Retirees reminisce about work on shuttle

Whenever Atlantis lifts off in what will be the final flight for America's shuttle fleet three retired employees of the former Grumman company who worked on the winged craft will be looking on with a mixture of sadness, pride and apprehension at America's shrinking role in space exploration.

The mission is scheduled for Friday but may be delayed due to poor weather.

Grumman built shuttle wings in Bethpage. But Ken Speiser, 74, of Plainview, John Devaney, 76, of Massapequa Park, and Dick Kline, 78, who used to live in Huntington and now resides in Pennsylvania, worked as part of a 120-person team on various systems relating to the shuttles, including electronics, guidance and navigation, in a Rockwell International facility in Downey, Calif., as subcontractors to Rockwell, which built the orbiter.

Kline headed that 120-person team. Speiser, Devaney and Dick Dunne of West Islip, a veteran Grumman public relations executive during the space program, gathered Thursday at the Cradle of Aviation Museum in East Garden City, which plans to show the liftoff live on a large screen when it occurs. Kline joined the interview via phone.

"It's the end of the space program for the U.S.," Devaney said. "I feel sad about that."

Speiser said he will feel "a certain amount of pride" when he sees Atlantis leave launchpad 39A, but added "My biggest concern is our country's loss of the ability to fly into space. I worry about our technical capabilities."

Kline said that while "it's time to put the shuttle to bed," the country has "no road map for human space exploration."

Their days in California were exhilarating, but exhausting.

"We worked like hell," Kline said. In fact, he said, Grumman management knew the workload would be tremendous, so it required all employees involved in the shuttle program to take physical exams before they were allowed to start at their jobs.

The shuttle, they said, helped America build the International Space Station and maintain the Hubble Telescope. The explosion of two shuttles -- Challenger in 1986 and Columbia in 2003 -- were tragic, but space exploration is risky business, Dunne said. They acknowledged the shuttle never became the fully reusable space vehicle capable of 40 flights a year, as had been the hope before the first launch in 1981. But they argued that it added to the nation's understanding of space flight and also to national pride.

"The world looked up to us as leaders in space," Dunne said.