Cold War Technology, RJ Sera

The topic here is the Cold War’s advances in technology. Generally the Cold War was a time of fear and chaos but also one of creation and the Space Race, as well as the toy manufacturer Mattel which helped to shape the American image.

First interview: Stanley “Stan” Thompson

NASA Aerospace Engineer, now retired.

I worked for NASA for, oh, let’s see… somewhere around nine or ten years. I was employed as an aerospace engineer at the Kennedy Space Center in Florida, I lived a little ways away with my wife, but I guess that’s a separate interview, isn’t it? I guess a simpler term for my job would have been “rocket scientist.” No, I wasn’t any kind of genius or anything, (laughs) but I guess I liked numbers and math and how it worked, and I was good at it so I decided it was one of those things I wanted to do. My job was to make sure nothing went wrong with the launching of the rockets and aircraft, there are so many numbers of things that can happen, you know. Back during the time of the Space Race back in sixty eight, sixty nine, there were two kinds of aerospace engineers, now there is only one category. Back when I worked for NASA you could be an aeronautical or astronautical engineer, if you were an aeronautical engineer you worked with craft that flew within Earth’s atmosphere, meaning you never dealt with rockets or anything like that. I was one of the astronautical engineers, that made sure everything went right with the preparation of the rockets, orbit, launch times, trajectory, all that kind of stuff, you know, but I won’t get into all the boring math stuff, I know you want some action. (Laugh.) An interesting thing about flying things is that there’s never a set plan or calculation you can make to determine how something’s exactly gonna go, you know, sometimes the weather screws the launch up, then you have to throw in a whole lot of extra work, sometimes it’s hard. I remember the space race was broadcast across the country, among the workers of… the team and the other astrospace engineers you know, there was a lot of pride and patriotism, that went along with the Apollo 11 mission. I remember that day, I walked in energetic even though I didn’t get much sleep the night before (chuckles) I was fairly new at the time, it was my second year and well, we couldn’t mess it up. The USSR and us workers at NASA, I mean I never met anyone from the USSR or anything, but if I had to say I wouldn’t have considered it an unfriendly race in any sense. I think that it was because we had that competitive spirit and pride, and that feeling like we just… couldn’t lose to one side or another that kept us going, thinking, working. The day the Apollo 11 launched, it was the twentieth of July… the twentieth, that’s right. I remember the feeling when I looked at the Apollo rocket, you see to me it was inspiring just to see that… some, high quality pieces of metal and some things here and there put together to make a shiny rocket isn’t important, but the rocket itself stood for all our hard work and hopes and dreams, you know, that it just… it was a sight to see. When… we received the signal from Armstrong that the “eagle had wings,” it meant that the command module, the Columbia, which was like the body of the rocket, had successfully detached from the landing module, which was the part that held the crew. Through the whole time I remember all the people were cheering, I remember the concentration and the… joy that went into the mission on that day, you know, it was a success, of course… I’m not too sure if it meant that the U.S. was better off or more advanced than the USSR but I know on that day when Neil Armstrong said “one giant leap for all mankind,” while that flag was on the moon and, well… I was one proud American and a hell of a happy man.

Interview Two: Margaret Thompson

Wife of Stanley Thompson, astrospace engineer, at home at the time of the launch.

My husband and I lived around ten or twenty miles away from the space station back then, so I was at home when the Apollo launched. I recall it was quite a sight, at the time I think I was gardening, my hat…nearly fell off my head went up so fast! (Laughs.) That day my husband went off to work, now, we didn’t have kids at the time so I was by myself, and I remember watching it up in the sky the same time as it was playing on our television. What I think of the whole space race is, well, I suppose it was a battle of sorts between two countries, even though we weren’t at war, there was always this fear, you know, among the people that some missile could come down on us at any moment without us knowing it. I thought that whoever won the race up onto the moon would be almost godlike, because everyone’s always wanted to go up into space and off onto other planets. Yes, I always thought the United States would win the space race because, well, as an American I had to hope that we’d win, I was rooting for my husband and NASA to pull through and put our men on the moon. At the time I felt that the space race held very deep patriotic significance, both to the USSR and the US because everyone… wanted their own country to win, to be the first people on the moon. It is true I thought for some time that it would be impossible to put people on the moon, I mean, back in my day the thought of space travel was, well, preposterous! It was the ideas in movies, you know? No one was able to get all the way up to the moon and back, no one! But somehow we did it, didn’t we? When I saw that rocket go up I knew my husband and the United States had really done it, I felt like we could do anything if we really put our minds to it. Sure, a lot of the family friends and people I used to know at the time were skeptical too, in fact I think everyone but Kennedy and the people at NASA and of course, Stan, never doubted for a second that it was possible, but somehow they had to show us for us to really get that it could happen. What I thought of Neil Armstrong’s quote, “One small step for man, one giant leap for mankind,” was, that even though he was able to walk a tiny little step on the moon, how many other people could do that, right? It was a giant leap of progress for the American people, but when I saw the American flag on the moon I knew there that America had no limits! (Laughs.)






Third Interview: Larry Green

Worker/Manufacturer for Mattel Brand Toys in the Late 70’s.


I took a job with Mattel in 1978, it was pretty fun, I’d work there for around nine hours a day or so. The biggest difference between a Mattel factory then and now is that back then there weren’t as many machines and stuff that did it all for you, things were done right and most things were made by hand. I remember the biggest fad we had to make was the Barbie, even though they’re still pretty popular today, every girl in the whole entire world wanted her very own Barbie, it was crazy. We had to pump out thousands of those every day. I didn’t know that the founder of Mattel came from Poland, although I know a bit about the Cold War and some background. Based on what I understand Mattel was able to be so successful because you’ve got this idea of making toys for all the children of the United States and the world, and most of all these toys are coming from America, so what kind of message does that send about our country? The motto we had was “The World’s Mattel,” not quite sure what it is now, but that ties into it because it has this idea of serving the world and making toys for the whole world, when at the same time you have the war where no one trusts each other and you have so many people scared or poor. I remember they used to make these plastic guns that shot rubber bullets, but the range on them was some several yards, until a law was passed saying those types of toys were too dangerous. It spoke for how the times started to change from when I was born to how it is now, everything started to move away from where it started, in the war from guns to more creative toys that are made for everyone. In my opinion, it’s a good change. I hope that the toys and kids of future generations keep that idea with them that toys and companies are meant to serve the people, not to demonstrate war.