NASA leader leaving agency, historic desk

Axel Roth has survived war-time bombings and seen Apollo rockets fired at the moon. One of the biggest challenges of his long NASA career came today - leaving his historic desk behind.

When Roth comes to work as Marshall Space Flight Center's associate director, he sits down behind a piece of history - the desk of former Marshall Director Dr. Wernher von Braun.

When Roth flips off the office lights today, it won't be just for the holiday weekend. He's leaving NASA behind for retirement after 45 years.

Roth was a young engineer when von Braun led the efforts to develop the massive Saturn V lunar rockets that took NASA astronauts to the moon.

"I don't think about it every day, but the desk is important. I think it is a subconscious realization, but von Braun did have a massive responsibility, and I do recognize that," Roth said. "I'm glad to have had his desk."

In the years Roth has used it, the desk has become an icon of his ninth floor office in the main Marshall headquarters building - 4200. People come by to see the desk as much as anything, Roth said.

"I keep joking that I will charge them a dollar and let them touch it. ?I really think there's a fascination that some of (von Braun) will rub off on them. That's how interested people are in the man."

There will be snatches of memories that nothing can take away. There will be the massive power of the Apollo 11 launch Roth witnessed on July 16, 1969, when he "felt that rattle and shake deep in your chest. It was awesome."

Or the friends made around Europe during his work on the Spacelab program.

"The Europeans were relatively new to space flight, and they hadn't launched an astronaut, and we were working with them on the Spacelab program. I'd have to say that was my favorite program because we accomplished so much during (the 1980s) with it. It was a wonderful science and engineering program," Roth said.

American rocket team

Roth started his career at Marshall on July 5, 1960. NASA was only about two years old, and Marshall was less than a week old.

There were rumblings of sending a man into space or going to the moon and maybe building a space station. Whatever America did, it was going to need rockets, and the place to build those was Huntsville, where the Army had been doing missile work for years.

It was an exciting time, Roth said. "I look back now and see we had a vision, and the Congress and American people were behind it. But I tell young people all the time that, at about any time, 15 years ago was the 'Golden Age' of what you are involved in.

"In 15 years, what we are doing now will be a 'Golden Age.' So it's always good work."

Mighty impressed

Roth leaves behind 45 years in the space business, and work in just about every important Marshall program from early 1960s analysis work on the Mercury-Redstone flights to the Apollo moon flights and space shuttle science flights.

"I met Gus Grissom before his flight," Roth said. "We were working on the Mercury-Redstone (rocket) downtown at the old Huntsville Industrial Complex. ?Grissom came by.

"It was early in the space program and I was mighty impressed with him. He was one of the original seven astronauts. I had never met an astronaut until then."

Grissom died in the Apollo I fire in January 1967. His death, and the shuttle accidents that followed the fire, underscore that the space business can be dangerous, Roth said.

"The fire bothered me, but I was very shaken up about Challenger," Roth said. "We were meeting in (Marshall's headquarters building) when we broke off to watch the launch and we saw it happen. Columbia was a tragedy and it was devastating, but Challenger was really a blow to me."

After each tragedy, NASA goes through the painstaking lessons-learned phase to take as much risk as possible out of space launches. "It takes about 17 years, but people get too comfortable with launches, and then they start to live with problems," Roth said. "That's one of those problems we have to address, to make this a safer business. I think the agency is going a long way to address it now."

Childhood war years

Roth came to America with his parents at the end of World War II. The German rocket team surrendered to the American Army in May 1945. It was the end of a surreal adventure for Roth.

Roth's early memories were of the war, "and it was almost normal to the children."

"As a child you don't see the dangers. Our parents clearly did, but I remember watching the fighters swoop over us and seeing the train cars they shot up. ?It was all normal for us because we didn't know anything else."

The night of Aug. 16, 1943, and the early morning of Aug. 17, 1943, showed Roth the reality of war. The British Royal Air Force sent 596 Lancaster bombers to destroy as much of the German rocket research and production efforts as possible. It was a coordinated, precise run with a partial goal of killing as many rocket scientists as possible as a way to stem Hitler's V-2 development and production.

It was a long ordeal for the German families that night, Roth said.

"I was about 7 years old, and I went through the first big bombing raid they had on Peenemuende," Roth said. "I would have sworn that raid lasted five or six hours, but it only lasted about an hour and a half.

"When you get to thinking about it, even that period is a pretty long time to have bombs falling around you."

Roth said the bombs fell constantly. "Only one time do I remember hearing an airplane motor, and the rest of the time it was the bombs whistling and exploding all around us."

Roth's father, Ludwig, was in Berlin that night on business. Shortly afterward, the rocket scientists and their families moved to smaller villages to keep away from the Allied bombings.

Ludwig Roth had worked on long-range missiles and antiaircraft missiles for Germany. After the war, the Roths settled with von Braun's team in Huntsville.

Working in 'Space Age'

Roth remembers teenage encounters with von Braun in the 1950s. "He would come over to parties at my parents' home, and he would move through the crowd and eventually come by and speak to my brother and I," Roth said. "He wanted to know about scuba diving or flying or the things we were interested in at the time.

"That's why I think he was so successful, he could talk to anybody on their level, be it a high school student, a congressman or another scientist."

As Roth moved through the ranks at Marshall, von Braun would take time out to speak to him.

Roth plans to stay in Huntsville, but he won't be a workaholic retiree.

"I don't think it has hit me yet, but next week it probably will," Roth said. "But I plan to pursue a life where the only decisions I make will be whether to go to the mountains or the beach and the only person I consult with about it will be my wife."