<title>Dave Mohr

Dave Mohr

I am 'one of those kids' who sat in front of the TV, mesmerized by Mercury and Gemini. I decided then and there that I wanted to work in the space program, and never seriously considered anything else. I went to Arizona State University, and received a BSE in Engineering, plus a good bit of graduate school. I went into the SSME program with one of the Professors (a National Academy of Science team assembled because the US Congress didn't like how badly the SSME program was going), and worked as a 'co-op' for 3 years.

At the end of 1981, I went to work for the Space Division of Rockwell International on the Shuttle program. After the 51L accident, I went 'back' to work for Rocketdyne, and stayed there until 1996. In 1996, I started my own engineering business.

My interest in Apollo has always bordered on obsession. I have worked hard at understanding all the details that I can. It has been amazing to me that the quality of analysis and planning during Apollo is always the same, no matter what specific part of it you examine.

One of the best 'perks' for me of working in Shuttle (particularly early on) was that most of the Apollo participants were still there. I made it my business to get to know (pretty much) all of them. To a person, they were very gracious and helpful, and seemed to get a 'kick' out of the fact that a 20-year old was so interested in what they had done.

Attached are 3 pictures of a 40,000 lbf thrust prototype LOX/LH2 upper stage engine system for which I contributed to designing, building, and testing for Pete Conrad's Rocket Development Company in 2000. This was quite a 'roaring' success, and was the 1st LH2 engine ever to be done by a private company outside of the US gov't.

September 2016

RDC LOX/LH2 test firing