Properties vol 1 2016 space oddity

RIVER OAKS AREA

Texas Monthly senior editor John Nova Lomax is a co-author of a compilation of notorious Houston crimes. He,s been a full-time journalist in the Bayou City since 2001.

58 PROPERTIES | VOLUME 1 – 2016

marthaturner.com

O

RIVER OAKS AREA n July 20, 1969 – aside from

Albert Thomas (then- chairman of the

In the beginning, some future NASA

some technical jargon –

House Appropriations Committee – a

employees were a little fearful of

‘Houston’ was the first human

position that gave him oversight over

their broiling-hot, storm-wracked new

utterance broadcast from the

NASA funding), and vice president Lyndon

home. Just a week or so before the

lunar surface. It’s hard to believe that just

Johnson (chairman of the National Space

announcement, category-5 Hurricane

a few years prior to that epochal event for

Committee), Houston emerged victorious.

Carla had devastated most of the central

all mankind, the terrestrial contact point

(Which was somewhat surprising, as

and upper Texas coast, including the

for that momentous message – NASA’s

Tampa was only 129 miles from

facility’s future home in the Clear Lake

Manned Spacecraft Center – had been

Cape Canaveral.)

area. Up to that point, most employees

nothing more than a sweltering, mosquito-ridden cow pasture 22 miles southeast of downtown.

Indeed, the span of time between round-ups and space flight spanned only eight years.

On May 25, 1961, spurred on by alarming advances in the Soviet space program, President John F. Kennedy declared America’s “goal of landing a man on the Moon and returning him safely to the Earth” by the end of the decade.

Cape Canaveral was already their designated launching pad. Where to put Mission Control?

Washington was seeking a site with warm weather (check for Houston); easy access to barge transport (check, thanks to the Ship Channel); nearby universities (check; indeed Rice University is the land on which NASA was built); proximity to a military airfield (such as Ellington Field), and a strong industrial

...the focal point of the Free World's attempts to conquer outer space.

of America’s fledgling space program were based in Langley, Virginia, where such devastating tropical storms were unknown.

Years later, NASA public affairs officer Paul Haney recalled that on his first glimpse of his future workplace – an aerial tour – most of it was still submerged under storm waters, and a stray shrimp boat lay foundered on the site of what would eventually become the Manned Space Center’s administration building.

(The Johnson Space Center would not take the former president’s name until 1973.)

Calling his first impression of the site “kind of scary,” NASA’s Jack Kinzler recalled that he and his workmates were concerned that their “wives might not be too happy to move into an area where there is the obvious possibility of extensive storm damage.”

infrastructure.

marthaturner.com

After a score of cities were eliminated from

Less than four months after the search

consideration, the contest for America’s

had officially begun, on September 19,

mantle as “Space City, USA” came right

1961, Houston was officially designated,

down to the wire between Houston and

as one local politico put it at the time, “the

Tampa. Thanks in no small part to the

focal point of the Free World’s attempts to

D.C. clout of Houston congressman

conquer outer space.”

VOLUME 1 – 2016 | PROPERTIES 59

Right Stuff,” the astronauts planned on flipping the houses almost immediately after closing.

Sharpstown never became Space City’s hotspot for mingling with astronauts. That would prove to be Clear Lake, which rose out of the same marshy prairies as NASA to become one of Houston’s finest bedroom communities. By fall of 1962, all of the original astronauts would buy homes there, along with John Glenn and other space-flight pioneers and scientists.

-

On September 11, 1962, in front of 50,000 well-wishers at Rice Stadium, President

‹ Johnson Space Center

W

Kennedy gave a speech that has gone down in

hile those fears may have lingered, they

board, and came

American lore as one

were soon tempered by the warm welcome

up with a new

of his most inspiring.

Houstonians lavished upon the 751 NASA

idea: he would

“There is no strife, no

employees who moved to town. They were

just give the

prejudice, no national

given pride of place at the 1962 downtown Fourth of

astronauts smaller

conflict in outer space

July parade. Months after his three orbits around the

homes in a less

earth, national hero John Glenn was in one car, and

opulent section of

another prime attraction was a long trailer bearing

Sharpstown. (By that

on it a Mercury rocket. The procession ended at the

- (Feb. 23, 1962) U.S. President, John F. Kennedy, pays tribute to astronaut John H. Glenn Jr. for his February 1962 flight aboard Friendship 7.

time, a government review

Sam Houston Coliseum,

determined

were being serenaded by

that astronauts could

high school marching bands as they were plied with a barbecue feast.

While all NASA employees were venerated as heroes, astronauts were feted

"We work in a place where 13,000 men can feel like Columbus."

accept gifts from well wishers.)

to us all. Its conquest deserves the best of all

mankind, and its opportunity for

had

where the space cowboys

as yet,” Kennedy said.

“Its hazards are hostile

peaceful cooperation may never come again. But why, some say, the Moon? Why choose this as our goal? And they may well ask why climb the highest mountain. Why, 35 years ago, fly the

It’s believed that some of the

Atlantic?”

astronauts were tempted by this offer, but none accepted.

And then the president brought down the house:

At around the same time, Life

“Why does Rice play Texas?”

magazine had offered each of the original seven astronauts

After working out of scattered sites around Houston,

over $500,000 (in today’s

all ten-thousand-plus employees were consolidated

dollars) a piece for exclusive

at the Clear Lake site by 1964, and all facilities were

Desperate to reel them

rights to their life stories, and

complete there by 1965. Upon the culmination of

in to his new subdivision,

heroes or not, some in the

the Mercury and Gemini warm-up programs, NASA

developer Frank Sharp saw

public believed that astronauts

embarked upon Apollo, the last of which, of course,

with the same fanaticism the next generation would accord to rock stars.

to it that Sharpstown High School’s team name was

were living too high on the hog for government

was the mission to the Moon. There was an air of

the Apollos. As a further token of his “friendship,

employees. Free houses on top of that seemed just a

excitement about working there at the time seldom

gratefulness and admiration,” Sharp offered

little much.

seen anywhere on the planet. As one technician put it, “we work in a place where 13,000 men can feel like

astronauts homes near the Sharpstown Country Club for $10,000 at a time when they were selling in

And in any event, it doesn’t seem likely that the

the $45,000-$50,000 range. When the government

astronauts would have lingered long in Sharpstown.

ruled that federal employees were ineligible from

Given that it is almost 50 miles from NASA, that’s

receiving such gifts, Sharp went back to the drawing

hardly a shocker. According to Tom Wolfe’s “The

60 PROPERTIES | VOLUME 1 – 2016

Columbus.”

And then, after ten Apollo missions…

H

"

ouston, Tranquility Base here,” came the

Budget cuts ended the program in 1972, with December’s Apollo

voice of Neil Armstrong, 200,000

17 mission standing as man’s last trip to the Moon. The very

miles above the surface of the

next month, former president Lyndon Johnson, so vital

Earth, heard live by 530 million

to the Manned Space Center’s placement in Houston

people. “The Eagle has landed.” Tempted

and as a driving force for NASA’s programs in the

as they were to celebrate the moonshot,

1950s and ‘60s, passed away. On February 19,

NASA scientists at Mission Control did not

1973, President Richard Nixon signed a Senate

whip out the champagne and cigars until

resolution renaming the facility the Johnson

Armstrong, Buzz Aldrin and Michael Collins had splashed down in the Pacific Ocean days later and were safely hoisted aboard the USS Hornet.

Five more lunar landings would follow, as would the barely-averted tragedy that was Apollo 13.

Space Center. ˆ President

Richard M. Nixon and the Apollo 13 crew, John Swigert, Jim Lovell and Fred W. Haise at Hickam Air Force Base, Hawaii.

20, 1969) Astronaut Edwin E. ”Buzz” Aldrin Jr., Lunar Module pilot, is photographed during the Apollo 11 extravehicular activity on the Moon.

ˇ (July

Over the next few years, the JSC focused on Skylab – a prototype for today’s International Space Station – and the Apollo-Soyuz project, the first space mission conducted by two nations: the

USA and Cold War foe the Soviet Union.

"HOUSTON,

Tranquilty Base here. The Eagle has landed."

RIVER OAKS AREA

A

fter six quiet years, NASA launched the Space Shuttle program, the source of both great triumphs and two unforgettable tragedies.

Even to most scientists at the time of its conception, the idea that you could launch a reusable craft into space and then return it to earth as a glider seemed nuts. And yet there it was, nine years after its announced conception in 1972, the Space Shuttle Columbia, blasting off into space on April 12, 1981. On this most exciting day in American spaceflight history since the moon landings, as with all other shuttle flights, Columbia’s every move was overseen by a team of scientists and technicians at the Johnson Space Center once off the launch pad, Five years later, NASA and the JSC would experience its worstever tragedy. On January 28, 1986, the Challenger exploded in a flash of yellow fire and bright white smoke on 73 seconds after takeoff. Seven astronauts, all of whom had left their mark on Houston in some way, perished, including teacher Christa McAuliffe, who was to have been the first “ordinary citizen” to go to space, and Ronald McNair, the second African-American to leave the planet. McNair planned to record a solo piece for saxophone that he had composed from orbit; aside from “Jingle Bells,” it was to have been the first piece of music performed beyond the atmosphere.

- A close-up camera view shows Space Shuttle Columbia as it lifts off from Launch Pad 39A on mission STS-107. › Johnson Space Center

62 PROPERTIES | VOLUME 1 – 2016

marthaturner.com

- The STS-51L crewmembers are: in the back row from left to right: Mission Specialist, Ellison S. Onizuka, Teacher in Space Participant Sharon Christa McAuliffe, Payload Specialist, Greg Jarvis and Mission Specialist, Judy Resnik. In the front row from left to right: Pilot Mike Smith, Commander, Dick Scobee and Mission Specialist, Ron McNair.

H

RIVER OAKS AREA

ouston had a very bad year in

and its annual payroll was $60 million, both

1986 – the bottom of a historic

of which were huge sums in the 1960s. And

oil bust – and this calamity

think of the sheer brainpower it brought to

heaped insult upon injury. Both

town: Take the combo of Mission Control and

Houston and NASA rallied over the following

a typical Space Shuttle crew. How often has

months and years. McNair’s saxophone piece

humankind ever seen greater combinations

was incorporated into Rendezvous Houston,

of applied intelligence, technical skill, mental

French composer Jean-Michel Jarre’s dazzling

toughness and simple old-fashioned bravery?

concert / laser show / fireworks display / citywide pep rally that employed the entire

Its addition also helped diversify Houston’s

downtown skyline as a canvas and united the

economy from its then near-total dependence

city together like no other one event since the

on oil, bringing in high-tech, aeronautics, and

end of World War II. Two years later, the Space

electronics sectors. In a city with a shortage

Shuttle program resumed, albeit with tragic

of unique tourist attractions, Space Center

results again in 2003, when the Columbia

Houston, the area’s only Smithsonian affiliate,

disintegrated over east Texas. In 2011, NASA

stands atop the short heap, attracting more

ended the program, and today, the JSC serves

foreign visitors than any other site. Since

as America’s nerve center for all activities

opening in 1992, 18 million visitors have passed

related to the International Space Station and

through the turnstiles and marveled at the

remains today, as it has been for half a century,

space memorabilia – from astronaut suits to

the training ground for the 46 active members

towering rocket ships – on the grounds.

of today’s American astronaut program.

What’s more, aside from that annoying Aside from Spindletop and the opening of the

“Houston, we have a problem” catchphrase

Ship Channel in 1916, nothing has done more to

from Apollo 13 (curse you Tom Hanks!), it

spur Houston’s growth than the Johnson Space

helped enhance the city’s image: no longer

Center. By some estimates, it added 200,000

could Houston be written off as merely a

new residents (directly and indirectly) between

cow town/oil metropolis, not when it could

1961 and 1981, many if not most of them

legitimately stake its claim as Space City, USA,

settling in what had once been the sparsely

mankind’s gateway to the moon, and hopefully

populated prairies southeast of town. Some

one day, Mars and beyond.

$200,000,000 went into its construction,

MARTHATURNER.COM

63