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

[User] Yes. It just seems a shame that, of course, this is a sign I'm getting old, but it's incredible for me to now meet people who weren't even born at the time we landed on the Moon. It's like a historical event rather than an ongoing thing. In fact, there are even people, "Oh, did you all really do that, or is that something you made up?" [Laughter] It's kind of sad.

[Assistant] It's very sad.

[User] But even on the counterpart, the really young kids that I run into, like here in a couple of weeks I'm going to Austin to talk to an elementary school class, and I've done that a number of times, that just gets me all jived up again, because they are so gung-ho. This is the Grissom Elementary School, and they've had some experiments on the Shuttle.

[Assistant] Great.

[User] In fact, you could give them the Mars project and they'd pull it off. [Laughter]

[Assistant] Well, they certainly are still enthused about it, like you said and they've got a lot of ideas, and they certainly do have a lot of experience on their own. They are playing with computers more now than a lot of us have been.


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

[User] But even on the counterpart, the really young kids that I run into, like here in a couple of weeks I'm going to Austin to talk to an elementary school class, and I've done that a number of times, that just gets me all jived up again, because they are so gung-ho. This is the Grissom Elementary School, and they've had some experiments on the Shuttle.

[Assistant] Great.

[User] In fact, you could give them the Mars project and they'd pull it off. [Laughter]

[Assistant] Well, they certainly are still enthused about it, like you said and they've got a lot of ideas, and they certainly do have a lot of experience on their own. They are playing with computers more now than a lot of us have been.

[User] Oh, yes. I heard something recently that the Air Force has been able to cut back on their training drastically because the people, the recruits they're getting now are so much more qualified, have much better hand-eye coordination than in the past, that they've been able to eliminate or cut back a lot of their in-flight, in-cockpit training time, and they're doing it on the ground with simulators. Like you can buy software and run on your own computer.

[Assistant] That's pretty interesting.


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

[User] In fact, you could give them the Mars project and they'd pull it off. [Laughter]

[Assistant] Well, they certainly are still enthused about it, like you said and they've got a lot of ideas, and they certainly do have a lot of experience on their own. They are playing with computers more now than a lot of us have been.

[User] Oh, yes. I heard something recently that the Air Force has been able to cut back on their training drastically because the people, the recruits they're getting now are so much more qualified, have much better hand-eye coordination than in the past, that they've been able to eliminate or cut back a lot of their in-flight, in-cockpit training time, and they're doing it on the ground with simulators. Like you can buy software and run on your own computer.

[Assistant] That's pretty interesting.

[User] I'm sure it's true that kids now that play computer games all day long, they probably have good hand-eye coordination.

[Assistant] Certainly do. Certainly do. Well, I want to thank you very much for sharing all of this with me today. It's been fascinating.


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

[User] I was a flight engineer, and even though there was nothing here at that time that would require those kinds of commitments, they probably felt that—and it may have been a test program because my understanding was there were only three people at that time that were being interviewed to come in as journeymen. One was an electronics guy, one was an electrician, and myself, as a mechanic. I don’t know if it was a test program that they were trying to get underway, but everybody else that came in through the normal ranks came through and participated in an apprentice program. I was looked at a little strangely at times, but kiddingly, of course, and they said, “We spent four years getting in here and you walked in the gate, just got a job the same day.”

[Assistant] You mentioned your sister-in-law was a chemist out here? That’s interesting. How long had she been out here?

[User] Mary Ann [Buddie] had probably been here five, six, eight years, something like that, I would think, and then she eventually transferred down to Florida. She’s since passed away, but retired from NASA down there.

[Assistant] It was just kind of an interesting time for women, especially professional women to be with the NACA.\n\n You started as a journeyman mechanic, and is this the Propulsion Systems Lab [PSL]?

[User] PSL 1 and 2, yes, that’s it.

[Assistant] Can you tell us a little bit about the Propulsion Systems Lab and those first days and what you were doing? And what they were doing there at that time.


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

[User] PSL 1 and 2, yes, that’s it.

[Assistant] Can you tell us a little bit about the Propulsion Systems Lab and those first days and what you were doing? And what they were doing there at that time.

[User] We were in the process of testing the Navajo Rocket Engine Program. All of a sudden, one night we were setting up for a run, and people came in and said the run has been scrubbed. This was like just when the Russians sent up their Sputnik.

[Assistant] 1957.

[User] 1957. Overnight, we became NASA, and prior to that, we were NACA, running rocket and jet engine programs in PSL 1 and 2.

[Assistant] Talk about your first days there, and what kind of training you had as a journeyman, and maybe some of what you were doing when you first started?


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

[User] Outside of a few little minor surgeries here and there, yes, it’s been a lot of fun.

[Assistant] If you don’t mind, I want to go back to that first position at the PSL 1 and 2. You mentioned that they wanted you on that second shift. What hours were the shifts at that time?

[User] It was 7:00 to 3:30, and 3:00 to 11:00, and 11:00 to 7:00.

[Assistant] You were on that afternoon shift.

[User] Yes, and they rotated every two weeks, so I got a chance to see the daylight as well as the darkness.

[Assistant] Most of the testing was done at night?


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

[User] It was 7:00 to 3:30, and 3:00 to 11:00, and 11:00 to 7:00.

[Assistant] You were on that afternoon shift.

[User] Yes, and they rotated every two weeks, so I got a chance to see the daylight as well as the darkness.

[Assistant] Most of the testing was done at night?

[User] Yes, because of the power requirements. CEI [Cleveland Electric Illuminating Company] had to wait till people were going to bed and turning their lights off and those kinds of power requirements were dropping off so that they could supply us with enough power to run some of the facilities. They used a lot of power.

[Assistant] You also mentioned that you went back to school during that time, but you didn’t finish. How did you work that out, and work full-time, and then go to school?


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

[User] If they put any new valve or any tubing in or anything like that, what they would normally do is they’d flush it and clean it as well as they could that way, and then, in a closed system, they would induce a very diluted quantity of fluorine. Then, they’d go along and feel the lines to see if there was any burning going on inside. Wouldn’t be enough fluorine to explode, but it would be enough to burn. If the lines were all clear, then we never had to open them up again, which we very seldom wanted to open because any time you’d open it, you’d have to go through this whole procedure again of checking out and making sure that the fluorine was going to have a very clean—very clean—environment to operate in.

[Assistant] When you were running the tests, did you have to vent substances, different things, out into the atmosphere? Or was everything contained?

[User] No, pretty much contained because the stuff was, I forget now just how many parts per million it was before it was hazardous to you. If you could smell it, it was too much, for that particular program. There were other programs where you’d vent things, but not fluorine, no.

[Assistant] These other programs, things would have to be vented?

[User] Yes.

[Assistant] That was just something that was a controlled venting?


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

[User] No, pretty much contained because the stuff was, I forget now just how many parts per million it was before it was hazardous to you. If you could smell it, it was too much, for that particular program. There were other programs where you’d vent things, but not fluorine, no.

[Assistant] These other programs, things would have to be vented?

[User] Yes.

[Assistant] That was just something that was a controlled venting?

[User] Hydrogen and oxygen, yes.

[Assistant] If everything was run at night, was it very noisy?


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

[User] Yes.

[Assistant] That was just something that was a controlled venting?

[User] Hydrogen and oxygen, yes.

[Assistant] If everything was run at night, was it very noisy?

[User] Yes, it was. Quite often, we would get complaints from people calling in to the front office and saying, “You guys were running last night, it was very, very noisy, is there anything you can do about it?”\n\n We said, “Well, it’s either test or no test,” but the neighbors were pretty good about that. I’m sure they had to put up with a little inconvenience.

[Assistant] I imagine the open houses maybe helped with some of the complaints, maybe.


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

[User] Hydrogen and oxygen, yes.

[Assistant] If everything was run at night, was it very noisy?

[User] Yes, it was. Quite often, we would get complaints from people calling in to the front office and saying, “You guys were running last night, it was very, very noisy, is there anything you can do about it?”\n\n We said, “Well, it’s either test or no test,” but the neighbors were pretty good about that. I’m sure they had to put up with a little inconvenience.

[Assistant] I imagine the open houses maybe helped with some of the complaints, maybe.

[User] Yes, I think that might have been in the background of minds of some of the management people, to think that we’d get more people involved and be appreciative of this noise.

[Assistant] At that time period when you first came out here, you were relatively young, I would think—early twenties, maybe?


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

[User] Yes, it was. Quite often, we would get complaints from people calling in to the front office and saying, “You guys were running last night, it was very, very noisy, is there anything you can do about it?”\n\n We said, “Well, it’s either test or no test,” but the neighbors were pretty good about that. I’m sure they had to put up with a little inconvenience.

[Assistant] I imagine the open houses maybe helped with some of the complaints, maybe.

[User] Yes, I think that might have been in the background of minds of some of the management people, to think that we’d get more people involved and be appreciative of this noise.

[Assistant] At that time period when you first came out here, you were relatively young, I would think—early twenties, maybe?

[User] Yes, about 23.

[Assistant] You were married already and starting a family?


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

[User] Yes, I think that might have been in the background of minds of some of the management people, to think that we’d get more people involved and be appreciative of this noise.

[Assistant] At that time period when you first came out here, you were relatively young, I would think—early twenties, maybe?

[User] Yes, about 23.

[Assistant] You were married already and starting a family?

[User] Yes, just married.

[Assistant] Did they have a lot of activities at that point? I know some of the other Centers, especially during that NACA time, so many people after the war were coming in, and they would have parties and they would have gatherings and things like that. Was there a lot of that going on?


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

[User] Yes, about 23.

[Assistant] You were married already and starting a family?

[User] Yes, just married.

[Assistant] Did they have a lot of activities at that point? I know some of the other Centers, especially during that NACA time, so many people after the war were coming in, and they would have parties and they would have gatherings and things like that. Was there a lot of that going on?

[User] Oh, yes. And the retirement parties were outrageous. The shops would all get together. When our director of retired, he was, I guess, of Viking background, or somewhere back in there. They took the main cafeteria and we built a whole half-section of a Viking ship. One of the guys’ wives was in costuming, on the outside, and she made these hats with the horns, the Viking horns, and they had big, long rudders and oars. It was a real production. Of course, then all of the divisions would make presentations to them.\n\n When I retired, they knew I was into golf a lot, and so they went to one of the local golf courses and asked them if they could borrow a golf cart, and they said, “We’ll clean it all up and return it in good shape,” so I guess they got it. My wife and I and family and everybody came for my retirement party, which was at the main cafeteria. They introduced us, they said, “It’s only appropriate that you have a green jacket.” So they had a green jacket for me, and my wife and I got in a cart. They had trails of sand on the floor in the cafeteria, and little greens for different spots. You’d go to the first green and maybe this division would have a representative there, and they’d make a presentation. Then, you’d go to the next one, and they’d give you a presentation, and so forth and so on. By the time you’d get through, I’m not sure how many holes they had—they must have had like five or six in there—it was kind of a fun night.

[Assistant] That sounds wonderful.


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

[User] Everybody, every event, the next one up had to be bigger and better. We had a lot of fun in those days. It was a real pleasure, coming to work.

[Assistant] That’s wonderful. Did they have events for families, too, when your kids were little?

[User] Yes, the families were included in these things.

[Assistant] Okay, so they had picnics and different things.

[User] Retirement parties, and Christmastime, I was part of the Christmas celebrating committee, we had Jack Frost, and he had a little presentation up on stage in the DEB [Development Engineering Building] across Brookpark [Road], here. They have a little play, and the kids were all up there with their parents. After the play was over with, then Jack Frost is running around throughout—one of the employees, naturally. Then, everybody would go downstairs to the cafeteria and have ice cream. There were an awful lot of social activities going on.

[Assistant] It sounds like it was a family atmosphere, everybody was close. Different areas, I would imagine, had to work together for different testing and different projects that were going on?


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

[User] Yes, the families were included in these things.

[Assistant] Okay, so they had picnics and different things.

[User] Retirement parties, and Christmastime, I was part of the Christmas celebrating committee, we had Jack Frost, and he had a little presentation up on stage in the DEB [Development Engineering Building] across Brookpark [Road], here. They have a little play, and the kids were all up there with their parents. After the play was over with, then Jack Frost is running around throughout—one of the employees, naturally. Then, everybody would go downstairs to the cafeteria and have ice cream. There were an awful lot of social activities going on.

[Assistant] It sounds like it was a family atmosphere, everybody was close. Different areas, I would imagine, had to work together for different testing and different projects that were going on?

[User] It was more like a family kind of event thing. There were some tests that, of necessity, that facility had the capability of developing those kinds of test parameters, so that project would go over there. It would depend on, like, at Zero-G, anything that had zero-gravity associated with it, people would bring projects over, and we would run tests for them over there, also.

[Assistant] In these facilities like the PSL and Zero-G, as part of the Technical Services Group, when they had these projects that they were going to run testing, were you involved in the process of getting things ready or designing the way it was going to be tested in those facilities? When did you come in, as far as what was going on?


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

[User] Yes, and it was like that—[snaps fingers]—instantaneous. We were ready to go one night, and five minutes later, we were dead in the water, yes.

[Assistant] Was there a sense of, “We have to hurry up and get this done because they’re ahead of us now?” Was that the feeling here?

[User] No, I don’t think—initially, of course, as the momentum picked up and more and more people became involved. Up until then, each of the NASA Centers almost operated independently of the other ones. There was kind of a competition, as to who was going to run what. Some, like Ames or Langley, had huge, huge facilities that you could put an airplane in. Their claim to fame was airframe structures and airplane components. They couldn’t go to the altitude that we could go to, but we couldn’t put a big airplane or a rocket of a big size in our test chambers. That’s why PSL 3 and 4 eventually became built up and online.\n\n Each of the Centers had their own specialty. Icing research was pretty much Lewis—we have an Icing Research Tunnel here, and the only other similar facility, we were told, at that time, I think it was in Russia or some foreign companies. Companies, even airplane manufacturing companies, were interested in bringing samples of their wing structures or some other nacelle part, and putting it in our Icing Research Tunnel to see how their de-icing equipment would work. We could simulate, we could actually make ice form on the wings, or whatever. There was that kind of camaraderie, but it was still pretty much independent. In other words, if there was a big airplane engine program coming along, everybody pretty much knew that Lewis was going to be the engine people. That was our forte, engines and propulsion.

[Assistant] That’s what you started focusing on, as far as the propulsion, for the early work?

[User] That’s what their whole career was, here, was propulsion.

[Assistant] What did you start on next? Everything stopped with Sputnik.


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

[User] No, I don’t think—initially, of course, as the momentum picked up and more and more people became involved. Up until then, each of the NASA Centers almost operated independently of the other ones. There was kind of a competition, as to who was going to run what. Some, like Ames or Langley, had huge, huge facilities that you could put an airplane in. Their claim to fame was airframe structures and airplane components. They couldn’t go to the altitude that we could go to, but we couldn’t put a big airplane or a rocket of a big size in our test chambers. That’s why PSL 3 and 4 eventually became built up and online.\n\n Each of the Centers had their own specialty. Icing research was pretty much Lewis—we have an Icing Research Tunnel here, and the only other similar facility, we were told, at that time, I think it was in Russia or some foreign companies. Companies, even airplane manufacturing companies, were interested in bringing samples of their wing structures or some other nacelle part, and putting it in our Icing Research Tunnel to see how their de-icing equipment would work. We could simulate, we could actually make ice form on the wings, or whatever. There was that kind of camaraderie, but it was still pretty much independent. In other words, if there was a big airplane engine program coming along, everybody pretty much knew that Lewis was going to be the engine people. That was our forte, engines and propulsion.

[Assistant] That’s what you started focusing on, as far as the propulsion, for the early work?

[User] That’s what their whole career was, here, was propulsion.

[Assistant] What did you start on next? Everything stopped with Sputnik.

[User] Then, rocket engines came in.

[Assistant] Okay, so it was the rockets for the launch engines?


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

[User] That’s what their whole career was, here, was propulsion.

[Assistant] What did you start on next? Everything stopped with Sputnik.

[User] Then, rocket engines came in.

[Assistant] Okay, so it was the rockets for the launch engines?

[User] Right. They weren’t that big. We started out with smaller ones because the facility would only hold so much, plus the thrust capability of some of these new rockets that were coming along was so great that our facilities were limited in what they could handle. I think that may have propelled the PSL 3 and 4 to really get going. They were bigger and had a little more capacity.

[Assistant] After they announced the original seven astronauts and they had that gimbal facility here and they had to train here, do you remember any excitement or anything going on, as far as when those astronauts were coming through, and during that time?


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

[User] Then, rocket engines came in.

[Assistant] Okay, so it was the rockets for the launch engines?

[User] Right. They weren’t that big. We started out with smaller ones because the facility would only hold so much, plus the thrust capability of some of these new rockets that were coming along was so great that our facilities were limited in what they could handle. I think that may have propelled the PSL 3 and 4 to really get going. They were bigger and had a little more capacity.

[Assistant] After they announced the original seven astronauts and they had that gimbal facility here and they had to train here, do you remember any excitement or anything going on, as far as when those astronauts were coming through, and during that time?

[User] Where the Centaur Vehicle was tested was at one end of this tunnel, and at the other end was a huge area of tunnel. The gimbal rig was constructed over in that side, and the astronauts were brought here to sit in this chair and go through this gimballing thing. They had a picture of the Moon on the wall of the tunnel, and the guys would get in there, strapped in their seats, and they had little nitrogen jets that they could manipulate in order to simulate where they were going. They’d get them into a kind of a free fall—they were going all kinds of crazy ways. It was their job, then, to try and hit the right button at the right time, so that that little jet of propulsion would slow it down, and then maybe back it up and then square it away, so he was then able to concentrate on the thing. John [H.] Glenn, every time he would come here after that, and even later on, years later on, in some of his presentations, he’d always say the same thing. He said, “When I came here to Lewis the first time and they put me in that chair, I got sick. As a result, every time I drive down Brookpark Road, I get a little queasy.”

[Assistant] I can imagine. That doesn’t sound like something I’d want to do, not at all.


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

[User] No, not really. The only people that might have been involved would be maybe somebody out at the hangar that might have been involved in the [Shuttle Carrier] Aircraft, that 747 that was converted over in order to carry the Shuttle, but I don’t recall us being involved in structurally building and fabricating the bracketry that went on top of the 747 in order to support the Shuttle. I think that was all probably done at Ames or one of the more airplane-involved flight-type programs. They’re in a better weather situation, and although we’ve had several aircraft programs, like icing research and stuff, we were very heavy in that—still are, I guess. Some of the zero-gravity stuff, but that was all taken over by the big [KC-135 Zero-Gravity Program aircraft], where you see pictures of people floating around in there. It was good for PR [public relations].

[Assistant] You mentioned you traveled to some of the other Centers. Was that to see the facilities?

[User] It was more for meetings.

[Assistant] I didn’t know if you went to see any of the other chambers or test facilities and how they were run.

[User] Not really, specifically. We went out to San Antonio [Texas]. The Center Director was friends with the commanding officer.

[Assistant] At the Air Force base?


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

[User] It was more for meetings.

[Assistant] I didn’t know if you went to see any of the other chambers or test facilities and how they were run.

[User] Not really, specifically. We went out to San Antonio [Texas]. The Center Director was friends with the commanding officer.

[Assistant] At the Air Force base?

[User] Yes. We loaded up the Convair [aircraft] that we had—I think there were about 12 or 15 of us that flew out there. Really, the good part I got out of the whole meeting was they took us for rides down through the water, and we had dinner down there.

[Assistant] On the [San Antonio] River?


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

[User] Not really, specifically. We went out to San Antonio [Texas]. The Center Director was friends with the commanding officer.

[Assistant] At the Air Force base?

[User] Yes. We loaded up the Convair [aircraft] that we had—I think there were about 12 or 15 of us that flew out there. Really, the good part I got out of the whole meeting was they took us for rides down through the water, and we had dinner down there.

[Assistant] On the [San Antonio] River?

[User] Yes. We had a meeting the following morning, I guess to justify the flight, you know how that is. I haven’t spent any time or any involvement with any of the other Centers, other than just going to various Centers for meetings.

[Assistant] As part of the Technical Services, did you talk with people with Technical Services? Like, at Langley, Jack [A.] Kinzler, and then he went to JSC [Johnson Space Center, Houston, Texas]? Did you ever have any involvement with these other Centers that had that same division?


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

[User] Yes. We loaded up the Convair [aircraft] that we had—I think there were about 12 or 15 of us that flew out there. Really, the good part I got out of the whole meeting was they took us for rides down through the water, and we had dinner down there.

[Assistant] On the [San Antonio] River?

[User] Yes. We had a meeting the following morning, I guess to justify the flight, you know how that is. I haven’t spent any time or any involvement with any of the other Centers, other than just going to various Centers for meetings.

[Assistant] As part of the Technical Services, did you talk with people with Technical Services? Like, at Langley, Jack [A.] Kinzler, and then he went to JSC [Johnson Space Center, Houston, Texas]? Did you ever have any involvement with these other Centers that had that same division?

[User] Maybe at the upper management level they did, but I didn’t feel that we relied on or depended on any other Center for much, and we had a couple of Center Directors who were really, really sharp guys, and they were really, really Lewis. If somebody knew something more than they did, that was not the information they wanted. There was a lot of competition, this program going up.

[Assistant] If you don’t mind, for a minute, just think about what do you think is your most significant contribution in your career with NACA and NASA?


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

[User] Yes. We had a meeting the following morning, I guess to justify the flight, you know how that is. I haven’t spent any time or any involvement with any of the other Centers, other than just going to various Centers for meetings.

[Assistant] As part of the Technical Services, did you talk with people with Technical Services? Like, at Langley, Jack [A.] Kinzler, and then he went to JSC [Johnson Space Center, Houston, Texas]? Did you ever have any involvement with these other Centers that had that same division?

[User] Maybe at the upper management level they did, but I didn’t feel that we relied on or depended on any other Center for much, and we had a couple of Center Directors who were really, really sharp guys, and they were really, really Lewis. If somebody knew something more than they did, that was not the information they wanted. There was a lot of competition, this program going up.

[Assistant] If you don’t mind, for a minute, just think about what do you think is your most significant contribution in your career with NACA and NASA?

[User] I suppose gravitating to be Assistant to the Center Director. It’s a goal that up until then, I didn’t know of anybody, and I was the first non-college-graduate person type to have an office in the Ad Building, right next to the Center Director, and my own secretary, which was unthinkable when you’re talking about grease monkeys out in the shops, putting parts and pieces together, years ago, and ending up at that point.

[Assistant] Did you ever think, when you first started out here, did you have that goal? Not necessarily that specific goal, but the goal in mind to keep moving into management and more into those types of positions?


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

[User] Probably the most ambitious was that Centaur Program, which drew a lot of attention. We were given this space vehicle, one of a kind. There was no room for any error in judgment or operations. You could destroy a vehicle that cost millions of dollars, and it was irreplaceable, almost, at that time. That and Zero-G were the two most interesting programs and projects that I was involved with. They were both unusual, out of the norm.\n\n We were putting jet engines in and firing them off every night, that was no big deal. Now, you had challenges that you’d never experienced before. During the construction of the Zero-G, one of the welders stepped back to check his weld and fell and got killed. It was a very unusual event that was taking place at Lewis at that time, and there was a lot of attention. Of course, you were in the public eye all the time. Everybody wanted to make sure that we didn’t screw things up, and it was a first time—it was the only time—kind of deal. There was a lot of emphasis and a lot of pressure to perform and do the right thing at the right time.

[Assistant] As you mentioned, when you first started, people didn’t really know what NACA was, or NASA, but then once the space program started, then you’re in the public eye because people are watching. A little bit more pressure.

[User] Sure. I guess.

[Assistant] Is there anything we haven’t talked about, or anything you want to mention while we’re still going?

[User] I don’t know—you’ve brought up some things that I hadn’t thought of for years, but it was a great time. I think everybody, up until more recent times, it was more of a family atmosphere. A lot of fun, a lot of work, a lot of hard work, but we came up with a lot of crazy things to do.

[Assistant] No regrets about not getting that degree and taking the path you did?


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

[User] Sure. I guess.

[Assistant] Is there anything we haven’t talked about, or anything you want to mention while we’re still going?

[User] I don’t know—you’ve brought up some things that I hadn’t thought of for years, but it was a great time. I think everybody, up until more recent times, it was more of a family atmosphere. A lot of fun, a lot of work, a lot of hard work, but we came up with a lot of crazy things to do.

[Assistant] No regrets about not getting that degree and taking the path you did?

[User] Not really, no.

[Assistant] It sounds like you had a really good career.


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

[User] I don’t know—you’ve brought up some things that I hadn’t thought of for years, but it was a great time. I think everybody, up until more recent times, it was more of a family atmosphere. A lot of fun, a lot of work, a lot of hard work, but we came up with a lot of crazy things to do.

[Assistant] No regrets about not getting that degree and taking the path you did?

[User] Not really, no.

[Assistant] It sounds like you had a really good career.

[User] I think so, yes.

[Assistant] Definitely an interesting one, that’s for sure, interesting projects.


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

[User] Not really, no.

[Assistant] It sounds like you had a really good career.

[User] I think so, yes.

[Assistant] Definitely an interesting one, that’s for sure, interesting projects.

[User] We had four kids, and they all were able to get college degrees. One went on and got to be a lawyer, and I have a niece, she must be a brain, she went to Case [Western Reserve University, Cleveland, Ohio] and got an engineering degree, and then she went to Ohio State and got a law degree. She’s out in California, making big bucks. Everybody’s doing well.

[Assistant] That’s good to hear. Thank you for coming in today and talking to us, we really appreciate it.


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

[User] I really don’t. I really don’t. But I don’t even remember who designed our—

[Assistant] T-shirt?

[User] The T-shirts. But whoever did must have come up with the TFNG. I don’t remember who did that. If you ever find out let me know. Somebody might remember.

[Assistant] I think Anna [L.] Fisher thought that Judy [Judith A.] Resnik had drawn that. Maybe Jim [James F.] Buchli.

[User] I just don’t know.

[Assistant] I just like to ask everybody, because different people have different recollections. Your class was so big, I understand, that you were split into two teams.


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

[User] The T-shirts. But whoever did must have come up with the TFNG. I don’t remember who did that. If you ever find out let me know. Somebody might remember.

[Assistant] I think Anna [L.] Fisher thought that Judy [Judith A.] Resnik had drawn that. Maybe Jim [James F.] Buchli.

[User] I just don’t know.

[Assistant] I just like to ask everybody, because different people have different recollections. Your class was so big, I understand, that you were split into two teams.

[User] Yes, the red and the blue. I was in the red group.

[Assistant] Whose team was that?


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

[User] I just don’t know.

[Assistant] I just like to ask everybody, because different people have different recollections. Your class was so big, I understand, that you were split into two teams.

[User] Yes, the red and the blue. I was in the red group.

[Assistant] Whose team was that?

[User] Whose team was that?

[Assistant] Was that Rick [Frederick H.] Hauck or John [M.] Fabian? I understand they were the elders of the group.


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

[User] Yes, the red and the blue. I was in the red group.

[Assistant] Whose team was that?

[User] Whose team was that?

[Assistant] Was that Rick [Frederick H.] Hauck or John [M.] Fabian? I understand they were the elders of the group.

[User] Yes. I think it was Rick, but if you wanted to convince me that it was John, I’d probably believe that too. Obviously I don’t remember.

[Assistant] Did that have any sort of impact upon your group having to separate things out?


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

[User] Whose team was that?

[Assistant] Was that Rick [Frederick H.] Hauck or John [M.] Fabian? I understand they were the elders of the group.

[User] Yes. I think it was Rick, but if you wanted to convince me that it was John, I’d probably believe that too. Obviously I don’t remember.

[Assistant] Did that have any sort of impact upon your group having to separate things out?

[User] I don’t think so. It was a nice little bit of rivalry sometimes. We would have the baseball games and food fights at parties and things, the reds versus the blues. But it certainly didn’t have any impact on crew selection or the really important job assignments and stuff. Those were pretty much independent.

[Assistant] Who was your first officemate when you came into the office?


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

[User] They did, the so-called charm school. I don’t honestly remember how far into our training they did that. But they contracted with one of these training organizations that comes in and gives you an intense two-day crash course in how to deal with the media. It was quite good. I think most everybody who went through it felt that they had a lot of useful hints about preparing certain talking points in advance and how to fend off microphones that are being shoved in your face. There’s a lot of little tricks of the trade.

[Assistant] Our research indicates that you worked with Story Musgrave for your first on-the-job training activity. Do you recall what you did under his tutelage?

[User] I thought that I worked my first on-the-job training—

[Assistant] We never know if things changed.

[User] Well, let’s see. What did they say my first on-the-job training was? Do you remember?

[Assistant] They didn’t know. We have a sheet where everyone has been assigned to an astronaut, and you and Ellison [S.] Onizuka were assigned to Story.


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

[User] I thought that I worked my first on-the-job training—

[Assistant] We never know if things changed.

[User] Well, let’s see. What did they say my first on-the-job training was? Do you remember?

[Assistant] They didn’t know. We have a sheet where everyone has been assigned to an astronaut, and you and Ellison [S.] Onizuka were assigned to Story.

[User] Because the first one I remember working with at all closely was Karl [G.] Henize, because I was working on the instrument pointing system [IPS], which was an astronomical type thing. So that made sense because Karl was an astronomer, and I was an astronomer.\n\n My first T-38 ride was with Story. I’ll never forget that, that’s for sure.

[Assistant] Will you tell us about that?


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

[User] Well, let’s see. What did they say my first on-the-job training was? Do you remember?

[Assistant] They didn’t know. We have a sheet where everyone has been assigned to an astronaut, and you and Ellison [S.] Onizuka were assigned to Story.

[User] Because the first one I remember working with at all closely was Karl [G.] Henize, because I was working on the instrument pointing system [IPS], which was an astronomical type thing. So that made sense because Karl was an astronomer, and I was an astronomer.\n\n My first T-38 ride was with Story. I’ll never forget that, that’s for sure.

[Assistant] Will you tell us about that?

[User] Yes. Well, he took off in full afterburners and climbed. Probably we were only going up at about 30 degrees, but I felt like I was in a rocket going straight up. It was really exciting. Story is a good pilot. He’s a unique guy. I’ve spent a lot of time with Story. He’s an interesting person, to say the least. I like him. He’s a good astronaut. So I’ve talked with him a lot over the years. I absolutely don’t remember the initial on-the-job training, what it would have been. He was also a skydiver like I was. We discovered that we had taken our first jump with the same instructor, which was neat.

[Assistant] Tell us about your work with Karl.


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

[User] I tried to get the second shift, from 4:00 until midnight, so that I could go and get some good beach time during the day, that’s what I tried to do.

[Assistant] How long were you out there for when you would fly out to California?

[User] Typically a week. Occasionally we’d be out for two weeks and I’d stay over the weekend.

[Assistant] Was there housing provided?

[User] We stayed in the Empire Motel, I remember. Mrs. Chen ran the Empire Motel. We all got to know her. She was very nice to us. I don’t want to call it a fleabag, because it was clean and everything. But it was a very simple Motel 6 type place. We were on pretty small government per diem. Nothing fancy. You get a rental car. We’d fly in to usually El Toro Marine Air Base [California]. That was the famous base in Independence Day that got wiped out by the aliens.

[Assistant] Oh, was it?


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

[User] Typically a week. Occasionally we’d be out for two weeks and I’d stay over the weekend.

[Assistant] Was there housing provided?

[User] We stayed in the Empire Motel, I remember. Mrs. Chen ran the Empire Motel. We all got to know her. She was very nice to us. I don’t want to call it a fleabag, because it was clean and everything. But it was a very simple Motel 6 type place. We were on pretty small government per diem. Nothing fancy. You get a rental car. We’d fly in to usually El Toro Marine Air Base [California]. That was the famous base in Independence Day that got wiped out by the aliens.

[Assistant] Oh, was it?

[User] Yes. Then they had a kind of a Rent-a-Wreck rental car there. So we’d get our cars and drive out to Downey. Like I say, I enjoyed it because during the day I’d go swim on the beach. In the evening I’d work.

[Assistant] Who else was working shifts with you, do you recall?


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

[User] We stayed in the Empire Motel, I remember. Mrs. Chen ran the Empire Motel. We all got to know her. She was very nice to us. I don’t want to call it a fleabag, because it was clean and everything. But it was a very simple Motel 6 type place. We were on pretty small government per diem. Nothing fancy. You get a rental car. We’d fly in to usually El Toro Marine Air Base [California]. That was the famous base in Independence Day that got wiped out by the aliens.

[Assistant] Oh, was it?

[User] Yes. Then they had a kind of a Rent-a-Wreck rental car there. So we’d get our cars and drive out to Downey. Like I say, I enjoyed it because during the day I’d go swim on the beach. In the evening I’d work.

[Assistant] Who else was working shifts with you, do you recall?

[User] Well, it was one astronaut at a time, and then they had their own test pilot, whose name I don’t remember, but he was a very friendly guy. He’d been doing it for a long time. So it was nice to work with people who knew what they were doing. The two of us would work together. For me it was probably more educational, because I didn’t know a whole lot about the procedures or anything. So it was a great opportunity to learn and just get comfortable sitting in a Shuttle cockpit simulator.

[Assistant] How was the FSL different from the SAIL, or were they pretty comparable?


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

[User] Yes. Then they had a kind of a Rent-a-Wreck rental car there. So we’d get our cars and drive out to Downey. Like I say, I enjoyed it because during the day I’d go swim on the beach. In the evening I’d work.

[Assistant] Who else was working shifts with you, do you recall?

[User] Well, it was one astronaut at a time, and then they had their own test pilot, whose name I don’t remember, but he was a very friendly guy. He’d been doing it for a long time. So it was nice to work with people who knew what they were doing. The two of us would work together. For me it was probably more educational, because I didn’t know a whole lot about the procedures or anything. So it was a great opportunity to learn and just get comfortable sitting in a Shuttle cockpit simulator.

[Assistant] How was the FSL different from the SAIL, or were they pretty comparable?

[User] They were very similar, very similar. It didn’t have quite the same physical layout that the SAIL did, but I guess there was so much software that had to be verified that they couldn’t do it all in the SAIL. So the SAIL did mostly the ascent software. The FSL did the on-orbit and the entry software.

[Assistant] You also mentioned that you worked on the OMS pods and the RCS systems. At what stage were they when you started working those?


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

[User] Well, it was one astronaut at a time, and then they had their own test pilot, whose name I don’t remember, but he was a very friendly guy. He’d been doing it for a long time. So it was nice to work with people who knew what they were doing. The two of us would work together. For me it was probably more educational, because I didn’t know a whole lot about the procedures or anything. So it was a great opportunity to learn and just get comfortable sitting in a Shuttle cockpit simulator.

[Assistant] How was the FSL different from the SAIL, or were they pretty comparable?

[User] They were very similar, very similar. It didn’t have quite the same physical layout that the SAIL did, but I guess there was so much software that had to be verified that they couldn’t do it all in the SAIL. So the SAIL did mostly the ascent software. The FSL did the on-orbit and the entry software.

[Assistant] You also mentioned that you worked on the OMS pods and the RCS systems. At what stage were they when you started working those?

[User] They were pretty well developed. Astronauts get assigned to a lot of the different systems. Then the idea would be when they would have engineering reviews, you would just go and just see is there anything funny going on that we should know about. Tragically, nobody was ever assigned to work the solid rocket boosters, so when Challenger came around—we had lots of people paying attention to the main engines, because everybody knew about turbine cracks and potential pump problems. But the general feeling about the solid boosters [was] that solids don’t fail and there’s not much you can do about it. So no astronaut was ever to my knowledge assigned specifically to cover the solid rocket boosters, tragically, because had we known what was going on there, things might have been different. But you never know.

[Assistant] Some of our research—again we don’t know if it’s accurate or not—indicates that you worked on prox ops [proximity operations]. Did you do any work with that?


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

[User] They were very similar, very similar. It didn’t have quite the same physical layout that the SAIL did, but I guess there was so much software that had to be verified that they couldn’t do it all in the SAIL. So the SAIL did mostly the ascent software. The FSL did the on-orbit and the entry software.

[Assistant] You also mentioned that you worked on the OMS pods and the RCS systems. At what stage were they when you started working those?

[User] They were pretty well developed. Astronauts get assigned to a lot of the different systems. Then the idea would be when they would have engineering reviews, you would just go and just see is there anything funny going on that we should know about. Tragically, nobody was ever assigned to work the solid rocket boosters, so when Challenger came around—we had lots of people paying attention to the main engines, because everybody knew about turbine cracks and potential pump problems. But the general feeling about the solid boosters [was] that solids don’t fail and there’s not much you can do about it. So no astronaut was ever to my knowledge assigned specifically to cover the solid rocket boosters, tragically, because had we known what was going on there, things might have been different. But you never know.

[Assistant] Some of our research—again we don’t know if it’s accurate or not—indicates that you worked on prox ops [proximity operations]. Did you do any work with that?

[User] Yes, that’s right. That may have been one of the first things. Dave Griggs and I got assigned to work on-orbit, that’s right. They were developing the Shuttle engineering simulator, and so we got involved in setting the requirements for the orbital simulations. Yes that’s right, I remember that. That was probably the first independent assignment that I got, now that I think back on it.

[Assistant] How did you set those requirements?


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

[User] They were pretty well developed. Astronauts get assigned to a lot of the different systems. Then the idea would be when they would have engineering reviews, you would just go and just see is there anything funny going on that we should know about. Tragically, nobody was ever assigned to work the solid rocket boosters, so when Challenger came around—we had lots of people paying attention to the main engines, because everybody knew about turbine cracks and potential pump problems. But the general feeling about the solid boosters [was] that solids don’t fail and there’s not much you can do about it. So no astronaut was ever to my knowledge assigned specifically to cover the solid rocket boosters, tragically, because had we known what was going on there, things might have been different. But you never know.

[Assistant] Some of our research—again we don’t know if it’s accurate or not—indicates that you worked on prox ops [proximity operations]. Did you do any work with that?

[User] Yes, that’s right. That may have been one of the first things. Dave Griggs and I got assigned to work on-orbit, that’s right. They were developing the Shuttle engineering simulator, and so we got involved in setting the requirements for the orbital simulations. Yes that’s right, I remember that. That was probably the first independent assignment that I got, now that I think back on it.

[Assistant] How did you set those requirements?

[User] We had to try to talk to the other astronauts and find out what it was that they expected the Shuttle to be doing once it got to orbit. So what did we want the simulator to be able to duplicate? It became pretty clear. The rendezvous and proximity operations were the most critical thing that had to be tested. So we worked a lot on that.\n\n Again, the people who were designing the simulator knew a lot more about it than we did. But our job was just as operators to make sure that the things that we felt that we would need to get out of the simulator it would be capable of providing.

[Assistant] Were there any major challenges that you had to overcome?


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

[User] Yes, that’s right. That may have been one of the first things. Dave Griggs and I got assigned to work on-orbit, that’s right. They were developing the Shuttle engineering simulator, and so we got involved in setting the requirements for the orbital simulations. Yes that’s right, I remember that. That was probably the first independent assignment that I got, now that I think back on it.

[Assistant] How did you set those requirements?

[User] We had to try to talk to the other astronauts and find out what it was that they expected the Shuttle to be doing once it got to orbit. So what did we want the simulator to be able to duplicate? It became pretty clear. The rendezvous and proximity operations were the most critical thing that had to be tested. So we worked a lot on that.\n\n Again, the people who were designing the simulator knew a lot more about it than we did. But our job was just as operators to make sure that the things that we felt that we would need to get out of the simulator it would be capable of providing.

[Assistant] Were there any major challenges that you had to overcome?

[User] Not really, because it was not fundamentally different from other simulators that had been built. We understood orbital dynamics. The Shuttle had been modeled already in a mission simulator. It was really a question, since this was not going to be quite as complex as the mission simulator, some of the questions were what do you really need, can we eliminate this or that or the other thing. I don’t really remember technical details of things getting eliminated. In fact, over the long run it became a very very capable simulator. It could do just about anything it had to do. In many ways it was better than the SMS [Shuttle Mission Simulator].

[Assistant] Did you also work on Spacelab 2? That was another assignment we had seen.


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

[User] We had to try to talk to the other astronauts and find out what it was that they expected the Shuttle to be doing once it got to orbit. So what did we want the simulator to be able to duplicate? It became pretty clear. The rendezvous and proximity operations were the most critical thing that had to be tested. So we worked a lot on that.\n\n Again, the people who were designing the simulator knew a lot more about it than we did. But our job was just as operators to make sure that the things that we felt that we would need to get out of the simulator it would be capable of providing.

[Assistant] Were there any major challenges that you had to overcome?

[User] Not really, because it was not fundamentally different from other simulators that had been built. We understood orbital dynamics. The Shuttle had been modeled already in a mission simulator. It was really a question, since this was not going to be quite as complex as the mission simulator, some of the questions were what do you really need, can we eliminate this or that or the other thing. I don’t really remember technical details of things getting eliminated. In fact, over the long run it became a very very capable simulator. It could do just about anything it had to do. In many ways it was better than the SMS [Shuttle Mission Simulator].

[Assistant] Did you also work on Spacelab 2? That was another assignment we had seen.

[User] That was what I was doing with Karl Henize. Yes because that was with the IPS. That probably came a little later. Again, it’s all a blur.

[Assistant] Well, that was over 30 years ago, as you pointed out. Your biosheet also indicates you worked on Shuttle navigation. What did that entail?


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

[User] No. We alternated. There were three pilots and three mission specialists, and we would alternate. But then probably George Abbey made the assignments. I don’t really know. So Dick and I went to El Paso, and I think Hoot [Robert L.] Gibson, who was the lead on [the team], was with Kathy [Kathryn D.] Sullivan in California. So they actually did the chase. Then the other team would have been in Florida. I don’t remember who was on that. I think Steve [Steven R.] Nagel, [but] I don’t remember.

[Assistant] Did you have any other assignments with STS-4 or STS-3?

[User] No, not to my recollection. STS-4, I worked with CBS television, and so they sent me to the Cape, which was nice because my father-in-law was visiting from England and so we made a big Florida holiday out of it. Disney World [Orlando] and all that stuff as well as watching the launch. I was with Dan Rather doing the commentary, and they got to be in the VIP [Very Important Persons] stands. So that was good fun.

[Assistant] That must be exciting. Do you have all these clips of your interviews?

[User] Yes, I’ve got lots of stuff. They’re all in boxes, and God knows what I’m ever going to do with them. Do I really want to listen to an interview from back in 1984? I don’t know. Certainly my kids are never going to do it. So maybe I’ll give it to the Astronaut Hall of Fame. I got inducted into that two years ago, and they said that they would be willing to be guardians of any stuff that I had. Maybe that’s the best thing to do with it. I don’t know.

[Assistant] Don’t put it in the trash.


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

[User] No, not to my recollection. STS-4, I worked with CBS television, and so they sent me to the Cape, which was nice because my father-in-law was visiting from England and so we made a big Florida holiday out of it. Disney World [Orlando] and all that stuff as well as watching the launch. I was with Dan Rather doing the commentary, and they got to be in the VIP [Very Important Persons] stands. So that was good fun.

[Assistant] That must be exciting. Do you have all these clips of your interviews?

[User] Yes, I’ve got lots of stuff. They’re all in boxes, and God knows what I’m ever going to do with them. Do I really want to listen to an interview from back in 1984? I don’t know. Certainly my kids are never going to do it. So maybe I’ll give it to the Astronaut Hall of Fame. I got inducted into that two years ago, and they said that they would be willing to be guardians of any stuff that I had. Maybe that’s the best thing to do with it. I don’t know.

[Assistant] Don’t put it in the trash.

[User] But it’s nice. No, it’s nice. I’ve certainly got lots of scrapbooks and things with newspaper clippings and all that stuff. But we live in a small townhouse, and there’s not enough room for everything.

[Assistant] I understand you started working on the ASTRO mission in ’82.


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

[User] Well, 20/20 hindsight is better on Monday morning. We were all young guys, we thought we could do anything. And we pretty much did everything, except for a few things, few you don’t want to remember. But at that age nothing’s too tough. Everybody was all about that same age. I couldn’t do that anymore, I’m 82 now. Man, I couldn’t do it.

[Assistant] You mentioned one time that flying the Shuttle is very scientific. Could you expand on that, why you feel it’s scientific?

[User] After having had some insight into the amount of intelligence required and even transcending engineering into science, it almost became a science aspect because of the sophistication of the machine and the way it was put together and the high performance that was driven from the machinery. To me, that smacked almost of science rather than bridge building, and that’s why I alluded to it that way.\n\n It was an absolutely outstanding accomplishment. The horsepower-to-weight [ratio] on the engines—it’s just enormous. It’s like 0.5 for a high performance racer, and ours was over 100 or 200 to one, horsepower-to-weight ratio. All of that doesn’t come for free. You’re working in a terrible environment, and you’re stressing things beyond what you normally would stress them to. So it almost became science more than engineering in many respects.

[Assistant] I remember reading that you had said, “It’s not a truck, it was a race car.”

[User] Yes, right.

[Assistant] Did you have some other notes of contributions that you wanted to talk about today? I think we went over the list that we had prepared, but I didn’t know if there were some other areas that you can think of?


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

[User] After having had some insight into the amount of intelligence required and even transcending engineering into science, it almost became a science aspect because of the sophistication of the machine and the way it was put together and the high performance that was driven from the machinery. To me, that smacked almost of science rather than bridge building, and that’s why I alluded to it that way.\n\n It was an absolutely outstanding accomplishment. The horsepower-to-weight [ratio] on the engines—it’s just enormous. It’s like 0.5 for a high performance racer, and ours was over 100 or 200 to one, horsepower-to-weight ratio. All of that doesn’t come for free. You’re working in a terrible environment, and you’re stressing things beyond what you normally would stress them to. So it almost became science more than engineering in many respects.

[Assistant] I remember reading that you had said, “It’s not a truck, it was a race car.”

[User] Yes, right.

[Assistant] Did you have some other notes of contributions that you wanted to talk about today? I think we went over the list that we had prepared, but I didn’t know if there were some other areas that you can think of?

[User] About Shuttle specifically you mean? I had to spend a little of the time on the other things going on, Skylab and a few other things.

[Assistant] You had developed a hammer, could you share with us about that tool?


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

[User] [Viewing original drawing of Mercury]... flying the other way, and then the G forces are either from his head to his foot or his foot to his head, and they're not very tolerant that way.

[Assistant] That's really neat. I mean, such a beautiful drawing.

[User] I'm amazed I didn't throw it away [original pencil drawing of Mercury].

[Assistant] Oh, really?

[User] Yes. I'm amazed. Those things you throw away because you –

[Assistant] Do you know, when we spoke with Mr. [Jerome "Jerry" B.] Hammack a few months ago, he had brought out some of his original photos and everything like that, and he had one of your drawings of Mercury, too. And he said, "Yes. Mr. Johnson gave this to me," and he said he treasured it. So it was really neat to see something like that. It really is.


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

[User] We see them [the Hammacks] several times a year at little parties. We get together. That gang, you know, we stick fairly close together.

[Assistant] That's nice.

[User] Unfortunately, some of us are getting along. A few have died, but for the most part, everyone's in good health.

[Assistant] That's great.

[User] Yes.

[Assistant] Well, I'd still like you to consider, if you wouldn't mind, if maybe you and Dr. [Maxime A.] Faget and Mr. [Joseph G. "Guy"] Thibodaux, as you had said, might want to think about getting together.


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

[User] Unfortunately, some of us are getting along. A few have died, but for the most part, everyone's in good health.

[Assistant] That's great.

[User] Yes.

[Assistant] Well, I'd still like you to consider, if you wouldn't mind, if maybe you and Dr. [Maxime A.] Faget and Mr. [Joseph G. "Guy"] Thibodaux, as you had said, might want to think about getting together.

[User] That would be fun. If they agree, it would certainly suit me.

[Assistant] That would be terrific. Well, then, as soon as we contact them, we'll ask them the same and maybe see if we can set up a mutual time if everyone's agreeable.


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

[User] Yes.

[Assistant] Well, I'd still like you to consider, if you wouldn't mind, if maybe you and Dr. [Maxime A.] Faget and Mr. [Joseph G. "Guy"] Thibodaux, as you had said, might want to think about getting together.

[User] That would be fun. If they agree, it would certainly suit me.

[Assistant] That would be terrific. Well, then, as soon as we contact them, we'll ask them the same and maybe see if we can set up a mutual time if everyone's agreeable.

[User] Good.

[Assistant] That would be great. Well, the other thing I wanted to ask you before we get started here is… [Brief interruption – Subject was Skylab]


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

[User] Well, one guy didn't like to sleep right up against the wall. He said it was because of ventilation problems. We suspected he just couldn't—you know, he went to sleep knowing he was standing up, and that just ain't the way to do it. [Laughter] He would rig his sleeping bag things on the floor outside. But maybe that's all.

[Assistant] It's amazing what we take for granted living on Earth.

[User] Yes, that's right. You get mighty accustomed to—the thought in some area of your subconscious that "I'm going to wake up and fall off the wall or something," you know. [Laughter] It was very interesting.\n\n Very few people paid any attention to Skylab. The people at Johnson Space Center almost didn't know it was going on, except the operations types there and the crew and those of us there doing…[Experiment 487]. It was probably because it was not Johnson's mission. It belonged to Marshall, and, you know, it couldn't be any good if it belonged to Marshall and didn't belong to Johnson, so nobody paid any attention to it. But I thought it was a very interesting thing.

[Assistant] To your knowledge, was Skylab ever designed to hold any more than three crews?

[User] I don't think so, because we just had the three sleep stations there, and the wardroom would only hold three people. So I don't think so, but I don't think anyone ever envisioned that there would be somebody there for three months. You know, the medics would say—they started out to say, "You might be able to take this weightlessness for maybe a half hour," and after that was done, they'd say, "Well, okay, you can get by with a half hour, but a couple of hours will do you in." You'd go a couple of hours, and say, "Well, you'll never make it more than for four or five days." I think they finally gave up after a couple of months and nobody -

[Assistant] You had brought up another interesting point about the window on Skylab. Can you tell me a little bit about that design?


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

[User] Yes. It was just horrible. Everything is this way and [unclear].

[Assistant] You also mentioned, that brings up another thing to me, a little bit ago about the design and the patterns of paint colors. Could you tell me about that? [Subject: Skylab.]

[User] Oh, yes. That was one of the things. You know, we all think we're great at colors. Now, I can at least take myself out of that category, because I'm red/green blind and I'm very poor at colors. So I hesitate to say anything. But anyway, most everyone has their idea of what makes good colors, and especially women. Well, every guy that had anything to do with the interior of Skylab, that might have anything to do with painting the inside, has a wife, and every one of the wives had their idea of what the color scheme should be inside. I'll bet that thing was painted over half a dozen times, depending upon the rank of the person whose wife had last said what color it should be. And when they finally got down to painting it, in the good old government way, all these paints got identified by some great number that's in the wavelengths of light, the emissions from this down the thing, and the specs went out with all these complicated things. No way you could just go down to Sherwin Williams and buy a color. It had to be to this government spec. And the funny part about it, it had taken a year with everybody—with every color of the rainbow, and then when you finally get through, it's got to be within a match of exactly [unclear]. It was hard to disguise it anyway, because it's mostly made out of aluminum alloys and structural members, and it looked kind of crummy anyway.

[Assistant] What colors did they end up with, do you remember?

[User] You know, I don't even know, but the one in the [National] Air and Space Museum is painted, probably. I don't even remember what it was now. It's fairly neutral colors, I think. No chartreuses and lavenders.

[Assistant] No interior decorators.


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

[User] Oh, yes. That was one of the things. You know, we all think we're great at colors. Now, I can at least take myself out of that category, because I'm red/green blind and I'm very poor at colors. So I hesitate to say anything. But anyway, most everyone has their idea of what makes good colors, and especially women. Well, every guy that had anything to do with the interior of Skylab, that might have anything to do with painting the inside, has a wife, and every one of the wives had their idea of what the color scheme should be inside. I'll bet that thing was painted over half a dozen times, depending upon the rank of the person whose wife had last said what color it should be. And when they finally got down to painting it, in the good old government way, all these paints got identified by some great number that's in the wavelengths of light, the emissions from this down the thing, and the specs went out with all these complicated things. No way you could just go down to Sherwin Williams and buy a color. It had to be to this government spec. And the funny part about it, it had taken a year with everybody—with every color of the rainbow, and then when you finally get through, it's got to be within a match of exactly [unclear]. It was hard to disguise it anyway, because it's mostly made out of aluminum alloys and structural members, and it looked kind of crummy anyway.

[Assistant] What colors did they end up with, do you remember?

[User] You know, I don't even know, but the one in the [National] Air and Space Museum is painted, probably. I don't even remember what it was now. It's fairly neutral colors, I think. No chartreuses and lavenders.

[Assistant] No interior decorators.

[User] No.

[Assistant] I know when Skylab was first launched, one of the solar array panels had broken, and I know there was a big effort to help repair that. Were you involved in all that?


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

[User] I can't remember when it was.

[Assistant] Was that during Apollo?

[User] Yes.

[Assistant] Okay. So, sometime during the sixties or seventies.

[User]
Yes. Yes, all of these programs, you know, have a great overlap. There's a tendency to think that you do one and then you start the next one and do the next one. You know, Apollo was under way before the first Mercury flew. That's a good illustration of the way this system overlaps; that is, different people do different things. The concept designers are way out ahead, and then the preliminary design people are a little bit behind them, and then the real-world people that are really doing engineering development, then they come along, and so that concept stage is way out here when something else is following along behind. It's kind of risky, because you're betting on success.

See, you're betting that what you had done before is going to work, and you're so damned convinced that it's going to work, that you're going on ahead. And so far that's turned out to be the case. [Laughter] But it could be that, you know, once in a while you may make just a catastrophic mistake, and then the whole house of cards comes tumbling down. You know, your chain gets broken in the middle of the chain.\n\n We came awful close to that in Apollo, making a terrible mistake. I think I may have mentioned that before, that we completely changed the Apollo concept in the middle of the game and somehow got away with it. It's amazing. It's amazing.

[Assistant] What did you and Dr. Faget initially propose the shuttle design to be able to do? Was it simply for experimental use? Was it to [unclear]?


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

[User] Now they throw the shuttle away and they do something else. But anyway, there were a lot of people working on the shuttle, but there was so much money involved in it, it was clear there can't be but one shuttle.

[Assistant] So after you started working on your initial design, after you'd shown Dr. Gilruth your initial prototype, where did you go from there?

[User] Let me see what happened. There was a little—they often call them task groups. You grab people and put them all together and put them in one room. Jim [James A.] Chamberlin—you will run across that name quite often, James Chamberlin, was put in charge of that, and I kind of lost track of it then. Jim had a way of pulling everything together, and it would always be off in some little room somewhere, and it was very difficult to penetrate, see what was going on. Only Jim knew what was going on. You know, people kind of [unclear].\n\n Now, sooner or later it got to be so big that it got beyond that so-called task group of things and then got divided up all over the place, with the landing-gear people and the wing people and the propulsion people and all this kind of thing. But I don't remember how long that little task group stuck together; perhaps six months or something like that. I don't really remember.

[Assistant] Were you part of that space task group?

[User] Yes, at first I was, but I'm not sure quite what happened. I think that somehow or another the way Chamberlin was running it, working it, and the way I worked and all didn't fit together right. Besides, I think at that time I had a division to run, too, and I probably had my hands full with other things. But I really don't remember too much about that.

[Assistant] I did read that you and Dr. Faget had conducted a feasibility study for your design.


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

[User] Let me see what happened. There was a little—they often call them task groups. You grab people and put them all together and put them in one room. Jim [James A.] Chamberlin—you will run across that name quite often, James Chamberlin, was put in charge of that, and I kind of lost track of it then. Jim had a way of pulling everything together, and it would always be off in some little room somewhere, and it was very difficult to penetrate, see what was going on. Only Jim knew what was going on. You know, people kind of [unclear].\n\n Now, sooner or later it got to be so big that it got beyond that so-called task group of things and then got divided up all over the place, with the landing-gear people and the wing people and the propulsion people and all this kind of thing. But I don't remember how long that little task group stuck together; perhaps six months or something like that. I don't really remember.

[Assistant] Were you part of that space task group?

[User] Yes, at first I was, but I'm not sure quite what happened. I think that somehow or another the way Chamberlin was running it, working it, and the way I worked and all didn't fit together right. Besides, I think at that time I had a division to run, too, and I probably had my hands full with other things. But I really don't remember too much about that.

[Assistant] I did read that you and Dr. Faget had conducted a feasibility study for your design.

[User] Yes.

[Assistant] Can you tell me a little bit about the type of things that you looked at?


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

[User] Yes, at first I was, but I'm not sure quite what happened. I think that somehow or another the way Chamberlin was running it, working it, and the way I worked and all didn't fit together right. Besides, I think at that time I had a division to run, too, and I probably had my hands full with other things. But I really don't remember too much about that.

[Assistant] I did read that you and Dr. Faget had conducted a feasibility study for your design.

[User] Yes.

[Assistant] Can you tell me a little bit about the type of things that you looked at?

[User] No, but I do remember that there was one concept that we employed Rockwell with to do a study of a particular thing that we were going to salvage. We were going to salvage the first stage of Saturn. It was a two-stage situation, and we rigged up a vehicle to utilize Saturn—it certainly used the Saturn engines. It went its course, but it would not satisfy that Air Force requirement. It just simply wasn't large enough. So it fell by the wayside. We must have postulated some design requirements to start with. You know, nobody's just going to start off designing something without having some specifications, even if you made up your specifications yourself. You've got to sit down and decide what you're trying to do before you're going to do it, because otherwise it's kind of dumb to think of something and then try to find a reason to use it. You ought to have a reason first. But strangely enough, somehow or another I don't recall. There were a lot of other things going on. You see, the other things were flying and business was going on at that time.

[Assistant] Do you recall some of the specifications that you had come up with, some of the initial ones?


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

[User] No, but I do remember that there was one concept that we employed Rockwell with to do a study of a particular thing that we were going to salvage. We were going to salvage the first stage of Saturn. It was a two-stage situation, and we rigged up a vehicle to utilize Saturn—it certainly used the Saturn engines. It went its course, but it would not satisfy that Air Force requirement. It just simply wasn't large enough. So it fell by the wayside. We must have postulated some design requirements to start with. You know, nobody's just going to start off designing something without having some specifications, even if you made up your specifications yourself. You've got to sit down and decide what you're trying to do before you're going to do it, because otherwise it's kind of dumb to think of something and then try to find a reason to use it. You ought to have a reason first. But strangely enough, somehow or another I don't recall. There were a lot of other things going on. You see, the other things were flying and business was going on at that time.

[Assistant] Do you recall some of the specifications that you had come up with, some of the initial ones?

[User] No, I surely don't. I dare say that between Max and some operations people, they probably generated most of the specifications, but I can tell you this, that they would fall far short of what the Air Force wanted. I do know that much. I'm not sure where it went from there, too, because obviously, once it became an overall NASA program, it had to be pulled together by many, many, many people. I've got a notion that Robert Thompson was the first guy to take that thing over as total director, program manager for the whole shuttle program. I think Robert Thompson, who, incidentally, you ought to talk to him if you ever get around to it.

[Assistant] Okay. Terrific.

[User] I think he lived in the Woodlands area for a while, but I believed he's living back somewhere in the NASA area. I think. It wouldn't be hard to find out.

[Assistant] Were there any other individuals that you recall had a significant contribution?


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

[User] No, I surely don't. I dare say that between Max and some operations people, they probably generated most of the specifications, but I can tell you this, that they would fall far short of what the Air Force wanted. I do know that much. I'm not sure where it went from there, too, because obviously, once it became an overall NASA program, it had to be pulled together by many, many, many people. I've got a notion that Robert Thompson was the first guy to take that thing over as total director, program manager for the whole shuttle program. I think Robert Thompson, who, incidentally, you ought to talk to him if you ever get around to it.

[Assistant] Okay. Terrific.

[User] I think he lived in the Woodlands area for a while, but I believed he's living back somewhere in the NASA area. I think. It wouldn't be hard to find out.

[Assistant] Were there any other individuals that you recall had a significant contribution?

[User] Oh, yes, but there's so many, I don't even know where to start. The operations people played a great part in this thing, too. Usually the engineering people and the operations people, the design people and the operations people, are kind of like this. [Demonstrates] We're really not, because, just like my hand, they're both connected to the same hand. They have opposite points of view of things. The operations people, you know, complain that the engineering design people, if they had any sense, they would make the damned thing so it would be easier to fly, not so much trouble, and, of course, the design people say if the operations people had any damned sense, they wouldn't need all these things that they have, they practically ruin everything after they get their hands on it. [Laughter] But the fact is, it takes both parties to do the thing right. After a few years go by, you kind of forget that you were mortal enemies for a while. It takes both sides.

[Assistant] What in particular was your significant contribution to the shuttle design?


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

[User] I think he lived in the Woodlands area for a while, but I believed he's living back somewhere in the NASA area. I think. It wouldn't be hard to find out.

[Assistant] Were there any other individuals that you recall had a significant contribution?

[User] Oh, yes, but there's so many, I don't even know where to start. The operations people played a great part in this thing, too. Usually the engineering people and the operations people, the design people and the operations people, are kind of like this. [Demonstrates] We're really not, because, just like my hand, they're both connected to the same hand. They have opposite points of view of things. The operations people, you know, complain that the engineering design people, if they had any sense, they would make the damned thing so it would be easier to fly, not so much trouble, and, of course, the design people say if the operations people had any damned sense, they wouldn't need all these things that they have, they practically ruin everything after they get their hands on it. [Laughter] But the fact is, it takes both parties to do the thing right. After a few years go by, you kind of forget that you were mortal enemies for a while. It takes both sides.

[Assistant] What in particular was your significant contribution to the shuttle design?

[User] Probably not nearly so much as to Mercury and Apollo. The thing had gotten too big. It just was too big for any person to make an impact on the thing, and so I decided at the time, like I said…[there] was a division to run and we were turning out these configurations, the fifty-four different configurations, not any one of them worth a damn. But I guess somehow along the line they ended up absorbing the inputs of many, many, many people, and that's why there were fifty-four, because so many different inputs would keep coming in and changing things. And some of what were thought to be good ideas didn't turn out to be so good when you really got down to it.

[Assistant] Was that as a result of the engineering and operations people working together?


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

[User] No, because I had left NASA by then. In fact, ASTP was flown about a year after I retired. Besides, the shuttle Program had gotten down to the hard working part then, the grinding it out, that kind of thing. The people that did the grinding out, if they hear me say something like that, they would say, "That's typical of those [unclear]," using the term "grinding it out" as though that's just dog work, which is unfair of me to say, because I didn't mean to demean that part of it.

[Assistant] I understand.

[User] But it had gotten down to a place where there was a lot of people doing a lot of detailed things, all of them important, but, you know, somebody's got to do the brakes on the landing gear.

[Assistant] Right. Absolutely.

[User] And somebody's got to do the worrying about every damned little thing that goes on there.

[Assistant] Absolutely. Have you ever had the opportunity to watch a launch or a landing of the shuttle?


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

[User] And somebody's got to do the worrying about every damned little thing that goes on there.

[Assistant] Absolutely. Have you ever had the opportunity to watch a launch or a landing of the shuttle?

[User] No, I never have.

[Assistant] Really?

[User] No, never have. In fact, I only saw one launch of Apollo, the last one, and I made a point. I said, "By God, you'd better get yourself down to [John F.] Kennedy [Space Center], or the first thing you know, there won't be any more." Of course, it was very impressive, very impressive. I remember that launch. There was an old black man there that had been invited because he was like 101 or something like that, you know, and he had been invited. He probably had said something to the effect that he really didn't believe all of this stuff going on, you know, which, of course, a lot of people didn't. And after it was all over with and he saw the thing go up, I heard later that somebody asked him, "Do you believe it now?" and he said something to the effect of, "I didn't see nothing go to the moon. All I saw was a big cloud of smoke." [Laughter]\n\n My mother, as a matter of fact, I believe she died not believing that really man had gone to the moon, and I'd said, "Well, Mama, they did."\n\n She said, "Well, how do you know?"\n\n I said, "Well, I just know they did, Mama."\n\n She said, "How do you know that somebody didn't just tell you this and show you all of these things?" She said, "I see things on television every night that don't really happen." And every now and then I'll get wondering if my mother was right, that it was all just a big television show. [Laughter]

[Assistant] Oh, how funny. You could have told her they were just trying to make you feel better and that your work was really moving into something.


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

[User] No, never have. In fact, I only saw one launch of Apollo, the last one, and I made a point. I said, "By God, you'd better get yourself down to [John F.] Kennedy [Space Center], or the first thing you know, there won't be any more." Of course, it was very impressive, very impressive. I remember that launch. There was an old black man there that had been invited because he was like 101 or something like that, you know, and he had been invited. He probably had said something to the effect that he really didn't believe all of this stuff going on, you know, which, of course, a lot of people didn't. And after it was all over with and he saw the thing go up, I heard later that somebody asked him, "Do you believe it now?" and he said something to the effect of, "I didn't see nothing go to the moon. All I saw was a big cloud of smoke." [Laughter]\n\n My mother, as a matter of fact, I believe she died not believing that really man had gone to the moon, and I'd said, "Well, Mama, they did."\n\n She said, "Well, how do you know?"\n\n I said, "Well, I just know they did, Mama."\n\n She said, "How do you know that somebody didn't just tell you this and show you all of these things?" She said, "I see things on television every night that don't really happen." And every now and then I'll get wondering if my mother was right, that it was all just a big television show. [Laughter]

[Assistant] Oh, how funny. You could have told her they were just trying to make you feel better and that your work was really moving into something.

[User] Well, she had a point. I don't really know.

[Assistant] Nobody does.

[User] Except the guys that were there.

[Assistant] Yes, that's true. And they'll tell you otherwise. They'll tell you otherwise.


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

[User] Well, she had a point. I don't really know.

[Assistant] Nobody does.

[User] Except the guys that were there.

[Assistant] Yes, that's true. And they'll tell you otherwise. They'll tell you otherwise.

[User] That's right.

[Assistant] What types of projects did you work on then after you had retired from NASA?


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

[User] Every week it's a few billion more, and it ain't there yet, either.

[Assistant] No, it's not.

[User] Anyway, obviously that's a personal opinion.

[Assistant] Sure. That's what I'm asking you now.

[User] You know, this whole business worked, in my opinion—you know, everybody wants to know who is the guy that does all this? Well, of course, everybody says it's not any one guy, and it truly isn't. It's more than a person. Everything came together right. The country was prosperous. We had a cold war going on, not a shooting war, but a cold war going on with a great rival that we needed to do something against. We had a president who said, "We're going to go to the moon, get a man on the moon and back before this decade is out," committed to do that. There was a group of people that had developed the expertise to do this kind of thing. We didn't have terrible entitlement programs that were eating our budget, the United State's budget, alive. We had the money to spend. It all came together at one time—boom—all these things. That's why it worked.\n\n It wasn't any one person. It was [President John F.] Kennedy, the economy, the Russians, and we had a bunch of Germans that had come over from World War II that knew about lots of things. We had things like the Langley Research Laboratory that was doing [unclear] aircraft rocket research. We had aircraft companies with expert people in them. Boy, you know, it just came together. And right now, you see, they're not coming together right now. People are dissatisfied. There doesn't seem to be any particular reason to put up a space station. You know, they say, "Aw, so what," and there's dissention in the ranks. They're worried about Medicare and Social Security. Was there Medicare then in the Mercury days? I guess there was. I don't even remember when it was. It must have been.

[Assistant] Around the sixties is when it came about.


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

[User] I don't know. I know damned good and well that we've got to do things in space, if for no other reason than like the man asked why he climbed Everest, first place because it's there. But mainly we're getting too big for this Earth. Sooner or later, sooner or later, unless human beings want to just give up and stop being, which I don't think people are going to do, the only place to go is to go down into the Earth, and that doesn't seem like too good an idea. The oceans might help for a while, but sooner or later we've just flat got to go somewhere else, and the only way I know how to do it is you plug along, you know, do one thing at a time.\n\n I do wish the manned people and the unmanned people would quit bickering so much though, fighting each other when there's a—for instance, this last business with Mars. It would have been out of the question to put a man there right now, and yet there was no reason not to send an unmanned thing to Mars. Probes that are going out to Venus and the other planets, it's just a matter of time. It is regretful that you can't stay around long enough to see all these things happen, but even if you wait, if you could stick around until things got to the moon and to Venus or Saturn or wherever, then there's somewhere else to go. [Laughter]

[Assistant] Exactly. Exactly.

[User] I hear kids all the time talking, saying, "There's nothing left to do. You know, Bill Gates has invented all the damned computer stuff, and the space station is going up, and what are we going to do?" Isn't that silly?

[Assistant] It is.

[User] In the first place, Bill Gates wasn't even born when this space business started. He'd probably say that himself, you know, "What's there to do? Everything's been done. Bell's already invented the telephone."

[Assistant] Is there anything else that you would like to talk about or like to add, any stories, whether it be from Mercury, Gemini, Apollo, Skylab?


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

[User] I hear kids all the time talking, saying, "There's nothing left to do. You know, Bill Gates has invented all the damned computer stuff, and the space station is going up, and what are we going to do?" Isn't that silly?

[Assistant] It is.

[User] In the first place, Bill Gates wasn't even born when this space business started. He'd probably say that himself, you know, "What's there to do? Everything's been done. Bell's already invented the telephone."

[Assistant] Is there anything else that you would like to talk about or like to add, any stories, whether it be from Mercury, Gemini, Apollo, Skylab?

[User] Oh, I'd probably think of a million some other time, but I can't right now.

[Assistant] Okay. Well, maybe if we can pick up some other time.


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

[User] Oh, I'd probably think of a million some other time, but I can't right now.

[Assistant] Okay. Well, maybe if we can pick up some other time.

[User] Most of them, they tend to get to be things that are dealing with personalities, and most stories that are funny, they're not funny to everybody.

[Assistant] That's right.

[User] You and I may think they're funny, but the guy that we're talking about, it don't seem so damned funny to him.

[Assistant] That's right. I understand that.


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

[User] I think I told you about the $5,000 cure that the English people had. Did I tell you about that?

[Assistant] I don't know. Why don't you tell me again.

[User] The people that came from Canada were just great people, and a lot of them were English, and they were homesick, especially when they came here. It was bad enough being in Canada, but you come to Texas - [Laughter]

[Assistant] I know. [Laughter]

[User] And they were homesick, and their wives were all upset, you know, and the husbands weren't bothered because they were working, they had something to do. But we called it the $5,000 cure. They all had to take $5,000 and visit England, go back home for a month or so on vacation, and then when they came back, their wives were cured. They found out that the plumbing here was so much better and the supermarkets were so much nicer and the automobiles were better. They decided that Texas wasn't all that bad. [Laughter] But it cost $5,000 to fly them home.

[Assistant] Was there a large Canadian contingent that moved from [unclear] here?


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

[User] The people that came from Canada were just great people, and a lot of them were English, and they were homesick, especially when they came here. It was bad enough being in Canada, but you come to Texas - [Laughter]

[Assistant] I know. [Laughter]

[User] And they were homesick, and their wives were all upset, you know, and the husbands weren't bothered because they were working, they had something to do. But we called it the $5,000 cure. They all had to take $5,000 and visit England, go back home for a month or so on vacation, and then when they came back, their wives were cured. They found out that the plumbing here was so much better and the supermarkets were so much nicer and the automobiles were better. They decided that Texas wasn't all that bad. [Laughter] But it cost $5,000 to fly them home.

[Assistant] Was there a large Canadian contingent that moved from [unclear] here?

[User] Yes. There were thirty-some of them, I think. They were hand-picked when the aviation company AVRO went bankrupt. The chief aerodynamicist, I think, was Jim Chamberlin, James Chamberlin, and he hand picked these fellows. NASA had made it clear that they would hire these guys if they chose to come here. And they were topnotch people. A couple of them turned out to be no good at all, but most of them were really topnotch, and there was no way that the program would have made it without them, I don't believe. Certainly Mercury would have had a hard time. They all went on to do good things, have responsible jobs. They turned out to be good people. And so the same thing probably happened at Marshall, but in that case it was the German people that came over. Takes a lot of people.

[Assistant] That's right. I know you didn't work at Marshall per se, but did you spend a lot of time there?


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

[User] Not a lot, but a fair amount of time. They're nice guys, too. We used to get crossways with them a lot. They were more disciplined than we were. We were inclined to be more flitting around and do thing at the spur of the moment. They were more solid. It's almost as though they were German, you might say. It may be a good thing to have those sort of rivalries. Some people say, well, that's bad, but maybe it spurs you on, and you try to do better than the other guy.\n\n Well, I've talked too much.

[Assistant] No, you haven't. No, no, no. I was wondering if you wouldn't mind showing us some of your pictures here as well. Maybe if you want to start with this one right up above you, I'd like to take a look at that.

[User] That was a pencil drawing that I made in 1958, and we were putting together a report on the proposal for the Mercury spacecraft. I'm not even sure it was called Mercury then. That was one of the figures that was in the report. There were five figures, and I'm not certain what happened to one, two, three, and four. That's figure five. But they not have ever turned into the report. And I'm kind of happy I kept it. I don't even know why I kept it, to tell you the truth. I thought I might have—usually I throw things away.

[Assistant] It's a beautiful drawing, though. Does that show the astronaut actually trying to [unclear], or -

[User] Well, that gives some idea of the reach, what the reach would be to the [unclear]. That gives you the impression it was quite spacious in there, but by the time that thing got all the junk in there, there was no place to reach that far. It's very naive in many respects, but it was 1958.

[Assistant] You can only say that in retrospect, too. Once it's done, you can say that.