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"As a young boy, I found great refuge in the incredible adventures of radio and comic book superheroes like Captain Marvel and Superman, both of whom could fly through space. For me, those stories were real. I just knew that space travel was going to happen -- and I remember thinking hard about how I wanted it to happen in my lifetime...I instinctively knew there was something worth reaching for -- up there."
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"This is a re-creation of the kinds of rockets I used to doodle in school while daydreaming about the future. Science fact is always preceded by science fiction." Image Reprinted Courtesy of AFA Journal
2025: In honor of Finch's heroic military service, Finch's family and the Veterans of Foreign Wars Post 5789 placed a new brick in his hometown Veteran's Memorial.
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Lt. Finch was hand-selected by military brass to serve in one of the government's most classified offices, Air Technical Intelligence Center at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base in Dayton, Ohio. President Eisenhower and the Pentagon made their threat assessments based on the information provided to them by ATIC.
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A very young looking Finch (29) decked out in classic 1960's scientist-looking clothes.
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This is the crude kind of illustration the early space community used exclusively. This particular illustration shows direct and reflected radiation. It was drawn by one of Finch's old high school buddies.
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This is the non-classified paper Finch published for the talk he gave in Poland before the world's rocketry community. It was one of the most unique papers presented and got a lot of attention -- especially from the Soviets who had not yet gained the kind of knowledge Finch spoke about.
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The man who created the first-ever space vehicles for humans commended my finished work. This letter is a treasure to me.
Here are the six different Apollo spacecraft configurations that had to be accounted for by Finch's work.
The relatively smooth features of the CSM vehicle (right) was far easier to measure for shadowing than the LM vehicle (left), with it's irregular angles.
A professional precision model builder was contracted to design a 1:10 model of the various Apollo components. Here, he is seen working on the ascent stage of the lunar excursion module. Today, of course, physical models would not have been needed.
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Finch used a spotlight and simple mirrors to simulate both direct and reflected sunlight.
These shadows can be more than 500 degrees F cooler than the lit regions. Without protection, sustained exposure to sunlight or shadowing will both melt AND freeze the various instruments and thrusters all at the same time.
Imagine having to record the degrees of shadowing for every one of nearly 1,000 surface features on the Apollo stack by hand! That had to be done for every position and angle of every possible position the spacecraft might encounter relative to the position of the sun throughout the course of an entire mission.
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The complexity of the potentially lethal shadowing was mind-boggling to measure.
Connecting the model of the moon landing LM to the model of the moon orbiting CSM.
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I had an astronomy student from KU for an assistant to help with all the tedious grunt work.
2022: Greg Finch visited MRI Global to perform research for Space Renaissance Man. He was surprised to learn that the former school gym (now serving as a staff recreation center) was still standing. It is hard to believe that the century-old stage was the once-isolated place where his father once performed key research for the first moon missions.
This chart illustrates in a simple way what Finch’s finished barbecue roll system accomplished. Engineers at NASA monitored real-time Apollo flights second-by-second. If his computer program sensed temperature-related trouble beginning to unfold, it would order a change in the ship’s orientation and/or to the speed of the rolling action. The system worked flawlessly.
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This is the official report containing the synopsis of Finch's finished work. The Passive Thermal Control system he created was dubbed the ‘barbecue roll.’ Academy Award-winning actor Tom Hanks referenced the barbecue roll in his movie, Apollo 13.
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Finch was invited to present his unique research to top astronauts, cosmonauts, and space scientists at the 15th and 18th International Astronautical Federation conferences: Warsaw, Poland, and Madrid, Spain, respectively. He was interviewed by international media and visited schools to give space talks. This playful photo was taken in Belfast, Northern Ireland, in 1966.
Watch an animation of the Barbecue Roll in action.
The descent to the moon with Earthrise in the background.
Jim Irwin described the moon as being eerily beautiful. He said the blackness of space looked like deep layers of velvet. But he also said that the most beautiful thing to be seen was the beautiful blue of the home world. A Christian, Irwin often said, “Jesus walking on the Earth is more important than man walking on the moon.”
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Irwin signed Finch’s thermodynamics master’s thesis, which represented some of the world’s first original satellite research.
Lunar astronaut Jim Irwin (Apollo 15) became one of Finch’s best friends. They traveled internationally together.
Irwin also signed this photo. He was the first man to drive a wheeled vehicle on another world. The so-called moon buggy is at right.
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In the last years of his life, Finch told his story to his co-author son who asked lots of questions and recorded many of the sessions.
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Can you spot the intentional lighting problem created for the cover? To discover the reason for this hidden “Easter egg,” you’ll have to buy the book!
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