April Luncheon ReCap

The speaker was CAPT Lee Scherer ‘43 USN (ret) talking about NASA and the Kennedy Space Center Missions past, present and future and his role in the programs.  His slide program is embedded below.  The Constellation Program video is too large to include so we have inserted a link to a comparable site.

His talk focused on manned space flight.  The shuttle program will be ended in a year and the succeeding program (Constellation) is being started.  The schedule calls for the next visit to the Space Station to occur after four years.  We must rely on other nations for crew change and logistic support.  The Constellation will require a substantial outlay of funds.  This was blessed by President Bush but now the new administration must confirm or stop it.  As negative decision will mean that there would be no more U.S. manned space flights for the foreseeable future!

Lee graduated in 1942 and spent 1943 on destroyers in the Solomons with Art Fischer ‘39 closely watching him.  He followed this with flight training and then a tour in WestPAC and China on the USS Boxer where he accomplished some interesting ‘firsts’.   He got his Masters at CalTech transferred to AEDO.  As a captain, the Navy assigned him to NASA to help that new agency.  He later retired from the Navy and shifted to NASA as a civil servant where he stayed for nearly 20 years.  Duties at NASA included Program Director of Lunar Orbiter which photographed the moon surface in the search for manned landing sites; Director of Apollo Lunar Exploration responsible for all Apollo experiments on and around the moon office; CO of NASA Flight Research Center testing experimental aircraft; CO of Kennedy Space Center responsible for all major launches.

He left government service and joined General Dynamics where he established the Commercial Launch Service Division selling launchs to commercial satellite companies.  He retired from GD and remained a consultant to industry and to the Secretary of Commerce and the Secretary of Transportation.

Lee’s Presentation in pdf

Constellation Program Video

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