Seymour Liebergot

Seymour "Sy" Abraham Liebergot (born February 15, 1936, in Camden, New Jersey) is a retired NASA flight controller, serving during the Apollo program. Liebergot was an EECOM controller and was responsible for the electrical and environmental systems on board the Command Module. In 1970, he was part of the team that guided Apollo 13 back to Earth following the explosion that crippled the spacecraft.

He began his career in 1963 with North American Aviation after graduating from California State University, Los Angeles. In 1964, he came to NASA. Liebergot was an Assistant Flight Director on Apollo 4,<ref>Seymour Liebergot NASA Johnson Space Center Oral History Project, transcript, Interviewed by Michelle Kelly in Houston, Texas on 27 April 1998. Quote,
Liebergot: "That's why I could never be a flight director. It's too much to juggle, a lot."
</ref><ref>Gerry Griffin Oral History, Part 1, (C-SPAN3, March 12, 1999)
At 3m50s - Gerry Griffin (Flight Director, Apollo 13): "I think [Christopher] Kraft was particularly adept at testing people in simulations and all that sort of thing, and picking out the ones that he thought could cut it and those that he [determined] couldn't... might not. ... As you know, we didn't have too many washouts in Mission Control."</ref> then an EECOM flight controller on Apollo 8–15. On Apollo 17, he served as CSSB SPAN (SPacecraft ANalysis room) Support. He continued as a controller in the Skylab and ASTP missions.

Early life and education

Seymour “Sy” Abraham Liebergot was born on February 15, 1936, in Camden, New Jersey, the second child of parents Ida née Soloff and Solomon “Sol” Liebergot.<ref name=":0">Template:Cite book</ref> His paternal grandparents immigrated from Kyiv, Ukraine, and his maternal grandparents immigrated from Novosibkov, Russia to the U.S. Sy experienced an unstable and rough childhood.<ref name=":0" /> Though money was scarce, his father gambled, drank, and had many gangster friends and enemies.<ref name=":0" /> Ida spiraled into a nervous breakdown when Sol had an affair, attempting to kill Sy and his sister Phyllis in 1942.<ref name=":0" /> Ida was permanently institutionalized.<ref name=":0" /> Sol married the woman he had an affair with, and they later bore three more children.<ref name=":0" /> Sol constantly uprooted his family, moving from place to place in order to escape danger from his debts, and he neglected his family and often beat Sy.<ref name=":0" />

After graduating high school in 1953, Sy worked as a copy boy at the Philadelphia Inquirer.<ref name=":0" /> In 1954, after turning 18, he decided to join the Army to take some time to receive technical training and figure out his life plans.<ref name=":0" /> He was stationed in Fort Huachuca and the Yuma Test Station, where he fulfilled weather activity duties.<ref name=":0" /> Sy was honorably discharged in 1957.<ref name=":0" />

That same year, he moved to Los Angeles, CA and married his first wife, Deanna Cohen.<ref name=":0" /> He decided to attend college for Electrical Engineering and enrolled at the Los Angeles City Junior College (LACC) for his first two years of study.<ref name=":0" /><ref name=":1">{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> He simultaneously worked as a shoe salesman for five years to support himself and his family.<ref name=":0" /> Liebergot’s first daughter, Shelli Lyn was born in 1958 and his twin sons, Mark Daniel and Scot Alan, were born in 1960.<ref name=":0" /> He graduated from LACC after five semesters and enrolled in California State University at Los Angeles (CSLA) to finish the last two years of his degree.<ref name=":0" /><ref name=":1" />

Liebergot later moved to Houston to work for NASA.<ref name=":0" /><ref name=":2">Template:Citation</ref> There, he participated in various social activities.<ref name=":0" /> He joined the Space City Ski Club (SCSC) in 1972, eventually becoming the President of the club and ultimately president of the statewide ski club organization, the Texas Ski Council.<ref name=":0" /> Liebergot also participated in chili cooking competitions with some friends, including the International Chili Championship in 1982.<ref name=":0" /> In 1988, Liebergot started singing lessons again (the last time was in high school), and he completed Scuba Divemaster training in 1989.<ref name=":0" />

Liebergot and Cohen divorced in 1972.<ref name=":0" /> Six years later in 1978, he married Tania Andrasko.<ref name=":0" /> They divorced in 1984.<ref name=":0" /> Liebergot later met Elizabeth Craig Tharpe in 1988 at a monthly ski club meeting.<ref name=":0" /> They married in 1990.<ref name=":0" />

Engineering career

While still in college, Liebergot accepted a part-time evening job at North American Aviation (NAA) in the Space & Information Systems Division (S&ID) College Engineering Unit.<ref name=":0" /><ref name=":1" /><ref name=":3">{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> He became an assistant supervisor a year later.<ref name=":0" /><ref name=":1" /><ref name=":3" /> Their division later won a contract with NASA to build a part of the Saturn V lunar launch rocket.<ref name=":0" /><ref name=":3" /> In 1962, he began working full time as an engineer and finished his degree at night in two semesters.<ref name=":0" /><ref name=":3" />

In 1964, Liebergot joined the Flight Operations Support Group, which provided command and service module (CSM) information to NASA’s flight operations in Houston.<ref name=":0" /><ref name=":2" /><ref name=":3" /> He stayed in Dowey, CA as a lead engineer while most of the group transferred to Houston.<ref name=":0" /><ref name=":2" /><ref name=":3" /> After 18 months, he tired of his position and joined the Flight Control Division in Houston, where he was a CSM Sequential Systems specialist, an advisor in the back room.<ref name=":0" /><ref name=":2" /><ref name=":3" />

A year and a half later, wanting to participate in more of the action, Liebergot switched employment to NASA in the Manned Spacecraft Center’s Operations Control Room (MOCR), starting his career in flight control as the Apollo program was beginning.<ref name=":0" /><ref name=":2" /><ref name=":3" />

In the 1966 AS-201 (Apollo/Saturn) mission, the first CSM test flight, Liebergot was still contracted to NASA and he served in the back room as a Sequential Systems specialist.<ref name=":0" />

Becoming a NASA employee later that year, Liebergot served as the Operations & Procedures Officer (O&P) in the MOCR on AS-202, the second unmanned test flight.<ref name=":0" /><ref name=":1" /><ref name=":2" />

On Apollo 4, AS-501, Liebergot became the Assistant Flight Director (AFD), assisting the Flight Director (FD) in his duties and serving as a backup for him.<ref name=":0" /><ref name=":1" /><ref name=":2" />

After that mission, Liebergot switched to the Systems Branch. In Apollo 7 in 1968, he worked in the Staff Support Room (SSR) as the flight control division representative in the Spacecraft Analysis Room (SPAN).<ref name=":0" /><ref name=":4">{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref>

Liebergot started as an Electrical, Environmental and COMmunication systems (EECOM) flight controller trainee on Apollo 8. From Apollo 9 through Apollo 15, he served as the CSM EECOM.<ref name=":0" /> Liebergot was assigned as the Lead EECOM in Apollo 14 because of his role in the Apollo 13 mission, for which he is well known for.<ref name=":0" /> In Apollo 16, Liebergot worked as the CSSB SPAN Systems position, supporting the new EECOM.<ref name=":0" /><ref name=":2" /><ref name=":4" /> He continued as CSSB SPAN support in Apollo 17.<ref name=":0" /><ref name=":2" /><ref name=":4" /> The SPAN room connected the engineering and flight controlling divisions.<ref name=":0" /><ref name=":2" />

After the end of the Apollo program, Liebergot continued in the Skylab Earth-orbit mission as Electrical, General Instrumentation & Life Support (EGIL) flight controller, which had more systems to monitor than the CSM EECOM, and with the ability to control some systems from the console.<ref name=":0" /><ref name=":1" /> He trained as an EGIL after Apollo 15.<ref name=":0" />

In the Apollo-Soyuz Test Project (ASTP) in concert with the Russians, Liebergot served as the Lead EECOM.<ref name=":0" /><ref name=":1" /> He was awarded the NASA Commendation Award for his leadership role.<ref name=":0" /><ref name=":1" />

With the close of ASTP, Liebergot moved to work on the Shuttle spacecraft as Lead EECOM, gathering knowledge and developing new procedures and rules.<ref name=":0" /> He designed the Free Water Collection System.<ref name=":0" />

Losing passion for the job, Liebergot retired from active flight control in 1976.<ref name=":0" />

In 1979, Liebergot began to work with other engineers on the Space Station to write a program plan. Along with former LM Control flight controller Hal Loden, they wrote the Operations section of the program plan.<ref name=":0" />

When the Space Station Program Office was created in 1981 at the Johnson Space Center (JSC), Liebergot joined the Customer Integration Office.<ref name=":0" />

In 1988, Liebergot retired early and ended his career at NASA.<ref name=":0" /> He soon found a job at Rockwell International in the Shuttle Program Office at JSC working for the program director as a SPAN back room advisor.<ref name=":0" />

A couple of years later, Liebergot was hired to help with the Weightless Environment Training Facility (WETF) at the JSC.<ref name=":0" /> As a Senior Project Engineer for the ISS, he directed the designing of element trainers for the Neutral Buoyancy Laboratory for the ISS (water training pool).<ref name=":0" /><ref name=":1" />

In 1993, Liebergot transferred to work in the ISS Configuration Management organization of the company as a Senior Configuration Management Analyst, in which he tracked the equipment entering and leaving the ISS.<ref name=":0" />

Apollo 13

The Apollo 13 mission launched on April 11, 1970.<ref name=":0" /> Liebergot was 34 years old and the EECOM on shift when the malfunction occurred.<ref name=":0" /> 55 hours into the mission, at the last hour of his shift, Liebergot requested a tank stir before the crew went to sleep because the quality sensor reading for Oxygen Tank 2 had failed earlier.<ref name=":0" /><ref name=":2" /><ref name=":52">{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> There were two liquid oxygen and two liquid hydrogen tanks on the spacecraft. In space, they became more fog-like and separated into different layers.<ref name=":0" /><ref name=":2" /> The stir involved turning on two fans in each storage tank to mix the contents.<ref name=":0" /><ref name=":2" />

The wiring inside Oxygen Tank 2 was bare and cracked, so as astronaut Jack Swigert flipped the four switches, Tank 2 exploded, which also caused Tank 1 to start leaking.<ref name=":0" /><ref name=":2" /><ref name=":52" /> The shock closed the valves to fuel cells 1 and 3 as well, leaving only a third of the electrical power generation system working.<ref name=":0" /><ref name=":2" />

When data started appearing abnormally, the responsibility fell on Liebergot.<ref name=":0" /> He initially thought it was an instrumentation problem, but other flight controllers also started having abnormalities, indicating a bigger problem was at hand.<ref name=":0" /> Liebergot worked with his back room support to figure out the issue, giving the astronaut crew instructions, and they eventually realized that they had lost two fuel cells.<ref name=":0" /><ref name=":2" /><ref name=":52" /> It was not an instrumentation error.<ref name=":0" /> Time was limited with the remaining oxygen tank to the CSM leaking and only one fuel cell remaining.<ref name=":0" /> The mission turned into one to save the crew and deliver them back to Earth safely.<ref name=":0" />

If the cryo tanks were stirred later in the mission and the tanks/fuel cells lost later, the crew may not have been able to be saved.<ref name=":0" /><ref name=":2" /> Liebergot was part of the Apollo 13 Mission Operations Team awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom for their efforts to successfully save the astronauts.<ref name=":0" /><ref name=":1" />

In popular culture

In the 1995 film Apollo 13, Liebergot was played by Clint Howard, the brother of director Ron Howard.<ref name=":0" /><ref name=":1" />

External links

• Information on Liebergot's book Apollo EECOM
• Interview with Sy Liebergot (SpaceVidcast)
• Detailed behind-the-scenes tour by Sy of NASA's Mission Control Center.