Choose Space/Choose Hope, March 16

Wednesday, March 16

Jeremiah 29:11: “For I know the plans I have for you,” declares the LORD, “plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.”

In the spring of 1982, in the span of one month, Deb and I both graduated from college, we were married, and we moved from Minnesota to San Diego, CA, so I could start my first engineering job with General Dynamics. It was a very exciting time, starting the rest of our lives together and beginning my dream career of working on the space program. I had known that I wanted a career in space since I was 9 years old, watching the Apollo 11 mission, including Neil Armstrong’s first steps on the surface of the moon. It was completely amazing, and I was hooked!

I was about to work on the coolest program in space – the Space Shuttle. We were redesigning the world’s most powerful upper stage rocket called Centaur to launch many important missions from the Space Shuttle cargo bay. I was assigned to work on the guidance system for the Centaur and had the challenging and exciting job of adapting the guidance system that was designed to work on unmanned rockets with missions that were an hour or two long, to operate accurately on space shuttle missions that could be several days long. It was fascinating work that included developing techniques and operations to link the shuttle guidance systems with the Centaur system. I tested these techniques in Houston with the astronauts that would conduct them on the shuttle.

Many of us poured our hearts into this program for 4 or more years. We were planning to launch the Galileo spacecraft to study Jupiter in May of 1986. That January, we were training for the launch at Kennedy Space Center, and I had recently spent a week there for launch rehearsals. Our second team was there conducting similar rehearsals the last week of January. Several of us were on a speaker phone talking with that team as they watched the Shuttle Challenger launch on the morning of January 28. They described to us how amazing the initial portion of the launch was, and then how horrific it turned as Challenger exploded, killing all 7 of the crew members. We were stunned, as were most Americans. In our state of shock, we watched the TV coverage for the rest of that day. This was a tragedy beyond comparison for the family and friends of those who were killed and it was also a horrible blow to our nation’s space program. We also knew that the Challenger tragedy would have major impacts on our program.

A few weeks after the tragedy, our mission was delayed by 13 months. A couple of months later, our program manager gathered all of the employees to inform us that our Shuttle/Centaur program had been canceled. There were many tears that day. Large layoffs followed. Many more that had not been laid off, decided to leave for other jobs, as they “saw the writing on the wall” and were concerned that there might not be a future in space for our company. I too was concerned.

NASA’s Atlas rockets, which were designed and built by our company, were being phased out because all US launches were being transitioned to the Space Shuttle. Shuttle/Centaur had been the only major ongoing space program for our company. After plenty of soul searching, discussions with Deb, and prayer, I decided to choose hope and stay the course; hopeful that there could be a fulfilling career in space with my current company. I had been living my boyhood dream and really liked and respected my boss and our company. I was hopeful that there would be a long-term future in space for our company, and was also very determined to

While the next few years were lean and challenging, it turned out that the path to stay the course was a good one! Our nation changed its space policy to move satellite launches back to ‘unmanned rockets,’ as it made no sense to put lives at risk on shuttle missions for satellite launches. Our company decided to continue the Atlas rocket program, taking over from NASA all aspects of operating the Atlas rocket system, and also invested heavily in improvements. I had fantastic opportunities developing some of these improvements, and we subsequently developed several new versions of the Atlas rocket.

Our space division was acquired by Lockheed Martin in 1994, and the business and our family were moved to Colorado – I can’t express strongly enough how significant this move was to Deb and I and our extended family! The Atlas program, which was being phased out in the 1980’s, is still flying today and I had the incredible opportunity to participate in and/or lead 184 fascinating space launches, including missions to study planet earth, the moon, the sun, and missions to our sister planets, including launching the Curiosity rover to Mars and the first ever mission to Pluto. This all happened because back in 1986, I chose hope. I am forever grateful!

Dear God – Thank you for our blessings and for your guidance in our lives. In these very challenging times, please help us all to Choose Love and Choose Hope in all we do, to make this world a better place for all of our siblings! Amen

Jim Sponnick