NASA Wind, Lars Irvin - June 11, 2001
Interview with Lars Irvin Wind
Interviewer: Carlyn Copland
Date of Interview: June 11. 2001
Location: Wind home, Danevang, Texas
COPELAND: Okay. Today is June 11, 2001. This oral history with Lars Irvin Wind is being conducted in his home in Danevang, Texas. This interview is being conducted for the NASA-Johnson Space Center Oral History Project in conjunction with Southwest Texas State University, History Department by graduate assistant Carlyn Copeland.
Thank you for joining me today, Mr. Wind.
WIND: Thank you for coming.
COPELAND: Let’s start out just with a little background. You’re a native Texan?
WIND: Yes.
COPELAND: Yes? Born here in Danevang?
WIND: Yes.
COPELAND: Very good, and did you go to school around here?
WIND: Went to Markum High School, that’s about fifteen miles southeast of here.
COPELAND: In high school, did you do any kind of schoolwork that would lead you to an engineering career, or did you think about it then?
WIND: No, not until my senior year actually.
COPELAND: Yeah? Okay. Then you went to, to college at—
WIND: Texas A & I University.
COPELAND: Okay. In Kingsville?
WIND: Kingsville, yeah.
COPELAND: And what did you major in there?
WIND: In engineering.
COPELAND: Okay.
WIND: Took two years of engineering there, and then transferred to the University of Texas for one semester, and then went into the service.
COPELAND: Which branch of the service?
WIND: United—the Air Force.
COPELAND: The Air Force. And—
WIND: And then I, while I was in the Air Force, I got some training in electronics. So, when I came back out, I went back to A & I and majored in electrical engineering.
COPELAND: Did you ever think when you were there at A & I that you would work for, for NASA? Well, I guess NASA wasn’t around yet?
WIND: No, there wasn’t any NASA at that time [laughs].
COPELAND: No, there wasn’t any NASA at that time. What, what did you want to do with your, with your degree? Did you have a job in mind, or were you just interested in the subject?
WIND: Well, primarily electronics.
COPELAND: And you’re married?
WIND: Yes.
COPELAND: Children?
WIND: I have three children, yeah.
COPELAND: Okay. When you got out of college, what job did you go to first? What sort of job was it?
WIND: I went to Sperry Utah Company in Salt Lake City.
COPELAND: And what did you do there?
WIND: I worked on the redesign of the, of a radar system to primarily to extend the range and acquisition capabilities of the radar system.
COPELAND: Okay. And what other—did you hold any other jobs before you came to NASA?
WIND: Yes [laughs].
COPELAND: Just a little bit. Just a little bit [about it].
WIND: Two jobs. Spent one year in Salt Lake City. And then went to Louisiana and worked as a well-logging engineer for Lane-Wells Company. There we ran electric logs for the oil wells all over south Louisiana. And then I went to Thiokol Chemical Corporation in Marshall, Texas. And there I was an instrumentation engineer testing rocket motors. Spent four years there and then went to NASA.
COPELAND: Even before you came to NASA, there was the so-called “space race” between the United States and Russia as far as satellites and getting the first man in space. Did you think about that at all when you were at these other jobs? I mean, was it in your, the back of your mind at all?
WIND: I don’t remember the exact year that Sputnik was launched, but I was in Marshall at that time. Well, several of us up there heard about jobs available at NASA in Houston, so we applied, and I was one of them that was selected.
COPELAND: Good, good. What were your thoughts at that time about being—you know, when you first got hired at NASA, what were your thoughts about being involved in something as big as that? An agency with as big of goals as it had?
WIND: Well, at first, I was just primarily concerned with getting a better job than the one I had.
COPELAND: Sure.
WIND: [laughs] But after I got involved in it, then it, it became very interesting. And we worked long hours and worked hard. There was a lot of excitement in the program at that time.
COPELAND: What was going on?
WIND: They were still—well, they were still working on the Gemini program at that time. Then, we transitioned into Apollo. At that time, in the area where I was, Pyrotechnics Test Section, we tested most of the explosive devices that went into the spacecraft. To be sure that they would do the job that they were supposed to do.
COPELAND: Right.
WIND: Well, like in Apollo 13, we did quite a bit of the investigative testing on what caused that problem.
COPELAND: Okay, now did you start the investigation while the spacecraft was still in the air? Or when it came back?
WIND: Yes, while it was still in the air. While it was still—and actually before it even got to the moon.
COPELAND: Okay. What sort of things did you, did you look for?
WIND: Well, they did suspect it was the oxygen tank. In fact, I guess they knew that. But we ran tests to find out why the oxygen tests, the oxygen tanks, would blow up like that. Also, we ran tests to see what kind of materials would burn in a pure oxygen atmosphere. And that was very enlightening because we found out that stainless steel would burn in pure oxygen. I don’t remember how far we were into the program, when we were testing electrical wires inside the oxygen tank, and found out that just a very small short would cause the wires to burn, the insulation and wires burned. And finally we traced it back to a particular switch that had, had burned together so it couldn’t open. And it overheated and ignited the inside of the tank.
COPELAND: So you found it. Found where it came from.
WIND: Yeah.
COPELAND: You talk about “we” and “they.” You obviously worked as a part of a team.
WIND: Yes.
COPELAND: About how many people worked together on that, say, that investigation, for example?
WIND: Okay. Well, we were in the Thermochemical Test Area. At that time we had, I think, about fifty NASA people and, I would guess, probably sixty, seventy contractor people all working on it. And I was a section head of one section. There were four sections in the, in the branch, and I was the head of the Pyrotechnics Test Section.
COPELAND: Did you work primarily with the same people most of the time? I mean, I guess I’m trying to ask, was it a close-knit group that you worked with?
WIND: Yes, it was. At that time, especially. Yeah, it was very close-knit. We all worked together. We had five, five test facilities. And I was in charge of the one section, and one test facility. I guess I was wrong—there was five sections.
COPELAND: Five sections.
WIND: And five test facilities.
COPELAND: Any particular person you can remember that really, that maybe had an influence on you that you worked with? Doesn’t have to be in that section, but anybody?
WIND: Well, there was several people experienced in the space program that I worked with, and they helped me a lot. I learned a lot from them. I guess probably the most influential was Jesse Jones. He was a branch chief at that time.
COPELAND: Okay. Well, I want to go back just a little bit, we talked about Apollo 13 and something that went wrong there, but in Apollo 11 there was something that went very, very good. And do you remember where you were when that happened and what you, what you were doing?
WIND: Actually, I was on leave at the time.
COPELAND: Oh. Okay.
WIND: Apollo 11 landed, or the moon lander, landed on the moon, was in July of ’69. We watched it on television at my cousin’s house here in Danevang [laughs]. But, I didn’t have anything to do directly with the flights. All my work was done before they flew. Or investigated problems during or after the flight.
COPELAND: Sure, but what a big thing to be involved with. I mean, you must feel really proud of that, I’m sure.
WIND: Oh, yeah.
COPELAND: Yeah, so you had a party here in Danevang to watch it on T.V. [laughs].
WIND: [laughs]
COPELAND: Very neat.
WIND: Yeah, well, we were just visiting cousins at their house.
COPELAND: Okay, when you first got to NASA, you said you were in the Pyrotechnics division. What were your day-to-day responsibilities like?
WIND: Well, initially I would say, instrumentation engineer. And we didn’t have a section head. But I was the acting section head, not officially, but that’s what I did. After a year or so, then I was promoted to section head. And I directed the operations, of I think, anywhere from four to ten engineers. It varied from time to time.
COPELAND: Would it vary depending on what program was going on, or what would determine the number?
WIND: Well, just personnel availability at the time [laughs].
COPELAND: That makes sense.
WIND: I could have used more people, but—and I also had some technicians that worked in the facility, electrical and mechanical technicians that actually did the work in the facility. And the engineers directed their, their tests.
COPELAND: Now you said you worked long hours, and I certainly believe that. What sort of hours were they that you worked?
WIND: Well, during the Apollo 13 investigation, we worked officially 12-hour shifts around the clock. I mean, seven days a week.
COPELAND: Right.
WIND: But many times we stayed, you know, fourteen, sixteen hours if we had a test going and needed to finish up. You know, there was a good bit of pressure on us at that time.
COPELAND: What about—did that have an effect on your family at all?
WIND: Not really.
COPELAND: No?
WIND: I just didn’t get to see my kids for long, week at a time or so.
COPELAND: Right, but that’s, that’s just kind of—when you worked at NASA, that was just how it went is what I understand.
WIND: Yeah. Right, at that time it was. Yeah.
COPELAND: A lot of hours, but you had that big goal. What would you consider to be your most challenging milestone of your NASA career? Is there any one particular thing you can point at? Or two or three?
WIND: Oh, I don’t know. I guess the most challenging was the Apollo 13 investigation.
COPELAND: Certainly.
WIND: But there was—I don’t know. It kind of all runs together. I don’t remember.
COPELAND: Okay, that’s okay.
WIND: Don’t remember any particular ones right now.
COPELAND: Sure. Now did you stay in the Pyrotechnics Division the whole time you were there? Did you move to any other division?
WIND: No, I was in that same section for twenty years. I was there—
COPELAND: Right. Did your duties change with the different programs, say from Apollo to Space Shuttle or space station?
WIND: Yeah, they changed somewhat. I guess when we got into the Shuttle program, we started including batteries in testing. We tested all kinds of batteries along with the pyrotechnics.
COPELAND: What was—what was the reason for the batteries?
WIND: Quite a few of the devices on the Shuttle used batteries. Well, not on the Shuttle, but the experiments that flew on the Shuttle. And they were trying to get more energy into a smaller package, smaller batteries with more power, so they tried different kinds of things. I didn’t have much to do with the selection of the batteries, but we just tested the ones that they sent us to see what they would do. And we found that some batteries would explode if you treat them wrong [laughs].
COPELAND: Good thing you found out.
WIND: Yeah.
COPELAND: Let’s see. Now certainly, you pointed to Apollo 13 as the, one of the more challenging parts of your career. Would you—and it was certainly an accomplishment—would you point to any other significant accomplishments?
WIND: There, you’re testing my memory again [laughs]. I can’t really think of any individual project right now.
COPELAND: Or as a team? Whichever.
WIND: [shakes head]
COPELAND: What about, going back to that Apollo era, what would you say, how would you characterize, I guess, the atmosphere where you worked? As far as, how did the people act every day, what were they talking about, what was the general feeling of everyone that you worked with, yourself included?
WIND: Well, there was lots of excitement about the program. Everyone that I worked with was willing to work long hours and work hard and cooperate, but we still had a good time doing it. And it, well, at that time, NASA was a more freewheeling organization. In other words, it was a young government organization, and they hadn’t developed as much bureaucracy as they have now [laughs], So, we had a little more freedom to do things the way we wanted to do it.
COPELAND: Can you think of an example that would—?
WIND: Well, we would, we would have just gab sessions to talk about different programs and ways to do it. Just meet in the hall and talk about it, whatever. And sometimes we would do things without written procedures, which is completely forbidden now. Well, I guess in any organization, whether its a corporation or NASA or government organization, as it ages it gets more bureaucracy and just gets harder to do things. And that’s part of the problem with NASA right now, I think.
COPELAND: Yeah, I was just going to ask—what, what do you see for the future of, of NASA?
WIND: Well, I don’t know. It’s—I’ve been away from it so long that I don’t know what the trends are. But, I know that they do get really wrapped up in bureaucracy now. Now I just heard on the news a few weeks ago, that they cancelled a program that was almost completed. It was the Shuttle, or the space station lifeboat program. And, you know, lots of money spent on that, and they just wiped it out.
COPELAND: What do you think about that? I mean—
WIND: Well, I seems kind of ridiculous to me actually.
COPELAND: Okay. I want to go back even further than we went back the last time. I think it was in 1967, during the early Apollo training, there was the big fire. Do you remember what you thought about that? Did you discuss that with your co-workers?
WIND: Oh yeah. There was a lot to talk about that. I guess we were in the same boat as the people who designed the system and didn’t realize the danger of doing an operation like that in pure oxygen atmosphere at that pressure. And it was a real eye-opener for all of NASA.
COPELAND: Right.
WIND: Of course, we made changes then, too, so that the astronauts wouldn’t have to be in pure oxygen at that atmospheric pressure. They started mixing the, mixing the oxygen with nitrogen to make it more like the air that we live in.
COPELAND: Okay. Well, Apollo progressed, and you know, got—made, you know, accomplished what it was supposed to accomplish, and then there were the budget cutbacks and they cancelled the last few flights. What was the sentiment about that? What did you, what did your co-workers—?
WIND: Well, I think Apollo did accomplish the goal that it was set out for and there was really no need for those other flights, except just more experience. And we were starting to get into the—yeah, we were into the Shuttle program at that time. So, we were—in fact, even before Apollo was even finished, we had started developing the Shuttle hardware. We didn’t run out of work; we had plenty to do [laughs].
COPELAND: When you transitioned into the Shuttle, did your, did the job change much, or did it stay pretty much the same?
WIND: It stayed about the same. Except that in the Apollo program, we tested every piece of hardware that they built. In other words, as many as we could. But in the Shuttle program, they, the people that, the program directors, decided that it wasn’t necessary to test every piece of hardware the way we did on the Apollo program. So, they didn’t. They did their testing by analysis, is what they called it [laughs].
COPELAND: Why do you think they made that change?
WIND: Well, they were more confident in the design that they had. And in some cases it was okay, but there were some cases where there was new hardware that should have been tested more, I think.
COPELAND: Such as?
WIND: Some of the pyrotechnic devices, separation devices that—the people who manufactured them tested these devices, but they tested then to their specification. The testing that we normally did was to get outside of the specifications to just see how well it would perform in case the Shuttle got out of those specifications. Just, just to develop more confidence in the reliability. I think we should have done more testing on the hardware, but usually we didn’t do any testing until they had a problem. Then they gave us something to test.
COPELAND: Looking back, you said you worked at NASA for twenty years or so. What would you say your favorite part, little or big, what was your favorite thing about working there?
WIND: Well, I think the excitement about the program in the early days. See, I came there in ’64, and in those first ten years or so, there was a lot of excitement about the program. We had a big organization. And after the Apollo program, they started cutting us back in personnel. We got down to about twenty people in the section, I mean in the branch, and about forty contractor people, where there had been about fifty and seventy, eighty. I’m not sure. So, we, you know, we still had plenty of work to do. We could have used more people to do the work. And sometimes, we would, when we ran out of program work to do, we would run tests on other hardware that was outside of our normal realm.
COPELAND: Oh. Such as what?
WIND: Just various things, I can’t—after I left there, just for instance, they did some work with Dr. [Michael] DeBakey developing a heart pump. I wasn’t involved in that, but I heard about it. And it was just little projects like that that people would dream up to just—because we had the capability available for them. In other words, we had some good people trained in testing. We could do that kind of work.
COPELAND: If that was your favorite part, you point especially to that, those first few years when everyone was just really dedicated and such. Was there any part, I don’t want to say least favorite, but maybe anything you wished you’d done differently, or could have been done differently in general?
WIND: Well, I guess probably the fighting the bureaucracy was the biggest problem. You had to get, you know, four or five levels of approval on anything that we did. Levels of supervision.
COPELAND: Well, what are your thoughts of the future of manned or unmanned space flight? We talked about NASA’s future earlier, but what do you think about—?
WIND: Well, I think it should go on, to be brief about it. There’s still a lot to be learned about space flight and about the—they’re talking about sending more vehicles to Mars, and I think that’s a good thing to do.
COPELAND: When the last Apollo flight went up and came down, did you ever think that it would go this long before sending, or before anyone went back up to the moon? I mean, we haven’t yet, but—
WIND: I don’t know really what I thought about it at that time. We were pretty busy—
COPELAND: Busy!
WIND: —and got excited about the Shuttle program. Which was, you know, got a different type of program. In other words, it didn’t have an end goal like the Apollo did, getting people to the moon.
COPELAND: Right.
WIND: Discovery, I mean the Shuttle was something that was going to go on and on, and which it still is going on.
COPELAND: And wasn’t, did I hear, understand this right? It was supposed to be only a ten-year program, and here it’s going on and on and—?
WIND: Yeah, I don’t remember what they projected for it, but it, you know, I think they did see a limit on the use of it. But the Shuttles are still doing well, and I suspect they’ll keep on flying for a good while. Especially since the budget cut backs, they can’t develop any new systems, spacecrafts.
COPELAND: What do you think about the space station? What are your feelings on that?
WIND: I think it’s a good, good project. I think there were—they made a mistake by getting the Russians involved, though, because they delayed it for a couple of years because of their budget problems.
COPELAND: What do you think will become of that partnership?
WIND: I think it will go on. Even with the problems that they had, because primarily because of politics.
COPELAND: You got involved—I’m jumping back again—
WIND: Okay.
COPELAND: —when we were kind of in that competition with the Russians, that whole space race, and now we’ve kind of seen it come back, you know, one hundred eighty degrees, a partnership. What are your thoughts of that?
WIND: Well, I think it’s good; it’s better than having a race with them. It’s better to be cooperating. I guess just the, bad timing or coincidence that Russia started having economic problems at the time they were developing the hardware for the space station. But it seems to be going pretty good now.
COPELAND: I guess in those late sixties, though, you never would have thought this is where we’d end up?
WIND: [laughs] Oh no. No, at that time it was a race.
COPELAND: Okay, Mr. Wind, I think we’ve answered what I came to ask you. Do you have anything you’d like to add, anything you’d like us to know? Stories, anecdotes?
WIND: Like I say, it’s been a long time.
COPELAND: But you obviously enjoyed your work there, I can tell.
WIND: Oh yeah. Yes. Yeah, especially at first. It was really exciting. Everyone was enthusiastic and it was just a good atmosphere.
COPELAND: Do you think it’s still like that today?
WIND: I don’t think so.
COPELAND: Yeah?
WIND: I’ve been going back there just about every year for the Christmas luncheon in December. You get to visit with some of the people. Lots of the retirees come back for that. It’s something that—Christmas luncheon has been going on since we started. They keep it up. They always invite all the retirees, that they can find anyway.
COPELAND: What do you think it would take to get that same enthusiasm back? What would it, what would it take?
WIND: Well, I think it would be really hard to get it back the way it was. Because of the—well, NASA is just a matured organization now, and it wasn’t young and exciting the way it was when I was there at first. But, they’re still doing good work, don’t get me wrong there.
COPELAND: Sure, sure.
WIND: Well, the atmosphere has changed. For one reason, everyone has a computer now. When I was, when I first retired, we had one personal computer in the branch. And had one man who could program it. Still using BASIC programming at that time, and then when I went back in ’89, everybody had a computer on their desk [laughs].
COPELAND: And now everybody probably has two or three!
WIND: Yeah.
COPELAND: Wow. Goodness.
WIND: And when I went back for that year I had to learn how to use the computer, because I didn’t have one before that [laughs]. It’s just changed the way of doing business. You go in there now and see people sitting at their desk punching on a computer. I kind of wonder how they get the work done out in the facility like we used to do [laughs].
COPELAND: All right, well, Mr. Wind., I really thank you for letting me interview you. You’ve given us some really good insights. I appreciate it.
WIND: Well, I tried. It’s just been a long time. I’ve forgotten a whole lot about what went on in those days.
COPEALND: No. You’ve given us a lot. I really appreciate it. Thank you.
WIND: Thank you.