Arthur J. “Skip” Mackey Jr. was the “Voice of NASA” in the 1960s and 70s during countdown broadcasts for NASA’s rocket launches from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida. Mackey, who was branch chief for Telemetry and Communications in the agency’s Expendable Launch Vehicle Program and then the Launch Services Program (LSP) for 39 years, passed away in Fort Lauderdale on Nov. 19.
Eric Anderson, chief of the Ground Systems Integration Branch for LSP, worked with Mackey from 1993 to 1996.
“When I started at Kennedy, I originally worked for the Space Shuttle Program,” Anderson said. “During a tour of Hangar AE, I heard Skip give a talk about the rocket industry and what role communications and telemetry played in the launches.
“His passion and energy for the work and the people inspired me like no one else had before or since. When a position came up in his office, I jumped at the opportunity to work for him and I have worked in the same office ever since,” Anderson said.
When NASA began to broadcast launch countdowns to the public for the first time, it was Mackey’s voice that was heard during the launch vehicle’s ascent into space. He worked on all of the uncrewed vehicle programs up to and including the Delta program, which was the last one he worked on before he retired.
Anderson’s position is the same one that Mackey held, but it was consolidated into the program in 1998 when Kennedy began to manage LSP for NASA.
Mackey had a talent for technical flight commentary for launches. Anderson said the job required the technical ability to read telemetry data from the launch vehicle and recognize what was going on and then be able to improvise the commentary from this data “on the fly.”
George Looschen, an engineering scientist with QinetiQ on the ELVIS-2 contract in Denver, Colo., started his career with NASA in 1964 at the Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md.
“When I arrived, Skip was already there. He ran the telemetry station and also was instrumental in building the telemetry station at Vandenberg Air Force Station in California,” Looschen said. “He also managed the contractor support for the stations.”
Looschen said Mackey was a true gentlemen and a friend. “It would be hard to put a value on his many significant contributions to the U.S. space programs,” Looschen said. “His legacy will definitely live on.”
Charlie Thompson worked for various contractors from 1985 to 2009 as a communications engineer. He recalled that a camera was first set up in the telemetry lab and followed Mackey around during his launch countdown commentary for commercial launches.
“Skip was a gentleman. He allowed people to be creative and try new ideas,” Thompson said. “Looking back, Skip held together a diverse and highly dedicated group of people with very different personalities. He realized the value of each one of his employees.”
Claire Neptune served as Mackey’s office assistant and recollects what a hard worker Mackey was. “He expected that from all of us and kept everything running smoothly,” Neptune said.
In a Florida Today feature dated Nov. 8, 1992, former NASA Expendable Launch Vehicle Program Director Robert Gray was quoted as saying, “I suspect that Skip Mackey has directly supported more space launches than anyone else in the world. It’s probably in the hundreds. And once a rocket lifts off, everyone turns on Skip’s channel because they want to know what is going on with the vehicle.”