For Queensborough Community College alum, Robert Guillot, ’63, the 40th Anniversary of the Apollo 11 Moon Landing brings back a deluge of powerful memories and feelings.
“On that day back in 1969, I experienced the full gamut of emotions,” recalls Robert, who, as a scientist, test-fired rocket engines at NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center in Alabama. “My skin was covered with goose bumps in anticipation during the launch; I was overwhelmed with a sense of personal pride as the astronauts orbited the moon and prepared the lander, and then I struggled with intense anxiety during the soft landing and blast-off from the moon, the most dangerous phase of the mission. It was only when the astronauts re-entered earth’s atmosphere that I finally felt some relief.”
Robert was moonstruck as a young boy when he spotted Sputnik in the night sky above his Queens Village, New York neighborhood. From that day on, he knew he wanted to be a space scientist.
Upon his graduation from Brooklyn Technical High School, he enrolled at Queensborough Community College, in Bayside, Queens, where he immersed himself in the sciences, praising his professors as “tough but inspiring, instilling intellectual courage and a faith in my abilities that allowed me to pursue my dream career as a physicist.” After earning his Associate in Science degree in Chemistry, Robert continued his studies at The City College of New York where he majored in Chemistry and minored in Math.
Robert’s spectacular career included working for General Electric on the Mars Lander where he was part of a team of scientists that used orbital mechanics to determine how an instrument package could be captured by Mars’ gravity pull so that it could land. All these decades later, however, it is the important role he played in helping to put a man on the moon that has had a powerful impact on his life.
As Robert reflects on the many people responsible for the Apollo 11 triumph, two iconic figures, Neil Armstrong and the late CBS anchorman Walter Cronkite, stand out in his mind.
“Armstrong is one of the most famous names in the history of mankind-- a national hero and a national treasure,” explains Robert, adding, “Cronkite was the voice of that era and single-handedly fixated the country on this momentous event. He was the most trusted man in the country and will forever be inextricably linked with the moon landing.”
Robert, now retired and living in San Jose, California, comments that he “will be glued to the television today,” re-experiencing the launch of the Saturn V rocket.
“Just as the Apollo Moon landing instilled a permanent awareness of our country’s awesome potential, so did Queensborough change my life because there I was made to feel that I could learn anything…and do anything.”
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