Story by John Hall • Photography by Chelsea White
MOONSTRUCK O
n May 25, 1961, President John F. Kennedy stood before Congress and called the country
to a monumental task: “I believe that this nation should commit itself to achieving the goal, before this decade is out, of land- ing a man on the moon and returning him safely to Earth.”
He might as well have been speaking directly to Billie Schmidt. She was moonstruck.
“I decided, oh gosh, NASA, that sounds good,” she said. “So I immediately went and got a civil service application and filled it out and attached copies of job descriptions and awards, and all that sort of thing that I had gotten through my career with the Air Force, and shipped it off to NASA. And I got a call that asked, ‘Are you interested in working for NASA?’ I said, ‘Yes, sir.’”
In many ways, becoming the assistant to the associate director of NASA defined much of Schmidt’s life. Working for NASA was everything many people dream it is: riveting, challenging and incredible. The team was driven by pride
– their own and for their country. The Russians had beaten the United States into space. NASA was determined to put the first person on the moon. “You couldn’t wait to get to work,” said Schmidt, who now lives
at Buckner
Parkway Place in Houston. “We worked days, and we worked nights. We worked weekends, and we didn’t care. It was, ‘Get that man on the moon and get him back home safely.’”
Schmidt worked for NASA for more than 20 years, including the entire landmark Apollo program. During her tenure as assistant to the director of NASA, the United States launched a series of unmanned and manned missions that continually pushed the boundaries of space exploration.
Schmidt beams with pride as she grace- fully and effortlessly recalls details of each
mission like she’s sharing a family story over a church potluck. She has photographs and various pieces of memorabilia that marked each effort.
A model of the Apollo 11 moon lander stands out among the items like the mission stands out in Schmidt’s mind. There was no other mission quite like that one, Schmidt re- called.
“It was the first flight I attended at the Cape [Canaveral],” she said. “That was one of the prerogatives. And we didn’t have an up-close seat; we were back a ways, but before you could even hear the rocket, you could feel the ground shaking because, I mean, it was so powerful that rocket was, it was just shaking the ground where you were standing. We were – all of us standing there, even my husband, with tears rolling down our cheeks – we were so caught up in it. We were part of something so much larger than we were.” Neil Armstrong, the first man to step on the moon, remains Schmidt’s favorite astronaut. “He was very quiet, very unassuming, but a marvelous person. He had faith. He had character. He was just everything you’d want your big brother to be.” Schmidt worked closely with Armstrong during the Apollo 13 mission, which was forced to cancel its moon destination when an oxygen tank exploded, crippling the spacecraft. The
38 Buckner Today • SPRING 2015 ISSUE
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