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Responsible for astronauts' lives
Editor's Note: The follow ing was written by Jim Westcot and was part of his 1989 memoir, "To the Moon in a Volkswagen."

Apollo took man to moon

e was just a grade school kid in Kansas, sprawled one beautiful summer evening on his front lawn, staring into the night sky. "I remember this other kid asking me, 'Do you think we will ever get to the moon?' " Dick Rowland recalls now, more than 50 years later. "I said, 'Of course we will, but never in my lifetime.'" Rowland, 64, couldn't know it then, but as an electrical engineer at Collins Radio Company in Cedar Rapids, he'd later spend 10 years on the front lines of the U.S. space program, in the thick of the frantic effort to put an astronaut on the moon. At 9:56 p.m. on July 20,1969, when Neil Armstrong stepped down from the lunar lander and pronounced he had taken "One small step for man . . . One giant leap for mankind," his words were beamed to Earth on a radio system Rowland and hundreds of other Collins workers had spent years perfecting for the Apollo moon mission. Now retired after 33 years as an avionics systems engineer and living in Cedar Rapids at 2508 Blue Ridge Dr. NE, Rowland will join hundreds of other Apollo-era colleagues for a July 20 reunion and celebration of the 25th anniversary of man's first moon walk. During its peak in the mid-1960s, the Apollo program involved more than 500 Collins workers. As a subcontractor for North American Aviation, Collins was recruited to provide all the communications and data electronics for the Apollo command module and all voice and data transmission equipment needed to link the Apollo astronauts with Earth. "Neil Armstrong and the others couldn't talk back and forth without going through some Collins equipment," Rowland says. "That was true in the U.S. space program from Mercury through Apollo." Now 67 and living at 3815 Indiandale Circle SE, Jim Westcot was the Apollo program manager at Collins. He says he'll never forget the night Armstrong left his bootprints in the lunar dust. "I was out on my deck, in Cedar Rapids, with my wife, Helen, and our three daughters," he recalls. "We had brought out a little TV set, and. we were looking both at it and this nearly full moon above us. It was absolutely thrilling. It just made the hair stand up on the back of my neck." Westcot remembers how the intensity of the effort invested in Apollo was hard on his family all those years of late night and road trips, being away for holidays and birthdays. "It was an exciting time, but we worked our tails off," he says. "There hasn't been a program before or since that had the quality and prevention built into it as did Apollo." Westcot and Rowland say state-of-the-art communications

Gazette Correspondent

During the course of the Apollo program we had many of the astronauts vis it us to keep us excited about the program and keep our spirits high. At one time or another, I be lieve that almost all of them visited Cedar Rapids. One visit, however, had unexpected results. It was unusual for the astronauts to visit the fac tory floor where the equip ment was being assembled, mostly by women workers. After an especially rousing speech, a unique event took place. A few of the people working on the pro gram asked to be trans ferred, and some actually quit. The problem was that they didn't want any part of being responsible for the lives of the astronauts dur ing the space missions. I guess the speeches were a little too effective.

Edwin Aldrin, pilot, is shown on the moon near Apollo 1 1 . The photo was taken by Neil Armstrong, the Apollo commander.

NASA photo

Gazette photos by Todd Mclnturf

AT LEFT: Retired Rockwell Collins employees Dick Rowland (standing)

equipment wasn't used for Apollo. "The NASA (National Aeronautics and Space Administration) program manager, Joe Shea, would say, 'I want to go to the moon in a Volkswagen,' which meant the design emphasis was on reliability, not high-tech. We

absolutely had to be sure there wasn't a failure, and there wasn't. One of our units had quad redundancy, which meant, after three failures, it. would still work." Turn to 2C: Apollo

Space lessons for area youngsters

Art Collins 'just whooped' at 1st view

pace travel and research will be the focus of activities and exhibits planned this summer by the Science Station, 427 First St. SE. A series of events for the week of July 17 planned jointly with Rockwell Collins and the Cedar Rapids Public Libary will note the anniversary of Neil Armstrong's walk on the moon July 20,1969. Events are as follows: Freedom Festival Star Lab, June 28 to July 4, Science Station. A miniature planetarium show will be held Tuesday through Saturday each hour beginning at 10 a.m. and Sunday and Monday each hour beginning at 1 p.m. Exhibit: "Space: All Things Imagined are Real," July 5 to Aug. 21, Science Station. Exhibit is from Melbourne, Florida's Space Coast Science Center in cooperation with NASA, Lockheed and Rockwell. Program: "You Don't Have to be a Rocket Scientist To Appreciate Space," July 19 from 7 to 9 p.m., Beems Auditorium, Public Library, featuring Donald Gurnett of the University of Iowa, and Steven Feller of Coe College, both physicists. Space Olympics, Science Station, July 20,10 a.m. to 4 p.m. Contests for all ages. Free to members. Cost for non-members: $2 for children 2-18; $3 for adults; $2.50 for senior citizens over 62. "Collision with Jupiter," "July 21, 9 a.m., program and live viewing, Science Station. Lunar Mission for Preschoolers, ages 3 to 6, July 24, Science Station. Instructor will be Helen Salvay. Advanced registration is required. Member cost, $3; non-member cost, $5.

ike many other families, Arthur and Mary Collins, and their two young sons, Allen and David, had their eyes fixed on the TV set, watching history in the making from their Cedar Rapids home. Then Neil Armstrong took a couple of steps on the moon and spoke. "I can still remember how clear the pictures and voice (communications) were," said Mary Collins. "And he just whooped." Art Collins, the reserved founder of Collins Radio Co., whose equipment transmitted the Apollo 11 video and audio story around the world, whooped. "The kids didn't know what he was whooping about, but they whooped, too. We sat there like silly, grinning Cheshire cats," she said. Then, like many other families, they went outside and looked at the moon, a nearly full moon. It still looked the same, but it wasn't. Art Collins, once a boy inventor and 59 in 1969, had once again thrust his name and that of his company into the history books just as he did in 1928

am excited like everyone. It was just fantastic, a great tribute to the people of Cedar Rapids who played a part in making this possible.
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Art Collins

and 1929 when his radios linked America with the South Pole adventures of Adm. Richard E. Byrd. "Those were exciting times," Mary Collins recalled recently from her Dallas home, where she moved several years ago after selling the family home in southeast Cedar Rapids. Arthur Collins died in 1987. "Somehow," she said in a

telephone interview, "while today's innovations are wonderful they don't seem as adventurous, as exciting as the moon walks. "It was a great thing. You sat there and wondered if it was going to work. Previous missions indicated it would. Yet, landing on the moon is different than just traveling in space." The next day Collins flew to

Dallas where he watched the remainder of the high drama. There, with the help of Mary Collins, The Gazette obtained a rare interview with Collins. "I am excited like everyone. It was just fantastic," he said, "a great tribute to the people of Cedar Rapids who played a part in making this possible. It was the people who did it," he repeated. "One of the things you think about is the feeling of accomplishment and personal participation. Everyone in Cedar Rapids certainly should be overjoyed." While all of the contractors and sub-contractors had gone on national television to outline their roles in the Apollo program, Collins didn't. It has always been sort of a mystery, but it was really quite simple, said Mary Collins. "He was not a publicity seeker," she said, recalling when he turned down an interview with Walter Cronkite. "He was shy. He knew he had to do certain things, like conduct the annual meetings and talk to engineering groups. But he was
Turn to 2C:

Collins