In 1969, Greg Force lived in Guam, where his father, Charles Force, worked as the director of a NASA tracking station that helped connect the capsule with NASA Mission Control for voice communication.
After Apollo 11 began its departure from the moon, a problem arose — a bearing had broken in the dish antenna needed to track the ship. Without it, NASA risked losing the ability to communicate with the capsule as it approached Earth.
Scrambling to find a solution, Charles called home, hoping that Greg’s child-size dimensions could be of assistance. He asked Greg to come to the tracking station and squeeze his arm through the antenna’s access hole and pack grease around the bearing.
The 10-year-old rose to the challenge and scampered up the ladder. “I would take a big handful of grease — you know, you squish it,” Greg says. “It comes out between your fingers, and I stuck them down in there and packed them the best I could.”
Greg succeeded, and on Day 8 of the Apollo mission, a NASA public affairs officer noted his contribution in an announcement from Apollo Control: “The bearing was replaced with the assistance of a 10-year-old boy named Greg Force who had arms small enough that he could work through a 2½ inch diameter hole to pack [the bearing].”
Though he never went on to a career at NASA, Greg’s role in history has been memorialized. He inspired a children’s book titled Marty’s Mission: An Apollo 11 Story, by Judy Young.
– **Source: https://www.npr.org/2019/07/19/743076259/how-a-10-year-old-boy-helped-apollo-11-return-to-earth
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