DOUGLAS MUNCH, PHD, ’69 CHE: MODERN-DAY RENAISSANCE MAN
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illanova’s College of Engineering has a long list of impressive alumni whose accomplishments are deserving of a Who’s Who listing, Wikipedia page or New York Times article. Then there are alumni whose careers and life stories just may be worthy of a book. Douglas Munch, PhD, Chemical Engineering class of 1969, is one such alumnus. He graduated just months before the first moon landing and it’s fair to say his personal and professional contributions have also been out of this world. Meeting Dr. Munch, one would be hard pressed to believe he’s 72 years old. A former track and field varsity athlete at Villanova, he still looks like he could complete a marathon, though he’s traded in his running shoes for swimming and cycling, which take less of a toll on his body. While at Villanova, Dr. Munch learned that he was the first Chemical Engineering major to win a varsity letter in 23 years, a source of pride which he admits, “didn’t make my grades any better.”
“ Villanova—and the Chemical Engineering curriculum and faculty—taught me how to think,” credits Dr. Munch. “And the University also put me on a spiritual path that has influenced my life in many, many ways.” —Douglas Munch, PhD, ’69 ChE
Acceptable but not stellar grades, however, didn’t hold him back. After graduating and considering offers from nuclear engineering research facilities (he had focused much of his studies in this area), Dr. Munch interviewed with Grumman Aerospace Corp., which held the contract for NASA’s lunar module. Joining the company soon before the Apollo 11 mission, he says, was a “no-brainer.” Working with the thermodynamics systems engineering team, he was responsible for the spacecraft’s environmental control system—the system keeping the crew alive. Despite serving on the project for only a brief period before the historic flight, Dr. Munch’s name appeared on the parchment containing the signatures of the 1,500 employees who worked on the lunar module. That document accompanied the astronauts on their flight and was left behind on the moon’s surface, as were the parchments for subsequent missions. The exception, of course, was Apollo 13, whose lunar landing was aborted after an oxygen tank in the service module exploded two days into the mission. When it comes to the subject of that fateful flight, Dr. Munch becomes emotional. He struggles to recount “the stress that we were under to get those guys back. The lunar module had become a lifeboat and having worked on the environmental control system, it was our job to keep them alive and help bring them home.” It’s an experience that clearly changed his life. After contributing to four Apollo missions from Grumman’s Bethpage, NY, location, Dr. Munch moved with the company to Point Mugu Naval Air Station in California, where he ran the flight test and development program for the Navy’s F-14 fighter aircraft. He points out, “It is hard to imagine that two projects I worked on were made into movies. Apollo 13 was quite accurate as a
