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Artemis 1 rocket capped with Orion crew capsule on launch pad at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center — Artemis rocket at Cape Canaveral, Florida

NASA rocket Artemis II has Sutton roots

February 3, 2026

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By Rick Taylor

NASA will launch Artemis II, the first lunar mission since the Apollo program, this March with four astronauts on board.

It’s the largest and heaviest rocket ever to lift off at Cape Canaveral, and the electrical connectors I helped design and manufacture are all over it. They are not just simple connectors; they have been designed to protect the rocket’s sensitive electronics from two serious threats: EMI interference and high-voltage surges.

What is EMI interference? I’m old enough to remember sitting on the floor watching Saturday morning cartoons and my mother turning on the vacuum cleaner in the next room. The black-and-white TV went snowy, obscuring the show. That is electrical “noise”, also known as EMI interference. Modern televisions have a built-in “filter” to prevent that.

High-voltage surges are also a significant hazard. I’m sure you all have a power strip behind your home electronics, TV, computer, etc. That power strip does a few things, but a key one is to stop high voltage “surges” or “pulses” from getting through and burning things out. Cheap, simple protection.

Those two threats are also dangerous to aircraft and other aerospace devices/systems. Sure, protection could be built into the electronics “boxes,” but that takes up space and weight, which is a big negative. That’s where I come in. My entire engineering career has been about putting that protection inside the electrical connector, which must be on the interface of all aerospace electrical “boxes”. I can’t go into the military applications where those skills were honed, but I’ve protected many a weapon.

I proposed to Boeing Space in Huntington Beach, California, that my company could build all the protection within the standard (STD) connector. Yes, lots of tech mumbo jumbo, but I try never to do a presentation that is all dry, boring technical. I told the story of Charlie Warren’s hen house on Georgina Island.

Recall that it is best to stop the “noise and pulse” at the entrance to the electrical box. Well, I told the story of Charlie’s problem with a fox getting into his hen house and killing his chickens. His photograph was part of the proposal and is probably stored somewhere in the Boeing archives. Anyway, just picture Charlie running around inside the hen house trying to get that fox. He is 80 yrs old, no chance. So he gets smart, and the next night he hides right at the door with his axe poised, waiting on that fox. Sure enough, along comes the fox and WHAM, he kills the predator. The Boeing engineers all chuckled, and that was a big part of how I got the Boeing contract for this entire rocket and capsule.

So where did I learn all this? Yes, I had a tough college/university course where I was a very average student. And I got lucky and fell into some early employment where I really learned, but looking back, I think there was some deeper “education”.

At Sutton Public School (a grammar school where The Link is now), Principal Jack Day taught me discipline. Arlene Griffin was my teacher and motivated me. (On a side note, I had a crush on her sister, “Miss Oak,” who taught me heartbreak; I was 11, and she was 20-something.

At the Sutton library beside the old mill, Sya Van Geest steered me away from the Hardy Boys to Tom Swift and aerospace fiction. Hockey coaches taught me to push myself and never give up. Thanks to Sid Beattie, Keith Dunn, John Learoyd, Harvey Bones, Jimmy Doel, and Mike Burrows.

Harry Hodgson (of Hodgson’s Garage) taught me to stop and think about a problem; there’s always a better way. My uncle John “Pit” Taylor showed me that character goes a long way. Tom Crittenden taught me to face a tough situation with a smile and a positive attitude. Harry Crittenden taught me generosity, and I showed it to my employees. Mac Mclean never talked much, but I learned that one can pay attention and learn by watching.

I learned not to steal after old Mrs. Noble caught Jimmy Ellis and me in her pear tree —a tongue-lashing like you would not believe.

Hard work is a lesson not easily learned. When I was very young, my parents built their house with community help. Gordie Devitt dug the basement; Russ Beaudrow laid the blocks; Bill Holder ran the wires; old Mr. Lyons did the framing with old Mr. German. Not an Amish barn raising, but there were similarities. And the main memory that is crystal clear is my mother, Joyce Taylor, pregnant with my sister, on her hands and knees, laying asphalt tiles with tar. Hard work.

Back to Artemis II. The launch and orbiting the moon are not my main concerns. However, re-entry is. The upper atmosphere is filled with sheet lightning that the capsule must pass through, and that’s where my specialty connectors must “kill” those high-voltage pulses, just like Charlie and the fox. The electronic system that kicks out the parachutes is protected by my connectors. When those four astronauts splash down in the ocean, I will breathe a sigh of relief and thank Sutton for my small-town “education”. I hope you, the reader, feel those roots too.