Major General Bill Anders flew on Apollo eight in December 1960 on one of the most visionary voyages ever attempted in human history. He, Frank Borman and Jim Lovell were the first people to leave Earth orbit to travel to another celestial body to see the dark side of the moon, to see the entirety of the Earth at once, and to travel on top of a Saturn five rocket. He took the iconic Earth rise photograph. In later life, he served in the Nixon administration to advise on space policy, then ran the Nuclear Regulatory Commission and also served as the US ambassador to Norway.
He went on to enjoy a second stellar career in the private sector at General Electric, Textron and in particular, as CEO of General Dynamics, backed by Warren Buffett, He embarked on a period of transformation with such devotion to shareholder value that it is today the subject of Harvard case studies.
Major General Bill Anders flew on Apollo eight in December 1960 on one of the most visionary voyages ever attempted in human history. He, Frank Borman and Jim Lovell were the first people to leave Earth orbit to travel to another celestial body to see the dark side of the moon, to see the entirety of the Earth at once, and to travel on top of a Saturn five rocket. He took the iconic Earth rise photograph. In later life, he served in the Nixon administration to advise on space policy, then ran the Nuclear Regulatory Commission and also served as the US ambassador to Norway.
He went on to enjoy a second stellar career in the private sector at General Electric, Textron and in particular, as CEO of General Dynamics, backed by Warren Buffett, He embarked on a period of transformation with such devotion to shareholder value that it is today the subject of Harvard case studies.
Chris Wright
Major General bill Anders flew on Apollo eight in December 1960 as one of the most visionary voyages ever attempted in human history. He Frank Borman and Jim Lovell, were the first people to leave Earth orbit to travel to another celestial body to see the dark side of the moon. To see the entirety of the Earth at once, and to travel on top of a Saturn five rocket. He took the iconic Earthrise photograph. in later life, he served in the Nixon administration to advise on Space Policy, then ran the Nuclear Regulatory Commission and also served as the US ambassador to Norway. Event enjoy the second stellar career in the private sector at General Electric Textron and in particular, as CEO of General Dynamics were backed by Warren Buffett, he embarked on a period of transformation with such devotion to shareholder value that it is today the subject of Harvard case studies. We met not in a studio it's in his home in San Diego one Sunday morning, and therefore, we apologise for the sound of his neighbor's leaf blower in the middle of the recording. In this interview, he refers to Norm Augustine, who was the chief executive of Lockheed Martin and later chaired the review of United States human spaceflight plans committee.
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Chris Wright
Bill Anders, thank you so much. It's a great pleasure to see you again. What I'm looking at in this series is the way the relationship between the private sector and the state in space development has evolved since the early days since the Apollo days. And the first thing I wanted to ask you about during the Apollo era, of course, NASA directed it, but there was a host of private sector enterprises involved. And in practice, how do you recall that relationship working between NASA and the private sector entities you were relying upon for the mission?
Bill Anders
Well, keep in mind that I was in the third group, the first group who was basically sort of the early guinea pigs, I don't think any of them had advanced degrees, they were just to see if men could do live in space. The second group was probably the most well trained. They were both test pilots, and most of them had advanced degrees, and they were in more leadership roles within the astronaut community. So and Frank Borman was a particular exception, because he was put in charge of assuring NASA and the astronauts the safety of the Apollo Command Module after the fire. My guess is he would be a bit negative in that regard, because he got kind of I recollect us from, I don't know, rumour or something that he was quite upset with North American management at a few of them fired and come to Jesus meetings with him, you know, to get them off there. But some of the companies were big, and particularly Rockwell, who bought North American I believe, didn't really care about space. I don't quite know why Rockwell wanted to you know, they were in a coffee cups. I don't know what they did is if I could put my experiences as CEO later back in that day, I would say that this might have been a notch in their belt among them when they would get together with their buddies at their annual shindigs for CEOs, which of course I didn't even know about in those days, maybe that's why they got into Spain, his basement as well as like ramen and Locky and Boeing, they were building aeroplanes, particularly McDonnell Douglas, the natural follow on to their activities.
Chris Wright
But the whole thing did require partnership, it was never within the ability of NASA itself to produce everything that was necessary to get you to the moon.
Bill Anders
Well, NASA didn't essentially didn't have hardly any production capability except at Huntsville, as I recollect and building the rockets. And we did get tours. The Junior folk like me, an astronaut programme, we were taken all over for a lot of places where people built stuff in I was particularly impressed about how von Braun's Nazi team and integrated itself into the rocket building business which was their forte and being an Old Navy guy was impressed that the reason the Saturn rocket is the size it is in diameter was because that's the biggest turret lays that the Navy had to build big turrets where they would have to rotate around and take absorb Above the shock of a 16 inch gun. So there was this big turret laid down there in the swamps of Louisiana or Alabama, I'm not sure where, but generally, the spacecraft were built by the private contractors, not by government. I do know that desire moved up into the contracting side of government acquisition before I came to NASA, for my, in the Air Force was that, you know, the aircraft, the Air Force project managers were their job was to beat the contractor down as much as they could. And the contractors job was to make changes, because if you didn't, if you lost it on the initial contract, you made it up and change. And that has gotten to it , looking, we've recently gotten to be an excessively fine art you have in the current relationship, as I see it from afar, between industry and government,
Chris Wright
it must have been a huge amount of trust involved. I'm reminded of Alan Shepards famous comments on top of the mercury rockets when he was asked what he was thinking. And he said, but every part of this rocket was built by the lowest bidder. And as somebody going to the moon on Apollo eight, you're required to have faith not just in NASA, but every single contract if it's been part of that process, right, from the people making the spacesuits to the to the modules.
Bill Anders
That's nothing new. I mean, you fly in military aeroplanes. I mean, they were built by the lowest bidder, you know, or they were somebody made a low bid and got in there in one way or the other built the aeroplane. So when you got shot off the deck of a carrier or lift the afterburner chasing Russians with a missile onboard, so that that wasn't anything new. I don't know that we trusted or distrusted private industry anymore in the Space Programme that we did prior to that, when I take off in Iceland on my f 89. Scorpion going out to chase Russian is over the North Sea, which I thought was more dangerous in retrospect and NASA people have been operating, you know, dangerous stuff in that regard for a long time. So I wouldn't overplay the you know, built by the lowest bidder, and we have to trust you. on Apollo eight, it was more trust in the management decision of whether this major change was wise. Probably that was the riskiest flight of them all. In a pre flight looking because one is the centre rocket and never flown manned. And two, we'd never gone on Earth orbit. I mean, who knows whether the three body problem which is, you know, earth, moon, and rocket, Could it really be solved? Well, the answer is you can't solve it. You can estimate it over the people with their slide rules on the ground and old fashioned computers. Good enough to do that. So in my case, it was trusting management. And so I had two mentors, if you will, or two Paragons of,
of trust Frank Borman, who went over the over the command module, and infinite degree, I knew that he was stumbling, stubborn enough and capable enough that he would not put himself in it, if he didn't think it was worth the risk. So Frank Borman was one if he said it was okay. And if George Lowe, who I respected, said it was it made sense and people like Chris craft and the other key civilian managers of NASA was okay, then, you know, we were out beating those dirty commies again. And so, even though it risked Valerie and her five kids future, I was willing to do it. So there was a trust there, but it makes the sacrifice and I will just divert that.
Chris Wright
As you mentioned, you were the first crew to be on top of a Saturn five rocket and I think anyone who's seen the rocket which still resides at Kennedy Space Centre finds its scale truly incomprehensible I certainly did. And I cannot begin to imagine what it was like to be on top of it.
Bill Anders
Well, according Ilan Musk, it was a big fucking rocket. But it was huge. We knew that it was a real sort of robot can give you a bang if mixed properly the fuel and oxidizer would be a you know by like a nuclear bomb. We had half baked ways of do of escape from it, which I think NASA did more just to keep our morale up and everybody you know when, say Asher, and we're going to take a slide on a wire into a rubber and spring loaded cave and it survived. Yeah, sure, but it was all part of the deal. And and so you had to decide initially and some people dropped down and particularly after fire, you know, people been thinking, Wait a minute is NASA is not perfect. And so it was it caught your attention. But again, the mission go home we were all frothing about the mouth to meet the Russians. And and so this was they were about to beat us and other you know they beat us in in launch they beat us in Sputnik, you know, we're getting there one that was hard but going into orbit, it was a commitment. Because if you made the lunar injection burn as level proved in Apollo 13, the moon itself would bring you back. Pretty high probability of being able to return Where is you once you went into lunar orbit, you were down to one motor. And, and they weren't okay. And if it didn't, and not only one motor, but one guidance system. So you had to do molten thrust, you had to do guidance, etc. So, Apollo was a lot more risky. And once in knots landing on the moon itself wasn't risky. But it is Neil Armstrong, you know, I think even Neil or Mike Collins said he thought Apollo eight was a more risky mission and Apollo 11. The launch itself, it was violent, yeah. And much more violent than we'd expected or trained for, in fact, do we train for every eventuality and yet as the thing lid off, I'm thinking as it gets thrashed around, back and forth, I'm thinking, you know, just NASA know what they're doing because we didn't train for this.
Chris Wright
It's often argued that one of the long term benefits of Apollo beyond the whole beating the Russian side of the whole human endeavour side is the benefits it made to the consumer world in terms of advancements in consumer goods most obviously, in home computing. Now, from what I recall of our previous discussions, you don't buy that argument certainly as a rationale for Apollo it
Bill Anders
there's much cheaper ways to get computer chips and and to go to the moon to do it. So I think that's a bullshit argument. And and real, NASA didn't invent Velcro, okay, and all this other stuff that claimed in today, there's still spilling out this stuff very little, no way to pay for the space station for the space shuttle with the dribble of information that has come back. Now cores are many sites, the Hubble telescope Hubble telescope is it was a reconnaissance telescope programme that they pointed the other way and put the wrong lens in. And you could have done it unmanned. So they say well, and man was able to put the correct lens in. Well, a copy for the price of the of the programme to be able to do that on orbit, you could have just shot a few more humbles up there. So I mean, the whole argument is that mean there's the NASA PR is on a BS and if you're in NASA, you want to make sure you get a job the next morning when you get up, you don't talk about that for some of us anyway, who have come out of NASA and come out of the benefit demand fine closet and are cynical of the nature which I am, I guess, say, you know, that's an awfully expensive way to get a computer.
Chris Wright
So after Apollo, you were appointed to a special Commission on space development within the Nixon administration by Tom Paine under Spiro Agnew, tell me about that and responsibilities involved.
Bill Anders
I can realise that in order to in order for me to fly to the moon, it would be like Paula 26. And already there was a clamour to stop Apollo. One worth it. Okay, we made it to the moon, how many times just like Indianapolis, five 500. How many times need to go around the track? Once you've got to check her flag? Well, I mean, destroy it. What a new fleet. I could argue for Apollo 12. I could tell that I wasn't going to get a flight in the moon. If I did, it would be on Apollo 13. And I figured I've done that when Tom Paine was on an aeroplane with him come from somewhere sort of talking about you know, we ought to start doing not just man but bring us I had my comment was bringing the Space Programme back down to earth Tom like that. Spiro Agnew had come on the scene. Well, the Nixon administration Nixon was out there, taking kudos for something he had no input on really any event I was offered this job, and they were having a review called the space Task Force and pain, which had been captured by Lee Newbridge, who was a Nobel laureate, but Nixon's science advisor, and Nixon gang and NASA were afraid that lions to heck they didn't realise I kind of shared the same view would come to roost and there wouldn't be a big follow on to misinterpret the NASA jobs programme. So all these people in NASA, George Lowe, in particular, wanted NASA to keep going and go on to shuttles and space stations and sky Lam have jobs to keep the various centres busy. But it was clear that once Apollo was over, and once NASA wanted a space shuttle or something to replace how to get into orbit, in a more usable way, that there wasn't really much for me to do other than sell the space shuttle, which in retrospect, was one of the stupidest programmes ever done. It was. And I take responsibility as being a part of it, because I helped sell it with the Congress, Senate and House and later realised that there's the NASA mission model who was so optimistic, as you mentioned, 100 100, full error in the cost when you add it up to the you know, the uncertainty. This is in terms of the cost of getting things into orbit. Yeah. Yeah. And so it not and it was it, you know, it could have instead of having one or two launches a month, they had one or two launches a year. Can't you know, and had all this infrastructure standing by in the Air Force didn't want to use an Air Force kind of screwed NASA. But NASA tried to capture all that. And air air force launches will thank the Air Force didn't go for that. So the shuttle was spectacular. If they'd offered me a shuttle and drive the earth, build another one, I'll drive it but in retrospect, it was it really didn't accomplish much. And then of course, it had to have a place to go. So it had to have a space station. And a space station had to have Wait a truck to service it. So and have the shuttle so it was a circular argument that has cost us billions.
Chris Wright
So what should we have been doing instead?
Bill Anders
Well, we should have admitted that the space shuttle was a bad idea and started developing an alternative. Now amazing NASA went along with it. So we gave this presentation they went a little while I got a call. It was right before the election. I think it was while I'm hauling call me he said bill. He said done these he said which one of these programmes the test one or the full up one will get the most votes in Southern California. That was it. And I say Well, Mr. Holloman even though I thought they should have done the test, when I land to be honest, as in the bigger the bigger the vehicle, the more the vote. That'll be it. That's it. We got that shuttle on more votes. We're into bill Anders to Bob Halderman wanted to have a few extra votes in Southern California. And worst thing about it, NASA just kept doing it. And driving down this cul de sac. With no turn around at the end. Right up, they didn't develop another vehicle. And so what were they gonna do when they got to the end, they could never admit that shuttle was a massive fuckup. Park for inch. But somebody in NASA said it had to go honies balls to say, wait a minute. This ain't working. Okay. And even though it keeps you know, the various districts where we have shuttle support and testing engines at Huntsville and the cape, you know, even though in Lockheed Martin and all those people were servicing it, you know, nobody said it wasn't into any of their advantage to say let's stop this thing early admitted and spend the next five years building a bigger fucking rocket or whatever you know, or a shuttle that worked. Now, you know, apparently there Elan Musk has one that he claims will work. Well, you know what it probably will.
Chris Wright
He has the Falcon Heavy which has been successful.
Bill Anders
Well, I mean, that's the big rocket, but I mean, I've seen a little tin can like things. I think it was musk or maybe Bezos shuttle like things that they claim will work well. Yeah. I mean, I'm particularly like musk as individual but my one experience with him firsthand, but you know, he can land backwards on a barge I'm not going to say he certainly has had more success than NASA.
Chris Wright
Okay, that brings us to an important point, which is the role of private companies as drivers of space development in the future. It was General Dynamics where of course you Co ever involved in the Space Programme,
Bill Anders
we had the we had the Atlas rocket. But when we add when the Atlas centre they were down to just using the centre, the centre went through eight launches or something where it wouldn't realise. And so I gathered together, people inside NASA and outside NASA to review it. Ken Mattingly, for example, have a lot of respect for and nobody knew how the thing worked. It was so old, they didn't know there were these black boxes, but they didn't know why they were that way. And they've been changed so many times. And just like in your house, when you rewire it, you don't rip out all the old wire and put in new you leave the old wire in many cases, you know, cap it off and go do something else. Well, then you get done or why is this or maybe it's the third change and literally didn't know how to goddamn thing worked. And I'm thinking do I want to be with you know, owning a company that doesn't look like it has too much future? It's it's soul based on a rocket that we know how it works. And so I offered it for sale and normal Augustine gobbled it up. Lockheed Martin Yeah. And and then there became a bigger need for it, I guess. And for unmanned launch. And maybe bill in some sense, maybe maybe bigger is better. Maybe he was right there except our shareholders did a lot better in his you know, and but then most of these guys aren't in the business for for helping the shareholders airbenders for inflating the size of their companies.
Chris Wright
I'm not you you're famous for is a General Dynamics
Bill Anders
or in famous, you know, it depends on Iota.
Chris Wright
I guess it depends which side you were on. But certainly if you held stock during your time you did okay, you did more than Okay.
Bill Anders
Well, my motto was, I took the advice that jack welch Welch gave, and then did not fall in General Electric. But I did learn from jack welch and and practised, you know, if you aren't one or two, and then fix it or get out and only stick to know what you're doing. I don't think I'd be comfortable. In the space business today, the way it's I sense that the General Dynamics, Lockheed, all these other people have got inside and kind of got an internal cancer going on there.
Chris Wright
It's interesting, though, for the former astronaut becomes a chief executive of an aviation and defence company and decides but space is not a good business to be in. What do you think big contractors represents a cancer?
Bill Anders
Well, cancer may be a little strong. But it's a bad gut biome, maybe. There isn't in there now. And they've got NASA. NASA can't do anything. They're just in there. And they can force net senior NASA executives to get fired. You know, through political pressure, they can get to the the pork dispensers, and NASA used to brag about putting something in every one, they infected every company and they did. So every company wanted to keep going because now they were in the space business. So it's not a it's not a clear issue today, that you could convert all this to shareholder equity and equity.
Chris Wright
Okay, but if it's true, what you say with the likes of Lockheed Martin, Boeing and so forth, have far too much power within NASA.
Bill Anders
They're entangled
Chris Wright
in tangled, let's say, and you've talked about the United Launch Alliance as having too much dominance over payload launches. Well, if all of that's correct, then surely SpaceX and Blue Origin are a good thing, shaking things up.
Bill Anders
Oh, yeah, that's right. And I'm happy to hand it to, I don't know who to give credit to I don't is the Donald's smarter than he acts maybe is smarter than a MDX may end, so maybe fingers let the other guys carry the load. Or somebody has decided to let the other guys carry the load. And maybe there are people down in NASA, who, who are more inclined to do that. But you still find NASA beating the drums for their current NASA programme rocket. And then we have Russ doing musk doing a rocket. Everybody's doing their own launch vehicle, you think that NASA would say, why are we doing this?
Chris Wright
I get the argument that NASA should not still be building huge rockets, whether obviously, we can do that. But what Jim bridenstine, the current commissioner of NASA describes sounds very much like what I think you want to see. So when he describes his vision for NASA, it's really there's no longer going to be a buyer and developer of hardware, but a buyer of services. Is that how it should be in your view?
Bill Anders
I can't think so. Yeah, I do that net that they ought to get out of the way of the or encourage or whatever you do for the Musk's and the Bezos and these other nutty guys.
Chris Wright
Okay, how about funding traditionally all The money for space exploration was ultimately tax dollars through NASA, we now move to a situation where the private sector is not just a contractor, but taking risk in its own right and putting in capital. So Virgin Galactic is publicly listed, and SpaceX is backed by venture capital. Is that how it should be?
Bill Anders
I don't know, I don't know enough about him. But it sounds better than the military industrial complex
Chris Wright
was the chief executive you believe very strongly in shareholder value. And you could reach the point where public and private market shareholders drive whether funding goes into space or not
Bill Anders
whether shareholders decide if they're going to buy your stock. And if they decide that a company that's developing, you know, something that looks like it doesn't have much of a future, they won't buy it, but how does it How does a shareholder know? But I wouldn't invest in these? I mean, I don't know enough about it. I don't know how an investor can No, no,
Chris Wright
it's the availability of information rather than the risk and reward trade off, or both?
Bill Anders
Oh, yeah. It was easy in General Dynamics for Buffett, he could see that if he bought any was going to get him and he did it right, he was going to get a big fucking sack of cash, that he could carry off and buy see's candy or more chimes or whatever else, you know, and, but like, you know, Hathaway shirts. I mean, he knew men needed shirts, and many there, he knows that women are going to eat better be careful that people are going to eat see's candy. And so he buys companies that you can see whether they're any good or not found out right off. And he's not looking to have the world's you know, massive quantum jump in value. Probably the General Dynamics was the bet one of the best deals he ever got into as far as quick return on his money,
Chris Wright
but didn't require him to understand fighter aircraft. It required them to trust you,
Bill Anders
right. He listened to any and we had we put this plan out, you know, and once you put it out, you can't take it back. But today I don't know how you Who do you invest in you if I don't I don't eat bonds not a public company.
Chris Wright
No Tesla is but SpaceX is not Virgin Galactic is but that's something different space tourism.
Bill Anders
Yeah. But I mean, I wouldn't mind touring in space if I were a young yuppie.
Chris Wright
So it was a commercial case for that,
Bill Anders
I guess, you know, but it's really hard to see where to put the money. I don't think that I don't think that the Wall Street is going to be the the great Sieve of this. I think the government has an obligation to not do stupid things. And yet we keep doing
Chris Wright
let private individuals do stupid things. Elan Musk, Jeff Bezos,
Bill Anders
right. It's his money. So I think what you should walk away with it Anders is really a kind of a cynic. Maybe with some justification. And yet, for every Anders, there's 1000 norm Augustine's
Chris Wright
a cynic about what specifically
Bill Anders
the the hype, the hubbub the pompom core of man space.
Chris Wright
Well, I must contend that your achievements are partly responsible for that. And I am going to ask you to recall something from Apollo because in the series, I do want to convey some of what Apollo did achieve. For me, the remarkable moments of Apollo eight is this idea. But in the four and a half billion years of our planet, nobody had ever seen the whole of the earth, all of it as a ball and space until you until you three and I'd like to ask you what perspective that left you with?
Bill Anders
Well, I mean, it left me with a perspective that the earth is a tiny little dust bowl floating out there from a physical and from a philosophical point of view. So it's undercut my Neil are centred religion. Just got up there sitting on some black hole with a supercomputer wondering whether I'm in a good boy or a bad boy. No visit suggests that somehow that humans are the only folk around No. Has it suggested the earth is tiny and fragile? Yes. So it's giving people an insight into their planet in most of it I think in the long run will be good. So I don't know whether that was a positive or a negative response. But I've been disappointed in what has transpired since Apollo brown dude, taking the picture. got like myself in you know two names on the moon. So, you know and apparently made a lot of shareholders happy with General Dynamics. But you know i'm i'm not going to take credit for turning the world around you.
Chris Wright
Fantastic. Thank you so much. It's been wonderful to see you again.
This has been a Euromoney podcast by Chris Wright and Chris hunt.
Transcribed by https://otter.ai