Moon Lander: How We Developed the Apollo Lunar Module (31 page)

In S/CAT we held the mass meeting on the floor of the LM Assembly area in Plant 5, a very large, high-ceilinged clean room, totally white in walls, ceiling, and floors. Everyone wore the required white smocks, caps, and cloth
booties, including the speakers: Mueller, Shea, Evans, and Gavin. They stood together on a raised work platform where they could look out over the uplifted sea of white-clad faces. It was like a revival meeting, with Mueller and Evans the most inspiring, asking all of us to dedicate our efforts to the memory of the lost astronauts and assuring that their deaths were not in vain. I think we all felt reassured that the program and company leaders had the will and the vision to pull us out of the problems.

After the big meeting in S/CAT, I led the NASA executives on a tour of the LM’s on the assembly floor and also to adjacent shop areas in Plant 5 where subassemblies were prepared for installation. On the assembly floor they scrutinized the LM’s wiring and plumbing. Although generally pleased with what they saw, as it apparently looked better than the workmanship in the command module, they insisted that we reexamine every detail of these installations. When we entered the subassembly areas in the shops Mueller, a non-smoker, suddenly produced a cigarette lighter, which he proceeded to use to test the flammability of many components that he saw being assembled. I blanched as he pounced upon wire bundles, switches, and circuit breakers and immersed them into his flame, staring quizzically at the result through his thick horn rimmed glasses. In the panel shop, where the control and display panels for the LM flight stations were assembled, I thought the foreman would have a heart attack when he saw Mueller whip out his lighter and hold the flame onto wiring and potting in the back of a newly assembled flight instrument panel. The only substance that burned in these forays was the potting, which continued to support a candle-like flame after the lighter was removed. Everything else just charred and smoldered when the ignition flame was taken away. (Fortunately Mueller did not come across any of the nylon netting, which would have given him quite a show.) I’m not sure what these ad hoc tests proved, since ambient air was a less severe environment than the 5 psia pure oxygen in which LM operated in space, but they seemed to satisfy Mueller’s curiosity and the damage that they caused was not major. The panels and assemblies would all require rework anyway when the material substitutions and other fire related changes were finalized.

We adjourned to our spartan conference room in the trailers, an unimpressive room in faux wood paneling and beige asphalt tile floor, with a low ceiling inset with fluorescent lights. We gathered around the two plastic-topped metal tables at the front of the room; some sat in the front row of the hard plastic chairs with schoolroom writing arms that largely filled the room. The NASA men shared with us their first impressions of what the corrective actions would entail, emphasizing the need to remove flammables and potential ignition sources from the LM cabin, and to rededicate ourselves to quality in every detail. They impressed upon us the need for Grumman in particular to minimize the schedule impact of the changes because we were so far behind the rest of the program to begin with.

During these discussions I first noticed indications that the tragedy had struck Joe Shea very hard. He was somber and muted, without his usual flashes of wit and puns, and lacking the self-assurance and confidence that were his hallmarks. When I had a few words with him privately, he said he would never forgive himself for being so blind to the danger. He told me how close he had come to being inside Spacecraft 012 during the test, and mused whether that might have been better.
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I urged him not to blame himself; we all shared the blame of overlooking the obvious.

In the following weeks, Shea publicly and personally accepted the blame for the Apollo 1 accident and was perceived by the NASA leadership as increasingly showing signs of stress, despite his vigorous efforts to define and organize the recovery activities. Gilruth and other NASA leaders became concerned that Shea’s worsening frame of mind might affect his judgment on program matters and concluded it was not fair to Shea to keep him in such a demanding job. In early April, convinced by earnest entreaties and blandishments by Administrator Webb, Deputy Administrator Seamans, and Mueller, Shea agreed to relinquish his position as ASPO manager and become Mueller’s deputy at NASA Headquarters in Washington. Once there, he found he had little real work or responsibility, and in July 1967 he resigned from NASA to become engineering director of Polaroid Corporation, located near Boston.
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Joe Shea quietly left the grand stage of Apollo, leaving a legacy of monumental contributions to the definition, organization and implementation of the program. He provided objective analysis, sophisticated engineering judgment and practical management direction when the program most needed them, and assuredly ranks in that small pantheon of leaders without whom Apollo would not have succeeded.

Shea was not the only Apollo manager who felt responsibility and remorse for not being more aware of potential fire danger. I felt it myself. My confidence and optimism were weakened by this evidence of tunnel-visioned failure to look beyond my immediate concerns and action items. Were we all so busy that we could no longer think? The fire gave objective evidence of our individual and collective shortcomings that no systems and procedures could hide. Did I, and did the Apollo team, have the wisdom, judgment and skill it would take to reach the Moon safely? After Apollo 1 the question was raised anew in our minds, and the answer was not reassuring.

In my new job in S/CAT I was responsible for building and testing the LMs, and I spent much time on the floor in the LM Assembly clean room, or in the subassembly shops. There I saw the added work and manufacturing difficulties that the flammability “fixes” entailed. Since LM-1 and LM-2 were to be unmanned, they were exempt from the changes, but from LM-3 upward and for LTA-8, the manned thermal vacuum test article, all the fixes were rigorously applied within the cabin. (In the interest of standardization, some of the changes in materials, design, and manufacturing practices were also followed
in the unpressurized areas outside of the LM cabin, including the descent stage.) The new fire-retardant potting took longer to cure than the material it replaced, and the Beta cloth, with its lower wear resistance and flaking, had to be handled very carefully by our technicians to avoid damage upon installation. Combing and dressing the wiring, hand tying it with Beta cloth tape, and swathing the circuit breakers and switches in the Beta cloth booties were fussy, time-consuming operations. Every time the portable X-ray machine was brought into the LM to inspect connectors and junction boxes, all other workers had to evacuate the immediate area. A major reduction in the use of velcro inside the cabin caused an increase in more cumbersome grommets or ties. None of this helped our schedule situation.

Nowhere in LM were the effects of the fixes more concentrated than in the cockpit control and display panels. Containing hundreds of instruments, switches, and circuit breakers, the backs of these panels were crowded with thousands of wires. The panels and adjacent cabin structure were modified to allow neat, orderly routing of wire bundles and to provide added space for potting, clamps, ties, and booties. The finished products were marvels of dense but purposeful packaging.

The final test of the fixes was the flammability test article (FTA), designed and prepared by Sal Salina and his team. This full-sized steel boiler-plate shell of a lunar module cabin was outfitted inside with a full complement of flight-type materials, furnishings, and equipment that had been modified to the new posture standards. Many of the units consigned to this test were used design verification or qualification test articles, which had already served their intended purpose in the program. The FTA was filled with pure oxygen at one atmosphere pressure (14.7 psia), then pumped down to 5 psia. Relief valves would open if the outward pressure differential reached 5 psi (20 psia), due to fire-induced heating and pressure rise inside the cabin. Several spark-propane igniters were positioned at critical locations in the cabin, including behind the cockpit panels and under the ECS module.

The modified LM passed this test readily. The test conductors were unable to get anything to burn; most locations just smoldered and charred, then went out when the igniters were shut off. After this required phase of the test was officially passed, an overstress test was conducted by placing a large pan of gasoline on the cabin floor. The gasoline fueled a raging fire, its blaze fully enveloping the cabin and popping open the relief valves, emitting columns of flame and smoke. When the FTA had cooled down sufficiently to be opened and inspected, it was found that the wire insulation, switch and circuit breaker housings, potting, and other plastic materials had charred and melted, and some thin aluminum panels had warped and melted. The spacesuits and hoses had local damage but were still functional. Although there was widespread fire damage, nothing much had burned except the gasoline. We and NASA were satisfied that the LM cabin was fire safe.

In hindsight the net result of the Apollo 1 accident was an eighteen-month slip in the CSM schedules and four months’ slip in LM. This allowed LM, which had been about one year behind the CSM and Saturn, to catch up. At the time this was not clear to me or anyone else at Grumman, and we fought tenaciously to preserve every day of our schedule despite the many problems and obstacles.

Reorganization and Recovery

Major management changes took place in NASA and North American as a result of the fire. George M. Low, formerly deputy director of the Manned Spacecraft Center, accepted a demotion in rank but a promotion in real authority and responsibility to become Shea’s replacement as ASPO manager. He soon instituted the powerful Change Control Board, which had to grant approval before any significant change could be made to the Apollo spacecraft. The CCB, whose members included Kraft, Faget, Bill Lee (later replaced by Bolender),
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Kenneth Kleinknecht, Deke Slayton, Tom Markley, and George Abbey, met weekly to review and approve changes proposed by NASA or the prime contractors. Low made the final decision on each item, in his habitual careful, cautious, well-reasoned fashion, after patiently soliciting and hearing all viewpoints. The CCB met weekly and many meetings lasted all day and well into the night, but with rare exceptions the premeeting agenda was dealt with. The CCB became George Low’s primary tool for controlling the spacecraft program at a detailed level.

Gilruth assigned astronaut Frank Borman to be NASA’s on-site program recovery team leader at Downey, and Low spent considerable time there himself, helping North American sort out and correct its problems. In helping them solve their problems, Low formed strong sympathetic bonds with North American’s executives and managers that continued beyond the Apollo program.

At NASA’s insistence, Harrison Storms was removed as president of North American’s Space Division. His replacement was William D. Bergen, an experienced aerospace executive recruited from the Martin Company. Bergen brought with him two associates from Martin: Bastian “Buzz” Hello to run the Florida launch support operation for North American and John P. Healey to manage assembly and test of the first manned Block 2 (LM compatible) command module at Downey.
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The capable veteran Dale D. Myers remained as North American’s Apollo program director.

Bill Bergen took command at Downey; he evaluated and replaced key personnel and reviewed and overhauled organizations and procedures. One major action was to set up personalized teams to assemble and test each spacecraft in the factory. John Healey, former Manufacturing manager at Martin, was the spacecraft team manager (STM) for CSM-101 and the role model for
spacecraft team leadership. Tall, dynamic, and confident, Healey assumed total responsibility for his spacecraft and had the full support of Bergen and Myers. He knew the aerospace manufacturing business and was uncompromising on quality but hard-driving on schedules. Best of all, he got results. Borman and other astronauts were impressed and believed that spacecraft 101 would set a new standard for quality, far above that of its ill-fated predecessor 012. This management approach was soon adopted by Grumman when Evans, Titterton, and Gavin appointed STMs to direct the assembly and test of each lunar module.

Apollo flights resumed in November 1967 with Apollo 4, the first flight of the gigantic Saturn 5 booster rocket. It launched an unmanned Block 1 Apollo spacecraft, the refurbished CSM 017. The mission successfully demonstrated Saturn 5 performance, except for the Pogo problem, which had been encountered in other launch vehicles and immediately became the focus of engineering attention at Marshall. CSM flight objectives were fully accomplished, including such critical items as demonstration of service propulsion system (SPS) performance and restart capability and verification of CM heat-shield adequacy for lunar return reentry.

At last it appeared that the Apollo program was on the way to recovery.

12

Building What I Designed

George Skurla, Grumman’s director at Kennedy Space Center, entered Col. Rocco Petrone’s spacious office, his lips pressed tight and eyes narrowed into slits. Skurla knew what was coming. LM-1, the first flight lunar module, had been delivered from Bethpage the day before, 21 June 1967, and had immediately failed propulsion system leak tests during receiving inspection. He would get a blunt “chewing out” in Petrone’s army company commander style.

Petrone, tan, muscular, and still rock solid like the West Point football player he was, rose from behind his large walnut desk to full imposing height and expanded his broad chest, his face twisting into a dark scowl. As NASA’s director of Launch Operations for the Apollo program, Petrone ruled everything on the cape with an iron hand, especially the contractors who supported his launches. He was skeptical of Grumman, the newcomer to space and to the Apollo program, and intolerant of the fast-talking New Yorkers with their atrocious accents and streetwise, independent ways. And now he saw that they could not deliver a quality spacecraft.