Retro Renovation talks to the set decorator of ABC's 'The Astronaut Wives Club'

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moparwash

moparwash

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Thanks, Jerry.

thanks for posting the great pictures, Jerry! By the way, for those of you who haven't watched it, this is a good series. It brings back a lot of memories for me as I grew up in the sixties in a house with similar furnishings and appliances. The set decorator did his homework well.
 
My aunt and uncle had very 60's furniture - the tall lamps with super tall lampshades - surprised I didn't see more of them in the photo set
 
But the homes used in the show are somewhat more downscale than what the actual astronauts really had.

I went to college with a guy whose father worked at NASA. At the time he was the head of the Skylab program. They lived in a place called Taylor Lake Village. It's just down the road from NASA. A lot of astronauts lived there too. The homes in this area are definitely not what I would call the tract house homes that are shown in the TV show. No two homes look alike in this subdivision. In fact my friends family home looked a lot like Beaver Cleaver's house. These are not expensive homes, but they are a step above what is shown in the show. Other astronauts lived in varying subdivisions around the area in what is known as the Clear Lake area. In some areas you can see some tract homes, but not many. The furnishings that people had in their homes were more upscale as well. Strngely enough, since the astronauts mostly were still employed by the branches of the armed force in which they belonged they were paid by that armed force. They were just contracted to NASA. So salaries were not that high. I would say in 1974 an astronaut may have made $45,000 per year. A good living, but not rich. They got their money from personal appearances and speaking engagements.

Anyway if you drive around the Clear Lake area you can still find some places with "Space Age" 1960's architechture. I think in the 60's with the space programs in operation the place would have been a thrill to live in.

One time around 1973 I was visiting my friends family with my friend on a long weekend from college. I got to meet a few of the astronauts themselves. Big thril for me. Anyway my friends father gave me a real behind the scenes tour of NASA.
I remember standing in front of a real Mercury space capsule and he asked me if I have any questions about it. At the time I wasn't up on space capsules and didn't know enough about it to ask any good questions!

A few years ago my friends father passed on. He had a huge obit in the newspaper.
When I met him he was quite modest about what he did at NASA. But when I read his obit I was really shocked! Turns out the guy was

One of the original 24 scientists hand picked by Eisenhower to start NASA
One of the primary designers of the Mercury Space Capsule
Was the head of the Skylab program and had participated in most other missions and projects that NASA was involved in 1960's-1970's.

And here I had no idea what he did at NASA. When you asked him he'd just say "I just work here!" The guy was a walking legend at NASA. [this post was last edited: 8/21/2015-18:29]
 
cool story!

Wow, that is a cool story about your friend's dad! What a privilege to talk to him, and to meet astronauts as well. I am quite jealous, Allen. I would LOVE to have talked with some of the original brains of the space program. What was the scientist's name? It wasn't Max Faget was it?
 
No, my buddy's father name was Dr. Jerry Hammack. That was the most shocking thing for me was not knowing what he really did at NASA when I was staying with them back in the 70's. If I had only known, the questions I would have had! The only clue I had was that on the tour he took me on we went to a lot of places at NASA that the general public does not get to go. Like on the actual floor of Misson Control (no mission in progress at the time). At the time the Johnson Space Center was a very busy place to be! The parking lots were always full, etc. It looks like a ghost town now except for the Visitor Center by the front of the park. From what I understand now that's run by Disney.

Another thing I do remember is all the NASA buildings had a particular odor to them. It was the same in each building. It was like a cross of hot electronics and sweat.
 
I follow his photostream on Flickr:

 

www.flickr.com

Chango Blanco

Explore Chango Blanco’s 9,250 photos on Flickr!
www.flickr.com www.flickr.com

 

He also posted the last pictures in the Frigidaire appliance group I administer: 

 



 



 

 



[this post was last edited: 8/21/2015-19:01]

www.flickr.com

F R I G I D A I R E product of General Motors

Pictures or videos showing anything related to GM Frigidaire appliances, ads and partial views are welcome too!
www.flickr.com www.flickr.com
 
more jealousy and great pictures

Great pictures, Phil. Thanks!

Now I am even more jealous, Allen. Getting to go behind the scenes and staying with a NASA scientist. I think your nose hit the mark..hot electronics and sweat. A lot of men were locked down in those control rooms sweating out the space missions, literally.

I was at Cape Canaveral and it was the same there, empty control rooms. They had a simulation set up in the old Apollo 11 control room so you could see what it looked like to the launch controllers back in the day. I don't recall the sweat and electronics odor, but the control room is now a visitor display and all the visitors body odor probably covered up the original testosterone sweat of the flight controllers.

Always wanted to live in Cocoa Beach as it was the original home of the Mercury astronauts before the space center at Houston was built.

A couple of great books you might want to read, Allen. "Failure is Not an Option" by Gene Krantz. He was the main flight controller for Apollo 11 and many of the Gemini and other Apollo missions.

and "Flight, My Life in Mission Control" by Chris Kraft, who was Gene Krantz's boss.

Both deal extensively with the space program and the early research as well as the construction and use of mission control in Houston. They cover Apollo 11 and Apollo 13 as well as the other missions and give you a behind the scenes feel you don't get in other books. It's been a while since I have read them, so I don't remember but they may very well mention your friends dad in there.

There were a lot of negatives in those days, but some of the positives were outstanding: Space travel, astronaut heroes, and killer home appliances to name a few!!
 
The odor I'm talking about was everywhere. In the halls, in the conference rooms, in the museum that they had before the current visitors center was built. It was the same in all the NASA buildings. Maybe it was some kind of HEPA filtration that gave the place the particular odor it had?

I'll keep an eye open for those books. They sound like and interesting read.
 
email

Just now saw it, Allen.

Will talk more with you about it on the regular email.

Thanks!!!
 
To drift back to the original subject

Most of the astronauts and NASA scientists and support workers lived in a subdivision just down NASA Road 1 called Timber Cove. Today it's part of the city of Taylor Lake Village.

Now this is pretty low lying land between Clear Lake and Galveston Bay. I wouldn't want to live there during a hurricane, but the houses seem to make it just fine.

What did the homes look like? Here are some links..

http://swamplot.com/tag/timber-cove/

http://www.yourhoustonnews.com/bay_...cle_3d764dde-8adb-5fdd-9409-5987ce6adb9b.html

http://www.houstonpress.com/news/houston-101-neighborhood-of-astronauts-6721772

Timber Cove used to be set back off the road about half a mile back then. It was surrounded by fields and Taylor Lake. Now all that land is built up right to the street you take to gain entry into the subdivision. But unless you know exactly where to go, you'd never find it. Even though NASA is a ghost town these days, some NASA people still do live there.

 
Another thing that gets me about Astronaut Wives is that why are all the astronauts in the show so small statured? You can see what I mean in the picture at the top of this thread. They are barely bigger than their wives. The real astronauts were normal sized men.

And in browsing through some of the photos, a lot of you probably noticed that a lot of the houses do not have any front windows. This was done intentionally so that news crews couldn't invade the privacy of the families living there. In fact, if you look through Houston that design theme carried on through homes all through the city.
 
Allen, that turquoise refrigerator in the first picture is exactly 5'4" tall, so maybe it's the wife who's rather tall!

(That's what I thought when I first saw that picture!)
 
FInal Footnote

After researching this information about these astronaut homes and subdivision, it brought back a lot of memories of the time I had spent there in the 70's. That friend of mine bought a house in the same subdivision even though he never worked for NASA. But like me, he was a pilot for a major airline until retirement last year.

Remember now that a lot of the astronauts were former career military guys. Working for NASA and getting to the moon was their mission. The whole vibe of Timber Cove was like being on a military base. If you read the last link about the subdivision you'll see what I mean. Essentially, due to the fact that in the 60's it was largely a rural area it became somewhat of a closed community. The residents had each other and that was about it. Because of this nothing strange or weird every happened in the place. It was the ultimate "What will the neighbors say?!!" type of place. Everyone had their eye on everyone else. Whether or not this kind of environment makes somebody comfortable or not is up to the individual person.

Since time has marched on some of the original NASA people from the Mercury/Gemini mission days still live there. But only a few. They are all in their late 80's early 90's. Newer NASA employees live there, but most of them work for NASA contractors rather than NASA itself. What it is like living in there today may b vastly different than it was back in the 70's.

Isn't it kind of hard to remember the "Astronauts Wives Club" as being women in their late 80's, if they are even still around at all? [this post was last edited: 8/26/2015-04:46]
 
Thanks, Allen!

Very interesting article and Timber Cove. I think it would be a cool place to live, even today. Just the history of it and the fact that some of the old-timers are still there. I wonder if some of the flight controllers like Kraft and Krantz are still there? What stories!

Here in Oak Ridge, the city was built to make the first atomic bomb. Like in Houston/Timber Grove, there are few of the original engineers and workers left. Those that are in their mid and late nineties. But have known and talked to some of them and their mind is just as sharp as a tack. So sad all those experiences that they have will soon be gone both of the originals in Oak Ridge and in Houston.

You have given me a new place that I want to visit now, Houston! Would love to see Timber Grove and the Space Center!!!!

Thanks again for sharing the memories, Allen.
 

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