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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

/'rrl ~/ 'z .. ~~

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

--------------------------------------------------- ------

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~ 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.

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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.

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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

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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.

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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

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REACTIO • CONTROL POTABLE WATER TANK ROll. ENGINES

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REACTION CONTROL PITCH ENGINES

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NASA. 5·67 .7569

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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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