Great article on history of NASA Mission Control (1 Viewer)

[Andrew Testa]

Here's one for Jack.

check out the latest issue of the magazine American Heritage of Invention and Technology. The cover story is a history of the Mission Control Center at JSC. Here's the direct link to the story. It's a great article, but I'm biased.

Andrew Testa

 

[BrianW]

Thanks, Andrew.

 

[Jack Briggs]

Yes, thank you very much!

Andrew, do you know people who worked in the "old" Mission Control? All those memories from all those missions from so long ago!

 

[Win Joy Jr]

Andrew -

Your wife did an outstanding job on the story. I remember some of the tests and sims being run as JSC was trying to get the new control centers certified. I sat console at the NCC during one of the missions where the flight was being run out of the old center, with one of the new ones being used as back-up / check-out. Midnight shifts was when the "Houston Command" staff and the NCC staff got caught up with changes across the network. The controllers were commenting about running between control rooms and systems.

 

[Joel Mack]

Great story!

I'm amazed that the guy working on the consoles still hasn't changed his shirt!

 

[Andrew Testa]

I'll pass on any good words. Thanks all.

Jack, yes, I knew some of the people who worked the old consoles, and apparently so do you with Win posting. Of course my wife knew a lot more of them, since she worked closely with them and was in training for console work. Most of them have gone, since there's relatively high turnover in MOD on the flight controller track.

I actually worked one mission (LDEF retrieval, STS-33? or 34) in the old Mission Evaluation Room, which was in the same technical state as the MCC. ANCIENT hardware, incredibly old computers and completely impossible B&W displays to look at for very long. And COLD! The had that room freezing because of the old computers. The difference between that room and the current MER, with it's huge monitors and whole suites of visually pleasant software displays.

RAY! you still around? Have you been around long enough to have worked the old MCC?

Andy