William Hanson

Las Cruces, NM

PROGRAMS:

Apollo Program

COMPANIES:

LOCATIONS:

Kennedy Space Center

POSITIONS:

Electronics Technician

COMMENTS:

I started my engineering career by working on Apollo 10, 11 (1st moon landing – best job ever!) and 12 at Kennedy Space Center for the Federal Electric Corporation (FEC) division of ITT in 1969. I am still employed in the aerospace industry in 2023.

I worked at the Launch Control Center (LCC) for the Telemetry department. I occasionally worked in the Vehicle Assembly Building (VAB) and on the Launch Pads.

I maintained and operated the weather sensing and recording telemetry equipment. I also maintained the LCC Eidophor telemetry displays (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eidophor). The Eidophor displays are what you saw displaying launch telemetry data above the heads of the folks working at all the consoles in the LCC during the TV broadcasts.

I maintained the sensors, cabling, recording and display equipment, however during launch operations I became a strip-chart recorder operator and annotated the launch events in real-time.