then dee slayton says, hey, we're going to have to do something about that. they took these three segments of words and interspersed them with -- and today's people won't understand spike jones and his music. we had some gospel singing in this and we had comments by chris kraft and president nixon. they interspersed all of these on a tape and we had to listen to this thing over and over and over as we drank the beer and smoked some more cigars with this crew. but it was that kind of a way of business. this was an honest to god broth brotherhood that existed in those days that i don't think any group of people in peace time has ever come together in a similar fashion. >> does that old gang ever get together today for reunions of any sort? >> we have one coming up. generally every five years we get together for some kind of a reunion. i think they're all together too infrequent but i think that two or three things have done a lot to help us in this most recent years. i think that the "apollo 13" movie has done a lot to bring back and bring some recognition to s

it carries forward the strong leadership like chris kraft, dee slayton, aaron cohen, owen morse. basically if you look at how this device came into being, it is probably the most advanced technological space system that has ever been built. interestingly enough it was built by a generation of people who today just really don't receive the recognition that they should have for the commitment they made to america's, in fact the world's capabilities. the belief that the shuttle was the instrument that was built by the most gifted technologists, leaders and managers that ever existed within the space prog m program. and i think this gift that they gave to the american public, the space business, is never fully recognized. it's the most fundamentally reliable system, space system, that has ever been built. it is a space system that has a broad range of missions. it's demonstrated itself fully capable by accomplishing everyone of its design objectives. unfortunately it has not achieved the economies that were intended but to a great extent these economies are not being achieved princip