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

[User] I'm a Muscovite born in Moscow, in Russia.

[Assistant] Where did you go to school and which university did you attend, and what were your areas of study?

[User] I started my education in Moscow, in high school in Moscow, and then I graduated in a little town not far from Moscow, but the quality of education basically was the same in Moscow and that little town.\n\n After my service in the Russian Army, the Soviet Army, I went to the university. Now it's called university, but it used to be called the Technical Institute named after Bauman. It's a high technical institute in Moscow. I graduated from that university and I majored as an electrical engineer. To be more precise, spacecraft control systems.

[Assistant] How long have you been with the Russian Space Program? When did you become a cosmonaut, and what was your first mission?

[User] I worked on the Russian Space Program, the Russian space industry, since 1964. The first opportunity that I was trying to use to become a cosmonaut was back in 1967. So the things worked out in such a way that my first flight took place in 1983.

[Assistant] Can you explain the cosmonaut selection process, what the educational requirements or the work or flight experience requirements are?


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

[User] I worked on the Russian Space Program, the Russian space industry, since 1964. The first opportunity that I was trying to use to become a cosmonaut was back in 1967. So the things worked out in such a way that my first flight took place in 1983.

[Assistant] Can you explain the cosmonaut selection process, what the educational requirements or the work or flight experience requirements are?

[User] Well, the practice, the experience in the Russian Space Program is such that all the commanders of spacecrafts and/or space stations are former military pilots or current military pilots. Mission specialists--we call them onboard engineers--they are technical specialists. They are civilians.\n\n The requirements are basically the same to both categories of the cosmonauts. First is health. You have to have good health. You have to have the graduate degree specifically in the technical field, preferably. And the category which we call cosmonaut investigators or cosmonaut researchers, they also had to have the graduate degree in astronomy or biology or medicine or all the applicable fields. Of course, it also is preferred to have a person who had some experience in space program before he decides to join the Cosmonaut Corps. Of course, there is also an age limit. It's not that rigid, it's not that strict, but, of course, we prefer to hire younger people. They go through basic general training and then they are assigned certain plans, certain programs for certain missions. That's the process, how it goes.

[Assistant] Thank you. The selection process seems very similar to that of the U.S. astronaut program. Can I ask him, which of these categories did he fly as: engineer or the researcher?

[User] Yes, as a mission specialist. Yes, I flew those missions as what we call an onboard engineer or mission specialist, being a civilian person, so during those missions I represented the RSC [Rocket Space Corporation] Energia. It's not exactly mission specialist; it's onboard engineer.

[Assistant] Can you tell us about your flight to Mir, the 2B flight? How many days were you in orbit, and did you accomplish any space walks?


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

[User] Well, the practice, the experience in the Russian Space Program is such that all the commanders of spacecrafts and/or space stations are former military pilots or current military pilots. Mission specialists--we call them onboard engineers--they are technical specialists. They are civilians.\n\n The requirements are basically the same to both categories of the cosmonauts. First is health. You have to have good health. You have to have the graduate degree specifically in the technical field, preferably. And the category which we call cosmonaut investigators or cosmonaut researchers, they also had to have the graduate degree in astronomy or biology or medicine or all the applicable fields. Of course, it also is preferred to have a person who had some experience in space program before he decides to join the Cosmonaut Corps. Of course, there is also an age limit. It's not that rigid, it's not that strict, but, of course, we prefer to hire younger people. They go through basic general training and then they are assigned certain plans, certain programs for certain missions. That's the process, how it goes.

[Assistant] Thank you. The selection process seems very similar to that of the U.S. astronaut program. Can I ask him, which of these categories did he fly as: engineer or the researcher?

[User] Yes, as a mission specialist. Yes, I flew those missions as what we call an onboard engineer or mission specialist, being a civilian person, so during those missions I represented the RSC [Rocket Space Corporation] Energia. It's not exactly mission specialist; it's onboard engineer.

[Assistant] Can you tell us about your flight to Mir, the 2B flight? How many days were you in orbit, and did you accomplish any space walks?

[User] Yes, it was in the second mission, second flight to the Space Station Mir. I've been up there for 160 days, but I didn't conduct any EVA [Extravehicular Activity] during that particular flight. I did conduct EVA. I did participate in EVA during Salyut 7 flight.

[Assistant] That was the 1983 flight?


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

[User] Yes, as a mission specialist. Yes, I flew those missions as what we call an onboard engineer or mission specialist, being a civilian person, so during those missions I represented the RSC [Rocket Space Corporation] Energia. It's not exactly mission specialist; it's onboard engineer.

[Assistant] Can you tell us about your flight to Mir, the 2B flight? How many days were you in orbit, and did you accomplish any space walks?

[User] Yes, it was in the second mission, second flight to the Space Station Mir. I've been up there for 160 days, but I didn't conduct any EVA [Extravehicular Activity] during that particular flight. I did conduct EVA. I did participate in EVA during Salyut 7 flight.

[Assistant] That was the 1983 flight?

[User] Yes. During that EVA, we installed the solar arrays.

[Assistant] Can you tell me what areas of Mir operation are your management responsibilities focused on now?


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

[User] Yes, it was in the second mission, second flight to the Space Station Mir. I've been up there for 160 days, but I didn't conduct any EVA [Extravehicular Activity] during that particular flight. I did conduct EVA. I did participate in EVA during Salyut 7 flight.

[Assistant] That was the 1983 flight?

[User] Yes. During that EVA, we installed the solar arrays.

[Assistant] Can you tell me what areas of Mir operation are your management responsibilities focused on now?

[User] Since I'm in charge of the office of the operations on Space Station Mir, part of my responsibility is the EVA. So what we do, we train our people on the different operations, on implementing different tasks. During the flight, from the Mission Control Center [MCC] in Moscow we control and monitor their activity.

[Assistant] How does your operational experience from your cosmonaut days help you make key management decisions that concern the crew and the EVA training?


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

[User] Yes. During that EVA, we installed the solar arrays.

[Assistant] Can you tell me what areas of Mir operation are your management responsibilities focused on now?

[User] Since I'm in charge of the office of the operations on Space Station Mir, part of my responsibility is the EVA. So what we do, we train our people on the different operations, on implementing different tasks. During the flight, from the Mission Control Center [MCC] in Moscow we control and monitor their activity.

[Assistant] How does your operational experience from your cosmonaut days help you make key management decisions that concern the crew and the EVA training?

[User] I'd like to add one more thing. We are in charge, in my office, not only of EVA; we do selection of cosmonauts. We also select them and design, if I may say so, the functionality of them in the orbit. We also design the flight simulators so that they would maintain their skills. Also we develop different means to support the activity of the crew members on board, using computers and other means. I hope I answered your questions, since being an astronaut, I was in orbit a few times and I understand the problems. I understand the challenges that they are facing, and thus I can make certain management decisions.

[Assistant] Tell us how you integrated the American astronauts into the crew training flow and what changes, if any, you had to make to the training plan to accommodate your new partners in space for the EVA.


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

[User] As a souvenir, they bring it back to Earth.

[Assistant] Did you get one for your EVA?

[User] Yes. I have two gloves, and some of them I just give as a gift to my friends. One I gave to Mr. Glushko. Back then he was the general designer of Energia.

[Assistant] How much involvement do you or your group have in EVA training in the Neutral Buoyancy Laboratory in Russia? I'm not sure of the proper name for it.

[User] For each cosmonaut who's training to perform EVA, we have a standard program, standard plan. First, they learn, they study the space suit. That's about ten hours. Then they train in the pressure chambers and vacuum chambers, using the space suits. Then they are trained in the vacuum chambers. They train different procedures for air-lock procedures, and with scenarios of contingency situations. Then on the airplane with zero G [gravity], they also train cosmonauts for the flexibility to ingress or egress for the EVA.

[Assistant] The Orlan suit or the air lock?


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

[User] For each cosmonaut who's training to perform EVA, we have a standard program, standard plan. First, they learn, they study the space suit. That's about ten hours. Then they train in the pressure chambers and vacuum chambers, using the space suits. Then they are trained in the vacuum chambers. They train different procedures for air-lock procedures, and with scenarios of contingency situations. Then on the airplane with zero G [gravity], they also train cosmonauts for the flexibility to ingress or egress for the EVA.

[Assistant] The Orlan suit or the air lock?

[User] Both Orlan and air lock. Foot restraint training and, again, ingress and egress, to allow them to be more confident that in real life, in a real situation, they know what to do. And in parallel with that, they train in the higher lab. Then they conduct different what we call typical operations, translation along the difference paths in the station and bringing a crew member who's, for example, fainted and cannot perform the tasks, bring him inside. Opening hatches, bringing out the hardware, using the tools and things like that.\n\n Then only after that, they are trained to perform specific tasks for a specific mission. For example, bringing the solar arrays from the docking unit into a Kvant module. For each of those tasks, they conduct not many trainings, maybe two or three. Prior to that training, my office evaluates all those tests--how to achieve it, how to do it, how to perform it. Mr. Tsygankov is in charge of that.

[Assistant] Thank you.

[User] Also we not only conduct those training and those evaluations especially in the hydro lab, we also do it on the special zero-G stands. Also in space suits in our office , where Mr. Tsygankov is in charge of it.

[Assistant] How much ground support do you supply to the suit or the MCC during the Mir crew's training, EVA maintenance?


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

[User] First of all, my first launch. You cannot compare it with anything in the world. Also another two events is the test of the first launcher Energia and the Buran, Space Shuttle Buran, which, in automatic mode, unmanned, performed two orbits and landed in a specific spot, without any glitch, without any problems. Those were the launchers Energia and the Space Shuttle Buran. Also another impression that affected me greatly besides [Yuri A.] Gagarin's first flight was the time when I was in the Mission Control Center ground station in Yevpatoria, the Crimea, the first docking of two Soyuz.

[Assistant] Thank you for all your insightful information. It's very helpful.

[User] You're welcome. It helps our future cooperation.

[Assistant] Tell him we look forward to hearing soon of his next accomplishments.

[User] Thank you.

[Assistant] How much sightseeing do you get to do here in the States?


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

[User] Those are, I think, interesting things. I really enjoyed it.

[Assistant]
I was going to ask Sandra if she had some questions or some thoughts to share?

You mentioned when you first started that one of the things you were doing, you were actually programming, early programming. We’ve talked about the difference in computers, but you were writing computer code.

[User] I should correct that—actually sitting down and writing the code lines, I didn’t do that. What I did is I wrote down and told the programmers what equations to use and the steps to us, and then they translated those instructions.

[Assistant] Okay, so you were writing the instructions, and then the women, or the human computers, would take it?

[User] And program the machines.

[Assistant] Okay, and they would take it and put it on the machines?


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

[User] I should correct that—actually sitting down and writing the code lines, I didn’t do that. What I did is I wrote down and told the programmers what equations to use and the steps to us, and then they translated those instructions.

[Assistant] Okay, so you were writing the instructions, and then the women, or the human computers, would take it?

[User] And program the machines.

[Assistant] Okay, and they would take it and put it on the machines?

[User] Yes, right.

[Assistant] That’s pretty interesting. I was wondering exactly what you were doing to do that.


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

[User] And program the machines.

[Assistant] Okay, and they would take it and put it on the machines?

[User] Yes, right.

[Assistant] That’s pretty interesting. I was wondering exactly what you were doing to do that.

[User] I never really learned in my whole career how to write a computer code. I tried to worry more about the physics of what was going on and how to do that, it was interesting.

[Assistant] You mentioned a couple of people as you were going through—is there one or two people you feel had a significant impact on your career, or served as a mentor to teach you the insights of succeeding at the Center?


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

[User] Yes, I did. Actually, I passed the orals to get a Ph.D. and sort of got bogged down in writing a thesis, and then about that time, I got promoted to a branch chief, so that sort of went by the wayside. Sometimes, I wish I’d have finished that off. Not sure it would have made much difference. In your life, you’ve met a lot of Ph.D.s who are really smart, and you’ve met a lot of Ph.D.s who are really dumb, so a Ph.D. doesn’t open your doors, many. Depends what you’re after, and if you wanted to go into academics, you had to have a Ph.D. If you were not inclined to become a teacher or you were down a different path. I know many, in fact, some of the smartest people—smarter people—at Ames I ever met didn’t have Ph.D.s. Morrie Rubesin didn’t have a Ph.D.

[Assistant] You chose to stay in the area all these years, so did your family participate at some of the activities at Ames?

[User] Some, yes. Some, not too many, but some.

[Assistant] Enough?

[User] Yes. I wish I had probably had my wife more involved, but a lot of demands for time.

[Assistant] Sure. We all have lives full of wants more than we have time to do them, that’s for sure. Is there anything else that you could think of that you want to talk about, or any other projects, or anything that we might have missed over?


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

[User] Some, yes. Some, not too many, but some.

[Assistant] Enough?

[User] Yes. I wish I had probably had my wife more involved, but a lot of demands for time.

[Assistant] Sure. We all have lives full of wants more than we have time to do them, that’s for sure. Is there anything else that you could think of that you want to talk about, or any other projects, or anything that we might have missed over?

[User] No. I can’t think of anything else.

[Assistant] We thank you for your hospitality.


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

[User] You’re welcome.

[Assistant] [I] know you’re busy with all the flights that are going up. I’d like to start by asking you what’s the role of the lead ISS flight director? Can you give us a summary?

[User] Sure. The lead ISS flight director typically takes the requirements laid out by the Station Program, and they work with the Shuttle flight director to integrate an overall plan for the mission, because you’ve got two huge vehicles. They’re both independent, and you bring them together. You have to work as a team. The lead Station flight director tends to be the overall conductor, because now the focus of activities is on the Station. We run all the EVAs [Extravehicular Activities] out of the Station airlock. Most of the tasks are Station-related, so we do a lot of the discussion and the planning, assessments, and ops [operations] trades, with our team, and then make the recommendations to the program. Or tell them, “This is how we’re going to do it,” or, “You can do A or B, and this is what you gain or lose by each option.” So I’d call that in a nutshell.

[Assistant] When did you become a flight director?

[User] I was selected in 2000. So we’re the class of Y2K. Matt [Mathew R. Abbott, Shuttle flight director for STS-124] and I were both class of 2000.

[Assistant] Were you originally a Space Shuttle flight director, or were you a Station flight director?


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

[User] Sure. The lead ISS flight director typically takes the requirements laid out by the Station Program, and they work with the Shuttle flight director to integrate an overall plan for the mission, because you’ve got two huge vehicles. They’re both independent, and you bring them together. You have to work as a team. The lead Station flight director tends to be the overall conductor, because now the focus of activities is on the Station. We run all the EVAs [Extravehicular Activities] out of the Station airlock. Most of the tasks are Station-related, so we do a lot of the discussion and the planning, assessments, and ops [operations] trades, with our team, and then make the recommendations to the program. Or tell them, “This is how we’re going to do it,” or, “You can do A or B, and this is what you gain or lose by each option.” So I’d call that in a nutshell.

[Assistant] When did you become a flight director?

[User] I was selected in 2000. So we’re the class of Y2K. Matt [Mathew R. Abbott, Shuttle flight director for STS-124] and I were both class of 2000.

[Assistant] Were you originally a Space Shuttle flight director, or were you a Station flight director?

[User] I’ve been a Station flight director for my whole career. The grand plan was to start in Station flight director, and then after STS-124 flew in 2004, I was going to cross-train. The Columbia [STS-107] accident changed a lot of that. I ended up working the 1J mission for eight years before it flew. So I had a very long tenure with that mission, which is atypical for a Station flight director.

[Assistant] Can you give us some more information about that, in terms of your preflight experience on this mission?


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

[User] We did, yes, he stayed about three hours I think.

[Assistant] Who was that?

[User] [Robert C.] Bob Dempsey. He was my orbit one flight director.

[Assistant] How many hours of sims do you end up doing before a crew ends up launching?

[User] In terms of integrated sims, it will vary anywhere from about 80 hours to maybe 115. The hours have come down over the years, trying to streamline the time and make sure that the hours that we do spend doing that are the most effective possible, and trying to keep the crews’ workloads down, because one of the drivers is their weekly workload and hourly load. So it’ll vary depending on the mission. But somewhere between 80 and 115.

[Assistant] How many hours does a crew train, compared to how many hours they’re on orbit? Or how many hours do they spend training on the ground versus how many hours they’re spending in orbit? Do you know what that works out to?


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

[User] [Robert C.] Bob Dempsey. He was my orbit one flight director.

[Assistant] How many hours of sims do you end up doing before a crew ends up launching?

[User] In terms of integrated sims, it will vary anywhere from about 80 hours to maybe 115. The hours have come down over the years, trying to streamline the time and make sure that the hours that we do spend doing that are the most effective possible, and trying to keep the crews’ workloads down, because one of the drivers is their weekly workload and hourly load. So it’ll vary depending on the mission. But somewhere between 80 and 115.

[Assistant] How many hours does a crew train, compared to how many hours they’re on orbit? Or how many hours do they spend training on the ground versus how many hours they’re spending in orbit? Do you know what that works out to?

[User] Well, from a gross perspective, we basically assign the crews one year before flight. They’re not training 40 hours a week. But if you think about it that way, they train for a year and they fly for ten days. So if you want to do spacewalks, typically the folks will train in the Neutral Buoyancy Lab five to seven hours for every hour of spacewalk that they conduct.

[Assistant] That’s the one I could find. I couldn’t find the other question that I had, so thought I would ask. Do you want to talk about the flight itself? Actually we should probably talk about some of the delays. I understand there were delays because of the External Tanks, and then there was a delay, you were supposed to launch in April, but there was a delay because of some power issues with the Shuttle and Station. Or not.


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

[User] In terms of integrated sims, it will vary anywhere from about 80 hours to maybe 115. The hours have come down over the years, trying to streamline the time and make sure that the hours that we do spend doing that are the most effective possible, and trying to keep the crews’ workloads down, because one of the drivers is their weekly workload and hourly load. So it’ll vary depending on the mission. But somewhere between 80 and 115.

[Assistant] How many hours does a crew train, compared to how many hours they’re on orbit? Or how many hours do they spend training on the ground versus how many hours they’re spending in orbit? Do you know what that works out to?

[User] Well, from a gross perspective, we basically assign the crews one year before flight. They’re not training 40 hours a week. But if you think about it that way, they train for a year and they fly for ten days. So if you want to do spacewalks, typically the folks will train in the Neutral Buoyancy Lab five to seven hours for every hour of spacewalk that they conduct.

[Assistant] That’s the one I could find. I couldn’t find the other question that I had, so thought I would ask. Do you want to talk about the flight itself? Actually we should probably talk about some of the delays. I understand there were delays because of the External Tanks, and then there was a delay, you were supposed to launch in April, but there was a delay because of some power issues with the Shuttle and Station. Or not.

[User] You’re right, this is where the memory lapses are.

[Assistant] You could just talk in general about delays, and what impact that had on the flight, or if it really didn’t have much impact.


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

[User] A lead team will be, I’ll say, 15. It’s 12 to 15 flight controllers, including the flight director. That’s just your front room. The flight controllers is just one aspect. You have the MER, the Mission Evaluation Room, so they have a whole bunch of people evaluating the systems. Then your program folks dealing with all the requirements. They have a cadre of folks there every day as well. So it’s a big group of people.

[Assistant] Yes it is. It is. Were there any lessons that you learned from this flight that you’ll take forward?

[User] Lessons that I learned. It taught me patience, and it continued to help me learn my prioritization skills. I figured, you can’t do it all, so you need to understand what has to be done and what can be put off. It continued to teach me that there’s nothing more exciting, fulfilling than working with a team of folks that are motivated by a common objective and wanting to see the job done. Continue to want to do that for as long as I can.

[Assistant] If you don’t mind, I’m going to ask Rebecca if she has any questions for you.

[User] No, not at all.

[Assistant] When did your responsibilities stop? When they undocked, were you somewhat relieved of your first and foremost duties?


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

[User] Lessons that I learned. It taught me patience, and it continued to help me learn my prioritization skills. I figured, you can’t do it all, so you need to understand what has to be done and what can be put off. It continued to teach me that there’s nothing more exciting, fulfilling than working with a team of folks that are motivated by a common objective and wanting to see the job done. Continue to want to do that for as long as I can.

[Assistant] If you don’t mind, I’m going to ask Rebecca if she has any questions for you.

[User] No, not at all.

[Assistant] When did your responsibilities stop? When they undocked, were you somewhat relieved of your first and foremost duties?

[User] Yes. When they undock, basically about three hours after undocking, we hand Space Station back to what we call the increment team. Then you stop sprinting, and then you go back to the marathon of Space Station, because we’re always up there. My team went off console about three days before the Shuttle actually landed.

[Assistant] Right when you first started, you used a phrase called ops trades. Could you share a little bit more about the trading off of the operations of when? You also mentioned your prioritization skills. How do you know that when you get down to those negotiations, that this is what’s got to be done over this, when both of them are so important? Can you give us a clue?


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

[User] It’s fun. In a sense you’re a problem solver. You just figure it out. Or a puzzle solver, if you want to think about it that way. You got all the pieces out there, and you have to figure out how to put it together. The interesting thing is the picture is not on the front of the box. You end up designing the picture based on all the pieces that come together. Then in the end, it’s a beautiful thing called Space Station. So it’s pretty amazing.

[Assistant] What’s your background?

[User] My background. I got a degree in mechanical engineering. Then when I graduated from college [at the University of Notre Dame, Notre Dame, Indiana], I actually worked for Arthur Andersen for two years in consulting. Our social life was down here. A gal who worked in the Payload Operations Group was moving on to Space Station back in the Reston [Virginia] days, the early early days, [Space Station] Freedom. She’s like, “Oh, I think you’d really like working in payloads. Send in your resume, and I’ll have my boss interview you.” Literally, he picked my resume and interviewed me. I was on site a week later, two weeks later. It was crazy.\n\n When I first started in Payload Operations Branch, we were in the same building as the flight directors. I just remember going, “Wow, what a cool job.” You think of them as just these amazing people that just have so much knowledge. You don’t realize that you gain knowledge over time. I don’t really recall what year it was, but it was like, “I want to do that job.” So I worked at it till I was selected. It was fun.

[Assistant] Glad you did. So it was fun.

[User] Still is.

[Assistant] Will you keep working in this [position] until Space Station is finished?


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

[User] We wound up living in Clear Lake Forest Subdivision.

[Assistant] That’s a nice area.

[User] Yes, and what was really weird then when I realized it, that house was right on the water on Armand Bayou. It’s really called Mud Lake. Then it connects to Clear Lake and Taylor Lake. You know that bridge where the Hilton is? It goes under there. There’s only about nine houses. There’s really a right-angle bend, and there’s about six houses on this one street and there’s the three houses that we had. Our house was the one that’s right at the right angle.\n\n Right across was a vacant lot that for years and years was vacant so that’s how I had seen that house. I had stood on that lot and looked over there and said, “Oh, I really like that house.” It turned out it was that one. The house that Bill bought was the house that I had looked at that I liked. It took me a while to realize it was the same one, because I wasn’t as familiar with the area, and I didn’t know exactly where I was. Finally I realized it was the house I had always wanted when I’d been looking around. It was really funny. It was kind of sad though because the person who bought it was going to move here from San Francisco, I believe. He and his wife had moved here, and then their daughter got in a car accident. The mother went to go be with her and take care of her and everything. Finally they decided to sell; he stayed there for a year and then moved back to California, which was why they sold it.

[Assistant] What a shame.

[User] Sad.

[Assistant] What did you think of all the publicity? We’ve seen a lot of the articles about you and Bill, how he applied, didn’t get accepted, and you got accepted. There seemed to be a lot of focus on you, especially as a married couple. What did you think of all that press coverage?


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

[User] Oh, my officemate, okay, so I was on the cover of Redbook. Dan got to be on the cover of some military magazine, some Navy publication.

[Assistant] No comparison.

[User] He wanted to consider that a comparison. So we called ourselves the cover office. It was so neat, too. When you got there, there were two desks in every office. This was before the office got huge-huge, and we were all crammed into every nook and cranny. This was when we all had the third floor of Building 4 North. You came in and your desk was there and your little calendar. Everything was all nice there. I remember I picked up the calendar of where I was supposed to go. I looked at it, and I didn’t have a clue what I was supposed to do. I couldn’t read any of it. It was all in NASA acronyms, and I had no idea what any of it meant.

[Assistant] Was that your first couple days?

[User] July 5th, that morning we arrived there. They have your schedule on your desk. “Dan, do you know how to read this?”\n\n Oh, I forgot the funny story. In my interview week I had my eyes dilated for my eye exam just before I went for my interview with the selection committee. I remember I came out into the sunlight with my eyes dilated. I couldn’t read where I was supposed to go for my interview. I didn’t want to be late for my interview. I remember stopping this person and saying, “Excuse me. Could you read this for me?” I always wondered who that person was, because I didn’t realize till I got outside that I didn’t know where I was going. I’d never had my eyes dilated before. So I didn’t know that you wouldn’t be able to read after that.

[Assistant] It’s so painful.


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

[User] He wanted to consider that a comparison. So we called ourselves the cover office. It was so neat, too. When you got there, there were two desks in every office. This was before the office got huge-huge, and we were all crammed into every nook and cranny. This was when we all had the third floor of Building 4 North. You came in and your desk was there and your little calendar. Everything was all nice there. I remember I picked up the calendar of where I was supposed to go. I looked at it, and I didn’t have a clue what I was supposed to do. I couldn’t read any of it. It was all in NASA acronyms, and I had no idea what any of it meant.

[Assistant] Was that your first couple days?

[User] July 5th, that morning we arrived there. They have your schedule on your desk. “Dan, do you know how to read this?”\n\n Oh, I forgot the funny story. In my interview week I had my eyes dilated for my eye exam just before I went for my interview with the selection committee. I remember I came out into the sunlight with my eyes dilated. I couldn’t read where I was supposed to go for my interview. I didn’t want to be late for my interview. I remember stopping this person and saying, “Excuse me. Could you read this for me?” I always wondered who that person was, because I didn’t realize till I got outside that I didn’t know where I was going. I’d never had my eyes dilated before. So I didn’t know that you wouldn’t be able to read after that.

[Assistant] It’s so painful.

[User] Yes, so Dan and I shared an office. The cover office.

[Assistant] When the ’80 class came in did you guys have more officemates at that point?


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

[User] July 5th, that morning we arrived there. They have your schedule on your desk. “Dan, do you know how to read this?”\n\n Oh, I forgot the funny story. In my interview week I had my eyes dilated for my eye exam just before I went for my interview with the selection committee. I remember I came out into the sunlight with my eyes dilated. I couldn’t read where I was supposed to go for my interview. I didn’t want to be late for my interview. I remember stopping this person and saying, “Excuse me. Could you read this for me?” I always wondered who that person was, because I didn’t realize till I got outside that I didn’t know where I was going. I’d never had my eyes dilated before. So I didn’t know that you wouldn’t be able to read after that.

[Assistant] It’s so painful.

[User] Yes, so Dan and I shared an office. The cover office.

[Assistant] When the ’80 class came in did you guys have more officemates at that point?

[User] I don’t remember how that all worked out, come to think of it. I think we slowly had more people in. Eventually we wound up getting the whole upper third floor. I think originally we didn’t have the whole third floor. We kept expanding. I don’t remember all the details of exactly how that all worked out.

[Assistant] Your class was called the Thirty-Five New Guys. I’ve heard that Judy Resnik had some involvement with that and the T-shirt.


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

[User] Yes, so Dan and I shared an office. The cover office.

[Assistant] When the ’80 class came in did you guys have more officemates at that point?

[User] I don’t remember how that all worked out, come to think of it. I think we slowly had more people in. Eventually we wound up getting the whole upper third floor. I think originally we didn’t have the whole third floor. We kept expanding. I don’t remember all the details of exactly how that all worked out.

[Assistant] Your class was called the Thirty-Five New Guys. I’ve heard that Judy Resnik had some involvement with that and the T-shirt.

[User] Yes, remember she and Jim arrived early. Jim was actually a little bit of an artist. Has anyone of our group shown you our shirts?

[Assistant] No. You’ll have to bring one in.


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

[User] I don’t remember how that all worked out, come to think of it. I think we slowly had more people in. Eventually we wound up getting the whole upper third floor. I think originally we didn’t have the whole third floor. We kept expanding. I don’t remember all the details of exactly how that all worked out.

[Assistant] Your class was called the Thirty-Five New Guys. I’ve heard that Judy Resnik had some involvement with that and the T-shirt.

[User] Yes, remember she and Jim arrived early. Jim was actually a little bit of an artist. Has anyone of our group shown you our shirts?

[Assistant] No. You’ll have to bring one in.

[User] I’ll have to bring one to you. They designed a Shuttle. There’s 35 people all over the Shuttle: on the outside, EVA, hanging from the arm. We have the blue version and the red version of this shirt. So they were the ones who did all of that. Also because they got here early, they tried to sequester better office stuff than we did.\n\n I remember Judy had this—she and Jim were in an office together. They had gotten this red recliner chair. I used to keep it after the Challenger accident. I always made sure that chair stayed. It’s still up in the office. Because I went on a seven-year leave of absence, I told a few people the story that that was a chair that somehow Judy managed to get. You know how it is in an office where you all get a certain amount of equipment, and somebody else has something way fancier than everybody else. That chair is still up. I’m not sure which office it’s in right now.

[Assistant] You guys will have to get a little marker or something to put on there.


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

[User] Yes, remember she and Jim arrived early. Jim was actually a little bit of an artist. Has anyone of our group shown you our shirts?

[Assistant] No. You’ll have to bring one in.

[User] I’ll have to bring one to you. They designed a Shuttle. There’s 35 people all over the Shuttle: on the outside, EVA, hanging from the arm. We have the blue version and the red version of this shirt. So they were the ones who did all of that. Also because they got here early, they tried to sequester better office stuff than we did.\n\n I remember Judy had this—she and Jim were in an office together. They had gotten this red recliner chair. I used to keep it after the Challenger accident. I always made sure that chair stayed. It’s still up in the office. Because I went on a seven-year leave of absence, I told a few people the story that that was a chair that somehow Judy managed to get. You know how it is in an office where you all get a certain amount of equipment, and somebody else has something way fancier than everybody else. That chair is still up. I’m not sure which office it’s in right now.

[Assistant] You guys will have to get a little marker or something to put on there.

[User] It’s a red leather recliner. Burgundy, not bright red.

[Assistant] Now I’m looking at our clock. I notice your watch is a little ahead. It’s about a quarter to. Do you want to keep going or you want to stop?


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

[User] Glad to be here.

[Assistant] I know how busy you’ve been, so thank you very much. I have a couple of questions for you about your preflight experience that we didn’t cover last time. Did you continue to work as an ER [Emergency Room] doctor once you came to Houston or was that something you pretty much gave up?

[User] For the first year a little bit, very little bit. The group I belonged to in Los Angeles [California] had a hospital in—let me think where was it? Tampa [Florida], I believe. So I did a few ER shifts, but it was just too difficult to try to do both. Being in a visible position, I just felt that was probably not a good thing to do. I had so much to learn. So that pretty quickly stopped.

[Assistant] I had read that you were in charge of medical ops for the first orbital test flights. Can you talk about that assignment?

[User] Well, I wasn’t in charge of medical ops. What they did was they took all the doctors in the office, and we were sent to each of the launch and landing sites. So for STS-1, I was actually out at White Sands [Northrup Strip, New Mexico]. We had the doctors at KSC [Kennedy Space Center, Florida], White Sands, and Edwards [Air Force Base, California] for the full duration of the mission. We participated in exercises like Mode 8s, if the Shuttle goes off the end of the runway and you have to rescue the crew. Worked with the PJs from the military, which are the paramedic jumpers, but I wasn’t in charge of it. I just participated in all of that, as did all of the doctors in the office.

[Assistant] Did you come up with a list of how you might save the crew, how you would get into the Orbiter, and what sort of things you might encounter? Did you come up with checklists and things like that?


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

[User] No, we really didn’t have checklists. It’s a lot like EMTs [Emergency Medical Technicians]. The rescue folks who are trained to do that in all kinds of situations would actually do the actual rescuing or bringing the crew out. We were there to provide medical assistance and to answer any questions they’d have. We practiced things like which way the wind was blowing, because you were worried about nitrazine and some of the fluids that are on board the Shuttle harming the rescue workers and crew. So we were more there in an advisory capacity. If there were an accident to be the link to Houston, to let people know what was going on. We never really got into the mode of post accident, what would happen. That was how more we envisioned the role, I think, was just being the liaison between the rescue folks and NASA.

[Assistant] Did you simulate those possibilities?

[User] Oh yes. I was out at White Sands where we did a Mode 8. The helicopters came in, and we practiced taking the crew away and flying the helicopters. I talked with the PJs to tell them a bit about the Shuttle and what to expect, if they had to go inside. Then I was there for the entire STS-1 flight. I was there probably about three or four days before and then for the entire flight.

[Assistant] Since you had practiced emergency medicine, did you feel like you offered advice to some of the other folks who hadn’t practiced like [M.] Rhea Seddon or Jim [James P.] Bagian?

[User] Well, she was a surgeon, so she’s well versed in all those kind of things. No, I think we were all equally well trained and ready for those things. I don’t think we particularly talked among ourselves about how to do it. I think it was left to each of us to figure out how to do it ourselves, which is kind of the way things were in those days. Everybody was expected to perform, and you figured out what you needed to know.

[Assistant] It just sounds like a very interesting assignment.


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

[User] Oh yes. I was out at White Sands where we did a Mode 8. The helicopters came in, and we practiced taking the crew away and flying the helicopters. I talked with the PJs to tell them a bit about the Shuttle and what to expect, if they had to go inside. Then I was there for the entire STS-1 flight. I was there probably about three or four days before and then for the entire flight.

[Assistant] Since you had practiced emergency medicine, did you feel like you offered advice to some of the other folks who hadn’t practiced like [M.] Rhea Seddon or Jim [James P.] Bagian?

[User] Well, she was a surgeon, so she’s well versed in all those kind of things. No, I think we were all equally well trained and ready for those things. I don’t think we particularly talked among ourselves about how to do it. I think it was left to each of us to figure out how to do it ourselves, which is kind of the way things were in those days. Everybody was expected to perform, and you figured out what you needed to know.

[Assistant] It just sounds like a very interesting assignment.

[User] Oh it was. It was really fun to see how all that worked and very educational. Then they stopped doing that. I think STS-4 was probably the last one. I was at Kennedy for STS-4 the entire time. I was at Edwards for STS-2 and then White Sands for STS-1 and 3.

[Assistant] Oh, interesting. So did you get to see the crew land the Orbiter at Northrup Strip?


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

[User] Well, she was a surgeon, so she’s well versed in all those kind of things. No, I think we were all equally well trained and ready for those things. I don’t think we particularly talked among ourselves about how to do it. I think it was left to each of us to figure out how to do it ourselves, which is kind of the way things were in those days. Everybody was expected to perform, and you figured out what you needed to know.

[Assistant] It just sounds like a very interesting assignment.

[User] Oh it was. It was really fun to see how all that worked and very educational. Then they stopped doing that. I think STS-4 was probably the last one. I was at Kennedy for STS-4 the entire time. I was at Edwards for STS-2 and then White Sands for STS-1 and 3.

[Assistant] Oh, interesting. So did you get to see the crew land the Orbiter at Northrup Strip?

[User] Yes, the one and only time. It was definitely an interesting time. Of course it went well, so there was no need for a Mode 8 or medical things like that. That all went very well.

[Assistant] Yes, that’s interesting. I know we talked a little bit about Bill last time. You were the first married couple in the Astronaut Office. Do you think that had any impact on your career or your experiences?


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

[User] Oh it was. It was really fun to see how all that worked and very educational. Then they stopped doing that. I think STS-4 was probably the last one. I was at Kennedy for STS-4 the entire time. I was at Edwards for STS-2 and then White Sands for STS-1 and 3.

[Assistant] Oh, interesting. So did you get to see the crew land the Orbiter at Northrup Strip?

[User] Yes, the one and only time. It was definitely an interesting time. Of course it went well, so there was no need for a Mode 8 or medical things like that. That all went very well.

[Assistant] Yes, that’s interesting. I know we talked a little bit about Bill last time. You were the first married couple in the Astronaut Office. Do you think that had any impact on your career or your experiences?

[User] I don’t think it had an impact on my career or anything. There was a lot of attention given to it when he was first selected. It was like a lot more interest in the media. We had parallel interests from the time we met, which is probably one reason we were attracted to each other. So it was nice to have somebody who really understood exactly how the office worked, but it was more of a personal benefit than a professional benefit.

[Assistant] When Rhea Seddon decided that she was going to marry Hoot [Robert L.] Gibson, did you offer her any advice in terms of how to deal with all the media interest?


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

[User] Yes, the one and only time. It was definitely an interesting time. Of course it went well, so there was no need for a Mode 8 or medical things like that. That all went very well.

[Assistant] Yes, that’s interesting. I know we talked a little bit about Bill last time. You were the first married couple in the Astronaut Office. Do you think that had any impact on your career or your experiences?

[User] I don’t think it had an impact on my career or anything. There was a lot of attention given to it when he was first selected. It was like a lot more interest in the media. We had parallel interests from the time we met, which is probably one reason we were attracted to each other. So it was nice to have somebody who really understood exactly how the office worked, but it was more of a personal benefit than a professional benefit.

[Assistant] When Rhea Seddon decided that she was going to marry Hoot [Robert L.] Gibson, did you offer her any advice in terms of how to deal with all the media interest?

[User] No, Rhea was well versed in how to do that. She didn’t need any advice from me. It was fine. Right in my closet at home I have this picture of the four of us, Bill and me and Hoot and Rhea and our two babies. It was a cute picture. I think we were both being interviewed for one of the morning shows or something and then someone shot that picture of us as we were sitting there. It was cute.

[Assistant] Oh that’s funny. We talked to her actually. She was talking about how her son introduces himself as an astrotot. I suppose you have two astrotots as well.


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

[User] I don’t think it had an impact on my career or anything. There was a lot of attention given to it when he was first selected. It was like a lot more interest in the media. We had parallel interests from the time we met, which is probably one reason we were attracted to each other. So it was nice to have somebody who really understood exactly how the office worked, but it was more of a personal benefit than a professional benefit.

[Assistant] When Rhea Seddon decided that she was going to marry Hoot [Robert L.] Gibson, did you offer her any advice in terms of how to deal with all the media interest?

[User] No, Rhea was well versed in how to do that. She didn’t need any advice from me. It was fine. Right in my closet at home I have this picture of the four of us, Bill and me and Hoot and Rhea and our two babies. It was a cute picture. I think we were both being interviewed for one of the morning shows or something and then someone shot that picture of us as we were sitting there. It was cute.

[Assistant] Oh that’s funny. We talked to her actually. She was talking about how her son introduces himself as an astrotot. I suppose you have two astrotots as well.

[User] I totally embarrass my younger daughter when I say, “Well, half of your DNA was in space.” She goes, “Mom!” At least when she was younger, she would get embarrassed. She’s probably proud of it now. There’s a very small number of people who both parents have been in space. Kara gets that distinction, my youngest.

[Assistant] Yes, it’s an interesting title, I hadn’t read about it before. Last time you had also talked about the personal hygiene kit and the Nivea cream that you had put in there. What else was in the personal hygiene kit for the women? Did you talk about other things that would go in it at the time?


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

[User] No, Rhea was well versed in how to do that. She didn’t need any advice from me. It was fine. Right in my closet at home I have this picture of the four of us, Bill and me and Hoot and Rhea and our two babies. It was a cute picture. I think we were both being interviewed for one of the morning shows or something and then someone shot that picture of us as we were sitting there. It was cute.

[Assistant] Oh that’s funny. We talked to her actually. She was talking about how her son introduces himself as an astrotot. I suppose you have two astrotots as well.

[User] I totally embarrass my younger daughter when I say, “Well, half of your DNA was in space.” She goes, “Mom!” At least when she was younger, she would get embarrassed. She’s probably proud of it now. There’s a very small number of people who both parents have been in space. Kara gets that distinction, my youngest.

[Assistant] Yes, it’s an interesting title, I hadn’t read about it before. Last time you had also talked about the personal hygiene kit and the Nivea cream that you had put in there. What else was in the personal hygiene kit for the women? Did you talk about other things that would go in it at the time?

[User] Yes, I canvassed them and asked what things they wanted. It’s a pretty diverse group there from Judy [Judith A. Resnik] to Shannon [W. Lucid]. So some people didn’t care at all. I think there was a little bit of makeup that went in there, probably some mascara. I honestly don’t remember. I’d have to go back and check, but we really didn’t have a lot of extra things. We just added things that were appropriate for women. Some creams and a little bit of makeup, and that’s about all I can remember that we added that was different than what was already there for the guys.

[Assistant] What about feminine hygiene products? Was that something that you dealt with at all?


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

[User] Yes, it was very rare for us to get together and discuss things and have a consensus. I don’t remember. We would have some social get-togethers once in a while, but I don’t really remember us ever getting together that much and discussing issues unique to us.

[Assistant] That’s interesting. That says a lot actually.

[User] Well, Carolyn [L.] Huntoon was of course available. She was assigned to be our mentor, someone we could go to if we had issues or problems. I don’t think any of the issues we faced were that much different from the guys. Wondering how you were doing, when were you going to fly. I think it was more issues unique to being an astronaut than specifically being female.

[Assistant] Oh, that’s really interesting. So you feel like you were treated particularly equal in the Astronaut Office.

[User] I really do. I think NASA had made the commitment to accept women, and they were very accepting. They really tried very hard to develop the extra small EMU [Extravehicular Mobility Unit]. A lot of the development effort was put into it. I think I discussed that last time. I was involved in a lot of that early work. I think only after we just ran into a lot of technical problems and then the cost of it was going to be so great that they decided to cancel that. I think we were all treated very fairly. If anything I think the guys felt we got too much attention compared to them.

[Assistant] That’s funny that you say that.


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

[User] Well, Carolyn [L.] Huntoon was of course available. She was assigned to be our mentor, someone we could go to if we had issues or problems. I don’t think any of the issues we faced were that much different from the guys. Wondering how you were doing, when were you going to fly. I think it was more issues unique to being an astronaut than specifically being female.

[Assistant] Oh, that’s really interesting. So you feel like you were treated particularly equal in the Astronaut Office.

[User] I really do. I think NASA had made the commitment to accept women, and they were very accepting. They really tried very hard to develop the extra small EMU [Extravehicular Mobility Unit]. A lot of the development effort was put into it. I think I discussed that last time. I was involved in a lot of that early work. I think only after we just ran into a lot of technical problems and then the cost of it was going to be so great that they decided to cancel that. I think we were all treated very fairly. If anything I think the guys felt we got too much attention compared to them.

[Assistant] That’s funny that you say that.

[User] They would always make comments like, “Here, let me carry your bags for you.” But it was all just teasing.

[Assistant] Just for fun.


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

[User] I really do. I think NASA had made the commitment to accept women, and they were very accepting. They really tried very hard to develop the extra small EMU [Extravehicular Mobility Unit]. A lot of the development effort was put into it. I think I discussed that last time. I was involved in a lot of that early work. I think only after we just ran into a lot of technical problems and then the cost of it was going to be so great that they decided to cancel that. I think we were all treated very fairly. If anything I think the guys felt we got too much attention compared to them.

[Assistant] That’s funny that you say that.

[User] They would always make comments like, “Here, let me carry your bags for you.” But it was all just teasing.

[Assistant] Just for fun.

[User] When it came to being treated professionally, sims [simulations], and as CapComs and our various support roles, I never felt like we weren’t wanted. I have to say that even when I was in medical school, that was actually a little probably more difficult, particularly around some of the surgeons at that time. It was just at a cusp. I read an interesting article recently about the number of women in medical school classes around that time, and mine was very typical. We were probably like 15 in a class of 150. You would encounter little things at that point. There weren’t that many women in medicine. Now it’s 50-50. I might have told you that story where I was working in the emergency room and there was a male nurse, a really big tall guy. No matter how many times I would say I was Dr. Fisher and he was the nurse, they kept looking at him. He was the doctor, and I was the nurse. Finally we just joked about it. I just said, “Go ahead, just be the doctor. Tell them what they want.” It was just funny. Those kind of things happened a lot more in medicine actually than when I came to NASA.

[Assistant] That’s interesting. That’s good for NASA.


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

[User] It’s hard though. It’s a tough sell, when you see these guys making millions of dollars. Most rocket scientists don’t make anywhere near that.

[Assistant] That’s true, that’s true. Do you ever do any work with Sally Ride and her science camp?

[User] She asked me haven’t. I told her I’m happy to; I’m willing to do that. I don’t know how she goes about who she asks.

[Assistant] It’s an interesting concept. I wanted to ask you about the diaper concept. You had mentioned that in the last interview as well about using diapers for women for urine collection. Were you involved at all in the testing of that product before you flew?

[User] We all were. They gave us diapers, and we were supposed to go home and use them. Have you ever tried—after years and years of potty training—to lay on the floor in a seat with your seat laid back so you’d simulate being on the launch pad? It is not easy to do.\n\n You have to overcome all these inhibitions you have. But by the time you’re out on the pad for three hours you’re going to go. Who wants to be uncomfortable in your flight into space? No matter if you absolutely drank nothing the morning of launch, absolutely nothing, just because of that position and the blood in your legs pooling, you’re going to have to go to the bathroom.\n\n Now it used to be that guys had a condom thing that they would put on that’s hooked to a tube. That’s what they used in all the early flights, but they had a couple of malfunctions of those, which that could be a gigantic mess. So now they just went unisex; everybody wears the same thing and for EVAs [Extravehicular Activity] too. You’re in a suit six or seven hours, plus all that prebreathe time. Can’t imagine that you don’t have to go to the bathroom.

[Assistant] Did you make any suggestions for changes?


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

[User] The guy who developed this, what was his name? I’m sure you can find out if you call the Space and Life Sciences Division. He developed that really absorbent polymer which was what led to all the baby diapers that we now have whatever that stuff is that absorbs it. It was his research that led to—for us—all these billions probably of diapers we now have for babies that are so absorbent.

[Assistant] It’s an interesting concept. I wanted to ask you when they made the announcement for the first crews that included people from your class, so STS-7, 8, and 9, was there any discussion amongst the six of you about who might go first? And when you heard that Sally Ride was going to be the first woman in space?

[User] Not really. We all knew that was coming up eventually. I don’t think it was something you discussed. You just were aware of it. To me it was apparent that Sally was a front-runner because of the positions they put her in. They put her to be a CapCom and put her to do different things so I guess I wasn’t really surprised.

[Assistant] Was there a lot of competition amongst your class for flights at that point?

[User] Well, I think everybody wants to fly first. Everybody wanted to fly and get into space as soon as you can. But that’s also tempered with hey, I’m really lucky to be here, doesn’t matter if I’m first or last. Other than Sally, I don’t think anyone remembers who flew first and who flew last in our class, unless somebody tells you. I think Shannon was the last woman, and yet look how she had the endurance record on Mir for so long. I don’t know if she still does. I lose track of all those kind of things.\n\n At the time those things seem like big deals but you need to keep things in perspective. I do think it’s interesting that the first three women that flew didn’t have children and the last three women that flew had children so I don’t know if that was a factor. I don’t think it was performance, because everybody did pretty good jobs, I think.

[Assistant] So you weren’t surprised?


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

[User] Not really. We all knew that was coming up eventually. I don’t think it was something you discussed. You just were aware of it. To me it was apparent that Sally was a front-runner because of the positions they put her in. They put her to be a CapCom and put her to do different things so I guess I wasn’t really surprised.

[Assistant] Was there a lot of competition amongst your class for flights at that point?

[User] Well, I think everybody wants to fly first. Everybody wanted to fly and get into space as soon as you can. But that’s also tempered with hey, I’m really lucky to be here, doesn’t matter if I’m first or last. Other than Sally, I don’t think anyone remembers who flew first and who flew last in our class, unless somebody tells you. I think Shannon was the last woman, and yet look how she had the endurance record on Mir for so long. I don’t know if she still does. I lose track of all those kind of things.\n\n At the time those things seem like big deals but you need to keep things in perspective. I do think it’s interesting that the first three women that flew didn’t have children and the last three women that flew had children so I don’t know if that was a factor. I don’t think it was performance, because everybody did pretty good jobs, I think.

[Assistant] So you weren’t surprised?

[User] It was just interesting. No, I wasn’t surprised.

[Assistant] You had mentioned last time that you were working at the Cape [Canaveral, Florida] with Sally for her flight. Were you there for the launch of STS-7?


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

[User] Well, I think everybody wants to fly first. Everybody wanted to fly and get into space as soon as you can. But that’s also tempered with hey, I’m really lucky to be here, doesn’t matter if I’m first or last. Other than Sally, I don’t think anyone remembers who flew first and who flew last in our class, unless somebody tells you. I think Shannon was the last woman, and yet look how she had the endurance record on Mir for so long. I don’t know if she still does. I lose track of all those kind of things.\n\n At the time those things seem like big deals but you need to keep things in perspective. I do think it’s interesting that the first three women that flew didn’t have children and the last three women that flew had children so I don’t know if that was a factor. I don’t think it was performance, because everybody did pretty good jobs, I think.

[Assistant] So you weren’t surprised?

[User] It was just interesting. No, I wasn’t surprised.

[Assistant] You had mentioned last time that you were working at the Cape [Canaveral, Florida] with Sally for her flight. Were you there for the launch of STS-7?

[User] Oh, yes, yes, I was there for the launch, because I was the lead Cape Crusader. I was eight months pregnant at the time, so it was a definite difference.

[Assistant] Can you tell us about that day? Is there anything that stands out about that time for the launch of Sally’s mission?


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

[User] It was just interesting. No, I wasn’t surprised.

[Assistant] You had mentioned last time that you were working at the Cape [Canaveral, Florida] with Sally for her flight. Were you there for the launch of STS-7?

[User] Oh, yes, yes, I was there for the launch, because I was the lead Cape Crusader. I was eight months pregnant at the time, so it was a definite difference.

[Assistant] Can you tell us about that day? Is there anything that stands out about that time for the launch of Sally’s mission?

[User] No, for some reason I remember more the time we were doing the payload testing together. It’s just strange what things stick in your mind more than others. The launch itself, I was there doing my job so I don’t even remember. Because I was pregnant, I wasn’t the person who helped them strap in so I wasn’t out there. I was doing one of the shifts, where we did the cockpit configuration or something like that.

[Assistant] Did you actually get to see it lift off the pad?


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

[User] Oh, yes, yes, I was there for the launch, because I was the lead Cape Crusader. I was eight months pregnant at the time, so it was a definite difference.

[Assistant] Can you tell us about that day? Is there anything that stands out about that time for the launch of Sally’s mission?

[User] No, for some reason I remember more the time we were doing the payload testing together. It’s just strange what things stick in your mind more than others. The launch itself, I was there doing my job so I don’t even remember. Because I was pregnant, I wasn’t the person who helped them strap in so I wasn’t out there. I was doing one of the shifts, where we did the cockpit configuration or something like that.

[Assistant] Did you actually get to see it lift off the pad?

[User] Oh yes. I was at the roof of the LCC [Launch Control Center]. All of us that worked at the Cape would always go there and be there to be ready to help in case there was a problem with families. That was of course before [STS]-51L [the Challenger accident] so at that time there really wasn’t a formal plan for what to do if there was an accident. We learned our lessons after 51-L and now have a much more tightly controlled environment. At that time we were just there ready to help if there was a problem, but there was no plan of what we would do.

[Assistant] When you came to the Center did you have contact with other professional women who worked at JSC like Ivy [F.] Hooks or Rita [M.] Rapp?


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

[User] Not really. Like I said, we were—and I don’t mean that in a bad way—we were just left on our own. I see a lot more intentional mentoring now. Also it’s probably really important—not that it wasn’t important then—but it’s really important now as you get ready to go do these six-month-long missions. There’s a great deal more hardship in terms of the traveling and training for ISS. Your training is so long, and you’re gone so long. So I think there’s a lot more mentoring of folks to be sure that they’re ready for what they’re getting into.\n\n It was more like we were selected and you were expected to do well and that’s it. Kind of the same as it was in medical school, too. I think now they tend to do a little more mentoring of medical students as well. Kind of watching out, because it’s a pretty difficult time as well. It used to be, “We picked these people that are talented.” But just because you have good grades and everything doesn’t necessarily mean you’re ready for all of that. I think now maybe in a lot of those areas they do a little bit more mentoring.

[Assistant] I had read an article in the New York Times. I don’t know, from 1980. You said that the only trouble that the female AsCans [Astronaut Candidates] seemed to have were getting the clothes to fit. Can you talk about that? I’m assuming you meant the flight suits.

[User] Yes, I was probably just joking—just getting flight suits that weren’t big and baggy and stuff. They wound up having ours special-made.

[Assistant] They were cut for men.

[User] I was probably also referring to the EMU, because at the time in 1980 I was still doing WETF [Weightless Environment Training Facility] runs in Pete [Charles] Conrad’s A7LB Moon suit, which was like being in a big balloon.

[Assistant] Yes, I think you had talked about that last time, the difficulty that you had.


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

[User] Yes, I was probably just joking—just getting flight suits that weren’t big and baggy and stuff. They wound up having ours special-made.

[Assistant] They were cut for men.

[User] I was probably also referring to the EMU, because at the time in 1980 I was still doing WETF [Weightless Environment Training Facility] runs in Pete [Charles] Conrad’s A7LB Moon suit, which was like being in a big balloon.

[Assistant] Yes, I think you had talked about that last time, the difficulty that you had.

[User] One of my officemates right now was an EVA trainer, and he was telling me how for the smaller women if you can get a good suit fit, they can do just as well, but if you don’t have a good suit fit, you’re lost. That’s it. You just cannot do things if you don’t have a good fit. That’s true for male and female, but it’s just harder to get a good fit. So it was definitely a struggle. We’ve learned so much with all the EVAs we’ve done in building the Space Station which we just did not have that experience back when I came.

[Assistant] I thought we would turn our attention to your flight, STS-51A. You had told us about how you had been selected maybe about two weeks before you gave birth.


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

[User] It was neat. Although I think I told you that I find it ironic that when I was gone a lot I get a mother of the year award but when I stay home and take a seven-year leave of absence to be with my girls there’s no award. But it’s come in handy. I can show it to the girls and say, “See? I got a mother of the year award. So don’t argue with me.” It’s just funny. It was neat. Susan Lucci was in the group that I was with, and there was a female governor of Kentucky at the time. It was an interesting group. A fun trip to New York [City, New York]. It’s some group based in New York City that makes those selections. I don’t know if they still do it or not. Probably do.

[Assistant] Did you win that award after your flight?

[User] Yes, that was the Mother’s Day after I flew. I flew in November, so that following Mother’s Day, the following May.

[Assistant] You were in this book Starring Mothers: [30 Portraits of Accomplished Women by Jill Barber].

[User] That was really fun. I remember Jill. It was really fun. I thought it was a really interesting book. That was a fun picture with Kristin and the mockup over in Building 9. I thought she did a really nice job, back in those days where people were trying to say yes you can work and you can have children too.

[Assistant] Did you write the piece that was in there? Or was that an interview?


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

[User] Yes, that was the Mother’s Day after I flew. I flew in November, so that following Mother’s Day, the following May.

[Assistant] You were in this book Starring Mothers: [30 Portraits of Accomplished Women by Jill Barber].

[User] That was really fun. I remember Jill. It was really fun. I thought it was a really interesting book. That was a fun picture with Kristin and the mockup over in Building 9. I thought she did a really nice job, back in those days where people were trying to say yes you can work and you can have children too.

[Assistant] Did you write the piece that was in there? Or was that an interview?

[User] No, I didn’t write it, no, that was her interview. I think if I recall correctly she sent copies and let you review it for accuracy, which I always appreciate and think is nice when people do that.

[Assistant] Yes, it’s always important; don’t want to get something wrong. Tell us about the crew relationship for this mission.


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

[User] And so. But then I went on to San Francisco where they had the staging there. So after I kind of, after I said yes to this lady and filled out a few forms, I never heard from the Peace Corps again. I guess things were a little looser back then. And in fact, I didn't know how I was supposed to get to California. And they said, well, buy a ticket and then send us a bill and we'll reimburse you. So that's what I did, they said.

[Assistant] So they did give you a date to show up?

[User] Yeah, they said show up on July 4th.

[Assistant] This must be one of the longest recruitments ever.

[User]
And so I flew to San Francisco on the 4th of July and I said to myself, they won't be doing anything on the 4th of July, anything official. And so a friend from graduate school met me and we spent the day looking around San Francisco and all this kind of stuff. So I walked into the hotel like 8:00 at night and went in this meeting room. And there were all these other new recruits who had spent the whole day in meetings. And it it turned out, well, what we figured out was that kind of everything was done by contractors, and they were getting paid time and a half or double time for working on holidays. So they had all these meetings on the 4th.

So we were there for about two days to get our shots and, you know, get some orientations and stuff. And his name was, I forget his first name. [Berenado] Vunibobo. He then was at the U.N., I believe, but he was some kind of a minister or something in the Fiji government, so he was there to escort us down. So I sat by him on the plane on the way down. So that's how I got in the Peace Corps.

[Assistant] So yeah. So that was, like I said, it was pretty long recruitment. You have second thoughts at any time in there?


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

[User] No, after I said, after I said I'd do it, then I got pretty gung ho. Well, so I guess one of the questions on here was, what was the first thing you did when you found out you were going to Fiji? First thing I did was I went to the library and looked at the encyclopedia and then the National Geographics, because I didn't know what Fijians looked like or really anything about it other than it was down there in the South Pacific. So then, as now, it seems like the only way you can arrive in Fiji is in the middle of the night or early morning. I mean, it's always dark when you, whenever I've gone there, I haven't been there that many times. But it seems like you're always getting there at 4:00 in the morning or something, some weird time. So I guess one of the questions was, what happened when you first got there or whatever?

[Assistant] Yeah. Anything memorable about when you first hit the ground there in Fiji. How'd you feel and did anything impress you?

[User] When I first hit the ground, it was dark and so the Peace Corps met us there with a few rental cars and stuff. And I remember almost killing myself on that because I, you know, tried to get in on the wrong, on the.

[Assistant] The wrong side?

[User] Wrong side of the car and hit the steering wheel on my way in. And then they took us to, uh, I was going to say the Coconut Inn, but I'm not sure that's around there.

[Assistant] Is that like a boarding house?


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

[User] When I first hit the ground, it was dark and so the Peace Corps met us there with a few rental cars and stuff. And I remember almost killing myself on that because I, you know, tried to get in on the wrong, on the.

[Assistant] The wrong side?

[User] Wrong side of the car and hit the steering wheel on my way in. And then they took us to, uh, I was going to say the Coconut Inn, but I'm not sure that's around there.

[Assistant] Is that like a boarding house?

[User] Yeah.

[Assistant] Next to a river?


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

[User] Wrong side of the car and hit the steering wheel on my way in. And then they took us to, uh, I was going to say the Coconut Inn, but I'm not sure that's around there.

[Assistant] Is that like a boarding house?

[User] Yeah.

[Assistant] Next to a river?

[User]
Yeah. And it was run by an American guy who'd married a Fijian, and which was interesting in that he, I don't know how he'd gotten to Fiji, but he'd been in Fiji and he met his future wife and they were planning to come to the United States. And then he found that he couldn't legally get married. They wanted to come back and get married in the United States, and back then they couldn't legally get married in Fiji. I mean, in Fiji, in Tennessee, to a black woman. And so he said, to hell with this, we're going back to Fiji. So he was running this Coconut Inn.

But anyhow, the first thing I remember then is that they had a kava ceremony. And, you know, you're walking. What I remember myself thinking, you know, staggering off the plane after not sleeping. And then it's dark and you're here and you're plopped down on a mat and they're stirring up this muddy water and stuff and, you know, give you some, you know. I distinctly remember thinking, if I drink this, I'm in. I mean, I'm here for two years. I mean, it's, you know.

[Assistant] Did they give you any kind of warning about that ahead of time or tell you about kava?


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

[User] And like the guy that was the chief, he had a job as an editor of the Fiji Times.

[Assistant] Oh, no kidding?

[User] And but anyhow, we didn't know all this at the time. So we're kind of standing around and this little guy walks up, and he says to me, Otis Elevators. I said, huh? Otis Elevators? And he points at his shirt and it says Otis on there. And it turned out he was the Otis Elevator repairman for the country of Fiji, which at that time had one elevator.

[Assistant] I was going to say, he couldn't have been very busy.

[User] Some building in Suva had like, you know, it's five stories or something. So he was the guy who kept the elevators running. Then another guy comes, walks up, and he goes, what's this about the Watergate? And so, uh. You know, I was expecting, you know, how do you like the food or something?

[Assistant] Yeah. And to be in a Fijian village.


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

[User] And but anyhow, we didn't know all this at the time. So we're kind of standing around and this little guy walks up, and he says to me, Otis Elevators. I said, huh? Otis Elevators? And he points at his shirt and it says Otis on there. And it turned out he was the Otis Elevator repairman for the country of Fiji, which at that time had one elevator.

[Assistant] I was going to say, he couldn't have been very busy.

[User] Some building in Suva had like, you know, it's five stories or something. So he was the guy who kept the elevators running. Then another guy comes, walks up, and he goes, what's this about the Watergate? And so, uh. You know, I was expecting, you know, how do you like the food or something?

[Assistant] Yeah. And to be in a Fijian village.

[User] Yeah.

[Assistant] And to be quizzed about current affairs in the United States. That was probably surprising.


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

[User] Some building in Suva had like, you know, it's five stories or something. So he was the guy who kept the elevators running. Then another guy comes, walks up, and he goes, what's this about the Watergate? And so, uh. You know, I was expecting, you know, how do you like the food or something?

[Assistant] Yeah. And to be in a Fijian village.

[User] Yeah.

[Assistant] And to be quizzed about current affairs in the United States. That was probably surprising.

[User] Yeah. Yeah, that was surprising to me. And I guess the other thing I would say about the village, that kind of occurred to me at the time was, uh, then I guess there were a couple of houses that had electricity. They didn't have any running water, anybody. So we had outdoor toilets and stuff. I guess one thing was that it hadn't occurred to me that you could have water trap toilets outside, you know, because not coming from places where it froze, you assumed that.

[Assistant] So that was an advancement from where you grew up.


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

[User] Yeah.

[Assistant] And to be quizzed about current affairs in the United States. That was probably surprising.

[User] Yeah. Yeah, that was surprising to me. And I guess the other thing I would say about the village, that kind of occurred to me at the time was, uh, then I guess there were a couple of houses that had electricity. They didn't have any running water, anybody. So we had outdoor toilets and stuff. I guess one thing was that it hadn't occurred to me that you could have water trap toilets outside, you know, because not coming from places where it froze, you assumed that.

[Assistant] So that was an advancement from where you grew up.

[User] Yeah. Yeah. And what I decided was that in many ways, kind of the, I don't know what the measurement is. The distance between where I grew up and the village in Fiji was in a lot of dimensions, smaller than from where I grew up to living in Washington, D.C., before I went to Fiji. In terms of electricity and things.

[Assistant] Sure. Yeah, I was going to ask you that. How do you feel like your background growing up in that kind of area without electricity and indoor plumbing, do you think that made it easier for you to adapt when you went to another country that didn't have those conveniences?


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

[User] I think so. Yeah. I mean, it wasn't as unusual for me, you know. And I think a lot of the stuff that you learn on a farm, you know, kind of translates in that you learn how to fix a washing machine with a pair of pliers. That's the only tool you have, and that kind of stuff. So. And there were things, you know, I guess one of the things. Like back when I was growing up, the guys my father's age would sit around telling World War II stories. And in the village at night when they were doing talanoa around the kava bowl, you know, the old guys were telling World War II stories.

[Assistant] Right.

[User] So there's a lot, some of the same kind of stuff. So anyhow, we did two weeks in Cautata and then we did some time in Suva and some time, I guess, a couple other places. But then we were supposed to go to another village and it fell through. And so we, uh, Komai took us to Bau Island, where he was from. We spent I think about two weeks there, essentially living with his family. And his father, his parents were alive then, and his father was a big cheese. He was the mata ni vanua, the spokesman for the chief of Bau. And the chief of Bau, at least according to the Bauans, is the most important person in Fiji. I'm not sure all the other Fijians feel that way, but they felt, the Bauans felt that way about themselves. And then it turned out he passed away while we, well, like '74 or '75.

[Assistant] The father?

[User] The father did, yeah. Komai passed away a few years ago.

[Assistant] So you were studying Fijian then?


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

[User]
I could understand their English. I couldn't, you know, or the Fijians' English or the Tongans' English or the Gilbertese guy, you know. But so and I don't know if they could understand me or not. I caught them a couple of times mocking my Midwestern accent. But the one was, like one semester the first day of class, this Indian kid stood up and said, sir, do you have a yachet? And I thought about that a while and I had him repeat it. And then I realized what he was saying was, do I have a yacht? Because our offices were in the old hangar building of the, down by the breakwater at USP, and that had been the flying boat base in World War II. And so a lot of the faculty had little sailboats and stuff and they kept them there.

And it turned out that Dan Cantor, the Peace Corps director over there in Fiji, had a little ten-foot little boat, not a massive boat, and he had kept it over at the Suva Yacht Club. And that bothered him, I guess, to have a Peace Corps director with a boat at the yacht club. And so when I came, he says, after he said, you think you can work it out so that I can keep my boat over there at USP? And I said, yeah, if you let me use it sometimes. I knew how to sail a little bit, but not much. And so I said, OK. So we sailed it around one time and kept it there. And so that was one of the, every semester then we'd do a little physics about how yachts work and vectors and wind vectors and things like that. And then we'd go out for a sail.

[Assistant] Couldn't fit the whole class on that one.

[User] No, it'd take a couple. Two or three groups of students. So anyhow.

[Assistant] So your training was primarily in Suva, in the capital city?

[User] And in villages. And in the villages.

[Assistant] And then when you completed training, your assignment was?


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

[User] No, it'd take a couple. Two or three groups of students. So anyhow.

[Assistant] So your training was primarily in Suva, in the capital city?

[User] And in villages. And in the villages.

[Assistant] And then when you completed training, your assignment was?

[User] I went to USP, the university.

[Assistant] And that's also in Suva?


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

[User] And in villages. And in the villages.

[Assistant] And then when you completed training, your assignment was?

[User] I went to USP, the university.

[Assistant] And that's also in Suva?

[User] That's in Suva, yes, the capital. And as I said, it used to be a New Zealand, during World War II, it was a Royal Air Force, I guess, flying boat base. And Americans were there, some I guess, and trained. And then after the war it became a New Zealand flying boat base. And then when Fiji became independent in, uh, whenever that was, '60 something, mid sixties, kind of as a gift to the country of Fiji, the British Commonwealth gave that land of the air, of the base. They gave them their land back and so they could use it as a university. And so there weren't a lot of built or new buildings there. When I was there, they were just, they built the library while I was there. But so they used a lot of the old air base buildings as classrooms and so forth. And where I lived was a, uh, had been a bachelor's officer's quarters. And so it was like a long building with a veranda and about half a dozen bedrooms on one end and then a communal bathroom and then a communal kitchen and sitting room.

[Assistant] OK. Set up like a barracks.


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

[User] I went to USP, the university.

[Assistant] And that's also in Suva?

[User] That's in Suva, yes, the capital. And as I said, it used to be a New Zealand, during World War II, it was a Royal Air Force, I guess, flying boat base. And Americans were there, some I guess, and trained. And then after the war it became a New Zealand flying boat base. And then when Fiji became independent in, uh, whenever that was, '60 something, mid sixties, kind of as a gift to the country of Fiji, the British Commonwealth gave that land of the air, of the base. They gave them their land back and so they could use it as a university. And so there weren't a lot of built or new buildings there. When I was there, they were just, they built the library while I was there. But so they used a lot of the old air base buildings as classrooms and so forth. And where I lived was a, uh, had been a bachelor's officer's quarters. And so it was like a long building with a veranda and about half a dozen bedrooms on one end and then a communal bathroom and then a communal kitchen and sitting room.

[Assistant] OK. Set up like a barracks.

[User] Yeah. Yeah. And so I was there with other Peace Corps volunteers there, Bruce Carlson and David Tyson and some others.

[Assistant] So how many Peace Corps volunteers were at USP at that time, do you remember? Approximately.


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

[User] That's in Suva, yes, the capital. And as I said, it used to be a New Zealand, during World War II, it was a Royal Air Force, I guess, flying boat base. And Americans were there, some I guess, and trained. And then after the war it became a New Zealand flying boat base. And then when Fiji became independent in, uh, whenever that was, '60 something, mid sixties, kind of as a gift to the country of Fiji, the British Commonwealth gave that land of the air, of the base. They gave them their land back and so they could use it as a university. And so there weren't a lot of built or new buildings there. When I was there, they were just, they built the library while I was there. But so they used a lot of the old air base buildings as classrooms and so forth. And where I lived was a, uh, had been a bachelor's officer's quarters. And so it was like a long building with a veranda and about half a dozen bedrooms on one end and then a communal bathroom and then a communal kitchen and sitting room.

[Assistant] OK. Set up like a barracks.

[User] Yeah. Yeah. And so I was there with other Peace Corps volunteers there, Bruce Carlson and David Tyson and some others.

[Assistant] So how many Peace Corps volunteers were at USP at that time, do you remember? Approximately.

[User] There was probably on the order of 15, I would guess.

[Assistant] Quite a large group.


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

[User] There was probably on the order of 15, I would guess.

[Assistant] Quite a large group.

[User] Well, I'm not positive now but anyhow, so I after we came back from the 50th anniversary, it occurred to me I start making a list. I wondered, can I write down? I don't know if you want to keep this.

[Assistant] OK.

[User] And so one of the attractions was, I guess, is that we had hot showers. And so whenever. We had a lot of visitors. So people that, the Peace Corps volunteers that taught on outer islands or in remote places, whenever they'd come into Fiji once or twice a year, a lot of them would wind up sleeping on our floors and using our showers. So I got to meet a lot of the volunteers that way.

[Assistant] And so your housing was on campus, which isolated you a little bit from the neighborhood.


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

[User] Well, I'm not positive now but anyhow, so I after we came back from the 50th anniversary, it occurred to me I start making a list. I wondered, can I write down? I don't know if you want to keep this.

[Assistant] OK.

[User] And so one of the attractions was, I guess, is that we had hot showers. And so whenever. We had a lot of visitors. So people that, the Peace Corps volunteers that taught on outer islands or in remote places, whenever they'd come into Fiji once or twice a year, a lot of them would wind up sleeping on our floors and using our showers. So I got to meet a lot of the volunteers that way.

[Assistant] And so your housing was on campus, which isolated you a little bit from the neighborhood.

[User] Yeah.

[Assistant] So did you have much interaction with the local neighbors or anything? Or the other staff at the school? Outside of school time?


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

[User] One of my students was this guy named, a Fijian guy named Wami. And this was in the mid seventies and it's back when, uh. So anyhow, he dressed like he was from California. And so a lot, and a lot of the, well. So he was wearing, you know, tight bellbottom jeans and flowery shirts and stuff. And so were the, a lot of the Indian students too. It's just the way, I think they still dress that way. Maybe not with the bellbottoms anymore, this time with tight jeans and a shirt. But anyhow, Wami was a very charismatic guy. And so when we were going back to Fiji this summer, I got in touch with him. And, I mean, I looked him up on the internet and stuff and figured out a little bit about him, and found out he was, got in touch with him anyway. And so we met, he and his wife, there at the Grand Pacific Hotel for breakfast one day. And he became a doctor and was the head of Fiji School of Medicine for a few years.

[Assistant] Oh.

[User] Apparently straightened it out and got it accredited and everything.

[Assistant] Oh, that's impressive.

[User] And his wife was a high-end lawyer. But anyhow, so. You know, so you feel like, well, I taught this guy so, you know.

[Assistant] Had some influence.


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

[User] Apparently straightened it out and got it accredited and everything.

[Assistant] Oh, that's impressive.

[User] And his wife was a high-end lawyer. But anyhow, so. You know, so you feel like, well, I taught this guy so, you know.

[Assistant] Had some influence.

[User] He's a success because of me. So my wife asked him, what do you remember about Jim? And he says, well, the thing I remember is he'd have us over to his place and he'd make popcorn. So my influence on this guy was me teaching him about popcorn.

[Assistant] So the students at, uh, USP has campuses all throughout the Pacific. So you had some other islanders attending school there?


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

[User] He's a success because of me. So my wife asked him, what do you remember about Jim? And he says, well, the thing I remember is he'd have us over to his place and he'd make popcorn. So my influence on this guy was me teaching him about popcorn.

[Assistant] So the students at, uh, USP has campuses all throughout the Pacific. So you had some other islanders attending school there?

[User] Yeah. Yeah, the main.

[Assistant] Pretty mixed?

[User] The main campus, well, still is the one in Suva. And they had a mixture of, uh, so I suppose like 80% of the students were from Fiji and probably then about 60, maybe 70% of the Fijian students were of Indian descent.

[Assistant] So I think a small percentage of Fijians actually get to go to university. So would you think that these were the elite of Fiji or did they come from chiefly families or?


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

[User] And so when I got there then, my first six months there, a part of my job, I got involved in going to some of these other little countries and surveying them for setting up satellite reception there. And so I went to, back then it was called New Caledonia. I guess it's Vanuatu now.

[Assistant] Yeah.

[User] And it was French then and the French were very suspicious. They didn't, they weren't sure they wanted an American satellite. For people, natives talking over an American satellite. So anyhow, I was climbing, had to climb around on the roofs there, raising and kind of waving a television antenna type thing, you know, see if I could get a signal, how good it was. So I did that a couple of different places. And then I went to the country of Niue and set up their, took along some tubes full of antennas that I had put together and receiver and stuff. And we set up their little teaching office, about the size of this room, with a table so the students can come in and sit around and talk to a tutor once a week for an hour.

[Assistant] That was pretty high tech for those days.

[User] Yeah.

[Assistant] And how did it work out?