[ Mid-tempo music plays ]
[ Bird cries ]
Joshua Santora:Fifty years ago, NASA was on the precipice of mankind’s most historic small steps.
Woman: EGS Program Chief Engineer verify no constraints to launch.
Man: 3, 2, 1, and liftoff!
Man #2: Welcome to space.
Joshua Santora: Today we take you inside the control room and onto the ocean during the Apollo 11 mission. We’re taking a look back at the work done here on Earth to ensure our heroic astronauts succeeded on mankind’s most daring adventure. In a few minutes, we’ll hear from Milt Heflin and Melissa Jones on oceanic-recovery activities. But first up, we have Bob Sieck. He was one of the engineers on console in the Launch Control Center for Apollo 11 and went on to serve as the space shuttle launch director in the ’80s and ’90s.
I am now in the booth with Bob Sieck. Bob, thanks for joining me.
Bob Sieck: Pleasure to be here and to continue the acknowledgement of the Apollo Program and the accomplishments.
Joshua Santora: Yes, so, obviously, we brought you in for a very special reason — because you have a very long history with NASA and the space program. So I wanted to let you just kind of give us a really quick kind of flyby of your career, if you would.
Bob Sieck: Well, okay. So, graduated from college with an electrical engineering degree, 1960. We had just invented transistors. A chip was still something you carved off of a block of wood.
Joshua Santora: [ Chuckles ]
Bob Sieck: So three years’ active duty in the military. In ’63, came down here to Florida to make it my home and be part of the great adventure. After a year as a contractor, I got on with NASA in 1964, journeyman engineer in Gemini spacecraft, responsible for the biomedical instrumentation that the astronauts had. We didn’t know much about the effects of space on the body back then, so they were heavily instrumented — best way to put it, just like the spacecraft and rocket — lots of instruments on the astronauts to see how the body reacted to all the rigors of spaceflight — did that through Gemini. In Apollo, I was responsible — I was testing — spacecraft testing integration engineer, which meant you are like a technical test conductor for the tests on the Lunar Module and the Command Service Module, and held that responsibility all through Apollo, got in on the ground floor of the Shuttle Program with, essentially, the same responsibility, and then a couple years in, got promoted to launch director in ’83, ’84 — had about a dozen missions then and was then elevated, if that’s the term, to the director of Shuttle Operations at the Cape. Challenger happened — a lot of realignment and changing the organization, obviously, and after Challenger, I successfully lobbied to go back to being launch director. I felt that was my strongest suit, so to speak, to help with the return to flight effort and the continuation of the program and enjoyed that for a number of years — total of 50-some missions that I’m thankful there was a landing for all of those.
Joshua Santora: Yeah.
Bob Sieck: And then was, again, promoted to the director of Shuttle Operations to handle the transition, more the responsibility to the contractor and the new contractor at the time — retired in ’99. Still connected with the people in the business through some NASA advisory panels.
Joshua Santora: Yeah, and we always love hearing from you and having you back. We could fill probably days with all of the stories and kind of the wisdom that you have to share on space, but we wanted to kind of dwell on the ’60s. So, going back to ’61, Alan Shepard is flying on a suborbital flight into space. Do you remember this moment?
Bob Sieck: Yes, I do, and the fact that we did it was — regardless of what the Russians had already done, the fact that we did it, first step, literally. A lot of people think of the lunar landing, first step on the Moon. I think of the first step as Alan Shepard going up, and maybe, in hindsight, the first step was the Russians putting Sputnik up that kind of ignited our resolve to do something about this in sort of a competitive way at first, and, thankfully, the visionaries in Washington saw to that, and that ended with the challenge of putting a man on the Moon and returning them safely — never want to forget that part —
Joshua Santora: Yeah. [ Chuckles ]
Bob Sieck:…by the Kennedy administration and starting that great adventure.
Joshua Santora: And what’s that like for you personally? ‘Cause at this point, I think you said you’re finishing up college, Sputnik’s flying, we’re getting Alan Shepard off the ground. Is NASA like this fierce kind of wonderful thing that’s unattainable, or is it like, “Let’s be America, let’s go do this”?
Bob Sieck: I think it’s the latter. NASA was obviously given the baton to do this, the responsibility, and the sense was that there was commitment behind that task or that resolve or our resolution — whatever you want to call it — in the political environment, which was important. So I said, “Well, I want to be at the front end of this adventure.”
Joshua Santora: Yeah.
Bob Sieck: Obviously, contractors were hiring, also, but it was obvious to me it’s a government responsibility, so I’m gonna go with the government team and see what I can do to be part of it.
Joshua Santora: And so as we kind of fast-forward a few years, how did you end up with NASA? Was this just like another job you were applying for or was this, somehow, a special kind of opportunity?
Bob Sieck: Oh, I looked at it as an opportunity for sure. I took it to heart that this was now a resolve that our nation had put forward and decided to accept it. So I didn’t look at it as just a job. It was kind of like, I’m on a mission. Our government’s on a mission, our country’s on a mission, so I’m gonna be part of the team that accepts the challenge and the responsibility of doing the things that need to be done, as Kennedy said, “not because they’re easy, but because they’re hard.”
Joshua Santora: Yeah. Do you think that everyone kind of came in with that team mentality? Is it something where you feel part of something bigger than yourself?
Bob Sieck: I would say yes. Most of us that worked in the early years of the space program had spent time in the military.
Joshua Santora: Okay.
Bob Sieck: Mandatory draft back then, so –
Joshua Santora: – So not even just the astronauts, but the engineers on the floor?
Bob Sieck: Right. Oh, yeah. Yeah. I would sit at the console next to people that sat in foxholes in Korea or flew B-17s in World War II, and this is a — we felt — and I think we were looked at — as we’re a national resource on a government mission here. We’re not wearing uniforms anymore like most of us did.
Joshua Santora: Yeah. Wow.
Bob Sieck: But we understand responsibility and accountability, and we’ve been charged that this is our mission, and so we took it seriously and, of course, proceeded accordingly. But we knew there was a lot of attention to what we were doing. It would be a very visible thing, but most of us didn’t look at that being the big deal, so to speak. What was the big deal was — we’re responsible for accomplishing this as an individual and as a member of a team, and we’re gonna get it done.
Joshua Santora: Do you feel like there’s an emotional element to it? And kind of the thought behind that question is, thinking about if — I think my tendency is to think of the military as being very, like, objective and focused, and we execute. That’s what we do. Do you feel like that’s really similar to how NASA was operating or was there a more emotional component to it that kind of was like this feeling and that commitment and way beyond just tasks?
Bob Sieck: Well, I think it was a combination of both. Obviously the discipline responsibility, accountability thing factored into it, but, also, I remembered getting the briefings from the NASA managers when a journeyman first came on board was, “Okay, now you’re responsible for this task and maybe this set of hardware has these boundary conditions and whatever, and this is your system, and you’re gonna interact with that system” — technical stuff.
Joshua Santora: Sure.
Bob Sieck: But the other part of it was — the message that came loud and clear was, now, in addition to that responsibility, this is all about the crew and the mission — number-one priority is the crew and the mission. We talk about getting off the ground with the rocket. Yeah, you can cheer that, but it’s all about getting these astronauts through their missions, successfully accomplish landing them, and continuing on with the program. So the emphasis was always on you’re responsible for their safety. This is your system, but if you get in a fuzzy area about responsibility, never forget the number-one priority is the crew and their mission.
Joshua Santora: How does that impact you and the people around you when we lose the crew Apollo 1, then? ‘Cause, obviously, like, that’s got to be hard.
Bob Sieck: It is hard. It is tough. The initial feeling is, we failed, and the challenge of that is getting over the — first, there’s the shock and the grief and the guilt. You know, what went wrong? What did we do wrong? What did I do wrong as a member of the team, if anything? And then you get into that aspect of, okay, technically what happened here? What did we do? And then that gets broader into, well, are there cultural issues here? What went wrong there? Then you get on with fixing everything. And you can take this to a level lower. When you made mistakes as a journeyman engineer — and we did.
Joshua Santora: You’re human. Yeah, that makes sense.
Bob Sieck: We’re doing stuff for the first time, and we’re developing the hardware for the first time, the procedures to test it, and the approach of management was, well, okay, Bobby — in this case — assume, okay, you made a mistake. Scoot up and tell it like it is. Now, you won’t make that mistake anymore as a journeyman engineer, but the fellow coming in tomorrow or one that’s on second shift, or whatever, coming in, they’re gonna potentially do the same thing, ’cause you’re a responsible person, and this was not an irresponsible act on your part. So what did we — management speaking from their viewpoint, what did we do to not set you up to succeed, if that makes a difference? Is it the training we gave you? Is it the tools? Is it the procedures? Because that’s management’s responsibility to set you people doing this work up to be successful and to develop a high-quality product — whatever it is. So let’s talk about that. Understand the root cause and get on with what we’re chartered to do. It was a great environment to work in, really.
Joshua Santora: Was there ever a sense that you felt like it was too much — like the pace was too much, the risk was too much, like it just wasn’t gonna happen?
Bob Sieck: The short answer is no. We were confident that we were gonna make progress, and we saw that after each mission when things went well. There were always things in the early missions that didn’t go well, but there was enough progress that, no, we’re continuing on. We’re gonna get this done, and the work was — It was an incredible lot of fun.
Joshua Santora: [ Laughs ]
Bob Sieck: In fact, you’ll hear from a number of the workers it never felt like they really worked at the space venter. It was, “Oh, boy. I got second shift tomorrow, and we’re running this test and whatever. So I’m gonna work overtime today to brush up on the procedures so I know that when I come in here tomorrow, put on my headset, and hook things up, that I’m ready to hit the ground running,” and, of course, that drug into long days, long nights, long weeks, and long months, and I always characterized the whole effort of getting to the Moon, in my case, as a seven-year marathon.
Joshua Santora: Yeah. Man, that’s a good way to put it. So, Apollo 8, are you in the control room for flying the first humans on Saturn V?
Bob Sieck: Yes, yes. That was my first manned Apollo mission, and I was somewhat surprised that it was only three months after Apollo 7 when we flew the astronauts for the first time in an Apollo capsule on a smaller Saturn rocket and a previous Saturn V launch with an unmanned rocket, which had been sometime months before that was not all that successful.
Joshua Santora: Okay.
Bob Sieck: But then there was enough confidence in where we were in our development and acceptance of this new system and confidence in it that we can go ahead and commit to put three astronauts on top of it and go around the Moon after what had happened only just a few years before with Apollo 1, and since then, other than a couple of those unmanned Saturn V launches, and another one on the Saturn I, we committed to put our three astronauts in a spacecraft and send them to the Moon. Yeah.
Joshua Santora: So we see Apollo 8, 9, and 10 go, for all intents and purposes, pretty well. We’re getting ready for Apollo 11. Is this different? Does it feel different from a processing perspective?
Bob Sieck: I think it did not. The process of getting it ready was the same as the previous ones, and it was well — and we looked at it as where we were in the system. Okay, we accomplished what we had to on this one, Apollo 8. Apollo 9 got this done. It was in Earth orbit. Okay, Apollo 10 got this done. Now it’s in lunar orbit. So next step is, yeah, let that Lunar Module go all the way down there and let the guys accomplish the objective. And my take on schedule pressure and that sort of thing was — it was kind of coincidental that it happened when it did.
Joshua Santora: [ Chuckles ] Coincidental?
Bob Sieck: Really. Yeah. Because, well, it just did. It ended up playing out that way, but we followed the progression of events. We made some modifications along the way as we found problems and fixed them and developed more confidence in the system, and it ended up — but the approach, again, always from our management was, “Hey, you just do the job right, accomplish all the requirements and objectives, and then you look up at the clock or the calendar, in this case, and say, ‘Okay, now we’re ready for the next step.’” In that case, the next step was Apollo 11, and that first step.
Joshua Santora: So, for the launch of Apollo 11, where are you and kind of what are you doing during this time?
Bob Sieck: Okay. So my primary assignment is Apollo 12. I worked Apollo 10, and then we jumped — and we always had at least two missions in flow down here. We had the hardware for that, which was a lot of hardware.
Joshua Santora: Yeah.
Bob Sieck: You know, three, actually four stages of the rocket.
Joshua Santora: Yeah.
Bob Sieck: Two payloads — the spacecraft, the Lunar Module, Command Service Module, and all the stuff that hooked them together — most important payload, of course, being the flight crew.
Joshua Santora: Sure.
Bob Sieck: So we kind of cycled back and forth, and so I was on the even-numbered missions in terms of the campaign of the launch count itself when our hardware was in Operations and Checkout Building. We moved back and forth to different spacecraft doing particular tests, depending on our expertise. But when it came to Apollo 11, the primary launch team guy for my position was in the control center in the Operations and Checkout Building. If we were not part of the primary launch time process, if we needed to come in as a backup or scrub the next day-type thing, you had an assignment. But I was not in the control room. In fact, all of us that were not part of that were advised to stay home…
Joshua Santora: Huh.
Bob Sieck:…and take some compensatory time, annual leave, or whatever, and be a spectator, which, and, therefore, to not add to the huge traffic jam which occurred every Apollo mission by the way, but it was more so because this one was Apollo 11. But that was kind of lost on us. Apollo 10, which we just finished, was just as important, and Apollo 12 will be just as important. This is the next one in the queue, and they’re just gonna do more on their mission than we did the previous, which had been the legacy up to now. So I got to be a spectator. I got to watch with my wife and toddler from Titusville, where I lived, which was the first one I was able to watch, by the way. All the rest of them, I had been in the control room and watching with my little 8-inch black-and-white television set. I couldn’t wait to get home to watch the replays on my 18-inch black-and-white TV set.
Joshua Santora: [ Laughs ] So was that really the life of that control room engineer? Your job is to watch your eight-inch screen?
Bob Sieck: That’s it, and handle the discrepancies and anomalies that come up as they often did back then — take over the process of sorting out whether this isn’t going well. Is it the procedures? Is it the hardware? It was seldom the software because we didn’t have any software back then, or the requirements were asking this hardware to do too much, ’cause it really can’t accomplish those specifications in that environment. But that was my primary job as a test engineer for the Command Service Module spacecraft.
Joshua Santora: And did you have any sort of function once liftoff happened? Were you guys involved with the actual landing operations or the Moon walks?
Bob Sieck: No, once it was “tower clear,” literally, our next responsibility came in as participants in the recovery, but we had a control room active, on call in the event of an anomaly or somebody needed information from the experience of the hardware and the testing at the Cape. We were there to respond to that, yes. And, of course, that happened on Apollo 13.
Joshua Santora: Sure. So I’m assuming that you would have just been one of the 600 million people worldwide getting to watch on television.
Bob Sieck: Exactly. Yes.
Joshua Santora: Okay.
Bob Sieck: I still remember on the grainy black-and-white TV set the landing process in the afternoon, and, of course, that night I made it mandatory — the kids weren’t that old yet, but required that they be in the living room with Mom and I watching the first step.
Joshua Santora: That seems like a good way to spend an evening.
Bob Sieck: Well, it was for me. There’s kind of an anxiety because we know — as engineers, you think about all the things that could go wrong. So every time something went right, it was kind of one of these, “Eh, yeah. Okay. Okay, yeah. That worked. Yeah, there’s another good, you know, type of thing.” So we’re probably more into it than the average spectator, if that makes sense. But the way I look at it, and the way everybody else did, too — hey, we’re all part of a team here to accomplish this. You don’t have to be doing the highly visible thing on launch day to be an important member of the team. You think about it. Somebody that does a final-recovery parachute rigging. That happened in the O&C Building weeks, month before launch, and then they stamp a procedure that says, “Oh, I did this correctly, and I’m certifying it was done right.” Well, they just gave a “go” for launch just as important as the one that somebody does in the control room with a headset on at T-minus whatever minutes and all the attention and visibility that that got, so… And the important thing is, that person — using that example, that parachute rigging — knew that what they were doing was important and that it had to work, and that’s what made every member of the team feel like I’m part of a something that’s much bigger than me because people are giving those go’s for launch all around the center, in some places elsewhere around the program just like I am right now. So they should naturally celebrate and take pride in that first step, so to speak.
Joshua Santora: Did you find a similar mentality with your coworkers at the time — just kind of that, like, at least a moment to kind of just, “We did it. We accomplished the task.”
Bob Sieck: Oh, yeah. Absolutely. And, of course, you know, we’re considered to be, well, you’re the launch team. You get it off the ground, and then after that, okay, your responsibility is over, and that sort of thing, but the way we look at it is the way I explained earlier with the chief engineer. He said, “No, it’s not done until the crew gets out, gets back on Earth, and then you can really celebrate.”
Joshua Santora: Sure. So we’re now five decades removed from that historic moment — those historic moments. As you reflect back, what’s your takeaway? Like, how do you process that today?
Bob Sieck: Well, it’s — I think it’s a reason to be kind of celebratory over the accomplishment, and, from a personal standpoint, we felt, okay, we’re on a mission with the work we do. Every day or night we go to work, again, I’m looked upon by the public and the administration at that time as I’m on a mission that the country has decided to embark upon. So what I do is important, and the fact that Apollo 11 happened to be the one where the mission planner said, “Okay. Now it’s the one. We’re ready to actually go out on the Moon” was not from the standpoint of looking at it as a big deal. It was not a big deal. You know, it was important now in hindsight, 50 years later. Well, okay, it was a big deal, but we never got — and I feel I’m speaking for the others — got caught up in, at the time, in that euphoria, that, oh, boy, this one’s Apollo 11. This one’s Apollo 11. You know, well, I know it’s Apollo 11, but Apollo 12 — you know, you’re only as good as your next mission.
Joshua Santora: Sure.
Bob Sieck: So my focus is here. Yeah, that’s good and that’s important and we got it done. Yay. Now, don’t lose sight of the ball.
Joshua Santora: Yeah. Any words of wisdom for those that are working on the next giant leap for mankind?
Bob Sieck: Well, never lose sight of the number-one priority. That’s first and foremost, which is the crew and their mission and accomplishing that safely, and then you can enjoy the mission success. Be patient. Never get caught up in the rush to meet a milestone or worry about the cost, and that was another one of the things that made Apollo successful. As journeyman engineers, we said, now, you don’t worry about schedules. You need a realistic schedule, and if this is not realistic, you tell us and don’t worry about what it costs because we’re going to the Moon. This is a national resolve. So don’t make a decision based on worrying about what this is gonna cost. If this is the right way to go, this is the way you do it. And you have to approach that the same way if you’re working. Don’t compromise what will work and is safe just because you’re worried about what it will cost in terms of schedule or the bucks, and it’s a — and enjoy what you’re doing. Be a member of the team. I think that’s more difficult nowadays than it was then. We didn’t have the technology where you could communicate by emails and cellphones. If you wanted to talk to somebody, you usually got up and went over and talked to that person because there weren’t that many involved in the process down here, and we didn’t have the communications capabilities we have today, and communication is important in a team effort, and then you build more cohesiveness if you get together, sit down across the table, or in big meetings, and we had a lot of meetings. We had a lot of meetings. ‘Cause we didn’t have the other way to communicate.
Joshua Santora: [ Laughs ]
Bob Sieck: So everybody had a feel for everyone else who was a participant and their responsibilities, and you wanted them to be successful just like you wanted to be successful. Because if they weren’t set up to succeed, then nobody succeeds, if that makes sense. So be a team player for sure. Do your homework and never lose sight of the primary objective. Apollo was — it was hard because even though we had a lot of people involved, technology didn’t streamline things like it does today. It wasn’t there. So there was a lot of human face-to-face interface. You spent long hours, long weeks. It was hard on families.
Joshua Santora: Yeah.
Bob Sieck: You got to make that point. The term I use — “Only the strong survive.” And credit those families, particularly the spouses of the workers, and most of us were guys back then, that did keep the family unit together. And I think another item to consider is, if we’re comparing back to the ’60s, we are a more risk-adverse society today than we were back then. Now, that could be the view of a guy getting old and cynical…
Joshua Santora: [ Laughs ]
Bob Sieck:…but we are, and there’s a difference between measuring and assessing a risk and gambling.
Joshua Santora: Yeah.
Bob Sieck: And so you don’t want to get in the gamble part of it, particularly when human lives are involved. You just — you don’t. But, on the other hand, don’t be afraid to accept the risk after you’ve looked at every aspect of it technically, and the other side effects of it and decide that — and have others look at it to accept the risk. Again, if the goal is worth the risk, stop worrying about it and go do it.
Joshua Santora: Cool. Bob, it’s a pleasure to have you. Thanks for stopping by.
Bob Sieck: All right. Well, I enjoyed it. Yeah. I look forward to the next piece of the great adventure, which has already started because we’ve been given a goal, right?
Joshua Santora: Absolutely. We tracked down Milt Heflin, one of the guys who worked recovery operations in the Pacific Ocean when Apollo 11 returned from the Moon. He was actually pretty easy to find as he is currently lending his expertise to the team developing Orion recovery procedures. And he brought along one of his colleagues — actually, the NASA landing and recovery director for Exploration Ground Systems, Melissa Jones. All right. I’m in the booth now with Milt Heflin and Melissa Jones. Thank you both for joining me today.
Melissa Jones: Thanks for having us.
Milt Heflin: You bet.
Joshua Santora: So, I want to kind of go back a little bit. So, Milt, you actually worked recovery for the Apollo Program back in the ’60s. Correct?
Milt Heflin: I did. I was on the primary recovery ship for the splashdowns of eight Apollo missions.
Joshua Santora: Man. So, let’s go back a little bit further than that. What’s it like kind of growing up — ’cause when you were growing up, there were no astronauts.
Milt Heflin: Correct.
Joshua Santora: So, what’s that like to kind of get into the world of NASA and get a job working on plucking astronauts out of the ocean?
Milt Heflin: Well, [Laughs] I had not planned to come to work for NASA. I was going to continue school, Oklahoma State University, working on my master’s, but a good friend of mine, who had relatives in Houston, came down during spring break of our senior year, and he got hired. He just showed up on site, and they had tables set up, and he came back and said, “They’re looking for people.” So that’s how I started, how I got involved. So I didn’t have a clue what I was getting into when I started except I knew I would be working — associated with landing and recovery for Apollo. And I don’t think I ever — I don’t think I ever worried about the fact that I didn’t know what the hell I’m doing, but I’m learning it as I go along, and there was plenty of room to do that.
Joshua Santora: Now, is that how life was at NASA in the ’60s? I mean, that’s what I hear is that it’s kind of like people got hired and they were like, “We think we’re gonna do this, go figure it out.”
Milt Heflin: We had free rein, basically. I mean, that’s what I think was so beautiful about that period of time is that I could go over a number of tests where I was involved in during those days where there was no Test Review Board. In some cases, there were no procedures other than we wanted to go do this and try that, and if that didn’t work, and it was a piece of hardware or something, take it back to the shop, go grind on it, bring it back out, put it on the capsule, run a test, and see if it worked, and then when you’re done, you know — I don’t remember — I don’t remember everything followed up with a drawing, either.
Joshua Santora: [ Laughs ] So, were you an engineer? Were you a technician? Like, how would you have described yourself?
Milt Heflin: I was a recovery engineer — a degree in physics and math, but I was categorized as a recovery engineer, and I worked in a section that was System Suitability Section — a weird name, but, basically, our job was to take the hardware that was being built to recover the Apollo and test its suitability for doing that job. So it was called the System Suitability Section. So everything to connect with splashdown and recovery we got involved with some way and either tested — Well, we tested in a water tank there at the Johnson Space Center — Manned Spacecraft Center back then, and then we were close to the Gulf of Mexico, so we would go out. We had our own boat that we used to take the capsules out into the Galveston Bay or out in the Gulf and do tests.
Joshua Santora: And what’s the culture like at the Johnson Space Center at NASA back in the ’60s? Is there a typical day? Is this kind of like a just, hey, we know what the ultimate goal is and just whatever it takes to get it done?
Milt Heflin: Yes, the last thing you said, Josh, I think is exactly what that was about. We had an idea, and we were free to just go grab a handful of technicians, folks who would be involved in setting up a test, and, a lot of times, just making it up as we went along. But we had a concept that we wanted to get to, and we weren’t exactly clear how we’re gonna do that, but we didn’t spend a lot of time thinking about it other than just going and starting to do it and do it as we went along.
Joshua Santora: Did you feel a sense of pressure or a sense of — I guess I ask the question like, was there pressure that we had to kind of be done by the end of ’69?
Milt Heflin: I don’t think that I — you know, I don’t think I ever thought in terms of pressure. You know, I was learning the trade, basically, and I had a mentor, and so I just basically would follow him around and learn on how things were being done back in that timeframe. We didn’t spend a lot of time thinking about — I think spending a lot of time worrying about the future more than what we had to do today to do what needed to be done that day or that week and get it done. That’s just what we did.
Joshua Santora: So, Melissa, certainly not to leave you out of the conversation, but definitely kind of setting a stage there.
Melissa Jones: Mm-hmm.
Joshua Santora: As you’ve worked with Milt and as you’ve spent time kind of working on recovery operations for Orion — or doing testing now, getting ready for the future — how are the stories that you hear — how do you relate to those with our culture today?
Melissa Jones: That’s so funny that you would ask that ’cause, so, first I’d say that having Milt on the team is really like a breath of fresh air a lot of the time. He’s very encouraging, and the team loves him and to hear his stories and that kind of stuff, and he will frequently say that this is a magnitude harder than what they tried to do on Apollo, and we have a lot more people on the team, I think, who have their fingers in discussions and a lot more paperwork and traceability and the types of things that I think maybe have the freedom to do differently. One of the examples, right now, I would say, we’re working on a strobe objective. We’re trying to — there’s a strobe that goes on the capsule so that you can see it in event of an emergency landing, or if you land at night.
Joshua Santora: Okay.
Melissa Jones: And I think, Milt, you had a strobe, as well, and we’re trying to develop the test plan, understand all the parameters, and get all the permissions, and, you know, Milt’s told me that they just sit on top of the roof at JSC and make sure they can see the light from Galveston Bay, and here we are.
Joshua Santora: [ Laughs ]
Melissa Jones: We’re trying to put all these procedures and plans and timelines and schedules and stuff together to do a 45-minute test. So I would say it’s definitely different than some of the things that Milt was able to enact in Apollo with the culture that they had back then.
Joshua Santora: So — and this is a question for either of you. How would I summarize that difference? Is it a nature of kind of working towards repeatability? Is it working towards precision? Like, what’s a way to classify that?
Melissa Jones: Why it’s so different?
Joshua Santora: Yeah. Like, what’s the difference? Like, if you could summarize it, what’s the difference?
Melissa Jones: I don’t –
Milt Heflin: Oh, Melissa. That’s kind of tough. I think — well, as NASA grew up, right or wrong — and I hardly judge, but various processes changed, requirements changed. We did a lot of things that I would — I would tell you right now, ’cause I was involved in some — we did a number of things that we were not safe when we did them. I mean, when we were doing some work, we were not really safe, and we were fortunate, very fortunate a number of times.
Joshua Santora: Sure.
Milt Heflin: Well, throughout the period of time from back then to now, we’ve all been through tragedies in this program.
Melissa Jones: Agreed.
Milt Heflin: And so along the way, new requirements come into play, and there’s a greater attempt to do things smartly and safely at the same time, and that sometimes is a real hard thing to do.
Melissa Jones: But I do think that it’s all in a positive effort to have proper traceability, proper accountability, proper visibility to those who are accepting risk for the certain tests that we’re doing or the certain flights that we’re doing, and so I think that it’s all with the right idea. I don’t believe when Apollo started, you guys had a Safety and Mission Assurance organization, and I think we’ve grown into that culture as we’ve had some lessons learned and some tragedies.
Joshua Santora: Sure.
Melissa Jones: So I think it’s an effort to kind of bring it all back together and make sure that everyone is comfortable with what we’re doing based on some lessons learned we’ve had. But I do think that sometimes you can get wrapped up in too many boards to make a simple decision. So there’s probably a balance there that we could probably strike a little bit better with some work and analysis on our processes.
Milt Heflin: The overhead that I’ve seen that Melissa talks about, they get through pretty doggone good. I mean, it’s there, and with her leadership and others, I mean, they get through these things, and sometimes it’s difficult to hear all that going on, but it’s not like it — I don’t want to say it slows down what you’re really trying to do, but it is a very delicate balance between that, and that’s what I’ve seen Melissa and other leaders in the Land and Recovery — I mean, I can sense that that’s what they’re exactly trying to do is do what really needs to be done and recognizing what’s involved.
Joshua Santora: So, Milt, you talk about kind of the safety differences. So back in the ’60s, was it a situation where, like, you recognize, “Hey, this is not the safest way to do this, but we have to go. We’ve got to move”? Is that how this is? Or is it more in hindsight you’re saying like, “Wow. Like, we got away with some crazy stuff that we didn’t realize at the time”?
Milt Heflin: Well, probably a little bit of all of what you said. You know, I can think of some things that I was involved in relative to testing, and it’s like we got what we needed to get done, and in retrospect, not so much then, but years later, when you think about that, you’re thinking, “Well, that was — you know, we were lucky that we didn’t really injure somebody when we were doing that,” and that’s just the way it was.
Joshua Santora: As we kind of think about this idea of safety, and we kind of mention the idea of crew losses, back in the ’60s, obviously there was this race against Russia. We lost the Apollo 1 crew very tragically. How did that really impact the progress and the process for you guys? And then kind of, Melissa, as a follow-up for you, how are you learning from kind of that perspective from the Apollo generation?
Milt Heflin: Well, so going back to Apollo 1 and the fire, it is remarkable what we did in this nation after that. I mean, you talk about gutsy work going on.
Joshua Santora: Yeah.
Milt Heflin: We — Apollo 7 first manned flight, and then the gutsiest thing this nation has ever done in manned spaceflight in my opinion is Apollo 8, the second Apollo mission where we put that capsule on top of the big Saturn V, and we went to the Moon — didn’t land on the Moon, but we went to the Moon. After one manned test flight of Apollo, we did that…
Joshua Santora: Yeah.
Milt Heflin:…and that, I think, is what really — really allowed us to say, you know, once Apollo 8 was done, it was like we’re rocking and rolling here. We know what we need to do. We set up the management structure back then, set up the right kind of things that had to be done on Apollo 9, Apollo 10, leading up to Apollo 11 — stepping stones that all worked, and, Josh, I might have got off the subject of your question, so I’m…
Joshua Santora: No, that’s all right. No, it’s good stuff, ’cause, again, I think it’s coming back to that reality of, hey, how do we, like, honor, sacrifice, and make good decisions for the future, and so, Melissa, again, over to you kind of asking the question like, how does the team kind of process the fact that you’re gonna go pull astronauts out of the ocean after what is, hopefully, a very successful flight?
Melissa Jones: Yes, I would say that I think part of your question was how have we changed maybe from Apollo and how we learned from the loss that we’ve had, and I think that we’ve learned a lot from lessons Apollo and the Space Shuttle Program brought us about incremental testing and risk acceptance and redundancy and tolerance and margins and factors of safety and design standards and what we feel is acceptable for putting humans — human people in a giant rocket that has, you know, explosives and cryogenics and different things in it, right, so that we can get to space, and so I think, you know, we have learned from every single — not just tragedy, but all of the successes that we’ve had. We learn from successes that other people, like ULA and SpaceX and Boeing have had. Any success in the space industry is success for all of us, and we learn things from that. We are excited. We did go from Apollo to water landings to space shuttle land landings, and now we’re back into the water landings, and I would say that Milt is the only one on the team that really has any experience with that, because those of us who have human spaceflight experience are from the International Space Station Program or from shuttle.
Joshua Santora: Right.
Melissa Jones: So that’s one of the reasons why he’s so valuable on the team, and he helps us with a lot of the things that Apollo did in their flight rules and their weather conditions and where did they have issues, and so we’re all very excited about what we’re doing, but we’re trying to be very meticulous with our testing, with our procedures, with our safety culture. We work with the Navy again just like they worked with the Navy a little bit in a different ship configuration, but there are some similarities to the way that Apollo did recovery to what we’re trying to do now.
Joshua Santora: Milt, were you there when Apollo 11 came back and did you help get the “Eagle” out of the water? I guess it wasn’t the “Eagle,” ’cause the “Eagle” is on the Moon.
Milt Heflin: That’s right. The “Columbia” was the Command Module —
Joshua Santora: Thank you.
Milt Heflin:…yeah, for Apollo 11. Well, I had many different jobs back in the Apollo days. Apollo 11, I met the “Hornet,” “USS Hornet” at Pearl Harbor. When the ship got back to Pearl Harbor, I was one of two NASA engineers that oversaw the contractor team that safed the Command Module for air transport back to the United States — back to the continental United States. So, for Apollo 11, that’s what I did. I was one of the two team leaders. We did over about a 48-hour period nonstop, had the contractor team safe the Command Module, and then load it up into a four-engine turboprop cargo carrier. This is back during the Vietnam time, so this is about the only aircraft that we could use that could make the jump from Hawaii over to the West Coast. That aircraft, I guarantee you, Josh, I’m surprised the rivets stayed in that airplane when we flew that thing back over here.
Joshua Santora: [ Laughs ]
Milt Heflin: That thing shaked, rattled, and rolled the entire time. So I was the NASA guy on board the airplane that went all the way back to Houston with the Command Module to attach it to the Lunar Receiving Laboratory for further processing when we were done.
Joshua Santora: So, did you get to see Neil, Buzz, and Michael when they came back?
Milt Heflin: I saw them being taken off of the ship in a mobile quarantine facility that they had.
Joshua Santora: Sure.
Milt Heflin: I saw that happening, but just from down on the deck or down on the dock, seeing them being picked up inside that trailer.
Joshua Santora: Cool. That’s awesome. So, Melissa, what’s the plan for you as far as with Orion, where are you expecting to be located for Orion recovery?
Melissa Jones: So we’ll be on a ship, a landing-platform docked ship off the coast of San Diego. The primary landing location’s about 38 to 50 nautical miles off the coast. I, specifically, will be in the landing area. They call it the C.I.C. Combat… Gosh.
Milt Heflin: Combat Information Center, I think.
Melissa Jones: Combat Information Center on the ship. It’s where they run ops on the ship when they have different operations that they run. So that’s where I will be, along with Public Affairs and a few other folks, and we’ll have access to the bridge where the captain’s at, and we’ll have access to the folks who are doing the actual operation in the open water. So we’ll be physically located on the ship when we do the recovery.
Joshua Santora: So you thought about what it will be like to greet astronauts coming back from the Moon someday?
Milt Heflin: [ Chuckles ]
Melissa Jones: Yes, actually, it’s quite mind-blowing to think about to be perfectly honest, and, you know, what do you say to them? Is it, “Welcome home”? [ Laughter ] You know, just something like that, knowing that we are there to get them out as quickly as possible and get them to medical so that they, you know, can start to recover from being deconditioned. But, yes, it’s historical. It’s a really exciting thing for me to think about.
Joshua Santora: And, Milt, kind of as you’ve worked with the team in your current role, what’s the one message that you want to leave to the whole team to kind of help to — whether it be encourage or inspire or support them five decades later from Apollo 11 and the ’60s where we landed on the Moon?
Milt Heflin: Well, first of all, Melissa made a comment a while ago. The thought came up, and that is, many times as I am participating — basically, I’m tied into conferences from my home, and occasionally we have face-to-face, but many times she doesn’t hear from me, and she doesn’t hear from me because I don’t have anything to offer at that time because what they’re doing makes sense to me. I mean, I mentioned it a while ago. This recovery of this spacecraft out of the water is an order of magnitude, if not two orders of magnitude more difficult than what we did back in Apollo, and it’s very simple. Because a program sometime ago decided they don’t want to take mass into orbit that is gonna be used at the end of the mission only to pick this thing up. We had a lifting loop on board the Apollo. This spacecraft is probably 8,000, 10,000 pounds heavier on the water, and it’s about 4 feet diameter, also. It’s bigger, and it’s like a cork. It sits on top of the water. And so they had no way to just get big ol’ — we used bit ol’ honking aircraft carriers back in those days.
Joshua Santora: Right.
Milt Heflin: And with a crane on board the ship, even though we augmented that crane, and it was an extremely simple operation. So it’s remarkable how they have — I’ve watched this develop where you drag in the Orion capsule mock-up into the well deck ship, and, I mean, it has turned out to be a very elegant way to — it looks weird, but it’s a very elegant way to take advantage of physics and be sure that you’re tending this 20-some-thousand-pound vehicle as you bring it into the well deck. I probably got straight off on something there, but that’s — [ Laughs ]
Joshua Santora: No, I think it’s great. I think that — what I hear from you is that whether it’s good or bad, the long processes are paying off, that we’re doing things really well.
Milt Heflin: Well, so, yeah, and I got away from part of your question there. The concern that I have — and Melissa knows this, I think, and some of the other key leadership of the team. They’ve got a big team, and there’s a tendency that everyone wants to play on a big team…
Joshua Santora: Sure.
Milt Heflin: And not everybody needs to play on a big team. Our team was much smaller. The communications during recovery — I’ve often told her. I said I can recall almost every mission I was on. We told the captain of the ship that the spacecraft was safe on the water, and then he gave the command for them dropping swimmers in the water from a helicopter and starting the process, and the NASA team leaders back then probably didn’t say hardly anything during that entire hour, hour-and-a-half process to get both the crew and the Command Module back on the ship. I mean, there was no go, no-go’s. The helicopter, the swimmers, the deck force all knew what to do, when to do it, and how to do it, and there was no reason to quiz them about anything, and we were fortunate. In picking this Apollo up, we never had any serious problems. Well, I should not have said. Apollo 9, we had a wench problem, and we had to use what was called a Tilly. It’s a big, old crane on board an aircraft carrier that’s used to pick up a downed aircraft in the water — pick it up, and it’s on the flight deck. So we had to use that crane to get the Apollo 9 Command Module back on board, and that was pretty tricky because there’s not a good way to tend that thing as it’s coming all the way up 40-, 50-some feet.
Joshua Santora: Awesome. Melissa, any final thoughts?
Melissa Jones: No, I just — not really. We’re excited about the direction that the agency’s moving in with the Moon to Mars Program. Recovery is ready. We have our hardware. We actually are getting ready to move into what we call Operation. So we’ve got hardware that’s been verified and validated and meets all of our requirements for how we move the capsule around. It’s making sure that we preserve it so that we can get the data that we need off of it to verify that we can fly crew for the first crewed mission, and so I’m very proud of the team. I do understand Milt’s concern about the size of the team. In fact, I think some of it will shrink a little bit now that we’re getting our hardware requirements bought off, but we’re excited and we’re ready.
Joshua Santora: Awesome. Well, Milt, we’re super proud of you and the accomplishments –
Milt Heflin: Can I tell you one story if you don’t mind?
Joshua Santora: Yeah.
Melissa Jones: I love the stories. I love the stories.
Joshua Santora: Milt, fire away, man. I’m excited. Here it comes.
Milt Heflin: I thought about it. So back — I talked about Apollo 8. I need to tell you how part of that happened.
Joshua Santora: So, setting the scene here. This is the Christmas Eve trip around the Moon.
Milt Heflin: Christmas Eve, 1968.
Joshua Santora: Right.
Milt Heflin: It is at the height of the Vietnam War.
Joshua Santora: Okay.
Milt Heflin: Forces are all over out there across the Pacific, and so assets — ships, planes — you know, they’re just not — I mean, they’re around, but it’s not like — it took some effort to pull that together. Well, the very first flight director, Chris Kraft, was the lead flight director back in those days, and NASA Headquarters wanted him to go out to Pearl Harbor and meet with Admiral John McCain from that family. So he was the Commander in Chief of the Pacific at that time, and he was to go out there — Kraft was to go out there and brief him and his team about what’s needed for Apollo 8, and so Chris Kraft went out there and gave the briefing, and this is an example of how — this is something that happened back then that I’m not sure happens today collectively in our country to do some great things. What happened back then was when Kraft got through giving a briefing to an audience of admirals and generals out there at Pearl Harbor, Admiral McCain looked at Kraft and looked at the audience, and he said, “Great briefing. Give this man what he wants.” And I don’t see a lot of that today where we’re trying to do great things, and that’s the big difference to me.
Joshua Santora: Is it just this kind of authority to say like, “This is the right thing”…
Milt Heflin: You betcha.
Joshua Santora:…”whatever it takes, go do it.”
Milt Heflin: You betcha. I mean, that was a good example of it — “Give this man what he wants” — back in that timeframe.
Joshua Santora: Awesome.
Milt Heflin: And I was on the “Yorktown,” which was the Apollo 8 recovery. That was my first time to be on a splashdown of Apollo — Apollo 8.
Joshua Santora: What’s that feeling like? You got guys that literally just saw the Moon from up close — the first guys ever, right?
Milt Heflin: [ Chuckling ] Yes. Yes. Absolutely.
Joshua Santora: They come back, and you’re getting to pull them out of the water.
Milt Heflin: Yes.
Joshua Santora: What’s that feel like?
Milt Heflin: Well… [ Laughs ] When they’re safely on board the ship, it really feels good. [ Laughter ] It really feels good. And I think Borman was on that crew, if I recall. I hope that’s right. So once the crew is on board — actually, the crew got picked up by helicopter. That’s how we did it back in those days. Then we got the Command Module on board. It was several hours after the crew had been on board, I’m down there at the Command Module with the team, and we’re safing it and going through and de-stowing stuff and packaging things up, or whatever. The next thing I know is there’s two hands on my shoulder, shaking me, and it was Frank Borman just saying, “Looks good, buddy. How we doing?” You know? And that was cool.
Joshua Santora: Oh, man. That’s got to feel special.
Milt Heflin: You bet. Absolutely. Absolutely.
Joshua Santora: Well, Milt, we’re appreciative of your efforts in the ’60s to help us be successful, and even today, helping us prepare to be successful once again on our Moon missions. Melissa, obviously you guys have a big, big task ahead of you. I know that you are all up to the challenge…
Melissa Jones: We are.
Joshua Santora:…and we’re excited for everything that is to come. So thank you all, both, for being here.
Milt Heflin: This team can recover this spacecraft, I guarantee you, and they’re gonna be able to recover the crew, too.
Melissa Jones: Thank you. Thank you, Milt. Thanks for having us.
Joshua Santora: You heard it here first. The team is ready. They’re pumped and getting excited for the Moon missions coming up in the next few years. I’m Joshua Santora, and that’s our show. Thanks for stopping by the “Rocket Ranch.” And special thanks to our guests, Bob Sieck, Melissa Jones, and Milt Heflin. To learn more about the Apollo 50th Anniversary activities, visit nasa.gov. For more on Orion underway recovery, visit nasa.gov/egs. For all things Orion, visit nasa.gov/orion. And to learn more about everything going on at the Kennedy Space Center, go to nasa.gov/kennedy. Special shout-out to our producer, John Sackman, our soundmen, Lorne Mathre and Michelle Stone, editor, Michelle Stone, and special thanks to Amanda Griffin. And remember, on the “Rocket Ranch, even the sky isn’t the limit.”
[ Bird cries ]