Axel Roth fondly remembers his time at Marshall
Marshall Star – Aug. 12, 2004 by Lynnette Madison
On July 2, Marshall Center Associate Director Axel Roth closed the door to his ninth-floor office atop Bldg. 4200, ending a 45-year NASA career.
It was quite a ride: A career that spanned work on the Mercury-Redstone rockets that boosted America’s first astronauts into orbit; Apollo moon missions that helped America win the space race; Skylab, America’s first crewed orbiting space station; and, ultimately, the International Space Station, the world’s largest orbiting science laboratory.
On Thursday, Roth’s associates – present and past – will come together to honor him with a retirement reception.
For him – and them the memories will spill forth. They already have. He’s a NASA legacy, the son of Ludwig Roth, a member of the original German rocket team led by the Marshall Center’s first director, Wernher von Braun.
Before Roth headed home in early July to his wife Gloria, and his 11 grandchildren, he shared some of his experiences, including an appearance before employees at a Marshall Association “Lunch-n-learn” a few months ago.
Some of his recollections:
“I began as a co-op student in the test labs for the old Army Ballistic Missile Agency…back when even the pencil sharpeners had ‘CONFIDENTIAL’ stamped on them. In those old days, we put drawings – mechanical design and drafting – together by hand.”
His NASA career began in 1960, five days after the Marshall Space Flight Center officially was activated. “For years I wasn’t considered a charter member because I came over to NASA on July 5.” he chuckles as he tells his story. “But I outlasted them all. So now I am a charter member.”
From 1960 until 1971, Roth was a structures engineer, and later a systems engineer, in the Apollo/Saturn program. He remembers the “grizzled” technicians who “were great teachers,” who opened the eyes and minds of the young engineers to the reality of how things work. “I thought I was a pretty good structures engineer – not great.” says Roth. “So, I began to look for ways to move to other things. You’ve got to be honest with yourself to overcome your weaknesses.” From 1971 until 1974, he worked with systems engineering operations activities for the Skylab program. In 1974, he was assigned to Marshall’s Spacelab Program Office. And, in 1981, he became Payload Operations Director for the Spacelab-2 Mission. He was named manager of the Operations Office in Space Station Projects Office in 1985, and was appointed manager of the Habitability Module Office in 1987. In 1989, he was named chief engineer of the Spacelab Payload Integration for the Payload Projects Office. Then, in 1991, he was selected as deputy manager of the Space Station Project Office.
Recalls Roth: “We used to ‘play’ what-if games. We’d try to figure out what type of bad thing might happen. One of those things was, ‘What if Skylab’s meteoroid shield – designed to shad its workshop – didn’t deploy.’
“O course, the shield deployed. In fact, it deployed so fast it ripped off and took one of the craft’s solar panels with it. Then, we had to deal with Skylab’s thermal issues. But NASA is great at that. We put together a plan, trained the crew and fixed it within two weeks.” Roth admits his “heart belongs to the Spacelab and the Space Station programs. We accomplished so much science and engineering.” He recalls the challenge NASA faced building the Space Shuttle’s Orbiter and Spacelab simultaneously. “The Orbiter and Spacelab had to fit together to make it work. So, we had a meeting in Downey, Calif., – with representatives from NASA, the European Space Agency and Shuttle prime contractors – to work it out. At the same time one of the airlines had a strike, so our lead took up our plane tickets and told us he’d help us work out our flights,” Roth says, chuckling again. “Then he told us that he wasn’t giving us our tickets back until we finished. It didn’t take us long after that.”
In 1994, Roth was appointed deputy director of Program Development for Marshall. He became its director in 1995. By the late 1990’s, he returned to the Flight Projects Office as its acting manager. He was named director of the Flight Projects Directorate in 1999.
In January 2001, Roth became associate director of the Marshall Center.
Roth says he will hold dear the memories of his work here and the people he met – from von Braun to the novice Europeans just beginning a space program during his Skylab years; from the renowned scientists who have flown experiments on the International Space Station, to the folks who have been kind enough to wish him well in his retirement.
“The past 45 years have been an exciting time, and I’ve had a great run,” he says, looking back. Now I can see we had a vision. In fact, in the ‘60s, I would have bet that we’d be on Mars by now. But other things required our nation’s resources. Today, it is imperative that we continue with that vision – that we continue to explore. And, to tell the truth, I’m sorry that I’m not gonna be around at NASA for that.”
The writer, an ASRI employee, supports the Media Relations Department.
