NOVA; To the Moon; Interview with John Leland "Lee" Atwood, engineer, aerospace executive, and overseer of the Apollo program, part 2 of 2

Well, of course, this is a difficult time for everyone, and the company, of course, is doing everything humanly possible to get work redone, however, the changes might come out, and no of the congressional hearings were not that oppressive. Actually, the newspaper treatment was very severe though, and some people that weren't on the committee were very, very punishing. It was a representative round from New York, and then it was trying to make everybody on the program look bad. I think for political reasons, I don't know, but he certainly gave the contractor a working over, and he is one that heard of at least the Phillips report. It was a

five-page report that General Phillips made to Dr. Miller. I had not seen it, I had gotten a letter from Dr. Miller saying there was a report, but I had never seen a copy until 1988. And what was the essence of that report? The report was that they reviewed the factory work, the engineering release schedule, the material schedule, the parts manufacturing schedule, and the assembly, and sub-assembly, and we were right behind and doing a very poor job on the S-2, and primarily the second stage of the booster. Actually, the second stage of the booster was one of Storm's trumps, actually. His chief engineer for the program Paul Wickham had

designed a stage that compared to the third stage carried four times the fuel for exactly three times the weight, which is an engineering trumps. It'll write the difference, which allowed the spacecraft and the parts that went to the moon to be overweight. The estimate was 90,000 pounds. The final weight was 102,000 pounds. Storm's hadn't made that kind of weight-saving. We would have to redesign the stack. Well, now you had not seen that the Phillips report was before the fire, and I just need to understand that you didn't see it. Didn't see it after the fire until 1988, when the Smithsonian ran a herbal review of

the whole thing, and Mr. Martin Collins ran that, and he showed me a copy of the Phillips report, but you see the trouble was Ryan wanted me persecuted for perjury, because I said ahead and seen the Phillips report. Well, I hadn't. Things like that are hard on you personally, and of course it doesn't have got anywhere, but things like that are very punishing. In the final analysis, what affected the fire have on you and the rest of your career do you feel? I was about to retire. I was 65, and it was in our agreement I would retire. In our

company rules. I did retire in January of the same year of the following year, and that didn't affect me in a sense of losing a job or anything like that. If I could us in Harrison Storms as principal one to suffer, and it's quite unfair, but the NASA wouldn't. They got rid of two people. One was Harrison Storms, and the other was Joe Shea. Now Dr. Shea was advised if this oxygen didn't danger. According to the record, Joe is still alive.

He's doing fine, but he didn't think it was a problem. Storms has not advised David. He would have thought it was a problem. He did all the time, but the two were in the same category, and they both out. Shea has a good record. He's been president of the American Institute of Arinotics and Astronautics. I've talked to him. He's a fine man, but he made a mistake. Storms had had a company that, I mean a division, that did this work, and so the builder from a fascia responsible. It came almost like that. Finally, what did Apollo, the program, mean to you? Was it a

great moment for you? Yes. I've been in aerospace since 1928. I've been involved in many important programs. Two of the most significant, of course, were Apollo lunar landing. The other was the P-51 Mustang fighter, which I originated in 1940, which has made a big impact on the air war in World War II. Yes, but those two are the most significant in my life. That was great. I think we got everything you wanted to talk about. Oh, pretty much. It's going to watch you get together. Oh, we can put together something pretty good. That was good. I always thank you, too, for letting us come in.

Oh, not at all, Kirk. Great. I wish I were a better recon tour. Oh, nice. We'll just take one look before you get up. Oh, Kirk. Yes, let's go run.