Richard L. Holt

Physicist, Oceanographer, Aerospace Technologist, Rancher, Land Developer and Lecturer

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Things I've Done - P.1

Things I've Done - P.2

Personal

 
Things I've Done During my Lifetime
Point Mugu, California 2007



The adjacent photo was taken last year where I started my civilian working career, the Naval Air Station and Missile Test Center at Point Mugu, California.  I had one of the best jobs in the world coming out of more than three years active duty as a Regular Army Officer, when I was hired as a Physicist to work in the Electronic Warfare Division at the Naval Air Missile Test Center.  I was the Project Engineer for the initial test and evaluation of the Eagle Air to Air missile. 

As this project came to its end, I was assigned to help begin a brand new program for the Navy, the test and evaluation of whether or not dolphins could be used to help in some areas in Special Warfare for the Navy.  Prior to this, UDT, or Underwater Demolition Teams had done all the work in the water.  The Navy wanted to see if some of the load and danger could be removed from men in the water to an animal that could be trained to assist in the UDT job.  What a job!  A great opportunity for me to be in on the ground floor of an effort that even preceeded civilians learning to work with dolphin.  Fifty years ago when we started this program, no one had ever studied dolphins and no one knew whether or not they could be trained by humans and whether they would fit into the Navy Special Warfare Program.  We did it!  A very small group of us started this effort. 


 
 
The First Seven Astronauts, good guys and good friends





God was with me during every step of my working career.  I went from Point Mugu to NASA in Houston where I got to participate in the beginnings of manned space flight at the Manned Space Center, Houston.  I had the fantastic position of Network Coordinator in the Flight Operations Division, responsible for the maintenance and operation of the Mission Control Center and the Manned Space Flight Network during all the missions through Apollo and landing on the moon.  What a job !!

What a job this was for me.  Purely by accident I came upon it.  I was on my way to Texas A&M, sent by the Navy after the dolphin program came to a halt, to get my doctorate in Physical Oceanography.  I stopped in Houston to say hello to my old boss at Pt. Mugu who had been transferred to this new agency called NASA.  He introduced me to the new Flight Operations Director, Christopher C. Kraft, Jr. and his people talked me into staying in Houston instead of going on to school.  How about that for a twist in my career?

During missions I got to sit in the control room in Mission Control at the console just to the right of the Flight Director's console right in the middle of the action.  I was like a kid with a new toy.  What a terrific opportunity for me to be a part of this first effort to put man into space.  We had a great bunch of very well qualified people working on this program, and it was fun to be around them and work with them.
Cap on my head and scrarf flying in the wind, I'm ready to go!
Mercury MA-9 launch from Cape Canaveral
The historic team from Apollo 11 that took the first steps on the moon. This signed photo hangs in my home to this day.
At the end of Apollo, NASA sent me to Cal Tech's Jet Propulsion Labs in Pasadena, California to help that NASA center up-date its tracking and control systems for support in the future of unmanned vehicles going to the outer planets.  I was assigned as the Assistant Division Chief for the Systems Division, the largest at JPL, and plunged right in with a crew of guys I took with me from Houston to do just what we were sent to do.  It was great working in the environment of JPL.  A wonderful bunch of people in a very high intellectual setting.  It was fun !!

A tour into private industry led me to TRW Space Systems Division, the maker of many of this country's satellites including most of the spy satellites for military application and tracking and communications satellites for use by commercial and government customers.  TRW and NASA planned for and built the follow-on to ground tracking stations in the form of the TDRSS Satellite which could track satellites on their way to the outer planets.
Beyond the stars and the moon
Deep Space Tracking Stations in the U.S. and abroad kept track of spacecraft as they were sent on interplanetary missions by JPL.
NASA and TRW Tracking and Data Relay Satellite, the next generation tracking system to be employed for all future space flight.


I was asked by the White House to leave private industry and return to government in the form of the Assistant to the Director of the National Cancer Institute, National Institutes of Health.  Why in the world would I go there?  Well, it was to take experience gained in the aerospace sector of technology and apply it to setting up the National Cancer Program and the many cancer centers in the U.S. and abroad.  A small team of us wrote the National Cancer Plan supported and pushed by the President of the U.S.  Now, we have cancer centers set up all over the country and around the world.  I even got to use one of them for a cancer of my very own !! 

I spent four wonderful years in that job, learned a lot about a disease that is devastating to those that are stricken with cancer.  I met great people and enjoyed learning from them.  I have now had five cancers of my own, and because of my knowledge (and a little bit of luck) I found them early, had them treated, and right now I am totally free of those cancers.

But I missed working with technology, so after this time, I left the National Cancer Institute and returned to the world of satellites and outer space.  But on the way, I made a slight detour which I will cover next.