Guaymas Story (1967)

foreign [Music] [Music] Mexico it is a town of warm colors of gentle sounds of Rich smells [Music] it is also a town which has been touched by the Space Age just beyond the mountains to the South lies one of NASA's key tracking stations the station is located well outside the town nevertheless it is very much within the guamas community which acts as its host this is part of its story which is one of Communications in a twofold sense involving Space Age Electronics as well as a considered effort on the part of the men who work here to blend into their environment the guyma story is the story of a typical manned flight tracking station it begins with the term nascom which designates NASA's worldwide Communications Network by means of telephone lines under Seas cables and shortwave radio this network links together all of NASA's tracking stations its purpose is to provide ground support for space exploration its Center is the Goddard space flight center at Greenbelt Maryland primary function of the net that we provide is to tie together all the tracking stations so we can convey information on how the spacecraft is functioning into the Mission Control Center and so they in turn can do their job of taking whatever our actions may be required to get the spacecraft because there are troubles have them corrected pass information up to the astronauts and so forth three major types of information are handled by the network the first is voice which you've probably all heard this is a very good way to pass information back and forth secondly there's Telemetry really has to do with the functioning of the spacecraft such as various voltages temperatures pressures within the spacecraft these are transmitted to the ground station these are then converted into a teletype format a very conventional intellotide and transmitted into the mission control center so they can see in real time how the spacecraft is functioning and the third major form of data is the aeromedical data having to do with the astronauts such as their heartbeat the respiration rate and so forth throughout most of its journey is spacecraft orbiting the Earth is in contact with a ground support station save of the Canary Islands with carnarvon Australia with Hawaii or with guamas Mexico station in particular is the first NASA station to acquire and track the craft when on its first orbit it approaches the North American continent from the West the term tracking implies at least three separate functions tracking proper that is a determination of the spacecraft's position during the pass over the station the monitoring of all equipment aboard the craft and of the crew's well-being and voice Communications between crafts and ground Support Network Roger thank you the three functions involve a host of intricate equipment this is part of the system which tracked Gemini in which is now tracking Apollo this large antenna tracks the Apollo capsule in its Earth orbit the equipment connected with it is of extraordinary complexity reflecting the fact that a single antenna is used to determine the Craft's position to carry Telemetry data voice Communications and the signals emanating from the astronauts television camera outgoing and incoming data which pertain to the spacecraft's performance that is voltages pressures temperatures and so on are electronically coated and decoded in what looks like a crowded locker room to be stored and evaluated by computers the size of which is LeapFrog from Project Gemini to project Apollo they're displayed in a variety of ways by means of conventional meters of recorders and events lights as well as on television screens and they are passed on to the network and to the Mission Control Center in Houston through a kind of giant switchboard the station is operated by about a hundred people both Mexican and American all of whom live in and around guymas between missions these men spend their time working on the equipment maintaining the old installing and testing the news each Mission has its own requirements which can be met only after days of rehearsal and simulation moreover the complexity of the equipment and of the use to which it is put increases steadily and so work never ceases [Music] okay here thank you well I uh several of the Americans have lived in guamas for a number of years computer engineer Robert Gardner for example the assistant supervisor for maintenance and operation Jack Urban or station director Morton burnt who is both expert engineer and administrator to these men it has become clear that the business of tracking spacecraft involves more than the Mastery of electronics after all the station is on Mexican soil it is a joint project of Mexico and the United States Guided by a joint commission of Mexican and U.S scientists and engineers prerequisite to the station's very existence therefore is a positive relationship with the host country Morton burnt is fully aware of the challenge involved I think we have always considered ourselves as essentially guests of the Republic of Mexico while we're here and being a guest in a foreign country sort of uh sort of means that you have certain responsibilities as far as conduct and as far as your as far as your your contact and your relationships with the people of the host country in my opinion the the single most important thing is that you have to become a part of the community itself that you're living in in many in many cases there there's often a I think a natural inclination for let's say strangers from another country to be sort of become sort of uh Spanish so to speak to socially stay more or less to themselves and this is the sort of thing that that does not generate close and good personal relationships the station is made uh I think quite an effort to to maintain exceptionally good relationships here in Weymouth and I think that this is uh has resulted in what we were we're looking for that is uh a very very pleasant and friendly atmosphere for a tracking station and and very pleasant uh personal relationships between the employees of the station and their friends here in Weymouth their neighbors and so on [Music] glymos a town of forty thousand inhabitants is neither large nor small neither old nor new neither sleepy nor hectic but a peculiar mixture of it all it is colorful without being gaudy easy going yet intensely alive [Music] of adjusting to it is a real one it involves more than learning its language it involves matching its Pace its climate matching the warmth and dignity of its Human Relationships matching its noisy Joy Of Life and its silence [Music] all right [Music] for Mrs Jack Urban the key to the community has been her church choir which consists mostly of townspeople [Music] [Applause] [Music] no I can't I can't put my finger on I really can't say it in words what it is but there's definitely something here that uh I just don't know what it is I like it very much here of the children like it here I'm happy here very happy here the first uh well in fact the first week or so we were here why it seemed as though why we were going to have the end of it because we all for one thing a scorpion and stormy on leg I was waiting for the bus and having a second cup of coffee and I noticed this Scorpion falling on my leg and then the other thing was I had an abscessed tooth and then everyone got monsters in this and uh well it seemed like everything went against us so that's when we decided Well I didn't want to make it six months or not so after I was here six months and I said well gee I should commit myself you know for the year that you should stay at these overseas sites and uh I guess after that time then the family started getting into the uh perspective and the way things are going here in Mexico and uh well we sort of joined in with the community actually and became part of it and that made the big difference joining in with the community means among many other things sending your children to local schools the urbans have done so their oldest son John now seriously considers completing his education at a Mexican University [Music] countries really into the states and as well as into some foreign country to make things a little closer with the whole worldwide situation because I think today this is one of the things that's lacking we don't appreciate the other person's point of view horizontal Communications however ceased when a mission is in progress and all thought is directed Skyward [Music] all systems a team of flight controllers has arrived from Houston it is headed by a command Communicator whom the men addresses Capcom the capcom's function can best be described as that of a spokesman for the ground Support Network for about nine minutes the time the spacecraft is Within Reach of the guamas antennas he links the spacecraft's crew with the Mission Control Center in Houston the Capcom does not make decisions or give commands to the craft these functions are reserved for the flight director in Houston that the Capcom must when the spacecraft appears above his station and the instruments on the many display panels come alive before him and around him quickly analyze the crash performance he must compile pressures voltages temperatures into a status report he must give a go or no go on the many subsystems he must brief Houston and the spacecraft's pilots clearly concisely swiftly um we're showing one one and four on the bus that's perfect um the Capcom is backed by a team of experts who monitor the subsystems and appraise him of their status here a man monitors a Gina we're still indicating 110 degrees on l-band temperature another Gemini pressure fluctuating between 950 and 980. watch over the physical well-being of the spacecraft's pilots the hardware proper standby or the responsibility of the station's permanent staff their performance is monitored by the station's supervisor of Maintenance and operations and by his assistant your encoder off we have a little Latina problem we'd like to exercise the uh the manifold computer engineer Bob Gardner probably is the man who has become most intimately involved with the guymas community he married into it and he speaks with warmth and understanding of the Customs involved with courtship here I've been so accustomed to them for so long really they're not special in the oven and Latin American countries now for about six years so uh I probably have more of their Viewpoint than I do of it Stateside anymore you know the chaperoning and what have you well no such thing as going to a drive-in movie or even a normal movie unless you take her mother along her sister or possibly both no drives in the country alone and they just don't allow you alone period if you're visiting you'll generally have regular visiting hours with you don't get outside of unless it's on special occasion or something well my father and my mother they have canals they have to know who um Bobby was before I can go out with him I remember I was I used to work in my fire like I said like he said and uh she used to take me home well he didn't used to take me home but he took me home three or four times until my pilot find out for my pilot find out I have to go and come back in my own car well not it wasn't my own car I got a car from the company I was working for sure because I didn't know him see anything well especially if it's from another country like he was American only because then before we get married The Stranger always has to prove himself worthy of the trust and the affection of his Host this is an old and inevitable challenge it had to be met by Bob Gardner individually as by the tracking station as a whole Senor Guillermo Vero the station secretary and public relations man is a citizen of guymas as such she is deeply aware of the community's feelings well at first they were distrustful because there they had the idea that this was to be a military base and they naturally looked forward to the launching of missiles from their space and they were I think that aided in that belief because of some reports published in the Mexico City papers certain newspapers which refer to the local station as a military base and they also mentioned that there would be in Marines and the United States Army airplanes and things like that we really got the wrong the wrong start the information was wrong to start with but as the site was completed and doors were open to all visitors they have a very good understanding what our work is and you can tell every time we go to a party or we organize one that we are part of the community now everybody all right [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] foreign [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] the station staff makes a strong effort to tell them about the work they are doing we show them the movies usually of each pre-season flight or launching and we even carried the movies the films to the neighboring towns particularly to the schools I managed to do that because I enjoy that very much I feel that especially the children the school children should participate in the facilities because it's so much more knowledge for them is previous [Music] experiences one of the most important things is the the fact that the Weymouth tracking station does have a future here in Mexico this future is our support of project Apollo this involves an expansion of the station that increase in the size of the station and the amount of equipment we have I think that one of the reasons for our having been selected to support project Apollo is because of the the outstandingly good relationships we have with the host community the guyma story as the story of the nascom network Space Age Communications it involves the newest and most complex techniques known to man but it also involves the oldest and simplest it involves man's ability to design and operate stunningly sophisticated electronic equipment it also involves his ability to develop a warm relationship with his fellow men the twofold challenge has been recognized by the men of nascom and it is being met successfully [Music] [Music] foreign [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause]