and na /'rrl 'z€¦ · ii wilbur and orville wright memorial lecture .-" december...
TRANSCRIPT
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Wilbur and Orville Wright Memorial Lecture .-"
December 3, 19'70
TO THE MOON AND BEYOND
Robert R. Gilruth . Director, NA SA Manned Spacecraft Center
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1. Introduction
Ladies and gentlemen. I am g.reatly honored to be -----_ .. follow the distinguished men who have given this lecture in honor of
the Wright Brothers in previous years. All of my famous predeces-
sors have spoken on the subject of aeronautics. I will deal with
aeronautics but only to describe its role in the development of manned
QlT"\-::lr"'O T I' N'nT -r .-'- - - 0
In their development of the airplane, the Wright Brothers recog-
nized that there were many factors that they needed to master for
successful flight. For example, they foresaw the need to train them-
selves to fly, showing truly remarkable foresight. They built and
used their own wind tunnel. They combined the rare ability to recog-
nize problems and to devise methods for their solution, all within the
modest resources of their time. I have been very fortunate to live
at a time where I could participate in so many phases of manned
flight. As a boy, the Wright Brothers were a legend in my home.
Later I was privileged to know Orville Wright when I was a young
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engineer at Langley Field and he was a member of the National
Advisory Co~mittee for Aeronautics (NACA). In college. I worked
under Jean Piccard. the famous balloonist, who. in 1934, flew to a
height of l2'miles with his wife. Jeannette. in a pressurized capsule
below a hydrogen-filled balloon. In college also; I helped design an
:irplane for the famous racing pilot. Roscoe Turner, with which he
was to win many races. I have been fortunate also to have lived at
a time when I could work on the airplane and its problems during
World War II, to know intimately the characteristics of the great (' ----.
aircraft of both the United States and Great Britain, and to meet many .~
of the personalities involved in these efforts. I was involved in the
first with models of various kinds, and then with the X-series re-
search aircraft. I was particularly lucky to have been working in
the Flight Test Department of NA CA. not only with manned aircraft.
but also with guided missiles.
When the United States space program was started in 1958 and
manned space flight was given high priority, I was fortunate again
for I was asked to head its first project, Project Mercury. It was
this assignment that allowed me to play the role I was to play in the
man-in-space program. and to gather a team together to work the
design, operational. and program problems that were to not only put
man in orbit. but to fly man to the Moon and back.
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II. Milestones of Flight
The knowledge required to fly to the Moon has been derived over
centuries of man's efforts. He has learned as he went along--from
a humble start in a hot air balloon; later with the airplane, and most
recently with spacecraft in Russia and America. He has utilized aero-
statics, aerodynamics, and inertial dynamics to sustain and guide his
vehicles and to probe the unknow!1. The flying machine has had a ,
fascinating evolution as it moved from one era to the next, each learn-
ing from and utilizing knowledge of the other. Generally, in each era
one flying machine occupied pride of place, either because it initiated
the era and was itself the milestone, or because it characterized and
list the flying machines that, in my opinion, led in the development
of manned flight over the years. They are listed in the following table
and are portrayed pictorially in Figure 1.
Vehicle Date Milestone
Montgolfier Balloon 1783 First manned flight
Wright Airplane 1903 First heavier-than-air flight
Douglas DC-3 1935 First major commercial airliner
Supermarine Spitfire 1938 Airplane that changed course of history in World War II
Boeing 707 1958 Dominant jet age airliner
Vostok 1961 First manned space flight
Apollo 1969 First expedition to the Moon
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A hot air balloon, built by the Montgolfier Brothers, was the
.first vehicle to lift man from the surface of the Earth. On Novem-
ber 21, 1783, Pilatre de Rozier and the marquis d'Arlandes in Paris,
France, made the first manned free -balloon flight which traveled
5-1/2 miles in 25 minutes. On December I, the same year, Charles,
another Frenchman, accompanied by one of the Robert brothers who
had manufactured the balloon, a~cended in a hydrogen-filled, rubberized
silk balloon to 2, 000 feet and flew 27 miles. Even in those days before
man first ascended in the Montgolfier balloon, animals were carried
aloft as passengers, a practice which both the Soviets and our own
United States medical specialists employed before men were permitted
activity has given way almost completely to the airplane or to the
rocket, but it surely had its place in preparing man for the airplane
and, in recent tinles, with projects such as "man high" in America,
has helped prepare man and equipment for space. The gondolas of
the stratosphere balloons were the first to encounter the environment
of outer space. Powered lighter-than-air aircraft such as the zeppelins
of World War I, the R -100 and 101 of England, the Graf Zeppelin, and
the Hindenburg, were competitive in their time. Of this class, only
the Goodyear blimps remain active in use today.
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The Wright airplane led the way into the air age. It incorporated '
all essential ~eatures of the airplane. It was to take many years. how-
ever, before the airplane became truly the workhorse of man that it
was capable of being. In the earliest days of powered flight there were
many gifted developers such as Bleriot. Curtiss. Fokker. and others.
Here in England. such pioneer~ as A. V. Roe, Sopwith. and Handley
Page produced ideas and designs that were to have a lasting impact.
World War I stimulated the development of aviation as the air knights
such as Bishop. Richthofen. Nungesser. and Rickenbacker captured
the imagination of the public and made the military planners aware of
the potential of the airplane. The Atlantic solo crossing by Lindbergh
in 1~27 O'reatlv pxoanded the pn~Tplnnp nf rn~nnprl fliO'ht ~rtivitv ~nrl O'~~TP ~ v ~ -. _ .... _
the air age additional momentum. However, the airplane had not yet
reached sufficient technical maturity to become a large economic
factor. although aircraft like the Ford Trimotor and the Fokker were
showing interesting capabilities.
It was to be the Douglas DC- 3 that became the first real workhorse
and moneymaker for the airlines. It had the aluminum alloy monocoque
structur~. low wing, retractable landing gear. and multi engine design.
all the important features of today's aircraft except for the pressure
cabin, sweptwing. and jet engine. It truly was a milestone in flying
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vehicles, and it is still in extensive use today after more than 35 years
since its first introduction on t}:le airlines.
The Supern'larine Spitfire is my next candidate. The Spitfire clearly
led the group of fighters that changed the course of history in the Battle
of Britain. This aircraft and its Merlin engine were the result of great
individual initiative and dedication on the part of aircraft and engine
designers in that critical period: before World \Var II which followed
the era of the Schneider cup racing aircraft such as the S-6B. There ,
were other worthy fighters such as the, Mustang, the Hurricane, and
the ME-I09, but the Spitfire led the era and was, in my opinion, the
greatest propeller-driven fighter of all time...:
With the advent of the jet and rocket engines, supersonic flight
break the sound barrier in 1947, and was soon followed by jet-powered
aircraft. The North American F-86 was the leading fighter in Korea,
however, in terms of aircraft that changed our lives, I believe the
Boeing 707, which led the line of jet transports into the 1960's, de-
served the first listing. The combination of the sweptwing, jet engine,
and pressure cabin has brought a new level of speed, comfort, and
economy to travel. It will be difficult to improve on this type of air-
plane except perhaps with supersonic or hypersonic designs f.or flights
covering very long distances.
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The step into space from the aeroplane was a very large one indeed .
. Although space is only 100 miles above us. flight speeds of at least
25.000 feet per second are required just to keep a spacecraft in orbit.
In order to fly in space. man. had to transcend various barriers of
speed. altitude. medicine. and reentry heating. The Russian Vostok
I. carrying Yuri Gagarin. made one orbit of the Earth on April 12.
1961. This major event occurre~ only one month before America's
first suborbital flight with Alan Shepard. in a Mercury capsule. and
almost one year ahead of America's first orbital flight by Colonel
John Glenn of February 20. 1962. It was Vostok I that introduced
the era: of manned space flight. a milestone of great and lasting
The Apollo spaceship completes my list of key flying machines.
Few. if any. would dispute the milestone represented by the first
flight to the Moon. The task of flying to the Moon and returning safely
to Earth required enormous advances in space flight t'echnology. It
required giant new facilities for the testing of rocket engines. new
launch facilities at Cape Kennedy. and a completely new center for
spacecraft development and flight operations at Houston. Texas. It
required major advances in rocketry itself. in high-speed computing.
guidance and navigation. and in tracking over the distances to and
around the Moon. Furthermore. it requireda major political
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-achievement of securing the support and backing of the Congr~s and
the American people over a period of time that extended through the
administrations of three Presidents. ----..
III. From the Airplane to Space
Space flight would not have been possible without the heritage of
the airplane. Only slightly less important was the ballistic missile
and its effect on rocketry. guidance. and reentry technology. Without
the airplane we would not have had the aeronautical engineers. test
pilots. and the organized science of manned flight. Furthermore.
the confidence in' man and his ability to command a spaceship was de-
rived from our experience in the air. The science of high-altitude
flight. involving the use of oxygen. pressure cabins. and our knowledge
of anoxia and the bends. subjects of great importance to space flight.
was learned and assessed from manned flight in the atmosphere. The
knowledge of the acceleration tolerance. of man. though not complete.
was derived from our experience with airplanes. Methods for research
in aerodynamics. for solving problems in stability and control. for
structural design of spaceframes and pressure cabins were all taken
from techniques and procedures used routinely by aeronautical engineers
in airplane design.
With the concept of the blunt reentry body by Harvey Allen of the
NACA. the solution to the reentry problem of guided missiles became
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relatively simple, and, of course, the same concepts were applied
to manned spacecraft. Blunt body designs could be far lighter in
weight than competing concepts using wings or lifting bodies because
the heat of reentry went largely into the bow shock wave rather than
into the spacecraft itself. This factor, together ,with new develop-
ments in ablative materials, made it inevitable that the first genera-
tion of space vehicles would be ,of the ballistic type .. ,
Figure 2 shows an excellent shadow graph of the flow at high Mach
number·s taken at the Ames Laboratory of NASA for a blunt shape -similar to the Mercury capsule. Note the intense bow shock and the
--------------------------------rarefaction waves giving low density flow over the afterbody. It was
also possible to make both static and dynamic stability measurements
in free flight range tests such as depicted here.
Parachutes, of course, had been studied for many years. Their
adaptation to the landing system of the blunt body concept was rela-
tively straight forward.
The rocket vehicle created for the ballistic missile programs
served to carry the manr~ed spacecraft in the early American flights.
Certainly without the years of research and development on the bal-
listic missile, the advent of manned orbital flight would have been
seriously delayed.
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And so it was in the year following the Russian's Sputnik when the
initial plans were being made for man in space, the technology was
nearly all there for flight into orbit and return. It needed only the
work of integration into workable designs and the filling of a few gaps
here and there in our knowledge.
IV. Man into Orbit
Starting with the formation of NASA in October of 1958, intense
efforts were undertaken to create a manned space vehicle and total ,
flight organization capable of flying man in orbit around the earth.
A special team, called the Space Task Group, was formed at Langley
Field, Virginia, to manage this effort which was named Project
Mercury . Fl....:::Yl_·_n~g_m_e_n_}n space required a n-=w concept of the flying . -
~~Chl~-:- vthich '.':-:-:.:!.d ::3(; the blunt reentry body previously discu::;::;eu. r--------' A pressure cabin was required to provide the astronaut with breathing
oxygen and means for disposal of the CO2 generated by the man. A
system of small jet thrusters for attitude control in the airless outer
space was required since, of course, no aerodynamic forces could
be generated, and, most important, a retrograde rocket system was
needed that would lower its orbit to impinge the atmosphere when the
time came to come back to Earth. Above all. it would have to be
very light in weight so that it could be accelerated into orbit by the
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existing rockets of that time period. Our largest rocket would put
only about 2,000 pounds in orbit at that time.
The Mercury spacecraft, which was developed by the McDonnell
Aircraft Corporation, fulfilled these difficult requirements. Its prin-
cipal features are shown in Figure 3. The heat shield was slightly
convex and was constructed of a plastic and fiber glass material that
'-----------~--------------------would give out gas and char under the intense heat thereby protecting
itself from destruction. The afterbody or conical section of the space-
craft was covered by shingles of a high temperature alloy similar to
that used for turbine blades of jet engines. These shingles were
insula,ted from the titanium pressure shell and they dissipated their
heat by radiation. Parachutes were by far the lightest and most re-
liable means for making the final descent to Earth. The parachute
section was protected from the heat of reentry by shingles of
Beryllium which had sufficient heat capacity to soak up the heat input
in this portion of the spacecraft.
Another key factor in the design of the spacecraft was the supine
couch for the astronaut. At the outset of the Mercury program, there
was considerable doubt that man could withstand the G loads associated
with rocket boost and reentry, particularly in certain abort situations
which in the worst case could generate loads of 20-g or more. The
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form fitting supine couch was conceived by Max Faget of the Space
. Task Group to' overcome this problem. Extensive runs were made
-----------------------with the Navy's human centrifuge at Johnsville that demonstrated the
supine couch pri~ciple to over 20-'g without injury to the human test
subject. ,
The spacecraft was designed, to land on the water because of the
large water areas under the ground track of the orbit since our flights
had to be launched'in easterly directions from Cape Canavera1>!< over
the South Atlantic. Furthermore. it was easier to attenuate the landing
impact forces in water landings than it would have been in those early
days with landings on hard ground.
The A stronauts were brought on board the Mercury Program in
April 1959. They were all volunteer military pilots. 5 foot. 11 inches
in height or under. and graduates of the Air Force or Navy Test Pilot
Schools. In addition. each was required to have a Bachelor degree
in engineering or equiva1e.E,t and at least 1500 hours of jet time. Of
the first group of over 60 candidates that were called to Washington
to hear about the Mercury Program. over 80 percent volunteered.
All were of such a high caliber that selection was difficult. I had
complete freedom of selection within an agreement with Dr. G1ennan,
----------------~----~
*The name of Cape Canaveral was later changed to Cape Kennedy
following the assassination of President Kennedy.
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the Administrator of NASA at that time. that I would choose not less
. than 6 or more than 12. I picked seven: 3 Air Force. 3 Navy, and one
------Marine on the basis that the amount of flying to be done in the Mercury
Program would t;>robably not give 'more than this size crew each a
chance to fly. These men were true pioneers. They volunteered at
a time when our plans were only on paper. Working with these men.
one came to respect their motivaVon and courage.
The selection of the A stronauts came at a time of almost over-
powering public interest in manned space flight. The introduction of
the Astronauts to the American and Foreign Press at a Press Confer-
ence in Washington later on that same summer is shown in Figure 4.
Each Astronaut became famous long before ne flew. in space. These ----------~~----------~---~
young men learned very quickly how to behave as public figures.
Additional groups of astronaut trainees were selected and added
to our growing staff in the next few years.
The first full scale test of the Mercury concept came in September
1959 with a reentry test of a special test body launched by an Atlas
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rocket at Cape Canaveral. In this test, the launch rocket malfunctioned
in a manner that caused a more steep reentry trajectory than had been
planned which resulted in even greater heating rates than would have
been obtained in a reentry from the prescribed orbital conditions.
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In addition. the spacecraft landed over a hundred miles from its pre-
dicted landing point which gave us a chance to exercise the Naval
Recovery Forces in a contingency situation. The test allowed us to
correlate with and refine the wind tunnel predictions of heating on the
surfaces. The G forces of reentry were as expected and an acoustic
pickup on board showed that the hoise in the cabin was not excessive
for a human occupant. We were fil.ble to tell the Press that man would
have survived the flight without difficulty. Figure 5 shows the capsule
after recovery in excellent condition. Also shown in the photograph
are Max Faget, principal designer of the capsule on the right, Charles ----------------!-. -,----- '~-'-
Mathews on the left, who is now at NASA Headquarters in Washington,
1'_ '., > "''10 Wo!,vc>t'1 tile "'ecoT,'cry problem, and myself in the fl~on~.
I was pleased to have the test turn out so well.
The first production' Mercury spacecraft (MA -1) was flown in July
1960 in a rainstorm and at night. It disintegrated at about 60 seconds
into the flight when the aerodynamic forces were at a maximum. With
this one failure, I was impressed at how quickly and completely the
Press and other authorities could become antagonistic toa program
I~---------------------------------which had been progressing smoothly up to that ~nt. We were able
to recover wreckage of the capsule and the Atlas rocket from under the
sea off Cape Canaveral. With the aid of these parts and other tele- •
metered data, we were able to determine that the cause of the accident
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was due to insufficient strength in the nose section of the Atlas and
the spacecraft adapter .. We also learned that flying experimental . spacecraft in a driving rainstorm and at night was not good opera-
tional practice, which, of course, should have been obvious to anyone.
We were to have one more spectacular failure tn the Mercury Pro-
gram which has become known as the "tower" flight. In this sad
affair, the escape tower, the parachutes, and the peroxide fuel were
all deployed on the launching pad in front of all of the domestic and
international Press. The cause of the problem was a relative simple ~-----------------
ground circuit defect in the Redstone launch vehicle which caused
the main engine to ignite and then shutdown after having caused lift-
off.from the launchine- pad of about 2 inches. The capsule eVfmt~ wprp
keyed to the engine shutdown after being armed by stage liftoff as this
was the normal procedure for sequencing unmanned flight. Figure 6
shows the launch situation the instant that the powerful escape tower
was jettisoned. As you might expect, it was very difficult to explain
this spectacular series of events to the working press, and even to .. ~
my bosses in Washington; D. C. It was necessary for us simply to
put our heads down and go methodically forward with our program
in spite of the many criticisms that were directed at us.
In December 1960, we had our first successful suborbital flight
with the same Mercury capsule of the tower flight but a new Redstone
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launch vehicle. The test included liftoff, jettisoning of the escape tower,
separation of the capsule, turn around, reentry, deployment of the para-
chutes, and landing.
In the next flight, a chimpanzee, named Ham, was flown in a Mercury
capsule in February 1961. Here again we had some unscheduled events
that resulted in a delayed pickup· and water entering the spacecraft as
a result of recontact of the heat shield with the lower pressure bulkhead. ---However, the animal performed admirably at zero gravity and was picked
up unharmed. Ham, the chimpanzee, became quite famous as shown by
the cartoon of Figure 7. Ham was really a lovable little fellow as well
as a true pioneer, as shown in Figure 8.
UTY"nnrT 'UT'1"h "~l.J _. - .. '-
flight could be corrected by hard work on the ground without further
flight, either unmanned or with animals. After a thorough analysis
of the data, I recommended to Dr. Dryden, the Deputy Administrator,
and to Mr. Webb, the Administrator, that we go ahead with our first
manned suborbital flight. However, at the request of the Marshall ~------~-----------------
Center there was to be one more unmanned flight for booster develop-c.<;.. __ -----..
ment with a dummy spacecraft carried only for ballast to give the
correct aerodynamic shape.
All of these events were occurring at the time that the new President
Kennedy and his staff were taking over from the outgoing Eisenhower
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administration. Dr. Keith Glennan, the administrator of NASA during
its first years, gave way to Mr. James Webb, who was to be the
administrator until October 1968. I took an immediate liking to Mr.
Webb. He was a dynamic man, absolutely forthright. with boundless
energy. He put' all this energy into advancing the space program. I ,----..
developed a close working relationship with him and myoId friend, ,
Hugh Dryden, who was the continuing Deputy Administrator. With
the change in command in our Government to the Kennedy administra-
tion, however, came other events. Project Mercury was to be exam-
ined by the new head of Science in the Kennedy administration,
Dr .. Jerome Wiesner, and a staff of medical and physical scientists.
Our hearings before the Wiesner Committee, however, went reasonably
well until we came to the problem of convincing the doctors that it was . --safe for man to fly at zero gravity. Even though Ham, the chimpanzee, ~
had fared very well and was completely normal after his flight, the
medical men on the committee were loathe to accept this as evidence
that man could stand the 15 minutes of zero gravity in the Mercury sub-
orbital flight. They were concerned whether man could even stand the
mental stress of lying on top of a rocket and being blasted into space.
They were concerned in addition that man could stand the launch
accelerations even though this had been convincingly demonstrated
on the human centrifuge. Seeing my own doctors appearing before
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some of these medical experts put me in the mind of an old painting
. I had once seen of Louis Pasteur appearing before the French College
~~--------------------------------------------------------------------of Surgeons.
But it was here that the close working relationship we had with our
Administrator, Mr. Webb, and with Hugh Dryden, really paid off,
because Mr. Webb was convincE!d that we knew what we were doing ,
and that the program should move ahead. He made the decision to
move ahead and warned the committee that any objections they had
to it would have to stand the light of day in the public press. NASA's
own house was in order. We were prepared to fly Alan Shepard
although the announcement of who would fly was a closely guarded
secret until the day scheduled for ::'d.l,lilCL.
On April 12, less than one month before we were to fly, Vostok I
orbited the Earth with Yuri Gagarin aboard. Public feeling in
America ran high that the Mercury Program was hopelessly behind
and there was considerable feeling that a new management of the r
program would be required before we could catch up with the Russians.
-----------------------------------------------The task of defending our program fell on all of us but mostly on the
broad shoulders of Mr. Webb. As the first manned flight in the
Mercury Program approached, considerable thought was given to the
degree of openness which was desirable in the news coverage of the·
program. Of course, the American television networks, radio, and
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press were in favor of complete coverage of the launch and of the
activity in Mission Control Center. I was convinced that no matter
what we officials, decided there would be essentially complete cover-
age of the launch in any event. However. in the Control Center; it
~-------------------------was my feeling at that time that we should not be subjected to on-the-
____ ---·~1
spot coverage by the press during the critical periods of launch. orbit. '-=---. ,- . __ .-.'-_. --
and recovery. This is the way we went forward. although there was ..... ------------..... considerable misgiving among even our topmost political figures as
to whether or nGt this was the correct decision. However, with the
success of our first manned flight under the full glare of live TV
and radio coverage. the wisdom of this decision was apparent to all.
We were committed to this policy for the future.
Success came to the Mercury Project in a hurry after the Ham
flight in February 1961. The Mercury-Atlas 2 with a beefed-up Atlas
nose structure was completely successful. It demonstrated the actual
production capsule in the launch and reentry environment as well as
the Atlas rocket itself. Alan Shepard's flight in Freedom 7 was
followed by Gus Grissom in a Mercury capsule called Liberty Bell.
The orbital flights of Project Mercury followed with a mechanical
man. a chimpanzee named Enos, and we were then ready for manned
flight into orbit. We were extremely fortunate to have 6 successful
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A tlas vehicles in a row to complete the Mercury program. Figure 9
shows a photograph of the liftoff of John Glenn in Mercury-Atlas 6 on
February 20, 1962, for America I s first orbital flight. We learned
much from the flights of Glenn, Carpenter, Schirra, and Cooper that
was to help us in .the lunar program ..
The exposure of man to zero gravity in these early manned flights
was., perhaps, .the greatest medical experiment of all time .. All the ~ --
astronauts who flew in the Mercury capsule found the weightless state
of no particular problem. All returned to Earth with no medical dif-
ficulties whatsoever. This finding was so fundamental and straight
forward that ,its importance was missed by many medical critics of
the time. It then became a question of simply how long could man
withstand weightlessness and of detail medical measurements of how
the body compensated for the new environment.· It is true that zero
gravity has produced some problems in the areas of locomotion and
habitability but not in man himself. Even the longest duration flights
of the future will probably require only methods of keeping the human
body properly exercised and nourished in order to prevent a difficult
reaction on returning to the gravity of Earth.
V. On to the Moon
Following the successful flight of Alan Shepard, we debriefed the
operation downrange in the Bahamas with doctors, operations people,
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and astronauts. This debriefing was followed by a trip to Washington
during which I first met the President, Mr. Kennedy, at the White
House. Sitting with him, Mr. Webb, Alan Shepard, and others in
the astronaut corps, I was impressed by the interest shown at the
highest levels of, our Government in the man-in-space program. I
remember well President Kennedy remarking that if the World were
;
to measure us by our exploits in space we should then move forward ,
and be second to none. During all this euphoria based on Alan Shepard's
flight on a Redstone, however, I was sobered by the fact that flight into
orbit on an Atlas was a task of entirely different dimensions. We had a..... ----- --...
still not orbited our man as had the Russians with the Vostok. On
May 25, 1961, President John Kennedy, on the advice of Mr. Johnson,
the Vice PreslOent, lVlr. Webb, ana other hIgh NA SA officials, and
with the backing of the Congress, announced to the World that the United
States would endeavor with all its resources to land men on the Moon
and return them safely to Earth in this 'decade (bero~O). The 1\
program to achieve this voyage to the Moon was named Project Apollo.
A t the time of the President's decision, we had only A Ian Shepard's
one brief manned flight into space. We knew little of flying and navi-
gating in space, and we knew very little about the Moon itself. There
was an immense amount of work to be done. There was no doubt that
. my Project Mercury team really wanted to work on the moon landing.
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We were a young organization with great drive and capability. We had
?-lready faced many of the stresses of getting man into space. We had
the trained astronauts, the medical experts, and many highly creative
young engineers ~nd scientists. 6: fully expected that the Marshall
Space Flight Center at Huntsville, under Dr. von Braun, would get the
job of developing the big moon r"ocket, and we believed that we had a
good chance of being placed in chflrge of the spacecraft development
and the flight operations ~The Ke~nedY launch center had not yet been
created, but Dr. Kurt ~us, who has been its director from the start,
was already at the Cape as Launch Director for the Marshall Center.
It seemed to me that one of the toughest problems that we faced
the vital technical facts had been established. I knew how important
the proper technical approach would be and I wondered how NASA or
any other agency of Government or industry could make so many
important decisions in a new field in such a short time as would be
required. These decisions would have to be technically sound and
yet the decision process would have to involve many experts with
frequently conflicting ideas. Also, the support of the Congress of
the United States would be required for at least seven or eight years
in a row.
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My doubts were disspelled-:-not all at once, but over what I be-
.lieve" was a remarkable year of decision following the President's
announcement. The job of developing the launch vehicle was assigned
to the Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama, as ex-
pected; and. as I had hoped, my Mercury Project team was assigned
the job of developing the spacec:raft and of creating a complex of tech-
nical facilities for spacecraft research and development. for astronaut ,
training, and for flight operations. I became head of a new NASA center
dedicated to those functions, to be located in Houston, Texas. The
center had been authorized by Congress but it was yet to be designed
and built. Our next few years in Houston were spent in a group of
the center was being designed and constructed. Figure 10 shows
President Kennedy during a visit to Houston, Texas, during the early
stages of the creation of the Manned Sp"acecraft Center. Mr. Johnson,
the Vice President, Mr. Webb, Brainerd Holmes, and myself are
visible. The studies on Apollo were yielding to hard work but we were
faced still with major operations in Project Mercury and intense grow-
ing pains in center operations and in contractor relations. We were
also expanding our staff from the few hundred in Project Mercury to :",,--...
over 3, 000 for the new job to be done, finding new homes in Texas for
--------------------------------------------------- ------
II
~ our families. and American industry on board for the design
and construction of the center and of the Apollo spacecraft and its '--- . equipment. ~~
Many of the key ideas and .designs for going to the Moon were created
during this period of upheaval. turmoil. and the stress of major flight
activity. However. even before, the President's decision to land on the
Moon. we had been working on d~signs and guidelines for a circumlunar
mission. This had been done in a series of "bull sessions" on how
we would design the spaceship for this purpose. Our key people would
get together evenings. weekends. or whenever we could to discuss
such questions as crew size and fundamental design factors. We be-
quired even before the complexity of the landing was added. We believed
that man would be able to stand a zero gravity environment for the time
period required to go to the Moon and back. and we had decided also
that an oxygen atmosphere at 5 lbs. per square inch was the best
------------------------engineering compromise for a system that would permit extravehicular
activity on the Moon without another module for an airlock. Other
basic decisions included the selection of an onboard navigation system.
as well as the ground-base system. controlled reentry to reduce G loads
and give pinpoint landings. These original guidelines for lunar flight
24.
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25.
-. were presented to all the NASA, Centers and to the aerospace industry,
.and even in retrospect they look good today.
The conceptual design of the moonship was done in two phases: the
,command and service module was done first as part of our circumlunar
---------------------- ---------------------------------studies, and the lunar lander was added later following the President's ~--------
decision that we should land on the Moon. We were extremely fortunate
that the design that evolved had ~uch intrinsic merit. As in many suc-'-
cessful enterprises, there was an element of good luck in this. We
had designed our spaceship to have the command module on top of the
stack so that the astronauts could escape by means of an escape tower
if abort were to prove necessary during launch. The service module
bottom element of the spacecraft was to be what we called a "mission"
module to which the crew could transfer for Earth orbital experiments.
Thus, when the full landing mission came along we were able to sub-
stitute the lunar lander for this so-called mission module. The turn
around, docking, and tunnel transfers between the command module
and the lunar module were then the same as we had planned between
the command module and the original mission module.
The shape of the command module was a refinement of the Mercury
capsule shape optimized for the higher heating rates of the reentry at
lunar return speeds and the angles of attack which were required to
II
26.
give the lift to drag ratios for controlled reentry. Figure 11 shows a
'shadow graph of the flow field at high Mach numbers over the Apollo
command module shape. One must remember that back in 1961. re-
entry. even from, Earth orbit.· was a mysterious business. Except
for Gagarin's highly secret flight. man had not yet returned from orbit
and the heating rates generated ~uring the reentry coming home from
the Moon were twice as great as those in reentering from satellite
speed. Reentry experts had warned us about an additional heating
factor from shock wave radiation. Our studies. however. showed that
the blunt shape was still optimum although the afterbody should be more
highly tapered than was the Mercury capsule because we would have to ~------------------------------------~
keep the spacecraft walls from being overneated by the aIrflow. As
---------------------------------~ ...-it was to turn out. our flights to the Moon have shown that our design
was very conservative. particularly on the afterbody so that we could
have used a shape of considerably less taper than that used on the
A pollo capsule. Dr. Max Faget. working closely with Caldwell Johnson
and others of the Space Task Group. was largely responsible for putting
down the lines of the command module. external shape as well as the
internal arrangement of the spacecraft. These two men had defined
the design in a conceptual sense by the late summer of 1961. A cutaway
view of the Apollo command module is shown in Figure 12.
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27.
A1l along during the planning for the Moon missions. I had been
greatly concellned about the effects of solar radiation on the astro-
nauts. I could remember statements by radiation experts saying that
it would take very heavy shielding to stop the radiation on a trip to the
Moon. However. Dr. George Low, who at that time was head of
Manned Space Flight in Washington and who is now the Acting Admini-
strator for NASA, convinced me,that shielding of the normal cabin wa1ls . ~~--------------
together with the low probability of high solar activity would alleviate
this hazard. He has been right and the radiation experienced by the ,.--------.
astronauts on the trips to the Moon has been of no medical significance.
Navigation in space might have been a serious problem had not
':'~1'."?!:,pr 8 nn ms gY'oup at IVll:!' got an early start. They wer'"
brought in under contract to devise a system for Apo1lo back in 1961.
They .. together with their industrial partners. have produced a system
that has proven to be amazingly accurate.
The pieces of the master plan were now beginning to fit together.
In the fa1l of 1961, North American Aviation had won the contract for
the Apo1lo command and service module. The basic design of the
service propulsion engine. the reaction control system, and the fuel
cells were underway. But there v.,-ere still two major technical areas
to be settled before the master plan was complete. These were the·
launch vehicle design and the method to be used for landing on the
Moon.
II
As a result of many studies, the large NOVA rocket. which had
. been planned f.or direct ascent to the Moon, had lost many of its backers.
Dr. von Braun and the Huntsville team were beginning to zero in on a
rocket of intermediate size .. This rocket was to use five of the huge
F-I engines in the first stage and a new hydrogen-oxygen engine in the
upper stages. It would be sized to send over 90,000 pounds on a course
to the Moon. We in Houston str~ngly supported this concept which was ----
later called the Saturn V, because only one r cket vehicle of this size
would be required to send our spacec e Moon if we were to use
the lunar orbit rendezvous technique of landing on the Moon. Getting
official approval for the lunar orbit rendezvous method of lunar landing
Brainerd Holmes. whom Mr. Webb had selected to head the Apollo ::>
Program, in Washington, strongly favored a scheme called Earth Orbit
Rendezvous. This mode would use multiple launchings of these huge
Saturn V rockets, joining them together in orbit and pumping fuel from
one to refill the other, then realigning and lighting off that rocket to
the Moon. The Huntsville group quite naturally favored this method
also.
From the very earliest time, I believed in and supported the lunar
orbit rendezvous mode. In this mode, the lander leaves the mother-
28.
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ship in lunar orbit and goes down to the Moon's surface. It later ren-
dezvouses with the mother ship upon returning to lunar orbit. Lunar
orbit rendezvous was proposed by John Houbolt, who was chairman of ---....
a group who studied this plan at the Langley Research Center. When
I heard of his pHm, I was convinced' for the first time that our current
technology would really support a landing on the Moon. His plan re-
quired far less weight injected toward the Moon, but even more im-
portant in my view was the fact that it allowed the separation of functions
of landing from those going to and from the Moon and of reentering the
Earth's atmosphere and of Earth landing. Furthermore, it would divide
the tremendous industrial job between two major contractors thereby
giving each one a job of more manageable size. By late fall of 1961,
all of us at the new Manned Spacecraft Center were unified in support
of lunar orbit rendezvous and were working tooth and nail to find out
all we could about lunar landers. rendezvousing, and the tradeoffs to
be made. In December 1961, we made an earnest appeal to Brainerd
Holmes, who was then my boss. to approve lunar orbit rendezvous;
however. he could not be convinced at that time, and only six months
later was the final decision to be made.
The credit for selling the lunar orblt mode must be given to the
Houston people. Charlie Frick, who was our Apollo Spacecraft Man-
ager at that time, was particularly effective. Studies conducted by
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30.
Frick's people converted first the key engineers at the Marshall Space
Flight Center, including Drs. Rees and von Braun, and, finally,
Brainerd Holmes in Washington. Dr. Joe Shea, Holmes' assistant, ... ----------.
~en carried the decj sion on to the higher echelons of the Governmen~
Mr. Webb approved the lunar rendezvous plan and only Dr. Wiesner
and a few others of the President~s Scientific Advisors remained un-
convinced. However, the White House accepted Mr. Webb's decision.
Our Administrator, Mr. Webb, now had a master plan to go ahead
with. It consisted of a giant three-stage launch vehicle, the Saturn V.
There would be a command module with three astronauts on board.
The command module would be a blunt reentry body but properly shaped . :-I'IC' 1J'='_l'<-'~lt'ti loro ,ollnt r0 r.lI H"_1-gllc11ng reentry. It would use ablanve
material for the heat shield and would land at sea with parachutes. A
separate service J;llodule would carry the space propulsion engine,
attitude control jets, and fuel cells for electric power, together with
supplies of fuel and oxygen. There would be a lunar landing stage
designed specifically for the job of landing on the Moon. It would carry
two men down to the Moon's surface and back to rendezvous with the
mother ship in orbit.
In its simplest terms, this was the technical plan for Apollo and
it was to need no change as it went forward into development. All of -
this had been decided by May 1962, one year after President Kennedy's
momentous announcement. Less than 6 months later, Grumman had
won the contract to build the lunar lander.
There was still one major element missing: how were we to bridge
"'--the tremendous gap between the simple Mercury Earth orbital program
---------------------and the Apollo voyage to the Moon. We needed experience in space flight,
flight time, trained and experienced astronauts, and an engineering pro-
totype for our ideas. The answer was Project Gemini. Gemini carried
two men. It had onboard propulsion for maneuvering in orbit, guidance
equipm.ent, and a rendezvous radar and a target vehicle designed to
permit docking. The arrangement of the Gemini systems is shown
in Figure 13. It gave us nearly 2, 000 man hours in space and developed
the rendezvous and docking essential to A polIo. It showed us that zero
gravity was no real problem for the length of a lunar mission. It gave
us experience in space suits and in operations' outside the cabin to pre-
pare us for the Moon's surface. A summary of the Gemini flights and
their accomplishments is given in Figure 14. Figures 15, 16, 17, and
18 show Gemini operations. The decision to have a Gemini Program
was made in December 1961. The twelfth and final Gemini flight occurred
in November 1966. It was during Gemini that Chris Kraft and his team ~,--------~~----------------------------------~.~~
at Mission Control really made space flight operational. They devised "---- ..,
superb techniques for f~ight management and rendezvous. The Mission
31.
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32.
Control Center developed to where it was really ready for the complex
Apollo missions. Chris Kraft. Deke Slayton. head of the astronauts •
. and Dr. Berry. our head of Medical Operations. learned there how to
work together as a team.
While we wer~ learning to fly men in space in Project Gemini. un-
manned satellites were being used to chart the surface of the Moon.
The Ranger spacecraft sent back television pictures of the Moon as it
crashed on its surface. The Surveyor, which came later. was an un-
manned lander actually determining the bearing strength of the lunar
soil and the configuration of the lunar surface in some detail. A Lunar
Orbiter was later used to photograph and map the various landing sites
which might be suitable for future manned landing missions. The
Lunar Orbiter was so successful that it charted both the front and
the backsides of the Moon in the way that allowed the landing sites for
the first A polIo mission to be studied and selected.
Intensive work was also going on during the period of the Gemini
flights in the development of the moons hip and the lunar lander.
Several unmanned flights were made with prototypes of the moonship
to test the launch escape system in simulated off-the-pad aborts. the
navigation and guidance system, and the heat protecting system during
. reentries from Earth orbit.
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33.
In January 1967. a tragedy occurreq at Cape Kennedy while prepa-
rations were underway for our first manned flight in Apollo. Astronauts
Grissom. White, and Chaffee were killed by a flash fire in the cabin
while the spacecraft and launch vehicle were undergoing a simulated
mission on the gantry. In the year that followed the fire, intense ef-.... _-------..
forts were made to reduce as much as humanly possible the threat of
fire in the spacecraft. Under the leadership of George Low, who had
become the Program Manager for the A pollo spacecraft following the
fire, new materials were found for the cabin interior which were
~-----------------------------------virtually incapable of burning. Space suits were redesigned to use
Beta cloth, which is a type of fiber glass material that will not burn.
operations were modified to use a mixture of oxygen and nitrogen in
the cabin in place of pure oxygen to reduce the fire hazard. The months
and years following the fire were difficult. .For a time it appeared that
the program might not survive. The most bitter attacks and allegations c: ' --------
were made against the program. Perhaps one would expect such be-
havior toward a program of this type supported by public funds.
In November of that same year our first launch of the huge Saturn V
rocket was accomplished. The Saturn rocket launched the Apollo com-
mand and service modules on a trajectory from which they could
II
be driven back into the Earth's atmosphere at the same speed at which
. they would return from the Moon in later flights. The service module
engine was used to help increase the speed of reentry by driving the
command module back toward the Earth. Both the spacecraft and the
launch rocket performed perfectly in this mission. We obtained our
first full scale test data for both rocket and spacecraft operations.
Figure 19 shows the Apollo command module at the North American
Aviation plant fo~lowing its successful reentry at lunar speeds. Shown.
standing in front of the command module are Dr. George Low. the \
Apollo Spacecraft Manager. and myself. both of us very pleased by
its performance.
The first manned Apollo flight. ,t;p0110 7, vCCU.i. 1. tU ~u CdObta" lOGS.
It was a flight of the command and service module only and it was flown
in Earth orbit for 12 days. The crew was made up of Walter Schirra,
Walter Cunningham. and Donn Eisele. The complete success of this
flight allowed us to plan for a circumlunar mission on Apollo 8.
The time had not yet come. however. to fly on to the Moon. The
second flight of the Saturn V developed an instability which was called
POGO. POGO is a heavy low frequency oscillation along the axis of
the vehicle which results in undesirable forces and accelerations being
"~--------------------------------------------------------------transmitted through the rocket system and into the spacecraft itself:
~------------------------------------------------------------------Intensive efforts were made to correct this instability and in December
1968. we were ready for our first manned flight to the Moon. This
34.
II
flight was not designed to land ~:m the Moon, however, but to orbit the
. Moon in order' to simulate that phase of a lunar landing mission. This
would give us an opportunity to explore the mass characteristics of the
Moon; to check our equations for the transfer from the Earth to the
Moon and return; to use the service propulsion engine where the mar-
gins for error were greater thah in a lunar landing mission; and to
give us a chance to explore facto.rs from the lunar sphere, such as
communications and tracking, with as ,much going for us as possible.
As luck would have it, this flight, Apollo 8, had to be scheduled right
through the Christmas holidays as the window for going to the Moon
occurred at that time unless we were willing to delay the flight for
, us with our timetable for landing on the Moon in the decade of the 60's.
The astronauts flying the mission, Frank Borman, James Lovell, and
William Anders were to make for the first time such maneuvers as
the large burn decelerating the craft into lunar orbit, passage behind
the Moon during many orbits, and the burn maneuver accelerating the
craft out of lunar orbit and back on a trans earth trajectory. This flight, --o~c~c~u=r~r=in:::.g~a=-s=-.:i:.::t_d=l=-· d:....::a=-t:.....:C:..:h.::.:r:..:l:::· s:..:t::m=a::s:..:t.:.i::m::.e::,~h~a::.d::.....:a~p:.:r:..:o=-f:.:o:..:u=n:.:.:d....:l:::· m~p:..:a::.:c:.:t:....::o:.::n:-.;;th=e-,p",-e:::..:~le
~America in particular, and particularly on those of us
who were close to the Astronauts and to the program. Apollo 8 tool(
many beautiful photographs of the Moon and many valuable ones of the
planned landing sites.
35.
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~ Apollo 8 was followed by Apollo 9 in February 1969 in which both the
lunar module and command module were tested in Earth orbit. This
was the first manned flight of the lunar module and it allowed the test-
ing of rendezvous and docking between the command and service modules
and the lunar module, a vital function which had to be proven before the
landing mission could be attemp~ed. Astronauts McDivitt, Schweickart,
and Scott formed the team for this flight with McDivitt and Schweickart
piloting the lunar module and Scott controlling the mother ship. The
transfer of the crew members through the tunnel system of the space-
craft was accomplished successfully and with no problems. As in pre-
vious flights the space engines of the command and service module per-
formed flawlessly, as did the lanrlin~ pn~inp!,: ::Inn ::I !,:(,pnt pn~inp nf thp
lunar moqule.
We were now ready for the final dress rehearsal of the lunar land-
ing mission. Apollo 10 was launched in May 1969 on a trajectory to the
Moon. It was to do all phases of the landing mission except that of @
the actual landing itself. It was to develop the timelines for the crew,
work out the therm~ control procedures during trans lunar and trans-
CY earth trajectory, actually prepare the landing module for separation
. @ from the mother ship in lunar orbit, and descend into low orbit around
the Moon for photographing the landing sites. A stronauts Stafford aqd
36.
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37 o.
Cernan flew within 50, 000 feet of the lunar surface and returntJ> success-
fully to rendezvous with Astronaut Young in the mother ship. Photographs
of Apollo flights leading up to the landing mission are shown in Figures 20,
21, 22, 23, and 2~.
By July 1969, all of the final preparations had been made in readying
the Saturn V rocket, the command and service modules, the lunar lander, ,
and all of the ground and tracking 'equipment for the landing on the Moon.
Astronauts Armstr6ng, Collins, and Aldrin had spent hundreds of hours
training with ground simulators for this key mission. Armstrong had
made many flights with the lunar landing trainer shown in Figure 25,
which was flown at Houston to simulate the final descent to the Moon
under the reduced gravity conditions to be expected tnere. ~ciemllic
equipment had been carefully developed, checked out and stowed aboard
the landing craft for deployment on the lunar surface. The deep space
communication network was ready; so were the ground control teams,
Mission Control Center, and the recovery forces at sea. Techniques
and procedures had been devised for containing the lunar samples and
the astronauts in a state of quarantine following the return to Earth.
These precautions were considered necessary by the National Academy
of Sciences to protect the Earth against the remote possibility that un-
desirable organisms might be brought back inadvertently from the Moon.
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38.
The launch of Apollo 11 occurred the morning of July 16, 1969. All
elements of thE! ground and flight equipment performed flawlessly. The
landing on the Moon was made on July 20, 1969, at the Sea of Tranquility.
Armstrong's historic words after touchdown were: "Houston - Tranquility
Base here - the Eagle has Landed." Approximately 46 pounds of lunar . ~
rocks and fines were collected and stowed in special vacuum-type boxes
for transportation back to Earth. '. ,A special laser reflector was em-
placed on the lunar surface which is being used for determining the
precise motions of the moon to a degree never before possible. A
special lunar seismometer was emplaced on the surface of the moon
which has given measurements of seismic activity. The astronauts
found that it was quite pleasant to VIi,ilk 0li ~iH:; »10011 ~i1 bp.i.i.e v[ U1I::::.i.1'
heavy space suits and life support equipment. The 1/6 gravity allowed
them to walk and even to lope at speeds up to 5 or 6 miles an hour with-------------------
out becoming excessively tired. Both Aldrin and Armstrong enjoyed
the 1/6 gravity of the moon surface and felt that it was preferable to
either the zero gravity of space flight or the one gravity of the earth.
They placed an American flag on the Moon and drove a core sample
device 5 inches into the lunar surface for later scientific analysis.
After several hours they returned to the cabin where they were able
to rest before checkout and countdown for liftoff back to orbit around·
II 39.
the Moon. Here again, all systems, including the ascent engine, per-
form~d perfectly and rendezvous with the mother ship was done in a . routine fashion. ,Docking was accomplished and the transfer of lunar
sample boxes was made back to the command module without difficulty.
The return from'lunar orbit to trans earth trajectory was done accord-
ing to plan and the landing in th;e Pacific occurred without incident.
The astronauts and samples were placed in a sealed van aboard a carrier
and transported back to the Lunar Receiving Laboratory in Houston where
-they were quara-ntined for 21 days from the time they set foot on the lunar
surface. Figure 26 shows the astronauts as they arrived in the transfer
van. '1;'odate there has been no evidence of any organisms on the lunar
surface even thouP'h elaborate tests with manv tvoeR of Dlants and animals
have been made for determining possible effects.
In November of the same year, A stronauts Conrad, Gordon, and
Bean lifted off for our second mission to the Moon on Apollo 12. As
their spacecraft lifted off the launch pad in a light rain, it was struck
by lightning. The lightning shock threw the main power system off the
line. However, it was possible for the crew to get all systems back on r
the line and to ascertain that there had been no damage done, before
the final burn of the Saturn rocket had to be made to put the spacecraft
on a trajectory to the Moon. A polIo 12 was considerably more ambitious'
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40.
than had been Apollo 11. A landing was made next to the old Surveyor
spacecraft in the Surveyor crater and there were carried several new
scientific experiments for placement on the Moon.
The safe return of the astronauts from Apollo 12 following a fully
successful mission brings me nearly to the end of the Apollo story todate.
We have had one other Apollo mission. however. Apollo 13. which in
some respects had an even greater impact on the people of the worl~ -than did the Apollo 11 and 12. Apollo 13 was not able to land on the Moon.
It was barely able to get home after being severely damaged by an
explosion in the electrical power section of the service module.
During the four-day Apollo 13 ordeal. the world watched breathlessly
as the lunar module pushed the stricken command and service module
aruund the Moon and back again to Eartk i';v vile hUll1d.ll ~.i;e i~ 111Ul'e
valuable than any any other. Each is infinitely precious. Yet the prayers
of millions rode with the crew of Apollo 13. Astronauts Lovell. Raise.
and Swigert were not just 3 Americans on a dangerous mission. they
were ambassadors of the Earth to new and unknown regions. For a time
it seemed that people the world over recognized the importance of the
reach into space.
Before leaving the discussion of A pollo. I would like very briefly
to show some of the scientific activities accomplished by the astronauts
in the first two A pollo lunar missions. A s shown by Figure 27. A stro-
nauts Aldrin and Armstrong established a scientific station on the Moon.
II
The instrument in the center of the photograph is a seismometer. a
device which is used on Earth to measure the intensity of earthquakes.
Because the moon is such a quiet body. it is possible to use a much
more sensitive seismometer there than would be possible on the earth.
The seismometers used have been so sensitive that they could even
measure the signals generated by the footsteps of the astronauts as
they walked on the lunar surface~
Another instrument placed on the surface in. the first lunar land
ing is the laser reflector. which is still operating today and we believe
will operate for many years to come. Laser beams have been suc
cessfully reflected from its surface by the McDonnell Observatory
!i.i. '.Vest Tc:~a3 .:.~-..::! ~J- ':'~5el'vatories in California and Europe. By
measuring the round trip time of the laser beam from the earth to
this reflector. it is possible to measure accurately the distance be
tween the earth and the moon. From accurate measurements of this
distance. we can tell how our continents are moving relative to each
other. It is going to take time. of course. to measure this continental
drift because the continents drift very slowly.
Figure 28 shows Astronaut Alan Bean assembling the radio isotope
. reactor which is used to power the Apollo 12 experiments. It has been
41.
II
working continuously since Apollo 12 landed. It generates about 70 watts
of electrical power and is still powering a seismometer that was put
down there along with ion detectors and magnetometers and, of course,
the communication and command systems. Figure 29 shows Captain
Bean carrying the science station on the lunar surface. It WqS set up
considerably further away from the lunar module than it was on Apollo 11
in order to minimize rocket blast ~:m liftoff. There have been many
interesting'things observed by the seismometer of Apollo 12. When the
astronauts got back to the command module from the Moon, they jet-
tisoned the lunar module which was programmed to impact the Moon
at a distance of several miles from the seismometer. In this manner
crust could be measured. It was also determined that the disturbance
did not damp out for over 30 minutes.
The next photograph, Figure 30, shows an astronaut picking up
a rock with a pair of tongs. They have brought back over 100 pounds '-------.
of carefully selected lunar material from both Apollo 11 and Apollo 12
landing sites. Figure 31 shows some of the typical rocks. There are
coarse and fine grain types. They all seem to have little craters in
them from meteorite impacts. I think the most interesting thing about
the rocks is that they are very, very old and their chemistry is far ...
different from anything ever seen on Earth. The larger discrete rocks
~-~-----------------------------------------
42.
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from Apollo 11 are about 3.6 billion years old as determined from the
'decay of radio 'active elements in them. Most of the rocks from
A polIo 12 are about the same age. The lunar soil. however. is about
4.6 billion years old or about'l billion years older than the majority
of the rocks. On Apollo 12, however. one of the rocks. about the size
of a grapefruit. was found to be :about 4.6 billion yea~s old. or the
same age as the soil. The scientists believe, therefore, that there
are many, many rocks that are at least 4. 6 billion years old on the
Moon and that the lunar soil has been generated by eroding these very
old rocks. In the highland areas of the Moon perhaps even older rocks
may be found. The oldest rocks on Earth are considerably younger
thai! those that we have already f01.11lC, C;l J':~l';' ~.~oon.
The' next photograph, Figure 32. shows a device which we call
a Rickshaw, which has been designed to help the astronauts carry their
equipment while they explore the surface of the Moon in the next Apollo
flight. Apollo 14. This machine comes apart for concise stowage and
is assembled by the astronauts on the surface of the Moon. The photo-
graph shows the equipment in a 1/ 6-g simulation at Houston with Captain
Bean giving it a test.
Figure 33 gives an artist's view of a Lunar Rover which is under ------development for use in later Apollo missions. This little automobil'e
is electrically powered so that the astronauts will be able to explore
43.
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44.
greater areas on the Moon. Each wheel is powered by a motor in its
hub and the tires of this rover are not made of rubber. but of metal,
because of the high temperatures of the surface of the moon. These
~-----------------------------------------------------------tires are an intricate series of metal springs that also give the kind of
traction needed. The next photograph, Figure 34, shows the various
sites of past and future landings 'planned in the Apollo program. Such
names as Marius Hills. Hadley, Descartes, Davey Rille. and Copernicus
will nodoubt become as familiar to us as Tranquility Base and the Oceans
of Storms of Apollo 11 and 12.
VI. Incentives for Return to the Moon After Apollo
The manned lunar program will stop after the next few Apollo flights.
Moon. and what incentives will cause his return. It surely is inevitable .~---- -------
that there will be another major lunar program. Its objective, I believe.
will be the establishment of a permanent lunar base. The incentives '- ---...........
for creating a lunar base exist in spite of the fact that it is much more
difficult to get all the way to the Moon than it is to an Ea.rth orbiting
station. The Moon is also too far from the Earth for many of the kinds
of Earth viewing experiments or services that would be used in an orbit-
ing space station. However, there are other factors which more than
make up for these drawbacks. We have also found that the lunar sur':
face contains substantial amounts of oxygen in the form of oxides of
~-
II
aluminum, titanium, calcium, iron, and other elements. Because ox-
ygen is present on the lunar surface, as well as large amounts of solar
energy, it should someday be possible to extract that oxygen for the
benefit of man and his machines, not only for living on the Moon, but
also for furnishing the oxygen used to power spaceships in returning
from the Moon to the Earth. Many studies have shown that the Moon
would be ideal for a laboratory in basic science where high order '-
vacuums are needed and where reduced gravity and the very quietness (
of the lunar surface would be important. The low degree of radio noise,
particularly on the backside of the Moon, makes it a desirable place for
certain types of astronomy. The Moon would also be ideal for experi-
Earth orbiting space station. The availability of raw materials would
make it more nearly self-sustaining. In this regard, man someday
will use the elements of the Moon to create the structures and other
means needed to support a prosperous life under fascinating living and
working conditions. The Moon also has sufficient mass to provide a
definite gravity of 1/6-g. The men and women who live in the lunar
colony would, of course, continue the exploration of the Moon. Trans-
portation across the lunar surface would be done on wheels, by rocket
vehicle and by ground effect machines.
45.
,.
II
Such a venture would, of course, be extremely difficult to do in
today's technology. The cost of a colony on the Moon, such as I have
discussed, would amount to many, many billions of dollars a year
and would b~ far outside of our reach at the present time. However, --. I cannot help but-remember that a trip to the Moon 20 years ago would
have been completely out of the question in my mind, or in the minds
of my colleagues. I have no reason to believe that the rate of progress
of man will not continue in the future as it has in the past.
VII. The Space Shuttle
With the end in view of the present lunar program, our eyes are
turning tn the project of the future, the Space Shuttle. The space
shuttle has been called the keystone to the practical age of space travel.
There is no doubt in my mind that its development represents the next
great opportunity and challenge for mankind in the field of flight.
About two years ago it became evident that a new type of vehicle
was probably possible, a reusable one which would combine features of
the airplane, the rocket, and the spacecraft. It would be a two-stage .......
vehicle that would launch itself vertically like a rocket. It would stage
at about 10, 000 ft/ sec. and the upper stage would go on into orbit driven
by its own engines. The lower stage would reenter the atmosphere, fly
back to its base, and land horizontally like an airplane. The upper stage
would complete its mission in orbit which might include rendezvous,
delivery of satellites to orbit, or other functions, after which it, too,
46.
II
47.
would reenter the atmosphere, and land horizontally at its base. Both
-stages would then be rejoined. refueled. loaded. and flown again. Fig-
ures 35. 36, 37. and 38 show an artist's concept of a space shuttle in
operation.
The concept is certainly simple enough in principle. One has no
difficulty in imagining such a vehicle or such operations. One would
be making a grave mistake, howe.ver. if he thought its design and
creation to be an easy task.
Sometime ago I asked myself and my colleagues why is it now
possible to create such a craft when it was far too difficult to even
consider 10 years ago. What is different today? The answers are not
clear-cut but thcy may be found in 2. :.-ll~:r:b~~ ~~. ~·3.Ct':.'~::.
The' first major item is the progress made in technology during
the past 10 years. We are now confident that a high pressure. hydrogen-
oxygen engine can be developed with low weight and very high efficiency.
This item alone makes a very great difference in feasibility. There
are also available new materials of construction. such as titanium. . --.
~ new ablation materials. and know-how. The science of space flight
and reentry has been greatly advanced by the experience gained in flight
operations in Earth orbit and at the Moon. Another vital new factor
is the concept of Max Faget's. in which reentry would be made at high i ~----------------------------------------
angles of attack thereby minimizing the heat loads on the vehicle's -
II
, - /? ~ . lower surfaces while shielding the upper surfaces almost com~
1 from the heating. His concept is applicable to both stages if maximum
------------------payload is the only criterion. If cross range during reentry is an
additional requirement, then at least the booster stage would utilize
this principle. All of these factors and many detailed studies have
given us confidence that a mach~ne as large and complex as the space
shuttle can indeed be successfully produced and operated.
Even with all these new developments, we are well aware of the
inherently low margins of payload to gross weight involved. In such
a craft the payload could be easily swallowed up by unexpected growth
of structural or other weights if the design is not sound. At best, only
I or 2 percent of the liftoff wei~ht can be realiZf~d aR na v] oad _ Onp.
must realize, too, that the shuttle to be useful must be huge. The
first stage will be the length of the Boeing 747 but will have much more
volume. The upper stage will be similar in siz eat least to the new
Douglas OC-IO.
For the presently projected payload of 50, 000 pounds the lift-
off weight will be at least 4 million pounds. As requirements are added
this weight will probably increase. The effects of size appear to be
such that even if the payload weight were reduced to zero, the shuttle
would require a liftoff weight of 2. 5 million pounds just to put itself
in orbit.
48.
II
There must, of course, be a great. incentive before such a com-
plex project would be undertaken. It must be completely clear that the
gains to be made are vital to man's progress and that they far out-
weigh the costs. These matters have received very serious study from
both engineering and economic points of view. I believe a very strong
case can be made for proceeding with development.
First and of overriding imp'ortance is the gre~t reduction of cost
resulting from the reusable feature. One simply does not expend the
vehicle in each mission as is done now.
Because the payload bay in the shuttle would enclose and shield
the payload from the launch environment, and because it could be re-
greatly reduced. The savings in payload costs are estimated to be
equally as great as the .savings in transportation.
Less obvious, but nonetheless real, are the advantages in de----a load develo ment costs from those of 0 er ons.
This will permit a reduction of leadtimes and broaden the base of
participation in the space program to a degree that cannot even be con-
side red today.
Explicit missions and uses of the space shuttle would cover areas
of both manned and unmanned operations in space. It would be used.
for manned and man-tended experiments. It would place scientific,
weather, earth resources, and other satellites in Earth orbit and bring
49.
II
them back to Earth for repair or reuse. In the future, it would trans-
port men, supplies, and scientific equipment to and from space stations.
A quick turnaround and high performance would make it ideal for emer-
gency situations such as perfc:>rming rescue operations.
We have already made many studies in conceptual design and in
the wind tunnels for shuttle vehi~les. There are still several configu-
rations and concepts in the running for the final design. Some of those;
working on this problem have proposed using a conventional expendable
first stage with a reusable second stage as a means of reducing initial
cost. I feel very strongly that the reusable features of both stages !!lust
be retained in the shuttle if it is to fulfill its promise. An initial step ---. llcdng q thrO'~r8W?y h00.ster CCl ..... ,:,,,,1:7 ;n,.. .... "' ... ":'~ ~!--':' £~~':'l ~':.'~~.
This does not mean that certain parts of the shuttle could not be
refurbished; items such as leading edges could be replaced after flight
as long as their cost is not a major factor. With experience we will
soon learn to tailor the design to the best cost balance between initial
cost and operations.
I am confident that the decade of the 70's will see the space shut:
take its place alongside the great flying machines of all time. Today
our position in space is comparable to that of the Wright Brothers earl
in this century. As to our future in space, the words that Wilbur SP9}.;'-
in 1908 suit it eloquently: "It is not necessary to look too far into the;
future. We see enough already to be certain that it will be magnifice;nt.
II
List of slides used by Dr. Gilruth with his Wilbur and Orville Wright Memorial Lecture at the Royal Aeronautical 80ciety in London on December 3, 1970:
1. 8-70-6060:'X
2. 8-70-52049
3. 8-67-7568
4. 8-70-52047
5. 8-70-52048
6. 8-70-52051
7. 8-70-52168
/:S. 8-t:jJ-l~1;j~
9. 8-62-337
10. 8-62-5628
11. 8-70-52050
12. 70-60888
13. 8-67-7569
14. 8-70-6062- V
15. 8-65-46437
16. 8-65-30431
17. 8-65-63220
Montage of historic flying craft
Bow shock and flow field over blunt body at high Mach number .
Mercury capsule showing principal features
Introduction of Mercury Astronauts to American and Foreign Press. Left to right: 8layton, 8hepard, 8chirra, Grissom, Glenn,' Cooper, Carpenter, Project ·Director Gilruth
First full scale reentry test. Recovered capsule shown with Faget, Mathews, and Gilruth
"Tower Flight" of Mercury Redstone 1. A 2-inch liftoff of the Redstone caused tower jettison
Cartoon of Ham and the Astronauts
Ham and his trainer following the Men:ury 11lgm
Liftoff of John Glenn in Mercury-Atlas 6 on February 20, 1962, for America's first orbital flight
..
President Kennedy during a visit to Houston in fall of 1961
Bow shock and high mach number flow over Apollo spacecraft shape
Cutaway view of Apollo command and service module
A rrangement of Gemini spacecraft systems
8ummary of Gemini flights and their accomplishments
Launching of Gemini V space vehicle
Ed White's space walk
Agenatarget vehicle - used for first docking in . space, February 1966
II
18. S-66-25782
19. S-70-52052
20. S-69-39529
21. AS-7-3-l545
22. AS9-2l-32l2
23. 'AS9-24-3657
24. A SlO- 34-5112
25. S-69-37722
26. S-69-60647
27. Sl1-40-5948
28. ASl2-46-6789
29. AS12-46- 6806
30. 12-47-6932
31. S-69-5089-S
32. 70-24059
33. S-70-445-X
34. S-70-6035-S
35. S-69-4054
36. S-69-4058
37. S-69-4057
38. S., 69- 4051
Gemini first rendezvous in space, December 1965
First vehicle to· return to earth at lunar speeds of 36, 000 ft/ sec.
Launch of Apollo 11, July 1969
Saturn IV-B stage, as viewed from Apollo 7 over Cape Kennedy
Lunar Module as viewed from the Command Module, Apollo 9
Command Module as viewed from Lunar Module, Apollo 9,.
Lunar Module ascent stage above Moon, Apollo 10
Astronaut Armstrong at controls of Lunar Landing Training Vehicle, Houston, Texas
A stronauts arrive in transfer van
Apollo 11 scientific station on surface of Moon
Astronaut Bean assembling the radio isotope reactor as photographed by Astronaut Conrad
A stronaut Bean carries science station
A stronaut Conrad picking up rocks with tongs
Lunar rocks
Rickshaw for Apollo 14
A rtist's view of Rover vehicle for later Apollo flights
Sites of lunar exploration
A rtist's concept of space shuttle during liftoff
Artist's concept of space shuttle during staging and ignition of second stage
2.
Artist's concept of reentry of space shuttle - high angleE of attack mode
Space shuttle as viewed on a runway - artist's concept
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ABLATIVE MATERIAl--.-{'II'"
STAINLESS STEEL /' r~ HONEYCOMB
ALUMINUM HONEYCOMB
WIRE BUNOLE
COMMAND MODULE
REACTIO • CONTROL POTABLE WATER TANK ROll. ENGINES
EARTH LANOING EQUIPMENT
REACTION CONTROL PITCH ENGINES
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NASA. 5·67 .7569
GEMINI ADDITI01'~AL SYSTEMS
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RENDEZVOUS RADAR
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NASA-S-70-6062 -v GEMINI MISSION SUMMARY
MI SSION CREW DATE FLIGHT TIME SIGNIFICANT EVENTS
III GR I SSOM-YOUNG . MARCH 23, 1965 4:52:31 FI RST TWO-MAN ORB IT
IV McD IV ITT -WH ITE JUNE 3-7, 1965 97:56:12 . FIRST EVA'"
V COOPER-CONRAD AUGU ST 21 ~29, 1965 190:55:14 LONG-DURATION
VII BORMAN-LOVELL . DECEMBER 4-18, 1965 330:35:01 LONG-DURATION, RENDEZVOUS
VI-A SCHIRRA-STAFFORD DECEMBER 15-16, 1965 25:51:24 RENDEZVOUS
VIII ARMSTRONG-SCOn . MARCH 16, 1966 10:41:26 RENDEZVOUS, FIRST DOCKING
IX-A STAFFORD-CERNAN JUNE 3-6, 1966 72:20:50 RENDEZVOUS, EVA
X YOUNG-COLLI NS JULY 18-21, 1966 , 70:46~39 RENDEZVOUS, DOCK,' EVA ALTITUDE RECORD (475 MI)
XI CONRAD-GORDON SEPTEMBER 12-15, 1966 71:17:08 RENDEZVOUS, DOCK, EVA ALTITUDE RECORD (853 MU
XII LOVELL -ALDRIN NOVEMBER 11-15, 1966 94:34:31 RENDEZVOUS, DOCK, EVA
. • EXTRAVEHICULAR ACTIVITY (EVA)
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