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Brown's Lunar Exploration Working Group Michael's Paper on a "Parking Orbit" The Feelings Against Lunar-Orbit Rendezvous The Space Task Group's Early Skepticism President Kennedy's Commitment Houbolt's First Letter to Seamans
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Houbolt's
First Crusade (continued)
Bob Seamans reacted with interest. Although NASA had no mandate from political leaders to begin a lunar mission, NASA headquarters was seriously planning a lunar landing program. In October 1960, it had formed a small intercenter working group to establish a preliminary program for a manned lunar landing. Houbolt was Langley's representative on this committee, which was chaired by George Low. Low had been the primary manned lunar landing enthusiast at NASA headquarters and a strong early advocate of rendezvous methods as an alternative to the direct ascent approach, which presupposed the use of the anticipated gargantuan Nova rocket and which up to that time had almost completely dominated NASA's thinking about how to conduct a lunar-landing mission.34 Knowing Low's preference for orbital staging techniques, Seamans was inclined to listen carefully to Houbolt's arguments for LOR. Moreover, Seamans had previously been chief engineer for the Radio Corporation of America's (RCA) Missile and Electronics Division in Massachusetts and had been involved in an Air Force study known as Project Saint—an acronym from "satellite interceptor." This "quiet but far-reaching" classified military project involved the interception of satellites in Earth orbit. Because of this earlier work, Seamans, who was exactly the same age as Houbolt, was predisposed to listen to interesting ideas about rendezvous techniques and maneuvers. Houbolt explained to him how LOR would work even if less weight than that of the entire spacecraft was left in a parking orbit. If one just left the weight equivalent to that of the spacecraft's heatshield, NASA could realize some significant savings. Impressed with the notion of how important it was to leave weight in orbit, and equally impressed with the zeal with which Houbolt expressed that notion, Seamans invited the impassioned Langley researcher to present his ideas formally before his staff in Washington.35 Before that, however, Houbolt was to give two other briefings on rendezvous. The first was in November 1960, to the U.S. Air Force Scientific Advisory Board at the Pentagon. The second, on 10 December, was to leading members of the Space Task Group—Paul Purser, Robert Piland, Owen Maynard, Caldwell Johnson, James Chamberlin, and Max Faget (Chair Robert C. Gilruth was not present). During both talks, Houbolt spoke about all the possible uses of rendezvous—in terms of both lunar orbit (such as manned lunar landing) and Earth-orbit (such as assembly of orbital units, personnel transfer to and rescue retrieval from a space station, proper placement of special-purpose satellites, and inspection and interception of satellites). Houbolt tried to clarify how rendezvous would be both inherently useful and technically feasible in many space missions. In other words—and historians have missed this key point—he was advocating rendezvous in general, not just the LOR concept. If Americans were going to land on the Moon with existing rocket boosters, or even with the boosters that were planned, then the United States would have to use a combination of Earth-orbit rendezvous (EOR) and LOR. Recalling his argument years later, Houbolt said, "We would put up a component with a first booster; we would put up another component with another booster; then we would rendezvous the two of them in Earth orbit. Then we would go to the Moon with this booster system and perform the lunar-orbit rendezvous with the remaining spacecraft. The whole reason for doing it this way (via EOR) would be because the boosters were still too small." At the same time, he was also championing LOR. He lectured from charts showing a soft lunar landing conducted with both the Saturn-class rockets then in development as well as existing launch vehicles such as Atlas or Langley’s innovative little Scout rocket. He concluded by emphasizing the "great advantage" of LOR—how the Earth-boost payload in a lunar landing mission would be reduced by a factor of 2 to 2.5. "I pointed out over and over again" that if these boosters could be made bigger, then NASA "could dispense with the Earth-orbit rendezvous portion and do it solely by lunar-orbit rendezvous."36 Houbolt recalls that neither the Air Force Scientific Advisory Board nor the STG seemed overly interested. Nor did they seem overly hostile, however. It was this apparently passive reaction to his advocacy of LOR, which he was to experience more than a few times in the coming months, that so frustrated Houbolt and eventually helped push him to bold action. Not all of the reaction was so passive. Some of it, from intelligent and influential people inside the space program, was strong, harshly worded, and negative. On 14 December 1960, Houbolt traveled to Washington with a group of Langley colleagues to present the staff at NASA headquarters the briefing he had promised Bob Seamans three months earlier. All of the important people were in the audience, from Administrator T. Keith Glennan, Seamans, and Wernher von Braun on down through the leadership of the STG. For fifteen minutes, Houbolt moved carefully through his charts and analysis. He concluded, as he had done in the earlier briefings, with an enthusiastic statement about the weight savings—a reduction of Earth payload by a factor of a "whopping" 2 to 2.5. When he finished, a small man with a receding hairline and a bow tie jumped up from the audience. Houbolt knew all too well who he was: the intuitively brilliant and hot-blooded Max Faget, his long-time Langley associate and present member of the STG. "His figures lie," Faget accused, rather nastily. "He doesn't know what he's talking about." Even in a "bull session" back at Langley, Faget's fiery accusation would have been upsetting. But "in an open meeting, in front of Houbolt's peers and supervisors," it was "a brutal thing for one Langley engineer to say to another."37 And Faget had not bothered to say this to him four days earlier during the more private STG management briefing at Langley, when Houbolt and the others, who also were to give talks at headquarters (Clint Brown, John Bird, and Max Kurbjun), had previewed their same, exact presentations. This time, he carried his vocal objections out into the hallway, even after the meeting was over. Houbolt tried to stay calm, but clearly he was agitated. He answered the charge simply by telling Faget that he "ought to look at the study before [making] a pronouncement like that."38 It was an "ought to" that Houbolt would be passing on to many other LOR skeptics before it was all over. Curiously, at the same NASA headquarters briefing, Clint Brown had made an earlier presentation, based on a study he had conducted with Ralph W. Stone, Jr., of the Theoretical Mechanics Division, showing a general operational concept of an LOR plan for a piloted lunar mission. Brown's basic idea was to develop an early launch capability by combining a number of existing rocket boosters, specifically the Atlas, Centaur, and Scout. He also illustrated the advantage of rendezvous for weight reduction over the direct lunar mission. But curiously, Brown's talk—unlike Houbolt's—did not provoke any strong negative reaction.39 Perhaps it was because Houbolt gave a more explicit analysis of the advantages of LOR over the direct approach. Perhaps it was because Brown had given his presentation first and Faget needed to build up some steam. Or it could have been personal, with Faget simply liking Brown and disliking Houbolt.
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