" It was stressful. It was coming to work in the dark, and leaving in the dark. Softball was always an outlet for us."

It was April 1968 when a young engineer from St. Louis arrived at Cape Canaveral to join the frenetic activity of the Apollo space program.

Joe Lackovich would have roles that year in preparation for Apollo 7 and then Apollo 8 — which sent men into lunar orbit.

"Being able to work on the Saturn V rocket that took astronauts to the moon, that was tremendous," Lackovich recalls. "I looked at the module that they sat in. I got inside the rocket."

Now, 48 years later, Lackovich, 71, has finally retired.

Read more at the Orlando Sentinel.