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well I think what comes to my mind is

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primarily a culmination of a lot of work

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I started here at the center in 1964 is

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a

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now is more the current focus of NASA

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we're looking at how do you now utilize

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space what is the basics of Science in

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low gravity and it has essentially been

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that message which NASA has had in the

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near term and it has for the future so

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we've essentially got a new research

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platform in space so it has changed its

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it was an extremely exciting time for us

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when I look at the video that comes down

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now from our missions and think back on

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what that downlink looked like for the

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Apollo moon landing I think of how far

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we've come but at the time it was just

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so overwhelming to think of those

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signals coming from the moon and that

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those were people from the United States

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putting foot out there it was as much an

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emotional experience as it was anything

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else just it felt like a big weight had

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come off but yet it also felt like that

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was the starting point for it's not an

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well it was different as you might

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imagine the NASA at that time was white

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shirts and Crewcuts and black ties

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narrow black ties which I obviously

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didn't qualify for any of those or want

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to be involved in that but there were

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some other pioneer women engineers at

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the center so we kind of adopted each

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other and work together and it was a lot

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of hard work but there was a lot of hard

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work to be done so as you were a member

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of that team I never really felt any

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differentiation it was going in and

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getting the work done just as well good

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as you could do it well I think Marshall

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was focused on what's the next step we

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were looking at the Apollo applications

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program beyond the landing on the moon

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we were looking forward to Skylab and

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what we would do for the future so there

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was the future thinking going on as well

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as the the goal of reaching the moon so

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things were starting to shift in their

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focus as they should have at that point

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I never met him personally he was the

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center director when I was here and it

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was more a presence of a spirit as a as

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a worker down in the lab and get my

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hands dirty all the time didn't have an

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opportunity to react with him but his

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vision was clear everyone knew what it

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was that he wanted and he was basically

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well we certainly knew about it people

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were informed and those were things

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which you watched as we currently watch

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the nightly news every day but they were

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not things that you felt like intruded

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on your world we were in a very special

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place at a very special time and

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contributing to a very focused and

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special effort and I think the outside

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world was didn't penetrate to the degree

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that it probably does today so it was a

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different feeling you knew those things

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were going on but somehow NASA had

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become such a family that was all tied

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within ourselves and we had such a focus

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on such a goal that those things just

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didn't interfere with the way we did

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work or how we did our work or what we

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I think communication was a big part of

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that I think people really talk to each

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other I think we had good crisp ways of

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coming to grips with systems engineering

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making sure all the pieces went together

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everyone understood the job we had clean

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interfaces if you look at the Saturn 5

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and how it was built there were clean

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interfaces between each stage everyone

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knew what their job was and they went

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and did it it was a time that there was

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a lot of experimentation there was a lot

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of new area being looked at and being

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explored both in design and the

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operations and the activity of how you

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go about doing space flight but it was

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all a very successful time period as

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my first job at Marshall

95
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education student I was 18 years old had

96
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never seen a computer we were still

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using side rules in school and we didn't

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know anything else at the time we were

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doing Saturn weight control which was

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classified activity at that time because

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you were looking at the performance of

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the engines of performance of the

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vehicle but all the key cars were hand

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punched if you dropped a box of cards

105
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you could lose three weeks of work it

106
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was a very manual intensive the

107
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computers that we dealt with were huge

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filled rooms and they would do now

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probably much less than any handheld

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calculator you could buy from any store

111
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so the the way the technology has grown

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I think that's because of what NASA did

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there has to be a need there has to be a

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market for technology and for tools we

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provided both the market we provided the

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research capability we provided the

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inspiration to go out and do those kind

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of things so the world has changed

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tremendously I thought it was wonderful

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when I got a manual calculator that