NASA Kimball, Marilyn - May 27, 1999
Interview with Marilyn Kimball
Interviewer: Kristina C. Koenig
Date of Interview: May 27, 1999
Location: Canyon Lake, Texas
KOENIG: My name is Kasey Koenig. I am a student at Southwest Texas and I am here to interview Marilyn Kimball and we are interviewing in her living room (is that right?) – And I just want to reiterate that you understand that this interview is being conducted as a part of the SWT/NASA Oral History Project and the transcripts and tapes will be property of NASA; they will archive it; they will be available for research purposes and you will receive a copy of the transcript from NASA.
KIMBALL: O.k.
KOENIG: And, now I’m just going to [turned off to check equipment]
KOENIG: I think we’re set, that’s picking it up o.k.
O.k., I guess I want to start off with just some, like kind of what we were talking about just a minute ago, some brief biographical data.
KIMBALL: O.k.
KOENIG: Including, just a short family history and educational background and what brought you to NASA. Let’s start with that.
KIMBALL: O.k. Well, I graduated from high school. I’m from Utah, Ogden, Utah, and I graduated from high school. I went to a year of college but I didn’t, didn’t much care for school then, and I liked working real well. And I ended up getting married and I was living in Texas and when I divorced. So I moved down to La Porte to be by my sister and my brother-in-law who worked at NASA. He was a contractor. So that’s what, what brought me there, and I looked around. I worked Civil Service before up at Hill Air Force Base in Utah and so I decided to try to get a job with Civil Service again. I was offered a job at the VA [Veteran’s Administration] but that didn’t sound very exciting [laughter] and fortunately I got on with NASA. So I started in April of [19]71, with NASA as a temporary secretary, a temporary slot. And I worked in the data systems division as
KOENIG: with the directory of NASA or?
KIMBALL: No of that
KOENIG: of that division?
KIMBALL: Uh huh.
KOENIG: O.k.
KIMBALL: And that might not be the exact title. And I worked there, I was in that division for four years and then I got a call as . . . Ok. I was a GS-5 secretary at that time and so I put in for promotions and I got a call from, to interview for the Astronaut Office. Generally all of the, generally all of the slots, the vacancies that came up, they had to advertise but so, you know I figured that one was taken so I went over on the interview and I went back, didn’t even think anything more of it and in a few days I got a call from John Young, who was the Division Chief. He was the head of the Astronaut Office. He told me I had the job, and I said, “You’re kidding!” [laughter] and he said “No.” and I said “Oh!” I was, I was really shocked, and I said, “Oh well let me think about it.” [laughter] So, I, I called him back the next day and told him yes but you know it really hadn’t been in my mind that there was any snowball’s chance [laughter] in hell to get that job. I had before, in the other division, I really had had a lot of different options, to do things. In the Astronaut Office, it wasn’t as challenging. I didn’t have as many, as many areas that I could go out in to. So I decided to go back to school.
KOENIG: When did you get hired at Astronaut Office?
KIMBALL: In, I guess about early [19]75, about April, or something like that.
KOENIG: And you went back to school in?
KIMBALL: In, gosh I went back to school in [19]76, fall of [19]76.
KOENIG: So did you stay working there when you were going to school?
KIMBALL: Uh huh, and NASA had a program and if you could connect any type of the schooling that you were taking with your job, and so I was doing that. And then they would help pay for expenses. After a couple of years I got into a work program. [Husband walked through the room into the kitchen and broke the ice trays] They had a work program [Husband speaking in background] I think that year they selected about six people. And then you would be in that for two years and they would pay all your expenses; your books and your tuition. [Husband and cat in background] Also they would let you take off eight hours a week. [Husband getting ice from freezer]
KOENIG: To go to school?
KIMBALL: To go to school. Up until then I had been [ice covers her speech] just doing it at night. It was real difficult.
KOENIG: So when you got your degree did it change your position or did…
KIMBALL: Yes, and I had to apply for something else. And so then I went into the technical field. Actually I had [husband and cat in the background] finished working, let’s see [husband and cat in the background] [addressing husband] Garner you’re so noisy! You’re distracting me! [laughter] What was the question? [laughter]
KOENIG: We were just talking about once you got your degree where did you go from there basically.
KIMBALL: O.k., I got my degree and then I had to apply for slots in a technical field.
KOENIG: Is that what you did from there?
KIMBALL: Uh huh, and I don’t remember exactly what my title was. [cat in background] I worked for Bill Bates and we were part of the Missions Operations Directorate. And we were looking for ways to help the flight controllers in the control center. They, at that time, oh boy, all of the data that the flight controllers got in Mission Control; it was just a lot of little bits of data and they would have to do a lot of interpretation on it, convert hexadecimal to information and process it in their brain. So all of the data coming down from, from the shuttle was processed by the flight controllers really. And it came into the main frame computers and there was so much data coming and the screens were so little. So what we were doing was the first starting to look at ways to bring them information. To take the data and strip it off line and do processing, other processing which would give them data. I mean information instead of the data.
KOENIG: This is on the shuttle, the shuttle program?
KIMBALL: Uh huh.
KOENIG: Did you work any, mostly your work is involved with the shuttle program? The earlier Apollo Program, were you involved in that?
KIMBALL: No, no.
KOENIG: O.k. that’s what I was thinking.
KIMBALL: I was involved when I was in the Astronaut Office. I met a lot of the astronauts, and worked with them. That would be,
KOENIG: The shuttle mostly?
KIMBALL: Well those were Apollo astronauts. I do remember, boy when I went to the Astronaut Office how huge, huge rooms with just boxes of letters from people who didn’t want the; they were protesting and they were afraid that the flag, you know; the Madilyn Murray O’Hare thing, they were protesting against her, and so NASA had just boxes right up to the ceiling. All of it was sent to the Astronaut Office. The people would get out of churches or things; they would get concerned that God was being taken out of everything, so they would write NASA. And so the people in the mailroom had to go through every piece. They had to open every envelope because requests came in for people [dog barking] signatures.
KOENIG: So what exactly were your responsibilities then when you were working for the Astronaut Office?
KIMBALL: I was the lead secretary in the Astronaut Office, and it was just specifically to be the secretary to John Young and then to work with the other secretaries in check on their work and to help them.
KOENIG: What was John then? If John then, was he wasn’t the, he was did you say the assistant director or he was?
KIMBALL: No he was the Chief of the Astronauts.
KOENIG: And what exactly were his responsibilities then?
KIMBALL: Oh gosh, he was involved in the flights, in selection of flight people. He, uh, all of the assignments, All of the astronauts were not only were they training for flights, but they would also be assigned to different pieces on the shuttle, different systems, computer systems, flight systems. So everyone had their job, Spacesuits – Judy Resnik, when she first came in [19]78, she was a guinea pig for those, for females because they were different. She was bruised [laughter]. She had a lot of them.
KOENIG: What are some of the differences, if you remember or could tell us the difference between the female suits. What are some of the things they were working on?
KIMBALL: Oh gee, well you know hips are generally bigger, and I’m not real sure, but I know she really tried very hard to get into their test equipment. She would be battered and bruised [laughter] and she didn’t really complain but she was told they’ve got to fit, you know and they’ve got to make the adjustments. So each astronaut, they were really hard workers. They, I think they were underpaid. [laughter] They [snapping at cat] goal oriented, -- workaholics—
KOENIG: That’s what we’ve heard. That’s what I was going to ask you about.
KIMBALL: A lot of people at NASA were, a lot of them.
KOENIG: Because you were there after the, the big push in the beginning, the Mercury, Gemini, Apollo programs, but I would imagine that the mentality wouldn’t have changed much. You were there in the beginning of the shuttle program basically, weren’t you?
KIMBALL: Yes, but that a long time coming. The astronauts and a lot of the people really worked hard. They really believed in what they were doing. It was really an exciting place to be.
KOENIG: How much attention did you pay to the NASA program before you were employed there—in the sense of—Did you pay attention to the Space race in the [19]60’s and then when you, or did you not and then when you got there it was an eye opening to you. Or was it a dream come true for you to get a job there?
KIMBALL: Not really, I had I guess my, I was interested in the race to space and things, and I particularly remember going out the evening that the Apollo 1 fire, and the announcement. I was interested in space I always have been but I wasn’t... It was exciting to be at NASA but if you’re not right in the middle of the program, which I wasn’t, initially, it’s not as exciting.
KOENIG: Just more of a Civil Service job, like you said before?
KIMBALL: Sort of, yeah, yeah, and it’s, it’s fun to be there at the center. I guess the first flight they had after I got there was Apollo 15.
KOENIG: O.k. so, then Apollo 15 is your first flight. If you were there in April [19]71 then you weren’t there when Apollo 13 happened? Were you?
KIMBALL: No.
KOENIG: O.k., so where were you then when the first shuttle mission took off?
KIMBALL: I was at work. Then I was working; I don’t remember exactly where I was at the time where we were all looking at the television. That would have been… I was working in the Mission Operations Directorate.
KOENIG: Is that when you were working under Bill Bates?
KIMBALL: That, no, I was working under Dick Thorson.
KOENIG: Can you kind of just describe what it was like at that time? The mood, the excitement—or was it just daily grind around that first mission because I know there are so many things that need to be accomplished.
KIMBALL: I think there was an excitement you know we were six months from launch for like two years. [laughter] They kept saying we were launching then, then something would happen and so it wasn’t realistic schedules that they had set, but everybody just kept working. When I was back in the Astronaut Office—I left the Astronaut Office in the spring of [19]80. John Young and Bob Crippen were the first, and they would go over to the trainers and the trainers would have problems, would crash; they’d be over there for maybe for an hour, and then they’d come back and they wouldn’t have had any training. The trainers were real unreliable, previously. So it was really hard. There were a lot of people cracking the hours, really putting in long, long, to try to get everything working.
KOENIG: Did any of them compare it to what it was like in the initial, say the Apollo program. I know they built on each other but it was such a different area.
KIMBALL: Working for John Young, he always had a lot of concern that they were putting it together; I guess they did so many tests, and they tested the pieces of the equipment together, and you know in the Shuttle wasn’t going to have an unmanned flight, and they were so different aerodynamically from the other missions that they didn’t really do the end to end testing to the extent that they did, and he was, he was always writing letters of this concern.
KOENIG: Writing them to the contractors?
KIMBALL: No, they went to George Abbey, his boss. He was concerned [laughter].
KOENIG: So, you said he flew the first…
KIMBALL: Yeah, he and Bob Crippen; he [John Young] was the commander.
KOENIG: Were there just two? How many were in the original crew?
KIMBALL: Two.
KOENIG: O.k., and what were their feelings or descriptions of the mission?
KIMBALL: They didn’t say a whole lot. Bob Crippen, after he came back, he grew a mustache because he got tired of being recognized. [laughter] He couldn’t even walk on, he couldn’t even walk around NASA, you know without the tourists at that time toured the center. He grew a mustache for a while. [laughter]
John Young was pretty closed mouthed. He kind of took things in stride. He didn’t say a whole lot. I remember once, one day before a mission, they had gone up to Sycol in Brigham City, Utah to watch one of the firings on the solid rocket motors. Somebody asked him [Young] how he’d like to ride one of those, he said, “I’d like two thank you.” [laughter]
KOENIG: So the first mission took off clearly from Florida, did they land in California or back at the Cape? [Kennedy Space Center, Florida]
KIMBALL: They landed in California. They, it was, I can’t remember, it was quite a while. In fact, there was a joke around that as long as there was sand in California, that that’s where they’d be landing. [laughter] They had the landing facility in Kennedy ready. They had to for emergency. They had to avoid…
KOENIG: The first mission, was it mostly just to test to make sure we could do it? There wasn’t the scientific experimentation on that one was there?
KIMBALL: You know I don’t remember. Well, it was testing all the equipment.
KOENIG: Did you have any experience with the skylab project?
KIMBALL: No.
KOENIG: You were pretty removed from that?
KIMBALL: Yeah.
KOENIG: O.k. I know that you were working there after the Apollo, well you said you were there during some of the late ones. I was curious about some of your experience, your contacts, your visits with the Apollo crew—the astronauts, the mission control people. Did you have any contact? Well obviously you did with some of the astronauts.
KIMBALL: After the Apollo program, gee I can’t remember. Was it Tom Stafford or Vance Brand? I can’t remember who the other crew were. I had a lot of contact with the astronauts from day to day.
KOENIG: What were some of your experiences with them?
KIMBALL: Al Bean was real sweet, was real nice and he was really forthcoming, and he would share. He was an artist. He had gone to art school when he was a test pilot at the [unintelligible] in Pensacola, Florida. So he had taken up art. He didn’t have a shuttle flight. When John Young was named for the shuttle flight, then he took out, then he was relieved of his astronaut Chief duty, and Al Bean took over as acting Chief. He’s real sweet. I interviewed him for one of my papers when I was going to college.
KOENIG: So on a day to day basis what was it like with, about the Apollo crew members or the shuttle—I am sure it is just like a daily job but if you could describe just on a daily basis what it was like with these people; mostly men I’m assuming.
KIMBALL: Yes, until [19]78 when women came in. It was just like working with anybody else. They were human beings. Most of them were really great people. They were hard workers. They were knowledgeable. They were cooperative. So it was really fun to work with them, and they were demanding quality. They were real sweet. They were really dedicated people.
KOENIG: That’s something I’m curious about. Since it was a very male dominated environment [cat in background] I’m wondering what, just because clearly there were more men working there than women, what was that like for you? You mentioned [19]78. What happened? What’s the change in [19]78? Can you talk about that a little bit?
KIMBALL: O.k., that was the first astronaut candidates that they had brought in. I think the last astronauts that had come into the program were the previous, they called them mole, I think, astronauts. They were previously with the services—the Air Force and they had an astronaut program and that closed down. So they came in, Crippen and Richard Truly, who was later the Director. They came in, in that group and so there was quite a span where there weren’t any more astronauts named. Then [19]78 they brought a new group in of candidates and they had some.
KOENIG: Just for curiosity sake, was Sally Ride in that group or did she come later?
KIMBALL: [nodding] Sally Ride, Anna Fisher, Judy Simms, Sharon Catharine Sullivan.
KOENIG: Did it change the work environment?
KIMBALL: No, not really. They just fit in with everybody.
KOENIG: What was the work environment like being so many men there. I ask that because when we were there, and this is just a curious thing for me, is the restrooms. The men went to the restrooms and the women went to the restrooms and there was one stall in the women’s restroom and five in the men’s and so it’s so clear the different environment that it was.
KIMBALL: Yeah, and I guess you’re used to it when you’re around. It was funny. Before the women astronauts came in, there started to get some women engineers because earlier there really hadn’t been and a lot of the women engineers were mistaken as secretaries or clerical. The buildings were built for a lot of men, [laughter] and very few women.
KOENIG: So when you got your degree, were you also mistaken for
KIMBALL: No, people knew me.
KOENIG: O.k.
KIMBALL: But, I understand there was a little bit of a problem because people still see you in the role that you’re in. Actually having that experience it was better than just coming in new…. Orientation; they’ve got a real good orientation that was set up over the years and it started out in Mission Operations Directorate with Gene Krantz. When the new people came in to really give them an overall view of particularly Mission Operations Directorate and of the center and that was real helpful. And now they do that, but you know when I came in you just went into your little cubbyhole. You got to know that area but you didn’t really have a sense of mission for the whole of NASA.
KOENIG: Just briefly, did you work in the same building in each of you positions?
KIMBALL: No.
KOENIG: Or were you in different buildings? Which building then did you start out in?
KIMBALL: I started out in 12.
KOENIG: O.k., That’s interesting how they name them, number them like that.
KIMBALL: Right.
KOENIG: Which one is 12?
KIMBALL: That is the one across the duck pond from 4.
KOENIG: O.k.
KIMBALL: So it’s going, which direction would direction would that be? You know where Building 1 of course is the big one story.
KOENIG: And that was the Astronaut Office, or Operations, Building 12?
KIMBALL: Building 12, no that was the data system,
KOENIG: O.k.
KIMBALL: where they put all the computers. It was real cold in there because they had all the computers.
KOENIG: Then where was the Astronaut Office?
KIMBALL: In Building 4, the top floor.
KOENIG: And just for orientation sake, which one is the one with Mission Control?
KIMBALL: Mission Control is 30.
KOENIG: Looking over my notes here that Mr. [William] Larsen sent me—Since it’s on my mind I would like to ask, since you worked there during the shuttle missions, where were you, if you don’t mind discussing it, when the disaster happened?
KIMBALL: I was in a meeting. We weren’t watching the launch. Somebody came in and told us and we hurried out of the meeting. There was Jack Knight and Bill Bates and myself. And I can’t remember others.
KOENIG: Is it a very clear moment for all of you? Shocking? Clearly shocking.
KIMBALL: Oh it was terrible. It was just, a sinking feeling that that could have happened.
KOENIG: Did you have any children in school at the time in the Houston area?
KIMBALL: No.
KOENIG: How did that affect then, the work environment, day to day functioning then?
KIMBALL: At the same time my husband was real ill in the hospital so I had a couple of things going on. It was very difficult although everybody… I guess it was difficult for me; it was difficult to realize why it had happened. Because the flight rules should have prevented it having happened.
KOENIG: How? Can you explain?
KIMBALL: Yes, because it was so cold it was out of the parameters of what the set for flights. I’m not really technical; I don’t know that but it just seemed, appeared to me that, that it was forced to fly.
KOENIG: Do you know why it might have been forced to fly?
KIMBALL: No, only what you hear. Speculation, but nothing specific. But it seemed to me that, you know space flight’s a risky business, but that one, it just seemed like it was pushed, and shouldn’t have been flown that day. It was a bad day to fly because it was so cold.
KOENIG: How many of the families lived; did you live… There were several crew members. How many of them lived in the Houston area?
KIMBALL: Quite a few of them. Well, they lived mostly I think in the Clear Lake area. Most of the astronauts had to live there because they had such long hours. I don’t think any of them lived very far away.
KOENIG: Did you live near them?
KIMBALL: No, none of the ones who were killed, no. It changed; it really changed all the people. It was really sad. There were really some neat people, were really neat people. El [Ellison S.] Onizuka, he used to, on the flight he would have macadamia nuts; he was from Hawaii, and he had macadamia nuts sent over from Mission Control for all the people. He, there were just a lot of real; they were hard workers. They were talented. They were cream of the crop. Ron [Ronald E.] McNair, his wife worked in the program too, in training.
KOENIG: There was the teacher on the mission.
KIMBALL: Right.
KOENIG: But there were other women on the mission weren’t there?
KIMBALL: Yes, there was Judy [Judith A.] Resnick.
KOENIG: Did you know her at all?
KIMBALL: Not close, but I knew her, yes.
KOENIG: Did she have a family in Houston?
KIMBALL: No, she was single.
KOENIG: So how did it affect your daily work? Did it affect; did it change how things were operated?
KIMBALL: I think the managers took more control. They wanted to go back and inspect everything and they were analyzing I think NASA as a whole. It became a lot more regulation oriented, you know rules in place, processes, and so I think it took away individual responsibility.
KOENIG: So how long did you work then at NASA? When did you retire?
KIMBALL: In [19]94, May of [19]94.
KOENIG: We also met Don Thomas when we were in Houston. Did you know him?
KIMBALL: No.
KOENIG: Because his impression is it certainly his personal feeling is it certainly affects your feelings of that this really is dangerous. Did it drive home that this because clearly you know the danger is there? Did it make it a reality?
KIMBALL: Yes, you know the dangers and you know it’s a risky business, but, you know it’s, it’s driving it home.
KOENIG: Was it business as usual the next day?
KIMBALL: Oh no, no.
KOENIG: Where were you living at the time?
KIMBALL: La Porte.
KOENIG: O.k., did you also live in Friendswood?
KIMBALL: No.
KOENIG: O.k., that was a guess by Mr. Larsen.
KIMBALL: There weren’t any astronauts that lived in that area specifically.
KOENIG: In the earlier missions they were telling us about what they called splashdown parties and since the Challenger [Shuttle] doesn’t splash down but was there, what kind of celebrations were there for successful missions for the shuttles?
KIMBALL: Gee, I don’t know. There was just a lot of excitement. I was never that social so I didn’t participate in them.
KOENIG: Do they still have something like that?
KIMBALL: Yes, the astronauts had parties afterwards, well where they pinned the wings on people who hadn’t flown before, when they got their astronaut wings, which those were closed to the people. I don’t really recall anything about the splashdown parties. I know the Apollo, from what I hear were really wild but I never attended any of them. [laughter] And they worked hard and you know and the parties; they played hard too. The people did, because they really worked and I guess it was a stress relief.
KOENIG: I’d like to go back to some, your experience; I don’t mean to dwell on it; but I’m just very curious about your experience as a woman in this environment when many of these men are military, trained, so you’ve got a military environment, an engineering environment. What was your social network at work? As a woman with all these men, I’m curious.
KIMBALL: I’ve always related well to the men. Social, I was, I didn’t really have a real thick social life at work. It always revolved around people. [skip in tape] Some of the parties we were invited to but I didn’t count friendships with the people. They were all nice though, you know all the people around us.
KOENIG: Your husband worked there too?
KIMBALL: Yes.
KOENIG: Were y’all in close circles or did y’all work very separately from each other?
KIMBALL: Very separate.
KOENIG: Did you work with any other women at all?
KIMBALL: Well, the women secretaries. I didn’t work with women until I was in the Shuttle Program Office. [unintelligible]
KOENIG: The astronauts: Can you give us any insight into the “boys club;” the military type of mentality that they come from?
KIMBALL: I didn’t get a feeling of a “boys club” sort of a thing and I think when the women astronauts came in I think they treated them as equals.
KOENIG: Were they mostly military background also, the women?
KIMBALL: No, the women were civilian. Two medical doctors. From what I could see they were treated as equals. I think the men really were more interested in the brains and you know, the work ethic, and how competent they were. That was my observation. That they were given every bit as much respect as any of the men were given. And they earned it.
KOENIG: You worked there for 24 years?
KIMBALL: Yes, about 23, 24.
KOENIG: Coming away from it or stepping away from it, can you give us how it affected your life, or the part of your life that it was? Was it a job or was it just, did you feel like you were part of something very large?
KIMBALL: A little bit of both. In some ways it was a job. I guess after I got my degree, I was a little disappointed in the areas that, you know, given responsibility for, and I think that was mostly because of higher management. They liked to run things. My view of it was that the higher managers were you know the workers back in the really interesting part and I think they hated to give up control. It was so much fun for them, and so they liked to remain involved down at the lower level than possibly they should have been. Then money was tight later on too. I ended up working in the Shuttle Program Office. That’s where I spent my last four years.
KOENIG: And what did you do there?
KIMBALL: Office computers for the shuttle program requirements. [skip in tape] Contractors who maintain the conference rooms.
KOENIG: Do you still closely follow the shuttle missions?
KIMBALL: Somewhat, but not terribly.
KOENIG: Since you were there from the Challenger to recently, and there was quite a bit of management shuffling then, directors. Can you talk about that a little bit; the turnover and changes and what that was like?
KIMBALL: From what period?
KOENIG: Challenger to, I guess they’ve had, the most recent director’s been there for a while there was one that was there for 6sixmonths, and eighteen months. The director, and how did it filter down?
KIMBALL: I think when Richard Truley was the Director, he had a real good sense for the mission. Prior to that there was a lot of transition in the directors and I’m sure that, that maybe had something to do with it. But I think Truley did a pretty good job of turning things around. I know Bob Crippen; he went to Kennedy Space Center and took control there. I think after the Challenger accident, I think, well not only do I think but it’s obvious that the astronauts became more powerful in the management structure. You know Richard Truly, Director, and Crippen; a lot of the key people. Loren Schreiber, he was on some safety…But a lot of them were moved up into positions where they had more say so in the chain.
KOENIG: When you have a director there for six months, and turnover; what must that be like to have that kind of instability, especially following the disaster? Or did y’all even notice?
KIMBALL: I think it’s noticeable. I think when [Dan] Goldin came in and started to take control, that was noticeable. So I think it’s Reed [unintelligible] and he’s been there for a long time. So I think it is the dynamics of the director. I think it was McCafferty [sp?] who was the director for a little while. He was a forceful person. But down at the low level, it doesn’t influence terribly but you can feel it.
KOENIG: Was there a fear, of like in the Apollo missions when they had the fire, a fear of cut off, or “we’ve got to keep going?” How is this going to affect the program? What kind of fears did that place on y’all after the Challenger?
KIMBALL: I don’t know. I wasn’t working then. I was so out of the loop as far as the program was going.
KOENIG: He mentions here, John Young’s Deputy was Carolyn…
KIMBALL: [Pronounces] Huntoon.
KOENIG: Huntoon. Can you talk about her a little bit?
KIMBALL: She was, he didn’t have a Deputy when I first went there in [19]75. I think it was when they brought the astronaut candidates in that Carolyn Huntoon; she was a person from the Engineering directorate, and they brought her in as a Deputy, and she was kind of overseeing the astronaut candidates. The astronaut candidates came in July of [19]78 and then they were called ASCANS, [she spells out] A. S. C. A. N. S.. They trained for a year before they were full-fledged astronauts. She was brought in essentially to oversee the training. She really didn't reside there a lot. She still resided in her Engineering Directorate. She was very nice, very sharp.
KOENIG: Is this right that she was the Johnson Space Center Director for about eighteen months?
KIMBALL: Yes.
KOENIG: And that was in the [19]80s, correct?
KIMBALL: No, that would have been in the [19]90s I believe. Let’s see, late [19]80s, early [19]90s; some time in there.
KOENIG: Do you have any memory or impression of her role there?
KIMBALL: Just that she was competent and it was nice to see a woman rise. I think she was well respected by people. Knowledgeable. I think it was nice for the women there to have this role model.
KOENIG: Do you know why she left?
KIMBALL: No. I don’t.
KOENIG: Who replaced her?
KIMBALL: Boy, I can’t remember. Who replaced her? Geo Abbey?
KOENIG: Yes, [George] Abbey. I read a little bit about this and I’m wondering your impression. The rise through the ranks, is it political? Is it skill? Do you know? Your impression of that? Like her rise through the ranks. Was it through her skills?
KIMBALL: I’m sure it’s a little bit of everything. I think with her, I think she was very skillful. I guess it’s being at the right place at the right time. Whoever’s naming, naming people. I think with any rise in any ranks there’s, I don’t think you can take politics out of any job, no matter which company, you know, how large, how small. The government doesn’t have a, [laughter] have a monopoly on that sort of thing.
KOENIG: That’s what they said in the earlier time of the program that politics weren’t, in as far as their awareness of national politics, wasn’t a big issue at Johnson Space Center. They had a job to get done and they were so focused on that. Was it like that in the early [19]80s and [19]90s also or did politics become more…
KIMBALL: I think politics and keeping the program alive, you know the American people, and Congress, and the president, they supported the Apollo Program and that was a direct focus. And after that, then it started to wane. So backing from Congress and the from the people.
KOENIG: What is your opinion then of the recent John Glenn flight back into space?
KIMBALL: It got a lot of old astronauts [laughter] that could have flown. Bill Thornton, Dr. Thornton, he’s flown; he’s pretty old. I’ve got no problem with it. And it livened up things for a while and gave NASA publicity. So that’s fine.
KOENIG: Did you watch?
KIMBALL: Oh sure. [Laughter] Yes, as much as you can here. Down in Houston they carry the live channel. The channel’s down there so you can watch the whole mission if you wanted.
KOENIG: Did you do that? Living in Houston, working there, did you do that?
KIMBALL: Yes, a bit, you know, monitored different parts of it. For a while though we didn’t have cable so I couldn’t but when I got cable, yes. It’s nice to be able to tune in.
KOENIG: Did you have privileges during the mission, since you didn’t work in Mission Control? Did you have the privilege, if you wanted, to watch missions from Mission Control when you worked there?
KIMBALL: There was viewing rooms that were open, they made them available. They posted them for each mission when they would be available.
KOENIG: And employees, you could go there?
KIMBALL: Yes. I didn’t very much. For a few times, I never worked in Mission Control but I was working on an expert system with one of the flight controllers so I sat in one of the back rooms, and that’s where a lot of the action really goes on. For every person you see out in the front room, at that time there were four or five in the back room, you know, monitoring the subsystems.
Takes a special kind of a person to do that too because they have to really be [snap of fingers] sharp and like I said, not a lot of information, like it wouldn’t come that necessarily that this instrument failed or you know some component. It would be these little teeny components and they’d see, you know the pressures. And a lot of them, they had to put [snap] them together, and then they’d have [snap] to just have the regulations, you know, they’d would just have to be able to know. But most of the time the mission was boring as the devil.
Simulations were, they kept you moving because they put [snapping] enough failures in. But during a mission, what you wanted was nothing to go wrong. So they’d be sitting back there and, but they would have to stay alert. And that takes a special type of a person, and then just, you know, if something happens, just [snap] the adrenaline, to slip in.
Being a flight controller, is really a, is really a hard existence because the times they schedule. They schedule the twenty-four hour; well no, they go about seventy-two hours I guess, when they’d start the simulations. So you’d go on the shifts and then you’re signed up for a mission and maybe you’d planned a vacation and the mission keeps getting scratched. So you end up staying and stuff. So those, those are real tough times and then in the time you’re not doing missions, then during the day then they’re in an office situation. So, you know, Monday they’re in an office. Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday they may be on night shift. Friday they’re back into an office situation and they have to do that because there’s meetings.
KOENIG: Did scratch situations ever affect your family life or your, I mean because you said you were both working there.
KIMBALL: No, not really. Garner [Kimball] worked in, what did they call it? Missions, no. I can’t even what, but he monitored a little bit but he only had a few shifts. So it really didn’t affect our life much. But my friends, it was hard on them. It’s hard on family life, you know that way too, and a lot of the astronauts worded long hours, and they did the simulations, and they had travel. And so it was hard on, on people.
KOENIG: I’m wondering what, what do you consider to be your own personal, the most significant personal accomplishment that you made while working there?
KIMBALL: Ooh [laughter]. Gee, I don’t know.
KOENIG: Sort of, maybe on that same note then, maybe to help you think, looking back o your experience there, would you imagine that, when you applied there in [19]71 that you would have spent your career there and how did it affect your life, and form those twenty-five years that you worked there?
KIMBALL: It was a good place to work. It was a nice, you know, clean place. The people were top drawer. I never dreamed I would go off, you know, get bored, and go to school. In fact I guess I didn’t even think that I would have a career, you know, that I would keep working all of that time. It changed me in a lot of ways. It gave me more self-confidence, working there and going to school. It was an exciting place. There was a lot of interesting things going on.
KOENIG: Do you keep in touch with the people you worked with at NASA?
KIMBALL: Not really. There’s been one person that I keep in touch with. She’s left the program too. She’s a contractor. But I haven’t been back. I’ve, well there is one person that still works there that I do keep in touch with. She’s [unintelligible].
KOENIG: You talked about women astronauts. When did they have flight controllers?
KIMBALL: Hmm. I don’t know when the first woman flight controller came on board. In, I guess, I guess the first person was Linda Hotszinger [sp?], and that was in the early [19]80s.
KOENIG: So not during any of the Apollo missions?
KIMBALL: Oh no. No women…during the Apollo missions, ASTP [Apollo-Soyuz Test Project], it was in the, it was after I got into the Astronaut Office before they started having women engineers which was the late [19]70s. Although there were in the Data Systems Division, in the computer systems, there were women more prevalent in that area, with the computers. But not in the Mission Operations, not in the flight area. So I guess they had maybe gone into the mechanical engineering. You know a lot of folks did.
So the children went to school with each other.
KOENIG: Did y’all have children at the time?
KIMBALL: My husband’s children, in [19]75, they moved to over to the other side of town, or [19]76. Up until then they had been in that area. But, Susan Crippen, Crippen’s children, they lived in La Porte. His children went to the school district. It was more low key there.
KOENIG: That’s what I wonder too, what it was like for the families and the children of famous people in this area. Another question, I know it’s kind of a, I think they’re decent wrap up questions though. Were any of the people that you worked with at NASA; did they make a significant impact on you, during the time, or even lasting even today?
KIMBALL: I worked for some really neat people that were demanding, and that were there at the right time in my life. Bob Rugelbrugge, Dick Partin [sp?]. They worked for them over in Data Systems Division. Then Bill Bates was a wonderful; he was a wonderful man. He was, had foresight. He works in the Space, International Space Station, and has done since before I left. He was really a neat guy. He had a good sense of humor and he was really a wonderful person. He was sharp and he had vision. He was the one that started the vision for processing some of the data; strip it away from the mainframes, process it separately. Not that they were going to, they just make copies of it, you know, to do engineering workstations.
So he was really good, and he was also a wonderful human being. He, I remember us having a meeting in his office one day and the, he was, we were on the first floor, and the people coming by to go to Building 5 for viewing, the tourists, you know the tour people. It just started pouring and they came in under the eaves to get out of the rain and they were just drenched and we were having this little office meeting. He had all these posters in there; some really nice posters from before, and somebody knocked on the window, and pointed, [at the posters and their wet head] so he [Bates], “sure.” He gets up and he takes it down [laughter] and takes it out to them. I mean he was just a neat, spontaneous person; real smart. When you’d get to work everyday, he’d gone through the magazines and then he’d have things noted that might be of interest to you. He was a real good guy. Because of his generosity and his caring; when my husband was in the hospital; he was in the hospital in [19]86. He was in at the time of the Challenger accident and didn’t get out until sometime in March. He [Bates] came in on the weekends to visit, and he was just real sweet. So, besides being competent he was just a nice human being.
KOENIG: Can you describe his position real quickly once again?
KIMBALL: He was a section head of, what was the name of our section? I’m not even sure. But we were working at, you know, ways to automate, different ways to provide data for the flight controllers. That was the time with the computer systems; before that they’d all been mainframe. Then they stayed mainframe for quite a while. That was the time that the computers, the individual computers were getting powerful. This is before the desktop, the IBM PCs, and things, these were powerful. So he was up on the computer, and bringing that to fruition. Bringing that in, he’d been a flight controller himself,
and had been for several flights.
KOENIG: Quickly, John Young, going back, I know, He’s described as having an animated; he was especially animated in his management style. Is that your interpretation of him? Or Bill Bates is more of an impression of you than Mr. Young?
KIMBALL: John Young was, was really different. [Laughter] He was a very private person, very, very private. He didn’t talk a lot about his previous missions. He did say that one of the most fun he had in training for the Apollo was the geology trips into New Mexico because you know, the were [skip in tape] and this was for his Apollo 16 flight. He was pretty; he was hard to get to know. And you thought you knew him but you really, really didn’t. My understanding is that at meetings he would sit back, and kind of make faces. This is maybe what people were saying about animated. But not really maybe joining the conversation, but I don’t know. I really wasn’t in them. He seemed very shy.
We went over, I took my parents, and brother and sister-in-law over to the trainers, in nearly, the late [19]70s I guess, for a tour, and he as on one of the simulators, and he talked, kind of like he was shy. But when the Generals, when people of power came into the office; we had Prince Charles, and the Chinese, Yung Ping? [sp?] Or something, I don’t remember what his name was. But he was very, then he would be very powerful and authoritative, and you know, just look them straight in the eye. Even on my interview, when I went to interview with him, and Sy Baker, who was the, don’t know, I guess he was the office assistant, the Chief Executive Office of the Astronaut Office. He seemed more embarrassed, more shy than I was.
KOENIG: I’m going to pull out Prince Charles there.
KIMBALL: Sure.
KOENIG: Can you tell us about that visit?
KIMBALL: Just that he just; they brought; they didn’t bring him into the office. They just took him to tour. He met them over at the trainers. Prince Charles flew the simulator. This was the motion-based simulator. And John Young said he’d done real well.
KOENIG: I guess I do want to work towards wrap up.
KIMBALL: Sure.
KOENIG: What are your impressions then of the growth or changes of both Johnson Space Center and the surrounding community during your time in Houston?
KIMBALL: O.k., well, Johnson Space Center just kept growing. It’s great. I like the training programs that they do now for the new employees. I think it’s a shame that the tours aren’t on site now. They were free then. They had the museum there in building 2, close to Building 1. So people could just come in and bring their children. Now it’s Space Center Houston. I guess I understand part of that, and those tours are nice; I’ve been on those a couple of times. I’m glad I don’t live there now because Clear Lake has sprung up so much, and all of that area.
KOENIG: But you never lived in Clear Lake?
KIMBALL: No I didn’t.
KOENIG: [Clearing throat] Excuse me.
KIMBALL: But it’s growing everywhere. They’ve done some really good things with the facilities at NASA. I do like the training.
KOENIG: Did you notice a difference in security then, over the years?
KIMBALL: Yes, I think so. When I as first working in that Data Systems Division, they didn’t have storage place for these rolls of tapes, magnetic tapes from the data, and they were just in the hall. Anybody with a big magnet [laughter] could have gone down and realigned everything. There wasn’t a whole lot of security [laughter] at that time you know. Yes they did, in Mission Control. The security there.
KOENIG: did that affect the touring? Why tours are more regulated now? Security issues?
KIMBALL: Yes, they had their own entrance and exit. And it used to be what they came through, a long time ago. Of course I don’t know what the new Control Center is to this.
KOENIG: What experiences did you take from NASA, or hopefully maybe giving you time to think about maybe something you feel like you really accomplished there. Just an overall view of your contribution maybe.
KIMBALL: Well I was very small. I think that, I think I grew as a person when I was there which is a contribution to society. I had a chance to mentor other women as well. And I think that was significant. I don’t know, I think I was pretty small. [Laughter] Pretty small cog in big machinery. But I think everyone was important.
KOENIG: I can’t really think of anything else unless there’s something that I’ve missed that there’s something that you would like to tell, or a story on somebody.
KIMBALL: No, not really. Except there were a lot of hard workers, just a lot off, gave a lot of their time and a lot of themselves.
KOENIG: And so you don’t think that, I mean even still today it’s a very dedicated, goal oriented group of people.
KIMBALL: I don’t know, but I presume.
KOENIG: Up to the point that you left?
KIMBALL: Uh Ha, I know, you know I think NASA was always fortunate to get the top quality. People don’t think government service is that great, but NASA had a better way of attracting people than some of the other agencies. Exciting, I’m sure.
KOENIG: So did they have to actively recruit?
KIMBALL: No, they’d go out, and they’d have their employees go out to their Alma Maters and recruit. But of course a lot of it now is commercialized too, you know the contractors ore doing a lot of things now that when I was back in Mission Operations Directorate, Contractors were just a small part of it.
KOENIG: What do you think draws so many of these talented people toward this goal of space exploration?
KIMBALL: It’s an exciting thing to do. There’s a lot of you know, aerospace engineers, computer sciences. You know, there’s challenging things to do at NASA. As far as government job, they get more money, more than likely than some of the other agencies.
KOENIG: From your experience working there, and I think from a personal point of view, what’s the whole purpose? What’s the point of going to space?
KIMBALL: It’s a frontier, and I think that like the other countries, you know back; you’re either participating in exploring a frontier or you get left behind. There’s all of the technologies, all of the things you learn along the way. So I think it’s real important.
I think that; personally I think that the, that NASA has emphasized the manned space program to the detriment of the unmanned space program, a lot of hopes and things. It can be costly. So I don’t know if there was a balance on that. But I think that the things that their doing at JPL [Jet Propulsion Lab, California] and all of the places, they’re really important for the United States to do because you’re either participating or you’re left behind.
KOENIG: Do you think we’ll go to the moon again?
KIMBALL: Perhaps. There’s a lot of resources there.
KOENIG: Do you think that they would take; I know that this just off, but if we did go to the moon again, how would we do that? Would we reuse some of the old knowledge? Would we use the shuttle with new and old? Do you know?
KIMBALL: No I don’t think they’d use the shuttle. I think there’s new technologies coming. One of the problems with the whole thing is it takes so long in planning that by the time you’re ready to do something, the technology’s old. And that was true of the shuttle too, because it didn’t until [19]81 and they were designing way back in [19]70s. So hopefully they need to get better turn around. I think the computers of course aid them too. But then you have to have really sharp managers and people of vision.
KOENIG: Do you think technology has caught up with the shuttle missions today, since it’s a stable vehicle?
KIMBALL: The technology is, I’m sure holding. I don’t know per say. I know they’ve upgraded the computers.
KOENIG: I think that unless you have a statement or something you really want to add and punch in, but…
KIMBALL: I sure can’t think of anything.
KOENIG: Will I do appreciate your time.
KIMBALL: Well thank you, I don’t know how [laughter].
KOENIG: It’s been a pleasure. I’ve enjoyed it, and I guess we’ll turn it over to your husband.
KIMBALL: O.k.