Saturday, March 31, 2012

A Brother's Story


WHAT WOULD BE a Grissom Classic without a classic Grissom?
        Happily, Club members need not experience such an event. Reason: On June 21 the Club will be honored to host
LOWELL and BOB-
ETTE GRISSOM on the occasion of their second visit to the Classic.
Lowell is Gus' younger brother, and is the youngest of Dennis and Cecille Grissom’s four children. He grew up in Mitchell, Ind., and graduated from Mitchell High and Indiana U.
            Lowell and Bobette are the parents of two children, John and Susan.
            He began a career with McDonnell-Douglas in 1961, a career that put him to work as director of sales and marketing in the Information Systems Group. The career sent the Grissoms to several posts within the United States until he retired, in 1987. As he was retiring from McDonnell-Douglas, he became president of Professional Event Planners, Inc., a job he held until 2010.
            Grissom has been a director of the Astronaut Memorial Foundation since 1995. He currently serves as a member of the board of trustees for AMF, a member of the board of the Apollo 1 Memorial Foundation, and as an advisor to the board of the Space Museum, in Bonne Terre, Mo.
Grissom has spoken nationally about his famous brother and the U.S. space program, and has appeared in the Discovery Channel documentaries "When We Left Earth: The NASA Missions" and "Liberty Bell 7: The Lost Spacecraft," and “The Boilermakers: Gus Grissom,” produced by Mr. John Doty and Purdue University.
            The Purdue Club Welcomes both of you as all of us salute and celebrate together yet again!

Sunday, March 25, 2012

People in Motion
Tend to Stay in Motion


QUESTION: How many rocket scientists does it take to change a light bulb?

ANSWER One  (But who's counting?)

BETTER QUESTION: How many rocket scientists does it take to send men to the moon and return them safely to the earth?

ANSWER: Thousands!

FACT IS, the innocent “Beep – Beep – Beep” of the Soviet Union’s Sputnik satellite, in October 1957, was probably the quietest wake-up call in modern history. Admittedly, it caught America somewhat flat-footed, but this nation’s response was quick, and its success certain.

Success was ensured by thousands of engineers who figured out everything from ballistics in zero G to life-support in an environment of zero oxygen. And they did it quickly! Four of those engineers will guest with Club members at our “Gus” Grissom Golf Classic and Scholarship Banquet – our nineteenth annual – on Thursday, June 21, 2012.

Engineers who have confirmed attendance at the Classic are…

Mr. Norman Beckel Jr. and wife Marlene,

    Mr. Dean Purdy and wife Carol,

        Mr. Jerry Roberts and wife Sandra, and

            Mr. Bob Schepp.

All began their aerospace careers with McDonnell-Douglas Aerospace, in St. Louis, and put it all on the line throughout projects Mercury and Gemini and beyond. Herewith, your Purdue Alumni Club introduces the guests of the 2012 Grissom Classic…

“To Be Sure You Will Know
What I'm Saying…”


HOW MANY KINDS OF RADIO existed in 1959? People listened to AM and FM. Radar had been around since World War II. “UHF” and “VHF” were terms understood by few outside of scientific circles. “TV,” although gaining popularity, was primitive. (Remember black-&-white TV?)

How many forms of radio components could the casual observer squeeze into a Mercury capsule that was no larger than a very small car?

Fortunately, NASA found engineers such as NORMAN BECKEL, and instructed him – and them – to load the capsule with at least seven radio transmitters and receivers. The move to miniaturize was ON!

Beckel was ready for the job. After graduating from Penn State (E.E., 1958), he spent the first two of his McDonnell-Douglas years preparing the F4H Phantom for flight. In February 1959, M-D assigned him to the new Mercury Manned Space Program, where he would work in the Spacecraft Communication Systems Group.

After a few months with Team Beckel on the job, the Mercury capsules were crammed with HF and UHF transceivers, UHF, S- and C-Band radar beacons, a recovery beacon, intercom and supporting antenna systems to name only a few – and the first capsule was still months from launch.

“I served as the McDonnell-Douglas communications engineer in the blockhouse for astronauts Shepard and Glenn,” said Beckel in February.

True to form, after Mercury Beckel returned to St. Louis and immediately re-started the process, this time with Project: Gemini in his role as lead communications engineer. During the Beckel years, there were no significant communication problems with Mercury nor Gemini.

Much of Beckel’s post-Gemini career involved him in classified programs, among them Gemini B and the Hexagon spy satellite. His work on the Tomahawk cruise missile rounded out his thirty-seven years with M-D. He retired in 1994 as a subcontract manager with Project: Tomahawk.

Friday, March 23, 2012

"Go West, Young Man"


ENGINEER DEAN PURDY began his life in Lima, Ohio, but soon found himself on the westward trail that Horace Greeley so long ago advised – and it has served him well. After high school in Lima, Purdy enrolled in the Indiana Institute of Technology, in Fort Wayne. At IIT, he had little difficulty en route to earning a B.S. in Electrical Engineering in 1955. His timing could not have been better, as prime time for space-minded engineers was just around the corner.

As with so many engineers of the day, Purdy’s skills were about to come into ever-greater demand, strongest coming from McDonnell-Douglas Aerospace, who lured him further west, to St. Louis, in September of ’55. At the time, few knew where the job would take him, but “over the next thirty-nine-plus years, I worked on one Mach 2 jet fighter program, three missile programs and eight space programs, including five manned space programs,” recalled Purdy in February.

“I joined the Mercury team in early 1959, working in the electrical power and sequential systems design group, and stayed with the Mercury program until completion,” said Purdy. After a quick switch to Project: Gemini, Purdy was a key member of the electrical design team that monitored the electrical wiring system and fuel-cell development. Soon, he would know every detail of Gus’ “Molly Brown” and those that followed, for he was assigned to the Gemini Operations Team responsible for the electrical test complex design and the spacecraft’s electrical systems testing.

After Gemini, Purdy joined the Manned Orbiting Laboratory program to lead the electrical design of the heat-shield qualification vehicle.

In his spare time, Purdy gave his full attention and expertise to program management of the last two orbital attitude maneuvering system pods for the space-shuttle program, the modular power subsystem for NASA’s multi-mission modular spacecraft, electrophoresis operations in space and the transporter electrical storage system and external lighting modules for the international space station.

He retired in 1994 as director of military and space electronics. These days, Dean, wife Carol and hundreds of retired M-D co-workers cover all points of the compass as they travel to tell the stories of their involvement in leading America’s way to the moon. We members of the Purdue Alumni Club Welcome you to the 2012 Grissom Classic and Scholarship Banquet!

Thursday, March 22, 2012

"Ignition and Liftoff!"

MR. JERRY ROBERTS graduated from the University of Arkansas in 1959 and, within a month, was an electrical engineer with McDonnell-Douglas Astronautics and Project: Mercury’s Automatic Stabilization and Control System team. Sounds simple, but his job description involved him with Mercury’s autopilot system, horizon sensor and attitude indicator. “We were responsible for design definition, hardware procurement, testing, evaluation and system integration. I frequently briefed the astronauts regarding system operation and status,” Roberts said in February.

Roberts worked with Mercury for the entirety of the series, then quickly switched to Project: Gemini in time to work with Gus and co-pilot John Young as they prepared the “Molly Brown” for the first launch of the Gemini series, on March 23, 1965. Roberts and Grissom worked tirelessly on the Gemini craft, trying to give it the “feel” of a jet with a control stick. That philosophy took root, and the Gemini capsule was soon dubbed the "Gusmobile.” As one astronaut described it, “It felt like we were flying this one, and not just along for the ride.”

Roberts and scores of McDonnell-Douglas engineers spent the Mercury and Gemini years commuting between St. Louis and the Cape. After Gemini, Roberts stayed with McDonnell-Douglas while accepting assignments to the Manned Orbiting Lab, Skylab and development of the Tomahawk missile. By the time he retired, in 1989, he was chief design engineer and department manager of all McDonnell-Douglas electrical and mechanical design engineers.

With the advent of Skylab, Roberts was again splitting time between St. Louis and the Cape. His assignment was to coordinate the design and definition of electrical systems in the M-D hardware, to ensure safe connections between the M-D hardware and other contractors’ hardware. And soon, “I was again a member of the launch team for initial hardware module launch.”

“I pursued a job with McDonnell Aircraft strictly because they had received the Mercury contract, and I had a strong interest in space exploration,” added Roberts. “My greatest thrill was a close working association with the original astronauts, and being in the blockhouse when the vault door closed, the rocket engines ignited and we had liftoff!”    

From NASA to the Classic


BY  THE TIME BOB SCHEPP graduated from Washington University, St. Louis, in 1959, he had logged three years with McDonnell-Douglas in its division of autopilot systems. With the ink on his degree still wet, in 1960 M-D transferred him to Project: Mercury, where he spent the early part of the program testing the Automatic Stability and Control System (ASCS) prior to delivering the capsules to Cape Canaveral for launch.

Soon after the Mercury assignment, “the decision was made that the St. Louis engineers would be part of the launch team for all of the Mercury launches, and I was selected for that team. I tested the ASCS as part of the launch counts for the Redstone and Atlas flights," recalled Schepp. "I started on the Redstone flights as a member of the launch teams for Alan Shepard and Gus. After Gus’ flight, I joined the launch teams for the Atlas flights of John Glenn and Scott Carpenter.”

After Mercury, Schepp returned to St. Louis and began work on Project: Gemini and its target docking adapter. When McDonnell-Douglas wound down its commitment to Gemini, Schepp had enjoyed his years as test conductor for power and sequential systems on the even-numbered spacecraft.

At that point, M-D sent him into the Manned Orbiting Laboratory program followed by a couple years on flight simulators prior to assignment to Skylab. After Skylab, he enjoyed fourteen years of work on the Tomahawk Cruise Missile.

Schepp retired from McDonnell-Douglas/Boeing in 2002
with nearly forty-seven years of service.

“I was a very young engineer, and most of us young people had the attitude that there was nothing we couldn’t do! It was really quite an accomplishment putting humans into space and returning them safely. I was indeed very honored and proud to be part of that history.”

Even as he was wrapping up his career with McDonnell-Douglas, Schepp returned to Washington U. and earned a Master’s Degree in International Affairs in 1996. Since 2003, however, he has been a substitute teacher in the Parkway School District, just west of St. Louis. “My purpose is to use my experiences to encourage students to work hard on math and science and to seriously consider a technical or engineering career. We need the youngsters of today for the exploration of tomorrow!”