James Lovell

Interviewee: James Lovell
Interviewer: George Madsen
January 1967
T130 – 2012.026.0307- Side A
George:
In the three-year course of this program we’ve interviewed a number of champions; champions at one particular event and one particular place. My guest today holds a record for the world, or I should perhaps go on record as saying out of this world. My guest is US Astronaut, James Lovell, who has more time in space than anyone. Jim, welcome to Aspen. I assume that you are a ski champion too?
James:
Not quite. I’ve just started but I hope to be some day.
George:
Are you a snow-plower or a parallel skier or where do you stand in the ski world?
James:
Well I started off being a snow-plower but Vivian Goodnough has now gotten me to… to almost parallel skiing.
George:
How long have you been in Aspen?
James:
About 6-days.
George:
And you are leaving?
James:
Tomorrow morning.
George:
This is being recorded Tuesday January 10th, so it will be a few days afterwards when Aspen will hear this recording, Jim. You’re staying at the, at the?
James:
Snowflake, Snowflake
George:
At the Snowspace Lodge did you say?
James:
The Snowspace Lodge, that’s right. No, really the Snowflake, very good.
George:
You’re actually in the Navy, is that right?
James:
That’s right. Captain in the Navy.
George:
Captain, that’s right. I’m outranked already. And I should have asked you before, this is your first visit to Aspen, is it?
James:
My very first.
George:
It’s amazing how many Astronauts are skiers. Is there any similarity between the two sports: space walking or astronauting and skiing?
James:
Well I think there is a certain amount of exercise and outdoorness that most Astronauts participate in. Of course, Scott Carpenter, I think, was the original skier of the group and he sort of spread the bug among the other people and we’ve all slowly started to come out to this area to go skiing.
George:
Of course, he is a good Colorado type too?
James:
That’s right
George:
Owns property I understand over at Crested Butte?
James:
So I understand
George:
You haven’t put your down payment on a lodge yet here have you?
James:
No sir, I’m just a visitor.
George:- laughs
If I can use a hackmead question here, how does one get to be an astronaut and specifically in your case, how did you get to be one?
James:
Well I originally tried out for the Mercury Program and was in that group and, of course, didn’t make it. And then the Navy came out and said that NASA, National Aeronautics and Space Administration, is again requesting applications for astronauts. And they had some basic requirements. You needed flying time, about 2000 hours in jet time I believe at that time, you had to have to have certain college requirements, you had to have a degree in some science, you had to be under a certain age and a certain height. And the height is 6 feet and I am 5 foot 11 and 3/4s and I am sticking to that story.
George: – laughs
I might ask you also why you chose to become an astronaut?
James:
Well I saw it as a continuation of a job that I had been in, I’d been a test pilot for quite some time in the Navy and being in the astronaut program is actually doing the same thing. It’s a lot of test pilot work.
George:
What is the most important part of an astronaut’s training Jim?
James:
Well, I think the most important part just prior to a flight is the actual simulation in the mission simulator that is built for that particular type of space craft, and Gemini we had a Gemini Mission simulator. And there we do exactly everything that we are going to do in flight. And that is perhaps the most critical and most important part of our space training.
George:
Since you’re speaking about flight preparations could you give us a little more detail and some of the tests and conditioning you have to go through?
James:
Well, of course there’s a lot of conditioning, for instance in space walking or extra-vehicular activity. On our last flight we decided to try it underwater. And it’s just like skiing, you have to get out there and try to do it as closely as possible to what you’re going to do. And before you go very fast you gotta go slow and we thought underwater was the greatest simulation because we could do the entire outer space or out of space craft mission under water and it turned out to be a pretty good simulation.
George:
You mean the simulation of weightlessness?
James:
That’s right. We sink a whole space craft, a mock up of course, in the big water tank and then the astronaut gets down into the tank itself, himself, with the spacesuit on and we put lead weights on his arms and legs and this simulates some what closely actually zero G. And then he can go through his task and we can get a time line of exactly how long and how difficult it will take him to do these things. This is a progress towards this type of work. We had some trouble before in accomplishing space walk activities.
George:
There was actually an astronaut’s program that was held in California off the shores of California under water. Was this a similar type thing or the same thing you’re talking about?
James:
I believe you’re thinking about Sea Lab; this was a Navy program that one astronaut, Scott Carpenter, participated in, about a year ago I believe.
George:
How long do flight preparations take, right from the very beginning after you’re given the nod to go on?
James:
Well in the beginning of the Gemini program, the crew was usually assigned to a flight about nine months in advance. Towards the end of the program, since most people were familiar with the space craft, the time was shorter, about four or five months.
George:
In Aspen, we have a unique, not so unique, but uh, well as far as the Greeks are concerned, the Greek idea of physical conditioning and learning. I assume that you have to have both to be a properly constituted astronaut; a good deal of conditioning and certainly a good deal of technical know how about your subject. Can you comment on the relationship of the two?
James:
Well you certainly had to be in good physical condition there’s no doubt about it; I don’t want to imply that you had to be anything super. Any ordinary, normal individual that’s in fairly good shape, can stand the rigors of a space flight. The technical training is something else again. You have to know quite a bit about what you are doing of course; the space craft, the experiments, and just the feeling of being there. Its like
any other environment, the first time I was on skis it was all strange to me and I fell down quite a few times. The first time you get up into space it’s all new and you have to be well prepared before you get up there because there is no simulation. You can’t get up and try it again.
George:
But basically, you are a scientist?
James:
Essentially. You might say that in this stage of our space program, we are pioneers in vehicle or transportation systems. Because essentially what our Apollo program is doing now is building a transportation system to the moon. The scientific knowledge that we get out of this system will come later after we get there and explore and just the technical knowledge of getting there. But we are in the transportation business too.
George:
Sounds almost like urban transit? (laughs)
James:
Well you know, if you get there and can’t come back it just isn’t worth it.
George:
No, but it’s interesting. Here we are trying to build trains that go 160 miles an hour on earth, We’ve had trains now for how many years now, and as you mention you are in the transportation business to the moon and elsewhere. How important? This may be a little irrelevant, but how important are the humanities? The cultural, this type of cultural learning to astronauts?
James:
Well I think the astronauts should have a well rounded education, especially since a lot of our work is not scientific. We do a lot of public relations work trying to promote our program. And we think it’s important, we want to show people why it is important to people and in many cases its not strictly scientific.
George:
You mentioned that you are in the Navy, you did go to Annapolis, didn’t you?
James:
Yes, four years at the Naval Academy and two years at the University of Wisconsin.
George:
Did you have other college type studies in your training to be an astronaut?
James:
Well, all my studies have somewhat led to that, my position. I spent some time at the University of Southern California at aviation safety school, of course I went to test pilot school at Patuxent River, Maryland. All these types of school have pointed me toward the job I’m in now.
George:
And the job you are in now, what specifically is that?
James:
Well, right now I am assigned as capsule communicator to the first Apollo mission, the Apollo 1, which we hope will go off sometime this spring.
George:
And, what do you see in the future for this type of position?
James:
Well, I hope like all the rest of my compatriots that I will have another flight, an Apollo flight.
George:
You really feel that way? You’re gung-ho for it?
James:
Oh yes, it’s tremendous, it’s quite exciting. I’m getting kind of used to it now, I’ve been up there about 18 days I guess.
George:- laughs
We’re talking with US astronaut, James Lovell, and we’ll be back in one minute.
Back to US astronaut, James Lovell. Jim, do you feel that space flights will lead to more international cooperation?
James:
Oh, definitely so, I think that it’s a perfect example of how two progressive countries can expend their energy in a productive means instead of a destructive one. Here we are both having competition now in space, so to speak, but soon I think that we will both get together, we are in some respects with weather satellites and things like that. And in the future, we’ll have both major countries getting together in space work.
George:
Let me put it in another way, do you think we’re going to need international cooperation to make the most of space ventures?
James:
Well, I think that international cooperation would be the best way to have space ventures, I don’t think it’s possible right now to be completely international. But in the future, I think that everybody is going to benefit from it.
George:
Do you think with Man in space is actually exceeding his boundaries right now, are we ready for it as a cultural community?
James:
Oh, I think we are ready for it. We always seem to progress faster in new frontiers faster or greater than most people anticipate. And we’re ready for space now.
George:
I’m sure they asked the same questions of the pioneers coming west 150 years ago.
James:
Right, people thought they were crazy and a lot of people I guess think we are too.
George:
Recently on this program, Jim, we had Norman Dyhrenfurth, the leader of the successful American ascent of Mt. Everest on this program and he mentioned that one of the climbers who reached the top of the peak, the world’s highest, said he felt like a little boy caught some place where he shouldn’t have been. Do you have this experience in space?
James:
Well, I think when you are first up there you do, since it’s all new and that you can see an area that you haven’t seen before. It’s so beautiful, that that’s the first thing you see. You’re completely captured by the beauty. Then after that you say well I hope that everything is working correctly and I really don’t know if I should be here or not, but then after a while you are so busy that you feel right at home.
George:
What is the most difficult part of space flight?
James:
Well, sometimes the most difficult part of a space flight is trying to accomplish all of the experiments that the people on the ground have scheduled for the flight. That is usually sometimes the most difficult part.
George:
Uh huh
James:
Of course, the training is really the most difficult part. Once the bolts (?) blow, as we say, and the rocket lifts off, then you either go or no go. And that is actually sort of anti-climax because you’ve trained so hard and so long that actually things fall into place and the flight usually turns out to be quite successful.
George:
How about, what’s the most memorable part of a flight?
James:
Well, I think that no one will ever forget the boost phase, the lift off the rocket flight. I think that the reentry is also the most amazing or fantastic to watch. Beautiful colors.
George:
From an anticipation standpoint or, just from, or as you mentioned, colors?
James:
Yes, also of course the anticipation is waiting for the retro rocket to fire at the exact moment. We’re moving at something like five miles a second, so every second that they fail to fire on-time means we’re five miles farther down range from where we want to land.
George:
You did pretty well on hitting your target though, didn’t you?
James:
Yes, I think we all have on the later flights We’ve all come pretty close to the carrier.
George:
Well Jim, now that you feel you’ve been up in space, in fact you’ve been up there for more time than anyone else has been, do you feel that you’ve seen everything, you’ve done everything and now you’re all set to retire?
James: Well, I’ve seen everything from 30 degrees South to 30 degrees North latitude from about 150 miles- and really, you don’t get the real beauty of the ground at that altitude. I prefer now to travel on the ground. Seeing Aspen is a big adventure for me.
George:
Via skis huh?
James:
Via skis.
George:
Uh Huh.
This is a corny question, but I think it’s quite important at this stage in the game. Do you have any advice for young men or women who are seeking a career?
James:
Well, of course, any career that you seek you have to prepare yourself for it. And a college education is a must, I believe, in these days. And I would certainly suggest to anybody that to get a college education and then start out to get your career. In other words, don’t stop your schooling early, get it out of the way and then if you’re not satisfied with what you’re doing, you can always change. But at least get your college education out of the way.
George:
Just a final question, do you suppose when you reach the peak of skiing that you might get into orbit via ski jumping?
James:
Well, I don’t know, Vivan has been such a good teacher to me now that I might be able to jump that high. But I’ll give it a try!
George:
You and your wife are here, is she a skier too?
James:
She is a skier. She and I are in about the same category, neither of us had been on skis before we got here.
George:
You out rank her as far as the military is concerned, but not as far as skiing is concerned.
James:
That’s right, we are on equal basis here.
George:
Jim Lovell, US space astronaut, it’s a pleasure to have you in Aspen. We hope you will come back soon. Do you plan to come back?
James:
Well, I hope to come back some day, if I have the opportunity and I have the time and hope to be at the Snowflake Lodge again.
George:
Thank you very much. Jim Lovell, and that’s Commentary for today.