Right out of college and as a U.S. Air Force officer on special assignment, my job in the NASA Houston Landing and Recovery Division was to train Apollo astronauts in water recovery procedures and to deploy on U.S. Navy aircraft carriers for crew and spacecraft recovery operations. For Apollo 11, after participating in crew training, I was assigned to the Mission Control Center on the Recovery Logistics console to help coordinate recovery aircraft should the spacecraft have an emergency landing in an unplanned and remote area of the world.
That night in Houston as the Lunar Module prepared for its historic landing on the Moon, I took a quick coffee break at a temporary "café" in a back room. As I waited to pay, a lone person walked up behind me and proceeded to talk out loud, saying: "Can you believe these guys?! And sitting on top of a Saturn 5 rocket?! They would never get me to do that!" (words close to the actual). Realizing that this person was excited over the impending moon landing and just wanted to strike up a conversation to share his excitement, I finally turned and to my surprise was face to face with John Glenn!
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I was flabbergasted, didn't know what to say, but then blurted out something like, "I can't believe you said that, having sat on top of a Redstone rocket in the Mercury Program days!" He gave me a big grin. Besides the successful moon landing, this encounter made my day!
Back at the console, I listened in to the communications between Houston and the astronauts as they landed on the moon, and watched the mission controllers cheer in celebration. I couldn't have been prouder of our nation's accomplishment, and was thrilled to have played a part.
Now, watching film of young SpaceX employees cheering their amazing accomplishments, I'm reminded that I and my fellow NASA engineers were also in our young 20's on the Apollo Program. Today's young talent surely will bring us even more amazing accomplishments in space.
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