In the early 1960s, Casson left Martin to join North American Aviation on the Apollo program in Downey, California, where he became the Chief Test Conductor for the Apollo Spacecraft Checkout Group, with hundreds of engineers under his supervision.  No Apollo spacecraft flew without Norman Howard Casson’s signature.  The actual NASA Apollo astronauts who were assigned to each spacecraft were required by NASA to be pre-certified for their flight missions into space only after several months of training at the Downey Building 290 test facility by operating the onboard spacecraft controls during each test & checkout phase.

Autographed images to Norm from Apollo Astronauts. 

Each of the aforementioned test teams was managed by a top-level engineering manager, called the “Senior Test Project Engineering Manager,” all four of which reported directly to Mr. Casson.  This huge engineering organization was known throughout the world of Apollo as ”APOLLO SPACECRAFT CHECKOUT”… and Norman Howard Casson was the top executive responsible for this entire massive organization. 

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