NASA Whelan, Patrick J. - May 25, 2000

Interview with Patrick J. Whelan

 

Interviewer: Bradley Shreve

Date of Interview: May 25, 2000

Location: Whelan home, Bryan, Texas

 

 

SHREVE:  Today is May 25, 2000.  This oral history is being conducted at 4248 Barnhill Lane, Bryan, Texas, the home of Mr. Whelan.  The interview is being conducted for the NASA/Johnson Space Center Oral History Project in conjunction with the Southwest Texas State University Department of History.

 

Before NASA you were in the Army Chemical Corps?

 

WHELAN:  Correct.

 

SHREVE:  Could you go over a little bit what your duties were there?

 

WHELAN:  I was in for six months for training.  So it was really just an officer training school, a three month officer training school.  We learned about chemical and radiation and what to expect in the combat field where a chemical or nuclear bomb or maybe something had gone off.  After I had finished the school, I worked in an office for about a month and then I was selected to go to paratrooper school.  And in paratrooper school [was] about a month long.  The first week of it was how to load an airplane for an airlift, proper loading of an aircraft.  Then the rest of it was physical training and preparation for parachute school.  We ended up making five jumps at the end of our program.  After that I went back to Fort McLennan, Alabama.  Again, worked at an office pushing papers until my six months was up.  I was assigned to Army Reserves.   When I started working for NASA I got a release from the Reserves.  So I really never had to serve any weekend duty.  Well, I went to two summer camps later on, but I never really was part of the Army anymore.  Finally got my discharge, officer discharge, after about six years.

 

SHREVE:  Because of the NASA employment?

 

WHELAN:  Well, when you sign up you're kind of committed for a period of time for an officer.  At the end of my time, I didn't want to bother with going for weekend duties or summer camp anymore.  With my NASA, I was working more than I needed to and so I just went ahead and took a discharge.

 

SHREVE:  How was it then that you became employed at NASA?

 

WHELAN:  After I got out of paratrooper school, well, I got married right before we went in and my wife got pregnant right away.  So after the six months [in the] army, I came back and got a job at Kelly Air Force Base in San Antonio as an industrial engineer.  I worked there for almost three years.  During that time my wife, of course, had her child.  In fact we had a second child.  Some friends of mine were applying at NASA.  Actually, I applied for a job in Houston.  It was my preference.  The guy I interviewed agreed to hire me, but he said he had to process the paper work to get me hired.  So he asked me when I could come to work.  They were wanting to hire somebody right away.  I said give me about four weeks because I need to sell my house that I bought in San Antonio and, of course, give my boss two weeks’ notice and report to work.  He said okay.  And so I went back to San Antonio, Kelly Air Force Base, and told my boss that I had been hired by NASA and was expecting to leave in about four weeks.  I put my house up for sale and lucky enough I sold it in about two weeks.

 

In the meantime, I was checking back with this guy in Houston, at the NASA in Houston.  He said they had a little problem with the paper work, could I rewrite my resume.  The job description was written for a mechanical engineer and my degree was industrial engineer.  So he wanted me to kind of reword it to maybe come closer to fitting the job description.  So I did that and sent it to him.  In the meantime, a friend of mine got the job in Florida at Cape Kennedy.  They were looking for people.  He said send me a copy of your resume.  So I sent him a resume and about two days later they called me up and said can I come down for an interview.  It took about a week to arrange the interview and I went down to Cocoa Beach, Florida and interviewed. 

 

By the time I got back to Kelly Air Force Base the people in Florida had already contacted my employer and requested a release for me to come to work down there.  It was kind of funny because when showed up for work back in San Antonio they said they heard I got the job down in Florida.  I hadn't even heard it yet.  I kind of was expecting the same thing I got out of Houston that they turn the paper work over to personnel and it would take a while to square away.  That was quite different then.  I ended up going to Cocoa Beach, Florida and working down there for a couple of years.

 

SHREVE:  Did the Mercury missions have any impact on you before you applied?

 

WHELAN:  It certainly made me aware of the NASA program and what they were trying to do.  But I really was never involved.  They were already getting into the Gemini program before I went down there.  Other than making me aware of what NASA was trying to accomplish, I'd say no.

 

SHREVE:  So when you started employment at Kennedy from '64 to '66, can you maybe go over what your duties were, what you did?

 

WHELAN:  I was assigned to a program office and scheduling group within that.  Our primary objective was the construction of the launch complexes.  We would get with the contractors to figure out the timeline of their construction, whatever they were doing, and try to integrate a schedule with all the contractors.  We used what we call PERT [Program Evaluation Review Technique], which was a scheduling technique using a computer to break down all the tasks, to say like the steel construction of the launch complex, the elevators, the computers – all the elements that it took to construct the facility.  My job was to integrate the different contractors to make sure everything worked together; to make sure some things were not delayed while other things were waiting on it.  So it was mostly a scheduling program. 

 

We also worked with NASA headquarters.  They would send people down every week or so.  We’d have meetings and give us a progress report of how we were doing and set up interfaces with milestones and we would meet during the construction.  It was presenting schedule information and coordinating with the NASA headquarters.  We actually set up a facility right next to the launch facilities and had a wall about twenty feet long, eight to ten feet high.  We laid out a schedule of how to get from where we are now to where we're going, the completion of the launch complex.  Of course, each week update it and be able to tell how we were doing on our schedule and whether some contractors needed to bring on additional people or work overtime, whatever, if they were running behind.  It was a coordination scheduling effort.

 

SHREVE:  Were these complexes for Gemini and Apollo?

 

WHELAN:  No, strictly Apollo.

 

SHREVE:  Was there a time constraint?  Were they working you on a strict time schedule?

 

WHELAN:  Yes, it was very schedule oriented, very critical time.  A good part of the time we worked ten hours a day, six days a week doing our job.  So yeah, it was very time-critical.  [clock chiming]  Nice chime of the clock.  At that time, money was available, and time was a critical factor as far as getting done what we needed to do.

 

SHREVE:  Was it because of the money or because of the competition with the Soviets?

 

WHELAN:  Well, probably the competition with the Soviets got us the money and imposed the schedule to do it as quick as we could.

 

SHREVE:  Was there lots of talk about that, about what the Russians were doing?

 

WHELAN:  Oh yes.

 

SHREVE:  What kinds of things were said?

 

WHELAN:  Other than the fact that we knew we were trying to meet a goal and we had a lot of things to do in order to get there.  There were newspaper and magazine reports all the time about how the Russians were doing.  They had the heavier lift rockets.  And we were afraid they were ahead of us.  It was a race to get to the Moon first.

 

SHREVE:  Then in '66 you moved to [the] MSC in Houston?

 

WHELAN:  Right.  Manned Spacecraft Center, what is now Johnson.

 

SHREVE:  What were your duties there and why did you move there?

 

WHELAN:  Personal reasons?  Primarily, my father had been ill about that time and my whole family was from Texas and we kind of felt a need to get back home, what we call home, Texas.  And being that I originally wanted to go to work in Houston, to be able to stay in Texas, I felt maybe it was a good thing to do if I had the opportunity.  Part of my work at Cape Kennedy, I met a guy from Houston that ran a scheduling office in the Mission Control Center.  Of course, they were training astronauts in the computer programs to work with Cape Kennedy.  I met him a couple of times and he ended up offering me a job to come to Houston because I told him I was from Texas and interested in it.  So he hired me.  In fact, it was a lateral transfer.  But I transferred from Cape Kennedy to Manned Spacecraft Center in Houston.

 

SHREVE:  So what were your duties?  What were the differences in your duties in Houston?

 

WHELAN:  In a way it was similar because it was to do with scheduling.  We didn't use the PERT technique like we did in Florida.  The PERT technique lends itself toward a construction or physical job completion.  The work in Houston was more software development for the Mission Control Center.  But it involved scheduling.  Of course, computers were very expensive in those days.  What we have on our desk at home here probably has more capability than some of the computers that NASA had at that time.  So computers were real critical and scheduling.  I mean programming the computers was very difficult, time consuming.  So our job was to get the best utilization possible out of the computers in the Mission Control Center.  Of course, they would run tests and operations in the Mission Control Center.  And part of it was tied in with the operation in Florida.  In fact, about every two weeks I'd make a flight down to Cape Kennedy to attend scheduling meetings and made many a trip back and forth for that purpose.  In a way, it was similar that it was scheduling.  In a way, it was different because we weren't dealing with physical plan and the new job was more with computer.  But the coordination and scheduling, in that way, it was similar.

 

SHREVE:  At this time you were working in Houston from '66 to '76?

 

WHELAN:  I had several different jobs while I was there in Houston.  Yeah, that's correct.  Primarily working in the Mission Control Center during that time frame.

 

SHREVE:  So it was during this time that they had the Apollo One disaster?

 

WHELAN:  Right.

 

SHREVE:  How did that affect your job?

 

WHELAN:  Emotionally, quite a bit.  I was in the Mission Control Center that day that it happened.  We were working late.  I remember them requiring us to lock all the documentation up – and everything we were working on, what we were doing, make it available for seeing what happened in the accident.  But like I said, emotionally it affected all of us.  It slowed down what we were doing.  Pretty much cut back on our testing and everything.  I can't remember a whole lot of details on that, other than knowing it happened and that I was there.  But I wasn't directly involved in the control center operation itself, the console positions.

 

SHREVE:  You said as soon as it happened they said to lock the documentation up?

 

WHELAN:  Right.

 

SHREVE:  For security reasons?

 

WHELAN:  Well security in the sense of they wanted to be able to investigate everything leading up to what may have happened.  Right at that time we had no idea what happened--the fire onboard the spacecraft.  But that was just a precaution to make sure somebody didn't throw something away that may have provided information.  I guess the same thing [in] any aircraft investigation or anything else.  They want to save everything that they can get their hands on to help piece together the puzzle to find out what happened.  It wasn't from a national security standpoint.  It was for an investigation standpoint.

 

SHREVE:  It was also then at this time--it was during those '66 to '76, that we landed Apollo 11 on the Moon.  Where were you at and what were your thoughts on that?

 

WHELAN:  I wasn't on duty that particular time.  In fact, I was visiting my in-laws here in Bryan.  I watched it on TV just like everybody else did.  It was a proud moment in the sense that we accomplished our goal.  Of course, a lot of anxiety because it wasn't over with until they landed back on Earth safely.  It was a very exciting time.  But from my personal work standpoint I really didn't have that much to do with operations.  I wasn't involved, like Gene Kranz in Mission Control Center.  I wasn't involved in any of that.

 

SHREVE:  So you were transferred then to Edwards [Air Force Base, California] in '76.  Was this the first time you worked on the Shuttle?

 

WHELAN:  Correct.

 

SHREVE:  What were your primary duties at Edwards?

 

WHELAN:  I was assigned to what's called a support group, but ironically it involved somewhat scheduling too.  In fact, the way I met the guy that hired me is part of the scheduling in the Mission Control Center, I went out to California to visit the team out there to see what was going on and to be able to work up a plan to coordinate our schedules because the mission was supported from the Mission Control Center in Houston, although pretty much all the activity is in California.  One of the guys I met there offered me a job.  With the kids being in school and stuff I was kind of hesitant about taking it, although it pretty exciting to me.  I thought it would be something different I'd like to do.  So after talking it over with the family, we decided we'd go for it.  It was an eighteen-month schedule, planned effort.  So we got somebody to lease our house and packed up everything and moved to California. 

 

We were, like I said, primarily coordination of the support activities for the effort.  They had the, I believe they call it the MDD [mate-demate device], the Mating Docking Facility, about fifty yards from we had a little trailer house [that] was our office.  The Shuttle was right outside the window and we'd go out and kick the tires or whatever.  We were pretty much involved with the activities of what went on.  We had daily scheduling meetings with the Air Force, Dryden Air Force Base [Dryden Flight Research Center, California], Rockwell International, and the contractors supporting the effort.  We provided all the supplies and stuff needed by the operation team to do the job, as far as lavatory, clean water.  Gary Powers, he was the pilot that was shot down in Russia way before you were born, the spy mission.

 

SHREVE:  U2?

 

WHELAN:  The U2 spy mission.  Turned out after he was released out of Russia and came back he went to work for a television station in Los Angeles flying helicopters.  They had a big video camera I guess for traffic control or whatever.  Somebody thought it would be a good idea to have a helicopter take photographs of a shuttle that came in for the landing.  So we worked with the TV station and Gary Powers to have him take photos of the Shuttle landing.  That was part of the coordination effort I was talking about.  About two weeks before we were planning to do our first approach and landing test, Gary Powers was taking pictures of a forest fire and his helicopter crashed and he was killed.  That's a little bit of history kind of beyond NASA, I guess, that I experienced. 

 

Anyway, we ended up doing the test without the particular photographs that we were hoping to get:  our pictures.  I can't remember the number of times that we tested the shuttle, but each time it would land they would pull it over to where this MDD was located and lift it up.  And after servicing it, then the 747 would move up underneath it and lower the shuttle down on top of the--to mate it to the 747 for the next test.

 

SHREVE:  So they would just fly it up on this 747 and it would just glide off of it.

 

WHELAN:  Right, it would pop off and it would do the landing because that was what they were trying to test, to make sure it could land and see what problems were at the controls and the ability to land it precisely.  Because it's really not designed like a normal aircraft.  It falls much more than it glides.  The glide ratio was a little different than a regular aircraft.

 

SHREVE:  So from '76 to '77, when you were there, what kinds of problems or how successful were these tests?

 

WHELAN:  In my opinion they were extremely successful.  They proved what they wanted to prove and everything worked out.  I'm not aware of any particular big problems other than sometimes we needed something that wasn't readily available.  Edwards Air Force Base is located out in the middle of nowhere and somebody had to run into town to get something.  You had quite a run to go get.  But I'm not aware of any big problems.  I got to meet a lot of the astronauts there that would come out to fly the shuttle and fly the shuttle training aircraft.  NASA had a special aircraft that approached the characteristics of the shuttle for landing, and they would go out to Edwards Air Force Base to practice their landing on it, in the shuttle training aircraft before they actually flew the Shuttle. 

 

SHREVE:  And then from November of '77 through June of '78 you worked in Ground Data System Division and Flight Operations Division.  What did this job entail?

 

WHELAN:  Good question.  My memory is not very good during that time frame.  I'm pretty sure it was doing similar type coordination work.  I attended a lot of meetings and would give inputs on schedule, being that NASA was schedule oriented, always trying to do things in a timely matter as long as it was safely.  But my memory is kind of weak in that area.  Nothing really stands out in my mind.  I did work for Gene Kranz in the Flight Operation Division during that period.  But I never had a console position.

 

SHREVE:  Gene Kranz headed the Flight Operations?

 

WHELAN:  Right, he was head of Flight Operations during that time frame.

 

SHREVE:  And from '78 to '83 what were your duties at the project integration office?

 

WHELAN:  Primarily, I worked with the payloads office that would assign the different payloads to the different shuttle missions.  We would again publish schedules and, of course, NASA headquarters would give their inputs and what went on down at the Cape.  What we were prepared for was the manufacturers of the different payloads would have their schedules and we would try to integrate all that into an integrated schedule.  We had a software system that enabled us to electronically transmit the schedule with NASA headquarters.  I guess the part of the internet type operations, which everybody gets on the internet now.  But back in those days it was quite different.  I'm not sure you can compare it to internet, but we would be able to generate schedules and transmit them electronically to Washington, D.C. and also to Cape Kennedy.  So it was a step forward in what used to make charts and mail them, we could transmit them and update them instantaneously.

 

SHREVE:  What types of payloads took the highest priority?

 

WHELAN:  I'm not sure I can answer that because we tried to schedule things and you tried to combine two or three different payloads on each mission based on the altitude that was planned for that particular mission.  Not all satellites were suitable.  So it more of a mixing things together with a timeline of what was available to fly and what would fit together on the missions.  It was a fairly complicated combination of factors.  I would think the Department of Defense, which flew quite a few missions on the Shuttle, they pretty much had priority over everything else.  And then, things that were needed by NASA, I guess had second priority.  Then the commercial payloads were probably on the bottom.  But I don't really remember a whole lot of discussion on the priority of different payloads, [rather] more of what would fit in what time frame.  The orbit of the planned shuttle mission would dictate a lot of what payloads would work and wouldn't.  Just a matter of what was available.  You couldn't just necessarily put it on because you had weight limitations, space limitations, and the planned orbit.

 

SHREVE:  So the shuttle would stay in one particular orbit.  It wouldn't move to different orbits?  If they had two different payloads, they wouldn't move from one orbit to another?

 

WHELAN:  If any it would be very minute.  You couldn't have a major correction.  You couldn't have the one mission at 200-mile altitude and another one at 400.  Nothing like that.  And also, how far north and south the mission went.  Depending on how you launch it, some of them are suitable and some are not.  I don't know if you remember the old trajectory looking at the globe, went up and down.  So you could have an almost straight line around the Earth or you could have a real high, where the shuttle would go far north and far south.  That made a difference on what payloads could be on that mission.

 

SHREVE:  With the military payloads, was it pretty top secret what they were?

 

WHELAN:  Yes.

 

SHREVE:  And people working in the Project Integration Office, did they have any idea office what they were?

 

WHELAN:  Yeah, we had information and we had a safe and we had to follow procedures on different classifications of documents.  We had to have a need to know and go over the safe and check things out and return them quite secure.

 

SHREVE:  Do you know are they still classified today?  Or is it something you're not at liberty to discuss?

 

WHELAN:  You mean the payload that we launched?

 

SHREVE:  Yes.

 

WHELAN:  No, I don't think they're classified now.  A lot of them are research type technical stuff that other than knowing the requirements as far as what they actually did, we weren't involved in that.  We had to have a need to know and a lot of that we never did learn, other than reading Aviation Week magazine, which had a lot of information in it.  As far as our job was concerned, it was more just integrating and need, not understanding the technical function of what the spacecraft was supposed to do. 

 

SHREVE:  And then from June of '83 to May of '84 you worked in Washington, D.C. for the Space Station Task Force.  What exactly did you do with this job?

 

WHELAN:  I guess once you get into a job, you're pigeonholed for doing the job.  But it was a similar type effort.  I did the scheduling.  The task force was a relatively small group.  It was people from Cape Kennedy, from Marshall Space Flight Center [Alabama], and, of course, NASA headquarters and Johnson Space Center.  Our overall goal was to firm up a design for the space station and one of the big constraints was how much money we thought we could get from Congress and President [Ronald] Reagan.  The other people were doing designs and we were kind of reviewing them and trying to make it something that they would buy.  Buy, in the sense that [they] approve of the program.  At that time when I started space station program was not approved.  It was just a proposal to try to get approval of the project.  So our goal was to come up with a design and a budget and a schedule to get it approved by President Reagan and hopefully Congress, to get money for it.  I'm not sure.  We probably had around seventy people working on this in NASA headquarters. 

 

That time frame sounds too long.  I was only up there for a year.  My time line there is not totally accurate.  I think I worked in the Space Shuttle Program Division in Houston for a while before.  I actually went up to NASA headquarters for the task force.  That's right '83 to '84, I was in Washington.  That's about right.  We, again, I guess was successful because the program was approved by President Reagan and the Space Station Program Office was established.  It was a successful effort.  My efforts then, again, was scheduling, coordinating efforts, and presenting a schedule. 

 

That was the first time we were introduced to PC computers, where everybody had a computer on their desk.  Up until that time, I never really operated a computer by myself.  In other efforts to prepare data, of course, other people would actually enter the data and run the program.  That was a learning experience for me back at that time frame to learn to use the computers.  Of course we were using pretty basic programs compared today, having very limited capability of the PCs.

 

I have a grandson, two grandsons, a father and mother both that are computer science experts.  We were over visiting with them and we were having trouble with our personal computer.  He said well we can loan you Jacob's computer.  Jacob is thirteen months old.  So they have him a computer.  And thinking as old as I was just learning my first PC.  It was all new at that time and now kids are growing up with computers.  My other grandson is six years old and he's been using the computer, powering it up himself, getting different programs, CDs, [but] mostly games.  But the fact that he can operate the computer by himself is pretty amazing to me.

 

SHREVE:  So you say with the Space Station Task Force and Office was established.  The ultimate goal of the Space Station, that wasn't successful was it?

 

WHELAN:  Yeah, in fact it’s just now going.  It was unsuccessful in the fact that it wasn't launched when we hoped to.  We were hoping to launch it by 1989 or 1990.  We were unsuccessful in the fact that we didn't make that schedule by any means.  But they have launched the first couple stages of the space station.  In fact, this current mission for NASA is visiting the space station and trying to boost it up.  Part of our effort was an international effort.  After I left the program they got Russia involved more so than we originally planned.  Russia has not lived up to their [end], part of the reason their having problems with getting it going is that the part that Russia was going to build is not done yet.  But the program itself is operating today.

 

SHREVE:  So in '83, there was the international nature of the station?

 

WHELAN:  Right.

 

SHREVE:  Who were the partners then?

 

WHELAN:  I'm not real clear.  I would say Russia, Japan, and Canada would be the three biggies.  But the amount that, later on, the amount that Russia was going to do I believe increased, and we had them [as] kind of a minor player and part of that was budgetary reasons.  They thought it would be for the benefit of everybody and that other nations could contribute.  And of course, as it turned out, Russia's economy’s pretty much collapsed and they've not been able to do as much as they signed up for. 

 

I've been out of NASA now for fifteen years, kind of hard to believe.  Seemed like almost time stood still as far as the Space Station efforts.  I did about four years’ worth of work in fifteen years.  Kind of sad.  I won't try to take credit for [it] because I left they didn't get there.  I'm sure I didn't have anything to do with it.  My whole career with NASA was more of a low-level engineer.  I never was in higher management.  I interfaced a lot with the higher management.  I never made it to the ranks of management, and I guess that's partly one reason I left when I did as opposed to staying with NASA.

 

SHREVE:  So in '83, Russia was on board.  Was it after Gorbachev came into office and [the] liberal glasnost, perestroika.  Is that when their partnership became greater?  Do you recall?

 

WHELAN:  No, I don't recall.  I'm not sure that the politics had a whole lot to do with it other than the economy being bad.  I think their economy caused their program to suffer and that in turn effected NASA.

 

SHREVE:  You then moved back to Houston in May of '84, and you worked in the Space Station Program Office?

 

WHELAN:  This really was a continuation of what we had done in Washington, D.C., although the primary task was assigned to Houston for integrating the Space Station program.  We continued redefining what space station was supposed to be.  Again, schedule for it and stuff.  We set up the organization.  They did not have room on the JSC site itself.  So they rented a building offsite, in Clear Lake City.  We actually set up our office in there and started working.  I'm not sure, we were probably there about six months.  They were able to make some room for us in the Building number One at JSC.  We moved back to the main building.  At about that time, I was about ready to leave.  I don't remember a whole lot being accomplished that year other than just setting up the organization and getting started.

 

SHREVE:  You were doing scheduling at this time?

 

WHELAN:  Right.  My whole career with NASA was involved with scheduling one way or the other.

 

SHREVE:  With the Space Station, what type of scheduling was it?

 

WHELAN:  Similar to, you know, trying to bring the parts together.  What it would take to build the Space Station?  Actually, I was doing a little bit more of a budgeting in that time frame to Program Management and Budgeting.  But it was the same, as far as I was concerned, it was the same type task just coordinating efforts and putting it either on paper or in the computer to firm up what our goals were and how we were supposedly going to get from where we were to where we wanted to go.

 

SHREVE:  Was this Space Station, Apollo, Shuttle, Space Station, which of the three was the most successful as far as scheduling, as far as your job went?

 

WHELAN:  Well, actually the Approach and Landing Test [ALT, Shuttle] was probably, from a scheduling standpoint, the most successful because we actually finished early and met all our objectives.  Of course, the landing on the Moon, we met our objectives too.  But that was a much longer program.  It was one of the most successful.  I guess in my mind everything was successful; all the programs were.  Of course, I left in '85.  Getting the Space Station actually in space, that wasn't successful from a scheduling standpoint.  I guess Skylab and everything else, we met our objectives.  It was successful from that standpoint.

 

SHREVE:  So successful that you met the deadlines.

 

WHELAN:  Landing on the Moon.

 

SHREVE:  What was the deadline for Skylab?

 

WHELAN:  I would probably say none.  There was probably not a deadline.  Skylab was sort of a "we got some hardware available let's try to use it” type thing.  It was in between major events.  That probably wasn't a scheduling effort from a critical time line standpoint.  You still got to coordinate it and different things have to come together at different times.  But as far as successful or unsuccessful, that probably wasn't very applicable.

 

SHREVE:  What do you see as the future of manned space flight?

 

WHELAN:  I haven't given that much thought.  I think it's still important because until the people can actually get there and do things themselves the machines can only do what you program it to do.  I think there's still a place for it.  The overall budget of the United States and the priority of NASA is, of course, it's changed quite a bit from when I left.  And money is tight as far as trying to get the job done.  The bureaucracy of the agency has grown and increased.  The first ten years I worked for NASA, the NASA engineers were actually doing a lot of the work and the hands-on stuff.  And as time went by, more of that effort was contracted out and became more program manager rather than engineers.  I wasn't real comfortable in that role.  I guess one of the reasons I left early is that I enjoyed doing the engineering work more than the program management work.

 

SHREVE:  Sy Liebergot, who worked in Mission Control during the Apollo and early Shuttle phases, stated that the Apollo years were a golden age of space exploration and that the accomplishments of the age will not be equaled for a long time.  How do you feel about this statement?

 

WHELAN:  I know Sy and I agree with him 100 per cent.  I believe that's true.  I think the support of the nation per se in trying to beat the Russians gave NASA a lot of publicity and highlights.  Of course the publicity of the astronauts who really were just pilots who became heroes to millions of Americans.  That age is gone.  I don't believe it will ever be equaled.  Where is Sy Liebergot nowadays?

 

SHREVE:  He's still in Houston.  In fact when we were at JSC he gave us a little tour of the old Mission Control [that] they used during Apollo.

 

WHELAN:  They have a new one?  I'm not aware of this.

 

SHREVE:  Yeah.

 

WHELAN:  I guess I better get down and find Sy and talk to him.

 

SHREVE:  So the race with the Soviets is one reason why this golden age won't be reached again.  Can you see any other reasons?

 

WHELAN:  Well, I think somewhat similar to wars, I don't think we would ever fight World War II again.  We just don't have the national commitment.  I don't feel that people are either as gullible or dedicated today as they were then.  After the war against Iraq we had all these medical problems and stuff.  People today are just not as dedicated as they were back in the sixties when we were first starting the Apollo program.  For that reason, I agree with Sy Liebergot that that was a golden age.  With a national commitment behind us and support, with today's politics, and lack of faith in federal government, I just don't think it will ever happen again.

 

SHREVE:  What types of changes would be necessary for it to happen again?

 

WHELAN:  I don't see anything.  If they were to announce a Mars program or something, I just don't think it would generate support to get people enthused anymore.  I just don't know what.  I can't in my mind envision what could cause it to happen again, to have the unity of the nation and the incentive.  President [John F.] Kennedy, I guess was pretty bold in his proclamation to go to the Moon by a certain deadline and had the commitment of the nation to back him up – I just don't see that happening.  Of course with the technology today in the sense the manned portion of it [is] probably getting less important.   They would accomplish much more with the robots than we could ever envision in the sixties or maybe that's part of it too.  I can't answer your question.  I think it was a golden period.  I just don't think it would happen again.

 

SHREVE:  How do you feel about the International Space Station?

 

WHELAN:  I really haven't followed it very much.  I guess that's a supreme scheduling job is to not only do within your own nation, but to get coordination from that area and have it come together successfully and I guess that's part of the problem.  I know on the Shuttle program, we had Canada build the remote arm and that in itself took a lot of effort.  On the Skylab [after the interview, Mr. Whelan clarified that he meant the Apollo-Soyuz rendezvous and docking mission] when we were working with the Russians, it took a lot of effort to do, I guess, small things.  I'm not real optimistic that International Space Station will come along as well as any effort we've had in the past.

 

SHREVE:  Do you feel that this is a symptom of the "internationalness" of the station?

 

WHELAN:  I don't know how to answer that.  I think every nation has its economic good times and bad times.  Maybe during the good times they make commitments and in the bad times can't live up to them.  I don't know how to answer that.

 

SHREVE:  Do you think that all these different countries working together is a good thing or a bad thing?

 

WHELAN:  I think ideally it's a good thing.  It would be great to work together especially with a potential enemy like China.  I think the more we could work together and get the cultures together it's a wonderful thing.  But from a practical standpoint and actually doing it, I think it's a very difficult thing to do.  And I'm sure we've learned that with Russia.  I think the Skylab [Apollo-Soyuz] and the efforts we've had with them probably helped the fall of communism in Russia.  You know maybe from a China standpoint it might be a good goal to have them involved and try to breakdown the enemy type relationship that's existed with China and make them, you know we're all sharing the same world.  It'd be nice to be able to get along.  But communism itself is a lack of freedom.  Until China changes their communist ways I just don't think they're going to really contribute.  I thought Japan had a lot of hope for awhile.  I'm not sure what problems they're suffering, but they don't seem to be contributing as much as I think they originally planned to.  But that's kind of out of my field – more of my personal thoughts, rather than what I learned when I worked for NASA. 

 

When I left NASA I started working at Texas A&M University.  With the grandkids and family life, I'm just not just really not too involved with NASA anymore.  I am still continuing part of the medical tests to compare the workers at JSC with the astronauts.  I still take a physical down at NASA every couple years.  But other than that I really have not been involved with any of the activity down there.  In fact, I wasn't aware of them having a new Mission Control Center.  The only one I remember was the old one.  So this interview kind of made me curious now.  I do receive the newsletter from NASA every month.  I read that. 

 

One of the drawbacks of the NASA, I mentioned about Engineer versus Program Office.  It's also gone a lot of the political correctness type route and bureaucracy.  In a way I almost see a lot of the efforts now as being a waste of tax dollars.  As I approach retirement from the A&M job, I see taxes going up and up.  I'm more for a smaller government and less taxes and that puts me in conflict with my support of space program.  I really do think space program is good, but I see a lot of wasted money.  And even in the newsletters I get, they [are] talking about all kinds of programs that have nothing to do with going to space and it's kind of disheartening to me to see political correctness and activity that really has nothing to do with space program.  It's just a bureaucratic organization.  I see a lot of money wasted, in my mind, being wasted and not being applied to the actual NASA mission.

 

SHREVE:  What types of ways is money being wasted?

 

WHELAN:  Well in this latest edition they initiated a program on skin cancer and making it an awareness and testing all the employees for skin cancer.  Well that's a wonderful thing but it has nothing to do with going to space.  And to me that's part of the bureaucracy of things that NASA has started doing that really has nothing to do with space itself or aviation.  Maybe even the program your on is another type program that, taking an oral history is good and probably should be done, but it has nothing to do with what we're going to do in the future.

 

Of course, I'm not sure whether NASA is spending much money on your program or what.  While I was at NASA I'd see more and more of these things coming along that from an engineering standpoint, I just felt were sort of a waste of time or something.  Of course, NASA has always played toward publicity because publicity helps people be aware of what they're doing and helps the funding for NASA.  It's a political funding game.  What can we do to get more money?

 

SHREVE:  What would you say then, in conclusion, would be your most significant accomplishment at NASA?

 

WHELAN:  NASA itself or my personal one?

 

SHREVE:  Your most significant accomplishment at NASA.

 

WHELAN:  Well from an overall NASA standpoint, of course I'd say landing on the Moon was the most significant.  But I'm not sure I still understand your question.  Are you looking for NASA or for what I did?

 

SHREVE:  For you, at NASA.

 

WHELAN:  Never thought of it that way.  I was real pleased with my work both at Edwards Air Force Base and Washington, D.C.  Those two programs I felt like I personally was able to accomplish and contribute more and also in the earlier days.  But most of the time working at NASA seemed like it was just a bureaucracy:  write a letter you got to have fifteen people approve it type-bureaucracy type stuff that I didn't like.  So these other two programs I mentioned were from my standpoint I felt like I accomplished more, getting the job done.  Though thinking back, I guess the early days when I went to work down at Cape Kennedy, it was also true there.  I was personally more involved.  I enjoyed that more than pushing papers just bureaucracy type stuff.  A lot of work I think we did, especially after the accident, was almost like make-work type things.  They would assign us things to work on.  We'd work on them and turn them in and they probably were never read, never looked at, just thrown away.

 

SHREVE:  I guess those would be kind of a waste of tax dollars too, some of those things you were just talking about.

 

WHELAN:  You mean the approach and landing tests?

 

SHREVE:  No, no, no. The things you were saying that they would have you do, but then nothing would ever come of it.

 

WHELAN:   Right, right.  Of course, after all the major accidents, things slow down because you’re not sure what caused the accident and where to proceed.  So, yeah there was a lot of wasted time and effort and people were on board and hired.  They felt like they couldn't fire them and they’d say come back in two years.  Several of those periods of time were a waste of money and time.  Although in the long run, it would have cost more to bring somebody new on board and retrain them to do the job.  And also, you never knew how long it would take before they'd start launching again and get back making progress.  A lot of times things, we thought, maybe two or three months of investigation, we'd be ready to proceed.  It turned out to be a year, year and a half-type period of time that really wasn't a whole lot going on.  I agree that during that period of time it was a waste, waste of effort.  But what do you do?  You can't lay people off and hire them back.

 

SHREVE:  Under whose leadership would you say NASA was the most efficient?

 

WHELAN:  From a NASA director standpoint? [Shreve nods] Well, I'd have to say back in the early sixties we were probably the most effective because we had a smaller organization.  In my mind, it was more efficient in getting the job done.  Any time you have a precise goal of something you wanted to do and set out to do it you could do it quicker.  I think a lot of money, especially on this International Space Station, there's a lot of money that's probably wasted.  In fact, they would start and then kind of have a cut back in money and then drop back and then start again.  By dragging it out, I'm sure we spent a lot more money than would've than if once we got started, we continued on and been able to do the program back in the nineties, early nineties.  It would have been a much more efficient program.  And we had that in the Apollo program.  In fact, we knew what our goals were and we didn't necessarily always know how to get there, but everybody was working toward a common effort.  I would think that would be a lot more efficient.

 

SHREVE:  So it wasn't so much about who was directing.  It was more about the environment?

 

WHELAN:  The mission.  Correct.

 

SHREVE:   Okay, is there anything else that I haven't asked that you would like to have for the record, that you would like to record for the record?

 

WHELAN:  No, I can't think of anything.  I enjoyed working for NASA and the things that were new.  I learned a lot and felt that I contributed.  It was satisfying from that standpoint.  In ways I kind of regret leaving NASA when I did.  I probably should've worked another five or ten years there.  When I retired, I had no idea that I was going to be working for A&M this period of time.  I thought I'd be out fishing and playing golf all the time.  I ended up going back to work.  Looking back I probably would've been better off staying with NASA.  But the job I have now is very little stress compared to when I was working for NASA, a lot of stress and stuff.  I might be dead had I stayed working with NASA from the stress.  I had quite a few friends that had heart attacks and medical problems.  In fact, it seemed like every two or three days the ambulance would come up to the NASA and cart somebody out with a heart attack.  A lot of that was drinking coffee and sitting on your can working many hours each day at desk jobs.  I guess one of the good things that we've learned is the importance of exercise.  NASA did offer the employees a good exercise program in there, from the facilities they had there.  I think maybe that was a good thing that taught all Americans the importance of exercising and staying fit.  Not that everybody does it.  I understand the obesity level now is worse than [it's] ever been.  At least the knowledge is there if people want to use it. 

 

Well, I'm out of words.  Unless you got some more questions I can't really think of anything to add.

 

SHREVE:  So the main reason you left NASA was because of the stress?

 

WHELAN:  Partly.  We kind of wanted to move up here to Bryan and have a change of pace and do something different.  I guess mid-life crisis something.  We just wanted to do something different.  My wife wanted to move back with her parents here in Bryan.  Personal reasons probably had a lot to do with my decision to go ahead and retire.  Part of it was, I was hoping to get a promotion and felt some of the work I had done was due for a promotion.  I had gotten a lot of outstanding performance award certificates and even some money benefits, but never a promotion.  I felt I was due a promotion.  I actually kind of offered a threat:  either let me retire or give me a promotion or right the other way around.  I wanted a promotion, if you don't, let me retire.  So I kind of threw a threat out on the table there and they couldn't give me the promotion.  My supervisor supposedly wanted to give me a promotion, but because of the situation I couldn't get it.  So I went ahead and retired, part of my threat.  Like I said, in a way I kind of regret leaving.  But it's something like when you get married.  Did you marry the right person and what ever happened to the other girl and stuff like that.  Once you make the decision and do it, it's hard to go back and say what life would have been had you not done that or done something differently.  So I'm real satisfied with what I'm doing now and the progress I've made.  I do miss working for NASA to a certain extent.

 

SHREVE:  Okay, I think that's all I got.

 

WHELAN:  Okay.  I'm talked out too.

 

SHREVE:  Alright.  Well, thanks for your time.

 

WHELAN:  Well you're welcome.  I guess I could've done a little more preparation.