Aiming for the stars: Former NASA flight director Griffin speaks at HCYR Observatory launch party

The Hill Country Youth Ranch hosted a launch party for its renovation of the observatory on its Big Springs campus on Sunday.

The Brinton-Franklin Observatory will be unveiled by Oct. 22 on the HCYR Big Springs campus in Leakey.

“We’ll now be able to repair the dome motor and assembly, rewire the electronics and install internet lines from the telescope so our kids — and even NASA, believe it or not — can dial in and see the open skies from our Big Springs campus,” said Tye Phelps, HCYR donor relations officer.

Guests were treated to a lecture and Q&A session with Gerry Griffin, who served as the flight director for all of the Apollo Program manned missions, followed by a screening of the film “Apollo 13.”

Griffin’s team was scheduled to conduct the moon landing of Apollo 13, but when it was canceled as result of an oxygen tank explosion, they played a key role in the safe return of the astronauts.

“It was fun, despite the bad times,” Griffin said about the formative early days of space exploration. “For one thing, we did something that hadn’t been done. We were all kind of young and didn’t know we couldn’t do it, so we just went ahead and did it.”

After earning a Bachelor of Science degree in Aeronautical Engineering from Texas A&M University, Griffin was commissioned as an officer in the United States Air Force, where he served four years on active duty. Before joining NASA, he joined the space program as a systems engineer/flight controller at the USAF Satellite Test Center in Sunnyvale, California.

“The robotic part of it. We call that unmanned space flight,” he said. “It’s played a big role in everything that has helped to enhance human space flight. Things like satellites are necessary. They’re the trailblazers for human exploration. They help teach us what to expect.”

Griffin joined NASA in 1964 as a flight controller in Mission Control, specializing in guidance, navigation and control systems for Project Gemini and the early unmanned missions of the Apollo Program. By 1968, Griffin was named Mission Control flight director and served in that role for all of the Apollo Program crewed missions.

“Our goal for human space flight was the moon. It’s the closest friend we have in our solar system, and it was almost like it was just waiting for us to see if we could put a man on the surface,” Griffin said.

NASA’s first crewed spaceflight was launched on May 5, 1961. The Mercury-Redstone 3 was piloted by Alan Shepard. The mission was a success with a 15-minute suborbital flight that demonstrated the astronaut’s ability to withstand high g-forces during launch and atmospheric re-entry.

In June 1965, Gemini 4 was launched with astronauts James McDivitt and Ed White aboard. White would free float outside of the spacecraft for approximately 23 minutes, tethered to it for safety, making him the first American to space walk.

During Christmas of 1968, Apollo 8 was launched and was the first human spaceflight to reach the moon. The crew — Frank Norman, James Lovell and William Anders — orbited the moon 10 times, making them the first humans to see and photograph the far side of the moon and an Earthrise.

“We lost contact with them while they were working on the backside of the moon,” Griffin said. “When they came back around and we had contact again, Commander Borman said, ‘Houston, there really is a Santa Claus,’ because everything went smoothly on their end.”

By May of 1969, Apollo 10 was ready for launch.

“Apollo 10 was like a dress rehearsal. We got to 50,000 feet above the surface of the moon, but the lunar module was too heavy. We didn’t have enough fuel or capability in performance to get them off the moon and back home safely,” he said.

Apollo 11 would launch two months later with updated modules. Commander Neil Armstrong and Pilot Buzz Aldrin landed on the moon on July 20, 1969, and Armstrong became the first person to set foot on the surface of the moon.

“There wasn’t a lot of excitement in the control center when they landed, because we knew we had to get them home, which had never been done from that far away,” Griffin said.

Apollo 13 was NASA’s third planned mission to land on the moon, but the astronauts never made it to the surface — 56 hours into the flight, an oxygen tank explosion forced the crew to abandon their mission and seek shelter in a cramped lunar module for the duration of the trip back to Earth. Once they reached Earth’s atmosphere, the crew returned to the ship for a splashdown, as the module did not have a heat shield to protect it upon reentry.

“The leadership is really what lead us to do what we did. You’ve got to put decisions down where the expertise is,” Griffin said of his time at NASA. “Don’t bring everything up to the top. Trust people to get things done.

“I don’t think you could do this today. It’s just not in the DNA of the people who are trying to get there,” he said.

The people who are now at the forefront of space exploration include business magnates such as Elon Musk and Jeff Bezos, who have developed commercial aerospace enterprises such as SpaceX and Blue Origin.

Both aerospace manufacturers are currently working with NASA on the development of landing systems for the Artemis program.

The Artemis program is intended to reestablish a human presence on the moon for the first time since Apollo 17 in 1972. Long-term goals for the program include establishing a permanent base on the moon to help facilitate manned missions to Mars.

“We haven’t had a human on Mars yet, but we will,” Griffin said. “I think human space flight will remain the domain of governments, but with international partners, and part of those partners are the commercial guys.”

Artemis I was an unmanned moon-orbiting mission that launched on Nov. 16, 2022, and landed in the Pacific Ocean off Baja California on Dec. 11, 2022.

Artemis II is scheduled to launch no earlier than Sept. 2025.

Griffin left NASA in 1986 for the private sector to become president and CEO of the Greater Houston Chamber of Commerce. Looking back at his career in the space program, he said that everything starts with an education.

“Any time that you can get hands-on experience is where you really learn,” he said. “The time that these kids will have with the telescope in the observatory will definitely give them a leg up. It gives them opportunities that they won’t have anywhere else.”

The Hill Country Youth Ranch provides a safe, loving and life-enhancing Christian environment for children and young adults who have suffered severe trauma from abuse or neglect.

For more information on the Hill Country Youth Ranch or to make a donation, visit https://youth-ranch.org/ or call 830-367-2131.

This article was originally published in the Oct. 8, 2024 edition of The Kerrville Daily Times.