EETimes - Apollo - July 20, 2009 - 14

M is sio n C o n t r o l for scientific experiments. In some respects, Skylab was the bridge to a long-duration space presence. Liebergot’s Skylab tour of duty was marked by a drama reminiscent of Apollo 13: a damaged craft, this time due to the loss of a micrometeoroid shield, and a rescue effort to save the dying ship. After Skylab, Liebergot reassumed the EECOM title for the Apollo-Soyuz Test Project. A Cold War-era collaboration with the Soviet space program (and the last use of the Apollo platform), ASTP offered Liebergot the chance to work out procedures with cautious Soviet counterparts in the spirit of détente. Vast technical differences between the countries’ space efforts became apparent, but years of planning—amid the occasional episode of spying—paid off with a joint U.S.-Soviet flight. Fourteen years after the Soviets had prodded America to set sail for the 14 EE Times | Apollo | July 20, 2009 moon, the rivals teamed up in orbit. When the space shuttle program got under way, Liebergot again served in the EECOM role, and after a series of “fresh starts” at NASA, he worked on planning for the space station (ISS), an effort that would occupy the closing decade of his NASA career. In 1998, he moved to Rockwell for five years, serving in its shuttle program office in Houston, before heading to a private-sector contractor responsible for a mix of weightless training simulation and configuration and content management roles for the ISS. In that final space-related role, Liebergot found himself in the contractor-engineer community, “sometimes criticizing the very flight control” fraternity among whom he had spent so many years. To borrow a line from “Apollo EECOM,” Liebergot’s book, “Every fence has two sides.” Asked whom he most admired at NASA, Liebergot mentions Christopher Kraft, ultimately Houston’s director of flight operations and “a man who encouraged an answer of ‘I don’t know’ when that was the true answer”; fellow EECOM (and subject of this article) John Aaron, whom Liebergot respects for his quiet but formidable competence; and Kranz, Liebergot’s Black Team flight director and a demanding but fair leader who set the bar for controller competence, responsibility and accountability. Liebergot’s book provides a full and very personal accounting of his time before, at and after NASA. Along with great anecdotes, the book includes a CD with the actual Apollo 13 mission EECOM audio loops, which will put you at the console and provide a sense of the EECOM roles and relations within MOCR. p

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EETimes - Apollo - July 20, 2009

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