[Congressional Record Volume 165, Number 121 (Thursday, July 18, 2019)]
[Senate]
[Pages S4942-S4943]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
VERGENNES, VERMONT'S, ROLE IN THE APOLLO 11 MOON LANDING
Mr. LEAHY. Mr. President, this week America celebrates the fiftieth
anniversary of a monumental achievement for our country and all of
humankind, the Apollo 11 mission that landed the first human beings on
the Moon.
Like families across America and across the world, our family
gathered in front of the television in our living room that Sunday
night of July 20, 1969, to watch this history unfold. I was State's
attorney then, and we lived in a duplex in Burlington.
Our 5-year-old son Kevin asked if he could stay up late to watch, and
of course, Marcelle and I agreed. He stretched out on the floor in his
PJs. He had nodded off by the time the images from the Moon started to
come across, and we roused our little fellow.
We knew this was a night we would always remember.
The next day, I went to court for an arraignment. Then I met with
police officers about several matters, and we all had a hard time
concentrating as we excitedly discussed what we had seen the night
before.
As Neil Armstrong so famously said, his one small step was a giant
leap for all of humanity.
As he and other astronauts often noted, that leap was made possible
not just by his step, but by the small steps of thousands of men and
women across America who participated in the space program, including
some from the town of Vergennes, VT.
Today, 50 years ago, the Apollo 11 mission was hurtling toward the
moon, but getting to the Moon is not a matter of just pointing the nose
of a craft and igniting the powerful engines. First, the command module
had to dock with the lunar expeditionary module, then leave Earth's
orbit, then navigate to get into lunar orbit, and then return.
Throughout the process, Michael Collins needed to use the craft's
engines, known as a burn, to adjust the heading.
But with no option to refuel, these burns had to be precise and
effective, and any deviation from the planned fuel usage had to be
worked into future plans. Otherwise, there would be no return for
America's heroes. This is where Vergennes came in.
Vermont has a long tradition of building precision tools and
machinery, and NASA turned to Simmonds Precision of Vergennes, VT, to
ensure that the Apollo 11 crew and Mission Control knew exactly how
much fuel they had. The fuel probes and valves had to be as nearly
perfect as possible, and they had to perform perfectly in varying
levels of microgravity. It was an immense technological challenge,
which the engineers and workers in Vergennes met.
Fifty years later, the company is still there. Now operating under
the name Collins Aerospace, they still make fuel probes, along with
other aerospace technology that seems to be able to do the impossible.
When you enter the factory, along their wall of history, the Apollo
Program commands a special place of pride. It is a reminder of how the
small steps taken by Americans everywhere, when working together, can
accomplish tremendous leaps.
I ask unanimous consent that a recent article about one of the
engineers from Vergennes, published by the Burlington Free Press, be
printed into the Record.
There being no objection, the material was ordered to be printed in
the Record, as follows:
[From the Burlington Free Press, July 17, 2019]
Vermont Company Played Key Role In Apollo Moon Mission
(By Joel Banner Baird, Free Press Staff Writer)
A former engineer with Vergennes-based Simmonds Precision describes the
company's role in the Apollo space program
Something clicked when Dominique St. Pierre heard President
John F. Kennedy declare, in 1962, that the U.S. would land
men on the moon by the end of the decade.
``It was gutsy,'' St. Pierre, now 74, remembers.
JFK's challenge prompted St. Pierre, then an 18-year-old in
St. Albans, to hone his engineering skills at Vermont
Technical College, sign on with Simmonds Precision in
Vergennes in 1965 and help design and build a fuel system for
the Apollo moon mission.
Three years later, the first-ever astronauts to orbit the
moon were measuring their craft's precious propellant with
Vermont-made gauges, valves and meters.
His collaboration with more than 200 employees at Simmonds
yielded a tool that performed flawlessly throughout the
Apollo program, St. Pierre said.
A thrilling, disruptive American decade
Simmonds, subsequently bought by Goodrich and then United
Technologies, went on to design and build fuel sensors for
Boeing and Airbus, among other customers. St. Pierre stayed
with the company until he retired in 2019.
But the fast-paced years leading up to the successful moon
landing on July 20, 1969--and Apollo 11 crew's safe return--
remain vivid for St. Pierre.
The space program offered a welcome, uplifting message for
Americans shocked by the Chicago riots of 1968, as well as
the assassinations of Martin Luther King, Jr. and Robert F.
Kennedy in that year, St. Pierre said.
`We had a schedule to meet'
Engineers at NASA kept the Simmonds crew very busy and
focused, he added: ``We worked long, long days. Come hell or
high water, we had a schedule to meet.''
St. Pierre remembers the dust-free workplace in Vergennes,
bustling with technicians in white smocks and surgical caps.
But, despite America's global, cold-war rivalry with the
Soviet Union that extended into those countries' space
programs, there was little secrecy at Simmonds--beyond the
safekeeping of papers that documented test results, St.
Pierre said.
Excitement built when NASA flew him to Cape Kennedy (now
Cape Canaveral), where he joined hundreds of other engineers
in fitting together thousands of interconnected pieces of a
never-before assembled puzzle.
``To this day, 50 years later,'' St. Pierre said, ``it's
still viewed as the greatest technological achievement of
mankind.''
(At the request of Mr. Schumer, the following statement was ordered
to be printed in the Record.)
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