[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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