NASA Medina, Pete - May 24, 1999
Interview with Pete Medina
Interviewer: Meredith Summers
Date of Interview: May 24, 1999
Location: Austin, Texas
SUMMERS: Today is May 24, 1999 and I’m talking with Mr. Pete Medina for the SWT/NASA Oral History Project. [Talking to Chris Elley] I’m going to set my watch so I’ll keep an eye on the tape.
ELLEY: How long is your cassette?
SUMMERS: Thirty minutes one side. It’s the same as yours, right?
ELLEY: Great.
SUMMERS: [Talking to Mr. Medina] You said on the phone that NASA sent you a packet discussing what questions that we were going to ask?
MEDINA: No, not really.
SUMMERS: Okay, I’m sorry. Basically, I think we should start out with a background - a family background – educational background.
MEDINA: Alright. First of all my background. I joined the military in 1946, got out in ’48, and got married in ’49. Then I started working at the Post Office and the family starting coming in. I had about three kids [or] four kids so I said I need another job. Back then they were giving me a GI Bill of Rights. I started going to school under the GI Bill of Rights and I went to Jr. College. I quit for about two years and then I decided, “well, why don’t I just continue going?” So, I went straight to the university in San Antonio, Texas and graduated in 1960. I was going to night school when I was working at the post office. Then I started working during the day. I was going [to school] early in the morning and then to night school. That was how I got my degree. I got my degree in mathematics with a minor in physics.
SUMMERS: And then, I’m sorry go ahead.
MEDINA: After that, I put in an application with Corp of Engineers in Washington D.C. I was called and I went over there. I worked there for about three or four months and taxes were pretty high. So I said, “I better scoot out of here.” During that time, I found out NASA in Houston was hiring. I passed by there and I put in my application and came back to San Antonio. I started working at Kelly Air Force Base in San Antonio and about three or four months later, they called me. I went into NASA, Houston – Manned Spacecraft Center. I started in 1961, I believe – 1962 or 1961. That’s when I started going to NASA and I worked at NASA until 1984 when I retired. Then my wife chased me out of here so I went to work for the state. That was in ’84, when I retired from NASA. Then I went to work for the state and I worked for the state for fourteen years. I retired from the state, also. That was last year that I retired from the state.
SUMMERS: You’ve been retired for a year?
MEDINA: Yes, I’ve been retired for a year from the state.
SUMMERS: When you heard about NASA, what was appealing to you about working there?
MEDINA: Oh great, they were in engineering and [the] technical field and back then it was rockets. Then Manned Spacecraft Center. So, it was very appealing to me to work there. I enjoyed every minute of it when I was working there.
SUMMERS: What was your exact position and your responsibility?
MEDINA: First of all, I was a programmer. What we were doing we were programming the trajectories, first of all. Then we got, after the trajectories for example, we were generating what we called an envelope on the water. We simulated taking the spacecraft from 40,000 feet up above and then, as it came down, we would follow it coming down. Since it was a ballistic, after you shot your retroactive boosters then it was a ballistic, it would come straight down. And depending on the position of the spacecraft… If it was coming too high, then you were going to get as much lift as possible. [If] it was maybe turning at an angle to the left then you would hit it down to the one side because the atmosphere that was holding it back. We created an envelope in the sea where the ships could go on that particular envelope in that area that was where the ship was going to land if the retro [retroactive boosters] was fired at the proper time. That’s on the Apollo and the Gemini.
SUMMERS: Okay
MEDINA: That’s what I did. Then I worked on the trajectory to the moon. What we called the backward integrator back then. Where you start at the moon and come back from the moon and then integrate it back to the earth to find out the proper trajectory. The courses when you have to change and maybe change to comp [compute] on a particular trajectory to get to the moon. Then after I worked on the trajectory to the moon I worked on the shuttle. What I did, I worked on coming up with the components, the electrical components, trying to find out how often this component needed to be changed from flight to flight. According to the specifications of the manufacturer, they last just so long. After that well, you have to change it or refurbish it.
That’s about the time I quit or I retired when I was working with the shuttle. Also, one time right before, I was working with the MPAD, which is Mission Planning Division. I was also a monitor of the computer hardware that the contractors were supporting. I was in charge of keeping the computers up or having the people keeping the computers up. And, finding out what the problems were and what we needed to do to correct the problems. Every morning we had a report on how the computers ran that night. But the computers had to be running and [we had to] find out what was needed to keep them running. That’s about it, the whole thing in a capsule.
SUMMERS: [Laughter] In a capsule.
MEDINA: Yeah.
SUMMERS: As far as what you worked one exactly what kind of impact did it have on technology.
MEDINA: On the technology. We worked very closely with the engineers. They came down with the specifications. That’s not during the flight, this is pre-analysis.
SUMMERS: Okay.
MEDINA: Or analysis of the flight – simulation. After we do the simulation, create the programs, budgets, or whatever it is – trajectories – then the flight controllers take it over. It’s their baby from then on.
SUMMERS: Okay
MEDINA: Also, I worked on the non-combustible consumables. Which had to be with oxygen, nitrogen, etc. And then keep track of, again a program, of the non-combustible consumables. In other words, how much are you going to use for a certain task? How much are you going to use for certain tasks so they can create budget of what it takes as far as the oxygen is concerned and also the nitrogen's concerned? All the non-combustible consumables. I worked on that and then I monitored the contractors, like I said that was working during the program.
SUMMERS: On Apollo 8 did you work on trajectory coming back to earth on that particular mission? Was that the first one?
MEDINA: No, I did not work on any particular mission. It’s just the idea that all trajectories. How do you work any particular mission at all? Like they say it’s a team that you work with. For example, you can say that Apollo consumables analysis was a team. I worked on that team as far as programming is concerned. Not only one guy works on it. There’s a whole team that works on it. I worked on the shuttle, also. Going to the moon. Lunar landing and LM [Lunar Module]. For each team I was involved in a team to perform all those trajectories [loud chiming clock]. Also, right before the shuttle I worked on a system with creating vehicle designs.
SUMMERS: I’m sorry?
MEDINA: Vehicle Designs. Like the shuttle. We were creating different vehicles. We started on that project that we call EDIN, Engineering Design Integration Systems. Let me get that. Do you mind if I . . .
ELLEY: You’re connected
MEDINA: Can I get up?
ELLEY: You need to carry the pack with you.
MEDINA: Oh, okay. Never did fly but anyway we worked on it [shows interviewers the EDIN paper]. You can see – Engineering Design Integration Systems. There you work with a graphics computer and create different designs. Well, we were supposed to create different designs and then FAX them over to our different – disciplines like the aerodynamics and other disciplines. They would get that design and put it to the analysis to find out which design would be the best. We had the capability to change the wings or whatever you needed to change and see how that would work with the other programs. That will give you an inkling of what the whole thing was and all the disciplines that were involved with that.
SUMMERS: EDIN is something that I haven’t heard about before until today.
MEDINA: Well, it never did fly, let’s put it that way. But I worked on that and it was very interesting, you create different vehicles. And then you try to give them to another analysis program to how that performs as far as the vehicle is concerned.
SUMMERS: A question I have about the consumables, which would be as far as the oxygen and the nitrogen – it would be in a tank?
MEDINA: Yes, you create it in a tank and depending on what the maneuver was then mathematically you would find out how much it would spend. Therefore, during that flight, you have a budget over how much budget it is. For example, Apollo 13, the one where the oxygen tank blew up. Well, if they would have returned they would have spent a lot of fuel and a lot of oxygen and all those consumables. So what they decided to do is to let the moon drag them around and go towards the trajectory and come right back rather than turn around because that would be an expenditure with all the consumables and combustible consumables. That’s the reason that they continued going and let the influence of the moon create it and turn it around. That would be less expenditure of the vehicle.
SUMMERS: Were you part of the team that worked on the problem?
MEDINA: No, most of the team that worked on that particular problem was flight controllers.
SUMMERS: Okay
MEDINA: Like I said this is preliminary analysis. Before. We gave it all to them and then they had their own programs. The flight controllers are the ones that had the baby once it’s [unintelligible]
SUMMERS: You said that after NASA you worked for the state.
MEDINA: I worked for the State, Texas Rehabilitation Commission. I was a database administrator.
SUMMERS: Okay, for your time at NASA do you have any stories that come to the forefront. Any interesting stories that you remember?
MEDINA: Stories? Well I’ll tell you, during the ‘60s when we were trying to get to the moon we worked very hard. We were working twelve hours a day seven days a week. A person that works twelve hours a day for three days or longer gets mighty mighty tense. There was quite a few times that people would get so angry that they would be on each others’ throat. That’s what was happening there. Something that happened when you worked that long, twelve hours a day for that amount of time, you get a lot tense. In fact, if I’m not mistaken – now I don’t know – but I heard that during that time the divorce rate of the engineers was very very high. A lot of people working very hard. Yeah.
SUMMERS: I can imagine a lot of stress.
MEDINA: And it’s funny, one time I remember, that when I was working with the hardware or the computers, I think one of the bosses asked for racks to store the tapes. He ordered racks and they sent them a bunch of rats. [Laughter]
SUMMERS: Really? [Laughter]
MEDINA: Yes, I tell you I never did forget that. When he ordered racks and somebody who furnishes that equipment thought it was rats. So, they fixed it and that’s kind of like what they did with everything. So, they sent some rats. “What am I going to do with rats?” They guy that delivered it said, “I don’t know, I deliver them that’s all.” [Laughter]
SUMMERS: [Laughter] Did they send them back?
MEDINA: Yeah, they had to send them back and we got the tape racks.
SUMMERS: Or turn them loose on Houston [Laughter]
MEDINA: Yeah that was very funny.
SUMMERS: That’s the same thing I heard too about the social part of it. Were you working that hard yourself? Were you working twelve-hour days?
MEDINA: Oh yes, oh yes. Seven days a week. Back then it took a heck of a long time to get the program run and it took about three hours to get it back. Then you wanted to get as much as possible, you and the engineer wanted to resolve as soon as possible. Therefore, we worked very hard, yes. A lot of people worked very hard.
SUMMERS: Were you living at Clear Lake?
MEDINA: No, I was living in South Houston.
SUMMERS: South Houston.
MEDINA: Yes, eleven miles out of Clear Lake.
SUMMERS: So you were about eleven miles from work?
MEDINA: Yes, right at the edge of Houston. Well, actually it was pretty close to South Houston.
SUMMERS: Were there other people you worked with, were they living around you?
MEDINA: Oh yeah, the next-door neighbor and our secretary used to live in that area, too. We had to carpool. We carpooled. There was quite a lot of people living there.
SUMMERS: I’m curious what you think what the driving force was behind meeting this deadline to go to the moon. Or, actually, Manned Spaceflight Program.
MEDINA: The driving force? The driving force was just like a climber. You keep on climbing because you got a goal to get to. You want to get it as soon as possible. That was my driving force, anyway. We wanted to do the best job we could as quick as possible. That was my driving force.
SUMMERS: Did you ever think about why the goal was the moon? I wonder why the moon was picked as the goal?
MEDINA: To me it appeared like that would be the most logical thing if you wanted to go to a different part of the atmosphere or out of this atmosphere into a different satellite. That would be the most logical. Also, to investigate whether it could be livable or not because possibly we can have colonies up there. We are growing out of space for the future – we could possibly have colonies up there. We could possibly get a station up there and develop a lot of things in the lower gravity that you can’t develop here because of high gravity. So, yes, there were a lot of possibilities – and there are still a lot of possibilities – to get to the moon and colonize the moon.
SUMMERS: Do you ever think that in today’s atmosphere that we would ever have a base on the moon?
MEDINA: Let me put it this way, sixty [or] eighty years ago did you think an airplane could fly? Do you think you would have that many people go on the airplane as there are today? Passengers? No. Yes, I don’t think, maybe not in my lifetime, but I do believe at one time or another the moon is going to be colonized.
SUMMERS: What do you think would change people’s minds? It seems like now nobody wants to funnel money towards . . .
MEDINA: Expense. That’s the biggest drawback – the expense. But once our technology, as you well know, our technology is getting so far ahead of everybody. If you buy a computer today – six months later, it’s obsolete. Our technology is that far ahead. Take the computer. Would you buy a computer fifteen twenty years ago? They were too expensive. Now you can go over there and get a computer.
Space is going to be less expensive as technical capabilities come up. More is going to be learned and it is going to be less expensive to travel in outer space. This outer space traveling, not in my time, but I say in my great grandchildren’s time. I believe that’s going to happen, yes. Because the expense is going to go down and right now there’s a lot of private industries that want to . . . look at all the satellites that are up there now. A long time ago it was too expensive to send it but look at the outcome of those satellites. What production they have come up with after they put satellite up there?
Communications, unbelievable, you couldn’t believe that years ago. TV. Who could believe that you could have a telephone without any wires? It’s unbelievable. Now the Japanese are coming out with a doggoned telephone that you can see the person you’re talking to. So, technology is tremendous and it’s really growing. It’s really growing.
So, I see in the future, that as far as space travel is concerned it should not be any problem. Yes, you are going to have accidents. We did have an accident and there’s going to be accidents. But we also have accidents in airliners. We have accidents in ships. We can expect that. A lot of people think, “now it’s NASA, we should never have any accidents.” That’s not so, we’re human and we do make mistakes.
SUMMERS: If you are referring to, since you’ve been at NASA, you were then when Gus Grissom and the Challenger?
MEDINA: Well, the Challenger I was not there. Yes, I was there when Grissom, when they had that oxygen burned up that spacecraft.
SUMMERS: Was that supposed to be Apollo I?
MEDINA: I don’t remember.
SUMMERS: Okay. I was wondering – how had it affected you? Also, the people that you worked with – were they depressed? Did workflow slow down or were they more determined than ever to . . .
MEDINA: We were more determined than ever, actually, we were more determined than ever to find out why. Investigate what happened and make changes, yes, we were more determined. You’ll hardly ever see that again. I’m sorry to say we don’t like to see accidents, but when accidents happen you try to avoid them from then on. Find out what happened and correct that so it won’t happen again.
SUMMERS: And move on from there.
MEDINA: Move on from there because we got to move. I mean you just can’t stay still. You’ve got to be moving in this age or else you stay behind.
SUMMERS: Probably the greatest success would be Apollo 11 when it landed on the moon. It was successful.
MEDINA: That was tremendous when you landed a man on the moon. That was tremendous. I was very proud to be part of the team – part of NASA. Whatever little bit I did I was very proud. Tears came to my eyes because that was history – the first man on the moon. I was real proud to be involved in it.
SUMMERS: Were you watching TV at work or at home?
MEDINA: No, I was at home.
SUMMERS: You were at home?
MEDINA: Yes, I was at home, definitely, I watched every bit of it. In fact, there are still a lot of people who still do not believe a man landed on the moon. I don’t blame them. Might be a lot of people that could not realize that an airplane could carry passengers at this age. Yes, I was very proud. The other one, Apollo 13, also very proud of those people that brought it back. Very proud. You saw the movie Apollo 13?
SUMMERS: That was my next question.
MEDINA: It was very close to it.
SUMMERS: Really?
MEDINA: Very close. I enjoyed that movie very much. I remembered the people who were involved. Chris Kraft and all those people who were involved.
SUMMERS: I watched it before I came here . . .
MEDINA: Now, those were the flight controllers. Those were the ones that taken the flight control.
SUMMERS: In Mission Control?
MEDINA: In Mission Control, yes.
SUMMERS: That was pretty emotional. It was an emotional movie.
MEDINA: Yes it was. You can see in the movie that the contractors had a lot to do with it because they built the spacecraft according to specifications. You can see that we had a lot of help from the contractors. Computer Science Corporation, McDonnell Douglas, Lockheed, and all those corporations that helped us – supported us.
SUMMERS: The neighborhood that you were living in – you said your neighbor . . .
MEDINA: When I was living in Houston?
SUMMERS: Where there any other people living around you that worked there or were there just a few and far between?
MEDINA: Yes, well, there was a neighbor that worked there, and we used to pool together – right next door. He moved and another one came in and he also worked there. We pooled together. Our secretary lived a few blocks down, too. We had quite a group. Yeah, there were a lot of people living in my area that was working there – in NASA. A lot of them. Friendswood was not there with NASA. Webster was nothing when I first started there. Clear Lake wasn’t there. The homes in Clear Lake weren’t there. They started building and before you knew it it grew – mushroomed. With NASA – NASA and the contractors. Government employees and the contractors.
SUMMERS: Someone I was talking to before said that in their neighborhood they had a real sense of community with people that they worked with. There would be things like splashdown parties? When people would come back from their missions . . .
MEDIA: There were quiet a lot of splashdown parties, yes, after a mission. I never attended too many. One or two but that was about it. To me the first flight was the most interesting and after that, it was just like the first airplane ride. The first airplane taking off. A lot of people went all the way to Florida to watch the other flights. I said, “well, one flight that’s it – you’ve watched them all.” Everything went a little different. Some of them would take off at night, which was very interesting. To me that was it – that was it. One flight I saw it all and that’s it. I didn’t care to see the rest of it.
SUMMERS: Which flight was that?
MEDINA: Well, I forgot which one it was. It must have been [Apollo] 11 – the one I was really interested in. The one that landed on the moon. Then I was really interested in [Apollo] 13 coming back, also. I was interested also in the shuttle – the first shuttle that went up. And after that I was not too interested in the shuttle. I was involved in everything you know, but as far as my interest in watching it – those were really the only three that I wanted to watch. The first one and that was it.
SUMMERS: The rest of the time it was nose to the grindstone.
MEDINA: Yes, yes, yeah. And you had a lot of nose to the grindstone, I’ll tell you. Enjoyed every minute of it though – hated to leave it.
SUMMERS: We’re coming up on thirty minutes – do you want to take a break?
MEDINA: Yeah, great.
SUMMERS: Okay. I don’t want my tape to run out.
MEDINA: Okay, when I was in the Navy I was stationed in Saipan and Guam. The guy that that was in the same outfit I was in was Cesar Chavez.
SUMMERS: Oh yeah.
MEDINA: Do you know about Cesar Chavez? Yeah, we were friends, together. In fact, I have pictures of him when we were in Saipan and Guam when both of us were together. So that’s where I got to know him – Cesar Chavez. He got all the stoop laborers into a union and now he’s one in the history books. That’s one thing that I have never done, something to for me to be in history.
SUMMERS: Well, now. [Laughter]
MEDINA: I hope so, yeah. [Laughter] I tell you, that Cesar Chavez, I was very very proud of him. Of what he did – very proud of him.
SUMMERS: You’ll get to be in the history books now with this project.
MEDINA: Yeah, I’ve been very lucky, like I said. All of my career I’ve been very lucky. After I gave up NASA I was very lucky – and all the people I worked with were great. All my supervisors were great. All of them. My division chiefs, my section heads - all of them tremendous. Very good, very good people.
SUMMERS: And they were working just as hard as you?
MEDINA: Oh yes, oh yes. Maybe harder – maybe harder. They had a lot of responsibility, too. So everybody had a lot of responsibility at different times.
SUMMERS: When you retired from NASA was it just because you thought it was time or . . .
MEDINA: When I retired from NASA, I’ll tell you, my daughter had her first baby and it was premature here in Austin. She was very sick and being her first baby, my daughter was worried and we were worried, too. So, my wife decided to come over here and help her out. I told her, “why don’t you go over there [San Antonio, Texas], find a house, [and] help her out. I’ll stay over here in Houston and I’ll retire next year.” Let’s see that was around ‘80 [or] 1979. Something happened that I [didn’t] retire next year. I stayed about four or five years more. But, she was over here and I was over there in Houston and I was driving back and forth. I said, “well, it’s about time that I retired.” I retired and she had me over here and then she chased me out so I had to go work for the state. I don’t know how she’s doing right now. Maybe she’ll chase me out again and probably go work for the county now. Since I worked for the federal government, state, and probably work for the county and then the city. If I last that long.
SUMMERS: Only a year’s retirement and then back at it again, maybe.
MEDINA: Yeah, I felt like it a lot of times – I felt like it. But, when you get old you keep forgetting a lot of things. You forget a lot of things.
SUMMERS: We were talking earlier what was the driving force behind meeting this huge deadline by the end of the decade – going the moon. Do you think with Sputnik or with the Russians. . ?
MEDINA: That has something to do with it, yes. That certainly had something to do with it. We were trying to be first to land on the moon. That was the driving force probably to get to the moon, but my driving force was to hit the peak. Let’s get to the peak. If that’s what they wanted – to get to the moon – let’s get to the moon as soon as possible. Work hard to get it and since President [John F.] Kennedy came out and said during this decade we’re going to land on the moon. So everybody was aware that we wanted to get to the moon. And that was one of the biggest achievements in the United States as far as I’m concerned. Now you have the space lab and the shuttle going back and forth and you have women involved in it too.
Talk about women – I worked with women engineers. They were wonderful – wonderful. When I was working back on combustible consumables [pet dog barking], a women engineer and I were working together. We worked very well. I’m real proud of the women that were working there too.
SUMMERS: This is pretty early on, in the 60s . . .
MEDINA: Oh yes. In fact, the girl I’m talking about she was a co-op – working as a co-op. She got her degree and worked there. It happened that when she was a co-op I used to go over there, and she used to come to me and we used to discuss a lot of things. I was a programmer and she was becoming an engineer. While she was engineer, she asked me if I could move over because I was still in the computer department – the computations department. She asked me if I could move over there and help her with consumables – combustible consumables. So I said, “yes, I’ll go over there.”
I transferred over to MPAD (Mission Planning and Analysis Division). They called it MPAD, which is the same thing that the controllers were in. But there were a lot of different divisions. Most of the computers we were doing were in one building at that time. Now, I don’t know what they have. They have these personal computers now – these small computers and they can go anywhere. A person probably has a computer on their desk. That’s what I had over here at state – a [personal] computer. And, that’s how I worked over here with the database.
At that time when I left, we were thinking about, like I said, those components for the shuttle. That was supposed to be a good project also, to find out each of the components and when they had to be refurbished. That would be a database there. Of all the components involved – this is wearing out, this has got to be refurbished according to the specifications by the manufacturer. That was supposed to be a good project. That’s when I left. So . . .
SUMMERS: They shuttle, they were reusable, and that’s why you had . . .
MEDINA: Yes, and I’m sure they’re doing it. Because for a lot of them – one flight that’s it. You have to refurbish that. What other components need to be changed? That certainly should be a database. Find out which of the components need to be changed and find out which can remain for another two or three flights. That’s probably saving money also.
SUMMERS: We were talking about workflow after Apollo 1, how that was affected. There was even more of an effort to get things running and up for the next mission. Did you ever think after you landed on the moon what would happen next? What would be another goal?
MEDINA: Actually, the other goal was space stations which there are now space stations up there now. The shuttle was the other goal, also, as it is now. It’s going up every so often now. That was the other goal. As far as money is concerned, they went – well jet propulsion laboratory will still continue with inter space travel. They have the little spacecraft going to other little planets, you know. Heck, the jet propulsion laboratory was more into the interplanetary stuff than Manned Spacecraft Center was. Men traveling. So, here in Houston we were more with Manned Spacecraft Center, or that’s what’s called Manned Spacecraft Center. We were more involved with the shuttle and the spacecraft that would be manned. Jet Propulsion Laboratory is more involved with the interplanetary stuff.
SUMMERS: And they would use the same thing that you would work on – about using the trajectory.
MEDINA: As far as trajectory is concerned – I did work on an interplanetary program too, and that’s pretty complex. You had to take the position of the sun, the position of the moon, the position of every planet that has some type of influence on that particular vehicle because you got all those forces getting at it. To figure out the trajectory you had to figure out the positions of every single planet that’s out there. You got different types of coordinates. You have geocentric coordinates, which are from the center of the earth; you have geodetic which is from the top of the earth. You probably have to go over all the geocentric coordinates – you have to have all the coordinates for each of the planets to find out how much influence it’s going to have on that particular vehicle and its trajectory.
SUMMERS: That sounds very . . .
MEDINA: Complex? Yes, very. You need a tremendously big computer to be taking care of that. You had to do integration to take care of each of the X, Y, Zs or the coordinates of each of the planets. So it is complex, yes ma’am.
SUMMERS: And very successful too because . . .
MEDINA: Very successful – very successful. They are doing real good job but it requires quite a lot of computer work. Another thing too – who would think you would be getting all those equations solved in milliseconds rather than a day or two with somebody. Can you imagine if we didn’t have those computers, we’d still be down here? That’s why I’m saying about technically – it is tremendous. You take a look at the computers – not too long ago you had a room full of tubes, you know. Now you have everything on your desk. I don’t think that the desk computers can do the number crunching that big computers do, but there’s a lot of things that they do. And the capabilities to store all that information on a very small disk a very small square inch. And if that’s unbelievable – they’re getting smaller and cheaper. That’s what I’m saying, yes, it won’t be long before they start some of the interplanetary stuff. Building the Skylab is going to be a big step towards the production of a lot of other things. They’ll be manufacturing stuff out there – health. A lot of other stuff.
SUMMERS: You mean producing medicines?
MEDINA: Medicines. All they can do in the spacecraft. It just blows your imagination what can happen or what’s going to happen I would say. I will say what can happen – it will happen. Because the cost is going down, the technology is increasing. As the technology increases, the cost will go down.
SUMMERS: Do you think along with the reduction of cost there will be an increase in the need to do this because, as you said, population explosion. Also, wanting the advances in technology. Do you think a need . . ?
MEDINA: Something comes to mind that maybe I shouldn’t say but I will – garbage. Radioactive stuff. Nobody wants it here on this earth. Now, maybe I shouldn’t say it but should we dump it on another planet? I don’t know, but that’s something to think about because it is getting to be a problem.
SUMMERS: Yes that’s a problem.
Median: Because it’s getting to be a problem. What do you do with all that radioactive stuff or the garbage? As far as the population is concerned – I’m sorry to say that I don’t think we’re not going to have problems with population. With so many wars – that takes care of a lot of the population. We start standing on each other.
Growing things – who knows what can be grown on the moon or on other planets? Food is becoming a problem. Water is becoming a problem. How do we know whether we can find water on other planets? But, anyway, those are the problems to be thinking about. How can that interplanetary stuff help us down here? I’m sure there’s a lot of people thinking about it, too.
SUMMERS: Do you keep up with NASA now?
MEDINA: I have the paper delivered. I haven’t that much. I kept up just reading on it but I had my job [Texas Rehabilitation Commission] that I had to keep up. I’m sorry to say that when I retired I said that I’m going to go look for a soft job. They put me as a database administrator. Database goes out at one o’clock in the morning you get a call at one o’clock in the morning. That database is throughout the state and that database has to be up throughout the state. It’s up to you to get it up. You have problems – operators call you, “We have problems Mr. Medina.” You have to be up by eight o’clock in the morning. All the counselors are going to be on that computer trying to get their information. So it wasn’t a soft job [laughter]. I worked pretty hard at NASA and I worked pretty hard at the state. But enjoyed it – I loved every minute of it.
SUMMERS: What was it that you enjoyed the most?
MEDINA: NASA.
SUMMERS: Just NASA?
MEDINA: Oh yeah, being involved with the trajectory – being involved with the spacecraft vehicles. I enjoyed that very much.
SUMMERS: You enjoyed the people that you worked with?
MEDINA: Very much so. All throughout my career I worked with people and I never had any complaints about the people that I worked with. Maybe I wasn’t paying attention, but we had a get together about two [or] three weeks ago. I invited our workers or our ex-coworkers to come over here and we had a little get together. In Houston we used to invite all the workers and had a good time. As far as working together with the other workers – they were great throughout my career. Like I said my section heads, my division heads, all of them were great.
SUMMERS: NASA’s been called on of the earliest “biggest” team project. It was such a huge team and that there was cooperation and very successful.
MEDINA: Not only that, yes, in fact there was a private sector that supported us. Like I said before, McDonnell Douglas [and] Computer Science Cooperation. There was some very good links. Yes, we did argue a lot on certain ideas – we did. As far as the job was concerned after that fine. Yours’ was right. We’ll go for the moment on yours. I don’t think this is right – let’s do it this way. Or let’s try it and do it this way and find out whether I was wrong and you were right.
SUMMERS: Did you ever think with the deadline looming over you that you didn’t have time to calculate everything down to the nth degree like you wanted to? Or did you have to go with the what you thought was the best result?
MEDINA: No, we calculated and recalculated. We had the best results that we could possibly get. The deadline – we didn’t pinch here, we didn’t pinch there. Not as far as I was concerned, that never affected me at all. I don’t know about others, but that never affected me at all.
SUMMERS: You felt comfortable with the end results and obviously it worked out?
MEDINA: Yes, I felt comfortable with the end results. Yes, I felt very comfortable with the end results. Like I said before you might have error in some place – some component doesn’t work right. We didn’t catch it in time. You had accidents and you have spacecraft up there. You have an airplane and some component doesn’t go right. They don’t work every time or didn’t change it in proper time. You have a hundred people die in an airplane crash. Seven [or] eight people died in the NASA spacecrafts. It attracted a hell of a lot more attention because we’re not supposed to make any mistakes. I tell you, NASA is being run by humans. People have to realize that it is being run by humans. We all try at NASA not to make any type of mistakes. We all try and you can see how successful they did because they haven’t had that many accidents at all.
SUMMERS: That’s true.
MEDINA: Like you said. We have one of them and NASA is bad. That is not right. I expect to have errors. I have to expect to have errors in a lot of things as long as humans are concerned, and humans are involved I’m afraid you are going to have some errors some time – hoping that it’s never. Nevertheless, you can expect to have some.
SUMMERS: Why do you think that NASA got such a large-scale negative media attention when something would go wrong . . .
MEDINA: Because all the eyes of the world were on it. An airplane goes down here in the United States you hardly ever here that in India. As far as spacecraft is concerned – the eyes all over the world are on that particular spacecraft. Everybody’s got their TV on. One thing about the United States, which I was very happy to see it, a little worried but happy. I don’t think they should of done it was put it on TV real time. Real time. Something went bad you saw it on TV. Russia, something went bad, you didn’t see it. But, here in the United States, I guess that’s our democracy. People have the right to find out what’s going on – either bad or good.
SUMMERS: I’m wondering what you think of NASA now as an institution compared when you worried there or early in your career.
MEDINA: In what way do you think that . . .
SUMMERS: With what’s going on with NASA and how it’s different with the space station. [doves are cooing in the yard].
MEDINA: I’m sure they’re working pretty hard too as far as the space station is concerned. I’m sure that they do have a schedule for the space station. Now you have a very critical schedule because you are involved with the other critical schedules of the other countries that are involved in creating the space station. So if your part doesn’t come up you look pretty bad. So I’m saying that they have the same schedules that they’ve had before.
SUMMERS: I was wondering too – there’s a decline in interest in space exploration now compared to . . .
MEDINA: It’s the same thing as the airplane. Same thing. You see it so often – you don’t turn your TV on. You saw it three months ago it looks about the same thing. Actually, that’s why people loose interest in it. I’m sure once they get the space station up there, people will begin to find out what the space station can do for you – as far as the things that come out of the space station – I’m sure the people are going to get interested again. Now, people as far as being interested in something that requires a lot of money – you have to be mighty mighty cool. Because there’s a lot of people that don’t have work and they say that money should be going to those people. What kind of work are you going to produce out of that? That’s what happened too with the horse and buggy. When they came out with the car your going to have all those people shoeing horses out of work. Why did y’all have to come up with that? Now look at all the work the automobile is producing. Mechanics here, body and fender work people.
That’s what I’m saying it’s going to evolve into that thing where you have space vehicles going to other planets and what have you. I’m not going to see it but maybe my granddaughters are not, but my great grandkids are going to see it. It has to be unless our world comes to an end and blows up. But it has to be. You’re getting somebody some work. What’s wrong with that? My goodness, there’s a lot of people traveling to Europe. Long time ago they didn’t. You go to Europe – be a lot of people going to other planets. That’s the way I see it.
SUMMERS: You think that’s the next step?
MEDINA: Well, that’s coming, I don’t know if that’s the next one or not. But, I tell you, it will be coming.
SUMMERS: I have a question that’s kind of strange . . .
MEDINA: Go ahead . . .
SUMMERS: I think the way to phrase it is if our positions were reversed what questions would you – or what questions you would ask me if you were doing this interview and I was working on the NASA project.
MEDINA: I would probably ask you, “how well did you like working for NASA?” How well did you like the projects? What were your interests in getting into NASA? Space? Space vehicles? The engineering part? The mathematical part? The technical part? To me it was the engineering, the technical part, and being involved in a project that would make history. That is probably the question I would have asked you. What, like you said, what was your driving force to be working for NASA. That was my driving force – to be working with something that was going to make history. You know how it has made history already. There are other things that are going to be made history – interplanetary, like I’ve said, space stations, [and] colonization. I would ask you if you were coming in and say there’s a spacecraft that’s going to be going to Jupiter and we intend to land on Jupiter – would you like to be the person that landed on Jupiter?
SUMMERS: Are you asking me?
MEDINA: Yes.
SUMMERS: No. [Laughter]
MEDINA: See that’s different, I would have. I would have died to be the first man to be on Jupiter. I would have died to be the first man landed on the moon. That’s my driving force in being in something like that.
SUMMERS: Actually, for you, thinking about space travel – if you had the opportunity . . .
MEDINA: Oh yeah, definitely I would go, definitely. I’d be scared but, by golly, it would be great. I would it do good or bad. I wouldn’t think twice. I would take that chance to just to be the first just to be there – made it. Just like a mountain climber – I made it to the top. That’s the way I am.
SUMMERS: And after that you’d have to keep going from there even after you made it to the top?
MEDINA: That’s right. Yeah, what other mountain is there. Right. What other mountain is there, yeah. And I love that. Something accomplished. I got addicted to crossword puzzles [laughter].
SUMMERS: [laughter]
MEDINA: It makes me feel real good when I get them all right. That’s the way it was when I was working at NASA. Man, I felt real good when everything worked fine. When that something did not work – I kept on and kept on and worked until I finally got it to work. Finally got it to work. It’s just like a lot of people get frustrated when they get a bug in the program. I just loved to work those things because they make me feel good when I found the bug. That’s the way I was – that’s the way I am. I’m getting too old now.
SUMMERS: No, you’re sharper than I am. [Laughter].
MEDINA: No, seventy-one years old? No. I forget a lot of things. I have always had a poor memory.
SUMMERS: Really?
MEDINA: Yes, the only thing that has really helped me a lot is that I have very good logic. I have very good logic. I can figure things out. Like I say, I work on computer programs and then six months later I take a look at it and say, “Who wrote this?” Somebody will tell me, “You did!” I had forgotten about it. Something I have to do – I do it but it doesn’t stay in my mind. I tell you, I admire those people that can remember things.
SUMMERS: We’re coming up on thirty minutes. [Talking to Elley] Is your tape done?
ELLEY: Yeah, it’s going to be off in a few seconds.
SUMMERS: Okay, I guess that would be our hour coming up.
ELLEY: [Talking to Mr. Medina] Do you have a last thought? [Laughter]
SUMMERS: Do you have anything to wrap it up with – not to put any pressure on you – but if you do . . .
MEDINA: No, I don’t have anything else it’s just that at my age . . .
ELLEY: It just ran out [talking about his videotape]
MEDINA: Oops
SUMMERS: My tape’s still going, though. My tape’s still running.
MEDINA: At my age I have been very proud of being a part of NASA. I don’t brag about it but I myself am very proud to have been a part of that team. That should wrap it up.