Highways Into Space: A first-hand account of the beginnings of the human space program by Glynn S. Lunney Page A
Authors: Glynn S. Lunney
Tags: General Non-Fiction
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division, he was cutoff there when the Chinese army invaded across the Yalu River. For John, this became a battle that was up-close, personal, brutal and terrifying in the extreme. He did make it out and managed to bury the horrors of that ugly time. Ultimately, these memories came back with a vengeance fifty some years later. He had a very severe case of Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) and learned more about it than he ever wanted to know. The treatment of this early trauma and its side effects over most of his adult life ultimately lead to profound changes in John, and all for his own good. He has earned an understanding of himself and saw his life much more clearly. He is also at peace with the past and with himself.
John and I came together in 1958. He had transferred to STG from the NACA center at Langley where he worked on high speed heat transfer problems as I did briefly at the Lewis Center in Cleveland. He began in the STG engineering organization, still working the heating problems. We were a very unlikely pairing of people and yet we are still close today after fifty years. John was big and physically strong; I was about one hundred forty pounds. John was very macho and gung ho; I was small enough and probably sensible enough to not physically challenge anybody. John was married with two girls; I was just beginning to get a real prospect in Marilyn. John was a vocal atheist; I had twenty-one years of Catholic faith upbringing. John was interested in continuing his education and in earning advance degrees in physics; I had had enough of school and wanted to get on with the business of manned space flight.
Other differences abound. It was impossible to get John to commit things to writing, while I had a knack for written explanations. John was the center of attention at gatherings. They were either robust when John arrived or he made them that way in short order. I was somewhat more careful and circumspect, preferring not to be at the center of a noisy crowd. John could win any ad-lib insult contest; I was not very good at the repartee. Out of this background of almost complete opposites came a friendship that has endured for over fifty years, even though being John’s boss was sometimes a challenge, probably for both of us. We only worked closely together for the first fifteen years. Our paths diverged at the time of the last few Apollo flights and there were long periods of no contact. And we each had many different experiences during those times. But our early work together made it easy to re-connect when we had the chance again.
To make up for some of my physical deficiencies, John took me to Judo class. Our instructor was a strong air police sergeant who worked on the Air Force side of the Langley base. I had been doing Judo at Langley for a year and learning some of the ropes. At that point, my folks came to visit us and Dad came to watch some judo. He saw John, at over two hundred pounds of solid muscle, throw me and then land on me, with his shoulder driving my solar plexus through my back and into the mat. It took me ten to fifteen minutes to be able to breathe. Dad reminded me that he had always advised me to be careful who I picked a fight with.
In our early times, John was not in the same flight dynamics analysis flow like I was. However, we did use personnel from the engineering function on a part time basis for flight support. John actually served as capsule communicator (capcom) and leader of a team that manned some of the remote stations in our network. He was the capcom for MA-4 at the Zanzibar station in September 1961 while the country was swept with some of the political volatility sweeping through Africa at that time.
John became something of an expert on the Mercury spacecraft clock, which was more complicated than just a clock. It had lockouts and other strange features, and it was the primary reference for retrofire. Because of that connection, Tec Roberts began steering John to
John and I came together in 1958. He had transferred to STG from the NACA center at Langley where he worked on high speed heat transfer problems as I did briefly at the Lewis Center in Cleveland. He began in the STG engineering organization, still working the heating problems. We were a very unlikely pairing of people and yet we are still close today after fifty years. John was big and physically strong; I was about one hundred forty pounds. John was very macho and gung ho; I was small enough and probably sensible enough to not physically challenge anybody. John was married with two girls; I was just beginning to get a real prospect in Marilyn. John was a vocal atheist; I had twenty-one years of Catholic faith upbringing. John was interested in continuing his education and in earning advance degrees in physics; I had had enough of school and wanted to get on with the business of manned space flight.
Other differences abound. It was impossible to get John to commit things to writing, while I had a knack for written explanations. John was the center of attention at gatherings. They were either robust when John arrived or he made them that way in short order. I was somewhat more careful and circumspect, preferring not to be at the center of a noisy crowd. John could win any ad-lib insult contest; I was not very good at the repartee. Out of this background of almost complete opposites came a friendship that has endured for over fifty years, even though being John’s boss was sometimes a challenge, probably for both of us. We only worked closely together for the first fifteen years. Our paths diverged at the time of the last few Apollo flights and there were long periods of no contact. And we each had many different experiences during those times. But our early work together made it easy to re-connect when we had the chance again.
To make up for some of my physical deficiencies, John took me to Judo class. Our instructor was a strong air police sergeant who worked on the Air Force side of the Langley base. I had been doing Judo at Langley for a year and learning some of the ropes. At that point, my folks came to visit us and Dad came to watch some judo. He saw John, at over two hundred pounds of solid muscle, throw me and then land on me, with his shoulder driving my solar plexus through my back and into the mat. It took me ten to fifteen minutes to be able to breathe. Dad reminded me that he had always advised me to be careful who I picked a fight with.
In our early times, John was not in the same flight dynamics analysis flow like I was. However, we did use personnel from the engineering function on a part time basis for flight support. John actually served as capsule communicator (capcom) and leader of a team that manned some of the remote stations in our network. He was the capcom for MA-4 at the Zanzibar station in September 1961 while the country was swept with some of the political volatility sweeping through Africa at that time.
John became something of an expert on the Mercury spacecraft clock, which was more complicated than just a clock. It had lockouts and other strange features, and it was the primary reference for retrofire. Because of that connection, Tec Roberts began steering John to
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