The Apollo and Space Shuttle programs are long retired, but Jack King can still be found sitting within the bullpen of the press center at Kennedy Space Center answering the
phone and helping out members of the media.
Credit: Nicole Solomon
didn’t want a camera. They were
worried about the weight. Every
ounce of payload weight was looked
at very closely. But in the end we won
that battle and when people saw
that footage they were blown away.
All those guys a re gone now. God
bless them. I’m kind of the end of an
era here I think. There aren’t many of
us around.”
RS: How has NASA changed over the
years?
KING: “When you consider the
Apollo era and all these things that
took place the 1960s it was one of the
most dramatic decades of the 20th
century without any question. We had
three major assassinations. We had
the cold war with the Russians and
the hot war with Vietnam. We had
the protests about the war. You had
racial unrest all across the country.
You had the rise of the hippie and
drug movement. All of these things
were taking place while we were
trying to develop our capabilities to
go to the Moon, which we did.
www.RocketSTEM .org
“There were a lot of negative
things in that decade and what
NASA was able to accomplish was
just incredible.
“Back then we had a tremendous
management team. You had General
Sam Phillips, who was the program
manager for Apollo. In Houston, Bob
Gilruth and Chris Kraft were great
leaders. You had Kurt Devise here
at the Cape and a marvelous guy
named Rocco Petrone who was the
launch director. You had of course
von Braun in Huntsville, and you had
some top people in Washington. The
management team to me was the
key to our success. The last 25 years
have been very different.”
RS:
dollar went to NASA, and now in 2014
a half of penny goes to the agency.
How are we suppose to get to Mars
with that kind of money?
KING: “One of the few space movies
that is truly outstanding is Apollo 13.
There is one scene where Marilyn
Lovell is taking her kids into Mission
Control, and the Apollo 13 crew,
before the incident occurred were
showing weightlessness and stuff. And
the news wasn’t airing it. That was the
starting to lag. It took 22 billion dollars
to get those guys to the Moon. Who
knows how much money it will take to
get to Mars!”
RS: Do you think the International
Space Station slowed us down?
KING
30 years building hydrogen rockets.
Shuttle slowed us down. I wanted to
be on Mars 20 years ago. Shuttle did
a good job, but it cost a lot of money
and a lot of time.”
RS: How would you like people to
remember you?
KING: As a good father, a family man,
as somebody who enjoyed the heck
out of his job, all the way through.
As somebody who loved what he
did and enjoyed everyday going to
work, all the way to the end.
27
27