Moon Launch Day

Once again it is July 16, the day we launched Apollo 11 for the first manned Lunar mission.

I worked at the Kennedy Space Center(KSC) the summer of ‘69 between my Junior and Senior years at FIT.  I rented a little studio apartment in Cape Canaveral for $65/month.  My transportation was my 100cc Yamaha.  I worked in the Launch Vehicle Test Conductor’s Office as an engineering aide.  That office ran the countdown for the Saturn 5.  Each Apollo mission had a test conductor assigned to it.  I was on hand to do the grunt work—getting drawings, reviewing data or checking software logic; stuff like that.

The best part of the job was accompanying the engineers on their weekly “walk-down” of the launch platform.  Each week they did this inspection by going out to the launch pad, taking the elevator to the top, and then walking down the stairs, stopping at each level to inspect the hardware and talk to the platform crew.

It was quite a learning experience especially with one guy.  He would quiz me at each level asking me which stage the swing-arms were servicing here and what was loaded or removed from the vehicle through the hoses and connections on the swing arm.  I even got to ride on the giant crawler transporter as the Apollo 12 launch vehicle was moved out to the pad.

The office was in the Launch Control Center which also contained the firing rooms where all the consoles for conducting the countdown are located. They did enough practice countdowns that I got to sit at some of the consoles and watch the data and pictures being displayed.

The LCC was connected to the Vertical Assembly Building (VAB).  That’s where the launch vehicle is assembled on the launch platform.  The VAB had several enclosed walkways that provided an excellent view of the activity in the VAB from a vantage point 180 feet in the air.  That’s also the building where my Aunt Celia wanted to know “Wheresa your worka-bencha?” I was given great leeway in my responsibilities.  I could go to the VAB and watch whenever I wanted to.  I watched them mate the 3rd stage of Apollo 12 and saw them lift and install the Lunar Module into Apollo 13.  That vehicle became the “lifeboat” for the astronauts on that ill-fated mission.

Of course the most exciting day was July 16th.  I arrived early and got to see the astronauts walk to the transport van.  I watched the launch from the area where the big digital clock is that you see on all the shuttle launches.

I‘m blogged out for now.  I’ll try to give a little more info about that summer in the next couple of days.