In 1964, I was medically separated from the Navy in California at age 23 with a wife and a newborn child.  My parents were then living in Hollywood, Fl so we headed East to see them and figure out what a Naval Academy grad was going to do with the rest of his life.  After searching the Miami want ads I chanced upon an ad from Boeing looking for engineers on the Apollo program at KSC.  I interviewed and was hired by Boeing by John Redmond into the Systems Engineering department in November of 1964.  I was about the four hundredth person hired by Boeing (led by Wendall Clark) which would eventually grow to several thousand.

1964-1973

Shortly after hiring in I was assigned to the team preparing Boeing's response to the Apollo/Saturn RFP and acted as coordinator along with Charlie Friend to compile the inputs of all of the many engineering disciplines into a proposal.  Based on my performance in that task, Mitch Hart requested me to be his Administrative Assistant while setting up and hiring personnel for the Procedures and Specifications and Requirements group.  During the buildup this was exciting but I became bored and wanted to become part of the hands on Launch Team.  I requested a transfer to the Test Engineering group under Howard (Hardy Hardcastle) and reported to the Liquid Hydrogen group on Pad 39A under Rocky Calvetto. The Lead engineers were Stu Woodward and Wes Westmoreland.  Gail Griebel patiently taught me the intricities of the LH2 System. Jack Kramer was my cohart in getting every job done right. About that time they were conducting cold flow tests to validate the LH2 transfer system and preparing for the first Tanking test of the non flight Facilities Integration Vehicle, SA-500F.  I was assigned to monitor the S-IVB tanking as C4HU in Firing Room One and supported the rest of The Saturn V launches from one console or another.  On SA-508 I controlled the LH2 tanking as CCLH.  Incidentally this was Apollo 13.

We often referred to the Liquid Hydrogen system as a big vacuum system that incidentallly transferred hydrogen.  I became expert in operating vacuum pumps and performing mass spectrometer leak checks of the vacuum jacketed piping.  There were about forty vacuum sections each on LC39 A & B; and over twenty on each of the three LUTS (Umbilical Towers).  Of course we also had to offload countless trailers of LH2 into the 800000 gallon storage dewer, perform component, subsystem and system level tests.  The burn pond where vented hydrogen gas was disposed of was a continuous challenge with approximately 1500 individually adjusted bubble caps to maintain the proper vent pressures.  We also prepared all of the system level test procedures and worked with the Test Conductors on the Launch Countdown and Tanking procedures.  Also there were endless modifications and problems to resolve.

My favorite Apollo memory was performing my final walkdown of the LUT just before launching Apollo 11.  We were so aware of the enormity of what we were about to do.  The MSS had been rolled back revealing the enormous Saturn V to full view.  It was after dark and the spotlights were casting their cones of illumination on the stack. I was virtually alone on the tower as I examined every component of the LH2 system to be as sure as I could that "my" system would do its job.  It was just me and the Saturn V with a bright moon overhead.  I would look at the moon , then at the rocket and think, " I don't want to be anywhere but right where I am right now"

On the eve of the fortieth anniversary of Apollo 11 I was confused because of the above story as to whether I was on the prime Firing Room crew or was on the back up team for that historic launch. I wrote my fellow systems engineer Jack Kramer who wrote the following:

"You were C4HU for Apollo 11. I was CPH1. You were in charge of the SIVB level while we bypassed the replenish valve because of the leaking valve. I have (at home) the Procedure change you wrote,(click here) so we could do it. Those we long days. You probably did the walkdown of the system then came to the firing room. It was always the best on night shift looking at that monster in the floodlights.

Wayne Gray and Red Davis, a safety guy and I were on the launcher while you detailed the plans for torquing the valve bolts and leak checking the valve. When we warmed up the valve with the hard hat bucket brigade I came back to the firing room and you and I controlled the level by cycling the main fill valve using the slow fill mode. If we hadn't controlled the leak and maintained proper LH2 level the launch would have been scrubbed for the day."

I was twenty-eight years old when we landed on the moon, responible for loading 600000 gallons of LH2 on the "moon rocket". The managers were in their early thirties and someone over forty was "the old man". Exciting times!

Things were way different back then safeywise.  Often I would climb outside of the handrails on the 240 foot level of the tower and shinny out on the vent line to inspect a pipe or expansion joint.  Never gave a thought to a safety belt!  During one cold flow test I got permission to stand out at the burn pond to monitor the flame patterns during venting which caused a hundred foot square by hundred foot high conflagration.  And once we had a leak on the twelve inch vent valve from the storage tank.  At that time helium for inerting was a rare and expensive commodity and it was going to take months for the tank to warm up enough to inert it with nitrogen so we decided to remove the vent valve with a partially full tank.  We all had on anti static clothes and leg stats and fans to blow the hydrogen away, but as soon as the flange was loosened we were enveloped in a cloud of hydrogen vapor.  I was sure an explosion would ensue, but we had little choice but to complete the job.  Somehow we survived.

After the Apollo program was prematurely canceled, I was assigned to modify Pad 39B to support the launch of the Saturn-IB from the milkstool for the Skylab program.  What a clever idea that was!  During that period I received my MBA from FSU.  After supporting all of the S-IB launches to Skylab, as the workforce was being decimated, I volunteered for layoff when a job launching Atlas-Centaur became available at LC36.

1973-1978

I spent five wonderful years launching like the early space pioneers.  General Dynamics had only about three hundred people on the whole program at CCAFS versus the tens of thousands on Apollo at KSC.  There was no doubt who was responsible when something good or bad occurred on your system on Atlas-Centaur.  I worked for Silas Baker and Clay Dennis with Dave Rogers as Lead Engineer. Hank Eskinsen was my mentor while learning the Centaur systems. I was the Centaur Pneumatics engineer and brought some valuable vacuum knowledge to the Centaur program.  One of the prime purposes of performing a tanking test was to verify the integrity of the Centaur intermediate bulkhead which separated the oxygen and hydrogen tanks. Almost inevitably the bulkhead would fail its vacuum check under the cryo condition resulting in a myriad of leak checks and another expensive tanking test.  I suggested many changes to the Centaur bulkhead hardware and the ground vacuum monitoring equipment which after implementation resulted in never again failing the test.  I participated in about thirty Atlas-Centaur launches.  With the advent of the Space Shuttle it was announced that all unmanned launch vehicles would be discontinued so I went to KSC in search of some job security.  As we know now some 23 years later they are still launching Atlas-Centaus as a result of the Challenger disaster.

1978-1997

I was at KSC interviewing with Rockwell and James Walker/ Walt Antonewski for ECLSS when Bob Bucina saw me and said if I was going to work on Shuttle it would be in Main Propulsion.  Bob had been lead engineer on the Liquid Oxygen system on Apollo and we had worked closely together on that program. He was now Manager of MPS. This was in 1978 and we didn't have a Shuttle, any test procedures and no software for the new LPS computerized launch consoles. Many a long hour was spent learning the system and preparing test requirements, system and integrated procedures, and the software to operate, control and monitor everything.  Bill Heink was my supervisor and Gary Frank, Bob Bowman and I prepared almost all of the first round of MPS software and test procedures. Roy Austin, Ken Kirkland Dick Carlson were instrumental for the SSME group.   It was amazing that everything came together to support a STS-1 launch in 1981.  By that time I was Supervisor of Main Propulsion/SSME and remained in that position until Lockheed won the Launch Processing Contract. I stayed with Rockwell as the MPS System Specialist along with Ken Smith, and later Larry Fineberg, Gary Shirey, Tom Thorson and now astronaut, Frank Caldeiro.

I'll always remember the first Dry CDDT (Countdown Demonstration Test).  It took weeks to get through the Count. Now it is routinely a half day test.  Also during Dry CDDT in March 1981 where two men were killed after being cleared into the aft fuselage before the inerting nitrogen had been removed.  The major fire that virtually enveloped the Space Shuttle after a SSME main fuel valve failed to close following engine abort.  Inadvertently dry spinning the LH2 recirculation pumps to 40000 rpm before STS-1, and overpressurizing the MPS helium tanks to almost 6000 psi (4000 psi normal).  The discovery of out of round disconnect seals that caused leaks on both 17 inch disconnects and required a roll back to separate the Orbiter from the ET to repair.  Developing the leak isolation test that checked out the whole MPS at one time, a major step in reducing processing time.  The Big Bangs that shook the whole shuttle stack, blamed on creaky MPS expansion joints but later proven to be caused by TSM (Tail Service Mast) struts.  The major modifications to the Orbiter-ET 17 inch disconnects after they slammed closed during flow testing.  Removing a leaky Gox disconnect and discovering broken belleville washers. Endless meetings to ensure all criticalites were properly categorized.  The same for the OMRSD (Requirements Document). Working with the most excellent engineers at KSC, Houston and Rockwell Downey. Solving problems with John Tribe, Horace Lamberth, Bill Heink, Bob Lang, Phil Cota, Hugh Brasseaux, Don Previtt, Dave Rigby, Harv LeBlanc, Don Jones, Jay Yohinaga, Tom Shupe, Herb Wolfson, John Kremer, Bill Marumoto, Charlie Sosa, Lee Solid, John Sterritt, John Plowden and so many others. Dick Carlson for helping me spell SSME and understand its workings. The whole PSIG (Propulsion Sytems Integration Group). Most significantly, the Challenger Explosion which brought the program and all of us to our knees, only to rise again to greater accomplishments.  Getting to know John Young before his first historic Shuttle flight. Working with the Test Conductors and Test Directors who did a fantastic job of integrating everything into a workable Countdown. Being a part of the finest Launch Team on Earth  There were so many challenges and always the team came up with solutions.

During my service I was awarded the Silver Snoopy by Astronaut Jim Newman, the Rockwell President's Award (twice), the NASA Manned Space Flight Safety Award, and numerous NASA Achievement Awards.

The Challenger accident affected us all and after that the job lost much of its thrill for me.  The last few minutes of each subsequent countdown was very emotionally trying for me and made my decision to retire in 1997 much easier.  Over the years I helped launch 115 vehicles into Space, all from the Firing Room or Blockhouse.  When I think of the twists and turns in our paths, I still say, " I can't think of anywhere else I'd rather have been."