Multimedia Mania/abacus-multimedia-mania.iso/dp/0097/00973.txt

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$Unique_ID{bob00973}
$Pretitle{}
$Title{Apollo Expeditions To The Moon
Chapter 9: The Shakedown Cruises}
$Subtitle{}
$Author{Phillips, Samuel C.}
$Affiliation{NASA}
$Subject{apollo
mission
orbit
moon
earth
flight
first
lunar
time
spacecraft}
$Date{1975}
$Log{}
Title:       Apollo Expeditions To The Moon
Author:      Phillips, Samuel C.
Affiliation: NASA
Date:        1975

Chapter 9: The Shakedown Cruises

     Consider the mood of America as it approached the end of 1968, by any
accounting one of the unhappiest years of the twentieth century.  It was a
year of riots, burning cities, sickening assassinations, universities forced
to close their doors.  In Southeast Asia the twelve-month toll of American
dead rose 50 percent, to 15,000, and the cost of the war topped $25 billion.
By mid-December the country's despair was reflected in the Associated Press's
nationwide poll of editors, who chose as the two top stories of 1968 the
slayings of Robert Kennedy and Martin Luther King; Time magazine picked a
generic symbol, "The Dissenter," as its Man of the Year.  The poll and the Man
were scheduled for year-end publication.

     This condition was changed dramatically during the waning days of the
year, figuratively with two out in the last half of the ninth, and that is
what this chapter is about.

     Nineteen sixty-seven, which began as a bad year for the space program,
had had its own sensational upturn with the first flight, unmanned, of the
giant Saturn, on November 9 - a landmark on the path to the Moon.  Then 1968
started fairly well with Apollo 5, the first flight of the lunar module on
January 22, which proved the structural integrity and operating
characteristics of the Moon lander, despite overly conservative computer
programming that caused the descent propulsion system to shut off too soon.

     The second unmanned Saturn V mission, numbered Apollo 6, on April 4,
1968, was less successful.  For a time it raised fears that the Moon-landing
schedule had suffered another major setback.  Three serious flaws turned up.
Two minutes and five seconds after launch the 363-foot Saturn V underwent a
lengthwise oscillation, like the motion of a pogo stick.  Pogo oscillation
subjects the entire space-vehicle stack to stresses and strains that, under
certain circumstances, can grow to a magnitude sufficient to damage or even
destroy the vehicle.  This motion, caused by a synchronization of engine
thrust pulsations with natural vibration frequencies of the vehicle structure,
tends to be self-amplifying as the structural oscillations disturb the flow of
propellants and thus magnify the thrust pulsations.

     The second anomaly, loss of structural panels from the lunar module
adapter (the structural section that would house the lunar module), was
originally thought to have been caused by the pogo oscillations.  Engineers at
Houston were able to establish, however, that a faulty manufacturing process
was to blame.  This was quickly corrected.

     The third problem encountered on this flight was more serious.  After the
first stage had finished its work, the second stage was to take over and put
Apollo 6 into orbit; then the third stage, the S-IVB, would take the CSM up to
13,800 miles, from where reentry from the Moon would be simulated, retesting
the command module heat shield at the 25,000 mph that Apollo 4 had achieved
five months earlier.

     The second stage's five J-2 engines ignited as scheduled.  About two-
thirds of the way through their scheduled burn, no. 2 engine lost thrust and a
detection system shut it down.  No. 3 engine followed suit.  With two-fifths
of the second stage's million pound thrust gone, Apollo 6, with the help of
the single J-2 engine of the third stage, still achieved orbit, though in an
egg-shaped path.  But when the attempt was made to fire the third stage's
engine a second time as would be necessary to send astronauts into translunar
trajectory - the single J-2 failed to ignite.  The mission was saved when the
service module's propulsion-system engine - 20,000 pounds of thrust as against
the third stage's 225,000 - took over and sent the CSM up to the desired
13,800-mile altitude from which it reentered the atmosphere and landed in the
Pacific.

Detective Work on the Telemetry

     What had happened?  Ferreting out clues from mission records and the
reams of data recorded from telemetry was a fascinating story of technical
detective work.  More than a thousand engineers and technicians at NASA
Centers, contractor plants, and several universities were involved in
establishing causes and designing and testing fixes.

     The solution for pogo was to modify the pre-valves of the second-stage
engines so that they could be charged with helium gas.  This provided shock-
absorbing accumulators that damped out the thrust oscillations.

     Finding the culprit that cut off the J-2 engines involved long theorizing
and hundreds of tests that finally pinpointed a six-foot tube, half an inch in
diameter, carrying liquid hydrogen to the starter cup of the engine.  This
line had been fitted with two small bellows for absorbing vibration.  It
worked fine on ground tests because ice forming on the bellows provided a
damping effect.  But in the dryness of space -- eventually simulated in a
vacuum chamber -- no ice formed because there was no air from which to draw
moisture, and there the lines vibrated, cracked, and broke.  The fix: replace
the bellows with bends in the tubes to take up the motion.

     With careful engineering analysis and extensive testing we satisfied
ourselves that we understood the problems that plagued Apollo 6 and that the
resulting changes were more than adequate to commit the third Saturn V to
manned flight.

     At this point we planned that the next Saturn V would be the D mission,
launching Apollo 8 in December with Astronauts McDivitt, Scott, and
Schweickart.  Their main objective would be to test the spider-like lunar
module then a building at the Grumman plant on Long Island.  Early in 1968 we
had set the objective of flying the D mission before the year was out.  It was
a reasonable target at the time, considering progress across the program, and
would put us in an excellent position to complete the preparatory missions and
have more than one shot at the landing in 1969.

     Meanwhile, the command and service modules, after almost two years of
reworking at the North American Aviation plant in Downey, Calif., would have
their crucial flight test on Apollo 7, the C mission, after launch in October
1968 by the smaller Saturn 1B.  On board this first manned Apollo mission
would be Astronauts Schirra, Eisele, and Cunningham.

     By midsummer it was apparent that Apollo 7 would fly in October, but that
the lunar module for the D mission would not be ready for a December flight.
Electromagnetic interference problems were plaguing checkout tests, and it was
obvious that engineering changes and further time-consuming tests were needed.
After a comprehensive review in early August, my unhappy estimate was that the
D mission would not be ready until March 1969.

An Early Trip Around the Moon

     George Low, the spacecraft program manager, then put forward a daring
idea: fly the CSM on the Saturn V in December, with a dummy instead of the
real LM, all the way to the Moon.  We would then make maximum progress for the
program, while we took the time necessary to work out rigorously the LM
problems.  Low had discussed the feasibility of such a mission with Gilruth,
Kraft, and Slayton at the Manned Spacecraft Center; I was at the Kennedy Space
Center in Florida when he called to voice his idea.  The upshot was a meeting
that afternoon of the Apollo management team.  The Marshall Space Flight
Center at Huntsville, Ala., was a central point, considering where we all were
at the moment.  George Hage, my deputy, and I joined with Debus and Petrone of
KSC for the flight to Huntsville.  Von Braun, Rees, James, and Richard of MSFC
were there.  Gilruth, Low, Kraft, and Slayton flew from Houston.

     We discussed designing a flexible mission so that, depending on many
factors, including results of the Apollo 7 flight, we could commit Apollo 8 to
an Earth-orbit flight, or a flight to a few hundred or several thousand miles
away from Earth, or to a lunar flyby, or to spending several hours in lunar
orbit.  The three-hour conference didn't turn up any "show-stoppers." Quite
the opposite; while there were many details to be reexamined, it indeed looked
as if we could do it.  The gloom that had permeated our previous program
review was replaced by excitement.  We agreed to meet in Washington five days
later.  If more complete investigation uncovered no massive roadblocks, I
would fly to Vienna for an exegesis to my boss, Dr. George E. Mueller,
Associate Administrator for Manned Space Flight, and to the NASA
Administrator, James Webb, who were attending a United Nations meeting on the
Peaceful Uses of Outer Space. (Going to Vienna was at first considered
necessary, lest other communications tip off the Russians, believed to be
planning a Moon spectacular of their own.  Eventually it was decided that my
appearance in Vienna would trip more alarms than overseas telephone
conversations.)

     Many problems remained.  The high-gain antenna was an uncertain quantity;
but Kraft agreed that the mission could be flown safely with the
omni-antennas, even though television might be lost.  What should we carry in
lieu of the LM? The answer was the LM test article that had been through the
dynamics program at Marshall.  Deke Slayton wanted to leave McDivitt and his
crew assigned to the first LM mission; so the next crew, Borman, Lovell, and
Anders, scheduled for the E mission, were brought forward for the newly
defined Apollo 8 mission.  McDivitt's mission retained its D designation, and
Borman's was labeled "C-Prime."

     Upon returning to Washington, I presented the plan to Thomas O. Paine,
Acting Administrator in Webb's absence.  Paine reminded me that the program
had fallen behind, pogo had occurred on the last flight, three engines had
failed, and we had not yet flown a manned Apollo mission; yet "now you want to
up the ante.  Do you really want to do this, Sam?" My answer was, "Yes, sir,
as a flexible mission, provided our detailed examination in days to come
doesn't turn up any show-stoppers." Said Paine, "We'll have a hell of a time
selling it to Mueller and Webb."

     He was right.  A telephone conversation with Mueller in Vienna found him
skeptical and cool.  Mr. Webb was clearly shaken by the abrupt proposal and by
the consequences of possible failure.

     On August 15 Paine and I sent Webb and Mueller a seven-page cable with
suggested wording of a press release saying lunar orbit was being retained as
an option in the December flight, the decision to depend on the success of
Apollo 7 in October.  Webb replied from Vienna via State Department code,
accepting the crew switches and schedule changes.  But he proposed saying only
that "studies will be carried out and plans prepared so as to provide
reasonable flexibility in establishing final mission objectives" after Apollo
7.

     Paine interpreted Webb's instructions "liberally," and authorized me to
say in an August 19 press conference, upon announcing the McDivitt-Borman
switch, that a circumlunar flight or lunar orbit were possible options.  I am
told that I diminished the possibility so thoroughly, by saying repeatedly
"the basic mission is Earth orbit," that the press at first mostly missed the
point.

     October 11 at Cape Kennedy was hot but the heat was tempered by a
pleasant breeze when Apollo 7 lifted off in a two-tongued blaze of orange-
colored flame at 11:02:45.  The Saturn 1B, in its first trial with men aboard,
provided a perfect launch and its first stage dropped off 2 minutes 25 seconds
later.  The S-IVB second stage took over, giving astronauts their first ride
atop a load of liquid hydrogen, and at 5 minutes 54 seconds into the mission,
Walter Schirra, the commander, reported, "She is riding like a dream." About
five minutes later an elliptical orbit had been achieved, 140 by 183 miles
above the Earth.  The S-IVB stayed with the CSM for about one and one-half
orbits, then separated.  Schirra fired the CSM's small rockets to pull 50 feet
ahead of the S-IVB, then turned the spacecraft around to simulate docking, as
would be necessary to extract an LM for a Moon landing.  Next day, when the
CSM and the S-IVB were about 80 miles apart, Schirra and his mates sought out
the lifeless, tumbling 59-foot craft in a rendezvous simulation and approached
within 70 feet.

A Superb Spacecraft

     During the 163 orbits of Apollo 7 the ghost of Apollo 204 was effectively
exorcised as the new Block II spacecraft and its millions of parts performed
superbly.  Durability was shown for 10.8 days - longer than a journey to the
Moon and back.  A momentary shudder went through Mission Control when both AC
buses dropped out of the spacecraft's electrical system, coincident with
automatic cycles of the cryogenic oxygen tank fans and heaters; but manual
resetting of the AC bus breakers restored normal service.  Three of the five
spacecraft windows fogged because of improperly cured sealant compound (a
condition that could not be fixed until Apollo 9).  Chargers for the batteries
needed for reentry (after fuel cells departed with the SM) returned 50 to 75
percent less energy than expected. Most serious was the overheating of fuel
cells, which might have failed when the spacecraft was too far from Earth to
return on batteries, even if fully charged.  But each of these anomalies was
satisfactorily checked out before Apollo 8 flew.

     The CSM's service propulsion system, which had to fire the CSM into and
out of Moon orbit, worked peryectly during eight burns lasting from half a
second to 67.6 seconds.  Apollo's flotation bags had their first try-out when
the spacecraft, a "lousy boat," splashed down south of Bermuda and turned
upside down; when inflated, the brightly colored bags flipped it aright.

     In retrospect it seems inconceivable, but serious debate ensued in NASA
councils on whether television should be broadcast from Apollo missions, and
the decision to carry the little 41-pound camera was not made until just
before this October flight.  Although these early pictures were crude, I think
it was informative for the public to see astronauts floating weightlessly in
their roomy spacecraft, snatching floating objects, and eating the first hot
food consumed in space.  Like the television pictures, the food improved in
later missions.

     Apollo 7's achievement led to a rapid review of Apollo 8's options. The
Apollo 7 astronauts went through six days of debriefing for the benefit of
Apollo 8, and on October 28 the Manned Space Flight Management Council chaired
by Mueller met at MSC, investigating every phase of the forthcoming mission.
Next day came a lengthy systems review of Apollo 8's Spacecraft 103.  Paine
made the go/no-go review of lunar orbit on November 11 at NASA Headquarters in
Washington.  By this time nearly all the skeptics had become converts.

     At the end of this climactic meeting Mueller put a recommendation for
lunar orbit into writing, and Paine approved it.  He telephoned the decision
to the White House, and the message was laid on President Johnson's desk while
he was conferring with Richard M. Nixon, elected his successor six days
earlier.

Lifting from a Sea of Flame

     In the pink dawn of December 21 a quarter million persons lined the
approaches to Cape Kennedy, many of them having camped overnight.  At 7:51,
amid a noise that sounded from three miles away like a million-ton truck
rumbling over a corrugated road, the first manned Saturn V, an alabaster
column as big as a naval destroyer, lifted slowly, ever so slowly, from the
sea of flame that engulfed Pad 39-A.  The upward pace quickened as the first
stage's 531,000 gallons of kerosene and liquid oxygen were thirstily consumed,
and in 2 minutes 34 seconds the big drink was finished, whereupon the second
stage's five J-2 engines lit up. 5-11's 359,000 gallons of liquid hydrogen and
liquid oxygen boosted the S-IVB and CSM for 6 minutes 10 seconds to an
altitude of 108 miles.  After the depleted S-II fell away, the S-IVB, this
time the third stage, fired for 2 minutes 40 seconds to achieve Earth orbit.
Except for slight pogo during the second-stage burn, Commander Borman reported
all was smoothness.

     During the second orbit, at 2 hours 27 minutes, CapCom Mike Collins sang
out "You are go for TLI" (translunar injection), and 23 minutes after that
Lovell calmly said, "Ignition." The S-IVB had restarted with a long burn over
Hawaii that lasted 5 minutes 19 seconds and boosted speed to the 24,200 mph
necessary to escape the bonds of Earth.  "You are on your way," said Chris
Kraft, from the last row of consoles in Mission Control, "you are really on
your way." The anticlimactic observation of the day came when Lovell said,
"Tell Conrad he lost his record." (During Gemini II Pete Conrad and Dick
Gordon had set an altitude record of 850 miles.) After the burn the S-IVB
separated and was sent on its way to orbit the Sun.

     In Mission Control early in the morning of December 24 the big center
screen, which had carried an illuminated Mercator projection of the Earth for
the past three and one-half years - a moving blip always indicated the
spacecraft's position - underwent a dramatic change.  The Earth disappeared,
and upon the screen was flashed a scarred and pockmarked map with such labels
as Mare Tranquillitatis, Mare Crisium, and many craters with such names as
Tsiolkovsky, Grimaldi, and Gilbert.  The effect was electrifying, symbolic
evidence that man had reached the vicinity of the Moon.

     CapCom Gerry Carr spoke to the three astronauts more than 200,000 miles
away, "Ten seconds to go.  You are GO all the way." Lovell replied, "We'll see
you on the other side," and Apollo 8 disappeared behind the Moon, the first
time in history men had been occulted.  For 34 minutes there would be no way
of knowing what happened.  During that time the 247-second LOI (lunar orbit
insertion) burn would take place that would slow down the spacecraft from 5758
to 3643 mph to enable it to latch on to the Moon's field of gravity and go
into orbit.  If the SPS engine failed, Apollo 8 would whip around the Moon and
head back for Earth on a free-return trajectory (ala Apollo 13); during one
critical half minute if the engine conked out the spacecraft would be sent
crashing into the Moon.

Orbiting the Moon Christmas Eve

     "Longest four minutes I ever spent," said Lovell during the burn, in a
comment recorded but not broadcast in real time.  At 69 hours 15 minutes
Apollo 8 went into lunar orbit, whereupon Anders said, "Congratulations,
gentlemen, you are at zero-zero."  Said Borman, "It's not time for
congratulations yet.  Dig out the flight plan."

     Unaware of this conversation, Mission Control buzzed with nervous
chatter.  Carr began seeking a signal to indicate that the astronauts were
indeed in orbit: "Apollo 8, Apollo 8, Apollo 8."  Then the voice of Jim Lovell
came through calmly, "Go ahead, Houston."

     Mission Control's viewing-room spectators broke into cheers and loud
applause.  Apollo 8 was in a 168.5 by 60 mile orbit on this day before
Christmas.

     "What does the old Moon look like from 60 miles?" asked CapCom.

     "Essentially gray; no color," said Lovell, "like plaster of paris or a
sort of grayish beach sand." The craters all seemed to be rounded off; some of
them had cones within them; others had rays.  Anders added: "We are coming up
on the craters Colombo and Gutenberg.  Very good detail visible.  We can see
the long, parallel faults of Goclenius and they run through the mare material
right into the highland material."

     During the second egg-shaped orbit the astronauts produced the Moon on
black-and-white television (color would not come until Apollo 10).  It proved
to be a desolate place indeed, a plate of gray steel spattered by a million
bullets.  "It certainly would not appear to be an inviting place to live or
work," Borman said later.

     On the third revolution the SPS engine fired nine seconds to put the
spacecraft into a circular orbit, 60.7 by 59.7 miles, where it would stay for
sixteen hours longer (each orbit lasted two hours, as against one and one-half
hours for Earth).

     At 8:40 pm. the astronauts were on television again.  First, they showed
the half Earth across a stark lunar landscape.  Then, from the other unfogged
window, they tracked the bleak surface of the Moon.  "The vast loneliness is
awe-inspiring and it makes you realize just what you have back there on
Earth," said Lovell.  The pictures aroused great wonder, with an estimated
half billion people vicariously exploring what no man had ever seen before.

     "For all the people on Earth," said Anders, "the crew of Apollo 8 has a
message we would like to send you." He paused a moment and then began reading:

     "In the beginning God created the Heaven and the Earth."

     After four verses of Genesis, Lovell took up the reading:

     "And God called the light Day, and the darkness he called Night."

     At the end of the eighth verse Borman picked up the familiar words:

     "And God said, Let the waters under the Heavens be gathered together unto
one place, and let the dry land appear; and it was so.  And God called the dry
land Earth; and the gathering together of the waters He called seas; and God
saw that it was good."

     The commander added: "And from the crew of Apollo 8, we close with good
night, good luck, a Merry Christmas, and God bless all of you - all of you on
the good Earth."  It was a time of rare emotion.  The mixture of the season,
the immortal words, the ancient Moon, and the new technology made for an
extraordinarily effective setting.

A Lunar Christmas

     "At some point in the history of the world," editorialized The Washington
Post, "someone may have read the first ten verses of the Book of Genesis under
conditions that gave them greater meaning than they had on Christmas Eve.  But
it seems unlikely. . . This Christmas will always be remembered as the lunar
one."

     The New York Times, which called Apollo 8 "the most fantastic voyage of
all times," said on December 26: "There was more than narrow religious
significance in the emotional high point of their fantastic odyssey."

     As Apollo 8 began its tenth and last orbit, CapCom Ken Mattingly told the
astronauts:  "We have reviewed all your systems.  You have a GO to TEI"
(trans-earth injection).  This time the crew really was in thrall to the SPS
engine.  It had to ignite in this most apprehensive moment of the mission,
else Apollo 8 would be left in lunar orbit, its passengers' lives measured by
the length of their oxygen supply.  Ignite it did, in a 303- second burn that
would effect touchdown in just under 58 hours.  Apollo 8 reentered at 25,000
mph and splashed down south of Hawaii two days after Christmas.

     The stupendous effect of Apollo 8 was strengthened by color photographs
published after the return.  Not only was the technology of going to the Moon
brilliantly proven; men began to view the Earth as "small and blue and
beautiful in that eternal silence," as Archibald MacLeish put it, and to
realize as never before that their planet was worth working to save.  The
concept that Earth was itself a kind of spacecraft needing attention to its
habitability spread more widely than ever.

     During the last week of 1968 the Associated Press repolled its 1278
newspaper editors, who overwhelmingly voted Apollo 8 the story of the year.
Time discarded "The Dissenter" in favor of Borman, Lovell, and Anders; and a
friend telegraphed Frank Borman, "You have bailed out 1968."