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

[User] No, I think that's it.

[Assistant] You think you've covered a lot of the things about your years of service.

[User] Some of it.

[Assistant] Some of it, right. Some of it. All right. What about now as you approach the end of your two years as a Peace Corps volunteer in the village? What was your feeling and how did you proceed towards your departure?

[User] We were. We had enjoyed our two years. I think both of us were concerned about what was going on in the United States at that time. Many things had occurred and in fact later we've always felt a little hole in the history of our hearts about not being able to experience some of the things that went on in the United States during that time. We were eager to come home, but Peace Corps was looking for experienced volunteers to serve in Micronesia. And we considered it but decided it was really time to go home. So when we left, we did the obligatory travel through Europe and go to Istanbul, Beirut, Athens, Munich. Buy a Volkswagen in Munich, have it shipped home. Then go to France and England and then go to New York and wait for the car to arrive.

[Assistant] And how long did that take? How many weeks did you travel?


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

[User] Mm hmm.

[Assistant] Right. Well, before we close this wonderful, lively interview. Thank you so much. Are there any other final comments you would like to make?

[User] The one about the term Peace Corps applies to everything we have done and did. But my feeling about the experiences. I'm extremely grateful to the federal agency for the opportunity to spend that two years in Ethiopia and to open my eyes to the rest of the world. But I think what had the greater impact to me was Ethiopia and the people who lived there and the students we worked with and what we learned about ourselves as a very young couple trying to be schoolteachers in a faraway country.

[Assistant] An enlightening.

[User] Mm hmm. Very much so.

[Assistant] Right. And one last quick question here to bring us up to date. So you and Courtney were married just before you went into Peace Corps and when you came back I know you had two children. Will you tell us just a bit about your children?


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

[User] Certainly.

[Assistant] As I recall.

[User] When we were, we did when we were living in Nairobi. Both of them decided they wanted to come over and live with us for six months or a year. So they had their own international experience in that way. And it was wonderful for all of us.

[Assistant] Absolutely.

[User] Probably the best time in our lives.

[Assistant] Wonderful. Thank you again, David, for a very, very interesting conversation.


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

[User] I think everybody can step outside their boxes and contribute, and as they do, it’s generally recognized. I think those are the fun things. If you find a solution in the box, that’s fun, but if you find a better one outside the box, that’s even more fun. It doesn’t hurt to have leaders that say, “Within a decade.”

[Assistant] There’s right. Well, if you don’t mind, I’d like to have Sandra and Jennifer step outside their box running the equipment and step into their historian mode and ask some questions, if they have any.

[User] Sure.

[Assistant] I don’t actually think I have any right now. Thank you.

[User] Thank you.

[Assistant] I was just wondering, you were talking about the escape vehicle and how much different what they came up with was from what they actually used, the Soyuz. Was it just as simple?


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

[User] Well, this is the one that's in Gene's [Eugene F. Kranz] book, Failure is Not an Option, and then the others are kept by Ron [Ronald C.] Epps over in MOD [Missions Operations Directorate]. I assume when he retires he's going to hand those over to someone else. We kept all of our old console logs, too, and we have a curator of all the old console logs because periodically one of these people that's wanting to write a book, they'll say, "Come talk to me about Apollo 12," or Gemini 76 [Gemini VII/Gemini VI] or something. The thing is, you can do is go get that log book and look in there and refresh your memory of what happened in great detail. So it was our console log.

[Assistant] So those are kept on site still? Does somebody else now keep them?

[User] Right. Well, Ron Epps has both the Captain REFSMMAT and the logs, either that or someone in his organization. He has the Flight Design Division now, and there may be one of the people at a different level that are actually keeping those.

[Assistant] Well, that's certainly a valuable item to hang onto, as you said.

[User] It is nice to be able to go back and remember.

[Assistant] Yes. Well, thank you for bringing that in and sharing it with us.


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

[User] Right. Well, Ron Epps has both the Captain REFSMMAT and the logs, either that or someone in his organization. He has the Flight Design Division now, and there may be one of the people at a different level that are actually keeping those.

[Assistant] Well, that's certainly a valuable item to hang onto, as you said.

[User] It is nice to be able to go back and remember.

[Assistant] Yes. Well, thank you for bringing that in and sharing it with us.

[User] Okay. You're welcome.

[Assistant] Last time we had talked about most of the early Apollo missions, and we had kind of built up to Apollo 13. Obviously, that was a very involved time for everyone once the mission got underway and things started to happen. If you could tell us some about your involvement on that. You were on Gene Kranz's team during the mission. So if you could tell us about what was happening when it first started. What were you thinking? How serious was it recognized to be at first? Kind of work us through the mission, if you would.


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

[User] It has pretty much this drawing. Probably all these symbols weren't on here. But otherwise, pretty much this drawing and every version that was turned in as a suggestion.

[Assistant] Well, that would certainly be interesting. We could make copies. What did you say the band represented? I think you started to say, but—

[User] This part?

[Assistant] You said the band going across.

[User] Well, it was just a way to get the words on there, and I kind of let it overlap and go around to show that it was sort of encompassing this part of the space program.\n\n The sigma was Gene's idea. As you know, the sigma represents science and engineering and it's the sum of it all. So I thought that would be a good way to do that. That's pretty much exactly the sigma that I drew. McCall I don't think changed that part at all.

[Assistant] That's certainly interesting.


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

[User] This part?

[Assistant] You said the band going across.

[User] Well, it was just a way to get the words on there, and I kind of let it overlap and go around to show that it was sort of encompassing this part of the space program.\n\n The sigma was Gene's idea. As you know, the sigma represents science and engineering and it's the sum of it all. So I thought that would be a good way to do that. That's pretty much exactly the sigma that I drew. McCall I don't think changed that part at all.

[Assistant] That's certainly interesting.

[User] I didn't know that was in there. That's neat.

[Assistant] Yes. The mission control, mission operations team certainly did have a huge part to play in the mission, so it's fitting.


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

[User] Well, it was just a way to get the words on there, and I kind of let it overlap and go around to show that it was sort of encompassing this part of the space program.\n\n The sigma was Gene's idea. As you know, the sigma represents science and engineering and it's the sum of it all. So I thought that would be a good way to do that. That's pretty much exactly the sigma that I drew. McCall I don't think changed that part at all.

[Assistant] That's certainly interesting.

[User] I didn't know that was in there. That's neat.

[Assistant] Yes. The mission control, mission operations team certainly did have a huge part to play in the mission, so it's fitting.

[User] And that was just another item like Captain REFSMMAT and the patches. Gene was always interested in things that would make the spirit and the morale of the people because he knew that we had a tough job. We were spending a lot of time away from our families, so he wanted to do things that would make us feel a little better about what we were doing. I don't think a lot of the people perhaps consciously acknowledged that. I think subconsciously they probably enjoyed a lot of the things that he did or felt better about them and their morale was better, but I'm not sure that it really struck them that it was something he was doing to try to help the organization.

[Assistant] It certainly is important to try and keep that whole team atmosphere and that morale, keep everyone working together.


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

[User] I didn't know that was in there. That's neat.

[Assistant] Yes. The mission control, mission operations team certainly did have a huge part to play in the mission, so it's fitting.

[User] And that was just another item like Captain REFSMMAT and the patches. Gene was always interested in things that would make the spirit and the morale of the people because he knew that we had a tough job. We were spending a lot of time away from our families, so he wanted to do things that would make us feel a little better about what we were doing. I don't think a lot of the people perhaps consciously acknowledged that. I think subconsciously they probably enjoyed a lot of the things that he did or felt better about them and their morale was better, but I'm not sure that it really struck them that it was something he was doing to try to help the organization.

[Assistant] It certainly is important to try and keep that whole team atmosphere and that morale, keep everyone working together.

[User] What we had was not any good at all unless the team all worked together. Everyone had to be a team player. We had so many exceptional people who, by themselves, could do so much, that it was difficult sometimes to make them want to be team players, because they had the capability to go be superstars, you know. That was all part of it, too, was to be team players.

[Assistant] Well, the team changed a little bit in between the Apollo and Skylab missions and Shuttle when you moved into the Apollo-Soyuz mission, had a completely different aspect on things, bringing in the Russians, who you'd previously been in competition with and in some circles were actually considered enemies, on the military front to an extent.\n\n Could you tell us something about your involvement in that side of Apollo-Soyuz and how that may have affected the atmosphere, both at NASA and in general?


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

[User] There was not much hint of whether there might be additional ones. After having gone through that, the people that worked it hoped that there would, because we rather enjoyed it, more from the standpoint of just a cooperative thing and learning a little bit more about how they did business and how we could do business together.\n\n The other side of that was we felt a little bit cheated that they got a lot more technical insight and benefit out of it than we did. It was not fifty-fifty as far as the technical part of it. But once you past that and said, "Okay, I understand that," then it was nice to have a project that was cooperative and international that worked. So, you know, there was interest in NASA, but I guess it just never quite came together until this Space Station thing.

[Assistant] A few years later, but hopefully they were able to build on some of these experiences that you had learned.

[User] Right.

[Assistant] I think maybe we'll take a brief break here.

[User] Okay.

[Assistant]
And then we'll finish off with Shuttle.\n\n [Recording interrupted]

...after Apollo-Soyuz, and you had already been working in the Mission Plans and Requirements section, and you talked a little bit about that earlier on, for Shuttle and planning for the Shuttle missions. Before Shuttle became fully operational, in '77, I think, you moved into the Operations Integration Branch. What were you working on there and what was your ties?


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

[User] Right.

[Assistant] I think maybe we'll take a brief break here.

[User] Okay.

[Assistant]
And then we'll finish off with Shuttle.\n\n [Recording interrupted]

...after Apollo-Soyuz, and you had already been working in the Mission Plans and Requirements section, and you talked a little bit about that earlier on, for Shuttle and planning for the Shuttle missions. Before Shuttle became fully operational, in '77, I think, you moved into the Operations Integration Branch. What were you working on there and what was your ties?

[User] Actually, the Integrations Branch was a continuation of the planning for the Shuttle control center, for the procedures. We needed a starting point for the flight rules, and we, of course, had not—this was a very different-type program because, for example, we didn't land in the water; we would land on runways. So we needed to have a group of people go out and establish a starting point for where would be the places we could land and then how many of these would we want to equip so that we could land. So I had a group of people that started planning for what you might call a runway landing plan for the Shuttle, and that was going on, and we were also doing the planning for evolving the actual control center itself. That was the largest part of it.\n\n And how we would work in the control center in detail, who would do what, how many shifts a day would you work? We were doing the planning for the overall team. So the mission plans that we had would go across the whole team, and then what we would want to do is use the technology that was coming up, but what we had learned from the earlier programs, fold that into the procedures that we would have for the control center. So that was really our main challenge there.\n\n About a year before the first Shuttle was supposed to launch, I was selected as a branch chief in the Flight Planning Branch. I don't know if you had that on your list or not.

[Assistant] I don't know that I did. Was this when you were operations division chief and assistant for operations in MOD?


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

[User] It was quite different, and it took a while to have that feel comfortable.

[Assistant] More on-the-job training of sorts as you were going through all of this, learning as you went on.

[User] Right.

[Assistant] Throughout this time frame, when you were working on the Shuttle program in all these different areas, are there any events, either related to missions or related to planning budgets or anything in there, that stand out in your mind? Any memorable moments or even things relating to people?

[User] Let's see. Well, one of the really bright moments was the first time that we were able to use our new control center. That was completely different technology. It was going to allow us to operate in a quite different way because we had always been very dependent on, as I mentioned earlier, the large computers and centralized. This would allow us to use a distributed computing system and PCs. The problem that it presented was, our controllers had to have extra training because they had to know how to operate the computer part of it.\n\n But bringing that system on line was a really proud day for me because we had seen, probably from seven or eight years before that, coming up with the ideas about what we needed, just drawing little squares on pieces of paper for what we were going to need in a control center, and now to see the control center actually open for business was really a proud moment.\n\n I guess seeing that first Shuttle land and all that working was outstanding, too, because we had done the approach and landing test where we dropped it off of the back of the carrier aircraft. We'd done those in California. But we'd never really done landing out of orbit before. Of course, these all had to be pinpoint landings. You wanted to be there at the landing strip. So that was pretty exciting and made me feel really proud to have it come back and land right where it was supposed to.

[Assistant] Did you get to be out there at the landing strip to watch it, or were you watching it from mission control, watched the landing?


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

[User] Right.

[Assistant] Throughout this time frame, when you were working on the Shuttle program in all these different areas, are there any events, either related to missions or related to planning budgets or anything in there, that stand out in your mind? Any memorable moments or even things relating to people?

[User] Let's see. Well, one of the really bright moments was the first time that we were able to use our new control center. That was completely different technology. It was going to allow us to operate in a quite different way because we had always been very dependent on, as I mentioned earlier, the large computers and centralized. This would allow us to use a distributed computing system and PCs. The problem that it presented was, our controllers had to have extra training because they had to know how to operate the computer part of it.\n\n But bringing that system on line was a really proud day for me because we had seen, probably from seven or eight years before that, coming up with the ideas about what we needed, just drawing little squares on pieces of paper for what we were going to need in a control center, and now to see the control center actually open for business was really a proud moment.\n\n I guess seeing that first Shuttle land and all that working was outstanding, too, because we had done the approach and landing test where we dropped it off of the back of the carrier aircraft. We'd done those in California. But we'd never really done landing out of orbit before. Of course, these all had to be pinpoint landings. You wanted to be there at the landing strip. So that was pretty exciting and made me feel really proud to have it come back and land right where it was supposed to.

[Assistant] Did you get to be out there at the landing strip to watch it, or were you watching it from mission control, watched the landing?

[User] No, from the control center.\n\n That's probably the high points for me.

[Assistant] Looking back over your whole career with NASA, Shuttle, early programs, what would you consider your most significant accomplishment or contribution, and what would you consider your biggest challenge throughout that time?


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

[User] Okay. Thanks.

[Assistant] Looking back, would you ever have imagined where your career would have led you?

[User] Not at all. As a matter of fact, I had this vision when I was getting ready to graduate from college that I wanted to work for NASA, and as I mentioned to you, it was my very last offer, but it was just sort of a "gleam in your eye" type thing. Frankly, the whole space program unfolded almost from nothing during the period of time when I was working there. Looking back on it, I really feel so fortunate to have been in the right place, because there are talented people coming out of college right now, and the most exciting thing they're going to have to do is, if they sit down around the table with me and we talked about it, they would be disappointed, because we really had the cream of the crop as far as excitement and experiences and opportunities. I'm so grateful for that, that I did have that opportunity.\n\n You could almost see within a program sometimes how it was going to unfold, but then when the next program came along, it was so different, and it just captured your imagination and whisked you away. We in the group, my age group, that were in NASA were extremely fortunate to have the opportunity, because if one day they go back to the Moon, I think the people that are involved in that will love it. Of course, they'll have a lot of new things available to them, but that's the kind of thing that possibly will never happen again.

[Assistant] You certainly were fortunate, and we're fortunate that you've shared those experiences with us.\n\n Is there anything you can think of that we haven't touched on?

[User] I'd like to thank you all for doing this. I think it's a great idea, and hopefully there'll be some benefit down the road. Of course, I want to thank my family for being there for me.

[Assistant] Well, thank you very much. We certainly do hope this will be of benefit. It's been a benefit to us, and we appreciate you coming in.


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

[User] Well, of course, during the mission, you blot all that out of your mind. You get extremely focused, just as Kranz would say failure is not an option. Let’s focus on what we have to do now to get this crew back. So our only thoughts were, “What’s the oxygen margin? What’s the water margin? What’s the power margin? How are the systems holding up? You mean you found a way to charge the command module batteries? That’s wonderful!” Just day at a time, hour at a time. “Why does the trajectory keep”—was it steepening or shallowing? I’m trying to remember. On the way back, they had them on the perfect trajectory to the entry corridor. I think it shallowed out a little bit.

[Assistant] That's right.

[User] They made a couple of mid-course corrections. It turned out, after the mission, somebody said it was the lunar module water boiler that was causing this very slight delta-V that would cause it to shallow out. Trying to figure out mysteries like that and stay focused, and hoping the crew was okay. Watching as they dealt with Fred [W.] Haise’s [Jr.] kidney infection and all of that afterward.\n\n Only then did you think a little bit about the investigation. I wasn’t involved in that in any substantive way, so it seemed to me that they rather rapidly and fortunately discovered the anomaly in the handling of that oxygen tank and the anomalous way in which it had been emptied, I believe, after a test, as I recall, and were able therefore to pinpoint the cause and write it off with confidence, inspect the histories and the hardware in the subsequent service modules and say, “We’re go.” So it didn’t seem to take that long, actually.

[Assistant] No, it didn’t.

[User] I’m trying to remember what the dates were. April 1970 was Apollo 13. And when did we fly 14?

[Assistant] It was January '71.


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

[User] They made a couple of mid-course corrections. It turned out, after the mission, somebody said it was the lunar module water boiler that was causing this very slight delta-V that would cause it to shallow out. Trying to figure out mysteries like that and stay focused, and hoping the crew was okay. Watching as they dealt with Fred [W.] Haise’s [Jr.] kidney infection and all of that afterward.\n\n Only then did you think a little bit about the investigation. I wasn’t involved in that in any substantive way, so it seemed to me that they rather rapidly and fortunately discovered the anomaly in the handling of that oxygen tank and the anomalous way in which it had been emptied, I believe, after a test, as I recall, and were able therefore to pinpoint the cause and write it off with confidence, inspect the histories and the hardware in the subsequent service modules and say, “We’re go.” So it didn’t seem to take that long, actually.

[Assistant] No, it didn’t.

[User] I’m trying to remember what the dates were. April 1970 was Apollo 13. And when did we fly 14?

[Assistant] It was January '71.

[User] January of ’71. I mean, that’s really short. Look at how long it took us after the\n\n Challenger\n\n accident to get back to flying.

[Assistant] In this case you had Al Shepard finally getting his ride on 14.


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

[User] I’m trying to remember what the dates were. April 1970 was Apollo 13. And when did we fly 14?

[Assistant] It was January '71.

[User] January of ’71. I mean, that’s really short. Look at how long it took us after the\n\n Challenger\n\n accident to get back to flying.

[Assistant] In this case you had Al Shepard finally getting his ride on 14.

[User] Al finally getting his ride, yes. Isn’t that good?

[Assistant] After being put out for his inner ear problem.


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

[User] January of ’71. I mean, that’s really short. Look at how long it took us after the\n\n Challenger\n\n accident to get back to flying.

[Assistant] In this case you had Al Shepard finally getting his ride on 14.

[User] Al finally getting his ride, yes. Isn’t that good?

[Assistant] After being put out for his inner ear problem.

[User] His Meniere’s Syndrome. Yes, it was good to see both Al and eventually Deke get that ride. They tell me that Deke always used to submit two crew recommendations, one with him on it and the other one without him on it. Finally, they accepted one with him on it. It was very nice.

[Assistant] Do you have a professional opinion on either of their medical problems?


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

[User] Al finally getting his ride, yes. Isn’t that good?

[Assistant] After being put out for his inner ear problem.

[User] His Meniere’s Syndrome. Yes, it was good to see both Al and eventually Deke get that ride. They tell me that Deke always used to submit two crew recommendations, one with him on it and the other one without him on it. Finally, they accepted one with him on it. It was very nice.

[Assistant] Do you have a professional opinion on either of their medical problems?

[User] No, I think Al’s was handled pretty well. I think they were both handled pretty well, but Al’s in particular, a significant period of time went by, the symptoms had subsided, there was no residual damage to the vestibular system, and he was certified for flight in a relatively routine fashion.\n\n Deke’s problem was more difficult because it was arrhythmia, and those things do tend to recur, and if they recur, they’re usually not harmful. You could have made the argument back in 1962, I guess it was, and some of the doctors did make the argument, that this atrial fibrillation was intermittent, would not have interfered in a short mission, and it was just that overwhelming conservatism that said, “We know it probably doesn’t matter, but if you can find another crew member who hadn’t got that problem, it’s just one less thing to worry about.” It’s too bad, because Deke was a splendid crew member and a good leader and would have been a good commander on an Apollo mission. It was not to be. I think he quit smoking at some point early on in there, and had had a stretch now of several years without fibrillation recurring, and that’s what made them feel that they were safe in sending him up. And they were right, he didn’t have a problem in flight.

[Assistant] Did you have any involvement with any of the flights after 13?


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

[User] His Meniere’s Syndrome. Yes, it was good to see both Al and eventually Deke get that ride. They tell me that Deke always used to submit two crew recommendations, one with him on it and the other one without him on it. Finally, they accepted one with him on it. It was very nice.

[Assistant] Do you have a professional opinion on either of their medical problems?

[User] No, I think Al’s was handled pretty well. I think they were both handled pretty well, but Al’s in particular, a significant period of time went by, the symptoms had subsided, there was no residual damage to the vestibular system, and he was certified for flight in a relatively routine fashion.\n\n Deke’s problem was more difficult because it was arrhythmia, and those things do tend to recur, and if they recur, they’re usually not harmful. You could have made the argument back in 1962, I guess it was, and some of the doctors did make the argument, that this atrial fibrillation was intermittent, would not have interfered in a short mission, and it was just that overwhelming conservatism that said, “We know it probably doesn’t matter, but if you can find another crew member who hadn’t got that problem, it’s just one less thing to worry about.” It’s too bad, because Deke was a splendid crew member and a good leader and would have been a good commander on an Apollo mission. It was not to be. I think he quit smoking at some point early on in there, and had had a stretch now of several years without fibrillation recurring, and that’s what made them feel that they were safe in sending him up. And they were right, he didn’t have a problem in flight.

[Assistant] Did you have any involvement with any of the flights after 13?

[User] Not in the Apollo sequence, no. I went from there right to full-time training for Skylab.

[Assistant] Now, after having been an astronaut for several years, you finally get your seat on a flight. Take us through the training regimen that you went through to prepare for your specific mission.


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

[User] Well, it’s learned a lot that are by now so deeply ingrained into it that it would be almost hard to point them out, but the habitability, the diet and exercise, the workday structure, a lot of those things.\n\n As a matter of fact, one thing I find that’s good about this long gap between Skylab and Space Station is that it’s kept me usefully employed for twenty-five years. [Laughter] People still come and ask for data. “How did you guys do that? How did you manage this? Give us a little seminar, get some people together, and tell us about managing science on the Skylab. How did you manage to do that so efficiently? What did you do wrong, that we shouldn’t repeat?” We had a lot of things that we did wrong that should not be done that way again.\n\n So I figure that once the International Space Station has been in operation for about two years, Skylab will be as interesting as Columbus’ voyage. [Laughter] All those lessons will have been learned over again and new ones will be being learned. But now we’re still popular, so it’s kind of fun.

[Assistant] It’s good to know that your mission back then is still proving valuable today.

[User] Yes. It was a good mission, a beautiful medical data set. Still, I think, the best, most complete medical data set on nine people that exists for weightlessness. Again, I can’t wait for Space Station to do a much, much better job of that and to refine the exercise prescriptions and the diet prescriptions and the other countermeasures that will allow us to go for six months and a year safely, overcome physical, psychological, and environmental problems, and go to Mars.

[Assistant] We can only hope that that comes sooner rather than later.

[User] That’s right. Amen.

[Assistant] What’s your role in the International Space Station today?


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

[User] Yes. It was a good mission, a beautiful medical data set. Still, I think, the best, most complete medical data set on nine people that exists for weightlessness. Again, I can’t wait for Space Station to do a much, much better job of that and to refine the exercise prescriptions and the diet prescriptions and the other countermeasures that will allow us to go for six months and a year safely, overcome physical, psychological, and environmental problems, and go to Mars.

[Assistant] We can only hope that that comes sooner rather than later.

[User] That’s right. Amen.

[Assistant] What’s your role in the International Space Station today?

[User] Well, I manage a contractor now, a fairly small contractor called Wylie Laboratories, which is the support contractor to the medical effort at the Johnson Space Center. So my people are extra hands and feet for the research laboratories, the medical operations and training, the medical equipment development, building the crew healthcare system and the exercise hardware for Space Station. So I’m now a supporter, a contractor, rather than a manager at NASA, but still on the team, still helping the Space Station to get on with it.

[Assistant] Great. I have just a few sweeping questions, I guess, for you to kind of reflect back on. What do you think of the role of life sciences and medical experiments, these types of things, in NASA from the time you joined through Skylab and Shuttle and now International Space Station? How do you think that’s changed over time?


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

[User] I don’t think it was anything in management; I think it was just conducting that Skylab mission properly. Carrying out the good work that was planned by the teams on the ground.

[Assistant] On a related note, what do you think the greatest challenge for you was?

[User] Getting that solar panel up. [Laughter]

[Assistant] That was certainly an achievement in of itself, because if that wasn’t running, then who knows what would have happened to the other missions going up there, as well.

[User] Exactly. That bailed out the program.

[Assistant] I wanted to give you a chance to make any final remarks before we run out of time today.


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

[User] Getting that solar panel up. [Laughter]

[Assistant] That was certainly an achievement in of itself, because if that wasn’t running, then who knows what would have happened to the other missions going up there, as well.

[User] Exactly. That bailed out the program.

[Assistant] I wanted to give you a chance to make any final remarks before we run out of time today.

[User] I can’t think of anything either wise or funny to say, so we might as well just knock it off. I enjoyed it.

[Assistant] It’s been a pleasure for me, and I’d like to thank you again for joining us.


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

[User] I lucked in at the right time at the right place.

[Assistant] What sort of activities were going on at White Sands Test Facility when you arrived?

[User] The entire installation at that time was dedicated specifically to supporting Project Apollo, and as a former name of the installation, Propulsion Systems Development Facility, indicated, it was focused entirely on testing the rocket engines for the Apollo spacecraft, and “spacecraft” particularly meaning the part that operates in space once you get up off of the ground. So it was the Apollo lunar module and the command and service module. It wasn’t the big engines for the Saturn V. They couldn’t test those things out here. Those engines are just too big, and the engines put out a lot of heat. A lot of heat requires a lot of water to quench it. Also, the vehicles are so big that, you might remember, they traveled by barge. We don’t have very many barges here in New Mexico! So they focused on the smaller rocket engines for the lunar module and the command and service module. And that was really the primary focus, just rocket engine testing. [At the time], the laboratories existed merely as a support function providing [cleaning and] chemistry and metallurgical support, analytical work to support the rocket engine test stands.

[Assistant] So what were your first duties or responsibilities when you first came to White Sands?

[User] Well, I was a fledgling liquid propulsion systems engineer, and back then NASA had an unstructured but pretty effective mentor and protégé system of getting the new employees up to speed. I don’t remember going to more than one or two classes whatsoever, but [I] just hung around and shadowed a veteran engineer and followed what he did throughout the whole day, learned not only his duties, but also the interactions, the documentation necessary, the people that were necessary to talk to—some of the thought patterns and philosophies of a successful propulsion systems engineer.

[Assistant] Did you find that program to be successful?


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

[User] No, the crew is picked for you. The chief [of the Astronaut Office] picks the whole crew. I did the same when I was chief. There’s a method to it. You got to balance it out. All astronauts are equal, but some are more equal than others. You got to balance the crew with the right talent. You want to give new guys experience and fly them with the right experienced guys. You also want to be fair in the rotation. You can’t fly the same person right after another. You got to wait your turn a little bit. Then you also have to pick based on what skills are needed for what’s being done on the flight. It’s a pretty complex problem. But no, I inherited the whole crew as they were, and it was a great crew.

[Assistant] You mentioned that you traveled all over the world training for this flight. Was the training flow really long because you were working with so many investigators in so many countries?

[User] I can’t remember if the payload crew got assigned a little bit sooner. I think we were all assigned about the same [time]. It was about a year. It was a normal year training flow. Right after I got back from that flight, Dave [David C.] Leestma was Director of Flight Crew Operations [FCOD], that’s when Dave asked me to be chief of the Astronaut Office. Of course I said yes. We were just finishing up all our postflight stuff. Those guys got to travel everywhere, and I couldn’t go with them, because I had a really hard new job.

[Assistant] You had other responsibilities.

[User] They were over in Italy doing all kinds of neat stuff.

[Assistant] We interviewed Leroy Chiao many years ago. He mentioned that he thought on launch day you guys were going to go out; you weren’t going to launch. They were surprised that you guys actually ended up launching on that day.


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

[User] I can’t remember if the payload crew got assigned a little bit sooner. I think we were all assigned about the same [time]. It was about a year. It was a normal year training flow. Right after I got back from that flight, Dave [David C.] Leestma was Director of Flight Crew Operations [FCOD], that’s when Dave asked me to be chief of the Astronaut Office. Of course I said yes. We were just finishing up all our postflight stuff. Those guys got to travel everywhere, and I couldn’t go with them, because I had a really hard new job.

[Assistant] You had other responsibilities.

[User] They were over in Italy doing all kinds of neat stuff.

[Assistant] We interviewed Leroy Chiao many years ago. He mentioned that he thought on launch day you guys were going to go out; you weren’t going to launch. They were surprised that you guys actually ended up launching on that day.

[User] We launched on time. I remember on ascent Leroy, he took his mirror, and he was looking out the overhead window at the plume, and he couldn’t believe all the flame that he was seeing out the window. I remember him commenting about that, pretty impressive. I was more focused on the gauges and where we were going.

[Assistant] Your last mission you had flown Discovery but this time as you pointed out you flew on Columbia.


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

[User] They were over in Italy doing all kinds of neat stuff.

[Assistant] We interviewed Leroy Chiao many years ago. He mentioned that he thought on launch day you guys were going to go out; you weren’t going to launch. They were surprised that you guys actually ended up launching on that day.

[User] We launched on time. I remember on ascent Leroy, he took his mirror, and he was looking out the overhead window at the plume, and he couldn’t believe all the flame that he was seeing out the window. I remember him commenting about that, pretty impressive. I was more focused on the gauges and where we were going.

[Assistant] Your last mission you had flown Discovery but this time as you pointed out you flew on Columbia.

[User] Actually my last one was Endeavour. My first two were Discovery, then Columbia, then Endeavour.

[Assistant] Were there any differences between the vehicles?


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

[User] We launched on time. I remember on ascent Leroy, he took his mirror, and he was looking out the overhead window at the plume, and he couldn’t believe all the flame that he was seeing out the window. I remember him commenting about that, pretty impressive. I was more focused on the gauges and where we were going.

[Assistant] Your last mission you had flown Discovery but this time as you pointed out you flew on Columbia.

[User] Actually my last one was Endeavour. My first two were Discovery, then Columbia, then Endeavour.

[Assistant] Were there any differences between the vehicles?

[User] Columbia looked different for a number of reasons. It was heavier. The tiles were different, the way the pattern was. At one time it had ejection seats, so some of the closeout panels inside were a little bit different, but as far as how it operated, how it flew, you couldn’t tell the difference between the Orbiters. They all flew essentially the same.\n\n In fact if you were in Discovery, Atlantis, or Endeavour, unless you knew, you couldn’t tell one from the other. Columbia was a little bit different, being a little older. It was pretty neat to be able to fly Columbia, the very first Space Shuttle to fly.

[Assistant] You mentioned that this was an EDO mission. Were there any other differences besides that extended duration toilet that are worthy of pointing out?


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

[User] Actually my last one was Endeavour. My first two were Discovery, then Columbia, then Endeavour.

[Assistant] Were there any differences between the vehicles?

[User] Columbia looked different for a number of reasons. It was heavier. The tiles were different, the way the pattern was. At one time it had ejection seats, so some of the closeout panels inside were a little bit different, but as far as how it operated, how it flew, you couldn’t tell the difference between the Orbiters. They all flew essentially the same.\n\n In fact if you were in Discovery, Atlantis, or Endeavour, unless you knew, you couldn’t tell one from the other. Columbia was a little bit different, being a little older. It was pretty neat to be able to fly Columbia, the very first Space Shuttle to fly.

[Assistant] You mentioned that this was an EDO mission. Were there any other differences besides that extended duration toilet that are worthy of pointing out?

[User] No, being up 15 days is a long time in a Space Shuttle.

[Assistant] In that small space.


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

[User] Columbia looked different for a number of reasons. It was heavier. The tiles were different, the way the pattern was. At one time it had ejection seats, so some of the closeout panels inside were a little bit different, but as far as how it operated, how it flew, you couldn’t tell the difference between the Orbiters. They all flew essentially the same.\n\n In fact if you were in Discovery, Atlantis, or Endeavour, unless you knew, you couldn’t tell one from the other. Columbia was a little bit different, being a little older. It was pretty neat to be able to fly Columbia, the very first Space Shuttle to fly.

[Assistant] You mentioned that this was an EDO mission. Were there any other differences besides that extended duration toilet that are worthy of pointing out?

[User] No, being up 15 days is a long time in a Space Shuttle.

[Assistant] In that small space.

[User] It was a little over 15 days. It was learning how to operate and get all the experiments done. You get into a routine, a pattern. Space Shuttles are a little more of a sprint than the International Space Station. A lot of work gets crammed in, because you’re up there for a shorter period of time. The Space Station assembly missions were extremely challenging because they put so much into them. You want to accomplish everything. [STS]-65 was a great mission, really enjoyed it. It was a great first command, just went really well.

[Assistant] You flew three very different missions. You had a deploy mission, you had a DoD [Department of Defense] mission, then you had a Spacelab mission. Can you compare and contrast flying those missions for us?


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

[User] I don’t know if that was the first flight. I think it might have been. We had a camera in the crew cabin, and it was mounted between the rear windows on the back and showing forward, so you could see the back of the heads of the four guys on the flight deck, the gauges, and see out the front windows. It really turned out to be a neat video.\n\n The other neat thing about it was on the ground, when you watch a launch, you don’t hear what’s going on on the ICS (intercommunication system) in the cabin. All you hear is the air-to-ground and Mission Control talking. So we also downlinked what we were actually saying to each other. You can go on YouTube and google STS-65 ascent, and you’ll see it. There’s also an entry video. You can see the entire entry from deorbit burn to touchdown. That’s out there on YouTube somewhere too. I got a DVD [Digital Video Disc] of it also, the whole crew does. We had videotapes, and we converted them to DVD. It’s really a neat video.

[Assistant] Was that your idea to film that?

[User] No, it was something that we’d talked about in the Office, and we decided to do it. We volunteered to be the first crew that got it ready in time so that we could do it. It turned out really well.

[Assistant] Did Mission Control learn anything that they applied to future missions from that?

[User] No, I think it was a neat training [thing]. It was nice to be able to show guys that hadn’t flown before what actually was going on in the cockpit on ascent. I think it was more a great memory but a nice insight for folks to see, just makes it a little more human. Then it became the norm after that. I think pretty much all the flights have it since then. I got it for my last flight too, on [STS]-88, ascent and entry.

[Assistant] It seemed unusual. I notice that you did the SAREX [Shuttle Amateur Radio Experiment] on this flight. Can you talk about that?


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

[User] No, it was something that we’d talked about in the Office, and we decided to do it. We volunteered to be the first crew that got it ready in time so that we could do it. It turned out really well.

[Assistant] Did Mission Control learn anything that they applied to future missions from that?

[User] No, I think it was a neat training [thing]. It was nice to be able to show guys that hadn’t flown before what actually was going on in the cockpit on ascent. I think it was more a great memory but a nice insight for folks to see, just makes it a little more human. Then it became the norm after that. I think pretty much all the flights have it since then. I got it for my last flight too, on [STS]-88, ascent and entry.

[Assistant] It seemed unusual. I notice that you did the SAREX [Shuttle Amateur Radio Experiment] on this flight. Can you talk about that?

[User] KC5HBV.

[Assistant] That’s your call sign?


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

[User] No, I think it was a neat training [thing]. It was nice to be able to show guys that hadn’t flown before what actually was going on in the cockpit on ascent. I think it was more a great memory but a nice insight for folks to see, just makes it a little more human. Then it became the norm after that. I think pretty much all the flights have it since then. I got it for my last flight too, on [STS]-88, ascent and entry.

[Assistant] It seemed unusual. I notice that you did the SAREX [Shuttle Amateur Radio Experiment] on this flight. Can you talk about that?

[User] KC5HBV.

[Assistant] That’s your call sign?

[User] I still keep it up to date. Haven’t used it in a while. In our spare time we talked to schools. We did hookups with schools around the world, got to talk to them, got their cards. We mailed back and forth. That was fun. Ham radio is a neat way to communicate with kids on the ground. Technology has changed so much. You look at Scott [J.] Kelly on International Space Station now with Twitter. We didn’t have all that stuff back then. Ham radio was another way that you could communicate on a personal basis with folks, and it was unique, that somebody on the ground could talk to you in space.

[Assistant] Did you have a chance to talk to your kids while you were in space on SAREX?


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

[User] KC5HBV.

[Assistant] That’s your call sign?

[User] I still keep it up to date. Haven’t used it in a while. In our spare time we talked to schools. We did hookups with schools around the world, got to talk to them, got their cards. We mailed back and forth. That was fun. Ham radio is a neat way to communicate with kids on the ground. Technology has changed so much. You look at Scott [J.] Kelly on International Space Station now with Twitter. We didn’t have all that stuff back then. Ham radio was another way that you could communicate on a personal basis with folks, and it was unique, that somebody on the ground could talk to you in space.

[Assistant] Did you have a chance to talk to your kids while you were in space on SAREX?

[User] Yes. Talked to some schools. Had a ham radio hookup. Worked out well.

[Assistant] Sounds like a neat experiment. I noticed you also gave some tours of the vehicle while you were up in space. Can you talk about that? Talk about some of the TV programs you talked with.


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

[User] I still keep it up to date. Haven’t used it in a while. In our spare time we talked to schools. We did hookups with schools around the world, got to talk to them, got their cards. We mailed back and forth. That was fun. Ham radio is a neat way to communicate with kids on the ground. Technology has changed so much. You look at Scott [J.] Kelly on International Space Station now with Twitter. We didn’t have all that stuff back then. Ham radio was another way that you could communicate on a personal basis with folks, and it was unique, that somebody on the ground could talk to you in space.

[Assistant] Did you have a chance to talk to your kids while you were in space on SAREX?

[User] Yes. Talked to some schools. Had a ham radio hookup. Worked out well.

[Assistant] Sounds like a neat experiment. I noticed you also gave some tours of the vehicle while you were up in space. Can you talk about that? Talk about some of the TV programs you talked with.

[User] Oh, I can’t remember, but it’s something that we pretty much did on all the flights just to share the experience. Starting on the flight deck and videotaping it and going down through the middeck and just floating through and back in through the tunnel into the laboratory and allowing folks to see firsthand. Did the same thing on 88 when we went inside the Space Station for the first time to share that with the folks on the ground. Now it’s commonplace to look up and see astronauts floating around in space with all the cameras. Didn’t have so much live video in the past, although [we had] some. [It was] just an opportunity to share. Also turns out having those videotapes afterwards, it’s nice to be able to help remember.

[Assistant] I saw that you talked with the Today show and The Larry King Show while you were up in orbit.


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

[User] Yes. Talked to some schools. Had a ham radio hookup. Worked out well.

[Assistant] Sounds like a neat experiment. I noticed you also gave some tours of the vehicle while you were up in space. Can you talk about that? Talk about some of the TV programs you talked with.

[User] Oh, I can’t remember, but it’s something that we pretty much did on all the flights just to share the experience. Starting on the flight deck and videotaping it and going down through the middeck and just floating through and back in through the tunnel into the laboratory and allowing folks to see firsthand. Did the same thing on 88 when we went inside the Space Station for the first time to share that with the folks on the ground. Now it’s commonplace to look up and see astronauts floating around in space with all the cameras. Didn’t have so much live video in the past, although [we had] some. [It was] just an opportunity to share. Also turns out having those videotapes afterwards, it’s nice to be able to help remember.

[Assistant] I saw that you talked with the Today show and The Larry King Show while you were up in orbit.

[User] Oh, Jennifer, I can’t even remember what I said, but it’s standard stuff. You get to hook up. They ask their questions, and you talk to them about what it’s like in space, the experiments you’re doing, and why they’re important. None of that has really changed. It’s pretty much the same message today as it was 20 years ago. The importance of why we’re up there, what we’re learning, how it applies to life here on Earth, and how it applies to helping us advance as a civilization, as a nation, the importance of science and technology, our ability to explore beyond our home planet eventually. So it’s pretty much all the same stuff, just got to keep reinforcing it. People never get tired of asking, of seeing it firsthand, of being able to relate to it.

[Assistant] I also read that Dan [Daniel S.] Goldin called your flight while you were up there. Were you surprised to hear from the Administrator?


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

[User] Oh, I can’t remember, but it’s something that we pretty much did on all the flights just to share the experience. Starting on the flight deck and videotaping it and going down through the middeck and just floating through and back in through the tunnel into the laboratory and allowing folks to see firsthand. Did the same thing on 88 when we went inside the Space Station for the first time to share that with the folks on the ground. Now it’s commonplace to look up and see astronauts floating around in space with all the cameras. Didn’t have so much live video in the past, although [we had] some. [It was] just an opportunity to share. Also turns out having those videotapes afterwards, it’s nice to be able to help remember.

[Assistant] I saw that you talked with the Today show and The Larry King Show while you were up in orbit.

[User] Oh, Jennifer, I can’t even remember what I said, but it’s standard stuff. You get to hook up. They ask their questions, and you talk to them about what it’s like in space, the experiments you’re doing, and why they’re important. None of that has really changed. It’s pretty much the same message today as it was 20 years ago. The importance of why we’re up there, what we’re learning, how it applies to life here on Earth, and how it applies to helping us advance as a civilization, as a nation, the importance of science and technology, our ability to explore beyond our home planet eventually. So it’s pretty much all the same stuff, just got to keep reinforcing it. People never get tired of asking, of seeing it firsthand, of being able to relate to it.

[Assistant] I also read that Dan [Daniel S.] Goldin called your flight while you were up there. Were you surprised to hear from the Administrator?

[User] No, it was cool. I’ll tell you another Dan Goldin story. I don’t know, can’t share all my stories.

[Assistant] You can share, we can always edit them.


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

[User] No, it was cool. I’ll tell you another Dan Goldin story. I don’t know, can’t share all my stories.

[Assistant] You can share, we can always edit them.

[User] We were over in Shep’s Bar. Ken [Kenneth D.] Bowersox was training for his mission. It was after Shep’s first mission, right around that timeframe. I can’t remember exactly. In the basement of Cottage 3 in Star City, where the astronauts live—there’s three cottages that they live in while they’re training over there. Shep, when he was training, was the first one to move in. They had just finished Cottage 3. They were still working on the others. There was a weight room in the basement. They were duplexes, but the basements were connected. There was a weight room in one, and Shep built this bar in the other one. We had a Ping-Pong table down there and television for watching movies.\n\n It was a social gathering place for all the folks that were working and training in Russia. We’d invite the Russians and have parties, and we’d have cookouts; shashlik, it’s a Russian kebab that they grill outside. It was a great social gathering place. The bar has been signed. Tom Hanks signed it when he was there. It’s got patches and stickers and everybody’s signature all over it. We were playing liar’s dice one night, and when I was chief of the Astronaut Office I called back to the States. We had decided to call Mr. [W.S.] Abbey. George was Center Director then. George said, “I think you need to talk to Mr. Goldin.” He had us on hold. The next thing I know he’s connected us to DC and we’re talking to the Administrator from Shep’s Bar.

[Assistant] There was a pretty significant anniversary when you guys were up in space for 65 and that was Apollo 11.

[User] It was. That was the twenty-fifth anniversary of the Apollo landing. We flew.

[Assistant] Would you talk about that?


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

[User] It was. That was the twenty-fifth anniversary of the Apollo landing. We flew.

[Assistant] Would you talk about that?

[User] At the last minute they had all these twenty-fifth anniversary commemorative Apollo landing flags, and the idea was to fly them all and give everybody at NASA one. I’ve still got mine mounted somewhere, and it’s signed by, I think, the Administrator; I can’t remember. They came in at the last minute. They were trying to get them all stowed on board. We wanted to stow a lot of stuff; there’s stowage space back in the laboratory, but it had already been closed out, so they crammed those things everywhere. They were in lockers. Then we had to move things around, but we got them all on board.\n\n That was pretty cool. At 25 years to the date and time that they did the burn to go to the Moon, the TLI burn (translunar injection burn), the ground sent us up a PAD for a TLI burn for the Orbiter to go to the Moon. Unfortunately we didn’t have quite enough propellant, but it would have been pretty cool.

[Assistant] That would have been cool. How exciting. You had a lot of historic things going on during that mission.

[User] Yes, it was cool.

[Assistant] What did it mean to you to be in space and hold that record for a short time of the longest spaceflight at that point?


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

[User] At the last minute they had all these twenty-fifth anniversary commemorative Apollo landing flags, and the idea was to fly them all and give everybody at NASA one. I’ve still got mine mounted somewhere, and it’s signed by, I think, the Administrator; I can’t remember. They came in at the last minute. They were trying to get them all stowed on board. We wanted to stow a lot of stuff; there’s stowage space back in the laboratory, but it had already been closed out, so they crammed those things everywhere. They were in lockers. Then we had to move things around, but we got them all on board.\n\n That was pretty cool. At 25 years to the date and time that they did the burn to go to the Moon, the TLI burn (translunar injection burn), the ground sent us up a PAD for a TLI burn for the Orbiter to go to the Moon. Unfortunately we didn’t have quite enough propellant, but it would have been pretty cool.

[Assistant] That would have been cool. How exciting. You had a lot of historic things going on during that mission.

[User] Yes, it was cool.

[Assistant] What did it mean to you to be in space and hold that record for a short time of the longest spaceflight at that point?

[User] It was cool. We got a neat plaque from the FAI (Federation Aeronautique Internationale) recognizing the record. Like I said, records were made to be broken. I think 18 days ended up being the longest Shuttle mission that we flew. It was cool to have it for a while.

[Assistant] This was a mission that included a woman. You had never flown with a woman before. Was that any different for you?


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

[User] Yes, it was cool.

[Assistant] What did it mean to you to be in space and hold that record for a short time of the longest spaceflight at that point?

[User] It was cool. We got a neat plaque from the FAI (Federation Aeronautique Internationale) recognizing the record. Like I said, records were made to be broken. I think 18 days ended up being the longest Shuttle mission that we flew. It was cool to have it for a while.

[Assistant] This was a mission that included a woman. You had never flown with a woman before. Was that any different for you?

[User] No. It’s like anything else. You just respect people’s privacy. It’s no different. We all got along fine. I had Nancy Currie on my last flight. It’s like anywhere. It’s easily done.

[Assistant] How did you handle issue of privacy and things of that nature?


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

[User] It was cool. We got a neat plaque from the FAI (Federation Aeronautique Internationale) recognizing the record. Like I said, records were made to be broken. I think 18 days ended up being the longest Shuttle mission that we flew. It was cool to have it for a while.

[Assistant] This was a mission that included a woman. You had never flown with a woman before. Was that any different for you?

[User] No. It’s like anything else. You just respect people’s privacy. It’s no different. We all got along fine. I had Nancy Currie on my last flight. It’s like anywhere. It’s easily done.

[Assistant] How did you handle issue of privacy and things of that nature?

[User] There’s plenty of space on board the Shuttle. When a female needed privacy from all the guys—the WCS [Waste Collection System], the way the door opened up and the curtains were on it, there was a private space there where she could be while the rest of us were getting cleaned up or whatever out on the middeck. Again just respect each other’s privacy. It wasn’t even an issue.

[Assistant] What about the fact that she was from a different culture? Was that any sort of issue? She was from Japan.


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

[User] No. It’s like anything else. You just respect people’s privacy. It’s no different. We all got along fine. I had Nancy Currie on my last flight. It’s like anywhere. It’s easily done.

[Assistant] How did you handle issue of privacy and things of that nature?

[User] There’s plenty of space on board the Shuttle. When a female needed privacy from all the guys—the WCS [Waste Collection System], the way the door opened up and the curtains were on it, there was a private space there where she could be while the rest of us were getting cleaned up or whatever out on the middeck. Again just respect each other’s privacy. It wasn’t even an issue.

[Assistant] What about the fact that she was from a different culture? Was that any sort of issue? She was from Japan.

[User] No, I’d lived in Japan for two years in the Marine Corps, two separate times, a year at a time, in Iwakuni. That’s another thing. The Japanese are very respectful of other people’s privacy. When you live in a nation where everybody is so close and walls are paper-thin in some houses, you learn to respect other people. Be unto yourself; respect other people’s property and privacy.

[Assistant] As you mentioned, this was almost a dress rehearsal for Space Station. What lessons learned did you pass on to folks that were applied to ISS [International Space Station]?


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

[User] There’s plenty of space on board the Shuttle. When a female needed privacy from all the guys—the WCS [Waste Collection System], the way the door opened up and the curtains were on it, there was a private space there where she could be while the rest of us were getting cleaned up or whatever out on the middeck. Again just respect each other’s privacy. It wasn’t even an issue.

[Assistant] What about the fact that she was from a different culture? Was that any sort of issue? She was from Japan.

[User] No, I’d lived in Japan for two years in the Marine Corps, two separate times, a year at a time, in Iwakuni. That’s another thing. The Japanese are very respectful of other people’s privacy. When you live in a nation where everybody is so close and walls are paper-thin in some houses, you learn to respect other people. Be unto yourself; respect other people’s property and privacy.

[Assistant] As you mentioned, this was almost a dress rehearsal for Space Station. What lessons learned did you pass on to folks that were applied to ISS [International Space Station]?

[User] I think how we operated the experiments, the training, it evolved. It was a good model. We weren’t the first Spacelab mission either. IML-1 was before us. There was USML [U.S. Microgravity Laboratory], and there were some flights, Neurolab, that focused on the human system and biological system. I think it’s something that evolved over time. We get better at it all the time.

[Assistant] I thought we’d turn now to talking about being chief of the Astronaut Office. You mentioned that Dave Leestma had asked you to take that position. What were your thoughts when he approached you? Were you surprised that you would be getting into management?


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

[User] They might have been spies, I don’t know. Checking me out but I could give them directions in Russian. It was great.

[Assistant] After you came back from that first trip and saw what Norm and Bonnie were dealing with and some of the hardships that they faced, what changes did you start to implement or what discussions did you start?

[User] We had a great program. Our life sciences guys are awesome and the psychological help that they provide—I think the real challenge wasn’t so much the technical part. We worked on that, but I think what our docs did working with the Russian docs to get folks qualified, making sure that from a psychological point of view the crew had [support]. We worked very hard to ensure that the crews had good support in Russia, that we were taking good care of them. We had a DOR (Director of Operations-Russia), an astronaut, working in Star City that was a direct interface with the Russian in charge of training. We were providing the right support to our crews. They were being taken care of.\n\n They had good support and comfort over there, because it was a harsh environment to be thrown into to learn. I can’t remember which mission it was now. Scott [E.] Parazynski wanted to fly on Mir, so we sent him over there to get him measured. I didn’t share this story last time, did I?

[Assistant] I think it was too tall, too short.

[User] Yes. All right, I ain’t going to tell that story again.

[Assistant] It’s a good story though.


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

[User] We had a great program. Our life sciences guys are awesome and the psychological help that they provide—I think the real challenge wasn’t so much the technical part. We worked on that, but I think what our docs did working with the Russian docs to get folks qualified, making sure that from a psychological point of view the crew had [support]. We worked very hard to ensure that the crews had good support in Russia, that we were taking good care of them. We had a DOR (Director of Operations-Russia), an astronaut, working in Star City that was a direct interface with the Russian in charge of training. We were providing the right support to our crews. They were being taken care of.\n\n They had good support and comfort over there, because it was a harsh environment to be thrown into to learn. I can’t remember which mission it was now. Scott [E.] Parazynski wanted to fly on Mir, so we sent him over there to get him measured. I didn’t share this story last time, did I?

[Assistant] I think it was too tall, too short.

[User] Yes. All right, I ain’t going to tell that story again.

[Assistant] It’s a good story though.

[User] It is a good story.

[Assistant] It does show that progression.


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

[User] Yes. All right, I ain’t going to tell that story again.

[Assistant] It’s a good story though.

[User] It is a good story.

[Assistant] It does show that progression.

[User] But it was prior to the [Soyuz] TMA, the modifications that we did to allow a greater buttocks-to-knee length in the vehicle. It was really hard finding folks that fit in a Soyuz TM that could actually fly to Mir that wanted to do it. Wendy [B.] Lawrence and Scott Parazynski, too tall and too small.

[Assistant] You told us last time that it was really hard to get people to want to go live and work in Russia and train. Were there any folks in the Office that were just really excited to go over there and willing to step up?


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

[User] It is a good story.

[Assistant] It does show that progression.

[User] But it was prior to the [Soyuz] TMA, the modifications that we did to allow a greater buttocks-to-knee length in the vehicle. It was really hard finding folks that fit in a Soyuz TM that could actually fly to Mir that wanted to do it. Wendy [B.] Lawrence and Scott Parazynski, too tall and too small.

[Assistant] You told us last time that it was really hard to get people to want to go live and work in Russia and train. Were there any folks in the Office that were just really excited to go over there and willing to step up?

[User] I think all the folks that went. Mike Foale wanted to go. Andy Thomas wanted to go. I think the folks that went over there wanted to do it. That makes a big difference, to do something begrudgingly or to do something because you want to do it. Finding the right people was important. You wouldn’t just assign somebody just to assign somebody. You needed to assign somebody for the right reasons. They had to want to be there, or it would never have worked.

[Assistant] While you were chief of the Astronaut, Carolyn [L.] Huntoon was Center Director and then George Abbey. Would you talk about working with both of them?


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

[User] I love George to death. I don’t know of anybody that was more concerned about America, our space program, and doing the right thing for the space program than George. I loved interfaces with him. I don’t know how much to say here.\n\n I remember taking crew [assignments to him]. I worked really hard on getting good crew assignments. Dave Leestma and I would go bring the crews to George. I had a master spreadsheet where I had all the logic laid out, and I’d explain it all to Dave. We’d write down all the names. We’d take it to George, and we’d sit across the table from him. When you got to the meat of the discussion you’d finally get talking about the crew.\n\n You’d move it across and explain why. Piece of paper would be sitting there on the table. Eventually he’d pick it up, slide it, fold it in half, and put it in his pocket. All right, that’s a good crew. Or else, all of a sudden, it would come back across the table to you.

[Assistant] Without any explanation?

[User] Yes, but if you changed it, if you weren’t right the first time, what makes you think you’re right the second time?

[Assistant] Did you learn that or was that something Dave had told you?

[User] No, but I knew the right reasons why we had the crew. So I’d just bring the same crew back the second time and explain why. It always worked out. We ended up getting the crews assigned. I really enjoyed interfacing with Mr. Abbey. He’s a good man.

[Assistant] Looking at the context of the times, the NASA budget at that time was really in turmoil when you were chief of the Astronaut Office. There were a lot of cuts. Dan Goldin said, “Nothing is sacred.” I wondered if that impacted, or how it impacted the Astronaut Office at that point.


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

[User] No. When you have people flying in space, the critical things get done. I look back. Supporting human spaceflight operations and the Space Station, that’s always well supported for the critical operations that need to get done. People understand human life is at risk and it’s going to get supported.

[Assistant] Would you talk about your role as chief of the office and working with other heads at JSC, like MOD [Mission Operations Directorate], Space Shuttle, all those different offices?

[User] I’ll share another favorite story. Brewster [H.] Shaw was Program Manager for the Space Station Program. I’d been chief for about a year. He had a little side conference room off his office over on the fifth floor of Building 1, and we were having a meeting in there. The conference table was full, couple guys standing in the back. Had the folks at Marshall and KSC on the line. I can’t even remember what it was now I presented to them. It was something that we needed to do. Brewster almost got mad at me. He wasn’t mad, “No, we’re not going to do that.” I thought, “That was the right thing to do.” He was just vehement about it. He pointed at me and said, “I want to see you in my office.” Oh, dang.\n\n I get in his office and he says, “You were absolutely right; I’m going to do what you wanted to do. But I didn’t want those other guys online to think I was being soft on the Astronaut Office.” Thanks, Brewster.

[Assistant] Had to keep his image.

[User] Like anything else, if you have good technical rationale for what you want to do and you present your data well, you’re going to get what you want. I just made sure that whenever I interfaced with any of the other programs I had good data to support what it was we were doing so we could make informed decisions.

[Assistant] There were several astronaut classes that came in during that time.


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

[User] Like anything else, if you have good technical rationale for what you want to do and you present your data well, you’re going to get what you want. I just made sure that whenever I interfaced with any of the other programs I had good data to support what it was we were doing so we could make informed decisions.

[Assistant] There were several astronaut classes that came in during that time.

[User] I really enjoyed being on those Astronaut Selection Boards. Prior to being chief of the office I was screening a couple Boards prior to that. I think, really, when you look at an astronaut candidate class and how you get to that, when you’ve got 3,500, 4,000 applicants, and you neck it down to 120 that you interview to pick 20 or whatever the number is, you can pick any week’s interviewees and have a good class. To sort through, you’re really splitting hairs when you get to deciding on who you’re going to select. It’s a very fair process. It was really interesting being able to talk to all those folks and learn about their experiences and their backgrounds.

[Assistant] You guys took a pretty big class at one point; I think the Sardines came in. How did that impact the Office?

[User] With all the Shuttle missions we were flying and the folks that we needed for International Space Station, at one time I had 115 astronauts in the astronaut corps, if I included the international partners. It was huge. I think we’re down to around 45 right now or something like that.

[Assistant] It’s pretty small.


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

[User] I really enjoyed being on those Astronaut Selection Boards. Prior to being chief of the office I was screening a couple Boards prior to that. I think, really, when you look at an astronaut candidate class and how you get to that, when you’ve got 3,500, 4,000 applicants, and you neck it down to 120 that you interview to pick 20 or whatever the number is, you can pick any week’s interviewees and have a good class. To sort through, you’re really splitting hairs when you get to deciding on who you’re going to select. It’s a very fair process. It was really interesting being able to talk to all those folks and learn about their experiences and their backgrounds.

[Assistant] You guys took a pretty big class at one point; I think the Sardines came in. How did that impact the Office?

[User] With all the Shuttle missions we were flying and the folks that we needed for International Space Station, at one time I had 115 astronauts in the astronaut corps, if I included the international partners. It was huge. I think we’re down to around 45 right now or something like that.

[Assistant] It’s pretty small.

[User] I’d go back and fly again though, if they got desperate. I’m ready.

[Assistant] You want to fly commercial crew?


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

[User] With all the Shuttle missions we were flying and the folks that we needed for International Space Station, at one time I had 115 astronauts in the astronaut corps, if I included the international partners. It was huge. I think we’re down to around 45 right now or something like that.

[Assistant] It’s pretty small.

[User] I’d go back and fly again though, if they got desperate. I’m ready.

[Assistant] You want to fly commercial crew?

[User] Sure.

[Assistant] You’d fly anywhere, wouldn’t you?


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

[User] I’d go back and fly again though, if they got desperate. I’m ready.

[Assistant] You want to fly commercial crew?

[User] Sure.

[Assistant] You’d fly anywhere, wouldn’t you?

[User] If it gets me out of a meeting, sign me up. I’ll go to Mars. I’m old. I can take that radiation. It’s okay. I can still pass the physical.

[Assistant] You just want to fly in jets again, right?


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

[User] Sure.

[Assistant] You’d fly anywhere, wouldn’t you?

[User] If it gets me out of a meeting, sign me up. I’ll go to Mars. I’m old. I can take that radiation. It’s okay. I can still pass the physical.

[Assistant] You just want to fly in jets again, right?

[User] Absolutely. Yes, that was a big class. Lot of good folks in it.

[Assistant] I can imagine your Office was bursting at that point.


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

[User] If it gets me out of a meeting, sign me up. I’ll go to Mars. I’m old. I can take that radiation. It’s okay. I can still pass the physical.

[Assistant] You just want to fly in jets again, right?

[User] Absolutely. Yes, that was a big class. Lot of good folks in it.

[Assistant] I can imagine your Office was bursting at that point.

[User] We had a lot of work too. Everybody was working hard to get everything done. When you’re flying eight flights a year with five to seven people on every flight, right there that’s at least 50 folks in a year that are flying in space. You can’t just turn them around. They have some time off between flights. When you’re flying 50 folks in space a year, you need a pretty good size astronaut corps.\n\n Most of what astronauts do is not fly in space. It’s support other people flying in space. You’re working in SAIL [Shuttle Avionics Integration Laboratory]. You’re working on software. You’re working in Mission Control. All kinds of collateral duties that still have to be supported, which are also good learning tools.

[Assistant] Any particularly memorable missions when you were chief of the Astronaut Office or anecdotes you want to share?


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

[User] Absolutely. Yes, that was a big class. Lot of good folks in it.

[Assistant] I can imagine your Office was bursting at that point.

[User] We had a lot of work too. Everybody was working hard to get everything done. When you’re flying eight flights a year with five to seven people on every flight, right there that’s at least 50 folks in a year that are flying in space. You can’t just turn them around. They have some time off between flights. When you’re flying 50 folks in space a year, you need a pretty good size astronaut corps.\n\n Most of what astronauts do is not fly in space. It’s support other people flying in space. You’re working in SAIL [Shuttle Avionics Integration Laboratory]. You’re working on software. You’re working in Mission Control. All kinds of collateral duties that still have to be supported, which are also good learning tools.

[Assistant] Any particularly memorable missions when you were chief of the Astronaut Office or anecdotes you want to share?

[User] Those two Mir missions where we had the fire and the collision with Mir and lost pressure in the module. Those were exciting.

[Assistant] How did you find out about both of those?


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

[User] We had a lot of work too. Everybody was working hard to get everything done. When you’re flying eight flights a year with five to seven people on every flight, right there that’s at least 50 folks in a year that are flying in space. You can’t just turn them around. They have some time off between flights. When you’re flying 50 folks in space a year, you need a pretty good size astronaut corps.\n\n Most of what astronauts do is not fly in space. It’s support other people flying in space. You’re working in SAIL [Shuttle Avionics Integration Laboratory]. You’re working on software. You’re working in Mission Control. All kinds of collateral duties that still have to be supported, which are also good learning tools.

[Assistant] Any particularly memorable missions when you were chief of the Astronaut Office or anecdotes you want to share?

[User] Those two Mir missions where we had the fire and the collision with Mir and lost pressure in the module. Those were exciting.

[Assistant] How did you find out about both of those?

[User] I don’t remember how I got the telephone call or how I found out. But boy, we got together quick. I remember getting over to see Frank Culbertson and trying to get more information and find out what was going on. Our communications have improved greatly since then too. The International Space Station Program is different from the Shuttle-Mir Program in that during Shuttle-Mir we didn’t have a control center here in the United States. We had our folks over in the Russian control center.\n\n Bill Gerstenmaier worked on console in the TsUP over in Moscow in the Russian control center while Shannon was on orbit. He was her controller down on the ground in Moscow. Today information flows much more freely. It’s easier to get information. We got the information, but it wasn’t quite as easy as it is now.

[Assistant] Mainly telephones and faxes.


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

[User] Those two Mir missions where we had the fire and the collision with Mir and lost pressure in the module. Those were exciting.

[Assistant] How did you find out about both of those?

[User] I don’t remember how I got the telephone call or how I found out. But boy, we got together quick. I remember getting over to see Frank Culbertson and trying to get more information and find out what was going on. Our communications have improved greatly since then too. The International Space Station Program is different from the Shuttle-Mir Program in that during Shuttle-Mir we didn’t have a control center here in the United States. We had our folks over in the Russian control center.\n\n Bill Gerstenmaier worked on console in the TsUP over in Moscow in the Russian control center while Shannon was on orbit. He was her controller down on the ground in Moscow. Today information flows much more freely. It’s easier to get information. We got the information, but it wasn’t quite as easy as it is now.

[Assistant] Mainly telephones and faxes.

[User] Yes, absolutely. You want a lot of information right away, and it’s hard to get the details.

[Assistant] Did you go over to Russia to find answers?


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

[User] I don’t remember how I got the telephone call or how I found out. But boy, we got together quick. I remember getting over to see Frank Culbertson and trying to get more information and find out what was going on. Our communications have improved greatly since then too. The International Space Station Program is different from the Shuttle-Mir Program in that during Shuttle-Mir we didn’t have a control center here in the United States. We had our folks over in the Russian control center.\n\n Bill Gerstenmaier worked on console in the TsUP over in Moscow in the Russian control center while Shannon was on orbit. He was her controller down on the ground in Moscow. Today information flows much more freely. It’s easier to get information. We got the information, but it wasn’t quite as easy as it is now.

[Assistant] Mainly telephones and faxes.

[User] Yes, absolutely. You want a lot of information right away, and it’s hard to get the details.

[Assistant] Did you go over to Russia to find answers?

[User] I traveled over there a lot while I was chief of the office to interface with the Russians on crew assignments and how things were going and seeing how our folks were doing over in Russia, and then just for verification of some stuff and learning. Most of the technical details were handled through the Shuttle-Mir Program Office.

[Assistant] What do you think was your biggest challenge being chief of the office?


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

[User] Yes, absolutely. You want a lot of information right away, and it’s hard to get the details.

[Assistant] Did you go over to Russia to find answers?

[User] I traveled over there a lot while I was chief of the office to interface with the Russians on crew assignments and how things were going and seeing how our folks were doing over in Russia, and then just for verification of some stuff and learning. Most of the technical details were handled through the Shuttle-Mir Program Office.

[Assistant] What do you think was your biggest challenge being chief of the office?

[User] Having 115 type A personalities working for me and keeping everybody in line. It’s like having 115 teenagers, only you got more control over your own kids.

[Assistant] I guess you can ground them or something.


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

[User] I traveled over there a lot while I was chief of the office to interface with the Russians on crew assignments and how things were going and seeing how our folks were doing over in Russia, and then just for verification of some stuff and learning. Most of the technical details were handled through the Shuttle-Mir Program Office.

[Assistant] What do you think was your biggest challenge being chief of the office?

[User] Having 115 type A personalities working for me and keeping everybody in line. It’s like having 115 teenagers, only you got more control over your own kids.

[Assistant] I guess you can ground them or something.

[User] You can ground astronauts too. Don’t want to do that.

[Assistant] While you were chief of the Astronaut Office you got assigned to the first assembly mission. How did you juggle your task as commander?


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

[User] Having 115 type A personalities working for me and keeping everybody in line. It’s like having 115 teenagers, only you got more control over your own kids.

[Assistant] I guess you can ground them or something.

[User] You can ground astronauts too. Don’t want to do that.

[Assistant] While you were chief of the Astronaut Office you got assigned to the first assembly mission. How did you juggle your task as commander?

[User] Got assigned to the first assembly mission. Actually when I got assigned to that mission, I stepped down as being chief.

[Assistant] You did, okay.


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

[User] You can ground astronauts too. Don’t want to do that.

[Assistant] While you were chief of the Astronaut Office you got assigned to the first assembly mission. How did you juggle your task as commander?

[User] Got assigned to the first assembly mission. Actually when I got assigned to that mission, I stepped down as being chief.

[Assistant] You did, okay.

[User] Yes. After three years I had a choice. I could quit being chief and fly in space, or I could stay being chief and not fly in space. They were doing things a little different. When Dan [Daniel C.] Brandenstein was chief of the office, he actually had an acting chief while he trained and flew his mission, then came back and was chief again. They’d gone to a model where if you were going to do that then you weren’t going to be chief anymore, and I really wanted to fly that first Space Station assembly mission. I wanted to fly in space again.

[Assistant] Tell us about the crew. As chief of the office did you get a chance to—


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

[User] Got assigned to the first assembly mission. Actually when I got assigned to that mission, I stepped down as being chief.

[Assistant] You did, okay.

[User] Yes. After three years I had a choice. I could quit being chief and fly in space, or I could stay being chief and not fly in space. They were doing things a little different. When Dan [Daniel C.] Brandenstein was chief of the office, he actually had an acting chief while he trained and flew his mission, then came back and was chief again. They’d gone to a model where if you were going to do that then you weren’t going to be chief anymore, and I really wanted to fly that first Space Station assembly mission. I wanted to fly in space again.

[Assistant] Tell us about the crew. As chief of the office did you get a chance to—

[User] I picked that crew.

[Assistant] Talk about that. I think that’s interesting.


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

[User] I’d never flown with any of them, but as chief of the office I knew them all. I knew all the astronauts in the office. I got to know everybody really well. I probably spent time in the simulator with everybody at one point during the three years that I was chief. I knew them by reputation, I knew them by the jobs that they’d held in the Office and what they’d done. It worked out.

[Assistant] Would you talk about the crew relationship and building that team?

[User] I didn’t tell you the dog crew story last time, did I?

[Assistant] You told us about dog crews.

[User] I guess I did tell you, all right.

[Assistant] We talked about Dave [David M.] Walker and the dogmobile.


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

[User] I didn’t tell you the dog crew story last time, did I?

[Assistant] You told us about dog crews.

[User] I guess I did tell you, all right.

[Assistant] We talked about Dave [David M.] Walker and the dogmobile.

[User] So this was a stealth dog crew.

[Assistant] That’s right. Yes, you did tell us that.


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

[User] I guess I did tell you, all right.

[Assistant] We talked about Dave [David M.] Walker and the dogmobile.

[User] So this was a stealth dog crew.

[Assistant] That’s right. Yes, you did tell us that.

[User] So that built camaraderie. Our trips, our traveling together, we went to Russia for training. Can’t remember if it was December or January. We were out walking around the Kremlin at night. There’s this one wall where there’s a huge hill, and these kids were sliding down it on cardboard. Newman and I, we grabbed cardboard and started sliding down with the kids. The rest of the crew thought we were nuts, thought I was going to get hurt.\n\n We did a lot of fun stuff together just traveling around. We were in a Russian grocery store before they’d all been converted to Western stores. Under the Russian system, I think it was a jobs program. You went into a store. There was a produce section, a dairy section, and a meat section. If you wanted to buy something from the meat counter, you went up to the meat counter. You waited in line to get to the meat counter, and you said, “Okay, I want a pound of that.” You got a little chit, went back to the cash register, and paid for it. Then you got back in line to give them the chit to show that you paid for it, so that they would give you what you paid for.\n\n We were in the store, and Newman wanted to buy some milk. Moloko is the Russian word for milk but he couldn’t remember it, so he just holds his hand out like this [demonstrates]. He goes, “Moo.” He got his milk. Common international language there. It was a great crew.

[Assistant] Talk about bringing in a Russian to the crew.


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

[User] So this was a stealth dog crew.

[Assistant] That’s right. Yes, you did tell us that.

[User] So that built camaraderie. Our trips, our traveling together, we went to Russia for training. Can’t remember if it was December or January. We were out walking around the Kremlin at night. There’s this one wall where there’s a huge hill, and these kids were sliding down it on cardboard. Newman and I, we grabbed cardboard and started sliding down with the kids. The rest of the crew thought we were nuts, thought I was going to get hurt.\n\n We did a lot of fun stuff together just traveling around. We were in a Russian grocery store before they’d all been converted to Western stores. Under the Russian system, I think it was a jobs program. You went into a store. There was a produce section, a dairy section, and a meat section. If you wanted to buy something from the meat counter, you went up to the meat counter. You waited in line to get to the meat counter, and you said, “Okay, I want a pound of that.” You got a little chit, went back to the cash register, and paid for it. Then you got back in line to give them the chit to show that you paid for it, so that they would give you what you paid for.\n\n We were in the store, and Newman wanted to buy some milk. Moloko is the Russian word for milk but he couldn’t remember it, so he just holds his hand out like this [demonstrates]. He goes, “Moo.” He got his milk. Common international language there. It was a great crew.

[Assistant] Talk about bringing in a Russian to the crew.

[User] That was easy. Sergei, his English skills are excellent. He’s just a genuinely nice guy, smart, congenial. He fit right in. We had a great time. It was no issue at all. Worked out really well.

[Assistant] Would you talk about working with the mission directors and the lead flight director and FAO [Flight Activities Officer]? Putting this mission together was pretty significant.


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

[User] Yes. We did that on a lot of Shuttle missions. Even though it’s a couple hundred miles above the Earth, it still has decay. The Progress vehicle regularly boosts Station. The ATV [Automated Transfer Vehicle] had the capability to boost Station. [We use] these vehicles now that we don’t have Shuttle anymore.\n\n We always used whatever extra propellant we could while we were up there to give Station a little boost to keep it to a higher altitude. Where Zarya was launched on the Proton, and then we got all joined up, we had extra prop. With there being a delay until the Service Module could get there, we wanted to get it as high as we possibly could, so it wouldn’t come down too much before the Service Module got launched.

[Assistant] Would you talk about the media interest in this flight? This was a first.

[User] Yes, there was a lot. First Space Station assembly mission, a lot of media interest, kind of standard.

[Assistant] Just standard? Nothing stood out?

[User] No, we did a lot of media interviews on orbit and on the ground afterwards. It was the beginning. I look back on Space Station, and it’s really a phenomenal accomplishment. Folks didn’t think we’d be able to do all the EVAs to get Space Station done, and they all went flawlessly. There were hiccups along the way, things didn’t go right, but the crews overcame so much and were able to fix things that couldn’t have been done autonomously with the issues that we had. I look at the solar array deploys and how we worked through that issue. It wasn’t until Luca Parmitano had that issue with the water in his helmet here about a year ago that we really had an issue on an EVA where we had to cut it short. Pretty amazing how well everything went.

[Assistant] Would you talk about undocking to Space Station, pulling back, and your memories of that?