MN Future Problem Solving Program

Earle Kyle's Aerospace Passion

The following essay was written in late July 2008 by Earle Kyle, one of the aerospace engineers who helped design the Apollo spaceships that took men to the Moon. It is a reflection of a life-long passion for all things related to the aerospace field, but in particular that part of it devoted to manned space missions with the ultimate goal of someday placing humans on the planet Mars.

We're especially honored to share it with you.

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As a boy I loved science fiction. When I read the old 1952 Collier's Magazine articles by Wernher von Braun about how we could send humans to Mars, I was hooked for life. I was in 8th grade and Sputnik hadn't gone up yet, so all my teachers told me to forget it, that none of this "space crap" (as they called it) would ever happen in my lifetime. When I graduated from high school in 1956, I got the same reaction when I gave my valedictory address on my dreams for space travel. Sputnik went up the following year and the phone never stopped ringing off the hook for guys like me. It was a golden era for high paid employment in anything dealing with aerospace and high technology. 

I helped design the first Orbiting Solar Observatory; the SR-71 Blackbird (the world's fastest plane); the Phantom-II fighter plane; The C-5A Galaxy Star Lifter (the world's biggest cargo airplane); the Thor-Delta missile (the rocket family still used to launch robotic space probes); The Apollo Spaceships; Skylab (the USA's 1st space station); The Manned Orbiting Laboratory (the Air Force's space station initiative); biomedical systems for the Space Shuttle; and telemetry data systems for the Atlantic Missile Range.

I also did work for the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA), all branches of the military, the National Institutes of Health (NIH), Federal Pollution Control Agencies, Midwest Research Institute, Northstar Research Institute, Carnegie-Mellon University Research Institute, and several Fortune 500 companies. The projects included developing remote sensing technologies for chemical & biological warfare alarm systems, oil spill monitoring systems, biomedical components for NIH's artificial heart program, communication aids for children with cerebral palsy, and several advanced telecommunication and imaging systems for the commercial printing and insurance industries. 

I was blessed to be able to start my aerospace career at age 19 as a third year college student. I was even more blessed to be able to work on the Apollo project and to stand in the VIP viewing area that bright summer morning in 1969 to watch Neil Armstrong and crew take off for that historic first landing of men on the Moon. Words can't describe it, and I will never forget it. Even after all these years when I see videos of the launch it still overwhelms me emotionally.

I was 2.8 miles away from the launch pad, yet could instantly feel the searing heat on my face from those five giant engines starting up on the Saturn V rocket. The initial spot of flame was brighter than the overhead morning sun. An eerie dead silence engulfed us as we watched in awe as this thing big as a medium sized skyscraper slowly started to lift itself up into the air. At that distance it took the sound almost 15 seconds to reach us.

I was standing at the top of the bleachers to get a good camera shot above the crowd. Suddenly I could see a shock wave coming across the water that separated our viewing area from the launch pad. Birds were flying up to get out of its way as the wave rapidly advanced toward us.

Still there was dead silence. The smoke was now rising higher than this 36-story monster riding up on a column of flame. Then the shock wave hit. It hit me hard in the belly. It was as if Muhammad Ali had slammed his fist into my gut. The noise was like the roar of a thousand canons going off at a machine gun rate. The beat frequency of the five huge engines, sucking fuel so fast they could empty a 30,000-gallon Olympic size swimming pool in 10 seconds was creating a crackling staccato - pummeling everything around us. The ground shook like an earthquake had hit. The floor of the bleacher I was standing on was bouncing up and down. The backrest was moving back and forth. I could hardly hold my camera steady to take pictures.

Outside in the public viewing area over 1-million people stood to witness the event. Most were over 10 miles away, so didn't experience what those of us nearer the pad felt, but it still must have been spectacular. Before the launch there were protesters on TV complaining about wasting money on manned Moon missions with all the problems here on Earth. After the launch those same protestors were instantly changed and awe struck by what they had just seen. Suddenly they were cheering for Apollo 11 to make it to the Moon.

My boyhood dream had come true. My poor eyesight and youth prevented me from going along for the ride, so I settled for the next best thing - to be a designer of the aerospace flight hardware systems. Nearby inside the control room where I was standing was my hero, Wernher von Braun. I'm sorry I never got to meet him. I'm glad, however, that he lived to see his boyhood dream come true of putting humans on another celestial body. For him the Moon was just the first step in reaching his real goal of sending men to Mars.

I was luckier than most aerospace engineers of that time. When war and public boredom resulted in lack of support for space, many of my peers ended up driving cabs in Los Angeles. When I was invited back to that same VIP viewing area years later to watch the last Apollo launch (Apollo 17), and the last test launch of the Space Shuttle (STS-4), I had the same thrill as before even though I was no longer in the space hardware design business and had gone on to other technical activities.

But I must confess I was never happier than when I was working those long 100-hour weeks on Apollo and losing my marriage in the process. We worked 7-days per week and never stopped until we accomplished the goal. I still vividly recall getting into a cab that Saturday morning after president Kennedy was assassinated with tears in my eyes to go to my job to continue working on the mission.

What I am trying to tell you is that I have a passion for this stuff. This manned space travel business. I have no idea where it came from. Maybe it's the atoms in my body that were created in some distant star that exploded and seeded the galaxy with the stuff of which I am made wanting to go home again. All I know is that passionate people do their best when working on what they love. If you read the old 1970's book, "Passion to Know", you'll understand what I'm talking about. I would have paid them to work on Apollo. 

Now I 'm almost 70-years old and a consultant to school systems and small hi-tech companies. I help design STEM programs to increase the number of minorities and females in the science and technology areas. Most of my clients have the same complaint - today's kids are not inspired to learn, and companies can't find the talent to pursue their global marketing objectives. Kids don't care that even legal and medical positions are now being sent overseas to Asia. They haven't heard of Daniel Pink's book "Free Agent Nation" to learn to compete in the changing global economy. They haven't had the spark lit in them as described in John Brockman's book, "Curious Minds". Parents are baffled by lazy boys content to spend their lives on the couch watching TV or playing video games as described in Leonard Sax's book, "Boys Adrift". 

When I give inspirational talks to school kids about what we're doing now and in the future with manned space exploration, I am still amazed as one who recalls Pearl Harbor (and with fresh memories as an old cold warrior) that we are now working with the Russians and the Japanese on building the International Space Station. Space programs have a way of bringing people together for a common cause.

We are a wealthy nation that spends something on the order of only 0.1% of our $13 Trillion GDP on all space activities, yet realize a 1,500 % annual return on that investment as it injects more than $220 Billion into our national economy. We can easily afford our space program when you consider its economic leverage and its importance to the quality of life here on Earth.

Technological breakthroughs come at an accelerating rate. My dad was born before the Wright brothers flew the world's first airplane. It took over 50 years for the Russians to put up man's first space satellite, Sputnik. But only 12 years after that, Neil Armstrong set foot on the Moon. My dad lived 83 years and saw not only that; but robots landing on Mars, probes to all the planets, and four spacecraft leaving the solar system on their way to the stars. So don't tell me that today's kids won't live to see men on Mars.

Telling a passionate person that something is impossible is a sure fire way to make it happen. Donald Rapp's book, "Human Missions to Mars: Enabling Technologies for Exploring the Red Planet", is the best thing that could have happened for manned missions to Mars. He is completely against manned missions; stating that robots can do our exploring cheaper, better, and faster. But by detailing all of the difficulties in conducting a manned Mars mission, he has only inspired that next generation of space explorers to prove him wrong. There will still be a passionate few who won't sit on the couch for the rest of their lives. That passionate few will love the challenge of doing the impossible and the spinoffs will be spectacular - beyond our wildest dreams. 

 Stick around and watch it happen.