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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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Brown's
Lunar Exploration Working Group (continued) The conviction inside Brown’s Theoretical Mechanics Division in favor of lunar studies over space station studies grew stronger in early 1959, when Langley’s Associate Director, Eugene Draley, agreed to form a Langley working group to study the problems of lunar exploration. Brown, the catalytic group leader, asked for the participation of six of Langley’s most thoughtful analysts: David Adamson, Supersonic Aerodynamics Division; Paul R. Hill, Pilotless Aircraft Research Division; John C. Houbolt, Dynamic Loads Division; Albert A. Schy, Stability Research Division; Samuel Katzoff, Full-Scale Research Division; and Bill Michael of Brown’s Theoretical Mechanics Division. Dr. Leonard Roberts, a talented young mathematician from England, eventually joined the group. Brown assembled them for the first time in late March 1959 and then periodically into 1960. Besides advising Langley management on the establishment of lunar-related research programs, Brown's people also organized a course in space mechanics for interested center employees. For many involved, this course offered their first real exposure to relativity theory. The Brown study group even disseminated information about the Moon by holding public seminars led by experts from Langley and nearby universities.8 Everything about this original lunar study group was done quietly and without much fuss. In those early days of NASA, when the management of research was still loose and did not always require formal research authorizations or approval from NASA headquarters in Washington, the research center pretty much ran itself. Langley management, from Director Henry Reid and Associate Director Floyd Thompson on down, was oriented toward research and encouraged its people to take some initiative. When Brown expressed his desire to work more on lunar exploration than on the space station, Draley simply told him, "Fine, go ahead." Henceforth, he and his lunar working group accentuated their efforts in studying the problems associated with how America would someday reach the Moon. They were doing what Langley researchers did best: they were exploring an interesting new idea and seeing how far they could go. The researchers at Langley were not the only Americans thinking seriously about lunar missions. There were officers in the Air Force, people in "think tanks," professors at universities, and other engineers and scientists in and around NASA all contemplating going to the Moon. In February 1959, a month before the creation of Brown’s lunar exploration group at Langley, NASA headquarters created a small Working Group on Lunar and Planetary Surfaces Exploration. (This later evolved into the Science Committee on Lunar Exploration.) Chaired by Dr. Robert Jastrow, the head of NASA headquarters’ new Theoretical Division, the working group included such leaders in planetology and lunar science as Harold C. Urey, professor at large at the University of California at San Diego, as well as a number of leading scientists from the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California, and a few from Langley. In their meetings, Jastrow's group looked into the chances for both a "rough" landing on the Moon—wherein a probe would crash into the surface and be destroyed but not until an on-board camera sent back dozens of valuable pictures to the Earth—as well as "soft" landings wherein a spacecraft would actually land intact on the Moon. Langley’s William Michael attended one of the first meetings of Jastrow’s committee. Partly in reaction to what he had heard at this meeting, Michael and others at Langley began developing some ideas for photographic reconnaissance of the Moon's surface from lunar orbit, as well as for lunar impact studies.9 John Houbolt, of Langley's Dynamic Loads Division, also participated in some of these meetings to share his knowledge of the requirements for spacecraft rendezvous. Two months later, in April 1959, NASA headquarters formed a Research Steering Committee on Manned Space Flight. The purpose of this special committee—which was chaired by former Langley engineer Harry J. Goett, the first Director of NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center—was to analyze human-in-space problems, make recommendations about the missions to follow Project Mercury, and to explore the technological "stepping stones" necessary to prepare for future missions. It would then set forth the general outline of research programs to support those missions.10 In its final report, which appeared at the end of 1959, the Goett Committee (as it was known) called for a lunar landing with astronauts as the appropriate long-term goal of NASA's space program. But between the present emphasis on Project Mercury and that goal, there needed to be major interim programs designed to develop advanced orbital capabilities and a manned space station. Langley's representative on the Goett Committee, Laurence K. Loftin, Jr., the technical assistant to Langley Research Center Associate Director Floyd L. Thompson, agreed with this thinking. However, two other members, the STG’s Max Faget and George M. Low, NASA’s director of spacecraft and flight missions in Washington, did not. During meetings from May to December 1959, they voiced the minority opinion: that the Moon should be NASA’s next objective after Mercury. George Low, brought to NASA headquarters by Director of Space Flight Programs Abe Silverstein from NASA’s Lewis Research Center in Cleveland, was particularly vocal. Not only did Low want to go to the Moon, he wanted Americans to land on it, and as soon as possible.11
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