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

[User] Absolutely. As a matter of fact, I think the thing we learned is that you had to have proper foot restraint, if you don’t do any work. You had to have the proper foot restraint, and you had to have the proper handholds, and you also had to have the right kind of tools that were easily accessible and easy to use. So, yeah, I think Gemini made a foot—had we not known done the EVA work in Gemini, we would have been way behind in Apollo. And likely, you know, the first real EVA work we did was Apollo 9, where we put the lunar module and the command module in orbit—Earth orbit—and separated and then re-rendezvoused and did an EVA and all that. That went extremely well.\n\n I never will forget that day. [David R.] Scott in his red helmet, standing up and doing all that work out of the command module hatch. And it was a piece of cake for him. So, yeah, Gemini paid off in lots of ways.

[Assistant] Well, by the end of Gemini, they also discovered the training tools of the zero-g aircraft and the water tank to simulate partially at least zero gravity.

[User] Right. Right. Everybody says that the zero-g airplane, you know, was worth its weight in gold many times over in terms of a successful EVA endeavor. And the water tank, you know, we had one here. We also had one in Marshall. And they made big use of those. And it’s one of the best training tools still.

[Assistant]
How are we doing on tape?\n\n [Voices off camera]

Oh, okay. Okay. We’ll keep going till we’re at the end of it. I think the next subject I’d like to spend a little time on is Apollo 13. And we may have dodged a bullet on 12 with the launch and getting through the lightning strike. Things had gone very well with the Apollo 11, Apollo 8.

[User] Yeah.

[Assistant] And suddenly I think perhaps the accidents that we had been braced for in Mercury, Gemini, and early Apollo jumped up and almost bit us on Apollo 13.


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

[User] Yeah.

[Assistant] But I think because of the late arrival of the simulators and the software. That ended up smoothing out some in the later program.

[User] It did. In fact the Shuttle mission simulator really got down to be a—I say “Shuttle.” Apollo—

[Assistant] Apollo.

[User] —mission simulator. (I’ll get it straight in a minute.) The Apollo mission simulator really became a factory operation about the Apollo 11 timeframe. It took us a while to get that thing to where it was going to—we could turn it around fast enough. So the training elements really did—in all those guys, even the later crews—the Apollo’s 15, 16, 17—started training pretty early in the Shuttle—(why do I keep saying “Shuttle”) Apollo mission simulator. What that did is, they started—those later crews were able to start their training cycle earlier than some of those earlier guys had. And that left them more time later in their training cycle to spend on the science side. So, yeah, there was a big difference in the training cycle; and it was much heavier toward the science in those later missions.

[Assistant] Yeah, I think it’s incredible, if you look at the amount of weight of scientific instruments that were carried on the first mission versus—


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

[User] It did. In fact the Shuttle mission simulator really got down to be a—I say “Shuttle.” Apollo—

[Assistant] Apollo.

[User] —mission simulator. (I’ll get it straight in a minute.) The Apollo mission simulator really became a factory operation about the Apollo 11 timeframe. It took us a while to get that thing to where it was going to—we could turn it around fast enough. So the training elements really did—in all those guys, even the later crews—the Apollo’s 15, 16, 17—started training pretty early in the Shuttle—(why do I keep saying “Shuttle”) Apollo mission simulator. What that did is, they started—those later crews were able to start their training cycle earlier than some of those earlier guys had. And that left them more time later in their training cycle to spend on the science side. So, yeah, there was a big difference in the training cycle; and it was much heavier toward the science in those later missions.

[Assistant] Yeah, I think it’s incredible, if you look at the amount of weight of scientific instruments that were carried on the first mission versus—

[User] Yeah.

[Assistant] —what it wrapped up to on the later “J” missions—


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

[User] —mission simulator. (I’ll get it straight in a minute.) The Apollo mission simulator really became a factory operation about the Apollo 11 timeframe. It took us a while to get that thing to where it was going to—we could turn it around fast enough. So the training elements really did—in all those guys, even the later crews—the Apollo’s 15, 16, 17—started training pretty early in the Shuttle—(why do I keep saying “Shuttle”) Apollo mission simulator. What that did is, they started—those later crews were able to start their training cycle earlier than some of those earlier guys had. And that left them more time later in their training cycle to spend on the science side. So, yeah, there was a big difference in the training cycle; and it was much heavier toward the science in those later missions.

[Assistant] Yeah, I think it’s incredible, if you look at the amount of weight of scientific instruments that were carried on the first mission versus—

[User] Yeah.

[Assistant] —what it wrapped up to on the later “J” missions—

[User] Yeah, the J missions.

[Assistant] —the 15, 16, 17.


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

[User] Right. Yeah. You had that—Not only did you have the rover and all of the stuff that went with that—all of the tools and all—but you also had—remember, you had that SIM bay (S-I-M bay) in the—

[Assistant] Command module.

[User] —in the command—in the service module—

[Assistant] Service module.

[User] —where they were mapping the Moon from orbit. And that was a fairly—that was a big outfit. There was a big camera and it had a lot of weight to that, too. So those later missions were probably getting very, very close to the max that we could push with the Saturn.

[Assistant] As we began to reach the conclusion of the program in Apollo 17, it was by that time clearly going to be the last Apollo flight, had you and the flight operations team reached the feeling that we had really accomplished about all we were going to get out of Apollo and that to fly it beyond that was risk that was probably greater than the return?


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

[User] Interesting time.

[Assistant] And NASA moved on to the Skylab Program.

[User] Right.

[Assistant] As I recall, you were in Legislative Affairs initially, up there working with Congress.

[User] Right. I ran—I went up and ran that Office of Legislative Affairs at NASA Headquarters. And it was interesting because I was the first non-lawyer to do that. I was—also knew so little about Washington. I knew the Senate was on the left and the House was on the right if you were standing on the Mall side of the Capitol, but that was about the extent of my knowledge. I literally got a civics textbook called How Laws Are Made and studied it so that I could figure out how—you know—brush up on all of that business. And actually my job there in the early going was not Skylab was already well along its way—but was to get the Shuttle pinned down and make it stick.\n\n This was 1973, and it had received its first funding in ’71. But [Senator Walter] Mondale [D-Minnesota] had almost killed it the year before. It came within one vote of killing it in the Senate. And they wanted somebody that understood the technical side of the equation to deal with the Congress. And that’s why I went there. And I did it for 4 years, and I was ready to get out. But it was a fun 4 years. And it kind of broke me—the thing it did more than anything, is it broke me out of the pack. I was no longer just a flight director. I was somebody, then, that had been to Washington. And that led on to other things that came later.

[Assistant] You were probably a good case study of the—let’s see, what was the guy’s name? Rufus Miles. Miles’ Maxima.


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

[User] Right.

[Assistant] As I recall, you were in Legislative Affairs initially, up there working with Congress.

[User] Right. I ran—I went up and ran that Office of Legislative Affairs at NASA Headquarters. And it was interesting because I was the first non-lawyer to do that. I was—also knew so little about Washington. I knew the Senate was on the left and the House was on the right if you were standing on the Mall side of the Capitol, but that was about the extent of my knowledge. I literally got a civics textbook called How Laws Are Made and studied it so that I could figure out how—you know—brush up on all of that business. And actually my job there in the early going was not Skylab was already well along its way—but was to get the Shuttle pinned down and make it stick.\n\n This was 1973, and it had received its first funding in ’71. But [Senator Walter] Mondale [D-Minnesota] had almost killed it the year before. It came within one vote of killing it in the Senate. And they wanted somebody that understood the technical side of the equation to deal with the Congress. And that’s why I went there. And I did it for 4 years, and I was ready to get out. But it was a fun 4 years. And it kind of broke me—the thing it did more than anything, is it broke me out of the pack. I was no longer just a flight director. I was somebody, then, that had been to Washington. And that led on to other things that came later.

[Assistant] You were probably a good case study of the—let’s see, what was the guy’s name? Rufus Miles. Miles’ Maxima.

[User] Uh-huh.

[Assistant] “Where you stand depends on where you sit.”


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

[User] Right. I ran—I went up and ran that Office of Legislative Affairs at NASA Headquarters. And it was interesting because I was the first non-lawyer to do that. I was—also knew so little about Washington. I knew the Senate was on the left and the House was on the right if you were standing on the Mall side of the Capitol, but that was about the extent of my knowledge. I literally got a civics textbook called How Laws Are Made and studied it so that I could figure out how—you know—brush up on all of that business. And actually my job there in the early going was not Skylab was already well along its way—but was to get the Shuttle pinned down and make it stick.\n\n This was 1973, and it had received its first funding in ’71. But [Senator Walter] Mondale [D-Minnesota] had almost killed it the year before. It came within one vote of killing it in the Senate. And they wanted somebody that understood the technical side of the equation to deal with the Congress. And that’s why I went there. And I did it for 4 years, and I was ready to get out. But it was a fun 4 years. And it kind of broke me—the thing it did more than anything, is it broke me out of the pack. I was no longer just a flight director. I was somebody, then, that had been to Washington. And that led on to other things that came later.

[Assistant] You were probably a good case study of the—let’s see, what was the guy’s name? Rufus Miles. Miles’ Maxima.

[User] Uh-huh.

[Assistant] “Where you stand depends on where you sit.”

[User] That’s right. That’s right.

[Assistant] And I suspect your perspective of going from a field center to Headquarters into that kind of job changed quite a bit.


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

[User] Uh-huh.

[Assistant] “Where you stand depends on where you sit.”

[User] That’s right. That’s right.

[Assistant] And I suspect your perspective of going from a field center to Headquarters into that kind of job changed quite a bit.

[User] You know, it changed my—it changed a lot. But where it really changed was my view of JSC [Lyndon B. Johnson Space Center]. You know, we, and rightly so—JSC is a very cocky kind of organization. It had always been kind of a I think our feeling was, we were—amongst all these other equal centers, we were better than they are. And that’s not a totally bad assessment. But I also figured out that there were other centers in NASA that also had some very special skills, and some extremely capable people. And it changed my view, therefore, not only of JSC, but it changed my view of the Agency. And I—it was an eye-opener, that, yeah, I had worked with [Wernher] von Braun and his troops over in Huntsville, and I’d worked with [Kurt] Debus and his guys at the Cape, but they were kind of—you know, they weren’t like [Dr. Robert R.] Gilruth. And—so it changed my perspective of the Agency.\n\n And then I went on to be the deputy director at—in the desert at Dryden, and then the deputy director at the Cape. And I think was really fortunate to have those experiences before I came back here to be a center director, because then I really did have—I felt like I had—and I still feel like I’ve got a good feel for the Agency and what they do at different centers. And it was just educational.

[Assistant] How would you characterize the centers and Headquarters that you had direct dealings with as far as their personality or their culture?


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

[User] Gosh, I didn’t think anybody would remember that. It sure was. Yeah. That was an interesting time. That was probably as political as I ever had to get. I learned how to get political fairly fast in Washington, but, you know, NASA still had kind of an apolitical grounding. And it and NASA didn’t have to live in the politics like a lot of the other agencies did. It was in it, but not like—nearly like (the U.S. Department of) Labor or HUD (U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development) or some one of those outfits. But when I worked the transition team from Carter to Reagan, that was the first time I really—I felt caught in a vise a couple of times. Although it worked well, because Hans Mark was coming in and Jim Beggs, I didn’t know at the time, but he was really liked—eventually. It was an interesting time. And I figured—and I also considered it a great honor to be a part of that.

[Assistant] What changes, if any, did it make in the Agency? Could you note any fundamental shift in policy or—?

[User] Not so much in—

[Assistant] —direction.

[User] You know what I think what I noticed first: [NASA Administrator Robert A.] Bob Frosch and then after Bill [William R. Graham, Associate Administrator] (the guy that succeeded?—we’ll get that for the record)—Bill—a very short time before we got Beggs in. Anyway, he was a guy that succeeded Bob Frosch. Well—

[Assistant] Well Alan Lovelace filled the gap. And then—after Frosch resigned.


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

[User] Not so much in—

[Assistant] —direction.

[User] You know what I think what I noticed first: [NASA Administrator Robert A.] Bob Frosch and then after Bill [William R. Graham, Associate Administrator] (the guy that succeeded?—we’ll get that for the record)—Bill—a very short time before we got Beggs in. Anyway, he was a guy that succeeded Bob Frosch. Well—

[Assistant] Well Alan Lovelace filled the gap. And then—after Frosch resigned.

[User] Well now this was even—Okay. This was before Lovelace. Anyway.

[Assistant] Okay. It’s not coming to me either.


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

[User] You know what I think what I noticed first: [NASA Administrator Robert A.] Bob Frosch and then after Bill [William R. Graham, Associate Administrator] (the guy that succeeded?—we’ll get that for the record)—Bill—a very short time before we got Beggs in. Anyway, he was a guy that succeeded Bob Frosch. Well—

[Assistant] Well Alan Lovelace filled the gap. And then—after Frosch resigned.

[User] Well now this was even—Okay. This was before Lovelace. Anyway.

[Assistant] Okay. It’s not coming to me either.

[User] Frosch and then later this Bill [Graham] and Lovelace were all three different [people]. And Frosch, you know,—Frosch was a very bright guy. Very brilliant sort of guy. Not a very much of a hands-on kind of guy. Lovelace was exactly the opposite in that respect. He was very much a hands-on—

[Assistant] He was the deputy administrator?


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

[User] —we wished it was—but we thought it was okay. And so I really think, you know, they had trouble making that seal at the Cape. They went through quite a lot of detail. How many times they had to make it and unmake it. And the design wasn’t real easy to—you could make a mistake with it. You had to be careful. And then there was no way to really test it once you got the design—and then, you know, they added the second O ring and a pressure port, the easy—

[Assistant] Yeah.

[User] —solution to make sure that you had a seal. And I think they—that it was a bad joint. And I just have the feel—I have the feeling that we could’ve launched it in July and it would have still failed. So I think the temperature thing was probably overblown a bit. But that—again, that’s my personal opinion and it’s not based on any great fact.

[Assistant] Sure.

[User] I just think it was a bad situation.

[Assistant] Well the solid rocket motor, in retrospect, is one of those things that a lot of people said they wish we had never had to add to the Shuttle. And that was one of those compromises that came about—


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

[User] —solution to make sure that you had a seal. And I think they—that it was a bad joint. And I just have the feel—I have the feeling that we could’ve launched it in July and it would have still failed. So I think the temperature thing was probably overblown a bit. But that—again, that’s my personal opinion and it’s not based on any great fact.

[Assistant] Sure.

[User] I just think it was a bad situation.

[Assistant] Well the solid rocket motor, in retrospect, is one of those things that a lot of people said they wish we had never had to add to the Shuttle. And that was one of those compromises that came about—

[User] Right.

[Assistant] —while you were in Washington—


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

[User] I just think it was a bad situation.

[Assistant] Well the solid rocket motor, in retrospect, is one of those things that a lot of people said they wish we had never had to add to the Shuttle. And that was one of those compromises that came about—

[User] Right.

[Assistant] —while you were in Washington—

[User] Yep.

[Assistant] —to keep cost down or cut cost. And I’m wondering how much of a factor that was, and how much did we really understand those solids until—prior to the accident?


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

[User] Yep.

[Assistant] —to keep cost down or cut cost. And I’m wondering how much of a factor that was, and how much did we really understand those solids until—prior to the accident?

[User] Well, you know interestingly enough, though, the solids had had—have always had a good safety—I’m just talking about solid rockets in general—

[Assistant] Yeah.

[User] —have had an excellent safety record. They’ve been very reliable. And when we went to the solids, I didn’t think that was all such a bad deal. I thought that was probably okay. I didn’t know a lot about them because we had never flown anything with them on there. And by that time, I’m up in Washington worrying about things other than propellants. But I remember thinking that, “Well, that sounds like a—probably a pretty good tradeoff.” And—

[Assistant] Do you think, in retrospect, that that—the sense of security or confidence that people had in the solids was due to the fact that they were looking at them in a—from the standpoint of an unmanned system as opposed to a manned system?


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

[User] Well, you know interestingly enough, though, the solids had had—have always had a good safety—I’m just talking about solid rockets in general—

[Assistant] Yeah.

[User] —have had an excellent safety record. They’ve been very reliable. And when we went to the solids, I didn’t think that was all such a bad deal. I thought that was probably okay. I didn’t know a lot about them because we had never flown anything with them on there. And by that time, I’m up in Washington worrying about things other than propellants. But I remember thinking that, “Well, that sounds like a—probably a pretty good tradeoff.” And—

[Assistant] Do you think, in retrospect, that that—the sense of security or confidence that people had in the solids was due to the fact that they were looking at them in a—from the standpoint of an unmanned system as opposed to a manned system?

[User] Probably. There may’ve been some of that. There’s also, I think, it’s a little bit analogous, I think, to the 100% oxygen environment in a cabin. You get lulled by success into thinking that something is good because it’s been okay in the past. And we might’ve taken our eye off the ball a little bit. However, I think at the time that joint design and the guys that were assembling it were probably the best we could do. It just wasn’t good enough. And it was that simple. That’s why I think we would’ve lost it even on a hot day.

[Assistant] Yeah. [Robert L.] Bob Crippen made the observation, I think, before the Rogers Commission that from his perspective one of the things that had happened leading up to that accident was that NASA had quit asking the question “Prove to me that this vehicle is safe to fly” and it started asking it, “Prove to me that it is not safe.”


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

[User] —have had an excellent safety record. They’ve been very reliable. And when we went to the solids, I didn’t think that was all such a bad deal. I thought that was probably okay. I didn’t know a lot about them because we had never flown anything with them on there. And by that time, I’m up in Washington worrying about things other than propellants. But I remember thinking that, “Well, that sounds like a—probably a pretty good tradeoff.” And—

[Assistant] Do you think, in retrospect, that that—the sense of security or confidence that people had in the solids was due to the fact that they were looking at them in a—from the standpoint of an unmanned system as opposed to a manned system?

[User] Probably. There may’ve been some of that. There’s also, I think, it’s a little bit analogous, I think, to the 100% oxygen environment in a cabin. You get lulled by success into thinking that something is good because it’s been okay in the past. And we might’ve taken our eye off the ball a little bit. However, I think at the time that joint design and the guys that were assembling it were probably the best we could do. It just wasn’t good enough. And it was that simple. That’s why I think we would’ve lost it even on a hot day.

[Assistant] Yeah. [Robert L.] Bob Crippen made the observation, I think, before the Rogers Commission that from his perspective one of the things that had happened leading up to that accident was that NASA had quit asking the question “Prove to me that this vehicle is safe to fly” and it started asking it, “Prove to me that it is not safe.”

[User] Is not. Right.

[Assistant] Do you agree with that?


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

[User] Is not. Right.

[Assistant] Do you agree with that?

[User] And I’d—you know, I was not involved in that decision, particularly on that flight. But—to go. But I can see how I think that could happen. We were trying to make the Shuttle more operational. We were trying to make it more of a “check it out and go” without this exhaustive set of things that we had done ever since Mercury. And I think we learned. It—and we weren’t doing that to cut corners. We were trying to do it to make the system more like a real operational system. And I think we learned out of that process that you can’t—with these kind of systems, with these kind of energies, stored energy involved and releasing it so fast, that you really can’t be that kind.\n\n Now, if we can ever get to a horizontal takeoff and landing and some kind of engine that burns liquids all the time, you know, maybe we can get to a more operational kind of spaceflight. But with the technology that we’ve got in the Shuttle—which is, you know, it’s early ’70s stuff primarily with the boosters—we’re—we can’t make it any more operational than it is probably today. Which is not real operational.

[Assistant] Were do you suspect the technology will go in the next 20 to 30 years?

[User] Twenty to 30 years, I think we’re going to see some sort of X-33/34 kind of vehicle. Horizontal takeoff, landing. Twenty or 30 years may be a little short. It may take longer to get there than what I’m thinking for an operation—

[Assistant] So that would say the Shuttle really is likely to be the primary—


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

[User] And I’d—you know, I was not involved in that decision, particularly on that flight. But—to go. But I can see how I think that could happen. We were trying to make the Shuttle more operational. We were trying to make it more of a “check it out and go” without this exhaustive set of things that we had done ever since Mercury. And I think we learned. It—and we weren’t doing that to cut corners. We were trying to do it to make the system more like a real operational system. And I think we learned out of that process that you can’t—with these kind of systems, with these kind of energies, stored energy involved and releasing it so fast, that you really can’t be that kind.\n\n Now, if we can ever get to a horizontal takeoff and landing and some kind of engine that burns liquids all the time, you know, maybe we can get to a more operational kind of spaceflight. But with the technology that we’ve got in the Shuttle—which is, you know, it’s early ’70s stuff primarily with the boosters—we’re—we can’t make it any more operational than it is probably today. Which is not real operational.

[Assistant] Were do you suspect the technology will go in the next 20 to 30 years?

[User] Twenty to 30 years, I think we’re going to see some sort of X-33/34 kind of vehicle. Horizontal takeoff, landing. Twenty or 30 years may be a little short. It may take longer to get there than what I’m thinking for an operation—

[Assistant] So that would say the Shuttle really is likely to be the primary—

[User] For another 20 years.

[Assistant] —manned vehicle for another 20 years?


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

[User] Twenty to 30 years, I think we’re going to see some sort of X-33/34 kind of vehicle. Horizontal takeoff, landing. Twenty or 30 years may be a little short. It may take longer to get there than what I’m thinking for an operation—

[Assistant] So that would say the Shuttle really is likely to be the primary—

[User] For another 20 years.

[Assistant] —manned vehicle for another 20 years?

[User] I think so.

[Assistant] How do you think history’s going to judge the Shuttle as a—?


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

[User] For another 20 years.

[Assistant] —manned vehicle for another 20 years?

[User] I think so.

[Assistant] How do you think history’s going to judge the Shuttle as a—?

[User] I think it’s going to judge it extremely well. It’s—If I’m not mistaken, I think it has just passed recently the record for any launch system in terms of success rate. I may be wrong on that but I—

[Assistant] No, I think you’re right.


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

[User] I think so.

[Assistant] How do you think history’s going to judge the Shuttle as a—?

[User] I think it’s going to judge it extremely well. It’s—If I’m not mistaken, I think it has just passed recently the record for any launch system in terms of success rate. I may be wrong on that but I—

[Assistant] No, I think you’re right.

[User] —I think read somewhere that it had—it passed the Delta and it passed something else. And I think now it is the most successful of any vehicle ever—that’s ever been launched. It’s got the most—it’s got the highest success rate. And I don’t know how you can get any better than that.

[Assistant] I think the criticism that will probably continue to be leveled against it is that it didn’t meet its promise. NASA at one point was saying, “It will fly 60 times a year and reduce the cost by an order of magnitude.” And we just didn’t do that.


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

[User] Probably. I think it probably did. And in the thing that is kind of the—at the footnote to that is, is that there wasn’t anybody else in the country that could’ve done it. Those were the people that had the skill to do it. And so, I don’t really fault—I think they thought they could change this thing an order of magnitude. And what they did is changed it, you know, about 10 to 20 or maybe even 50%. But they couldn’t get the order of magnitude that they thought they could. And, I mean, I got eaten up with the same story. I heck, I was up there telling people on the [Capitol] Hill, “Oh yeah, we can fly the—” you know, “I guess we can. So let’s do it.”

[Assistant] Well, there were also political and legislative tradeoffs that were made that changed the ability to do that. And I’m not sure those ever got factored in.

[User] No. That’s right. And—but if—and I wasn’t—in the—as I said earlier, right in the middle of that fray in Washington. I don’t think anybody was trying to intentionally mislead anybody. We really thought we could do it. And it turned out—

[Assistant] One of the reporters that you’ll remember well, Bill Hines, wrote an article at about that time pointing out that the numbers that NASA was using were “bogus,” as he put it. He compared it to the supersonic transport. He said, “The supersonic transport looks great. But only if you build enough of them and fly enough flights did it get—you get the cost down.” And he predicted the same thing would happen with the Shuttle.

[User] He was right.

[Assistant] And unfortunately, I think he was right.


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

[User] No. That’s right. And—but if—and I wasn’t—in the—as I said earlier, right in the middle of that fray in Washington. I don’t think anybody was trying to intentionally mislead anybody. We really thought we could do it. And it turned out—

[Assistant] One of the reporters that you’ll remember well, Bill Hines, wrote an article at about that time pointing out that the numbers that NASA was using were “bogus,” as he put it. He compared it to the supersonic transport. He said, “The supersonic transport looks great. But only if you build enough of them and fly enough flights did it get—you get the cost down.” And he predicted the same thing would happen with the Shuttle.

[User] He was right.

[Assistant] And unfortunately, I think he was right.

[User] Yeah. Yeah.

[Assistant] I’ve got one other thought along those lines: Gilruth and Kraft really in a way had a kind of a paradoxical concept of returning to the Moon, as I remember it. Gilruth said that “People will never realize how difficult it was to do it the first time until they try to do it again.”


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

[User] He was right.

[Assistant] And unfortunately, I think he was right.

[User] Yeah. Yeah.

[Assistant] I’ve got one other thought along those lines: Gilruth and Kraft really in a way had a kind of a paradoxical concept of returning to the Moon, as I remember it. Gilruth said that “People will never realize how difficult it was to do it the first time until they try to do it again.”

[User] Right.

[Assistant] Kraft has said repeatedly that “We won’t do it again until it’s easy.” And in a way, you know, I wonder if both of those could be right.


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

[User] Right.

[Assistant] Kraft has said repeatedly that “We won’t do it again until it’s easy.” And in a way, you know, I wonder if both of those could be right.

[User] They—I—that was my—going to be my reaction. I think, you know, in a way they’re both right. I can see the point. But, it—you stop and think about what it takes to get to the Moon, and it is kind of mind-boggling. It—how much energy you have to add. If you take any—of anything of any size out there it—there’s a lot of energy that has to be added in a fairly short period of time, which is always dangerous. And then so many things can go wrong. And you’re out there 250,000 miles from Earth, and what you’ve got is all you’ve got with you at the time.\n\n And—on the other hand, I do think there are some—the technology today would probably make it no harder to do than what we did in Apollo. And it would probably make it easier. I think we can make some things lighter. We can make some things a little more capable of fault-tolerance and that sort of thing. So, I think we’re going—we will go back to the Moon. And—when those curves get in the right perspective again. But it’s—I don’t see what’s going to drive us to do it right now. That’s the thing that’s—I think, there’s nothing to make it happen. There’s nothing to push it.\n\n And maybe we shouldn’t go back. Maybe we ought to go on to Mars. Now you talk about a tough mission. I mean that’s a really tough one. But if we would undertake that one and with the resolve to get it done, I’m sure we could do it.

[Assistant] You mentioned earlier on the psychological impact of making a fairly short burn in Earth orbit that commits you to going to the Moon.

[User] Yeah.

[Assistant] Was that about a 4-minute burn?


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

[User] They—I—that was my—going to be my reaction. I think, you know, in a way they’re both right. I can see the point. But, it—you stop and think about what it takes to get to the Moon, and it is kind of mind-boggling. It—how much energy you have to add. If you take any—of anything of any size out there it—there’s a lot of energy that has to be added in a fairly short period of time, which is always dangerous. And then so many things can go wrong. And you’re out there 250,000 miles from Earth, and what you’ve got is all you’ve got with you at the time.\n\n And—on the other hand, I do think there are some—the technology today would probably make it no harder to do than what we did in Apollo. And it would probably make it easier. I think we can make some things lighter. We can make some things a little more capable of fault-tolerance and that sort of thing. So, I think we’re going—we will go back to the Moon. And—when those curves get in the right perspective again. But it’s—I don’t see what’s going to drive us to do it right now. That’s the thing that’s—I think, there’s nothing to make it happen. There’s nothing to push it.\n\n And maybe we shouldn’t go back. Maybe we ought to go on to Mars. Now you talk about a tough mission. I mean that’s a really tough one. But if we would undertake that one and with the resolve to get it done, I’m sure we could do it.

[Assistant] You mentioned earlier on the psychological impact of making a fairly short burn in Earth orbit that commits you to going to the Moon.

[User] Yeah.

[Assistant] Was that about a 4-minute burn?

[User] Yeah. As I recall, I think it was about 4 minutes.

[Assistant] How much longer of a burn would you have to have to commit you to a 2-year trip to Mars? Not much?


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

[User] And—

[Assistant] The trip.

[User] The trip.

[Assistant] Yeah.

[User] And, the last numbers I’ve seen, they’ve got that down to about a 10-month transit time each direction, with certain assumptions. And, so who knows? Maybe that—maybe that’s what we’ll do next.

[Assistant] It would be a psychological—


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

[User] The trip.

[Assistant] Yeah.

[User] And, the last numbers I’ve seen, they’ve got that down to about a 10-month transit time each direction, with certain assumptions. And, so who knows? Maybe that—maybe that’s what we’ll do next.

[Assistant] It would be a psychological—

[User] It would.

[Assistant] —effect to see the Earth diminish to a point of light.


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

[User] It would.

[Assistant] —effect to see the Earth diminish to a point of light.

[User] Yeah.

[Assistant] Yeah.

[User] It would take 20 minutes just to get a conversation out there.

[Assistant] Yeah. I think that that’s enough.


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

[User] It would take 20 minutes just to get a conversation out there.

[Assistant] Yeah. I think that that’s enough.

[User] Well, this is excellent.

[Assistant] Did you—?

[User] I appreciate your inviting me to be a part of this.

[Assistant] Well, we may want to get you back. We’ll look over the transcripts and think of what we should have asked and didn’t.


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

[User] Well, I live here and I also still live in Virginia, so I go back and forth. My family's still back in Virginia. Just my wife. The kids are all grown.

[Assistant] That's quite a commute.

[User] It's not bad…

[Assistant] That's a great overview. Thank you. Let's jump back and go over some things in a little more detail, if you don't mind.

[User] Sure.

[Assistant] You were working at McDonnell, and you mentioned that you were working on their proposal [for Apollo]. What can you tell us about that?


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

[User] Well, it's been exciting and it's been a real learning process. A lot of different people. I chose to stay in the systems engineering, systems integration, rather than get into a discipline like structures or thermal or environmental control. In my view, being in systems integration, you get a broader view of what's going on and what has to happen and how things play together.\n\n And it just kind of happened, in those days, in '63, I remember the processing line for new applicants, you almost had to stand in line because every Monday they were probably bringing in probably twenty, fifty people from the outside. So I remember standing in line, waiting to get processed into the human resources, which back then we were not at the Johnson Space Center, we were at these thirteen buildings scattered around the Gulfgate area. The Apollo office was right across from the Gulfgate, in a couple of those buildings, I forget what they call them, but [we] basically were in one building. Support contractor back then was General Electric, and they were in the building next to us. But NASA itself, JSC, Manned Spacecraft Center itself was scattered, I think, in eleven or thirteen buildings. That was in '63. I can't remember, was it February of '64 or something, we moved down to the Clear Lake area.

[Assistant] About that time.

[User] I think it was like January or February of '64, if I remember.

[Assistant] When you did come to move down there and to make the choice, how was it moving down to Houston?

[User] Well, I was in St. Louis area. When I moved, it was snowing. I drove down from St. Louis to Houston. You always remember how flat the country is. A joke then used to be, the highest point in Houston was the freeway overpass. It probably still is.

[Assistant] It still is. [Laughter]


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

[User] I think it was like January or February of '64, if I remember.

[Assistant] When you did come to move down there and to make the choice, how was it moving down to Houston?

[User] Well, I was in St. Louis area. When I moved, it was snowing. I drove down from St. Louis to Houston. You always remember how flat the country is. A joke then used to be, the highest point in Houston was the freeway overpass. It probably still is.

[Assistant] It still is. [Laughter]

[User] Still is the joke. But the people in the community were really friendly. It was easy to go in and buy a house, to get a loan. I remember my first house was $20,000, right there by the Hobby Airport. Nothing down. "Just move in and start paying us low-interest rate." So, people in the community, I thought, were really friendly, bringing people in. I stayed up in the Hobby Airport area even after [NASA] moved down there. Finally I moved down to a little town called Dickinson in '75, just south of Clear Lake. But it was good. I mean, everybody was excited about the space program coming to Houston back then.\n\n Back then they had private clubs. If you wanted to get a mixed drink, you had to either bring your own bottle into a tavern or you'd belong to a club. A lot of these clubs would pass out free passes to NASA employees, that type of thing. It was fun.

[Assistant] Good. When you did move down, you then worked in the Apollo Spacecraft Program Office. What were your responsibilities there, your duties?


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

[User] Well, it worked, and I think some highly competition between the MOD people, the E&D [Engineering and Development] people, and program office people, I used the word, were arbitrators in some cases, and sometimes emotions got high and people got excited, but it worked. So I think that was what was key. That's also the room, like if George Low wasn't sitting out in the control room, he'd be sitting back there as a place to listen to the com going on between the air and ground, and working any issues that were out there. Of course, when we had Apollo 13, it was hectic back in all the rooms. Apollo 12 had the lightening strike. Joe [Joseph W. Cuzzupoli] probably talked about that. That was an exciting time, the strike during ascent.

[Assistant] Were you called upon with the data book for—

[User] What we were doing, I worked a shift that varies each mission, kind of rotated first, second, or third shift, primarily dealing with questions and answers going back, trying to filter them out, trying to make sure they were getting worked. That was probably the right place to be, because back in your office over there, you probably weren't paying attention to work anyhow. You wanted to know what was going on in the mission. But in Apollo, we had another mission coming every—from July of '69 to, I guess we quit flying in '71, I think, or something, six missions in sixteen months, something like that, so it was pretty ambitious.

[Assistant] Very ambitious schedule.

[User] A lot of people back there didn't really take vacations, that I can remember. People were pretty devoted to keeping things going, doing their job. It was good times. Good times.

[Assistant] Do you remember where you were and what you were doing when Apollo 11 landed on the moon?


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

[User] Well, here again, I think everybody jumped in and wanted to solve, wanted to get the crew back. Lots of stories about who did what. I at that time was in this backup room over there and was working issues and trying to make sure we had the right people doing the right thing. So I think the people in the Mission Evaluation Room, led by Don Arabian, in terms of fixes and the E&D team, of how you route the plumbing and get the cooling and trying to stabilize the vehicle, did an outstanding job. The Gene [Eugene F.] Kranzes, the Glynn Lunneys in mission operation, their team, just unbelievable. Everybody just jumped in and wanted the right thing to happen, so it was great.

[Assistant] Everybody just pulled together.

[User] People probably worked twenty hours a day back then, even they overlapped and had shifts. And…it was orchestrated by the flight directors. I can't remember the third flight director, but Gene Kranz was, I think, the lead, and Lunney was also in there as a lead. I can't remember if the third one was Pete [M. P.] Frank [III] or—I just can't remember. Two guys. Of course, I went to work for Lunney a few years after that. He was head of the Shuttle Program Office after the first flight.

[Assistant] Luckily it all worked out and they got back safely, thanks to everyone's hard work. As the Apollo Program came to a close, you then moved into working on the Space Shuttle Program.

[User] Right.

[Assistant] Were there any thoughts at that time, with the transition, seeing the end of the era of landing on the moon, and then moving into the new with the Space Shuttle, any thoughts that really struck you at the time?


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

[User] Then he'd expect minutes on Monday morning when he came to work, so we'd work on that over the weekend to get what had happened.\n\n Anyhow, I got into this, like I said earlier, I learned a lot from George Low of how he ran a program office, so when I got into it—and it wasn't just me. The other guys had been in George Low's ways of doing business, so it kind of built up. Mission operations had their way of doing business. They had their staff meetings and things at the program office, and we'd have ours. It pretty much came together.\n\n On Friday, in this configuration control board, we had reps from every division or every office of JSC, plus the Astronaut Office, plus Marshall, plus Kennedy, to deal with the system. We wouldn't get into the nitty-gritty of what the orbiter was doing, but we'd deal with the systems-level interface problems. So it kept you busy.\n\n I was talking to my wife, the sixteen years—well, actually thirty-one years I worked at NASA, I only took eleven sick days.

[Assistant] Wow!

[User] And when I left, I had over a year of annual leave, because I became Senior Executive Service, and then you could carry over your leave.

[Assistant] Oh, that's nice.

[User] I just didn't have time to do it. And when I was a GS-14 or 15, I just lost it, because you lost it then. Now they've changed the rules. I think you can only accumulate something like 700 hours if you're Senior Executive Service. But you're just engrossed with keeping busy.

[Assistant] A lot to do. A lot to do.


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

[User] And when I left, I had over a year of annual leave, because I became Senior Executive Service, and then you could carry over your leave.

[Assistant] Oh, that's nice.

[User] I just didn't have time to do it. And when I was a GS-14 or 15, I just lost it, because you lost it then. Now they've changed the rules. I think you can only accumulate something like 700 hours if you're Senior Executive Service. But you're just engrossed with keeping busy.

[Assistant] A lot to do. A lot to do.

[User] A lot of fun.

[Assistant] There were, as you've mentioned, some parts that weren't quite as fun. You talked about ice and you talked about\n\n Challenger\n\n . After\n\n Challenger\n\n , you worked on the Shuttle Management Structure Team to review and revamp. What can you tell us about what you did with that?


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

[User] He would be a good person to talk to.

[Assistant] Definitely.

[User] He was key to making this whole thing work, both in his team he worked for management and then his activity at Kennedy. Of course, then if I recall what happened, Bill Lenoir came back, and Arnie Aldrich and myself were working for Lenoir. I was director of—no, this is after that. This is getting way ahead. Crippen eventually went to Headquarters to take Arnie Aldrich's job, and then he went back to become Kennedy Center director, and he moved from Houston to Kennedy, Kennedy to Headquarters, Headquarters back to the Cape, in a different role as Center director, and then he left. He's now CEO, or president, of Thiokol, the people who build the solid rocket motors for Shuttle in Odgen, Utah. Got a lot of history of what went on back there.

[Assistant] In our research, we found that Arnie Aldrich gave you great praise for your role in bringing the Shuttle back.

[User] Have you talked to Arnie?

[Assistant] We haven't talked to him yet.


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

[User] Have you talked to Jay Honeycutt?

[Assistant] Not yet.

[User] Honeycutt, back then, was my deputy, and then he moved down to the Cape when [McCartney was] Center director. I can't remember exactly, but he moved down to the Cape. Now he's heading up Lockheed [Martin] in Houston. We had some good times. We spent a lot of time on the road. I think the three years after the accident, the highest one, I averaged 100 nights a year away from home.

[Assistant] Wow.

[User] Mostly at Headquarters or Kennedy or Marshall, mainly that's where I spent time, which was a lot, but, here again, it was worth it. It's something you had to do to make things work.\n\n Arnie and I talk to each other. We're friends. Our wives are friends. He'd be a great guy to talk to. He's in Virginia. He's at Lockheed-Martin in Bethesda, but he lives in Virginia.

[Assistant] Our list of people that we'd like to talk to keeps growing.


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

[User] He'd be a key person.

[Assistant] Absolutely.

[User] He was one of the key guys that went back after the accident to run the Shuttle Program.

[Assistant] Absolutely.

[User] Lots of hours together.

[Assistant] I'm sure lots of stories to share, too. As the Shuttle Program did come back to flight status, came back on line, along in this time frame the National Space Transportation System Office moved from JSC up to Washington. Was this part of the changes that you—


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

[User] He was one of the key guys that went back after the accident to run the Shuttle Program.

[Assistant] Absolutely.

[User] Lots of hours together.

[Assistant] I'm sure lots of stories to share, too. As the Shuttle Program did come back to flight status, came back on line, along in this time frame the National Space Transportation System Office moved from JSC up to Washington. Was this part of the changes that you—

[User] Yes, recommended changes that came out of Bob Crippen's team. I forget the Rogers Commission, but they wanted to have a stronger influence out of NASA Headquarters. When the first Shuttle launch went off, John [F.] Yardley was head of the Office of Space Flight. John Yardley is probably the most technically capable person I've ever met in terms of knowing what was going on technically and making decisions that were technical as well as monetary. He was key strength at NASA Headquarters, and he, I guess, was ill right around the time of the first flight. He made it through the first flight, but shortly thereafter he retired. John Yardley was the lead guy at McDonnell Aircraft for Mercury and Gemini. He ran the Mercury and Gemini Programs for McDonnell, and in '76 they talked him into coming to NASA to run the Office of Space Flight, and he was key to getting the Shuttle flying. But he had some health problems, and after the first flight he retired.\n\n [After Yardley left] I think the strength of Headquarters was not as great, and I think what the Rogers Commission saw is that we should…[go back to a stronger headquarters]. So Admiral Truly brought up Arnie Aldrich to run it, and we set up this organization to run it the way we had recommended. So we got a lot of trips back and forth to Washington, but a lot of good communications going on.

[Assistant] Looking back over the Shuttle Program, it's now about to enter the end of the 1900s.


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

[User] Lots of hours together.

[Assistant] I'm sure lots of stories to share, too. As the Shuttle Program did come back to flight status, came back on line, along in this time frame the National Space Transportation System Office moved from JSC up to Washington. Was this part of the changes that you—

[User] Yes, recommended changes that came out of Bob Crippen's team. I forget the Rogers Commission, but they wanted to have a stronger influence out of NASA Headquarters. When the first Shuttle launch went off, John [F.] Yardley was head of the Office of Space Flight. John Yardley is probably the most technically capable person I've ever met in terms of knowing what was going on technically and making decisions that were technical as well as monetary. He was key strength at NASA Headquarters, and he, I guess, was ill right around the time of the first flight. He made it through the first flight, but shortly thereafter he retired. John Yardley was the lead guy at McDonnell Aircraft for Mercury and Gemini. He ran the Mercury and Gemini Programs for McDonnell, and in '76 they talked him into coming to NASA to run the Office of Space Flight, and he was key to getting the Shuttle flying. But he had some health problems, and after the first flight he retired.\n\n [After Yardley left] I think the strength of Headquarters was not as great, and I think what the Rogers Commission saw is that we should…[go back to a stronger headquarters]. So Admiral Truly brought up Arnie Aldrich to run it, and we set up this organization to run it the way we had recommended. So we got a lot of trips back and forth to Washington, but a lot of good communications going on.

[Assistant] Looking back over the Shuttle Program, it's now about to enter the end of the 1900s.

[User] Thirty years.

[Assistant] Thirty years. The technology on the Shuttle still going strong, but it is older. From all your experience working with it, do you foresee it maintaining and continuing for many more years?


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

[User] I took off for about nine months, almost a year.

[Assistant] Took some of that vacation time?

[User] I just took off.

[Assistant] When you did go back to work then, you mentioned that you worked with Moscow and with aerospace operations. Did this involve anything along the lines of the Space Station, or was this different?

[User] Primarily ANSER was run by John Fabian, ex-astronaut who actually flew with Dan [Daniel C.] Brandenstein. ANSER is primarily a military support contractor working for the Pentagon. John Fabian had his vision of setting up an office in Moscow, trying to work with the Russians and promote their activity. When I first went to ANSER, that was not what I was going over there for; I was going over there to help them work on bidding on a NASA contract, on something else.\n\n As we got into it, I got involved in the Russian operation, and so we got about a dozen people. Three or four of them rotated through Moscow. But most of our support was related to the science side, interfacing with the Russian science community and NASA Headquarters, not really into the Space Station activity or into the Shuttle activity or into the Mir. It was primarily working the science interface, and then we did some other things for some other commercial companies. But small group, eight, ten people. It was the only part of that company that did any commercial work. All the rest of their work was tied to the government, and most of mine, other than NASA, was tied to doing work for commercial companies.\n\n So I came out here to do some work for this commercial company, and I knew most of the old-timers out here, and after a couple of trips I decided I might as well come out here and work, because it's more exciting and something I wanted to do, getting back closer to what I call closer to the hardware. The previous company was more of a paper product company as opposed to building something, not for profit, analysis and research. It was interesting, I enjoyed it, but this is a lot more interesting, a lot more fun.

[Assistant] Tell us about what you do here.


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

[User] But being there four years, five years, was another good experience. In fact, I still live there. My wife lives there. I live here.

[Assistant] When you think back to when you began in aviation and in aerospace, would you ever have imagined where it would lead you?

[User] No. We were a family of five boys, one girl, and my oldest brother was an engineer, went to Washington University in St. Louis. I grew up in St. Louis. He went to Washington U. in St. Louis, became an electrical engineer. He was the oldest. I was the second youngest. The other two older brothers went off and did things, and I was the only one who really followed him. My older brother and I were probably pretty close together, so I went to engineering school, went to the same school. He worked at McDonnell, I went to work at McDonnell. I had a very influential uncle who worked at McDonnell. So that's how I got involved… And having my brother and my uncle there helped me get a job. So as you work that three or four months, you kind of get your engineering thoughts going down the—really, then it was in the aircraft line. But then you start going down—you're a mechanical engineer, you could do a lot of things, go build bridges, build roads, but when you get into that aircraft side, you kind of just keep thinking that way. That's how I got into it. I never had any idea that's where it would lead to. Like somebody says, "I want to be an astronaut and that's what I'm going to go work on." I just went along with the flow.

[Assistant] It seemed to work out pretty well for you.

[User] I don't know if a lot of people do that or not, but that's just the way most of the people you talk to, I think, never imagined they'd wind up.

[Assistant] Keeps life interesting.


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

[User] I don't know if a lot of people do that or not, but that's just the way most of the people you talk to, I think, never imagined they'd wind up.

[Assistant] Keeps life interesting.

[User] Keeps you busy. I think the biggest thing is being happy with what you're doing. If you're not, you might as well try something else.

[Assistant] Absolutely.

[User] You may not be able to afford it if you've got house payments and kids and things like that, but that's what you do. When I went to work for NASA, I thought I'd be there three or four years and I'd wind back up with a contractor. But when you got down there and got working on the Apollo Program and got into the day-to-day routine of making this thing work, it really gets you excited, so I spent thirty-one years there.

[Assistant] Hopefully those were happy.


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

[User] Keeps you busy. I think the biggest thing is being happy with what you're doing. If you're not, you might as well try something else.

[Assistant] Absolutely.

[User] You may not be able to afford it if you've got house payments and kids and things like that, but that's what you do. When I went to work for NASA, I thought I'd be there three or four years and I'd wind back up with a contractor. But when you got down there and got working on the Apollo Program and got into the day-to-day routine of making this thing work, it really gets you excited, so I spent thirty-one years there.

[Assistant] Hopefully those were happy.

[User] It was good.

[Assistant]
Do you have any questions? [Addressing Summer Bergen.]

I have a couple. You mentioned briefly about 1993, after Clinton had come into office, he initiated the redesign procedure. I was wondering if you could go a little bit more in depth about the impact that had on you, what you thought about the time, and how that affected the people you worked with.


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

[User] Oh, no. [Driving that transporter with the SPMT’s is work for a trained specialist from Sarens Rigging.] I have been on the route with them and looked at what they have to do, and there’s a lot of work. There’s a lot of light poles and traffic lights. The way their traffic engineers have described it, they’re going to have an army of people out in front of the vehicle that are going to be dropping these light poles and traffic lights down, because they’re mechanically attached. Then as the orbiter goes by, they’re going to have another army behind them bringing them back up. They’re going to have to cut down some trees along the route. They’ve identified every tree that has to be trimmed or cut down.

[Assistant] Yes, and manage the crowds, because I’m guessing tons of people are going to come out.

[User] Yes, it’s going to be crazy. L.A. [Los Angeles] had two things recently on the news that impacted traffic and large crowds. One was Mulholland Bridge over the 405 up by UCLA [University of California Los Angeles]. They were doing a partial demolition of it, and they had to close the 405 freeway for a weekend.

[Assistant] Yes, I remember hearing about that.

[User] The news was all, “Don’t go near there.” Then just a few weeks ago they had this big rock that they were moving from Riverside [California] to the La Brea Tar Pits area. They had multiple nights where they would go three or four miles and stop. They wouldn’t do any moving during the day. It was all in the dark of the night, whereas this move they’re going to start at two o’clock in the morning at LAX. They said it’s going to be two to three hours to get off the property of LAX and then from there it’ll be another 13, 14 hours.

[Assistant] They’re doing this on the weekends I’m guessing, not on a Monday morning?


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

[User] Yes, it’s going to be crazy. L.A. [Los Angeles] had two things recently on the news that impacted traffic and large crowds. One was Mulholland Bridge over the 405 up by UCLA [University of California Los Angeles]. They were doing a partial demolition of it, and they had to close the 405 freeway for a weekend.

[Assistant] Yes, I remember hearing about that.

[User] The news was all, “Don’t go near there.” Then just a few weeks ago they had this big rock that they were moving from Riverside [California] to the La Brea Tar Pits area. They had multiple nights where they would go three or four miles and stop. They wouldn’t do any moving during the day. It was all in the dark of the night, whereas this move they’re going to start at two o’clock in the morning at LAX. They said it’s going to be two to three hours to get off the property of LAX and then from there it’ll be another 13, 14 hours.

[Assistant] They’re doing this on the weekends I’m guessing, not on a Monday morning?

[User] Yes, that’s the plan. The vehicle is supposed to get out there in late September. The move date hasn’t been released yet, but it’ll be probably 7 to 10 days after the vehicle arrives at LAX.

[Assistant] And you’ll be helping them?


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

[User] I haven’t seen any detailed drawings [because we haven’t received the direction to give them support]. The drawing I’ve seen, it looks like columns coming out of the concrete floor that go right into the aft attach and up to the yoke, so you’ve got three columns coming up and the orbiter sitting on top. We’ll see. Obviously they don’t have earthquakes here, but that display configuration would be impossible in southern California.

[Assistant] How are they displaying Enterprise?

[User] Just parking it on its landing gear on the carrier deck, and then they’re going to inflate a structure around it, one of those high-pressurized structures. I’ve seen some graphics on it.

[Assistant] And Discovery is just going to look just like Enterprise, they’re just wheeling her into the hangar?

[User] Yes. That’s the easiest one out of all of them, really.

[Assistant] Rebecca, do you have any questions for Bill?\n\n WRIGHT: You were talking about California, can you give more details on the trees? Apparently that’s a quite a bit of construction, protecting the trees, and how they determined the trees they’re going to [remove].


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

[User] Just parking it on its landing gear on the carrier deck, and then they’re going to inflate a structure around it, one of those high-pressurized structures. I’ve seen some graphics on it.

[Assistant] And Discovery is just going to look just like Enterprise, they’re just wheeling her into the hangar?

[User] Yes. That’s the easiest one out of all of them, really.

[Assistant] Rebecca, do you have any questions for Bill?\n\n WRIGHT: You were talking about California, can you give more details on the trees? Apparently that’s a quite a bit of construction, protecting the trees, and how they determined the trees they’re going to [remove].

[User]
They have a subcontractor out there that they hired to identify all the trees on the route and then categorize those trees in certain categories that would either allow them to cut them down, or trim them, or not to be touched at all and would require the vehicle to have to be maneuvered around that tree. That’s a big task, and they’re still hoping that the state of California won’t require an environmental impact report on these trees. If they require that, I don’t know if they’re going to meet September/October [deadlines].\n\n WRIGHT: This morning out at the mate-de-mate, what was your role?

I was there representing the Boeing Company with my Ground Support Equipment Engineer, Norm Ring. We were there just in case some of our GSE didn’t work and if there were some mechanical issues.\n\n The rest of our team, those 18 folks, most of them are here in the Florida region, and they were all on call. If there were certain subsystem areas that were having problems during this mate, then we were to call them in and start spinning up the engineering support for them. Even when we’re flying the vehicles we had a lot of folks on call. But there were no issues, really. As you know, what was completed today was scheduled for yesterday. The winds didn’t allow it to happen yesterday, but they’re back on schedule.

[Assistant] Yes, good. And weather looks good to deliver Discovery to go out on Tuesday?


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

[User] Yes. That’s the easiest one out of all of them, really.

[Assistant] Rebecca, do you have any questions for Bill?\n\n WRIGHT: You were talking about California, can you give more details on the trees? Apparently that’s a quite a bit of construction, protecting the trees, and how they determined the trees they’re going to [remove].

[User]
They have a subcontractor out there that they hired to identify all the trees on the route and then categorize those trees in certain categories that would either allow them to cut them down, or trim them, or not to be touched at all and would require the vehicle to have to be maneuvered around that tree. That’s a big task, and they’re still hoping that the state of California won’t require an environmental impact report on these trees. If they require that, I don’t know if they’re going to meet September/October [deadlines].\n\n WRIGHT: This morning out at the mate-de-mate, what was your role?

I was there representing the Boeing Company with my Ground Support Equipment Engineer, Norm Ring. We were there just in case some of our GSE didn’t work and if there were some mechanical issues.\n\n The rest of our team, those 18 folks, most of them are here in the Florida region, and they were all on call. If there were certain subsystem areas that were having problems during this mate, then we were to call them in and start spinning up the engineering support for them. Even when we’re flying the vehicles we had a lot of folks on call. But there were no issues, really. As you know, what was completed today was scheduled for yesterday. The winds didn’t allow it to happen yesterday, but they’re back on schedule.

[Assistant] Yes, good. And weather looks good to deliver Discovery to go out on Tuesday?

[User] Yes, though you can never definitely tell the future. There will be some weather in the area, but not solid weather, so there’s ways to get around it.

[Assistant] Of course NASA never wanted to fly the orbiter through weather, but this time you’re delivering to a museum. Is that much of an issue?


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

[User] Yes, though you can never definitely tell the future. There will be some weather in the area, but not solid weather, so there’s ways to get around it.

[Assistant] Of course NASA never wanted to fly the orbiter through weather, but this time you’re delivering to a museum. Is that much of an issue?

[User] We’re ferrying with the same requirements. Do not fly through rain or clouds. The forecast is for scattered clouds and no rain or lightning. There is rain in the area, but it’s miles away, at least being forecasted. The concern is winds again, because when you’re on the dual crane de-mating operation, your wind requirements are much lower than when you’re on this mate/de-mate device. The general rule of thumb out here is 20 knots. The general rule of thumb at a remote site like Dulles using the dual cranes is 10 knots. The forecast is for higher than 10 knots for the week up there, so we’ll see. It’s going to be loud, too, because the work area is right in between two runways. You saw how quiet it was out there today, but it’s not going to be quiet in Washington.

[Assistant] Yes, it’s a busy airport. Are you staying for all the celebrations? We understand there’s a big event happening.

[User] Yes, I’ll stay there. Right now I’m scheduled to leave next weekend, so if things get delayed I’ll see if I have to delay my return to California or not.

[Assistant] Then you’re headed up to New York in May?


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

[User] We’re ferrying with the same requirements. Do not fly through rain or clouds. The forecast is for scattered clouds and no rain or lightning. There is rain in the area, but it’s miles away, at least being forecasted. The concern is winds again, because when you’re on the dual crane de-mating operation, your wind requirements are much lower than when you’re on this mate/de-mate device. The general rule of thumb out here is 20 knots. The general rule of thumb at a remote site like Dulles using the dual cranes is 10 knots. The forecast is for higher than 10 knots for the week up there, so we’ll see. It’s going to be loud, too, because the work area is right in between two runways. You saw how quiet it was out there today, but it’s not going to be quiet in Washington.

[Assistant] Yes, it’s a busy airport. Are you staying for all the celebrations? We understand there’s a big event happening.

[User] Yes, I’ll stay there. Right now I’m scheduled to leave next weekend, so if things get delayed I’ll see if I have to delay my return to California or not.

[Assistant] Then you’re headed up to New York in May?

[User] Yes. Then in September everybody comes to [California], so this might be one of my last trips. Every time I came here in the last two or three years, I make sure to look around and enjoy it, because I don’t know how much longer I’ll be coming down here.

[Assistant] It sounds like you might have a connection with the Visitor Complex here now.


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

[User] Yes, I’ll stay there. Right now I’m scheduled to leave next weekend, so if things get delayed I’ll see if I have to delay my return to California or not.

[Assistant] Then you’re headed up to New York in May?

[User] Yes. Then in September everybody comes to [California], so this might be one of my last trips. Every time I came here in the last two or three years, I make sure to look around and enjoy it, because I don’t know how much longer I’ll be coming down here.

[Assistant] It sounds like you might have a connection with the Visitor Complex here now.

[User] Well yes, but it’s not a career. So who knows, my career might end up in the mountains of Idaho.

[Assistant] Nice place to retire. Well, thanks for catching us up. This is all interesting, and I’m glad we’re able to record it.


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

[User] Yes. Then in September everybody comes to [California], so this might be one of my last trips. Every time I came here in the last two or three years, I make sure to look around and enjoy it, because I don’t know how much longer I’ll be coming down here.

[Assistant] It sounds like you might have a connection with the Visitor Complex here now.

[User] Well yes, but it’s not a career. So who knows, my career might end up in the mountains of Idaho.

[Assistant] Nice place to retire. Well, thanks for catching us up. This is all interesting, and I’m glad we’re able to record it.

[User] You’re welcome. It will be fun to watch over the next week and through this fall. It’s neat for me because I’ve been working on this project for four or five years. It’s kind of like when you’re on a football team, all that practice and all that preparation and the game finally is there, and the game goes by like that [snaps fingers] after weeks of practice.

[Assistant] And T&R is officially over in November?


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

[User] Well yes, but it’s not a career. So who knows, my career might end up in the mountains of Idaho.

[Assistant] Nice place to retire. Well, thanks for catching us up. This is all interesting, and I’m glad we’re able to record it.

[User] You’re welcome. It will be fun to watch over the next week and through this fall. It’s neat for me because I’ve been working on this project for four or five years. It’s kind of like when you’re on a football team, all that practice and all that preparation and the game finally is there, and the game goes by like that [snaps fingers] after weeks of practice.

[Assistant] And T&R is officially over in November?

[User] After the handover of 104 to the visitors’ center, yes. I’m sure there’ll be some residual work that we have to do to close out our records and bookkeeping, but not any technical work. It’s going to be interesting to watch this week and then those couple weeks out in California.

[Assistant] Yes, I’d like to see that.