WSU Vancouver’s Rocket Team benefits from the experience of a NASA engineer.
Before retiring to Vancouver, Wash., Cline Frasier solved engineering and management problems for 50 years after graduating from WSU Pullman. He spent 11 years at NASA-Houston, contributing to the success of the Apollo moon landing and the initial design of the Space Shuttle. He then helped set national auto fuel economy regulations while with the U.S. Department of Transportation. Next he managed Draper Laboratory’s information systems. Finally, he and a partner consulted on management and systems problems for major corporations.
Along the way Frasier earned master’s degrees in mechanical engineering from the University of New Mexico, and management from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
Currently, he enjoys being around sharp, young engineers by lending his experience to WSU Vancouver’s Rocket Team, a group of engineering students who make up the WSU Vancouver Aerospace Club. They are designing and building a rocket to compete in the 2020 Spaceport America Cup, an international competition in New Mexico in June. WSU Vancouver students will build a 12-foot rocket and launch it to an altitude of 10,000 feet. The summer of 2020 will mark the third time the group has competed and the third year Frasier has worked with them.
It’s a large and thrilling challenge. The students design the rocket, obtain the parts
and fuel, coordinate the building and testing, and develop an experiment to carry aboard the rocket. And of course, they also keep up with their regular classes. The total cost of the project, including travel, is about $10,000. While the university contributes, it’s up to the students to raise much of the money.
“It’s an important activity,” Frasier said. “They learn how to work together as an interdisciplinary team, run a project, balance cost and schedule, solve problems where there is no one ‘right answer’ and address system design issues. They also design an experiment for the competition and learn to work within a set of constraints.”
Frasier’s role is to attend many of the meetings, ask questions, and “once in a while propose an idea about a resource they might use. But this is their project,” he said. “I’m a consultant. I listen and see where I can help.”
A problem solved
At NASA, Frasier’s first Apollo contribution was to propose changing the primary flight control system from analog to digital electronics, and shift primary navigation from the spacecraft to the ground radar network. At the time, the existing design would not fit in the Command Module. The change to a digital computer for spacecraft control enabled the team to fit all the guidance and control equipment into the spacecraft, reduce weight, improve mission reliability and save millions of dollars. “This was a radical and heretical idea,” he told the website We Hack the Moon, which documents the history of the Apollo Primary Guidance, Navigation and Control System in the words of people who were involved.
It took time to get the idea accepted, because many key people, including the astronauts, did not trust electronics, especially digital computers. Adding the primary autopilot to the digital computer made it possible to reduce the number of gyroscopes and electronic components. “The astronaut who initially told me it would not work and he would not fly with the digital system went on to praise the system and used it to land on the moon,” Frasier said.
Frasier went on to be the NASA project manager for the design and manufacture of the Apollo Primary Guidance, Navigation and Control System.
His time at NASA “was the best job anybody could have,” Frasier said. “It was a national program and a real challenge, and I worked with very smart, mostly very nice people.” NASA recognized Frasier with its Exceptional Service and Superior Achievement awards.
He is quick to share the glory: “There were 500 to a thousand people in the MIT Instrumentation Laboratory working on the design of the Primary Guidance, Navigation and Control System for Apollo. There were also more than 5,000 people in industry supplying design support, manufacturing and checkout. These were the unsung essential people in industry who are seldom mentioned when credits for success are being handed out.”
A legacy of giving
Cline Frasier and his wife, Gretchen, moved to Vancouver from Concord, Mass., in 2009. He had grown up in Pullman, started college at WSU, and then took a sabbatical with the Army. He spent three years with the Army, mostly in El Paso teaching electronics, where he met his wife-to-be. They came back to Pullman and each finished their degrees—Gretchen in 1958, and Cline in 1959.
Donors to WSU since 1973, they quickly became involved with WSU Vancouver. Frasier comes from a family with a legacy of giving to WSU. Starting with his grandparents, Robert and Maude Cline, the Cline and Frasier families have four named scholarship funds, including one set up by Cline and Gretchen.
Frasier served as a mentor in the Business Growth Mentor and Analysis Program for three semesters. Then he was asked to talk about Apollo to the Rocket Team in 2017. “In the question-and-answer period I realized I might have something to contribute,” he said. “They needed money, so I gave them a check. They invited me to come to the meetings and serve as a coach, and that worked out.”
It’s a satisfying connection all around. “I’ve enjoyed working with both business school and engineering students, but my real loves are engineering challenges and passing on what I’ve learned,” he said. “Working with these students gives me faith for the future.” ■
Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the 2020 Spaceport America Cup is canceled.
You can help
To donate to the Rocket Team, contact 360-546-9600 or van.alumni@wsu.edu.