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I came to Huntsville in the Fall of 1961 to teach school for the 1961-1962 school
year. Early in 1962, on a Saturday morning, I was down at the old Russell Erskine hotel
just off the downtown square. Typical of southern cities, Huntsville, like most of
them, has a downtown hotel. And there was a barber shop in the hotel, and I was just
in for a haircut. The barber shop was very full. Saturday was a popular day, big
business for them. I was sitting there and there was only one seat left, and Dr. Von
Braun came in and sat next to me. Of course I was in awe of him, but of course he would
not know me from anybody. He had his briefcase and papers that he was reviewing, and
when he finished, he put those away and closed his briefcase. And he
turned and smiled and spoke to me. He had a very charming smile, he was
a very charming man. He struck up the conversation and asked me what I
was doing, and I told him I was teaching, and he asked me what. I told
him math and science. He said, "oh, well what kind of background do you
have?" I had just graduated the spring before, it was all still pretty
fresh. He wanted to review every course I'd taken and what it had covered
and what kind of grade I had gotten. That was pretty easy to remember
I'd gotten pretty good grades. It was still fresh enough that I still remembered most of the course content.
We went through all of that. I was in fact being interviewed without realizing it. At the
end of the conversation, he asked me if I had ever thought about working for NASA, and I
honestly had not. I had always had a fascination with NASA, but I had never thought about being
qualified to work there. My image of this was that these were all very advanced degree, PhDs
from MIT, Georgia Tech, and so forth. I had graduated with a degree in math and physics
from a relatively small school that was previously known as a teachers college. So, I didn't
feel that I belonged with this group. I'd never considered working with it. But, he made
me that offer. It was a remarkable thing to see a test. You were very close. You were only
about 800 yards away. When you watch a launch from Kennedy - even from the closest spot -
you're a little better than three miles away and the vehicle is getting away from you, too.
Whereas here, you could watch a full duration static test that could last over two minutes, and
it doesn't go anywhere. You were half a mile away and watching through a slit. No protection
in front of you, just looking through a slit. I'm sure that the OSHA and the SHE people
would be shocked at that, but they didn't have quite the emphasis that today they place on
safety. But, you could watch there, and when it would fire, they were pumping large amounts
of water, about 250 thousand gallons of water a minute through the base of the test stand. When it would fire,
immediately all that water deluge
- it was there both to protect the flame trench and also to suppress the
noise, although it didn't suppress very much of it, but all that converted
into super-heated steam. It would seem a few seconds later - it would take that time for the
vibration to reach you and you could feel not only the ground shake, but you could feel the
acoustics vibrations beating on your face, and the heat from it. Of course we didn't have
goggles or earplugs or anything. I'm sure that wasn't approved either. It wouldn't be approved
today. But, it was a really, really exciting thing. It was a unique opportunity, and even
though I was starting very much at the bottom, it was a fun, fun time. Just to be a part
of it. It's like, you might be a rookie on the team, but if the team is winning the world
series, you get a world series ring. You might not be the star, but you were there and you
were part of it. And I had that feeling here. I was gifted in that unique time and place
to be a part of history. It was fun! I'm hopeful that we go back to the moon in my lifetime.
I won't probably be here to see us go to Mars, I hope my children do, and future generations.
I still believe in the space program. I haven't lost any of the enthusiasm I felt back
then, I just would like to see a new generation of young engineers, managers and office
workers that play a role in it get to see the fruit of their labors. I hope that still happens.