My Branch Chief was George Low, a highly respected engineer and manager. Within less than a year, George was also at NACA HQ, as a key leader in the study of what to do after the Mercury project. Out of this and other work, came the core ideas for President Kennedy’s later commitment to Apollo as a primary national goal. Looking back, I have to believe that the high regard which George had earned contributed to our being asked to join the Mercury team.
So our work started on Mercury, first on a part-time basis. But very soon, it became full-time and increasingly intense. At first in 1958, most of my time was spent in Cleveland with occasional trips to Langley. Then, I began to travel to Langley, spending most of the week there. The work was like a whirlpool, drawing me into the trajectory planning and plans for a control center. Eventually, I had a permanent change of station (PCS) To Langley.
The core of the Space Task Group (STG) was identified in a November 3, 1958, letter, requesting the transfer of thirty-six Langley personnel to the newly independent group. Not counting steno and file support, and with the status of one person changed to remain with Langley, there were twenty-nine engineers and managers put in place to create and manage the human space flight program. In 1958, ten more engineers from the Lewis Research Center, who were already working on Mercury, joined the Space Task Group. I was one of those. Twelve more from Langley, including John Llewellyn, also transferred to STG.
The number and high caliber of transfers from Langley caused some problems. It was becoming increasingly difficult to transfer people from the existing Centers to the new Space Task Group. And then, there was a major aerospace tragedy in Canada when the development of a new supersonic military airplane (CF-105) was canceled. This resulted in the loss of thousands of jobs in the AVRO Company and Canada. But it was like a gift from heaven for the STG.
Eventually, by April of 1959, twenty-five experienced and very savvy AVRO engineers joined the U.S. manned space flight program. This was perfect timing to complement the mix of talents and experience levels of the STG workforce. We already had a world-class set of leaders in place and the importation of the AVRO engineers added a great deal of depth and capability to the growing organization. It also served to build out the management and supervisory structure that was then in place when STG began to hire a significant number of new college graduate engineers, especially in the early sixties after Apollo was started. And, most significant for me, it brought Tec Roberts, originally from Wales, who eventually became a strong influence in my early career.
This was another interesting coincidence in timing because it was the same time that seven test pilots also joined STG and became known as the Mercury Seven. Their presence quickly became commonplace in the few buildings housing the fledgling Mercury team. There was a first-name-basis environment in STG. It was a heady time getting to know these new heroes and eventually traveling with some of them as the Atlas flight program began. As the group who would strap on these vehicles, it made the work more focused and personal for us.
In the middle of all this, I experienced another permanent change of status in my life when Marilyn agreed to be my wife. We were married on April 30, 1960, and moved into an eight by forty-five mobile home in Poquoson where many of the Air Force refueling crews and fighter pilots also lived.
Marilyn and I started our marriage with 360 square feet of living space, soon to be shared with our firstborn, Jenifer on February 1, 1961.
During the months before my PCS and up until March 1962, I worked in the Mission Analysis Branch, of which John Mayer was the branch chief. John was a quiet spoken man, and very intense in getting the analysis and the numbers right. He taught us orbital mechanics in a formal course and in all of our daily interactions. It was the equivalent of a PhD in that subject, in all of its practical aspects, without overdoing the theory. John was a doer, a manager and a leader in the best tradition of NACA. He demanded the best from us and mentored us so that we would be able to deliver that best. In the late forties, he had also served at Muroc (later known as Edwards) in the X-1 days and he described his part in Chuck Yeager’s X-1 flight, which first broke the sound barrier. John delivered the final proof of that achievement when he processed the tracking data and confirmed the onboard measurements. John was a link from the X-1 to MA-6 in orbit.
Mission Planning Team 1962
As our work progressed from analytical studies to inventing how to monitor and protect the spacecraft during the launch phase and how to navigate on-orbit and to determine the precise time for the de-orbit maneuver, John was pushing the team through the theory stage and into the practical domain of assuring mission safety and success through all flight phases. One key step in this process was the decision to create a computer center with the appropriate software to provide the necessary flight information in real time. We determined the operational requirements and the software equations. They were then negotiated with the ground systems organization for implementation at the Goddard Space Flight center. Before that Center was fully open for business, their contractor, IBM, was using a computer system seen through the front windows of an office on Pennsylvania Avenue between the Capitol and the White House. Eventually, GSFC housed the computing system for all of the launch and orbital mechanics processing in support of the MCC at the Cape. And this was our beginning in learning how to use this new technology – computers – in our control center. And later, when the time came, John supported me for the flight dynamics officer position, first at Bermuda and later at the MCC at the Cape, even though it meant I would transfer to a different branch from his. Not all managers are so kindly disposed.
The mission analysis, or planning, function was an early incubator for the flight dynamics operator positions. John’s deputy, Carl Huss, became the first console “Retro.” Carl worked that position for all the Redstone and Atlas flights and set the standards for that position, passing them on to John Llewellyn, starting with MA-7. And that was an interesting process to watch. Carl was Mr. Rigorous and John, for all his desire to pursue advanced degrees, was not. By the time preparations for Gemini began in earnest, Carl’s duties as a manager of the mission analysis were such that he could not also serve as a console operator. John Llewellyn moved from a remote site capsule communicator to a Retro-in-training during the manned orbital Mercury flights.
The re-entry analysis I started with lead to trajectory studies of the retro fire and entry phase of a mission as the spacecraft was returned from orbit to the earth. This return-to-earth function became an integral part of the two and, later, three console operator positions that supported the flight dynamics decision-making in MCC then, and to the present day. It used the call sign “Retro.” By this time, our studies included the launch phase of the Redstone and Atlas launch vehicles, which boosted the Mercury spacecraft into orbit. This brought me into the world of launch vehicle trajectory, reliability of our launch vehicles, launch phase monitoring as it might be done from a control center and the ground-based guidance system that was used for the Atlas vehicle.
John Llewellyn
John S. Llewellyn started with STG in about December 1958. I write these notes about John fully realizing that I can hardly do justice to his story. John is a larger-than- life character and the preeminent legend in the ranks of early (and probably all) of flight operations controllers. There are more John Llewellyn stories than any other ten guys combined. Just to give you an example of one of John’s stories, it goes as follows. When John was going to William & Mary, he was married to Olga and had two daughters, Lane and Vivien. John was sent on assignment to the grocery store and, on the way, ran into his drinking buddies from school. They were headed to Florida where the sun was shining and they intended to spend several days there. They invited John to go along, and so he did. He did not think to call Olga at any time during this jaunt. He was just AWOL from the family for the next few days. Somehow he survived his return.
John was born and raised in the Tidewater region of Virginia, in the small town
of Dare. He grew up boating on the Yorktown River, helping his dad with the farm and loving the game of football. His mom was a schoolteacher and emphasized that point of view on his upbringing.
Before college, John had volunteered to serve his country in the United States Marine Corps. His service put an indelible stamp on this big, strong, gung ho soldier and, as the wheel of history turned, John found himself in far North Korea, and soon at a place called the Chosin Reservoir. John never did talk at all about his experiences in Korea, but like the rest of the 1st Marine division, he was cutoff there when the Chinese army invaded across the Yalu River. For John, this became a battle that was up-close, personal, brutal and terrifying in the extreme. He did make it out and managed to bury the horrors of that ugly time. Ultimately, these memories came back with a vengeance fifty some years later. He had a very severe case of Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) and learned more about it than he ever wanted to know. The treatment of this early trauma and its side effects over most of his adult life ultimately lead to profound changes in John, and all for his own good. He has earned an understanding of himself and saw his life much more clearly. He is also at peace with the past and with himself.
John and I came together in 1958. He had transferred to STG from the NACA center at Langley where he worked on high speed heat transfer problems as I did briefly at the Lewis Center in Cleveland. He began in the STG engineering organization, still working the heating problems. We were a very unlikely pairing of people and yet we are still close today after fifty years. John was big and physically strong; I was about one hundred forty pounds. John was very macho and gung ho; I was small enough and probably sensible enough to not physically challenge anybody. John was married with two girls; I was just beginning to get a real prospect in Marilyn. John was a vocal atheist; I had twenty-one years of Catholic faith upbringing. John was interested in continuing his education and in earning advance degrees in physics; I had had enough of school and wanted to get on with the business of manned space flight.
Other differences abound. It was impossible to get John to commit things to writing, while I had a knack for written explanations. John was the center of attention at gatherings. They were either robust when John arrived or he made them that way in short order. I was somewhat more careful and circumspect, preferring not to be at the center of a noisy crowd. John could win any ad-lib insult contest; I was not very good at the repartee. Out of this background of almost complete opposites came a friendship that has endured for over fifty years, even though being John’s boss was sometimes a challenge, probably for both of us. We only worked closely together for the first fifteen years. Our paths diverged at the time of the last few Apollo flights and there were long periods of no contact. And we each had many different experiences during those times. But our early work together made it easy to re-connect when we had the chance again.
To make up for some of my physical deficiencies, John took me to Judo class. Our instructor was a strong air police sergeant who worked on the Air Force side of the Langley base. I had been doing Judo at Langley for a year and learning some of the ropes. At that point, my folks came to visit us and Dad came to watch some judo. He saw John, at over two hundred pounds of solid muscle, throw me and then land on me, with his shoulder driving my solar plexus through my back and into the mat. It took me ten to fifteen minutes to be able to breathe. Dad reminded me that he had always advised me to be careful who I picked a fight with.
In our early times, John was not in the same flight dynamics analysis flow like I was. However, we did use personnel from the engineering function on a part time basis for flight support. John actually served as capsule communicator (capcom) and leader of a team that manned some of the remote stations in our network. He was the capcom for MA-4 at the Zanzibar station in September 1961 while the country was swept with some of the political volatility sweeping through Africa at that time.
John became something of an expert on the Mercury spacecraft clock, which was more complicated than just a clock. It had lockouts and other strange features, and it was the primary reference for retrofire. Because of that connection, Tec Roberts began steering John to learn the “Retro” controller trade from Carl Huss, the original Retro. Tec had his way at being persuasive about things like that, and coupled with some straight talk right at John, John saw the wisdom of Tec’s idea. It is easy to see why John loved the capcom line of work. He was a leader of a small, dedicated team, deployed to exotic locations all around the world, and well situated for more hell raising. But the role was being retired as the plans for a Houston-based Mission Control Center made the remote site teams obsolete. Finally he was shanghaied into Retro training for MA-6, John Glenn’s flight in February 1962. John loved to brief the astronauts on the clock and its arcane workings as it counted down to retrofire. I think the astronauts admired his expertise and enthusiasm and they were probably aware of his military service record from Korea.
I tried hard to get John to document his briefing in a written report. This would be a one-time event that he could then use many times for his subsequent briefings. Clearly this would be more efficient, but John loved the interactions that came with his free form briefing and that’s the way it stayed. This was also the beginning of a long-term attempt to inculcate “clear writing” into John’s repertoire – another waste of time. John still grouses about times that Tec or I shipped him to clear writing class, always with negligible success.
There was one more thing John never liked. As we moved into Gemini, the console positions were Flight Dynamics Officer, now also a Guidance Officer and still a Retro Controller. With the sensitivity of a Lance Corporal, John always wanted the title to be changed to Retro Officer. His very passion on the subject caused us to procrastinate and deploy flaky reasons not to do it.
In Houston at the MSC, one of the notable stories concerning John had to do with his penchant for collecting parking tickets on site. After a reasonable number with no correction in sight, Security talked to me as his direct boss (and probably John Hodge, our division chief). We temporarily pulled John’s pass and sticker for driving onto the Center. I expected that John would park across the street and walk into the Center or get a ride from somebody else. That would be what most people would do. Not John. Ever resourceful, John trailered his horse to a shopping center across the street and rode into the Center for work. The Center did not have stickers for horses, as the procedures did not anticipate this condition. And the mess from the all-day tie-up of the horse led to more discussions and promises not to do that anymore. So, the saga of riding the horse to work was gradually absorbed into the always expanding legend of John Star. John and his horse did make one more appearance that I know of in the Singing Wheel, one of our favorite watering stations in Webster. I’m sure it was a special occasion that prompted John to ride the horse up the steps and into the establishment. At least I did not have to visit with MSC security for that one.
One of John’s duties as a Retro was to conduct the countdown to retrofire over the net, 10-9-8-etc. In several simulations, John did so but scrambled the numbers: 10, 9, 7, 6, 8, 4, 5, 3, 2, 1, mark. He always got to “mark” at the correct time but he had to endure endless guffawing on his countdowns. As his boss (and friend), I did not want to see him embarrassed in front of his MCC peers. So, at night back in the motel, I made John practice the countdowns out loud. He was really ticked off about having to do that. In an angry, red-faced mood, he told me, “Lunney, you SOB, you can’t make me do that.” But, I did and John got the counts correct from then on. I felt like I was pushing things a little close to John’s edge on that and was glad when the problem receded.
John was one of a kind; nobody could make another mold like the one John came out of.
Mercury Redstone
All of this focus on the problem of creating a safe-flight-protection concept workable in the real world of tracking, computing and the control center lead to an early assignment for me, which was a terrific learni
ng experience. It was the need to understand the workings of the range safety function at the Cape. It was a similar discipline to the one we were beginning to invent but it was aimed at protecting the safety of people and facilities on the ground. Our focus was aimed at protecting the safety and return of the spacecraft and crew.
One of my early trips to the Cape was in November 1960. At that time, we were trying to launch the first Mercury Redstone flight, MR-1. It was my assignment to observe the range safety officer in order to get a better understanding of what that position did to protect facilities and people from a wayward launch vehicle. I remember being impressed at how cool Captain Davis, the range safety officer, was. This was my first real countdown. My stomach was turning over at maximum RPM and yet he was so calm. When we had a hold in the countdown, he invited me to join him for breakfast. Captain Davis did a great job with the platter of eggs, bacon and all the trimmings. I was not able to do any more than a cup of coffee.
Range safety operations were a critical and important function. In a sense, it was similar to the job that we were beginning to invent for the flight dynamics officer. The RSO ensured that the vehicle would not deviate from its nominal path beyond a set of destruct limits designed to protect the people and the facilities on the ground. In those days, reliability of the launch vehicles was low enough that they had an average failure rate of about fifty percent. The RSO was often called on to destroy the launch vehicle before it did any damage. He had a number of systems that were used to aid him in that task. The first was a system of radars that displayed present position and projected impact location on plot boards in the range safety control room. There were also visual observers, located at strategic positions, who watched the launch vehicle through a template to detect deviations from the nominal path.
Highways Into Space: A first-hand account of the beginnings of the human space program Page 5