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

[User] Well, we did one for the Skylab program. When was that? About’76 or ’77? ’78, maybe [The Skylab flights were in 1973-1974]. That was something different because it was a long duration associated with it.

[Assistant] In Skylab, were you involved in the decision to go with the dry workshop?

[User] If I wasn’t, I should’ve been. I can’t remember exactly and direct…although I probably endorsed the decision when it was made. I don’t remember who would’ve done it.

[Assistant] With Space Station coming on line soon and working with Mir, this is the first time since the Skylab days that flight operations had involved long duration flights. What do you see as changes in the ways either that the Center operated or flight operations were conducted because of the long duration flights?

[User] I don’t think that there have been any drastic changes outright. Well, why don’t you interview George Abbey?

[Assistant] That does bring me to a couple of questions. In your career there were certainly a number of people that either influenced you greatly or which you think were the people who made a great and vast difference in the space program. Who would be those people on your list?


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

[User] If I wasn’t, I should’ve been. I can’t remember exactly and direct…although I probably endorsed the decision when it was made. I don’t remember who would’ve done it.

[Assistant] With Space Station coming on line soon and working with Mir, this is the first time since the Skylab days that flight operations had involved long duration flights. What do you see as changes in the ways either that the Center operated or flight operations were conducted because of the long duration flights?

[User] I don’t think that there have been any drastic changes outright. Well, why don’t you interview George Abbey?

[Assistant] That does bring me to a couple of questions. In your career there were certainly a number of people that either influenced you greatly or which you think were the people who made a great and vast difference in the space program. Who would be those people on your list?

[User] Number one was Chris [Christopher C. Kraft, Jr.]. Not only did he have the technical ability, but he was what I call a real leader. He inspired people and developed the whole concept of flight control. He led as a flight director and I think he did an outstanding people job. It’s not what many people could have done. I think that Max [Maxime A. Faget] was outstanding. Some of the people I may mention, you may not even know. Bill Tindall [Howard W. Tindall, Jr.] was excellent. He was a _______________ and techniques. In the program office, I think Aaron Cohen, who you probably don’t know, was a real good young man. In the flight house, Glynn [S.] Lunney was outstanding. Arnie [Arnold] Aldrich, as far as I know, he’s still at Headquarters. I don’t know if you know him or not.

[Assistant] I think he’s gone now.


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

[User] I don’t think that there have been any drastic changes outright. Well, why don’t you interview George Abbey?

[Assistant] That does bring me to a couple of questions. In your career there were certainly a number of people that either influenced you greatly or which you think were the people who made a great and vast difference in the space program. Who would be those people on your list?

[User] Number one was Chris [Christopher C. Kraft, Jr.]. Not only did he have the technical ability, but he was what I call a real leader. He inspired people and developed the whole concept of flight control. He led as a flight director and I think he did an outstanding people job. It’s not what many people could have done. I think that Max [Maxime A. Faget] was outstanding. Some of the people I may mention, you may not even know. Bill Tindall [Howard W. Tindall, Jr.] was excellent. He was a _______________ and techniques. In the program office, I think Aaron Cohen, who you probably don’t know, was a real good young man. In the flight house, Glynn [S.] Lunney was outstanding. Arnie [Arnold] Aldrich, as far as I know, he’s still at Headquarters. I don’t know if you know him or not.

[Assistant] I think he’s gone now.

[User] Gene [Eugene F.] Kranz has certainly done a good job for us. A real good job from a flight control standpoint. George M. Low is _________, certainly an outstanding man. Dr. [Robert R.] Gilruth was.

[Assistant] When NASA was going to the moon, there was definitely this national mandate behind the human space flight program. The whole country was behind it. As that moved, as Apollo came to an end and moved into the shuttle and now into the 1990’s, that mandate doesn’t seem to be there. Why do you think that is?


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

[User] Number one was Chris [Christopher C. Kraft, Jr.]. Not only did he have the technical ability, but he was what I call a real leader. He inspired people and developed the whole concept of flight control. He led as a flight director and I think he did an outstanding people job. It’s not what many people could have done. I think that Max [Maxime A. Faget] was outstanding. Some of the people I may mention, you may not even know. Bill Tindall [Howard W. Tindall, Jr.] was excellent. He was a _______________ and techniques. In the program office, I think Aaron Cohen, who you probably don’t know, was a real good young man. In the flight house, Glynn [S.] Lunney was outstanding. Arnie [Arnold] Aldrich, as far as I know, he’s still at Headquarters. I don’t know if you know him or not.

[Assistant] I think he’s gone now.

[User] Gene [Eugene F.] Kranz has certainly done a good job for us. A real good job from a flight control standpoint. George M. Low is _________, certainly an outstanding man. Dr. [Robert R.] Gilruth was.

[Assistant] When NASA was going to the moon, there was definitely this national mandate behind the human space flight program. The whole country was behind it. As that moved, as Apollo came to an end and moved into the shuttle and now into the 1990’s, that mandate doesn’t seem to be there. Why do you think that is?

[User] I think it was inevitable. I mean, going to the moon was such a feat, that a lot of other things seem rather mundane after that to a lot of people. It’s still effective. The whole space flight program has affected the civilization of the world. I think one of the first things people want is to do it the first time once and that’s basically it. I’d like to ask you that question.

[Assistant] Sure, after we’re finished. How would you recommend that NASA handle this?


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

[User] Gene [Eugene F.] Kranz has certainly done a good job for us. A real good job from a flight control standpoint. George M. Low is _________, certainly an outstanding man. Dr. [Robert R.] Gilruth was.

[Assistant] When NASA was going to the moon, there was definitely this national mandate behind the human space flight program. The whole country was behind it. As that moved, as Apollo came to an end and moved into the shuttle and now into the 1990’s, that mandate doesn’t seem to be there. Why do you think that is?

[User] I think it was inevitable. I mean, going to the moon was such a feat, that a lot of other things seem rather mundane after that to a lot of people. It’s still effective. The whole space flight program has affected the civilization of the world. I think one of the first things people want is to do it the first time once and that’s basically it. I’d like to ask you that question.

[Assistant] Sure, after we’re finished. How would you recommend that NASA handle this?

[User] Given the things…

[Assistant] Well, given that you can only do it first once and that some people believe that the relevance is no longer there. What would you recommend?


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

[User] I think it was inevitable. I mean, going to the moon was such a feat, that a lot of other things seem rather mundane after that to a lot of people. It’s still effective. The whole space flight program has affected the civilization of the world. I think one of the first things people want is to do it the first time once and that’s basically it. I’d like to ask you that question.

[Assistant] Sure, after we’re finished. How would you recommend that NASA handle this?

[User] Given the things…

[Assistant] Well, given that you can only do it first once and that some people believe that the relevance is no longer there. What would you recommend?

[User] I’m not sure that it makes a hell of a lot of difference. I think that the world will go on and I think that we’ll want to learn things, we’re going to want to discover things. That’s still a major goal of the civilization of the world. I think it will continue to be. And then you’re saying of course, that a lot of people don’t think that you need a program at all. You can say that about most everything. Save money, save money and save money. Then what do you do? I don’t know if that’s an answer or not, but that seems to be the way that it is. There’s not much NASA or anyone else can do about that.

[Assistant] The recent contract with United Space Alliance doing parts of the shuttle program, Mr. [Daniel] Goldin is pushing toward privatizing some of these functions. How do you see that push?


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

[User] Given the things…

[Assistant] Well, given that you can only do it first once and that some people believe that the relevance is no longer there. What would you recommend?

[User] I’m not sure that it makes a hell of a lot of difference. I think that the world will go on and I think that we’ll want to learn things, we’re going to want to discover things. That’s still a major goal of the civilization of the world. I think it will continue to be. And then you’re saying of course, that a lot of people don’t think that you need a program at all. You can say that about most everything. Save money, save money and save money. Then what do you do? I don’t know if that’s an answer or not, but that seems to be the way that it is. There’s not much NASA or anyone else can do about that.

[Assistant] The recent contract with United Space Alliance doing parts of the shuttle program, Mr. [Daniel] Goldin is pushing toward privatizing some of these functions. How do you see that push?

[User] Well, I think it’s plain and simple. Try to save money, do it a little cheaper. I don’t get much of a thrill out of that. I don’t think that we better, I don’t think so. I don’t think it will be as good.

[Assistant] You do, or you do not?


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

[User] I’m not sure that it makes a hell of a lot of difference. I think that the world will go on and I think that we’ll want to learn things, we’re going to want to discover things. That’s still a major goal of the civilization of the world. I think it will continue to be. And then you’re saying of course, that a lot of people don’t think that you need a program at all. You can say that about most everything. Save money, save money and save money. Then what do you do? I don’t know if that’s an answer or not, but that seems to be the way that it is. There’s not much NASA or anyone else can do about that.

[Assistant] The recent contract with United Space Alliance doing parts of the shuttle program, Mr. [Daniel] Goldin is pushing toward privatizing some of these functions. How do you see that push?

[User] Well, I think it’s plain and simple. Try to save money, do it a little cheaper. I don’t get much of a thrill out of that. I don’t think that we better, I don’t think so. I don’t think it will be as good.

[Assistant] You do, or you do not?

[User] I do not.

[Assistant] Why is that?


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

[User] Well, I think it’s plain and simple. Try to save money, do it a little cheaper. I don’t get much of a thrill out of that. I don’t think that we better, I don’t think so. I don’t think it will be as good.

[Assistant] You do, or you do not?

[User] I do not.

[Assistant] Why is that?

[User] You won’t get that far without getting as many dedicated people as NASA has. You just won’t.

[Assistant] As the Space Station is being constructed over the next few years, as you mentioned, with the new push in space medicine, where do you think NASA should adjust its funds beyond that?


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

[User] I do not.

[Assistant] Why is that?

[User] You won’t get that far without getting as many dedicated people as NASA has. You just won’t.

[Assistant] As the Space Station is being constructed over the next few years, as you mentioned, with the new push in space medicine, where do you think NASA should adjust its funds beyond that?

[User] I’m not sure that I understand your question.

[Assistant] In addition to Space Station, where do you think NASA should be placing an emphasis?


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

[User] You won’t get that far without getting as many dedicated people as NASA has. You just won’t.

[Assistant] As the Space Station is being constructed over the next few years, as you mentioned, with the new push in space medicine, where do you think NASA should adjust its funds beyond that?

[User] I’m not sure that I understand your question.

[Assistant] In addition to Space Station, where do you think NASA should be placing an emphasis?

[User] Well, I suppose what they ought to do is research in the things that space flight can do for you. Or the environment that you can create, that kind of thing. And exploration, I think, is the ultimate thing, but they kind of go hand in hand. After all, the inevitable thing that you’re looking for here is, I guess, are there any other people on the planets somewhere, or something like that. So, I think it is, anyway.

[Assistant] Of all the tasks or positions which you’ve held in NASA, which one means the most to you?


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

[User] I’m not sure that I understand your question.

[Assistant] In addition to Space Station, where do you think NASA should be placing an emphasis?

[User] Well, I suppose what they ought to do is research in the things that space flight can do for you. Or the environment that you can create, that kind of thing. And exploration, I think, is the ultimate thing, but they kind of go hand in hand. After all, the inevitable thing that you’re looking for here is, I guess, are there any other people on the planets somewhere, or something like that. So, I think it is, anyway.

[Assistant] Of all the tasks or positions which you’ve held in NASA, which one means the most to you?

[User] I think it was being the Deputy Director. I got a lot of satisfaction from that. I think I did some good. I was working for an outstanding man, then too. That always makes it nice. [???In memory of???] George [W. S.] Abbey.

[Assistant] Why do you have to do that?


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

[User] Well, I suppose what they ought to do is research in the things that space flight can do for you. Or the environment that you can create, that kind of thing. And exploration, I think, is the ultimate thing, but they kind of go hand in hand. After all, the inevitable thing that you’re looking for here is, I guess, are there any other people on the planets somewhere, or something like that. So, I think it is, anyway.

[Assistant] Of all the tasks or positions which you’ve held in NASA, which one means the most to you?

[User] I think it was being the Deputy Director. I got a lot of satisfaction from that. I think I did some good. I was working for an outstanding man, then too. That always makes it nice. [???In memory of???] George [W. S.] Abbey.

[Assistant] Why do you have to do that?

[User] What?

[Assistant] Tell me about Mr. Abbey.


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

[User] What?

[Assistant] Tell me about Mr. Abbey.

[User] What do you want to know?

[Assistant] Everything.

[User] I don’t know if I know that much about him. He’s a good friend. He likes to catch salmon. He’s got a good friend up in Seattle or Westport, Washington who is a sports fisherman. He likes to get up to Seattle to see him. Well, I’ll tell you about George Abbey, but you can talk to him and ask him yourself. He’ll tell you.

[Assistant] I don’t think so.


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

[User] What do you want to know?

[Assistant] Everything.

[User] I don’t know if I know that much about him. He’s a good friend. He likes to catch salmon. He’s got a good friend up in Seattle or Westport, Washington who is a sports fisherman. He likes to get up to Seattle to see him. Well, I’ll tell you about George Abbey, but you can talk to him and ask him yourself. He’ll tell you.

[Assistant] I don’t think so.

[User] This area was nice when I first moved here you know. Not many places to live when I first got here, around. Lots. Johnny [John H.] Glenn [Jr.] lived half a block over here. Wally [Walter M.] Schirra [Jr.] was next door. And next door to him was [Virgil I. “Gus”] Grissom. Next door to Glenn was [M. Scott] Carpenter. [L. Gordon] Cooper [Jr.] lived across the lake here. Deke [Donald K. Slayton] lived over in Friendswood. And Alan [B.] Shepard [Jr.] lived in town. So it was full of them.

[Assistant] What was it like living in the neighborhood with astronauts?


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

[User] Oh, the team that we built, and I can’t say it’s me. But, you know, I had complete confidence in the NASA lab and contractor people on the team. Now, we had a few that didn’t produce, but as an overall, we had a test team that I would put up against anyone. If somebody would say they’re going to come in [to WSTF labs] on a tour of the lab—I would just be an observer —because I didn’t do it [the tours by myself]. I would give a little introduction, and I’d say [to the team], “Okay. You do this, and you do that, and you tell them what you’re doing and why you think it’s important,” and they’d just blow the visitor’s socks off because the team members were so excited about what they were doing. [Some of the] people who came, they were [from] JSC, just kind of dull [unmotivated], you know, management type people. They’d come down here, and I had more than one of them come up and say, “You know, your team has reinvigorated me. I’m going back with a new attitude.”\n\n Now, that makes you feel—that’s accomplishment to me, which was not rewarding with external praise from local Management—but you don’t have to Have that You get your rewards from your little team, and that’s what we had Going.

[Assistant] That’s a great way to work.

[User] It’s great. Yes, we just did great. We had more fun. You go to them today, and they’ll reminisce. “Boy, we had it going, didn’t we?” [Laughs] Yes, we did. (Refer to\n\n Photo A-57\n\n .)

[Assistant]
At this time I’m going to ask Jennifer if she has any questions. Do you have anything for Mr. Pippen?

I just had one quick question.

[User] All right.

[Assistant] Can you talk about the relationship between White Sands Test Facility and New Mexico State University [Las Cruces, New Mexico]?


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

[User] I'm not encouraged right now. I have a son who's a medical doctor, I have a son who's an engineer, and I advise them to go into telecommunications or medical science. It's not like it was when I came. When I came out of engineering school, the place to go was the Space Program. My personal opinion is that there are more exciting futures for an engineer for the next 20 years than the Space Program. Maybe I'm wrong. Hopefully I'm wrong. But if an engineer came to me and said, "Where's the place to work in the next 20 years?" I'd probably direct him to medical research or telecommunications. Hopefully I'm wrong, but that's the way I see the future. That's not negative about anybody at the Agency, I'm just talking about the political climate. Maybe energy engineering if it exists in the next 20 years.

[Assistant] You worked in so many different areas. What would you consider maybe the best lesson or the hardest lesson during that career that stayed with you?

[User] There are a lot of lessons that you learn over that long a period of time. I really can't identify one right now.

[Assistant] Before we close, I wanted you to have a chance to look at your notes. I know you brought some things.

[User] All I did was I took your questions and just put down some notes. I think we've covered most of that. Test before you fly, we talked about that. Listen to the hardware, we talked about that. Make an appropriate upfront investment, we've talked about that. Don't cut corners on design and development tests, we talked about that.

[Assistant] Is there anything else you can think of that you'd like to add about sound practices or lessons learned, or planning, management? Any other thoughts before we close out for the day?


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

[User] There are a lot of lessons that you learn over that long a period of time. I really can't identify one right now.

[Assistant] Before we close, I wanted you to have a chance to look at your notes. I know you brought some things.

[User] All I did was I took your questions and just put down some notes. I think we've covered most of that. Test before you fly, we talked about that. Listen to the hardware, we talked about that. Make an appropriate upfront investment, we've talked about that. Don't cut corners on design and development tests, we talked about that.

[Assistant] Is there anything else you can think of that you'd like to add about sound practices or lessons learned, or planning, management? Any other thoughts before we close out for the day?

[User] The only thing I'd say, and it's the same thing I've said, but I'll try to summarize it—make sure you understand the program up front in terms of requirements. Make sure there's adequate schedule for doing a good job of design, development, test. It may be impractical in today's environment, but if possible, lay out a reasonable schedule and don't change it, or change it as little as possible. Those are very important parameters for a successful program, in my opinion.

[Assistant] Those are good ones. So thank you. I appreciate it.


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

[User] Yes.

[Assistant] Why did you choose to leave when you did?

[User] I could see the flight control role getting more routine and not as [much new] development. The budgets were getting cut back. There was very little of this exploration kind of mind-set that was getting funded. There were people working that kind of thing and trying to get support for Mars missions and things of that sort, but the budgets just weren't going to support it. It was getting routine enough that it just wasn't that challenging to me anymore.\n\n I saw an opportunity to get involved in developing—IBM offered me a job to work on their proposal for the Air Force. The Air Force was going to build their own Mission Control Center in Colorado Springs [Colorado], and IBM was bidding on that job, and there was a chance to go and develop that control center for the Air Force. It seemed like something still involved with the Shuttle and space operations, but a totally different kind of responsibility, and really different from what I had been doing, because it was not a flight control job so much as it was an overall control center development, prepare operations concepts, and how the Air Force would actually do their mission, which [would have been] a big challenge for the Air Force…. [After we (IBM) won the contract, the Air Force decided it was too big of a job for them]. They… backed off… [and canceled the contract. I think they made the right decision].\n\n …When the\n\n Challenger\n\n accident occurred, it was just devastating. I really had mixed emotions. One was, “Thank god I wasn't at the control center when that happened,” and the other was, “What am I doing out here? I'm not helping. NASA's really suffering and I'm sitting over here working for some Air Force program.” I really felt left out and kind of lost. But that was the way it was.\n\n So that was my career with NASA, in two hours.

[Assistant] That's right.

[User] You were right, it took two hours. I didn't think it would take that long.

[Assistant] Like I said, people are often surprised at the things they remember.


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

[User] You were right, it took two hours. I didn't think it would take that long.

[Assistant] Like I said, people are often surprised at the things they remember.

[User] Yes, you get started talking and you just keep going. There's a tremendous detail that's lost. I just don't remember. But it was just a wonderful experience for me. I'm really happy that I was involved in that, got to be a part of it. Just not many jobs like that around to work on.

[Assistant]
That's certainly true. I did want to give both Tim and Carol a chance to ask some questions.

Is there any point during your career at NASA that you consider your biggest accomplishment or something that you're most proud of being involved with?

[User] There are several things that I thought were kind of neat that I got to do, but I think [the most satisfying was] being responsible for [dveloping] the trajectory program that was used to get the guidance [parameters] and to get the spacecraft to the Moon and back. Getting that developed, implemented, and seeing it actually [work]… was more of a personal accomplishment or achievement than any of the others. A lot of the rest of it was a team kind of [effort]—not that the trajectory development wasn't a team effort. It's just that I was in charge of that branch. It was my job to see which of those two programs, if either one of them we were going to use, because other organizations were building similar kind of programs. They weren't focused exclusively for use in Apollo though. Anyway, the fact that that worked so well, I really felt great about that.

[Assistant]
Thank you.

I wanted to make sure you had a chance for any last remarks, or other stories that may have come to mind, or any other people you want to say something about or describe for us.


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

[User] An amazing record.

[Assistant] An amazing record.

[User] Amazing record for what was asked of it. Two test flights, and then we used it throughout the Apollo series for all the moon flights, and it worked fine. It did work fine on every flight except when we launched it and got hit with lightning on Apollo 12.

[Assistant] And even then it got up to orbit.

[User] Even then it worked fine. Yes. A little scary, but it worked fine.

[Assistant] You mentioned the countdown and training for flying the rocket from the ground, and we had talked before about how you trained for the earlier missions like the Mercury and having to make the tapes and then changing it for Gemini. How did you change your training for the Apollo missions?


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

[User] Just kept absorbing more and more entities or organizations into it. Yes, it took a lot of exercising, but we got there and it worked pretty well.

[Assistant] Yes, it did, and it got to the moon.

[User] It got to the moon.

[Assistant] During this time frame, you became chief of the flight director's office.

[User] Somewhere in there, yes. Do you have the date, by the way?

[Assistant] I believe starting in 1968. What were your responsibilities?


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

[User] It might have, yes, depending on how much it misfired, if that's the right word. That would have affected, I think, the decisions that had been made. I mean, you could imagine a very poor spacecraft with a lot of problems with it, and that probably would have affected the decision-making, because the decision-making was based on the confidence in the hardware and the confidence in the people, and had we not had the experience to establish that confidence, we would have stumbled along a little bit more, that is, more flights to get to the lunar landing than we did. We went to the lunar landing mission in very short order once we got to manning the Apollo hardware, that is, manning it with flight crews. We got there very quickly.

[Assistant] And successfully.

[User] And successfully.

[Assistant] You mentioned earlier, when we were talking about the unmanned missions, that one of the Saturn V missions, in fact, the one right before Apollo 8, had experienced a variety of difficulties.

[User] Yes. Right.

[Assistant] Which were solved. But when the decision was made for Apollo 8 and you were going to use the Saturn V again, did you have any concerns about it?


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

[User] Yes. It doesn't happen very often, probably more than one lifetime.

[Assistant] You worked the ascent phase of Apollo 11. Did you have any concerns about the computer because of the alarms?

[User] No. No. By that time we were settled down, and the ascent phase was a lot less demanding on the computer than the descent phase. So we weren't concerned about that.\n\n The other thing about it is, generally we always struggle with do we have to pull back from what we're doing and not go any further and find a more conservative or less risky way to deal with the situation in flight. That's generally kind of the thing that occupies you, can you commit to the next step, or can you stay in this stage, do you have to back out of it? That was generally the frame of mind we always had as to, can we stay here, or do we have to back out?\n\n In the case of the ascent, it was a no-brainer. There was no backing out of it. There was no backing away from it. When the time comes, we've got to light this thing and get on with it. So it isn't like we were getting ready for ascent, thinking, "Gee, if everything isn't quite right, we're going to not go," or, "We're going to stay. We're going to sit here." So that made it, in terms of any decisions that have to be made, mission kind of decisions, that made it kind of easy because we weren't going to back away from ascent, no matter what was going on. So that went by the book, and, of course, everything behaved well. The rendezvous went fine, the crews got back in, that went fine. That was kind of uneventful, I think, in terms of being anything other than normal, I believe, and the rendezvous back was fine, and that all worked well. So we were pleased with that.

[Assistant] And they landed safely.

[User] Landed, and everything went well. The lunar work went well, and back we went.

[Assistant] And back you did go with Apollo 12.


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

[User] No. No. By that time we were settled down, and the ascent phase was a lot less demanding on the computer than the descent phase. So we weren't concerned about that.\n\n The other thing about it is, generally we always struggle with do we have to pull back from what we're doing and not go any further and find a more conservative or less risky way to deal with the situation in flight. That's generally kind of the thing that occupies you, can you commit to the next step, or can you stay in this stage, do you have to back out of it? That was generally the frame of mind we always had as to, can we stay here, or do we have to back out?\n\n In the case of the ascent, it was a no-brainer. There was no backing out of it. There was no backing away from it. When the time comes, we've got to light this thing and get on with it. So it isn't like we were getting ready for ascent, thinking, "Gee, if everything isn't quite right, we're going to not go," or, "We're going to stay. We're going to sit here." So that made it, in terms of any decisions that have to be made, mission kind of decisions, that made it kind of easy because we weren't going to back away from ascent, no matter what was going on. So that went by the book, and, of course, everything behaved well. The rendezvous went fine, the crews got back in, that went fine. That was kind of uneventful, I think, in terms of being anything other than normal, I believe, and the rendezvous back was fine, and that all worked well. So we were pleased with that.

[Assistant] And they landed safely.

[User] Landed, and everything went well. The lunar work went well, and back we went.

[Assistant] And back you did go with Apollo 12.

[User] Back we went to Apollo 12.

[Assistant] And you mentioned earlier the lightning strike on Apollo 12.


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

[User] It hasn't happened this year. Well, '99 is early yet. Who knows?

[Assistant] As we're going to close today, is there anything of what we've talked about today that you wanted to cover in more detail?

[User] Well, we never really have done Apollo 13 yet, have we?

[Assistant] Not yet.

[User] Okay. Well, no. I think I don't have a sideline that I wanted to introduce. I wish—all of us wish, I think, that we were better able to capture the mood and the sense of things as it existed at the time, but it's one of those sort of "you almost had to have been there." But you guys are very empathetic about it, but it's hard to capture, it's really hard to capture, as to what it was like every day to come in and work on the next round of things and so on, but it was really exciting. It carried us and moved us, pumped the adrenaline. It was just charge-up time all the time.\n\n But to answer your question, I can't think of anything else I would add about that period in the context of what we talked about here.

[Assistant] Well, you certainly had quite an exciting time of it, and—


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

[User] Yes, yes, exactly, and yet they did so much. You see the jets in the Command Module that you only use during entry, and some things. This is, you can do rotation or translation, but that CM system only is rotation because once you get through the Service Module, you’re on the way coming home, you just make sure that the heat shield is in front. This CM is so rusty and everything, but that’s a relic. That’s the actual one we did training offshore, getting the crew out into the rafts and into the helicopters.

[Assistant] Here?

[User] Here, yes. We’d drop it in the water off a barge, and then the crews would get into it, and then they’d go pull them out with every flight and put them out with the helicopters, go through the whole recovery step. I think they did twice on every flight.

[Assistant] It was the same capsule used all through that training?

[User] Yes. That’s why it looks like that.

[Assistant] Does it have a special marking or a name?


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

[User] Here, yes. We’d drop it in the water off a barge, and then the crews would get into it, and then they’d go pull them out with every flight and put them out with the helicopters, go through the whole recovery step. I think they did twice on every flight.

[Assistant] It was the same capsule used all through that training?

[User] Yes. That’s why it looks like that.

[Assistant] Does it have a special marking or a name?

[User] It didn’t have a name, never did. “Command Module.”

[Assistant] Missed your chance, didn’t you?


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

[User] Yes. That’s why it looks like that.

[Assistant] Does it have a special marking or a name?

[User] It didn’t have a name, never did. “Command Module.”

[Assistant] Missed your chance, didn’t you?

[User] Yes, yes, yes. Sorry. It doesn’t have a real heat shield or anything like that. It was made mostly of cast iron, just like that. It’s interesting; when they shut it down, the Service Modules were built in Tulsa, the Command Modules were built in Downey, and so you could go out and see a Command Module all the time. I personally never saw a Service Module until they were at the Cape [Canaveral, Florida]. I never saw one that was all disassembled. These white things over here are radiators. Remember, you had a thermal system—the thermal coolant loops would go through across that bridge thing that got the guillotine later, and that was the ethylene glycol, that was the thing that was flammable, which we shouldn’t have been using but we did, if you go back to the first flight fire [Apollo 1 accident].\n\n Do you know what Primacord is? It’s an explosive, but it looks like a rope. What they do, there would be Primacord on these things, all around where you separate this thing away, when you would unzip the SLA. This SLA is the Service Module/Lunar Module Adaptor, and then all around the back end of that. Way up there in the point, where that hole is, you can see the hinges. See that they would fall out this way. When they fell out this far, in the early design, it’s where they were going to then break the hinges and let them fly away, and that’s when Wally [Walter M.] Schirra took a look at that and said, “We ain’t doing that.” He was right. He was right.

[Assistant] A profound and true statement, right?


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

[User] Yes, that is true. In varying degrees I learned about all the operations at MPR and CPR either through studies and projects [e.g., mailroom, accessioning and disposal of records] or working in them [e.g., management staff and reference branches].

[Assistant] Wow. Just zooming out a little bit. Can you tell me a bit about what you were doing before you came onto that role or kind of what got you interested in this line of work?

[User] You mean what caused me to apply for the GS-4 archives technician position?

[Assistant] Yeah.

[User] I graduated from the University of Missouri at St. Louis (UMSL) with a BA in English and received a lifetime certificate to teach secondary English. However, during my senior year I decided I wasn’t really interested in teaching. I met with a guidance counselor in UMSL’s placement office who told me to check out the bulletin board that had listings for job opportunities and application forms for the civil service exam. I took the Junior Federal Assistant exam that qualified me for a GS-4 position with a federal agency. Sometime after that, I got a phone call to report to the National Personnel Records Center for an interview, which at that time was at 9700 Page Avenue. The Assistant Director interviewed me for a GS-4 archives technician, work-in-file position for the Army Reference Branch. I didn’t know anything about the National Personnel Records Center, but the job sounded interesting and I needed a job, so I accepted the opportunity. Little did I know that job would be the beginning of a 35-year career with NARA.

[Assistant] So tell me a bit about after you came in after the civil service tests and such. What kind of training did your unit provide you? Like what kind of stuff did you learn and do?


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

[User] The biggest change was when NPRC started the Business Process Re-engineering (BPR) in the early 2000s. We were moving away from being a paper-based operation to electronic. Technicians did their work on PCs utilizing procedures that could be accessed electronically. The procedures were modified to no longer be branch specific. In other words, a GS-5 correspondence technician who used to process just Army records requests could now use the same instruction to process Navy and Air Force records requests. The fire-related requests required specialized knowledge and training, but even those cases could be processed more timely and efficiently using the CMRS.

[Assistant] Yeah, that makes sense. So we will wrap it up. But I wanted to just ask kind of one final open-ended question. Would love to hear overall, how do you view your time working at the National Archives, and is there anything else you want to add in general?

[User] It was a very interesting and rewarding experience starting out as a GS-4 archives technician working in the stack areas to leading CPR as the Assistant Director. I had the privilege of working with some of the best and most capable people at both MPR and CPR throughout my career. Equally important were the friends I made along the way. I met them shortly after the fire, and we are still friends today.

[Assistant] Great. It’s awesome to hear that. And you know, as someone who’s working here right now, I love to hear about your experiences. I study history myself, so I’ve done quite a bit of archival research and talking with the techs who pull my materials and help me find the materials I’m looking for. I’m always very grateful for the staff who do that.

[User] The National Archives impacts a lot of people throughout the world. What we do is important.

[Assistant] Totally. So that concludes our interview. Thank you so much for taking the time to speak with me today.


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

[User] I eventually ran the Space Station under Gerry Griffin.

[Assistant] As his assistant.

[User] Well, that’s another interesting story. I didn’t stay there very long. I can’t remember the exact timing, but Chris didn’t just walk out the door when I showed up. The transition between Chris and Gerry happened about halfway through my tour as a horse-holder, which those things generally lasted about a year. I did not do it for an entire year, because Griffin, in his infinite wisdom, decided that one of the things that young Neil didn’t have on his ticket was working at NASA Headquarters, [Washington, D.C.].\n\n I don’t remember the exact timing, but Gerry asked me to—well, there were several things going on at NASA Headquarters at the time. One is I’d gotten to know Jim Beggs in the process of this Kraft-Griffin transition. We had a guy running Code M by the name of Jim [James A.] Abrahamson, an Air Force general who used to be a MOL [Manned Orbiting Laboratory] astronaut—didn’t ever fly because that program got cancelled. Jim—“Abe,” as he is called by most people who know him well—needed help up in Code M and Gerry saw a chance for me to leave the field center for a while and go get another ticket punched, and so I did.\n\n Once Gerry got installed and we kind of got the system rolling down here and he got into a comfort zone in terms of his—I mean, I wasn’t necessarily responsible for his comfort zone, but we kind of got things back on an even keel. I left and went to NASA Headquarters. I packed up my family and rented out my house and I moved to McLean, Virginia, and went to work up there.

[Assistant] What were some of your main assignments as the Director of the Space Shuttle Operations Office?

[User] You mean at NASA Headquarters?

[Assistant] At NASA Headquarters.


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

[User] Let me explain, that probably not so much what we saw in Mission Control; what we saw at the tracking sites was the raw downlink slow-scan, which would be much higher-quality than the converted signal. What we saw at Houston would probably be what you would call the best converted picture because once we sent it out to Intelsat again or to the commercial carrier, depending on how he’s doing, he may preserve it as well or not.\n\n What we saw at Houston was pretty similar to what the world saw. It wasn’t edited; it was passed through. The only reason it went through Houston was if there was a problem, someone had to cut it. If there was a fire on board or something blew up, you always have to be able to turn it off to the public if there’s an emergency, just as we do with Shuttle or any other project. But nothing was edited. When they talk about the quality of it, people are generally referring to the fact that the slow-scan, if you could have seen it, was probably, I’d say, three to five times higher quality than what you could get when you converted it.

[Assistant] Were you always in Houston during those Apollo flights?

[User] Yes.

[Assistant] So you were always at Mission Control?

[User] I would be at tracking sites and Goddard throughout between missions, and I would go to Houston every month. Even without the mission, I would be there a couple of weeks every month, getting ready. Then, every mission, I would go to Houston so that I would be in contact with all the tracking sites at the same time and be at this, I guess, the center of operations, so that if there was a problem, I would be there to talk to the people at Houston.

[Assistant] You also did testing at the Electronics Systems Test Laboratory.


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

[User] I remember the night because it was Christmas Eve. I remember the astronaut started—I guess there were some stories I heard recently about who was going to read what from the Bible—we didn’t have any controversy going on about should they read from the Bible or not, but we didn’t really know what they were going to do. As it turns out, I don’t think they did for sure, either. It just kind of came together: I remember before we saw the Earth, they were trying to point that camera and get a view of the Moon and the Earth together, and so it took some manipulation because they don’t have a good viewfinder on a camera. They’re holding the camera up and the Earth’s telling them what they’re seeing. They have a monitor, but it’s pretty hard to do. Once they got the view and started reading, and it was Christmas Eve, it was pretty impressive, and I think most of the television audience was quite impressed with that. Later on, you see color photos that were taken out the window of that view, coming around the Moon. That’s what I remember. It wasn’t anything special or difficult to do for the TV part of it, but it was spectacular as to the effect of it.

[Assistant] Just further away, to get that signal back.

[User] Yes, again, we were having to work with signals at a lunar distance. This was from the Command Module. I think we had a little more power there than we did—same camera, but it wasn’t from the Lunar Module—I think we used 85-foot dishes, as I recall, on that, so it worked out all right, but it wasn’t going to be the same on the Moon from the LM, from the Lunar Module.

[Assistant] You were mentioning the color—Apollo 10 was the first time that color cameras were used?

[User] Right, sequential-color.

[Assistant] Sequential-color, so then on Apollo 11, they had the color in the Command Module, but they didn’t use that on the surface of the Moon. Was that a power issue, or was it the weight?


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

[User] Knowing you may never come back, you might as well have fun while you’re there.

[Assistant] Yes, and there are some of those iconic images—of course, Pete [Charles] Conrad singing, and all those different things that we all remember. I think they did have a lot of fun while they were there. While we’re on Apollo, let’s talk about the recovery of the Apollo video that you’ve been involved in here in the recent years.

[User] You mean the search for the missing tapes?

[Assistant] The search for the missing tapes, right.

[User] I also was involved a little bit in some tapes that were actual recovery tapes of the Apollo 11 capsule, the U.S.S. Hornet.

[Assistant] That would be great, we’d love to hear about that, too.


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

[User] It took me about three years, from 2006, I believe, to 2009, when we finished the project and had the reconverted or enhanced tapes done. Then, they had the Emmy Awards and decided they ought to—I think what happened was that when we did all that tape stuff, searching the tapes and then upgrading the quality and playing it, and got a lot press, and then they had some press conferences, you know, to question me, “Did we go to the Moon?” We had a lot of those nuts out there. All that publicity, I think, triggered the Academy saying, “You know, the radio and television arts and sciences part of the Academy has never awarded an Emmy to NASA for historic TV.”\n\n All of a sudden, the 40th anniversary came around, all this stuff was being publicized, and all of a sudden, it’s announced that NASA’s getting an Emmy. Then, Headquarters calls me and says, “We want you and Buzz Aldrin to accept on behalf of us.” I felt almost ashamed to do it. At first, I thought, “Okay, whatever,” then I realized it was a big deal. My wife went to Hollywood with me and walked on the red carpet and all that, so it was pretty exciting stuff for her more than me because I had to make a speech. That’s the last thing I wanted to do, but it all worked out really great, yes. I’ve got a big Emmy sitting in my dining room.

[Assistant] Really? That’s exciting.

[User] Yes, and there’s one at Headquarters in the lobby—you could have seen it there. You’d see my picture with Buzz Aldrin, and June Lockhart was the Master of Ceremonies at this part of the Emmy Awards.

[Assistant] From Lost in Space [television show]?

[User] Yes, they use her all the time. A wonderful woman, just so friendly. Really great. Went drinking with her afterwards. It was terrific.

[Assistant] You mentioned that you were involved in some of the recovery on the Hornet? The video?


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

[User] Yes, and there’s one at Headquarters in the lobby—you could have seen it there. You’d see my picture with Buzz Aldrin, and June Lockhart was the Master of Ceremonies at this part of the Emmy Awards.

[Assistant] From Lost in Space [television show]?

[User] Yes, they use her all the time. A wonderful woman, just so friendly. Really great. Went drinking with her afterwards. It was terrific.

[Assistant] You mentioned that you were involved in some of the recovery on the Hornet? The video?

[User] I wasn’t involved in the recovery, but during the search. When I was looking for the tapes, we would get calls from people saying, “I think I have your tape,” you know, “my dad worked for NASA and I found this thing in the basement.” We got calls left and right, and other people saying, “Well, we have a tape, but you can’t have it unless you give us a lot of money.” None of them had what we wanted, so we humored them a while, and then said, “Sorry.”\n\n I got a call, this was a fellow that was the Second in Command on the U.S.S. Hornet, which was the recovery ship for the Apollo 11 capsule for the return to Earth. He was over in Chesapeake Beach, on Chesapeake Bay, he lived over there. He had tapes from on-board, and that’s when the Apollo 11 capsule was picked up, was brought to the U.S.S. Hornet, they were put in, what do you call those? I’m trying to remember the name of it, the little vans you pull that you live in when you go on vacation [Airstream travel trailers], the famous ones?

[Assistant] Yes, for when they were in isolation [Mobile Quarantine Facility].


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

[User] I don’t believe it has. Some of the historians down there should be aware of where this is. This is something someone ought to take a look at and utilize because it shows a lot of recovery stuff that I doubt if most people ever saw. It’s fascinating stuff, even Nixon and everything Nixon did wasn’t on TV, so it shows all the Nixon going around the ship and acting important.

[Assistant]
It’s the raw footage.

I’m sure the Hornet people would like to have a copy, too.

[User] They might, now. He had it digitized on the DVD, this guy that gave it to me. He had DVDs of it, but NASA didn’t, unless he included that. I can’t recall, now. Maybe I have one—I’ll have to look before I die, and see what I have at home.

[Assistant] During this search, in finding different tapes—like you said, you found Apollo 9 and some different things—what about playback for these things? Did you still have the equipment to look at what you were finding?

[User] One of the big pluses at the time was the fact that one of my technicians had been there as long as I had. He came maybe a little after me, but the recorders in his lab that were used from Apollo, he had preserved those for 40-some years, and they were in total operating condition. They’ll still play tapes that we used in the network for data and stuff, so we had actual Apollo 11-type recorders that had been preserved and in-use, ready to go, if we got the tape. We had everything we needed to convert.

[Assistant] Let’s talk about some of the other programs. Skylab?


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

[User] They might, now. He had it digitized on the DVD, this guy that gave it to me. He had DVDs of it, but NASA didn’t, unless he included that. I can’t recall, now. Maybe I have one—I’ll have to look before I die, and see what I have at home.

[Assistant] During this search, in finding different tapes—like you said, you found Apollo 9 and some different things—what about playback for these things? Did you still have the equipment to look at what you were finding?

[User] One of the big pluses at the time was the fact that one of my technicians had been there as long as I had. He came maybe a little after me, but the recorders in his lab that were used from Apollo, he had preserved those for 40-some years, and they were in total operating condition. They’ll still play tapes that we used in the network for data and stuff, so we had actual Apollo 11-type recorders that had been preserved and in-use, ready to go, if we got the tape. We had everything we needed to convert.

[Assistant] Let’s talk about some of the other programs. Skylab?

[User] Skylab was, of course, the first lab we had, and we did a lot of support of Skylab out of Rosman, North Carolina. We had a Rosman tracking site down there, an 85-foot dish up in the mountains of North Carolina, near Asheville. There wasn’t anything I can really recall special, other than we did our normal support, and it was kind of like, Space Station or Shuttle after it’s been up a while, it was just ongoing support. I can’t recall, unless someone reminds me of something that happened, anything specific in that project, other than support from Rosman was a new area of support.

[Assistant] Like you said, they were there 24 hours a day for extended periods.


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

[User] One of the big pluses at the time was the fact that one of my technicians had been there as long as I had. He came maybe a little after me, but the recorders in his lab that were used from Apollo, he had preserved those for 40-some years, and they were in total operating condition. They’ll still play tapes that we used in the network for data and stuff, so we had actual Apollo 11-type recorders that had been preserved and in-use, ready to go, if we got the tape. We had everything we needed to convert.

[Assistant] Let’s talk about some of the other programs. Skylab?

[User] Skylab was, of course, the first lab we had, and we did a lot of support of Skylab out of Rosman, North Carolina. We had a Rosman tracking site down there, an 85-foot dish up in the mountains of North Carolina, near Asheville. There wasn’t anything I can really recall special, other than we did our normal support, and it was kind of like, Space Station or Shuttle after it’s been up a while, it was just ongoing support. I can’t recall, unless someone reminds me of something that happened, anything specific in that project, other than support from Rosman was a new area of support.

[Assistant] Like you said, they were there 24 hours a day for extended periods.

[User] Right, right, absolutely.

[Assistant] Did you stay in Houston the whole time?


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

[User] Skylab was, of course, the first lab we had, and we did a lot of support of Skylab out of Rosman, North Carolina. We had a Rosman tracking site down there, an 85-foot dish up in the mountains of North Carolina, near Asheville. There wasn’t anything I can really recall special, other than we did our normal support, and it was kind of like, Space Station or Shuttle after it’s been up a while, it was just ongoing support. I can’t recall, unless someone reminds me of something that happened, anything specific in that project, other than support from Rosman was a new area of support.

[Assistant] Like you said, they were there 24 hours a day for extended periods.

[User] Right, right, absolutely.

[Assistant] Did you stay in Houston the whole time?

[User] No. On those missions, on Skylab, I was mainly at Goddard, and we would directly go to Rosman or one of the tracking sites for work, ongoing work, but mainly at Goddard once it was ongoing.

[Assistant] Apollo-Soyuz [Test Project] was the first time Americans saw a Russian launch, and did you coordinate with the Russians in the television coverage? How did that work?


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

[User] It’s easier to store, but to tell you the truth, that’s even an issue. When I was out at the Emmys, the Radio and Television Society asked me to be on a panel to talk about storage digital because digital formats change. It’s like saying I had an old video recorder that I can’t play back tapes—it’s the same in the digital world. If you’re going to keep something 20 or 30 years, that format that went on that disk is no longer used. They’re looking at how do we best preserve digital data, given that there’s more information? How do we preserve it where we still are capable of extracting it whenever we want to?

[Assistant] That’s a constant upgrade.

[User] It’s a constant, yes. Every time someone comes out with a new device or a new format, that means trouble for the old formats because now you have old devices that have to be preserved. I don’t know any way around it, and there’s never going to be a universal standard for everyone in the world to use at all times.

[Assistant] Right, because technology keeps going forward, no matter what.

[User] You’ve pretty well milked me for what I can [remember]. Hey, you get old, you don’t remember anything. It’s harder.

[Assistant] No, it was good. I think we got a lot of good information, and we certainly appreciate you coming and talking to us, sharing with us.


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

[User] It’s a constant, yes. Every time someone comes out with a new device or a new format, that means trouble for the old formats because now you have old devices that have to be preserved. I don’t know any way around it, and there’s never going to be a universal standard for everyone in the world to use at all times.

[Assistant] Right, because technology keeps going forward, no matter what.

[User] You’ve pretty well milked me for what I can [remember]. Hey, you get old, you don’t remember anything. It’s harder.

[Assistant] No, it was good. I think we got a lot of good information, and we certainly appreciate you coming and talking to us, sharing with us.

[User] I can’t say that I was excited to do it, other than I think that when people ask me—not that I was so important; I’m a little niche in a lot of things that happened. I’m sure you’ve talked to a lot of important people higher up, but when people ask you, “We want to interview you,” they’re asking because they want information that I have, and it’s almost like a duty to do it. This was pleasant, this was fine. Television interviews can be really tedious. Like that Japanese interview went five hours, and it was just difficult. I remember saying, even doing photo pictures of the Moon and stuff, the Washington Post one time took, I think, three hours to get one picture to put in the newspaper. I was standing in front of an image of the Moon, and I said, “This is tiring! I’d rather be playing golf.”

[Assistant] We’ll let you pursue that now! Thank you again.


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

[User] You’ve pretty well milked me for what I can [remember]. Hey, you get old, you don’t remember anything. It’s harder.

[Assistant] No, it was good. I think we got a lot of good information, and we certainly appreciate you coming and talking to us, sharing with us.

[User] I can’t say that I was excited to do it, other than I think that when people ask me—not that I was so important; I’m a little niche in a lot of things that happened. I’m sure you’ve talked to a lot of important people higher up, but when people ask you, “We want to interview you,” they’re asking because they want information that I have, and it’s almost like a duty to do it. This was pleasant, this was fine. Television interviews can be really tedious. Like that Japanese interview went five hours, and it was just difficult. I remember saying, even doing photo pictures of the Moon and stuff, the Washington Post one time took, I think, three hours to get one picture to put in the newspaper. I was standing in front of an image of the Moon, and I said, “This is tiring! I’d rather be playing golf.”

[Assistant] We’ll let you pursue that now! Thank you again.

[User] You’re welcome.\n\n [pause]\n\n Are you on?

[Assistant] Yes, we’re on.


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

[User] But if you were there with us after-hours, it would not be a family movie! That’s all I can tell you about Australia. It’s a fun place when we had free time.

[Assistant] I thought it was interesting because it did explain how the Australians felt about how proud they were, that they were bringing that video through.

[User] They were so proud. One other thing about the Australians is it was like from the motherland, even though they’re Australian, they have this English Queen backing, and what we would do when we went over there, we would take Playboy magazines. In those days, Playboy was the ultimate—we didn’t call it a porn magazine, but it was an adult magazine.

[Assistant] Gentleman’s magazine.

[User] Right, but what happened was you weren’t allowed to bring Playboy. When you would go into airport customs, you would clearly display this Playboy magazine innocently, like you don’t know what you’re doing. They would confiscate it and give you a big certificate that said, “By order of the Queen,” and it would go on to say, “We’ve confiscated your Playboy magazine.” They didn’t allow those in Australia. No one could sell them or buy them, so we would bring them over to get the certificate that we had the Playboy confiscated. That was a big thing to us.

[Assistant] You were proud of those certificates?


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

[User] They were so proud. One other thing about the Australians is it was like from the motherland, even though they’re Australian, they have this English Queen backing, and what we would do when we went over there, we would take Playboy magazines. In those days, Playboy was the ultimate—we didn’t call it a porn magazine, but it was an adult magazine.

[Assistant] Gentleman’s magazine.

[User] Right, but what happened was you weren’t allowed to bring Playboy. When you would go into airport customs, you would clearly display this Playboy magazine innocently, like you don’t know what you’re doing. They would confiscate it and give you a big certificate that said, “By order of the Queen,” and it would go on to say, “We’ve confiscated your Playboy magazine.” They didn’t allow those in Australia. No one could sell them or buy them, so we would bring them over to get the certificate that we had the Playboy confiscated. That was a big thing to us.

[Assistant] You were proud of those certificates?

[User] Yes, yes, “By order of the Queen, I’m hereby confiscating goods that are not allowed within the country, i.e. namely one Playboy issue 14.”

[Assistant] A badge of honor.


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

[User] That was just in answer to your first question. Want to go to question two?

[Assistant] [Laughs] No, that’s fine. I’ve been making notes as you’ve been going on, and we’ll go back and talk about them. You’re on a roll, if you want to just continue on.

[User] Okay. Well, we can go back to question two if you want, since that’s a good break point there, at the end of the first, because now I start talking about being a commander, which is different.

[Assistant] Right. It is different.

[User] Jeez. Question two, an hour and a half into this session.

[Assistant] That’s okay. What we’ll do is we’ll kind of start talking about the 31 mission and work backwards.


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

[User] Okay. Well, we can go back to question two if you want, since that’s a good break point there, at the end of the first, because now I start talking about being a commander, which is different.

[Assistant] Right. It is different.

[User] Jeez. Question two, an hour and a half into this session.

[Assistant] That’s okay. What we’ll do is we’ll kind of start talking about the 31 mission and work backwards.

[User] Okay.

[Assistant] One of the things that Steve Hawley told us was while Bruce and Kathy were in the airlock and he was up there, they were the ones that were actually supposed to take the photographs also.


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

[User] Jeez. Question two, an hour and a half into this session.

[Assistant] That’s okay. What we’ll do is we’ll kind of start talking about the 31 mission and work backwards.

[User] Okay.

[Assistant] One of the things that Steve Hawley told us was while Bruce and Kathy were in the airlock and he was up there, they were the ones that were actually supposed to take the photographs also.

[User] Absolutely right. I forgot about that. That was a nightmare.

[Assistant] But he said that you turned on the IMAX camera. Do you have any other memories about that incident?


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

[User] Well, we actually got back to the original time. We were supposed to be a seven-day mission. I think we were supposed to be a six-day mission, and we ended up being a seven-day mission.

[Assistant] Was there time you had to fill?

[User] No. We went back and we filled the time with the experiments that were originally scheduled to be done. They were really trying to figure out how to chop stuff out of our schedule to get us back in four days. So it didn’t affect us in terms of activity onboard, other than the fact—well, I take that back—other than the fact that we had to pack up and unpack every day, from Day Four, which we not ordinarily have done. That took a huge chunk of time out of the on-orbit availability of experiment time.\n\n So, some of the experiments that we would have ordinarily done, we didn’t get to do, or we didn’t get to do them for the length of time that the ground would have liked for us to have done them, because when you started buttoning up the vehicle for landing, then you stopped doing experiments. Everything went into their drawers or into their lockers, and that was it.\n\n Even after we waved off and it was decided we were going to stay on orbit for another day, you didn’t go back in and pull everything out wholesale, because some experiments you’d already fixed, if you will. If you had something live, you’d already put the death fluid in there, and so it wasn’t going to come back. It was dead, and it was fixed in perpetuity, or whatever it is. So, some things you just couldn’t reactivate.

[Assistant] One of the things that you were supposed to do on that flight was observing spiral eddies.

[User] Yes. How do you know that?

[Assistant] [Laughs] We’ve talked to other people. Actually, I’ve read a couple of different things. I think Steve Hawley’s interview, and also [Robert E.] Stevenson—


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

[User] Oh, no. Taking spiral—yes. You all did get that. In fact, Bob Stevenson—I just drew what it looked like. As a matter of fact, the one that Bob was talking about—now I remember. The picture we drew, “It could not have been,” was the claim, because it was a wrong-handed eddy. Just like in the northern hemisphere—I’ve got to get this right—I think eddies go counterclockwise. He’d kill me, you know, if—and in the southern hemisphere, because of Coriolus Effect, things go clockwise. If you want to see it, you just look at your toilet. When you flush the toilet up here, the water goes out of the toilet counterclockwise because of the Coriolus Effect. In the southern hemisphere, because it’s just the opposite, the water goes out spinning to the right, or spinning clockwise. And the eddy we saw and drew for them, it didn’t faze us because we knew that you’d see them going both ways. But the Shuttle’s theoretical position, or the position we thought we were in when we drew this eddy, you shouldn’t be able to see one that was going clockwise.\n\n What they determined, I think what Bob Stevenson and the experts determined, I think, was that there’s a transition zone around the equator, and although you shouldn’t see it, then in this transition zone you might see southern hemispheric-acting eddies in the northern hemisphere. I don’t know whether that’s what he told you or not. But I had drawn it, and so I had my proof.

[Assistant] That’s right.

[User] I didn’t have a picture to show for it.

[Assistant] You mentioned earlier that this was sort of the end-of-the-year-clearance flight.

[User] It was.

[Assistant] Were there any specific challenges that you remember on that flight that you’d like to share with us?


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

[User] You haven’t heard about the Hubble? [Laughter]

[Assistant] Not from you. [Laughter]

[User] Yes, I think it has more than lived up to the expectations. I think we have done everything that we said we were going to do, and more.

[Assistant] It must be very exciting to see that for you and all of your colleagues to watch that.

[User] One thing I ought to tell you. I think I’ve mentioned this in other interviews, but I still find it interesting. In the early days when we were still trying to get approval through Congress, [William] Proxmire—you might probably remember him—asked why the average American taxpayer should want to pay for the Hubble. It was then the ST, Space Telescope. My answer was—and this was all by mail; I didn’t ever testify in Congress, fortunately, I think—my answer was that for the price of a night at the movies every taxpayer would receive fifteen years of exciting scientific results.\n\n In the first place, I don’t think my prediction was wrong. In the second place, I recently figured whether that statement was still true, and it is. In spite of the increase in cost of the Hubble—other things have also gone up—it’s still true that the average American taxpayer is getting fifteen years of exciting science for the price of a single night at the movies.

[Assistant] And hopefully they will continue to learn more and more about those results as well.


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

[User] Yes, I think it has more than lived up to the expectations. I think we have done everything that we said we were going to do, and more.

[Assistant] It must be very exciting to see that for you and all of your colleagues to watch that.

[User] One thing I ought to tell you. I think I’ve mentioned this in other interviews, but I still find it interesting. In the early days when we were still trying to get approval through Congress, [William] Proxmire—you might probably remember him—asked why the average American taxpayer should want to pay for the Hubble. It was then the ST, Space Telescope. My answer was—and this was all by mail; I didn’t ever testify in Congress, fortunately, I think—my answer was that for the price of a night at the movies every taxpayer would receive fifteen years of exciting scientific results.\n\n In the first place, I don’t think my prediction was wrong. In the second place, I recently figured whether that statement was still true, and it is. In spite of the increase in cost of the Hubble—other things have also gone up—it’s still true that the average American taxpayer is getting fifteen years of exciting science for the price of a single night at the movies.

[Assistant] And hopefully they will continue to learn more and more about those results as well.

[User] Oh, yes, I think so.

[Assistant] When you were discussing earlier the first days and then, of course, the days that led up to the Hubble, it made me think about the different type of spacecraft or vehicles that your telescopes have used to get where they need to go. How did that change, just that piece of technology, affect how you planned?


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

[User] I sort of worry that the present system, which puts so much responsibility into people who really do have a conflict of interest. Even though it may not—you know, they may not be proposing a competing experiment for a particular mission, they do have a conflict of interest, and I guess I feel that that’s dangerous.

[Assistant] Let me take the other side of that. What was probably the most challenging part of your job? You mentioned that IUE was probably one of the proudest things that you were able to accomplish.

[User] Well, I guess it was also the most challenging in many ways because I had so very little support.

[Assistant] Yes, the difficulty of that. Did the continual change of technology, just how different that we do things in the seventies compared to doing things in the fifties, and how technology progressed, did it affect your decisions or did that have a—

[User] Well, it certainly affected what we were able to do in a major way. One of the things I did because of this history project is, I re-read Smith’s book, and I was interested to read something that I had forgotten. Apparently I was almost entirely responsible for the fact that we’re using CCDs [charge coupled devices] for the wide-angle camera, the wide-field planetary camera on the Hubble. That was, in fact, the first use of CCDs in astronomy. Now CCDs have just completely taken over astronomy since then. But I just did not feel that the intensified Vidicon, which is what most people assumed we’d use, was going to do the job. It looked to me like the CCDs should, and they have, obviously.

[Assistant] So much that changed, I know people have a hard time trying to decide what day they’re going to buy their computer because they know the next day it’s going to be better and cheaper. I was just thinking about that when you were talking about how so much change, you know, of course, you have so much, and, of course, the Challenger stopping things, and you had technology still progressing, how much did you have to go back and redo before you could do what you wanted to do?


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

[User] I don’t remember too much of that happening, actually, in spite of the Challenger redesign. As I say, the Space Telescope was pretty well set by the time, oh, it was pretty, reasonably well designed by Challenger, and it certainly, yes, it was, yes, I said, I guess I said it was almost finished at the time of Challenger, so you couldn’t do much about that.\n\n In the case of COBE, it was primarily simply a matter of a different spacecraft. I don’t remember that technology had a major role in the changes there. In the case of the Compton Gamma Ray Observatory [CGRO], it was launched by the shuttle, but it was originally designed both to have some maintenance in orbit, although because of budget, a lot of the maintenance was dropped before launch, I mean, before it was built. It was just decided that it was too expensive to put in that many maintainable components. I’m told that they felt that maintaining it in orbit might have been rather dangerous, although there were things they could do. I don’t know whether they could take care of the gyro or not. Probably not. But the thing that is striking is that it was designed to be recaptured by the shuttle and taken back to Earth, and that was some budgetary decision.

[Assistant] That’s interesting.

[User] Yes, and sad.

[Assistant] Yes.

[User] Because it was working well and was certainly a good satellite, good set of instruments getting good data.

[Assistant] You retired, I believe in 1979. When you retired, did you feel like the goals that you had set for yourself and for your program had been accomplished?


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

[User] Yes, it worked very nicely, and I continued after she died. I continued to telecommute quite a bit of the time, and now the administrative assistant in the group telecommutes three days a week, and the primary computer person, although they do have some others working, helping the group now, but the one was primarily working with me, has moved out to Arizona and is telecommuting. So I started something.

[Assistant] Your trend continues. What a legacy. I’m sure they all appreciate that, too. It’s nice to be able to have great people working for you, and everybody’s happy in that—

[User] Yes, well, I think the group was happy, although the reason I left—as it happened, I think it was probably the best thing in a lot of ways. But the civil service person, this was a contractor, of course, the civil service person, who had taken over our part of the contract, and I did not get along. I was asked to leave. I think, to some extent, she was jealous of me, but there were other—I mean, we also disagreed in many areas.

[Assistant] Sure. When we were preparing for this time with you, I read that someone had quoted you as saying that you had categorized your career into three phases: research and teaching and management and support. Do you still feel that way?

[User] Yes, yes, very definitely. In my period at Yerkes, I stayed Yerkes for six years after I got my degree, did graduate-level teaching and spent most of my time on research. Of course, NRL, the three and a half years at NRL were research entirely except for this informal course I gave. Then I had the management period, which was very definitely management. Then the support services contractor. Now I guess I might say I have a fourth area that I’m keeping pretty busy on a whole variety of volunteer activities.

[Assistant] And enjoying those as well?


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

[User] Yes, well, I think the group was happy, although the reason I left—as it happened, I think it was probably the best thing in a lot of ways. But the civil service person, this was a contractor, of course, the civil service person, who had taken over our part of the contract, and I did not get along. I was asked to leave. I think, to some extent, she was jealous of me, but there were other—I mean, we also disagreed in many areas.

[Assistant] Sure. When we were preparing for this time with you, I read that someone had quoted you as saying that you had categorized your career into three phases: research and teaching and management and support. Do you still feel that way?

[User] Yes, yes, very definitely. In my period at Yerkes, I stayed Yerkes for six years after I got my degree, did graduate-level teaching and spent most of my time on research. Of course, NRL, the three and a half years at NRL were research entirely except for this informal course I gave. Then I had the management period, which was very definitely management. Then the support services contractor. Now I guess I might say I have a fourth area that I’m keeping pretty busy on a whole variety of volunteer activities.

[Assistant] And enjoying those as well?

[User] And enjoying those, too, and also doing other things, but, well, I’m the secretary of the National Capital Astronomers, which is primarily an amateur organization, although it does contain a number of professional. I’m now, as of a few weeks ago, assistant treasurer of our local AAUW branch, but I also manage their web pages. I read for the blind and dyslexic because they were anxious to get technical readers and they particularly wanted somebody who could read astronomy—

[Assistant] Oh, how neat.


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

[User] Yes, yes, very definitely. In my period at Yerkes, I stayed Yerkes for six years after I got my degree, did graduate-level teaching and spent most of my time on research. Of course, NRL, the three and a half years at NRL were research entirely except for this informal course I gave. Then I had the management period, which was very definitely management. Then the support services contractor. Now I guess I might say I have a fourth area that I’m keeping pretty busy on a whole variety of volunteer activities.

[Assistant] And enjoying those as well?

[User] And enjoying those, too, and also doing other things, but, well, I’m the secretary of the National Capital Astronomers, which is primarily an amateur organization, although it does contain a number of professional. I’m now, as of a few weeks ago, assistant treasurer of our local AAUW branch, but I also manage their web pages. I read for the blind and dyslexic because they were anxious to get technical readers and they particularly wanted somebody who could read astronomy—

[Assistant] Oh, how neat.

[User] —and I do various other things. Give lectures. So maybe my fourth portion of my career is as a volunteer.

[Assistant] But all those great credentials, all the previous roles have, certainly will make you a supreme volunteer. You’ll have so many different opportunities to go for.


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

[User] And enjoying those, too, and also doing other things, but, well, I’m the secretary of the National Capital Astronomers, which is primarily an amateur organization, although it does contain a number of professional. I’m now, as of a few weeks ago, assistant treasurer of our local AAUW branch, but I also manage their web pages. I read for the blind and dyslexic because they were anxious to get technical readers and they particularly wanted somebody who could read astronomy—

[Assistant] Oh, how neat.

[User] —and I do various other things. Give lectures. So maybe my fourth portion of my career is as a volunteer.

[Assistant] But all those great credentials, all the previous roles have, certainly will make you a supreme volunteer. You’ll have so many different opportunities to go for.

[User] Yes, and I have done a little teaching since I—well, I actually did a tiny bit before I retired, but I’ve done a little at the local community college in the summer, teaching, well, I’ve done one course for advanced high school students and several courses for high school science teachers.

[Assistant] Oh, what a value for them. That’s terrific.


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

[User] —and I do various other things. Give lectures. So maybe my fourth portion of my career is as a volunteer.

[Assistant] But all those great credentials, all the previous roles have, certainly will make you a supreme volunteer. You’ll have so many different opportunities to go for.

[User] Yes, and I have done a little teaching since I—well, I actually did a tiny bit before I retired, but I’ve done a little at the local community college in the summer, teaching, well, I’ve done one course for advanced high school students and several courses for high school science teachers.

[Assistant] Oh, what a value for them. That’s terrific.

[User] I’ve been co-teaching those and it’s been fun. As I think I’ve indicated, I’ve always liked teaching, and most people seem to think I’m a good teacher. So it works out.

[Assistant] Well, you certainly have shared so many of your ideas, which is, of course, the foundation of teaching, is that sharing of information. I was thinking back when you were talking earlier about not quite sure when your interest began to be an astronomer, but certainly it was at a time when there weren’t very many astronomers. What was the perception then of astronomers compared to what maybe the perception of astronomy is now?


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

[User] Yes, and I have done a little teaching since I—well, I actually did a tiny bit before I retired, but I’ve done a little at the local community college in the summer, teaching, well, I’ve done one course for advanced high school students and several courses for high school science teachers.

[Assistant] Oh, what a value for them. That’s terrific.

[User] I’ve been co-teaching those and it’s been fun. As I think I’ve indicated, I’ve always liked teaching, and most people seem to think I’m a good teacher. So it works out.

[Assistant] Well, you certainly have shared so many of your ideas, which is, of course, the foundation of teaching, is that sharing of information. I was thinking back when you were talking earlier about not quite sure when your interest began to be an astronomer, but certainly it was at a time when there weren’t very many astronomers. What was the perception then of astronomers compared to what maybe the perception of astronomy is now?

[User] Well, it certainly was a lot less known, and I guess maybe today people get astronomy and astrology confused a little less. I’m not sure. But, yes, when I joined the International, the International Astronomical Union [IAU] supposedly contains essentially all professional astronomers in the world, when I joined it, that was the first year the membership got over 1,000. Now it’s pretty close to 10,000. So that’s been quite a change. But the fact that the field is small has made it interesting because the fact that the field was small means that astronomers knew each other all over the world. This has made it very pleasant, and it’s also helped in my job at NASA because, of course, in our international programs we dealt with astronomers in other countries. The fact that they knew me and I knew them in many cases made things a lot easier. Of course, the other thing is pretty obvious. As a woman, I was better known than someone else probably, than a man would have been with the same career. So people remember me.

[Assistant] Out of that thousand, I’m sure there weren’t too many women. Is that—?


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

[User] Yes.

[Assistant] You spent so many years day in and day out and then something other people literally reached the stars from one way or the other. Was there a time that you thought maybe you should have take a different road, or were you always glad to be in the path that you were in?

[User] I think I was glad to be in the path. As I said, the period at NRL, I did feel that it was not a field I stay in indefinitely because of the fact that I didn’t have the electronic background, but I enjoyed it. I found it very helpful when I went to NASA because, of course, there I was, in NRL, I was in an engineering organization, so I was dealing with engineers full-time.\n\n One of the problems when I started with NASA was that the astronomers knew what they wanted to do and the engineers were perfectly willing to help them do it, but they couldn’t communicate with each other. So I felt that much of my time in, or at least an important part of my time in the early period, was acting as an interpreter between the astronomers and the engineers.

[Assistant] Yes, finding a common language, I guess.

[User] Finding a com—well, yes. It really did need somebody who had some feeling for both sides. So my period at NRL, it was a happy period. I’m not unhappy about it and particularly in view of the fact that I didn’t see, I thought it was a much better opportunity than I saw anywhere else in the university area. So I don’t feel unhappy about any part of my career.

[Assistant] Any time at all that you come on something that was possible maybe unexplainable as you were starting to put things together in your research or having maybe the proposal people wanted you to do something that would push the envelope, would maybe answer some questions that people have asked for decades and no one wanted to reach to find those answers?


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

[User] I think I was glad to be in the path. As I said, the period at NRL, I did feel that it was not a field I stay in indefinitely because of the fact that I didn’t have the electronic background, but I enjoyed it. I found it very helpful when I went to NASA because, of course, there I was, in NRL, I was in an engineering organization, so I was dealing with engineers full-time.\n\n One of the problems when I started with NASA was that the astronomers knew what they wanted to do and the engineers were perfectly willing to help them do it, but they couldn’t communicate with each other. So I felt that much of my time in, or at least an important part of my time in the early period, was acting as an interpreter between the astronomers and the engineers.

[Assistant] Yes, finding a common language, I guess.

[User] Finding a com—well, yes. It really did need somebody who had some feeling for both sides. So my period at NRL, it was a happy period. I’m not unhappy about it and particularly in view of the fact that I didn’t see, I thought it was a much better opportunity than I saw anywhere else in the university area. So I don’t feel unhappy about any part of my career.

[Assistant] Any time at all that you come on something that was possible maybe unexplainable as you were starting to put things together in your research or having maybe the proposal people wanted you to do something that would push the envelope, would maybe answer some questions that people have asked for decades and no one wanted to reach to find those answers?

[User] Oh, well, sure. Certainly some of the proposals were— in fact, particularly in the early days when we were doing surveys, it was a matter of simply trying to find the answers to the unknown. As far as my research, I made some interesting discoveries, but I guess I wouldn’t say that they were unknowable because I found them out.

[Assistant] Well, they were unknown at one time.


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

[User] That’s the fun of science.

[Assistant] I was saying that’s fun of astronomy because it’s a endless quest—

[User] Oh, I think any science field is.

[Assistant] Yes, when we look up at the stars, I guess that the one quick place that we know that you’re looking only a small part and there’s just so much more to see. You were the first astronomer for NASA, the first female senior executive, and your list of firsts go on and on, but looking back, did you at the time realize the ground that you were breaking for so many others? Not just for women but for other astronomers and for people who wanted to move into a field that they loved?

[User] I don’t know. I think I did but not something that I payed all that much attention to. I guess that’s the best way to put it. As far as other astronomers, I don’t know to what extent I broke the ice for them. I think the women’s movement generally broke the ice a lot more for them than the few of us who did things early.

[Assistant] Do you feel your field of astronomy is certainly one that’s of value today for people to move into?


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

[User] Oh, I think any science field is.

[Assistant] Yes, when we look up at the stars, I guess that the one quick place that we know that you’re looking only a small part and there’s just so much more to see. You were the first astronomer for NASA, the first female senior executive, and your list of firsts go on and on, but looking back, did you at the time realize the ground that you were breaking for so many others? Not just for women but for other astronomers and for people who wanted to move into a field that they loved?

[User] I don’t know. I think I did but not something that I payed all that much attention to. I guess that’s the best way to put it. As far as other astronomers, I don’t know to what extent I broke the ice for them. I think the women’s movement generally broke the ice a lot more for them than the few of us who did things early.

[Assistant] Do you feel your field of astronomy is certainly one that’s of value today for people to move into?

[User] Yes, although fresh Ph.D.s will tell you that jobs are very hard to get. They are if the job you want is a research position in a university. But very, very few astronomers are unemployed. So I would say yes. What I tell people about astronomy as a career is go in with your eyes open but if you really want to do it and you recognize the problems, do it. I mean, after all, when I graduated there were extremely few jobs in astronomy, to put it mildly, but then, of course, there were a lot fewer astronomers. This was right after the war when we had the influx of GIs coming in and getting degrees. Even at that time the average number of astron—Ph.D.s in the country was about—per year was about twenty-five, male and female. Today, well, it’s probably closer to 1,000. Maybe not that high, but it’s certainly several hundred. There just weren’t that many jobs either, as you can imagine.

[Assistant] And do you feel like the taxpayers are still getting their money’s worth on—


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

[User] I mean, when you look at the amount of money that’s going into astronomy, including both the space and ground-based program, which is very large by historical standards, and you compare that with the amount of money that’s going into, say, football or baseball or cigarettes or alcohol, it’s trivial. The question is which do you get more from, and I don’t know. It depends on who you are and what you want.

[Assistant] What your value is, that’s exactly right. When we were talking about, I was thinking about satellites, and even that word has changed, I guess, in its meaning for lots of people. I was going to ask you and I forgot earlier about your reaction or what your thoughts were when you first heard about Sputnik and, of course, and how that affected so much more. When you look up at the sky now, there’s more than just stars. You have artificial or man-made objects as well.

[User] Well, I guess mainly I was excited, and I was in NRL at that time and we immediately went over to the lab and started listening to it, but I don’t remember much beyond that, except for the excitement.

[Assistant] And, of course, there’s been so many more other objects that are up there now, and then, of course—

[User] Yes. Now they’re sort of routine. You don’t even pay attention to launches of anything except manned launches.

[Assistant] Is it like what a traveler riding down the street and they have this wonderful landscape they look, but they don’t look at the billboards? Is that how you do when you see this other space debris, or is that come to block your vision at all when you’re starting to—


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

[User] Well, I guess mainly I was excited, and I was in NRL at that time and we immediately went over to the lab and started listening to it, but I don’t remember much beyond that, except for the excitement.

[Assistant] And, of course, there’s been so many more other objects that are up there now, and then, of course—

[User] Yes. Now they’re sort of routine. You don’t even pay attention to launches of anything except manned launches.

[Assistant] Is it like what a traveler riding down the street and they have this wonderful landscape they look, but they don’t look at the billboards? Is that how you do when you see this other space debris, or is that come to block your vision at all when you’re starting to—

[User] Well, space debris doesn’t block vision, but it’s a problem in satellite safety, and it will be a problem in other ways eventually. But right now it’s primarily a matter of damage.

[Assistant] I guess the other area that we were just curious about your involvement was the search for extraterrestrial intelligence. Did that cross your realm of possibility?


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

[User] Yes. Now they’re sort of routine. You don’t even pay attention to launches of anything except manned launches.

[Assistant] Is it like what a traveler riding down the street and they have this wonderful landscape they look, but they don’t look at the billboards? Is that how you do when you see this other space debris, or is that come to block your vision at all when you’re starting to—

[User] Well, space debris doesn’t block vision, but it’s a problem in satellite safety, and it will be a problem in other ways eventually. But right now it’s primarily a matter of damage.

[Assistant] I guess the other area that we were just curious about your involvement was the search for extraterrestrial intelligence. Did that cross your realm of possibility?

[User] It did, but not in a very major way. When NASA first became involved with it, I was handling that part of the program, but I never got very deeply involved in it, and it gradually went over to the planetary program. I have to admit that I had and still have mixed feelings about that. I think that the SETI Program is highly unlikely to succeed. I think there is life elsewhere in the universe. I can’t prove it, but I’d be very surprised if there isn’t, but that there would be life sufficiently like us in both capability and evolutionary status to communicate with us and yet still be near enough to communicate, I think personally is highly unlikely. On the other hand, there are people whom I respect very highly, scientists I respect very highly, who do think it’s worthwhile. So, as I say, I have mixed feelings.

[Assistant] Yes, but you’ve had such a very full career and still haven’t finished. You have so many more things that you’re doing now and sharing information. Are there other things that you can think of that you would like to add or maybe something that we didn’t cover or maybe something we just talked about briefly that you would like to add some other details on? I’m just kind of going through my notes and trying to make sure that—