The JSCARC had another treasured moment when Milt Heflin K5KRM graciously took time from his busy life to spend almost 2 hours on-the-air with us on Sunday April 27.
This weekend featured the 35th years commemoration of the launch of the world’s most advanced telescope- the Hubble Space Telescope. But as you all know, this most complicated package of advanced electronics, mechanics, and optics successfully deployed into space, but it had an eyesight problem! The telescope had a flaw in its primary mirror manufacture which blurred its vision.
Milt was one of the flight directors for this mission, so he was intricately involved with the complicated mission, but at the time, completely blind sighted (as well as the rest of NASA and the scientists) to the space telescope’s own blind sightedness, only to be analyzed, verified and announced 2 months after the mission.
3 years later, as the MCC Lead Flight Director, Milt oversaw the STS-61 operational mission to install new eyeglasses on the Hubble Space Telescope which restored its blurred eyesight, to the wonderous delight of scientists and the public. Never had the billions of galaxies across the universe revealed themselves in breathtaking imagery taken with the fixed space telescope.
During this weekend’s event, Milt shared his involvements with these missions as well as recollections from his Apollo Recovery and Return assignments. One contact commented on his authored book and the references to his name in other authors’ publications. Many hams parked on the 14.217 MHz frequency to listen in on the conversations that were held during the Milt’s rag chews with ham operators.
Many thanks to K4KH (Kris) and WA4ECT (Michael) from the MSFC and KSC clubs who took the time to give Milt a shout out from our sister NASA field center ham clubs.
W5OC and AB5SS served as copilots for logging and support during the NOTA event.
Milt describing his recollection of hearing Sputnik in 1957 milt – 2
Milt’s response to a question about women in NASA milt – 3