Space Center club has the right stuff
At the height of the space race in the early 1960s, thousands of aerospace engineers, scientists, contractors, and support crew members flocked to Houston, turning 1,600 acres of what was mostly cow pasture into the bustling research hub known as the Manned Spacecraft Center, now the Johnson Space Center. The transplants needed social connection. They needed an outlet to improve their rapidly growing community.
They needed a Rotary club.
When the Rotary Club of Space Center (Houston) formed in 1964, about a third of its 35 charter members were connected to the space program — including a manager in a General Electric department that designed and built equipment for Project Apollo; an executive from McDonnell Aircraft, which supplied the Gemini and Mercury capsules; and the IBM chief in charge of the acres of computers needed to program space flights. The club’s early members also included a real estate agent who found homes for NASA families, an assistant superintendent of a burgeoning school district, and a veterinarian who treated astronauts’ pets.
It even attracted astronauts L. Gordon Cooper, the youngest of the seven original astronauts in Project Mercury, and Frank Borman, commander of both Gemini 7, which at the time had the longest space flight, and Apollo 8, the first mission to leave Earth’s orbit and circle the moon.
“I wanted to become a member because I’m very much interested in the community around here,” Borman said in a 1966 cover story about the club in this magazine. “I think a Rotary club is an important asset to housing developments like these.”
Members of the Rotary Club of Space Center (Houston), including (from left) Stan Galanski, Suzi Howe, and Alan Wylie, honor the club’s past and present connections to the space program.
Image credit: Nathan Lindstrom
Club’s connections continue
The club today retains its proud heritage, ties to the space center, and interest in the community. Its members still include a superintendent from that same school district and plenty of people with connections to the space program.
Alan Wylie, a longtime club member, served 18 years as a flight controller for NASA and another 25 as a contractor. He graduated from Texas Tech in 1967 with a major in mathematics and a minor in physics, and just two years later was at his console for the first manned lunar landing. His team also plotted navigation for moon flights, including the critical reentry angle into Earth’s atmosphere.
“I was very fortunate to graduate when I did, which enabled me to be a flight controller when we first landed on the moon,” he recalls. “My specialty was navigating the lunar landing.”
In 1985, Owen Morris, a club member who had led the team that developed the lunar module for the Apollo missions, proposed the idea for the club’s National Award for Space Achievement. The club set up a special foundation to work with NASA, the military, and industry leaders to nominate and select recipients.
Today, the black-tie gala is held in downtown Houston and includes a number of categories in addition to the prestigious National Space Trophy. In 2018, for instance, William Shatner, the actor who portrayed Captain Kirk in the original Star Trek TV series and movies, received the Space Communicator Award.
A who’s who of the space program
Notable contributions by Rotary Club of Space Center (Houston) members past and present:
- L. Gordon Cooper (1927-2004) was one of the Mercury Seven, the first class of American astronauts. “I practically had to pinch myself every day to think that I’m really here, because it was really an opportunity to really do some pioneering, because we had no idea what we’d find in space,” he said in an oral history project. Cooper piloted the last of the Mercury spaceflights in 1963, orbiting Earth a record-setting 22 times.
- As commander of the 1968 Apollo 8 mission, Frank Borman (1928-2023) led the first team of astronauts to orbit the moon, describing its surface as a “vast, lonely forbidding expanse of nothing, rather like clouds and clouds of pumice stone.” During the orbit, he carried a Space Center Rotary club banner, which is part of the Rotary International archives today.
- Alan Wylie and his team plotted navigation for moon flights. The Apollo 13 mission tested their mettle, as an onboard explosion forced major changes in the flight path and their efforts to get data on the craft’s precise location were hampered by the need to conserve power. “We had to tell the flight director to turn the power back on for five minutes so we could collect data,” Wylie recalls. “As soon as they had turned it on, they [the crew] were urgently asking us, ‘Do you have enough, do you have enough?’”
- Owen Morris (1927-2014) was chief engineer on the team that developed the lunar module for the Apollo moon landings. The module had to be lightweight and efficient. Some thought the resulting boxy craft on thin legs resembled a spider. “It wound up being what a lot of people thought was a fairly ugly vehicle,” Morris said in a NASA oral history project. During the Apollo 13 mission, the lunar module served as a lifeboat for crew members on their return trip to Earth. Morris also helped develop the idea of carrying the space shuttle on top of a 747 to ferry it across the country after landing.
Inspiring Rotary and community members
For the 2022 Rotary International Convention, members organized tours for attendees of Space Center Houston, the official visitor center, and tours of the Johnson Space Center for VIPs, says club member Suzi Howe, a past RI director and aide to 2025-26 RI President Mário César Martins de Camargo. Astronauts Jessica Watkins and Bob Hines addressed the opening session from the International Space Station, and Wylie presented in the House of Friendship about Apollo 13 and its harrowing return to Earth after an explosion.
The club has often been a popular way for traveling Rotary members and guests to make up meetings. While in-person visits have declined in recent years, virtual attendance at the club’s hybrid meetings is still considerable, especially when an astronaut is speaking or the program includes updates from NASA.
“During COVID I would invite all kinds of people to come if I knew a program would be of interest,” Howe says, “especially high school kids if we had an astronaut. How often do they get to meet an astronaut?”
In addition to honoring their space roots, members also boldly go on international service projects. Howe traveled to São Paulo to visit six literacy projects supported by the club. Another effort in Nicaragua supported the construction of a school and microfarms that provide food and income to families.
The club has carried out many other projects closer to home. Soon after receiving its charter, the club established a public library in the community that grew next to the space center, collecting thousands of donated books from residents, renovating a building, constructing shelving, painting, and landscaping. Two members even served on the first library board. Today, the club supports children and older residents through a variety of projects and helps stock a food pantry.
It’s also active in Rotary Youth Exchange, hosting more than 60 students since the 1980s. Wylie served as a club and district Youth Exchange officer for many years before retiring to a mentoring role and managing the district’s Youth Exchange database.
“I’ve always enjoyed working with young people,” he says. “These are special kids trained to be ambassadors, and that is what they become. An investment in Youth Exchange is an investment in the future.”
And who knows? Given the nature of this club, perhaps one of those exchange students will be part of the next giant leap forward in space exploration.
This story originally appeared in the March 2025 issue of Rotary magazine.