Many Americans and people around the world watched in awe as Neil Armstrong took the first steps on the moon during the Apollo 11 mission. Many also held their breath as the fate of the Apollo 13 crew hung in the balance.
These historic moments were especially meaningful to John Johnson, an engineer at the time. Now a 91-year-old assisted living resident at Morning Pointe of East Hamilton, Tennessee, Johnson still remembers with pride the role he played in not only these two famous missions but ALL of the Apollo flights, laying a foundation for space exploration for many years to come.
Perfection to the Army
John was born in Chicago, the son of a night superintendent at Perfection Tool and Metal. The owner of the company became his godfather, and it seemed that John’s career path was marked out for him. He attended Wright Junior College in Chicago and then the Allied Institute of Technology, earning a bachelor’s degree in tool engineering.
At age 16, John started working at Perfection. Then, he got drafted in 1956 and went to train in the Army at Fort Leonard Wood, Missouri. From there, he was sent to Redstone Arsenal in Huntsville, Alabama. “I was sworn to secrecy because what was happening in Huntsville was not known to the rest of the world,” John said. “The Army was preparing to put a missile into space.” He became part of the Army Ballistic Missile Agency.
The ABMA’s technical director, Wernher von Braun, the famous German-turned-American aerospace engineer, interviewed John. He chose John because he had learned to handle materials that had been exposed to 2,600° F, and soon John was put to the test with building heat shields for rockets that could withstand temperatures of 5,000-6,000°.
After many tests at The Arsenal, we came up with a material that could survive reentry into the Earth’s atmosphere,” John explained. “We fired the rocket, Jupiter C, into space and recovered it with very little damage. When that cone was brought back, that one was examined, and a bunch of us put our names on the inside.” Even President Eisenhower was impressed. He featured the cone on television, and it was later housed at the Smithsonian Institute in Washington, D.C.
Avco and Apollo
John joined Avco Corporation, which contracted with NASA during its Apollo programs. His title: materials engineer for development and building. His mission: to develop and test the heat shields for the Apollo spacecraft.
The heatshields were built with an outer honeycomb-like structure, which was then filled in with the material that John’s team designed to withstand the heat. Women would use a tool similar to a caulking gun (by hand) to fill in the 144,000 hexagonal spaces on each vehicle.
John took part in each Apollo mission. He met almost all the astronauts over the years and got to work with them in explaining the importance of his team’s development and how the heat shield worked. “John Glenn was my favorite, although I did the most work with Alan Shepard,” John said.
Apollo 4 was the first mission for which John was present for the launch. For each launch, he was part of the crew that examined and evaluated the returned capsule. “We would analyze it, cut some of it up and measure the ablation,” John explained. He proudly keeps pieces of Apollo 9 in his apartment.
Of course, one of the highlights of his career was the successful mission of Apollo 11, when Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin landed on the moon. John was living in Massachusetts and had two small children, Patty and Michael, at the time. The family watched the footage of the moon landing and walk on TV together. “They said, ‘It’s so fuzzy, Dad. Fix it,’” he recalled.
John, an avid bowler, was at the local bowling alley when astronaut Jim Lovell called Mission Control to say, “Houston, we have a problem.” Although he was in Massachusetts, he got in touch with the team. “I arranged for my people to run a series of tests to see how bad it was going to be,” John said. “We took three days to do all the analysis to prove that they could come home safely. When they arrived home, we were right on.” He was relieved for the astronauts’ safe return.
John also got to play a special role in the Apollo 17 mission, the final mission to take astronauts to the moon. It was a night launch, which John was privileged to watch in person from Cape Canaveral as the rocket lit up the sky. He was also honored to be the keynote speaker for the Smithsonian regarding the mission.
Family, Retirement, and Morning Pointe
Remember John’s bowling hobby? He was close with the bowling alley’s manager, Henry. Henry sadly passed away, and in time, through a series of family interactions, John began seeing his widow, Janice. John had been divorced for years, and Patty and Michael loved Janice and gave their wholehearted support to the match. In 1980, John and Janice were wed. As John put it, “Janice is the greatest thing that ever happened in my life.”
John retired from Avco in 1987. Retirement became a fun time for the Johnsons, who went on 87 cruises together all over the world. The family has since grown, and John now has seven grandchildren and 11 great-grandkids.
In spring of 2024, the family had a discussion about care needs. John is legally blind and cannot reach his feet, and they decided assisted living would be a good choice to provide for the couple’s physical and social needs. They considered assisted living communities in the Northeast, but several states do not allow nurses in assisted livings. With Patty and her family living in the greater Chattanooga area, John and Janice decided to move to Tennessee.
Morning Pointe of East Hamilton met their needs for care and closeness to family, and the couple moved in to an apartment together. “I have never in my life had this much attention,” John said about the care there.
On the life enrichment front, John and Janice both love the variety of activities and the ability to meet and talk to people. John plays bingo with some assistance and truly enjoyed the Veterans Day festivities this November. But most of all, his favorite is music. “I have enjoyed the number of singers and dancers and musicians that come to entertain us here,” John said.
John is always happy to share about his service with anyone who will listen to his fascinating stories. When you ask what he is most proud of in his life, he will share, “Being an Apollo engineer.”
