Photos of the Goddard Sims teams


Miscellaneous photos of the Sim teams.

Del Golightly

Del Golightly from Bendix in the Super Constellation NASA 421 – one of the aircraft telemetry experts sent out in the Goddard Sim team to give us a hard time on the ground.

Photo taken at Canberra airport by Hamish Lindsay.


instruments

A view of the equipment area of NASA 421.

Larry French (part of the Sims team) writes,
“Bill Eakes is standing in front of the Telemetry Console and equipment. The station to his right is the Command Console and Equipment. The equipment behind Bill is the Tracking and Comm. Console. That operator would play the role of Astronaut.”

Photo taken at Canberra airport by Hamish Lindsay.


NASA 421 consoles

A view of the electronic consoles in NASA 421.

Photo: Bob Burns.


NASA 421

NASA 421 at Perth, Western Australia, prior to Apollo 16.
In the foreground is AWA engineer Roger Glass.

Photo: Trevor Mosel.


Goddard Sims team

Ian Grant, John Saxon and Mike Dinn at the Honeysuckle Ops console with a member of the Goddard Simulation team at right.

Polaroid: Hamish Lindsay. Scan and image repair: Colin Mackellar.

Goddard Sims

Members of the Goddard Sim team at the Honeysuckle Ops console on Tuesday 15 June 1971 during an Apollo 15 sim with –

Len Litherland (USB), Ian Grant (Deputy Director), and Bryan Sullivan (Computers) looking thoughtful along the back,

John Saxon (Ops Supervisor, left) and Mike Evenett (USB Engineer) sitting at the console.

Seated in the corner on the far left, is Fred Palloni (Sim team leader), with Evan Gull (M & O observer) facing the camera at the other end of the console.

Mike Dinn points out that in the above photo you can see –

“The TV camera for station config
The box for clipboards of TTY messages
The antenna diagrams for HSK and HSKX – in Az El with XY or HA DEC on top plus horizon mask
The HOD [in the bookshelf]
An emergency lighting unit, which were all round the station
The window into the comms area.

Large image, Larger (6.6MB).

Photo: Hamish Lindsay. Updated scan: Colin Mackellar, 2026.

Goddard Sims

Concentration.

Detail from the above photo –

Len Litherland, Ian Grant and Bryan Sullivan, at the back, and Mike Evenett at the console, closely watch the simulation.

Photo: Hamish Lindsay. Updated scan: Colin Mackellar, 2026.

 

Of the simulations, John Saxon writes,

“As Mike implies – I reckon we were pretty well organised. Without taking a foot off the press-to-talk switch one could risk a slipped disk and grab any of the required documentation, another log sheet or one of several other forms (we used to incorrectly call them pro-formas), or a TTY message from one of the many clip boards. While simultaneously drinking a cuppa, doing a crossword, etc. etc. {:-)) ”


Another sim photo

Another photo of the same sim for Apollo 15 – printed in Goddard News.

Left to right: Evan Gull, Don Loughhead (standing in background), Mike Evenett at console, Ian Grant on telephone, and Len Litherland on edge of picture.

Photo: Hamish Lindsay. With thanks to Larry Haug for the scan.

Goddard Sims

And here is a scan of Hamish’s negative.

Large image, Larger (5.2MB).

Photo: Hamish Lindsay. Updated scan: Colin Mackellar, 2026.

It is busy in the HSK Simulation Room as the station prepares for the Apollo 16 mission.

From left Honeysuckle Deputy Director Ian Grant, Anderson and Kermit Blaney (leader) from the Goddard sim team, and from the back Mike Evenett, Tony Gerada, Phil Lewin, and Neil Sandford from HSK.

Our Sim console was built from scraps and leftovers but, with ingenuity, worked effectively. See Mike Dinn’s comments on it.

Photo and caption: Hamish Lindsay.

See also Neil Sandford on the Simulation system at HSK.

Goddard Sims team

Here’s another photo in the Honeysuckle Simulation Room prior to Apollo 16.

Neil Sandford is closest to camera, sitting at the console. Mike Evenett is at the far end.

Sim team leader Kermit Blainey is standing behind him. (Can anyone identify the gentleman at left? Hamish Lindsay had him labelled as ‘Anderson’ in the photo above.)

Photo: Hamish Lindsay. 2023 scan: Colin Mackellar.

Goddard News cover May 1967

The front page of Goddard News, May 1 1967.

Scan: Bruce Withey.

Bob Burns at Carnarvon

Bob Burns from the Sim team – with the Dallas-Forth Worth Turnpike sign – at Carnarvon, April 1972.

Photo: Bob Burns.