As the United States celebrates the 50th anniversary of the Apollo 11 mission to the moon, we also celebrate the efforts of one of our senior leaders, Joe Rivetti, for his role in supporting Apollo 11 and subsequent missions. Most of us know Joe Rivetti as the regional representative for Region X, coordinating all the administration of the Southern California area. Most of us don’t know that Joe was responsible for inventory and putting the parts together for Aerojet Rocketdyne’s production of the Saturn class of rockets in the very early stages of what would become NASA’s Apollo program. The Saturn class rockets were the main propulsion vehicles that carried the Apollo astronauts out of the Earth’s atmosphere, into space and on to the moon.

Joe had a long and distinguished career at Aeroject Rocketdyne retiring in 2012. However, Joe was not actually fully retired as Aeroject Rocketdyne asked him to come back to work in 2015 for a series of strategic tasks. An article from Aerojet Rocketdyne noting Joe’s work is attached below.

We are proud to recognize Joe Rivetti for his service to the country and NISOA.

Article from Aerojet Rocketdyne