For a brief time after I married a beautiful Norwegian woman and after the award of a degree of some sort (my memory is bad because of the criminal assault of the psychiatrist, who damaged my brain) I went to work in Huston for project Apollo.
I remember the original plan was a huge single stage rocket to lift off, go to the moon and return but we decided on the multi-stage system as this has the best mass ratio.
In fact most of the general plan (the various staged approach) was down to me and I did calculations using Eulers method of integration to calculate orbits.
The lunar landing, which used a rocket so that it touched down at zero velocity at zero altitude is a non trivial computer algorithm.
The vehicle was based on the flying bedstead (British) and the control of this rocket that had off centre thrusters was impossible to fly. I worked out a computer control program of negative feedback so that the pilots control stick was an aiming point that the attitude of the highly unstable vehicle aimed for. In this way the flying of this machine became intuitive and relatively easy.
Although none of the test pilots of this thing had been killed, they had always used the ejector seat as it became unrecoverable. So I had to fly my version. It was a bit of a laugh because I had to fly over a hill and land, it was so stable, have a sandwich, and fly back. I was reported as a UFO!
Well I briefly flew as an astronaut with my wife (we were both passengers) in a Gemini flight, I think they wanted to know how a civilian passenger would behave. It was a bit disorienting but I landed 3000 miles overshoot in a Japanese Island and got caught in a tree. Some lovely people gave us tea and said we were American. I was not asked to do that job again.
I was out one day with my wife and tiny baby and we picnicked on an Indian reservation, we were beside a small river and we put the child on a blanket while my wife prepared some food, just a snack. There was one of these tiny tornadoes and the baby and the blanket flew over a reed bed with alligators in it and went out of sight, then a canoe came into sight.
I went into the reed bed and some alligators climbed up my leg so I shot them. We decided tearfully that the baby had been eaten by alligators. Well a bit later a man went and collected these dead alligators and I asked him if he had seen our child. "Oh" he said "one of our girls who was childless and had prayed for a baby went by here and a child dropped into her lap from heaven - God's gift".
I asked for my child, but basically, how could I disagree "It was a gift from heaven". I understand my child was adopted by the tribe and is a Red Indian.
I had to leave because a brain tumour was causing fits and I had to wear an ice pack on my head. The brain dysfunction was severe and caused serious problems, but it was not treated for some time and my symptoms were confused with another type of problem. I was returned to England
Chris.
24/12/2011