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

[User] Yes. As a matter of fact, at NASA there’s a lot of people who use their imagination and, of course, it came to really the forefront on 13. But I mean, new ideas. That was the whole idea of NASA. New ideas. What can we do differently? How can we do this? And there were a lot of mistakes. There were a lot of blind alleys we went up to. Perseverance, though, was predominant in the program at the time. “Let’s keep on trying.”

[Assistant] Then comes the Apollo Program and, of course, the Apollo fire. Do you recall where you were when you heard about the fire?

[User] Oh yes. Yes. Very much so. I was in Washington, D.C., at the White House. I was up there for the signing of the Space Treaty, which essentially, you know, meant that space is available to everybody. There are no boundaries. And also that astronauts, if they have to land someplace else, will be welcomed rather than be treated as prisoners or something—

[Assistant] Yes.

[User] —like that. And we had just finished that thing at the White House and the four of us were going back to the hotel when we walked in and there was messages for us to call NASA back again. And then they told us what had occurred; and we spent the night there. They said, “Don’t go outside. Don’t make a round,” you know. “Just lose yourselves.” So, we did. And the next day, we went home.

[Assistant] You were assigned to a panel to study what went wrong. What was your study job?


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

[User] Oh yes. Yes. Very much so. I was in Washington, D.C., at the White House. I was up there for the signing of the Space Treaty, which essentially, you know, meant that space is available to everybody. There are no boundaries. And also that astronauts, if they have to land someplace else, will be welcomed rather than be treated as prisoners or something—

[Assistant] Yes.

[User] —like that. And we had just finished that thing at the White House and the four of us were going back to the hotel when we walked in and there was messages for us to call NASA back again. And then they told us what had occurred; and we spent the night there. They said, “Don’t go outside. Don’t make a round,” you know. “Just lose yourselves.” So, we did. And the next day, we went home.

[Assistant] You were assigned to a panel to study what went wrong. What was your study job?

[User] Yes, there were some 20 panels, plus the major panel. And then there was 20 subpanels. And I was with [John L.] Jack Swigert and I think it was [Ronald E.] Ron Evans that—we looked out at how we can cope with in-flight emergencies—fires—to see what we’d have to have onboard or how we can do for it. A very interesting investigation. I was, in my past career—I was a safety officer in a squadron and went through Aviation Safety School, so, some of the stuff I had learned back then I applied at that time.

[Assistant] I suppose the question that I need to ask in light of the fact that this is a very conservative, safety-minded bunch of people up to this point: How in the world did Apollo 1 happen?


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

[User] Well, that’s right.

[Assistant] Are you worried that maybe somebody’s going to say, “Let’s just forget the whole thing”?

[User] Well, yeah. If you recall, the fire took place in 1967. We had a commitment made by President Kennedy that we would land a man on the Moon and bring him back home safely before the end of the decade. And when the fire occurred in January of ’67 and we didn’t know really what it was going to do, everybody was really down in the dumps, saying, “Holy cow!” So, I have to admire the engineers, the technicians, and the scientists and everybody here who found out the problem, and the contractor people who finally realized that, “Hey, let’s get a new type of spacecraft. Let’s build something that people really could use and it doesn’t happen.”

[Assistant] By the time Apollo 8 came along, you were backup to Mike Collins. Were you convinced then that the capsule was okay? Flyable? Safe?

[User] Yeah, I was. I mean, you have to—you have to go by faith. You have to believe in what the people are going to hand you, you know. Al Shepard’s old, old joke was, you know: “How does it feel to sit on top of something built by the lowest bidder?” But the lowest bidder was, you know, pretty expensive. But you have to believe that whole thing. And I did. I was, you know, Mike’s backup and spent a lot of my time up at Boston working on the guidance system.

[Assistant] Where were you when you found out that he had a bad back and couldn’t go, and you were going to go?


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

[User] Well, yeah. If you recall, the fire took place in 1967. We had a commitment made by President Kennedy that we would land a man on the Moon and bring him back home safely before the end of the decade. And when the fire occurred in January of ’67 and we didn’t know really what it was going to do, everybody was really down in the dumps, saying, “Holy cow!” So, I have to admire the engineers, the technicians, and the scientists and everybody here who found out the problem, and the contractor people who finally realized that, “Hey, let’s get a new type of spacecraft. Let’s build something that people really could use and it doesn’t happen.”

[Assistant] By the time Apollo 8 came along, you were backup to Mike Collins. Were you convinced then that the capsule was okay? Flyable? Safe?

[User] Yeah, I was. I mean, you have to—you have to go by faith. You have to believe in what the people are going to hand you, you know. Al Shepard’s old, old joke was, you know: “How does it feel to sit on top of something built by the lowest bidder?” But the lowest bidder was, you know, pretty expensive. But you have to believe that whole thing. And I did. I was, you know, Mike’s backup and spent a lot of my time up at Boston working on the guidance system.

[Assistant] Where were you when you found out that he had a bad back and couldn’t go, and you were going to go?

[User] I don’t really recall where I was. I think I’d come back here, and finally they said—you know, I was his backup. So, that was the thing. And Mike had this bone spur and I think he held off as long as he could. But I think his leg was getting numb. And so, finally they replaced me and I went. You know, faith has sort of strange things because I never expected to be on Apollo 8. But I have to tell you, that was the high point of my space career.

[Assistant] But if you hadn’t been that backup, you might’ve been on 11.


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

[User] I don’t really recall where I was. I think I’d come back here, and finally they said—you know, I was his backup. So, that was the thing. And Mike had this bone spur and I think he held off as long as he could. But I think his leg was getting numb. And so, finally they replaced me and I went. You know, faith has sort of strange things because I never expected to be on Apollo 8. But I have to tell you, that was the high point of my space career.

[Assistant] But if you hadn’t been that backup, you might’ve been on 11.

[User] Yes, I was assigned to 11. I was assigned to 11. But, still, I prefer 8 to my position on 11.

[Assistant] Okay.

[User] Yeah.

[Assistant] 8 turns out to be a significant flight once it takes off. But when you’re assigned to it, it’s still not what it turned out to be, was it?


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

[User] No. It was still Earth orbital.

[Assistant] Yes.

[User] And we were going high up. We were going to do 4,000 miles so that we could test the lunar module, the command module, and then come back at a high rate of speed so that, you know, we could test the heatshield and things like that. It wasn’t—and I recall this very vividly. The three of us were out at Downey at North American testing our spacecraft; and Frank got a call to go back to Houston. We—so, Bill [William A. Anders] and I still stayed out there. We were working out there. And Frank came back again, back to Downey, and said, “Things have changed.” And we said, “Viz. a what?” He said, “We’re—if everything goes all right with Apollo 7, we’ll—Apollo 8 will go to the Moon.” I was elated! I thought, “Man, this is great!” I mean, I had already spent 2 weeks in space in Gemini VII with Frank Borman. I didn’t want to spend another 11 days, or something like that, you know, going around the Earth again. I said, “This is fantastic!” And on the way back of the T-38, when it was my turn to sit in the back seat and either Bill or Frank were flying, I drew the Apollo 8 insignia. You know, the—the V-shaped thing—

[Assistant] Yeah, right.

[User] —with the Earth and Moon. So—

[Assistant] That happened because of Cold War considerations, did it not?


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

[User] And we were going high up. We were going to do 4,000 miles so that we could test the lunar module, the command module, and then come back at a high rate of speed so that, you know, we could test the heatshield and things like that. It wasn’t—and I recall this very vividly. The three of us were out at Downey at North American testing our spacecraft; and Frank got a call to go back to Houston. We—so, Bill [William A. Anders] and I still stayed out there. We were working out there. And Frank came back again, back to Downey, and said, “Things have changed.” And we said, “Viz. a what?” He said, “We’re—if everything goes all right with Apollo 7, we’ll—Apollo 8 will go to the Moon.” I was elated! I thought, “Man, this is great!” I mean, I had already spent 2 weeks in space in Gemini VII with Frank Borman. I didn’t want to spend another 11 days, or something like that, you know, going around the Earth again. I said, “This is fantastic!” And on the way back of the T-38, when it was my turn to sit in the back seat and either Bill or Frank were flying, I drew the Apollo 8 insignia. You know, the—the V-shaped thing—

[Assistant] Yeah, right.

[User] —with the Earth and Moon. So—

[Assistant] That happened because of Cold War considerations, did it not?

[User] Oh yeah. Well, two things occurred. The lunar module wasn’t ready. And the lunar module was supposed to go up there, you know, and be tested out. And also, as you probably know and it’s well known now, we had intelligence information that the Russians were going to put people around the Moon. They were really attempting to land people on the Moon! But—

[Assistant] Okay. Let—let’s stop there—


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

[User] —with the Earth and Moon. So—

[Assistant] That happened because of Cold War considerations, did it not?

[User] Oh yeah. Well, two things occurred. The lunar module wasn’t ready. And the lunar module was supposed to go up there, you know, and be tested out. And also, as you probably know and it’s well known now, we had intelligence information that the Russians were going to put people around the Moon. They were really attempting to land people on the Moon! But—

[Assistant] Okay. Let—let’s stop there—

[User] Yeah.

[Assistant] —and we’ll pick up, okay? We’ll come back to the politics of 8.


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

[User] Oh yeah. Well, two things occurred. The lunar module wasn’t ready. And the lunar module was supposed to go up there, you know, and be tested out. And also, as you probably know and it’s well known now, we had intelligence information that the Russians were going to put people around the Moon. They were really attempting to land people on the Moon! But—

[Assistant] Okay. Let—let’s stop there—

[User] Yeah.

[Assistant] —and we’ll pick up, okay? We’ll come back to the politics of 8.

[User] Right.

[Assistant] This is Tape 2. James A. Lovell, Jr. We were discussing Apollo 8 and the politics behind Apollo 8. The Russians are going to try to land on the Moon and trump everything America has done.


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

[User] Yeah.

[Assistant] —and we’ll pick up, okay? We’ll come back to the politics of 8.

[User] Right.

[Assistant] This is Tape 2. James A. Lovell, Jr. We were discussing Apollo 8 and the politics behind Apollo 8. The Russians are going to try to land on the Moon and trump everything America has done.

[User] Actually, the Russians, believe it or not, were interested in lunar landings about the same time we were and had tried all sorts of things to get there and were building a huge rocket called the N-1. Built 10 of them. Flew 4. None was really successful. Some of them they flew even after we had landed. But they were very persistent people. And they thought that using a different type of a booster, called the Proton, and a vehicle called Zond they could fly people—just circumnavigate the Moon. Just go around it. Not to land or not even to orbit it.\n\n And they were very, you know, close to actually doing that. They had sent a couple of spacecraft up. Went around the Moon. One was not successful. One was partially successful. The next one, the two cosmonauts, and I know them, wanted to go. And then they hesitated back and forth. The hierarchy argued, “Should we send another unmanned or should we not?” And when they did that, on this side of the Atlantic bold leadership at this time, they said, “If the lunar module’s not ready, the command service module, if it proves out on Apollo 7, will be okay. [Marshall Space Flight Center] Huntsville [Alabama] thinks the booster could be okay.” And so, they said, “Let’s send Apollo 8 to the Moon.” And so, that’s how it came to pass. We—and then after we got to the Moon, of course, the Russians said, “We never planned it in the first place.”

[Assistant] As a rocket man, and you remind me that you were from the very beginning, as a rocket man did you think, “We can do that.”


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

[User] I know.

[Assistant] Tell me what you—tell me what you thought when your—two things. One is, you’re no longer connected to the Earth. That you can’t yell “Help!” They can’t tell you what to do. You’re on your own. First time you’ve ever been up there when that’s happened, right?

[User] Well, yes. Except the Gemini, when we didn’t have communication.

[Assistant] But—

[User] Yeah.

[Assistant] —here you are—


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

[User] Well, yes. Except the Gemini, when we didn’t have communication.

[Assistant] But—

[User] Yeah.

[Assistant] —here you are—

[User] We’re 200,000—240,000 miles away.

[Assistant] You’re 240,000 miles away from this place that’s telling you what to do. Nobody’s talking to you. Nobody can hear you. You’re just looking at it. What do you think?


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

[User] Yeah.

[Assistant] —here you are—

[User] We’re 200,000—240,000 miles away.

[Assistant] You’re 240,000 miles away from this place that’s telling you what to do. Nobody’s talking to you. Nobody can hear you. You’re just looking at it. What do you think?

[User] We were so curious, so excited about being at the Moon that we were like three schoolkids looking into a candy store window, watching those ancient old craters go by from—and we were only 60 miles above the surface. That—we didn’t have any kind of feeling, at least myself, of, you know, fear or—or if, you know, are we going to get back or not? It was just to be there was such an exciting moment that, you know, we’d have done it all the time. I felt very, very honored and lucky to be there.

[Assistant] That particular Christmas, 1968, was the end of a tumultuous year. Really a tumultuous time in American history. And there was a very salutary effect on this country and the world because of your flight. Did you anticipate that or—?


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

[User] We’re 200,000—240,000 miles away.

[Assistant] You’re 240,000 miles away from this place that’s telling you what to do. Nobody’s talking to you. Nobody can hear you. You’re just looking at it. What do you think?

[User] We were so curious, so excited about being at the Moon that we were like three schoolkids looking into a candy store window, watching those ancient old craters go by from—and we were only 60 miles above the surface. That—we didn’t have any kind of feeling, at least myself, of, you know, fear or—or if, you know, are we going to get back or not? It was just to be there was such an exciting moment that, you know, we’d have done it all the time. I felt very, very honored and lucky to be there.

[Assistant] That particular Christmas, 1968, was the end of a tumultuous year. Really a tumultuous time in American history. And there was a very salutary effect on this country and the world because of your flight. Did you anticipate that or—?

[User] At the time, we didn’t know what the effect of the flight would be. We didn’t know whether the flight was going to be successful or not. But you’re absolutely right. You know, with riots and assassinations and the war going on, I was part of a thing that finally gave an uplift to the American people about doing something positive, which was really—that’s why I say Apollo 8 was really the high point of my space career.

[Assistant] There are people in NASA who will say it’s the high point of NASA’s career. That the landing, of course, is what we were shooting for.


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

[User] We were so curious, so excited about being at the Moon that we were like three schoolkids looking into a candy store window, watching those ancient old craters go by from—and we were only 60 miles above the surface. That—we didn’t have any kind of feeling, at least myself, of, you know, fear or—or if, you know, are we going to get back or not? It was just to be there was such an exciting moment that, you know, we’d have done it all the time. I felt very, very honored and lucky to be there.

[Assistant] That particular Christmas, 1968, was the end of a tumultuous year. Really a tumultuous time in American history. And there was a very salutary effect on this country and the world because of your flight. Did you anticipate that or—?

[User] At the time, we didn’t know what the effect of the flight would be. We didn’t know whether the flight was going to be successful or not. But you’re absolutely right. You know, with riots and assassinations and the war going on, I was part of a thing that finally gave an uplift to the American people about doing something positive, which was really—that’s why I say Apollo 8 was really the high point of my space career.

[Assistant] There are people in NASA who will say it’s the high point of NASA’s career. That the landing, of course, is what we were shooting for.

[User] Yeah.

[Assistant] But that proved that you could do all the things that everybody said you could do.


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

[User] At the time, we didn’t know what the effect of the flight would be. We didn’t know whether the flight was going to be successful or not. But you’re absolutely right. You know, with riots and assassinations and the war going on, I was part of a thing that finally gave an uplift to the American people about doing something positive, which was really—that’s why I say Apollo 8 was really the high point of my space career.

[Assistant] There are people in NASA who will say it’s the high point of NASA’s career. That the landing, of course, is what we were shooting for.

[User] Yeah.

[Assistant] But that proved that you could do all the things that everybody said you could do.

[User] Yeah. I sort of lean that way. On Apollo 11 I was honored to be with [Charles A.] Lindbergh watching the launch from the Cape, you know, as—and I said to General Lindbergh, “Isn’t this really apropos? I mean, this is the most auspicious moment. These people are going to go up there and they’re going to land on the Moon!” And Lindbergh looked at me and said, “Well, yes, to a certain degree.” He said, “But Apollo 8 was the real charger of this whole program.”

[Assistant] How did you choose that Christmas message that you all delivered?


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

[User] It was. And at the same time, we had this sort of now rudimentary TV camera, black-and white camera, that was pointing out the window watching the craters go by and slowly slipping into daylight.

[Assistant] Yes, yes.

[User] Yeah.

[Assistant] Oh I remember it. It was a marvelous time for America and the world. But a particularly marvelous Christmastime after what had been a terrible year. Let me go to Apollo 11. You’re the backup on 11.

[User] I was the backup commander on 11. My philosophy is, “Never miss a chance.” I mean, if I had a chance to be the first person to land on the Moon, I was going to take it. It was the natural competition among all of us. But being backup is something I thought, “Well, there’s an opportunity.” I was the backup on Apollo 8 and I got to fly Apollo 8. So, I went to 11. I think Frank thought I was crazy; but I thought that, “Hey, that’s what I’m going to be doing.” And so, I went through the whole thing with them.

[Assistant] What was the feeling among the astronaut corps when everybody realized Neil Armstrong got the—?


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

[User] Yeah.

[Assistant] Oh I remember it. It was a marvelous time for America and the world. But a particularly marvelous Christmastime after what had been a terrible year. Let me go to Apollo 11. You’re the backup on 11.

[User] I was the backup commander on 11. My philosophy is, “Never miss a chance.” I mean, if I had a chance to be the first person to land on the Moon, I was going to take it. It was the natural competition among all of us. But being backup is something I thought, “Well, there’s an opportunity.” I was the backup on Apollo 8 and I got to fly Apollo 8. So, I went to 11. I think Frank thought I was crazy; but I thought that, “Hey, that’s what I’m going to be doing.” And so, I went through the whole thing with them.

[Assistant] What was the feeling among the astronaut corps when everybody realized Neil Armstrong got the—?

[User] Well, I think everybody, you know, resigned to the fact that Neil was going to go. And, of course, being a civilian, maybe that was a good choice. We were either Air Force or Navy and there was no military implication to this landing. So, Neil actually went. And so, someone had to go!

[Assistant] Did that figure into it, do you think?


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

[User] I was the backup commander on 11. My philosophy is, “Never miss a chance.” I mean, if I had a chance to be the first person to land on the Moon, I was going to take it. It was the natural competition among all of us. But being backup is something I thought, “Well, there’s an opportunity.” I was the backup on Apollo 8 and I got to fly Apollo 8. So, I went to 11. I think Frank thought I was crazy; but I thought that, “Hey, that’s what I’m going to be doing.” And so, I went through the whole thing with them.

[Assistant] What was the feeling among the astronaut corps when everybody realized Neil Armstrong got the—?

[User] Well, I think everybody, you know, resigned to the fact that Neil was going to go. And, of course, being a civilian, maybe that was a good choice. We were either Air Force or Navy and there was no military implication to this landing. So, Neil actually went. And so, someone had to go!

[Assistant] Did that figure into it, do you think?

[User] I don’t think so because all the flights before 11 were chancy. If 8 proved out to be—needed more training or was a disaster and then 9 came, or 9 had something wrong with the lunar module, you know, or if everything went fine, you know, if 10 had a full lunar module, they could’ve landed, you know.

[Assistant] Okay. Let’s go to 13.


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

[User] Well, I think everybody, you know, resigned to the fact that Neil was going to go. And, of course, being a civilian, maybe that was a good choice. We were either Air Force or Navy and there was no military implication to this landing. So, Neil actually went. And so, someone had to go!

[Assistant] Did that figure into it, do you think?

[User] I don’t think so because all the flights before 11 were chancy. If 8 proved out to be—needed more training or was a disaster and then 9 came, or 9 had something wrong with the lunar module, you know, or if everything went fine, you know, if 10 had a full lunar module, they could’ve landed, you know.

[Assistant] Okay. Let’s go to 13.

[User] Yeah, yeah.

[Assistant] The—that has reached almost mythic proportions because of the book, the movie, and all about that. I want to try to separate a little myth from reality here, or maybe add to the myth. I don’t know which we’ll do. We’ll do whichever you want to do, okay?


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

[User] I don’t think so because all the flights before 11 were chancy. If 8 proved out to be—needed more training or was a disaster and then 9 came, or 9 had something wrong with the lunar module, you know, or if everything went fine, you know, if 10 had a full lunar module, they could’ve landed, you know.

[Assistant] Okay. Let’s go to 13.

[User] Yeah, yeah.

[Assistant] The—that has reached almost mythic proportions because of the book, the movie, and all about that. I want to try to separate a little myth from reality here, or maybe add to the myth. I don’t know which we’ll do. We’ll do whichever you want to do, okay?

[User] We’ll make it reality.

[Assistant] All right. Okay. That was not supposed to be your flight, right?


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

[User] Oh yeah!

[Assistant] It had to scare you to death, I think.

[User] Oh yeah, because, you know, when Mattingly was scrubbed and Jack hadn’t really been part of the team, we thought, you know, because we had worked such—close together as a team. But we had already slipped the flight once from March to April, and the 2 days we worked with Jack, he appeared perfectly comfortable with the vehicle. And so, I said, “Go.” Because they came to me privately and said, “Are you happy? Are you satisfied? Do you want to go?” I said, “Sure.”

[Assistant] Did you just want to go? Or were you happy and satisfied?

[User] Oh, I was happy and satisfied that we were going to go. Normally on the first two flights to the Moon, they tell the crew privately, “Now look it, if anything goes wrong, don’t worry about it. Come back. We’ll give you the very next flight.” That was on Apollo 11. On Apollo 12, they got Conrad’s group, “Don’t worry about it. Don’t take a chance, you know. We’ll give you the very next flight.” They didn’t say anything on Apollo 13!

[Assistant] Did it—are you—obviously you’re not superstitious?


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

[User] Oh yeah, because, you know, when Mattingly was scrubbed and Jack hadn’t really been part of the team, we thought, you know, because we had worked such—close together as a team. But we had already slipped the flight once from March to April, and the 2 days we worked with Jack, he appeared perfectly comfortable with the vehicle. And so, I said, “Go.” Because they came to me privately and said, “Are you happy? Are you satisfied? Do you want to go?” I said, “Sure.”

[Assistant] Did you just want to go? Or were you happy and satisfied?

[User] Oh, I was happy and satisfied that we were going to go. Normally on the first two flights to the Moon, they tell the crew privately, “Now look it, if anything goes wrong, don’t worry about it. Come back. We’ll give you the very next flight.” That was on Apollo 11. On Apollo 12, they got Conrad’s group, “Don’t worry about it. Don’t take a chance, you know. We’ll give you the very next flight.” They didn’t say anything on Apollo 13!

[Assistant] Did it—are you—obviously you’re not superstitious?

[User] No, I’m not superstitious now and I wasn’t then. Although the coincidence is—

[Assistant] The 13th hour of the 13th minute, Apollo 13—


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

[User] Takes off and it explodes on the 13th.

[Assistant] Yes.

[User] An interesting sideline: Apollo 13 was the last spacecraft, to my knowledge, that was—ever had the number 13. If you look at the history of all the follow-on spacecraft, all the Shuttles and all the Orbiters and all that, they’re all sort of like 41-G, 53-L or something like that.

[Assistant] Yeah.

[User] There is no 13. NASA will claim that they are absolutely not superstitious. But I’ll bet you my last dollar, they’ll never name another spacecraft, as long as this place stays alive, 13.

[Assistant] The launch is perfect. Everything went well.


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

[User] An interesting sideline: Apollo 13 was the last spacecraft, to my knowledge, that was—ever had the number 13. If you look at the history of all the follow-on spacecraft, all the Shuttles and all the Orbiters and all that, they’re all sort of like 41-G, 53-L or something like that.

[Assistant] Yeah.

[User] There is no 13. NASA will claim that they are absolutely not superstitious. But I’ll bet you my last dollar, they’ll never name another spacecraft, as long as this place stays alive, 13.

[Assistant] The launch is perfect. Everything went well.

[User] The Saturn V worked fine up till the second stage.

[Assistant] And so, what’s happening here?


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

[User] There is no 13. NASA will claim that they are absolutely not superstitious. But I’ll bet you my last dollar, they’ll never name another spacecraft, as long as this place stays alive, 13.

[Assistant] The launch is perfect. Everything went well.

[User] The Saturn V worked fine up till the second stage.

[Assistant] And so, what’s happening here?

[User] Well, then the center engine of our second stage of our vehicle shut down 2 minutes early, probably due to a high vibration which we have a safety feature to shut it off. And for a while there we thought, “Boy, is there a crisis? Is there a problem with this thing? Do we have enough fuel? Do we have enough power to get into Earth orbit then kick ourselves around to go all the way to the Moon?” Well, very fortunately the folks at Huntsville over-built the vehicle. And we did. We had enough fuel. It took us about a—an extra minute and a half to get into Earth orbit, but we still had enough fuel on the third stage to go all the way to the Moon.

[Assistant] But the crisis is over. No problem.


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

[User] —you know, something happens.

[Assistant] Yeah.

[User] An experiment doesn’t work. An instrument fails. Something, you know. Something goes wrong. And we thought, “Hey, that’s a—” I told the guys, “Hey, that’s our crisis.”

[Assistant] That’s it.

[User] “We got rid of it. We’re on our way!”

[Assistant] So, you’re out how long before the accident happens?


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

[User] An experiment doesn’t work. An instrument fails. Something, you know. Something goes wrong. And we thought, “Hey, that’s a—” I told the guys, “Hey, that’s our crisis.”

[Assistant] That’s it.

[User] “We got rid of it. We’re on our way!”

[Assistant] So, you’re out how long before the accident happens?

[User] We’re out 2 days before the accident happens. But 30 hours after we took off, we got onto a different course because the course we were on originally was called a free-return course to allow us to get back to the Earth. But—about 30 hours, we changed course to land at this place—we were going to land at a place called Fra Mauro and the sunlight would be in the proper position to see the shadows. And then 2 days out, on this hybrid course, the explosion occurs.

[Assistant] You’re just getting ready to go to sleep, am I right?


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

[User] “We got rid of it. We’re on our way!”

[Assistant] So, you’re out how long before the accident happens?

[User] We’re out 2 days before the accident happens. But 30 hours after we took off, we got onto a different course because the course we were on originally was called a free-return course to allow us to get back to the Earth. But—about 30 hours, we changed course to land at this place—we were going to land at a place called Fra Mauro and the sunlight would be in the proper position to see the shadows. And then 2 days out, on this hybrid course, the explosion occurs.

[Assistant] You’re just getting ready to go to sleep, am I right?

[User] Yep. Yeah, the—we were just finished a TV program. That was the last thing that evening. I think it was either 9 or 10 o’clock back here at Houston. And I’m coming back down through the tunnel, and suddenly there’s a hiss-bang! And the spacecraft rocks back and forth. The lights come on and jets fire, and I looked at Haise to see if he knew what caused it. He had no idea. Looked at Jack Swigert. He had no idea. And then of course, things started to happen.

[Assistant] What started to happen?


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

[User] We’re out 2 days before the accident happens. But 30 hours after we took off, we got onto a different course because the course we were on originally was called a free-return course to allow us to get back to the Earth. But—about 30 hours, we changed course to land at this place—we were going to land at a place called Fra Mauro and the sunlight would be in the proper position to see the shadows. And then 2 days out, on this hybrid course, the explosion occurs.

[Assistant] You’re just getting ready to go to sleep, am I right?

[User] Yep. Yeah, the—we were just finished a TV program. That was the last thing that evening. I think it was either 9 or 10 o’clock back here at Houston. And I’m coming back down through the tunnel, and suddenly there’s a hiss-bang! And the spacecraft rocks back and forth. The lights come on and jets fire, and I looked at Haise to see if he knew what caused it. He had no idea. Looked at Jack Swigert. He had no idea. And then of course, things started to happen.

[Assistant] What started to happen?

[User] Well, it went in various sequence. The light came on. Something was wrong with the electrical system. We started—we eventually lost two fuel cells. We couldn’t get them back. Then we saw our oxygen being depleted. One tank was completely gone. The other tank had started to go down. Then I looked out the window, and we saw gas escaping from the rear end of my spacecraft.

[Assistant] Well, you didn’t see that, now, for about—according to the record, for 14 minutes before you saw the gas coming out, right?


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

[User] Yep. Yeah, the—we were just finished a TV program. That was the last thing that evening. I think it was either 9 or 10 o’clock back here at Houston. And I’m coming back down through the tunnel, and suddenly there’s a hiss-bang! And the spacecraft rocks back and forth. The lights come on and jets fire, and I looked at Haise to see if he knew what caused it. He had no idea. Looked at Jack Swigert. He had no idea. And then of course, things started to happen.

[Assistant] What started to happen?

[User] Well, it went in various sequence. The light came on. Something was wrong with the electrical system. We started—we eventually lost two fuel cells. We couldn’t get them back. Then we saw our oxygen being depleted. One tank was completely gone. The other tank had started to go down. Then I looked out the window, and we saw gas escaping from the rear end of my spacecraft.

[Assistant] Well, you didn’t see that, now, for about—according to the record, for 14 minutes before you saw the gas coming out, right?

[User] Oh yeah, yeah.

[Assistant] Okay. Let me go back—


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

[User] Well, it went in various sequence. The light came on. Something was wrong with the electrical system. We started—we eventually lost two fuel cells. We couldn’t get them back. Then we saw our oxygen being depleted. One tank was completely gone. The other tank had started to go down. Then I looked out the window, and we saw gas escaping from the rear end of my spacecraft.

[Assistant] Well, you didn’t see that, now, for about—according to the record, for 14 minutes before you saw the gas coming out, right?

[User] Oh yeah, yeah.

[Assistant] Okay. Let me go back—

[User] Okay.

[Assistant] —I just blew you up. I don’t have time to see the gas yet. You just blew up. You don’t know what’s going on.


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

[User] Oh yeah, yeah.

[Assistant] Okay. Let me go back—

[User] Okay.

[Assistant] —I just blew you up. I don’t have time to see the gas yet. You just blew up. You don’t know what’s going on.

[User] Have no idea.

[Assistant] Now you say, “Houston, we’ve got a problem.”


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

[User] Okay.

[Assistant] —I just blew you up. I don’t have time to see the gas yet. You just blew up. You don’t know what’s going on.

[User] Have no idea.

[Assistant] Now you say, “Houston, we’ve got a problem.”

[User] Yeah.

[Assistant] Okay? And what did Houston say?


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

[User] Well, first of all, it was Jack that said, “Houston—

[Assistant] Okay.

[User] —we’ve got a problem.”

[Assistant] Okay.

[User] And Houston said, “Say again, please?” And I say, “Houston, we have a problem. We have a main B bus undervolt.” Now that was a case of electrical system. And about that, Haise yelled down and he said, “You know, during training we had a problem with one of those fuel cells. This might be our big problem. It’s an electrical problem.” And so, we looked at the fuel cells for a—we were looking to see—and pretty soon, you know, they got back online, and they—all of a sudden they died again. And then at one time the oxygen tank gauge went “Full High” then it went “Full Down.”

[Assistant] All the way down.


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

[User] —we’ve got a problem.”

[Assistant] Okay.

[User] And Houston said, “Say again, please?” And I say, “Houston, we have a problem. We have a main B bus undervolt.” Now that was a case of electrical system. And about that, Haise yelled down and he said, “You know, during training we had a problem with one of those fuel cells. This might be our big problem. It’s an electrical problem.” And so, we looked at the fuel cells for a—we were looking to see—and pretty soon, you know, they got back online, and they—all of a sudden they died again. And then at one time the oxygen tank gauge went “Full High” then it went “Full Down.”

[Assistant] All the way down.

[User] And we didn’t know, “Is that a, you know—instrument problem? Because obviously we couldn’t lose all the oxygen. And, you know, this went back and forth. Well, we—and another thing we tried to do: we didn’t know if something hit us. The first thing we really did was try to put the hatch back between the lunar module and the command module, because we noticed that the command module was okay but the lunar module got a hit, we’d slowly lose all the oxygen inside the spacecraft. And so, I said, “Jack, close the hatch.” Jack went up there and tried to close the hatch; he couldn’t do it. I said, “I—” So, I went up there to try to close it. I couldn’t do it! So, I said, “Hey, let’s forget it. You know, secure to our couch. If the lunar module was hit, we’d be dead by now anyway.” And that started the whole sequence of events. Then we started going “Look at the instruments.” And things slowly deteriorated. We looked at the gauges, and then, of course, we looked out the window.

[Assistant] You look out the window and you see something, and then you know. Did you know what that was you were seeing?


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

[User] It didn’t take much intelligence on my part to realize that the gas escaping from the rear end and the needle on my second and last tank were one and the same, and very shortly we would be out of oxygen.

[Assistant] At this point, what did you do?

[User] Well, we were trying to figure out how much time we had. Do we have enough time, you know? It—is this a gauge problem? I mean, are—we’re talking to the ground. And by that time, I think we’re losing the third fuel cell. And, you know, the oxygen fed the third fuel cell anyway. If we were going to lose the oxygen, we were going to lose the fuel cell. And about that time, we were thinking about, “Hey, the lunar module. Maybe we ought to try to use it somehow, you know. Get back in there, at least to protect ourselves, because it has oxygen inside.”

[Assistant] Had you ever thought of it as a lifeboat?

[User] I never did. There had been work done in some of the previous simulations of using it; but basically using it as an emergency vehicle around the Moon, in case something happened in the command module. Say the engine, you know, fired too much, it didn’t fire enough, and we were in some strange orbit about the Moon; they’d use the lunar module’s descent engine to straighten things out. But we never thought about trying to use the lunar module for a 4-day mission to get back to the Earth! Because the lunar module was only built to last 45 hours! Only built to support two people! And, you know, here we are: 200,000 miles from Earth and 90 hours from Earth.

[Assistant] 240,000 miles from Earth—


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

[User] Well, we were trying to figure out how much time we had. Do we have enough time, you know? It—is this a gauge problem? I mean, are—we’re talking to the ground. And by that time, I think we’re losing the third fuel cell. And, you know, the oxygen fed the third fuel cell anyway. If we were going to lose the oxygen, we were going to lose the fuel cell. And about that time, we were thinking about, “Hey, the lunar module. Maybe we ought to try to use it somehow, you know. Get back in there, at least to protect ourselves, because it has oxygen inside.”

[Assistant] Had you ever thought of it as a lifeboat?

[User] I never did. There had been work done in some of the previous simulations of using it; but basically using it as an emergency vehicle around the Moon, in case something happened in the command module. Say the engine, you know, fired too much, it didn’t fire enough, and we were in some strange orbit about the Moon; they’d use the lunar module’s descent engine to straighten things out. But we never thought about trying to use the lunar module for a 4-day mission to get back to the Earth! Because the lunar module was only built to last 45 hours! Only built to support two people! And, you know, here we are: 200,000 miles from Earth and 90 hours from Earth.

[Assistant] 240,000 miles from Earth—

[User] Yeah.

[Assistant] —and did you—I know what your answer is but I have to ask you anyway: Did you think at any time that you were going to be a perpetual monument to the space program, the three of you floating around out there forever?


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

[User] I never did. There had been work done in some of the previous simulations of using it; but basically using it as an emergency vehicle around the Moon, in case something happened in the command module. Say the engine, you know, fired too much, it didn’t fire enough, and we were in some strange orbit about the Moon; they’d use the lunar module’s descent engine to straighten things out. But we never thought about trying to use the lunar module for a 4-day mission to get back to the Earth! Because the lunar module was only built to last 45 hours! Only built to support two people! And, you know, here we are: 200,000 miles from Earth and 90 hours from Earth.

[Assistant] 240,000 miles from Earth—

[User] Yeah.

[Assistant] —and did you—I know what your answer is but I have to ask you anyway: Did you think at any time that you were going to be a perpetual monument to the space program, the three of you floating around out there forever?

[User] The thought crossed our mind that we were in deep trouble. But we never dwelled on it. We never, you know, sort of gave up and said, “What are—what’s going to happen if we don’t get back? Where are we going to be?” My thoughts were this: if everything failed and we still had life support in the lunar module but we couldn’t get back to the Earth, you know, the heatshield was damaged or we just went past the Earth. Because the orbit we were on would take us past the Earth. It was—closest to the point of approach was about 40,000 miles. I said that, “We will send back information. We’ll keep on operating as long as we can. And then, that’s the end of the deal.” So, that was what I had planned to do in my mind should—you know, should something happen. People often ask, you know, this poison pill deal’s ridiculous.

[Assistant] Tell me about that. You didn’t have anything to kill yourself with?


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

[User] The thought crossed our mind that we were in deep trouble. But we never dwelled on it. We never, you know, sort of gave up and said, “What are—what’s going to happen if we don’t get back? Where are we going to be?” My thoughts were this: if everything failed and we still had life support in the lunar module but we couldn’t get back to the Earth, you know, the heatshield was damaged or we just went past the Earth. Because the orbit we were on would take us past the Earth. It was—closest to the point of approach was about 40,000 miles. I said that, “We will send back information. We’ll keep on operating as long as we can. And then, that’s the end of the deal.” So, that was what I had planned to do in my mind should—you know, should something happen. People often ask, you know, this poison pill deal’s ridiculous.

[Assistant] Tell me about that. You didn’t have anything to kill yourself with?

[User] Well, all we had to do was open the—

[Assistant] I understand.

[User] —cabin vent. Yeah. And, you know, we could’ve gone just like that. So, why bother—even bother carrying poison pills, you know?

[Assistant] Did the three of you at any time have any conversation about the fact that, “We bought the farm.”


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

[User] Well, all we had to do was open the—

[Assistant] I understand.

[User] —cabin vent. Yeah. And, you know, we could’ve gone just like that. So, why bother—even bother carrying poison pills, you know?

[Assistant] Did the three of you at any time have any conversation about the fact that, “We bought the farm.”

[User] We never did. We never admitted to ourselves that, “Hey, we’re not going to make it.” Well, only one time when—when Fred looked at the—after the lunar module and found out we had about 45 hours’ worth of power and we were 90 hours from home. He says—I think he said something like, “I don’t think we’re going to make it the way we are right now.” And I said, “Fred, I’ll agree with you on [that]. The—what we’re doing now isn’t going to hack it.”

[Assistant] How did the ground sound to you at that time?


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

[User] —cabin vent. Yeah. And, you know, we could’ve gone just like that. So, why bother—even bother carrying poison pills, you know?

[Assistant] Did the three of you at any time have any conversation about the fact that, “We bought the farm.”

[User] We never did. We never admitted to ourselves that, “Hey, we’re not going to make it.” Well, only one time when—when Fred looked at the—after the lunar module and found out we had about 45 hours’ worth of power and we were 90 hours from home. He says—I think he said something like, “I don’t think we’re going to make it the way we are right now.” And I said, “Fred, I’ll agree with you on [that]. The—what we’re doing now isn’t going to hack it.”

[Assistant] How did the ground sound to you at that time?

[User] Well, they—first of all they started up, you know, I—we sent down everything we could when we had the explosion. They said that we—this was after we saw the oxygen. They said, “Yeah, we got a lot of guys working on it down here. We’ll help you out.” I said, “Thanks a lot!” But they—I have to tell you, that’s when they started getting that teamwork together.

[Assistant] Let me check off some things here that I would think about. Oxygen first of all. You weren’t worried; you had enough oxygen, did you not?


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

[User] We never did. We never admitted to ourselves that, “Hey, we’re not going to make it.” Well, only one time when—when Fred looked at the—after the lunar module and found out we had about 45 hours’ worth of power and we were 90 hours from home. He says—I think he said something like, “I don’t think we’re going to make it the way we are right now.” And I said, “Fred, I’ll agree with you on [that]. The—what we’re doing now isn’t going to hack it.”

[Assistant] How did the ground sound to you at that time?

[User] Well, they—first of all they started up, you know, I—we sent down everything we could when we had the explosion. They said that we—this was after we saw the oxygen. They said, “Yeah, we got a lot of guys working on it down here. We’ll help you out.” I said, “Thanks a lot!” But they—I have to tell you, that’s when they started getting that teamwork together.

[Assistant] Let me check off some things here that I would think about. Oxygen first of all. You weren’t worried; you had enough oxygen, did you not?

[User] We didn’t have hardly any in the main tanks of the lunar—of the command module. We did have in the lunar module oxygen, plus the fact we had oxygen in the backpacks, which, you know, we’re not going to use on the lunar surface so we could tap into that.

[Assistant] Yeah. Okay. So, you—we—we can breathe.


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

[User] We can breathe.

[Assistant] Okay. Electricity.

[User] The power: used batteries on the lunar module. Good for 45 hours. That’s—that was the normal use of the oxygen—or—of the electricity.

[Assistant] Water.

[User] Water was important, too. Not just to drink, but we had to cool all of our electronics systems. And so, water was very critical. More so than the oxygen. Of course later on, we turned off all the electric equipment anyway.

[Assistant] But you almost dehydrated through this whole thing when you got back, did you not?


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

[User] The power: used batteries on the lunar module. Good for 45 hours. That’s—that was the normal use of the oxygen—or—of the electricity.

[Assistant] Water.

[User] Water was important, too. Not just to drink, but we had to cool all of our electronics systems. And so, water was very critical. More so than the oxygen. Of course later on, we turned off all the electric equipment anyway.

[Assistant] But you almost dehydrated through this whole thing when you got back, did you not?

[User] Well, yeah—

[Assistant] Because you didn’t drink enough?


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

[User] Well, yeah—

[Assistant] Because you didn’t drink enough?

[User] —because of an edict that I had put out by—reduce of the water intake to make sure we had plenty of water for our systems. I probably went overboard in that, and we probably could’ve used a little bit more water.

[Assistant] Food.

[User] Didn’t think about it. Absolutely did not think about food.

[Assistant] You had 4 days! You’ve got to think about it somewhere along the line.


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

[User] —because of an edict that I had put out by—reduce of the water intake to make sure we had plenty of water for our systems. I probably went overboard in that, and we probably could’ve used a little bit more water.

[Assistant] Food.

[User] Didn’t think about it. Absolutely did not think about food.

[Assistant] You had 4 days! You’ve got to think about it somewhere along the line.

[User] I know. We went up there and, you know, we grabbed something and—whatever it was, whose ever it was, we ate it. The hot dogs, you know, the movie was correct. The hot dogs were frozen. I did get Jack up there to get all the water out of the command module, either I put it in orange juice bags or something like that so that—before it froze, and to—you have enough water down there for that. And so, that’s what he did.

[Assistant] How uncomfortable was it?


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

[User] Didn’t think about it. Absolutely did not think about food.

[Assistant] You had 4 days! You’ve got to think about it somewhere along the line.

[User] I know. We went up there and, you know, we grabbed something and—whatever it was, whose ever it was, we ate it. The hot dogs, you know, the movie was correct. The hot dogs were frozen. I did get Jack up there to get all the water out of the command module, either I put it in orange juice bags or something like that so that—before it froze, and to—you have enough water down there for that. And so, that’s what he did.

[Assistant] How uncomfortable was it?

[User] Cold and clammy. The—it was very sort of clammy. Very cold. The temperature kept dropping all the way down, because we normally would keep the temperature normal or by balancing the heat load from the electrical systems. And people often ask, and I’ve thought about it, too, “Should we put on our spacesuits?” And then I thought against that, because they’d be very bulky with three of us. You know, the lunar module’s only built for two people.

[Assistant] Not room enough.


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

[User] Cold and clammy. The—it was very sort of clammy. Very cold. The temperature kept dropping all the way down, because we normally would keep the temperature normal or by balancing the heat load from the electrical systems. And people often ask, and I’ve thought about it, too, “Should we put on our spacesuits?” And then I thought against that, because they’d be very bulky with three of us. You know, the lunar module’s only built for two people.

[Assistant] Not room enough.

[User] Not room enough and also that it’s—it’d be clammy; it’s rubberized; and if we started to perspire inside and it’s cold outside, that wouldn’t be too good anyway. Haise and I did put on our lunar boots. We put those on. Poor Jack didn’t have any, and so—

[Assistant] Yeah.

[User] —then we had a leak in the water system a little bit, and we got a little bit of water in there. So—

[Assistant] The inside of the place is—there’s moisture all over everything. The last place you want to see moisture collect.


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

[User] Not room enough and also that it’s—it’d be clammy; it’s rubberized; and if we started to perspire inside and it’s cold outside, that wouldn’t be too good anyway. Haise and I did put on our lunar boots. We put those on. Poor Jack didn’t have any, and so—

[Assistant] Yeah.

[User] —then we had a leak in the water system a little bit, and we got a little bit of water in there. So—

[Assistant] The inside of the place is—there’s moisture all over everything. The last place you want to see moisture collect.

[User] That’s right. Especially in the command module, which was really dark and clammy. Nothing in there. Not even body heat, because most of us spent our time in the lunar module. It was bad.

[Assistant] The jerry-rigged box for the lithium hydroxide—


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

[User] —then we had a leak in the water system a little bit, and we got a little bit of water in there. So—

[Assistant] The inside of the place is—there’s moisture all over everything. The last place you want to see moisture collect.

[User] That’s right. Especially in the command module, which was really dark and clammy. Nothing in there. Not even body heat, because most of us spent our time in the lunar module. It was bad.

[Assistant] The jerry-rigged box for the lithium hydroxide—

[User] Yeah.

[Assistant] —is that what it’s called?


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

[User] That’s right. Especially in the command module, which was really dark and clammy. Nothing in there. Not even body heat, because most of us spent our time in the lunar module. It was bad.

[Assistant] The jerry-rigged box for the lithium hydroxide—

[User] Yeah.

[Assistant] —is that what it’s called?

[User] Yeah, they’re—

[Assistant] That has—everybody talks about that. Tell me the truth about that.


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

[User] Yeah.

[Assistant] —is that what it’s called?

[User] Yeah, they’re—

[Assistant] That has—everybody talks about that. Tell me the truth about that.

[User] Well, the truth is that what you saw in the movie is pretty much the truth. What happened was, in the lunar module, which we didn’t think about at the time but some of the people in [Manned Spacecraft Center] Crew Systems [Division] did, that the round canisters were devised and developed to support 2 people for 2 days and that they were round and that they were lithium-hydroxide that would remove the carbon dioxide. Now they were becoming saturated. And the partial pressure of carbon dioxide was rising—something that we didn’t really notice at first. But the ground started to notice it and they started to try to figure out what they could do. Now in the dead command module, they use in their environmental system\n\n square\n\n canisters. Had plenty of them, but you can’t put a square canister in the round hole of the lunar module system. Big engineering goof. Why we had square there, we had round over there, we’ll never know. So, what the Crew Systems came up with was how to jerry-rig a square canister to work in the lunar module. We did it with tape, plastic, cardboard, and a little sock. And, by gosh, it worked!

[Assistant] They call up to you and say, “Take a piece of tape about as long as your arm.” Or—


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

[User] Yeah. Well, first of all they said, “Take a piece of duct piece about 3 ft—well, maybe as long as your arm.”

[Assistant] Yeah, okay.

[User] And so, that’s what we did.

[Assistant] Okay.

[User] And—

[Assistant] And you’re saying, “Well, for what?”


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

[User] And so, that’s what we did.

[Assistant] Okay.

[User] And—

[Assistant] And you’re saying, “Well, for what?”

[User] And essentially Jack and I started to build this thing. And we—just according to the instructions—the instructions were explicit and it was a great job. And, if you look at the one that the Crew Systems had made to show the people in the Control Center and you look at the one that’s hanging on the lunar module wall, they’re identical.

[Assistant] All this time you have—all of you must have serious sleep deprivation problems. I mean, you guys have got to be just dog-tired!


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

[User] And—

[Assistant] And you’re saying, “Well, for what?”

[User] And essentially Jack and I started to build this thing. And we—just according to the instructions—the instructions were explicit and it was a great job. And, if you look at the one that the Crew Systems had made to show the people in the Control Center and you look at the one that’s hanging on the lunar module wall, they’re identical.

[Assistant] All this time you have—all of you must have serious sleep deprivation problems. I mean, you guys have got to be just dog-tired!

[User] Yeah. Actual sleep was very, very limited. Maybe I had 1 hour, if you want to count it, in 40. You—we tried to sleep up in the command module. A funny phenomena, though. If you go in the command module and no one else is around and you stay very quiet, your body heat heats up the air next to you because in zero gravity there’s no convection, so hot air doesn’t rise and so it doesn’t bring in cold air. Your body is like a little blanket. But, you know, it worked to a little degree. We found out, though, that sleep is something that you could get a few winks of and then—and be relaxed again. For instance, even on duty, I put my fingers like this and I closed my eyes, and maybe I’d fall asleep for a minute or two and wake up, and I’d be okay again. So, it’s a—it’s, you know, catching a little naps at a time.

[Assistant] Were you—did you allow everybody to sleep at once? Or did you try to sleep—


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

[User] Yeah. Actual sleep was very, very limited. Maybe I had 1 hour, if you want to count it, in 40. You—we tried to sleep up in the command module. A funny phenomena, though. If you go in the command module and no one else is around and you stay very quiet, your body heat heats up the air next to you because in zero gravity there’s no convection, so hot air doesn’t rise and so it doesn’t bring in cold air. Your body is like a little blanket. But, you know, it worked to a little degree. We found out, though, that sleep is something that you could get a few winks of and then—and be relaxed again. For instance, even on duty, I put my fingers like this and I closed my eyes, and maybe I’d fall asleep for a minute or two and wake up, and I’d be okay again. So, it’s a—it’s, you know, catching a little naps at a time.

[Assistant] Were you—did you allow everybody to sleep at once? Or did you try to sleep—

[User] No, we all had to—

[Assistant] —in shifts?

[User] —someone stayed on duty.

[Assistant] You had to—somebody had to stay awake all the time?


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

[User] No, we all had to—

[Assistant] —in shifts?

[User] —someone stayed on duty.

[Assistant] You had to—somebody had to stay awake all the time?

[User] Yeah, we kept somebody awake. And usually it was Fred by himself and Jack and I trying to get some sleep.

[Assistant] We get to the point where things are as under control as they’re going to get for a while. But you’ve got to figure out something to see so you know when to fire your thrusters. And there’s a telescope, an [AOT] [alignment optical telescope], in here. And you’re supposed to find two stars with it, is that right?


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

[User] Well, there’s two things about the telescope.

[Assistant] Okay.

[User] When we were going to come around and we’re going to make a second burn, a speed-up burn to come home, we were worried that I made a mistake—including myself was worried—of transferring the angle data from the command module’s guidance system properly into the lunar module system. Now we had to have that guidance system in the lunar module to get the proper attitude to make the proper speed-up burn. So, the ground then determined a method of trying to see if that data was any good by—I mean, we could not see any stars. There was no—all the debris was around the spacecraft and was following us, so there was no way of seeing stars to do the normal navigation. But the Sun is a star.\n\n So, we put into the computer and the guidance system to point the telescope at the Sun, which is a star. If it did, then we knew that the information was correct in the computer. So, that’s what we did. We put it in there. We let the spacecraft jog around and then point the telescope. And if you’ll hear our conversations, it’s a little bit like\n\n My Fair Lady\n\n , you know. “Oh, she’s got it! I think she’s got it! Oh, oh, yeah, I think she’s—yeah, yeah, she’s got—yep, you’ve got it! Yeah! There it is, the Sun!” So, that was the first thing. We passed that, so we knew the guidance system was okay for that long burn. So, we made that long burn and everything was fine. And right after that, we shut everything down because we had to save electrical power. We’re flying by the seat of our pants now.

[Assistant] Is this a fast burn you’re talking about here—

[User] Yeah, 4½ minutes.

[Assistant] —or did this come later? Yeah.


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

[User] Yeah, 4½ minutes.

[Assistant] —or did this come later? Yeah.

[User] It stayed on for 4½ minutes, this rocket engine pushing us faster and faster on the way home.

[Assistant] Yeah.

[User] Then the ground had been tracking us by this time. And they thought, and we got back on that free-return course on an earlier burn, but they looked at it and tracked us and interpolated our course all the way back to the Earth and found out we were going to miss the Earth!

[Assistant] Going to miss.


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

[User] It stayed on for 4½ minutes, this rocket engine pushing us faster and faster on the way home.

[Assistant] Yeah.

[User] Then the ground had been tracking us by this time. And they thought, and we got back on that free-return course on an earlier burn, but they looked at it and tracked us and interpolated our course all the way back to the Earth and found out we were going to miss the Earth!

[Assistant] Going to miss.

[User] We are no longer on the free-return course. Well, what could we do? We had—everything was shut down. We don’t have that guidance system anymore. We don’t have anything. And that’s when they said—you know, they gave us the procedures about using the Earth. And I said, “I know those procedures, because we had them developed in Apollo 8. And when I was doing the navigation stuff, we developed those procedures. But we took them out of our flight manuals after Apollo 8 because we never thought they’d ever be used.” And I remember the ground said, “Yeah, we thought you would remember those procedures.” And so, maybe it was very appropriate that I was on Apollo 8. And we used the Earth and the Earth’s terminator as a guiding post, and we burned to get back in the proper angle to get back home again.

[Assistant] You’re coming down. You know you’ve made it. But you’re not quite sure whether anything’s going to work. Do you know the parachute’s going to come out? Do you know the heatshield’s going to work? Do you know anything’s going to work?


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

[User] Those two things you mentioned are very important: the heatshield and the parachutes, because when we jettisoned the service module and it floated on by, we saw this big, gaping hole, this panel blown out. That worried us that our heatshield was damaged, because it was right next to our heatshield.

[Assistant] Sure.

[User] And there was nothing we could do about that. I mean, we were coming—we were aimed for the Earth. We’re going to come into the Earth. That was the end of the deal. If we’re going to burn up, we’re going to burn up. And then, of course, we knew all the way through. The ground didn’t know for the longest time what happened. The last crisis, of course, were those parachutes. Because the pyrotechnics that put out those chutes, which we normally keep warm with electrical power, were cold-soaked for 4 days. So, we didn’t know they were going to fire. And if they didn’t fire, even though we got through the atmosphere, we’d still hit the water [at] a pretty fast rate of speed.

[Assistant] But they fired.

[User] They fired. We came down.

[Assistant] At that point, you know you’re home free?


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

[User] And there was nothing we could do about that. I mean, we were coming—we were aimed for the Earth. We’re going to come into the Earth. That was the end of the deal. If we’re going to burn up, we’re going to burn up. And then, of course, we knew all the way through. The ground didn’t know for the longest time what happened. The last crisis, of course, were those parachutes. Because the pyrotechnics that put out those chutes, which we normally keep warm with electrical power, were cold-soaked for 4 days. So, we didn’t know they were going to fire. And if they didn’t fire, even though we got through the atmosphere, we’d still hit the water [at] a pretty fast rate of speed.

[Assistant] But they fired.

[User] They fired. We came down.

[Assistant] At that point, you know you’re home free?

[User] I knew I was home free. Eventually home free completely, when the spacecraft bobbed up and I saw water on the windows and the thing didn’t sink.

[Assistant] But up to that point, you—I’m looking for the most frightening point in this whole thing. When it exploded? When you realized that you had a problem? Or when you were coming down, wondering whether that chute’s going to deploy?


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

[User] I knew I was home free. Eventually home free completely, when the spacecraft bobbed up and I saw water on the windows and the thing didn’t sink.

[Assistant] But up to that point, you—I’m looking for the most frightening point in this whole thing. When it exploded? When you realized that you had a problem? Or when you were coming down, wondering whether that chute’s going to deploy?

[User] The most frightening moment in this whole thing is when the explosion occurred, and then after a little period of time—and saw the oxygen escaping and we didn’t have solutions to get home. Because we knew we were in deep, deep trouble. And you know, I always compare this like a solitaire, a game of solitaire. You turn up a card and that’s a crisis. If you can put it someplace, the mission keeps going. The game keeps going.

[Assistant] Yeah.

[User] You pull another card and there’s no place to put it, the game’s over. That never occurred to us.

[Assistant] What kind of impact did that adventure, and I use that word advisedly, have on you personally?


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

[User] The most frightening moment in this whole thing is when the explosion occurred, and then after a little period of time—and saw the oxygen escaping and we didn’t have solutions to get home. Because we knew we were in deep, deep trouble. And you know, I always compare this like a solitaire, a game of solitaire. You turn up a card and that’s a crisis. If you can put it someplace, the mission keeps going. The game keeps going.

[Assistant] Yeah.

[User] You pull another card and there’s no place to put it, the game’s over. That never occurred to us.

[Assistant] What kind of impact did that adventure, and I use that word advisedly, have on you personally?

[User] I don’t worry about crises any longer. I mean, seriously. I mean, I look at them. I say to myself, whenever I have a problem with something like that or I’m in trouble with someone or somebody’s sick or something like that, I say, “I could’ve been gone back in 1970. I’m still here. I’m still breathing. ” So, I don’t worry about crises.

[Assistant] What caused you to write\n\n The Perilous Voyage of Apollo 13\n\n ?


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

[User] Yes, I was to a degree. Because I had heard these stories of famous authors who don’t like the way their books are portrayed on the screen. And, of course, when you buy—and after I read the contract, when you sell the book to the movies—

[Assistant] You’ve sold it.

[User] —you’ve sold it. They can put it on Mars, you know—

[Assistant] Yeah.

[User] —and do anything they want. But I have to be quite honest. We—I could not have picked a better production team with Ron Howard. A better group of actors and also Kathleen Quinlan, who played my wife, than the group that they had gathered together to do that movie. It was perfect. And it was a win-win situation for everybody. NASA certainly, I think, liked it. We used the zero-g airplane to get the zero-g sequences; that was the first time it had ever been done. The public enjoyed it, I think. I’m happy. Jeff Kluger’s happy with the way the book was portrayed. So, it was quite a deal.

[Assistant] There have been all kinds of books about the astronauts and about the various spaceflights. Have—has NASA and have you gentlemen been treated fairly by the popular press?


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

[User] —and do anything they want. But I have to be quite honest. We—I could not have picked a better production team with Ron Howard. A better group of actors and also Kathleen Quinlan, who played my wife, than the group that they had gathered together to do that movie. It was perfect. And it was a win-win situation for everybody. NASA certainly, I think, liked it. We used the zero-g airplane to get the zero-g sequences; that was the first time it had ever been done. The public enjoyed it, I think. I’m happy. Jeff Kluger’s happy with the way the book was portrayed. So, it was quite a deal.

[Assistant] There have been all kinds of books about the astronauts and about the various spaceflights. Have—has NASA and have you gentlemen been treated fairly by the popular press?

[User] I think so. There’s always critics. And I—and especially the movie. The—when the movie came out, some—the space enthusiasts here, you know, all the space guys here said, “There’s 125 mistakes in that movie.”

[Assistant] Oh, yeah.

[User] But, you know, we’ve been nicely handled by the press with the book. I wrote it—we wrote it, I should say, in the “we” frame. Not—never said “I did this” or “I did that.” It was not a biography or an autobiography. It is—we talk about Lovell; we talk about Haise; we talk about [Eugene F.] Gene Kranz; we talk about, you know, all the people because we wanted to write it in that way.

[Assistant] Why did you decide to leave NASA?


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

[User] Right here in Houston, Texas in Bay-Houston Towing. I tried my hand at that for 4 years. A very lucrative business. Enjoyed it, but there was no future for me there.

[Assistant] Telephone business.

[User] I got in the telephone business at the right time, at the right place. By the husband of Ed White’s widow, who she married 5 years later, and it was just when AT&T, the Bell system, was getting ready to deregulate—

[Assistant] Yeah.

[User] —divestiture was coming up. We were selling telephone systems. Our little company went from $8M to $40M and then CenTel Corporation bought us and—and then I went up to CenTel.

[Assistant] Now you work with Mission HOME. What is Mission HOME?


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

[User] I got in the telephone business at the right time, at the right place. By the husband of Ed White’s widow, who she married 5 years later, and it was just when AT&T, the Bell system, was getting ready to deregulate—

[Assistant] Yeah.

[User] —divestiture was coming up. We were selling telephone systems. Our little company went from $8M to $40M and then CenTel Corporation bought us and—and then I went up to CenTel.

[Assistant] Now you work with Mission HOME. What is Mission HOME?

[User] About 7 years ago, the National Space Society and the U.S. Space Foundation got together with the Alliance of Aerospace Companies, trying to educate the public on the real benefits of the space program. To show them what—what has been accomplished that is helping them out today and what can be done in the future and Harvesting Opportunities for Mother Earth is HOME. And that was the whole idea. To do—at that time, to do seminars around the country. I wrote a piece, which is still going on in various newspapers. And to try to get people interested. And they got other astronauts, retired guys basically, to do it. It’s changed its name a little bit now. I think it’s called Space Alliance, and they’re still trying to accomplish that goal.

[Assistant] Are you disappointed that here we’ve gone, what, 30 years since we walked on the Moon and we haven’t gone any further than we’ve gone in the space program?


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

[User] Yes, to some degree I am. The disappointment comes from the fact that, I guess this being a democracy, we got all sorts of controversy and we weigh things. Compromises are always the name of the game. But we waffled in the late ’80s and the early ’90s on the—on a space station. I don’t know how many designs of the space station we had. Either it was too big, too complicated, too expensive. And we didn’t realize at the time that maybe a consortium of countries work it together. In that respect, I think the present Administration eventually did—the Administrator, Dan [Daniel S.] Goldin, finally realized that. Although some of our partners are lacking quite a bit, like Russia. But I think we’re finally on the right track. But we did waffle. We wasted an awful lot of money. We wasted an awful lot of time and a lot of effort of not really knowing what we wanted to do. How we wanted to proceed with NASA. You know, it’s like that old saying: after you’ve been to Paris, what else is there? After we’ve been to the Moon, what else is there?

[Assistant] Yeah.

[User] Well, that was a great triumph. Everybody still relates back to that. But that’s 30 years ago.

[Assistant] Yeah.

[User] We’ve got to work now today. We’ve got to do something today. And we are doing a lot of things today. But, you know, you get repetition. You get 90-some Shuttles now and one accident. Everybody says, “Ho hum.” They don’t—we’re trying to tell people what we really do up there.

[Assistant] But you know, Captain, we went to the Moon the first time because of the Cold War. Apollo 8 speeded up because the Russians were coming. We—there really was a space race. I mean, you know—


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

[User] Well, that was a great triumph. Everybody still relates back to that. But that’s 30 years ago.

[Assistant] Yeah.

[User] We’ve got to work now today. We’ve got to do something today. And we are doing a lot of things today. But, you know, you get repetition. You get 90-some Shuttles now and one accident. Everybody says, “Ho hum.” They don’t—we’re trying to tell people what we really do up there.

[Assistant] But you know, Captain, we went to the Moon the first time because of the Cold War. Apollo 8 speeded up because the Russians were coming. We—there really was a space race. I mean, you know—

[User] Absolutely.

[Assistant] —that may be an old saying. But there is no race anymore. There’s nothing to propel us to go if we don’t really think about it, you know?


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

[User] Absolutely.

[Assistant] —that may be an old saying. But there is no race anymore. There’s nothing to propel us to go if we don’t really think about it, you know?

[User] Well, you’re absolutely right as far as competition goes. There is not that incentive to try to beat somebody else. And that was the whole deal. And, you know, the Russians themselves were interested in beating us not so much in military missiles, but going to the Moon. That was their goal just as much as it was our goal.

[Assistant] Sure.

[User] But now we have cooperation. Now it’s a little bit more subtle. Now if we can all work together and work as a team to accomplish things, and get our mind off of other things, I think there is a hope for us. But whether that will ever come to pass in real life, the Russians still are very much interested in their\n\n Mir\n\n . I mean, its theirs. It’s long past its time. It should’ve been brought down a long time ago. They can do a lot more on the International Space Station than they could ever do on the\n\n Mir\n\n . And we have to wait till it gets done.

[Assistant] Will our grandchildren see people go to Mars?


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

[User] But now we have cooperation. Now it’s a little bit more subtle. Now if we can all work together and work as a team to accomplish things, and get our mind off of other things, I think there is a hope for us. But whether that will ever come to pass in real life, the Russians still are very much interested in their\n\n Mir\n\n . I mean, its theirs. It’s long past its time. It should’ve been brought down a long time ago. They can do a lot more on the International Space Station than they could ever do on the\n\n Mir\n\n . And we have to wait till it gets done.

[Assistant] Will our grandchildren see people go to Mars?

[User] Perhaps your grandchildren. I think a lot of the—there’ll be the attempts. There’ll be the work on doing it. I think the Mars mission is within the next 20 to 25 years. Now that seems strange for me to say, when you look back on going to the Moon in ’69 and you say, you know, 20 years. That was in ’49. You know, no one ever think—if someone asked me in ’49, 1949, are we going to land on the Moon in 1969? I’d say, “You’re absolutely crazy.”

[Assistant] Yeah. Yeah.

[User] So, it might be that it’s speeded up. I hope so.

[Assistant] But it’s interesting that you say—think about it and say “probably.” The old way of saying it would’ve been, “You bet! You bet.” But now there’s not a certain “you bet” about it anymore, is there?


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

[User] So, it might be that it’s speeded up. I hope so.

[Assistant] But it’s interesting that you say—think about it and say “probably.” The old way of saying it would’ve been, “You bet! You bet.” But now there’s not a certain “you bet” about it anymore, is there?

[User] No, I have to be pragmatic about the whole thing.

[Assistant] Yeah.

[User] We have to know—there are other commitments we have to do. Mars will be a, again—a consortium of countries. It will not be just the United States. And these countries have to get together to work together. It’ll be a major project! And there is some doubt whether we could ever do it. I know I talked to Bill Anders, who got his Masters in Nuclear Engineering. And he said, “You don’t understand the radiation once we get out there for long periods of time. You know, it’ll do you in before you get there.” So, if he’s right, then maybe a Martian trip is not feasible.

[Assistant] What’s your—what was your finest moment at NASA?


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

[User]
Well, I was, you know, a teen in the '60s and the call of President Kennedy was very inviting. It was that time in people's lives. And when I was in school, I was planning, I studied anthropology. And one of the things that concerned me was it seemed like a lot of the professors were alcoholics. And I thought, I don't want to become an alcoholic. And maybe it's because of the clash of cultures that they had to live in and deal with, the contrast. And I thought, well, if I go in the Peace Corps, I can live in another culture and see how I can adapt and see if it causes me problems or not.

And also, in those days, the world was very far away. And it was only, you know, when I was first going into the Peace Corps that they started to put photos of Vietnam War on the TV. People didn't know about other cultures.

[Assistant] Mm hmm.

[User] And if you wanted to travel and you didn't have the money, I mean. I was in Chicago. So we're landlocked. You know, we're not on a coast. We're not next to another country. So you really don't have that experience like in Europe with all the small countries close together. They can learn other languages easier and use them and learn about different cultures. So part of it was a way to travel. Part of it was to see if I should go ahead with anthropology or not. And, uh, part of it was altruistic.

[Assistant] Mm hmm.

[User] So those were the reasons I wanted to go.

[Assistant] Cool. When did you decide that you wanted to go in the Peace Corps?


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

[User] Semesters or quarters, whatever they called it then, I ended up with enough credits to, to stop a quarter earlier.

[Assistant] Oh, nice.

[User] So I did get accepted and my parents were not against it. My, they held a party for me.

[Assistant] Nice.

[User]
And, um, it was funny. They had a cartoon in the newspaper, which at the time I thought was kind of funny, but I could really understand it when, after being in the Peace Corps of course. It was this person who child had come back from being in the Peace Corps and was sitting up in a tree and the mother is saying, oh, don't mind my child. They just came back from the Peace Corps.

Because when I got to Malawi, I was at my post. I had no furniture. So all I had was my sleeping bag. And, and I had a crate, that was the sum total of furniture that I had. So, you know, you get used to sleeping on a hard floor so you can think that coming back and getting on a soft mattress would be uncomfortable. So here was someone who was used to doing something in the trees. So I just thought it was very, could be very accurate depending on the culture.

[Assistant] What did your friends think?


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

[User] So I did get accepted and my parents were not against it. My, they held a party for me.

[Assistant] Nice.

[User]
And, um, it was funny. They had a cartoon in the newspaper, which at the time I thought was kind of funny, but I could really understand it when, after being in the Peace Corps of course. It was this person who child had come back from being in the Peace Corps and was sitting up in a tree and the mother is saying, oh, don't mind my child. They just came back from the Peace Corps.

Because when I got to Malawi, I was at my post. I had no furniture. So all I had was my sleeping bag. And, and I had a crate, that was the sum total of furniture that I had. So, you know, you get used to sleeping on a hard floor so you can think that coming back and getting on a soft mattress would be uncomfortable. So here was someone who was used to doing something in the trees. So I just thought it was very, could be very accurate depending on the culture.

[Assistant] What did your friends think?

[User] Well, you know, by the time I got accepted, um, some of my friends probably were away in other colleges and their lives had changed because we'd already graduated college. And I wasn't with, when I got accepted, I wasn't with the people that I knew in college. So I don't really.

[Assistant] So there wasn't much of a reaction that you were aware of? Yeah. Yeah. What was the application like back then?


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

[User] And, um, I really. I don't know that, how much we had interviews or anything beforehand. We had to go through a medical exam. We went to some Army place and followed the lines and went from one person to another for them to do tests. And then, um. We had a psychiatrist. Those were the years they had psychiatrists during training, and we had to meet with them so that they could determine if we were capable of going overseas.

[Assistant] Mm hmm.

[User] And, um. That was also the time that we trained in the United States. And whereas now they train in country. So, you know, things have changed over the years.

[Assistant] Mm hmm.

[User] But, um, what happened was I first went into training in Tucson, Arizona, and it was, I guess, a resort that wasn't being used at that time, maybe more in the winter, and this was more the summer. And, um.

[Assistant] Get you used to the heat.


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

[User] And, um. That was also the time that we trained in the United States. And whereas now they train in country. So, you know, things have changed over the years.

[Assistant] Mm hmm.

[User] But, um, what happened was I first went into training in Tucson, Arizona, and it was, I guess, a resort that wasn't being used at that time, maybe more in the winter, and this was more the summer. And, um.

[Assistant] Get you used to the heat.

[User]
I don't, um, perhaps, but I don't think that's always the case. You know, it's where they can get facility and where it was, uh, allowed them to do what they needed to do. And, you know, we built, um, an outhouse, you know, got practice. Like I never had to build one when I got to Malawi.

There was no guarantee at that time that we could go to, we could pick a country. We could request a, I think, an area. I requested Africa because I thought it would be the most different from anything I knew. And, um. We had language training where the first, they never spoke English for the first quite number of weeks. They pantomimed, pointed to things, took us in the cafe, you know, the cafeteria and would teach us words for the different foods and.

[Assistant] Now did you train with all Malawi volunteers so it was all the same?


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

[User]
I don't, um, perhaps, but I don't think that's always the case. You know, it's where they can get facility and where it was, uh, allowed them to do what they needed to do. And, you know, we built, um, an outhouse, you know, got practice. Like I never had to build one when I got to Malawi.

There was no guarantee at that time that we could go to, we could pick a country. We could request a, I think, an area. I requested Africa because I thought it would be the most different from anything I knew. And, um. We had language training where the first, they never spoke English for the first quite number of weeks. They pantomimed, pointed to things, took us in the cafe, you know, the cafeteria and would teach us words for the different foods and.

[Assistant] Now did you train with all Malawi volunteers so it was all the same?

[User] The whole group of trainees were people who were going to Malawi for the same project.

[Assistant] Mm hmm.

[User] And we had some Malawians who came over to teach us the language and culture stuff.

[Assistant] Mm hmm. Mm hmm.


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

[User] The whole group of trainees were people who were going to Malawi for the same project.

[Assistant] Mm hmm.

[User] And we had some Malawians who came over to teach us the language and culture stuff.

[Assistant] Mm hmm. Mm hmm.

[User] But there were other people who were Americans who were, you know, also part of the training. Um, we had a cross-cultural experience that we were supposed to do as well. And for ours we went to a Indian reservation and we were doing a health survey.

[Assistant] Mm hmm. Interesting.


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

[User] And, uh. But that was in, um. That was at the time that they were having riots in Chicago.

[Assistant] Mm hmm.

[User] I think they had some in Newark at the time, too, but I wouldn't been as aware not being from New York. Uh. And so I had called home because I wanted to get a report and found out that my mother was in the hospital. So when I told them, they put me with the only family on the reservation that had a phone. And in the middle of that project, they got a call that I should come home. My mother was not going to survive.

[Assistant] Oh, dear.

[User] So they packed me. They got, made reservations. I went right from the reservation, flew back to Chicago. And then after my mother passed away, they packed up whatever I had in the place where we had been staying before and sent it home to me. And, um.

[Assistant] And you had no idea your mother was ill when you left?


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

[User] I think they had some in Newark at the time, too, but I wouldn't been as aware not being from New York. Uh. And so I had called home because I wanted to get a report and found out that my mother was in the hospital. So when I told them, they put me with the only family on the reservation that had a phone. And in the middle of that project, they got a call that I should come home. My mother was not going to survive.

[Assistant] Oh, dear.

[User] So they packed me. They got, made reservations. I went right from the reservation, flew back to Chicago. And then after my mother passed away, they packed up whatever I had in the place where we had been staying before and sent it home to me. And, um.

[Assistant] And you had no idea your mother was ill when you left?

[User] Oh, no, she wasn't ill when I left. What had happened is she had had a blockage that burst, and she got peritonitis. And in those days, they didn't have the way to treat peritonitis the way they could today. If she had it today, she would have survived.

[Assistant] What a shock that must have been.


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

[User] Oh, no, she wasn't ill when I left. What had happened is she had had a blockage that burst, and she got peritonitis. And in those days, they didn't have the way to treat peritonitis the way they could today. If she had it today, she would have survived.

[Assistant] What a shock that must have been.

[User] So, um. She was waiting for me to come home because I got home and went to the hospital. And I talked to her and said things that later I was, if I realized what, you know, I probably would have talked differently. But she just, I guess, wanted to see me. She hung on. And then after, I only saw her that one time.

[Assistant] Wow.

[User]
We got five minutes, you know, every hour at that time when they're in intensive care. And, um. So, you know, they sent my stuff home because I said, you know, I felt I needed to be home. And they said, okay, just, you know, let us know, you know, what happened.

So a couple of months later, I felt like things had been stabilized at home and I called them up and they said they had some more training programs. And I said, well, I think it'd be good if I went on one that was going to Malawi since I'd already trained so much for Malawi. And they had one that was a teacher program. So they sent me to Bunkie, Louisiana, to train to be a teacher. And we actually did some like almost like student teaching in one of the schools in Bunkie, Louisiana. And, uh, they told us to be careful and not to travel to the towns alone in Bunkie because we were, you know, outsiders from big cities. And this is very rural, redneck area of the United States.

[Assistant] It seems ironic that it would almost feel more dangerous in Bunkie, Louisiana, than it may be when you went overseas.


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

[User]
We got five minutes, you know, every hour at that time when they're in intensive care. And, um. So, you know, they sent my stuff home because I said, you know, I felt I needed to be home. And they said, okay, just, you know, let us know, you know, what happened.

So a couple of months later, I felt like things had been stabilized at home and I called them up and they said they had some more training programs. And I said, well, I think it'd be good if I went on one that was going to Malawi since I'd already trained so much for Malawi. And they had one that was a teacher program. So they sent me to Bunkie, Louisiana, to train to be a teacher. And we actually did some like almost like student teaching in one of the schools in Bunkie, Louisiana. And, uh, they told us to be careful and not to travel to the towns alone in Bunkie because we were, you know, outsiders from big cities. And this is very rural, redneck area of the United States.

[Assistant] It seems ironic that it would almost feel more dangerous in Bunkie, Louisiana, than it may be when you went overseas.

[User] So, uh, they're different kinds of dangers.

[Assistant] Yeah.

[User] So, you know, I realized when we were doing the teaching, I thought, you know, this isn't really my thing, but I can't tell them I don't want to go. If I tell them I don't want to go, they're never going to give me a third chance. And I really, really want to do this. So, um, we. I don't even. We, we didn't. I don't think we went home after the training. Um. And we went, we went overseas. And, uh, as soon as we got to Malawi, they, the Peace Corps there approached me and said that there was a health volunteer who didn't like the unstructuredness of health. And she would love to switch with me and be a teacher.

[Assistant] And you went, woo, woo!


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

[User] So, um. I, uh, I had a counterpart. Malawi was a country that gave us, uh, that had set up programs and gave us counterparts. So we weren't working alone.

[Assistant] Mm hmm.

[User] And so there was a health assistant and he was responsible for and I was working with him. So we set up a clinics to weigh the children and teach them nutrition.

[Assistant] Mm hmm.

[User] And it wasn't full time. So I also went to the secondary school that was maybe a mile or so down the road where there were some other volunteers and taught nutrition to the kids. And also there was a farmers market board in Mponela where I was posted and I taught the farmers as well about nutrition because in Malawi, children are the last on the totem pole to be fed. You know, um, they had a very high infant mortality rate. Um, one of the saddest parts about that was they would get powdered milk from, you know, it would be distributed by like USAID and other countries, and they didn't really know how to use it properly. So they would mix it with water and as long as it looked milky, they would feed it to the kids, but they wouldn't necessarily know to boil the water first so.

[Assistant] Or the right proportions.


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

[User] Um, mangoes were only a penny, it was just wonderful.

[Assistant] Mm hmm.

[User] The things I missed were crunch. You know, everything was cooked so that it was safe to eat. And so you didn't have salad and you didn't have. They had something that was supposed to be like a cucumber, but it was soft. It wasn't crunchy.

[Assistant] Mm hmm.

[User] And one time when I was in Blantyre they had some apples that had come up from South Africa. Crunch. It was so, so.

[Assistant] It's like manna from heaven.