NASA Patnesky, Andrew - May 26, 2000
Interview with Andrew Patnesky
Interviewer: Dalinda Yvonne Dupree
Date of Interview: May 26, 2000
Kerrville, Texas
DUPREE: That is the microphone.
PATNESKY: That’s the microphone and it is recording?
DUPREE: Now it is, but I’m going to go ahead and test it, do the introduction and everything. So, today is May the 26, 2000 and this oral history is with Andrew R. Patnesky and is being conducted at 129 Cattail in Kerrville, Texas.
PATNESKY: Cattail Creek.
DUPREE: It’s Cattail Creek. Okay. In the home of the interviewee in Kerrville, Texas and the interview is being conducted for the NASA/Johnson Space Center Oral History Project in conjunction with Southwest Texas State University, History Department by graduate student Dalinda Dupree. Mr. Patnesky are you aware that this interview is being conducted for the NASA/Southwest Texas State University Oral History Project and will be available for research purposes?
PATNESKY: Well, I hope so.
DUPREE: Okay, let’s see if the tape is working.
PATNESKY: What did you say your name was?
DUPREE: Dali.
PATNESKY: Dali, you don’t have to say Mr. Patnesky, I might think I’m old. At NASA everybody knew me and even people coming from other countries all over wanted to see Pat Patnesky. So they all just called me Pat from all over the place.
DUPREE: Okay, well, thank you. I appreciate that privilege.
PATNESKY: You’re more than welcome.
DUPREE: First of all, I just wanted to ask a few questions about your pre-NASA career.
PATNESKY: Pre-NASA? Okay. I spent twenty-one years with the Army-Air Corps in the Air Force. You wanted to know where I was born and that?
DUPREE: Well, no. I’ve got your biography but I’m kind of wondering about, it was a conjunction, the Army and Air Force together?
PATNESKY: When I joined, there was no Air Force. The Air Force was the Army Air Corps and they didn’t change the Army Air Corps until ’47 or something like that. I was in the Army Air Corps. The Army Air Corps was part of the U.S. Army. During that time I also spent twenty-one days in the Arctic Circle living on a Navy PVY-5. That’s a seaplane. We spent twenty-one days up in Bathenland photographing up near the Artic Circle looking for radar sites, potential radar sites. Very interesting.
DUPREE: So, you did a lot of interesting projects like that in your twenty-one years with the Corps?
PATNESKY: Yes, with the Army, well that was the best one, the rest was I became a photographic officer during the war [World War II] and went over to England. I ran two different labs when I was over there. I was a warrant officer. After the war, I decided to resign my warrant and come back in as a Master [Sergeant] that I was, because I was going to try to go to Europe, back to Europe. They were going to send me to Alaska but I didn’t go. So, I played baseball in California, which I liked. If I hadn’t have been so old, I would have pursued the baseball career because the scouts out in California had checked into me. When I was playing, I was fairly good, I think I would have been able to make it, make something, but then the war come along and that was it.
DUPREE: So where were you and what were your thoughts when you first heard about the launch of the Sputnik by the Soviet Union in October of ’57. [On the tape you will hear the year spoken as ’75. Dupree let Patnesky station the questions in front of him, which caused the dyslexic verbalization from reading the question upside down.]
PATNESKY: I didn’t think too much of space at that time. After I retired from the Air Force at Ellington Field in 1960, I worked a year at Ellington Field. I ran the lab, in fact I was the lab because they disbanded the Air Force there in a sense and they only had a big reserve wing there. The general wanted me to be the lab and run the lab. I appreciated that because didn’t have to go sell apples on the street corner. So anyway, I worked a year at Ellington in the lab, then NASA came down and then I went with them in December of ’61.
DUPREE: What was it about NASA that drew you? Did NASA go looking for you or did you go looking for NASA?
PATNESKY: No, I was at Ellington at the time running the lab. The engineering officer at Ellington told the NASA guy that came down there, they were recruiting so to speak, about me, said, “you want a good man, there’s a guy that’s got twenty-two years almost of fall photography and what I did. And so they came after me then, which I’m glad. He got my application, resume, and all that stuff and went back. The secretary back in Virginia told me about it. They really jumped with joy because they thought they had a jewel, the dingbats, I mean I shouldn’t say that.
DUPREE: Let me stop the tape. [background noise was interfering in the interview, so we relocated] Okay, in one of the articles it said something about you servicing the aerial cameras. Can you explain a little more about that? Is that still your pre-NASA career?
PATNESKY: Right. I went to photographic school in 1940, I think. In 1940, I went to aerial school in Denver, Colorado for aerial and ground photography. After I got out, I flew to Florida. Down along there, we patrolled waters shooting pictures, “bliques” [oblique angle camera] mostly. Didn’t do much vertical mapping. Just did very few of that but most of it was bliques with the aerial cameras. Then, when I went to the Arctic Circle, though, I took an aerial camera, the K-20, which was a nice, small, hand-held, aerial camera. Took it and shot a lot of stuff with that because it was a good 4 x 5 negative and it was roll film about fifty or seventy-five pictures to the roll. So that was the aerial stuff. I flew quite a bit. In Florida, we’d go out in the morning, come back around noon, get something to eat, go back out again because we were patrolling the waters as far as all the ships going to Cuba.
DUPREE: Were you involved in any of the technology of developing the aerial cameras?
PATNESKY: No. I just messed them up. [laughter] No, I just used them and just like the Leica when I came with NASA. In the Air Force I didn’t used any 35 millimeter. We had just 4 x 5, speed graphics and the aerial cameras, and the C-1’s which they called the portrait cameras for the studios. I used all those, which I didn’t care much for because they were too damn big to carry around. You really get beautiful work. When I used to go out on geology with NASA, at first I used to take the 4 x 5, but its pretty tough going up and down those rocks carrying a 4 x 5. A 35milimeter you can carry around your neck. You could get beautiful stuff. Anybody could do it if they wanted to. I just probably did a little more than some guys would go through because there’s a lot of guys, photographers, especially photojournalists, it’s a tough life in essence.
With NASA I covered the return. We went to Washington; I went to the White House with [President John F.] Kennedy and [Wally] Schirra. That I did not care for because they herded you in like a bunch of cattle and grab your pictures in about two, three minutes and get out. Everybody pushing aside, you see how it is.
DUPREE: At the press conferences?
PATNESKY: Yeah, oh yeah. But I always played it cool. I just laid back-like and I’d see all these other dingbats trying to get pictures, pushing. I’ve seen the AP [Associated Press] and UPI [United Press International] guys having arguments and even a fight once. I got along beautifully with the news-media guys. I tried to help them. I know that the more you do for somebody, the nicer they are to you. So, I always was like that. I think I was a nice guy.
DUPREE: You sure had a good background to prepare you for NASA. What do you think the most appealing?
PATNESKY: For NASA? I was retired and I worked around the lab. Do you know what a beverage counselor is?
DUPREE: No.
PATNESKY: Do you know what a bartender is?
DUPREE: Yes, I do. I’ve done that.
PATNESKY: First, you’re a bartender. Then you’re a mixologist. Then you’re beverage counselor. I worked the finest country club in Houston. I liked it. I wouldn’t drink when I was working. And they liked me. In fact, they wanted me to quit NASA to come to work at the club, probably would end up as a manager but I know those rich people. You’ve got to really please them. Boy if you don’t, that’s worse than having a mean tornado on you. So, I said no. I would stay with NASA because I loved photography. I really liked the astronauts, I really did. Not because they were astronauts, but being an ex-military guy, I know who’s good and bad. In the military, when I was there, there were some pretty tough cookies, too, that you had to put up with. You hear it all the time. But I think what got me on was my wife. The first year with NASA, I used to be like a lot other of those bimbos. You have indigestion sick and all that. I never had that, just a bad feeling because I had to put up with so-and-so or this or that. My wife told me this, which I tell all the young kids, “You do what you love to do! Now, if somebody gets with you, you put up with them, put up with them or quit.” So, I said I wasn’t going to let those yoyos make me sick like that, that I would pay no attention.
DUPREE: Put up with them or pay no attention.
PATNESKY: Yeah or quit. So, I said I’ll put up with them. Hell, I just won’t pay no attention. And that’s the way I’ve always been. I have friends down there, a young lady in our Public Affairs, she had a stress program and almost had a, well, I don’t know how you call it.
DUPREE: A nervous breakdown?
PATNESKY: Yeah. A nervous breakdown. I liked her. She was a good girl. But that yoyo she was working for, who I was working for, I can see why she did, but me, I didn’t pay no attention to him.
DUPREE: So were you involved with organizing some of the public affairs?
PATNESKY: No, the only thing I took care of in Public Affairs is I got the pictures for them. I got the pictures for them, I had a library and I would help news people, like say you would come down there. In fact, before I quit I had a lot of people; people from Canada come down said, “Could I talk with you?” This one guy especially, he said, “I’ve seen a lot of your work. I’ve admired your work.” I said, “Oh, anyone can do it as long as there’s film in the camera.” He said, “Nah,” he said, “ there’s a difference you’re just shooting a picture and what not.” I know that too, but I didn’t want to elaborate on anything.
Anyway, I always loved shooting people, just like that little baby reaching up to touch the hand. [Patnesky’s famous shot of a baby barely reaching the hand of a space suit at Johnson Space Center] See, I look around, I see that little kid and I run down there. It turned out that that little boy, his daddy was president of some airline and he just thought the world of that. [the photograph] He said, “You just took the best picture of our lives.” I’m going to show you a picture here when you stop that. I get one to show you of Astronaut Bajian when he came back from his flight. He had autographed a picture, “The most memorable part of my trip” was that photo, hell, he’s back from a trip. [His little girls are running towards him on the runway. Bajian is bent over ready to catch them.] I could see it too, because I love kids. He had two pretty little girls. I got the one picture of Dave Leestma’s two little girls. I always get it with the kids and talk with them at the WETF. [Weightless Environment Training Facility] He brought his family at the WETF. He had a beautiful family.
DUPREE: What is the WETF?
PATNESKY: That’s the Water facility like the Carterdale, it used to be in Building 29. He’d bring his family and the kids, Cathy and Emily, I think. They were there on the railing, so I was over there talking with them. And one says, “Today is my birthday. I’m five years old.” And I said, “Oh, great! I’m six.” [laughter] She says, “You are not.” And I said, “I am, too.”
DUPREE: Talking about children, I went to the Johnson Space Center. It looks like half museum and half playground for the children. I saw three of the movies in the Imax. I’m not sure if it was you or not, but I saw a man taking pictures inside of the Johnson Space Center. I was told a story by Sy [Liebergot], I don’t remember his last name. Sorry right now I can’t find it, I’m not good with names.
PATNESKY: Me neither, I forget my wife’s name.
DUPREE: He said the photographer just sat up on the desk and just started taking pictures of everybody and I was wondering if he was talking about you?
PATNESKY: Well, I don’t know because we had a guy from the photo lab once went to the Director’s conference room. I shot many, many pictures there, especially with the Russian cosmonauts. I always respected those guys. I respected what they were doing and keep the hell out of their way. It’s like going to a function. I never associated with them, really, because that’s their party and I was there to get pictures. I got a picture of Congressman [Olin “Tiger”] Teague. I think that that guy passed away, he was a really nice guy. I really liked him. I met him at NASA and shot his picture at different times and we were in the Astrodome when they were introducing Apollo 11. So I’m down there on the field and Congressman Teague comes over there and gives me a big bear hug. I said, “Not here Congressman, people will think we’re queer.” [laughter]
I’ve always had fun like that. It’s just like in the Control Center, I’m sitting there with Jerry Ross and Ron McNair, the black astronaut that was killed. I liked him. He was a real nice guy. Jerry said, “Pat, you sixty-nine?” That’s when I was sixty-nine. I said, “Yeah.” He said, “Oh, hell. I thought you was seventy-nine.” That’s humor, which I like. But as far as people respecting, you saw Dr. [George] Low? There’s a lot like him but I always remark on Dr. [Bob] Gilruth, though.
DUPREE: Yeah, I was wondering. I read one of your articles that mentioned Robert Gilruth, the first director of the Johnson Space Center was one of your favorite people. So I wanted to know why?
PATNESKY: In my association with Dr. Gilruth, of course I was just a photographer, but one of the Presidents, I think it was Johnson who came, I don’t go up and talk with them. I just stand back like all the other photographers. Gilruth would look over to me and always nod his head or wink his eye like saying, “I’m glad its you.” In fact, Dr. Low, I went up to shoot pictures in office when he was the Acting Director. There was another guy from the photo lab there. He said, “I’m taking the picture.” I said, “Okay. That’s all right.” Let me just tell them inside. I went to tell Dr. Low’s secretary. Dr. Low came out and said, “Why can’t you take it?” I said, “Well, he’s got a work order and all that.” See, I never had a work order. I just go shoot the stuff. I said, “I appreciate you let him go ahead.” He said, “ All right, but you’re going to hear from me if I don’t like him.” And do you know I heard from him because that photographer done got a picture of Low with his eyes closed, like he was sleeping, with another VIP from another foreign country. It’s just one of those things. I liked Dr. Gilruth because he was always pleasant, cordial, nice. He liked me. We had the same haircut.
DUPREE: You two had a little mutual admiration society going there.
PATNESKY: Yeah. No, but I’ve had a lot of even in the military, colonels and that. I’ve had some good ones and some bad ones. General [Richard E.] Ellsworth, that Ellsworth Air Force Base in South Dakota, I think is named after him. He was killed in Newfoundland in a B-29. I really admired him as a military officer. There’s a lot of NASA people, the big wheels, there’s a difference between them. Gilruth was always, how do you say, not [inaudible] but he always considerate with me and with a lot of people I think. I know a lot of them did really like him. As far as me saying who bad-mouthed who, I wouldn’t say that, unless St. Peter askes me when I go to Heaven.
DUPREE: I did want to get a few stories that you could relate to me about being on the floor of Mission Control Center.
PATNESKY: The best one was when President [Ronald] Reagan was there. I think it was SDS-3 or 2, yeah, I think it was 2. I’m in front of the console, in fact, I’ve got a cartoon they drew up for me, that I’m shooting the pictures. The President’s White House photographer is running around like a mouse. They made us stand in one place. I’d been standing there for an hour. So, thank goodness after he talked to them, he always talked to them in space, the President, after he was through, thank goodness, I just moved a bit. And what happened was, this little mouse photographer, he done pushed a bookcase that was in back of the console. My leg was holding it there. When the President got through and then I moved a bit, the bookcase fell, I fell on the floor, and the crash, boom, and all that. They had the Secret Service come over there with their guns. They always remembered me for that. In fact, I’ll go out and get that if I have it. [the cartoon] That was the most memorable one in the Control Center.
Then when the Challenger blew up. I’ll never forget that because it’s a sick feeling. I was the last one, generally I was almost the last one to see them at Ellington Field when they took off to go to the Cape [Kennedy] because I liked it. In fact, Judy Resnick in the plane, and I was shooting her picture and I said, “Judy, you look so pretty up there, I could just get up there and give you a big hug.” And she said, “Yeah? Why don’t you?” I said, “Because you know I’m too damn old, I can’t jump that high, that’s why.” [laughter]
Things like that, I had fun with them. They liked me. Anyway, when that happened, I was sick. I shot a picture of the Director, the Flight Director Jay Green, those eyes up and his mouth open. They used it on Time Magazine. I’ve had pictures in [National] Geographics, Time, Life, Newsweek. Except I think the only one I never had any in is pornography magazines.
DUPREE: Well that’s good.
PATNESKY: I wouldn’t do it anyway. But those two instances in the Control Center, I think, would be the. Because after every mission the place would be smoke-laden. They always had everybody lighting up a cigar. Dr. Low, after one mission, he said, “Pat, I never see you lighting up a cigar.” I said, “Well, I don’t smoke.” He said, “Well you’re going to light one up now.” I liked Dr. Low, so I said, “Okay, sir, just for you.” But heck, after two, three puffs, I was almost drunk. The Control Center, I really liked it. I know that they, every time I go in they’d say, “Okay we can take off now, Pat’s here.” They all would call me Pat and that was fine.
DUPREE: What do you mean we can take off now, Pat’s here?
PATNESKY: We can launch. “We can launch now, Pat’s here.” Gene Krantz, one of the top guys there, he always rubbed my forehead for good-luck. I said, “Yeah, how about when they don’t have good luck, you want to cut off my head or something?” They’ve got a picture of Gene rubbing my head for good luck. I guess I was memorable there because one astronaut, Terry Hart, I think, said, “Of all the people at NASA, we will remember, it’s you. I was around the Center all over, especially with the camera. My little Leica, they were going to put it the Astronaut Hall of Fame. Not because of me, but because of what I did with it. JSC [Johnson Space Center] kind of flubbed things up after I got out.
DUPREE: Where’s your camera now?
PATNESKY: Right now I don’t know where it is. They were going to put it in the Space Center Houston. Whether they did or not, I don’t know. Then I got word from a guy that they were going to transfer it back and forth from JSC down to Astronaut Hall of Fame. I’ve got a picture of the Astronaut Hall of Fame with my picture right on the wall with all the doobies. Like I always used to say, they say, “You did this, you did that?” I say, “Yeah. Who cares?” I went out on the boat with the astronauts and the cosmonauts on a fishing trip. This yoyo from the newspaper, he said, “Now, I want to get your name spelled right because I want to give you credit and that.” I said, “Oh gee, I appreciate that.” I’ve got a lot of friends in Houston, I mean, they know of me. That dude at the news media. I was on channel 2, channel 13, channel 26. They come by to interview me. But you know what it all amounts to? Who cares? [laughter]
DUPREE: Well, we’re getting close to the end of the tape, so let me go ahead and turn it over. I don’t want to miss anything good. Now, I wanted to ask you a little bit about some of the excursions that you went with the astronauts for their training exercises.
PATNESKY: Okay. Well, we went to the jungle for three days. I really enjoyed it but it was kind of tough. The first day we were in the jungle it rained like heck. The mud. Where there was this little ole creek was a flood, almost river-like. We couldn’t get across it. It was kind of miserable, but I enjoyed it because they did.
DUPREE: What was the purpose of taking astronauts into the jungle?
PATNESKY: Well, survival, in case when they would come back, if they ever landed in the jungle they’d have to be used to it or at least know what they’re looking into. So, we flew in by helicopter, walked down to the “bottom of the floor,” they call it, and we spent time in there. Coming out was kind of tough because the second day that we were there it rained. It rained so much. The only thing funny that happened to me there, the last night we slept in hammocks to get off the ground because of spiders and that. One of the strings on my hammock broke and I’m upside down. It’s dark, it’s so damn dark you can’t see the devil. So I was hollering, “Help, help, man!” We had two sergeants from the Air Force there and so they came up, pulled me up. Then coming out, it was really tough because it was muddy and slippery. And my camera bag, it done rotted in the jungle, damn it. It was rolling down the side of the mountain. It’s mountainous, you see. So I just slid down on that mud and that to catch my bag or there went all my cameras. So we came down to the river. We came down by boat. Most of the astronauts came by inner-tube or something like that. That’s were I have the picture of me in the jungle with that chief. He’s the chief and you see how tough he looks.
DUPREE: They spotted you and came up to see what you were doing?
PATNESKY: Who’s that, hon?
DUPREE: The tribesmen that you took a picture with.
PATNESKY: No, we went down to their camp. You see, when we went down the river, then we ended up at their camp because that’s where the plane, helicopter was going to come to pick us up. We saw the natives and that. Of course, they’re topless and that but we were told no shooting. Hell, I wasn’t interested anyway, just to get the heck out of there.
DUPREE: Do you know what tribe that was?
PATNESKY: No. I sure don’t. They say that years ago, they used to be headhunters. They didn’t like my head, thank goodness. [laughter] Anyway, then we hit the desert up in Washington. It was nice, I mean easy. Hot as hell, I think we had 150 degrees on the desert. The astronauts didn’t do anything during the day; it was too hot. They had just built them a shelter out of parachutes.
DUPREE: Which desert was this?
PATNESKY: It’s up near Pasco, Washington. I was surprised.
DUPREE: The state of Washington has a desert?
PATNESKY: They sure do. It’s down below Spokane. When I going to Coeur d’ Alene, Idaho for a Boy Scout Jamboree with the astronaut [Gordon] Cooper, Jerry Karr, and Ron Evans, I think. I was on the plane with [Scott] Carpenter. We get to Seattle and Carpenter said, “ You make sure my bag is going to be on that plane.” We all said, “We will, sir, we will.” So when we get there, it’s not on there. Not mine, either. So this guy gives Carpenter a couple of nice shaving kits and he says, “This is for your trouble.” So I’m standing there and Carpenter turns around and he says, “Pat, damn it, you’re in the same fix. Here, you have one.” Now, that’s nice. See, they liked me. [laughter] Thank goodness. Anyway, the desert was all right, simple.
DUPREE: So, you’re taking pictures of the guys while they’re going through their training?
PATNESKY: Mostly them sending up signals for making on the ground some kind of a marker so the plane flying overhead would see them and stuff like that. Geology, I loved that. It was kind of tough when we went to the Pinacontes in Mexico. It was kind of tough because I went down in El Grande, I think it was. And it was about eight hundred feet if I’m not mistaken. One of the geologists, I think it was Euel Clanton or someone, said, “I sure would like to have some pictures down there on the floor.” Ole dummy me, I go down there on the floor carrying all this camera gear and that. That’s where the viewer on my old Leica, I slipped between the boulders, rocks, and lost the viewer.
When I got down there, it was really something. I looked way up at the top of the crater and they looked just like a dot. That’s how big they were. So, I was looking around to see how the heck I was going to get out of there. It took me a long while. I’d seen a cave along one side and I was going to go up in there and find some gold and stuff, you know some Aztec gold. I went up there going along this walk that I guess the natives had used for these caves, but then it disappeared. I couldn’t go no further or else I would have had a heck of a long drop. So, I went back. I finally got out. We had five Mexican soldiers there with us that were sort of being our guides and there was a general there. I got a picture of him and I. So, I told them about that cave and they said, “You’re lucky you didn’t go in there.” I said, “How come?” He said, “Them caves are filled with rattlesnakes.” So, I’m lucky there.
DUPREE: You didn’t run into one? Lucky!
PATNESKY: The only snake we saw was in the jungle and it was a fer-de-lance, which is about the second deadliest snake. I’ve got a picture of Bruce McCandless with a three-toed sloth. They’re ugly, old and slimy but that’s about it. All the geology was just tramping and walking over rocks. Up in Flagstaff it was pretty tough because those rocks were really jagged. The first thing that happened to me there, that’s when I was carrying the 4 x 5 and you always had to have one hand on it. You couldn’t hang it around your body. I saw a picture that I wanted. Three astronauts and the geologist and I wanted this crater in the background, which I got. I looked down to see what I was going to step on, and I stepped on the rock and “shhwit,” [slipping noise] I went head first down the side of this crater-hole. Ted Freeman, the first astronaut ever killed, he was killed at Ellington, he jumped down and grabbed my ankle or I might have looked like a hamburger because of the jagged rocks. I was lucky I only broke one lens, skinned my wrist and what not. That lava rock is really tough.
When we were in Iceland, we lived in pup tents. We set up. I never knew how to fix them up so let them, I didn’t let them, he had to or we wouldn’t have had a tent. One place we stopped, there must have been a million of these mosquitoes, fleas, lice on this Tundra grass. When I was in the Arctic Circle, we walked and walked and Elliot Roosevelt was the leader of this expedition. We’d go ashore in a little, old, rubber, dingy boat. That boy walked. I’ll tell you, he could walk your head off. He was six foot, six or something like that. I was carrying the camera gear and that, but you’d step in this Tundra grass and mosquitoes would come up, I mean hundreds and thousands. In fact, I have a picture of our Eskimo guide and his whole back looked like it was a coat.
DUPREE: They were fleas or mosquitoes?
PATNESKY: No, they were mosquitoes. I mean big old things. They tried to take the camera off me and take my picture. [laughter]
DUPREE: To take a picture of you. [laughter]
PATNESKY: Yeah. The one with the camera said, “Let me take your pictures.”
DUPREE: Where are all of these pictures now?
PATNESKY: There in, from you mean up there in the Arctic and that?
DUPREE: All these pictures you take on all the excursions.
PATNESKY: With the astronauts? There in the files, there in Houston at JSC. I had a call the other day from a guy at NBC that wanted pictures taken of the astronauts at Iceland. I said, “Well did you check with the photo library there?” He said, “Yeah but they said contact you.” I said, “Why those, those dummies, they’re there.” So anyway, I gave him a couple of names and said I’d look here. [at home] I found about twenty that I had. See, I had thousands of pictures in my office. What I shot I generally kept them filed because I had people coming in and I’d show them. [They would say], “Oh, that’s great.” I’d say, “Ah, that’s just a picture, I was there.” Anyway, when I left I’d have needed an eighteen-wheeler to take all my stuff out, see. I didn’t take everything that I really wanted because at that time, I don’t know what the hell I did, I hurt a nerve in my back.
See, I was in a wreck in ’85. I was going to NASA one Sunday morning in ’85 and my car blew-up. I crashed against a concrete barrier. I was waiting for T.V. guys to come take my picture. The car is on fire and I’m sitting in the car, dazed, and I finally get out. I believe in angels because I knew I had a concussion. All I could see were flames in the wall and I wasn’t doing nothing about it, just sitting there. Something dragged me out of the car and I got out. Somebody on the side of the freeway, he said, “Get the hell away from there, you dumb bastard,” he said, “it’s going to blow up!” So, I walked away. I’ll always remember this: a policeman come he said, “Is that your car?” I said, “Yes, Sir.” “Is there anybody else in the car?” I said, “No, Sir.” He said, “Are you all right?” I said, “Yes, Sir.” Hell, I was half dead, I guess. But he said, “How many drinks you have?” I’ll never forget that. “How many drinks you have?” I wanted to say, I really wanted to say, “Where the hell you gonna find a bald-headed old guy like me at five o’clock in the morning drunk?” I forgot there are some like that. But I hurt so bad, my hurts, hurt. Dee, my wife, found out about DMSO. [the toxic chemical dimethyl sulfoxide] She has studied medicine a lot. If it wasn’t for her, I’d be dead. I know it.
DUPREE: So, you said you were 85 when you had this accident?
PATNESKY: No, I said it was 1985. [laughter] Hell, I ain’t 85 yet.
DUPREE: I was going to say, you’re going to lie to me and tell me you’re 91 years old? [laughter] Well, I mean, you’ve got a lot of years in. You said you’re twenty-one years in the service.
PATNESKY: And one year in Civil Service and thirty-seven with NASA. But I wanted to do sixty years, see. I really did, but in a way its lucky I didn’t because my wife, MSG, do you know what MSG is? Monosodium glutamate? That’s bad. She almost died. 911, she almost died. So I was home to get the 911. Yeah, you look into that, she can tell you about that. Anyway, in 1985, I never did get, my car burned up completely. I had my daughter come pick me up from some restaurant there. When I came home, I looked like I had been in a wreck.
DUPREE: Why didn’t you go to the hospital?
PATNESKY: Hell no! I ain’t going to the hospital until they. I had to take a physical ever year and I was always in pretty good shape for an old man. In fact, a lot of my buddies, the astronauts say, “God, I hope I can live that long and look like you.” I say, “Hell, you don’t want to be ugly, do you?” [laughter]
DUPREE: Did you meet any of the Russian cosmonauts?
PATNESKY: I photographed all of the first twelve that they had. I’ve got Leonov, Dzhanibekov. He’s a general. He’s one of my favorites, Dzhanibekov. Leonov, he’s the one that I have a picture made with. In fact, they came here once. They always come back to NASA. Leonov saw me in the newsroom. He come out of the news office. He was in there with some of those guys and he come out there and gave me a big old hug. I was their friend because I’m part Russian, a Russian-Czech. I can’t speak it. I’ve got a very good Russian friend in New York that’s, I feel very low because I haven’t answered his letters. He’s the one that really wants me to put out a book of the pictures that you have seen.
DUPREE: Who is this?
PATNESKY: He used to be a Russian consultant and interpreter. Real fine guy, Forostenko, Anatol Forostenko. What did I say? Interpreter? He became a good friend of mine. He worked with the astronauts, training the cosmonauts. I shot, I got the whole twelve of these. They all signed a picture for me that I shot. Went down to some dinner they had at one of the clubs. So as they came in I took their picture. I said, “Please line up.” Then there was another Russian who was the head of their engineering that really liked me. He said, “We’ve got to take you back to Russia.” My wife said, “You better not go, they won’t let you come back.” I got along fine with them.
DUPREE: So, being a staff photographer at Public Affairs, what kinds of functions were required to attend?
PATNESKY: For, PAO, [Public Affairs Office] is the ones who arranged. They didn’t arrange the functions. When there was something going on, like they had this big dinner for the Russians and astronauts downtown, I would go. They were going to present things to the Russian leader. So I covered that and several of those things. But I didn’t care too much for that because I liked the outdoors. The geology, the mountains and all that, like a dummy, I guess because there was always ticks.
DUPREE: Did you have your pick and choose of all the projects that you could photograph?
PATNESKY: Not really. There were some I wanted to go and I didn’t get the okay from my yoyos. So, Mr. Abbey, one time, they were going to Canada and I wasn’t on the list to go. It’s just like I said, there was no friction, I mean, I think there was a lot of jealousy, in a sense. Mr. Abbey said, “Are you going to Canada?” I said, “No, Sir.” Mr. Abbey was one of the “biggies” but he wasn’t the Director at the time. He said, “Well, you’re going.” So he made sure that I went to Canada. I shot hundreds of pictures and I got a lot of stuff for them. Not that I wanted to make these trips, but I did like to go out with the guys. I would wake up in the mornings, like we were in Bend, Oregon and at the same motel, so I’d go around to the different rooms and wake these guys up because I’d be up early get them up to go. Just knock on the door, “Hey, time to get up, man.” Bend, Oregon, all those places, Coeur d’ Alene, Idaho with the Boy Scouts. I enjoyed that with Carpenter and all these young kids from all over the world. An astronaut, them guys are something. I think I would have liked to have gone.
When I was interviewed by Jane Paulie, Captain Al Bean and I were at the same time with her. So, she asked me if I would like to go up in space. I’d been with the space program for so long. I said, “Well not really, to go around in circles, hell, I could do that on the ground - go around in circles. I would have loved to go to the moon, though.” I would too, if I didn’t die on launch. [laughter] But hell, if John Glenn, see John Glenn is the oldest astronaut and he’s one year younger than me. So, that’s why I say. He was a very nice gentleman and his wife is a lovely person. I’ve got a picture of Dee [Patnesky] and Annie [Glenn] and [John] Glenn together. My wife really loved her, too. I liked Glenn very, very much.
DUPREE: So, being a photographer wasn’t all work, it was some play, too and Dee could attend a few functions with you?
PATNESKY: Yeah, we went to several, the big Apollo dinner and that. I would take pictures, too, which I didn’t mind. When I was in California, one of the astronauts’ wives, I met her in the commissary or the BX [base exchange – military department store] there, once at Edwards Air Force Base. She said, “Pat, what are you doing here?” I said, “I heard there was an astronaut around here, could you tell me.” She said, “I got a card for you.” She had gotten this postcard of this jack-ass with a camera on a tri-pod and it said, “Any jack-ass can take a picture.” When they had funnies like that, I really like that.
DUPREE: That’s how they remembered you?
PATNESKY: They’ll remember from that. Taking pictures.
DUPREE: What was your most memorable project in NASA?
PATNESKY: Most memorable one I think, covering the trips with the astronauts on their geology, the jungle and the desert. Iceland. I spent a week up there. One thing I didn’t like up there, there were Icelanders. You see I spent a year in Iceland, ’51-’52. I think it was when I was still in the Air Force. I knew what Iceland was like but we went way out in the boondocks. I mean we went way up to the glacier. Right at the edge of the glacier, there was a weather station and there was two cute little girls, I think. I had a big candy bar I was saving because when I used to go out I wouldn’t take sandwiches. I’d take fruit or something. I had these big old Hershey-type bars and give them to the two little girls.
I liked the desert. The one down in Mexico, Pinacontes. But I really liked them all. The most memorable things is remembering those, all the friends in the Control Center because I think they all liked me. They didn’t throw things at me. [laughter]
DUPREE: Who were the people you worked with that made a significant impact on you personally?
PATNESKY: Well, the astronauts did. Because they never acted like they were superior and that. I know they really appreciated what I did. I know that or else they wouldn’t lie so much to me. No, but I know that the astronauts and there’s a lot of smaller type people like me around there. Most generally, you will find a lot of people resent the fact that you are in the position that you are.
DUPREE: What was your least favorite experience with NASA?
PATNESKY: I really can’t think of any that I didn’t like, except driving on the freeway going to work every morning [laughter] and going home. If I had a brain in my head, I would have. My wife moved from Spring to come back to San Antonio. She’s from San Antonio. If I would have had a brain in my head, I would have sold our place in Spring and moved down near the Space Center so I wouldn’t have that 100 miles of treachery. It was treacherous.
DUPREE: What do you consider your most challenging milestone in career working with the space program?
PATNESKY: There was nothing hard. I figured this was like photography: you have to put out a little more, in a sense, go out of your way a bit. We were out in Flagstaff [Arizona] once and the guy wouldn’t get out of the car, one of the public affairs guys, wouldn’t get out of the car and the photographer from the photo lab wouldn’t get out of the car because it was drizzly. But hell, I got out and got pictures of these guys. So, it all depends on the person himself, if they really like the job. I think they just their paycheck.
DUPREE: I wanted to ask you for some advice on your technique. It seems like you know how to develop a rapport and I was just wondering how you manage into such good graces with everybody. They always seem to want you to be their photographer. So, I was wondering what kind of advice you could give to the future photographers.
PATNESKY: I don’t like to preach. I used to tell the guys when they would ask me, I’d say, “I will show you what I’ve done, the kind of pictures I’ve got and you look at this. Like I look at a newspaper and I’ll see a picture, I like that but maybe I’ll do this. So you can see what a guy has done and maybe you have something else to add onto it. One thing I always did, I respected those guys, the astronauts, the people in the Control Center, even the little Flight Control Center. Just because they were flight controllers and not an astronaut or Flight Director, I still respected them sitting there all those hours, looking at that console because I couldn’t have done it. Just trying to be nice really. There’s a lot of ugly people in this whole damn world. I’ve had them in our building but I just never did pay them any attention. I just pass it off. I would tell the astronauts and the other people who brought their kid in that are going to college about photography, I’d say, “You look and what you like, you do.” Somebody comes up, because I’ve had photographers from the photo lab come say, “Why did you do this? Why did you do that?” I say, “You do what you think is right. If it comes out, fine. It’s probably a hell of a lot better than what I would tell you.” I like people to get good pictures. I’ve had people say, “Do mind if I shoot, too?” I’d say, “Nah, come here.” I’d let them come on by me. I’d say, “Now this is a pretty nice shot, if you want to think about it.” I would tell them, even when some VIP come, say, “Here’s a nice shot I like, now maybe you like it, too. So go ahead and shoot it.” It’s just helping each other. Now, if I was on my own, freelancing or that, I wouldn’t tell them every good thing I knew, see. I think if a person is shooting, do you shoot pictures?
DUPREE: Yes, I do.
PATNESKY: Okay. You shoot pictures, you see people. I always sort of stood back, off the side a little bit. Especially like AP and UPI. They always wanted to get something closer than that. So I wouldn’t say nothing. I just stand back there and I’d see what they done. Then I’d get my shots, what I wanted. I always was very lucky and what not to get. It’s like in the White House when they pushed us in there. I mean it was like a pack of beans, reaching your camera up over and that. But I got a nice picture of Kennedy and Schirra and his family sitting there. So, it’s just what a person does. I think being nice and respectful of the other guy because he’s going to try to get something.
When Vice-President Bush came down, his photographer come along and she asked me, “Well how did you shoot here?” We went inside where they were going to eat. So I said, “Well, here’s what I’m shooting and here’s what I got” and told her what I did. So, then she can go from there. She might say, “Well that dummy don’t know what he’s talking about.” But she told me later, “You were right.” I said, “Yeah, well, I’m lucky I shot some.” It’s just like in the Control Center. They would come and they say, “How do you shoot in there?” I said, “Well, you’re not allowed to use flash. So, I would shoot a fifteenth, an eighth of a second.” [They would say] “Well how did you hold it?” and I’d say, “Old age, rigor mortis.” [laughter] I think probably it was a part of rigor mortis.
People going out to shoot, I would never be rude, crude or what not. I always respect whoever was around and if you had to get in front of somebody, kind of be polite about it. Because I’ve seen some photographers, man, they just push in front of you. They’ve done that to me many a times, but I always got what I wanted. The only thing is, I missed a lot of shots on the count of some dingbat being rude like that, pushing his way in. So, when you’re shooting people, I could show you many pictures I know. I think I better put my book out.
DUPREE: I think you should, too.
PATNESKY: I know my wife is always on my butt, too. “When you going to do that book?” I say, “Pretty soon, pretty soon.”
DUPREE: At least collect them together.
PATNESKY: Oh I have. In that room back there, you seen. I must have seventy-five, a hundred books [photo albums] like that. I’ve got the ones I think history. The picture I’ve got out there, the first little ducklings they had there, the cows. Now, the cow picture, I think is my number one picture. Astronauts would ask me, they said, “Pat, out of all these pictures you’ve shot, which is your best one?” They’d want me to say, “Well, you, Jaime, or you, Joe.” I’d say, “Well, I don’t want to hurt your feelings now, don’t be hurt now about it, because I love shooting you guys.” I said, “but my cow picture.” [laughter]
That picture of the cows, I went down there to shoot pictures of the site where NASA was going to be. So I went down one day. It took me about an hour and a half to shoot those cows. There were a few little snakes running around here and there. I think I saw a deer or two. I wanted these cows to look at me, see. If you would have seen the things I did, “MOOO! Hey! I’m Mr. Bull Durham.” [laughter] The thing that made it so good was the one white cow. Dr. Gilruth, when he was the Director, he had that picture in his office. Dignitaries would come in there and he always would mention that picture. They would say, “What is that?” And he always said, “Pat, here had some foresight to see that that was going to be something.” I appreciated that. No one in PAO [Public Affairs Office] would say that, “Pat did this or Pat did that.” Except for there was a guy, Terry White, who I really admire and respect. Unfortunately, he passed away. He was writing a book, too. I always wondered if he finished his book. Anyway, Gilruth and there several of them. Dr. Low would always say, “Pat did this or Pat did that.” But do you think PAO would? [Patnesky shakes his head no] In fact, I could tell you stuff that would make you want to cry. You’d give me a Purple Heart for it but that’s besides the point because I still love what I did.
DUPREE: I did want to ask you why Mr. Allen has PATNESKY on his nametag. [Patnesky has a photograph of Astronaut Joe “PATNESKY” Allen in his den]
PATNESKY: Oh, okay. Yeah, see, working with the astronauts and us always had cameras. Joe was going to shoot pictures of his crew up in space. So, I would show him and tell him this and that. They used to kid Joe, when he was at the WETF, “What are you going to do? Try to take Pat’s job?” So, anyway , what happened was, when they were down at the Cape and they were going to go on the flight, the suit guys gave him that nametag. They said, “Hey,” they were razzing him about.
DUPREE: Pat in space? [laughter]
PATNESKY: No, about trying to razz him about trying to take my job and that, see Joe “Patnesky” Allen, see. He says, and Joe is such a hell of a nice guy, he said, “Yeah, hell, this is terrific, I’m going to take it into space.” So that’s why it went up in space because when he come back he said, “Hell, I couldn’t do nothing but take that into space, Pat.” He said, “You’re about four years too old for my daughter.” [laughter] I always had a relationship like that with those guys – very humorous.
DUPREE: Did the astronauts take anything up into space for you?
PATNESKY: Yeah, that picture of my wife and I. I had something for my daughter. I didn’t want them to take something big because they had.
DUPREE: They had to watch the weight for the payload?
PATNESKY: Yeah and they had all their other stuff, too. The only thing, I wished I would have had Marsha, Marsha Ivins, when she had my hat on, if I’d have thought about it, if I’d had a brain in my head, I’d have had her take that because I used to go out to Ellington and all the t.v. people, [stations] 13, 12 and them, know me because I had that crazy hat on. But I loved going out to Ellington to see them off good-bye.
DUPREE: How about the Leica? Did they take it up to space?
PATNESKY: Yeah, it went up on SDS-69. I’ve got a picture of Jim Voss using it in space. And there’s another picture somewhere, if I find it or not, I’m going to call those yo-yos and get another one. But I’ve got a real nice picture of Jim Voss and you can see that camera. You see, what’s made that camera was the fact that I used that rubber band. “What’s that rubber band for?” I said, “To hold it together and I’ve got one around my body, too.” [laughter]
DUPREE: Mostly because that camera is fully manual, there’s nothing automatic about it. You just knew it so well.
PATNESKY: I liked it for one thing. At press conferences, it was quiet. You never knew I was shooting pictures. But you take a press conference now, all these new cameras. [simulating camera noises] I told the astronauts, I says, “Man, I’d kind of get mad a bit if I was an astronauts and I had to hear those cameras blasting. I’d be wanting a guy like me, with that old beat-up old thing.” But I’ve gotten some really wonderful pictures with that old Leica. I got a letter from Leica company president. He got one of the astronauts that sent the story that they wrote on me and the Leica going up into space. So, he wrote me a letter, thanking me for using their old beat-up thing, I guess.
DUPREE: What do you see for the future of manned or/and unmanned space flight?
PATNESKY: What do I see? I’m not into it too much, but I hope they keep on going because the astronauts and all the guys working with them, they work hard. Especially the astronauts, man, they put in hours and hours. They deserve what they do and get and fame and all that. I believe in that. The only thing is I’m mad at them, they wouldn’t put me in their duffle bag to go along with them. Many a time they said, “I wish you were going with us.” I said, “Hell yeah.” Anybody can take a picture now with the cameras they’ve got; it’s just aim and shoot, see. Like the old Leica, you’ve got to focus it. And I was getting to the age where I probably couldn’t focus right, because in a hurry, you know. So, I said it’s about time I got out of there, let these young guys do it.
DUPREE: If there’s something that you could develop for cameras or some new technology that you could develop for photography, what do you think that would be?
PATNESKY: I think that they’ve got everything that they need now. They’ve got all these computerized cameras and everything like that. I’ve got friends at NASA, young engineers who are really good. If I’d a stayed at NASA in this, I probably get some smarts and learn from them along some of their computers and that, because they showed me how to. He said, “Hell, here’s your picture, we can bring on up here on the computers, different pictures.” Most of the pictures they have on the computers from NASA are actually what I shot, unless it’s from space. But the training and that, you know.
I like the old-fashion way, I guess. Maybe if I was young and that, I would really like the new stuff. I love people. I’ve got friends from Japan, Germany, Canada. Got a good friend, Pratiwi Sudarmono from Indonesia, who wants to give me some handsome pills. When I got here, I got a jar full of handsome pills from Dr., the head of the medical deal down in the Johnson Space Center. They send me handsome pills, but they didn’t work. [laughter] But I ate the candy, though. [laughter] Dr. [Denise] Baisden. She was a cute gal.
DUPREE: So, all in all, how do you view your experience and your time at NASA?
PATNESKY: I loved it. I didn’t even mind. Well I didn’t like the freeways and traffic, like I said, if I had a brain I should have moved down there when my wife wanted to come back to San Antone [San Antonio] because I used to drive five-hundred miles a week to work. Then on the weekends, two hundred and some up to San Antone to see if she still knew who I was and back again. I looked forward to going to work. There was a lot of people and there probably still is now. They hated it. I had a good friend in the photo lab and everyday he’d complain, “So and so, upstairs, the boss and that.” I said, “Don’t let him get to you, boy.” I said, “to hell with him. You got to think of your ticker, now, see?” And the doctors, they said, “How old are you now?” I said, “Well going on to eleventy-eight, I guess.” “You ain’t had no problems, this or that?” I haven’t been to the doctor or hospital. I ain’t been Tarzan neither, though.
DUPREE: Sounds like it to me, all these excursions that you went on going down caves and up the sides of mountains and in the tundra. That probably kept you healthy.
PATNESKY: Oh, I think so. Also what you eat. Now with married to my wife, “You’re not getting this. You’re not eating that. You’re not getting.” I used to love – ham. If I eat ham once a year, I’m lucky. Not that I miss it, but it’s just not being smart. When we used to go on trips, these guys would take these ham and cheese and them sandwiches. We went out to Taos, New Mexico and I drove up from Santa Fe or Albuquerque and up through the valleys of fruit, plums and peaches and apples. I would get me a basket of each. When we’d go out all day long on those trips, these guys taking these dried up, old sandwiches and I’m eating a good old, juicy apple or plum. [They would ask] “Where’d you get that?” “Off a tree down the road, down the ravine there.”
I got some beautiful stuff at the Grand Canyon with the astronauts looking down. John Young, Charlie Duke. They used to ride that rover [lunar roving vehicle], that simulated car they used on the Moon. I used to have to run after those creeps carrying this stuff on my back. I was in good shape, though. I think. I hurt a bit. Now I hurt more because I fell out here right on my knee before my wife did and she had to go copycat. [laughter] But I feel so bad that she was hurt because you have to lay in bed.
DUPREE: Do you mind if I ask how old you are?
PATNESKY: How old I am? I’ll be, you see she was just eighty and I’ll be eighty in August.
DUPREE: You all look wonderful.
PATNESKY: You think so?
DUPREE: Yes!
PATNESKY: Well, I think my wife looks wonderful and I’m glad. She really looks good.
DUPREE: You have a beautiful house here. Your garden is wonderful.
PATNESKY: Oh, this old teepee. We used to have a big house but don’t need them. In fact, this is quite big. When she spent two months in the hospital, I did all of it. I like to cook. When I was living in Spring by myself, my daughter lived close by. I wouldn’t even go over to eat with them but once in a while. My daughter and son-in-law are flight attendants with Southwest and they used to always, “Come over, Daddy.” And I’d say, “I’m busy, man, I ain’t got time.” They’d get so mad. But I’ve had a good life.
DUPREE: Thank you for this lovely visit and it has been a wonderful, wonderful interview. I do want to ask you the spelling of a few names but other than that, thank you so very much, I appreciate it.
PATNESKY: It’s nice meeting you. What names you want to know, hon?