Page 140 - MY STORY

research, and time, to uncover. Just one of those

occurrences that never leave my mind. If this pressure
vessel had not exploded prior to acceptance test firing, it
would most likely have failed in flight and killed all three

astronauts. Other pressure vessels from this defective lot
were found, tested and failed within minutes to hours of
being pressurized to the 3,000 psi working pressure. This

whole event never got seriously reported by the press – it
was overshadowed by the Apollo capsule fire that killed
three astronauts just a week or two earlier.

MONSTER LAYOFF

In June of 1969, I was in Houston on a business trip to
NASA. I was called out of the NASA meeting to accept
an emergency phone call from my boss, Bob Z. He
simply said, “Get your ass on an airplane and get back

here NOW!”

On arrival at Huntington Beach, I was informed that the
USAF had just canceled the Manned Orbital Laboratory
(MOL) program. In addition, the Nike Spartan program

was going away (or it might have already been canceled).
Incidentally, the main reason for Douglas building the
Huntington Beach plant was to enable the win of the

MOL program a few years earlier. I was a Branch Chief