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

[User] I think talking as [part of] their team, it always feels a bit strange because it’s difficult [to be excluded]. The concept is understandable. We have controls. At the same time, [as] each of us, they’re just trying to do their work. They are only interested in their instrument and what they [need] to do. So sometimes it does feel a little bit that if we are a team we should be a team. [The rules are] understood, so [everybody] abides by what is needed. But it’s a challenge.

[Assistant] That’s interesting. No one has mentioned that before.

[User] Yes. In my case, I guess being at NASA, the NASA team has done incredible things for me. In this respect it has been a lot of work to get [paperwork] up to speed, always abiding by the rules. It started at Goddard. If I have the expertise to be a test conductor or a test director but I cannot because I’m a foreign national, just because of that label, it doesn’t make sense. You lose a lot of expertise that you need. So it’s getting all the paperwork in place.\n\n It continues as I say, [at] Northrop, perhaps even more so at Northrop. No foreign national is allowed unescorted anywhere yet. At least in Johnson we were able to.

[Assistant] Yes, you could bring them onsite at least.

[User] At Johnson the foreign nationals, once we were cleared we could come and go with our proper badges as a normal employee, which was great. We are still working that for Northrop.

[Assistant] That’s important to know as space becomes more international in scope, because projects are so expensive, this is probably going to happen more and more.


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

[User] Yes, it certainly did. When he was in Washington he wanted the Program Office reporting to Washington. As soon as George became the Center Director, he wanted the Program to report to the lead Center, that being him as the Center Director.\n\n But I will say George played an instrumental role because of his knowledge and experience on Apollo. Those were long Saturdays, but George knew what we needed to do to be successful. It wasn’t easy. I give him all the credit for his experience and his vision. We spent a lot of Saturdays working. But we traveled all over the world. George forced accountability at the highest level.

[Assistant] Where, during a lot of this movement, was Mr. Goldin? Did you see him a great deal? Was he involved in a lot of this discussion? Or was he off running the rest of the Agency?

[User] He was off running the rest of the Agency. Dan had tremendous confidence in Mr. Abbey. Mr. Goldin was the up and out person, working on the Hill, the President, and he looked to George as the down and in make sure we’re ready to go fly.

[Assistant] Did you have a lot of dealings with Congress? Did you have to testify or attend meetings with congressional staffers to update them?

[User] On a regular basis. We had Congressman [Frank J.] Jim Sensenbrenner, congressional staff of the Science and Technology Committee down for three days or weeks at a time. I testified on numerous occasions. Yes. Then I would have to go to Washington to help prepare Dan or anybody else who was testifying to support them to get them ready to testify, as well as having to testify myself.

[Assistant] There’s one other new factor that we haven’t talked about. You had a new Center Director. You had a new Administrator. Of course you were new. Then you also had a new White House administration that apparently was giving you guidance as well on where they wanted you to go with the Russian partnership.


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

[User] He was off running the rest of the Agency. Dan had tremendous confidence in Mr. Abbey. Mr. Goldin was the up and out person, working on the Hill, the President, and he looked to George as the down and in make sure we’re ready to go fly.

[Assistant] Did you have a lot of dealings with Congress? Did you have to testify or attend meetings with congressional staffers to update them?

[User] On a regular basis. We had Congressman [Frank J.] Jim Sensenbrenner, congressional staff of the Science and Technology Committee down for three days or weeks at a time. I testified on numerous occasions. Yes. Then I would have to go to Washington to help prepare Dan or anybody else who was testifying to support them to get them ready to testify, as well as having to testify myself.

[Assistant] There’s one other new factor that we haven’t talked about. You had a new Center Director. You had a new Administrator. Of course you were new. Then you also had a new White House administration that apparently was giving you guidance as well on where they wanted you to go with the Russian partnership.

[User] Yes, there was a strategic and a political dimension with the Russians. It was important to [President William J.] Clinton and [Vice President Albert] Gore to keep the Russians involved in something that was positive. The Space Station turned out to be the centerpiece of all of that. Every six months we had the Gore-Chernomyrdin session, where they would meet and pat each other on the back about the successes of our team. It had a very very important political and national security dimension to it.

[Assistant] Very visible, more ways than one, wasn’t it?


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

[User] On a regular basis. We had Congressman [Frank J.] Jim Sensenbrenner, congressional staff of the Science and Technology Committee down for three days or weeks at a time. I testified on numerous occasions. Yes. Then I would have to go to Washington to help prepare Dan or anybody else who was testifying to support them to get them ready to testify, as well as having to testify myself.

[Assistant] There’s one other new factor that we haven’t talked about. You had a new Center Director. You had a new Administrator. Of course you were new. Then you also had a new White House administration that apparently was giving you guidance as well on where they wanted you to go with the Russian partnership.

[User] Yes, there was a strategic and a political dimension with the Russians. It was important to [President William J.] Clinton and [Vice President Albert] Gore to keep the Russians involved in something that was positive. The Space Station turned out to be the centerpiece of all of that. Every six months we had the Gore-Chernomyrdin session, where they would meet and pat each other on the back about the successes of our team. It had a very very important political and national security dimension to it.

[Assistant] Very visible, more ways than one, wasn’t it?

[User] Yes. It was very painful when the Russians were behind schedule for a year because they didn’t have it funded, and having to go testify as to why that was. There were some less than fun days in Washington regarding that. Of course any program of that complexity, we had schedule delays and cost overruns that we had to deal with. We were able to overcome them, but they were real challenges.

[Assistant] I guess there are no easy answers when it’s all so woven together and dependent. You’ve mentioned a number of people several times that spent many years in Russia working on the preparations. When they came back were you able to sit down and learn a great deal from them that you were able to apply? If so, can you give some examples about what they brought back from their experiences that you knew would be very valuable to making further future decisions?


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

[User] Well, I was about to graduate from college. I, uh, my number was put in the, the draft lottery. I wasn't picked, so I figured, well, there should, I should be able to serve my country in another capacity. So I thought of different options. And the option I found the most interesting was Peace Corps. So I sent my application in, and I was accepted, uh, to go to Mali. I gave different options that I was interested in, uh, and Mali was not one of them, so I was surprised. I didn't know where Mali was, but, uh, I had a very rich experience living there.

[Assistant] What did your family think of, and, uh, your decision to join, and friends, too? What was the reaction?

[User] Uh, my, my parents were somewhat uneasy. Uh, I was going to the middle of Africa. They didn't know much about Africa. And so I opened their eyes about that part of the world. And, uh, uh, it's important that all Americans learn about, uh, the underdeveloped world and how important it is for us to support development.

[Assistant] Did you have any exposure to other cultures as you were growing up, uh, that may have influenced that decision?

[User] Absolutely not. There were no, uh, exchange students at our high school. Uh, we live in a very rural area. Uh, so, uh, we had very little contact, uh, outside of the U.S. Uh, I never had traveled to any place other than Canada. Uh, so, uh, in general, the area we live in is very, uh, uh, uneducated about, uh, the rest of the world and the problems they face.

[Assistant] And where was that? Where did you grow up?


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

[User] Uh, my, my parents were somewhat uneasy. Uh, I was going to the middle of Africa. They didn't know much about Africa. And so I opened their eyes about that part of the world. And, uh, uh, it's important that all Americans learn about, uh, the underdeveloped world and how important it is for us to support development.

[Assistant] Did you have any exposure to other cultures as you were growing up, uh, that may have influenced that decision?

[User] Absolutely not. There were no, uh, exchange students at our high school. Uh, we live in a very rural area. Uh, so, uh, we had very little contact, uh, outside of the U.S. Uh, I never had traveled to any place other than Canada. Uh, so, uh, in general, the area we live in is very, uh, uh, uneducated about, uh, the rest of the world and the problems they face.

[Assistant] And where was that? Where did you grow up?

[User] Well, I grew up in, uh, Harmony Township, right outside of Phillipsburg, New Jersey, along the Delaware River.

[Assistant] In Warren County, northwest?


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

[User] Absolutely not. There were no, uh, exchange students at our high school. Uh, we live in a very rural area. Uh, so, uh, we had very little contact, uh, outside of the U.S. Uh, I never had traveled to any place other than Canada. Uh, so, uh, in general, the area we live in is very, uh, uh, uneducated about, uh, the rest of the world and the problems they face.

[Assistant] And where was that? Where did you grow up?

[User] Well, I grew up in, uh, Harmony Township, right outside of Phillipsburg, New Jersey, along the Delaware River.

[Assistant] In Warren County, northwest?

[User] Warren County, New Jersey. Went to Belvidere High School.

[Assistant] Um, how did you even find out about the Peace Corps to apply then?


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

[User] Well, I grew up in, uh, Harmony Township, right outside of Phillipsburg, New Jersey, along the Delaware River.

[Assistant] In Warren County, northwest?

[User] Warren County, New Jersey. Went to Belvidere High School.

[Assistant] Um, how did you even find out about the Peace Corps to apply then?

[User] Uh, they had recruiters at our school, and I also met some foreign students who were attending my university, and they told me about Peace Corps. So I had signed up for ROTC, and, uh, I had a somewhat of a traumatic experience. I was, uh, wearing my Air Force uniform walking across the campus of the university, and a lady was walking by and said, you murderer! Uh, so the Vietnam War, uh, uh, evoked a lot of, uh, negative reaction. So I thought, well, if I'm drafted, I'll go. But as it happened, I was not drafted. And therefore I figured, uh, I would do something constructive with my life. And, and John Kennedy's words still were ringing in our ears.

[Assistant] Hmm. Um, now you went into your training, which took place where?


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

[User] Warren County, New Jersey. Went to Belvidere High School.

[Assistant] Um, how did you even find out about the Peace Corps to apply then?

[User] Uh, they had recruiters at our school, and I also met some foreign students who were attending my university, and they told me about Peace Corps. So I had signed up for ROTC, and, uh, I had a somewhat of a traumatic experience. I was, uh, wearing my Air Force uniform walking across the campus of the university, and a lady was walking by and said, you murderer! Uh, so the Vietnam War, uh, uh, evoked a lot of, uh, negative reaction. So I thought, well, if I'm drafted, I'll go. But as it happened, I was not drafted. And therefore I figured, uh, I would do something constructive with my life. And, and John Kennedy's words still were ringing in our ears.

[Assistant] Hmm. Um, now you went into your training, which took place where?

[User] In Bamako, Mali.

[Assistant] So you went straight overseas?


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

[User] They were too busy with other things.

[Assistant] Wanted to be invisible, I guess.

[User] Mm hmm.

[Assistant] Um, the, um.

[User] So can I. Is it on? Oh. I'm sorry.

[Assistant] We're getting back to the, uh, project itself. Tell me more about, uh, how that, uh, all progressed.


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

[User] So. But it shows you how people in developed countries, uh, knew better than I, uh, from the West. They knew better than I how to act, to react to a fire like that.

[Assistant] Yeah. How to deal with those issues.

[User] Mm hmm.

[Assistant] With the resources available.

[User] Right.

[Assistant] Now what other kind of problems did you run into, um, while you were in country with your project? Just possibly personal issues?


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

[User] Mm hmm.

[Assistant] With the resources available.

[User] Right.

[Assistant] Now what other kind of problems did you run into, um, while you were in country with your project? Just possibly personal issues?

[User] Uh, misuse of materials. Because I worked with the government, as I mentioned, the government will often borrow fuel, and it would take a long time, uh, to return if it, if they did return any of the things. Uh, they also used the, during the second year of the project, vehicle for other purposes. They would take borrow the car and then they'd go out for a week or more. And then I would be there. And at times I'd be forced, we were also allocated in, in my, in my region, with a small boat with an outboard motor. So I was able to continue work by going up and down the river with this boat. And we still were able to keep going with the, uh, the silage making.

[Assistant] Who provided the car and the boat? That was the, um.


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

[User] Uh, misuse of materials. Because I worked with the government, as I mentioned, the government will often borrow fuel, and it would take a long time, uh, to return if it, if they did return any of the things. Uh, they also used the, during the second year of the project, vehicle for other purposes. They would take borrow the car and then they'd go out for a week or more. And then I would be there. And at times I'd be forced, we were also allocated in, in my, in my region, with a small boat with an outboard motor. So I was able to continue work by going up and down the river with this boat. And we still were able to keep going with the, uh, the silage making.

[Assistant] Who provided the car and the boat? That was the, um.

[User] It was financed by USAID.

[Assistant] Okay.

[User] Okay, and they, they did provide us with strong support the first year, but then they had funding difficulties the second year. And that, that affected our ability to do work. But we still did 14 silos, uh, the second year compared with 22 the first year.

[Assistant] Did the silos you build the first year get used again the second year?


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

[User] So it is, um, you have to be careful of scammers in Africa, in the capitals, uh, and you have to be careful of. But in general, the people are very kind and are very happy to see any foreigners.

[Assistant] Did you, um, have any regrets about going, or any special, um, appreciation for the country having gone there? I mean, pluses or minuses?

[User]
No, I, I love Mali. It's kind of a second home to me, and it hurts me to see what it's going through now. Uh, to a certain extent, I understand the turmoil, uh, because historically, for example, Africa was carved up in the 18, 1884, I think it was, the Berlin Conference. They cut up Africa. And, uh, so I understand how that has affected the country. The Tuaregs, for example, their homeland is part in Algeria, part in Mali, part in what was Upper Volta, part in Mauritania. That was their homeland. And they're not allowed now to go from one part of their homeland to another because they're going across national borders.

Um, so, um, uh, I, uh, understand, uh, what the country is going through right now. They've had, uh, an overthrow of government, and right now it's dangerous. Uh, the Tuaregs were given when I, when I went back working with UN to Mali, there was a Tuareg minister of rural development. So there they were power sharing. Um, but since then there have been opposition groups. And, uh, uh, Mali is not a safe place to travel to today.

[Assistant] You felt safe when you were there, though.

[User] I felt safe when I was there.

[Assistant] Looking back on your full experience, um, you know the Peace Corps has its three goals. How do you feel about having introduced, uh, or helped the country with, uh, solving a problem?


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

[User] Whenever there was an accident in this area involving anything, radiation-wise, I served on the team, would get called in. Fortunately, there were only a handful of those [cases] because one thing about Atomic Energy Commission is their regulations are quite straightforward, and they were conducting inspections so there was quite a bit of preventative action.\n\n But with respect to the wedding band issue, it turns out that for the gold implants into teeth, someone had managed to get some contaminated gold and use that in dental implants. Well, when they discovered that, they had to take these gold implants out, and they were disposing of those. But some ingenious individual decided to take that gold, melt it down, recycle it, and had it molded into wedding bands, and that surfaced. And all of a sudden, we’ve gone from the teeth to the fingers with respect to that kind of an issue. So we were asked to take a look at that, and it was not as massive a problem as it could have been because, fortunately, there was traceability. And that was what that was all about.

[Assistant] Well, it was quite interesting. I guess bands that could glow in the dark, right?

[User] Yes, [but not in fact a reality. It is a nice bit of humor though].

[Assistant] Another interesting item that I found but couldn’t find too much information about is that a newspaper article cited that you were a member of the Apollo 13 launch team.

[User] Oh, yes.

[Assistant] Tell us how you were a member of that.


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

[User] Yes, [but not in fact a reality. It is a nice bit of humor though].

[Assistant] Another interesting item that I found but couldn’t find too much information about is that a newspaper article cited that you were a member of the Apollo 13 launch team.

[User] Oh, yes.

[Assistant] Tell us how you were a member of that.

[User] Well, the only reason I was involved in that was, you may recall that the Apollo 13 launched radioactive materials on [board] as a power source. Therefore there was this fear that if something went awry during the launch, then you needed people with radiation physics and health physics backgrounds there as part of that launch team. So we were there, and we were stationed all around in the swamps and so forth around [NASA] Kennedy [Space Center, Florida], alligators notwithstanding, in the event that something went awry with that launch.\n\n And there’s been some recent concern with Cassini [Huygens spacecraft and probe, mission to Saturn], and any time you want to launch radioactive materials in space, there’s that kind of concern. So the Agency was straightforward in recognizing that there was a potential problem and asked those of us from around the Agency who had backgrounds in radiation, radiation physics, to come down and be members of the launch team in case something went awry.\n\n It went awry, but not during launch, and, in fact, some people say, “Well, Julian Earls, you’re to blame,” because Apollo 13 wouldn’t have had the problems if you hadn’t been a member of the launch team.” [laughs]

[Assistant] Any thoughts you’d like to share about watching that launch, and watching the Saturn V go into space?


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

[User] Oh, yes.

[Assistant] Tell us how you were a member of that.

[User] Well, the only reason I was involved in that was, you may recall that the Apollo 13 launched radioactive materials on [board] as a power source. Therefore there was this fear that if something went awry during the launch, then you needed people with radiation physics and health physics backgrounds there as part of that launch team. So we were there, and we were stationed all around in the swamps and so forth around [NASA] Kennedy [Space Center, Florida], alligators notwithstanding, in the event that something went awry with that launch.\n\n And there’s been some recent concern with Cassini [Huygens spacecraft and probe, mission to Saturn], and any time you want to launch radioactive materials in space, there’s that kind of concern. So the Agency was straightforward in recognizing that there was a potential problem and asked those of us from around the Agency who had backgrounds in radiation, radiation physics, to come down and be members of the launch team in case something went awry.\n\n It went awry, but not during launch, and, in fact, some people say, “Well, Julian Earls, you’re to blame,” because Apollo 13 wouldn’t have had the problems if you hadn’t been a member of the launch team.” [laughs]

[Assistant] Any thoughts you’d like to share about watching that launch, and watching the Saturn V go into space?

[User] It was fascinating because that was really the first launch that I had witnessed, and it was just absolutely fascinating. And as a matter of fact, our younger son is a filmmaker out with [20th Century] Fox [Studios], and when they were making Apollo 13, he came home and somehow when he left, all the paraphernalia that I had from the Apollo 13 launch disappeared from my home, so I think I know today where it is.

[Assistant] He’s storing it for you.


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

[User] Well, the only reason I was involved in that was, you may recall that the Apollo 13 launched radioactive materials on [board] as a power source. Therefore there was this fear that if something went awry during the launch, then you needed people with radiation physics and health physics backgrounds there as part of that launch team. So we were there, and we were stationed all around in the swamps and so forth around [NASA] Kennedy [Space Center, Florida], alligators notwithstanding, in the event that something went awry with that launch.\n\n And there’s been some recent concern with Cassini [Huygens spacecraft and probe, mission to Saturn], and any time you want to launch radioactive materials in space, there’s that kind of concern. So the Agency was straightforward in recognizing that there was a potential problem and asked those of us from around the Agency who had backgrounds in radiation, radiation physics, to come down and be members of the launch team in case something went awry.\n\n It went awry, but not during launch, and, in fact, some people say, “Well, Julian Earls, you’re to blame,” because Apollo 13 wouldn’t have had the problems if you hadn’t been a member of the launch team.” [laughs]

[Assistant] Any thoughts you’d like to share about watching that launch, and watching the Saturn V go into space?

[User] It was fascinating because that was really the first launch that I had witnessed, and it was just absolutely fascinating. And as a matter of fact, our younger son is a filmmaker out with [20th Century] Fox [Studios], and when they were making Apollo 13, he came home and somehow when he left, all the paraphernalia that I had from the Apollo 13 launch disappeared from my home, so I think I know today where it is.

[Assistant] He’s storing it for you.

[User] Yes.

[Assistant] Well, that’s very interesting. I’m glad you had that opportunity to do that.\n\n You also served as a health physicist consultant to TRW [Inc.]. How did that come about?


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

[User] I chaired it for about four or five years.

[Assistant] And help set the system up as well?

[User] Yes, yes.

[Assistant] Well, if you don’t mind, I think we’re going to take a break for just a few minutes, and then we’ll start right back up.

[User] That’s fine.\n\n [pause]

[Assistant] I’d like to start our next portion talking about the Cleveland Chapter of the National Technical Association, the NTA, that you helped organize, as well as the Chapter working with NASA to establish a contract for the Career Awareness Program. Talk about how those two work together, your influence on both of those, and then also share with us your role as national president of the NTA.


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

[User] Yes, and what I’m trying to do is to expand that concept. The governor of Ohio has charged the president of Ohio State [University, Columbus, Ohio] Karen [A.] Holbrook and me to chair a Science and Math Education Policy Advisory Council. That is, there’s such a concern about the poor performance of students in math and science and students not choosing math and science and engineering and technical career fields. We’ve been charged to pull together a panel to come up with an implementation plan for the state of Ohio to improve the delivery of math and science education to the students, and also to have students going off to colleges choosing technical disciplines.\n\n And one of the things I want to do is to piggyback on the concept that we use with NTA and see if we can get broad-based support for that in the state of Ohio. [We need to] get other organizations to do those kinds of things, because they are very cost effective. [However] you have to have dedicated employees, dedicated members that would give up a Saturday morning to go work with those students.

[Assistant] Well, good luck with that. And you’re doing that now?

[User] Doing that now. In fact, I started it as the Center Director at NASA, and then when I was retiring, I contacted the governor’s office and the president of Ohio State and the chancellor of the Ohio schools and the superintendent of schools to say, “I won’t be with NASA and I can pass that baton.”\n\n And they said, “You don’t get out of it that easy,” so I’m continuing to do that.

[Assistant] They probably think you have more time now.

[User] Well, that’s what they think, and as a matter of fact, I do.

[Assistant] While you were establishing so many of these programs, you were somewhat preparing to be educated yourself in a program. You participated in a fourteen-week course at Harvard University’s Graduate School of Business Administration [Cambridge, Massachusetts] in 1979, and while you were there, you were NASA’s sole candidate that was participating. Share with us your experiences at Harvard. How different was that or how similar was that to your previous educational experiences?


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

[User] Well, one thing it did, it really did improve morale because all of a sudden now they believed that we were a player and were getting recognition from the other Centers.\n\n We also did the same thing in terms of our procurement organization. We probably were processing more grants through our organization here than probably all the other Centers combined. So what we agreed to do [was] to take on the lead role in grants processing. [NASA] Goddard [Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, Maryland], I think, was probably the next largest Center in terms of grants. So we offered to do that, and the Agency came forward and said, “Well, yes, you can do that as well.” So our employees really felt like they were making a contribution to the Agency. It was challenging work, and I think people really do appreciate and seek challenges when they come through those gates every day. If you give them meaningful things to do and they can see the results of what they’re doing, then that’s inspiration. We can’t always give people promotions and raises as much as we would like to, so there are things that transcend that in terms of satisfaction and coming to work.

[Assistant] Were you able to add more personnel?

[User] No.

[Assistant] This was utilizing the workforce you had.

[User] We had to utilize the existing workforce to make that happen.

[Assistant] Another big event for the Center was in ’95 when it was renamed NASA John H. Glenn Research Center at Lewis Field. Were you involved in that transition period?


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

[User] No.

[Assistant] This was utilizing the workforce you had.

[User] We had to utilize the existing workforce to make that happen.

[Assistant] Another big event for the Center was in ’95 when it was renamed NASA John H. Glenn Research Center at Lewis Field. Were you involved in that transition period?

[User] I was here, not that directly involved except when the Senator [John H. Glenn] would come. I had the opportunity to interact with him, and I would always tell him that he was second, because the first thing I did was I made sure I connected with Annie Glenn. I would escort her while other people were paying attention to the Senator, and that way I could get more things done and accomplished through working with Annie.\n\n The Senator did not really want the Center to be named for him. He believed that it was named for the Lewis family and he would have been perfectly satisfied if we had named a building here for him. But fortunately, the Lewis family understood and keeping the name Glenn Research Center at Lewis Field worked as the right compromise. Every time the senator has been here, it has been inspirational for the employees. He’s a great supporter. We have our conference room that we named after him, and when he was here, we made sure that he was accessible, and I will absolutely say to you that our employees really had a moral boost with the name Glenn Research Center because of the image that he had already projected in terms of support for NASA.\n\n But then it was sort of a rebirth, if you will, or another shot in the arm, recharging of the batteries for the employees here to see that name change. It was somewhat difficult for people to get used to saying [Glenn Research Center, especially] for those people who had been around many, many years. Some of them still slip and say Lewis Research Center. But we’ve come full circle in that regard.

[Assistant] Ohio has quite a legacy in giving the Space Program astronauts. You have a number of them.


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

[User] No. In fact, that’s probably a failure on my part in trying to follow through on that. At the time there were individuals in the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy [who have] moved on. One of the individuals was a professor at Ohio State University, and he’s one of my surrogate children, Dr. Oliver [G.] McGee. Now he’s moved on to be the Director of Research with the United Negro College Fund. So he is my contact in terms of how we’re doing and what happened to the report.

[Assistant] On a personal note, how was it to get a phone call from the White House to ask for your services?

[User] Well, let me tell you this: I’ve received a lot of phone calls, but none have had that impact.\n\n And what was also interesting was that another member of the panel was Dr. Howard [G.] Adams. What’s so interesting about that is Howard Adams and I both went to Norfolk State. I was president of the freshman class and the junior class. Howard was president of the sophomore class and the senior class. Here we end up on a presidential panel, the only university in the nation that had two representatives, and we’re both from little small HBCU, that is now large, in Norfolk, Virginia. You can realize and understand how Norfolk State took advantage of that tidbit of information to share with the people and use it as a recruitment initiative, if you will, for students to come to the college.

[Assistant] And I think that’s a good spot for us to stop for just a few minutes, so let’s take a break.

[User] All right.\n\n [pause]

[Assistant] Well, before we close out the session for today, I would like to spend a few minutes with you for you to share some stories and maybe some anecdotes about some of the people that you’ve worked with. At one point when we were on break, you were sharing that although you weren’t selected for the astronaut selection in 1978, you became very close with some of the members of that class and the classes that were after that. Tell us how you have developed working relationships with members of that space flight team.


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

[User] Yes.

[Assistant] And how wonderful he picked someone who could run, since you do marathons.

[User] Well, carrying that torch—

[Assistant] Is that not running?

[User] It was running, but I’ll tell you what, it must have been twenty-four degrees below zero in downtown Cleveland that night, but you didn’t feel the cold because of the honor of carrying that torch. I had so many family members and friends, colleagues from NASA, who actually came down there at 7:00 p.m. that night to watch me carry that torch. Humbling doesn’t come close to say how I felt about that. But here, again, I’ve just been blessed with so many friends and so many supporters.

[Assistant] Well, I think that’s a great place to stop this afternoon, so we’ll start again in the morning. And thank you again for spending the afternoon with us for this project.


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

[User] A little bit, yes. You must have done some reading. I forgot all about that. I worked a little bit around that same time, I guess, or maybe even before the main engine assignment, with Owen [K.] Garriott, and that was more on some of the science experiments that were scheduled for Spacelab 1 to help ostensibly get the principal investigators, the PIs, for those experiments familiar with the crew operations and the procedures and all. So, yes, that was a lot of fun. For just a few months, I think, Mike [Richard M.] Mullane and Kathy [Kathryn D.] Sullivan and I did that for a while, supporting Owen.

[Assistant] You were actually a support crew member for four different missions.

[User] The first four, yes.

[Assistant] Can you talk to us about your duties as a support crew member?

[User] Mostly it was as a CapCom [Capsule Communicator], and, again, because of my main engine work, that John Young had asked me to do—I got more involved with the ascent phase, so I was on the ascent team for the first three. Yes, just the first three launches, I guess. So Dan [Daniel C.] Brandenstein and I did the first two launches, and I was on the third launch. I forget who my backup was, but we did the launch CapCom duty, which was a lot of fun, learning how the Mission Control team did all the launch procedures.\n\n My fourth one may have been later actually. I think it was STS-7, actually, now that you remind me. Sally Ride was on that flight with a couple others of our classmates, and I was a CapCom for the on-orbit phase, I think, then. I’d kind of forgotten about that. But the launch I was prime on was the third launch, which was [C.] Gordon Fullerton and Jack [R.] Lousma, when they went up on Columbia STS-3, so I was the prime CapCom.

[Assistant] How did your training as a support crew member differ from the training that you had received as an AsCan [Astronaut Candidate]?


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

[User] The first four, yes.

[Assistant] Can you talk to us about your duties as a support crew member?

[User] Mostly it was as a CapCom [Capsule Communicator], and, again, because of my main engine work, that John Young had asked me to do—I got more involved with the ascent phase, so I was on the ascent team for the first three. Yes, just the first three launches, I guess. So Dan [Daniel C.] Brandenstein and I did the first two launches, and I was on the third launch. I forget who my backup was, but we did the launch CapCom duty, which was a lot of fun, learning how the Mission Control team did all the launch procedures.\n\n My fourth one may have been later actually. I think it was STS-7, actually, now that you remind me. Sally Ride was on that flight with a couple others of our classmates, and I was a CapCom for the on-orbit phase, I think, then. I’d kind of forgotten about that. But the launch I was prime on was the third launch, which was [C.] Gordon Fullerton and Jack [R.] Lousma, when they went up on Columbia STS-3, so I was the prime CapCom.

[Assistant] How did your training as a support crew member differ from the training that you had received as an AsCan [Astronaut Candidate]?

[User] It was much more into the mission procedures and specifics, whereas as an astronaut candidate, the kind of assignment I had with the main engines was more typical. It was focused on one particular thing. Once you’re on a support crew, you’re really integrated with the mission preparation and all, training and everything, to make sure the crew is getting all the support they need for the mission, help them develop procedures and so forth.

[Assistant] I know on STS-2 you were tracking the science pallet. Can you talk to us about some of your duties there?


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

[User] Mostly it was as a CapCom [Capsule Communicator], and, again, because of my main engine work, that John Young had asked me to do—I got more involved with the ascent phase, so I was on the ascent team for the first three. Yes, just the first three launches, I guess. So Dan [Daniel C.] Brandenstein and I did the first two launches, and I was on the third launch. I forget who my backup was, but we did the launch CapCom duty, which was a lot of fun, learning how the Mission Control team did all the launch procedures.\n\n My fourth one may have been later actually. I think it was STS-7, actually, now that you remind me. Sally Ride was on that flight with a couple others of our classmates, and I was a CapCom for the on-orbit phase, I think, then. I’d kind of forgotten about that. But the launch I was prime on was the third launch, which was [C.] Gordon Fullerton and Jack [R.] Lousma, when they went up on Columbia STS-3, so I was the prime CapCom.

[Assistant] How did your training as a support crew member differ from the training that you had received as an AsCan [Astronaut Candidate]?

[User] It was much more into the mission procedures and specifics, whereas as an astronaut candidate, the kind of assignment I had with the main engines was more typical. It was focused on one particular thing. Once you’re on a support crew, you’re really integrated with the mission preparation and all, training and everything, to make sure the crew is getting all the support they need for the mission, help them develop procedures and so forth.

[Assistant] I know on STS-2 you were tracking the science pallet. Can you talk to us about some of your duties there?

[User] No. [Laughs] Let me think for a second. The science pallet.

[Assistant] I think it was the OSTA-1 [Office of Space and Terrestrial Applications-1].


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

[User] It was much more into the mission procedures and specifics, whereas as an astronaut candidate, the kind of assignment I had with the main engines was more typical. It was focused on one particular thing. Once you’re on a support crew, you’re really integrated with the mission preparation and all, training and everything, to make sure the crew is getting all the support they need for the mission, help them develop procedures and so forth.

[Assistant] I know on STS-2 you were tracking the science pallet. Can you talk to us about some of your duties there?

[User] No. [Laughs] Let me think for a second. The science pallet.

[Assistant] I think it was the OSTA-1 [Office of Space and Terrestrial Applications-1].

[User] Oh, yes. I don’t remember too much about that. I don’t think I was real heavily involved in that. My duties on STS-2, were, again—were STS-1 and 2 and 3, were really ascent oriented. At that time we were doing a lot of work on developing the abort procedures. Initially the program had just the return-to-launch site abort for an early engine failure, and then it had a once-around abort, where you’d go all the way around and land at Edwards [Air Force Base, California]. We felt a need to try to do something in the middle, so I think we even got it ready for STS-1. We had aborts into [Naval Air Station] Rota [Spain] and to Dakar [Senegal], Africa, so Spain and Africa were landing sites for launch aborts. And all that was somewhat late to the program, and it wasn’t envisioned as being in abort mode early on, so we had a lot of procedure development in the simulators, and working with the crews and the trainers to figure out how to bring the Shuttle down in either Africa or Spain right after launch. That’s what I remember as being my main focus during those years.

[Assistant] Why don’t you talk to us about being a CapCom, especially on STS-1, the first mission.


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

[User] It was euphoric. I mean, we really felt that the mission was at risk, which it was, and we were really on a mission that was demonstrating the flexibility and the usefulness of the Shuttle to do things like repair. We were afraid that we were disappointing a lot of people, the scientists, of course, wanting to put the science satellite back into service, but all the people at NASA that were showing what the Shuttle could do.\n\n In reality, we demonstrated even more just the flexibility of human spaceflight, that you can adapt to things that are unexpected, like this pin and the problems that it caused us. So it was a good opportunity to show even better what the Shuttle could do.

[Assistant] This crew, I have read, was actually a model crew.

[User] A model? [Laughs]

[Assistant] This is what I’ve read. The most experienced Space Shuttle commander served.

[User] Crippen, yes.

[Assistant] One of the best pilots from the ’78 class.


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

[User] A model? [Laughs]

[Assistant] This is what I’ve read. The most experienced Space Shuttle commander served.

[User] Crippen, yes.

[Assistant] One of the best pilots from the ’78 class.

[User] Dick Scobee. Wonderful, yes.

[Assistant] Two of the best EVA people.


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

[User] Crippen, yes.

[Assistant] One of the best pilots from the ’78 class.

[User] Dick Scobee. Wonderful, yes.

[Assistant] Two of the best EVA people.

[User] Yes. They were great.

[Assistant] And you, one of the best RMS operators.


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

[User] Dick Scobee. Wonderful, yes.

[Assistant] Two of the best EVA people.

[User] Yes. They were great.

[Assistant] And you, one of the best RMS operators.

[User] Well, we all got along great. We were a good bunch. It’s funny, you could tell we were all rookies right from the very beginning, because I remember the day we posed for our crew picture. So you all put your blue suits on and you bring the helmets in or something, and we took, I don’t know, maybe twenty pictures they get, trying to get us all to have the right expressions on our face or whatever. And then the tradition is, you bring them back to the Astronaut Office and then you ask the secretaries to pick which one is best.\n\n So Crippen and Scobee and Pinky and Ox and I are sitting around, looking at all these pictures. In one of them, one of us would be winking or our smile would be crooked or something like that. Every one of us had maybe a 50 percent hit rate on the pictures, having the right expression on our face. And we looked at Crippen, who, you know, this is I don’t know how many years he’d been in the public eye here, from STS-1 now to this mission. Every photograph had the same expression on Bob Crippen’s face. He had it down pat. He knew exactly how to smile.\n\n But it was a great team. We really worked very well together, as we did with the rest of the Mission Control team.

[Assistant] Can you talk about what you did in your spare time during the flight?


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

[User] Yes. I’ll have to do that. Graham Ferguson has since sold the business, I guess, and retired. They’ve become a little more Hollywood now, I think. They’re doing all kinds of productions and building new theaters around the world.

[Assistant] This crew was also called the Ace Satellite Repair Company. Can you tell us who coined that phrase?

[User] [Laughs] I don’t know. It came from somewhere in the Astronaut Office. I think one of the earlier flights had deployed a satellite, maybe one of the first satellites that deployed from the Shuttle, and they coined themselves the Ace Trucking Company. So that we followed suit then, and became the Ace Satellite Repair Company. I guess at one point we put on our little jerseys with the “Ace Satellite Repair Company” on them.\n\n That reminds me. Can I go back to my CapCom days? Because we had a wonderful experience. Maybe Dan Brandenstein had related this one, too, because it was his idea. STS-1, when we were getting ready for the first flight, we were the two ascent CapComs. And Dan came up with the idea that we ought to have a special tie, and we called it a “cue tie,” meaning the cue to do a certain event during launch. And what Dan did was, we took these dark blue ties, and in orange we had silk-screened on them all the calls that we made, from liftoff through separation, on the tie. So you could pick the tie—it was upside down. So the person wearing the tie could lift it up and read. I still have mine, of course, our STS-1 cue ties. I have that and I still have my Ace Satellite Repair Company patch in my stuff at home.

[Assistant] Those are nice mementos.

[User] Yes.

[Assistant] Do you have any other memories of the mission that you would like to share with us?


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

[User] My biggest challenge? Gee, I don’t know. I mean, it’s all challenging, but there’s nothing that is insurmountable, because you know you have so much help. It’s not like a thing where you’re ever worried about failing or whatever, because there’s so much support behind you. So you just need to learn how to take advantage of all that support. So I guess, in a sense, that’s the challenge, is to fully integrate yourself with the team at NASA to ensure that you’re all doing what’s necessary for the mission. You’re all focused on the right thing, and when things go wrong, you can fall back on that and find ways to work around the problems.

[Assistant] On the flip side, what do you think was your most significant accomplishment at NASA?

[User] I guess the most visible thing was the Solar Max capture, and getting the satellite on board. [Laughs] I’m sure George Abbey felt that was—I earned my keep in that ten seconds that I reached over and grabbed the satellite or whatever. But I’d like to think more that I helped a lot with that sense of building the team and all. Within my class and all, I felt good about my relationships with all the other guys in my class, and the gals. We all worked together well. So I always kind of looked upon myself as being a bit of an instigator of teamwork and someone that helped promote those kinds of things, which, you know, that’s a very natural thing at NASA.

[Assistant] Would you mind if I asked Sandra if she had any questions for you before we close?

[User] No. Sure.

[Assistant] I was just curious. You had trouble adapting or acclimating to space that first day. Once you got back on Earth, you mentioned that you did the deep knee bends. Did you have any problems acclimating to Earth?


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

[User] Good.

[Assistant] Is there anything else you would like to discuss or talk about before we close?

[User] No, I think I got everything. STS-3, a couple things. I was launch CapCom. We lost an APU [Auxiliary Power Unit], which is the first time we had a major failure on launch. The engine continues to run, but it won’t throttle, we lost the APU. But we handled that fine. Between the flight director and myself and the crew, we got the right message up to the crew to shut down that APU, because it had failed. That worked out.\n\n And then there’s a great story from STS-3. Jack Lousma was the commander and Gordon Fullerton was the pilot. Gordon had a couple of minutes and he grabbed a Hassleblad camera, and just as he came over New Jersey, he snapped this picture out the window, totally unplanned. This was March of ’82, it must have been. It had all of New Jersey and New York and parts of Pennsylvania, where I live, in one picture. There were just a couple of clouds, and a little snow up in the mountains in Pennsylvania. But he had that picture, and he came back and showed me that picture, and I’ve had about fifteen or sixteen thousand posters made of that picture that Gordo took that day. We’ve used them for fundraising at Lehigh University [Bethlehem, Pennsylvania] and Rutgers [University, New Brunswick, New Jersey], my two alma maters, that are on the picture there. A lot of good memories like that, kind of special things that, if you’re lucky, you’re able to take some things with you after you leave NASA and other people can enjoy the experience you’ve been through.

[Assistant] It sounds like it was a fantastic opportunity for you.

[User] Yes.

[Assistant] We’ve enjoyed hearing about your stories and we appreciate you coming by.


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

[User] The other thing that was very important—I had one guy assigned that issued a book of allowable properties. Those allowables were based upon the master design, which was a three sigma failure. In other words you’d never encounter a material or conductivity measurement that the designers used that wasn’t conservative. We published a whole book of allowables on every material that was used on the Shuttle, from aluminum to foam to tile, AFRSI, you name it. Thousands—all kinds of aluminum and steel and Inconel.

[Assistant] It’s amazing to me that she continues to fly today given the complications of the vehicle.

[User] I think it was because nobody ever wanted to have their system fail. The APUs [Auxiliary Power Unit], on one flight we landed at Edwards [Air Force Base, California], and two of them blew up on the runway. This was a very unusual failure due to a misalignment of a small tube.

[Assistant] Yes, we talked to Stan [M. Barauskas] earlier this week. He talked about that.

[User] We had a hydraulic tube that sprung a leak and found out it was a high temperature stainless steel on the outside tube and a Teflon interior, and during the manufacture they had a bump extricated and had a weak spot in it, like a balloon. Ever seen a little white spot on a balloon? That Teflon liner was like that, it had a little weak spot. They go to several thousand psi. We seemed to have only unusual failures if at all.

[Assistant] Well, I thank you very much for your time today.


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

[User] It was.

[Assistant] When you were testing for Skylab, did you have to change any of your testing procedures to take into account the long-duration flight that Skylab was going to have, since they were going to be up there for months instead of days?

[User] Other than the materials testing for the parasol, that was a change in procedure. Otherwise, for anything that the command and service module were going to see, it was an exposure in space, but longer than Apollo. We did account for that, but I think that, again, the main thing was making sure that you could stabilize thermal conditions so that you didn't have any freeze-ups and that sort of thing or unusual hot spots.

[Assistant] Why don't we take a break.

[User] I was with Eagle Engineering. I was asked to do this. We went back and reviewed from the very beginning how man-rating activities started with us. Man-rating was something that really, I believe, was a phrase that was coined by the Air Force, and I believe … NACA, when we were doing the high-speed airplane flight program, back in those days. It had the same connotation, basically, how do you design a really high-performance vehicle here, because we were using rockets and all of that, which was kind of new to the idea of manned flight, and so they had special procedures for looking at that for the safety of the pilot…

[Assistant] In 1975, you were promoted to the position of assistant director for program support. How did your job change when you moved to that position?


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

[User] The fabric material on the topside were sprayed with Scotchguard. I'm not sure that there was Scotchguard used on the tiles.

[Assistant] And that there was some reaction to the spray. Eventually it started to erode some of the material on the [unclear].

[User] Affect the adhesive, maybe, of the—

[Assistant] [Unclear].

[User] No, I don't recall that that was a problem. The use of the right adhesive and making sure that you had the minimal pull force on the tiles was like something that we went through quite a bit of work to be able to be assured that the aerodynamic forces were not going to exceed—and coming up with the right number to test to was something that was very closely looked at. If I recall, there was something like a fifteen-pound pressure that is applied, pull vacuum pressure, on each tile, fifteen pounds per square inch. I'm not sure whether that was something on that order.

[Assistant] I have a couple of questions. You talked about technology utilization. Is that something that could be a big selling point for getting more support for the space program and showing how it can be beneficial to different applications on Earth?


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

[User] Definitely reuse of the facilities, as in the buildings. That was a given, because we didn’t need to go build any new buildings for training here in Houston. For example, the Shuttle Mission Simulator, they kept that up to date, but that was built in the ’70s, and over the years certain components—don’t get me wrong, but certain things changed and they followed with the technology. Some of the interfaces that were coming with Constellation, I don’t recall any actual reuse of any of the Shuttle systems.\n\n The simulator was going to be in Building 5, like the Shuttle simulator was, and the Station simulator still is. I do recall there was a big discussion around, did we really need motion, a motion simulator. The Shuttle had a motion base, so one that moved, and a fixed-base simulator, and when you add motion, you’re creating a system that’s making it feel, as close to as you can, the movement of space, not only the flying aspects but the launching aspects. With that comes extra maintenance, extra equipment, extra things that could break. So there was a trade [study] done on that: do we want to add motion, have a motion simulator and a fixed simulator? What do we want to do? So I don’t recall them reusing anything from Shuttle.

[Assistant] Fascinating. How many people were working on your effort? Just sounds like a lot.

[User] You mean in the trade study, or—

[Assistant] In MOD and—

[User] In MOD? Gosh, I don’t know exactly. The ones—I’d have to say—

[Assistant] Or even the trade study. It just sounds like a lot of work.


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

[User] You mean in the trade study, or—

[Assistant] In MOD and—

[User] In MOD? Gosh, I don’t know exactly. The ones—I’d have to say—

[Assistant] Or even the trade study. It just sounds like a lot of work.

[User] Well, on the trade study there were six of us. I led it, but we had five others than me, and we all went around and interviewed many others, as we needed to talk to them, from Engineering, like I said, and EVA, because EVA was still designing what were these suits going to look like for this program. You have to make sure you understand that and understand how they’re going to use it, and how that might connect into the simulator so that they can actually get the breathing oxygen in there when they were doing suited runs. In MOD there were probably hundreds of people working this Constellation program. And that was just what I ran across, but there may have been more.

[Assistant] Sounds like kind of a herculean task at the beginning of a project.


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

[User] Wasn’t that terrible?

[Assistant] I waltzed into this thing and said, “My God! look at this! The whole world is here. They know—”

[User] I’m sorry I missed you down there.

[Assistant] I was going to get over to visit with you. As a matter of fact, [L.] Gordon Cooper [Jr.] and I started out to come over to visit with you. We were halfway there when they trapped him.

[User] Oh gosh.

[Assistant] And we just kind of lost it in the crowd. I said, “Oh to hell with it. I’m just going to roll on.”


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

[User] I’m sorry I missed you down there.

[Assistant] I was going to get over to visit with you. As a matter of fact, [L.] Gordon Cooper [Jr.] and I started out to come over to visit with you. We were halfway there when they trapped him.

[User] Oh gosh.

[Assistant] And we just kind of lost it in the crowd. I said, “Oh to hell with it. I’m just going to roll on.”

[User] It was so funny. I was with ABC. Gordo I got at CBS. Walter went to CNN. We all tried to rendezvous.

[Assistant] [M.] Scott [Carpenter] wound up with NBC.


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

[User] Oh gosh.

[Assistant] And we just kind of lost it in the crowd. I said, “Oh to hell with it. I’m just going to roll on.”

[User] It was so funny. I was with ABC. Gordo I got at CBS. Walter went to CNN. We all tried to rendezvous.

[Assistant] [M.] Scott [Carpenter] wound up with NBC.

[User] Yeah.

[Assistant]
Fantastic.

We’re rolling now.

You’re rolling?

Sorry to interrupt.

Okay. No. Hey, we’re just mincing words.


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

[User] It was so funny. I was with ABC. Gordo I got at CBS. Walter went to CNN. We all tried to rendezvous.

[Assistant] [M.] Scott [Carpenter] wound up with NBC.

[User] Yeah.

[Assistant]
Fantastic.

We’re rolling now.

You’re rolling?

Sorry to interrupt.

Okay. No. Hey, we’re just mincing words.

[User] We’ve got to get this done, yeah.

[Assistant]
Sure.

We’re rolling.

I don’t have the slightest idea when this is going to be finished. Are you on any tight timeline?


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

[User] We’ve got to get this done, yeah.

[Assistant]
Sure.

We’re rolling.

I don’t have the slightest idea when this is going to be finished. Are you on any tight timeline?

[User] Oh you mean tonight?

[Assistant] Yeah.

[User] Well, Jo just wants me home for dinner. [laughs]

[Assistant] Okay, well that can be—


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

[User] Oh you mean tonight?

[Assistant] Yeah.

[User] Well, Jo just wants me home for dinner. [laughs]

[Assistant] Okay, well that can be—

[User] Yeah.

[Assistant] All right. Let’s see what happens time-wise. I hear the jets flying by.


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

[User] Well, Jo just wants me home for dinner. [laughs]

[Assistant] Okay, well that can be—

[User] Yeah.

[Assistant] All right. Let’s see what happens time-wise. I hear the jets flying by.

[User] We have a minute between that. It’s a pass every minute.

[Assistant] You know, hearing all those jets flying by reminds me, Wally—I think we’re rolling now. And if we’re not, we should be because I’m going to say: You essentially came from a flying family. Flying was in your blood from the beginning, wasn’t it?


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

[User] Yeah.

[Assistant] All right. Let’s see what happens time-wise. I hear the jets flying by.

[User] We have a minute between that. It’s a pass every minute.

[Assistant] You know, hearing all those jets flying by reminds me, Wally—I think we’re rolling now. And if we’re not, we should be because I’m going to say: You essentially came from a flying family. Flying was in your blood from the beginning, wasn’t it?

[User] In this museum we have an old JN-4, a Curtiss Jenny. Mother and Dad barnstormed after World War One in a Jenny. Dad convinced Mother to get out on the wing and act like a wing-walker. She just got out on the wing. And her great story was she stopped wing-walking when I was in the hangar. [laughs]

[Assistant] And so as time went on you eventually wound up in the Navy; where else?


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

[User] We have a minute between that. It’s a pass every minute.

[Assistant] You know, hearing all those jets flying by reminds me, Wally—I think we’re rolling now. And if we’re not, we should be because I’m going to say: You essentially came from a flying family. Flying was in your blood from the beginning, wasn’t it?

[User] In this museum we have an old JN-4, a Curtiss Jenny. Mother and Dad barnstormed after World War One in a Jenny. Dad convinced Mother to get out on the wing and act like a wing-walker. She just got out on the wing. And her great story was she stopped wing-walking when I was in the hangar. [laughs]

[Assistant] And so as time went on you eventually wound up in the Navy; where else?

[User] Well, in fact I’d wanted to go to the Army at West Point. We lived near there in northern New Jersey. And I saw a naval aviator come into town with greens and a brown pair of [shoes] and a gold set of wings. This kind of gold. I said, “I think I’ll do that.” So I went to the Naval Academy instead of West Point.

[Assistant] And from the Naval Academy it was Pensacola and then combat, and a little bit of everything, wasn’t it?


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

[User] In this museum we have an old JN-4, a Curtiss Jenny. Mother and Dad barnstormed after World War One in a Jenny. Dad convinced Mother to get out on the wing and act like a wing-walker. She just got out on the wing. And her great story was she stopped wing-walking when I was in the hangar. [laughs]

[Assistant] And so as time went on you eventually wound up in the Navy; where else?

[User] Well, in fact I’d wanted to go to the Army at West Point. We lived near there in northern New Jersey. And I saw a naval aviator come into town with greens and a brown pair of [shoes] and a gold set of wings. This kind of gold. I said, “I think I’ll do that.” So I went to the Naval Academy instead of West Point.

[Assistant] And from the Naval Academy it was Pensacola and then combat, and a little bit of everything, wasn’t it?

[User] I had a taste of just about everything.

[Assistant] Somehow or another, though, you wound up being an astronaut. How did that happen?


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

[User] Well, in fact I’d wanted to go to the Army at West Point. We lived near there in northern New Jersey. And I saw a naval aviator come into town with greens and a brown pair of [shoes] and a gold set of wings. This kind of gold. I said, “I think I’ll do that.” So I went to the Naval Academy instead of West Point.

[Assistant] And from the Naval Academy it was Pensacola and then combat, and a little bit of everything, wasn’t it?

[User] I had a taste of just about everything.

[Assistant] Somehow or another, though, you wound up being an astronaut. How did that happen?

[User] That is probably a scary recollection. But I can recall going to Washington, looking at three men on a stage: two engineers and a shrink. (We’d learned to say “shrink.” I think he was really a psychologist. In fact I saw him. It was Bob [Dr. Robert B. ] Voas. I just saw him recently.) [laughs]

[Assistant] Here you can call him anything you like, Wally.


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

[User] I had a taste of just about everything.

[Assistant] Somehow or another, though, you wound up being an astronaut. How did that happen?

[User] That is probably a scary recollection. But I can recall going to Washington, looking at three men on a stage: two engineers and a shrink. (We’d learned to say “shrink.” I think he was really a psychologist. In fact I saw him. It was Bob [Dr. Robert B. ] Voas. I just saw him recently.) [laughs]

[Assistant] Here you can call him anything you like, Wally.

[User] Bob knows that I’ve called him a “shrink” his whole life. These three men tried to convince me how neat it would be to get in a rocket, or a capsule on top of a rocket. I said, “No way! I’m an aviator. I’m a hotshot flyboy. I’m a test pilot.”

[Assistant]
[aircraft passing] I think we’re just going to have—

I think we’ll just have to live with it.


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

[User] That is probably a scary recollection. But I can recall going to Washington, looking at three men on a stage: two engineers and a shrink. (We’d learned to say “shrink.” I think he was really a psychologist. In fact I saw him. It was Bob [Dr. Robert B. ] Voas. I just saw him recently.) [laughs]

[Assistant] Here you can call him anything you like, Wally.

[User] Bob knows that I’ve called him a “shrink” his whole life. These three men tried to convince me how neat it would be to get in a rocket, or a capsule on top of a rocket. I said, “No way! I’m an aviator. I’m a hotshot flyboy. I’m a test pilot.”

[Assistant]
[aircraft passing] I think we’re just going to have—

I think we’ll just have to live with it.

[User] I’ll let that go and pick up as soon as I hear the engine. We’ll just pick up—

[Assistant] Sure. You can talk right through them though.


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

[User] Bob knows that I’ve called him a “shrink” his whole life. These three men tried to convince me how neat it would be to get in a rocket, or a capsule on top of a rocket. I said, “No way! I’m an aviator. I’m a hotshot flyboy. I’m a test pilot.”

[Assistant]
[aircraft passing] I think we’re just going to have—

I think we’ll just have to live with it.

[User] I’ll let that go and pick up as soon as I hear the engine. We’ll just pick up—

[Assistant] Sure. You can talk right through them though.

[User] So I’m a test pilot. And a result of that is that, I really wanted to get out of that. Then they said, “Well, don’t worry. We’re going to put monkeys and chimps in there first.” I\n\n really\n\n want to get out of there. We didn’t even volunteer. We were ordered to Washington. That was the time to say “No.” I went back to Patuxent [River Naval Air Station, Maryland], where I was testing aircraft, and talked to my peer group. And they said, “Look, Schirra. If you want to go higher, farther, and faster, this is the one way to do it.” “Okay, I’ll go along for a while.”

[Assistant] Did you ever regret that decision?


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

[User] I’ll let that go and pick up as soon as I hear the engine. We’ll just pick up—

[Assistant] Sure. You can talk right through them though.

[User] So I’m a test pilot. And a result of that is that, I really wanted to get out of that. Then they said, “Well, don’t worry. We’re going to put monkeys and chimps in there first.” I\n\n really\n\n want to get out of there. We didn’t even volunteer. We were ordered to Washington. That was the time to say “No.” I went back to Patuxent [River Naval Air Station, Maryland], where I was testing aircraft, and talked to my peer group. And they said, “Look, Schirra. If you want to go higher, farther, and faster, this is the one way to do it.” “Okay, I’ll go along for a while.”

[Assistant] Did you ever regret that decision?

[User] A number of times I have regretted that, because I missed my Navy very much. I was trained to be a commanding officer, and NASA never understood what a commanding officer was. This was sort of a group of people with equal rank. And there were times that I asserted myself as a commanding officer, particularly in Apollo. And I recall one of my greatest presentations was from John [P.] Healey, the manager of the spacecraft, who got me this big enunciator for a ship, “All ahead full,” and said, “From your crew. Go ahead full, Schirra.” That’s one of my favorite possessions.

[Assistant] I’ll get back to that, as a matter of fact. I’d like to very much. But right now, let’s go back in time. And here you are. Now you are an astronaut, early on in the training.


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

[User] A number of times I have regretted that, because I missed my Navy very much. I was trained to be a commanding officer, and NASA never understood what a commanding officer was. This was sort of a group of people with equal rank. And there were times that I asserted myself as a commanding officer, particularly in Apollo. And I recall one of my greatest presentations was from John [P.] Healey, the manager of the spacecraft, who got me this big enunciator for a ship, “All ahead full,” and said, “From your crew. Go ahead full, Schirra.” That’s one of my favorite possessions.

[Assistant] I’ll get back to that, as a matter of fact. I’d like to very much. But right now, let’s go back in time. And here you are. Now you are an astronaut, early on in the training.

[User] Now I are one. [laughs]

[Assistant] Yes.

[User] This was a big surprise. Seven of us sitting on a stage in Washington, D.C., with a bunch of Press corps. You don’t know what those people are, I know. But they were there, interrogating us, and we all had these dumb answers. Except for [John] Herschel [Glenn, Jr.]. John had a good answer—John Glenn, of course—for almost anything. And the rest of us said, “Gee, this guy has some ideas we don’t know about.” And we began to realize we were becoming public features, or public individuals. It was something we were not prepared for at all.

[Assistant] You learned, in time.


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

[User] Now I are one. [laughs]

[Assistant] Yes.

[User] This was a big surprise. Seven of us sitting on a stage in Washington, D.C., with a bunch of Press corps. You don’t know what those people are, I know. But they were there, interrogating us, and we all had these dumb answers. Except for [John] Herschel [Glenn, Jr.]. John had a good answer—John Glenn, of course—for almost anything. And the rest of us said, “Gee, this guy has some ideas we don’t know about.” And we began to realize we were becoming public features, or public individuals. It was something we were not prepared for at all.

[Assistant] You learned, in time.

[User] It took us—

[Assistant] You even wound up being a television star in your own right.


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

[User] This was a big surprise. Seven of us sitting on a stage in Washington, D.C., with a bunch of Press corps. You don’t know what those people are, I know. But they were there, interrogating us, and we all had these dumb answers. Except for [John] Herschel [Glenn, Jr.]. John had a good answer—John Glenn, of course—for almost anything. And the rest of us said, “Gee, this guy has some ideas we don’t know about.” And we began to realize we were becoming public features, or public individuals. It was something we were not prepared for at all.

[Assistant] You learned, in time.

[User] It took us—

[Assistant] You even wound up being a television star in your own right.

[User] Well, oddly enough what happened: We were drawn into it, slowly but surely. I guess my favorite memory, though, is—Well, I’ll come back to my favorite memory. [aircraft passing] It’s amazing, I’ve done these interviews here and none of this happens.

[Assistant]
Mark, do you want him to just go ahead and talk through that? Or let it—How do you want to work it?

How bad is it, John?

It’s not too bad.

Can you live with it?

Yeah.


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

[User] It took us—

[Assistant] You even wound up being a television star in your own right.

[User] Well, oddly enough what happened: We were drawn into it, slowly but surely. I guess my favorite memory, though, is—Well, I’ll come back to my favorite memory. [aircraft passing] It’s amazing, I’ve done these interviews here and none of this happens.

[Assistant]
Mark, do you want him to just go ahead and talk through that? Or let it—How do you want to work it?

How bad is it, John?

It’s not too bad.

Can you live with it?

Yeah.

[User] I’ll go through, if you want.

[Assistant] I mean, it’s an aviation thing.


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

[User] Well, oddly enough what happened: We were drawn into it, slowly but surely. I guess my favorite memory, though, is—Well, I’ll come back to my favorite memory. [aircraft passing] It’s amazing, I’ve done these interviews here and none of this happens.

[Assistant]
Mark, do you want him to just go ahead and talk through that? Or let it—How do you want to work it?

How bad is it, John?

It’s not too bad.

Can you live with it?

Yeah.

[User] I’ll go through, if you want.

[Assistant] I mean, it’s an aviation thing.

[User] I’ve done interviews here now enough that I know—My favorite memory, though, really, was going after that Press conference,\n\n from\n\n that Press conference to the Hill, and watching Senators and Representatives make absolute\n\n idiots\n\n of themselves in front of all these news people. We all looked at each other, “Why are they doing this?” And we visited with the Senate Majority Leader, Lyndon [B.] Johnson. Then I knew what a mogul was, what a\n\n power\n\n this man was! He had an office that looked like a Hollywood set. And here we are, looking around, somewhat awestricken ourselves, and our local Representative or Senator would come in and salaam practically. I said, “My gosh! we’ve joined a whole new world! And we haven’t done a damn thing yet!”

[Assistant] And so it was. However, once you got into Mercury you started doing some honest engineering. So let’s start with that, if we can. Let’s engineer the Mercury spacecraft as you lived it.


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

[User] What we found, we man-rated the Atlas we flew. And they grounded, in fact, after John’s and Scott’s flight the military Atlas, so they would have enough courage to send me up on my mission! It was flat grounded! I go off on the mission, everything works beautifully. The spacecraft reacted the way I wanted it to. The interesting part was, though, when I got back from the flight, visiting Hangar S where I prepared for my suiting up and getting into the spacecraft, on top of Hangar S was a ladder. I went up the ladder. They told me it was the launch of an Atlas. It lifted off about 100 ft and “Baroom!” It blew right there. Very consoling. [chuckles]

[Assistant] This was before or after?

[User] After. Right after the flight.

[Assistant] Right after your flight?

[User] Yeah.

[Assistant] Well, that’s what I mean when I said: Did they really know that Atlas had been converted for man-rating? [aircraft passing] Did they really know?


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

[User] After. Right after the flight.

[Assistant] Right after your flight?

[User] Yeah.

[Assistant] Well, that’s what I mean when I said: Did they really know that Atlas had been converted for man-rating? [aircraft passing] Did they really know?

[User] We talked about reliability in terms of 9’s. In that if you had a 9 times a 9, now you have reliability at .81 because you multiply the 2 reliabilities together to get the ultimate. We had about a .9 on the Atlas, which is pretty high. But it was very interesting. The four surviving of the original seven astronauts all flew Atlas.

[Assistant] Of course you flew Atlas, Gemini, and the Saturn, too.


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

[User] Yeah.

[Assistant] Well, that’s what I mean when I said: Did they really know that Atlas had been converted for man-rating? [aircraft passing] Did they really know?

[User] We talked about reliability in terms of 9’s. In that if you had a 9 times a 9, now you have reliability at .81 because you multiply the 2 reliabilities together to get the ultimate. We had about a .9 on the Atlas, which is pretty high. But it was very interesting. The four surviving of the original seven astronauts all flew Atlas.

[Assistant] Of course you flew Atlas, Gemini, and the Saturn, too.

[User] Yeah.

[Assistant] You flew them all.


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

[User] We talked about reliability in terms of 9’s. In that if you had a 9 times a 9, now you have reliability at .81 because you multiply the 2 reliabilities together to get the ultimate. We had about a .9 on the Atlas, which is pretty high. But it was very interesting. The four surviving of the original seven astronauts all flew Atlas.

[Assistant] Of course you flew Atlas, Gemini, and the Saturn, too.

[User] Yeah.

[Assistant] You flew them all.

[User] Everybody was worried about the Atlas being dangerous, and the surviving four—the only ones, the only astronauts who ever flew on Atlas—are still alive today.

[Assistant] It’s an interesting point.


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

[User] Yeah.

[Assistant] You flew them all.

[User] Everybody was worried about the Atlas being dangerous, and the surviving four—the only ones, the only astronauts who ever flew on Atlas—are still alive today.

[Assistant] It’s an interesting point.

[User] Carpenter, Cooper, Schirra, and Glenn.

[Assistant] Of course, too, since your job at that time was to find out what’s man going to do in space, life support became rather important. And that was one of your areas of expertise, was it not?


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

[User] Everybody was worried about the Atlas being dangerous, and the surviving four—the only ones, the only astronauts who ever flew on Atlas—are still alive today.

[Assistant] It’s an interesting point.

[User] Carpenter, Cooper, Schirra, and Glenn.

[Assistant] Of course, too, since your job at that time was to find out what’s man going to do in space, life support became rather important. And that was one of your areas of expertise, was it not?

[User] It really was. The life support system had to be designed just right. And I can recall John Glenn had a hot suit circuit. Scott Carpenter had a hot suit circuit. I had one for one orbit, but I knew what to do. There was a little water control valve (a little teeny, tiny valve; actually it was the right hand), and you turned the valve very slowly to get the water to drip through this plumbing, through a heat exchanger which made the water boil at 40°F. It vented into the atmosphere or space itself. That was the heat exchanger. If you ran it too fast, you’d freeze. If you ran it too slow, you’d get hot. So I was sneaking up on the right setting. By the end of the first orbit I said, “I’m fine. Let’s go.”

[Assistant] Then, too, you were working on the Mercury suit. Oh, that was a beauty, wasn’t it?


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

[User] Carpenter, Cooper, Schirra, and Glenn.

[Assistant] Of course, too, since your job at that time was to find out what’s man going to do in space, life support became rather important. And that was one of your areas of expertise, was it not?

[User] It really was. The life support system had to be designed just right. And I can recall John Glenn had a hot suit circuit. Scott Carpenter had a hot suit circuit. I had one for one orbit, but I knew what to do. There was a little water control valve (a little teeny, tiny valve; actually it was the right hand), and you turned the valve very slowly to get the water to drip through this plumbing, through a heat exchanger which made the water boil at 40°F. It vented into the atmosphere or space itself. That was the heat exchanger. If you ran it too fast, you’d freeze. If you ran it too slow, you’d get hot. So I was sneaking up on the right setting. By the end of the first orbit I said, “I’m fine. Let’s go.”

[Assistant] Then, too, you were working on the Mercury suit. Oh, that was a beauty, wasn’t it?

[User] That suit was unreal. If you can imagine spending a million dollars for a suit with only one pair of pants. [laughs] But the real key was to get the suit to fit very tightly. If it’s loose at the elbow, for example, when you move your arm you can’t move it. It just fills up that void; so it fits you very well. A change in weight of 5 to 6 lbs was enough to make the suit a bad fit.

[Assistant] Then from Mercury you also worked in the Gemini suit.


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

[User] It really was. The life support system had to be designed just right. And I can recall John Glenn had a hot suit circuit. Scott Carpenter had a hot suit circuit. I had one for one orbit, but I knew what to do. There was a little water control valve (a little teeny, tiny valve; actually it was the right hand), and you turned the valve very slowly to get the water to drip through this plumbing, through a heat exchanger which made the water boil at 40°F. It vented into the atmosphere or space itself. That was the heat exchanger. If you ran it too fast, you’d freeze. If you ran it too slow, you’d get hot. So I was sneaking up on the right setting. By the end of the first orbit I said, “I’m fine. Let’s go.”

[Assistant] Then, too, you were working on the Mercury suit. Oh, that was a beauty, wasn’t it?

[User] That suit was unreal. If you can imagine spending a million dollars for a suit with only one pair of pants. [laughs] But the real key was to get the suit to fit very tightly. If it’s loose at the elbow, for example, when you move your arm you can’t move it. It just fills up that void; so it fits you very well. A change in weight of 5 to 6 lbs was enough to make the suit a bad fit.

[Assistant] Then from Mercury you also worked in the Gemini suit.

[User] Yes, I did.

[Assistant] What was the difference between those?


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

[User] That suit was unreal. If you can imagine spending a million dollars for a suit with only one pair of pants. [laughs] But the real key was to get the suit to fit very tightly. If it’s loose at the elbow, for example, when you move your arm you can’t move it. It just fills up that void; so it fits you very well. A change in weight of 5 to 6 lbs was enough to make the suit a bad fit.

[Assistant] Then from Mercury you also worked in the Gemini suit.

[User] Yes, I did.

[Assistant] What was the difference between those?

[User] Oh, we had a little less junk inside the suit. We had thick protection. We weren’t sure how well the suit would work in Mercury. I had a sponge layer, a thick silver layer on the outside. We finally got the light Nomex® material that wouldn’t burn, even though that was something that came along later in Apollo. But we were worried about flammability materials always. And the suit was a much better suit. Why? It had to be. We were going to do a spacewalk, which we could not do in Mercury. So it had to be a good fit. We still had to have what we call a “tactile touch.” The suit gloves had to fit very carefully, almost like racing car driving gloves. That was kind of interesting. We put little lights on the back of the hands so you could see what you were doing.

[Assistant] You know, a good way to describe all this might be to just take your Mercury mission and relive it. Could we do that?


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

[User] That was the whole idea, to conserve fuel. Not to criticize John and Scott, but the mission was designed to have a chimpanzee in there. They replaced the chimp. But that meant they had to have a lot of automatic maneuvers. Automatic maneuvers took a\n\n tremendous\n\n amount of attitude control fuel. I said, “I don’t want to do that. I just want to save that.” And as a result, I ended up, I think, about retrofire, about 80% of my attitude fuel was still remaining.

[Assistant] You were able to stay up for a full-duration mission. Yours was rather an open-ended mission, if I recall.

[User] It was. It could have gone on and on. Thank God I didn’t, because Gordon Cooper, he used all of my talent and had to use every bit of his own to endure that long! [laughs] But the interesting part of it was, I’ll never forget this part either. Gordo and I were trying to figure out how we could look at the world from orbit. We had no simulators that could do that for us. So we took an [Project] Echo balloon, 100 ft in diameter, and painted on it the geographic points that we would pass over on an orbit 32 N, 32 S, adding a little bit so we could see out to the horizon. We took a cherry picker, hoisted ourselves up a little, tiny vehicle with a window (like we had asked for), and looked at the globe at tangent as if we would be in orbit. The technique worked perfectly. [aircraft passing]

[Assistant] I think that airplane is a little more than we can handle.

[User] Yeah.

[Assistant] That bird really passed right directly overhead.


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

[User] It was. It could have gone on and on. Thank God I didn’t, because Gordon Cooper, he used all of my talent and had to use every bit of his own to endure that long! [laughs] But the interesting part of it was, I’ll never forget this part either. Gordo and I were trying to figure out how we could look at the world from orbit. We had no simulators that could do that for us. So we took an [Project] Echo balloon, 100 ft in diameter, and painted on it the geographic points that we would pass over on an orbit 32 N, 32 S, adding a little bit so we could see out to the horizon. We took a cherry picker, hoisted ourselves up a little, tiny vehicle with a window (like we had asked for), and looked at the globe at tangent as if we would be in orbit. The technique worked perfectly. [aircraft passing]

[Assistant] I think that airplane is a little more than we can handle.

[User] Yeah.

[Assistant] That bird really passed right directly overhead.

[User] So we looked at this large Echo balloon, with the Earth painted on it, and practiced our retrofire maneuver so we could do a big “Chth-chth,” that kind of stuff, instead of “Chuck-chuck.” I got back from the flight and said, “Gordo, I had a real problem. Our Earth had no clouds on it. You’ve got to put clouds on that.” [laughs]

[Assistant] And by the way, I’m prompted to note, as a footnote, that the spacecraft behind you is your\n\n Sigma 7\n\n .


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

[User] Yeah.

[Assistant] That bird really passed right directly overhead.

[User] So we looked at this large Echo balloon, with the Earth painted on it, and practiced our retrofire maneuver so we could do a big “Chth-chth,” that kind of stuff, instead of “Chuck-chuck.” I got back from the flight and said, “Gordo, I had a real problem. Our Earth had no clouds on it. You’ve got to put clouds on that.” [laughs]

[Assistant] And by the way, I’m prompted to note, as a footnote, that the spacecraft behind you is your\n\n Sigma 7\n\n .

[User] That’s the name on there. Yes.

[Assistant] That is\n\n Sigma 7\n\n . It’s in remarkably good shape.


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

[User] So we looked at this large Echo balloon, with the Earth painted on it, and practiced our retrofire maneuver so we could do a big “Chth-chth,” that kind of stuff, instead of “Chuck-chuck.” I got back from the flight and said, “Gordo, I had a real problem. Our Earth had no clouds on it. You’ve got to put clouds on that.” [laughs]

[Assistant] And by the way, I’m prompted to note, as a footnote, that the spacecraft behind you is your\n\n Sigma 7\n\n .

[User] That’s the name on there. Yes.

[Assistant] That is\n\n Sigma 7\n\n . It’s in remarkably good shape.

[User] Oh no, that’s a copy of it.

[Assistant] This is a copy.


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

[User] Oh no, that’s a copy of it.

[Assistant] This is a copy.

[User] The real\n\n Sigma 7\n\n is at the [Astronaut] Hall of Fame in Florida.

[Assistant] Okay.

[User] But they have a better version of\n\n Sigma 7\n\n painted here. Someone, by the way, on my\n\n Sigma 7\n\n , which is in the Hall of Fame—our Astro Hall of Fame—in Florida, the panel where\n\n Sigma 7\n\n was painted on is missing. And I’m going to chase that down with either Don Ingen at the Smithsonian or something, because somebody must have lifted that.

[Assistant] Somebody swiped your panel?


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

[User] The real\n\n Sigma 7\n\n is at the [Astronaut] Hall of Fame in Florida.

[Assistant] Okay.

[User] But they have a better version of\n\n Sigma 7\n\n painted here. Someone, by the way, on my\n\n Sigma 7\n\n , which is in the Hall of Fame—our Astro Hall of Fame—in Florida, the panel where\n\n Sigma 7\n\n was painted on is missing. And I’m going to chase that down with either Don Ingen at the Smithsonian or something, because somebody must have lifted that.

[Assistant] Somebody swiped your panel?

[User] Yeah. Maybe Max. L. Ary [President of the Kansas Cosmosphere and Space Center] has it, which is in [Hutchinson] Kansas.

[Assistant] You had a specific goal in mind, I’m sure, when you were flying your mission. You’ve mentioned it, but let’s vector in on it.


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

[User] There’s some state on the East Coast that has a planetarium—North Carolina. [laughs] Couldn’t resist doing that.

[Assistant] All right. That’s an “I-got-you.”

[User] We were taken to the planetarium at [The University of North Carolina in] Chapel Hill.

[Assistant] Morehead.

[User] Morehead Planetarium. And Tony Jenzano was our instruction. Tony is long gone now. Tony taught us every trick in the trade about how to recognize stars, how to put the constellations together, how to get checkpoints so we could find out what stars we needed to know\n\n very well\n\n , and we became quite proficient at that. Bill [William K.] Douglas, who we lost just recently, also went to the planetarium with us. He had joined that. But Tony would put us up on little chairs, much like a spacecraft, with our window again; and then he’d put projections of little constellations and things up there for us to look at, at night, in the planetarium. So as a result, we learned what we called the celestial field, the celestial pattern, which took us through Apollo really. It was kind of fun.\n\n I’m going to jump ahead a little bit because, when we got to Apollo, I had been assigned the role with Walt [Walter] Cunningham and Donn [F.] Eisele backing up Gus Grissom, Roger [B.] Chaffee, and Ed [Edward H.] White [II]. We arrived at Griffith Planetarium [California] after they had been training out there, having been working with Tony back at Morehead again, even for Apollo now. And this is worth getting right. [laughs]

[Assistant] Take your time. As a matter of fact, here comes another jet. [aircraft passing] Let’s wait until this one goes on by.


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

[User] Yeah. The director of the Griffith Park Planetarium, the same as Tony Jenzano with Morehead, told my crew—Cunningham and Eisele and myself—that “We have three stars in the celestial system now that we didn’t know about that the Apollo 1 crew told us about that they’d learned from Tony Jenzano; they’re ‘Navi,’ ‘Dnoces,’ and ‘Regor.’” “Navi” is Ivan Grissom spelled backwards; “Regor” is Roger spelled backwards, and “Dnoces” is Ed White the Second, spelled backwards. And this poor director of the planetarium for at least 2 years thought those were real stars! [laughs]

[Assistant] Did you actually use the stars for navigation?

[User] We used them for reference for yaw. At night, if you couldn’t see the Earth clearly, because it’s dark just as it is when you’re down on the surface, you’re not going to get a good checkpoint. But the star field’s right there and you can say, “Ah, that planet is where it should be. That star is where it should be. That’s my yaw attitude.” Very, very precise. We’re talking about, oh, 1/1000th of a degree. The same use of the stars was used in Apollo to 1/10,000th of a degree. That’s how accurate that stuff is.

[Assistant] Did that celestial navigation, I think I can call it that safely, ever help a crew anywhere along the line in terms of flying and navigating the spacecraft?

[User] I think Gordo had the perfect example of that. We’d both trained to use the Earth and the stars to get our retro attitude. That son-of-a-gun landed closer to the carrier than I did! And he had no automatic control system at all. No horizon, reference from the horizon scanners that would go like this outside. None of that worked.

[Assistant] Back in those early days—and here comes another one of those heavy jets. [airplane passing]


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

[User] We used them for reference for yaw. At night, if you couldn’t see the Earth clearly, because it’s dark just as it is when you’re down on the surface, you’re not going to get a good checkpoint. But the star field’s right there and you can say, “Ah, that planet is where it should be. That star is where it should be. That’s my yaw attitude.” Very, very precise. We’re talking about, oh, 1/1000th of a degree. The same use of the stars was used in Apollo to 1/10,000th of a degree. That’s how accurate that stuff is.

[Assistant] Did that celestial navigation, I think I can call it that safely, ever help a crew anywhere along the line in terms of flying and navigating the spacecraft?

[User] I think Gordo had the perfect example of that. We’d both trained to use the Earth and the stars to get our retro attitude. That son-of-a-gun landed closer to the carrier than I did! And he had no automatic control system at all. No horizon, reference from the horizon scanners that would go like this outside. None of that worked.

[Assistant] Back in those early days—and here comes another one of those heavy jets. [airplane passing]

[User] Yeah.

[Assistant] So we’ll sit tight until he passes.


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

[User] I think Gordo had the perfect example of that. We’d both trained to use the Earth and the stars to get our retro attitude. That son-of-a-gun landed closer to the carrier than I did! And he had no automatic control system at all. No horizon, reference from the horizon scanners that would go like this outside. None of that worked.

[Assistant] Back in those early days—and here comes another one of those heavy jets. [airplane passing]

[User] Yeah.

[Assistant] So we’ll sit tight until he passes.

[User] That’s probably Southwest. [laughs]

[Assistant] I mean, boy, they fly right over this museum.


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

[User] Yeah.

[Assistant] So we’ll sit tight until he passes.

[User] That’s probably Southwest. [laughs]

[Assistant] I mean, boy, they fly right over this museum.

[User] Yeah.

[Assistant] But back in those early days, the photography portions of the mission were not what they are today. There was no Hubble telescope up there.


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

[User] That’s probably Southwest. [laughs]

[Assistant] I mean, boy, they fly right over this museum.

[User] Yeah.

[Assistant] But back in those early days, the photography portions of the mission were not what they are today. There was no Hubble telescope up there.

[User] Yeah.

[Assistant] You guys shot a lot of pictures. And you, in particular, took the time to learn how to shoot. Can you tell us about that?