Q&A: Apollo lead retrofire officer Jerry Elliott-High Eagle

Jerry Elliott-High Eagle knew from a young age he was going to put people on the Moon. In 1969 his childhood vision became a reality when he served as a retrofire officer for the Apollo 11 Moon landing, helping determine the optimal return trip and reentry for the three astronauts. Elliott-High Eagle worked at NASA’s Mission Control Center in Houston for the next four decades as an aerospace physicist and helped bring the Apollo 13 astronauts safely back to Earth after an onboard explosion incapacitated the spacecraft and endangered the lives of the crew.

He was the first Native American to graduate with a degree in physics from the University of Oklahoma. In 1977 he cofounded the American Indian Science and Engineering Society to increase the number of young Indigenous people entering scientific careers. After an illustrious and rewarding career as a physicist and engineer at NASA, Elliott-High Eagle retired from the agency and founded High Eagle Technologies. He is currently the president and CEO, working to develop and commercialize medical devices for treating cancer, blood-related diseases, and now the virus that causes COVID-19.

The interview that follows is an edited excerpt from the oral history of Elliott-High Eagle conducted by David Zierler, an oral historian for the Niels Bohr Library and Archives (part of the American Institute of Physics, which publishes Physics Today). The full transcript of the interview can be found on the library’s website .

ZIERLER: When did you first know that you wanted to study science?

ELLIOTT-HIGH EAGLE: It was clear to me at age five and a half. I was lying outside the house one hot summer day and heard a voice saying, “Your life’s work is going to be landing men on the Moon.” I went in real quickly and told mama, and she said, “Where’s the voice coming from?” I pointed to the Sun. She nodded and she said, “Keep the vision. Keep the dream!”

ZIERLER: How do you understand where that voice came from?

ELLIOTT-HIGH EAGLE: From my American Indian background. We are a visionary Native people, and spiritually my life’s plan came to me from our Creator that day. Mom understood that quite well. I didn’t fully understand it, but I knew I was going to land men on the Moon. I knew I had to have a preparation and a background in physics and math to accomplish that kind of thing.

ZIERLER: Given that you were so focused on being a part of a mission to the Moon, did you consider any colleges that might have been close to the action?

ELLIOTT-HIGH EAGLE: I was so poor prior to my first year in college, I dug ditches on the highway 14 hours a day in the sun at $1.75 an hour just to earn enough money to pay for my first semester. The University of Oklahoma was 19 miles away. It was convenient. It was also one of the top 10 schools in the nation for physics at the time. I had a chance for a scholarship to Stanford, and I turned it down because I just couldn’t afford the expense of being away from home. So it was a perfect setup with the University of Oklahoma. I had some of the finest professors and physicists of the nation there at that time.

ZIERLER: How did you go from an undergraduate at the University of Oklahoma to working at NASA?

ELLIOTT-HIGH EAGLE: Every course took me one step closer. When I graduated from college in 1966 and started pursuing my master’s, I needed a job. I wasn’t going to type for 80 cents an hour, which is what a lot of graduate students were doing. I wanted to earn big money, and they paid over $2 an hour to be a police officer. So I served as a full-time officer in the Norman, Oklahoma, police department and a Cleveland County deputy sheriff, going to school in the mornings and working eight hours later for the police department.

I was leaving class one day, and from the corner of my eye, something caught my attention. It was piece of paper with a handwritten message saying, “NASA hiring today.” I looked at the door of the dean’s office, and there was a line of boys almost out to the door, waiting to be interviewed.

When it came time for my interview, the man from NASA opened the door and asked if his car was overparked. Here I am dressed as a police officer. I replied, “No, sir.” He responded, “Well, why are you here?” I told him I wanted to land men on the Moon. He said, “Well, okay. Do you have a degree?” “Yes, sir.” “Do you have a resume?” “No, I don’t.” “Do you have a form 171 government employment form filled out?” “No.” “Do you have a phone number where I can contact you?” And I said, “Yes, sir, here’s my mother’s phone number.” And he said, “Well, tell me what you want to do again?” I said, “I want to land men on the Moon.” He said he was in a hurry. It was one of those “Don’t call me, I’ll call you” things. He packed his briefcase and quickly exited for the airport to return to NASA. I doubted I would ever hear from him again.

A couple of days later, Mom called and said, “Well you got a letter from the federal government. You’re leaving for boot camp in 15 days to go to Vietnam.” Then, within those 15 days that I was supposed to leave for boot camp, Mom calls again and says, “You got another letter here from the government. This is from NASA. Have you talked with somebody from NASA?” And I said, “Yes. Read it to me.” “Dear Mr. Elliott, we’re offering you a position in the Man in Space Program. Please call immediately to accept or not accept this invitation.” The job was at a GS7 pay grade in the federal government, making several thousand dollars a year. I thought, “Wow, my vision is coming true!”

ZIERLER: Why do you think NASA was so excited about you? What is your sense of what you had done to distinguish yourself?

ELLIOTT-HIGH EAGLE: It was totally a spiritual thing. I was one of very few—if not the only person—hired from the University of Oklahoma. I was the very first American Indian hired at NASA. I was the very first American Indian that graduated in physics from the University of Oklahoma. And I think what impressed them was my enthusiasm and my security background as a police officer.

ZIERLER: What did you have the most innate talent for at NASA?

ELLIOTT-HIGH EAGLE: Everything had to be invented. There were no experts. There was nobody you could go to and say, “How do you do this?” In fact, my first boss said, “If you see something that needs to be done, go do it, even if it’s not in your job description.” I mean, everyone was at equal status. No one knew any more than anybody else because we had never done this. I’m a very creative person, and I saw opportunities to use my creativity in a lot of different areas. I think creativity is the biggest thing that a person can have that you can’t study for. You have to be open to be creative. In those days people said, “The sky is the limit.” Well, we at NASA proved that it was no longer the limit.

ZIERLER: What were your responsibilities as lead retrofire officer?

ELLIOTT-HIGH EAGLE: On a normal mission, when everything was going fine, our primary focus was to compute trajectories from the Moon back to Earth and for reentry. We computed the return-to-Earth trajectories, and we also had the ability to return the astronauts to different places—if there was a hurricane in one ocean, we could move the landing point to another ocean as long as we were far enough from Earth. A lead retrofire officer was pretty much in charge of everything going right, from computing return-to-Earth trajectories all the way to reentry and splashdown in the ocean.

ZIERLER: Where were you on the morning when the Apollo 11 astronauts landed on the Moon?

ELLIOTT-HIGH EAGLE: I was in one of the back rooms as a support to the control center team. Our task was to compute aborts and return trajectories from the Moon back to Earth. From Apollo 12 all the way to the end of Apollo, I was in the Mission Operations Control Room, sitting there on the retrofire officer console.

ZIERLER: Was it a spiritual moment for you when the astronauts landed on the Moon? What did it feel like?

ELLIOTT-HIGH EAGLE: Yeah. We accomplished NASA’s mission—and my mission given to me by the Creator. It’s hard to describe that feeling. It’s so overpowering. I knew that I had accomplished my childhood vision, I knew that NASA had accomplished President Kennedy’s goal for the United States, and of course the whole world was glued to the screen and watching what was happening.

We had invaded the Moon, but we had also lost something in the process. We lost the unknowns: What is the Moon? What is it composed of? What is it like? What’s there? We gained scientific knowledge, but we lost the imagination and mystery of the Moon that has intrigued men and women over countless years.

ZIERLER: As a Native American, did you ever feel like you were treated unfairly at NASA?

ELLIOTT-HIGH EAGLE: At the beginning of NASA, the Air Force was in charge, and all the Air Force and NASA employees were white. I suffered from racism from pretty much the day I was hired until 40 years later. I had cartoons drawn about my American Indian heritage put on my desk. It didn’t seem that I was allowed the privileges that other employees enjoyed. For instance, after a successful mission, a few select flight controllers were chosen to attend press conferences to answer questions. They were all white. I was never allowed to attend.

We were also told strictly that while you’re sitting in the control center, you had to be wearing a suit, a white shirt, and a tie. I couldn’t wear my braids. And if I did, I would not be sitting in the control center. My hair had to be cut like a white person’s. I could not have long hair. I could not wear any of my Indian native jewelry. I was required to look like everybody else at NASA.

NASA was, until the day I retired, a white supremacist organization. No question. Unfair to women, unfair to minorities. They created an equal opportunity office because they had to, but there was nobody to support real equal opportunity. Nobody. The only equal opportunity we had was to prove to others that every minority could compete or excel, that the mind and the brain don’t know the color of the skin.

ZIERLER: Were there any mentors or leaders who looked out for you to make sure that you were treated as fairly as possible?

ELLIOTT-HIGH EAGLE: Yes, several. I had some very bad leaders, and I had some very good leaders who took the time and care to help guide me in my career and put me in positions where I would excel by showing my expertise. That is what saved me. They didn’t need me as a person; they needed my creative thought and brainpower. Without those qualities, I would not have succeeded in a lot of the things that I did. If you think about it, we thought our way to the Moon before our feet ever touched the surface. That’s how powerful the human mind is. We had to consider everything from the design of the spacecrafts to how to operate them, send them to the Moon, and bring them back safely.

ZIERLER: Did the discrimination that you faced complicate your feelings of patriotism as an American?

ELLIOTT-HIGH EAGLE: Oh, no. Not at all. In fact, it reinforced it. You have to go back to American Indian culture. We were here long before white man was here. This is our country. Everyone else was an invader. An alien who came and took our country. Sitting there feeling the success of the moment for myself, however, I was feeling a personal pride for my culture and all the American Indians in the country because among the people that landed Apollo 11 on the Moon sat one Native person.