Carroll H. Dunn
The Fort Worth District, at that time under Colonel Frank
was assigned the
for supervising design and construction. The district carried out the
mission
I gave it a considerable amount of personal attention, visiting the site at
least once a month or every six weeks and maintaining close coordination with the
NASA people in Houston.
Q ..
Do you recall major difficulties at that time?
A
I would say the major difficulty was in getting decisions from the NASA people. As a
new organization, they had no established procedures. Each element of the organization
would put in its ideas of what it wanted, and it was our job to come up with a complete
design to carry the construction forward. Lacking any criteria, there was a wide
variance in what various people desired.
So, one of our biggest problems was coordinating the desires with reality and
establishing for the various facilities some general criteria that we felt were not totally
foreign to other government activities. We, in effect, developed space and other criteria
based on the experience of the Corps, GSA, and other agencies. We "sold" these to
NASA to provide appropriate controls so that facilities wouldn't be "gold-plated," as
they might otherwise have been if left to the individual desires of the people involved.
One of the real significant factors was that this work was going on while the NASA
people were operating an ongoing program' and starting the Mercury and Gemini
programs. We had to catch them when they were not otherwise engaged. I would say
getting a
handle on the requirements and the criteria to meet those requirements
was the biggest single problem, and then, as always, the funding availability was a
matter of concern.
Q ..
I think one
issues there was cost estimates at the outset of construction. I believe
you indicated you thought this was the best approach but it was not part of NASA's
approach.
A
Again, I think this goes back to the criteria. You can't make a good estimate if you
don't know what you're going to build or to what standard. We had a constant battle
getting firm decisions on which we could make good estimates. Until we finally reached
a good understanding of what those criteria would be, it was always a problem trying
to forecast the cost.
One major item of discussion that reached high political circles was the exterior finish
buildings at the space center. We had decided that it would be precast exposed
aggregate panels. There was a great deal of political pressure from the masonry
industry and brick layers' union to convert to brick masonry construction. We had to
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