View Single Post
Old 02-25-2009, 09:53 AM   #43
geodeticman.5
Senior Member
 
Join Date: Jul 2008
Location: Eastern Slope urban corridor, Colo. USA
Posts: 1,007
Default Re: Corfid.cafe - enjoyable talk via friendly posts

THIS DOCUMENT HAS NOW GROWN TO THREE PARTS BY EDITING, SO THIS IS THE END: PART 3 OF 3


He (MY Dad) spoke very highly though, of the manned missions Engineering quality through both SKYLAB (REMEMBER THAT ? - A LAB AS BIG AS A 3 BDRM HOUSE) and Apollo which were both launched out of the Earth's atmosphere and up into orbit for Skylab, and the flip-flop deployment of the 3-day mission rocket components into position and pinpoint precision 'attitude' and jettisoned on its way for the roughly 1/4 million mile 3-day trip 'coast' at over 10,000 MPH to the moon - of Apollo missions - guidance he did on both - because they shared the montrous Saturn V Rocket - the only thing Dad did on Skylab and Apollo and specifically on the Saturn 5 Rocket they shared iin common - 365 ft. tall and 7 million pounds thrust - and the Apollo project as well "on the side"- were guidance components, programming, and systems" referred to in the Movie 'Space Cowboys as 'Byzantine guidance programming' on Skylab by the hotshot spoiled kid from MIT - That Clint Eastwood, playing the retired NASA Engineeer who designed the guidance on Skylab in the movie - that in historical fact was my father, but the movie character was NOT based on Dad's life at all lol ).

Dad said he could NEVER put his name on Manned Project vehicles the way they were budgeted and being designed after Apollo and Skylab, and who subsequently were calling the shots. But Dad did truly respect - and was proud to put his guidance systems work into both Skylab (after Apollo missions) and the Apollo project missions-Apollo specifically being Kennedy's - and indeed the Nation's vision - to put a man on the moon by the end of the 60's decade - they did it - but it was one of the most spectacular achievements by mankind in history - and certainly to date then of NASA's.

I'd have to say Dad's proudest - and saddest career moments I could tell later - were the Viking/Mars Missions. Just before he retired,he finished and proudly launched Viking One, in 1975, the very first Mars soft-Lander and on-board geologic core sampler craft - ever to touch down - well, lol,, bounce - by design softly down on Martian soil in the 70's - the touchdown - he proudly saw from his mountain-top retirement home here in Colorado on TV. But when Nasa did it again later in this current decade - it was hailed on Television erroneously as mankind's first Mars soft-landing - and I saw a tear in Dad's eye, but he said nothing. So I had a mission hat made for him, commemorating HIS & his team's first success in the 70's.

BUT WHATS IN THE DRAWER ? I don;t know yet, and I suspect you can hardly read this post at all.... good thing I did not drive up !

If you made it this far reading BRAVO ! you brave hardy soul ! MORE TO COME Later - TRUNKS and drawers..... sounds like BVD's now lol....
__________________
~geo Steve . :"I will leave my footprints there to lie beneath the snow" ~gl
Quote to ponder: "A thousand words leave not the same deep impression as does a single deed." ~ Henrik Ibsen
geodeticman.5 is offline   Reply With Quote