Ted Ankrum

NASA Senior Representative to Australia, 1992 – 1997.

On 23 March 1993, G. Ted Ankrum, NASA Senior Representative to Australia presents Radio Astronomer David Jauncey with a NASA Group Achievement Award for the SHEVE (Southern Hemisphere VLBI Experiment) Team at ATNF, Epping, in Sydney. Left to right: Paul Jones, Tasso Tzioumis, Bruce McAdam, Ray Norris, Ted Ankrum, John Reynolds, Dave Jauncey, Bob Duncan, Dick Ferris and Mal Sinclair. ATNF / CSIRO photo with thanks.

With grateful thanks to Ted Ankrum who has kindly shared memories of his time in Australia.

Ted Ankrum Memories of being the NASA Rep 1992-1997

I’ll structure this epistle in two parts: 1.) Some Administrative jottings and 2.) some highlights of my tenure:

1) Admin

I had been the Deputy Director of Facilities Engineering at NASA HQ for several years when the Environmental Protection Agency asked the NASA Administrator for my loan to fill in as Deputy Director of the EPA’s Superfund Office while a political appointee was awaiting Senate confirmation (my portfolio at NASA included NASA’s environmental compliance efforts). At the end of that loan, EPA made me an offer to stay, but Richard Truly, the first Astronaut-Administrator, countered by asking me to join his office as Special Assistant to him. This was expected to be a holding position. (My replacement as Special Assistant to Daniel Goldin--Truly’s replacement as Administrator—was George Abbey, who went on to be Head of Johnson Space Center). Truly was fired as Administrator by President Bush (a story for another time) and I was out of a job. At that time, I was 50 years old and, as a career civil servant, needed another 5 years before I could retire. I asked Charles Force, the Associate Administrator who, among his other duties, had charge of the Deep Space Tracking Network; if he would appoint me as the NASA Rep in Australia for a 5-year term. The timing was perfect as the job was newly vacant and a veteran Astronaut who was slated for the job had just dropped out.

Dick Colonna had departed the job to become Director of NASA’s White Sands Center. One of the things that had happened during Dick’s Tenure was to provide NASA funding to the State Department to purchase a house for the NASA Rep. It is the practice of the US Government to provide housing for its overseas personnel and prior to this, the NASA Rep was assigned whatever house the Embassy’s Admin section was able to lease at the moment. Dick had argued that NASA would be better served with a dedicated house and that NASA should provide funds to the State Dept to buy a house, which happened during Dick’s tenure. But, this meant “a” house, not “the” house that Dick had picked out and the Embassy had purchased. Prior to his departure and my arrival date, Dick arranged for Charlie Taylor to be the “temporary” NASA Rep and squat in the “NASA House” to preserve it as the NASA Rep’s housing.

Ted Ankrum and Charlie Taylor both attended the Deep Space Network Joint Management Meeting at Hotel Ainslie in Canberra, in April 1992.

Dick Colonna marked the first time a member of the “Senior Executive Service (SES)” had been assigned as the NASA Rep, which continued with my appointment. The Australian entity in which the Tidbinbilla tracking station was housed was the “Australian Space Office (ASO)”, whose head was Bruce Middleton. Bruce was a very skilled operative within the Australian Government Civil Service and he was appreciative that the NASA Rep was also a member of the US Govt SES. Groundwork had also been laid by Dick Colonna for giving the NASA Rep full Diplomatic status. Heretofore, the NASA Rep was accredited to the Aust govt as “Administrative and Technical” staff. A much lesser status accorded to secretarial staff. I was fortunate to be able to continue the excellent rapport Dick had developed with the then-Ambassador, Mel Sembler, and have his support for according full Diplomatic status to the NASA Rep, which the State Dept in Washington, DC ended up doing. So, I was the first NASA Rep to be accredited as a “Diplomat” and this was continued to my successor, Dr. Miriam Baltuck.

The NASA Rep was co-located with the ASO in a Ministry building as office space in the Embassy was quite limited and the Administrative staff of the Embassy was quite happy to be relieved of the burden of housing the NASA rep’s office. A couple of years into my tenure, it appeared to me that the Aust Govt decided to de-empthasize it’s Space efforts and closed the ASO. Bruce went on to other things and oversight of the BAE Tidbinbilla operating contract was passed to CSIRO—but not the part of CSIRO responsible for Parkes, which I thought to be a mistake. Our office relocated to a spare CSIRO building in a Canberra suburb, where we remained throughout the remainder of my tenure. During the latter part of that, Tidbinbilla seemed to become a pawn in political machinations within the Aust Govt and CSIRO. I attempted to have responsibility for the BAE operating contract moved to the part of CSIRO that operated Parkes. As it happens, that part of CSIRO declined to become involved in the politics and at the time I departed, it seemed to be about to end up with a CSIRO office located in ANU. Needless to say, I left no friends in that part of CSIRO.

At the same time that these shifts were occurring in Canberra, there were also big things happening in Washington. Charles Force lost his Deputy (and I declined this position in a conversation with Charlie) about a year before my departure. A number of months later, the still-vacant position of Deputy became moot when the Associate Administrator for Space Communications Directorate became folded into the Space Operations Directorate and Charlie retired rather than take a downgrade to be one of the Deputy’s in the Space Operations Directorate. Frankly, this change actually made sense to me as Charlie’s most important function was to design, launch and operate the TDRSS geosync satellites which supported Shuttle and Space Station operations. Design, construction and launch of a constellation of three TDRSS satellites was complete and it was down to simple operations by then. The DSN tracking stations were small potatoes and largely managed by JPL—the main customer. At this time, responsibility for the NASA Reps at NASA HQ was transferred from Charlie to the Associate Administrator for International Relations (IR). This ended any engineering expertise in the two NASA Reps (Australia and Spain) Offices and the status of the NASA Reps was downgraded from SES-level. Dr. Baltuck was not SES and her appointment was also the last of any scientific or technical expertise in the NASA Reps. Her replacement was Neal Newman, an international relations specialist in the IR Office (who asked to meet with me after his arrival in Canberra, about four years after I retired, for some background).

My wife and I decided that we would stay on in Australia for a time after my retirement, so I applied and received a “Retirement” visa, which prohibited any employment. One of the conditions of that visa was the investment of a substantial amount in Australia. To that end, I obtained permission from the Foreign Investment Review Board to purchase a building lot in Jerrabomberra in NSW just outside the ACT boundary a year before my planned retirement. I designed a house that looked like the classic Australian cottage, but with all the most modern features inside that shell. I engaged a building contractor to construct it and it was ready before my retirement. We stayed there for 5 years, before selling out and returning to the USA. It became somewhat notorious while we lived there as the “NASA HOUSE”. If anyone wants a look, it’s at 10 Lawson Place, Jerrabomberra, NSW.

After 9/11, I wanted to return to the US and become a full-time citizen again. We moved to Houston where I became involved in Politics. During the 2004 Presidential Campaign, as a fellow Vietnam Veteran, I was the Harris County surrogate at Candidate Forums for John Kerry, when he was not able to attend himself. In 2006, after a 4-way primary, which I won with 71% of the vote (pre-selection in the US is by Plebicite), I became the Democratic Party Candidate for the US House of Representatives for the 10th Congressional District of Texas. To no one’s surprise in deep Red Texas, the incumbent Republican won with 55% of the popular vote (Michael McCaul, Chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee).

Ted Ankrum during his run for Congress.

2) Highlights

The ASO staff supervising the BAE staff operating Tidbinbilla were not under any operational control of the NASA Rep. This was exercised by JPL on behalf of Charlie Force. My function, as given to me by Charlie, was to be his eyes and ears on the ground—which meant it was not my job to make any “friends” there OR at JPL OR in Charlie’s office supervising JPL—remember that I did not come to the NASA Rep job from Charlie’s organization, but Charlie and I were well-acquainted from my time in Facilities Engineering and the Administrator’s Office. But the other job for the NASA Rep was to provide liaison between NASA researchers who wanted to conduct activities in Australia and the Australian Government and to obtain permission, where necessary, for those operations to take place. This was when the US Embassy Diplomatic status became important. I’ll describe some of those, but not necessarily in chronological order.

MOON ROCK. The Tidbinbilla Visitor’s Center was an important outreach point for the Deep Space Network in Australia. Mike Dinn wondered if we could obtain a larger piece of the Moon for the Visitor’s Center than the encapsulated sliver that was on hand. I made contact with the appropriate offices back at NASA and emphasized the role that Australia had played in those “One step for man….” words and was able to obtain the loan of a goose-egg sized moon rock for display at the VC. It was signed out to me in my personal custody. It was a hoot carrying it onto the United Airlines flight back to Australia. It got First Class treatment at the front of the airplane (but not me, alas). Mike and I did a segment on the Nine Network from Tidbinbilla on the loan to Australia of this large specimen. On my departure, I transferred custody to Miriam Baltuck.

ASTRONAUT VISITS. When we did Astronaut Visits during my tenure, I was usually the driver for the duration because of concern back at the Astronaut Office about safety with them doing short-term drives in RHD autos. When John Young visited, I got him a stay with the Ambassador in his Residence because of his status as one of the “Moon-walkers”. Usually, though, the visiting Astronaut stayed with me in the NASA Residence. As we had no children with us and there were two separate ensuite bed rooms in a rear annex of the house, this was easy. There were many requests from Australian organizations for Astronaut visits and each of them was passed to me from NASA HQ for vetting. I ended up clearing only about one a year.

SCIENTIFIC INVESTIGATIONS. NASA regularly conducted investigations from Australia because of it’s location in the Southern Hemisphere. During my time, this included High Altitude Balloon Launches from near Alice Springs, several High Altitude Atmospheric research flights from Townsville with U-2 aircraft, and the HAO aircraft from the Northwest Cape, WA. There was also one mission involving use of a non-NASA tracking station in Hobart, which had been arranged by Charlie shortly before my departure. These missions involved using Embassy auspices to get clearance from the Australian Government for overflight authorization and employment of Foreign Nationals in-Country.

I did a lot of travel throughout Australia and it was my practice to drive there, sometimes taking the long way.

Within the first month of my arrival, an opportunity rose to visit the then-active tracking station near Carnarvon, WA. My wife and I drove to Perth over the Nullarbor and then to Carnarvon. After the visit was concluded, we loaded my station Mitsubishi Verada onto a flatcar at the end of the Indian Pacific train and took it back to Adelaide and then drove back to Canberra. Jock, the station mechanic, had outfitted the Verada with a set of Roo bars.

I had become acquainted with Karl Kruszelnicki, a science journalist with the Nine Network and invited him to attend the launch of a high altitude balloon experiment from Alice Springs. Consistent with my desire to take the long way, I decided to get there by way of the Birdsville Track and the Simpson Desert. Karl arranged to do a test of the then-new 80-series Diesel Landcruiser for a publication and I used my personal Petrol 80-series Landcruiser. We met in Birdsville for an overnight at the Birdsville Hotel. I had rigged storage for six 20l petrol cans with my car and Karl carried one for Diesel. For safety’s sake, we allocated one of my cans for Diesel for Karl. I had obtained a set of tyres from a Troop Carrier for my car while Karl had the stock wide 16” street-types on his car. After airing down my tyres, we did a climb of “Big Red” and started our crossing of the Simpson as a pair for safety’s sake. Four days and 1100 sand dunes later, we arrived at Mt Dare Homestead. Even after my can of Diesel for him, he arrived at the Homestead with very little Diesel left and had to fuel at an exorbitant cost. I still had enough Petrol left to continue on to Alice by way of the “Old Gahn” railway bed and fuel in Alice. My car with the narrow Troop Carrier tyres had fared much better than Karl’s with the wide street-type tyres.

It was an interesting trip to the Northwest Cape for the HAO flights. We drove from Canberra to Adelaide, then to Perth via the Nullarbor in the station Verada. From Perth, it was up the West Coast to the Northwest Cape. Returning, we went East to Broome, then the Pilbarra on to Darwin and then South to Alice. From Alice, we cut over to Broken Hill and thence to Canberra. The trips to Townsville were up the East coast. We took the opportunity to see Brisbane, the Gold Coast, Cairns and Cooktown while we were up there. The station Verada was not suitable for continuing beyond Cooktown.

SPACE STATION LIFEBOAT. The Space Station people back in DC had begun to worry about contingencies that might require an emergency evacuation of the Space Station. This was before any serious occupation of the Station had begun. During assembly of the Station, the Shuttle was attached and would be used for any evacuation. But, after operations commenced, the three “permanent” Astronauts/Cosmonauts would be alone with the attached Soyuz capsule as the means for evacuation. Permanent staff on the Station was limited to the three that could be accommodated in a Soyuz capsule. The concern was that an emergency detachment of the Soyuz capsule might be needed from an orbit position that would make the normal landing spot in Kazakhstan unattainable. A number of possible emergency landing sites Worldwide were scoped out (which would be driven by where the Soyuz capsule was in orbit at the time), with Australia prominent in those plans. To that end, I was tasked to have a look at the possibilities. First off, I arranged to have a look at the salt pans proximate to Woomera. A group from the US was to fly in to a Station landing strip in the same area as the filming for the first Mad Max movie. Ann and I met up with an SA Police sergeant in Cooper Pedy in the Station Verada, where the two of us drove two Troop Carriers and along with the Sergeant’s ute, drove out several hours into the bush to meet up with a chartered twin-engine airplane carrying the USA contingent for a look-see of the terrain. We were regaled with some really interesting Coober Pedy stories that evening.
It was decided to keep looking, so I arranged for the Defense Attache from the Embassy to use his airplane (another twin Beech) to do a circuit with me of likely places. We flew from Canberra to Woomera, Darwin, one of the Reserve Aust Air Force landing strips in the Pilbarra, and Townsville, being very observant of the terrain.

Finally, I had a look at Australia to the West of Alice. Ann and I drove my personal Land Cruiser (station Verada was not suitable) to Alice, where we drove due West to pick up the Gunbarrel “Highway” and after four days in the Gibson Desert ended up in Meekathara. This was a solo trip for Ann and me. We saw a fair few wild camels and brumbies plus drove through one bush fire (as we had no other way out). That trip had required permission from the Aust Govt because much of it was through reserved Aboriginal territory. The scenery was absolutely beautiful. When you have lived in the area for 40,000 years, you are certain to pick the prettiest places. The trip back via the Nullarbor was uneventful.

After all of this, the preferred target became the area near Coober Pedy and a visit by a senior Russian manager from Kazakhstan, Mr. Valintin Ovsienikov, sealed the deal. Once Space Station operations actually began, this whole idea seemed to be lost in the dust.

One notable event was the visit of Gene and Carolyn Shoemaker of Shoemaker-Levi Comet fame. Gene was a frequent visitor to Australia because of his research involving meterorites. Ann and I hosted them as the guests for an informal dinner with the Ambassador and people from CSIRO. Unfortunately, Gene was killed in an automobile accident in Outback Australia shortly thereafter. We also had my old boss, former NASA Administrator Richard Truly and his wife as guests in the NASA house and at Tidbinbilla when he attended meetings with the Australian Intelligence Agencies that I had arranged. Plus, the then-Director of the CIA had a look at Tidbinbilla as a possible backup ground station.

SKYTRACKERS. The Australian Children’s Television Foundation approached Mike Dinn and me about using Tidbinbilla as the setting for a multi-part TV series featuring the Children of staff at an Australian NASA Tracking Station getting into various adventures, along with their “parents”; one of whom was a Mission Specialist on a Shuttle mission. It was called “SkyTrackers”. They gave us the scripts to review. I was enthusiastic, but Mike objected to one episode called “Skating the Dish” where a pair of the children went up on the 70m dish to roller skate (simulated). Mike was afraid that life would imitate art and despite my attempts to change his mind, remained adamant in his refusal. The series was still made, but using Parkes as the setting. I had suggested a number of script changes in a Space Shuttle episode for greater accuracy, which the Producer accepted and I was given a screen credit as Technical Advisor. To the best of my knowledge, no one has attempted to skate the Parkes dish since the release of the TV series.

All in all, I very much enjoyed my time as the NASA Rep.