New
#491
Went to a talk today given by a guy named Phil Pollacia. He is an old time IBM'er that that worked on all the flight command code for the Gemini up through the SpaceLab programs. He headed up the team that did all the vector calculations for the translunar injection, lunar orbital insertion, trans earth injection, and then re-entry insertion and splashdown. He sat in the control room for Gemini, Apollo, and SpaceLab. Fascinating guy. Turns out he lives in my hometown! He had numerous pictures of him with Chris Craft and a number of the astronauts. Gave about a 2 hour talk and then Q&A for about an hour. Most people asked about Apollo 13 and the movie, etc. But one story he mentioned was that Apollo 8 had some VERY serious nav issues when Lovell mistakenly entered a command that reconfigured the spacecraft orientation and they developed a bad serious wobble that took some celestial dead reckoning to get the spacecraft reoriented properly. The spacecraft and crew would have been lost had it not been for the flight skills of Lovell and Borman. Much more serious than the public ever knew. Very close to losing it he said. Apollo 8 was also the mission in which the famous Earth rise photograph was taken during the Genesis reading. That particular photo completely changed our view of Earth and our place in the Universe. It was also 1968 and the US was in the midst of much social upheaval and that photo made everyone stop and think.
As an ex-Hughes Aircraft guy who worked on satellite systems (being a Chef is a second career) I was really interested in his insights. All in all a fascinating talk from an interesting guy. Hope to see him around town.