On May 18, 1969, at 11:49AM ET, Apollo 10 launched from LC-39B at Cape Kennedy. It was the second mission to the moon (Apollo 8 being the first), the fifth launch of a Saturn V, and the first Saturn V launched from Pad LC-39B — the same pad that now supports SLS / Artemis.

It was quite a busy day for everyone at Kennedy Space Center, and my Dad, Armand Boyer, on duty that day as the “Pad Chief” was one of them. He was responsible for fire and safety activities at the launch pad, but his job for the day didn’t end with the rocket launching. The aftermath of the rocket leaving the pad was incredible in its own right.

The Saturn V vehicle had 7.7 Million pounds of thrust, which was about the same as 330 F16 fighter aircraft, or 150 Gigawatts of power — roughly the same as the combined electrical generation capacity of India. It was a loud, hot, powerful beast, and anything near it during launch suffered mightily from those forces.

Dad had the job of doing a quick assessment of what had happened and to communicate that back through the channels to KSC management. He did that for a few different launches, but I found one of the working drafts of the Apollo 10 report in his papers. The most notable thing I saw was his reports of grass fires nearby the launch pad — they were something that is mentioned from time to time but this is the first real documentation of it I’ve ever seen.

Unfortunately, Armand Boyer passed away March 18, 2010 after a sudden illness. He never aggrandized his contribution to the space program — he said he was a tiny cog in a huge machine and left that to be that, except the times he said “Mongo only pawn in game of NASA” with a roaring laugh that told you he found that as funny in 2005 as he did in the 1970’s after he saw “Blazing Saddles” for the first time.

He did tell us a few stories, some very funny, some almost odd, but from what I can tell and what I can remember (I was really young) it was a life very well lived. He was a good guy, and he would have made you laugh. (Dad put the Dad in Dad jokes.) Here’s another one if you are interested.