Carroll H. Dunn
Is there anything
to recall from that period?
One interesting sidelight. When the fire in January 1967 killed three astronauts at Cape
Canaveral, the NASA administrator came to General Cassidy for help because of our
close association with NASA through the construction of its facilities. As a result of the
congressional review of that disaster, in the 1968 NASA appropriation Congress
the administrator
to establish a safety advisory panel. This would be
a group of outside experts who would analyze NASA's handling of risk and the risk
assessment function and make an independent report to the administrator.
When he had to appoint this board,
Mr. James Webb was somewhat at
a loss to find people with experience in
dealing with major projects who
weren't already a part of the NASA
program, either as NASA employees
or as contractors with major
contracts-and therefore with possible
conflicts of interest. All of the
aerospace companies were involved in
the space program, In looking around,
Webb asked General Cassidy, as Chief
of Engineers, if he would suggest
someone to be a member of the panel.
Because of my past experience in James Fletcher presents a NASA flag carried on
military construction and my past the first Skylab mission, May-June 1973 to Lt.
experience with NASA, General Gen. Carroll Dunn at his retirement as chairman of
Cassidy suggested me, and was the Aerospace Safety Advisory Panel.
appointed to the panel. This occurred
in the spring of 1968. I continued to serve on that panel until September 1973, even
I
OCE. In fact, I was chairman of the panel for the last two-plus years. Again,
this was an outgrowth of the Corps' association with NASA. The association became
a personal commitment as far as I was concerned. Toward the end of my service, this
began to take something like 10 to percent of my time, a major commitment, as the
space program got very active in the last days of the moon landing and then later with
sky lab.
Another of my functions during the time I was deputy resulted from my service in
Vietnam. I coordinated the support activity of OCE and the Corps for the Vietnam
effort. I kept fairly close contact with events over there and the requirements that were
being placed on the Corps.
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