Nasa Johnson Space Center Oral History Project
JOHNSON SPACE CENTER ORAL HISTORY PROJECT EDITED ORAL HISTORY TRANSCRIPT JON A. MCBRIDE INTERVIEWED BY JENNIFER ROSS-NAZZAL KENNEDY SPACE CENTER, FL – 17 APRIL 2012 ROSS-NAZZAL: Today is April 17, 2012. This interview with Jon McBride is being conducted for the JSC Oral History Project at the Kennedy Space Center Visitor Complex. The interviewer is Jennifer Ross-Nazzal, assisted by Sandra Johnson. Thank you again for making time for us, especially at this late moment. MCBRIDE: My pleasure. ROSS-NAZZAL: Tell us about your interest in the space program as a child. MCBRIDE: I guess, my first, really, recollection is probably 1957 and the launch of Sputnik [Russian satellite] and followed on with Explorer [1, U.S. satellite] and the selection of our astronauts and our Russian cosmonaut friends. I guess I was 13 or 14 when Sputnik was launched, so I was captivated, like most Americans, particularly the young kids. It got my attention, to the point that my friends and I would design our rockets in our mechanical drawing classes and bring those drawings home to my laboratory that my mother let me build in the basement. We would fabricate them out of copper tubing and build the solid fuel to go in them and a launch pad out in my backyard. I had plenty of room, a couple acres there in West Virginia. Homer [H.] Hickam, if you know Homer, grew up in the next county from me in 17 April 2012 1 Johnson Space Center Oral History Project Jon A. McBride West Virginia. So we were doing the same thing at the same time, as a lot of youngsters were back in those days, building rockets and firing them.
[Show full text]