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Oral History Interview With Steven Hall
Steven Hall was born in a small town in the north central part of Indiana. This town has about a population of 2,000 people. Steven graduated from Eastern High School in 1963, and then he enrolled in Aeronautical/Neurospace Engineering at Purdue University. There, he received his bachelor's degree in 1968. Steven originally became interested in man space-flight when he was just about 10 years old. At this age, he had no clue how he could get involved with the space station, but he knew that he wanted to get involved one day. After he graduated college, he was so ready to work at NASA, that he left his home town immediately to move down to Huntsville, AL to start working. When he began working at the Marshall Space Flight Center, he was shown how Human Factors Engineering worked. One of the first projects that Steven was able to work on was "Skylab" where they built a lot of the equipment that probed how humans responded to space, and how the body changes in space. He also worked on a program to design a vehicle to drive around the surface of the moon.Tags Oral History -
Oral History Interview With George Hamilton
George Hamilton has lived in Huntsville, Alabama all of his life, and his father was a Charter Marshall Member in Huntsville. When he was working, George's father was chosen as a "guinea pig" to go up in the Pregnant Guppy, which was a large, wide-bodied cargo aircraft. Because of George's father's career and interest with NASA, it made George interested in the career as well. George has a lot of family stories like this, which all have inspired him to take on his career that he has now. After high school, George went to The University of South Alabama in Mobile to study Marine Biology. Over the summer he had a change of heart, so he decided to transfer to Auburn University for Mechanical Engineering. After he finished up with his degree, he started working in small, manufacturing spare parts for missiles. After this career, he started to work at Avco Electronics in Huntsville where he worked at the plant on the design side. After this, Avco started looking for people to go overseas on the construction side of the house, so George went overseas with them. Then he came back, got married, and received his Phd in Biomedical Engineering at The University of Alabama in Birmingham.Tags Oral History -
Oral History Interview With Bran Griffin
Bran Griffin was born in Medford, Oregon. His father was in the military, so they moved around a lot. Bran went to the University of Texas his first year of college, and he studied Architecture. Then, he graduated college with a degree in Architecture from Washington State University. He then went to graduate scholl in Southern California, and he received a fine arts degree. After this, Bran wanted to get a degree in something a little more stable, so he went back to school to get his master's degree in Architecture. After this, Bran was on a shuttleship for a couple of years in Rome, and then he came back to start his career in teaching Architecture. Even though he was teaching Architecture, he had an intense passion for space. Because of this passion, he started to become involved with the Johnson Space Center with a faculty fellowship. Bran was in their Spacecraft Design Division. Since he wanted to be closer to be a part of the Space Industry, he decided to move to Washington State. After a while of working in Washington State, he received a job offer from Boeing in Hunstville, AL and began his career there being involved with the space station.Tags Oral History -
Oral History Interview With Vygontus Kulpa
Vigontus Kulpa grew up in Huntsville, AL. Ever since he was young, Kulpa was always interested with the space program. He ended up going to college at UAH, and was considered a "feter" co-op engineer, so he actually started out at The Marshall Space Flight Center. There, Kulpa worked with the Human Systems Integration Branch. In college, Kulpa started out at UAH, but eventually ended up graduating from college at Auburn University. He then came back to UAH to receive his Master's degree in Systems Engineering and his Doctorate in Psychology and Human Factors. Kulpa's first full-time assignment was as a Crew Procedures Engineer. In this job, he was considered "between" the scientists that did the experiments, and the astronauts. Kulpa ended up working with the Avionics group to design a battery-operated wrench, and he took this on the KC-135. He also was able to work to help re-design the space station. After a while, he switched jobs and worked with the Neutral-Buoyancy Tank where he worked on how to make a space shuttle suit work underwater.Tags Oral History -
Oral History Interview With Charles Brian Nelson
Charles Brian Nelson was born in 1938 in Memphis, Tennessee. He received his first degree in Industrial Design at Tennessee Tech. After he graduated from college in 1960, he went to work with the Depot Company where his job was making Titanium Dioxide. Charles stayed at this job for about 5 years, and by encouragement from his friends, he moved to Huntsville to work at NASA. He started out working at a test lab where they were responsible for getting the test bird into the test stand to test it. This job also included testing of vibrations, engine fire, and testing every individual part. After this job, Charles moved into the human factors engineering group. He worked for NASA for about 12 years.Tags Oral History -
Oral History Interview With Dr. John Rogers
Dr. John Rogers is from Kansas, and in Kansas, John loved to drive out into the prarie and find places where there had been homesteads. There, he would lay on the ground and look up at the stars at night. This all inspired him to get involved with the space station, and human factors engineering. John received his Bachelor's degree at Kansas State University, and then he received his Master's degree at The University of Arkansas. At this point, he took up a teaching job in Arkansas, and during that period of time, he recieved a National Science Foundation summer research fellowship at Florida State University. There, John did research on the effects of radiation on the human body. After leaving his teaching job, he went to the University of Mexico to pursue his Phd. While he was there, he was able to be a part of a summer program that pushed him towards his career. Since John did such a great job at the summer program, they kept him on as a consultant where he could work unlimited hours, and work any time he wanted to. The work that he did there included: examining human air and organizations, and considering what was the common factor/the emphasis in the atomic energy. After his job there, he started working at NASA in June of 1967. His job tasks there included: looking at the simulations and to look at the experimental design. He also had to try to make sure that they had solid statistics behind their results that were being detained.Tags Oral History -
Oral History Interview With Joe Phillipauldy
Joe Phillipauldy is originally from Central, New Jersey. He did his undergraduate training at the University of Richmond in Virginia, and then he received his Master's degree at Villanove University. He then when on to get his graduate degree, and completed the program in 1984. His degree was in Experimental Psychology. In 1986, he accepted a job position with the Creatis Systems Tech Staff at Boeing Military Airplanes in Kansas. His first Human Engineering job was with Tech Staff. A project he spent a lot of time on was the Airforce I VC25 747 Presidential Replacement Program. With this, he did a workload analysis of the navigator crew station. After this work, Joe got involved with the Human Factors and Industrial Applications group. There, he ran task terms around the factory floor doing analyses and reporting on ergonomics issues on assembling vehicles. Later, he was able to work on the Space Station Vehicle Integration Contract in Huntsville, AL.Tags Oral History -
Oral History Interview With Kim B. Robertson
Kim B. Robertson is a retired Design Engineer, and has lived in Huntsville, AL his whole life. He grew up in the Monte Santo Mountain area where most of the German scientists on Von Braun's missile team lived, so being involved with the Space Station was always a part of his life growing up. He knew from an early age that Huntsville was where he always wanted to live, and this is the area that he wanted to work in. Robertson eventually went to Auburn University where he was able to work on a Marshall project. He was able to work on the Industrial Design team there, and he, along with his group, was asked to do some design work to get ideas for Skylab and the Space Station. After graduating from Auburn, he joined the National Guard with a year of active duty. While being in the National Guard, he became a ground-radio maintenance technician. His first job in Huntsville was working at URS Matrix, and there he worked on the hand-controller for the shuttle arm. He also did some volumetric studies for putting experiments in the back part of the shuttle work-area.Tags Oral History -
Oral History Interview With Charles M. Louis
As a kid, Charles M. Louis loved to take things apart and put them back together. He also was inspired as a kid while reading a Life magazine article with Wernher Von Braun standing next to the Saturn V engine at the age of 15. Since he was an avid Science Fiction reader at the time, this all inspired him to become involved with the Space Program, and to eventually become a licensed hand radio operator. In college, he pursued an Electrical Engineering degree, and he flunked out of college becasue the classes were too big. Because of this, he decided to change schools and go to the Detroit Institue of Technology. There, he was more successful because of the smaller class sizes. After graduating college, he was hired at Boeing in Seattle, Washington. At Boeing, he was involved in Test Engineering supporting UHF and Microwave antennas on the Minuteman Program. Boeing then got a contract for the Saturn V Program 8 months after Charles started working there. He decided he would rather work on the Space Program then the military side, so he decided to move down to Huntsville, AL to work on the program.Tags Oral History -
Oral History Interview With John H. Reese
John H. Reese was born in the Jefferson hospital in Birmingham, AL in 1945. He went to Fairfield High school in Tennessee, and graduated in 1963. He then went to Auburn University and went into Pre-Engineering. John received his engineering degree in 1969. The reason it took him 6 years to graduate is because he had to work his way through school on the cooperative education program. His brother-in-law worked at NASA at the time, and he got John interested in the Space Program. John then decided to co-op with the Marshall Space Flight Center and he applied with the Engineering Cooperative Education office. He then decided to send his resume to NASA, and received a job offer soon after. In this job, he helped do all the structural testing on the various modules and components of the Saturn I and Saturn fives. He was also involved in the Hubble Space Telescope Mock-Up. John's job was to come up with the foot-restraint systems, tether points, etc.Tags Oral History