Conference 7.286::space

Hi,
	I never worked with any of the missions but a group of people that
I used to work with wrote software at TRW for some of the flights.  If it
was as much fun for you as it was for them you must have some great memories.
The only sad part of it was for one person at least is they doubt they will
every get to work on anything as exciting again and it was there first job
out of university.  My only experience was writing telementry software for
TDRSS which is many years  removed from the excitement of Apollo.  
	Which fligts did you work?
					HMD

OH Boy, talk about memories.......

I could tell sea stories for hours..And days after a couple of beers.

I don't remember the mission numbers off hand. We supported all missions
from the latter part of 67 thru the first moon flight (10 I think). 

One interesting mission was supporting a 3 week orbital flight. We were out
of Hawaii bound for Sydney via Taiwan. We pulled into Taiwan for about 6
hours and practically had a mutiney because they were not going to let us
off the ship (They let us off after all). Well to make the story short the
crew was BLITZED. Three of us staggered down to the computer room to see
if we could make it a discovered Houston wanting to run some preflight system
checks             /and\       

Well we couldn't even find the ON/OFF switch let alone talk. Houston was
having a major presentation to a bunch of VIPS and decided to speak with
one of the ships. Well the conversation that followed was one of the comedies
of the year. They kept asking us our location and the only thing I could
think of was the Pacific ocean (somewhere). After the guests got off the
floor the moderator kept asking me stupid questions and getting dumb answers.
We managed to get written up in Life or whatever on that one. 

Oh yes, MEMORIES..... Boy I wish they had jobs like that one again..

That was when you made $2,000 per week in the late 60's. Talk about good
money.......But we worked 18 hour days with salary, sea pay, OT, etc. 

Now if we could get rid of those TDRSS sats maybe they would bring the ships
back.......

merle, i know of two others besides myself that worked the apollo missions
I WORKED AT KSC FROM APOLLO 7 THRU APOLLO 12 FOR FEDERAL ELECTRIC CORP
TAKING CARE OF THE ABORT ADVISORY TV CAMERAS AND RECORDERS AT THE PADS
CD&SC AND THE LCC. I ALSO HAD TWO BROTHERS THAT WORKED THERE AT THE SAME 
TIME. ONE FOR BOEING ON THE HYDRALICS/PNEUMATICS SYSTEMS OF THE LUT. THE OTHER 
WORKED THERE FOR 13 YEARS FROM BEFORE VANGUARD TO APOLLO 8.
	THE TWO OTHERS THAT WORK IN DEC I WILL NOTIFY THAT YOU ARE INTERESTED
IN GETTING IN TOUCH WITH. COME TO THINK OF IT THERE ARE 3 OTHERS . ALL OF THEM
HAVE WORKED HERE IN ASO.
	I SURE WOULD LIKE TO TALK TO SOME OF YOU ABOUT THE GOOD OLE DAYS

Interesting.....
I worked for FEC as well, from 63 through 69. Yes, it would be intersting
to get together over a beer and get into the old times.
Now if the space station project would gather momentum like the Apollo program
we could really have fun again.....
Merle

I f Y'all want to get into the space station action, I'm affraid you'll have
to join IBM.  They are doing the computer design at JSC.  Supposedly mission
control is moving to KSC this year and JSC will be strictly for space station
research.  

Reading the acronyms in here makes me homesick.  I just left the firing room
in the LCC in March.  I'm a Lockheed veteran, but as usual most of the people
out there have been there since 1953 and y'all probably know just about all
the guys I worked with.

I miss the Cape, the launches, and the FR, but I do not miss NASA breathing
down my back.  

Keep writing, I enjoy seeing the stories!!!

I can appreciate NASA "NOT BEING THERE". That was one nice thing about the
tracking ships. They never wanted to be stuck out there for 45 days or so.
They just left us alone, so to speak. The only time we ever had anyone come
out was when we got to Sydney and then EVERYONE wanted to come down for an
inpsection. 

I remember being "wiped out" in one of the local private clubs and one of
the Air Force (full bird) came strolling in and chatted. I then started to
tell him what I thought of the visitors that suddenly flocked to Sydney whereas
I had to spend 1000 days at sea in a thyphoon. He was not appreciative of
my comments needless to say. 

It was interesting how he avoided me after our discussion.

Boy, the stories could go on and on......

I remember in one storm (somewhere in the Pacific) we were taking some really
good rolls and as i was about to mount a tape the tape unit fell off its
hinges and went bouncing down the aisle. And these were the old Univac HEAVIES.
Boy, you should have seen everyone dancing to get out of the way. You couldn't
even walk 2 steps in that storm. Needless to say we had no backup tapes for
that rev. 


When I really think about it though the amount of data we used to get from
the spacecraft was just amazing. An here we were in the middle of the ocean
with the Sband up/downlink, Cband tracking,telemetry being processed and 
then being uplinked via satellite with backup links via vhf satellite and
HF.  Gads it is mind boggling at times. And that great part is we had a blast
doing it, not to mention the good times in Honolulu, Guam, Taiwan, Okinawa,
Samoa, etc......
via satellite, vhf satellite and HF backup

	YOU ARE RIGHT MERLE, IT WAS FUN. I REMEMBER THE TRACKING SHIPS
THAT USE TO COME INTO THE PORT THERE AT THE CTR.
	WASN,T IT THE REDSTONE, MERCURY AND THE OBSERVATION ISLAND ?
MY BROTHER STEVE WORKED OFF FROM THOSE OCCASIONALLY DOING PHOTOGRAPHIC
COVERAGE OF THE SUB LAUNCHED POLARIS. 	
	I DOUGHT IF THERE WILL EVER BE AS MUCH INTEREST IN ANYTHING 
AGAIN AS THERE WAS THEN, EXCEPT POSSIBLY A MARS MANNED MISSION.
	IT IS REALLY GOOD TO FIND PEOPLE TO TALK TO ABOUT THOSE TIMES
BECAUSE UNLESS YOU WERE A PART OF IT YOU DON'T REALIZE THE COMPLEXITIES
OR APPRECIATE THE ENOURMOUS AMOUNT OF PLANNING AND HARD WORK THAT WENT
INTO EACH LAUNCH.
	I GET TIRED OF PEOPLE SAYING THAT GOING TO THE MOON WAS SUCH A WASTE
OF MONEY, IF THEY COULD ONLY REALIZE THE SPIN-OFFS THAT EFFECT THEM EVERYDAY
THAT THEY CERTAINLY WOULDN'T HAVE IF IT WERE NOT FOR THE SPACE PROGRAM.
	WHERE WERE YOU DURING THE OTHER APOLLO MISSIONS ? IT SOUNDS LIKE 
YOU HAD MORE FUN ON THE SHIPS THAN WE HAD AT KSC. EVERYONE KEPT A REAL CLOSE
EYE ON EVERYTHING WE DID BUT WE HAD FUN ANYWAY. IT WAS THE ONLY GOAL THAT
I SET AS A KID THAT I MET. I WAS DETERMINED THAT I WOULD HAVE SOMETHING
TO DO WITH GETTING MEN ON THE MOON AND I DID IT.
GOT TO GO NOW I'M ABOUT TO BE AUTOLOGGED OUT
PAUL

I as on the Mercury. We spent some time at the Cape during the unmanned missions
checking out the systems on board. There were 3 Apollo tracking ships (Mercury,
Redstone, Vanguard). The Mercury had the Western Pacific, Vanguard had the
Pacific between Hawaii and CA and the Redstone had the Atlantic after the
ETR had LOS.       

As I recall the Observation Island and one other smaller one were used for
tracking within the ETR. 

One interesting facit about the Apollo ships which never was published..
Each of the ships had the capability of commanding a mission if Houston was
put out of commission. We had all the consoles on board. Since they were
never used we would put "interesting" graphics on the displays to pass the
time. It was quite a show. 

When we would have tourists/visitors come through everyone used to love the
flashing lights on the computers (we put the systems in Diagnostic mode with
the clock turned WAY DOWN. The lights were IMPRESSIVE but it took an hour
to print out "the quick brown fox". 

I read an article many years ago concerning the products which were derived
from just the Apollo program. As you say, People just never knew. And they
still don't today. 
                         
I worked on the ships from the time they built it in Quincy, MA (66) until after
they landed on the moon. After that I gave it up. Then I went back overseas
on various jobs (installing communication system throughout Iran, Over The
Horizon Radar system in Europe). Prior to the ships I worked overseas from
61 through 66. 

Yup, it was fun...

Merle