“Half of it was inside of the biological barrier, and half was on the other side,” she said. Without laptops or cellphones, the only way to get data in or out of the secure lab was via a Xerox machine, Caye remembers. Technologically, it was also a different time.
Exposure scares, which would occasionally last until two or three in the morning, could have resulted in researchers ending up in the quarantine facilities with the astronauts. To get to their lab, they had to strip down and go through an air shower before suiting up again in NASA-issued garments. Quarantine and other “formidable” safety procedures - for fear that researchers would be exposed to potentially dangerous lunar samples - were a big part of the Johnsons’ experience at the Space Center in Houston, she said.
There, they were able to catch a glimpse of the astronauts the night they returned to Houston, although the three men were quickly whisked away to quarantine facilities. Johnson and her husband, Richard, were the only Ames researchers to go to Texas, she said: “We jumped at the chance.” “At Ames, we were trying to protect the rocks from the personnel.” “While at the Johnson Space Center, we were trying to protect the personnel from the rocks,” said Caye Johnson, a retired Ames biologist and longtime Los Altos resident who now lives in the Stoneridge Creek senior living facility in Pleasanton that is home to five Apollo alumni. Months later, they were shipped to the Lunar Biology Lab at Ames, where biologists, careful not to contaminate the samples with organic particles, ran hundreds of tests in search of life. Samples arrived first at Johnson Space Center in Houston, where researchers worked to make sure the rocks did not contain hazardous materials. (Neil Armstrong/NASA via AP)Īmes scientists also analyzed the hundreds of pounds of rocks that astronauts brought back from the moon’s surface. descends a ladder from the Lunar Module during the Apollo 11 mission.
In this Jphoto made available by NASA, astronaut Buzz Aldrin Jr. At Ames, researchers like Green designed the basic shape of the capsule that carried Neil Armstrong, Buzz Aldrin and Michael Collins to the moon. The part that we contributed - it was part of the success of the whole mission.”Īt its peak, the Apollo program employed about 400,000 people. “Everyone did the part that they were supposed to. “Ames was supporting the other centers they were all supporting the industry,” said Green, 74, who retired in 2007 and now lives in San Jose. But on July 24, as the three astronauts aboard hurtled through Earth’s atmosphere, shedding flaming pieces of the heat shield behind them before splashing down safely into the Pacific Ocean, the team knew for sure that they had done their job. Unlike the lunar lander, the heat shield had been tested on previous Apollo missions, so it wasn’t an unknown. Known as an ablative heat shield, the material was designed to burn away during re-entry, keeping heat away from the metal spacecraft. NASA researchers at Ames had analyzed and tested a heat shield that insulated the Apollo module against extreme temperatures as the craft re-entered Earth’s atmosphere. Green, 74, of San Jose was a programmer who supported NASA Ames aerospace engineers who worked on the heat shield performance and verification, which were used for earth re-entry of the Apollo 11.
Green, 74, of San Jose on July 16, 2019, in San Jose, Calif. “We were worried about coming back through the atmosphere.” SAN JOSE, CA – JULY 15: A portrait of Michael J. “Most people in the propulsion area were worried about getting off the launch pad,” Green said. As a computer programmer, Green worked to support aerospace engineers testing the thermal protection system to allow the astronauts to safely return to earth. On this golden anniversary of Neil Armstrong’s historic “one small step for man,” the now-retired researchers at Mountain View’s NASA Ames who played a part in the Apollo 11 mission are celebrating the research center’s role in sending the first humans to the moon.įor many of them, their work played a role after the landing was done.
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