Online Exclusive: The NASA Sequel
Brothers Roger and Tim Kreiter, who both hail from Shadyside, Ohio, and received aeronautical and astronautical engineering degrees from Ohio State, sent us their own space stories after reading a special feature about NASA-related work at the College of Engineering in the News in Engineering edition Vol.80, No. 3, 2008.
Roger Kreiter, a 1963 alumnus who now resides near Valley Forge, Pa., was an engineer at Lockheed Missiles & Space; later, he worked for General Electric Reentry Systems Division. He eventually retired from Lockheed Martin’s Management and Data Systems Division in 2002.
His older brother, Tim, graduated in 1959 and throughout his career worked on numerous NASA projects, such as conducting an age dating study of the moon, developing planetary launch computer programs for NASA’s Lewis Research Center and Kitt Peak National Observatory, and supporting approach and landing tests for the space shuttle program.
Here they describe their experiences with working on projects for the space agency.
Roger Kreiter, ’63 AAE
Manager, Lockheed Martin (retired)
After graduation from Ohio State, Roger Kreiter became an engineer in a guidance and control group at Lockheed Missiles and Space in Sunnyvale, Calif. He was assigned to the NASA Gemini-Agena D Target Program.
One of the key features of the Apollo Moon Program then under planning stages was the needed ability to rendezvous and dock spacecraft in earth orbit or moon orbit or both. In order to develop and test these new technologies, the Gemini-Agena Targeting missions were developed. For these missions, Lockheed’s versatile Agena second stage vehicle, already a workhorse for other NASA and defense programs, was adapted with a docking collar for use as a practice target spacecraft for upcoming Gemini missions.
An Atlas booster was employed to insert the Agena D Target vehicle into earth orbit; the manned Gemini spacecraft was launched a day later to begin rendezvous and docking tests. Our group at Lockheed developed all of the booster guidance settings for the Atlas and Agena propulsion sequences, including the burn times for all of the various propulsion stages.
The first target mission for Gemini 6 was scheduled in October 1965 and resulted in failure when the Agena did not reach orbit. However, in March 1966, Gemini 8 linked up with the Agena D, marking the first U.S. spacecraft-to-spacecraft docking event. During the remainder of 1966, three more successful docking missions were conducted. In the last mission, Jim Lovell and Buzz Aldrin, in Gemini 12, conducted several docking exercises, performed maneuvers using the Agena thrusting capabilities and conducted tethered station keeping exercises.
In 1967 Kreiter took a position with General Electric Reentry Systems Division in Valley Forge, Pa., followed by various positions with Lockheed Martin’s Management and Data Systems Division, from which he retired as a systems engineering manager in 2002.
Kreiter, now living near Valley Forge, Pa., says “Although most of my engineering career was spent supporting interesting and challenging defense department programs, I often look back with fond memories to those days in 1966, where I played a small role in one of NASA’s historic steps to reach the moon.”
Tim Kreiter, ’59 AAE
JPL, NASA-Lewis, Kitt Peak National Observatory,
McDonnell Douglas, Lockheed Martin (retired)
The Ohio State University was Tim Kreiter’s launching pad to a career in aerospace engineering. In his fourth year in the College of Engineering and while a member of the Ohio State Marching Band, Kreiter was hired part time by Professors Rudolph Edse and Loren Bollinger at the Rocket Research Lab, which was conducting hydrogen-oxygen propellant studies at that time. There he obtained his first taste of applied engineering.
Kreiter graduated from The Ohio State University in June 1959 with a bachelor of science degree in aeronautical engineering and accepted employment with the Jet Propulsion Lab in Pasadena, Calif., to work in the Space Science Division under Dr. Albert Hibbs. At that time JPL was synonymous with space exploration and was designing two lunar spacecraft: the Ranger and the Surveyor. The Ranger spacecraft was designed to take close-up photographs of the moon prior to lunar impact, while the Surveyor craft was designed to soft-land on the surface of the moon. One of Kreiter’s first projects at JPL was to conduct an age dating study of the moon. He documented the work by writing an article for a technical journal (Astronomical Society of the Pacific) entitled, “Dating Lunar Surface Features Using Crater Frequencies.” His co-workers called him “Kreiter the Crater Counter”! While at JPL, Kreiter also participated on the Surveyor program by helping scientists and engineers select the scientific instruments and equipment for that spacecraft.
In 1961, Kreiter joined the staff at NASA’s Lewis Research Center in Cleveland, becoming a member of the Advanced Systems Division. He was a member of the engineering team that performed the preliminary Apollo mission tradeoff studies, which investigated the three candidate flight options: direct ascent, earth orbit rendezvous and lunar orbit ascent vehicle rendezvous. In the final analysis, the lunar orbit rendezvous won out. Lewis Research Center was next asked to manage the Centaur Program. Although Lewis had a sophisticated interplanetary trajectory computer program, it was too complicated for quick trade studies; therefore, Kreiter was challenged to develop a simplified program that would identify planetary launch opportunities, calculate launch windows and define the energy requirements. The end product he called the “Patched Conic Trajectory Program,” which was found to be more than adequate for preliminary planning purposes. Kreiter then wrote several NASA reports describing potential missions to the planets, comets and asteroids that could be achieved using the Atlas Centaur launch vehicle. Lewis Research Center continued to use Kreiter’s computer program for many years after he left NASA.
Kreiter continued his quest for the stars at the Kitt Peak National Observatory in Tucson, Ariz., in1967, joining the staff of the Space Engineering Lab. The SEL’s purpose was to help participating universities and other experimenters conduct high-altitude astronomy experiments using the single-staged Aerobee launch vehicle. Kreiter’s duties were to calculate launch windows for the various missions, assist with the integration of the payload and aspect sensing instruments (like the camera), and perform post-flight analyses. For one mission, he designed a sun baffle system that was part of the aspect sensing instrument. The most unique sounding rocket launch during Kreiter’s years at Kitt Peak was the total solar eclipse mission, launched from Mauritania, Africa, for which he calculated launch windows, helped with payload integration and provided long distance technical support. Unfortunately he was unable to perform the post-flight analyses, since the mission failed.
After the SEL was dissolved by Kitt Peak, Kreiter relocated to Houston, where McDonnell Douglas had just won a contract to provide software mission support for the Space Shuttle. Kreiter spent the final 34 years of his aerospace career as a support contractor at the Johnson Space Center.
“I broadened my professional horizon in ways I could never have imagined when I was a student at Ohio State,” he says. One of Kreiter’s first assignments was as the technical secretary of the Software Development Board supporting the Space Shuttle approach and landing tests after its release from the jumbo jet. He was next assigned to a three man “I-Load” (on board computer Initialization Load) team, whose responsibility was to collect and manage the I-Loads on a flight-by-flight basis and coordinate the activities of the Johnson Space Center and Rockwell personnel. While on this team he also served as technical secretary to the Space Shuttle On-Orbit Operations Committee meetings, which were attended by various astronauts including John Young and Bob Crippen. In Kreiter’s final years with McDonnell Douglas, he developed several management workshops and related educational games, which he used in company presentations.
In 1988, Kreiter accepted employment at Lockheed-Houston (later Lockheed Martin) and became a member of the Space Station Freedom test bed team, which developed interactive color cockpit displays. While on this team, Kreiter was invited to participate in the company’s employee development program, presenting several courses he had developed at McDonnell Douglas where at least 2,000 employees in the Houston area were taught. He was next asked to become a member of Lockheed’s Employee Safety Tiger Team, which ultimately developed a training and certification plan. Kreiter then became the leader of a new task within the safety department and served, for several years, as the training and certification database manager.
As a former B-Row trumpeter in The Ohio State University Marching Band, Kreiter always made time for music. While at Lewis, he founded the NASA Concert Band and at Kitt Peak formed the Barbershop Brass, which performed at schools and nursing homes. At Lockheed Martin, Kreiter formed the Star Spangled Brass, which played for employee events and for Johnson Space Center’s annual American Heritage Week.
Kreiter, now living in New Mexico, says, “Thank you, Ohio State, for launching me into a very satisfying and fulfilling career!”
