Nasa Johnson Space Center Oral History Project Oral History Transcript

NASA JOHNSON SPACE CENTER ORAL HISTORY PROJECT ORAL HISTORY TRANSCRIPT JACK R. LOUSMA INTERVIEWED BY CAROL L. BUTLER HOUSTON, TEXAS – 7 MARCH 2001 BUTLER: Today is March 7, 2001. This oral history with Jack Lousma is being conducted for the Johnson Space Center Oral History Project in the studio at JSC in Houston, Texas. Carol Butler is the interviewer. Thank you very much for joining us today. LOUSMA: I'm glad I could be a part of this history. It was a long time ago we began, and we have a long way to go yet, but I think it's an important job. BUTLER: A very important job, and I'm glad that you can be here to share it with us. I'm looking forward to it. LOUSMA: I hope I can tell you something you don't know already. BUTLER: I'm sure you can. I'm sure you can. There's a lot still to learn about it and a lot to learn from the history to apply to the programs of today. LOUSMA: I think when we piece everybody's history together, we'll all see something new that we didn't realize before, and we'll say, "Gee, I didn't realize that happened because of this," and we'll probably put together a whole lot of other things that we have been curious about for a long time. BUTLER: Absolutely. And everyone always has a different perspective on the same situation. 7 March 2001 1 Johnson Space Center Oral History Project Jack R. Lousma LOUSMA: Kind of like a jigsaw puzzle. Finally we'll have the whole picture. BUTLER: And it's a big picture, so many different parts that come in to make it all happen. One of those parts, to begin with, if you could tell us how you got interested in aviation and then moving into the space program. LOUSMA: When I was a kid, I always enjoyed airplanes. I'd make model airplanes and so forth. I remember being at my grandfather and grandmother's farm in Michigan, just four or five years old, and I had a cousin who was in the Army Air Corps and he flew fighters. I don't know how he got to do it, but he flew them wherever he wanted to, I guess. But I remember they said, "Your cousin Gordon is going to fly over the farm in a little while," and sure enough he did. He just came so low between the barn and the windmill, just like this, and I could almost see his eyeballs. I said, "Wow!" And perhaps that had something to do with it. I had another cousin whose brother, as a matter of fact, was a Navy pilot and a captain for Eastern Airlines until he retired. So aviation kind of runs in the family a little bit. But I was always interested in airplanes as a youngster, but I'd never really flown. My father took me to the airport around Ann Arbor [Michigan] frequently, just a grass strip out in the country, and we'd watch airplanes land and take off, just fun to do. But as I went through high school, my plan was to be a businessman, so I studied those kinds of courses, and when I went to the University of Michigan [Ann Arbor, Michigan], that's where I started. I couldn't remember all the things I had to read, the textbooks full of psychology and history and all the facts and figures and so forth. I was a very slow reader, still am, so I thought I'd better get into something that I can figure out, and maybe business isn't the way to go. So I got into engineering. I thought, well, as long as I'm going to get into engineering—this was in my sophomore year—I really like airplanes and they've got a great aeronautical engineering 7 March 2001 2 Johnson Space Center Oral History Project Jack R. Lousma department at the University of Michigan, so that's what I signed up for. The deeper I got into it, the more I liked it. I had intended to go to a defense plant after college. In those days we had the draft, and if they called, why, you left and went and served, but you could get a deferment for being in college, and you could also be deferred by going to work in a defense industry somewhere. So the natural thing was to go to work with Boeing [Co.] or Rockwell [International Corp.] or McDonnell Douglas [Corp.] as an engineer. But while I was studying engineering, these people from industry would come in and put on seminars, and they would show movies of their fast flying airplanes and jets. I said, "Wow! That really looks like fun. I think the best master's degree for an aeronautical engineer is to learn how to fly these airplanes." I said aeronautical engineer, not aerospace, because in those days the word "aerospace" had not even been invented yet, and the word "astronaut" was not out on the street until maybe [19]'58 or so. I was in school in the Dark Ages. That was a long time ago, the mid-fifties. So I thought to myself, "I think instead of taking a master's degree, what I'll do is learn how to fly airplanes and get in the military service." So I went around and asked the various services if I could fly their airplanes, and it turns out that my wife and I were married between my sophomore and junior year, and she was nurse and put me through school, really. So we were around a long time. She'd never expected to be involved with aviation or marry a pilot. But I went and asked the Air Force and I asked the Navy if I could fly their airplanes, and they said, "Well, our air cadet program requires only two years of college, but you can't be married." So I thought I was out of luck. I was too late at that time to sign up in the ROTC [Reserve Officer Training Corps] program. So I just put it on a shelf until one day going through school I saw some Marines in one of the campus buildings all dressed up with their red stripes and turtlenecks, you know, and they had pictures of tanks and rifles and all the things Marines had, but also airplanes. I said, "You guys don't have airplanes, do you?" 7 March 2001 3 Johnson Space Center Oral History Project Jack R. Lousma They said, "Yes, we do." I said, "Well, can I fly them?" They said, "Well, probably." I said, "But I'm married." They said, "Doesn't matter. We have a program that will take married people, and we'd be glad to have you." I said, "How do I get in this program?" They said, "Well, you take this test." Of course, you know, you always pass those tests. I went home that night, and I asked my wife, I said, "How'd you like to be in the Marines?" [Laughter] Maybe she wouldn't tell it that way, but that's the way I remember it. She said, "Well, you know, we've lived in Ann Arbor a long time. This is our hometown. Our parents are here. It's time to hit the road and go somewhere else. Maybe that would be all right." I said, "Well, I signed up to be a Marine aviator." So all I had to do was to go to boot camp in the summertime, two six-week courses of Marine boot camp. I mean, it was just like Parris Island [South Carolina]. It was a screening course. It was not the summer campus that they advertise it to be. I had to keep my grades up, but I didn't have to do anything during the school year, no drills, no classes of a Marine aviation nature. When I graduated, I was commissioned Second Lieutenant, and I went to flying school at Pensacola, Florida, and then I took my advanced training in Beeville, Texas, for six months. So I was right near [here (Houston)]. I went to a jet squadron, and I really loved flying airplanes, and rather than getting out in four years like I was planning to do, I decided I'd make a career out of this. So I went overseas and went to Naval Postgraduate School and got an advanced degree in aeronautical engineering and went back to a reconnaissance squadron. 7 March 2001 4 Johnson Space Center Oral History Project Jack R. Lousma I was looking for new challenges, really, and that was about the time that NASA was looking for new astronauts, in 1965. I always tell people I answered an ad in the newspaper, because I'd been there about eight or nine months, and I read the base newspaper that came out on Friday afternoon every week, and right on the front page there was this advertisement or article that was saying "NASA's looking for new astronauts. If you're a Marine pilot and you fill all these qualifications, you can apply and you'll go through a screening process in the Marine Corps." I thought up until this time this was a "Don't call us, we'll call you" kind of a program, that I really wouldn't have a chance unless somebody from higher up tapped me on the shoulder.

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