[Congressional Record Volume 160, Number 69 (Thursday, May 8, 2014)]
[House]
[Pages H3946-H3947]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




              CELEBRATING THE ACHIEVEMENTS OF JOHN HOUBOLT

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The Chair recognizes the gentleman from 
Illinois (Mr. Foster) for 5 minutes.
  Mr. FOSTER. Mr. Speaker, I rise today to honor John Houbolt, a native 
of Joliet, Illinois. He was one of the great unsung heroes of the 
Apollo program.
  Politicians are fond of citing President Kennedy's famous speech made 
in this room at a joint session of Congress more than 50 years ago to 
``commit this Nation, before this decade is out, to landing a man on 
the Moon and returning him safely to the Earth.'' Politicians like to 
imagine that anything is possible if the right politician and 
speechwriter can muster just the right words to stir a country to 
action, but engineers know differently. If you do not have a workable 
engineering concept and a set of design parameters that respect both 
available resource limitations and engineering reality, then no amount 
of fine words from politicians is going to make any difference. Dr. 
John Houbolt provided that crucial engineering concept that made the 
10-year success of the Apollo program possible.
  John Houbolt came from humble beginnings, working 16 hours a day on 
his family's dairy farm near Joliet, Illinois, where he developed an 
early interest in aviation, building model airports in his free time. 
He graduated from Joliet Township High School and Joliet Junior 
College. He obtained a bachelor's and master's degree from the 
University of Illinois in civil engineering. He then went on to obtain 
a

[[Page H3947]]

Ph.D. and serve as an engineer at NASA's Langley Research Center. His 
contributions to the U.S. space race in the 1960s were vital to NASA's 
successful Moon landing.
  He is best known for his advocacy of lunar orbit rendezvous, the 
crucial mission design decision that proved essential to carry the 
Apollo crew safely to the Moon and back in 1969. Dr. Houbolt, along 
with several of his colleagues at Langley, became convinced that this 
relatively obscure technique was the only feasible way to land on the 
Moon by the end of the decade.
  Initially, NASA rejected Dr. Houbolt's plan for being too complicated 
and risky, but like the world's greatest innovators, Dr. Houbolt didn't 
let initial failure stop him. Despite opposition from NASA and from 
leading rocket scientists at the time, Dr. Houbolt tenaciously 
advocated for lunar orbit rendezvous.
  To convince the decisionmakers at NASA to consider his plan, Dr. 
Houbolt took the bold step of writing a letter directly to the 
associate administrator of NASA--at the time a clear breach of 
protocol. ``Do we want to go to the Moon or not?'' asked Dr. Houbolt. 
Because of his tenacity, NASA gave his idea another chance and 
eventually approved it.
  Now, John Houbolt won that argument, despite having had all the 
political winds blowing against him, because he had fundamental 
engineering reality on his side. It was simply not possible, with the 
engines and boosters that could plausibly be developed in the 1960s, to 
launch a payload that would allow a manned rocket to land in its 
entirety on the Moon, including all of the fuel necessary to return to 
the Earth. But, as John Houbolt pointed out, if you left the fuel for 
the return trip in lunar orbit and rendezvoused with the command module 
after making the lunar landing, then a single Saturn booster, already 
under design at the Marshall Space Flight Center, could do the job.
  NASA Administrator George Low later said of this pivotal moment:

       It is my strongly held opinion that without the lunar 
     rendezvous mode, Apollo would not have succeeded; and without 
     John Houbolt's letter, we might not have chosen the lunar 
     orbit rendezvous mode.

  The lunar rendezvous mode has been described by space historians as 
``Langley's most important contribution to the Apollo program'' and is 
widely credited for allowing the United States to accomplish the goal 
President John F. Kennedy set out in 1961, to land a man on the Moon by 
the end of the decade.
  Dr. Houbolt received numerous awards for his work, including NASA's 
Medal for Exceptional Scientific Achievement. He was elected to the 
National Academy of Engineering and was the first recipient of Joliet 
Junior College's Distinguished Alumni Award.
  Additionally, the Joliet Historical Museum is home to a permanent 
exhibit dedicated to Dr. Houbolt and to his family, titled, ``The 
Soaring Achievements of John C. Houbolt.'' They have now declared July 
20, 2014, the 45th anniversary of the Moon landing, as Houbolt Family 
Day at the museum. The museum will be open free to the public each July 
20 to encourage families to learn about Joliet's local contribution to 
one of humankind's greatest scientific achievements.
  Dr. Houbolt retired after a distinguished career in 1985. He and his 
family remained noted philanthropists and supporters of the community 
of Joliet, touching countless individuals with their generosity.
  Dr. Houbolt passed away on April 15, 2014, at the age of 95. His life 
is an example of the impact that a determined, intelligent, and 
passionate individual can have. I rise today to remember Dr. Houbolt 
for his outstanding contributions to American science and engineering.
  In a society where we seem to celebrate mainly the accomplishments of 
our heroes in sports and entertainment, as well as those who ride our 
rockets off into space, it is important also to celebrate the heroes of 
science and engineering who make the modern world possible.

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