Category Paving the Way for Apollo 11

ORGANISATION

On 15 January 1962 the Manned Spacecraft Center reorganised the Apollo Project Office as the Apollo Spacecraft Project Office (ASPO) and appointed Charles W. Frick as Manager, with Robert O. Piland, head of the extinct Apollo Project Office, as Deputy Manager. In recognition of the scale of the project, on 13 February 1963 Piland’s responsibility was narrowed to the LEM and James L. Decker was assigned as Deputy Manager for the CSM.

James Webb again reorganised NASA’s top management on 30 October 1962. In addition to being Director of the Office of Manned Space Flight, Brainerd Holmes became a Deputy Associate Administrator and as such took direct responsibility for the field centres primarily engaged in manned space projects (i. e. the Marshall Space Flight Center, Manned Spacecraft Center and Launch Operations Center) which had previously reported to Robert Seamans. On 20 February 1963, Holmes made George M. Low his Deputy Director for Programs and Joseph F. Shea his Deputy Director for Systems in order to increase their authority over the Directorates of the Office of Manned Space Flight. On 10 May 1963 the Manned Spacecraft Center separated development from operations – as Deputy Director for Development and Programs, James C. Elms was to manage manned space flight projects and plan, organise and direct all administrative and technical support; and as Deputy Director for Mission Requirements and Flight Operations, Walter C. Williams was to manage the writing of mission plans and rules, the training of crews, and the provision of all ground support and mission control facilities. On 9 October 1963 James Webb announced a reorganisation of headquarters to become effective on 1 November. This introduced three Associate Administrators under Robert Seamans. Thus, George Mueller, who on 1 September had replaced Holmes by taking the post of Director of the Office of Manned Space Flight, now also became the Associate Administrator for Manned Space Flight with responsibility for the three field centres most directly involved in manned programs. The Goddard Space Flight Center, JPL and related facilities were assigned to the newly merged Office of Space Sciences and Applications headed by

Associate Administrator Homer Newell. Other facilities were assigned to the Office of Advanced Research and Technology under Associate Administrator Raymond L. Bisplinghoff.

On 22 October 1963 Joseph Shea was reassigned to Houston as Apollo Spacecraft Program Manager. George Low expanded his duties in the Office of Manned Space Flight to include Shea’s post. On 27 August the Manned Space Flight Management Council at headquarters had decided to create a Deputy Associate Administrator for Manned Space Flight Operations so that the Director of the Office of Manned Space Flight could divest himself of this subsidiary role, and on 22 October Mueller drew Walter Williams from Houston for the job.

In 1600 William Gilbert, one of Queen Elizabeth I’s physicians and a keen natural philosopher, published the book De Magnete in which he proposed that the planets circled the Sun as a result of some attractive force – and as his great interest was the Earth’s magnetic field he suggested that this force was magnetism. In regard to the Moon, Gilbert shared Leonardo Da Vinci’s view that the bright areas were seas, and after making a sketch of the face of the Moon he assigned names to the dark areas. The drawing was not published until 1651, long after his death.

Hans Lippershey was born in Germany in 1570, but became a citizen of Flemish Zeeland in 1602 and lived in Middleberg, earning his living as a spectacle maker. He is usually credited with discovering in 1608 that using lenses in combination could provide a magnified view of a remote object, but such instruments were apparently developed several times in different places in preceding decades – the telescope was evidently a device whose time had come. On 2 October 1608 Lippershey applied to The Hague for a patent. Several weeks later so did optical instrument maker, Jacob Metius. Both applications were refused. After an account of Lippershey’s telescope was included in a widely circulated diplomatic dispatch, there was a proliferation of telescopes across Europe.

Thomas Harriot graduated in mathematics from Oxford in England. He tutored Sir Walter Raleigh on navigational issues, in particular the ‘longitude problem’, and on several occasions sailed with him. By 1603 Harriot was wealthy, living in London and pursuing his interest in optics. The appearance of a comet in 1607 prompted his interest in astronomy. In 1608 he obtained from Holland a crude telescope that had a magnification factor of six, and on 26 July 1609 aimed it at the Moon and sketched what he saw. After further observations, in 1611 he compiled a whole-disk map. His work was never published, and it remained unknown until discovered in 1965 by E. Strout of the Institute of the History of Science in the Soviet Union.

Galileo Galilei was born in 1564 in Pisa in Tuscany. He was a mathematician and experimentalist. In 1589 he was made professor of mathematics at the University of Pisa, but three years later took a similar position at the University of Padua. During a visit to Venice in July 1609 he heard of the invention of the telescope via a letter written to one of his friends by a French nobleman. Galileo promptly set out to make one. Whereas Lippershey had used two convex lenses, Galileo combined a convex lens with a concave one to obtain an upright image. It had a magnification factor of ten. On 25 August he displayed it to the Venetian Senate, pointing out that it would enable an inbound ship to be identified several hours earlier than would otherwise be possible – knowledge which would be commercially valuable in a city of merchants. He was rewarded with an increase in salary. In October he went to Florence to show the telescope to his former pupil, Cosimo de Medici, now Grand Duke of Florence. On returning to Padua, Galileo made one with double the magnification factor. On 30 November turned this to the Moon, and again five times over the next 18 nights as the illumination phase changed. As he had a leaning towards painting, his depictions of what he saw were more representational than technical – with the result that few of the features he drew are recognisable. He never drew a full disk to consolidate his observations. After this burst of activity, he seems to have paid little attention to the Moon – but, to be fair, he was busy making discoveries about other celestial bodies. He wrote an account of his observations in the pamphlet Sidereus Nuncius, which he dedicated to de Medici and published on 12 March 1610.

Of the ‘imperfections’ on the Moon he wrote, ‘‘We could perceive that the surface of the Moon is neither smooth nor uniform, nor accurately spherical, […] but that it is uneven, rough, replete with cavities and packed with protruding eminences, in no other wise than the Earth, which is also characterised by mountains and valleys.’’ He was particularly struck by the shadows, which appeared totally black – there was no detail evident within them. He used the shadows cast by mountains to estimate their heights.[1]

But Galileo’s most significant discovery was that Venus displays phases similar to

the Moon, which was proof that this planet orbits the Sun, not Earth. Although the Church was not overly concerned about imperfections on the Moon, it was firmly of the belief that Aristotle was correct in saying that Earth was located at the centre of a system of crystal spheres. However, the phases of Venus meant that Copernicus was correct, which was a serious matter. After being hounded by the Roman Inquisition, in 1633 Galileo was obliged to publicly “curse and detest” the false opinion that the Sun held the central position. He was then placed under house arrest, and that is how he lived until his death in 1642.

Although Galileo may not have been the first to aim a telescope at the heavens, he was the first to publish, and the rapid distribution of his pamphlet prompted a great many people to obtain instruments to look for themselves.

Francesco Fontana, a Neapolitan lawyer, began to observe the Moon in 1630, and in 1646 published Novae Coelestium, Terrestriumque Rerum Observationes, featuring wood-cut engravings of two of his drawings made at different illumination phases.

Although Kepler knew that Galileo’s findings confirmed the Sun to be centrally located, he was wary of saying so explicitly. Since the Moon was evidently a world in its own right, he wrote an allegorical fantasy, Somnium, in which he related how ‘demons’ transferred his hero character to the Moon at the time of a lunar eclipse by sending him down the Earth’s shadow. The fact that the explanatory footnotes were longer than the text of the story established it to be a technical treatise disguised as a work of fiction. Even so, it was not published until 1634, four years after his death.

Jeremiah Horrocks in England observed in 1637 the dark limb of the Moon occult the stars of the Pleiades cluster, one by one. If the Moon possessed an atmosphere, the starlight would have flickered and faded as it was attenuated and refracted by the gas, but in each case the star’s disappearance was instantaneous.

In 1638 John Wilkins, an English clergyman, published Discovery of a World in

the Moone; Or a Discourse tending to prove that ’tis probable there may be another Habitable World in that Planet. He took a serious look at how a voyage to the Moon might be attempted utilising some form of ‘engine’. Wilkins was so enthusiastic that after he helped to establish the Royal Society of London in 1660 he had this petition the government to undertake such a venture with the objective of claiming the Moon for the British Empire!

THE ROLE OF MAN IN SPACE

In 1958 NASA was assigned the task of exploring space for scientific purposes, but no immediate objectives were specified. The National Aeronautics and Space Act left the agency to set its own goals.

Accordingly, within days Keith Glennan established the Space Task Group at the Langley Research Center to manage Project Mercury, which was to launch a man into orbit as soon as possible. This was not exactly what President Eisenhower had had in mind, but he saw it as a one-off venture. At a packed press conference on 9 April 1959, Glennan introduced the seven military test pilots who had been chosen to be astronauts.[16]

On 25-26 May 1959 Harry J. Goett of the Ames Research Center chaired the first meeting of the Research Steering Committee on Manned Space Flight, which was to consider possible man-in-space objectives for the coming decade. These included:

• launching and operating a small orbital laboratory

• assembling a large permanent space station

• flying circumlunar and lunar orbital missions

• making a lunar landing.

George M. Low, who represented headquarters, was firmly of the view that only a manned lunar landing provided a reasonable ultimate objective – it was an ‘end’, not just an intermediate step along a path. Whilst less demanding, the alternatives were not as definitive – either a man landed on the Moon or he did not; there was no way

to redefine it as something simpler and assert this to be equivalent.[17] It was therefore decided to set the long-range goal of achieving a manned lunar landing in the 1970s. This would gave a framework in which to define a series of intermediate objectives for the 1960s.

On 5 July 1960 the House Committee on Science and Astronautics said, “NASA’s 10-year program is a good program as far as it goes, but it does not go far enough.’’ In other words, it urged NASA to accelerate its long-range plan. In the committee’s view, “A high priority program should be undertaken to place a manned expedition on the Moon in this decade. A firm plan with this goal in view should be drawn up and submitted to the Congress by NASA.’’ But it warned that this plan, “should be completely integrated with other goals, to minimise total costs. The modular concept deserves close study. Particular attention should be paid immediately to long lead­time phases of such a program.’’

Eisenhower responded by asking his science advisor, James R. Killian, whether a manned lunar landing represented a scientific venture which could be justified in the same manner as launching a satellite for the International Geophysical Year. Killian convened a meeting of scientists, and their report, written by Donald F. Hornig of Princeton University, was dismissive: “At the present time, man-in-space cannot be justified on purely scientific grounds.’’ The rationale for sending men to the Moon seemed to be “emotional compulsion and national aspirations’’. Hence Eisenhower refused funding for manned space flight beyond Project Mercury, and in particular the proposal for a three-man Apollo spacecraft. He had no problem with the agency using the new Saturn booster to launch heavy satellites, but he withdrew funding for the upper stages intended to enable this to launch a manned spacecraft. Nevertheless, on 12-13 September the Space Task Group held a briefing for potential bidders to develop the Apollo spacecraft with the Moon as the ultimate objective, and released the formal request for proposals. On 17 October, Low told Abe Silverstein, Director of the Office of Space Flight Programs, that he was going to set up a committee to study the circumlunar objective in greater detail, to ensure that the Apollo spacecraft would be capable of supporting a landing mission.[18] On 25 October NASA issued contracts to three companies to provide feasibility studies for the Apollo spacecraft.

The national election of November 1960 was won by John F. Kennedy. He was inaugurated on 20 January 1961. In giving his final budget speech prior to leaving office, Eisenhower said on 18 January 1961 that Congress would have to determine “whether there are any vital scientific reasons for extending manned space flight beyond Mercury’’. In a campaign statement, Kennedy had said: “We’re in a strategic space race with the Russians, and we are losing. If a man orbits Earth this year, his name will be Ivan. If the Soviets control space they can control the Earth, as in past centuries the nation that controlled the seas has dominated the continents. We

cannot afford to run second in this vital race. To insure peace and freedom we must be first. Space is our great New Frontier.” The contrast with Eisenhower’s view was stark. Kennedy also had an appreciation of national prestige, which in the Cold War meant a comparison with the achievements of the Soviet Union. The issue of prestige had been dismissed by Eisenhower.

During the transitional period, Kennedy assigned a number of task forces to draw up policy recommendations. The Committee on Space was chaired by Jerome B. Wiesner, who served on the President’s Science Advisory Committee during James Killian’s chairmanship and was to become Kennedy’s Special Assistant for Science and Technology. The Committee on Space in turn set up the Panel on Man-in-Space, composed largely of scientists, and its report on 18 November I960 criticised the program envisaged by NASA.4 Although it agreed the need for large launch vehicles and urged an emphasis on space science and applications, it criticised “the popular belief that man in space is the most important aim of our non-military space effort’’. Wiesner recommended that Project Mercury be ended as soon as it had achieved its objective of placing a man in orbit, and that there should be no follow-on. However, Kennedy had made Vice President Lyndon B. Johnson chairman of the National Aeronautics and Space Council, and Johnson was in favour of expanding the space program.

And when the Space Science Board of the National Academy of Sciences issued a position paper on Man’s Role in the National Space Program on 27 March 1961 it said, “scientific exploration of the Moon and planets should be clearly stated as the ultimate objective of the US space program for the foreseeable future. This objective should be promptly adopted as the official goal of the United States space program and clearly announced, discussed and supported.’’ It also advised that whilst it was “not now possible to decide whether man will be able to accompany expeditions to the Moon and planets’’, NASA should proceed with its planning “on the premise that man will be included’’. Taking the broader view, it said that such exploration would be “potentially the greatest inspirational venture of the century and one in which the entire world can share; inherent here are great and fundamental philosophical and spiritual values which find a response in man’s questing spirit’’. Clearly this national scientific body, established to advise NASA on policy, was taking a much broader view than the sky scientists involved in space research at that time.

Having achieved the first delivery of a scientific capsule to the lunar surface, the Soviets moved on to attempt to be first to put a satellite into orbit around the Moon. Luna 10 was launched at 10:47 GMT on 31 March 1966. After cruising in parking orbit, it set off for the Moon. It was the same type of bus as Luna 9, but was ferrying an instrument capsule instead of the landing capsule. The midcourse manoeuvre on 1 April refined the trajectory to aim for the point in space at which the 850-m/s orbit insertion burn would be made. When 8,000 km out, it oriented itself for braking. The burn was initiated at 18:44 on 3 April, and slowed the spacecraft sufficiently for it to enter a 350 x 1,017-km orbit with a period of 178 minutes, in a plane inclined at 72 degrees to the lunar equator. The fact that the change in velocity to enter orbit was considerably less than that to land meant that propellant could be traded in favour of an increase in the payload to 245 kg. Shortly after entering orbit the bus released the 1.5-metre-long capsule containing a micrometeoroid detector, radiation detectors, an infrared sensor to measure the heat flux from the Moon, a gamma – ray spectrometer to detect radioactive isotopes, and a magnetometer to follow up the measurements by the early flyby probes. The mission ended when the battery expired on 30 May, after 56 days during which the capsule made 460 revolutions.

The gamma-ray spectrometer was similar to that of the Ranger Block II, but more useful by virtue of being placed into orbit to survey a wide area. The instrument was a scintillation spectrometer with a resolution of 32 channels within the energy range 0.3-3.0 MeV. The surface resolution was rudimentary. The data was consistent with the proposition that the maria were basaltic, but was inconclusive. About the only positive conclusion was there were no large surface exposures of acidic rock such as granite. The question for the ‘hot Moon’ hypothesis advocated by Gerard Kuiper, was why the process which produced ‘continental’ material on Earth had seemingly not done so on the Moon. The mystery was the composition of the highland material. If a global magnetic field existed, then it was weaker than 1/100,000th that of Earth. Radio occultations on crossing the limb showed no hint of the Moon having even a tenuous envelope of gas. Intriguingly, radio tracking revealed the gravitational field to be uneven.

In view of the reason for his predecessor’s resignation, George Mueller ordered a review of Apollo, and this confirmed the project to be in trouble. On 29 October 1963 Mueller informed the Manned Space Flight Management Council that the only way to recover time would be to reduce the number of development flights. The plan drawn up by the Marshall Space Flight Center in March 1962 envisaged a series of launches of the Saturn V in which the stages were tested in sequence – with only the first stage being ‘live’ on the first test scheduled for late 1965. The aim was to ‘man rate’ this vehicle by the summer of 1967, then use it to launch at least six manned missions in Earth and lunar orbit prior to attempting a lunar landing in late 1968 or early 1969. Mueller proposed to reduce this research and development phase by ‘all up’ testing in which each launch would use only ‘live’ stages, modules, systems and spacecraft. Wernher von Braun and Robert Gilruth objected, but Mueller had the support of James Webb.

In addition, a recent study by Bellcomm had recommended reassigning the early tests of the Apollo Block I spacecraft from the Saturn I to the Saturn IB, and so on 30 October Mueller cancelled the four manned test flights with the Saturn I that had been set for 1965. The development of the Saturn IB for manned missions would be accelerated and the ‘all up’ testing strategy employed in this case too. After coming to terms with this, Gilruth asked von Braun whether the Saturn IB could lift both the CSM and LEM, and was advised that it would be feasible only if their weights were controlled. At the White Sands Missile Range in New Mexico on 7 November the Apollo launch escape system successfully performed its first ‘pad abort’ test. On 18 November 1963 Mueller directed that if the LEM was not ready in time, the early Saturn IB flights would fly without it. But it must be phased into the test program as quickly as possible. Furthermore, Mueller directed that two successful development flights for each of the Saturn IB and Saturn V would serve to ‘man rate’ them. The schedule that he issued on 31 December 1963 listed the first Saturn IB test in early 1966 and the first manned mission later that year. The first Saturn V test was to be in the first quarter of 1967, with the first manned flight (hopefully on the third launch) later that year. Mueller then established the Apollo Program Office with himself as Director, and hired Samuel C. Phillips, who had managed the development of the Air Force’s Minuteman missile, as Deputy Director.

On 17 September 1962 NASA had announced the nine men of its second intake of astronauts.1 At the same time, Deke Slayton was appointed Coordinator of Astronaut Activities, reporting to Robert Gilruth.[41] [42] In addition to the administrative tasks of the Astronaut Office, which Slayton managed in the manner of a military unit, he was responsible for making flight crew assignments. On 18 October 1963 the fourteen men of the third astronaut group were announced.[43] By now James Elms was Deputy Director of the Manned Spacecraft Center, and on 5 November 1963 Gilruth inserted Assistant Directors under Elms in order to strengthen the local management of flight operations: Chris Kraft was redesignated as Assistant Director for Flight Operations, Deke Slayton as Assistant Director for Flight Crew Operations and Maxime Faget as Assistant Director for Engineering and Development. In addition, Merritt Preston was assigned to manage Manned Spacecraft Center operations in Florida. However, on 17 January 1964 Elms resigned, and two days later George Low was reassigned from headquarters to replace him.

President Kennedy flew to Cape Canaveral on 16 November 1963 to inspect the ‘moonport’ which NASA was beginning to construct on nearby Merritt Island. He was shown models to illustrate the enormous size of the Saturn V. On 22 November he was assassinated in Dallas, Texas, and later that day Lyndon Johnson was sworn in as his successor. In a TV address on 28 November Johnson directed that Cape Canaveral be renamed Cape Kennedy, and the next day he signed an executive order in which the Launch Operations Center was renamed the John F. Kennedy Space Center.[44]

On 15 January 1964 the Manned Spacecraft Center proposed to Apollo Spacecraft Program Manager Joseph Shea that two of the Saturn IB ‘all up’

Group 1, seated (left to right): Captain Leroy Gordon Cooper Jr, Captain Virgil Ivan ‘Gus’ Grissom, Lieutenant Malcolm Scott Carpenter, Lieutenant Commander Walter Marty Schirra Jr, Lieutenant Colonel John Herschel Glenn Jr, Lieutenant Commander Alan Bartlett Shepard Jr and Captain Donald Kent ‘Deke’ Slayton. Group 2, standing (left to right): Captain Edward Higgins White II, Captain James Alton McDivitt, Lieutenant Commander John Watts Young, Elliot McKay See Jr, Lieutenant Charles ‘Pete’ Conrad Jr, Major Frank Frederick Borman II, Neil Alden Armstrong, Captain Thomas Patten Stafford and Lieutenant Commander James Arthur Lovell Jr.

Group 3, seated (left to right): Major Edwin Eugene ‘Buzz’ Aldrin Jr, Captain William Alison Anders, Captain Charles Arthur Bassett II, Lieutenant Alan LaVern Bean, Lieutenant Eugene Andrew Cernan and Lieutenant Roger Bruce Chaffee; standing (left to right): Captain Michael Collins, Ronnie Walter Cunningham, Captain Donn Fulton Eisele, Captain Theodore Cordy Freeman, Lieutenant Commander Richard Francis Gordon Jr, Russell Louis ‘Rusty’ Schweickart, Captain David Randolph Scott and Captain Clifton Curtis Williams.

During a visit to Cape Canaveral on 16 November 1963 John F. Kennedy is briefed by George E. Mueller on the ‘mobile launcher’ concept for Apollo. To Kennedy’s right are (in turn) James E. Webb, Robert C. Seamans, Kurt H. Debus and George M. Low. To his left are Hugh L. Dryden, Wernher von Braun, General Leighton I. Davis and Florida Senator George A. Smathers.

development flights be used to test the heat shield of the Apollo command module, because this would enable the early tests of the Saturn V to be classified as ‘demonstration’ rather than ‘development’ for the spacecraft.[45] On 7 February Grumman was directed to provide two LEM test articles (LTA) and eleven flightworthy LEMs, the first three of which were to be capable of either manned or unmanned operation. On 23 March George Mueller ordered that if the first two unmanned CSM test flights were successful, the next mission would be a long- duration manned flight, after which there would be two tests of the LEM, the first

one unmanned and the second together with a manned CSM – so long as the Saturn IB proved capable of lifting both vehicles together. In November 1964 Joseph Shea, George Mueller and Sam Phillips drew up an outline schedule for testing Apollo hardware in advance of the introduction of the Saturn V, but it remained uncertain whether the weights of the two spacecraft were sufficiently constrained for them to be lifted together by a Saturn IB for the joint mission. On 16 December Shea directed that the Block I manned missions must use low orbits from which the spacecraft could use its reaction control system thrusters to de-orbit itself in the event of the failure of the service propulsion system; and in the event of these too failing, the orbit must decay naturally and result in re-entry within an acceptable duration.6

On 31 August 1964 Lead Flight Director Chris Kraft appointed John D. Hodge, Eugene F. Kranz and Glynn S. Lunney to alternate in round-the-clock flight operations. On 24 December Everett E. Christensen was made Director of Mission Operations, a position which effectively superseded Deputy Associate Administrator for Manned Space Flight Operations – vacant since the resignation of Walter Williams in April. At the same time, two posts of Mission Director were also created, with the intention that the appointees would run alternate missions. In addition, activities at the Cape were consolidated, with Kurt H. Debus being made Director of Launch Operations and Merritt Preston, who had been managing the Manned Spacecraft Center’s activities at the Cape, becoming his Deputy.

Joseph Shea, Chris Kraft and Deke Slayton were briefed on 18 January 1965 by the Mission Planning and Analysis Division of the Manned Spacecraft Center about the Saturn IB and early Saturn V flights. On 21 January, in response to a question by Sam Phillips, Shea said the current estimate was that the Saturn IB would be able to insert 35,500 pounds into a circular orbit at 105 nautical miles. This, however, was less than the combined ‘control weights’ of the CSM and LEM by 870 pounds, and both vehicles were currently above their control weights. Shea argued that in view of the difficulty in constraining the weights, the best solution would be to find a way of increasing the launcher’s capacity by 1,000 pounds. In fact, the Saturn IB had a

This precaution was reputedly a headquarters response to the situation depicted by Martin Caidin in his recent novel Marooned.

‘control payload’ which was the specified minimum mass that it was to be capable of placing into the reference orbit, and a ‘design goal’ which exceeded this. On 23 February Phillips told Shea that the Marshall Space Flight Center would endeavour to increase the payload by 1,000 pounds. The development version of the cluster of eight H-1 engines had yielded 1.3 million pounds of thrust, but the fifth flight of the Saturn I had introduced an upgraded cluster that finally achieved its specification of 1.5 million pounds of thrust. In August 1963 Rocketdyne had proposed an upgrade for 1.6 million pounds of thrust, and on 8 November of that year NASA had ordered this be done. By 23 April 1965 the improved engine had completed its qualification testing. On 12 May Huntsville reported that it would be possible to uprate the engine by an additional 5,000 pounds of thrust, to raise the total to 1.64 million pounds. But the rocket engineers were fighting a losing battle, as by then both spacecraft had put on even more weight.

On 13 January 1965 Shea had established the Configuration Control Board, with himself in the chair. This was to rule on all proposals for engineering changes to the spacecraft. On 10 May he faced a dilemma: the ‘all up’ testing regime required that all spacecraft incorporate a full set of subsystems, but it had been proposed that the landing radars be omitted from LEM-1 and LEM-2 on the basis that a radar would serve no function on an Earth orbital mission. Omitting the radar on these early test flights would save money and assist in the effort to trim the weight of the vehicle at this critical juncture, but doing so would establish the precedent for a series of one – of-a-kind spacecraft, each tailored to achieving specific development objectives and with none demonstrating all of the systems in conjunction. Furthermore, by relieving the pressure on the effort to trim weight in the short term, such compromises might jeopardise it in the long term. On 27 May the Manned Spacecraft Center reaffirmed that LEM-1 must test the radar. But on 25 June ASPO Assistant Manager Harry L. Reynolds warned Owen E. Maynard, Chief of the Systems Engineering Division at the Manned Spacecraft Center, that it was ‘‘becoming increasingly clear that we are going to have a difficult job keeping the LEM weight below the control weight’’. On 6 July Grumman requested to be allowed to deliver the early LEMs without some subsystems installed, but Shea insisted they must all leave the factory in a fully functional condition. At that time, LEM-1 was to be delivered to the Kennedy Space Center in November 1966, with the next five vehicles following in 1967, but it was becoming increasingly evident that this schedule would be difficult to achieve. On 13 September 1965 Shea established the Weight Control Board to enable subsystem managers to meet on a weekly basis and report progress in controlling the weights of the two spacecraft, and when appropriate to create ad hoc task forces to chase up specific issues and report back.

Meanwhile, on 17 February 1965 Shea clarified for North American Aviation the Block I schedule. CSM-009 and CSM-011 were to be configured for unmanned use and fly as AS-201 and AS-202 to test the heat shield. CSM-012 and CSM-014 were to be delivered for manned missions, but be capable of being adapted at the Cape for unmanned flight. The decision for CSM-012 would be made 6 months ahead of the scheduled launch date for AS-204, and if flown unmanned this would be done either to gain additional data on the spacecraft’s characteristics or to provide more time for

the Marshall Space Flight Center to prepare AS-203 to obtain data on the behaviour of the S-IVB stage in space. North American Aviation was told that CSM-017 and CSM-020, assigned to the early tests of the Saturn V, need not be capable of manned use. The first manned Block II would be CSM-101, which was to fly in conjunction with LEM-2. On 22 March Glynn Lunney, Chief of the Flight Dynamics Branch of the Flight Control Division in Houston, was appointed Assistant Flight Director for AS-201 and AS-202. On 25 June Carroll H. Bolender was made Deputy Director of Mission Operations at the Office of Manned Space Flight, and his first task was to plan these two preliminary missions.

On 10 August 1965 ASPO named LEM-1 to AS-206, LEM-2 to AS-207, LEM-3 to AS-503, LEM-4 to AS-504, LEM-5 to AS-505 and LEM-6 to AS-506. Of the six test articles, LTA-1 was kept by Grumman at Bethpage to resolve issues during the initial fabrication, assembly and checkout procedures, LTA-2 went to the Marshall Space Flight Center for launch vibration tests, LTA-3 and LTA-5 were to be used to assess the structural effects of engine firing, LTA-8 went to the Manned Spacecraft Center for thermal-vacuum environmental testing, and LTA-10 went to the North American Aviation factory in Tulsa, Oklahoma, for fit-checks with the SLA, which was being manufactured there. To cut costs, in July Grumman had been directed to delete LTA – 4 (intended for vibration tests), the ascent stage of LTA-5 and the two flight test articles and instead to refurbish two of the test articles for flight once their ground testing role was complete. The company said it would refurbish LTA-10 and LTA-2 in case they were needed for the first two Saturn V test flights. The first three LEMs were to incorporate development flight instrumentation so as to record the dynamic environment at launch. A key requirement was that the differences between LEM-3 and LEM-4 be minimised and that all subsequent production vehicles be identical.

On 21 October 1965 Sam Phillips slipped AS-201 to January 1966 and AS-202 to June 1966 to accommodate the revised delivery dates for CSM-009 and CSM-011, but otherwise preserved the outline schedule which had been drawn up in November 1964. On 2 December 1965 Hugh Dryden died of cancer.[46] Robert Seamans replaced him as Deputy Administrator on 21 December. He retained the duties of Associate Administrator until Homer Newell gained this post in August 1967, and was in turn superseded as Associate Administrator for Space Sciences and Applications by John E. Naugle.

Meanwhile, an operational step toward the chosen Apollo ‘mission mode’ was achieved when Gemini 6 rendezvoused with Gemini 7 on 15 December 1965. The straightforward manner in which this was done raised the prospect of undertaking the manned test of the LEM without reducing the weights of the CSM and LEM to enable the Saturn IB to lift them both together. On 28 January 1966 Sam Phillips asked ASPO to assess the impact, including the effects on ground support equipment and mission control, of a dual AS-207/208 mission as early as the scheduled date for

AS-207, which was the Saturn IB that was nominally to have sent them into orbit together. The idea was for near-simultaneous launches of AS-207 with CSM-101 and AS-208 with LEM-2 to facilitate a rendezvous and docking, at which point the mission would unfold as originally planned. On 2 February John P. Mayer, Chief of the Mission Planning and Analysis Division at the Manned Spacecraft Center, informed Chris Kraft, Assistant Director for Flight Operations, that the main constraint would be programming the Real-Time Computer Complex in Houston to plan and support such a mission – in which case the decision on whether it was to be attempted must be taken very soon. Mayer also urged that if the IBM staff who worked on the Gemini 6/7 rendezvous could be spared, they should be reassigned to help to plan the new dual mission. On 4 February John Hodge, Chief of the Flight Control Division, noted that some of the operational issues associated with near­simultaneous launches would be obviated if the interval were extended. On 24 February Mayer’s assistant, Howard W. Tindall, recommended that the CSM be launched first and the LEM follow it either 24 hours later or at a recurring daily window. On 1 March Joseph Shea endorsed the concept. On 8 March Sam Phillips directed the Manned Spacecraft Center, Marshall Space Flight Center and Kennedy Space Center to endeavour to launch the dual mission a month later than intended for AS-207 on the previous schedule.