy that I was assisting.

[Assistant] What did that entail, creating this simulation?

[User] Well, basically, the simulation was already created, and my job was to help him run it. At that time, I didn’t have enough experience to put together a simulation. This was a learning experience, and basically at that time, contrary to what you’ve got now, we were working with analog computers and learning to put the equations of motion and the hardware simulations on those type of elements. That all evolved to the point where eventually we tied some digitals into the analog systems, and that’s basically where we were with some few exceptions when we landed on the Moon. That was our technology base for the Moon’s lunar landing, was analog and hybrid simulations. We didn’t have digital simulations with high-speed computers like they do today.

[Assistant] You mentioned actually in the previous interview that you did in ’99 that you helped develop the techniques for building the digital simulators.


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

[User] I guess my first assignment was to help a guy put together a simulation of the lunar landing module, a guy named, and another name for you, Clarke [T.] Hackler was the guy that I was assisting.

[Assistant] What did that entail, creating this simulation?

[User] Well, basically, the simulation was already created, and my job was to help him run it. At that time, I didn’t have enough experience to put together a simulation. This was a learning experience, and basically at that time, contrary to what you’ve got now, we were working with analog computers and learning to put the equations of motion and the hardware simulations on those type of elements. That all evolved to the point where eventually we tied some digitals into the analog systems, and that’s basically where we were with some few exceptions when we landed on the Moon. That was our technology base for the Moon’s lunar landing, was analog and hybrid simulations. We didn’t have digital simulations with high-speed computers like they do today.

[Assistant] You mentioned actually in the previous interview that you did in ’99 that you helped develop the techniques for building the digital simulators.

[User] Yes.

[Assistant] Can you tell us what was involved in that?


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

[User] Yeah. Basically, the West Coast model was a technique where if you knew the frequency, you would design what’s called a shaping filter that would filter out that frequency in the feedback system. The problem with that technique is that you have to know the frequency within a certain bandwidth or you have a very difficult problem of filtering out that signal. On the East Coast, the technique was, okay, I can’t know the frequency that well, but I know the damping characteristics of this, I know how it’s phased, so I won’t try to eliminate that frequency, but I’ll try to actively control that frequency. And that was basically the two different techniques. One tried to wipe out the signal out of the feedback system; the other one took that signal and reshaped it so that it didn’t feed back.

[Assistant] Can you tell us about the verification testing and quality control testing of these automatic controls?

[User] Well, okay, that went all the way from basically hand analysis to digital computer analysis to simulation analysis to actually buying and implementing the hardware and putting it together in a facility and making it operate. So it was very extensive. It was not just a few people. It was a lot of people involved.

[Assistant] How many people worked with you on the automatic controls?

[User] I have no idea. I had interfaces through MIT and through basically what was then North American, and then North American’s contractor was Honeywell. So I had interfaces with those people, and I might interface with a half dozen people, but there were lots of people involved. We’re talking hundreds of people involved in the small element that I was dealing with. But I didn’t direct them or interface with them directly, just a few.\n\n NASA’s job, as it is today, was primarily coordinating these activities, not doing them.

[Assistant] How large were these automatic controls? Can you give us a sense of what size we’re talking about?


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

[User] I have no idea. I had interfaces through MIT and through basically what was then North American, and then North American’s contractor was Honeywell. So I had interfaces with those people, and I might interface with a half dozen people, but there were lots of people involved. We’re talking hundreds of people involved in the small element that I was dealing with. But I didn’t direct them or interface with them directly, just a few.\n\n NASA’s job, as it is today, was primarily coordinating these activities, not doing them.

[Assistant] How large were these automatic controls? Can you give us a sense of what size we’re talking about?

[User] Physical size?

[Assistant] Yes.

[User] No. You know, the sensors vary all the way from the onboard IMU [Inertial Measurement Unit], which was about a one-[foot] diameter sphere kind of thing, with all kinds of instrumentation inside it, to very small sensor size. I don’t really have much to talk about because the hardware itself wasn’t something that I had a hands-on activity with.

[Assistant] What were your workdays like? You mentioned working with all these various contractors. Did you do a lot of traveling? How much time were you in the office?


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

[User] Physical size?

[Assistant] Yes.

[User] No. You know, the sensors vary all the way from the onboard IMU [Inertial Measurement Unit], which was about a one-[foot] diameter sphere kind of thing, with all kinds of instrumentation inside it, to very small sensor size. I don’t really have much to talk about because the hardware itself wasn’t something that I had a hands-on activity with.

[Assistant] What were your workdays like? You mentioned working with all these various contractors. Did you do a lot of traveling? How much time were you in the office?

[User] Well, basically, we were in the office quite a bit, depending on what was going on, but most of our work was done onsite. At the level that I was operating, I didn’t travel but like maybe once a month, and guys that were above me and had greater responsibilities were traveling more than that, but we basically stayed in-house and worked on the projects that we had to work on. So eight-hour day, ten-hour day was not unusual kind of thing.

[Assistant] Did you ever work on the weekends?


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

[User] No. You know, the sensors vary all the way from the onboard IMU [Inertial Measurement Unit], which was about a one-[foot] diameter sphere kind of thing, with all kinds of instrumentation inside it, to very small sensor size. I don’t really have much to talk about because the hardware itself wasn’t something that I had a hands-on activity with.

[Assistant] What were your workdays like? You mentioned working with all these various contractors. Did you do a lot of traveling? How much time were you in the office?

[User] Well, basically, we were in the office quite a bit, depending on what was going on, but most of our work was done onsite. At the level that I was operating, I didn’t travel but like maybe once a month, and guys that were above me and had greater responsibilities were traveling more than that, but we basically stayed in-house and worked on the projects that we had to work on. So eight-hour day, ten-hour day was not unusual kind of thing.

[Assistant] Did you ever work on the weekends?

[User] Oh, yeah, yeah. Back when we were trying to get all this stuff running and there was lots of time to do things, most of us were young and full of energy. Most of us were single at the time, and we had lots of time to spend at it. So we did.

[Assistant] What were some of the facilities that you used while you were working on the Apollo Program?


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

[User] Well, basically, we were in the office quite a bit, depending on what was going on, but most of our work was done onsite. At the level that I was operating, I didn’t travel but like maybe once a month, and guys that were above me and had greater responsibilities were traveling more than that, but we basically stayed in-house and worked on the projects that we had to work on. So eight-hour day, ten-hour day was not unusual kind of thing.

[Assistant] Did you ever work on the weekends?

[User] Oh, yeah, yeah. Back when we were trying to get all this stuff running and there was lots of time to do things, most of us were young and full of energy. Most of us were single at the time, and we had lots of time to spend at it. So we did.

[Assistant] What were some of the facilities that you used while you were working on the Apollo Program?

[User] Basically, they were mostly in-house facilities like I had talked about, the Building 16 simulators, the Building [12], the onsite computer facilities kind of thing. They were basically whatever was available that you could get through government procurement at the time. That’s basically where we were. At that time you didn’t even have any electronic calculators. We’re talking about slide rules and adding machines, and what few digital computers you had you had to have approval to get computer time at that time to go make data runs. So we had limited automatic system access.

[Assistant] Did you spent much time at all working on those digital computers?


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

[User] Oh, yeah, yeah. Back when we were trying to get all this stuff running and there was lots of time to do things, most of us were young and full of energy. Most of us were single at the time, and we had lots of time to spend at it. So we did.

[Assistant] What were some of the facilities that you used while you were working on the Apollo Program?

[User] Basically, they were mostly in-house facilities like I had talked about, the Building 16 simulators, the Building [12], the onsite computer facilities kind of thing. They were basically whatever was available that you could get through government procurement at the time. That’s basically where we were. At that time you didn’t even have any electronic calculators. We’re talking about slide rules and adding machines, and what few digital computers you had you had to have approval to get computer time at that time to go make data runs. So we had limited automatic system access.

[Assistant] Did you spent much time at all working on those digital computers?

[User] I spent time using them as a user, not as actually working the digital computers themselves, no.

[Assistant] What would you use the computers for?


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

[User] Basically, they were mostly in-house facilities like I had talked about, the Building 16 simulators, the Building [12], the onsite computer facilities kind of thing. They were basically whatever was available that you could get through government procurement at the time. That’s basically where we were. At that time you didn’t even have any electronic calculators. We’re talking about slide rules and adding machines, and what few digital computers you had you had to have approval to get computer time at that time to go make data runs. So we had limited automatic system access.

[Assistant] Did you spent much time at all working on those digital computers?

[User] I spent time using them as a user, not as actually working the digital computers themselves, no.

[Assistant] What would you use the computers for?

[User] Basically just having built a mathematical equation, going and executing that equation, to make sure that things were validated.

[Assistant] How well did the automatic controls work on the Apollo missions?


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

[User] I spent time using them as a user, not as actually working the digital computers themselves, no.

[Assistant] What would you use the computers for?

[User] Basically just having built a mathematical equation, going and executing that equation, to make sure that things were validated.

[Assistant] How well did the automatic controls work on the Apollo missions?

[User] They worked well. [Laughs] As a matter of fact, as far as I can remember, there was never any concern about how they operated. Back then, the systems that we had were built based on statistical analysis of their quality, and we basically said we built the system with reliability of five nines, .99999, okay, and that’s basically the whole technique that was used in Apollo. So everything that was put up in Apollo was expected to never fail, essentially, and as far as I know, the electronics systems on Apollo never had any significant failures in them, period, whether it’s controls or not.

[Assistant] Did you have any assignments during the Apollo missions?


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

[User] Basically just having built a mathematical equation, going and executing that equation, to make sure that things were validated.

[Assistant] How well did the automatic controls work on the Apollo missions?

[User] They worked well. [Laughs] As a matter of fact, as far as I can remember, there was never any concern about how they operated. Back then, the systems that we had were built based on statistical analysis of their quality, and we basically said we built the system with reliability of five nines, .99999, okay, and that’s basically the whole technique that was used in Apollo. So everything that was put up in Apollo was expected to never fail, essentially, and as far as I know, the electronics systems on Apollo never had any significant failures in them, period, whether it’s controls or not.

[Assistant] Did you have any assignments during the Apollo missions?

[User] I did. I was part of the Guidance Control Division’s team that supported what was then called the Mission Evaluation Room, which was over in Building 45, third floor, if I remember right. That was basically engineering support for the Mission Control Center. We had data that we watched continuously and supported them if they had any engineering problems to work kind of thing.

[Assistant] Are there any missions that stand out in your mind where you had to work a certain issue?


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

[User] They worked well. [Laughs] As a matter of fact, as far as I can remember, there was never any concern about how they operated. Back then, the systems that we had were built based on statistical analysis of their quality, and we basically said we built the system with reliability of five nines, .99999, okay, and that’s basically the whole technique that was used in Apollo. So everything that was put up in Apollo was expected to never fail, essentially, and as far as I know, the electronics systems on Apollo never had any significant failures in them, period, whether it’s controls or not.

[Assistant] Did you have any assignments during the Apollo missions?

[User] I did. I was part of the Guidance Control Division’s team that supported what was then called the Mission Evaluation Room, which was over in Building 45, third floor, if I remember right. That was basically engineering support for the Mission Control Center. We had data that we watched continuously and supported them if they had any engineering problems to work kind of thing.

[Assistant] Are there any missions that stand out in your mind where you had to work a certain issue?

[User] Yeah, Apollo 13.

[Assistant] Do you want to share with us those details?


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

[User] I did. I was part of the Guidance Control Division’s team that supported what was then called the Mission Evaluation Room, which was over in Building 45, third floor, if I remember right. That was basically engineering support for the Mission Control Center. We had data that we watched continuously and supported them if they had any engineering problems to work kind of thing.

[Assistant] Are there any missions that stand out in your mind where you had to work a certain issue?

[User] Yeah, Apollo 13.

[Assistant] Do you want to share with us those details?

[User] Well, Apollo 13 was very significant, obviously. There had to be a way to find to manage it both from a life support standpoint, which I didn’t work. That was not my problem. My problem again was back in the automated control systems, and basically what we had at that time is we knew we couldn’t use the Service Module engine for maneuvering. So the only choice was to use the Lunar Module engines, and the analysis that was done, I helped with. I’ll say “helped,” because there’s a whole bunch of people looking at this, and there were probably more teams than I can count on my hands working at this.\n\n So basically it was to define a way to make that vehicle respond and maneuver and make the trans-earth injection burn to get back and with a stable system, because, again, you had the flexible body problem where the two vehicles were mated, and the same problem that we’d had with designing the system to start with where those flexible body modes could cause you problems had that similar problem with the CSM LM with the LM combination firing. Only it wasn’t as great, because the engine forcing function was not as great. So you could not excite those modes as much with that engine, so you could, in fact, make that burn, and they did and got home.

[Assistant] Were you working in Building 45 when the accident occurred?


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

[User] Yeah, Apollo 13.

[Assistant] Do you want to share with us those details?

[User] Well, Apollo 13 was very significant, obviously. There had to be a way to find to manage it both from a life support standpoint, which I didn’t work. That was not my problem. My problem again was back in the automated control systems, and basically what we had at that time is we knew we couldn’t use the Service Module engine for maneuvering. So the only choice was to use the Lunar Module engines, and the analysis that was done, I helped with. I’ll say “helped,” because there’s a whole bunch of people looking at this, and there were probably more teams than I can count on my hands working at this.\n\n So basically it was to define a way to make that vehicle respond and maneuver and make the trans-earth injection burn to get back and with a stable system, because, again, you had the flexible body problem where the two vehicles were mated, and the same problem that we’d had with designing the system to start with where those flexible body modes could cause you problems had that similar problem with the CSM LM with the LM combination firing. Only it wasn’t as great, because the engine forcing function was not as great. So you could not excite those modes as much with that engine, so you could, in fact, make that burn, and they did and got home.

[Assistant] Were you working in Building 45 when the accident occurred?

[User] No, I was home when it actually occurred.

[Assistant] Did you hear about it on the news, or were you called in to work?


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

[User] Well, Apollo 13 was very significant, obviously. There had to be a way to find to manage it both from a life support standpoint, which I didn’t work. That was not my problem. My problem again was back in the automated control systems, and basically what we had at that time is we knew we couldn’t use the Service Module engine for maneuvering. So the only choice was to use the Lunar Module engines, and the analysis that was done, I helped with. I’ll say “helped,” because there’s a whole bunch of people looking at this, and there were probably more teams than I can count on my hands working at this.\n\n So basically it was to define a way to make that vehicle respond and maneuver and make the trans-earth injection burn to get back and with a stable system, because, again, you had the flexible body problem where the two vehicles were mated, and the same problem that we’d had with designing the system to start with where those flexible body modes could cause you problems had that similar problem with the CSM LM with the LM combination firing. Only it wasn’t as great, because the engine forcing function was not as great. So you could not excite those modes as much with that engine, so you could, in fact, make that burn, and they did and got home.

[Assistant] Were you working in Building 45 when the accident occurred?

[User] No, I was home when it actually occurred.

[Assistant] Did you hear about it on the news, or were you called in to work?

[User] Oh, I got a phone call. Yeah. I was home and I can’t remember if it was on the news. I honestly don’t remember.

[Assistant] What was the mood like at the Center when Apollo 13 finally landed?


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

[User] No, I was home when it actually occurred.

[Assistant] Did you hear about it on the news, or were you called in to work?

[User] Oh, I got a phone call. Yeah. I was home and I can’t remember if it was on the news. I honestly don’t remember.

[Assistant] What was the mood like at the Center when Apollo 13 finally landed?

[User] Oh, everybody was elated. They were just absolutely elated that they had managed to get them back.

[Assistant] Let’s go back to Apollo 11. Where were you when Apollo 11 landed on the Moon?


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

[User] Oh, I got a phone call. Yeah. I was home and I can’t remember if it was on the news. I honestly don’t remember.

[Assistant] What was the mood like at the Center when Apollo 13 finally landed?

[User] Oh, everybody was elated. They were just absolutely elated that they had managed to get them back.

[Assistant] Let’s go back to Apollo 11. Where were you when Apollo 11 landed on the Moon?

[User] I was in the Mission Evaluation Room in Building 45 working at the time, so I was there when they landed.

[Assistant] What were your thoughts at that time?


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

[User] Oh, everybody was elated. They were just absolutely elated that they had managed to get them back.

[Assistant] Let’s go back to Apollo 11. Where were you when Apollo 11 landed on the Moon?

[User] I was in the Mission Evaluation Room in Building 45 working at the time, so I was there when they landed.

[Assistant] What were your thoughts at that time?

[User] Oh, it was just elation at a successful event, and everybody was crazy, waving flags and doing things that people do when they’re excited.

[Assistant] I wonder if you can describe the Mission Evaluation Room for us. Give us a sense of how many people were in there, what was contained in that room, what the shifts were like.


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

[User] I was in the Mission Evaluation Room in Building 45 working at the time, so I was there when they landed.

[Assistant] What were your thoughts at that time?

[User] Oh, it was just elation at a successful event, and everybody was crazy, waving flags and doing things that people do when they’re excited.

[Assistant] I wonder if you can describe the Mission Evaluation Room for us. Give us a sense of how many people were in there, what was contained in that room, what the shifts were like.

[User] Well, the Mission Evaluation Room took basically the whole third floor of the Building 45, and it was the Engineering Directorate’s team to support the Mission Operations guys. So you had Structures guys in there, you had Propulsion guys in there, you had Guidance and Control Division guys. In terms of at any one time, there was probably on the order of a hundred people on that floor, and people were working basically three shifts a day, kind of thing. So it basically was overhead TV screens to present data. You had clerical support; you had copy support, and basically we had—it was all tables, tables and desks, with calculators and that kind of thing. It was not very modern in today’s terms of what you would see in the Control Center or even in the Mission Evaluation Room that’s currently there. There is currently a Mission Evaluation Room somewhere onsite. I don’t know where it is. It’s probably in the Control Center somewhere.

[Assistant] Some of the descriptions that you see of the Control Center in the ‘60s were that it was smoky and that it was really loud. Was it the same way in the Mission Evaluation Room?


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

[User] Oh, it was just elation at a successful event, and everybody was crazy, waving flags and doing things that people do when they’re excited.

[Assistant] I wonder if you can describe the Mission Evaluation Room for us. Give us a sense of how many people were in there, what was contained in that room, what the shifts were like.

[User] Well, the Mission Evaluation Room took basically the whole third floor of the Building 45, and it was the Engineering Directorate’s team to support the Mission Operations guys. So you had Structures guys in there, you had Propulsion guys in there, you had Guidance and Control Division guys. In terms of at any one time, there was probably on the order of a hundred people on that floor, and people were working basically three shifts a day, kind of thing. So it basically was overhead TV screens to present data. You had clerical support; you had copy support, and basically we had—it was all tables, tables and desks, with calculators and that kind of thing. It was not very modern in today’s terms of what you would see in the Control Center or even in the Mission Evaluation Room that’s currently there. There is currently a Mission Evaluation Room somewhere onsite. I don’t know where it is. It’s probably in the Control Center somewhere.

[Assistant] Some of the descriptions that you see of the Control Center in the ‘60s were that it was smoky and that it was really loud. Was it the same way in the Mission Evaluation Room?

[User] Oh, yeah, yeah. Yeah. At that time, as a matter of fact, when they landed on the Moon, they pulled out the cigars. And I’m a culprit also. I was a smoker. I would say the majority of the people were smokers at the time. It was kind of a smoke-filled backroom. The only places you couldn’t smoke was basically in the rooms where it was critical from a standpoint of messing up equipment and things like that. In the simulator rooms, you couldn’t smoke, and computer rooms, you didn’t smoke.\n\n But it was a very significant and traumatic event when they outlawed smoking on the site.

[Assistant] Was it really?


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

[User] Well, the Mission Evaluation Room took basically the whole third floor of the Building 45, and it was the Engineering Directorate’s team to support the Mission Operations guys. So you had Structures guys in there, you had Propulsion guys in there, you had Guidance and Control Division guys. In terms of at any one time, there was probably on the order of a hundred people on that floor, and people were working basically three shifts a day, kind of thing. So it basically was overhead TV screens to present data. You had clerical support; you had copy support, and basically we had—it was all tables, tables and desks, with calculators and that kind of thing. It was not very modern in today’s terms of what you would see in the Control Center or even in the Mission Evaluation Room that’s currently there. There is currently a Mission Evaluation Room somewhere onsite. I don’t know where it is. It’s probably in the Control Center somewhere.

[Assistant] Some of the descriptions that you see of the Control Center in the ‘60s were that it was smoky and that it was really loud. Was it the same way in the Mission Evaluation Room?

[User] Oh, yeah, yeah. Yeah. At that time, as a matter of fact, when they landed on the Moon, they pulled out the cigars. And I’m a culprit also. I was a smoker. I would say the majority of the people were smokers at the time. It was kind of a smoke-filled backroom. The only places you couldn’t smoke was basically in the rooms where it was critical from a standpoint of messing up equipment and things like that. In the simulator rooms, you couldn’t smoke, and computer rooms, you didn’t smoke.\n\n But it was a very significant and traumatic event when they outlawed smoking on the site.

[Assistant] Was it really?

[User] Oh, yes.

[Assistant] I had no idea.


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

[User] Oh, yeah, yeah. Yeah. At that time, as a matter of fact, when they landed on the Moon, they pulled out the cigars. And I’m a culprit also. I was a smoker. I would say the majority of the people were smokers at the time. It was kind of a smoke-filled backroom. The only places you couldn’t smoke was basically in the rooms where it was critical from a standpoint of messing up equipment and things like that. In the simulator rooms, you couldn’t smoke, and computer rooms, you didn’t smoke.\n\n But it was a very significant and traumatic event when they outlawed smoking on the site.

[Assistant] Was it really?

[User] Oh, yes.

[Assistant] I had no idea.

[User] Yeah. As a matter of fact, I actually quit smoking before it was outlawed on the site. The guy that had the nerve to do it was Aaron Cohen. He may have gotten instructions from somebody else, but he was the one that had the nerve to cut it out entirely. There was no smoking anywhere on the site. Used to, it was when they started out, you couldn’t smoke in this room and that room, you could smoke in your office, but with the central systems in those building out there, it didn’t make any difference. You were still blowing smoke on everybody.\n\n So it was a traumatic learning experience for everybody, but it was good. By the time I retired, you couldn’t tell that there’d ever been any smoke in those buildings out there, which is amazing.

[Assistant] Did you have any assignments after the flights had flown during Apollo?


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

[User] Oh, yes.

[Assistant] I had no idea.

[User] Yeah. As a matter of fact, I actually quit smoking before it was outlawed on the site. The guy that had the nerve to do it was Aaron Cohen. He may have gotten instructions from somebody else, but he was the one that had the nerve to cut it out entirely. There was no smoking anywhere on the site. Used to, it was when they started out, you couldn’t smoke in this room and that room, you could smoke in your office, but with the central systems in those building out there, it didn’t make any difference. You were still blowing smoke on everybody.\n\n So it was a traumatic learning experience for everybody, but it was good. By the time I retired, you couldn’t tell that there’d ever been any smoke in those buildings out there, which is amazing.

[Assistant] Did you have any assignments after the flights had flown during Apollo?

[User] You’re talking about post-flight analysis?

[Assistant] Post-flight analysis or—


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

[User] Yeah. As a matter of fact, I actually quit smoking before it was outlawed on the site. The guy that had the nerve to do it was Aaron Cohen. He may have gotten instructions from somebody else, but he was the one that had the nerve to cut it out entirely. There was no smoking anywhere on the site. Used to, it was when they started out, you couldn’t smoke in this room and that room, you could smoke in your office, but with the central systems in those building out there, it didn’t make any difference. You were still blowing smoke on everybody.\n\n So it was a traumatic learning experience for everybody, but it was good. By the time I retired, you couldn’t tell that there’d ever been any smoke in those buildings out there, which is amazing.

[Assistant] Did you have any assignments after the flights had flown during Apollo?

[User] You’re talking about post-flight analysis?

[Assistant] Post-flight analysis or—

[User] Post-flight analysis, we did some on the early flights, just to make sure that the performance of the systems we were responsible for was what we expected. But on a continuing basis, probably after the work that I did following up on Apollo 13, I actually didn’t work any more of the Apollo flights.\n\n As I said earlier, I started working on the winged vehicle prior to the landing on the Moon, and after Apollo 13 my main effort was involved in working on the next program.

[Assistant] You mentioned earlier that you got your master’s degree in ’68 from the University of Houston.


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

[User] You’re talking about post-flight analysis?

[Assistant] Post-flight analysis or—

[User] Post-flight analysis, we did some on the early flights, just to make sure that the performance of the systems we were responsible for was what we expected. But on a continuing basis, probably after the work that I did following up on Apollo 13, I actually didn’t work any more of the Apollo flights.\n\n As I said earlier, I started working on the winged vehicle prior to the landing on the Moon, and after Apollo 13 my main effort was involved in working on the next program.

[Assistant] You mentioned earlier that you got your master’s degree in ’68 from the University of Houston.

[User] Right.

[Assistant] Can you tell us how you were able to juggle work and going to school at the same time during, you know, a very frenzied environment?


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

[User] Yes.

[Assistant] Can you share with us any stories about that?

[User] Basically, the splashdown parties was just what it said, it was a party to celebrate a positive mission completion, although we celebrated a lot of negative things, too. We celebrated getting people back on 13, which was a positive result.\n\n But we were all young. When I went to work, I was twenty-four years old, and most people were between twenty-two and thirty at that time. I think the average age at the Center was like in the late twenties when I went to work there. When I retired, I think it was forty-something. So it was younger people, and they had a lot of partying on their mind. A lot of them were single, and I’m not sure that that made that much difference. But it was fun. We had a good time.

[Assistant] You mentioned you had started working on the Shuttle Program before the Apollo Program had ended. What’s your sense of the mood at the Center once the Apollo Program did officially end in ’72?

[User] Well, where I was it was still very positive, because I was in the development of a new activity. Guys on the Operations sides of the house weren’t quite as positive at that point, because there was a lot of uncertainty about where were we going and where things were going for them. There was a lot of cutbacks in terms of dollars for the total programs, and so there was some, quote, restructuring of NASA and cutting down on the numbers of civil servants. So there were some moods where it was a lot of uncertainty and people were not happy. But for those that were still involved and had responsibilities, it was still a positive situation. We were still doing basic good engineering and development and analysis-type work.

[Assistant] When you first started working on the Space Shuttle Program, what were some of your first assignments?


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

[User] Well, where I was it was still very positive, because I was in the development of a new activity. Guys on the Operations sides of the house weren’t quite as positive at that point, because there was a lot of uncertainty about where were we going and where things were going for them. There was a lot of cutbacks in terms of dollars for the total programs, and so there was some, quote, restructuring of NASA and cutting down on the numbers of civil servants. So there were some moods where it was a lot of uncertainty and people were not happy. But for those that were still involved and had responsibilities, it was still a positive situation. We were still doing basic good engineering and development and analysis-type work.

[Assistant] When you first started working on the Space Shuttle Program, what were some of your first assignments?

[User] My first assignment was to go find out how to fly an airplane. I’m an electrical engineer. I knew nothing about airplanes, so I spent about a year taking courses and studying to understand airplanes and how and why they fly so that we could, in fact, develop and analyze and work with the contractors and the crews in developing the control systems for the Shuttle. I had worked the basic on-orbit phase for Apollo, and I was basically put in responsibility in an area of atmospheric flight for Shuttle, which at the time I knew very little about, so I had to go study. My first assignment was go learn, which is what you do in a development and analysis world.

[Assistant] Once you were through learning how planes fly, what was your next task?

[User] Basically, my responsibility for Shuttle until I left the Engineering Directorate was the entry flight control systems, the atmospheric, the entry all the way from post de-orbit to landing was to work and analyze and do what I had to do with the other guys that were working the same problem for entry on the Shuttle.

[Assistant] Can you share with us what the entry control systems consisted of?


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

[User] What did we learn? Well, we learned quite a bit from the aerodynamics standpoint, that the Aerodynamics guys picked up and finalized a lot of their data based on those tests. It knocked out a lot of the uncertainty that had to be dealt with in the design, which made it nice. We learned about, “we” NASA, not me necessarily, learned about tires and the fact that some of them come apart at high speeds. They learned about brakes, the fact that some of them burn up at high speeds. There was a lot learned from the approach landing tests. They were well worth the tests being done, and the crews got a lot of experience from a landing standpoint. I think it’s significant that [some of the guys] that [were] the primary driver[s] there that [did the] flying [were Fred W. Haise and Joe H. Engle] because [they were the right guys] to do it.\n\n Just basically, we learned a lot from those tests to get the uncertainty out of the landing operations phase.

[Assistant] Were you involved at all in terms of software for the entry systems?

[User] You talking about responsible for the development of the software?

[Assistant] Some of our research indicated that you were working on some software for the Shuttle, that you were involved in some of the various groups.

[User] I was working on the software in the sense that the designs were digital, and by definition that means that they’re in the software, and we were [responsible] for making sure that those designs were implemented and tested and verified as part of the onboard software. But as far as—I was basically—what did they call it? They had a name for us. Basically, I was responsible to the Program Office for making sure the entry flight control systems were implemented right in the software. But as far as the hands-on of the software, no, I didn’t have any hands-on of the onboard software.

[Assistant] In 1980, in your oral history you mentioned that you moved from the Engineering Directorate into Operations. Can you tell us about that move and how different that was for you?


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

[User] It was quite a bit different. If you look at the philosophy behind the three directorates there, Engineering was responsible for designing a system that did a particular function and then designing enough margin in it that you can manage uncertainty with it. Operations Planning was responsible for taking and turning that design into a mission and making sure that design was compatible with the mission. When you go into the actual operations, you look at what-ifs to the extent of how I can manage this system if something else puts it outside its design requirements.\n\n So you learn the systems and what they’re capable of totally so that you can operate outside the design boundary if you have to. So those three philosophies flow [together so] the backrooms in the Control Center know what the total capability of a system is as opposed to the design constraints on it to start with.\n\n So you take and you make sure that you’re monitoring that system to see where you are with that system, and that’s what we were doing when we started looking at the tiles. Okay. That system was designed to operate under certain conditions. What would happen if you operated it under different conditions? So it’s a different look at the article, i.e. the Shuttle, about what can I do with this vehicle, not what was it designed to do.

[Assistant] Were you working on console during STS-3?

[User] Oh, yeah, yes.

[Assistant] What are your recollections of the landing at White Sands [Missile Range, New Mexico]? Were you involved with that at all?

[User] Yes.

[Assistant] Can you share with us those details?


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

[User] Oh, yeah, yes.

[Assistant] What are your recollections of the landing at White Sands [Missile Range, New Mexico]? Were you involved with that at all?

[User] Yes.

[Assistant] Can you share with us those details?

[User] Well, actually, we really didn’t know at the time exactly what happened. There were several things going on from a flight condition standpoint that we did not understand. First of all, that was a landing at White Sands, and we had never really analyzed what happened if you came into White Sands with the terrain the way it was. So we did not know at the time if we had an environmental problem that we didn’t understand, or if we had an onboard control problem that we didn’t understand. We didn’t have sufficient data to analyze it in real time.\n\n Now, after that was over and we got the mission data tapes and deciphered them, it was a little clearer about what was going on there, and basically, the, “entry and landing guys” went back and reanalyzed it based on post-flight data to see what happened and, in fact, verified what happened.

[Assistant] How long did you work in this position, and how many Space Shuttle flights did you end up manning the console?


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

[User] Yes.

[Assistant] Can you share with us those details?

[User] Well, actually, we really didn’t know at the time exactly what happened. There were several things going on from a flight condition standpoint that we did not understand. First of all, that was a landing at White Sands, and we had never really analyzed what happened if you came into White Sands with the terrain the way it was. So we did not know at the time if we had an environmental problem that we didn’t understand, or if we had an onboard control problem that we didn’t understand. We didn’t have sufficient data to analyze it in real time.\n\n Now, after that was over and we got the mission data tapes and deciphered them, it was a little clearer about what was going on there, and basically, the, “entry and landing guys” went back and reanalyzed it based on post-flight data to see what happened and, in fact, verified what happened.

[Assistant] How long did you work in this position, and how many Space Shuttle flights did you end up manning the console?

[User] Let’s see. I went to work in MPAD [Mission Planning and Analysis Division] in ’80, and if I remember right, in 1984 they reorganized us and put us in the Flight Operations Directorate, if I remember right. And in 1984, I was made an Assistant Branch Chief, and I was still on the console at the time. Basically, let’s see, in 1985 it may have been when we went to the Flight Operations Directorate. Whenever that happened, I was not— I didn’t work the consoles anymore after that. So about working on the console from about 1980 starting training through the first flights, and in about 1985 when I was promoted to Branch Chief, I didn’t work the consoles anymore. The guys that were in my branch worked the consoles.

[Assistant] When you became appointed Branch Chief, how did your duties change other than not working on the console?


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

[User] Where was I? Oh, I was in the backroom, wasn’t working on the console, but I was in the backroom monitoring what was going on on the console for the launch.

[Assistant] How did the\n\n Challenger\n\n accident impact the systems that you were working on?

[User] Well, the response to the\n\n Challenger\n\n accident was somewhat overkill, in my opinion. Because we were down and not flying, we reviewed every onboard system and design and went in where we had the resources and the capability to upgrade the system to do things beyond what its original design requirements were, and to that extent, we had the time, we had the people, and we had the resources to do that. And the only reason we did that is because we had the downtime. The downtime, in my opinion, was political. We could have launched the next flight on schedule and been safe, in my opinion.\n\n But we were down two years, and we accomplished a lot in that two years in terms of refining and smoothing the operations for the Shuttle. So it was not a negative time in that sense, but in my opinion it was not a necessary time. In my opinion, what happened on\n\n Challenger\n\n was a result of not doing good quality assurance at the Cape and launching a vehicle in conditions that it was not designed to operate. So in my opinion, we could have launched the next flight with the proper QA [Quality Assurance] on the assembly.\n\n But that’s an opinion. I don’t do responsibility for that. Somebody else had a responsibility for it.

[Assistant] Did you have any responsibilities for any return to flight activities?

[User] Yes.

[Assistant] Can you share with us those details?


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

[User] So that’s where we are.

[Assistant] I just have a couple more questions for you. Looking back over your career with NASA, what do you think was your most challenging moment?

[User] Actually, I guess the most challenging from a technical standpoint was working the flight systems design for Shuttle. We had many different organizations involved in that and getting them to agree on a final design when there could be four or five different approaches taken was difficult because it was something that had never been done before. It’s hard to get a guy to say “Okay, my design’s better than your’s, but we’ll go with your’s.” It’s difficult to coordinate that compromise when you are dealing with people who are very proud of their work and don’t really want to give it up.\n\n So at one time, for instance, if I remember right there were five different entry guidance designs. There were at least four different approaches to designing the flight control system itself and to evolve to a design that accomplished the requirements was difficult in the sense that getting people to agree with approach because probably all of the approaches would have worked given you had to mature the design between selecting it and working it. So the most challenging was getting basically people on the same page to go work the final solution.

[Assistant] By contrast, what do you think was your most significant accomplishment?

[User] [Laughs] That’s hard. I like to think that my most significant accomplishment was getting the people who worked for me after I became Branch Chief trained to do the job. I grew up with it. So I didn’t “train to do it.” They had to come in and learn it and pick up from experience from what we had learned, and I guess I’m proudest of them being able to do that.

[Assistant] I just a couple of other questions for you. We’re working on a paper and doing research about NASA and its impact on the Clear Lake area during the Apollo Program. I’m wondering if you can share with us your memories of how the Space Center impacted the surrounding area. You arrived there in ’64.


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

[User] When we married, actually the month before we married, I bought a house in Dickinson and we lived in Dickinson in that house for about—lived in it about six years. When my twins were two years old, I designed and built a house over in another area of Dickinson for the family. It was a unique design because we had twins.

[Assistant] Were you involved at all in any sort of community activities after you and your wife were married?

[User] Oh yes, obviously involved in the church, and we were involved in T-ball with the kids. I can’t really just think of anything particular right now. We did square-dancing, we did ballroom dancing, we were involved in a volleyball team down there, and involved in some of the community activities at the cities and things like that.

[Assistant] Well, I think that I’ve gone through all my questions, unless there’s something you think we might have overlooked. I didn’t ask you about Skylab and ASTP [Apollo-Soyuz Test Project], I’m not sure if you had any involvement with either of those programs.

[User] Probably limited, just enough to say that I was there. [laughs]

[Assistant] Okay. All right. Well, do you want to discuss anything else or feel like we’ve overlooked something that you’d like to talk about?


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

[User] Oh yes, obviously involved in the church, and we were involved in T-ball with the kids. I can’t really just think of anything particular right now. We did square-dancing, we did ballroom dancing, we were involved in a volleyball team down there, and involved in some of the community activities at the cities and things like that.

[Assistant] Well, I think that I’ve gone through all my questions, unless there’s something you think we might have overlooked. I didn’t ask you about Skylab and ASTP [Apollo-Soyuz Test Project], I’m not sure if you had any involvement with either of those programs.

[User] Probably limited, just enough to say that I was there. [laughs]

[Assistant] Okay. All right. Well, do you want to discuss anything else or feel like we’ve overlooked something that you’d like to talk about?

[User] Not really. I was trying to think if there was anything in this last—you probably pretty well dissected this though, I suspect.

[Assistant] Went through and tried to get a sense of your career and—


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

[User] Our training. We did a month in the States, in Kingsville, Texas, at the university there. And it was all of us going to Costa Rica, the married couple group, and a group going to Paraguay. And that was in the summer of 1980, and the training was, it was actually pretty good. It was focused on community development, which we had no idea what that means.

[Assistant] What does it mean?

[User]
How do you facilitate helping the community to what they want to do to improve their lives? Not what I think they should do to improve their lives. Big distinction. So in the training, we learned to listen, observe, and not make any moves, not suggest anything, or start any projects until we really understood what the community wants to do. And then how could we facilitate that. Not do the work, but facilitate it and help organize or get them materials or get them a grant. So it was a real step back of, like, we do not jump in as an American and do it. We let the community to decide. So we had a month of playing different role playing and everything.

And also, I think the hardest day almost in the entire Peace Corps was they took us down to the border of Mexico in the U.S. We were on the U.S. side. We were in, I think, McAllen. And we had to knock on the doors of everybody, of different people. Try to speak, it wasn't that I had to speak Spanish, but just to introduce ourselves and ask them some questions about the community. That wasn't so hard. But then we had to sleep in a, it was a senior citizen's place where they served them like meals, and all we could bring was a sheet to sleep with. And we slept, um, we slept on the floor and there were cockroaches everywhere and that weeded some people out after that.

[Assistant] So I assumed you spoke Spanish by this time.

[User] Yes, yes.

[Assistant] All of your travel in South America.


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

[User]
How do you facilitate helping the community to what they want to do to improve their lives? Not what I think they should do to improve their lives. Big distinction. So in the training, we learned to listen, observe, and not make any moves, not suggest anything, or start any projects until we really understood what the community wants to do. And then how could we facilitate that. Not do the work, but facilitate it and help organize or get them materials or get them a grant. So it was a real step back of, like, we do not jump in as an American and do it. We let the community to decide. So we had a month of playing different role playing and everything.

And also, I think the hardest day almost in the entire Peace Corps was they took us down to the border of Mexico in the U.S. We were on the U.S. side. We were in, I think, McAllen. And we had to knock on the doors of everybody, of different people. Try to speak, it wasn't that I had to speak Spanish, but just to introduce ourselves and ask them some questions about the community. That wasn't so hard. But then we had to sleep in a, it was a senior citizen's place where they served them like meals, and all we could bring was a sheet to sleep with. And we slept, um, we slept on the floor and there were cockroaches everywhere and that weeded some people out after that.

[Assistant] So I assumed you spoke Spanish by this time.

[User] Yes, yes.

[Assistant] All of your travel in South America.

[User] Yeah, I had actually minored in Spanish at the University of Montana and I also spoke some Portuguese from living in Brazil. So my language skills were decent.

[Assistant] And your husband's?


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

[User] Yes, yes.

[Assistant] All of your travel in South America.

[User] Yeah, I had actually minored in Spanish at the University of Montana and I also spoke some Portuguese from living in Brazil. So my language skills were decent.

[Assistant] And your husband's?

[User] And he actually, even though he had not studied, he is really good at picking up languages. So he had a decent Spanish too. So that made him more comfortable going to a country where he felt he could speak the language. So we finished training there, shipped us off to Miami to go down to Costa Rica to do three months of training, and a big hurricane hit Texas. So we were delayed getting out of there. But you know, we made it. And so we arrived in Costa Rica. You know, we had been there before, so it wasn't a shock, but when they took us. The training was outside of San Jose in an area called was near Alajuela called La Garita. And you know, we arrived in the evening, spent the night in a hotel. The next morning after work, you know, they introduced us to the training center and then we were all sweaty and tired at noon and we had to meet our families. And it was really hard because we.

[Assistant] You were going to live with families?


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

[User] Yeah, I had actually minored in Spanish at the University of Montana and I also spoke some Portuguese from living in Brazil. So my language skills were decent.

[Assistant] And your husband's?

[User] And he actually, even though he had not studied, he is really good at picking up languages. So he had a decent Spanish too. So that made him more comfortable going to a country where he felt he could speak the language. So we finished training there, shipped us off to Miami to go down to Costa Rica to do three months of training, and a big hurricane hit Texas. So we were delayed getting out of there. But you know, we made it. And so we arrived in Costa Rica. You know, we had been there before, so it wasn't a shock, but when they took us. The training was outside of San Jose in an area called was near Alajuela called La Garita. And you know, we arrived in the evening, spent the night in a hotel. The next morning after work, you know, they introduced us to the training center and then we were all sweaty and tired at noon and we had to meet our families. And it was really hard because we.

[Assistant] You were going to live with families?

[User] Yeah, we were going to live with families for three months and we were sweaty, tired. You know, it was not a nice way to meet people, but it's reality. So we lived with a family. They, in my opinion, they did it for the money, not for making us feel warm and cozy. OK. So, you know, whatever.

[Assistant] And where did you live with them? Was it in La Garita?


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

[User] And he actually, even though he had not studied, he is really good at picking up languages. So he had a decent Spanish too. So that made him more comfortable going to a country where he felt he could speak the language. So we finished training there, shipped us off to Miami to go down to Costa Rica to do three months of training, and a big hurricane hit Texas. So we were delayed getting out of there. But you know, we made it. And so we arrived in Costa Rica. You know, we had been there before, so it wasn't a shock, but when they took us. The training was outside of San Jose in an area called was near Alajuela called La Garita. And you know, we arrived in the evening, spent the night in a hotel. The next morning after work, you know, they introduced us to the training center and then we were all sweaty and tired at noon and we had to meet our families. And it was really hard because we.

[Assistant] You were going to live with families?

[User] Yeah, we were going to live with families for three months and we were sweaty, tired. You know, it was not a nice way to meet people, but it's reality. So we lived with a family. They, in my opinion, they did it for the money, not for making us feel warm and cozy. OK. So, you know, whatever.

[Assistant] And where did you live with them? Was it in La Garita?

[User] La Garita, yeah.

[Assistant] So the site of where you lived with a family was the same place as where you were in training.


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

[User] Yeah, we were going to live with families for three months and we were sweaty, tired. You know, it was not a nice way to meet people, but it's reality. So we lived with a family. They, in my opinion, they did it for the money, not for making us feel warm and cozy. OK. So, you know, whatever.

[Assistant] And where did you live with them? Was it in La Garita?

[User] La Garita, yeah.

[Assistant] So the site of where you lived with a family was the same place as where you were in training.

[User] Where we had the training, yeah. So we would walk every morning up this beautiful road with exquisite views. And I remember the diesel of the trucks and I, for a while, whenever I smelled diesel I remembered those views, which is like, you would think not. So the, you know, the training was pretty good. You know, we had to learn how to, you know, grow school gardens, how to raise chickens and kill them because we needed food. We didn't have restaurants, we weren't going to have restaurants and stores where we were. You know how to cook a lot of things like plantains, cooking plantains, you know, prepare Costa Rican dishes. We also, because we were going to have horses, we asked them for some horseback training. I'm trying to think. Well, you know, we learned simple things about health. And I'm very squeamish about medical stuff. So it was, that part was tough for me. And when we originally read the announcement of the job, they left off the second page about health. So I didn't know I was getting into that.

[Assistant] In health, in what way? Because I see this is health education. So your own health care or health education?


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

[User] Yes, they had elementary schools. So, um.

[Assistant] In Spanish?

[User] In Spanish, yeah. So we went back and then we were assigned, you know, we got sworn in, we were assigned, you know, to our sites and, you know, somehow we got moved in with, you know, pots and pans and all this kind of stuff and set up, you know. And it took a while to set up with, you know, I couldn't cook over wood all the time. One reason why we were all married couples in this group was because they realized it was going to take, just living was going to take a lot of work. So if you sent a single volunteer, they're just, they're living, cooking, washing, you know, supplies would take three quarters of their day, so they couldn't work. And it wasn't like I had to do all the work, but at least we could split it. The indigenous all cooked off of wood fires. That didn't work for me.

[Assistant] Why not?

[User] It was hard to keep, it took a long time to boil the rice and everything. And it was hard to keep the fire going, especially if I had to go off for the day and work in a school or something and come back and then start a fire from scratch and be starving. There was no restaurants you could go to. So we finally bought a gas stove, a tropic gas stove. So you know, that made life a little easier.

[Assistant] And how did you get that? Did you go back into town?


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

[User] I was definitely remembered. So when we got there, there's a road in the town that he lives in now, and so I went to her house. And, you know, I just couldn't believe it. We have selfies, you know, and I met her kids and everything, and it was like, wow, you know?

[Assistant] So did they get venom to have on their own or was it just lucky that you had it?

[User] That was part of the health post, but it was just kind of by luck, you know. They had some of their own, you know, you know, traditional medicine, but no. What they would do sometimes is in Amubri, where they had the Catholic mission, there was an airstrip. And the younger, which I think now is deceased, priest, Bernardito, had his own airplane and he was a pilot. So he could fly people out in an emergency.

[Assistant] Yeah, but when you have a snake bite, you know, that has to happen really quickly.

[User] Well, it could be 12 to 24 hours with that type of snake. There are coral snakes and coral snakes are you need to get out quick. But coral snakes, we learned, because they wouldn't. Peace Corps couldn't give us anti-venom for that because it has to be refrigerated. Coral snakes can't open their mouths very wide, so they have to bite like in between your fingers or between your toes. So it's real rare to get bitten by one. But I have to say I went to this, into Peace Corps, deathly afraid of spiders, deathly afraid of snakes. I'm better now.

[Assistant] So you went really fast through all of this. Talk, uh, you said a long time ago at the beginning, the difference between Indians and indigenous people. What's the difference, from your point of view?


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

[User] That was part of the health post, but it was just kind of by luck, you know. They had some of their own, you know, you know, traditional medicine, but no. What they would do sometimes is in Amubri, where they had the Catholic mission, there was an airstrip. And the younger, which I think now is deceased, priest, Bernardito, had his own airplane and he was a pilot. So he could fly people out in an emergency.

[Assistant] Yeah, but when you have a snake bite, you know, that has to happen really quickly.

[User] Well, it could be 12 to 24 hours with that type of snake. There are coral snakes and coral snakes are you need to get out quick. But coral snakes, we learned, because they wouldn't. Peace Corps couldn't give us anti-venom for that because it has to be refrigerated. Coral snakes can't open their mouths very wide, so they have to bite like in between your fingers or between your toes. So it's real rare to get bitten by one. But I have to say I went to this, into Peace Corps, deathly afraid of spiders, deathly afraid of snakes. I'm better now.

[Assistant] So you went really fast through all of this. Talk, uh, you said a long time ago at the beginning, the difference between Indians and indigenous people. What's the difference, from your point of view?

[User] My point of view is Christopher Columbus came over here thinking he was discovering India, and he called them Indians. And they actually, to me, they're indigenous. They are actually our true natives, and there are different nations or tribes, and they're not all the same. They're different and they want to be thought of as different. So I prefer to refer to them as indigenous. To me, Indians has a bad connotation.

[Assistant] And are they maintaining their culture? You've been back several times.


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

[User] Yeah, yeah. It's a fascinating culture, actually.

[Assistant] Did you travel around the country at all or did you stay in your area?

[User] Yeah, we did. We did. It was hard to get out and usually when we, like every six weeks, we would go to San Jose and, you know, have three or four days where we would eat. And I say drink beer and buy supplies. So but we did one vacation, we went to the Corn Islands, which is.

[Assistant] Corn?

[User]
Islas del Maíz, which belonged to, I always get this wrong. I think they belong to Colombia. But they're close to Nicaragua. One or the other. Yeah. So we did that. On one of our, when we were in training, we went to the Osa Peninsula on the Pacific side. We had traveled a lot in Costa Rica before that, so we kind of knew the country. So we weren't like, we've got to go see everything. Went to Guanacaste. When we finished Peace Corps, there was a previous volunteer who had decided to stay in Costa Rica, and he had rented a house on the beach in Puerto Viejo. And his name was Keith, and we, when we were. Puerto Viejo was on the Caribbean coast. So when we were in our site and we wanted to get out of our site for like a weekend, he would invite us. We would go to his house and we would stay there.

So when we finished Peace Corps, he said, I want, I'm going back to the states, do you want to take over my rental? And we said, yes. Beautiful ocean right there. And so we took over his rental, and it was a very tiny little place. And, you know, his stove and his bed and stuff like that, bought all that from him. So we stayed there three months. And every day we said, do we go to the States or do we stay here? I don't know, the beach looks great. So we did that for three months and then we came home.

[Assistant] What made you decide to come home?


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

[User] I didn't. I wanted to stay there. Puerto Viejo at that time had only one very low-class hotel, had a great restaurant, and I thought, this is a great tourist mecca. We could do a hotel and bed and breakfast. But Costa Rica had, at that time, was debating a law whether in that area they were going to make all of that a national park and not allow people to build within three hundred meters of the ocean. So, you know, insecurity. And then I also, part of the Peace Corps experience, you have one year of noncompetitive status. And I knew being a geographer, a cartographer, that my line of work would be to work for the federal government, so I should go home and get a job. But I tell you, we debated it back and forth.

[Assistant] And you did use your noncompetitive status?

[User] I did. I did. And I got a job with the U.S. Geological Survey in Denver. And you know, it was, I thought. I went from living with no electricity out in the jungle, always being outside, to making topographic maps where you're in a dark room all day. I thought, woah, is this a change. But it was a career, and I eventually got to do some international work and ended my career doing a lot of international work for the Department of Interior here.

[Assistant] As a geographer?

[User] As a geographer, yeah. So Peace Corps, I remember, you know, you asked or that sheet talks about how do I, you know, have I incorporated Peace Corps in my life afterwards?

[Assistant] That's my next question. You beat me to it.


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

[User] Washington. But it's a totally different atmosphere, has many young people. And by when I moved here, I was 50 or something, you know, and it's all in D.C., which is a little far from Reston. So their activities are different. The population is different. So for Peace Corps' 50th anniversary, Lynn Lilienthal put on an event in Reston, and I realized there's a lot of returned Peace Corps volunteers there. So between Lynn, Steve Christopher, and myself, we started NoVA RPCV and then they all nominated me as president. And I said, what the heck? And of all the volunteer stuff I do, it's the most wonderful.

[Assistant] That's great. That's great.

[User] Yeah.

[Assistant] So I know you've been back it sounds like quite a few times. What impact do you think Peace Corps had on the town you were in? Clearly, you saved a kid's life, which was incredible.

[User] You know, I wish I could say, oh, they have all this clean water and great food and great education from our experience. No, nothing like that. But I think what the impact is, they saw what Americans are like, or a couple was like. Like Mike would do the dishes and they would see him doing the dishes. And, you know, the men would never have done the dishes, you know, so we would joke about that. And you know, maybe I did some things that they might quote as men's, you know, men's work. You know, we found out later that some of them had traveled to the States with special indigenous conferences. So I think we opened up their eyes to the world instead of just being very small. We highly respected them. And so that respect, I think, I hope it helped. And like I said, you know, there were some women that got money to teach weaving. You know, we did teach at the very end, they asked us to teach some about birth control. Because they had really not a lot of information, so that might have helped.

[Assistant] Was Costa Rica OK with that as a Catholic country?


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

[User] You know, I wish I could say, oh, they have all this clean water and great food and great education from our experience. No, nothing like that. But I think what the impact is, they saw what Americans are like, or a couple was like. Like Mike would do the dishes and they would see him doing the dishes. And, you know, the men would never have done the dishes, you know, so we would joke about that. And you know, maybe I did some things that they might quote as men's, you know, men's work. You know, we found out later that some of them had traveled to the States with special indigenous conferences. So I think we opened up their eyes to the world instead of just being very small. We highly respected them. And so that respect, I think, I hope it helped. And like I said, you know, there were some women that got money to teach weaving. You know, we did teach at the very end, they asked us to teach some about birth control. Because they had really not a lot of information, so that might have helped.

[Assistant] Was Costa Rica OK with that as a Catholic country?

[User] We never asked permission. It was our last month.

[Assistant] Got it.

[User] Yeah. So and they came to us to ask, not the other way. When our counterpart's wife was pregnant, Monica, with her second child. Her first child was born and he was missing fingers and stuff like that. And he was very sick. I gave her a bunch of my prenatal vitamins. Her second child is big. And I got to see him. The difference between the two, whether that was in vitamins or not, I think that's one part of it. You know, I think just knowing Americans. For me, what did it do for me? It one gave me a great appreciation for farmers, for people living off the land. When people say, oh, let's go live off the land, I say, do you know how hard it is to eat only what you grow? Very very hard.

[Assistant] So it cured you of that idea.


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

[User] We never asked permission. It was our last month.

[Assistant] Got it.

[User] Yeah. So and they came to us to ask, not the other way. When our counterpart's wife was pregnant, Monica, with her second child. Her first child was born and he was missing fingers and stuff like that. And he was very sick. I gave her a bunch of my prenatal vitamins. Her second child is big. And I got to see him. The difference between the two, whether that was in vitamins or not, I think that's one part of it. You know, I think just knowing Americans. For me, what did it do for me? It one gave me a great appreciation for farmers, for people living off the land. When people say, oh, let's go live off the land, I say, do you know how hard it is to eat only what you grow? Very very hard.

[Assistant] So it cured you of that idea.

[User] Cured me completely of that idea. I do not want to grow. I mean, we had gardens in Denver and Austin, but I don't grow my own food, you know, building my own house. It also cured me of owning a horse. We own two horses and we had to take care of them. I love riding horses, but they are a lot of work. So my sister owns horses. She can have them. I go ride them, but I never want.

[Assistant] Where did you, you talked about your grandfather in shipping, but where did you grow up?


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

[User] Yeah. So and they came to us to ask, not the other way. When our counterpart's wife was pregnant, Monica, with her second child. Her first child was born and he was missing fingers and stuff like that. And he was very sick. I gave her a bunch of my prenatal vitamins. Her second child is big. And I got to see him. The difference between the two, whether that was in vitamins or not, I think that's one part of it. You know, I think just knowing Americans. For me, what did it do for me? It one gave me a great appreciation for farmers, for people living off the land. When people say, oh, let's go live off the land, I say, do you know how hard it is to eat only what you grow? Very very hard.

[Assistant] So it cured you of that idea.

[User] Cured me completely of that idea. I do not want to grow. I mean, we had gardens in Denver and Austin, but I don't grow my own food, you know, building my own house. It also cured me of owning a horse. We own two horses and we had to take care of them. I love riding horses, but they are a lot of work. So my sister owns horses. She can have them. I go ride them, but I never want.

[Assistant] Where did you, you talked about your grandfather in shipping, but where did you grow up?

[User] Palo Alto, California.

[Assistant] So not exactly rural.


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

[User] Palo Alto, California.

[Assistant] So not exactly rural.

[User]
No, not rural at all. So yeah. So, you know, and the other thing, you know, that opened my eyes is. Well, I would say in my career, I got involved with a group out of the Organization of American States called the Pan American Institute of Geography and History, and it's a specialized organization of OAS, the Organization of American States, and it's been around since 1927 or something. So through my work with the U.S. Geological Survey and my Spanish and everything, I finally got the opportunity to participate with this group. And so they, you know, it's very bureaucracy, bureaucracy and high level, but they do science and history. And so by the end of my career, I ended up being one of the authorities. So I was appointed by our U.S. ambassador to the OAS to be in this position, which meant, you know, I have to go to the directing council, the General Assembly. I have oversight and decide what projects are going to be funded and so on and so forth.

And then I retired and the position is for four years. So at the end of four years, I asked my deputy, my vice president, to flip with me because we wanted to continue for eight years. And she is so innovative and she's still working. So I'm the vice president now. She's the president, and so we're working with scientists and geographers, cartographers, geophysicists, and historians from all over Latin America. And so it's a totally different global population.

[Assistant] That's great.

[User] But, it's knowing all these countries in Latin America, they're all different. You know, it's not, you know, just because I speak Spanish. Yeah, just like you in Africa.

[Assistant] Yeah. Very different. Very different.


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

[User] But, it's knowing all these countries in Latin America, they're all different. You know, it's not, you know, just because I speak Spanish. Yeah, just like you in Africa.

[Assistant] Yeah. Very different. Very different.

[User] Right. So but, you know, I wish that we could have had more of an impact on them. But I think Peace Corps decided that it was too isolated of a site to send anybody back again for many years. And this couple that was there three years ago, Patrick and Kirsten, she got really bad asthma and Peace Corps said, you have to leave. So they were very sad.

[Assistant] But nothing is as isolated as it used to be. Everybody has cell phones.

[User] They had cell phones, yeah.

[Assistant] It has changed the world completely.


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

[User] Right. So but, you know, I wish that we could have had more of an impact on them. But I think Peace Corps decided that it was too isolated of a site to send anybody back again for many years. And this couple that was there three years ago, Patrick and Kirsten, she got really bad asthma and Peace Corps said, you have to leave. So they were very sad.

[Assistant] But nothing is as isolated as it used to be. Everybody has cell phones.

[User] They had cell phones, yeah.

[Assistant] It has changed the world completely.

[User] It has, yes. And the internet. They didn't really have internet, but they had cell. Yes. Yeah.

[Assistant] So it's a whole, Peace Corps is a totally different experience as well now.


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

[User] They had cell phones, yeah.

[Assistant] It has changed the world completely.

[User] It has, yes. And the internet. They didn't really have internet, but they had cell. Yes. Yeah.

[Assistant] So it's a whole, Peace Corps is a totally different experience as well now.

[User] Exactly.

[Assistant] Just by the communication.


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

[User] It has, yes. And the internet. They didn't really have internet, but they had cell. Yes. Yeah.

[Assistant] So it's a whole, Peace Corps is a totally different experience as well now.

[User] Exactly.

[Assistant] Just by the communication.

[User] Yeah, yeah. Yeah.

[Assistant] And we were in the Peace Corps, we had little blue aerogram letters that we mailed back and forth. Different form of communication.


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

[User] Exactly.

[Assistant] Just by the communication.

[User] Yeah, yeah. Yeah.

[Assistant] And we were in the Peace Corps, we had little blue aerogram letters that we mailed back and forth. Different form of communication.

[User] Yes, yes. I remember getting that. We would actually get letters and National Geographic at our site.

[Assistant] That's right. Great. Well, are there any, I guess I wanted to ask you one other question because you talked about being a married couple.


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

[User] Yeah, yeah. Yeah.

[Assistant] And we were in the Peace Corps, we had little blue aerogram letters that we mailed back and forth. Different form of communication.

[User] Yes, yes. I remember getting that. We would actually get letters and National Geographic at our site.

[Assistant] That's right. Great. Well, are there any, I guess I wanted to ask you one other question because you talked about being a married couple.

[User] Mm hmm.

[Assistant] I was married, I was part of a couple as well. How do you think being a married couple impacts your Peace Corps experience?


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

[User] Yes, yes. I remember getting that. We would actually get letters and National Geographic at our site.

[Assistant] That's right. Great. Well, are there any, I guess I wanted to ask you one other question because you talked about being a married couple.

[User] Mm hmm.

[Assistant] I was married, I was part of a couple as well. How do you think being a married couple impacts your Peace Corps experience?

[User] I think that we relied on each other, so we actually didn't make as good of friends in the community as we would have if I'd been by myself. It made it easier because, you know, we had each other to bounce off our, you know, our failures, frustrations, whatever, and to do things together. So it wasn't lonely, as lonely. By the same token, I think my Spanish would have been better, and my Bribri would have been better, if I'd been single.

[Assistant] But you might not have done it.


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

[User] Mm hmm.

[Assistant] I was married, I was part of a couple as well. How do you think being a married couple impacts your Peace Corps experience?

[User] I think that we relied on each other, so we actually didn't make as good of friends in the community as we would have if I'd been by myself. It made it easier because, you know, we had each other to bounce off our, you know, our failures, frustrations, whatever, and to do things together. So it wasn't lonely, as lonely. By the same token, I think my Spanish would have been better, and my Bribri would have been better, if I'd been single.

[Assistant] But you might not have done it.

[User] I probably wouldn't have done it. Exactly. You know, it would have been. I know it would have been too hard for me.

[Assistant] And has there been an impact on your kids of your Peace Corps experience?


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

[User] I think that we relied on each other, so we actually didn't make as good of friends in the community as we would have if I'd been by myself. It made it easier because, you know, we had each other to bounce off our, you know, our failures, frustrations, whatever, and to do things together. So it wasn't lonely, as lonely. By the same token, I think my Spanish would have been better, and my Bribri would have been better, if I'd been single.

[Assistant] But you might not have done it.

[User] I probably wouldn't have done it. Exactly. You know, it would have been. I know it would have been too hard for me.

[Assistant] And has there been an impact on your kids of your Peace Corps experience?

[User] I wish there had been. I wish they had jumped up to do Peace Corps, but they are far from it. And when they were younger, they used to say, Mom. I have two daughters. Mom, I have nothing to wear. And I said, nothing to wear means you have two outfits. One's on you and the other one's wet. And they'd say, shut up.

[Assistant] So didn't quite take.


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

[User] I wish there had been. I wish they had jumped up to do Peace Corps, but they are far from it. And when they were younger, they used to say, Mom. I have two daughters. Mom, I have nothing to wear. And I said, nothing to wear means you have two outfits. One's on you and the other one's wet. And they'd say, shut up.

[Assistant] So didn't quite take.

[User] No, no, it didn't. It didn't click. So my older daughter Amber has traveled, did semester in Madrid, did almost a year in Taiwan, and now she's a Washington Post reporter. My younger daughter really does not like travel. I mean, she does like travel, but it's got to be at the very high level. So they are way far from Peace Corps.

[Assistant] Very different.

[User] Yeah, yeah.

[Assistant] Well, this has been a really good interview. Are there any other stories you'd like to tell that you haven't told so far?


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

[User] No, no, it didn't. It didn't click. So my older daughter Amber has traveled, did semester in Madrid, did almost a year in Taiwan, and now she's a Washington Post reporter. My younger daughter really does not like travel. I mean, she does like travel, but it's got to be at the very high level. So they are way far from Peace Corps.

[Assistant] Very different.

[User] Yeah, yeah.

[Assistant] Well, this has been a really good interview. Are there any other stories you'd like to tell that you haven't told so far?

[User] Um, let me think for a minute.

[Assistant] Well, let me ask you one more. So the impact of Peace Corps, the third goal coming home, you've talked about your Peace Corps involvement. Do you think there's been an impact in the United States of Peace Corps?


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

[User] Yeah, yeah.

[Assistant] Well, this has been a really good interview. Are there any other stories you'd like to tell that you haven't told so far?

[User] Um, let me think for a minute.

[Assistant] Well, let me ask you one more. So the impact of Peace Corps, the third goal coming home, you've talked about your Peace Corps involvement. Do you think there's been an impact in the United States of Peace Corps?

[User] Yes.

[Assistant] How do you think? What do you think that impact has been?


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

[User] Um, let me think for a minute.

[Assistant] Well, let me ask you one more. So the impact of Peace Corps, the third goal coming home, you've talked about your Peace Corps involvement. Do you think there's been an impact in the United States of Peace Corps?

[User] Yes.

[Assistant] How do you think? What do you think that impact has been?

[User] Well, countries of service like Iran and Liberia and others have actually done advocacy on the Hill and improved our relations with countries that are having, we're having a difficult time with, or are at war like Liberia. I do advocacy with the National Peace Corps Association. I think right now, you know, my understanding of what climate change is doing to, you know, these communities that don't have irrigation, don't have, you know, all the stuff we can have to import food or water. You know, that has really pushed me to do more work on, you know, global warming and conservation. So, yeah, I definitely think Peace Corps has a huge impact. It's just we need more volunteers, we need more people that have done it, and the budget is limited.

[Assistant] At least, it hasn't gone down of late.


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

[User] Yes.

[Assistant] How do you think? What do you think that impact has been?

[User] Well, countries of service like Iran and Liberia and others have actually done advocacy on the Hill and improved our relations with countries that are having, we're having a difficult time with, or are at war like Liberia. I do advocacy with the National Peace Corps Association. I think right now, you know, my understanding of what climate change is doing to, you know, these communities that don't have irrigation, don't have, you know, all the stuff we can have to import food or water. You know, that has really pushed me to do more work on, you know, global warming and conservation. So, yeah, I definitely think Peace Corps has a huge impact. It's just we need more volunteers, we need more people that have done it, and the budget is limited.

[Assistant] At least, it hasn't gone down of late.

[User] Hasn't gone down. Yeah.

[Assistant] Which is a negative way of saying it. But at least you have some of that.


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

[User] Well, countries of service like Iran and Liberia and others have actually done advocacy on the Hill and improved our relations with countries that are having, we're having a difficult time with, or are at war like Liberia. I do advocacy with the National Peace Corps Association. I think right now, you know, my understanding of what climate change is doing to, you know, these communities that don't have irrigation, don't have, you know, all the stuff we can have to import food or water. You know, that has really pushed me to do more work on, you know, global warming and conservation. So, yeah, I definitely think Peace Corps has a huge impact. It's just we need more volunteers, we need more people that have done it, and the budget is limited.

[Assistant] At least, it hasn't gone down of late.

[User] Hasn't gone down. Yeah.

[Assistant] Which is a negative way of saying it. But at least you have some of that.

[User] Yeah, yeah.

[Assistant] So are there any other things you'd like to say?


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

[User] Hasn't gone down. Yeah.

[Assistant] Which is a negative way of saying it. But at least you have some of that.

[User] Yeah, yeah.

[Assistant] So are there any other things you'd like to say?

[User] Um, I think that's all.

[Assistant] This was a lot of fun. Thank you.


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

[User] I’m glad to be here. It’s fun thinking about the past, because it was such a great time.

[Assistant] Yes, you have a great past.

[User] I’ve been very blessed. I have had a very diverse career, which is cool. I haven’t done the same thing for long periods of time.

[Assistant] Yes, that’s pretty unique around here. After you picked up the command module for ASTP [Apollo-Soyuz Test Project], what were your assignments? What were you working on?

[User] Initially I got assigned to start, during the approach and landing test [ALT] with the Shuttle Enterprise up on top of the 747, using my ground ops recovery background. We were trying to find what kind of equipment could we get up to the hatch on the Enterprise to be able to get the crew out in a hurry if we had to. [One option was] a cherry picker; you’ve seen fire trucks with certain systems like that. So I was assigned to look at the industry, what was available out there, and find out what NASA might be able to purchase to do that. I was doing that.\n\n I didn’t enjoy that very much. There wasn’t much to that. It wasn’t very challenging and wasn’t something I wanted to do. That was 1975. I didn’t do that very long because I was part of the approach and landing flight team, so in ’76, I think, Rod [T. Rodney] Loe, a branch chief in the Directorate there, back then it was Flight Operations Directorate.

[Assistant] Just like it is today.


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

[User] I’ve been very blessed. I have had a very diverse career, which is cool. I haven’t done the same thing for long periods of time.

[Assistant] Yes, that’s pretty unique around here. After you picked up the command module for ASTP [Apollo-Soyuz Test Project], what were your assignments? What were you working on?

[User] Initially I got assigned to start, during the approach and landing test [ALT] with the Shuttle Enterprise up on top of the 747, using my ground ops recovery background. We were trying to find what kind of equipment could we get up to the hatch on the Enterprise to be able to get the crew out in a hurry if we had to. [One option was] a cherry picker; you’ve seen fire trucks with certain systems like that. So I was assigned to look at the industry, what was available out there, and find out what NASA might be able to purchase to do that. I was doing that.\n\n I didn’t enjoy that very much. There wasn’t much to that. It wasn’t very challenging and wasn’t something I wanted to do. That was 1975. I didn’t do that very long because I was part of the approach and landing flight team, so in ’76, I think, Rod [T. Rodney] Loe, a branch chief in the Directorate there, back then it was Flight Operations Directorate.

[Assistant] Just like it is today.

[User] It’s FOD again, yes. Rod was a branch chief [for the Electrical, Mechanical and Environmental Systems Branch]. He asked would I be interested in being involved in the Mission Control Center and flight control. So I’ll stop there.

[Assistant] What did you think about that idea when he approached you?


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

[User] The area that Rod was involved in was electrical and environmental systems, early stages for Space Shuttle. I have a bit of electronic background, more as a hobby. I’ve got a physics-math major, but I’m an amateur ham radio operator—since 1957—and am very interested in radio and electronics.\n\n I think he had an idea that I had that interest, so [he] asked me would I be interested in coming to work for them. I didn’t go seek it out. I wasn’t looking for a job at the time. It’s interesting how I think a lot of my career, a lot of places I ended up, I was not seeking to go to those spots. They found me, which was interesting. [He] asked me, and I said, “Sure, I would enjoy doing that.” That’s how it started.

[Assistant] Did you have to become certified at that point since you were going to be just working on ALT? Or was that a little bit different since this was a test flight?

[User] Yes, I did. Certification basically very similar to what had been done before in Mission Control in the past. Your main exam would be how you handled yourself in simulations. We did a lot of simulations back also during the approach and landing test, during ALT. We did a lot of those. I had to study and learn the systems that I would be working with on the control team: electrical, environmental, mechanical. Did a lot of studying.\n\n Back then we didn’t have all the wonderful tools we’ve got today to where you can sit down at all these trainers. It’s really great today. Ours was mostly looking at circuit diagrams on paper, looking at the circuits and looking at how the system was put together. What this did over here to this over here, then simulations. So I did get certified to be a controller for ALT. I can continue.

[Assistant] It’s fine, you can keep going.

[User] Okay. Interesting. As I was thinking about coming over here today it dawned on me that I actually worked in the control center before this time, and that was back in recovery.

[Assistant] I was thinking about that too. In the ROCR.


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

[User] Good question. EECOM really didn’t own the hydraulics and mechanical systems as it turns out. Of course Apollo was much different anyway. EECOM, that’s one of those call signs that will live forever. I suspect the EECOM organization, had we tried to use that in ALT, they might not have liked us to do that at that time, just because it didn’t exactly cover all that.

[Assistant] Got you. It just seems very unusual. You were one of two SMOKHEEs, you and Jack Knight. You mentioned in your book [Go Flight! The Unsung Heroes of Mission Control, 1965-1992], with Rick Houston that he really helped guide you along with, I think, Bill [William L.] Peters.

[User] Jack Knight, neighbor of mine, lives two blocks from me. I sat beside him of course. He was basically my mentor on console. Jack is brilliant, a good operator, and just a good man. He really helped me a great deal.

[Assistant] What did you learn from him? Was he TELMU [Telemetry, Electrical and EVA Mobility Officer] for Apollo?

[User] Yes, he was. Two things probably really stood out. He never guessed anything. Of course not guessing is something that goes back in the control center ever since the beginning, it really does. You could tell he wouldn’t sit there and say, “I think, maybe.” He would pay attention to the data and take his time. If he didn’t know for sure he would tell flight director, “Stand by, I think I’ve got it here. Just give me a minute.”\n\n Since I was riding recovery ships during Apollo and I wasn’t in that environment, he taught me all the nuances of being an operator in Mission Control, in the room. How you communicate with each other in a way where you’re being very precise, to the point. He studied a lot. I learned all those nuances of being a person that would sit there at a console, look at what you got, decide what’s going on, make a decision.

[Assistant] In his interview Jack mentioned that there was a woman who was working with you guys.