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

[User] —that became very cumbersome. And, the system of engineering, the large part of Apollo, was done by Bellcomm. By the time the shuttle came around, we now have three Centers: very well experienced, capable of doing systems engineering on their own. And I felt [that] Houston in particular with the corps of flight people—aircraft people—not only from Langley but from industry, from Canada, were ideal people to handle this part of the program. Instead of trying to build up another large group at Headquarters, where it’s difficult to maintain technical competence for long periods, I conceived an idea based on my Langley experience with lunar orbiter of having Johnson as the Lead Center with a Headquarters staff here doing the job of policy-making, and having the launch activity and the booster activity handled by Marshall and Kennedy under this Lead Center concept. And it worked great, for about 8 or 9 years. You get on to a Level I/II, meeting, you couldn’t tell where those people came from unless you knew who they were!

[Assistant] It did work.

[User] And it really fell apart mostly after the first several flights of the Shuttle, when key people left, new people came in at Headquarters, the Centers, and they didn’t adhere to the rigor of the management structure that we had laid out.

[Assistant] Let’s go back. You were Deputy Associate Administrator for Manned Space Flight at the time of the first lunar landings. Am I correct?

[User] Yeah. I had a dual role there. I kept that activity; but for 3 years my main job was getting the shuttle under way.

[Assistant] During that period, though, you had to be dividing your attention. And, what was it like around here, at the time of the first landings? Was it triumph? Was it fear? Was it perplexity over this complicated thing that’s going on? What was the ongoing tempo of Headquarters?


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

[User] And it really fell apart mostly after the first several flights of the Shuttle, when key people left, new people came in at Headquarters, the Centers, and they didn’t adhere to the rigor of the management structure that we had laid out.

[Assistant] Let’s go back. You were Deputy Associate Administrator for Manned Space Flight at the time of the first lunar landings. Am I correct?

[User] Yeah. I had a dual role there. I kept that activity; but for 3 years my main job was getting the shuttle under way.

[Assistant] During that period, though, you had to be dividing your attention. And, what was it like around here, at the time of the first landings? Was it triumph? Was it fear? Was it perplexity over this complicated thing that’s going on? What was the ongoing tempo of Headquarters?

[User] You’re talking about Apollo now?

[Assistant] Yes, during Apollo. Yeah. What was it like at that historic moment? I mean, you had a grip [on], or at least you were a part of, something that will affect mankind as long as it’s on this planet.


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

[User] Yeah. I had a dual role there. I kept that activity; but for 3 years my main job was getting the shuttle under way.

[Assistant] During that period, though, you had to be dividing your attention. And, what was it like around here, at the time of the first landings? Was it triumph? Was it fear? Was it perplexity over this complicated thing that’s going on? What was the ongoing tempo of Headquarters?

[User] You’re talking about Apollo now?

[Assistant] Yes, during Apollo. Yeah. What was it like at that historic moment? I mean, you had a grip [on], or at least you were a part of, something that will affect mankind as long as it’s on this planet.

[User] Yeah, in fact, I think I was at home at the time President [Richard M.] Nixon spoke. And we had a television screen with Nixon on there, speaking to Armstrong, I guess it was. And I remember taking my camera and getting a picture of that. But, just quiet exuberation, I guess. And, [Dr.] Tom [Thomas O.] Paine, of course, was the Administrator at the time. He arranged to have this big celebration dinner out there in Los Angeles. And I remember asking at the time, I said, “Aren’t you somewhat askance at the poor public relations that will come from NASA spending all this time and effort on a celebration way out there?” And his attitude was, “Look, this is a tremendous accomplishment for the world.” And, he sees nothing harmful in having the Agency involved, [to] get some benefit and enjoy a moment of celebration. So that’s how he justified the big state affair we had out there.

[Assistant] How long did it take to soak in exactly the enormity of what you guys had accomplished? How did it—was it there with you all along? Or were you apprehensive? What happened afterwards? Did it—? My Lord, it was a—it was an amazing accomplishment in the history of humankind.


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

[User] Yeah, in fact, I think I was at home at the time President [Richard M.] Nixon spoke. And we had a television screen with Nixon on there, speaking to Armstrong, I guess it was. And I remember taking my camera and getting a picture of that. But, just quiet exuberation, I guess. And, [Dr.] Tom [Thomas O.] Paine, of course, was the Administrator at the time. He arranged to have this big celebration dinner out there in Los Angeles. And I remember asking at the time, I said, “Aren’t you somewhat askance at the poor public relations that will come from NASA spending all this time and effort on a celebration way out there?” And his attitude was, “Look, this is a tremendous accomplishment for the world.” And, he sees nothing harmful in having the Agency involved, [to] get some benefit and enjoy a moment of celebration. So that’s how he justified the big state affair we had out there.

[Assistant] How long did it take to soak in exactly the enormity of what you guys had accomplished? How did it—was it there with you all along? Or were you apprehensive? What happened afterwards? Did it—? My Lord, it was a—it was an amazing accomplishment in the history of humankind.

[User] Well, Apollo 13 was a very sobering experience. And, it can happen once, it could happen again. Before you take all the steps, you know how to avoid it. There was never a nonanxious moment during the launch. Or even during the activity going to the Moon and coming back or landing on it. You were always apprehensive about some possibility because there’s no escape from catastrophe.

[Assistant] That’s right.

[User] Unlike Mir, which has the lifeboat on it, you know. While there have certainly been exciting moments up there, there’s a lifeboat. Apollo 13 didn’t have a lifeboat, and—hard to say. You just have to live through it. But, we were very lucky to come through without some fatality.

[Assistant] It was such an accelerated time. Does it all seem like a blur now?


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

[User] Well, Apollo 13 was a very sobering experience. And, it can happen once, it could happen again. Before you take all the steps, you know how to avoid it. There was never a nonanxious moment during the launch. Or even during the activity going to the Moon and coming back or landing on it. You were always apprehensive about some possibility because there’s no escape from catastrophe.

[Assistant] That’s right.

[User] Unlike Mir, which has the lifeboat on it, you know. While there have certainly been exciting moments up there, there’s a lifeboat. Apollo 13 didn’t have a lifeboat, and—hard to say. You just have to live through it. But, we were very lucky to come through without some fatality.

[Assistant] It was such an accelerated time. Does it all seem like a blur now?

[User] Seem what?

[Assistant] Does it all seem like a blur? It was so compressed and so accelerated in those years.


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

[User] Unlike Mir, which has the lifeboat on it, you know. While there have certainly been exciting moments up there, there’s a lifeboat. Apollo 13 didn’t have a lifeboat, and—hard to say. You just have to live through it. But, we were very lucky to come through without some fatality.

[Assistant] It was such an accelerated time. Does it all seem like a blur now?

[User] Seem what?

[Assistant] Does it all seem like a blur? It was so compressed and so accelerated in those years.

[User] Yeah, it’s kind of interesting to see a revival of interest with the recent movies. Of course, the public is so attuned to melodrama on the TV now that few would realize that Apollo 13 wasn’t quite the way it shows in the movie, you know. And The Right Stuff wasn’t quite the way the astronauts behaved. And, there weren’t quite the arguments as intense as they’re portrayed in some of those films.

[Assistant] They’re human beings, with a certain amount of self-concern. That brings back another question. The astronauts were often given the credit for being involved in engineering/technical decisions. Did they actually take part in that kind of thing?


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

[User] Seem what?

[Assistant] Does it all seem like a blur? It was so compressed and so accelerated in those years.

[User] Yeah, it’s kind of interesting to see a revival of interest with the recent movies. Of course, the public is so attuned to melodrama on the TV now that few would realize that Apollo 13 wasn’t quite the way it shows in the movie, you know. And The Right Stuff wasn’t quite the way the astronauts behaved. And, there weren’t quite the arguments as intense as they’re portrayed in some of those films.

[Assistant] They’re human beings, with a certain amount of self-concern. That brings back another question. The astronauts were often given the credit for being involved in engineering/technical decisions. Did they actually take part in that kind of thing?

[User] Well, they took part as a team. They were assigned certain responsibilities as a team. But, as far as any one of them coming up with a singular idea that dominated the completion of that activity, I can’t think of any.

[Assistant] Okay. space shuttle. Here came the shuttle, after a certain hiatus after the Apollo-Soyuz flights. Of course, space shuttle was under design for quite a long time up to that time.


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

[User] Phase B.

[Assistant] Yeah.

[User] Several Phase B extensions. We had something like 20-odd different configurations—

[Assistant] Yeah.

[User] —going through the mill before we decided on what to do.

[Assistant] Did you like anything better than the one you got?


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

[User] Several Phase B extensions. We had something like 20-odd different configurations—

[Assistant] Yeah.

[User] —going through the mill before we decided on what to do.

[Assistant] Did you like anything better than the one you got?

[User] Well, look around. All the attempts to duplicate it with another vehicle have fallen through. Japan, England, Germany, France, Russia . It’s a pretty good machine; and I think it’s going to be around for a while.

[Assistant] Did you think that we should have built the space station concurrently with the space shuttle to give it a beginning and a end? A place to go, a place to come back? That was the original concept, as a service truck for a space station. But then suddenly it was given—


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

[User] —going through the mill before we decided on what to do.

[Assistant] Did you like anything better than the one you got?

[User] Well, look around. All the attempts to duplicate it with another vehicle have fallen through. Japan, England, Germany, France, Russia . It’s a pretty good machine; and I think it’s going to be around for a while.

[Assistant] Did you think that we should have built the space station concurrently with the space shuttle to give it a beginning and a end? A place to go, a place to come back? That was the original concept, as a service truck for a space station. But then suddenly it was given—

[User] Well, I think you have to hark back to the Presidential Study of ’69: the grandiose, unitary plan idea where you build a shuttle, then build a station, and then a way station to the Moon, and then a way station to Mars. The grand plan that was conceived at that time where the shuttle was simply the first step. But it turned out it was the only step that survived, because the rest of the plan was so mind-boggling in the financial implications that the whole thing was dropped except for the shuttle. That was the first step. As time went on, people forget that the shuttle was simply supposed to be a first-step transportation system.

[Assistant] Are you still a supporter of space station? Or do you think we should go on to the Moon?


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

[User] Well, look around. All the attempts to duplicate it with another vehicle have fallen through. Japan, England, Germany, France, Russia . It’s a pretty good machine; and I think it’s going to be around for a while.

[Assistant] Did you think that we should have built the space station concurrently with the space shuttle to give it a beginning and a end? A place to go, a place to come back? That was the original concept, as a service truck for a space station. But then suddenly it was given—

[User] Well, I think you have to hark back to the Presidential Study of ’69: the grandiose, unitary plan idea where you build a shuttle, then build a station, and then a way station to the Moon, and then a way station to Mars. The grand plan that was conceived at that time where the shuttle was simply the first step. But it turned out it was the only step that survived, because the rest of the plan was so mind-boggling in the financial implications that the whole thing was dropped except for the shuttle. That was the first step. As time went on, people forget that the shuttle was simply supposed to be a first-step transportation system.

[Assistant] Are you still a supporter of space station? Or do you think we should go on to the Moon?

[User] No, I don’t see any point in really going on to the Moon. We’re going to learn a lot from the space station, just as we’ve learned a lot from the Mir. And, going on to the Moon or Mars, until, in my judgment—until there’s [an] expeditious way to get to Mars, the idea of a 9 months’ trip out there and back is an unreasonable thing to expect to undertake, particularly in a zero-g environment. Now they’d get to Mars, and you know what kind of condition they’d be in.

[Assistant] You’re convinced, then, that more time on space station is going to be profitable for us?


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

[User] Well, I think you have to hark back to the Presidential Study of ’69: the grandiose, unitary plan idea where you build a shuttle, then build a station, and then a way station to the Moon, and then a way station to Mars. The grand plan that was conceived at that time where the shuttle was simply the first step. But it turned out it was the only step that survived, because the rest of the plan was so mind-boggling in the financial implications that the whole thing was dropped except for the shuttle. That was the first step. As time went on, people forget that the shuttle was simply supposed to be a first-step transportation system.

[Assistant] Are you still a supporter of space station? Or do you think we should go on to the Moon?

[User] No, I don’t see any point in really going on to the Moon. We’re going to learn a lot from the space station, just as we’ve learned a lot from the Mir. And, going on to the Moon or Mars, until, in my judgment—until there’s [an] expeditious way to get to Mars, the idea of a 9 months’ trip out there and back is an unreasonable thing to expect to undertake, particularly in a zero-g environment. Now they’d get to Mars, and you know what kind of condition they’d be in.

[Assistant] You’re convinced, then, that more time on space station is going to be profitable for us?

[User] Yes, I think so. Now, furthermore, it’s an international venture. Sure is a lot better than trying to choose up sides in a Cold War. And funding all the necessary defense activities that might be needed by different nations and whatnot. Have them spend a little money on the space station; they’d cooperate.

[Assistant] As you’ve done to me all through this interview, you anticipated my next question. You’re satisfied with the Russian arrangement, then?


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

[User] No, I don’t see any point in really going on to the Moon. We’re going to learn a lot from the space station, just as we’ve learned a lot from the Mir. And, going on to the Moon or Mars, until, in my judgment—until there’s [an] expeditious way to get to Mars, the idea of a 9 months’ trip out there and back is an unreasonable thing to expect to undertake, particularly in a zero-g environment. Now they’d get to Mars, and you know what kind of condition they’d be in.

[Assistant] You’re convinced, then, that more time on space station is going to be profitable for us?

[User] Yes, I think so. Now, furthermore, it’s an international venture. Sure is a lot better than trying to choose up sides in a Cold War. And funding all the necessary defense activities that might be needed by different nations and whatnot. Have them spend a little money on the space station; they’d cooperate.

[Assistant] As you’ve done to me all through this interview, you anticipated my next question. You’re satisfied with the Russian arrangement, then?

[User] I think it’s a bold arrangement. I was a little apprehensive at first. But as time has gone on, and the experience on the Mir has convinced, I’m sure, the Houston people that the Russians are pretty thorough in what they do. The idea of calling the Mir a bunch of trash is an uninformed opinion. You know, it’s more like a ship that’s carried with it all it needs to repair as opposed to the shuttle, which if something goes wrong you wait until you come home and fix it on the ground. But not a year-long space station. So we’re learning a lot about how to anticipate problems on a space station already by our experience with the Mir.

[Assistant] After you retired from NASA in 1976, you became a consultant to government and industry. What groups were you involved with? And how did you maintain your involvement with the space program? I know you’ve never—it’s your first love, and you’ve never given it up.


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

[User] Favorite moment. Aeronautic-wise, the period between World War II and Korea probably, that saw the evolution of the modern jet fighters and the close involvement I was able to have with both the Navy and the Air Force, was a very satisfactory period, when you can see the things you are doing translated into actual use. The F8U was a prime example of that. Conrad Lau, who was the Vought engineer, died at a young age, but Connie spent days with us down there with new innovations: in-board ailerons, leading-edge chord extensions, always were the first on an airplane. And he was able to get them translated from the experience in the wind tunnel out to the airplane; and I remember going out there on some of the first flights where they were flight testing. And to see that carried through is a tremendous satisfaction.

[Assistant] It was a different time. As you said early in this interview, you could make a decision and you could go do it. It’s not like modern government today.

[User] That’s right—hard to do it. On the Apollo/Mercury Programs, I guess I’m always satisfied I did a good job on the astronaut selection, and the experience there will be with me for a long time. The shuttle? My main satisfaction is the management system that works so well and its development; and which has been proved by the people involved through all these years, as satisfactory. IDA? I was instrumental in having certain things. First, that we were able to make a case for eliminating the insertion of payloads before they were completed on the pad; things like that. And I don’t know what else is involved here, except that my involvement with the people and my satisfaction I have in appointing certain people who keep getting recognized and supporting them to do the job they’re asked to do; great satisfaction.

[Assistant] Any regrets along the way?

[User] Excuse me?

[Assistant] Any regrets along the way?


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

[User] That’s right—hard to do it. On the Apollo/Mercury Programs, I guess I’m always satisfied I did a good job on the astronaut selection, and the experience there will be with me for a long time. The shuttle? My main satisfaction is the management system that works so well and its development; and which has been proved by the people involved through all these years, as satisfactory. IDA? I was instrumental in having certain things. First, that we were able to make a case for eliminating the insertion of payloads before they were completed on the pad; things like that. And I don’t know what else is involved here, except that my involvement with the people and my satisfaction I have in appointing certain people who keep getting recognized and supporting them to do the job they’re asked to do; great satisfaction.

[Assistant] Any regrets along the way?

[User] Excuse me?

[Assistant] Any regrets along the way?

[User] I can’t think of anything that I would really put out as a regretful stage. Except you grow older, and time passes you on, and you have to let it go to younger people and carry on. But you can follow it with the same enthusiasm.

[Assistant] That’s wonderful. How important is this space endeavor to this country and to the world, Mr. Donlan?


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

[User] Excuse me?

[Assistant] Any regrets along the way?

[User] I can’t think of anything that I would really put out as a regretful stage. Except you grow older, and time passes you on, and you have to let it go to younger people and carry on. But you can follow it with the same enthusiasm.

[Assistant] That’s wonderful. How important is this space endeavor to this country and to the world, Mr. Donlan?

[User] Well, people don’t realize how much of their everyday life they owe to the space and the Defense Department activity that grew out of the research activities needed to support those ventures. You know, GPS [Global Positioning System] is a prime example. And the television itself and the communication problem. We never would have had Apollo if we hadn’t been pioneering a way to communicate quickly, instantly with tubes, in those galvanized efforts to assure that technology was ready when we needed it.

[Assistant] And you’ve been right there in the middle of all of it.


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

[User] No, I was no longer working on the Shuttle Program. I was assigned to Space Station. They did pull some people in from other parts of the Center that weren’t working on it. One of the men in the Space Station Project Office was pulled off to work on one of the teams, but I wasn’t involved in it. I had worked fairly closely with J.R., Judy [Judith A.] Resnik, because she and Steve [Steven A.] Hawley had been the Astronaut Office designees to follow training, the development, and keep track of everything. So I had worked with her and talked with her quite a bit. And Dick [Francis R.] Scobee and El [Ellison S.] Onizuka were both on the Astronaut Support Team at KSC [NASA Kennedy Space Center, Florida] for the second Shuttle flight, when I was there for two weeks, so I was around them. Prior to that, not much at all, but quite a bit for those two weeks that we were sharing an office as we all came and went and worked.

[Assistant] Did you find a lot of difference in training Shuttle astronauts and the Apollo astronauts? Of course, I know it was the software and hardware, but I mean—

[User] I didn’t actually train Apollo astronauts.

[Assistant] Oh, that’s right.

[User] It was flight controllers then.

[Assistant] You came to Headquarters to work for a while and yet you had a lot of experience in the field center at JSC. What are the differences between working in the two different types of offices?


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

[User] That’s really hard - to pick out one thing. The easy thing would be to say that I’m glad that I not just survived, but succeeded in Flight Control Division as the first woman. It probably was inevitable, but it might have made things easier than otherwise. I guess overall I’d just say, not one accomplishment, but most proud that I took on so many things that I had never done before and didn’t necessarily know how to do, but I figured out what to do, how to do it, and got it done. I think that’s what I have the most sense of accomplishment about, is I actually did accomplish things, things that hadn’t been done before, or people weren’t sure what to do, or that were sort of broken and needed to be fixed. They gave them to me and I figured it out and got it done, and generally with less support than somebody else would have had.\n\n When I left the Schedules and Flow Management Office, I didn’t have anybody assigned to work for me. I was getting information from a couple of people and coordinating people. When they replaced me, that guy was given six people to do the job, to support him.

[Assistant] Wow. As you mentioned, too, you did so many varied jobs, and so that must have been very challenging time for you. Every time you walked in, it was breaking new ground.

[User] Yes, it was very interesting, and I’m lucky that since I am the sort of person that after you figure out how to do something and you get it running and it becomes repetitive, then I get bored and want to move on, I’ve also been very fortunate that I’ve had the opportunity and options given to me to take on new assignments.

[Assistant] Is there anything else that you’d like to add or any other aspects you can think of that we might not have covered before we close today?

[User] No, I don’t think so. Going through this just fills my head with all sorts of memories and anecdotes and things, but for now I think we’ve covered all the basics...

[Assistant] We thank you.


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

[User] Yes, it was very interesting, and I’m lucky that since I am the sort of person that after you figure out how to do something and you get it running and it becomes repetitive, then I get bored and want to move on, I’ve also been very fortunate that I’ve had the opportunity and options given to me to take on new assignments.

[Assistant] Is there anything else that you’d like to add or any other aspects you can think of that we might not have covered before we close today?

[User] No, I don’t think so. Going through this just fills my head with all sorts of memories and anecdotes and things, but for now I think we’ve covered all the basics...

[Assistant] We thank you.

[User] ...of my thirty-one years.

[Assistant] That’s a lot of years. I know it’s hard to do in just a few hours, but thanks so much for the effort.


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

[User] Yes, a train from Florida.

[Assistant] And you didn't hesitate when your brother called and told you that he had this letter? You just went? I mean, you were ready to go?

[User] Well, see, the owner of the airport, Don Teel, was the one that came back from this overseas trip, and he was the one in Florida, told me in Florida. I left from Florida.

[Assistant] But no hesitation? You knew that this was what you needed to do?

[User] Yes. Yes, this is true. I called home and talked to Mother and my brother and my sister, and they knew. We tossed it around a bit, and they thought, well, yes, think that was okay. I don't know whether the fact that my father approved of it and had said such a thing, that he wanted us to contribute to the war effort, I don't know whether that influenced me at all, but I knew that here was something I was qualified for that, and I might as well do it.

[Assistant] So you left sunny Florida and you went to Wilmington, Delaware. What time of the year was that?


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

[User] Yes. But I never did promise the Lord, "If you get me out of this situation I won't do it again." I never did do that. [Laughter] I guess I was afraid I'd have to, I don't know. But you'd call on him a lot of times.

[Assistant] Well, I can imagine some of the trips that you were—you were twenty-one and you were up in Delaware, someplace I guess you'd never been before.

[User] Oh, never been there. Well, I had traveled. I traveled a lot with my family. We traveled everywhere. Yes, on the ground I'd been there, but never to fly up there, no.

[Assistant] Then you were training on this small postage stamp of a place.

[User] Oh, yes. Yes.

[Assistant] Then you were up from very small aircraft to now these big planes.


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

[User] Oh, never been there. Well, I had traveled. I traveled a lot with my family. We traveled everywhere. Yes, on the ground I'd been there, but never to fly up there, no.

[Assistant] Then you were training on this small postage stamp of a place.

[User] Oh, yes. Yes.

[Assistant] Then you were up from very small aircraft to now these big planes.

[User] Yes. I started at the bottom, and felt my transition was very nice in that. I started on all the little ones on up to the next step, the next step, and I kept them in order. As I say, I was just lucky. I kept them in all order all the way. So every time I got something, I was kind of ready for that, rather than from down here and then all of a sudden jumping into something up here, you know.

[Assistant] Did you have a favorite one out of all that?


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

[User] Yes, quite a bit without radios. But now, when I did this, I never said a word to them. I didn't use a radio, other than I told him—yes, that's right, see, I could contact him. Like when I was telling this other story, I couldn't contact anybody. I couldn't tell them what I thought about the situation, but I could contact him, yes. But as I was doing it, I didn't tell them what I was doing or anything.

[Assistant] Were many of your trips by yourself? Were you flying by yourself ferrying planes, or were you flying planes with other groups? You mention about going with the men, but so were the majority—

[User] Well, many times I went a solo round, but you wouldn't go—more times than not, probably, you were more by yourself. When you got down on the ground, you might see some guys that had come in from some other place and then maybe you might want to go off together, but most of the time you were on single orders and you were alone most of the time, yes.

[Assistant] You said one of the most valuable things you did was study your map. Could you tell us why that was so important at that time?

[User] To do what?

[Assistant] To study your map before you left. Why was that so important when you went off on those trips, to have—


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

[User] We’re keeping busy even with the closeout of Shuttle, yes. There are a diverse number of things that we do here besides the air traffic control functions and the military radar unit functions. It’s also that same team that does the daily operations on the Shuttle Landing Facility runway as far as inspecting and instituting the maintenance and making sure that everything is taken care of for the continued readiness of the runway for whatever mission NASA decides for us.

[Assistant] How many people work out here in total?

[User] The number of air traffic controllers we were talking about went from a low number to twelve, but then after the Shuttle program we backed off to eight because we cancelled one of the shifts. We were doing two shifts of air traffic controllers a day at the control tower and around-the-clock protection of the Eastern Range airspace while Shuttle was still active, until after the Shuttle program in August and September of 2011. Then we cut back to eight controllers because those two shifts were lost. Our team is also comprised of aircraft servicers who handle taking care of the ramp and the aircraft—fueling, baggage handling, marshalling, and any of the servicing that’s required for whichever aircraft do come here.

[Assistant] Let’s turn to the Shuttle Carrier Aircraft, which is what we’re interested in today. What role do you play in the Flight Readiness Review for an SCA?

[User] We really don’t have a role on the readiness side, other than to state that the runway has no limitations for what they need for arriving or for towing and mating or demating. That’s the only issues that we have, and the rest of the conditions are taken care of by the flight crews of the aircraft that are involved.

[Assistant] What do you have to do to prepare to accept the arrival of Shuttle Carrier Aircraft out here?


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

[User] We really don’t have a role on the readiness side, other than to state that the runway has no limitations for what they need for arriving or for towing and mating or demating. That’s the only issues that we have, and the rest of the conditions are taken care of by the flight crews of the aircraft that are involved.

[Assistant] What do you have to do to prepare to accept the arrival of Shuttle Carrier Aircraft out here?

[User] We’ve got one of the largest runways in the world, and one of the smallest ramp areas for the type of work that we do. So we have to be very careful to exclude any of the other aircraft that are too large or not suited to the requirements of Shuttle carrier operations. We dedicate the entire ramp area to handling the Pathfinder aircraft that precedes it, and the Shuttle Carrier Aircraft itself, which is huge, and any of the other associated support aircraft that might be involved with the actual ferry. Primarily that’s T-38 activity, with the astronauts that are coming or media-related to the operation itself.\n\n We make sure via PPRs, Prior Permission Requests, that we deny anybody that doesn’t need to be here and make sure that we have properly planned for everybody that does need to be here. Quite often parking scenarios get to be unique because of the number of aircraft or the type of handling that we do. We’ve had different sizes of Pathfinder aircraft before, and sometimes the parking spaces are so premium that we have to do some towing or relocating of aircraft in order to make sure everything fits on the postage-stamp-sized ramp that I have.

[Assistant] When you’re referring to the ramp, is this the space out here [demonstrates]?

[User] Yes. The ramp area is the area that lies just east of the runway, and the edge of that is where the mate-demate structure was built. So you can roll right off the ramp and into the structure with the Shuttle Carrier Aircraft or with the orbiter, depending on which process you’re doing—either the mating or the demating.

[Assistant] Do you have to do any checks of the runway itself, or do you have to have any special equipment?


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

[User] For that reason we have to do that. Plus it’s a realignment of our own staffing, because a lot of times when they came the process started immediately to do the offload. Sometimes that runs a third shift through the night, significant amounts of people and shop support in order to provide the lighting and the generators and all of the ground support equipment that’s required to do the job.

[Assistant] How do you stay in contact with the SCA? Do you know where they are from the minute that they’ve departed Edwards?

[User] More recently, in the last few years, there’s a much more significant flight tracking capability available. In the past it had always been through the Houston team, who provided the pilots. They’re technically responsible for the aircraft. We kept in touch with them explicitly to know what changes and modifications or what weather they were encountering to impact their itineraries as they came across country. They had a flight operations group at what used to be Ellington Air Force Base [now Ellington Field] in Houston.

[Assistant] So you just talk with them on the phone or get an email?

[User] In the past we had talked with them, but now we can get more web-related information for tracking the aircraft and the Pathfinder across country. In the more recent years we were able to accomplish that and then just supplement that information with the information that was going back and forth. We started this process without ever even having cell phones invented, so you can imagine how the world has changed since the Shuttle started doing the Shuttle carrier operations without any mobile phone capability in your pocket whatsoever.

[Assistant] When you came, you had mentioned that originally the facility was run by NASA. Did they have a process and procedure in place for accepting the SCA that you just then adopted, or did you scrap that and start out with your own set of procedures?


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

[User] Well, go ahead, I'm all right, I'm still with you, if you want.

[Assistant] Okay. I do want to go back and talk to you for a second about --

[User] Because I know I'm longwinded, but --

[Assistant] Well, we think you're very informative.

[User] What?

[Assistant] Think you're very informative, because it depends how you look at that. One of the things that you did after you left the space program is that on occasion you would work with ABC TV as an anchor. How did you enjoy or how did you feel about --


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

[User] Now, I'm going to give you -- okay wait a minute. Wait a minute. I want you to hold that up. You do what everybody in the world -- and you shouldn't. Now hold it up upright. Hold the top of the world at the top. You're two out of two wrong. Try it again. You only got two other directions to go.

[Assistant] Why don't you hold it for us? Because you saw it. You tell us. Look at it.

[User] You know what you're looking at? You know what you're looking at?

[Assistant] You tell us.

[User] I wish I had a nickel, I wish I had a penny for every time this picture has been used. This is the only real -- it's not quite full Earth. It's about a day or two after full Earth, because you can see how sharp it is on one side, and you can just see a little bit of the fuzzy terminator on this side. But it's because we landed on the -- I didn't try to put you on the spot. Because we landed [on the northeastern edge of the Moon, when it was just a sliver].

[Assistant] It's all right.


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

[User] You're scribbling down. Go ahead. I'll try and accommodate as much as you --

[Assistant] Well, I did have a couple of questions.

[User] You weren't even born when I walked on the Moon.

[Assistant] I was.

[User] Barely. You were still wetting your diapers I can guarantee you.

[Assistant] I was. Barely, you're right. Yes I was. I was really intrigued by your comments about the Earth and how you could take it and put it in your pocket and bring it home, because I was thinking today one of the major issues that this world is facing is global warming. I was curious what impact you think that the space program and your mission perhaps has had on the environmental movement and shaping the way we think about the Earth.


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

[User] Oh, let me give you another one while I'm on the record. This is a special week for me. You ever heard of the Wright Memorial Trophy? It's given in Washington every year in December, black-tie dinner, for the individual who has contributed -- this is the 60th year -- contributed to the Wright Brothers' legacy, aviation, aerospace, people like [Charles A.] Lindbergh, people like [Lt. General James H.] Doolittle, people like [Igor I.] Sikorsky, people like [Donald W.] Douglas, you can go on and on, people like John Glenn and people like Neil Armstrong. The only [three] thus far astronauts that have ever received the [Wright Memorial] Trophy. That's a pretty unique club. Three days from now -- I've been selected. I'm going to receive the Wright Brothers Memorial Trophy.

[Assistant] Congratulations.

[User] Okay? Special club. I'm proud of it. Normally I don't go around saying things like that to people, because I've had a few other honors, but this is the top of the mountain. Pretty special. Why is it that the only three astronauts -- I'm going to give you another one -- that have ever received the Wright Brothers Memorial Trophy are all naval aviators? God, my Air Force guys are going to hate me for this one. I don't have the answer to that question either. We all put our pants on one leg at a time. There's no [difference]. I've given you some tough ones now. You’re going to really do some editing, I can see that.

[Assistant] I don't think so, I don't think so. Usually we get to ask the questions. So I'm glad you left us with some. But thank you for all your answers.

[User] Thank you. You got anything else you want on me? I've got -- what is it -- oh been here almost two hours. But you got anything else you want to follow up on?

[Assistant] Oh, there's just so much, I'm not sure where we would start at this point.


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

[User] Okay? Special club. I'm proud of it. Normally I don't go around saying things like that to people, because I've had a few other honors, but this is the top of the mountain. Pretty special. Why is it that the only three astronauts -- I'm going to give you another one -- that have ever received the Wright Brothers Memorial Trophy are all naval aviators? God, my Air Force guys are going to hate me for this one. I don't have the answer to that question either. We all put our pants on one leg at a time. There's no [difference]. I've given you some tough ones now. You’re going to really do some editing, I can see that.

[Assistant] I don't think so, I don't think so. Usually we get to ask the questions. So I'm glad you left us with some. But thank you for all your answers.

[User] Thank you. You got anything else you want on me? I've got -- what is it -- oh been here almost two hours. But you got anything else you want to follow up on?

[Assistant] Oh, there's just so much, I'm not sure where we would start at this point.

[User] So after this is over we're going to get hot water, hot coffee, and wine.

[Assistant] We're going to tell them recommendations from Gene Cernan that the astronauts would be glad to get.


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

[User] Thank you. You got anything else you want on me? I've got -- what is it -- oh been here almost two hours. But you got anything else you want to follow up on?

[Assistant] Oh, there's just so much, I'm not sure where we would start at this point.

[User] So after this is over we're going to get hot water, hot coffee, and wine.

[Assistant] We're going to tell them recommendations from Gene Cernan that the astronauts would be glad to get.

[User] Well, my problem is I could talk about this for a long time. There's so many things. You probably haven't had a chance to read my book. I've tried to answer --

[Assistant] I actually have.


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

[User] If you want to do more of this I'll be glad to -- it's probably -- probably -- it's a valuable thing to do. You’d like to have Christopher Columbus and Neil Armstrong in this room sitting side by side. Throw Jim Lovell in. Okay? Ask them the same word, “Hey, Mr. Columbus, were you ever scared you'd fall off the flat Earth? Hey, Mr. Columbus, how did you feel when the guy said land ho? Hey, Neil, you feel you wouldn't come back? What was it really like to make that first step?” Which none of us unfortunately will ever really know yet. “Jim, God, you got to tell us about Apollo 13.” These guys experienced -- they all experienced the same thing in some degree or another, a product of their times, doing what they thought was the right thing to do. That would have been a hell of a group of people to put together, wouldn't it?

[Assistant] Just the decision-making processes that were going through their mind, of what's right, what's wrong, what's --

[User] Keep in mind the decision-making process, although Columbus had a little bit more time to think about it I suppose, you got that extra dimension that we have no control over of time. Dimension of time really controls the outcome of almost everything we do.

[Assistant] You mentioned a while ago about fears. Did you have the fear of the unknown because that's what you knew?

[User] No, you sort of -- you try and anticipate the unknown. You didn't have time to be scared. Scared is lack of awareness. We knew where we were going, what we were going to do. Weren't sure what we were going to encounter. I don't care how many guys go there before you, it's still you, it's still the first time for you, okay? No matter what you do. Whether you tightrope across the Grand Canyon, it's been done 100 times. For you it's the first time.

[Assistant] Well, I'm sure you're looking forward to seeing the next crew go back. Are you involved with Constellation? Are you lending support?


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

[User] People like Owen Morris. Have you talked to Owen Morris?

[Assistant] We did.

[User] People like Owen Morris would spend the night, all night long, at Grumman, because he had the LM program under as the manager. At one time he was my boss. He had a terrible problem with the New York attitude, but he overcame it and, as a matter of fact, is very much respected at Bethpage [Long Island, New York].

[Assistant] That's interesting, because usually when we have heard of comparisons, I guess, between attitudes, mostly it's between Grumman and North American. Usually the California attitude is maybe a sort of more lackadaisical approach versus the Eastern more hardworking ethic. That's usually what we hear rather than the sort of personal attitude, I guess, in New York.

[User] As a matter of fact, at Rockwell, the people—you hit a point on the head. The people at Rockwell would say "yes" and mean, "If you catch us, yes." Rockwell, being in the Southern California area, had people there that came to California not to work on the space program but basically to go to California, as a matter of fact. So they had a large contingent of people that worked at Rockwell, who could care less about the space program. But, nevertheless, the team that we finally evolved with turned out to be a pretty dedicated team, the whole team. I'm talking about Rockwell and Grumman and Delco and all the others. So it's an interesting number of people.\n\n You think, well, we're all one nation, but we have various people who have different attitudes. You hit the nail on the head. In New York, people didn't move around very much. People lived in the New York area, in Long Island or Manhattan area. They'd been there for generations. Not true in California. They'd been there a year, last year-type thing. So that does change attitudes.

[Assistant] And certainly the national scope of the Apollo Program brought all these attitudes together into one project.


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

[User] Yes, I did. There was a friend of mine, I don't know if you'll ever have a chance to interview him, he later worked for me, he's retired, his name is Harvey Fritz. Harvey Fritz came up through the military, and his attitude was probably pretty similar to mine, is it was very difficult for us to grasp the utility of a war that had no fronts that we could win. Here we were in various camps, and every once in a while they'd slug it out with us, and we'd lose 500 men and people with limbs.\n\n It was difficult because we were used to a war where we had a definite goal, we knew what it took to win. And here was a war that we could not understand. So, yes, it was difficult. But we didn't get involved in it very much. We were so involved in Apollo Program that, as a matter of fact, we didn't go out with Jane Fonda and march on the street. We really didn't get involved in the thing.

[Assistant] In a way, working on Apollo there, you were fighting a war in the sense that you could win. You did have this definite goal. Did you have a sense of the competition going on between the Soviet Union and the United States in the space race?

[User] Very much.

[Assistant] Was that a motivating factor for you at all?

[User] Oh, very much. We were very sensitive to that. There is a\n\n Time\n\n series, I don't know if you've seen that, that came out. It was put out by\n\n Time\n\n , which talked about the Apollo Program, the background of the thing, who named the Apollo. I think it was named by [Abe] Silverstein. He died recently. All of the details of the program, and then evolved itself all the way. It's recorded, a bunch of records. Have you had an opportunity to—

[Assistant] No, I haven't listened to that.


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

[User] He was at White Sands as a manager at White Sands.

[Assistant] Right. It was sometime ago, I guess, that we talked to him, probably a couple of years now.

[User] Been a while since you talked to him?

[Assistant] Yes.

[User] Well, he's a very, very good guy. I'm sure you enjoyed talking to him.

[Assistant] From a practical perspective, did this mean any changes for you, creating this separate directorate?


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

[User] Been a while since you talked to him?

[Assistant] Yes.

[User] Well, he's a very, very good guy. I'm sure you enjoyed talking to him.

[Assistant] From a practical perspective, did this mean any changes for you, creating this separate directorate?

[User] No, not really, because I had my approach, and they had to adopt me or lose me. [Laughter]

[Assistant] I mean in terms of it didn't add any additional authority or change avenues of redress or whatever?


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

[User] Yes.

[Assistant] Well, if you want to continue making some remarks about it, that's okay, or I could ask you some specific ones.

[User] Why don't you ask me some.

[Assistant] Okay. A sort of transitory question from Apollo to Shuttle—

[User] One thing I didn't cover, and I'll come back to, is the Skylab Program. We'll come back to that. There's a lot to say on that.\n\n In fact, why don't I cover that real shortly. The Skylab Program was, to us, basically an advocation of the Apollo module itself. The LM was not involved in it. It was basically an Apollo-type mission. I'm going to say it's somewhat of a latch-up with the Russians to try to become a little bit more friendly with the Russians and begin to end the Cold War, more than anything else.\n\n Basically, the same discipline that took place on the Apollo was just a continuation on Skylab. There wasn't anything special, other than the latch-up itself and the new equipment that took place, so there wasn't a heck of a lot to add to that. I knew the crew. And it probably contributed something to international relations.\n\n Not a lot more that I can say on the Skylab Program. It was a short-lived program. It was basically a single mission-type program where we rendezvoused with the Russians' Soyuz Program.

[Assistant] In this transition period from where you're going from Apollo and doing these follow-on missions, the Skylab and the Apollo-Soyuz, where you're doing hookup with the Russians, are you at the same time then gearing up for Space Shuttle, are you then running all these activities simultaneously, the end of Apollo, the beginning of Shuttle, and then some of these Apollo follow-on programs?


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

[User] A few of them. Well, I say a few of them. A good number of them went to work for contractors like Glynn [S.] Lunney, who is one of close friends of mine, who went to work for Rockwell and who was later with USA [United Space Alliance]. Now, he's very sensitive about things, but he's probably ready for retirement. Bob Thompson is retired. So the people who were there when, you know, how many of them can really pass on—that's where the value of this project is very useful. How many of them can really pass on the lessons learned and really pass it on to the extent that it takes?\n\n One of the things, I don't know if I've talked to you about this before—you're the history major?

[Assistant] Well, we all are.

[User] You all are history majors?

[Assistant] Yes.

[User] Okay. Well, then, if you study some of the tribal things that took place in the Indian nations, American Indian, they had a tremendous respect for the elder person that survived. Why did they? Well, those that survived had a sense of experience of lessons learned that they could pass on to the brave in terms of, "Hey, you'd better not take on the white man yet. You might all get killed." So they were able to bring on a maturity that would not be present, and then they would welcome these people as chiefs or give them some kind of title, but they kept them around. They didn't cast them off.\n\n In our society today, I'm not sure how many of them are cast off. They're casting off maturity. I think that there's a lot of that takes place in the United States. I don't know if you picked that up in some of your history lessons or really have sensed that particular area or not. Have you?

[Assistant] Yes, a little bit. Do you think that same thing is applicable for NASA specifically?


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

[User] Who have you talked to?

[Assistant] Actually, most of them, the ones that are still around. Al [Alan L.] Bean, Owen [K.] Garriott, Bill [William R.] Pogue.

[User] You talked to Bill?

[Assistant] Yes.

[User] Yes. Bill is a friend of mine. In fact, he was the one that we did some consulting work together. And the one that was on that mission with him?

[Assistant] On Pogue's mission?


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

[User] You talked to Bill?

[Assistant] Yes.

[User] Yes. Bill is a friend of mine. In fact, he was the one that we did some consulting work together. And the one that was on that mission with him?

[Assistant] On Pogue's mission?

[User] Yes.

[Assistant] There was Jerry [Gerald P.] Carr.


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

[User] Yes. Bill is a friend of mine. In fact, he was the one that we did some consulting work together. And the one that was on that mission with him?

[Assistant] On Pogue's mission?

[User] Yes.

[Assistant] There was Jerry [Gerald P.] Carr.

[User] Jerry Carr.

[Assistant] Ed [Edward G.] Gibson was the other one.


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

[User] Yes.

[Assistant] There was Jerry [Gerald P.] Carr.

[User] Jerry Carr.

[Assistant] Ed [Edward G.] Gibson was the other one.

[User] Gibson, yes. I don't know what Bill Pogue told you about in-flight maintenance, but he will share exactly what I'm saying here, exactly. You did talk to him?

[Assistant] I don't know if he mentioned in-flight maintenance. I'm trying to remember back. It was a little while ago that I talked to him.


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

[User] Yes. I don't know. We could develop a lot of information there, and it's got to be more than just human demands, you know. A person can live and work in space for a year or two. It's got to be more than that. You've got to have a lot of technology developed out of that program. I'm not sure who the czar is that understands that particular area and has got grips on it. Dan [Daniel S.] Goldin may. I don't know if you can get a little history from him. He may have a handle on the thing or have some sensitivity on the thing.\n\n It would be interesting to interview these guys and say, "What is your feelings on this particular area?" It would be a good interview with a guy like him. He's certainly lived through this mess, and it's been a mess that's gone through I don't know how many evolutions to be where we are today, and how many people have been managers on this program that are not managers today. They've killed off a lot of people, a lot of good managers, as a matter of fact. I don't know how much you've got into that particular activity. Have you been able to get into that?

[Assistant] Certainly not in the depth that we've had on the previous programs.

[User] There was a guy that was one of the original program managers. I can't think of his name. He's with SAIC [Science Applications International Corp.].

[Assistant] Neil [B.] Hutchinson?

[User] Neil Hutchinson. Neil would be a really good guy to interview.

[Assistant] We talked to him once, but we didn't quite get up to his Space Station days. He's planning on coming in again to talk about that yet, so we've got that to look forward to with him.


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

[User] Have you talked to him?

[Assistant] Yes.

[User] He probably had some interesting perspective in this thing. But they were using the same contractor, and I got the sense that it was almost like a family and that they didn't need as much paperwork. They did not have that much paperwork involved and didn't have a support contractor that I know of. So it was a little different kind of perspective.\n\n Here on Apollo, a large program, a lot of people involved, thousands of people involved, large contractors, and you'd better have your data type thing. Where Mercury and Gemini, short program, wasn't that long a program, had the family-type atmosphere, everybody knew each other, trusted each other, used a lot of inspection techniques. You walked around. Joe Bobik, who did a lot of the inspection aspects, the one I told you you ought to talk to, and the Jack Jones aspect, may not have realized what they had there, but when I talked to the guy that was charge of that thing, that's what I got out of it.\n\n He did not take lightly to any criticism, either. This guy passed away that was in charge of that here. I can't remember his name. But he respected me because I had a tendency to speed read. I was on a flight with him one time, and he gave me something to read. I gave it back to him. "You didn't read that."\n\n I said, "Yes, I read it." I had to learn to speed read because every day I got stacks of information, and if I didn't speed read through those stacks of information, I'd die. So I learned to speed read, maybe not 100 percent, but pretty good.\n\n Does that answer your question?

[Assistant]
Yes, thank you very much.

Was that Jim Chamberlin you were talking about?

[User] No.

[Assistant] Or Chuck Matthews, maybe?


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

[User] He probably had some interesting perspective in this thing. But they were using the same contractor, and I got the sense that it was almost like a family and that they didn't need as much paperwork. They did not have that much paperwork involved and didn't have a support contractor that I know of. So it was a little different kind of perspective.\n\n Here on Apollo, a large program, a lot of people involved, thousands of people involved, large contractors, and you'd better have your data type thing. Where Mercury and Gemini, short program, wasn't that long a program, had the family-type atmosphere, everybody knew each other, trusted each other, used a lot of inspection techniques. You walked around. Joe Bobik, who did a lot of the inspection aspects, the one I told you you ought to talk to, and the Jack Jones aspect, may not have realized what they had there, but when I talked to the guy that was charge of that thing, that's what I got out of it.\n\n He did not take lightly to any criticism, either. This guy passed away that was in charge of that here. I can't remember his name. But he respected me because I had a tendency to speed read. I was on a flight with him one time, and he gave me something to read. I gave it back to him. "You didn't read that."\n\n I said, "Yes, I read it." I had to learn to speed read because every day I got stacks of information, and if I didn't speed read through those stacks of information, I'd die. So I learned to speed read, maybe not 100 percent, but pretty good.\n\n Does that answer your question?

[Assistant]
Yes, thank you very much.

Was that Jim Chamberlin you were talking about?

[User] No.

[Assistant] Or Chuck Matthews, maybe?

[User] No, he was in reliability, this guy.

[Assistant] I think we need to change out the tape and then we'll just finish up with our last couple questions, I guess. [Tape change]


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

[User] No, he was in reliability, this guy.

[Assistant] I think we need to change out the tape and then we'll just finish up with our last couple questions, I guess. [Tape change]

[User] On the LM Program, he was a captain, I guess. Did you talk to any of the early Apollo managers?

[Assistant] Like who?

[User] I'm trying to remember some of these guys. Charlie Frick. There was a whole raft of these guys. They'd come and go like gangbusters. They were here maybe a year, make their mark and disappear. Didn't make much of a mark.

[Assistant] I think most of the ones we talked to ended up being there for longer periods of time, so I'm not sure if we got any of those guys or not.


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

[User] On the LM Program, he was a captain, I guess. Did you talk to any of the early Apollo managers?

[Assistant] Like who?

[User] I'm trying to remember some of these guys. Charlie Frick. There was a whole raft of these guys. They'd come and go like gangbusters. They were here maybe a year, make their mark and disappear. Didn't make much of a mark.

[Assistant] I think most of the ones we talked to ended up being there for longer periods of time, so I'm not sure if we got any of those guys or not.

[User] Well, this guy was not bad. This guy was a retired Navy captain. You'll probably run across his name as you run through there.

[Assistant]
Sure. I can always check it out, anyway.\n\n Do you have other questions, Jennifer?

No.


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

[User] I'm trying to remember some of these guys. Charlie Frick. There was a whole raft of these guys. They'd come and go like gangbusters. They were here maybe a year, make their mark and disappear. Didn't make much of a mark.

[Assistant] I think most of the ones we talked to ended up being there for longer periods of time, so I'm not sure if we got any of those guys or not.

[User] Well, this guy was not bad. This guy was a retired Navy captain. You'll probably run across his name as you run through there.

[Assistant]
Sure. I can always check it out, anyway.\n\n Do you have other questions, Jennifer?

No.

[User] I couldn't have answered all those questions.

[Assistant] Well, actually, you know, you answered all the questions that I had written down here.


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

[User] Well, this guy was not bad. This guy was a retired Navy captain. You'll probably run across his name as you run through there.

[Assistant]
Sure. I can always check it out, anyway.\n\n Do you have other questions, Jennifer?

No.

[User] I couldn't have answered all those questions.

[Assistant] Well, actually, you know, you answered all the questions that I had written down here.

[User] More than you wanted to hear. [Laughter]

[Assistant] You were talking about people, as we were changing out tapes, and I was wondering if there were any individuals that made a significant impression on you or had an impact on you during your career.


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

[User] I couldn't have answered all those questions.

[Assistant] Well, actually, you know, you answered all the questions that I had written down here.

[User] More than you wanted to hear. [Laughter]

[Assistant] You were talking about people, as we were changing out tapes, and I was wondering if there were any individuals that made a significant impression on you or had an impact on you during your career.

[User] Well, they all made an impact on me. You always search for a mentor that comes close to that. I think Bob Thompson comes close to meeting that. Certainly I feel that way towards him. I don't know how he feels towards me.\n\n Marty Raines made an impression. He was a different-type person. Marty Raines is a retired colonel, and his method of management was different than mine. I micromanaged. He did not. But very intelligent person. You talked to him, didn't you? Very intelligent person, and I certainly think highly of him.\n\n Dr. Gilruth I didn't know very well, so he didn't come through as a mentor to me.\n\n The contractors themselves, Dale [D.] Myers impressed me, and he was somewhat of a mentor of mine. That's about the ones that come through as ones that I had real—I had respect for many of them. There wasn't hardly any of them I didn't have a lot of respect for. I did.\n\n Bill Bland, I hope you do interview him. Bill Bland is probably one of the most dedicated persons around. He came from Langley, the original space group. I hope he does allow you to interview him. Do you think you will?

[Assistant] I certainly hope so. We've been trying to keep in touch with him to encourage him to.


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

[User] More than you wanted to hear. [Laughter]

[Assistant] You were talking about people, as we were changing out tapes, and I was wondering if there were any individuals that made a significant impression on you or had an impact on you during your career.

[User] Well, they all made an impact on me. You always search for a mentor that comes close to that. I think Bob Thompson comes close to meeting that. Certainly I feel that way towards him. I don't know how he feels towards me.\n\n Marty Raines made an impression. He was a different-type person. Marty Raines is a retired colonel, and his method of management was different than mine. I micromanaged. He did not. But very intelligent person. You talked to him, didn't you? Very intelligent person, and I certainly think highly of him.\n\n Dr. Gilruth I didn't know very well, so he didn't come through as a mentor to me.\n\n The contractors themselves, Dale [D.] Myers impressed me, and he was somewhat of a mentor of mine. That's about the ones that come through as ones that I had real—I had respect for many of them. There wasn't hardly any of them I didn't have a lot of respect for. I did.\n\n Bill Bland, I hope you do interview him. Bill Bland is probably one of the most dedicated persons around. He came from Langley, the original space group. I hope he does allow you to interview him. Do you think you will?

[Assistant] I certainly hope so. We've been trying to keep in touch with him to encourage him to.

[User] Yes, because he's good and he has a very good sensitivity. He worked on the nuclear-powered programs. He worked on Three Mile Island accident. He did a lot of work on that.

[Assistant] You mentioned that you did consulting with outside industries. Did you or anyone in your group go to any other outside industries to learn from them and bring that knowledge back to NASA?


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

[User] Look, we were building the fourth orbiter at the time. We had the parts; we just weren’t building it. Atlantis was the last one. Atlantis was in the factory. I don’t think that was a big deal. The money was already there. Yes, we had to spend money to assemble it and to get it running, but I never said that we should stick with three vehicles.

[Assistant] Didn't some people think that the Space Shuttle Program should be made more robust before NASA started moving towards Station?

[User] That was always my view. But really we had fought for a fifth orbiter, and we got—I don’t know which budget it was—but we did get the parts to assemble a fifth orbiter.

[Assistant] In the discussions about future Stations, was there a large division about whether they should be permanently manned or should they only be occupied when needed?

[User] No, no, no, the “occupied when needed” turned out to be not a good idea really. You can do it of course, but no, on the permanence of a human presence in orbit, that was a clear thing that everybody agreed to. The question was just how you do it. My minority view was the one I’ve told you about. I really think had I stayed in NASA after the Challenger—if I’d stayed in NASA just for another year, say, do that briefing of the problem with the O-ring, and fix the goddamn thing, things would have gone all right.

[Assistant] Certainly would have changed history, wouldn’t it?


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

[User] You mean between—

[Assistant] July 4th, 1982, was the STS-4 flight when he first uses that phrase; the State of the Union message was in [January] 1984.

[User] Yes. The July 4th was earlier, that was in ’82. We had no money; the money didn’t come until ’84.

[Assistant] Yes, because you had the FY ’85 budget proposal in—

[User] A hundred fifty million dollars.

[Assistant] I’m sure that raised a lot of pushback.


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

[User] Yes. The July 4th was earlier, that was in ’82. We had no money; the money didn’t come until ’84.

[Assistant] Yes, because you had the FY ’85 budget proposal in—

[User] A hundred fifty million dollars.

[Assistant] I’m sure that raised a lot of pushback.

[User] Yes, the first dollop.

[Assistant] What were you hoping to do with that first installment?


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

[User] Yes. The Smithsonian [Institution, Washington, DC] still has some star balls. There was four big ones and one small one in each of the CMSs, and two for the Lunar Module window. When you looked out the window, you saw the stars. Then they had a telescope for navigation also, so most of those star balls are lost. Probably in somebody’s house.

[Assistant] Yes, somebody’s back attic somewhere.

[User] Exactly. Like the pieces that are missing on the Saturn V, we can take a tour around there, I can show you all of the pieces that are just gone.

[Assistant] Gone over there.

[User] Yes, somebody recycled them actually, I think.

[Assistant] Yes, I think that happened a lot. Let’s talk about January 1967.


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

[User] Oh yes, freezing my ass, trying to stay out of the snow.

[Assistant] Now you were in the midst of an accident investigation.

[User] Yes, in fact, one year it was literally [one year]. It was January, because I came in in May and January is when I’d—it’s one year, almost exactly to the date. Yes, it’s a date and two weeks.

[Assistant] Time only in calendar days though.

[User] Oh yes.

[Assistant] You had had many, many nights of [work]. We’d like to hear the rest of this episode of the following days, and how things started moving forward.


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

[User] Oh yes, they loved it. It’s that same old stuff. They were all kind of interested too, so we did three different one-mile squares, different, one a week apart. It was so great, but we got incredible results. It was like 45,000. You counted how many you see in this mile and we just multiplied it by so many square miles of KSC. It was like 40,000 alligators or something like that. That was then, and I think that there’s only so much that they can eat, so they’ve probably stayed pretty close. You see them around everywhere at KSC. Maybe if you just see some around here, go down to Brazos Bend State Park. They’re just everywhere.

[Assistant] Yes, very large.

[User] Yes, very large. Don’t bring your dog.

[Assistant] No kidding. Or small children without leashes.

[User] Yes, exactly.

[Assistant] This might be a good place for us to stop, and then—because it’ll be easy to pick up where we left off when we come back.


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

[User] Well, I wouldn't be working at the National Archives i,f I hadn't happened to be at George Mason University when Ed McCarter advertised for a, oh, goodness, I don't remember what the exact title was, but it was someone to work with the naval photographs from World War II. And I was taking my master's degree at Mason, and a friend saw a note on our bulletin board that Ed had sent, and they knew that I had worked three years for the Military History Institute up in Carlisle, Pennsylvania, arranging their World War II photographs. They said, "Oh, this is perfect, why don't you apply?" So I wrote, and, sure enough, here I am.

[Assistant] OK, so you had your master's thesis at George Mason ...

[User] I also took my bachelor's there.

[Assistant] OK. And you engaged in research at the National Archives?

[User] I had, and had met Michael Kurtz, also, through some work that I was doing, so I had that tie.

[Assistant] OK. Well, your professional work experience outside the National Archives was with Capitol Hill. Can you discuss that?


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

[User] I had, and had met Michael Kurtz, also, through some work that I was doing, so I had that tie.

[Assistant] OK. Well, your professional work experience outside the National Archives was with Capitol Hill. Can you discuss that?

[User] Well, I had worked on-and-off; my husband was an army officer, so we would come to Washington, be reassigned, and come back to Washington. During the time that I was in Washington, I worked on the Hill for three congressmen and one senator. Most ofmy work there involved writing speeches and position papers, and I edited Senator Allen Cranston's newsletter ...

[Assistant] OK.

[User] ...for California in three languages! So I did that for several years. The unfortunate part ofit was during the time that I was on the Hill, the employees there were not part ofthe Civil Service system, so it does not count, those years do not count at all for my retirement purposes!

[Assistant] OK. You spent how many years working on the Hill?


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

[User] Well, I had worked on-and-off; my husband was an army officer, so we would come to Washington, be reassigned, and come back to Washington. During the time that I was in Washington, I worked on the Hill for three congressmen and one senator. Most ofmy work there involved writing speeches and position papers, and I edited Senator Allen Cranston's newsletter ...

[Assistant] OK.

[User] ...for California in three languages! So I did that for several years. The unfortunate part ofit was during the time that I was on the Hill, the employees there were not part ofthe Civil Service system, so it does not count, those years do not count at all for my retirement purposes!

[Assistant] OK. You spent how many years working on the Hill?

[User] Oh, goodness, I don't know ...six, seven, something like that.

[Assistant] And that helped you secure a position here at the Archives in '91?


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

[User] Oh, goodness, I don't know ...six, seven, something like that.

[Assistant] And that helped you secure a position here at the Archives in '91?

[User] No, it really didn't. I decided, when we came back in 1985 and my husband decided to retire, that I would go back to school and finish my education, which had been interrupted every place we would go!

[Assistant] OK.

[User] I have a good friend who has about 150 hours ofcredit but not enough to graduate anyplace, because they have gotten it at places were her husband traveled, so ... I don't think the Hill experience really helped me to get a job at NARA, other than the experience ofwriting.

[Assistant] OK. What kind oftraining did the Archives provide when you started working here?


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

[User] No, it really didn't. I decided, when we came back in 1985 and my husband decided to retire, that I would go back to school and finish my education, which had been interrupted every place we would go!

[Assistant] OK.

[User] I have a good friend who has about 150 hours ofcredit but not enough to graduate anyplace, because they have gotten it at places were her husband traveled, so ... I don't think the Hill experience really helped me to get a job at NARA, other than the experience ofwriting.

[Assistant] OK. What kind oftraining did the Archives provide when you started working here?

[User] Not very much. I started with Ed McCarter, and I was actually only with Still Pictures about, hmm, three months, it was because I had the experience already working with photographs, from the time at MHl [Military History Institute] but at the end ofthat three months, my husband was retiring. I was working part-time for Ed, but I needed a full-time job. Mary Rephlo suggested, knowing my writing experience, that Sharon Thibodeau was looking for someone in NN-E, which was Archival Publications, to write and to edit, and do that kind ofthing. So at that point I moved over there. Again, I had writing experience, so it did not take much specialized training for that.

[Assistant] So you came in as a writer?


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

[User] I have a good friend who has about 150 hours ofcredit but not enough to graduate anyplace, because they have gotten it at places were her husband traveled, so ... I don't think the Hill experience really helped me to get a job at NARA, other than the experience ofwriting.

[Assistant] OK. What kind oftraining did the Archives provide when you started working here?

[User] Not very much. I started with Ed McCarter, and I was actually only with Still Pictures about, hmm, three months, it was because I had the experience already working with photographs, from the time at MHl [Military History Institute] but at the end ofthat three months, my husband was retiring. I was working part-time for Ed, but I needed a full-time job. Mary Rephlo suggested, knowing my writing experience, that Sharon Thibodeau was looking for someone in NN-E, which was Archival Publications, to write and to edit, and do that kind ofthing. So at that point I moved over there. Again, I had writing experience, so it did not take much specialized training for that.

[Assistant] So you came in as a writer?

[User] I came in, certainly, to full-time employment at the Archives; as I said, I had worked at Still Pictures for those three months. Cataloging was what I was doing, and I wrote descriptive material, too. But when I moved to NNE, they were looking for a writer and a historian, and I had experience doing both.

[Assistant] OK. But the archivist position; how did you come about being the archivist for RG 64 [Records ofthe National Archives and Records Administration]?


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

[User] Not very much. I started with Ed McCarter, and I was actually only with Still Pictures about, hmm, three months, it was because I had the experience already working with photographs, from the time at MHl [Military History Institute] but at the end ofthat three months, my husband was retiring. I was working part-time for Ed, but I needed a full-time job. Mary Rephlo suggested, knowing my writing experience, that Sharon Thibodeau was looking for someone in NN-E, which was Archival Publications, to write and to edit, and do that kind ofthing. So at that point I moved over there. Again, I had writing experience, so it did not take much specialized training for that.

[Assistant] So you came in as a writer?

[User] I came in, certainly, to full-time employment at the Archives; as I said, I had worked at Still Pictures for those three months. Cataloging was what I was doing, and I wrote descriptive material, too. But when I moved to NNE, they were looking for a writer and a historian, and I had experience doing both.

[Assistant] OK. But the archivist position; how did you come about being the archivist for RG 64 [Records ofthe National Archives and Records Administration]?

[User] Oh, goodness ...

[Assistant] .. .Is that a long story?


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

[User] I came in, certainly, to full-time employment at the Archives; as I said, I had worked at Still Pictures for those three months. Cataloging was what I was doing, and I wrote descriptive material, too. But when I moved to NNE, they were looking for a writer and a historian, and I had experience doing both.

[Assistant] OK. But the archivist position; how did you come about being the archivist for RG 64 [Records ofthe National Archives and Records Administration]?

[User] Oh, goodness ...

[Assistant] .. .Is that a long story?

[User] That is a long story! How much tape do we have here? I worked mainly in publications for probably, out ofmy fourteen years, I worked primarily in publications for nine ofit. And when I moved back out here in 2000, I was finishing writing, with Bob Kvasnicka, the Guide to Genealogical Research, and as soon as I finished that I picked up the responsibility to write the inventory for RG 64, which meant going through all ofthe series and doing descriptions, which are now being translated into ARC [Archival Research Catalog] descriptions. It took a long time to get to [RG] 64!

[Assistant] OK. You've addressed the next question, at least tangentially. That question is, what were your impressions ofthe agency at the time you began your career here?


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

[User] Oh, goodness ...

[Assistant] .. .Is that a long story?

[User] That is a long story! How much tape do we have here? I worked mainly in publications for probably, out ofmy fourteen years, I worked primarily in publications for nine ofit. And when I moved back out here in 2000, I was finishing writing, with Bob Kvasnicka, the Guide to Genealogical Research, and as soon as I finished that I picked up the responsibility to write the inventory for RG 64, which meant going through all ofthe series and doing descriptions, which are now being translated into ARC [Archival Research Catalog] descriptions. It took a long time to get to [RG] 64!

[Assistant] OK. You've addressed the next question, at least tangentially. That question is, what were your impressions ofthe agency at the time you began your career here?

[User] I think very limited, because I did not, probably for the first three or four years, I did not take the "Archives for Non-Archivists" course, so I didn't really get how all the pieces necessarily fit together. I was looking at the archival publications and the finding aids that NARA was preparing, and I was working preparing, or writing, or editing those, but as far as accessioning, or that kind ofthing, really, until I took the course, I didn't quite understand how it all worked.

[Assistant] OK, OK. You mentioned your initial work assignments in Still Pictures, and you mentioned your work with RG 64. What other assignments had you had here at the agency, and how did those assignments change over the years? I guess that is a long, drawn-out question.


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

[User] ...Yes, exactly. So that when someone looks at the series at a particular time, they know that it was called this, that, or the other thing. So, to try to get all ofit, so it agrees. I think we did something like 414 record groups at that time that are included in that Guide. We didn't do them in order, starting with Record Group 1, 2, 3, 4, 5. We started, the first batch, I think we sent it to GPO [Government Printing Office] to have it put on to the, goodness, it reminds me ofZantac, the medicine, but it's something like "Zertec;" the software program that they used at that time. We didn't send it to them 1, 2, 3, 4, 5; we sent them like, 24, 33, 38 ...

[Assistant] Bits and pieces ...

[User] Yes, and it was a challenge just to keep track ofwhich ones you had sent, what stage they were in, had they come back. Then, when you get all ofthem back, you get them in sheets that are about the size ofnewspaper sheets, what we call page proofs. You sit with these on this huge table, and you read line-by-line, letter-by-letter, all the way down, every one ofthose, I believe it is 2038 pages or some such thing. You are looking at each one ofthose, letter by letter.

[Assistant] That was a massive compilation.

[User] It was a huge compilation, yes it was!

[Assistant] How long it take for you two to put the guide together?


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

[User] Yes, and it was a challenge just to keep track ofwhich ones you had sent, what stage they were in, had they come back. Then, when you get all ofthem back, you get them in sheets that are about the size ofnewspaper sheets, what we call page proofs. You sit with these on this huge table, and you read line-by-line, letter-by-letter, all the way down, every one ofthose, I believe it is 2038 pages or some such thing. You are looking at each one ofthose, letter by letter.

[Assistant] That was a massive compilation.

[User] It was a huge compilation, yes it was!

[Assistant] How long it take for you two to put the guide together?

[User] Judy and I spent a year and a ha!£ Bob Matchette had originally worked on it, and was pulled offto work on the move. He jumped from the frying pan into the fire, so to speak. Unfortunately, we had to go back to some ofthe stuff he did, because as new material came in, it didn't agree with some ofthe stuffthat was done before, so we were constant! y shifting back and forth.

[Assistant] That was the early '90s?


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

[User] It was a huge compilation, yes it was!

[Assistant] How long it take for you two to put the guide together?

[User] Judy and I spent a year and a ha!£ Bob Matchette had originally worked on it, and was pulled offto work on the move. He jumped from the frying pan into the fire, so to speak. Unfortunately, we had to go back to some ofthe stuff he did, because as new material came in, it didn't agree with some ofthe stuffthat was done before, so we were constant! y shifting back and forth.

[Assistant] That was the early '90s?

[User] Yes, from about '93, probably, to early in '95 when the last of it was sent to GPO. But then we were going to GPO to meet with them, and to go over problems that we had, because no book ever arrives .. .I think ofthe Bible and what it took to get that together! I remember that when we met with the people to discuss what page weight.. .it's the things you don't think about in the book: how much does the paper for an individual page weigh? Because ifyou are going to put 2000 pages in somewhere, that's a lot ofweight!

[Assistant] It effects the weight, certainly.


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

[User] Judy and I spent a year and a ha!£ Bob Matchette had originally worked on it, and was pulled offto work on the move. He jumped from the frying pan into the fire, so to speak. Unfortunately, we had to go back to some ofthe stuff he did, because as new material came in, it didn't agree with some ofthe stuffthat was done before, so we were constant! y shifting back and forth.

[Assistant] That was the early '90s?

[User] Yes, from about '93, probably, to early in '95 when the last of it was sent to GPO. But then we were going to GPO to meet with them, and to go over problems that we had, because no book ever arrives .. .I think ofthe Bible and what it took to get that together! I remember that when we met with the people to discuss what page weight.. .it's the things you don't think about in the book: how much does the paper for an individual page weigh? Because ifyou are going to put 2000 pages in somewhere, that's a lot ofweight!

[Assistant] It effects the weight, certainly.

[User] So then, they said, "All right, ifyou choose this weight ... " and then the cover is a certain weight, and then the three volumes, and then when you pick it up and carry it around; the man at GPO said it would be very effective in Washington DC, because if you carried all three volumes, the weight ofthe paper and the cover would stop a bullet if it was fired at you! He thought there might be a market out there for protection purposes! [Laughs]

[Assistant] OK, very good. I guess our next question would be, what challenges and issues have you faced with the agency? I know you were here for 14 years, but you have done a tremendous amount ofwork, from what I gather, with the agency, and I am sure there were some challenges and issues that you faced that you may want to expand upon here,


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

[User] I'm sorry, NN-E was Archival Publications, which was the finding aids, RIPs [Reference Information Papers], guides, special lists, select lists; we had a list ofStaff Information Papers, where the staffwould write papers on how to work with a specific series, or how to do specific things; recommendations on how to prepare a microfilm publication, which was a very big thing during those years ...

[Assistant] OK, so that has changed ...?

[User] Well, NN-E was assimilated with the NI and the NE and the other types of publications staffmembers into one unit, so that now the people who edit down at NWCD--I started to say NNCD, it's WCD!--are doing a lot of different things. I did the Archivist's bio one year, to prepare and edit that for NPOL. So there are a lot of different things than we used to do. Where we were very specialized, we expanded, so that NI people, who had done nothing but records management, could do finding aids and that kind ofthing, across that border.

[Assistant] OK, Ok, right. So that has been a good change?

[User] I think it is, because it has meant that ifyou only had one person in NI, in Records Management, preparing records management publications, and they were on leave or sick, or something happens, then it stops at that point. Whereas ifyou have them all working together, ifthat person is gone, someone else is prepared to pick up the editing, or the writing responsibility for it.

[Assistant] OK, our next question is, what would you say were the most significant turning points in your career with the agency?


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

[User] Well, NN-E was assimilated with the NI and the NE and the other types of publications staffmembers into one unit, so that now the people who edit down at NWCD--I started to say NNCD, it's WCD!--are doing a lot of different things. I did the Archivist's bio one year, to prepare and edit that for NPOL. So there are a lot of different things than we used to do. Where we were very specialized, we expanded, so that NI people, who had done nothing but records management, could do finding aids and that kind ofthing, across that border.

[Assistant] OK, Ok, right. So that has been a good change?

[User] I think it is, because it has meant that ifyou only had one person in NI, in Records Management, preparing records management publications, and they were on leave or sick, or something happens, then it stops at that point. Whereas ifyou have them all working together, ifthat person is gone, someone else is prepared to pick up the editing, or the writing responsibility for it.

[Assistant] OK, our next question is, what would you say were the most significant turning points in your career with the agency?

[User] It came early on, very early! [Laughs] I met Sharon Thibodeau. Mary Rephlo, who was at that time working with Personnel within the Archives, she knew that Sharon was looking for someone who could do what we call "content editing." Editing is usually like a technical edit ...something is not spelled right. But someone who could look at a NARA publication and say, "No, this person was not at the conference ... " I remember one in particular that said that Charles de Gaulle fought in France all the way through the Second World War, which ofcourse, he did not [Laughs], he was in England for much of that time. So it is the ability to pick up a historical error as well as a technical error in spelling or English grammar, where the tenses don't match and that sort ofthing.

[Assistant] OK; Would you say that gender has affected your ability to advance within the agency?


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

[User] I think it is, because it has meant that ifyou only had one person in NI, in Records Management, preparing records management publications, and they were on leave or sick, or something happens, then it stops at that point. Whereas ifyou have them all working together, ifthat person is gone, someone else is prepared to pick up the editing, or the writing responsibility for it.

[Assistant] OK, our next question is, what would you say were the most significant turning points in your career with the agency?

[User] It came early on, very early! [Laughs] I met Sharon Thibodeau. Mary Rephlo, who was at that time working with Personnel within the Archives, she knew that Sharon was looking for someone who could do what we call "content editing." Editing is usually like a technical edit ...something is not spelled right. But someone who could look at a NARA publication and say, "No, this person was not at the conference ... " I remember one in particular that said that Charles de Gaulle fought in France all the way through the Second World War, which ofcourse, he did not [Laughs], he was in England for much of that time. So it is the ability to pick up a historical error as well as a technical error in spelling or English grammar, where the tenses don't match and that sort ofthing.

[Assistant] OK; Would you say that gender has affected your ability to advance within the agency?

[User] Not in my particular case. I am sure that there are other cases where it probably has, but I had a skill that was somewhat unusual, or a combination ofskills, ifyou would. So I don't think it would have mattered had I been man or woman; ifI had been a man with those skills, it still would have been what they needed. And in editing, in NWCD, there have certainly been both men and women who have served as editors and writers for the National Archives.

[Assistant] OK, very good. Well, I guess you have addressed the next question in your previous responses, but what had been your relationship with other Federal agencies, and how have those relationships affected your work?


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

[User] Yes, there was a time when we had a little more flexibility to go out, you know, to other [print shops] .. .if GPO was just stacked up with work, and we needed something very quickly. And I think probably, still, invitations to a dinner that the Archivist gives, or something ofthat nature that has been edited and designed by NWCD, would be sent out. And ifwe needed something and GPO can't produce it, then I think they probably still have the ability to go to other ... well, maybe still through GPO, and GPO sends it to somebody else. I don't know how that works. But it has been a tenuous situation at times!

[Assistant] Tenuous, OK! You mentioned that you are a military historian. Have you had occasion to work here with the records for your own personal research?

[User] Oh, yes. A book I had published a few years ago was a book on Army wives on the American frontier. And [I] certainly used the records for that. I am writing a book right now on America and the China Relief Expedition in the Boxer Rebellion in China. And General Chaffee, Adna Chaffee's records from that are here. I wish that somebody has read it before we went to war in Iraq, because it is very similar. Chafee, when the Boxers were defeated, his forces moved into Peking. And the coalition forces ...really, other than France in the Revolutionary War, it is the first example ofAmericans participating in coalition warfare. Which is why there is some interest in it. But he talks a great deal about what it's like to occupy a city in which you have, still, enemies, as we have in Baghdad today. But nobody had looked at those records for probably ninety years.

[Assistant] Wow.

[User] I wish they had!

[Assistant] So you are making an important contribution, as a result ofyour work here with the agency?


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

[User] Oh, yes. A book I had published a few years ago was a book on Army wives on the American frontier. And [I] certainly used the records for that. I am writing a book right now on America and the China Relief Expedition in the Boxer Rebellion in China. And General Chaffee, Adna Chaffee's records from that are here. I wish that somebody has read it before we went to war in Iraq, because it is very similar. Chafee, when the Boxers were defeated, his forces moved into Peking. And the coalition forces ...really, other than France in the Revolutionary War, it is the first example ofAmericans participating in coalition warfare. Which is why there is some interest in it. But he talks a great deal about what it's like to occupy a city in which you have, still, enemies, as we have in Baghdad today. But nobody had looked at those records for probably ninety years.

[Assistant] Wow.

[User] I wish they had!

[Assistant] So you are making an important contribution, as a result ofyour work here with the agency?

[User] Well, I hope so, I plan to work on it; I am on chaptertwo ... to finish it. I want to make an important contribution to getting one ofmy bedrooms back! There are copies ofrecords stacked all over the place there!

[Assistant] OK, very good. So, going back to our list here, researcher interests and researcher demands are important here with the agency, ofcourse. How would you say that that has guided your work with the records; and you have mentioned the various guides that were published, and now we are entering into this digitization phase that the agency...