Highways Into Space: A first-hand account of the beginnings of the human space program (21 page)

MSFC had the Apollo job of developing two new launch vehicles, Saturn 1B and the Saturn V. KSC had the job of developing the new facilities and processing capabilities with the largest launch vehicle ever built in the U.S. By this time, Apollo also had a flight history of four little Joe tests of the escape system plus two pad abort tests, three Saturn 1B test flights, with two command and service modules on those test flights, designated 201 and 202.

Most would agree that the Apollo program had achieved considerable momentum, yet there were still concerns for the reliability and maturity of the flight vehicle development and, many of the necessary relationships in this new management complex were still being smoothed out.

All of this progress and momentum came to a wrenching stop on the evening of January 27, 1967. The crew of Gus Grissom, Ed White and Roger Chaffee were in the Apollo command module on the pad, struggling with a “plugs out” test, where the spacecraft would be unplugged from ground power and go on internal spacecraft power. The first manned flight was a month away. As with other tests in those days, there were frustrations with the general rate of progress of the test and the crew/ground communications in particular. It was a struggle, with interruptions to troubleshoot the problem. With irritation, Gus commented, “How do you expect to communicate with us in orbit if you can’t even talk to us on the pad?” More waiting.

This test was being conducted in the same way as previous Mercury and Gemini pad tests where the cabin pressure was two PSI greater than the fourteen point seven pounds per square inch (PSI) of the external ambient pressure, a cabin total pressure of sixteen point seven PSI of pure oxygen. Soon, and in rapid succession, came the chilling report from Gus, “There is a fire in here” and then, “Get us out of here” from Roger. Reports of flames and smoke in the white room came from the ground team. A rush of technicians charged to get the spacecraft hatch open. Time stood still. And finally, the report on the net was, “The crew is dead.” It happened so fast, and three of ours were gone. How could this be?

Chris was on duty in MCC where the test was being monitored like an actual countdown. Despite his own pain and an overwhelming sense of “We put them in this trap,” his presence helped stabilize the mostly young operators through the immediate shock, some still crying quietly in disbelief. I was not on duty. Marilyn and I were expecting Val and Bill Anders and Linda and Jerry Bostick for a Friday dinner. Instead, I was now meeting Jerry at the Control Center. In the parking lot, Dutch von Ehrenfried, a guidance officer on duty for the test, kept repeating, “Horrible, horrible.” Buck Willoughby was an Apollo GNC flight controller and a former AF pilot agonizing over the events, “I remember pilot buddies going out on patrol and not coming back. But, I never had to listen to such a loss happen right in front of me.”

The mood was one of devastation and shock. And another reality was forming. No, we were not in charge of the vehicle design but we had many opportunities to challenge the conditions of this test and the whole idea of the oxygen/fire risks and a satisfactory escape path for the crew. Like so many others, we had gotten used to the idea of this pure oxygen cabin and the many previous tests in the earlier programs gave us the false basis for acceptance. A sense of guilt took hold and it does not go away. And so, the immediate events unfolded: funerals, the formation of an Accident Board, the search for causes, the fresh examination of other risks, the deliberations for changes in hardware, methods, processes, people and organizations. The review was systematic and ruthless as it laid bare the shortcomings, which gave the appearance of rapid progress.

And gradually the necessary changes were made. George Low was assigned as the spacecraft program manager and he quickly moved to harness all of the MSC management talent directly to the recovery of the Apollo program and they relished the opportunity. George also assigned Frank Borman as his man in the North American plant in Downey, California, to oversee and expedite the necessary changes. It wasn’t long before George was flying this entire group plus his project managers to both major spacecraft contractors, North American Aviation and Grumman for the Lunar Module. George was an artful leader and manager and focused all of the resources at his command on the same goal. He also smoothed many of the rough spots in the interface with HQ. General Phillips and George were formidable together. In the opinion of the many, George was the orchestrator of the success of Apollo from this point on to the landing.

External to NASA, there was considerable attention to the accident review. There were some who questioned whether we should proceed at all. Some of this came at NASA in the congressional hearings. And uncertainty hung in the air. In May, about four months later, Frank Borman was testifying. Frank is a very straightforward, intelligent and forceful man. In one of these sessions, his limit was reached and he said respectfully, “We are trying to tell you that we are confident in the design fixes, our management, in our engineers and in ourselves. I think the question is really: Are you confident in us?” Expressed clearly in “Congress Speak,” this was the upscale version of put up or shut up. It also seemed to be the turning point. Apollo was soon back on track with support and a green light from our Congress.

Other changes occurred in Flight Operations:

• George Mueller prevailed upon Chris to give up his Flight Director role and focus on the management of his total Apollo effort. Chris hated to give it up, but it was time.
  

• Chris named three new Flight Directors for Apollo: Gerry Griffin, a GNC flight controller for the CSM, Milt Windler, from Recovery operations and Pete Frank, from the mission planning unit. This was the first Flight Director selection of two from ranks other than MCC flight controllers. All three of these men were pilots or aircrew members. Gerry had flown back seat with Bill Anders in the Air Force. Pete was a Marine fighter pilot and Milt was an Air Force fighter pilot.
  

Even today, we still carry guilt over the fire and how we missed it.

During this period, the Soviet Union first flew its version of a real three-man ship, called the Soyuz. Launched on April 5, 1967, the sole cosmonaut, Vladimir Komarov, was killed when the parachute system failed on landing.

The year 1967 moved on with increasing focus and clarity on the job ahead. There was a sense of determination and resolution that the spacecraft would be properly fixed and the program would get back on track, stronger than ever. We owed that to the crew of Apollo I. In early 1969, George Low was reflecting on the program and referred to the fire as the turning point, saying, “It required us to build a different Apollo spacecraft and it created an entirely different atmosphere among ourselves, our contractors and within MSC.”

In our Division, a big challenge fell to the CSM branch of Arnie Aldrich. These were the systems operators in MCC who watched over the CSM, now in a process of being significantly upgraded. They were in this period of modification full time and the rest of us involved on a part time basis. We also had to follow the requirements for and the progress of the flight software and the MCC software. In his evaluation of the MIT software deliveries, George Low felt that the deliveries were lagging and not reliable. As a result he assigned the flight software responsibilities to Chris Kraft and Chris then delegated it to Bill Tindall. Within a month Chris set the ground rules to forcefully control changes.

The MIT effort on flight software quickly began to yield results and reliable deliveries of software. We also began to prepare for three more unmanned flights. I was assigned the first Saturn V launch of an unmanned CSM. Gene Kranz had the flight of an unmanned lunar module in earth orbit and Cliff drew the second Saturn V/CSM flight. These were now labeled Apollo IV, V and VI, although we also referred to the Saturn V flights as 501 & 502. This assignment continued me on the path of studying the CSM and resulted in a weeklong CSM training session in Downey, California, during the summer.

There was a large group, probably twenty from the MCC team attending and about five of us who brought families along on this trip. This was the first time for our family to see California, Disneyland and the Pacific and on a clear day to see Catalina and the mountains around LA. We drove our station wagon over I-10 to the LA area, and broke the trip into three days of driving. Bryan was about eighteen months and really impressed us all. He was able to chew up a big portion of a styrofoam ice chest during the three day drive west. I think the other boys were feeding him.

We rented a small cottage down by one of the beaches, about a block off the ocean. We also found out that we could not walk barefoot on the sand without torching our feet. But the pain was worth it to get into that beautiful blue ocean. We all went in and came bouncing back out as fast as we could. I had no idea the Pacific was that cold. If you look around the beach in southern California, most people are there on the beach with towels under them, but not in the water. Those who are in the water are usually wearing some type of wetsuit or they are just there to cool off and get out fast. The family did enjoy their time on the beach while I spent most of the week looking at two thousand viewgraphs of spacecraft schematics and trying to fathom their mysteries.

Disneyland was also a real treat for the kids and us. None of us had ever seen the place and it was enchanting. A day of “Small-small world,” Magic Mountain, more rides and long lines before we eventually wore out.

On our return to Houston, it was time to start preparations for 501. The CSM spacecraft was very familiar to me and the mission would be conducted primarily in earth orbit. The Saturn V would be launched, first two stages would be fired and discarded, the third stage called the S IVB stage would propel the CSM into earth orbit. A few revolutions later, the S 1VB would relight and push the CSM to a high apogee orbit of ten thousand miles. Once on the way down from that maximum altitude, the service propulsion system (SPS) would fire to accelerate the spacecraft to the same velocities that would be experienced in a worse case return from the moon. (This was a big step up from the Wallops days of doing the same type of testing but on a far smaller scale.) This was a great test of the thermal protection system and all the guidance, flight control and propulsion systems. It was also time to fly the Saturn V, which was a giant monster of a rocket about three hundred sixty-five feet tall. Five F1 engines powering the first stage, delivering one and a half million pounds thrust per engine. That was seven-and-a-half million pounds of thrust, lifting a six million pound vehicle off the pad. The second stage had five J2 engines of two hundred thirty thousand pounds of thrust each. The third stage propulsion is used to achieve earth orbit and then the single J2 engine is fired again to achieve escape velocity when the mission is to go to the Moon. The entire vehicle is steered by guidance equipment in the instrument unit at the top of the three Saturn stages and below the CSM, LM and protective shroud.

The whole machine is an exercise in “big.” Everything about it was big and the Vertical Assembly Building (VAB), where the Saturn V was stacked for launch, is five hundred twenty-five feet tall. The vehicle assembled on the launch platform and then the platform with the Saturn V on top is transported to the pad by a crawler that also weighs about six million pounds. At liftoff, the five engines are generating the equivalent of one hundred eighty million horsepower and one percent of that energy is converted into noise. It is no wonder that Walter Cronkite had to duck to safety in his TV booth a couple of miles from the pad with the ceiling tiles falling down and the entire building and windows rattling violently.

In preparations for the launch, the MCC participated in a three-day count-down test at the Cape. This was about a month before the launch and it was really a struggle for the KSC launch team. There were so many new systems with a new vehicle, a new pad, a new launch facility. It took two weeks to complete this three-day test. This was a real learning chore for that team at the Cape. We felt sorry for them at times, as they struggled to get their arms around this massive set of equipment and the people trying to master them.

Finally we were ready for launch. Grady Myer had already left NASA and George Guthrie was at the FIDO console. John Llewellyn was at Retro, breaking in Jim Payne. Gran Paules and Neil Hutchinson were the guidance officers along with Steve Bales. There were some back up operators for this nine-hour mission and this was a first for Neil Hutchinson who had spent his early years in the NASA computer division overseeing the RTCC. Neil ascended quickly through the ranks to be the computer supervisor, for all the computers in MCC, and was now on the receiving end.

The flight was as nominal as they get and we were very impressed with the performance of the Saturn V. The Saturn V was going to be our ride to the moon and it was a joy to see that it worked just great.

Next up, on January 22, 1968, was another unmanned flight this time of the LM. Gene Kranz was the Flight Director for this mission, designated Apollo V. These unmanned flights were always more complicated for us in MCC. With the crew onboard, we did not have to program the whole flight sequence and could change things or respond to anomalies more quickly and easily. We already had three unmanned CSM flights by this time, but this was the first for the Lunar Module. The flight objectives approximated the accomplishment of the propulsion burns on a typical lunar landing mission. There were a number of propulsion burns with the descent stage. Then a fire-in-the-hole maneuver to separate the ascent from the descent stage was conducted and the ascent stage was then sequenced to simulate the rendezvous maneuvers.