Sorry if this is a stupid question (as in obvious answer). I have a great aunt that worked for NASA in the 1960s and she was in the control room or whatever you call it when Apollo 11 landed on the moon. I don’t know what her position was or even what her education was–she’s always lived 500 miles away and we don’t see each other much. My grandmother (her sister) was talking about when she worked there and said she often had to go on trips and she carried a briefcase that she was handcuffed to. She also said that whenever they tried to talk about her job, she would quickly change the subject or just say she didn’t want to discuss it.
She makes it sound like she was in the CIA or something. Was the security so tight because they were planning the moon landiing or did they worry about foreign agents stealing the information or something? I’m a big fan of history but I don’t know much about the space program, so my grandmother’s comments about this time in her sister’s life intriques me.
✅ Answers
Answerer 1
It was a peak of cold war and Soviets had spyes in the Usa.
Answerer 2
There was some secrecy in the Apollo missions because it involved technology that we didn’t want the Soviets to get their hands on. Perhaps she was transporting documents or material involving some of this. That’s the only explanation I can think of. And maybe she didn’t want this to become common knowledge, for obvious reasons, so she didn’t talk about it.
Answerer 3
The first thing I wonder is why your aunt would be carrying secret info around in a briefcase to begin with. If it’s that sensitive, wouldn’t it be kept in a safe somewhere instead of being carried around? It sounds like someone has been pulling your leg a bit. It’s not unheard of for corporate couriers carrying sensitive documents to take such precautions, not so much in the age of encrypted Internet communications as in the past, but I’m having trouble visualizing why NASA would find it necessary to have someone sitting in Mission Control chained to a steel briefcase. But who knows, maybe we’ll hear it from someone else.
Answerer 4
Very likely your great aunt was a federal government employee and was a courier. She very likely had no idea what was in the attache case she was handcuffed to , and somebody at the other end had the keys to to unlock the handcuffs. Yes, national security WAS that tight. Your great aunt is still bound by an oath she made 50 or more years ago to NOT discuss her job. It does NOT matter that she is retired now, she is STILL bound by that oath LEGALLY not to discuss her job at that time, including with family members. I lived through the Cold War too, and we were indoctrinated when we took a civics or government class in high school with anticommunist propaganda. There was a two to four week section and a booklet that we were tested on. I took government / civics in 1968/1969, The Apollo 11 landing was that summer. My own mother , who was college educated, was brainwashed by the government. She had me freaking out during the Cuban Missile crisis about Havana being only 90 miles away. She MEANT 90 miles away from Florida, but she did NOT explain that to her 9 year and 7 month old daughter in New Orleans. I was imaging Japanese Zeros carrying bombs appearing in the south facing kitchen window. The difference between a nuclear missile and bomb was irrelevant to me. Planes could carry nuclear bombs too. That’s my legacy of the federal government psychological manipulation from watching “Victory at Sea” episodes during movie intermissions I was only $ YEARS OLD When Sputnik 1 was launched. THAT is when i started believing my mother was right about grown-ups not having been to the Moon. I watched her reaction to the announcement by Chet Huntley, She stopped making dinner and came out of the kitchen to watch the TV. That’s when I realized grown-ups might NOT know everything.
Your great aunt will probably go to her grave and never be able to discuss this with you, but you might phone or email her and ask her to make some kind of written record that she can leave with either lawyer or in a safe deposit box that can be opened when her estate is is setteled when it goes through probate. If she has not made a will yet, your request may be a gentle reminder that she really should think about making a will. That’s something I should do fairly soon myself. Your great aunt is a primary source. You may have to a file freedom of information request , but it will be worth it if she does leave some kind of record for you.
Answerer 5
Al Shepards golf balls
Answerer 6
As a student of space history for over 40 years, I have to call BS on your aunt’s whole story. IIRC, there were no women flight controllers in the Apollo program. And, while there were occasional secrets in Apollo (Like in the summer of 1968, the notion of flying Apollo 8 all the way to lunar orbit, if the first manned Earth orbit flight, Apollo 7, was successful that October), there was no such cloak and dagger stuff, either. The US manned space program was pretty open.
She made up a story. That’s all.
Answerer 7
Parts of several answers are correct and only your implication (and their acceptance) that it was entirely NASA and entirely Apollo pushes several of the answers into denial. A brief case with a chain is common for a carrier. But missing from the parts I read is the fact that, especially in the early years, NASA projects and military projects overlapped. The Shuttle even carried a couple of secret spy satellites up and the basic rockets used fir space research had strong military connections. Protecting physical records of secrets should have been second nature.