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

[User] Yeah, OK. I might have gone through that part of the training, then I was able to switch over.

[Assistant] OK. Can you share with us anything about your living conditions? I mean, you've already mentioned a little bit that you lived above the house. We'll start with that one. So what was your room like?

[User] Well, it's just one room and I get locked out of the window down the road to see everybody coming in and out. And they had different houses on each side. And when I say houses, they were mostly wooden buildings. And then the other village was much more, they were Japong, they wore loincloths. They were the poverty there was even more. And they grew millet there and their houses were just small with thatched roofs. A lot of them were wooden with that roofs.

[Assistant] What did you use for the bathroom or outhouse or whatever?

[User] They didn't have an outhouse. You just, you went. I did try to build an outhouse with some people there. Did build one, but they just used the out by the back of the house.

[Assistant] And that's what you had to do also.


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

[User] Well, it's just one room and I get locked out of the window down the road to see everybody coming in and out. And they had different houses on each side. And when I say houses, they were mostly wooden buildings. And then the other village was much more, they were Japong, they wore loincloths. They were the poverty there was even more. And they grew millet there and their houses were just small with thatched roofs. A lot of them were wooden with that roofs.

[Assistant] What did you use for the bathroom or outhouse or whatever?

[User] They didn't have an outhouse. You just, you went. I did try to build an outhouse with some people there. Did build one, but they just used the out by the back of the house.

[Assistant] And that's what you had to do also.

[User] Yeah.

[Assistant] OK, I'm going to assume electricity, there wasn’t any?


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

[User] They didn't have an outhouse. You just, you went. I did try to build an outhouse with some people there. Did build one, but they just used the out by the back of the house.

[Assistant] And that's what you had to do also.

[User] Yeah.

[Assistant] OK, I'm going to assume electricity, there wasn’t any?

[User] No. Electricity in the one village was on and off and the other village didn't have any electricity.

[Assistant] OK, and how did you get water?


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

[User] Yeah.

[Assistant] OK, I'm going to assume electricity, there wasn’t any?

[User] No. Electricity in the one village was on and off and the other village didn't have any electricity.

[Assistant] OK, and how did you get water?

[User] There was a well a river down the road and we brought water up in a bucket from there. So I used a bucket and I would go to the river to bathe and stuff like that, just like sponge bath stuff.

[Assistant] Can you tell us about a typical day in your first village? Or maybe they're the same, but the typical day, OK?


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

[User] No. Electricity in the one village was on and off and the other village didn't have any electricity.

[Assistant] OK, and how did you get water?

[User] There was a well a river down the road and we brought water up in a bucket from there. So I used a bucket and I would go to the river to bathe and stuff like that, just like sponge bath stuff.

[Assistant] Can you tell us about a typical day in your first village? Or maybe they're the same, but the typical day, OK?

[User] Well, I was pretty much on my own, so I had a bag with actually some deworming medicine and the strip that you measure children's arms with for malnutrition. And I went around and I did have some posters and small posters and I would just go around to the village and do health and nutrition and talk about, you know, washing your hands and trying to build toilets and cleaning wounds. That was one of the biggest things, is seeing wounds on kids that got infected and so making sure they cleaned with soap and water or just water even. And so I did that and I would just kind of walk them down the road and do that a couple of days. I would work in the health post with someone there and people would be coming in for different care there because their kids were sick. And I was at that health post.

[Assistant] Speaking of soap, did most families have some type of soap to use?


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

[User] There was a well a river down the road and we brought water up in a bucket from there. So I used a bucket and I would go to the river to bathe and stuff like that, just like sponge bath stuff.

[Assistant] Can you tell us about a typical day in your first village? Or maybe they're the same, but the typical day, OK?

[User] Well, I was pretty much on my own, so I had a bag with actually some deworming medicine and the strip that you measure children's arms with for malnutrition. And I went around and I did have some posters and small posters and I would just go around to the village and do health and nutrition and talk about, you know, washing your hands and trying to build toilets and cleaning wounds. That was one of the biggest things, is seeing wounds on kids that got infected and so making sure they cleaned with soap and water or just water even. And so I did that and I would just kind of walk them down the road and do that a couple of days. I would work in the health post with someone there and people would be coming in for different care there because their kids were sick. And I was at that health post.

[Assistant] Speaking of soap, did most families have some type of soap to use?

[User] No, they just they used just water from, you know, that they got from the river. A lot of them didn't have. So some of them made their own soap or, you know, they may have gotten some. I do remember pregnant women, if they killed a goat or something, they would keep the blood, drink the blood because that gave them iron. So, you know, they used every bit of every slaughter, every chicken, every goat, everything that they always used.

[Assistant] Did you ever try drinking the blood?


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

[User] No, they just they used just water from, you know, that they got from the river. A lot of them didn't have. So some of them made their own soap or, you know, they may have gotten some. I do remember pregnant women, if they killed a goat or something, they would keep the blood, drink the blood because that gave them iron. So, you know, they used every bit of every slaughter, every chicken, every goat, everything that they always used.

[Assistant] Did you ever try drinking the blood?

[User] No.

[Assistant] Just wondering.

[User] I did eat the goat though.

[Assistant] Good. OK, how would you describe your relations with the people of the country? However, if you want to start with your host family, perhaps.


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

[User] No.

[Assistant] Just wondering.

[User] I did eat the goat though.

[Assistant] Good. OK, how would you describe your relations with the people of the country? However, if you want to start with your host family, perhaps.

[User] Yeah, my host family had a mother and a father and they had two children living in the house. And the one little girl was deaf, I remember, and she didn't go to school. And I can remember once, while she would have temper tantrums or whatever in the middle of the road, I could hear her mother, you know, getting upset with her or whatever. And they had a brother-in-law or something, ran the tea shop to I didn't see the dad a lot. I think he went to another town, works part of the time or something. But anyway, so I lived upstairs with them and, um. And then what was it. Oh, and the other village I live by myself and I just kind of got to know people in the village.

[Assistant] Is that where you lived in the health post? Like a health center or something?


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

[User] I did eat the goat though.

[Assistant] Good. OK, how would you describe your relations with the people of the country? However, if you want to start with your host family, perhaps.

[User] Yeah, my host family had a mother and a father and they had two children living in the house. And the one little girl was deaf, I remember, and she didn't go to school. And I can remember once, while she would have temper tantrums or whatever in the middle of the road, I could hear her mother, you know, getting upset with her or whatever. And they had a brother-in-law or something, ran the tea shop to I didn't see the dad a lot. I think he went to another town, works part of the time or something. But anyway, so I lived upstairs with them and, um. And then what was it. Oh, and the other village I live by myself and I just kind of got to know people in the village.

[Assistant] Is that where you lived in the health post? Like a health center or something?

[User] Yeah.

[Assistant] OK, OK. Did you have a room to yourself?


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

[User] Yeah, my host family had a mother and a father and they had two children living in the house. And the one little girl was deaf, I remember, and she didn't go to school. And I can remember once, while she would have temper tantrums or whatever in the middle of the road, I could hear her mother, you know, getting upset with her or whatever. And they had a brother-in-law or something, ran the tea shop to I didn't see the dad a lot. I think he went to another town, works part of the time or something. But anyway, so I lived upstairs with them and, um. And then what was it. Oh, and the other village I live by myself and I just kind of got to know people in the village.

[Assistant] Is that where you lived in the health post? Like a health center or something?

[User] Yeah.

[Assistant] OK, OK. Did you have a room to yourself?

[User] No, it was just part of the health, it was in the. There was one room there, there was two rooms. And I guess I stayed in one room, the other room. Yeah, the health post.

[Assistant] OK, how about other Peace Corps volunteers? Were there other Peace Corps volunteers?


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

[User] Yeah.

[Assistant] OK, OK. Did you have a room to yourself?

[User] No, it was just part of the health, it was in the. There was one room there, there was two rooms. And I guess I stayed in one room, the other room. Yeah, the health post.

[Assistant] OK, how about other Peace Corps volunteers? Were there other Peace Corps volunteers?

[User] The other Peace Corps volunteers? When I went to Kathmandu, that's when I saw the Peace Corps volunteers.

[Assistant] You might have said this and I don't remember. How far away were your towns from Kathmandu?


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

[User] No, it was just part of the health, it was in the. There was one room there, there was two rooms. And I guess I stayed in one room, the other room. Yeah, the health post.

[Assistant] OK, how about other Peace Corps volunteers? Were there other Peace Corps volunteers?

[User] The other Peace Corps volunteers? When I went to Kathmandu, that's when I saw the Peace Corps volunteers.

[Assistant] You might have said this and I don't remember. How far away were your towns from Kathmandu?

[User] Well, let's see. Um, I don't remember.

[Assistant] Or how about time, like an hour to get there?


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

[User] The other Peace Corps volunteers? When I went to Kathmandu, that's when I saw the Peace Corps volunteers.

[Assistant] You might have said this and I don't remember. How far away were your towns from Kathmandu?

[User] Well, let's see. Um, I don't remember.

[Assistant] Or how about time, like an hour to get there?

[User] No. From Hetauda you had to take a bus north to Kathmandu. I don't know if I remember, three or four hours on the bus. And so the other one was further away. So I think there were several hours on a bus ride to Kathmandu, but there it was right on the border of India.

[Assistant] Ok, another part of this assignment question has to do with your work time versus leisure time. Well, anything you've already talked a little bit about your work time. Anything else you'd like to share about your workday?


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

[User] I was in I was stationed in Hetauda, but I was, I can't really remember. I was kind of under a lady ministry.

[Assistant] Ministry of Health or?

[User] Yeah, and that's how I worked with. I didn't work with her. But she's the one that set me up for these two villages and.

[Assistant] Nepali minister?

[User] Yeah. I don't know. I can't even remember how I got set up with them her. I only met with her a couple of times though.

[Assistant] Ok, how about your leisure time? What would you do when you weren't working?


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

[User] Yeah, and that's how I worked with. I didn't work with her. But she's the one that set me up for these two villages and.

[Assistant] Nepali minister?

[User] Yeah. I don't know. I can't even remember how I got set up with them her. I only met with her a couple of times though.

[Assistant] Ok, how about your leisure time? What would you do when you weren't working?

[User] Ok, well when I wasn't working I went to Hetauda. Oh, there was a Peace Corps volunteer there that I'm still in contact with. He lives in Washington, D.C. And he was working at the college there, had a totally, totally different kind of training or program than I did. He lived in quite a nice, nice little house, but he went to a little college every day and was working with animals something. And but anyway, so he came to my village one time. He said, oh, my gosh, I can't believe, you know, just such a change of, yeah, whatever. But I visited him. Also there were some British people in the town of Hetauda working on a water project. So I spent time with them and Australians visited them.

[Assistant] So they had specific projects now working on, working on, OK, British and Australians. OK, would you like to say anything about how your life and work changed over the time you spent there? Anything else you like to add?


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

[User] Well, it was just very difficult because you don't have resources and you don't have you know. It's very, very difficult when people I mean, don't have the amount of food. They don't have water to grow things sometimes, you know. So it's very hard to teach nutrition. It's kind of and also their animals are probably, you know, a greater priority. But it's harder to teach nutrition when, you know, they need other things. They need clean water. They need schools. They need you know, they need food, they need vegetables. They need those kind of things. And, you know, to really do a good job and help teach teaching health and nutrition. So I tried to focus on washing hands, building latrines. The kids did have a lot of worms, those kind of things. You know, you saw the malnutrition of kids and you know, so I tried to work on general health stuff.

[Assistant] Ok, this is the ninth question that we're going to ask. What this is about the end of your first year within the list of examples they give. Anything you like to share with us about any notable events, your reflections after a year of unexpected events?

[User] Well, I don't remember right now because it was so many years ago. I don't remember a specific thing at that time.

[Assistant] Ok, how about health problems that did you have any health problems?

[User] No, I was pretty healthy, except for maybe getting giardia a once in a while. Yeah, yeah. But otherwise I was pretty healthy.

[Assistant] Did you take, were you able to take a vacation?


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

[User] Well, I don't remember right now because it was so many years ago. I don't remember a specific thing at that time.

[Assistant] Ok, how about health problems that did you have any health problems?

[User] No, I was pretty healthy, except for maybe getting giardia a once in a while. Yeah, yeah. But otherwise I was pretty healthy.

[Assistant] Did you take, were you able to take a vacation?

[User] While I was there, I did go to India and I went to Sri Lanka.

[Assistant] Oh OK. Did you travel much within the country of Nepal?


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

[User] No, I was pretty healthy, except for maybe getting giardia a once in a while. Yeah, yeah. But otherwise I was pretty healthy.

[Assistant] Did you take, were you able to take a vacation?

[User] While I was there, I did go to India and I went to Sri Lanka.

[Assistant] Oh OK. Did you travel much within the country of Nepal?

[User] Um, I traveled some because I came from the mountains. I was excited about the mountains there, but I was more excited about the different people. So I didn't go to some different tourist places, like a lot of Nepalis or like a lot of Peace Corps volunteers did.

[Assistant] Yeah. You know, I think it's they call it the base camp. I mean, I can't remember in a previous conversation, you might have told me. Did you go to the Mount Everest base camp?


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

[User] While I was there, I did go to India and I went to Sri Lanka.

[Assistant] Oh OK. Did you travel much within the country of Nepal?

[User] Um, I traveled some because I came from the mountains. I was excited about the mountains there, but I was more excited about the different people. So I didn't go to some different tourist places, like a lot of Nepalis or like a lot of Peace Corps volunteers did.

[Assistant] Yeah. You know, I think it's they call it the base camp. I mean, I can't remember in a previous conversation, you might have told me. Did you go to the Mount Everest base camp?

[User] Yes, I did go there with some people. The very lowest one where you could still see Mount Everest. So I did go to that one.

[Assistant] How what altitude could that have been?


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

[User] Um, I traveled some because I came from the mountains. I was excited about the mountains there, but I was more excited about the different people. So I didn't go to some different tourist places, like a lot of Nepalis or like a lot of Peace Corps volunteers did.

[Assistant] Yeah. You know, I think it's they call it the base camp. I mean, I can't remember in a previous conversation, you might have told me. Did you go to the Mount Everest base camp?

[User] Yes, I did go there with some people. The very lowest one where you could still see Mount Everest. So I did go to that one.

[Assistant] How what altitude could that have been?

[User] Oh, I don't remember. OK, over ten anyway.

[Assistant] Ten thousand. OK. OK, now we're moving on to the tenth question on this suggested list of interview questions. At the end of your tour, your time in Peace Corps, can you explain your sense of achievement or failure? Any pluses and minuses in your relations with the Nepalis or work with the people, the country, anything of that nature? How did you feel after your two years? Did you complete two years?


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

[User] Yes, I did go there with some people. The very lowest one where you could still see Mount Everest. So I did go to that one.

[Assistant] How what altitude could that have been?

[User] Oh, I don't remember. OK, over ten anyway.

[Assistant] Ten thousand. OK. OK, now we're moving on to the tenth question on this suggested list of interview questions. At the end of your tour, your time in Peace Corps, can you explain your sense of achievement or failure? Any pluses and minuses in your relations with the Nepalis or work with the people, the country, anything of that nature? How did you feel after your two years? Did you complete two years?

[User] Yes. Oh, you know, I think, you know, a lot of, um, like a lot of volunteers, I think you kind of walk away feeling like you didn't get enough accomplished. And the main thing is, I think for me is being able to go into different little small villages and be very welcomed by people, even though I just kind of walked in with them. They may not know me, but I can remember saying, oh, do you have a baby in the house or something? And they thought I meant their baby calf because their animals were very, very important to them, you know?

[Assistant] Would you say more than their kids?


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

[User] Yes. Oh, you know, I think, you know, a lot of, um, like a lot of volunteers, I think you kind of walk away feeling like you didn't get enough accomplished. And the main thing is, I think for me is being able to go into different little small villages and be very welcomed by people, even though I just kind of walked in with them. They may not know me, but I can remember saying, oh, do you have a baby in the house or something? And they thought I meant their baby calf because their animals were very, very important to them, you know?

[Assistant] Would you say more than their kids?

[User] Well, not necessarily.

[Assistant] But different.

[User] It was the word that I said, you know, let me see your baba. And that meant, you know, their baby calf. And so that's my language wasn't very good. But I think their animals were very precious to them because that's what gave them food. And, you know, I think and I think dehydration was a severe and malnutrition was a serious problem for four children. And, you know, they had I remember going back up to a village one time, and I had been there a few months before and the mother had said that their baby had died, you know, and even the two or three year old that was there. So I did see several children that died when I saw them. And, you know, that was scary. It's very hard. It was very difficult. You know, I think Peace Corps is hard. I think it's not I don't think it was an easy job. I think a lot of people you don't have a lot of resources and, you know, the poverty is extreme.

[Assistant] So, yeah. OK, what are your plans for the future? Or maybe let me rephrase it. What were your plans for the future when you finished your two years?


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

[User] Well, not necessarily.

[Assistant] But different.

[User] It was the word that I said, you know, let me see your baba. And that meant, you know, their baby calf. And so that's my language wasn't very good. But I think their animals were very precious to them because that's what gave them food. And, you know, I think and I think dehydration was a severe and malnutrition was a serious problem for four children. And, you know, they had I remember going back up to a village one time, and I had been there a few months before and the mother had said that their baby had died, you know, and even the two or three year old that was there. So I did see several children that died when I saw them. And, you know, that was scary. It's very hard. It was very difficult. You know, I think Peace Corps is hard. I think it's not I don't think it was an easy job. I think a lot of people you don't have a lot of resources and, you know, the poverty is extreme.

[Assistant] So, yeah. OK, what are your plans for the future? Or maybe let me rephrase it. What were your plans for the future when you finished your two years?

[User] Oh, well, I definitely after I left, I was not a registered nurse at the time. And when I came home, I said, I'm getting my RN, because I loved seeing, you know, I mean, one thing that was very valuable to me there is seeing different things that I would see rashes on people or I would see the malnutrition. I would see things that I just said. You got to get you know, I have definitely a deeper interest in getting my nurse's degree. So as soon as I returned that I finished getting RN.

[Assistant] Where did you get your RN?


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

[User] Oh, well, I definitely after I left, I was not a registered nurse at the time. And when I came home, I said, I'm getting my RN, because I loved seeing, you know, I mean, one thing that was very valuable to me there is seeing different things that I would see rashes on people or I would see the malnutrition. I would see things that I just said. You got to get you know, I have definitely a deeper interest in getting my nurse's degree. So as soon as I returned that I finished getting RN.

[Assistant] Where did you get your RN?

[User] In Colorado.

[Assistant] Ok, now we're moving on to the eleventh question. OK, overall, this is to evaluate your service. You know, remember, the Peace Corps has three goals. We'll start with the first one. How would you say your service was? And as far as were you able to provide technical assistance where requested and if not, your situation was it sounds more primitive.

[User] Well, I didn’t do any technical assistance. Like I say, I wish I'd done more in gardening and raising chickens even though they had them. I think that as a health and nutrition provider, I could have spent more time in that area instead of just, you know, seeing sick children and telling them what they needed to do for those kids and how to treat diarrhea and how to build a latrine, that kind of thing. So that I wish I'd done more on that.

[Assistant] Speaking of latrines, to many of the families, you tried to teach, build latrines?


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

[User] Well, let's talk about the space race. As far as I'm concerned, I never was involved in the space race. Okay? Even when I got here with NASA, we were working all the time, working crazy hours and everything else, but I was never in any race to beat the Russians. That was going on beyond me. I was down on the worker-bee level, trying to get my job done, trying to support the launches and everything else. The whole space race thing you hear about in books and that's written up, that wasn't on my mind, you know. We were doing our thing and you were too busy to do anything else. It was like a seven-day-a-week job. It was like that kind of thing.

[Assistant] Before you joined NASA, did you pay much attention to the events that were going on?

[User] Oh yes, because I was at the Cape when Mercury was going on. Naturally, you get into that business and you're interested in what's going on. The reason I ended up going down there, I had made a conscious decision to leave the airplane business, to get into the missile business, see. That was a conscious decision at that time. So naturally I'd gotten interested and wrapped up with it, like everybody else in the country. It's not like when a Shuttle's launched today, you know, it may show up on CNN [Cable News Network]. But every time there was a launch, it was like the world was coming apart. It was completely different.

[Assistant] When you got into NASA, it was at the beginning of the Gemini Program. Mercury had ended.

[User] It was prior to Gemini beginning, yes.

[Assistant] You'd mentioned there was still a nucleus of people with some experience from Mercury. What sort of people were there and how did they provide some experience to you coming in?


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

[User] It was prior to Gemini beginning, yes.

[Assistant] You'd mentioned there was still a nucleus of people with some experience from Mercury. What sort of people were there and how did they provide some experience to you coming in?

[User] Well, there were people around. I'll give you some names of people that you've probably already interviewed. [Christopher C.] Kraft [Jr.] was there, naturally, and I worked for [Eugene F.] Kranz. John [S.] Llewellyn [Jr.] was there. Let's see who else you might have interviewed as part of the whole thing. Glynn [S.] Lunney was there. Jerry [C.] Bostick came out at that period of time around I did. A lot of those people that were the early flight director people that were out there, they were around. Some of the people who had done capsule communicator work in Mercury, which was a complete different job because the spacecraft was so simple, they had moved into other areas. They were all gone. Chuck [Charles R.] Lewis was there, he was one of the people around still, and so on.\n\n But we really didn't really know too much about what we were doing. Everybody knew a little area of something and everybody kind of helped the other person learn the opposite areas. For example, I didn't know much about flight dynamics, so someone else would teach us flight dynamics and I would teach people operations or something. Not as a class, but kind of sharing information. That's the way the whole program evolved, actually, if you go back into it. I'm sure you find this true, same way over in engineering and everything else. There was no database to really get into. It was just a little bit of data there from Mercury and that was it.

[Assistant] Did either you or NASA have any idea what they were hiring you specifically for?

[User] I was hired specifically to come into flight operations as capsule communicator. I was hired as a capsule communicator.

[Assistant] So they had some sort of definition of that job.


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

[User] He's a good guy. He's in Tampa [Florida]. That's how I learned.

[Assistant] Well, it seems to be as practical a way as any.

[User] Well, I wasn't an engineer. I wasn't an engineer.

[Assistant] Did you find yourself then sort of atypical, since, as you mentioned, they were hiring a lot of these people?

[User] No, I think in those days, I think there was only three or four of us at JSC doing technical work that weren't engineers. I was an electronics technician of some kind of a title. I was hired as a GS-10 or something like that. It was only a few of us who later became an engineer by an act of Congress.

[Assistant] That's an interesting way to go about it, I guess.


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

[User] No, I think in those days, I think there was only three or four of us at JSC doing technical work that weren't engineers. I was an electronics technician of some kind of a title. I was hired as a GS-10 or something like that. It was only a few of us who later became an engineer by an act of Congress.

[Assistant] That's an interesting way to go about it, I guess.

[User] Can you read a schematic?

[Assistant] Can I?

[User] Yes.

[Assistant] I did that in some engineering as an undergrad.


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

[User] Can you read a schematic?

[Assistant] Can I?

[User] Yes.

[Assistant] I did that in some engineering as an undergrad.

[User] You can understand that, then. I didn't know how to do that.

[Assistant] I can appreciate it. So aside from learning how to read schematics and coloring on them with crayons and such, what other types of training did you have to do?


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

[User] You can understand that, then. I didn't know how to do that.

[Assistant] I can appreciate it. So aside from learning how to read schematics and coloring on them with crayons and such, what other types of training did you have to do?

[User] There at JSC?

[Assistant] Right.

[User] There was hardly any training available. There wasn't any training. You didn't go to classes and you didn't take this JSC indoctrination course that's given over there for flight operations. There was no such thing. The only training that really went on was the simulation training, which was very similar to what goes on right now, but you didn't sit in classes with workbooks and so on, because there basically was no such thing in flight ops in those days. You learned from everybody else, you know. Someone else, like I said, knew flight dynamics, orbital mechanics, and you learned it from them. I was going to do the retrofire and I had to have a good working knowledge on how it all worked and what I was doing.\n\n Then we worked as teams, you know, like your remote site team, you knew who that was ahead of time, and a lot of times you stayed with the same people, not completely, but your team had certain people and we used to work together. We'd sit down at night and go over a system, spend two, three hours just going over the environmental system, your systems guys and yourself, and they would teach you all the work and all the data that went behind that system, and how that system worked. You talked and you'd ask questions. "What can we expect to see? What are we going to do?" We'd go to the flight rules and work the flight rules along with it and the checklist procedures all together, and that's how we trained each other within the team.

[Assistant] So in terms of the systems guys, they each then specialized in a particular area of the spacecraft?


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

[User] There at JSC?

[Assistant] Right.

[User] There was hardly any training available. There wasn't any training. You didn't go to classes and you didn't take this JSC indoctrination course that's given over there for flight operations. There was no such thing. The only training that really went on was the simulation training, which was very similar to what goes on right now, but you didn't sit in classes with workbooks and so on, because there basically was no such thing in flight ops in those days. You learned from everybody else, you know. Someone else, like I said, knew flight dynamics, orbital mechanics, and you learned it from them. I was going to do the retrofire and I had to have a good working knowledge on how it all worked and what I was doing.\n\n Then we worked as teams, you know, like your remote site team, you knew who that was ahead of time, and a lot of times you stayed with the same people, not completely, but your team had certain people and we used to work together. We'd sit down at night and go over a system, spend two, three hours just going over the environmental system, your systems guys and yourself, and they would teach you all the work and all the data that went behind that system, and how that system worked. You talked and you'd ask questions. "What can we expect to see? What are we going to do?" We'd go to the flight rules and work the flight rules along with it and the checklist procedures all together, and that's how we trained each other within the team.

[Assistant] So in terms of the systems guys, they each then specialized in a particular area of the spacecraft?

[User] Well, they all came from a particular area of the spacecraft, but when they were assigned to a remote site, they worked the whole spacecraft. In other words, just like now there's an environmental area, and they came out of that, except there weren't so many areas because the vehicle was a lot smaller, you know. The Gemini spacecraft didn't have the complexity of Apollo or the Shuttle or whatever.

[Assistant] Was their job to support you?


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

[User] They had no idea what was going on. It was interesting.

[Assistant] Obviously you got around to several of the sites. How did the rotation process work?

[User] You had no choice on that. That was kind of decided by Kranz. He would decide who was going where, for which mission functions. Every mission had different function things. He just would decide where you're going for that mission. If you got hauled back in the control center, that was because of whether they wanted to rotate you in there or whether you were being—we used to call it being punished, but I didn't have that happen to me till very late.\n\n Where else was I? I was at Hawaii a couple of times, which was really nice. We used to stay at a place called the Kauai Surf, which was a very nice hotel. We'd stay there. The tracking station was up on top of the hill, and we used to race down the mountain.\n\n I was at Canary Islands also. We used to race back and forth from there. That was down at the other end of the island.\n\n Where else was I? I don't think I left anything out.

[Assistant] The Gemini Program began with the network simulations before they actually went into missions.

[User] Right.

[Assistant] Could you take us through these very beginnings of the program?


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

[User] Well, a lot of things changed because now the control center had data coming in from the sites, real telemetry data. It wasn't this low-speed teletype message that said this is what it read when I hit the button. They had direct communication to the spacecraft when it was over that site. TDRS wasn't there yet, but when it was over that site. And they could send commands over that site, get telemetry and talk to the crew and so on, so the whole operation changed. The astronaut in Houston, he was the capcom, so he pretty well did the job, except on a couple of the unmanned flights and so on. We had a series of unmanned flights with Apollo.

[Assistant] What effect did the fire have on the way you guys operated in terms of mission operations, procedures, or anything like that?

[User] Well, the fire stopped everything. It stopped the rush, because we couldn't proceed the way we were going. While the investigation was going on and the redesign and the rebuild, a whole new attitude was taken on the reviewing of what you were doing, the documentation, the philosophy behind the flight rules, things like that. The very same thing happened after Challenger. So it changed a lot of things on your mental being and how your documentation was written, the philosophies behind it, and how you were going to do things and what you were going to do in certain cases. But it took a lot of time to go back and do that; it just didn't happen in one day. It took a long time.

[Assistant] You've mentioned a couple of times moving in the assistant flight director position. I guess Apollo 7, being the first manned mission, was the first you served in that capacity.

[User] Right.

[Assistant] With this first operational experience as an assistant flight director, what did the job then involve for you?


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

[User] Well, the fire stopped everything. It stopped the rush, because we couldn't proceed the way we were going. While the investigation was going on and the redesign and the rebuild, a whole new attitude was taken on the reviewing of what you were doing, the documentation, the philosophy behind the flight rules, things like that. The very same thing happened after Challenger. So it changed a lot of things on your mental being and how your documentation was written, the philosophies behind it, and how you were going to do things and what you were going to do in certain cases. But it took a lot of time to go back and do that; it just didn't happen in one day. It took a long time.

[Assistant] You've mentioned a couple of times moving in the assistant flight director position. I guess Apollo 7, being the first manned mission, was the first you served in that capacity.

[User] Right.

[Assistant] With this first operational experience as an assistant flight director, what did the job then involve for you?

[User] Well, in the planning thing I was doing the flight rules and a lot of the checklist stuff and so on, and the flight ops panels and so on, and then during the mission I basically chased problems, followed the checklist, made sure the flight director was kept up to date on what was going on on my shift. I worked the shift. And you were kind of like a technical assistant to the flight director, you know, when he need something done or you could find something you wanted to do or needed to be done, you went off and did it on your own. Just chasing different problems, making sure things happened that should happen on time, those kinds of things. That's what I did. I did that for several missions.

[Assistant] Did they move you into that position, I guess, as a steppingstone to something else?


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

[User] Right.

[Assistant] With this first operational experience as an assistant flight director, what did the job then involve for you?

[User] Well, in the planning thing I was doing the flight rules and a lot of the checklist stuff and so on, and the flight ops panels and so on, and then during the mission I basically chased problems, followed the checklist, made sure the flight director was kept up to date on what was going on on my shift. I worked the shift. And you were kind of like a technical assistant to the flight director, you know, when he need something done or you could find something you wanted to do or needed to be done, you went off and did it on your own. Just chasing different problems, making sure things happened that should happen on time, those kinds of things. That's what I did. I did that for several missions.

[Assistant] Did they move you into that position, I guess, as a steppingstone to something else?

[User] Well, Kranz thought it was a steppingstone up. Okay? I didn't quite feel the same way, but that's what he thought. And Kranz was the ultimate personnel guy. He never makes a mistake. That's sarcasm.

[Assistant] We'll be sure to note that.


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

[User] Well, in the planning thing I was doing the flight rules and a lot of the checklist stuff and so on, and the flight ops panels and so on, and then during the mission I basically chased problems, followed the checklist, made sure the flight director was kept up to date on what was going on on my shift. I worked the shift. And you were kind of like a technical assistant to the flight director, you know, when he need something done or you could find something you wanted to do or needed to be done, you went off and did it on your own. Just chasing different problems, making sure things happened that should happen on time, those kinds of things. That's what I did. I did that for several missions.

[Assistant] Did they move you into that position, I guess, as a steppingstone to something else?

[User] Well, Kranz thought it was a steppingstone up. Okay? I didn't quite feel the same way, but that's what he thought. And Kranz was the ultimate personnel guy. He never makes a mistake. That's sarcasm.

[Assistant] We'll be sure to note that.

[User] His wife agrees with me. [Laughter] So do his kids. If you'd ever worked for him, you'd know what I was talking about.

[Assistant] We have, I guess, only you guys to tell us about these kinds of things.


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

[User] Well, Kranz thought it was a steppingstone up. Okay? I didn't quite feel the same way, but that's what he thought. And Kranz was the ultimate personnel guy. He never makes a mistake. That's sarcasm.

[Assistant] We'll be sure to note that.

[User] His wife agrees with me. [Laughter] So do his kids. If you'd ever worked for him, you'd know what I was talking about.

[Assistant] We have, I guess, only you guys to tell us about these kinds of things.

[User] Right.

[Assistant] Do you remember anything else from that mission specifically?


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

[User] His wife agrees with me. [Laughter] So do his kids. If you'd ever worked for him, you'd know what I was talking about.

[Assistant] We have, I guess, only you guys to tell us about these kinds of things.

[User] Right.

[Assistant] Do you remember anything else from that mission specifically?

[User] Seven?

[Assistant] I know there were some issues between the crew and flight control.


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

[User] Yes.

[Assistant] Coming off that mission you have Apollo 8, which was—

[User] I didn't work Apollo 8.

[Assistant] What did you think about sending the second Apollo mission all the way around the Moon?

[User] I thought it was very exciting. I thought it was really quite a challenge. We had looked at something else that you're probably not aware of. We had looked at possibly sending a Gemini spacecraft around the Moon at one time, with a highly classified mapping module, camera system, an Air Force tracking system on it. That had been looked at by several of us who were brought in to take a look at that, and that was tossed out. So the idea wasn't a new one, but it was whoever brought it up brought up a novel idea and it worked great. The guys that worked it did a great job. The crew did a great job. [Frank] Borman and his guys were great, you know. The crew that worked it on the ground did a tremendous job, Harold [M.] Draughan, the flight director, and a lot of those guys, and [Clifford E.] Charlesworth. Those guys did a great job, they really did, and it worked fine. It was quite a gamble. It was quite a gamble, and it really caught the attention of the world, boy, it really grabbed them.

[Assistant] A lot of people we talk to recall that as really one of the highlights of their career.


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

[User] I didn't work Apollo 8.

[Assistant] What did you think about sending the second Apollo mission all the way around the Moon?

[User] I thought it was very exciting. I thought it was really quite a challenge. We had looked at something else that you're probably not aware of. We had looked at possibly sending a Gemini spacecraft around the Moon at one time, with a highly classified mapping module, camera system, an Air Force tracking system on it. That had been looked at by several of us who were brought in to take a look at that, and that was tossed out. So the idea wasn't a new one, but it was whoever brought it up brought up a novel idea and it worked great. The guys that worked it did a great job. The crew did a great job. [Frank] Borman and his guys were great, you know. The crew that worked it on the ground did a tremendous job, Harold [M.] Draughan, the flight director, and a lot of those guys, and [Clifford E.] Charlesworth. Those guys did a great job, they really did, and it worked fine. It was quite a gamble. It was quite a gamble, and it really caught the attention of the world, boy, it really grabbed them.

[Assistant] A lot of people we talk to recall that as really one of the highlights of their career.

[User] Sure was. Like I said, I didn't work that mission. I was working 9, so I didn't work that mission.

[Assistant] Nine obviously had a lot of technical challenges. We're here using the lunar module for the first time and in lunar orbit and all this.


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

[User] When I was in INCO?

[Assistant] Yes.

[User] Well, what happened was, Harley Weyer, who worked for me at that time, who is now retired, he went off and designed—got a hold of the documentation that showed antenna patterns on the antennas on the vehicle, and he sat down with the people down in Flight Support Division and their contractor, which at that time was IBM and so on, and they actually designed the antenna plot displays. So what happened was, for example, on that display you had the antennas and their plots and which antennas they were, and then the vehicle coordinates would come in and down in the system it would know where it should be pointing, which antenna you should be on or where you should be looking, and it would track it. If you go over there now, they have similar displays over there so you could manage your antennas, the onboard could manage it, or you could manage it with commands from the ground.\n\n We built displays. Different guys built displays for us that showed status of the vehicle that were strictly communications displays. They weren't intermixed with electrical and mechanical. We built all of our own stuff. We separated all our drawings out into separate areas. We built displays and things like that. Our guys got in there, because they were good at that. We kept a real strict configuration control on our systems so that we knew where we were and what we were doing.\n\n Then as the new systems came on, we were involved both with engineering and with factories in actually designing the systems, which have really helped us, what the crews saw, what the crew could do, what we could do, you know, because we're sharing. The communications we were operating from the ground, but the crew could also control it by switches. So you had to avoid conflict on what they were doing and what you were doing and so on.

[Assistant] You said for Apollo 11 then you guys weren't quite up to speed yet.

[User] But we were working, yes.

[Assistant] Did that mission have any issues with the communications systems that you guys had to deal with particularly?


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

[User] That originally was in Kranz's book, but it got cut out by the editor. [Laughter]

[Assistant] Well, maybe it'll make it into the paperback.

[User] Oh, God, no. Don't tell me that. He's not going to put it in a paperback.

[Assistant] You brought up some interesting points in there in terms of being in sort of this closed-off environment. You were speaking of this room specifically. But overall, how aware were you, while things were going on, while you were involved in the Apollo Program, of what was going on in the outside world?

[User] You weren't. I wasn't. Later on I was, on Apollo 15 I was, and I can tell you about why. But you just weren't. You were intense on what you were doing. You were locked up on your job, you know. It wasn't like where you fly a Shuttle flight, which I did later on, where, you know, you went to work and the thing kind of became a normal routine type of thing. But everything was an adventure. Everything was a challenge, because it was a steppingstone. Going to the Moon was a whole different thing. It wasn't like engineer, where you went up and went around, you know. You really were gone. And 13 brought the real reality of it all to you, you know. That's really what that amounted to.\n\n I always like to look at it as how much junk I ate to make some astronaut famous. [Laughter] Did you ever think about that? Those guys were sitting over there days and nights in this room, eating God knows what during their shifts, you know, whether it was a burrito out of some machine or it was something they had brought in a bag, forgot about, and ate it ten hours later and it was dry and crappy or what. Did you ever think about what some of the people in that room ate to make some astronaut famous? [Laughter] I've told that to certain astronaut friends of mine. I said, "Do you have any idea what I have consumed to make you a hero?"

[Assistant] I'm sure they appreciate it.


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

[User] Oh, God, no. Don't tell me that. He's not going to put it in a paperback.

[Assistant] You brought up some interesting points in there in terms of being in sort of this closed-off environment. You were speaking of this room specifically. But overall, how aware were you, while things were going on, while you were involved in the Apollo Program, of what was going on in the outside world?

[User] You weren't. I wasn't. Later on I was, on Apollo 15 I was, and I can tell you about why. But you just weren't. You were intense on what you were doing. You were locked up on your job, you know. It wasn't like where you fly a Shuttle flight, which I did later on, where, you know, you went to work and the thing kind of became a normal routine type of thing. But everything was an adventure. Everything was a challenge, because it was a steppingstone. Going to the Moon was a whole different thing. It wasn't like engineer, where you went up and went around, you know. You really were gone. And 13 brought the real reality of it all to you, you know. That's really what that amounted to.\n\n I always like to look at it as how much junk I ate to make some astronaut famous. [Laughter] Did you ever think about that? Those guys were sitting over there days and nights in this room, eating God knows what during their shifts, you know, whether it was a burrito out of some machine or it was something they had brought in a bag, forgot about, and ate it ten hours later and it was dry and crappy or what. Did you ever think about what some of the people in that room ate to make some astronaut famous? [Laughter] I've told that to certain astronaut friends of mine. I said, "Do you have any idea what I have consumed to make you a hero?"

[Assistant] I'm sure they appreciate it.

[User] Oh, yeah, right. Oh, yeah. Try eating cold beef in Australia for six straight days. [Laughter]

[Assistant] You certainly made a lot of astronauts famous.


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

[User] You weren't. I wasn't. Later on I was, on Apollo 15 I was, and I can tell you about why. But you just weren't. You were intense on what you were doing. You were locked up on your job, you know. It wasn't like where you fly a Shuttle flight, which I did later on, where, you know, you went to work and the thing kind of became a normal routine type of thing. But everything was an adventure. Everything was a challenge, because it was a steppingstone. Going to the Moon was a whole different thing. It wasn't like engineer, where you went up and went around, you know. You really were gone. And 13 brought the real reality of it all to you, you know. That's really what that amounted to.\n\n I always like to look at it as how much junk I ate to make some astronaut famous. [Laughter] Did you ever think about that? Those guys were sitting over there days and nights in this room, eating God knows what during their shifts, you know, whether it was a burrito out of some machine or it was something they had brought in a bag, forgot about, and ate it ten hours later and it was dry and crappy or what. Did you ever think about what some of the people in that room ate to make some astronaut famous? [Laughter] I've told that to certain astronaut friends of mine. I said, "Do you have any idea what I have consumed to make you a hero?"

[Assistant] I'm sure they appreciate it.

[User] Oh, yeah, right. Oh, yeah. Try eating cold beef in Australia for six straight days. [Laughter]

[Assistant] You certainly made a lot of astronauts famous.

[User] Oh, yeah, yeah, right.

[Assistant] Some of the, I guess, more colorful astronauts were on the next flight, Apollo 12, where you had Pete [Charles C.] Conrad [Jr.].


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

[User] Oh, yeah, right. Oh, yeah. Try eating cold beef in Australia for six straight days. [Laughter]

[Assistant] You certainly made a lot of astronauts famous.

[User] Oh, yeah, yeah, right.

[Assistant] Some of the, I guess, more colorful astronauts were on the next flight, Apollo 12, where you had Pete [Charles C.] Conrad [Jr.].

[User] Oh, yes, that was a colorful group. That was really a colorful group. [Laughter]

[Assistant] Are there any stories or particular memories of them or that mission that you'd like to share?


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

[User] The onboard crews?

[Assistant] Right.

[User] I don't know what they're going to do.

[Assistant] I guess from your Skylab experience, in terms of controlling crew activities and that kind of thing—

[User] One of the things that came out of there, if people go back and think about it, was the crew would like some time off. They're trying to incorporate that in the time lines and so on. Well, understand that every time you put someone up there and he doesn't do anything, it's kind of like an American Airlines airplane sitting on the ground not flying. That's the way I like to look at it. If you take an airline, their idea is to keep that plane in the air as much as you can to make money. If that astronaut is not working and he's supposed to be trying to run experiments and so on, that's lost money, to me. That's the way I look at it. Now, hopefully they can work around that and do that, but it's going to be tough. Going to be very difficult. Going to be some real challenges in that whole personnel area, both on ground and on board. It's going to be difficult.\n\n The part of it now where you're putting it together, that's fine. You send the Shuttle crew up, they stay a week, put stuff together and so on, but it's going to be constant, because you've got to service this thing. It's not going to just sit there and bore holes. You're going to have to work on it. It's going to be a difficult task, going to be very, very challenging. But it's also going to be boring.

[Assistant] Moving on from Skylab, you had the Apollo-Soyuz Test Project [ASTP] flight. I understand you worked on that.


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

[User] I really feel good about that. That's something I really feel good about, and it's good to see these guys doing real well. Some have done very well.

[Assistant] I think that's all—

[User] That's it? We're all done?

[Assistant]
That's all the questions I have, but I did want to give Rob and Carol an opportunity to ask any if they had some.

I just have a couple. You were talking about the Shuttle antennas and so on, and it just occurred to me we were having transmission difficulty this week.

[User] On the K-band?

[Assistant] Lost some of the broadband ability. Could you give us a quick layman's overview of what that means?


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

[User] That's it? We're all done?

[Assistant]
That's all the questions I have, but I did want to give Rob and Carol an opportunity to ask any if they had some.

I just have a couple. You were talking about the Shuttle antennas and so on, and it just occurred to me we were having transmission difficulty this week.

[User] On the K-band?

[Assistant] Lost some of the broadband ability. Could you give us a quick layman's overview of what that means?

[User] Well, let me give you a little history of the K-band to start with. You want to hear that first?

[Assistant] That'd be great.


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

[User] Well, see, it goes beyond. It's not just Russians. It's Japanese. It's Europeans. I mean, basically, an open mind and tolerance is pretty much the name of the game. "Do not be too quick to judge" is certainly the first thing you have to advise. And you have to learn to swallow something that is to you almost surely unpleasant, but smile, nonetheless, while you're swallowing it. That's a metaphor, but actually when you go and eat another country's food, sometimes you'll be asked to try some foods that you really don't want to eat at all. But you've got to eat it and smile while you do it. [Laughter]

[Assistant] You didn't bring those recipes back home?

[User] No, I didn't bring them home. I'm thinking of the little fish with the eye staring up at you out of the jelly for breakfast. [Laughter]

[Assistant] For breakfast? How was the smell, along with the taste?

[User] Oh. It's in a little can, kind of wobbles there, and the little fish stare at you. [Laughter]

[Assistant] Did you find any foods that you liked?


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

[User] No, I didn't bring them home. I'm thinking of the little fish with the eye staring up at you out of the jelly for breakfast. [Laughter]

[Assistant] For breakfast? How was the smell, along with the taste?

[User] Oh. It's in a little can, kind of wobbles there, and the little fish stare at you. [Laughter]

[Assistant] Did you find any foods that you liked?

[User] Oh, yes, there's lots of foods. You can by, at least. I've never been big on caviar either.

[Assistant] I don't think I'm going to be too keen on tuna fish anymore now that I think about it.


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

[User] Oh. It's in a little can, kind of wobbles there, and the little fish stare at you. [Laughter]

[Assistant] Did you find any foods that you liked?

[User] Oh, yes, there's lots of foods. You can by, at least. I've never been big on caviar either.

[Assistant] I don't think I'm going to be too keen on tuna fish anymore now that I think about it.

[User] But vodka is now my favorite drink, my drink of choice.

[Assistant] Did you have a chance to enjoy that while you were there?


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

[User] Oh, yes, there's lots of foods. You can by, at least. I've never been big on caviar either.

[Assistant] I don't think I'm going to be too keen on tuna fish anymore now that I think about it.

[User] But vodka is now my favorite drink, my drink of choice.

[Assistant] Did you have a chance to enjoy that while you were there?

[User] Not on Mir, no.

[Assistant] No, not on Mir, but while you in Russia with your friends?


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

[User] But vodka is now my favorite drink, my drink of choice.

[Assistant] Did you have a chance to enjoy that while you were there?

[User] Not on Mir, no.

[Assistant] No, not on Mir, but while you in Russia with your friends?

[User] Oh, yes, a few times.

[Assistant] The social aspect of that culture, is that something that you enjoyed being a part of, or is it something that's done a lot, or they save special occasions for special events? Tell us about those times when you were with your Russian friends.


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

[User] Well, that's a different situation. That is quite different.

[Assistant] No barriers there.

[User] Oh, there are barriers. There are definitely barriers of command and control. My boss is a different boss. The objectives of my program are different from their objectives. They overlap, of course. But more important than anything else, we all know as a crew on board the station -and I've seen this reflected by every long-duration crew member coming back -is that no matter how much we are different in our characters, how we wouldn't naturally get together in a bar or seek each other out on Earth, in space we are terribly respective of each other's privacy and very careful to not cause friction. I was truly impressed how everyone behaved very carefully not to irritate each other and not to offend. No one ever willingly offended, as far as I know. Yet those same people are much less careful on Earth, including myself. The space flight actually, because of the severity of the situation, forces a behavior change that is actually more civilized.

[Assistant] I guess that's the good news then.

[User] That is good news.

[Assistant] The handover time is extremely brief compared to the time that you're up there. Did you receive any special advice from Jerry [M.] Linenger before the hatch closed and you were there? And did you have any special words for Dave Wolf as you let him and came back home?


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

[User] Oh, there are barriers. There are definitely barriers of command and control. My boss is a different boss. The objectives of my program are different from their objectives. They overlap, of course. But more important than anything else, we all know as a crew on board the station -and I've seen this reflected by every long-duration crew member coming back -is that no matter how much we are different in our characters, how we wouldn't naturally get together in a bar or seek each other out on Earth, in space we are terribly respective of each other's privacy and very careful to not cause friction. I was truly impressed how everyone behaved very carefully not to irritate each other and not to offend. No one ever willingly offended, as far as I know. Yet those same people are much less careful on Earth, including myself. The space flight actually, because of the severity of the situation, forces a behavior change that is actually more civilized.

[Assistant] I guess that's the good news then.

[User] That is good news.

[Assistant] The handover time is extremely brief compared to the time that you're up there. Did you receive any special advice from Jerry [M.] Linenger before the hatch closed and you were there? And did you have any special words for Dave Wolf as you let him and came back home?

[User] Have you interviewed Jerry?

[Assistant] No, not yet.


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

[User] Have you interviewed Jerry?

[Assistant] No, not yet.

[User] Are you going to?

[Assistant] We're trying.

[User] Okay. I'll leave it to Jerry to say what he told me. But for Dave, I was most concerned that he would come into a situation, living on the station, with false expectations. As I say, I believe most astronauts, in fact, most people working in the space program, once they're told if it's difficult or not, they can think about it, prepare for it, and deal with it successfully. But if you expect to go to a Hilton and you find a little roach motel, you are pretty fed up and angry.\n\n So I wanted to make sure that Dave Wolf understood that he was going to get into something pretty hard and pretty dirty, in terms of cleaning up water and moving equipment around, just doing a grungy job. So I sent a letter or two, actually to the one who he replaced, to Wendy [Lawrence], first. Then I had Wendy tell Dave what I had told her about what the conditions were like on Mir.\n\n But the overall tone of my letter was that, "Though there was a lot of work to be done here that's hard, I still believe the operational lessons that we are going to gain at NASA working with the Russians and seeing how they operate a station that's been in space for eleven years are truly worthwhile. And for that reason, I recommend that the program send you. And, Dave, personally, I believe you'll get a lot out of it, in terms of personal award, in getting through this whole thing. However, day by day you may not think it's so easy or so pleasant."\n\n I think he'll second that that's the overall impression you get. You're very glad you've done it, but it's like getting ready to jump into ice cold water. When you're out of the water you go, "Yeah, that was great!" [Laughter]

[Assistant] That first step. Do you remember your thoughts the first time that you saw the Mir from afar as you were approaching it?


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

[User] I'm sorry. [Laughter] But I had to say, as I saw the Mir going away, and we were doing a tremendous fly-around, it looked fantastic. I mean, all the guys around me were getting so excited about how great the Mir looked. It is truly a paragon, it's an ultimate in space flight experience to see such a big thing and fly around it. I was going, "Yes, we're getting away from that thing!" [Laughter] I honestly said, "I don't care if I never see it again." [Laughter]

[Assistant] I think anybody hearing you say that can understand why you felt that way.

[User] I'll tell you right now, I laugh because I did say that to myself. I thought, "You know, it looks great, but I don't care if I never see it again." [Laughter] But if they asked me today to go back and do a short mission for a month or two there, I'd go. I would do it.

[Assistant] That's great.

[User] It's kind of like why women have more babies after the first one, right? You forget how bad it was. [Laughter]

[Assistant] That's true, yes. Somewhere along we get smarter. The memory starts to get better. [Laughter] Or the kids get older, then there's other reasons why you have -


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

[User] I'll tell you right now, I laugh because I did say that to myself. I thought, "You know, it looks great, but I don't care if I never see it again." [Laughter] But if they asked me today to go back and do a short mission for a month or two there, I'd go. I would do it.

[Assistant] That's great.

[User] It's kind of like why women have more babies after the first one, right? You forget how bad it was. [Laughter]

[Assistant] That's true, yes. Somewhere along we get smarter. The memory starts to get better. [Laughter] Or the kids get older, then there's other reasons why you have -

[User] It was interesting, generally cosmonauts say the same thing. When they come back, when they're getting ready to come home, they say, "Never again. I will never sign up for this ever again." [Laughter] Then within a few, six months, they're going, "Oh, yeah, it was so great. Times were good. Didn't have any paperwork." [Laughter]

[Assistant] I understand that you're scheduled for STS-104.


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

[User] It's kind of like why women have more babies after the first one, right? You forget how bad it was. [Laughter]

[Assistant] That's true, yes. Somewhere along we get smarter. The memory starts to get better. [Laughter] Or the kids get older, then there's other reasons why you have -

[User] It was interesting, generally cosmonauts say the same thing. When they come back, when they're getting ready to come home, they say, "Never again. I will never sign up for this ever again." [Laughter] Then within a few, six months, they're going, "Oh, yeah, it was so great. Times were good. Didn't have any paperwork." [Laughter]

[Assistant] I understand that you're scheduled for STS-104.

[User] Yes, the Hubble.

[Assistant] And a record number of six space walks are scheduled to be conducted.


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

[User] It was interesting, generally cosmonauts say the same thing. When they come back, when they're getting ready to come home, they say, "Never again. I will never sign up for this ever again." [Laughter] Then within a few, six months, they're going, "Oh, yeah, it was so great. Times were good. Didn't have any paperwork." [Laughter]

[Assistant] I understand that you're scheduled for STS-104.

[User] Yes, the Hubble.

[Assistant] And a record number of six space walks are scheduled to be conducted.

[User] Yes.

[Assistant] Do you feel the time that you spent on Mir and the experiences that you got there are going to be able to help you do what you need to do on this future mission? I know we've talked about the space walk that you did and working with people in space. I didn't know if there was any connection of the learning experiences there that you can take with you.


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

[User] Oh, I'd love to get to the moon. There's a chance, if I don't get too gray, we could get back to the moon in about 2003 2004, if we do a verification of TransHab on the lunar surface. TransHab's the habitation module that we want to put up. It's an inflated structure on the station. But it's also the core of a vehicle that we think should go eventually to Mars and be the Mars vehicle there. But we would test it out and its life support systems on the moon, and potentially put crew members in it for six months in lunar orbit, which is pretty far away from the Earth, in lunar orbit for six months and then land them on the moon and see what all the medical problems, etc., of landing did. It's only a six G, not a third G, which is what Mars is. But that's kind of the idea going around at the moment.\n\n If all that demonstration works well, then go shoot for Mars in about two years after that. The ideas that Mr. Abbey has, Mr. [Daniel] Goldin has, the budget plans envisage asking money for that in about the next year. First significant money for that is the next year. It builds up to a lunar landing in about, as I say, about 2003, 2005. Then a Mars mission maybe five years after that.

[Assistant] How does this meet with your expectations of what you wanted to accomplish?

[User] I would like to go to the moon. I'd like to go to Mars, but I've said in other places, right now I'd only do that if my kids were grown up and my wife could go with me.

[Assistant] Sounds like a good plan. Was this part of your plans when you originally wanted to become an astronaut, to venture as far as to the moon and Mars?

[User] Oh, totally, yes. I thought I'd have done it by now. [Laughter]

[Assistant] Well, we're a little closer. So I guess that's what we'll keep working for.


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

[User] I would like to go to the moon. I'd like to go to Mars, but I've said in other places, right now I'd only do that if my kids were grown up and my wife could go with me.

[Assistant] Sounds like a good plan. Was this part of your plans when you originally wanted to become an astronaut, to venture as far as to the moon and Mars?

[User] Oh, totally, yes. I thought I'd have done it by now. [Laughter]

[Assistant] Well, we're a little closer. So I guess that's what we'll keep working for.

[User] I thought we'd all have done it by now. I remember I wrote a plan to myself as to how it was all going to go when I was about eighteen or nineteen. I thought sure we'd be going to Mars about now, yes. That when we were thinking that Shuttle was going to launch once every two weeks.

[Assistant] Maybe with all the cooperative efforts we'll be able to help each other.


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

[User] Oh, totally, yes. I thought I'd have done it by now. [Laughter]

[Assistant] Well, we're a little closer. So I guess that's what we'll keep working for.

[User] I thought we'd all have done it by now. I remember I wrote a plan to myself as to how it was all going to go when I was about eighteen or nineteen. I thought sure we'd be going to Mars about now, yes. That when we were thinking that Shuttle was going to launch once every two weeks.

[Assistant] Maybe with all the cooperative efforts we'll be able to help each other.

[User] Yes. It's much harder than that. Space flight is hard. You have to remember that a rifle that shoots a bullet at mach two, like an M-16, is a pretty good rifle, pretty good gun. It has a high technology in the explosive charge driving that bullet. The Space Shuttle goes twelve times faster than that and it's a hundred tons. You then have to deal with the fact that you have all the radiation up there, you're isolated, you have no materials. This is a difficult thing we're doing.\n\n It's because of that energy, specifically that energy of going up to twelve times the speed of an M-16 bullet, that really makes this thing both dangerous and so expensive. It's just to keep putting that much extra speed into it, with the same object, again and again and again in a short time, which is what liftoff is, is a very risky business.

[Assistant] But we certainly have people wanting to become part of the program. So the desire to be part of this program still lives on.


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

[User] No, unfortunately. I was very privileged, very, very lucky to be on the Mir during that EVA, because I had a pretty easy job once I was out there managing this crane for Anatoly. I could easy for twenty minutes at a time -no, I guess my kind of check cycle was like five minutes. Every five minutes, I think, "Am I screwing something up?" [Laughter] Then I'd go back to really enjoying the moment. I don't ever expect to be able to have that luxury again. I was very lucky to do that.

[Assistant] I'm sure your experiences will be many in the next few months, few years.

[User] Yes, I hope so.

[Assistant] You'll start training when, for your next flight?

[User] I've already started the Hubble, actually. I've already done a series of NBL runs here in the tank with the crew that were named. We went up to Goddard last two weeks ago. We were in bunny suits running all over the hardware for about three days. Then we have a whole bunch of NBL runs here coming up in September for a whole month, actually. Yes, I'm going to be quite tired.

[Assistant] It gets you out of the office.


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

[User] Yes, I hope so.

[Assistant] You'll start training when, for your next flight?

[User] I've already started the Hubble, actually. I've already done a series of NBL runs here in the tank with the crew that were named. We went up to Goddard last two weeks ago. We were in bunny suits running all over the hardware for about three days. Then we have a whole bunch of NBL runs here coming up in September for a whole month, actually. Yes, I'm going to be quite tired.

[Assistant] It gets you out of the office.

[User] It's good stuff, yes. Again, actually, I'll tell you one thing, I used to think [unclear] runs and the suit runs here were hard. I don't think they're hard anymore. [Laughter]

[Assistant] You do have experiences from that stuff.


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

[User] I've already started the Hubble, actually. I've already done a series of NBL runs here in the tank with the crew that were named. We went up to Goddard last two weeks ago. We were in bunny suits running all over the hardware for about three days. Then we have a whole bunch of NBL runs here coming up in September for a whole month, actually. Yes, I'm going to be quite tired.

[Assistant] It gets you out of the office.

[User] It's good stuff, yes. Again, actually, I'll tell you one thing, I used to think [unclear] runs and the suit runs here were hard. I don't think they're hard anymore. [Laughter]

[Assistant] You do have experiences from that stuff.

[User] Yes, because compared to the Orlon, which is the Russian suit, compared to the Russian hydrolab training in their tank, our training is really easy. [Laughter] This has something to do with the difference in pressures of the suits, and to do with the quality of the training hardware. After a two-and-a-half-hour run in Star City, I couldn't do anything afterwards. I was so tired, just totally exhausted.\n\n After five- or six-hour run in the suit here -and I'd never done one before until just about two months ago; I used to be really apprehensive about it -it was not a big deal, not compared to their Orlon. So I've already seen the biggest highest hill, and I'm going downhill now. [Laughter]

[Assistant] That's good. That makes the trip a little easier.


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

[User] It's good stuff, yes. Again, actually, I'll tell you one thing, I used to think [unclear] runs and the suit runs here were hard. I don't think they're hard anymore. [Laughter]

[Assistant] You do have experiences from that stuff.

[User] Yes, because compared to the Orlon, which is the Russian suit, compared to the Russian hydrolab training in their tank, our training is really easy. [Laughter] This has something to do with the difference in pressures of the suits, and to do with the quality of the training hardware. After a two-and-a-half-hour run in Star City, I couldn't do anything afterwards. I was so tired, just totally exhausted.\n\n After five- or six-hour run in the suit here -and I'd never done one before until just about two months ago; I used to be really apprehensive about it -it was not a big deal, not compared to their Orlon. So I've already seen the biggest highest hill, and I'm going downhill now. [Laughter]

[Assistant] That's good. That makes the trip a little easier.

[User] Yes.

[Assistant] Well, thanks again. We don't want to hold you up. We know we have a busy schedule.


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

[User] That was all right. Yes. I was right on the break point. The people who were further out were told to stay, and the people who were closer in than I were told to come back to Houston and get back to work. There were three of us there. “You guys in Hawaii take your choice.” One guy had a daughter graduating from high school, and the other two of us stayed.

[Assistant] We’re at a stopping point. Before we move on, I was going to ask Jennifer or Sandra if they had any questions for you about the time frame that we were talking about, or if you have anything else you want to add about the work that you did in the recovery.

[User] I thought of a few things last night, but I don’t think any of them are really significant, but [I’d] have to go back and try to piece in [things].

[Assistant] Okay.

[User] I did want to say—and I forgot to ask my wife—when I told you that George Cox and I went to New York to be on a TV show. I said it was I’ve Got a Secret, [and that was correct]. …

[Assistant] If you’d like, we can stop and pick up when you come back, about the meeting that you were involved in about the beginning of the Shuttle operations, or we can start on that now and take a break when you’re ready to go. So you tell us what you’d like to do.


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

[User] I thought of a few things last night, but I don’t think any of them are really significant, but [I’d] have to go back and try to piece in [things].

[Assistant] Okay.

[User] I did want to say—and I forgot to ask my wife—when I told you that George Cox and I went to New York to be on a TV show. I said it was I’ve Got a Secret, [and that was correct]. …

[Assistant] If you’d like, we can stop and pick up when you come back, about the meeting that you were involved in about the beginning of the Shuttle operations, or we can start on that now and take a break when you’re ready to go. So you tell us what you’d like to do.

[User] Why don’t we talk about the period of time that I was on Kraft’s staff, which was about two years.

[Assistant] Let’s do that. Okay.


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

[User] I did want to say—and I forgot to ask my wife—when I told you that George Cox and I went to New York to be on a TV show. I said it was I’ve Got a Secret, [and that was correct]. …

[Assistant] If you’d like, we can stop and pick up when you come back, about the meeting that you were involved in about the beginning of the Shuttle operations, or we can start on that now and take a break when you’re ready to go. So you tell us what you’d like to do.

[User] Why don’t we talk about the period of time that I was on Kraft’s staff, which was about two years.

[Assistant] Let’s do that. Okay.

[User] It’s not going to take long, because it was all pretty much routine stuff.

[Assistant] You can give us some insight about working with Dr. Kraft.


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

[User] Yes. For the first Shuttle launch, for whatever reason, I was down at the Cape [Canaveral, Florida] and had a blockhouse position, where I could monitor the countdown. I and one of the people who worked for me, named Neil [A.] Townsend, who was our Test Office Manager, were there to just monitor the countdown from the standpoint of the main propulsion system, because that was the thing that was going to be—you know, it was the first time we were flying this system with these three engines. So we were there for that.\n\n But we also agreed that when they got down to minus three minutes, that there wasn’t really anything that there was going to be any kind of judgment calls made on. So we beat it up to the roof of the blockhouse, so we were able to be on the roof and watch it about as close as you could get. That was really quite a rewarding experience, to see that launch close up, fairly close. I don’t know how far away we were, probably a couple of miles, but it was still close enough that you felt everything shaking when those solid-rocket boosters [and main engines] were building up to full thrust.

[Assistant] In many, many years before that, you had talked to the astronauts after they had landed. Did you talk to John [W.] Young as well and find out how the—

[User] No. No, I didn’t. It was not anything that my role put me in position that I should do that.

[Assistant] And the ones after. You didn’t retire till ’83?

[User] Yes.

[Assistant] So you were able to see a number of missions launch.


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

[User] No. No, I didn’t. It was not anything that my role put me in position that I should do that.

[Assistant] And the ones after. You didn’t retire till ’83?

[User] Yes.

[Assistant] So you were able to see a number of missions launch.

[User] Yes.

[Assistant] Could you share with us maybe how some of your early discussions about payloads and your early discussions about designs, how after those missions returned, you saw that work actually had come into reality and how well those discussions had worked.


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

[User] Yes.

[Assistant] So you were able to see a number of missions launch.

[User] Yes.

[Assistant] Could you share with us maybe how some of your early discussions about payloads and your early discussions about designs, how after those missions returned, you saw that work actually had come into reality and how well those discussions had worked.

[User] Yes. I was no longer concerned with payloads at all at that point. In fact, for the last three years, I was very much focused on the manufacturing and acceptance testing and getting that whole process running and keeping it running so that we had a stable environment budget-wise and so that we kept on schedule and got those things delivered as they were supposed to be. That’s what I concentrated on.

[Assistant] When you left, where were you in that progression? You said\n\n Columbia\n\n , of course, had launched and\n\n Challenger\n\n had been delivered.


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

[User] Yes. I would repeat, the ten years or so from ’59 to ’69 were very rewarding, and I was well satisfied with what I was able to contribute there and really pleased to have worked with a team of people who were so dedicated and so hard-driving and so constructive in their approach to the endeavor. It was really the kind of experience I think very few people get to have in their lifetime.\n\n The other period that I found really satisfying was the last three years, when I was the Manager of Manufacturing and Test, because I think we really got some things—we kind of got the trolley on the tracks and kept it there and got the manufacturing operation—I won’t say straightened out, because it certainly wasn’t broken to begin with, but we were able to establish an environment between NASA and the contractor where there was less finger-pointing and more “Let’s get this thing done. Let’s anticipate problems. Let’s realize that everybody is well served if we get these things manufactured and get them out on time, and if we can save some money while we’re doing it, let’s do that.” Of course, as you save time, you do save money.\n\n I was very gratified with that, and again, the people working for me directly here at NASA were a really great bunch of people, and I really enjoyed working with them.

[Assistant] Before we close today, I was going to ask and see if anybody had any other questions and if there [were] any areas that you thought of, or if you wanted to take a look at your notes that you made, something that we might have passed by too quickly that you can think of.

[User] I’ll probably think of that in a week, if there is such a thing. And I did have the right name of the TV show.

[Assistant] Oh, good. Are there any other anecdotes you can think of or good moments that you want to share?

[User] No.

[Assistant] We certainly thank you for taking time on your first trip back in a long time to spend so much time with us.


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

[User] We did have one really important change to make at a certain time. Shortly after we chose our prime contractor they said, “Okay, the budget has to go up a lot.” And it became immediately obvious that we couldn’t afford everything we had been asking for. Even before we selected them, we said, “Well, we can’t afford the eight-meter design. We are going to make a 6.5-meter telescope, please.”\n\n We got far enough with the technology development for the mirrors to say, “We could never afford the time and the money to build all the big mirror that you said. And besides, it won’t fit anyway. The rocket’s only so big, and it’s a really snug fit.” Maybe we could have made it fit, but it sure is snug. Another thing about the mirror technology—it turns out to be heavier than we thought. If the mirrors are heavier, you can’t have as many.\n\n Anyway, that’s all the process we had to go through. The science team was deeply involved in all of these discussions about “What’s the real requirement?” But ever since 2002, where we said what the real requirement was and who the players are, we basically haven’t had to change anything.

[Assistant] That’s an achievement in itself.

[User] It’s a major achievement. It means that what we said we would do, we could do. But the flipside of it is, it was a whole lot more expensive than we expected.

[Assistant] Anywhere along that path that you thought you might lose the project because of the expense or the budget?

[User] Yes, it was obvious that you could lose it, but I thought, “I am not going to think about that part. I am just going to do my best.” That’s what we all did. You just can’t focus on the bad part. You have to focus on the opportunity.

[Assistant] You seem to have had the support, though, from the NASA Administrator.


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

[User] Yes. We have many project engineers, but my nearest counterpart is the systems engineer. His office is right next door, Mike [Michael P.] Menzel, and he is brilliant. He is just a wonderful guy to work with. He understands what you say and why you mean it, and he knows how to accomplish what you want. And he knows how to exert himself in the team to make good things happen.\n\n Of course there is not just one systems engineer, there are many. Each subsystem has its own systems engineer and managers. A typical engineering team has a manager and a systems engineer at the top, then they make sure all of the people that report to them have done the right technical work, and have gotten it done on budget and schedule. That’s what that team does.\n\n Our job as scientists is to hand our science job on to their manager and the systems engineer, and say, “Please build this, please.” When they fully understand the job, that’s what they do. We like to participate in their discussions to make sure that they do understand, but they understand. It’s very rare for a scientist to come up and say, “Well, I have a better idea about how to do your engineering job.” The engineers are really good at what they do, and very rare for a scientist to have a better idea. Once in a while, we have something to contribute, which is something nobody has ever done before, and I’m happy when we can do that. But mostly, it’s scientists cheering on the engineers and checking that their work is what we meant.

[Assistant] And then you have a project manager that oversees it all?

[User] Yes.

[Assistant] And relays to Center management, and then on to Headquarters as well?

[User] Yes. Bill Ochs, his office is down the hall. Have you interviewed him?

[Assistant] No, I have not.


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

[User] Yes.

[Assistant] And relays to Center management, and then on to Headquarters as well?

[User] Yes. Bill Ochs, his office is down the hall. Have you interviewed him?

[Assistant] No, I have not.

[User] Then you will want to do that sometime. Right now, he is really busy. In fact, I think that’s true until we’re done, because he is the focal point for everything about success. So I am cautious about asking for his time. I don’t want to take his time. I don’t need my hand held, I just want to know that he has got what he needs.

[Assistant] And you are going to be pretty busy. Are you shifting gears now as you are getting closer to launch?


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

[User] Right. Since the telescope has to be clean, you open it up in a cleanroom, which we didn’t have. So around the front door of the tank, we put a room with clean air, and the process for doing that.

[Assistant] Have you been down there? I know that you are going in a couple of weeks, but have you been down there already to see it so far?

[User] Just briefly, I was there last week. We had a visitor, [Congressmen] Brian Babin and Randy [Randall K.] Weber, whose districts are right there [in southeast Texas]. So yes, I went for that, and I have a phone message about “Brian Babin just came in this afternoon,” so he is interested. He is clearly very interested in the Webb Telescope, and in NASA. Glad to see that.

[Assistant] Yes. It’s always good to have a champion somewhere on the [Capitol] Hill to keep it going. When you were developing those new technologies, we always use the expression that they are “state of the art.” As you have been working on these, do you feel like the technologies that you developed and designed so many years ago are still the ones that you need to go where you are going?

[User] Yes.

[Assistant] Or you always have that fear that something better is going to come along?


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

[User] Just briefly, I was there last week. We had a visitor, [Congressmen] Brian Babin and Randy [Randall K.] Weber, whose districts are right there [in southeast Texas]. So yes, I went for that, and I have a phone message about “Brian Babin just came in this afternoon,” so he is interested. He is clearly very interested in the Webb Telescope, and in NASA. Glad to see that.

[Assistant] Yes. It’s always good to have a champion somewhere on the [Capitol] Hill to keep it going. When you were developing those new technologies, we always use the expression that they are “state of the art.” As you have been working on these, do you feel like the technologies that you developed and designed so many years ago are still the ones that you need to go where you are going?

[User] Yes.

[Assistant] Or you always have that fear that something better is going to come along?

[User] That happens in other parts of the world, where there’s other customers—if you want a better computer processor, somebody else always wants one too. So if you wait, one is going to happen. In our world, there is nobody else that wants what we want, so there is no other, better one anywhere.\n\n There is one small area where better ones—or bigger ones anyway—are coming along, and that’s the infrared detectors. There is a new generation currently in progress that’s got a larger format, more megapixels. I don’t think it’s more sensitive, so we really didn’t have to have it. We are getting just about as good a result as we would have gotten if we could have had the new generation. That’s the only one that I am aware of where progress has continued after we stopped developing.

[Assistant] Is the project living up to the expectations you wanted it to when you started 20 years ago?


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

[User] Yes.

[Assistant] Or you always have that fear that something better is going to come along?

[User] That happens in other parts of the world, where there’s other customers—if you want a better computer processor, somebody else always wants one too. So if you wait, one is going to happen. In our world, there is nobody else that wants what we want, so there is no other, better one anywhere.\n\n There is one small area where better ones—or bigger ones anyway—are coming along, and that’s the infrared detectors. There is a new generation currently in progress that’s got a larger format, more megapixels. I don’t think it’s more sensitive, so we really didn’t have to have it. We are getting just about as good a result as we would have gotten if we could have had the new generation. That’s the only one that I am aware of where progress has continued after we stopped developing.

[Assistant] Is the project living up to the expectations you wanted it to when you started 20 years ago?

[User] Yes, it really is. I had no idea how hard this was going to be, nobody really did. But it was really clear to me that this was the next great opportunity, so it didn’t take me five seconds to say yes, that’s what I wanted to work on when I was given the shot. So yes, it’s what I want. And I am sure we’re going to discover something amazing. I just don’t know what it is yet.

[Assistant] Well, that was going to be my next question. A lot of people have lots of speculation of what you feel like it’s going to be able to do, but I was curious if there is something you really want it to do?