Moon Lander: How We Developed the Apollo Lunar Module (36 page)

The Phoenix Rises

Gradually S/CAT’s performance improved enough to be noticeable even by NASA. Although a number of technical and manufacturing process problems persisted, they were being identified and solved more quickly and systematically than previously. Test operations were stabilizing as a combination of factors began to work in the positive direction. After many rewrites the test
preparation sheets and operational checkout procedures were usable and stable. The test teams had gained experience and confidence and were augmented in numbers and skills. The GSE was more operationally ready as design errors and omissions were corrected and installation problems resolved. The net result was that our ability to hold schedules was improving steadily: major OCPs could now be completed in days rather than weeks.

The unmanned LM-1 was launched into Earth orbit in late January 1968 as the Apollo 5 mission, and it achieved a qualified success. It met all its major mission objectives but had to do them in a backup mode, flying under control of the LMP. Primary mode, the LM guidance computer, could not be used to control the propulsion burns because of a software error that caused premature engine shutdown. Everything else on LM-1 worked as planned, so it appeared that a second unmanned flight using LM-2 might not be necessary. The Apollo 5 flight records had to be carefully studied before this decision could be made.

While I was defining the analyses needed to decide the plans for LM-2, I found out that Joe Gavin was entertaining the possibility of pulling me, Wright and Radcliffe out of S/CAT and into the LM program office. Gavin felt that we had succeeded in turning the S/CAT operation around and in laying a firm foundation that others could build upon. We were needed to strengthen the program office in a number of areas. The technical problems that dogged the LM, and new ones which constantly turned up, had to be resolved quickly through George Low’s formal NASA Change Control Board process. Low used a weekly CCB meeting at Houston, Downey, or Bethpage to debate, approve and settle the corrective actions resulting from test failures and design and manufacturing process deficiencies. This was a management-intensive activity, since every case had to be carefully prepared and briefed to NASA’s upper management, which made up the CCB.

Plans for the missions following the first lunar landing required increased attention. It looked possible for LM-5 or -6 (Apollo 11 or 12) to be the first landing, but hardware and crews were in the pipeline for missions up to Apollo 18.
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What would be done on all these subsequent missions? The Wernher von Braun team promised that Saturn 5 performance would be improved somewhat on the last three or four missions—how should this extra launch payload be used? Modifying the LM to increase its lunar surface stay time and scientific equipment payload was a possibility for the later missions.

At a NASA Apollo program meeting in headquarters in early February 1968, the decision was made that an additional unmanned LM flight was not necessary. The next LM flight would be manned, using LM-3 in an Earth orbital rendezvous mission with the command-and-service modules. LM-2, configured like LM-1 for unmanned flight, would be completed, formally delivered to NASA via a DD-250 (the form by which the government accepts delivery and ownership of a product from a contractor) and loaded into its
shipping containers for storage. LM-3 would receive top priority in S/CAT plans and schedules.

LM-2 was delivered to NASA on 17 February 1968, only six days behind the contract delivery date. S/CAT had finally shown that it could set schedules and hold them. Two days later I announced to my S/CAT team that I was being reassigned to the LM program office as assistant program director-Engineering, and that Howard Wright and Lynn Radcliffe were also being reassigned to LM program positions. Paul Butler, a veteran Flight Test engineer and manager, succeeded me as S/CAT director. It was a bittersweet moment to leave the people in manufacturing and test operations who had come to mean so much to me and whose commitment to the success of the program was unstinting. As a culmination of our revitalization efforts, within a few weeks S/CAT headquarters would be moving into the newly refurbished building across the street from Plant 5.
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Thus ended my most challenging, frustrating and rewarding year on the Apollo program. S/CAT brought me totally down to reality—down and dirty with the thousands of physical details that had to be perfectly crafted, installed, verified, and documented, and face to face with the earnest, hardworking men and women who strove to do their very best to build a spacecraft that would land men on the Moon and bring them back safely. Thousands of devilish details and the limits of human fatigue and frailty stood in our way. I had seen the effort and concentration by hundreds of skilled craftsmen that was needed to make Engineering orders or program decisions take shape in fact, not just on paper. I had successfully transformed a group of talented but fractious individuals into a smoothly functioning team, capable of performing with harmony and professionalism like a symphony orchestra. I could now move on to even greater challenges, as the end of the decade that the late president had set as the nation’s lunar landing goal was fast approaching and we were not yet on the Moon.

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Flying

13

First LM in Space

Apollo 5

In January 1968 the Apollo 5 mission with the unmanned LM-1 aboard was almost ready to be launched into Earth orbit from KSC atop a Saturn 1B booster. I got a welcome break from S/CAT to support the mission at Kennedy Space Center and took Joan and our three oldest children with me to watch the launch. We arrived a day ahead and checked into the Howard Johnson Motel on the oceanfront at Cocoa Beach.

After negotiating the daunting security check-in at the KSC gate, I drove onto the vast semitropical sandspit where NASA’s facilities were located and found the sprawling, three-story Operations and Checkout (O&C) building. At the front of the building, which faced the road, there were three long, horizontal stripes of windows where the office areas were located; at the rear were the white-sided high-bay areas that housed the spacecraft assembly and test clean rooms, altitude chambers, automatic checkout equipment stations, and simulators. Inside the Grumman office area on the second floor I was greeted by Herb Grossman, our KSC Engineering manager, who showed me around, introducing people if I did not already know them and filling me in on the status of the mission. Herb was a study in perpetual motion, a dynamic man with the confidence of a natural leader. He was of medium height and solidly built, with a chiseled face, dark wavy hair, and a firm, authoritative bearing. He had a broad systems engineering background in analysis and test and was also very attuned to the nuances of internal office politics. Grossman often explained to me subtle rivalries between individuals and organizations to which I had been oblivious.

We toured the Grumman office area, and later Shaler “Hobie” Gilman took me on a tour of the Vehicle Assembly Building (VAB), the enormous building in which the complete booster-spacecraft “stack” was assembled atop the massive launch transporter, which would move it out to the launch pad using its four sets of giant tank-tread crawlers. Gilman was a seasoned
KSC veteran, having worked in launch operations for Convair before joining Grumman, and was one of the reasons the Grumman team learned the ropes at KSC so quickly.

The VAB is one of the wonders of the modern world. Said to be the largest manmade structure on Earth, it looms for miles like a massive black and white temple of technology over the flat eastern Florida coastline. Gilman took me up in an elevator to the 330-foot level, where the command module would be positioned atop the three-stage Saturn 5 booster and the spacecraft/LM adapter. There was no launch vehicle in the cavernous bay, and we peered over a guardrail at the antlike people walking on the ground floor far below. We then went out to Launch Complex 39, which was used for Saturn 5 launches, and was the spot from which Apollo would someday leave for the Moon. From a lower level of the thirty-three-story launch tower we looked at Apollo 5 on Launch Complex 37 about three miles away. Shimmering in the distance and surrounded by its launch tower, the two-stage Saturn 1B had a massive, stubby look, accentuated by the lack of an Apollo CSM spacecraft and launch escape tower atop the spacecraft/LM adapter. As in all Apollo launches, the LM was not visible, being nestled inside the structural shell of the SLA.

The Grummanites whom I met on this brief tour were generally upbeat and confident, but also somewhat apprehensive. “Keep your fingers crossed” was a frequent admonition. I understood their concern, as this was the first time the Grumman launch support team had been put to the test in a launch operation, with all its staggering complexity and irreversibility. NASA and the other aerospace contractors at KSC were watching closely to see how the newcomers from Long land measured up to the unforgiving discipline of an Apollo launch.

Back at the O&C I ran into George Skurla, Grumman’s KSC director, making his rounds on the Engineering floor. George greeted me warmly; he welcomed all the help he could get, especially for this crucial baptism of fire. We had succeeded in stopping the leaks in LM-1, and he held no residual grudge against me or my organization: there were too many more launches ahead to waste time looking backward. Skurla had previously headed Grumman’s Structural Flight Test Group and was initially hesitant to accept his new assignment in Florida, but now he was reveling in the leadership and management challenge of his job.

Skurla was tall and trim with wavy dark hair. His eyes were close-set and darting, as though in search of hidden enemies, and he wore a morose, worried expression, except when he smiled, which was not infrequently. He was a born worrier and assumed a conspiratorial air with his listeners when expressing his concerns, huddling with them and lowering his voice for emphasis. His worries drove him to anticipate problems and try to prevent their occurrence, an excellent habit for anyone directing rocket launch operations.
Skurla was also a stickler for detail and rigor, a natural bent reinforced by his experience with the unforgiving nature of aircraft flight testing. These characteristics enabled him to earn the grudging respect of his NASA counterpart and overseer, Col. Rocco Petrone, who ran a disciplined, military-style operation at KSC.

Because of the short duration of the Apollo 5 mission (less than eight hours), I planned to support the mission from KSC, even though it would be directed from the Mission Control Center (MCC) at NASA-Houston once the booster rocket cleared the launch tower.
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I was in an unofficial Grumman LM spacecraft support room in the O&C, which had mission monitor displays and the Apollo audio network. Several other Bethpage engineers were there with me to support the mission, including Bob Carbee and Manning Dandridge, but most of our mission support engineers were in Houston, led by John Coursen, Engineering manager, and his deputy, Erick Stern. We at KSC would funnel our comments and problem responses into Coursen and Stern.

The next morning the delicious tingle of anticipation hung over KSC like the morning sea haze through which the fiery orange Sun groped its way to the ground. The roads were clogged with thousands of spectators, many of whom had camped on the beaches overnight. Coastal road A1A became a vast parking lot as crowds of partying visitors in baseball caps, flowered shirts, shorts, and dark glasses jostled for space. The launch was scheduled for noon, we were told to report to the VIP viewing area at 10:00
A.M
. About two miles away across a flooded tidal lagoon, Apollo 5 brooded on the launch pad.

Joan and our three boys were thrilled to be there and dazzled to see numerous celebrities, including vice president Hubert Humphrey. The launch countdown did not go smoothly—there were frequent unplanned “holds” while the launch team coped with problems, of which LM-1 was the focus. The water boiler temperature in the LM coolant loop rose out of limits, due to a problem in the ground-support equipment (GSE) freon supply, and a power supply in the ground-based digital data acquisition system failed and had to be replaced. Hours ticked by, and the crowd became bored and restive. Our kids played games among themselves and explored the edges of the tidal lagoon until a security guard chased them back into the grandstand area. The sun set in a flaming red orange ball while purple shadows gathered over the ocean as the launch countdown neared its end.

It was the first space launch we had seen firsthand, and it did not disappoint in spectacle and beauty. First we beheld the brilliant orange flame of the Saturn 1B, then the agonizing wait until the hold-down clamps were released and the rocket began its slow climb upward alongside the launch tower, finally clearing it. Then came the heavy, deep-throated roar of the mighty engines, simultaneously pressing down from the sky and upward, like an earthquake, from below the ground. Set majestically against the rose, purple, and deep blue of the dusky sky, the blazing torch of the rocket lit up the approaching
night for miles around. It was a thrilling sight but also reminded me of the inherent risk of our whole enterprise. So much raw power, unleashed in such a short time! The awed crowd dispersed, and I dropped Joan and the boys off at the motel and drove to my post at the O&C building.

Apollo 5 had an ambitious set of mission objectives. In addition to verifying the satisfactory operation of LM’s systems in space and its controllability and maneuverability as a flying machine, the mission concentrated on demonstrating the performance of the ascent and descent propulsion systems, and its ability to perform an abort-stage maneuver. This time-critical event occurred if it were necessary to abruptly abort the powered lunar descent. It required simultaneously shutting down the descent engine, separating the ascent and descent stages, and igniting the ascent engine. The ascent engine would start while still atop the descent stage, as in a liftoff from the Moon, and its exhaust would initially impinge upon and be deflected by the top surface of the descent stage, a condition known as “fire in the hole,” or FITH. There was some concern that in an abort-stage maneuver the aerodynamic forces of FITH might cause the descent stage to tumble, since when separated from the ascent stage it had no attitude control. A tumbling descent stage could possibly impact the departing ascent stage. The only way to put this concern to rest was by Apollo 5’s flight test demonstration.