Astronymphs!

Here’s the last of father’s NASA stories. This includes a lot of what my father’s officemate, Bart Hacker, has referred to as “apocryphal” anecdotes, though Tom Wolfe mentions the Turtles in his book, The Right Stuff. 

               One day as I was walking down the hall of Building #1 towards my office noticing subconsciously all the ID tags affixed to each and every door. Everyone had a number-designation from “116a – MEN” to “184 – Maintenance” (i.e., the broom closet); every object, from the desks and chairs to the typewriters and in-baskets, had a metal tag superglued on it somewhere. It became kind of a game when you were idling or waiting around, to pick up an object—even an ashtray—and look for its tag. Obviously any item not tagged was clearly not G.I.—and therefore up for grabs. We never did find any such item. But, as I turned the corner that morning bound for my office I came face-to-face with a glaring exception—the door affording direct access to my office. Not a single government designation as to what lay behind it. It could have been a missile silo or a broom closet! Determined not to put up with this humbling anonymity, Bart and I spent a good deal of the morning trying to come up with a designation.
               As the morning wore on and we got back to space matters, we began to muse on the absence of females in the Astronaut program. Bart offered that, as there was a dearth or, even absence, of female pilots in the military, from where the greatest number of recruits were solicited, it would account for there being none. But, he added, they were trying to rectify the matter and actively searching for women astronauts. Then it came to me in a flash! We must contribute to this effort. And we must do so in the best government fashion; we must form a committee!
               Since any bureaucratic unit worth its salt was denoted by an acronym, like NASA itself, we must create one. First things first, I always say. We put our heads together to come up with a name.
               “Prostinauts!” urged Hacker. “No,” said I, “It would conjure up images of sexual shenanigans in space. And the Puffers of the world would go berserk. Besides, it was fundamentally disrespectful and had no class. Then I got it . . . “Astronymphs!” It kind of went with astronauts. And I knew that certainly Wally Schirra would approve. He was, among others, the creator of the Turtles.
               Now the Turtle—or Space Turtles as they were distinguished at NASA—was an informal group of Astronauts and the good-looking, well-endowed young women who doted on them. Women were solicited for inclusion in the group, usually by horny astronauts, from the public-at-large. When a good-looking girl was spotted, she was asked “Are you a Turtle?” If she had been so appointed her standard reply must be: “You bet your sweet ass I am!” If she just looked puzzled, she was then asked if she’d like to become one. If she responded as to what she would have to do to become one, she was told that she merely had to answer four questions correctly. If she agreed, she was asked the following questions:

1. What goes in hard and dry and comes out soft and sticky?

2. What does a man do standing up, a woman do sitting down, and a dog do on three legs?

3. What is it that a cow has four of and woman has only two of?  

4. What is it on a man that is round, hard, and sticks so far out of his pajamas that you can hand a hat on it?

                And so it was that all over the MSC and elsewhere attractive women were recruited into the Space Turtles. It was with this in mind that I decided to create the Astronymphs—and I knew that we’d enjoy the enthusiastic support of that most prestigious and respected group in the Space Program, the astronauts themselves.
               So, on that fateful day in late November, 1966, we created ARBTO, modelled after hundreds of like acronymic groups in the program: the Astronymph Review Board and Training Office. When I returned from the sign shop downstairs with the “A.R.B.T.O.” tag for our bare door, it was done. Bart and I spent our lunch hour designing the appropriate ARBTO questionnaire. After lunch I would pop over to Building 4 confer with Schirra and whichever other astronauts I could find in their offices.
               Needless to say, ARBTO was a big hit—particularly with the Astronauts who had been resigned to never having a say in the selection of their female counterparts and who shuddered at the idea of having to spend countless hours in training, simulators, and deep space with possibly less than attractive females. It clearly appealed to their well-known sense of humor and their love of practical jokes. But few of them had had the intimate contact with Rod Puffer that I had experienced!
               In the following days, ARBTO application/questionnaires found themselves all over NASA-MSC. Even a few in the clubs of Houston and Clear Lake (where the MSC was located).
               On the morning that the “Puffer—stat!” note was impaled on my pen again, I knew that I’d achieved another major milestone at NASA. First I’d created a NASA engineer, then an embarrassing photo-montage of failure, now an entire branch of the Space Program! Puffer would probably be in restraints by now! And I might end up in bandages! Puffer had convinced himself that now, at least, he had gotten me. This would be the last straw, the final nail in the coffin. I had at last gone too far.
               “Well, you really outdid yourself this time! Even [Robert] Gilruth has seen this.” He was waving an Astronymph application form. “By now even Washington has seen it. This will end where it belongs,” he said, crumpling it up and tossing it in his wastebasket, “in the trashcan!” I had never seen Puffer so beet-red, apoplectic. His near-thirty years in the Marines had never brought him as close to a stroke as I had in 90 days.
               “Well,” I mused, “Captain Schirra will be very unhappy to hear that.” Puffer’s eyes shot up to meet mine.
               “Say what?"
               “I said Wally Schirra and John Young (I knew first names would grab him) would be sad to hear that.” I could see him looking quizzically and disbelievingly at me. “They were just beginning to enjoy themselves.” He paused for a second, not sure whether to believe me, then proceeded.
               “Well, they amuse themselves too often at the expense of the seriousness of our efforts.” I could see that he was weighing how to deal with the situation in the light of this new information. He held the astronauts, like so many in the program, in the highest esteem—they could do no wrong. If the occasional clowning and practical joke happened to be their way of relieving the ever-present tension, so be it.
               “But you’re no damn astronaut!” He thought to remind me. “And I don't think you’re much of a historian” (a clear non sequitur) “And I don't think we need another clown around here!” I watched him reach down into his wastebasket and retrieve the crumpled form. Then, placing it on his desk, he smoothed it out, walked over to the ever-burgeoning file drawer and pushed it down into the Vorzimmer file.
               “That file of yours is getting bigger by the week. It’s going to burst one day.” (And so are you, I thought to myself.) Making no reference to any form of punishment, he showed me to the door.
               Grimwood, always attuned to what was going on, was waiting for me on my return. He could see from my relaxed mood that I was off the hook—for the moment.
               “I’ve never seen anybody get Puffer’s goat so much—or so often—as you have and come away unscathed. You watch it, boy, one day he’s going to get you!” I joined Bart back in our office and we chortled about it, even coming up with the idea that we announce a Major Myla Milestone as a new Astronymph in the program.