APOLLO RETROSPECTIVE

I had been following the space program somewhat, but that was when it truly “hit me” that we were actually going to the moon!  At that moment I knew what I wanted to do for a career.  

My parents graciously endured my youthful, over-the-top enthusiasm for space travel.  This included sitting in a separate room with a “TV dinner” watching every minute of the coverage of Apollo 11 on July 20, 1969, and staying awake for nearly 48 hours in front of the TV during the lunar stay of Apollo 15.

All that, plus being a Seattle native, made pursuing a degree in aeronautics and astronautics at the University of Washington the obvious path.  I have held onto space travel as the central theme in my career, first at Boeing on the Inertial Upper Stage program, then combustion research in graduate school, followed by high-speed propulsion work at United Technologies Research Center.  Ultimately this led to teaching aerospace engineering at Worcester Polytechnic Institute and now at the UW.  

Naturally, I also applied to the NASA astronaut program for a number of years.  Well, NASA didn’t choose me, but what I did was even better: sharing my passion for space with our students.  I have told them that I am counting on them to get us to Mars, but wherever their careers may take them, to always remember their own “aerospace moments.”

“Second star to the right and straight on till morning!”
– Peter Pan (and James T. Kirk)

I don’t recall seeing the televised Apollo 11 moon walk (probably past my bedtime) but I do remember watching one of the Apollo splashdowns (I think it was Apollo 16) in my elementary school. They wheeled a black-and-white TV set into the classroom on a tall cart, and we all watched the little capsule parachute down to a safe landing in the water.

Incidentally, the commander of Apollo 16 was John Young. About a quarter of a century later I found myself in Houston, Texas, wearing a brand new suit, interviewing to become a new astronaut . . . and sitting across the table from me was the chief of the astronaut selection board, John Young. It took three separate interviews across three years to convince the guy I’d watched come home from the Moon when I was in grade school that I’d be a good hiring prospect . . .  

Everyone else is watching the damn TV and I’m there watching the monitors reading oxygen and temperature levels!

There were many mountains and valleys of highs and lows. Each team had a success, but then the stress level was still high because our astronauts were not home safe yet. Each team would leave in the dark and look up at the Moon, and it was amazing. But the next team had to go in and do its part. It was very emotional for all of us.

Apollo’s biggest legacy is what Neil referred to: It wasn’t just the astronauts – it was 400,000 people working on it from the janitors keeping the environment clean to the technicians. Everyone did a small part, and the joint effort was incredible.

But 50 years later, I still yearn for increased human exploration and travel further than the Moon, more in line with sci-fi expeditions. I hope to see such travels in my lifetime.

I continued to live out my dream by working on the Space Shuttle Program as an Aeronautics Flight Controller at NASA Houston Mission Control. It was an exciting job, working with astronauts and other engineers developing mission objectives and flight rules. My career continued at Boeing and then into academia, teaching at the UW for over 20 years. My roots always remained in space (if that’s possible). I started writing at the end of my career and into retirement, publishing 2 books on outer space: The Politics and Perils of Space Exploration and Space Wars, both Springer publications. I remain and always will be a “space cadet.”

President Kennedy’s words “we go to the Moon . . . and do the other things, not because they are easy but because they are hard” is still as relevant today as it was in the Apollo era. Similarly the innovations being developed for space flight have unforeseen major benefits for society then as they do today. I involve my students in these types of research projects and provide outreach to students across the country so that will be inspired to actively contribute to future developments on the ground and into space.

The successful launch of Sputnik was a seminal moment for me. I remember exactly where I was and what I was doing when I heard of it from a neighbor – I was walking to the local drugstore to buy chemicals for my rocket experiments.

After graduating from McGill University in May 1966, I left for Princeton University to work in the Electric Propulsion Lab for the summer and then to start in the doctoral program in the Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering Department.  My research focused on a class of electric space thrusters known as MPD arcs. Thus, I was in Princeton during the seminal events that led to the Apollo 11 lunar landing.  

The lead-up to this remarkable achievement was a nail-biter.  In January 1967 we heard the tragic news of the Apollo 1 fire during a routine exercise at the Kennedy Space Center that claimed the lives of three astronauts.  It was tragic, and people began to doubt whether we would ever go to the Moon.

However, NASA forged ahead with the Apollo 7 mission, the first of the Apollo manned missions.  Even though it was confined to low Earth orbit, it was a huge relief that NASA was back on track with its lunar program. Apollo 8 quickly followed This mission was a huge gamble, in that it was the first time that a full-up Saturn V vehicle was launched with a human cargo.  

The emotions I felt at the time were indescribable.  To hear astronaut Frank Borman address the world on Christmas Eve 1968 with a reading from Genesis sent chills up and down my spine.  We had done it! We had circled the Moon, and we had also beaten the Soviets to it!  

Then came July and the Apollo 11 mission.  My girlfriend and I watched the launch of the Saturn V and all the Apollo-11-related newscasts from whichever of the two TVs in the graduate dorm was showing Walter Cronkite’s broadcast. The newscasts were at once thrilling and nerve-wracking!  

The lunar landing sequence had all of us in the packed TV room on the edges of our seats and holding our breaths.  The LEM was starting to run out of fuel and there was a field of big boulders ahead. Good grief. . . what’s going to happen?!  

When we heard Neil Armstrong calmly announce “Houston, Tranquility Base here, the Eagle has landed,” the room burst out in a deafening roar of a cheer!  We were all beside ourselves. Wow!  Wow! Wow!  Supercalifragilisticexpalidocious!  

The greatest human endeavor, ever, had been achieved, and so well!  If we, humans could put one of us on the Moon, then we could do anything!  All of a sudden, nothing seemed impossible! That feeling stays with me today, 50 years later.

For me, Apollo 11 reinvigorated my determination to take my research to a successful outcome, which I did. “If we can land a man on the Moon, I can do this,” is what I kept telling myself. I have used that mantra often over the years.

My only disappointment with Apollo was that it happened so fast! I missed out on contributing.

He couldn’t tell us at the time because it was a secret project.  He was a mechanical engineer and working as a contractor to Boeing.  Apollo 11 was launched by a Saturn V expendable launch rocket. The “V” designation originates from the five powerful F-1 engines that powered the first stage of the rocket.  I know we would have been bursting with pride the day Apollo 11 landed had we known our dad played a small part in it. My dad was so thrilled when I went to work for Boeing years later.

As it turns out, I don’t remember much more about Apollo 11 except that our family television was broken, and we all sat around my older brother’s 9-inch black and white television to watch.  It was a proud moment for Americans.

I, like most of my astronautics friends, know exactly where we were when Apollo 11 launched, and when the Eagle landed. Neil and Buzz were only in the cabin for a few hours and then they took their moon walk.  One thing that was amazing is that the world essentially shut down for those few hours. Wars and crime essentially took a vacation so everyone who could get to a TV could watch the landing and then the moonwalkers. It was probably the first worldwide event watched live by a significant portion of the planet.

It was a huge political success for the USA, not that it made any difference in the Cold War, but we all could hold our heads up a little higher. The bigger success was the huge improvement in STEM education and the spin-offs from all the technology advancements made to enable Apollo 11. We got solid-state digital computers, new alloys for engines, fuel cells, cryogenic insulation, high frequency communications, and dozens of other breakthroughs that drove our economy higher and made us the envy of the world.  Many of today’s “Tech Billionaires” got their start as a result of the improvements in STEM education and the technologies spun-off from the Apollo program.

Now, fifty years later, it almost seems surreal. That a group of men and women could start with captured V2 rockets, build an entire technical infrastructure, and go to the moon and back in less than ten years seems impossible. It was a special time and a special group of people. Many of them are gone now, but we should take the time to celebrate their accomplishments appropriately. As it turns out I will be a cruise ship in Northern Norway on July 19 of this year, but I plan to tip a few in their honor.

The highlands on the lunar far side have been pummeled for billions of years by everything the universe can sling at it, and we cannot predict what may have been created by impact chemistry in vacuum, extreme temperatures, and low gravity.

Even without boots on lunar ground, there is an excitement about the poles: craters of eternal darkness, peaks of eternal light (energy!), chemical signatures of water (air and fuel!) and ammonia (nitrogen!), and hints of more interesting stuff.  

Finally now, there is renewed interest in the Moon. In the self-declared space settlement technical community, we see the Moon as a place to do business, the primary source of materials to build and grow the human economy into cis-lunar space.

We are roadmapping infrastructure development, analyzing processes and economics to supply commodities from lunar and asteroid materials, talking with Congress about property rights and legal frameworks to enable industrial development, and cheering on billionaires and NASA as they make progress to get us back to the Moon.  And stay there this time.