Retiree helped a fledging NASA land in southwest
Joe Piland, former director of operations with the Johnson Space Center, looks over a chart he made about the history of aeronautics and space flight.
Published: Thursday, June 13, 2013 at 4:30 a.m.
Last Modified: Wednesday, June 12, 2013 at 7:17 p.m.
Today, the Lyndon B. Johnson Space Center sits on nearly 2,000 acres of land and is home to some of the most sophisticated technology in the world. It's the training ground for American astronauts. Joseph Piland can remember when the property was nothing but open land with cattle roaming the grounds. Piland, who retired from NASA in 1982 and now lives in Hendersonville, was a part of the team that met the owner in Houston and saw the land in person. The land was donated to Rice University and then to the U.S. government. The government bought another 600 acres surrounding it, Piland said. It was ironic that Piland was one of the first people to look at the acreage and envision one of the primary locations of the space program, which was in its infancy at this point. President John F. Kennedy had just announced to the world in a speech to Congress that one of his goals was for America to go to the moon. "That opened all kinds of doors," said Piland, who went on to serve as director of operations at the space center for three decades.He grew up in rural Virginia and had never envisioned this life for himself. Instead, Piland saw a farm in his future, but on a slightly smaller scale than the one chosen for the space center. "My daddy had some cows and I could milk them when I was 8 years old," he said. When Piland graduated high school, he was accepted to a technical school run by the Navy in Portsmouth, Va. When he graduated from the program four years later, the world was at war.He enlisted in the Army Air Corps and graduated as a navigator. He shipped out to New Guinea in the South Pacific and flew as a navigator in 64 missions. When the war ended, Piland took advantage of the GI Bill and enrolled at Virginia Tech. He graduated with a degree in mechanical engineering. In 1949, he went to work for the National Advisory Committee on Aviation, which in 1958 became NASA. Three years later, Kennedy gave his speech to Congress. Months after that, Piland and others were looking at cattle without farming on their minds. Instead, the Manned Spacecraft Center, later named after Johnson, was about to become a piece of a massive program that would change the world. "I was here in the beginning when we put the chain-link fence around the property," Piland said.He spent the next three decades as the director of operations. Piland was in charge of the facilities, maintenance and power. He watched the center grow to more than 100 buildings.Beyond that, he was on hand for some of the most memorable moments in the history of not only the United States, but the world. When Buzz Aldrin, Neil Armstrong and Michael Collins went to the moon as the world watched, Piland was in Houston. The rockets that boosted the shuttles into orbit were built at the U.S. Space and Rocket Center in Huntsville, Ala. The astronauts were trained and the shuttle was designed at the Lyndon B. Johnson Space Center. The rocket astronauts and the shuttle converged on the John F. Kennedy Space Center in Orlando for launch. As those launches happened, Piland was either at the control center or walking the grounds at the center in Houston. "I didn't push the button, but I better give them power so they can push the button," Piland said of his job.When Apollo 13 had America on the edge of its seat, Piland was walking from the control center to his office late one night. He ran into a woman who cleaned the offices. She was in tears and asked if he thought the astronauts would be all right. That woman, he said, was symbolic of the team-style approach that consumed everyone who worked in Houston."They were emotionally involved with those guys that were sticking their necks out," Piland said. Piland has been a part of just about every historic space flight since the inception of NASA. He worked on Project Mercury all the way up to the Apollo flights. He's met hundreds of astronauts, including Armstrong and Aldrin. He retired in 1982 and moved to Hendersonville in 1984. He and his wife of 66 years, Ruth, moved into Carolina Village nine years ago. As he approaches his 90th birthday in December, Piland can only think back and smile about the history that he experienced in his lifetime. "I often say I've had a tremendous life with the experiences I've had," he said. Reach Millwood at 828-694-7881 or at .