© Mark Ollig
From 1965 to 1971, Jack King was the popular launch control commentator and head of public information at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center.
His voice will be remembered by many of us who grew up following NASA’s Mercury, Gemini, and Apollo missions.
King’s voice described the events taking place during the final minutes leading up to a NASA rocket liftoff.
I mostly remember him for his reassuring, calm, and balanced account of the proceedings taking place during the televised launch of Apollo 11.
The Apollo 11 Saturn V (pronounced “Saturn five”) rocket would, for the first time, take humans to the surface of a celestial body outside the Earth’s atmosphere, namely, the moon.
The Saturn V rocket itself was an incredible sight, standing at 363 feet and weighing 6.2 million pounds at liftoff.
Its engines produce 7.6 million pounds of thrust (the forward or upwards force), which according to NASA, would be equivalent to the power of 85 Hoover Dams, or the combined horsepower of 543 jet fighter planes.
Watching a Saturn V rocket launch back in the 1960s and early 1970s on television was very memorable.
Let’s revisit the early morning of Wednesday, July 16, 1969.
Along with my parents and siblings, who gathered together in the living room, we attentively observed the impressive-looking Saturn V rocket on our RCA color console television screen.
We listened to the confident and reassuring voice of Jack King during the final minutes before Apollo 11’s liftoff from Launch Pad 39A in Florida.
This columnist, a youngster in 1969, clearly recalls listening to King’s description of the events taking place on the television.
Television cameras focused in on the tall and impressive-looking Saturn V rocket on the launch pad as we heard Jack King say, “T minus three minutes and counting . . . T minus three. We are go with all elements of the mission at this time. We’re on an automatic sequence as the master computer supervises hundreds of events occurring over these last few minutes.”
At two minutes, five seconds before liftoff, King announced, “The target for the Apollo 11 astronauts, the moon, at liftoff will be at a distance of 218,096 miles away.”
It was now less than two minutes until liftoff.
The television screen switched between the Saturn V rocket on the launchpad, to the busy flight controllers at their console positions, inside the Mission Control room, in Houston, TX.
“We’ve just passed the two-minute mark in the countdown. T minus one minute, 54 seconds and counting. Our status board indicates that the oxidizer tanks in the second and third stages now have pressurized,” King confirmed.
Looking out the living room window, I could see a faint moon in the distance and felt the wonderment of the moment in the early morning sky.
And we go back to the live television coverage.
“T minus one minute 35 seconds on the Apollo mission, the flight to land the first men on the moon. All indications are coming into the control center at this time indicate we are ‘go,’” King confirmed.
“T minus 60 seconds and counting, we passed T minus 60. Fifty-five seconds and counting. Neil Armstrong just reported back it’s been a real smooth countdown,” King informed us.
At around 46 seconds before launch, King said with confidence, “Power transfer is complete. We’re on internal power with the launch vehicle at this time.”
“Thirty-five seconds and counting, we are still go with Apollo 11,” King continued.
The tension, along with the excitement, was definitely in the air.
It was now just seconds from liftoff, which occurred at 8:32 a.m. Central Standard Time July 16, 1969.
The following still gives me chills whenever I re-watch the launch of Apollo 11 and hear Jack King say, “T minus 15 seconds . . . guidance is internal. Twelve, 11, 10, nine . . . ignition sequence start . . . six, five, four, three, two, one, zero [huge red flames now begin billowing out of the rocket’s engines as a loud roar is heard] . . . all engines running. Liftoff! We have a liftoff! Thirty-two minutes past the hour ... liftoff on Apollo 11!”
The Saturn V rocket, slowly and majestically, cleared the tower and began its ascent into the blue Florida sky, carrying astronauts Neil Armstrong, Buzz Aldrin, and Michael Collins into history.
A NASA audio file of King describing the last 30 seconds before Apollo 11 thundered into the sky is at http://tinyurl.com/jking11.
Four-and-a-half hours of CBS television coverage of the launch of Apollo 11 (including 1969 commercials) is at https://bit.ly/36SfP5G.
John W. (Jack) King, the composed, confident, and reassuring “voice of launch control,” passed away June 11, 2015, at age 84.
Stay safe out there.
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| Jack King during the launch of Apollo 11 July 16, 1969  |
