Category How Apollo Flew to the Moon

With only 3.000 metres of altitude remaining, another barometric sw itch operated to fire mortars that deployed three pilot chutes into the smooth air stream, which in turn pulled the three main parachutes out from their bays around the tunnel. These were a welcome sight to the crews and became familiar to the public as the impressive 25-metre red-and-white canopies that featured clearly on colour television coverage of an Apollo’s return to Earth.

Both the main and drogue chutes were deployed in a reefed condition; that is. they were inhibited from inflating properly for the first 10 seconds by a line that ran around the edge of the canopy in order to reduce the mechanical shock of their deployment. A timed pyrotechnic device eventually cut the reefing line to allow the canopies to fully open.

“Going to free fall.-’ called Conrad as the drogue chutes disappeared.

“There go the mains!” yelled Gordon when he saw1 them replaced by the three glorious main parachutes.

“Hang on,” said Conrad. “We’ve got all three. A good show.-’

“They’re not dereefed yet,– warned Gordon. They couldn’t slow – enough until at least two canopies were fully inflated.

“There they go,” said Bean. "They’re dereefed.”

“A couple of them are,” said Gordon. “One of them isn’t yet. There they go,” as the last reefing cord let go. “Hello, Houston; Apollo 12,” he yelled to mission control. “Three gorgeous, beautiful chutes, and we’re at 8,000 feet on the way down in great shape.”

When things are occurring rapidly all around, events can appear to happen in slow motion. Collins was watching the deployment of the parachutes intently. “It seemed to me there was quite a bit of delay before they dereefed. All three chutes were stable and all were reefed and they kept staying that way until I was just about the point where I was getting worried about whether they were ever going to dereef; then they did.”

The fully deployed main parachutes rapidly slowed the spacecraft’s descent to just

8.5 metres per second.

While the service module had been attached, spacecraft communications on the VHF system had used two scimitar antennae mounted in semicircular housings on either side of that module. For VHF communication with the recovery forces, two small antennae stored beneath the apex cover popped up automatically soon after the main parachutes had been deployed. To use them, the crew had to manually switch the output of the VHF electronics across to the ‘Recovery’ position.

Engineers wisely allowed a generous margin by designing the main parachutes to enable the CM to land safely with only two inflated canopies. This precaution was

justified when one of the canopies that should have been lowering Endeavour. the Apollo 15 CM to the ocean, failed and uselessly streamed beside its two functioning counterparts. The impact speed only rose from 8.5 to just less than 10 metres per second. Apollo 15‘s CMP Л1 Worden noted that all three chutes had inflated properly when first deployed so blame was put on the crew s next task, their propellant dump.

The propellant tanks for the RCS thrusters still contained much highly noxious propellant, especially hydrazine fuel. As such hazardous substances could not be on board when swimmers were clambering all over the spacecraft after splashdown, the excess was dumped by firing all their thrusters until the tanks were depleted as the spacecraft descended on its three main parachutes. Before doing so. the crew – closed the cabin pressure relief valve to prevent RCS fumes from entering the cabin, and instead, released fresh oxygen from the surge tank into the cabin. When Endeavour’s thrusters fired, its oxidiser tanks had emptied before its fuel tanks so that for a few seconds, unburnt hydrazine was leaving the engines. As hydrazine can burn in air, it has been blamed for damaging the parachute. On subsequent flights, engineers biased the propellant load towards the oxidiser and altered the liming of the burn to try to avoid the problem.

The timing of Apollo 8’s arrival meant that it re-entered just before dawn over the recovery site, so when the RCS tanks started emptying as the spacecraft descended on its main parachutes, the crew were treated to a sight which, though spectacular, was somewhat worrying. ‘The ride on the mains was very smooth,’’ said Borman afterwards, "and we could not. of course, see the mains because of the darkness until we started dumping the fuel. When we dumped the fuel, we got a good chute check, but there was so much fire and brimstone around those risers that we were really glad to see the fuel dump stop.”

Once the RCS propellant tanks had been emptied, the system’s plumbing was purged with helium gas to drive out as much trace propellant as possible.

At 1,000 metres altitude, with the RCS dump completed, the cabin pressure relief valve was reset to its dump position, which allowed the cabin’s air pressure to fully equalise wfith the outside atmosphere. It was finally closed 250 metres up, to prevent water entering the cabin at impact. For a short Lime, the spacecraft would be partially submerged when it hit the water and there was a good chance that it might be upside-down for a few minutes. The parachutes suspended the command module at an angle of 27.5 degrees to the horizontal with the main hatch facing upwards. This caused the hull to hit the water ‘toe first’, in a fashion that spread the final deceleration over the longest possible time. Also, the periphery of the CM structure was formed by shaped ribs. Those opposite the hatch, where the spacecraft would contact the water first, were designed to be crushable to help to reduce the force of impaet. They were primarily intended for the undesirable contingency of a land impact but could deform to help to reduce the shock of a conventional sea landing.

The 12-ycar Apollo lunar exploration program (1961 through 1972) occurred during the second half of a transformational period between the end of WW-II (1945) and the demise of the Soviet Union in 1991, a period of major technological, political, economic, and cultural dynamics. Technologically, the digital computer was in its infancy, yet automation and robotics were clearly imminent. The Apollo astronauts were required to bridge this gap, as humans capable of using a computer to assist in manually operating the vast array of systems, techniques, and procedures necessary to explore the surface of the Moon. The crew had to operate the hardware manually because computers did not yet have the reliability or capability necessary to operate autonomously and by the nature of the design strategy MCC did not really "control” the spacecraft.

And at any point in the mission, the crew had to be prepared to operate on their own without any contact from Earth, using only the equipment and computers on board, together with pre-calculated manoeuvre data. For. among the many potential emergencies that could occur on such a voyage, one of the most serious was loss of communications with MCC; whereby the crew and their spaceship would be alone in the ocean of space, perhaps even on the surface of the Moon and miles from the lunar module.

During each Apollo lunar exploration mission the three astronauts were obliged to be qualified and certified in essentially seven crew’ positions;

• The CSM had three crew positions: (1) Pilot (launch, major manoeuvres, rendezvous and re-entry); (2) Navigator (inertial navigation and rendezvous); and (3) Systems Engineer (all systems including fuel cells and propulsion).

• The LM had a crew of tw o: (4) Pilot (landing, launch, and rendezvous); (5) Systems Engineer (two computers, oxygen, electrical, thermal and water management)

• The surface exploration required a crew of two: (6) Lead geologist (also LRV driver); and (7) Geologist, systems engineer (for LRV. the suits and the backpack).

NASA training for the astronaut crews was superb – every aspect of the mission was covered by expert teachers and experienced professionals. Every spacecraft and all equipment and software were tested and verified by the astronaut crews (including flight spacecraft and spacesuits in vacuum chambers). In addition to the sophisticated (for that Lime) CSM and LM simulators, training w’as received in spacecraft systems, fundamental astronautics (navigation and rendezvous), and the operations of MCC. Commanders were qualified in helicopters and the Lunar Landing Training Vehicle. All astronauts maintained flight currency in T-38 jets, received SCUBA diving (for underwater weightless training), and jungle, desert, and water survival. And for the M" missions in particular, crews had extensive geology training with many hours of classroom and laboratory work, and field exercises.

By late 1963, the first thirty astronauts had been selected – all wrere experienced pilots in high-performance jets (twenty-four w’ere Lest pilots); all had engineering degrees (twelve also had graduate degrees); and all had been trained by the military (Air Force, Navy and Marines). This group would eventually command all tw’enty – nine US manned space missions (Mercury, Gemini, and Apollo) through the end of Apollo lunar exploration in 1972. But seven died during training or flight; and eleven more w’ho were selected in later groups flew’ Apollo lunar missions.

The basic design of the lunar module had been frozen in mid-1963, but systems integration, test and checkout had not yet commenced. Apollo simulators had not yet been developed. One of the major challenges for these first astronauts (and their operational support teams) was to develop and verify the procedures by which spacecraft would be operated. This required the integration and confirmation of the delicate sequence of operating the electrical, mechanical, computer, propulsion, life – support and other systems and Apollo was far more complex than Mercury and Gemini, and certainly any contemporary aircraft. And in developing procedures, they also necessarily became major contributors to the development of mission techniques (data priority). And because of their experience and involvement in the evolution of the Apollo program, these original thirty astronauts participated in and contributed to major management and programmatic decisions at the highest level.

One of the fortuitous design choices made by the Apollo/Saturn engineers was that the rocket ought to depend, in the first instance, on its own guidance system rather than being controlled by the one in the spacecraft. All the equipment required to autonomously steer the vehicle was mounted on the inside of a 6.6- metre annular ring positioned atop the S-IVB that extended the height of the launch vehicle by one metre. This was the instrument unit, and examples were installed on both the Saturn IB and Saturn V. The unit included a digital computer, a stabilised guidance platform, sequencers and other kit to control the entire launch, the ascent to orbit and the burn to the Moon. However, arrangements were also made to allow the Apollo spacecraft to control the Saturn V in case of an instrument unit failure.

The Apollo 12 flight of November 1969 vindicated the engineers’ decision when

lightning hit the ascending vehicle shortly after launch. The guidance system in the command module was temporarily knocked out by the surge of current, yet the Saturn continued on its way under the control of its instrument unit, giving mission control and the crew time to recover from the disruption. Had the spacecraft’s systems been in control, the vehicle would have strayed off course and the mission would surely have been aborted by firing the LES motor.

The scientific feast continued with Apollo 16, launched on 14 April 1972 to explore what were believed to be ‘highland volcanics’ within the rugged hills near the crater Descartes towards the centre of the Moon’s disk. Its crew of John Young, Charlie Duke and Ken Mattingly nearly had to abort their mission some hours before landing. When Mattingly tried to test the back up steering system of the main engine on board the CSM Casper preparatory to a scheduled burn, it began to wobble violently. Once this glitch had been overcome, Young and Duke made a successful landing six hours late in their LM Orion.

After a night’s sleep, they stepped onto the surface, immediately prepared their rover, and set up their ALSEP science station. Although Duke had no difficulty drilling into the surface for the heat-flow experiment, Young inadvertently disabled the instrument by tripping over its cable. Their first traverse was a short one to craters where they only found breccia or ‘instant rock’, made in the high-energy environment of an impact event when fragments were bound together by the melting of powdered rock. Their second and third days also concentrated on traverses, seeking signs of the expected volcanism but finding only beat-up rocks of a vast

ejecta blanket. In orbit, Mattingly continued the same type of observations that Apollo 15 had made, but over a largely different swathe of terrain.

The surface crew returned to the CSM and then, in view of the problem with their engine’s steering, departed lunar orbit a day early. Apart from being unable to release their subsatellite into the correct orbit, this curtailment of the Apollo 16 flight barely impinged on the quantity and quality of its results.

It was an example of classic scientific research. A hypothesis had been proposed by geologists to explain the origin of light-toned plains that were visible across some areas of the lunar highlands. Part of Apollo 16’s brief was to test this hypothesis, and with samples and observations to hand, the theories were proved wrong. However, this is how scientific progress is made, because it prompted a new hypothesis and a better understanding of the Moon’s evolution as a planetary body.

The first 42 seconds of the flight up to a height of about three kilometres was flown in abort mode one-alpha. This meant that in an abort, the escape tower above the command module would fire its large solid-fuelled motor to quickly pull the CM up and away from the service module and the rest of the stack below. The LHT included a small sideways-firing rocket motor at the Lop, called the pitch control motor, whose function was to steer the CM eastward out over the ocean to ensure that it would not subsequently descend into the conflagration caused by the destruction of its launch vehicle. Safely clear, the CM would dump its manoeuvring fuel (nasty, toxic, highly corrosive stuff that would otherwise present a danger to the recovery forces), jettison the complete escape system both Lower and boost protective cover – followed by the forward heatshield in order to deploy its parachutes and make a normal landing in the ocean.

At the centre of the decision to abort was the commander. From the launch pad to orbit, he closely monitored various lights and displays on the panel that supplied him with whatever information was relevant to making that decision. All the equipment that fed these displays, and which sensed whether an emergency was imminent, was called the emergency detection system (EDS). It was decided that he would not react to a single cue. lest it be spurious; but if two cues from the EDS called for an abort, this was sufficient indication for him to twist the T-handle in his left hand counterclockwise to activate the appropriate sequence to abandon the malfunctioning launch vehicle. There was also a set of conditions that could initiate an automatic abort. The idea of ending a half-billion-dollar mission at the behest of a few’ bits of hardware necessitated detection systems that were triple-redundant and which were required to ‘vote’ electronically for an abort. The automatic portion of the EDS was switched off once the rocket was out of the densest part of the atmosphere. Once aerodynamic forces were left behind, situations could not develop so rapidly.

The EDS was responsible for lighting a cluster of indicators that showed whether each engine was running at full thrust, whether the rocket was veering Loo fast and whether the Saturn’s guidance system really knew which way was up. In the latter case, from Apollo 11 onwards, if the commander saw that the Saturn was incapable of guiding itself, he had the option of twisting the T-handle clockwise to pass control of the entire rocket to the spacecraft’s computer, and if that was also failing then he could manually guide it to orbit. Another prominent light informed him when launch control in Florida, or the range safety officer, also in Florida, or mission control in Houston, believed an abort was advised. A gauge that normally showed the state of the spacecraft’s main engine for the rest of the mission was pressed into service by the EDS to show the rocket’s angle-of-attack; that is. whether it was moving cleanly through the air with no tendency to slip sideways – a condition that could impose such aerodynamic stress as to cause the break-up of the vehicle’s structure.

SETTLING INTO ORBIT

In only 11V2 minutes, the Saturn V had accelerated the Apollo spacecraft to nearly eight kilometres per second. The length of the stack had been reduced by two-thirds and the remaining stage, along with the spacecraft, had been lifted to an altitude of between 170 and 185 kilometres above Earth and above the vast majority of the atmosphere, though by no means out of it completely.

It was in orbit and the crew were experiencing weightlessness. They had almost three hours in which to give their ship a thorough checkout before setting off for the Moon with an engine burn called transhmar injection (TLI), and no one was keen to ignite it unless they knew it would be sending a good ship. In that time, they would make not quite two orbits of Earth although, if required, there was a contingency for an extra orbit.

W. D. Woods, How Apollo Flew to the Moon, Springer Praxis Books,

DOI 10.1007/978-1-4419-7179-1 4. © Springer Science+Business Media. LLC 2011

As soon as the J-2 engine at the rear end of the S-IVB third stage had shut down, a pair of Liny auxiliary rocket engines at the base of the stage’s outer skin burned for a minute or so in an effort to keep the propellants settled at the bottom of their tanks. Other small manoeuvring engines began to operate to ensure that the stage would always point in the direction of travel with the spacecraft’s optical systems facing the stars. Once everything had settled down, a pair of aft-facing valves were opened to allow; hydrogen gas from the S-IVB‘s supercold fuel tank to safely vent to space as heat leaked in and caused the fuel to boil. This venting acted like a very weak rocket thruster and provided a Liny propulsive force that continued to keep the propellants settled at the bottom of their tanks long after the auxiliary thrusters had stopped.

Microgravity

Weightlessness is the common term for what is usually known in the space industry as microgravity though it is arguable which is the more accurate term. Microgravity implies a virtual lack of gravity which reinforces a common misconception that space is notable for the absence of this universal force. At the altitude the spacecraft was coasting, the force of Earth’s gravity was almost as much as it was down on the surface, yet the crew and all the loose objects in the cabin w’ere floating.

The body reacts to microgravity in ways that are now quite well understood. But when Apollo began to fly. no one had been in space for more than two weeks, and that had been in a claustrophobic Gemini cabin. After their Apollo 16 flight, veteran astronaut John Young and rookie Charlie Duke described their reactions to it. “It’s really neat; beats work," was Young’s opinion. Duke noticed how, with the cardiovascular system no longer having to work against gravity, the body’s fluids tended to go Low-ards the head. "For the first rest period, I had that fullness in the head that a lot of people have experienced. More of a pulsing in the temples, really than a fullness in the head.” Young had attempted to anticipate the effects. "I tried to outguess it by standing on my head for five minutes a night a couple of weeks before launch. Standing on your head is a heck of a lot harder."

Like a lot of crewmen, and taking note of the nausea experienced during earlier flights. Alan Bean took his time when he moved around the cabin at first. "I think we were all pretty careful and I had the feeling that if I had moved around a lot. I could have gotten dizzy. But I never did. Everyone was pretty careful and after about a day. it didn’t make any difference. We were doing anything we wanted." Bean also noted the way fluids gathered in the head: ‘ Your head shape changes. I looked over at Dick [Gordon] and Pete [Conrad] about two hours after insertion [into Earth orbit] and their heads looked as if they had gained about 20 pounds.”

The docking system was one of the many engineering wonders of the Apollo programme and one whose importance is perhaps underplayed. It was an ingenious, compact, pneumatic and mechanical arrangement that managed to elegantly fulfil a number of tasks: it self-centred the two spacecraft as they contacted; it absorbed the shock of that contact to achieve a soft-dock; and, finally, it pulled the two craft together to achieve hard dock and straightened their axes as it did so. It was then collapsible and removable from either the LM or CM side and could be stowed when not required. Years later, Apollo 15 commander David Scott, who was also the first CMP to use the Apollo docking system on Apollo 9, wrote about how crucial it was. "It is really quite important to the whole scheme of the Apollo concept – a very complex apparatus and one of the few single-point failures in the entire system. But at the end of the day, it was probably one of the more brilliant mechanical devices of the programme.”

Like so many plug/socket combinations in the electrical and electronics world, it was a sexed affair with the CSM carrying the male docking probe and the LM providing the receptacle into which the probe was inserted. The movie Apollo 13 played up the suggestive nature of this arrangement when the character of Jack Swigert, who would be the CMP on the Apollo 13 mission and was a bachelor with a reputation as a ladies’ man, was shown using a glass and bottle to demonstrate the Apollo docking system to a beautiful young woman. But the male/female nature of the system limited its future, and later spacecraft instead used androgynous designs which would allow any pair of suitably equipped vehicles to dock. However, despite

Top. An engineering model of the probe and drogue docking mechanism. Bottom. A test of the docking mechanism for Apollo 14 where Ant ares was turned upside down to perform a docking with Kitty Hawk. (NASA)

this inherent inflexibility, the probe and drogue arrangement was well suited to the needs of Apollo.

On the CM side, the probe consisted of an articulated tip mounted on the end of a retractable rod. Around this rod were three arms with shock absorbers in their elbow joints. The whole probe assembly could be mounted within the docking ring which itself was bolted to the apex of the command module. This ring carried 12 automatic latches around its circumference that engaged with the LM’s docking ring when the two were brought together by the retraction of the probe.

The LM’s side of the affair was much simpler. The drogue was really just a concave cone with a carefully sized hole in its centre. The purpose of the cone was to gently shepherd the tip of the probe into the hole. Three small spring-loaded capture latches built into the probe’s tip then caught the edge of the hole. This was the ‘soft –

dock’ condition. When commanded, one of four small bottles of nitrogen gas inside the probe energised the retraction mechanism to pull the spacecraft together and as it did so. three pitch arms ensured that both spacecraft were aligned by their contact with the drogue’s conical surface.

When the CSM was manoeuvred towards the LM, use of the docking target and the COAS helped to ensure both spacecraft tvere aligned in pitch, yaw and roll. Remaining pitch and yaw errors were removed by the shock absorbers in the pitch arms as the retraction took place. The roll error was usually small because the COAS and docking target were displaced well away from the centre-line of the docking system. At a later stage of the mission, the LM’s guidance system would be given an approximate alignment by the crew manually reading the appropriate numbers from the command module’s guidance system and passing them across to the LM. These alignments would have to be adjusted to account for the difference in the orientation of the coordinate systems of the two spacecraft. This calculation also meant taking into account any angular misalignment between the two vehicles at docking. To facilitate this, the docking tunnel included markings that allowed the docking index angle to be read off.

The set of numbers that defined the desired orientation of the platform had their own peculiar abbreviation – the REFSMMAT, a remarkably simple concept couched in very opaque terms. Not only was this acronym extraordinary in its size, it was also ubiquitous, being peppered throughout the crews’ conversations with the ground and in their documentation. It stood for reference to a stable member matrix, an incomprehensible jumble of jargon; but it was simply a numerical definition of an orientation in space, one to which the platform could be aligned. Being an inertial orientation, it was defined with respect to the stars.

Whether or not the absence of the Sun renders them visible, the stars are constantly moving across Earth’s sky. They rise in the east and set in the west but only because Earth is rotating in the opposite direction. Remove Earth from the scene and the vista of stars can be thought of as an essentially static sphere with the observer at its centre. Onto this sphere, astronomers have drawn an imaginary spherical coordinate system against which they measure the positions of the stars. If wc then place a З-axis coordinate system at the centre of this celestial sphere and we project its axes out to the sphere, the axes will be aimed at particular angles on that sphere. We can see that the orientation of the three axes can be defined as angular positions against the sphere. This is the basis of the REFSMMAT. The platform can then be orientated so that its coordinate system is aligned to that of the REFSMMAT. To do this requires that sightings be taken on the stars with the
scanning telescope and sextant so that the computer can gain direct knowledge of the celestial sphere.

Ed Pavelka was one of the flight controllers who occupied the FIDO console in The Trench at mission control. As a way to cement the esprit de corps among the flight dynamics team, he invented a fictional character called Captain REFSMMAT who represented the ideal flight controller. Urged on by one of his bosses – the tough but sensitive Eugene Kranz – Pa­velka imagined a figure of mili­tary stature with a radar in his helmet, and drew a series of posters depicting Captain RE­FSMMAT and his arch enemy, Victor Vector. During the Apol – One of Ed Pavelka’s drawings of Captain lo yearSi pe0ple in the MOCR

REFSMMAT. (Courtesy of Chuck Deiterich.) scribbled little comments on

these posters, often sarcastic, to let off a little steam.

A cliche that has become firmly set in the public’s mind since the space age began is that space food is a bland, dehydrated mush that comes in a tube. Certainly, for the earliest flights, this was true. However, on Apollo, things began to change a little.

Some of the food taken on Apollo w as dehydrated, for good reason. Water makes up a substantial component of soups and juices, and makes them heavy. Since spare water was plentiful anyway as a by-product of the fuel cells, it made little sense to carry more from Earth. Instead, some food was free/.e-dried, packed into plastic bags and vacuum-sealed to save space. When required, it was retrieved from its storage locker and water was injected through an orifice in the bag. It was then kneaded and left for a few minutes to he fully absorbed. When ready, the corner was cut off with scissors and the contents squeezed out into the mouth.

The Apollo spacecraft had one feature that made eating soups somewhat more pleasurable than on previous spacecraft – hot water. Because the fuel cells had to constantly generate electricity, designers could afford to add a small water heater that could then he used for making coffee and soup. Unfortunately, the limited power available on the lunar module meant that there could be no hot water, and its crews had to spend their lime on the surfaee eating cold food.

On most flights, main meals w’ere similar to modern ready meals, set out in aluminium trays with peel-back lids. Some were kept in a freezer, others in the food stow-age lockers. As a small eleetrie food warmer was provided in the command module, these packages could be heated before consumption. Each meal was planned before the mission, with eaeh crewman choosing what he would like from an available range. Enough food was packed on board to provide each crewman with 2.500 calories daily. For Pete Conrad, the menu for his second day in space w’ent like this: For breakfast, he had apricot pieces, rehydratable sausage patties and scrambled eggs and he finished it off with tw’O rehydratable drinks, grapefruit juice and coffee. At lunchlimc, he heated a tray of turkey with gravy, ate it with four cheese crackers, and downed it with rehydrated orange and grapefruit drink. His evening meal consisted of pork and potatoes which had to be rehydrated, a slice of bread with spread and some sweeties, all washed down with rehydratable cocoa and an orange drink.

On Apollo 8. the crew found an extra treat for Christmas 1968. "It appears that we did a grave injustice to the food people.” said Jim Lovell to Mike Collins in Houston. ‘ Just after our TV show’. Santa Claus brought us a TV dinner each, w’hich was delicious, turkey and gravy, cranberry sauce, grape punch; outstanding.’’ These foil-w’rapped dinners became the norm for Apollo 10 onw’ards. Additionally, the Apollo 8 crew’ found that three small bottles of brandy had been packed among their Christmas food rations. Borman, however, pulled rank and said they could not partake of the brandy until they got home. Being one of the early Apollo flights, almost all their food was in rehydratable form.

’’The food has generally been good.” commented Bill Anders while making audio notes into the onboard tape recorder. "Particularly the last meal: butterscotch pudding, beef stew, grapefruit drink and chicken soup.”

"Well, Bill, you might mention the hot water makes a big improvement, too.” added Lovell. He and Borman had already experienced the longest space mission to date, having spent two weeks in the Gemini 7 spacecraft. Compared to its cramped accommodation, the Apollo cabin wus relatively luxurious, especially the supply of hot water.

Later, during a TV showy Borman and Anders prepared a drink for the camera. "Well, here w-e have some cocoa,” said Anders. "Should be good. I’ll be adding about five ounces of hot water to that. These are little sugar cookies, some orange juice, corn chowder, chicken and gravy, and a little napkin to wipe your hands when you’re done. I’ll prepare some orange juice here.”

Borman picked up the narration. "Okay. You can see that he’s taking his scissors and cutting the plastic end olT a little no/./.le that he’s going to insert the water gun into. The water gun dispenses a half-ounce burst of water per click. Here we go; Bill has it in now, and the water is going in. I hope that you all had better Christmas dinners today than us. but nevertheless, we thought you might be interested in how we eat.”

"Roger.” said Collins at the Capeom console. "I haven’t heard any complaints down here, Frank. We’ll bring you up to speed on your food when you get back. Looks like a happy home you’ve got up there.”

Borman continued. "Ordinarily, we let these drinks settle for five or ten minutes, but Bill’s going to drink it right now. He cuts open another flap, and you’ll see a little tube comes out…”

"This is not a commercial." interjected Lovell.

"… and he drinks his delicious orange drink,” continued Borman. "Maybe 1 should say he drinks his orange drink. He’s usually not that fast. Bill is really in a hurry today. Well, that’s what we eat. Now’ another very important part of the spacecraft is the navigation station or the optics panel. And wc – just a minute; Bill wants to say something.”

“Thai’s good.” said Anders, “but not quite as good as good old California orange juice.”

As Gemini veterans. Pete Conrad and Dick Gordon appreciated the improved culinary features of the Apollo spacecraft. But as they neared the Moon on Apollo

12. A1 Bean had a question for Don Lind, Capeom in mission control. "How about asking the food experts down there, we had a can of tuna fish spread salad last night, and there’s about a half a can left today, and that stuff is still good to eat. isn’t it?”

"We’ll check,” said Lind. "I’ll be right back with you.”

In a moment, the medical doctor occupying the Surgeon console had passed his opinion to Lind w’ho told the crew. "The Surgeon suggests you try a new’ one."

"Well, Dick has this one in his hot hand.” said Bean, "and we just opened it last night. You sure that one isn’t all right?”

The w’heels of mission control w’ere starting to crank up. "We’re still checking with some people down here whether there’s any problem over that tuna fish,” said Lind, "but why don’t you hold off eating it until w’e get a better answ er for you?”

With the flight otherwise proceeding smoothly, managers and backroom people suddenly had a concern and all were keen to come to the correct decision.

"Apollo 12. Houston,” called Lind after 10 minutes had passed.

"Go ahead,” replied Conrad.

"You can’t imagine what consternation your tuna fish question has raised dow? n here. We have a wide diversity of opinion."

Gordon had also been thinking about it. "I decided it was okay,” he said.

"Well, w’e have a vote..said Lind. "The majority says throw’ it aw’ay; there’s a minority report that says everybody can cai ii except Dick Gordon.”

“Okay. That’s done.” said Conrad.

“Roger, d hey recommend that you probably throw it away.” said Lind.

‘•Okay.” * *

Perhaps Gordon got to enjoy his Luna. It is difficult to know. Perhaps he was the butt of inflight banter about his only exercise being between the couch and the food compartment. But the problem was very real. Gordon had trained more than either of the other two crewmen to fly the spacecraft back through the atmosphere at the end of the flight. Had he become ill through bad food, the re-entry would have had to be flown by less experienced crew, and while a normal re-entry w ould have been something Conrad could easily have handled, he simply had not practised for the range of possible abnormal situations that could arise. Л possibly dodgy can of tuna could not be allowed to threaten the mission. They had enough risks to contend with.

The food and drink provided was thought to give the crews everything they w ould need for a flight, but the demands placed on the final three crews showed that this was not so. From Apollo 15 onwards, crews were expected to work for up to seven hours per day on the lunar surface. In preparation, they were intensively schooled in the methods of geology and their missions had much more activity packed into all phases of the flight, ranging from onboard science experiments and advanced photographic mapping operations, to the careful documenting of every rock sample lifted from the dust.

To achieve these enhanced demands, the lunar module crews repeatedly practised the tasks that they would fulfil during their precious few hours on the Moon. As the date of launch approached, much of this training was carried out in the heat of the Florida sun. Apollo 15 w as launched at the height of summer and in the days leading up to its launch, David Scott and Jim Irwin laboured for hours inside their training suits, simulating the techniques that would make their work on the Moon as efficient as possible. Since the cooling systems they would use on the lunar surface could not function in Earth’s atmosphere, this work was hot and demanding. Both men sweated copiously and both drank as much juice as they needed to compensate. On the Moon, as they worked on the plain at Hadley, their heart rhythms were radioed back to the doctor on the Surgeon console at mission control. Towards the end of their lunar stay, he noticed that their hearts occasionally gave an abnormal beat. This was somewhat alarming but the mission objectives had been met and an emergency return would not have been any faster than letting the crew proceed as planned. After their return, further investigation showed that their bodies were lacking in potassium. It had been leached out of their systems by their profuse sweating and imbibing prior to the flight and this had upset their electrolyte balance. It was decided that future lunar module crews would compensate by taking fruit drinks laced with potassium.

On Apollo 16, John Young, who had adopted Florida as his home state, got a little tired of the quantity of potassium-laced orange juice he w as being expected to drink – and the flatulence it was causing. lie began to complain to Charlie Duke about it after their first moonwalk. However, as he spoke, an electronic fault meant that his voice was unexpectedly being transmitted to Earth.

“I have the farts, again,” he moaned. ”1 got them again, Charlie. I don’t know what the hell gives them to me. I think it’s acid stomach. I really do.”

“It probably is,” said Duke.

“I mean, I haven’t eaten this much citrus fruit in 20 years!” laughed Young. “And I’ll tell you one thing, in another 12 fucking days, I ain’t never eating any more. And if they offer to supplement me potassium with my breakfast, I’m going to throw up!” He continued, laughing: “I like an occasional orange. Really do. But I’ll be durned if I’m going to be buried in oranges.”

Apollo 17, like other flights, found that they tended not to eat very much during the coasting phases. The relative inactivity and the weightless environment reduced their calorie needs and their appetite. When mission control asked for an update on what they had eaten, it was partly to enable John Zieglschmid at the Surgeon console to check that the crew could maintain a proper balance of electrolytes in their system in the light of Apollo 15’s problems.

“And are you ready for the trotting gourmet’s report?” asked Jack Schmitt. “Roger,” replied Bob Parker. “Everybody’s here with all ears.”

“Okay,” started Schmitt. “The commander today had scrambled eggs and three bacon squares and a can of peaches and pineapple drink for breakfast. And then later on in the day he had peanut butter, jelly and bread with a chocolate bar and some dried apricots. The LMP had scrambled eggs and four bacon squares, an orange drink, and cocoa for breakfast, and potato soup, two peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, and a cherry bar and an orange drink.” Schmitt then went on to relate what Ron Evans, who had been making a TV broadcast earlier, had eaten. “And that hero of the matinee, the matinee idol of Spaceship America, had scrambled eggs, bacon squares, peaches, cinnamon toast, orange juice and cocoa for breakfast. That’s how he keeps his form. And, for lunch, he had a peanut butter sandwich and citrus beverage. And that’s it, since there’s nobody else up here.”

“Jack, we appreciate all your information,” said Parker, “and we’d like to just pass on some recommendations here from the ground that we’d like you to keep on with your regular menu as much as possible. And, if you do cut anything off, we’d like you to concentrate on eating the meats, the juices and the fruitcake, which are the most effective for maintaining your electrolyte balance.”

Eugene Cernan then piped up. “Okay, Bob. We understand what you’re saying, ft’s just a lot of food, that’s all.”

“Roger. We understand, Gene,” replied Parker. “Also, on that group of foods, peanut butter’s great for the electrolyte balance, also; so you’re doing okay.”

“I knew it was good for something,” said Cernan. “It couldn’t be that good without being good for something.”

Suit food

Imagine it. You spend two hours getting into a spacesuit, you go outside into the hardest vacuum possible for seven hours’ hard labour and you need another hour or so to get back out of the suit on your return. While your helmet is on, there is no way to get so much as a hand to your mouth, never mind taking a meal. This was the scenario faced by the J-mission crews, so to ease their inevitable hunger and to provide extra energy for the exertions of working outside, a bar of food was placed inside the neck ring of their suits. Then when the urge took them, they could crane their necks down and chew on it.

Additionally, they had about a litre of water stored in a bag attached to the neck ring of their suits. As he worked outside, a crew­man could slake his thirst by sipping through a short tube placed within reach of his mouth.

Apollo 14 used these first, but on Apollo 15,

Irwin’s tube failed, leaving him dehydrated after their first moonwalk. On his subsequent A suited Jim Irwin during training, outings he tried to compensate by drinking His drinking tube can be seen inside

more before and after their time outside. the neck ring. (NASA)

As Apollo w7as being planned, detailed studies were made of how: best to perform lunar orbit rendezvous – the technique that brought two spacecraft together around the Moon, one of which had come up from the surface. As this w as then considered to be difficult and dangerous, much effort was devoted to understanding and then

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optimising all the variables that affected the operation. Initially, it was assumed that when the LM lifted off the Moon it would rendezvous with a CSM in circular orbit at 148 kilometres. As planners continued to refine the trade-offs between operational concerns and vehicle capabilities, they came to the conclusion that the CSM should be in an orbit 1K.) kilometres above the Moon. This lower orbit was chosen to reflect the limited propellant budget of the LM’s ascent stage. Planners decided that it was acceptable to expect the ascent stage to get off the Moon within the resulting short launch windows.

This decision meant that every Moon-bound Apollo mission was targeted to make a pass around the far side with a minimum altitude of 110 kilometres. This point of closest approach was called pericynthion a term from celestial mechanics meaning the lowest point in a lunar orbit made by a craft arriving from another body (the highest point being apocynthion) The words are derived from Cynthia, an alternative name for the Greek Moon goddess Artemis. It was around pericynthion that the LOl burn was made. These two terms are rather unwieldy and refer to the particular case of an orbit achieved by a craft from outside the Moon’s vicinity. It is more common to use a shorter pair of terms, perihme and apohme. which arc more general in their use and mean more or less the same thing.