Richard L. Holt

The fire that destroyed the Apollo 1 spacecraft and its three astronauts on the launch pad during a routine test set the man-in-space program back on its heels.  It was obvious that a redesign of the spacecraft was an absolute necessity.  This was going to take a lot of time, not only to redesign the vehicle, but then to build it, test it, and get back on track for a flight program.

None of that effort involved the Manned Space Flight Tracking Network nor the Mission Control Center in Houston.  So we were essentially out of a job for some time to come, that time interval very nebulous at that.

There had been some concern expressed in the management ranks at the Manned Space Center as to the readiness of the support facilities at the Cal Tech/JPL to provide timely data in the future flight program.  These concerns brought about discussions between the ground support systems people at the Goddard Space Flight Center, the Manned Space Center and the JPL management.  NASA had funds that could be directed at JPL to build the capacity at the Space Flight Operations Facility (SFOF) at JPL with new computers and new displays and other equipment in the facility itself.

I had already been in conversations with leaders at the JPL about ways we could help them from Houston.  The Head of the Systems Division, the largest at JPL, had been a friend for some years.  Then I was offered a position at JPL for th upgrade effort as the Assistant Division Chief for the Systems Division, the organization at JPL that was responsible for all the Deep Space Network (DSN) tracking stations, the computing center and the Space Flight Operations Facility (SFOF) in Pasadena, California.  This would fill the time period waiting for the Apollo program to get back into full flight schedules.  So I committed to two years at JPL and took along several key people from the maintenance and operations staff in Houston to support the staff in Pasadena.

While in this positiion, I worked closely with many outside contractors including IBM and TRW.  IBM had all the computing support at the JPL and most of it at Houston, and TRW was in the process of building tracking and data relay satellites which would take the place of radar systems necessary to track near-earth orbiting vehicles.  I knew that my future at NASA Houston had time limitations for the future.  The IBM supervisor had moved from Houston and had gone to work for TRW in Los Angeles.  He convinced me that I should consider TRW after I felt that my obligation to JPL was finished.  This I did and was offered a wonderful position in Technical Marketing for the Software and Information Division in the Space Directorate at TRW.  So at the end of the two year commitment, I left JPL and went to work at TRW with the blessings of my boss at JPL whom I had known for many years, all during my days with NASA and even before that when I was still at the Pacific Missile Range.  He was a former Air Force Colonel and also could see what was in the future for ground tracking systems as we had known them.


Please proceed to:  TRW Space Systems