McDonnell Douglas & NASA

The unsolicited, but much appreciated, job offer letter from McDonnell Douglas. This is the letter Pam read to me over the phone as I stood in a phone booth in Houston after visiting the Manned Spacecraft Center with Bob. Little did I know the ironic occurrence would bring Pam and me back to Houston within 2-years. The job offer was a testament to the excellent reputation Greenville College had with surrounding corporations, because it sure was not a testament of my academic achievements. You can click on the letter and do your own calculation but my starting salary, which to me and Pam at the time was substantial ($4.55/hour), was far less than today's minimum wage. This reminds me that the demand to raise the minimum wage is only symbolic and only temporarily help the worker. Higher minimum wages always lead to higher prices. The solution is for workers to improve their skills, and get a better jobs while keeping prices low. 

After 9 months working the the Commercial Aircraft Collision Avoidance System, and then designing test equipment and writing reports on Skylab uplink data communication gear, I was asked if I wanted to transfer to Houston Operations and train astronauts. WHAT! Are you kidding? I wanted to be an astronaut. In Houston I was given this mug with my name in gold, and spent nearly 3 years writing check lists, malfunction procedures, and training the Skylab crews in the use of the same. 

In Houston at the McDonnell Douglas offices, I spent weeks holed up with an engineer from St. Louis pouring over electronic schematics and imaging what could go wrong during the flight, and then devising a procedure to correct it. We did this with a blackboard and chalk, then took Polaroid pictures (like this one) and then I translated them to a printable flow chart. The procedure depicted here is what to do if it's apparent that the Caution and Warning System aboard the spacecraft malfunctions. The final procedure that appeared in the check list appears below. 

We spent most of our time proof reading check lists of the linear and branching kind shown here. One of the biggest problems was the consistent use of acronyms. 

CW: Caution and Warning

sw:  noun for switch

cb: circuit breaker

PWR: Power

Thus, "CW PWR sw" referred to the Caution and warning power on/off switch.

Keeping the crew free form illness was a major concern. Thus, there was minimum contact with them. Around Building 4, where their offices were on the third floor, and our NASA contacts were on the second, there were posters by cartoonist Johnny Hart reminding us to stay away from crew members if we were sick. Johnny, a Christian who controversially drew about his faith in major syndicated newspapers, was given an honor by NASA for his contribution to their safety.  The poster at right, on the wall next to the elevators, was one of my favorite.

At one Skylab patch stickers by Johnny Hart, reflecting his Wizard of Id comic strip, appeared around the NASA campus. We think it was his pitch for the official Skylab patch. Too bad....he lost out to the image on the right. 

My first exposure to anything related to television, film, or video was this book. Little did I know it was a foreshadowing of my eventual career. On board Skylab was a video camera and videotape recorder with a 25 minute capacity. The crew would video record scenarios (a sequence of scenes) of an experiment, or commentary on the recorder, and then the recorder would playback the video tape to ground control. They could also transmit live video "back to earth." 

As related in the text, on my last day at the Manned Spacecraft Center I was able to collect the autographs of a few of the astronauts and NASA personnel I had worked with. I never worked with Alan Shepard but I did corner him as he entered the astronaut office building and got his signature. It's on the bottom image at the top left: "To Stan with best wishes, Alan Shepard." Immediately under his is Charles Conrad, Joe Kerwin, and Paul Weitz, who were the first Skylab crew honored on the sticker at on the right.

That's about it for this post. The one picture I wish I had was of our dog "Jet" chasing the NASA ducks around the pond in the middle of campus. Pam had come to pick me up. We had a convertible, and Jet, seeing the fowl in the distance, had jumped out of the car. I was on the second floor of  Building 4 and just happened to be looking out at the pond that a couple dozen ducks called home. Suddenly they all took to flight...and a second later  I saw this black German Shepard mutt jetting into view barking at his missed opportunity.  And a moment after that I saw my wife run after the dog. She wasn't going to catch him, so I reluctantly said adios to my work associates and joined Pam in the chase.