West Leechburg native pens trilogy of books about his international aerospace career
Most jobs don’t result in your car being destroyed by debris from an exploding rocket.
But for Daniel Kovalchik, formerly of Allegheny Township, Leechburg and West Leechburg, a workday in 1997 turned tragic at Cape Canaveral, Fla., when the launch of an unmanned Delta II rocket experienced a failure, sending fiery debris back to Earth.
Having his car destroyed is just one of the many adventures Kovalchik recounts in a trilogy of books detailing his 30-plus years in the aerospace industry.
Kovalchik, 73, resides in Merritt Island, Fla., but frequently visits the Alle-Kiski Valley and family in Gilpin.
“I was always a fan of technology. And growing up in West Leechburg, I lived in the country and I thought, “Good God, I want to get out of here,’ ” Kovalchik said. “There was isolation back there. When the rockets were launching and I was in my early teens, I pictured myself with a hard hat and a clipboard walking around a rocket.”
Kovalchik graduated from Kiski Area High School in 1968. He studied computer science at Florida Institute of Technology and electrical technology at Penn State New Kensington, earning an associate degree and a bachelor’s degree in computer design from the University of Houston.
He set his sights on adventure.
His late father, John Kovalchik, worked as an electrician for Alcoa Aluminum, and Dan grew up with an interest in technology.
The second son of seven children, Dan dreamed of exploring and found a job that piqued his interest while reading the employment ads in a newspaper.
“I responded to an ad wanting people to work on NASA tracking stations,” Kovalchik said. “I was very interested in manned space.”
He was hired as a NASA contractor in 1973 and was shown a world map.
“I got cold feet, so I chose a post in Corpus Christi, Texas,” Kovalchik recalled. “But, when they closed Corpus Christi, I put in for a transfer.”
He accepted a tour aboard the USNS Vanguard, a NASA tracking ship for Skylab.
Skylab was the first space station launched by NASA in May 1973.
Kovalchik’s younger brother, Joseph, loved to brag about his brother’s international travel pursuits to his friends at school.
“My brother was a big deal because I could say he was in flight control with NASA, and it seemed inconceivable and he’s out there on a tracking ship with rockets and things,” Joseph Kovalchik said.
Ship life took Kovalchik, then 24, around the world as he traveled to critical places, receiving information beamed from the satellites in orbit during optimal 12-minute spans when the ship was in an ideal geographic position.
The love boat
Kovalchik’s deployments left from Port Canaveral. Destinations included Africa; Rio de Janeiro; Dakar, Senegal; Liberia; the Panama Canal; Tahiti; Australia; Mauritius; Seychelles; Mombasa, Kenya; and Hawaii.
“My passport was super-stamped,” he said.
It was the sea life that led Kovalchik to meet his future wife, Gloria. She was one of just a handful of females working on a ship with 200 men.
“I was from Maryland, and I really wanted to travel,” Gloria Kovalchik said.
The couple married in 1976 in Florida.
Kovalchik’s first book, published in the 1980s, was titled “Range Rats at Sea.” It chronicled his two years at sea and his courtship of Gloria onboard the USNS Vanguard.
In Tahiti, Kovalchik had a motorcycle, which allowed him to take a trip around the island with his then-girlfriend.
During an African safari, the pair had a cabin, but no one warned them to remain inside it at night.
“The dirt was covered in big tracks. The most impressive thing was seeing a rhinoceros, and he was very curious,” Kovalchik said.
“My parents were pretty impressed. I would send postcards and letters.”
The couple lived and worked at a tracking station for two years in Ecuador.
They both worked in communications, married and accepted a post on Ascension Island, a 34-square-mile volcanic island in the Atlantic Ocean about 1,000 miles from the African coast. The couple lived there for several years.
It served as the inspiration for Kovalchik’s second book, “The Devil’s Ashpit: And Other Tales of Ascension Island.”
There, technicians operated and maintained equipment that communicated with NASA satellites.
Island life for the newlywed couple included fishing, free food and lodging at an Air Force base, generous pay with no taxes and the chance to get away from the modern world.
But there was a downside.
“The place was crawling with eels. I got bit by them,” Kovalchik said.
After three years there, the couple were ready to return to civilization.
“Thank God we did it then because I don’t feel like traveling like that now,” Kovalchik said.
Inspired by co-workers
A retirement gift from United Launch Alliance in 2018, filled with dozens of pictures of rocket ships, inspired Kovalchik to write.
“I’d been involved with a specially designed Delta II rocket, that launched in 1995, through its last launch in 2018. I sat in the launch control centers for the Delta III and Delta IV models, too. It’s one of the reasons I wrote the book,” he said.
His latest book, “Days of Delta Thunder,” published in April after five years of writing.
He included many co-workers in the book.
“It’s about the people who launched the Delta II rocket, and Chapter One begins with the explosion that happened overhead,” Kovalchik said. “It went up and blew up, and stuff was raining down all around us and catching fire. It burned up my car. (The book) was filled with rockets, and I thought, ‘How about the people I worked with? There’s nothing about the people.’ ”
His resume includes working as a systems administrator at United Launch Alliance, an electrical engineer at Boeing Aerospace Operations, a flight controls engineer at Ford Aerospace and Communications Corporation, and an electrical technician at Bendix Field Engineering Corp.
Gloria, 72, joked that her Southern family said she brought home a Yankee, but they liked him.They have been married for 48 years.
Gloria said she enjoys visits to the Leechburg area.
“I’m an only child, and Dan has a big family,” she said. “I thought Leechburg was beautiful, and I still do.”
Dan echoed her remarks.
“You come up here and it’s hilly, with greenery, and it’s just beautiful,” he said.
The trio of books appears to be the end of his writing road.
“I can’t think of a follow-up. Unless it’s on my fishing adventures,” he joked.
Joyce Hanz is a native of Charleston, S.C. and is a features reporter covering the Pittsburgh region. She majored in media arts and graduated from the University of South Carolina. She can be reached at jhanz@triblive.com
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