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my family and I watched the launch from

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the beach on north of the Cape and I

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believe it's a Titusville beach it was

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very thrilling to see see the launch it

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was I believe almost a cloudless day

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might have been a few little clouds but

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it was very thrilling to see that that

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launch and the vapor trail going up we

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moved it from there to to Treasure

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Island we were on vacation and for the

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moon landing and stepping out on the

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moon we set up late at night and watched

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it on television in the motel over

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Treasure Island it was it was so

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thrilling because I I was associated

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with the space program and to think that

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this was the first time that man had set

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foot on the moon

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and it was just you you had an inside

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thrill from being associated with a

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well in the 1960s I was in the

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instrumentation in the test lab and we

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started out I was on the mercury

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redstone at the old interim test end

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which is a historical landmark I believe

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now and we tested the mercury redstone

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and from there we went to actually

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monitoring Douglas out at Sacramento on

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the s4 program that lasted a few years

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and then we we actually did some RL t na

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3 tests with the liquid hydrogen liquid

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oxygen in the test area just off Martin

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the testing was very exacting the the

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people that ran the test and the people

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that provided instrumentation which I

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was in on that were demanding that

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everything be done right and that was

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one of the main things is that you got

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the the test right and you got the

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results right at that time instrumenting

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something was I guess archaic

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compared to what what we have right now

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but we got the results done back then

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but it would have been easier had we had

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the more sophisticated computers and the

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sensors that they have today

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depending on the weather but at times it

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shook things up and of course a lot of

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times I was in the blockhouse which you

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you got less results but when you happen

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to be on the outside watching the

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testing it really shook things up and I

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understand one time that actually

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Birmingham felt the shock waves due to a

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temperature inversion or something like

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that that that funneled the sound waves

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when we work Skylab one of the

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highlights of that is when we were

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having so many problems with with the

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Skylab and the meteoroid shield ripped

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off and one of the solar rays ripped off

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and the other one was hung well we we

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worked around the clock to try to come

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up with fixes and to train the

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astronauts on how to do it and this

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place was inundated with news media like

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Walter Cronkite

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Jules Bergman and many others that was

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was kind of thrilling even though we

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worked herself to death we we got to see

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a lot of celebrity news people at that

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time well the new goal was in the early

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70s of course was Skylab and then the

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the shuttle came along and I actually

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went into the Space Lab work and work

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Space Lab for the the remainder Space

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Lab and Space Lab payloads

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for the remainder of time that I was

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with NASA and there was an awful lot of

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dedicated people trying to make every

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every program that we worked on make it

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better and it was just a thrill to be

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able to work with some of the people

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we've met astronauts from Houston and we

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had the people from Europe on the Space

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Lab and it was very thrilling to meet

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with those folks and learn how they do

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well for my standpoint I believe it was

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was the the goal to reach the moon and

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and there was an awful lot of dedicated

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folks working at Marshall and around the

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country at that time and I I really am

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proud to be a part of that team and it's

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it's very thrilling to to know that that

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Marshall had a great part in the role of

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men on the moon being a part of the

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programs that that has so much helped or

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the nation as a forerunner I guess in a

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space program for the u.s. we understand

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what's behind the Russians at first and

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then I think we we jump way ahead of

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them in the space program

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and being a part of the build up of the

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the Apollo program and and doing the

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testing and that sort of thing it was it