NASA Johnson Space Center Oral History Project
Edited Oral History Transcript

Guenter F. Wendt
Interviewed by Doyle McDonald
Coral Gables, Florida – 16 January 1998

McDonald: The following interview of Guenter Wendt was conducted by Doyle McDonald on January 16, 1998, in Coral Gables, Florida.

Wendt: I just was telling you about how accurately … [Tom Hanks wanted things done.] [He] … had seen an old newspaper clipping from the Apollo fire. There was a congressional report that was evidently in a hardbound copy, so he asked me if I can find the hardbound copy. Everybody has the regular congressional report, you know, on the fire. There are two reports, the one from [Frank] Borman and the one from Senator … [Thompson], or whoever ran the [Senate] committee.

Anyhow, so I spent two days to find out if anybody, any archives, had a hardbound copy. Would you believe, … I called John [H.] Glenn's [Jr.] office and everybody, … [else I] know. Nobody has a copy of it. … So I said, "Okay, can you remember what it looked like?" and he did, and … we … [ask] —the art department reconstructed … the hardbound cover … [from the newspaper clipping we had]. There's something that shows up, but Tom Hanks … [liked] to have everything accurate.

As a matter of fact, when we were getting into that Apollo 1 fire situation … he wanted to confer with people who were really in on it, so I got him some people that were actually on the deck during the fire, one of them our mechanical engineer, … [who] actually had [some of] his hair burned off and ear burned. He was the one who shot [off] the O2 …

… this is how far he wanted to go, to make things accurate. … I kind of advised him on setups for pad operations and things like that, and spent a great deal of time to making things accurate. … —they [had] built a white room … at MGM, [and] he wanted to know what the gauges were reading in the white room … [during the final cabin leak check]. This is how far in detail they went.

… they [also had] built a whole Houston control center at MGM, and before they started shooting, you know, Tom Hanks came in and he said, "Wait a minute. I'm seeing something missing. What's missing? Oh, when I was in Houston, I saw coffee-ring stains on the consoles. I want these coffee stains on the consoles here." …

… as a matter of fact, in one sequence, we were over there filming one segment that he was directing, and he … [played] a little bit part, so in that segment, he plays a "Meet the Press" reporter. … I'm sitting there with the executive producer, and we were watching while they were filming it … on the video monitor, and he said, "Okay, camera happy? Lighting guys happy? Everybody happy?"

I said, "No, we aren't happy."

He said, "What's the matter?"

I said, "Tom, your tie was crooked." You know, it was over on one side.

He looked at the video. "Reset." …[even at 3 a.m.]—he wanted to have things accurate.

The one thing I'm looking forward to—see, … [is the segment] called the "[Original] Wives Club," and it has to deal with what the astronauts' wives had to put up with … [while] their husbands' … [were] gone … [or] quarantine[d] … I had hoped for a director that could feel the women's side of the story. … we are pretty much technical people, and … dealing with technical [things]. … with us, two plus two is four. But with females … two plus two is four, except when it's three or five, you know. And luckily, the director for that segment was Sally Fields.

As a matter of fact, the one [segment where] I am in quite a bit is Apollo 7… where Mark Harmon played Wally [Walter M.] Schirra [Jr.] and Max Wright played me. And then later on in the movie, I played a NASA scientist … Lily Zanuck was our director for that one. … she [is] married [to] the son of Darrell Zanuck. She and her husband got the Academy award for "Driving Miss Daisy" the year before. But she was good, too.

We had a ball … with Harmon and all the other guys … to do the filming. It was a lot of fun. But I mean … [to] tell you …, these guys worked hard. The one [segment] Tom was directing, we were on the set fifteen hours, continuously … [Laughter] I mean, they work long hours. … I counted ... Just to get going, it takes around 140 …, … support people, not the stars, just to get things going. Ten thousand dollars an hour. So you wonder why movies cost that much money… But as I've said, I'm looking forward to … [the release of the series (From the Earth to the Moon)].

I just heard—… [from Richard] Toyon the other day, … [that the series are scheduled to start] in April [and] for each segment, the introduction will be done by Tom Hanks … So I'm looking forward to it. It was a good rehash, you know, to go back from the early days and it is done very, very well. But so much for that. I'll show you the pictures in a little bit here.

McDonald: I wanted to ask you something about some of the early days. I watched your interview with the Brevard County Historical Society.

Wendt: Oh, yeah. Right.

McDonald: The early days. And they spend a lot of time talking about what the Cape was like.

Wendt: Yeah. I have their tape here, too.

McDonald: But I was going to ask you some more about the Mercury pad operations themselves. Since you got here in the beginning, you had to make all this up.

Wendt: We didn't know any better … and we did many things right, but we also goofed [up] many things. The biggest scare I had … a big blow-up here in what we call the spin test facility, where one satellite … before they launched it … [was spin tested], and it blew up and killed four people. What made it blow up turned out to be static electricity from the plastic the thing was covered with. And when I heard that … I found out what plastic it was. It was exactly the same plastic we covered our escape rockets with.

So, you see … we didn't know that a little static, a spark from the static, can set off an igniter. … that's a thing that you learned, plus the fact, in the very early days when we started running Mercury … the facilities were rather primitive. … we had one rickety elevator that worked sometimes, and upstairs, we were pretty much in the open. So finally, when it rained, the spacecraft got wet, so we made a plastic big ten-foot diameter circle of plastic, and then we could be inside the plastic. And … the funny thing was, our phone was outside, and when the phone rang, nobody was going to go out in the rainstorm to answer the damn phone.

But at the same time … we worked ungodly hours at that time. I mean, fourteen-hour days was just standard. You go home .. [when] the job was done. So what we had in the corner of our so-called, … white room, which actually was a green room, … a table … [with] crackers, sausage, and cheese and so on, and when we got hungry, you walked over there and … [made] yourself a sandwich or something like it, and ate it … [I]n the early days, if you wanted to make a seven o'clock starting time, you better start out around four or four-thirty in the morning, because we had a two-lane road going from Cocoa Beach to the Cape, and that road … was stop-and-go traffic. So … it took you three hours just to get there. … needless to say, you couldn't afford to shut down and have the people go to lunch or dinner and then come back, because you would lose three [or] four hours.

… at one time we ran a test, and we were within about half an hour, an hour from finishing up, and it was already close to seven o'clock at night … and the guys were getting unruly. So I asked the guys on the net, … "Hey, if I get you ham and cheese sandwiches and coffee, can you stay that hour? … [Because] if I power down, that takes two hours…, [and] it takes two hours to power up, before you ever get going." So they said, "Yeah." … at that time, I called Ramon and ordered a hundred ham and cheese sandwiches, and two urns of coffee. Then [I asked] our supervisor of the technicians … to go ahead, send somebody to the south gate to pick it up. … And so we picked it up, and the wheels kept on going.

Luckily, at that time, you know, the company was very generous. I could just use petty cash to pay for all this stuff … let's say we broke a die … a tap or something like it, rather than go ahead and go through the purchasing route, I would give a guy ten bucks, go to Travis Hardware in Cocoa and buy another one. See, a piece of paper, a purchase request, was, at that time, … forty-five, fifty dollars … [if] you needed some piece of steel, or something like it, for five or six bucks, it was much cheaper to just go ahead, use petty cash. Now, today you couldn't do things like that anymore …

… [we also] would trade. Like, for example, I needed some AN-4 fittings … I mean, hydraulic fittings. I called the Douglas [Aircraft] people. I said, "Hey, guys, I need some and AN-4s, you know, ninety degrees. You got any?" He said, "Yeah, I've got a whole handful of them." I said, "Okay, I'll send a tech over, and we need this and this." And the guy said, "Yeah, come over and get it."

But then I get a call from Convair, said, "Oh, man, do you have an 800 stainless steel?" I said, "Yeah, I've got a sheet of it." "Oh, I only need a piece, you know, two feet by two feet." "Okay, send somebody over." We cut it up and we give it to them. Now, there was no paperwork and no research as to where the steel came from … [but] what you'd need to do today, … [is] the batch number [a certification] and all that jazz… That's, in the early days, how we did business. You borrowed [and] scrounged.

I had a guy—… [his name is Gene McCoy]—a NASA guy, and he was the most amazing … employee from the government. Whenever I called him, he said, "Okay, what can I do for you?" That was his attitude. I said, "Hey, man, we need some two-by-fours [or rolls of plastic]." "You got them." And that … was so great … people were willing to do things. Whatever you needed, you got.

… [W]ith these long hours, we found …, sometimes it was too late to go home, because by the time you got home, you had two hours of sleep, you had to get up and come to work. So, Dr. Debus … [had] put six bunkbeds in … [a room next to the blockhouse on pad five], and we used to sleep … [there]. They were pretty neat, except they had one nasty habit. If you rolled over to one side, they fold up with you into the wall, and so you wake up and you're … compressed against the wall. You wonder, "What in the hell happened to me?" [Laughter]

… these were [the] old days… you made do with what you had, and you learned. You've got to understand, in the late fifties, early sixties, we had sometimes twenty, thirty launches a week here, and the average was, three out of the five would blow up, or didn't make it. … "Hey, look, there goes another nose cone,"… But then you said, "Oh, wait a minute, how we can launch people? Hmm."

As a matter of fact, at one time, the seven astronauts were here watching an Atlas launch, and that thing blew, too. [Shepard said, 'I hope they fix that problem before they launch us."] [Laughter] So it was barnstorming … you might say at that time. It's not like it is today, pretty much routine, cut and dry. … [Then] there were many, many things we just didn't know.

As a matter of fact, when they fueled the Redstone rocket, the way they topped it off was, … [to use] an overflow line from the top… [T]he liquid oxygen would run out, and make a big cloud [on the pad surface], and you just walked right through it. We just told the guys, "Don't smoke," … because their clothes were saturated with O2. [Laughter] And then we found out, "Hey, wait a minute, it if hits the tar strips between the concrete, it catches fire." So we had them take out all the tar strips, but … [these are the things] you learned … through trial and error…

As a matter of fact, even the title I had, the "pad leader," … [created] a big debate. What do we call my position? The first thing was, "Okay, we call him the pad chief." No, no, you couldn't call a contractor personnel a "chief." So then we said, okay, then they'd gone up to pad director, or pad this and so on, but it had to be something, since I was a civilian, working for McDonnell, for a contractor, it had to be something that was not in the NASA arsenal … and the government. Well, finally, I don't know who came up with it, we … decided that "pad leader" would be a term we could use that would cover it, but not offend anybody. But the funny thing was, at that time, Yardley, who was our big base manager, the question came up, what is my authority in that position? And so finally, I have a letter somewhere in my file here, it says, okay, to define my job function was, "Any and all activities in and around the spacecraft and its attending GSE [Ground Support Equipment] is under my direction. However, I will work to establish channels of engineering and shop people and NASA people."

But, see, anything that had to do with the spacecraft, I controlled. So in other words, I had to have this, because I couldn't have five people doing something different [things], you know, when I wasn't sure what they were going to do. So that's when the idea came up that I was getting to be a dictator… Sure. My philosophy was, if I have full responsibility, I also must have [the] authority, and that's how the dictator came into being. I said, "Fine. I mean, I accept it, and I do everything in my power to learn everything about the job."

… I spent many, many a night, just sitting in my boat in the Banana River, playing the "what if" game. You know, what if this happens? What if this happens? Because you have people [that] you're responsible for. Now, in general, we have seen things blow up, so you've got to make damn sure nothing blows up, or you kill people.

… for that reason, I played the "what if" game… [As an example:] at one time, the chief electrical engineer for McDonnell, … was going to run a troubleshooting … [test] by plugging two wires into a P-42 it was, a plug, but that plug also had the firing circuit for the drogue chutes and the parachutes… I told … [Estes], … "Hey, the only way I'll let you plug in power is, you have a plug with two pigtails… [and] we check it out." He said, "That takes too long to make." I said, "That's the only way you're going to get it."

So he went to Yardley, and Yardley called me and he says, "Hey, we need to get going. We need to do this."

I said, "John, that's the way it's going to be."

He said, "I wonder, who in the hell is in charge of that operation?"

I said, "I know who is in charge." I said, "You are running the show, [and you can fire me,] but if you want to do that test, you better have a plug with pigtails."

"Well then, okay." Later on, he came back, he said, "I should have known, I should have just gone and … [had] the plug up." Because … there are certain things that you … [believe], "Okay, I cannot go any farther than that." And … [these actions] established the relationship between the astronaut and myself. … [I]n the beginning, I told them, and they knew, I would never jeopardize my conscience for the benefit of the company or for the benefit of the schedule. And I told the company, "If you don't want me there in that position, get rid of me." Just because to expedite things or to make the company look good when I know it is bad, it will not happen.

… this is the philosophy that [I] developed. They knew very well. My last boss, … [Thomas J.] O'Malley, … always used to say, "Damn it, I don't know who you work for. It sounds like you work for NASA, but I'm … [paying you]."

I said, "Tom, the badge doesn't mean anything, just gives me access to the place. We are all in the program, and if I see something wrong, I will speak up." And that was my philosophy. And then later on they learned, very quick-like, that that's the way it needs to go.

As a matter of fact, in Gemini one time, I had two guys, so-called "section managers" from Houston, show up, up on Pad 19 in the white room.

McDonald: Were these NASA people?

Wendt: They were NASA people, yeah, yeah. And so they were looking around a little while, and then I said, "Gentlemen, I'd like you to leave. I'm going to pressurize some tanks."

The guy looked at my badge, he says, "We don't take directions from contractor people."

I said, "Sir, I am responsible for this facility here, and I want you to leave."

He said, "This belongs to NASA. You can't tell us what to do."

I said, "Okay." I had a guard sitting down at the elevator shaft… I called him … on intercom five. I said, "Joe, can you send me some security up? I need to remove some people."

He said, "Sure do."

So the next thing I see, up the ramp comes the police car with the lights flashing … at that time, you've got to understand that the Cape side, I mean, the Air Force side, … they … [were] tough. So here come two of the guys. They said, "Okay, which one?"

I said, "These two over there."

Well, the guys looked, and the guy walks over. He says, "Gentlemen, you go voluntarily or we'll put you in handcuffs."

The guy said, "Oh, forget it. We are leaving now."

He said, "No, you don't leave. … [We] will … [take you] with us down to the police car, [then] we take you to headquarters, and your base manager can bail you out from headquarters."

And … from then on … when NASA guys came, they always said, "Hey, there's that mean son of a bitch that called security." But, see, you only had to do it maybe 5 percent of the time, that you had to pull your weight… Normally, people were understanding. As a matter of fact, the higher they were, like [Werner] von Braun or … [Dr. Debus they understood], I would say, "… [W]e want to do this right now. Can we do that?"

… [They would say,] "Oh, hey, … [we] understand. Let … [us] get going"... But the smaller people … think [because] they are section manager or whatever the hell they … think they can pull their weight around.

Story. One day I got a call, also on Titan. Yardley called me. "Hey, I'd like you to come by and talk to me."

"Hmm. About what?"

"I have a story here that you threw the old man off the pad." The "old man" used to be J. [James] S. McDonnell. … I knew him when I hired in. … he used to know just about every employee. And he was very patriotic.

… I said, "No, I didn't throw the old man off the pad."

He [Yardley] said, "Okay, but I'd like to hear your side of the story."

I said, "John, it went something like that. Mr. Mac [James S. McDonnell] was up on the structure, and when he is there, I don't get any work done, because everybody pays attention to him and answers questions and so on. After about twenty minutes, I figure I get behind schedule. So I walked over to him and I said, 'Mr. Mac, I know you have a heart condition. Let me alert you. That elevator we have here, it quits about six, seven times a day. The only way down is that 130-foot ladder, and I don't think you want to use that ladder, and I have an elevator right now here. Maybe you want to use it.' He said, 'Guenter, that's a marvelous idea,' and so he left." I said, "Did I throw him out? No, I didn't. I just looked out for his health." [Laughter]

I admit … [that] I got stuck every time we had VIPs and all that jazz, and some of them, the dumbest guys you ever will meet. I mean, like Gephardt, Senator Gephardt. One time he came up on the Atlas pad, and, you know, the typical press corps all around, and well, he comes up and he says, "My good man, where are the engines on this thing?" Now, you've got to understand, he's the number-two man on the Space Committee, okay?

I said, "Senator, they are way down there, below."

"Oh, you mean it goes up like this?"

I said, "Yes, Senator, it goes up like this." And you wonder, "Shoot, number two on the space committee, huh?" [Laughter] Oh, we had some nifty things.

One time we had a senator there, and you know how they … [like a] "photo opportunity," so he leans on the spacecraft