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PLANS AND SCHEDULES
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
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Table 15.1: Outline schedule for Apollo drawn up in November 1964
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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.