GRAA NEWSLETTER
P.O. Box 1184, Greenbelt, MD 20768-1184

IMPORTANT DATES

COMMENTS FROM TONY COMBERIATE, GRAA PRESIDENT: Our October speaker was Jonathan T. Malay, who was a career Navy specialist in oceanography, meteorology, and space before becoming a senior aerospace executive with Lockheed Martin. His talk, entitled “Sea and Sky Stories: A Naval Space Oceanographer Looks Back…and Up,” traced his life experience through a collection of amazing stories that eventually led him into the space business. Jon was one of the first oceanographers at the US Naval Academy and also earned him a graduate degree in Meteorology from the Naval Post Graduate School. On his first tour at sea, he was an Anti-submarine Warfare Officer on a destroyer, where he used his knowledge of ocean currents and pressure gradients to maximize the performance of the ship’s sonar system. He showed us how the ocean channels the sound and how the velocity of sound varies with ocean temperature and pressure. As an expert in analyzing ocean characteristics, he was introduced to astronauts from the early Shuttle flights who had taken some amazing and unprecedented photos from space, which complemented his research. After analyzing them, he got the job of briefing future Shuttle astronauts on how to take photos that would portray ocean dynamics and enhance the surface measurements collected from ships. He soon became very good friends with a number of astronauts and high-level NASA managers, many of whom were naval officers and his career soon shifted toward the space program. He spent the next several years in the Navy’s space program. Since the data from the Space Shuttle, Synthetic Aperture Radar data, and ocean color Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) could not be put into numerical models, he began to utilize thermal infrared data from Polar-orbiting Operational Environmental Satellite (POES) and sounder data from the Geostationary Environmental Satellite (GOES) to correlate the Navy’s radar altimeter data of sea surface height to ocean temperature and was able to model and map the world’s ocean in the presence of clouds. This led to the development of the Navy’s geodetic satellite, which was the forerunner of the Defense Meteorological Satellite Program (DMSP) and the National Polar-orbiting Operational Environmental Satellite (NPOES) missions. After retiring from the Navy in 1993, Jon worked for Orbital, NOAA, Ball Aerospace, and finally became the Lockheed Martin Washington representative. During his tenure, Lockheed Martin won the Maven, OSIRIS REx and GOES-R spacecraft contracts. He shared his Corporate Rep lessons learned with us, including: 1) never lie to a customer; 2) never cruise the customer corridors; 3) make appointments and keep to the schedule; 4) do not ask who is on the source selection committee or ask the customer about the budget; 5) never badmouth a competitor (you may work for them someday); and 6) never forget why you are there. Jon is now a cruise ship lecturer and has written several books, including “War in Our Wake,” about his experience on the last ship leaving Vietnam after everyone else had left and how they rescued hundreds of people after being ordered to leave. After being a naval officer, going all around the world, briefing astronauts and almost becoming one, briefing admirals, having serving as President of the American Meteorological Society, the American Astronautical Society, and the Goddard Contractors Association, John said that his greatest privilege was helping this nation do the miracles we do in space, in particular the Goddard missions.

TREASURER’S REPORT: Treasurer Jackie Gasch received tax-deductible donations from: William Cross, James Heppner, Ellen Herring, John Klineberg, John Lahzun, Robert Langley, Colleen Quinn-House, Audrey Rhodes, Richard Weiss, and William Worrall.

NEW BOOK PUBLISHED BY AEROSPACE ENGINEER AND AUTHOR SUNNY TSIAO : GRAA members may recall that back in 2008 NASA Headquarters commissioned Sunny Tsiao to write “Read You Loud and Clear,” a compelling history of the NASA tracking and data networks. At that time, GRAA made copies available to interested members. As of October 31^st, bookstores around the country (including online) released his latest book, entitled “Piercing the Horizon: The Story of Visionary NASA Chief Tom Paine.” The book tells the story of Thomas O. Paine, the third NASA Administrator, who led America’s charge to the Moon on Apollo spacecraft. GRAA members who served at Goddard during the Apollo era may have an interest in purchasing a copy.

REMEMBERING OUR FORMER COLLEAGUES:

• Arthur C. Aiken, Jr., of Silver Spring, MD, passed away on September 28^th. In 1961 he was a Physicist assigned to the Space Sciences Division of the Office of Space Science & Satellite Applications, which later changed its name to the Laboratory of Space Sciences in the Space Sciences Directorate (which later became the Space & Earth Sciences Directorate). In the ’80s, Dr. Aiken was assigned to the Laboratory for Planetary Atmospheres in the Applications Directorate (which later changed to be the Laboratory for Atmospheres) in the Earth Sciences Directorate). In the new millennium, his organizational affiliation became the Solar Systems Exploration Division of the Sciences & Exploration Directorate. Following his retirement, Dr. Aiken served as an Emeritus Scientist.
• Arthur J. Goble, of Cape Charles, VA, passed away on September 14^th. He was a US Air Force veteran who worked at Goddard’s Wallops Flight Facility as an Engineer in the Engineering Division of the Suborbital Projects & Operations Directorate in the ’80s and early ’90s and also served as the union steward during part of his tenure.
• Robert A. Kichak, of Ellicott City, MD, passed away on October 8^th. He came to Goddard as an Electrical/Aerospace Engineer. From 1969 through part of the ’70s he was assigned to the Engineering Physics Division of the Space Applications & Technology Directorate. In the ’80s he was a Section Head in the Space Technology Division of the Engineering Directorate and in the late ’90s became Associate Chief of the Electrical Systems Center of the Applied Engineering & Technology Directorate (AETD). In the 2000s he became Chief Engineer of the Electrical Engineering Division of AETD and later the NASA Engineering & Safety Center (NESC) Discipline Expert for Power & Avionics in the same division of AETD.
• Ruth Johnson, of Annapolis, MD, passed away on September 7^th. She was an Accounting Technician at Goddard who had transferred from NASA Headquarters in 1997 and assigned to the Headquarters Accounting Division and later in the Cost & Commercial Accounts Department in the Office of the Chief Financial Officer before retiring in 2007.
• Scott A. Mills, of Belfast, ME, passed away on August 2^nd. He was an Engineer and Technical Writer who transferred from the Office of the Army Chief of Staff at Goddard’s inception. He was assigned to the Test & Evaluation Division in the Office of Technical Services (which later changed its name to the Systems Reliability Directorate), and retired in the early ’80s.
• Paul M. Rall, of Greenbelt, MD, passed away on October 22^nd. He came to Goddard in the early ’60s and was first assigned to the NASA Communications (known familiarly as Nascom) Division in the Office of Tracking Systems & Data Systems (which later changed to the Manned Flight Support Directorate and later to the Networks Directorate). In the late ’80s, Nascom was moved to the Mission Operations & Data Systems Directorate.

FROM THE GODDARD ARCHIVES – IT HAPPENED IN NOVEMBER: On November 15, 1972, a Scout rocket launched the Small Astronomy Satellite-B (SAS-B), also known as SAS-2 and Explorer 48, from the San Marco Platform off the coast of Kenya, Africa. The primary objective of the SAS-B was to measure the spatial and energy distribution of primary galactic and extragalactic gamma radiation. The telescope experiment was initially turned on November 20, 1972, and by November 27th the spacecraft was fully operational. The low-voltage power supply for the experiment failed on June 8, 1973. No useful scientific information was obtained afterwards. With the exception of a slightly degraded star sensor, the spacecraft control section performed excellently.

GODDARD’S FLIGHT PROJECTS DIRECTORATE (FPD) OFFERS ITS ONLINE NEWSLETTER TO GRAA MEMBERS: The FPD publishes an online newsletter three times per year that includes items of interest (e.g., upcoming flight schedules) to GRAA members. You may want to check out the latest issue at the following link: https://fpd.gsfc.nasa.gov/Critical_Path.html and in our next newsletter we will include instructions for registering with the FPD to have “The Critical Path” sent to you automatically each time it is published.