One man was at the center of every Apollo launch leading up to and through NASA’s historic Moon landings and he is coming to Cincinnati Museum Center (CMC).
Dick Hagar is a spacecraft engineer, trainer of astronauts and historical witness to both successful and tragic rocket launches.
Hagar will share his expertise and stories in lectures at CMC on January 11 and 12. Immediately following each lecture, he will be available in the Destination Moon: The Apollo 11 Mission exhibition for gallery talks, discussing his deep first-hand knowledge of the Apollo 11 command module Columbia.
The lectures and gallery talks are included with admission to Destination Moon. Lectures are at 11 a.m. and 1 p.m. both Saturday, January 11 and Sunday, January 12.
In his 12 years at NASA, Hagar worked on every Apollo launch, from Apollo 1 through 17. He was near the Apollo 1 command module when it burst into flames in January 1967, killing astronauts Virgil “Gus” Grissom, Ed White and Roger Chaffee.
Hearing the alarm calls on the radio communications, Hagar ran toward the launch pad but was blown back when an oxygen tank on the craft exploded.
After the fire was extinguished, Hagar was one of the first to the spacecraft and was part of the investigative team searching for the cause of the fire.
He and other NASA engineers applied those lessons learned during their investigation to a redesign of the Apollo command module, which were tested on several unmanned flights before sending the first astronauts into space aboard the spacecraft with Apollo 7.
In his role, Hagar worked with Apollo 11 astronauts Neil Armstrong, Buzz Aldrin and Michael Collins, training them on the Apollo command module’s systems. He was one of many who helped make the historic lunar landing possible. And one of the few to make five more landings possible, safely sending 33 Apollo astronauts into space and returning them home.
The Apollo 11 command module Columbia is on display at the Cincinnati Museum Center as part of its Destination Moon: The Apollo 11 Mission exhibition.
Prior to joining NASA, Hagar, originally from Delaware, Ohio, served in the U.S. Navy, working on A-3 Vigilante bombers.
As an electronics engineer he worked on the bomber’s electronics systems, performing maintenance and repairs. In 1966 he moved to Florida to work on the Apollo program as a command module electrical engineer. His primary role was to train astronauts on the flight systems and computers.
If you can’t make it to Hagar’s talks, you can still see the Apollo 11 command module Columbia, Aldrin’s iconic gold-visored helmet and gloves and more than a dozen other artifacts flown aboard the historic mission in Destination Moon: The Apollo 11 Mission before it closes February 17.
Click here to purchase tickets or to learn more.
Cincinnati Museum Center at Union Terminal is a nationally recognized institution and national historic landmark.
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