Credits: NASA
Credits: NASA
50 years ago, on the way to the Moon…
On March 1, 1968, President Lyndon B. Johnson made a surprise visit to the Manned Spacecraft Center (MSC), his second as Chief Executive. NASA Administrator James Webb accompanied the President and MSC Director Robert Gilruth was their host. One purpose of his visit was to announce plans for a Lunar Science Institute to be established adjacent to the Center in the “Silver Dollar” Jim West mansion. The Institute, to be built under a grant from NASA to the National Academy of Sciences, was expected to provide closer cooperation among university, industry and government scientists to study material returned from the Moon.
During his MSC visit, the President toured the recently completed Lunar Receiving Laboratory (LRL), the crew centrifuge at the Flight Acceleration Facility, and the Flight Crew Training Facility. In the LRL, the facility built to quarantine astronauts returning from lunar landing missions as well as the lunar samples, Johnson viewed the Vacuum Laboratory where Moon rocks underwent their first examination. While touring the LRL, he also saw a demonstration of the latest version of the Apollo Extravehicular Mobility Unit. The President watched astronauts James McDivitt, David Scott and Russell Schweickart, then assigned to the second manned Apollo mission, go through a 9-g launch abort profile in the crew centrifuge. Astronaut Neil Armstrong demonstrated a simulated docking of the Apollo Command Module with the Lunar Module for the President at the Crew Training Facility.
Speaking to thousands of NASA and contractor employees after his tour, Johnson stated one reason for his visit to MSC was “to tell you, on behalf of all your countrymen…, how deeply we appreciate the great work you are carrying forward.” Recalling his political accomplishments, he added that “the one legislative accomplishment that I suppose I am proudest of is the bill that I wrote and introduced that made possible NASA, that brought into existence this great facility and others in the program throughout this Nation.”