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

[User] It was exciting. It really was to me particularly since I had not spoken to these people, but I had had letters from them and in some cases phone calls. I expected to meet them when they came to the conference.\n\n One night each of us in the New York Society of Women Engineers section invited a few to a small dinner someplace. That was very nice. They were to wear the costumes of their country if they wanted to. I had one group, and it worked very well. We were living in the Cornell Club building. My husband became a member of the Cornell Club, so I had use of the dining room. There’s a dining room for women and a dining room for men. All my guests were women of course. They didn’t know that the dining room was a place where men didn’t come. But that was a nice dining room. It was a brand-new building. We were the first people to move in.\n\n Our furniture didn’t all get in till midnight that night. The man who ran it was from Germany I think. His wife was also. That night at midnight she brought us a beautiful cake, so we celebrated together.

[Assistant] That’s great. It was a long way from when you moved to New York for DuPont [Pioneer Research] in the room with the couch that folded out.

[User] That’s right. It was a long way from that. We had a balcony over three rooms, so we really had a real view of the other buildings and out toward the river. It was a very nice place.

[Assistant] Sounds like it. If it’s okay, I’m going to ask Jennifer if she’s got a question for you as well.

[User] Okay.

[Assistant]
I thought of several, Dr. Simon. I was curious. We shared with you some of the materials that we had pulled. What did you think of the media coverage and their interest in your career?

The Saturday Evening Post did the article on you [in September 1959]. What did you think about these writers who wanted to come talk to you about your career?


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

[User] That’s right. It was a long way from that. We had a balcony over three rooms, so we really had a real view of the other buildings and out toward the river. It was a very nice place.

[Assistant] Sounds like it. If it’s okay, I’m going to ask Jennifer if she’s got a question for you as well.

[User] Okay.

[Assistant]
I thought of several, Dr. Simon. I was curious. We shared with you some of the materials that we had pulled. What did you think of the media coverage and their interest in your career?

The Saturday Evening Post did the article on you [in September 1959]. What did you think about these writers who wanted to come talk to you about your career?

[User] Well, it made my husband very angry. He talked to his good friend from NACA. He said, “If they don’t call you a communist or a criminal, you’re all right.”

[Assistant] He was so concerned about that possibility?


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

[User] Okay.

[Assistant]
I thought of several, Dr. Simon. I was curious. We shared with you some of the materials that we had pulled. What did you think of the media coverage and their interest in your career?

The Saturday Evening Post did the article on you [in September 1959]. What did you think about these writers who wanted to come talk to you about your career?

[User] Well, it made my husband very angry. He talked to his good friend from NACA. He said, “If they don’t call you a communist or a criminal, you’re all right.”

[Assistant] He was so concerned about that possibility?

[User] No. I don’t think he was. Maybe he didn’t like the competition.

[Assistant] Maybe not. But did you see yourself as unique in that time period?


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

[User] Well, it made my husband very angry. He talked to his good friend from NACA. He said, “If they don’t call you a communist or a criminal, you’re all right.”

[Assistant] He was so concerned about that possibility?

[User] No. I don’t think he was. Maybe he didn’t like the competition.

[Assistant] Maybe not. But did you see yourself as unique in that time period?

[User] Yes. I didn’t meet anybody like me. It was really prefeminist time.

[Assistant] Did you find that there was hostility in the workforce when you started? In the late ’40s and ’50s they were encouraging women to stay home and raise babies, and not really work or go into fields such as science. Was there hostility towards women that you found?


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

[User] No. I don’t think he was. Maybe he didn’t like the competition.

[Assistant] Maybe not. But did you see yourself as unique in that time period?

[User] Yes. I didn’t meet anybody like me. It was really prefeminist time.

[Assistant] Did you find that there was hostility in the workforce when you started? In the late ’40s and ’50s they were encouraging women to stay home and raise babies, and not really work or go into fields such as science. Was there hostility towards women that you found?

[User] No, not really, because during the war all the women were being asked to do something. Rosie the Riveter, and that kind of thing. There was an anxiety to have women to use in the workforce. I don’t think there were too many times when people knew me that they felt any bad feelings about what I had done. My mother-in-law was sorry I hadn’t had any children. Maybe my parents were too. But it wasn’t in the book.

[Assistant]
You were writing a new book.

Did you work with other female engineers or scientists, or were you pretty much the only woman in the company?


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

[User] Yes. I didn’t meet anybody like me. It was really prefeminist time.

[Assistant] Did you find that there was hostility in the workforce when you started? In the late ’40s and ’50s they were encouraging women to stay home and raise babies, and not really work or go into fields such as science. Was there hostility towards women that you found?

[User] No, not really, because during the war all the women were being asked to do something. Rosie the Riveter, and that kind of thing. There was an anxiety to have women to use in the workforce. I don’t think there were too many times when people knew me that they felt any bad feelings about what I had done. My mother-in-law was sorry I hadn’t had any children. Maybe my parents were too. But it wasn’t in the book.

[Assistant]
You were writing a new book.

Did you work with other female engineers or scientists, or were you pretty much the only woman in the company?

[User] I was the only woman except for the secretaries. I had a woman secretary. Somebody suggested I ought to have a man secretary.

[Assistant] What would your husband have thought of that?


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

[User] No, not really, because during the war all the women were being asked to do something. Rosie the Riveter, and that kind of thing. There was an anxiety to have women to use in the workforce. I don’t think there were too many times when people knew me that they felt any bad feelings about what I had done. My mother-in-law was sorry I hadn’t had any children. Maybe my parents were too. But it wasn’t in the book.

[Assistant]
You were writing a new book.

Did you work with other female engineers or scientists, or were you pretty much the only woman in the company?

[User] I was the only woman except for the secretaries. I had a woman secretary. Somebody suggested I ought to have a man secretary.

[Assistant] What would your husband have thought of that?

[User] I wouldn’t have mentioned it, but I wouldn’t have liked that either.

[Assistant] Did you belong to any women’s organizations or groups?


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

[User] I was the only woman except for the secretaries. I had a woman secretary. Somebody suggested I ought to have a man secretary.

[Assistant] What would your husband have thought of that?

[User] I wouldn’t have mentioned it, but I wouldn’t have liked that either.

[Assistant] Did you belong to any women’s organizations or groups?

[User] I belonged to the Society of Women Engineers. The other societies, like the American Chemical Society and the Society for Aeronautics and Astronautics, that was more what I was doing. I served on the board of that for a while.

[Assistant] You made a number of presentations and speeches in your life. Are there any that stick out in your memory as those that are more special than others?


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

[User] I wouldn’t have mentioned it, but I wouldn’t have liked that either.

[Assistant] Did you belong to any women’s organizations or groups?

[User] I belonged to the Society of Women Engineers. The other societies, like the American Chemical Society and the Society for Aeronautics and Astronautics, that was more what I was doing. I served on the board of that for a while.

[Assistant] You made a number of presentations and speeches in your life. Are there any that stick out in your memory as those that are more special than others?

[User] I guess the one that sticks out in my mind is the one that I gave at Missouri State for the graduates in the summertime. It was very interesting. I gave a very short speech, and there were many who said, “You said what you wanted to say, and it was so much better than sitting there and hearing somebody [else].” We had a very terrible storm during the time, I was giving it. I had expected to wear a robe of course, but it was so hot that everybody was taking off their robes. So they were not going to appear that way.\n\n Well, I hadn’t really thought about my dress, but I had on a sleeveless navy blue linen dress. That’s what I wore.

[Assistant] Would you tell us how the workplace changed over the years? You started working right after the war, and then you were working for so long [afterwards]. Tell us how things changed in terms of dress, or the type of people you worked with and attitudes.


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

[User] I belonged to the Society of Women Engineers. The other societies, like the American Chemical Society and the Society for Aeronautics and Astronautics, that was more what I was doing. I served on the board of that for a while.

[Assistant] You made a number of presentations and speeches in your life. Are there any that stick out in your memory as those that are more special than others?

[User] I guess the one that sticks out in my mind is the one that I gave at Missouri State for the graduates in the summertime. It was very interesting. I gave a very short speech, and there were many who said, “You said what you wanted to say, and it was so much better than sitting there and hearing somebody [else].” We had a very terrible storm during the time, I was giving it. I had expected to wear a robe of course, but it was so hot that everybody was taking off their robes. So they were not going to appear that way.\n\n Well, I hadn’t really thought about my dress, but I had on a sleeveless navy blue linen dress. That’s what I wore.

[Assistant] Would you tell us how the workplace changed over the years? You started working right after the war, and then you were working for so long [afterwards]. Tell us how things changed in terms of dress, or the type of people you worked with and attitudes.

[User] Well, let’s start with dress. In came the casual dress for certain days. That was not around, so that was a big change in the environment. As a matter of fact, in some of the science and laboratory places they never dress other than in a casual way. You just couldn’t go around in a suit and tie. So that was true, but it wasn’t of course anything the secretaries or anybody like that would have worn.

[Assistant] Did attitudes change over time? Did you notice a lot more women coming into the workplace?


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

[User] Yes, that was a very nice thing. I also served on committees, one of them was to decide what technologies should not be sent overseas. That was an interesting one too. Then another of them was to look at the holding property, which was chemicals that could be used for making other things. Of course it’s gasoline. But several stockpiles were really out of tune with what was needed, so we made recommendations on that. We heard a lot of people speak about what they thought should be done.\n\n It was just a waste of money to hold those things if they weren’t going to be used, so they revamped the whole materials stored in there.

[Assistant] That’s interesting. Speaking of those types of committees, I found a list. One was the Department of Commerce Committee for National Bureau of Standards. Now that was a very unique one to add to the list. What did you do with that?

[User] The Bureau of Standards had a very wide range of programs. They didn’t have much to do with measurements and the thing you think they would. They had some advances in radiochemistry and other such things. The point was to see whether it was balanced research work that they were doing, how it fitted in with their primary job relations and they separated. The department no longer had say, atomic energy programs such as that. They went to this new laboratory.\n\n I think it was a very good thing. It was too widespread. You’ve got to have some nucleus of scientists who are doing the same kind of problems in a field that becomes known then that that’s a place to go and to get a lot of information. So every one I was on turned out to make suggestions of reorganizations and such as that.

[Assistant] Sounds like a pattern there, and all very different but yet somewhat related.

[User] That’s right. I think it was the time after the war when you needed to look at what had been going on because everybody was focused on materials for war and there wasn’t, thank goodness.

[Assistant] I know you retired from Avco, but did you continue working?


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

[User] The Bureau of Standards had a very wide range of programs. They didn’t have much to do with measurements and the thing you think they would. They had some advances in radiochemistry and other such things. The point was to see whether it was balanced research work that they were doing, how it fitted in with their primary job relations and they separated. The department no longer had say, atomic energy programs such as that. They went to this new laboratory.\n\n I think it was a very good thing. It was too widespread. You’ve got to have some nucleus of scientists who are doing the same kind of problems in a field that becomes known then that that’s a place to go and to get a lot of information. So every one I was on turned out to make suggestions of reorganizations and such as that.

[Assistant] Sounds like a pattern there, and all very different but yet somewhat related.

[User] That’s right. I think it was the time after the war when you needed to look at what had been going on because everybody was focused on materials for war and there wasn’t, thank goodness.

[Assistant] I know you retired from Avco, but did you continue working?

[User] Well, at the age of 65, being an officer of the company, I had to retire. The policy had been that you could work till you were 70 or something. I think I would have gone ahead, but it was just a new phase of my life. We had planned to come to North Carolina, and the reasons were just as good for me as they were for the two of us, and I’m very glad that I came here.

[Assistant]
You chose a beautiful piece of America to live.

The only other question I thought about is, you worked in industry and you also worked for the government. Would you talk about the differences between those two different types of jobs?


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

[User] Yes. Not working for an industry, you have much more freedom to decide what you would like to do. You would like to tie it in somewhat with the laboratory and certainly with what the laboratory was supposed to do, but not the same as in industry when you are essentially assigned a program to do. You may suggest other things later, but the first thing that you do is to spend a year or two following the assignments. At DuPont the reason that I had gone there in the first place was it was one of the only companies that let you advance on two ways. One of those was being a scientist and you didn’t have to get a management job to get higher wages, and then the management side. Many a person has given up real talent to go over and become a manager. That isn’t quite right. They were the only company I knew at the time who used that double ladder. But I wasn’t there long enough to have it affect me.\n\n One of my colleagues there was from the University of Illinois. After I left, we stayed in contact through Christmas cards, things like that. One day he wrote on a card, “It’s taken 10 years here to complete the work that you started.” I was very very pleased that they went on with that work.

[Assistant] So you left a lot of foundations for people to build upon. It’s a nice legacy.

[User] A nice legacy. Right.

[Assistant] As you look back on your years of contributions to industry and government, are there some things that we didn’t talk about that you can remember you’d like for us to know?

[User] Let’s see. In industry you are more likely to be asked to leave than in a government laboratory. You have to really do something terrible in a government laboratory to be asked to leave. Just even a misunderstanding can cause you to lose your job in industry, if you can’t get along with your boss. Then his story is good.

[Assistant] It’s the only one that people listen to?


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

[User] A nice legacy. Right.

[Assistant] As you look back on your years of contributions to industry and government, are there some things that we didn’t talk about that you can remember you’d like for us to know?

[User] Let’s see. In industry you are more likely to be asked to leave than in a government laboratory. You have to really do something terrible in a government laboratory to be asked to leave. Just even a misunderstanding can cause you to lose your job in industry, if you can’t get along with your boss. Then his story is good.

[Assistant] It’s the only one that people listen to?

[User] That’s right. You don’t get a chance to defend yourself. It wouldn’t go over anyway if you tried.

[Assistant] What was your favorite time to be working? The decades that you worked, things were so different from one to the other. That constant change.


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

[User] Let’s see. In industry you are more likely to be asked to leave than in a government laboratory. You have to really do something terrible in a government laboratory to be asked to leave. Just even a misunderstanding can cause you to lose your job in industry, if you can’t get along with your boss. Then his story is good.

[Assistant] It’s the only one that people listen to?

[User] That’s right. You don’t get a chance to defend yourself. It wouldn’t go over anyway if you tried.

[Assistant] What was your favorite time to be working? The decades that you worked, things were so different from one to the other. That constant change.

[User] They were different because I worked at the front edge. Everyone was at that stage with practically everything, so it’s really hard to say why that was so. The war had a great deal to do with it because there was a total revision of what was important after the war. Where people could look and say, “Oh this is going to have breakthroughs and we’re going to move fast.” I guess that’s what all of us wanted.

[Assistant] I remember reading that one paper you gave, I believe it was to the AIAA [American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics], was about innovation. Did you have a great belief that as Americans we need to be innovators?


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

[User] That’s right. You don’t get a chance to defend yourself. It wouldn’t go over anyway if you tried.

[Assistant] What was your favorite time to be working? The decades that you worked, things were so different from one to the other. That constant change.

[User] They were different because I worked at the front edge. Everyone was at that stage with practically everything, so it’s really hard to say why that was so. The war had a great deal to do with it because there was a total revision of what was important after the war. Where people could look and say, “Oh this is going to have breakthroughs and we’re going to move fast.” I guess that’s what all of us wanted.

[Assistant] I remember reading that one paper you gave, I believe it was to the AIAA [American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics], was about innovation. Did you have a great belief that as Americans we need to be innovators?

[User] What the paper was about was how I had found innovation better if you paired people who were in the same field, but they had gone to different universities and they had a different look. In the materials division, I had the two people work on a program that they together had proposed. The papers that they wrote on that brought them personal fame. Of course they both left, but I had written a paper on it I guess. When I moved to Greenwich, there was another company there whose chief scientist leader had read the paper. He learned that I had moved there, so he wanted me to come and talk about it. He said, “It’s the first paper on management that I ever understood.”

[Assistant] I found it very interesting as I read the [1959] article in the Saturday Evening Post about you and Sidney living in your home in Massachusetts, and on Sunday mornings you would have a gathering of people that were sharing ideas over meals. I just thought that was such a wonderful atmosphere.


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

[User] What the paper was about was how I had found innovation better if you paired people who were in the same field, but they had gone to different universities and they had a different look. In the materials division, I had the two people work on a program that they together had proposed. The papers that they wrote on that brought them personal fame. Of course they both left, but I had written a paper on it I guess. When I moved to Greenwich, there was another company there whose chief scientist leader had read the paper. He learned that I had moved there, so he wanted me to come and talk about it. He said, “It’s the first paper on management that I ever understood.”

[Assistant] I found it very interesting as I read the [1959] article in the Saturday Evening Post about you and Sidney living in your home in Massachusetts, and on Sunday mornings you would have a gathering of people that were sharing ideas over meals. I just thought that was such a wonderful atmosphere.

[User] It was. It was limited in scope because two MDs that worked for Avco saw all these people who should make things faster and more innovative than they had. One of them was about the method of feeding people who needed to get their nourishment and couldn’t get it from eating meals.\n\n One of the problems when they were trying to push it through [the tube] was that there wasn’t enough weight on the end of it to work properly. So a couple of people came up with ideas that sounded good. One of the days that we were getting together, one of the two doctors called up and said, “I’ve got a dead body.” He meant he was going to bring a study corpse like medical students and show people exactly what he wanted to do, and he did.

[Assistant] Must have had some very unique conversations on those Sunday mornings.

[User] That’s right.

[Assistant] I know that you worked on reviewing ideas, but did you have your own set of inventions or your own set of projects that you saw come to fruition?


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

[User] It was. It was limited in scope because two MDs that worked for Avco saw all these people who should make things faster and more innovative than they had. One of them was about the method of feeding people who needed to get their nourishment and couldn’t get it from eating meals.\n\n One of the problems when they were trying to push it through [the tube] was that there wasn’t enough weight on the end of it to work properly. So a couple of people came up with ideas that sounded good. One of the days that we were getting together, one of the two doctors called up and said, “I’ve got a dead body.” He meant he was going to bring a study corpse like medical students and show people exactly what he wanted to do, and he did.

[Assistant] Must have had some very unique conversations on those Sunday mornings.

[User] That’s right.

[Assistant] I know that you worked on reviewing ideas, but did you have your own set of inventions or your own set of projects that you saw come to fruition?

[User] Well, of course the heat shield was one that lots of people had to work on before it was a success. But that did please me very much to see that that was.

[Assistant] Well, we can end there, knowing that that contribution made such a difference to all those spacecraft that came through re-entry.


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

[User] That’s right.

[Assistant] I know that you worked on reviewing ideas, but did you have your own set of inventions or your own set of projects that you saw come to fruition?

[User] Well, of course the heat shield was one that lots of people had to work on before it was a success. But that did please me very much to see that that was.

[Assistant] Well, we can end there, knowing that that contribution made such a difference to all those spacecraft that came through re-entry.

[User] That’s right.

[Assistant] Thank you so much. We really enjoyed learning so much.


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

[User] There are. I do have copies of documents.

[Assistant] Would you be willing to share those with us?

[User] Oh, I don’t have a problem sharing them. The group that came out looking for historical preservation was led by Mr. Mario Busacca out of KSC. I provided them with a lot of the preliminary documents in developing WSSH. Environmental assessments, some of those kinds of things.

[Assistant] Could we get copies as well?

[User] Yes, yes. We can send you copies.

[Assistant] Rebecca, do you have anything for Mr. Mitchell? You have answered all my questions. I didn’t ask too many, because you just went through and answered everything I had.


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

[User] Oh, I don’t have a problem sharing them. The group that came out looking for historical preservation was led by Mr. Mario Busacca out of KSC. I provided them with a lot of the preliminary documents in developing WSSH. Environmental assessments, some of those kinds of things.

[Assistant] Could we get copies as well?

[User] Yes, yes. We can send you copies.

[Assistant] Rebecca, do you have anything for Mr. Mitchell? You have answered all my questions. I didn’t ask too many, because you just went through and answered everything I had.

[User] Well, I enjoy taking tours. Every so often I would take co-op students, secretaries, people that would not get the opportunity to go to WSSH—I’d take them over there on a special tour. It takes an hour to drive over, an hour to drive back, and two hours to do WSSH, and then another hour to go over to Holloman and show them the facilities over there, eat lunch and then [return].

[Assistant] It’s a full day.


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

[User] Yes, yes. We can send you copies.

[Assistant] Rebecca, do you have anything for Mr. Mitchell? You have answered all my questions. I didn’t ask too many, because you just went through and answered everything I had.

[User] Well, I enjoy taking tours. Every so often I would take co-op students, secretaries, people that would not get the opportunity to go to WSSH—I’d take them over there on a special tour. It takes an hour to drive over, an hour to drive back, and two hours to do WSSH, and then another hour to go over to Holloman and show them the facilities over there, eat lunch and then [return].

[Assistant] It’s a full day.

[User] So they get a full day, 7:00 to 7:30 until 1:30 to 2:30. And I’m constantly just running through everything that we have going on. Having been the environmental coordinator responsible for all environmental work at WSMR, White Sands Missile Range, I was able to get a lot of historic information. We’d throw all that in there.\n\n There are some videos and pictures, some storyboards that were put together for WSSH for special events, that I don’t know if they would be beneficial for you or not. I don’t even know how we can get you visual without taking a picture of them. That’ll take a little while to get that accomplished. A couple of them were just recently done, and our photo guys up in the photo lab may be able to get you electronic copies of them, I don’t know.

[Assistant] Yes, if you can give us their names.


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

[User] Well, I enjoy taking tours. Every so often I would take co-op students, secretaries, people that would not get the opportunity to go to WSSH—I’d take them over there on a special tour. It takes an hour to drive over, an hour to drive back, and two hours to do WSSH, and then another hour to go over to Holloman and show them the facilities over there, eat lunch and then [return].

[Assistant] It’s a full day.

[User] So they get a full day, 7:00 to 7:30 until 1:30 to 2:30. And I’m constantly just running through everything that we have going on. Having been the environmental coordinator responsible for all environmental work at WSMR, White Sands Missile Range, I was able to get a lot of historic information. We’d throw all that in there.\n\n There are some videos and pictures, some storyboards that were put together for WSSH for special events, that I don’t know if they would be beneficial for you or not. I don’t even know how we can get you visual without taking a picture of them. That’ll take a little while to get that accomplished. A couple of them were just recently done, and our photo guys up in the photo lab may be able to get you electronic copies of them, I don’t know.

[Assistant] Yes, if you can give us their names.

[User] Moira [J.] Romansky, David [W.] Huskey. David is the photo guy. Moira is the pubs [publications] leader.

[Assistant] Great. Well, thank you so much for taking your time this morning. We certainly appreciate it.


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

[User] Yes. Jim [James] Le Blanc, who’s over in the EA [Engineering and Development Directorate office] now. In fact, he’s on old roomie of mine. We roomed together a while. In fact, it was sort of ironic. He was on the suit, an Apollo suit, and he had even made the corrections himself. We had two pipes coming out of the facility environmental control system. Now, anytime you have a pipe that’s going to have a hose on it, it has a little bead on it. So you put the hose over it and put a clamp on it, and if you try to pull it off, the clamp will get stopped by this little bead that’s on the hose. Didn’t have it in those days, it was a smooth bore. So he was moving around in the chamber and pulled the hose off. He said he could feel the saliva bubbling in his mouth. Either it was air coming out or it could have been even blood before he passed out.

[Assistant] Definitely a scary moment.

[User] Oh, yes. But it was kind of ironic. He was the one that put on the clamps anyway, so he kind of did it to himself. But it was something that if you can survive your lessons, you can learn.

[Assistant] Yes. Well, fortunately there weren’t any fatalities.

[User] No, not that we had. We had some close calls. We had a guy get burned pretty severely in April of 1980.

[Assistant] I don’t think I’ve heard that one.


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

[User] Oh, yes. We had a leak in the coolant loop. This is one I wouldn’t have told, but now since you brought it up, I’ll tell it. So the idea was we’re going to send up a coolant loop repair kit. We’re going to pierce, just like you do an air-conditioning system. We’ve got this valve. You put it on the line and seal it and then screw it in, and you’ll puncture it and then you’ll let flow come in from another way. So we’ll replenish the coolant loop.\n\n Here is my contribution: I said, “Well, wait a minute. What if this recharge kit leaks?”\n\n The guy says, “Well, we don’t think it’s going to.”\n\n “Yes, we need something to check it.” So we came up with the coolant loop recharge kit leakage test fixture, which was my brainchild, my contribution. Somebody else asks the question, “Well, what if your leakage fixture leaks?”\n\n “Well, no, we don’t think it’s going to.”\n\n Anyway, make a long story short, we come up with the coolant loop recharge fixture, the coolant loop recharge fixture leakage kit, send them up there. They put it on, and, sure enough, when they check for leakage, it shows that somehow this assembly leaks.\n\n Somebody say, “Well, let’s try it without the coolant loop fixture leakage test fixture.” So they did, and it worked. They recharged it. So I ended up getting an award for the coolant loop recharge kit. Somebody forgot that, no, his was the test fixture, his was the piece that didn’t work. But I very graciously, I didn’t want to make look bad, so I accepted the award.

[Assistant] I don’t recall coming across that.

[User] A little-known fact. You can see why I didn’t want to bring that up, but thank you so much –

[Assistant] Sorry.

[User] —for enriching this oral history with that.

[Assistant] Maybe we can change that part to some ellipses.


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

[User] Clearing some empty space out.

[Assistant] We’ll note that one as a primary contribution.

[User] That’s right. When I retired from NASA, my friends at Hamilton [Sunstrand] gave me a nice big picture, and on that they’ve got part of the drawings from the ion exchange bed, just as kind of a reminder.

[Assistant] Make sure your ego doesn’t get too big.

[User] That’s right, yes.

[Assistant] Yes, I understand it works like that a lot over there.\n\n We’ve kind of moved around a little bit from Mercury to Gemini to Skylab to Shuttle. We didn’t talk a whole lot about Apollo, though.


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

[User] See? All right.

[Assistant] He did tell me about one time he was participating in some sort of experiment where he had to save his urine in a big jar.

[User] Yes. Yes. We went out, he and I had, again, with the ladies. So we had our ice chest with the beer in it and our ice chest with Joe’s urine jug. [Laughter] Again, the stress of remaining cool under all these circumstances, I’m telling you, project this image of coolness like “I’ve got it under control. This is normal for me,” it’s tough.

[Assistant] It’s nice to see that you managed to keep a lot of composure during these events. But we’re actually about out of tape on our first tape, so if we can pause for a minute just to swap that out.

[User] Okay.

[Assistant] —principles and still have as much fun and as much color and the personalities.


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

[User] Yes.

[Assistant] Okay.

[User] Yes, it was. I think it was when it was going to stop venting or start venting or something. Yes. If you get a hold of Larry Bell –

[Assistant] He was telling us that story, yes.

[User] Did Larry tell you some of his own stories?

[Assistant] I don’t think he told anything about on himself, anyway.


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

[User] Yes, it was. I think it was when it was going to stop venting or start venting or something. Yes. If you get a hold of Larry Bell –

[Assistant] He was telling us that story, yes.

[User] Did Larry tell you some of his own stories?

[Assistant] I don’t think he told anything about on himself, anyway.

[User] Tell you about our thing we put together for Brooks Air Force Base [San Antonio, Texas]?

[Assistant] Oh, where they had the fire?


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

[User] Did Larry tell you some of his own stories?

[Assistant] I don’t think he told anything about on himself, anyway.

[User] Tell you about our thing we put together for Brooks Air Force Base [San Antonio, Texas]?

[Assistant] Oh, where they had the fire?

[User] Had the fire?

[Assistant] Yes, he did mention that.


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

[User] Tell you about our thing we put together for Brooks Air Force Base [San Antonio, Texas]?

[Assistant] Oh, where they had the fire?

[User] Had the fire?

[Assistant] Yes, he did mention that.

[User] We were going through, building that thing up we were going to automobile junkyards and getting heater cores.

[Assistant] Oh, no, he left this part of the story out.


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

[User] Had the fire?

[Assistant] Yes, he did mention that.

[User] We were going through, building that thing up we were going to automobile junkyards and getting heater cores.

[Assistant] Oh, no, he left this part of the story out.

[User] We finally ended up with what was a Big Joe heat exchanger out of one of the rockets, but at first we were putting something together, we were going and getting junk radiator cores or heater cores out of junkyards, putting that together.\n\n Oh, Larry was something. He was the greatest storyteller. He had more stories about his days back as a farm boy, all that. You’ll have to get him back.\n\n He was my boss on the Gemini, on the Ed White system, and then after that, too, before he moved over into the Project Office. Actually, that Gemini IV, being leader of that really started him up in his career. He did so well on that, it gave people an idea of what he could do, and I think it really paved the way for his career advancement.

[Assistant] Well, I’m hoping to get him back to get talk to me a little bit, so we can ask him some more about this.


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

[User] That’s right. It’s hard to be cool, but you’ve got to do it.

[Assistant] Well, I’m glad you volunteered that story.

[User] Better me tell it than someone else.

[Assistant] That’s right. Well, see, now, we can ask other people about these and see what their recollections are, right?

[User] Yes. I don’t remember who was there. I can’t remember who was there. Walt [Walter W.] Guy, he was there, in fact. He’s somebody you ought to talk to. He’s been around longer than I have.

[Assistant] As part of that, I guess I’m just thinking of the time period that you were just talking about, part of the post-Challenger standdown, one of the things they did was stop use of the manned maneuvering unit [MMU], which I think it was something you had some involvement with.


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

[User] Better me tell it than someone else.

[Assistant] That’s right. Well, see, now, we can ask other people about these and see what their recollections are, right?

[User] Yes. I don’t remember who was there. I can’t remember who was there. Walt [Walter W.] Guy, he was there, in fact. He’s somebody you ought to talk to. He’s been around longer than I have.

[Assistant] As part of that, I guess I’m just thinking of the time period that you were just talking about, part of the post-Challenger standdown, one of the things they did was stop use of the manned maneuvering unit [MMU], which I think it was something you had some involvement with.

[User] Oh, yes. The MMU, that was great. The story of the MMU started with a guy named Ed [Charles E.] Whitsett [Jr.]. One of the most phenomenal people I’ve ever met. It’s just unfortunate that’s he gone.

[Assistant] Didn’t he just recently pass away?


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

[User] Yes, they built it in. It was a pawl and then it was kind of a ratchet-type arrangement, but you had to get it hooked first and then ratchet it shut. That was the thing Tom couldn’t do. He couldn’t repeatedly get it down far enough to get it hooked and then you could ratchet it shut.

[Assistant] Well, did you as someone who had involvement with the environmental control system, the life support stuff, take any heat because of the problems they were having with the EVA, the overheating, the fogging of the visor, that sort of thing?

[User] Oh, yes. Yes. In the Gemini EVAs?

[Assistant] Yes.

[User] Yes, that was my system. What it was, what we found out was that the actual rates, the metabolic rates that the guys were experiencing were up in the neighborhood of 3,000 BTUs [British Thermal Units] an hour. We were sized for about a thousand an hour, max. Just due to the fact that they were working so much harder, the suit was not really designed for that type of stuff. They were working so much harder. It was taking out a lot of heat, but it just wasn’t taking out enough. That’s what really told us, hey, we need some sort of more aggressive cooling system, and that’s where the liquid cooling garment really proved its worth. You’re just limited in the amount of heat you can take off with a gas-cooling-type system.

[Assistant] So would you attribute that to just not understanding how much heat they were going to be producing or inadequate training or just the hardware wasn’t good enough?


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

[User] Yes. Through this June.

[Assistant] Then you’re going to retire again?

[User] Then I’m going to hang it up. Yes.

[Assistant] For good or are you going somewhere else?

[User] Well, I may do a little consulting or insulting, whatever. Whatever is around.

[Assistant] Well, they’ve had quit a history themselves through both the environmental control system, as you’ve mentioned, and with the suits as well.


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

[User] Then I’m going to hang it up. Yes.

[Assistant] For good or are you going somewhere else?

[User] Well, I may do a little consulting or insulting, whatever. Whatever is around.

[Assistant] Well, they’ve had quit a history themselves through both the environmental control system, as you’ve mentioned, and with the suits as well.

[User] Yes.

[Assistant] I don’t know how much involvement you had with them when they were the prime contractor for the Apollo suit.


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

[User] Well, I may do a little consulting or insulting, whatever. Whatever is around.

[Assistant] Well, they’ve had quit a history themselves through both the environmental control system, as you’ve mentioned, and with the suits as well.

[User] Yes.

[Assistant] I don’t know how much involvement you had with them when they were the prime contractor for the Apollo suit.

[User] Not really much with them, except, as I say, they were the bad guys. I really didn’t get associated with them until after Apollo. I got associated with some advanced work and then since 1977 with the Shuttle.

[Assistant] What kind of advanced work was that?


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

[User] Yes.

[Assistant] I don’t know how much involvement you had with them when they were the prime contractor for the Apollo suit.

[User] Not really much with them, except, as I say, they were the bad guys. I really didn’t get associated with them until after Apollo. I got associated with some advanced work and then since 1977 with the Shuttle.

[Assistant] What kind of advanced work was that?

[User] We had a lithium peroxide system which was a system which would absorb CO2 and give off oxygen. It was a fun little program, but it was something that probably not too practical from a system standpoint. It worked good, but you had to have certain pretty well prescribed conditions for it to work under, temperatures, thermal-type conditions. You also had to precondition it with some CO2. In other words, if you started trying to use it, it would starve you of oxygen before it would start giving off enough. So you’d have to have another oxygen tank to supplement it, so that starts making the system complicated. So we ended up passing it up. But it was fun. It was a fun system.

[Assistant] Did you have any involvement in choosing the shuttle EMU?


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

[User] Not really much with them, except, as I say, they were the bad guys. I really didn’t get associated with them until after Apollo. I got associated with some advanced work and then since 1977 with the Shuttle.

[Assistant] What kind of advanced work was that?

[User] We had a lithium peroxide system which was a system which would absorb CO2 and give off oxygen. It was a fun little program, but it was something that probably not too practical from a system standpoint. It worked good, but you had to have certain pretty well prescribed conditions for it to work under, temperatures, thermal-type conditions. You also had to precondition it with some CO2. In other words, if you started trying to use it, it would starve you of oxygen before it would start giving off enough. So you’d have to have another oxygen tank to supplement it, so that starts making the system complicated. So we ended up passing it up. But it was fun. It was a fun system.

[Assistant] Did you have any involvement in choosing the shuttle EMU?

[User] Oh, yes. I was part of the source board on that.

[Assistant] Can you tell us about that?


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

[User] Oh, yes. I was part of the source board on that.

[Assistant] Can you tell us about that?

[User] I can tell you about the train chart.

[Assistant] Okay.

[User] You to have get the pictures. Ellington Air Force Base, the old wooden barracks, built in the forties or so, creaky wooden floors, inadequate air-conditioning, Houston summer, and interminable meetings on evaluating the AiResearch proposal and the Hamilton proposal.\n\n We had two source boards going on at the same time, for the Shuttle EMU and for the portable oxygen system. Both contractors were bidding on them, had the same contractors bidding on both. I was working on both source boards, so going back and forth.\n\n There was railroad tracks run out in front of Ellington, as you probably know. Be in some of these meetings and I mean it would be so hot we finally had a fan going and just have the windows open. Guys would notice the train going by and then maybe another train going by. So one guy off in one of the rooms started keeping a chart of trains going south and trains going north, keeping count of them. So it got to be sort of a real game with us, to keep track of the trains. So I can remember being there one day in a meeting. We were all sort of just dying. It was real hot, and this guy was droning on and on. All at once a train. Everybody perked up. North or south? Everybody was worried about getting that train on the chart. Nobody worried about what the guy was saying. We finally came to the conclusion after gathering data for several months they’re making trains in Galveston and shipping them north. That was our conclusion.

[Assistant] You certainly had the evidence to support that, I guess.


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

[User] We weren’t really ever going to build the service module in house, because there were two study contracts to industry. There was going to be the downselection to a single contractor. We were looking at design trades to see how the requirements that were being set in place drove the design and then also gave the government our own reference mission to compare against what the contractor was giving us. There wasn’t going to be a time, as much as I would have loved to have done it, to build the whole service module ourselves.

[Assistant] Who were the two companies that were working on the designs?

[User] Of course as usual, it’s a group of companies. One side was Lockheed Martin, who eventually won the contract, and then the other side was a combined Boeing and Northrop Grumman team.

[Assistant] Contracts play a big role in everything that NASA does, for sure. You talked a little bit about heritage hardware in terms of that OMS engine. Were there other ways that the service module reflected Apollo or Shuttle hardware?

[User] As we traded the propulsion system and control of the vehicle, it became clear we were going to need three levels of thrust. One of the levels of thrust was about 110 pounds of force, and that fit what’s used today for pushing satellites into geosynchronous orbit, a 100-pound thruster that was used on Apollo actually, same design. It of course had evolved since the Apollo time but traced its roots back to the heritage of Apollo.

[Assistant] I wonder if you could tell me what were the initial requirements for the service module. You’ve alluded to them, but we haven’t put them on the recording yet.


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

[User] Other than devastating me personally at that point? It affected us quite a bit. We had large roles on the Ares I and Ares V. Then of course in the end Orion survived, but it still went through a tumultuous time. We downsized our contractor workforce quite a bit. We moved people around within the Center for the launch vehicle work, and we shut down some of the facilities that had been built to support the Ares mission.

[Assistant] Ouch.

[User] It was a tough day.

[Assistant] In addition to that were you guys still working? I remember for a while there, especially being at JSC, everybody was in shock as well. I think everyone was surprised. There was still this fight. Congress was like, “No. We can’t get rid of it.” There was still money to be spent. Were you guys still doing some Constellation work at that point until things really got ironed out?

[User] Yes, Orion still continued to press on. We were still supporting Orion, still getting the facility ready out at Plum Brook. The Ares stuff took a little while to close out, so we were still doing some things that were still funded as part of that Constellation Program closeout.

[Assistant] You went on to become Deputy and then Director of the Center. What role did you have with Orion once you became a manager for the Center?


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

[User] When I was at Glenn and not at JSC, there were a lot of planning meetings, attending the planning meetings in person, as opposed to being back at Glenn being an active member of the team face to face. The face-to-face element is really important when you’re trying to build trust, so that was where the time investment for me came from. It’s planning meetings from requirements development. It’s budget meetings. The number of budget meetings we had I probably don’t want to really think about how many, as budgets were changing and the Program was developing and we were going through some of the early milestones in any project development cycle.\n\n It was really like I was on the team, like I was a JSC employee. Maybe the way I should say it is I spent a week at Glenn every month as opposed to three weeks at JSC. It was taking things forward. I talked about the fairings before, the pieces of structure that fall off intentionally as you’re going uphill. It was working through that design, making sure that we got the community on board with that was the way to go. It was a lot of bringing Glenn into the fold of human spaceflight by showing my commitment to the Project by being there.

[Assistant] Obviously you had a deputy that was back at Glenn who was keeping you apprised of things going on?

[User] Yes, and then I would dial back into things at Glenn. The inverse scenario of being back at Glenn. I’d dial back into things there. Or I’d try and kick the team off on Monday and go to JSC for two days, three days, and then come back and spend the balance of the week with the team at Glenn. We had a lot of people at Glenn going down to JSC too for the same reasons I just gave you.

[Assistant] It sounds like a big challenge, probably didn’t see your family very much at that point I would think.

[User] Yes, now I’m at Headquarters, and my family is back in Cleveland.

[Assistant] Oh my gosh. Oh, that’s tough.


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

[User] Yes, and then I would dial back into things at Glenn. The inverse scenario of being back at Glenn. I’d dial back into things there. Or I’d try and kick the team off on Monday and go to JSC for two days, three days, and then come back and spend the balance of the week with the team at Glenn. We had a lot of people at Glenn going down to JSC too for the same reasons I just gave you.

[Assistant] It sounds like a big challenge, probably didn’t see your family very much at that point I would think.

[User] Yes, now I’m at Headquarters, and my family is back in Cleveland.

[Assistant] Oh my gosh. Oh, that’s tough.

[User] Yes, it’s a little bit challenging right now.

[Assistant] Yes, I can imagine. It’s tough living in DC.


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

[User] Yes, now I’m at Headquarters, and my family is back in Cleveland.

[Assistant] Oh my gosh. Oh, that’s tough.

[User] Yes, it’s a little bit challenging right now.

[Assistant] Yes, I can imagine. It’s tough living in DC.

[User] Yes, those were long days. I’m sorry, didn’t mean to interrupt you.

[Assistant] Oh, you didn’t interrupt at all. You did mention something though that I wanted to ask about. That was budget. I know that Orion has a very tight budget. Can you talk about issues of affordability and moving towards a lower cost development model and how that was handled and implemented from your perspective?


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

[User] Yes, those were long days. I’m sorry, didn’t mean to interrupt you.

[Assistant] Oh, you didn’t interrupt at all. You did mention something though that I wanted to ask about. That was budget. I know that Orion has a very tight budget. Can you talk about issues of affordability and moving towards a lower cost development model and how that was handled and implemented from your perspective?

[User] The initial part will be editorial; the other part will be fact. The editorial side for me is it’s crazy the way we do things in this Agency: changing budget three times a year, four times a year, living on continuing resolutions. Having to change contracts, to change funding levels, to push back milestones. To me what drove cost into our system is the inefficiency of our government and Congress and the administration fighting with each other all the time. So that’s the editorial part.\n\n The fact part for me is we had initially a pretty well gold-plated set of requirements that we needed to drive down to drive cost out. I know we spent a lot of time doing that. I know the Project still works on that today, especially now that they’re getting towards production and operations.\n\n I think that we had to really take a look at how we did business with our contractor, Lockheed Martin. The Project spent a lot of time saying, “How can we do oversight the right way of the contractor but still have knowledge of the design, but not drive the contractor’s cost?” I’m not sure if folks have brought it up to you. There were oversight models put in place.

[Assistant] No.

[User] What levels of oversight and insight we had into different systems. The Project didn’t just do a blanket, “We’re going to have this many people working on every subsystem,” because eventually they’re just going to go find things they don’t like, and then that drives cost into contract changes. So the Project did a good job, I think, of applying resources to the critical areas and letting the contractor run in other areas.

[Assistant] Can you give an example from the service module perspective of that gold-plated requirement and then you decided no, we need to restructure?


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

[User] I don’t recall any pushback from them, no. I don’t know that the number of crew really affects them. They’re very focused, and it’s great to learn from them and watch them. They’re very focused on the systems. Do the systems perform the way that they want them to and keep them safe?\n\n Now if you got to three crew versus four, I don’t know then if they have worries about “Hey, I always have to have somebody that’s my buddy,” even though Soyuz flies three, “we need to always have four. We always need to have somebody looking out for us.” I don’t know if they get to that. But I don’t recall them really having a concern with going from six to four.

[Assistant] Any other significant decisions that you recall when you were working with Orion?

[User] I think we talked about one, the decision to go to Plum Brook I know still really makes people mad at JSC today. Even as we sit here today, there’s people, if you brought that up to them, at senior levels at JSC, that still bothers them. They still would like to see that reversed. I think that was a significant emotional event for them, and a significant decision by the Project based on the investment made at Plum Brook.

[Assistant] I wonder if you could share with me how the Exploration Systems Development Division Cross-Program System Integration—that’s a mouthful—initiative impacted Orion.

[User] Wow, this is a loaded question. Who put you up to this, Jen? Just kidding.

[Assistant] Yes, the Orion folks came up with that question, I did not.


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

[User] Wow, this is a loaded question. Who put you up to this, Jen? Just kidding.

[Assistant] Yes, the Orion folks came up with that question, I did not.

[User] I don’t know. For me, we’re talking about significant emotional events, having lived Constellation Systems Engineering Group, which was like 400 people, I think they outnumbered the Project. What we have today just in numbers in the Cross-Program I think is better. I think the fact that Orion is now doing more of the integration helps out Orion. The problem is they’re not getting more resources to do it, so it puts additional load on the people already doing it, but they’re driving their own ship. I think we always have to be wary of going back to the Constellation days where we have 400 people doing the integration, and that just goes to no good end.

[Assistant] Too expensive?

[User] Too expensive, and the anecdote I always give is I went to a Constellation meeting. Constellation had thousands of requirements. We had this meeting on a specific set of requirements, and this gentleman stood up when we talked about two of the requirements, and he said, “These are my two requirements. This is what I come to work every day to worry about. You can’t take them away.” Clearly it had driven the system too far. I don’t want to get back to that.

[Assistant] So you think Orion is much more flexible, able to maneuver things more easily?


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

[User] I don’t know. For me, we’re talking about significant emotional events, having lived Constellation Systems Engineering Group, which was like 400 people, I think they outnumbered the Project. What we have today just in numbers in the Cross-Program I think is better. I think the fact that Orion is now doing more of the integration helps out Orion. The problem is they’re not getting more resources to do it, so it puts additional load on the people already doing it, but they’re driving their own ship. I think we always have to be wary of going back to the Constellation days where we have 400 people doing the integration, and that just goes to no good end.

[Assistant] Too expensive?

[User] Too expensive, and the anecdote I always give is I went to a Constellation meeting. Constellation had thousands of requirements. We had this meeting on a specific set of requirements, and this gentleman stood up when we talked about two of the requirements, and he said, “These are my two requirements. This is what I come to work every day to worry about. You can’t take them away.” Clearly it had driven the system too far. I don’t want to get back to that.

[Assistant] So you think Orion is much more flexible, able to maneuver things more easily?

[User] I think so. I’ve seen them do it. I’ve watched them do it. I think their fate is in their hands, which is much better than leaving it in somebody else’s.

[Assistant] Can you give an example or two?


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

[User] Too expensive, and the anecdote I always give is I went to a Constellation meeting. Constellation had thousands of requirements. We had this meeting on a specific set of requirements, and this gentleman stood up when we talked about two of the requirements, and he said, “These are my two requirements. This is what I come to work every day to worry about. You can’t take them away.” Clearly it had driven the system too far. I don’t want to get back to that.

[Assistant] So you think Orion is much more flexible, able to maneuver things more easily?

[User] I think so. I’ve seen them do it. I’ve watched them do it. I think their fate is in their hands, which is much better than leaving it in somebody else’s.

[Assistant] Can you give an example or two?

[User] I think just working interface issues directly with SLS. Before, there would be an issue with the electrical interface between Orion and SLS, and Orion would have to go to somebody at Constellation systems engineering who owned that interface. That person then would get information from Ares and then feed that back to Orion. Orion would react, it’d go up to Constellation.\n\n Now, it’s Orion and SLS, those two people in the room trying to resolve it, directly. I think that’s much better than anybody being the arbitrator, because you can get it done faster. There’s an efficiency. I can tell the person across the table this is what I need. I can hear what they have, and we can move through that much quicker than trying to work it up and through the Constellation Office.

[Assistant] It sounds like a lot of bureaucracy is what you’re describing.


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

[User] I think so. I’ve seen them do it. I’ve watched them do it. I think their fate is in their hands, which is much better than leaving it in somebody else’s.

[Assistant] Can you give an example or two?

[User] I think just working interface issues directly with SLS. Before, there would be an issue with the electrical interface between Orion and SLS, and Orion would have to go to somebody at Constellation systems engineering who owned that interface. That person then would get information from Ares and then feed that back to Orion. Orion would react, it’d go up to Constellation.\n\n Now, it’s Orion and SLS, those two people in the room trying to resolve it, directly. I think that’s much better than anybody being the arbitrator, because you can get it done faster. There’s an efficiency. I can tell the person across the table this is what I need. I can hear what they have, and we can move through that much quicker than trying to work it up and through the Constellation Office.

[Assistant] It sounds like a lot of bureaucracy is what you’re describing.

[User] Oh my gosh, it was awful.

[Assistant] We have about four minutes left, and I have about seven more questions. So I guess I might have to [re-]schedule, but they wouldn’t take very much time. So I’ll schedule some more time with your admin. I can’t imagine maybe more than 20 or 30 minutes. But I wonder if we could just touch on one.\n\n The focus that Orion is really interested in is that successful launch of EFT-1 in spite of all of the challenges that came up over the years. I know that at that time you weren’t necessarily working in Orion, but what do you think were some of the more memorable moments or events that you recall as say Glenn was working towards that launch?


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

[User] No, those were actually done out at Lockheed Martin. We could do it at Glenn, but the test was performed at Lockheed Martin. Or they could do it at Glenn. I’m not a Glenn person anymore. I still say we. It’s only been three months.

[Assistant] Well, you spent a lot of time out at Glenn, so I can understand that. I want to keep you on schedule. So I will contact your admin, because I’m sure you have another meeting to go to. Unless you don’t have anything on your calendar, and we can finish up.

[User] No, I do have another one. I’m sorry. I feel like I talked too long if you have that many questions left. I must just be droning on. I really apologize.

[Assistant] Oh, absolutely not. No, and actually the more information we get, the better. Like I said, we’re not looking for any sort of quote for the newspaper or just this little quip that we’re going to put on the local news: “Glenn Research Center Director says the following,” and it’s all out of context.\n\n This gives people the opportunity to better understand things like decision making and hardware development and things of that sort. That’s what I always tell people. People always say when I turn off the recorder, “God, I must have been boring you.” It’s like oh, no, it’s really fascinating to learn so much more about this. Because the other complication with this Project is we went out trying to find information, and it’s such a young program, such a new program, that there isn’t a lot out there that’s been documented. What has been is on social media, and that really isn’t preserved very well. All these details I think are important for the future, keeping that history of the Program alive. I will schedule probably no more than 30 minutes with your assistant. I sure appreciate your time today.

[User] Thank you very much. I appreciate it, and you have a good rest of your day, and I’ll talk to you sometime soon.

[Assistant] Well, hopefully next time the phone will work. I apologize that you had to call me.


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

[User] No, I do have another one. I’m sorry. I feel like I talked too long if you have that many questions left. I must just be droning on. I really apologize.

[Assistant] Oh, absolutely not. No, and actually the more information we get, the better. Like I said, we’re not looking for any sort of quote for the newspaper or just this little quip that we’re going to put on the local news: “Glenn Research Center Director says the following,” and it’s all out of context.\n\n This gives people the opportunity to better understand things like decision making and hardware development and things of that sort. That’s what I always tell people. People always say when I turn off the recorder, “God, I must have been boring you.” It’s like oh, no, it’s really fascinating to learn so much more about this. Because the other complication with this Project is we went out trying to find information, and it’s such a young program, such a new program, that there isn’t a lot out there that’s been documented. What has been is on social media, and that really isn’t preserved very well. All these details I think are important for the future, keeping that history of the Program alive. I will schedule probably no more than 30 minutes with your assistant. I sure appreciate your time today.

[User] Thank you very much. I appreciate it, and you have a good rest of your day, and I’ll talk to you sometime soon.

[Assistant] Well, hopefully next time the phone will work. I apologize that you had to call me.

[User] I don’t know what happened. It’s no problem at all if it happens next time. I’ll just call you right back.

[Assistant] Sounds good, thanks so much.


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

[User] Thank you very much. I appreciate it, and you have a good rest of your day, and I’ll talk to you sometime soon.

[Assistant] Well, hopefully next time the phone will work. I apologize that you had to call me.

[User] I don’t know what happened. It’s no problem at all if it happens next time. I’ll just call you right back.

[Assistant] Sounds good, thanks so much.

[User] Thanks, Jennifer.

[Assistant] All right. Bye-bye.


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

[User] Well, I was working in the Postal Service at the time that I became interested in the space program. I was a secretary. John [H.] Glenn [Jr.] flew his Mercury mission, and I stood out in a misty rain on Pennsylvania Avenue, watching him and Lyndon [B.] Johnson drive down Pennsylvania Avenue in their parade that Washington, D.C., gave to welcome him. I went back into my office and called the NASA Personnel Office and asked if they were hiring secretaries, and they said yes.\n\n I took my application the next morning to the personnel office, and I was on the payroll by ten o'clock. [Laughter] That was in the days when NASA was—they could do that sort of thing, you know. They were relatively new, they were adding staff, and they could hire people. Of course, it was pending a security background. But that's how I came to work for NASA.

[Assistant] That was in about 1962?

[User] 1962.

[Assistant] And your first function, what area did you work at within Public Affairs?

[User] My first job was not in Public Affairs. I worked for a year in the old Office of Programs, which was headed by DeMarcus [D.] Wyatt, and it was part of Dr. [Robert C.] Seamans' [Jr.] staff. They were planning the lunar missions, how to get there and what might be found once they got there. He had a staff of engineers whose job it was to work on that.\n\n I worked there for a year, and then I went to work in Public Affairs for Brian Duff, who was new. He had just been hired by NASA. He had been a newspaperman and he was brought in to head a section mainly of speech writers for the administrator. But we also handled the administrator's public appearances. Later, Brian then also started handling the astronauts' public appearances when they would come to Washington. So I sort of absorbed a lot of what he was doing by helping him put together these itineraries and speaking commitments.

[Assistant] When you say handling the public appearances, were you in the decision-making process?


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

[User] We started, I believe, in early September. Late August, early September of '69, which meant we all had to get our shots, up-to-date shots, and we had to get all this information put together. The State Department actually made the arrangements for the Air Force, the special air missions people to be involved, and we used the Vice President's plane for the entire trip. It was considered such good duty by the presidential pilots that they split up the task, and one group took the first half of the trip and another group met us in Rome [Italy] and finished the trip.\n\n We left Andrews Air Force Base [Maryland], I believe, on September the 29th, as I recall, and went to Johnson Space Center to pick up the astronauts and their wives. Bill [William] Der Bing was the JSC staff member from there. Our first official stop was in Mexico City [Mexico]. We did that all in one day. We went from Andrews Air Force Base to Johnson Space Center, then Mexico City, which was a preview of things to come. [Laughter]

[Assistant] You didn't really have a rehearsal for any of this, huh? [Laughter]

[User] No, no.

[Assistant] I just was curious. I'm backtracking. The planning stage of this, you mentioned, appeared after the mission was completed. They had not talked about this prior to the actual mission?

[User] I don't know at what point they started talking about it. My boss and Julian Sheer, who was the head of Public Affairs for NASA at that time, were the people that were involved in talking to the White House people and State Department people. The overall mission director was the deputy chief of protocol for the State Department, and I think there was a lot—of course, NASA had to agree to it before they could start any of the planning, but I'm not privy to when it actually started.

[Assistant] So their first trip was to Mexico.


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

[User] No, no.

[Assistant] I just was curious. I'm backtracking. The planning stage of this, you mentioned, appeared after the mission was completed. They had not talked about this prior to the actual mission?

[User] I don't know at what point they started talking about it. My boss and Julian Sheer, who was the head of Public Affairs for NASA at that time, were the people that were involved in talking to the White House people and State Department people. The overall mission director was the deputy chief of protocol for the State Department, and I think there was a lot—of course, NASA had to agree to it before they could start any of the planning, but I'm not privy to when it actually started.

[Assistant] So their first trip was to Mexico.

[User] Mexico City.

[Assistant] Again, it was pretty much the astronauts and their wives. Did they have any other friends or relatives?


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

[User] I don't know at what point they started talking about it. My boss and Julian Sheer, who was the head of Public Affairs for NASA at that time, were the people that were involved in talking to the White House people and State Department people. The overall mission director was the deputy chief of protocol for the State Department, and I think there was a lot—of course, NASA had to agree to it before they could start any of the planning, but I'm not privy to when it actually started.

[Assistant] So their first trip was to Mexico.

[User] Mexico City.

[Assistant] Again, it was pretty much the astronauts and their wives. Did they have any other friends or relatives?

[User] No.

[Assistant] It was just basically the staff members, support staff?


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

[User] Mexico City.

[Assistant] Again, it was pretty much the astronauts and their wives. Did they have any other friends or relatives?

[User] No.

[Assistant] It was just basically the staff members, support staff?

[User] Yes, the support people, three astronauts and three wives. Mexico City had an airport arrival ceremony. I believe the President of Mexico was there, if I recall. Then the usual thing was, you know, the motorcade and reception hosted by the American Embassy.

[Assistant] The countries that you decided for this trip, those were planned in advance. Did you have to make the preparations, the contacts, and so forth? Were there some countries that you had asked to go to and declined for some reason or another?


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

[User] No.

[Assistant] It was just basically the staff members, support staff?

[User] Yes, the support people, three astronauts and three wives. Mexico City had an airport arrival ceremony. I believe the President of Mexico was there, if I recall. Then the usual thing was, you know, the motorcade and reception hosted by the American Embassy.

[Assistant] The countries that you decided for this trip, those were planned in advance. Did you have to make the preparations, the contacts, and so forth? Were there some countries that you had asked to go to and declined for some reason or another?

[User] You know, I don't know. I don't know. But the State Department put the system going by contacting the American embassies in several locations. For instance, to go back to your question, I believe there was a plan for us to go to Israel and Egypt in the first proposed itinerary, but that was taken off, I presume for political reasons. I don't know. But we didn't go there.\n\n The proposed stops were all planned out by the State Department working with the American embassies in a lot of locations. I don't know the process they used to take different countries off and add others. I just don't know how that happened.\n\n Wade St. Clair, who was the mission director for State Department, would probably be able to answer that for you, because he was involved in all these meetings and discussions, and Julian Sheer, also. But Wade may have been the one primarily working on the nuts and bolts.

[Assistant] So the trip to Mexico was the first time.


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

[User] Yes, the support people, three astronauts and three wives. Mexico City had an airport arrival ceremony. I believe the President of Mexico was there, if I recall. Then the usual thing was, you know, the motorcade and reception hosted by the American Embassy.

[Assistant] The countries that you decided for this trip, those were planned in advance. Did you have to make the preparations, the contacts, and so forth? Were there some countries that you had asked to go to and declined for some reason or another?

[User] You know, I don't know. I don't know. But the State Department put the system going by contacting the American embassies in several locations. For instance, to go back to your question, I believe there was a plan for us to go to Israel and Egypt in the first proposed itinerary, but that was taken off, I presume for political reasons. I don't know. But we didn't go there.\n\n The proposed stops were all planned out by the State Department working with the American embassies in a lot of locations. I don't know the process they used to take different countries off and add others. I just don't know how that happened.\n\n Wade St. Clair, who was the mission director for State Department, would probably be able to answer that for you, because he was involved in all these meetings and discussions, and Julian Sheer, also. But Wade may have been the one primarily working on the nuts and bolts.

[Assistant] So the trip to Mexico was the first time.

[User] First stop.

[Assistant] Obviously you probably learned some things from the first stop, in anticipation of some of the other stops.


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

[User] First stop.

[Assistant] Obviously you probably learned some things from the first stop, in anticipation of some of the other stops.

[User] Well, I think that we were sort of overwhelmed, and I don't really think we knew what was in store for us. There were crowds, you know. There were crowds everywhere, but there was a big crowd in Mexico City, and there was a lot of interest in the astronauts. Even up to the time that we landed there, I believe there were local people trying to get onto their schedule to get them to make appearances at various things. There was, I guess, quite an effort to hold down on the number of events they could do in one day, and I believe the people in the decision-making process, Wade St. Clair and the deputy chief of protocol, probably got a taste of what it was going to be like from there on, from people wanting to get into the schedule, to get astronauts to just stop by, you know, stop by this reception. I guess from that viewpoint we learned a lot of what was about to happen to us.

[Assistant] NASA hadn't really had any experience prior to this. I don't recall, did the Apollo 8 crew do a world tour?

[User] I don't think. No, they didn't do a world tour.

[Assistant] Just certain countries?


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

[User] Well, I think that we were sort of overwhelmed, and I don't really think we knew what was in store for us. There were crowds, you know. There were crowds everywhere, but there was a big crowd in Mexico City, and there was a lot of interest in the astronauts. Even up to the time that we landed there, I believe there were local people trying to get onto their schedule to get them to make appearances at various things. There was, I guess, quite an effort to hold down on the number of events they could do in one day, and I believe the people in the decision-making process, Wade St. Clair and the deputy chief of protocol, probably got a taste of what it was going to be like from there on, from people wanting to get into the schedule, to get astronauts to just stop by, you know, stop by this reception. I guess from that viewpoint we learned a lot of what was about to happen to us.

[Assistant] NASA hadn't really had any experience prior to this. I don't recall, did the Apollo 8 crew do a world tour?

[User] I don't think. No, they didn't do a world tour.

[Assistant] Just certain countries?

[User] I believe they just went to a few countries.

[Assistant] So this was pretty much new, then, in the NASA—


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

[User] I don't think. No, they didn't do a world tour.

[Assistant] Just certain countries?

[User] I believe they just went to a few countries.

[Assistant] So this was pretty much new, then, in the NASA—

[User] We were gone thirty-eight days on this trip. It was the longest that any of the astronaut crews had been gone a consecutive amount of days.

[Assistant] In the tour that went, did they also include the capsule and a moon rock as part of this tour, or was it just the crew members? I was mentioning to you earlier about the photographs, but that might have been separate.


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

[User] I believe they just went to a few countries.

[Assistant] So this was pretty much new, then, in the NASA—

[User] We were gone thirty-eight days on this trip. It was the longest that any of the astronaut crews had been gone a consecutive amount of days.

[Assistant] In the tour that went, did they also include the capsule and a moon rock as part of this tour, or was it just the crew members? I was mentioning to you earlier about the photographs, but that might have been separate.

[User] This is what I had in my briefing book, of what they presented.

[Assistant] It was just one aircraft, though, right? They didn't have several other aircraft? It was just the Air Force?


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

[User] We were gone thirty-eight days on this trip. It was the longest that any of the astronaut crews had been gone a consecutive amount of days.

[Assistant] In the tour that went, did they also include the capsule and a moon rock as part of this tour, or was it just the crew members? I was mentioning to you earlier about the photographs, but that might have been separate.

[User] This is what I had in my briefing book, of what they presented.

[Assistant] It was just one aircraft, though, right? They didn't have several other aircraft? It was just the Air Force?

[User] Just the one. And we had a gifts person, whose job it was to keep all these things straight and to make sure that the right gift got to the right country, you know, that the right gift was unpacked in the proper country to get to the head of state or the representative that the astronauts presented them to.\n\n I don't recall about the lunar samples. There may have been a dusting of the lunar samples given here and there, but I really don't remember how that was done, if at all. I think Wade St. Clair could probably answer that for you. [Dr.] Bill Carpentier when you talk to him, he might be able to shed some light on that.

[Assistant] So they spent a day in Mexico City and then they continued on.


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

[User] This is what I had in my briefing book, of what they presented.

[Assistant] It was just one aircraft, though, right? They didn't have several other aircraft? It was just the Air Force?

[User] Just the one. And we had a gifts person, whose job it was to keep all these things straight and to make sure that the right gift got to the right country, you know, that the right gift was unpacked in the proper country to get to the head of state or the representative that the astronauts presented them to.\n\n I don't recall about the lunar samples. There may have been a dusting of the lunar samples given here and there, but I really don't remember how that was done, if at all. I think Wade St. Clair could probably answer that for you. [Dr.] Bill Carpentier when you talk to him, he might be able to shed some light on that.

[Assistant] So they spent a day in Mexico City and then they continued on.

[User] We went on to Buenos Aires [Argentina], I believe. No. Bogota. We went on to Bogota. Generally we were overnight in most of these places. In Rome and Bangkok [Thailand], we spent three nights, but generally we were just overnight in all of these places.

[Assistant] Did they stay on the aircraft overnight?


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

[User] I don't know. I hadn't thought of that. You're right. After all these years, I hadn't thought of that. And the mayor and his delegation met the astronauts for an official welcome, and that was the extent of what we did in Brasilia. It was very simple and uncomplicated. I think we were two or three days in Rio de Janeiro.\n\n Then we got to the Canary Islands [Spain; located southwest of Morocco, Africa] from there, and we were already getting tired. People were starting to become ill. It just started like one or two people with sort of flu-like symptoms, and as we got on into Europe, everybody had been ill.

[Assistant] Including yourself?

[User] Including myself. I became ill in Madrid [Spain]. Two or three of us became ill in Madrid. In fact, there's a picture that somebody had of one of the—I believe it was one of the security detail was sitting on the curb in Madrid, had to get out of the car and wait for a medical person to come and take him to the hotel. When we got to London [England], Dr. Carpentier went on national television to deny that the astronauts had brought back a lunar sickness and that all the staff were exposed to this and we were therefore becoming ill as a result of what they brought back.

[Assistant] So it came out that you were ill and perhaps the reason was that they brought back some lunar bug?

[User] Some bug, yes. Well, I guess, in conversations that local representative embassy representatives would talk to embassy representatives ahead of us, and they would in turn talk to other people, and I guess that's how the rumor got started.

[Assistant] It's a reasonable one, because of all the precautions that were taken after they came back. They might have thought that there was something that slipped by or whatever.


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

[User] Including myself. I became ill in Madrid [Spain]. Two or three of us became ill in Madrid. In fact, there's a picture that somebody had of one of the—I believe it was one of the security detail was sitting on the curb in Madrid, had to get out of the car and wait for a medical person to come and take him to the hotel. When we got to London [England], Dr. Carpentier went on national television to deny that the astronauts had brought back a lunar sickness and that all the staff were exposed to this and we were therefore becoming ill as a result of what they brought back.

[Assistant] So it came out that you were ill and perhaps the reason was that they brought back some lunar bug?

[User] Some bug, yes. Well, I guess, in conversations that local representative embassy representatives would talk to embassy representatives ahead of us, and they would in turn talk to other people, and I guess that's how the rumor got started.

[Assistant] It's a reasonable one, because of all the precautions that were taken after they came back. They might have thought that there was something that slipped by or whatever.

[User] Yes. The time changes—we were involved with a lot of time changes and getting used to food, or not food. Also, with that much closeness, you'd get on each other's nerves. We were staying together in the same part of the hotel, like next door to each other. Then when we were flying from one place to another, we were all confined, a small—not a small airplane, but it got to be kind of small. [Laughter]\n\n We came to look upon the airplane as being home. We were always glad to get back on the airplane, because the crew would always welcome us like they were totally rested and ready to help us out with whatever we needed and cooked our meals and waited on us. We could eat the food. We could drink the water. We could take a nap. [Laughter] That's what I remember.

[Assistant] You mentioned that it kind of got on other people's nerves during the time. Were there any incidents that you can recall that stand out?


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

[User] Something like that. [Laughter] That luncheon lasted until like four or five o'clock in the afternoon. As we were leaving this lodge, my boss came to me and he said, "We've gotten word that the chefs at the hotel have acquired the ducks that the astronauts shot and are dressing them for dinner. We're having them for dinner, and we need to get people out of their rooms and into the dining room." So he took one side of the hall and I took the other side, and we managed to get a few people into the dining room, after having all that food for lunch, for the duck dinner. And you couldn't say no, because they were our hosts, and that was quite an experience. [Laughter] I never thought I'd ever want to have anything more to eat again, as long as I lived, because we were all so stuffed.

[Assistant] What was the longest flight or duration that you had between stops?

[User] There were two flights. There was one from Bangkok to Sydney [Australia] all in one day, with a two-hour stop in Perth [Australia], where the astronauts went in, in a motorcade, and were greeted by the city officials of Perth. We started out early in the morning from Bangkok and we landed at Sydney around midnight the same trip, same day. The Prime Minister of Australia met us there, met us in Sydney.\n\n The other one was from Tokyo [Japan] to Andrews Air Force Base with a refueling stop at Elmendorf Air Force Base in Alaska. Originally the plan was, when we finished the appearances in Tokyo, we were to be given a two-day rest in Hawaii before flying back. We were flying to Houston to drop off the astronauts and then flying from there back to Andrews, but President Nixon wanted to take his family on a vacation and their plans were to start fairly soon. So we had to fly straight from Tokyo to Andrews Air Force Base in one leg. That was quite a tiring experience.

[Assistant] Obviously it's difficult to plan for the elements, as far as weather.

[User] Yes.

[Assistant] Did that creep in at all as far as your flights?


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

[User] There were two flights. There was one from Bangkok to Sydney [Australia] all in one day, with a two-hour stop in Perth [Australia], where the astronauts went in, in a motorcade, and were greeted by the city officials of Perth. We started out early in the morning from Bangkok and we landed at Sydney around midnight the same trip, same day. The Prime Minister of Australia met us there, met us in Sydney.\n\n The other one was from Tokyo [Japan] to Andrews Air Force Base with a refueling stop at Elmendorf Air Force Base in Alaska. Originally the plan was, when we finished the appearances in Tokyo, we were to be given a two-day rest in Hawaii before flying back. We were flying to Houston to drop off the astronauts and then flying from there back to Andrews, but President Nixon wanted to take his family on a vacation and their plans were to start fairly soon. So we had to fly straight from Tokyo to Andrews Air Force Base in one leg. That was quite a tiring experience.

[Assistant] Obviously it's difficult to plan for the elements, as far as weather.

[User] Yes.

[Assistant] Did that creep in at all as far as your flights?

[User] I don't think so. No, now that you mention it, I don't recall any problems. I'll probably think of something after I leave. I haven't thought about a lot of these things for years.

[Assistant] It's been a while.


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

[User] Yes.

[Assistant] Did that creep in at all as far as your flights?

[User] I don't think so. No, now that you mention it, I don't recall any problems. I'll probably think of something after I leave. I haven't thought about a lot of these things for years.

[Assistant] It's been a while.

[User] For thirty years I haven't really thought about these things until I heard from you.

[Assistant] Just going through some of the outline that you'd given me previously here, you mentioned one of the more memorable experiences, as far as the sheer number of people. Can you relate that story, that greeted the astronauts at one stop?


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

[User] Kinshasa.

[Assistant] Zaire.

[User] Yes. There was like a twenty-five-mile drive from the airport to the place where we were staying. They had us billeted in a compound of villas which President Mobutu had apparently built for an Organization of African States [OAS] conference. The compound was adjacent to the presidential palace and his offices. The crowd control there was totally opposite from what we found in Dakar, because the policemen had these huge whips, and if somebody stepped off the curb to get into the path of one of the cars in the motorcade, or tried to get into the astronauts' car, they would use the whips on people and they, of course, scurried back up on the curb.\n\n The compound where we were staying, there was a private zoo which the president owned, which was near those grounds, and you could hear the animals, especially at night. [Laughter]

[Assistant] A lot of this was televised also?

[User] Most of the arrivals were televised live, according to the embassies. Most of them were televised live.

[Assistant] Tehran [Iran], apparently you had an interesting encounter with a visitor.


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

[User] Most of the arrivals were televised live, according to the embassies. Most of them were televised live.

[Assistant] Tehran [Iran], apparently you had an interesting encounter with a visitor.

[User] Yes. [Laughter]

[Assistant] Tehran, Iran.

[User] Yes. The staff was invited to go to visit the vault where the Shah [Mohammad Reza Shah] had all of the family crown jewels stored. The vault doors are on a time lock and they opened it especially for us, but I believe they were still time-locked. We were cautioned not to touch the glass display cases or not to put our foreheads up against them or touch them in any fashion. But somebody did, and the alarm started going off and these heavy doors started closing, and the security guards and the police were doing their best to hold the doors open while we all scurried out as far as we could go.

[Assistant] So they all made it out?


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

[User] Yes. [Laughter]

[Assistant] Tehran, Iran.

[User] Yes. The staff was invited to go to visit the vault where the Shah [Mohammad Reza Shah] had all of the family crown jewels stored. The vault doors are on a time lock and they opened it especially for us, but I believe they were still time-locked. We were cautioned not to touch the glass display cases or not to put our foreheads up against them or touch them in any fashion. But somebody did, and the alarm started going off and these heavy doors started closing, and the security guards and the police were doing their best to hold the doors open while we all scurried out as far as we could go.

[Assistant] So they all made it out?

[User] We made it out, yes. [Laughter]

[Assistant] Avoided an incident. [Laughter]


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

[User] Yes. The staff was invited to go to visit the vault where the Shah [Mohammad Reza Shah] had all of the family crown jewels stored. The vault doors are on a time lock and they opened it especially for us, but I believe they were still time-locked. We were cautioned not to touch the glass display cases or not to put our foreheads up against them or touch them in any fashion. But somebody did, and the alarm started going off and these heavy doors started closing, and the security guards and the police were doing their best to hold the doors open while we all scurried out as far as we could go.

[Assistant] So they all made it out?

[User] We made it out, yes. [Laughter]

[Assistant] Avoided an incident. [Laughter]

[User] Cut our little tour short, though.

[Assistant] So apparently you were warmly received in every spot that you went.


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

[User] We made it out, yes. [Laughter]

[Assistant] Avoided an incident. [Laughter]

[User] Cut our little tour short, though.

[Assistant] So apparently you were warmly received in every spot that you went.

[User] Everywhere.

[Assistant] There weren't any occasions where you received protests because you were representing the United States, as well, for whatever political reasons were going on. Obviously, [the] Vietnam [War] was still going on at that time.


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

[User] Cut our little tour short, though.

[Assistant] So apparently you were warmly received in every spot that you went.

[User] Everywhere.

[Assistant] There weren't any occasions where you received protests because you were representing the United States, as well, for whatever political reasons were going on. Obviously, [the] Vietnam [War] was still going on at that time.

[User] I don't think we did. I don't think there was any ugliness. If there was, it was kept—the crowds were kept a good distance away from the official ceremonies for the astronauts, but I don't recall any. I don't know if anything even came up, but that's something that Wade St. Clair might be able to shed some light on, or Bill Carpentier might know of some of that, too.

[Assistant] It must have been impressive going to these different countries in the President's plane, the Air Force One, or the backup, because it has the painting, the presidential seal and so forth. Did you get that response from others, too, just seeing that aircraft arrive?