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so joining me now here inside of mission

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control the orion program manager mark

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guyer now mark you were

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working on something else 15 years ago

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you were pretty heavily involved in the

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first launch of zarya again 15-year

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anniversary today what real quick what

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was your role back then what were you

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doing so with there were a lot of

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russian elements there was the fgb

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service module progress in soyuz and so

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i was the manager of

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all those elements and the integration

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into space station so it was i think was

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called the russian elements integration

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team at the time so you had a lot of

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spacecraft to kind of look after and

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manage and try not to lose track of yeah

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and we had good good element leads for

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each one so doug drury was actually the

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fgb manager at the time so i was

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over him in that area okay and you know

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normally it start off asking if you

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remember how you felt back then you know

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the days leading up to launch but we

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actually have a clip of you from 1998

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why don't we take a quick look

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so to see a vehicle actually being moved

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to the pad and you know you're only a

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couple days away

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it's thrilling and i've never been a

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part of a um unmanned launch before so

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that's it's very exciting

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um

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so that's really cool the other part of

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it is it with station there are so many

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launches

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before your project is complete

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um

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so there's still a lot of work ahead

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and so we're i'm extremely excited to

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get started and i'm ready to continue

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the next step but no we've got a lot of

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hard work ahead of us

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and

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that we need to keep focused so it's

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kind of a mixed

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but it's great to get going to get

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mark where where were you when that

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video was taken uh let's see i was uh

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there was a hotel

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um

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that kernichev owns in baikonur

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and it was uh we were there for a week

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and it was really

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for the preps there was a there was a

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final review a couple days before launch

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where they needed nasa and boeing to say

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everything was good and if there were

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any other issues with

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um problems and we were there to deal

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with it so we were there for a whole

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week

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um doug and i and uh jack bacon and some

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other folks were there and of course the

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boeing folks

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ginger and and

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and scott wood uh

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we were all there for a week to go to

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keep working those issues in case we had

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a problem so you were you were right

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there you were ready and you you

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actually got to see that launch and see

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you know the international space station

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start you know from baikonur i mean what

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was that like it i imagine it had been

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years of work leading up

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and it would be years of work to come

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but what was it like you know seeing

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that first element get off the ground

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yeah it's interesting now we look back

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i think to look back on that launch it

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was exciting just before that but i

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think you need to go back and also think

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about the context of what had happened

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with freedom space station freedom

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um you know freedom passed by one vote

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after several years of opera being in

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development and then

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we had the uh it got changed into iss

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and then we in about 96

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we were pretty pretty dire straight the

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russians weren't getting the funding

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they needed we had some delays on the

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node in the lab you know because it's

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very hard to build these elements so

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there was a time there was hard to say

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whether we would even fly

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um and actually we modified fgb

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uh to allow it to have a uh

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a satellite bus the icm that could dock

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to it in case the service module never

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flew we could still build out the usos

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yeah we had to modify the fgb

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but all that turned around uh in late 97

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in 98 and then

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once we started flying it was a whole

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different feeling it was a huge

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relief to get started and of course

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there's been a ton of work since then

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just to get the station to where it is

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so

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it was a really important moment at that

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time and of course the docking

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uh with the node now you actually had

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the

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i remember when cabana and qrikov

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actually went through the hatch together

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uh that was a huge huge moment it was a

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lot of fun after all that work to get

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there so you know being there at the

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beginning what was it like to just watch

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the station evolve over 15 years

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you know it's funny it was a lot of work

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it was a lot of hard work and and in the

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midst of i i think i actually

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caught it pretty well there on the the

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videos exciting to be the first one but

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we were still working hard to get the

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service module ready and folks over here

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were working very hard to get the lab

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done it was a lot of there was a ton of

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work a lot of late nights

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and every flight there was something

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else right and then we had columbia we

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were down for a while

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uh we had to learn how to operate

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without shuttle and then the shuttle

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came back and we finished the finished

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assembly

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uh and then i left i left around 2005.

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but

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it's funny that you're in the midst of

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this exciting thing but you're always

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thinking about okay i gotta work these

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next issues because we got this next

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flight you don't have a lot of time to

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be excited no you're excited for a few

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seconds when you see it off the ground

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and then you're like okay you know

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what's next yeah yeah yeah there's not a

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lot of time to enjoy it because you're

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off to the next thing but that's part of

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working on stations yeah

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well and you you mentioned you know you

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left station you moved on to other

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programs now you're the head of you're

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overseeing orion you know nasa's next

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generation space vehicle it's going to

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go further than we've ever gone a lot of

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really exciting stuff how important you

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know has the station been

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in the lead up to this you know building

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vehicles in space the international

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partnerships things like that i i think

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there's a couple things that station's

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been essential to do right or to learn

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from

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the obvious one is that it's the most

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recent development program we've had and

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and the development program is

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significantly different than

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what i would call an operational program

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like we were in the shuttle meaning that

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the shuttle was hard and there were a

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lot of issues this course especially

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recovering from the accident but a lot

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of the flow a lot of the subcontractor

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base was known so you're working on

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deltas it was still very hard to do

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but when a development program you're

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starting from nothing you're building up

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this

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subcontractor group you're building on

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this factory you're changing your

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processes

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and those of us that are around i tell

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people orion is a lot like station was

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in 96

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and if people remember what the node was

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like how hard it was to get that going

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and some of the issues we had in the lab

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and that's very similar to ryan so if

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you have experience with it and you've

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done it

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um

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you don't get discouraged you know

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here's the things we need to keep our

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our minds on and our and what we need to

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work hard on so it's good really good

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background i also think the political

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environment

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people that didn't work on station don't

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remember that we had a lot of ups and

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downs it's hard and so if you're young

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and coming to ryan go why isn't this

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easy why aren't we just building a

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spacecraft to go to the moon well

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the the political environment is part of

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what nasa lives in and if you've gone

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through station you remember that's how

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it goes and so you can

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you can also say look that we've gone

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through this before we've been canceled

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we survived

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um and we just need to keep focused on

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our job and it helps a lot i think to

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have that background the third thing

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would be the partnership you know

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working with the russians was was

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difficult um but they were terrific

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partners yeah uh and uh in the europeans

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as well the japanese canadians i had the

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honor to work with all of those folks

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and now issa is a part of the of the

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service of they're actually building the

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service module of orion for us

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um in fact mr gerstenmaier and i are

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meeting with thomas ryder here in about

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15 minutes so

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it's very similar kind of things we got

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issues we have issues that we need to

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work together and how do we get through

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with both of us have different

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constraints and how do we meld those

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constraints and our talents and make the

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vehicle come together so in that sense

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it's a lot of

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commonality

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well yeah station must have been a great

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learning experience and i bet you're

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really looking forward to that first

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orion launch too and kind of have a lot

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of the same feelings it is and i can see

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the team too

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it's great to have that focus of the

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launch coming up

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and that sense of accomplishment too and

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then getting on to the next one so eft

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one

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now that we're on the plan to launch in

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september next year right so ten months

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uh it's the same kind of excitement

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after all that time after all the

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struggles

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um to about seeing the vehicle coming

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together

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uh overcoming obstacles technical and

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and others and about to fly is very

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similar feeling yeah

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all right well again mark guyer orion

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program manager 15 years ago russian

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elements manager for nasa there when the

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first element zarya was launched 15

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years ago from kazakhstan mark thanks

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for coming on really appreciate your

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insight and in the past and you know how

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it's really going to help push the