jmeesey524

MY DAD SENT ME THIS REMEMBRANCE: "I remember very well the night Apollo 11 landed and Armstrong set foot on the moon. We were living in Murphysboro, Ill., at the time. It was late in the evening and all I could see was blurring images of history in the making on an old portable blue and white Zenith TV. It was quite a thrill."

During the Apollo Program I was a Pad Leader on the Lunar Module for Grumman Aerospace. Because of our busy schedule to put a man on the moon I had not had a vacation for two years. I remember a conversation that I had with Neil Armstrong on the stack a few before launch. I told Neil that I wished that we could get him on the way to the moon so I could go on vacation. And he told me I could go on vacation to the moon with him and Buzz. I told him to go on to the moon and I would go to Colorado. He just laughed. To hold a brief conversation with Neil was rare as he was usually all business and a man of few words. But a brave American hero! There will never be another Apollo Program or another American goal that involved so many proud American workers. And I was blessed to be a big part of it. Cal Moser A Proud American ...more

AS DESCRIBED TO FLORIDA TODAY BY A RETIRED SPACEWORKER CURRENTLY LIVING IN BREVARD COUNTY APOLLO 11 Launch Schedule I was lead scheduler for North American on the SII second stage of the SATURN V. The AS506 SII vehicle was built in Seal Beach California, shipped on a barge to Mississippi for static firing and then on to KSC. This was during the spring of 1969. As the barge rounded the straits of Florida it encountered a severe storm. The barge had a seagoing crew and a single inspector from North American was on board as an observer. During the storm a loud cracking sound was heard. It was not known if the noise came from the barge, the SII stage or the transporter trailer the stage was on. No damage was discovered at the time. The inspector wrote up a discrepancy report describing the event. After arrival at KSC the stage was brought into the VAB low bay and still no damage was found. The barge also had no apparent damage. A call was made to Seal Beach to the design engineers. After much discussion and since no damage was found, the discrepancy report could not be closed. It was determined that the vehicle would have to be inspected to prove that it was flight ready. Originally I was an electronic technican on the J-2 engines. I was promoted to Planning and Scheduling. I had been the assistant scheduler on the first vehicle, AS501, and lead scheduler on all the rest. During the processing of these vehicles many different inspections had been required. I had made all these schedules and although none had been finished as originally planned, I had copies of the final "as built" schedules after they were completed. With the test conductor with whom Iworked with on the Titan program at Martin Co., and the engineers we planned all the inspections. After I finished the schedules I was asked by our director what this would do to the launch schedule since nothing could be completed until the second stage was ready for stacking. I laid out a plan all the way to launch. On the day NASA had a planning meeting for AS506, APOLLO 11, our test conductor had a doctor's appointment so he asked me to present our SII schedule to NASA. I did, and then NASA asked me what this did to the launch schedule. I had brought the schedule I had made for our director with me but never expected to show it to anyone. I showed it to him and he took it from me and did not return it. A few days later we received the preliminary launch schedule from NASA and it was identical to the one I made, with only one spacecraft test moved from a Monday to a Tuesday. Everything else was identical. The original launch date remained the same and the launch did occur on the original scheduled date July 16, 1969. ...more