Product: OSBS PubDate: 07-19-2009 Zone: FLA Edition: ROP Page: COLOR2 User: nmasuda Time: 07-18-2009 22:30 Color: K

A6 Orlando Sentinel CF SUNDAY, JULY 19, 2009

Moon landing: 40 years later THEY HELPED MAKE IT HAPPEN LEE SOLID ROBERT SIECK ROCKET-ENGINES DEVELOPER SYSTEMS MONITOR ‘Anxious moment’ ‘Gridlock’ in Titusville was in the backup firing room at the launch control center. I was was able to watch my only manned Apollo launch from the banks of “I the base manager for Rocketdyne, which at that time was a divi- “I the Indian River in Titusville, along with my wife and 1-year-old Lee Solid, 73, sion of Rockwell, and we had all the engines on Apollo 11. We had the Robert Sieck, 70, daughter. I couldn’t even get within 1 mile of the river and had to park the spent most of his [five] F1 engines on the first stage. The five J2s on the second stage. We witnessed nearly car because of all the traffic. career devel- had the single J2 on the third stage. And then we had the ascent engine all the Apollo “So by the time we got to U.S. 1, it was only a few minutes before the oping liquid-fuel on the lunar module, the one that lifts it off of the moon. Up and down launches on an launch, and I’ll always remember the sight. rocket engines that stack, I think we had something like 33 engines. That’s what I, com- 8-inch, black- “There was no traffic moving on U.S. 1; it was just absolute gridlock. like those that monly called ‘the engine guy,’ was doing. and-white televi- Everybody was parked, sitting on the hood of their car or the top or the bed propelled Apollo “All through the processing of the [Saturn V] for the Apollo 11 mission, sion in a NASA of their . 11. Even today, we were all aware that we were involved in something huge. I’d like to say control room “And people stretched all the way from the river to U.S. 1, standing room he feels a famil- that it was just like any other launch. Yet from an emotional point of while monitoring only. I remember two things, other than the euphoria and clapping and the iar anxiousness view, there was far more anxiety, excitement and emotion. the spacecrafts’ horns and the cheering when the Saturn V lifted off. From Titusville, it when a space “As a rocket engine guy, every time you fire one of those up, you’re systems. For was a good view because you could see the Saturn V rocket sitting on the shuttle fires up anxious. You’re putting together incredible pressures and temperatures Apollo 11, how- pad. It wasn’t obscured by the service structure like the shuttle is. its main en- and speeds and the materials have to withstand it. I was a test engineer, ever, his crew “You could see the thing out there, and you could see it slowly rise and gines. and I have to admit every time you push the start button on a test engine, had the day off. the flame trenches were vectoring the exhaust from the rocket away so it it was an anxious moment. I watched the very first F1 engine — that Here’s what wasn’t like all you could see was a big cloud of steam or smoke. And I also million-and-a-half-pound [thrust] engine on the base of the Saturn V, and Sieck, who later remember a woman taking a plug of sod out of the right-of-way or median after a second and a half it ended up nothing but a big hole in the ground. served as launch and we asked her what she was doing. Something went wrong and it just blew .... director for space “ ‘Well, I’m taking this as a souvenir of being here.’ And she was doing “I can’t tell you exactly what was going through my mind during the shuttles, saw. that because after I looked around, all the trinkets and memorabilia and launch of Apollo 11. But all those F1s worked perfectly in flight. We all felt T-shirts, baseball caps, buttons, pins, decals had sold out. There wasn’t a sense of pride.” anything left to buy.”

JACK KING RON WOODS INFORMATION CHIEF SPACESUIT EXPERT ‘Morning like no other’ ‘Hey, it’s your turn’ his was our sixth Saturn V launch, so it wasn’t that new to us. I suited up Buzz Aldrin — really honored to do that. We had prac- always tried to be as accurate as possible, and having been a “I ticed so many times. Any time one of the astronauts was at KSC, “T even for training, then we were over there suiting up the guys. We had a Jack King, “the former newsman, I did the countdown as a live news event. And I tried to Ron Woods, 63, is cover it, if you will, the same way the news guys would, describing ‘this is one of NASA’s lot of experience working with that particular crew, and that was to keep voice of Apollo,” the confidence level up. We wanted to make sure we went over our check- was chief of what is going on at this particular time’ with no extra flowers or anything top experts with else. I never had a problem with it on the first five Saturn V launches. spacesuits, list many times and had everything in the right place. information at “We explained that to the crewmen because it’s such an exciting mo- Kennedy Space “But when we got down in the last couple of minutes . . . at that point I having modified, had three voices coming into my ear: Norm Carlson, he was the NASA repaired and ment for them as well as us, and yet you want to keep it calm and cool Center from and collected to get them suited. 1960-72, a period launch vehicle test conductor, and Norm would confirm events coming zipped them on down. Skip Sheldon was the spacecraft test conductor, he was the guy astronauts for “Once we got done with that, they could sit in their chair and relax. that included “When they rode out to the pad, we changed their ventilators and went the Mercury, talking to the crew. And Paul Donnelly was the launch operations man- more than four ager. So I had these voices coming in my ear. And after they hit the igni- decades. He up the elevator. Since Buzz was flying center console, center seat, we Gemini and stayed at the elevator while the other two crewmen went around and got Apollo pro- tion sequence start, and I started counting down the final seconds, all of a helped the Apollo sudden a fourth voice came in my ear: It was mine. And it said, ‘My God, 11 crew suit up. inserted into the vehicle. And so we were out there in the quiet or at least grams. He did partly quiet with the wind blowing, and Buzz walked over and looked the countdown we are going to the moon.’ And I stumbled just a little bit but recovered and announced “Liftoff.” over at the vehicle, smoking and groaning and everything it was doing for Apollo 11’s then. Of course, he’s fully suited up and he can’t hear anything, and I’m launch. “And at that particular point, I looked over my shoulder and there was this majestic vehicle just sitting in a bed of flames. It took an eternity for not on communications with him. that thing to get up. You know the shuttle at liftoff clears the tower fast. It “When they gave me the word, I tapped him on the shoulder, ‘Hey, it’s took the Saturn V seven seconds just to clear the tower. That was always your turn,’ and off we went to get him installed in the vehicle. We were something of a magic moment. out there, just a few people in that moment in time, seeing these guys and “It was a morning like no other, without any question.” thinking, they’re going to the moon — going into the unknown.”

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