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Forum:	Mercury - Gemini - Apollo
Topic:	Tindallgrams, anyone? Bill Tindall's memos

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Your Reply: HTML is ON UBB Code is ON Smilies Legend	[QUOTE]Originally posted by Robert Pearlman: [B] [QUOTE]Originally posted by wickball: [b]This is some fascinating reading, makes you feel like you are right there, in the middle of the action of the time.[/b][/QUOTE] The Tindallgrams are one of the great resources for space history enthusiasts. For the benefit of those previously unfamiliar with Tindall and his memos, the following is the foreword by Malcolm Johnson that is included with the second collection linked above: <BLOCKQUOTE>The enclosed collection of memoranda were written by Howard W. "Bill" Tindall, Jr., the former Director of Flight Operations at NASA's Manned Spacecraft Center in Houston. They document key technical decisions made between 1966 and early 1970 for all unmanned and manned flights through Apollo 13, and became widely know as "Tindallgrams." Astronauts, flight controllers, and engineers took part in this planning, and many have lamented that they had lost track of their copies, so we have bound this set together for them. As Buzz Aldrin remembered, "Bill had a brilliant way of analyzing things and the leadership that gathered diverse points of view with the utmost fairness." In 1966, Apollo Spacecraft Program Manager George Low made Tindall responsible for all guidance and navigation computer software development by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Bill quickly grasped the key issues and clearly characterized the associated pros and cons, sometimes painfully for us, but his humor, friendliness, and ever-constructive manner endeared him to all of us. In 1967, Low put Tindall in charge of a group called Mission Techniques, which was designed to bring together hardware development, flight crew procedures, mission roles, and spacecraft and control center computer programming. According to former MSC Director Christopher Kraft, "Those meetings were the hardened core of Apollo as far as operations planning was concerned. That's where the famous Tindallgrams came from." He continued, "It would be difficult for me to find anyone who contributed more individually to the success of Apollo than Bill Tindall." Those of us who took part in those meetings and other interactions with Bill will always appreciate another aspect of his contribution... he made it a lot of fun!</BLOCKQUOTE>[/B][/QUOTE]
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