Highways Into Space: A first-hand account of the beginnings of the human space program (22 page)

Apollo Saturn 501

This was the first flight for the new LM team of flight controllers in MCC. The systems GNC controllers were Jack Craven and Bob Carlton and others plus the trench team of Dave Reed and Gary Renick. New FIDOs were Maurice Kennedy, Bill Stoval and Bill Boone. At Guidance, Russell and Fenner moved over from Gemini. The first descent stage burn only continued for a very short time. Because the engine did not rise to the thrust level within the time constraint that the onboard computer was expecting, it commanded an engine shutdown. Recovery from these conditions resulted in a profile where some of the individual steps, like firing and shutting off the engine had to be commanded from MCC. This became more constraining because the commands sometimes had to be repeated four or five times before the communications worked. Apollo V was a baptism by fire for a new LM team of MCC controllers and they prevailed.

We had one more unmanned flight to accomplish, Apollo VI on April 4, 1968. It was essentially a repeat of Apollo IV from last November. It was very important to get a good repeat test, especially of the new Saturn V, and we all knew it. Same trench manning as Apollo IV was in effect except Jay Greene was prime, with George Guthrie as backup and Neil Hutchinson was prime at Guidance. Soon this monster Saturn V lifted off. And then bad things started to happen. The first stage had a severe case of POGO that almost caused a vehicle level structural failure. Once through the first stage, our expectation for return to nominal was shattered again. One of the five J2 engines shut down and then another one also shut down. Only three of the five engines continued to run and the guidance system tried to get to the target conditions by burning all the fuel through three engines instead of five. The third stage took over and it got to the best orbit that it could. Cliff and the trench team thought that they could recover and get close to the preplanned mission with the second burn of the SIVB. The gremlin party in the Saturn was not finished yet. The SIVB stage did not ignite to perform the next planned firing. This would have propelled the CSM to a ten-thousand-mile apogee orbit. On a lunar mission, this second burn of the SIVB is the one that would inject the two spacecraft on an escape trajectory to the moon. The team used the SPS engine to get as high an apogee as they could, and still performed the later burn that would accelerate the spacecraft to the desired entry conditions. The achieved conditions were adequate for a good thermal test, but not exactly what had been planned.

When I was assigned to the first manned flight designated Apollo VII, I was happy to know that Wally Schirra was the CDR. I had not worked yet with Walt Cunningham or Don Eisele, but I clearly remembered and respected Wally’s performance on MA-8 and GT-6. He had done a great job on these early flights and I was looking forward to this maiden Apollo flight, along with Gene Kranz and a new Flight Director, Gerry Griffin, fresh from the ranks of the Gemini GNC operator position. It was also the first “prime” role for Phil Shaffer at FIDO and Will Presley at Guidance. Apollo VII was the first flight test of the newly designed CSM and a very important step in the Apollo flight sequence and of ten days in duration.

As something of a premonition, I was listening to the launch team loop from KSC in one of their early tests of the spacecraft. Wally jumped all over the test conductor for something that bothered him in the handling of the vehicle. I was not able to tell what the basic issue was but they were on opposite sides of it. I had never heard this kind of challenge on the loop before, expressed with gruff hostility, and no opening for discussion. The event passed and I thought it was just a bad day for the parties. Little did I know.

We were getting ready for the beginning of simulations with the crew in the simulator and the flight control team in MCC. These simulations were designed to test our plans and procedural reactions to various problems and were the final steps in training for a flight. We took them very seriously. The first run turned into a circus when the first couple of malfunctions were inserted by the training team. From the crew came, “Whoop de doo, this case is crazy and not worth our time.” A continuing diatribe for several minutes rolled out of the crew cabin. As the run finished, we gathered on the communication loop to debrief this simulation.

3 Flight Directors Gene, Glynn and Gerry

Before the complaining started up again, I announced, “This training is important for the flight, we must have your cooperation with what we are trying to accomplish here. We can’t have this circus routine, so unless you cooperate with what we are trying to accomplish, we will not continue.” More contention and finally, I said, “Okay, let’s go see Chris and Deke, we will take the tape over and let them listen to it to settle this dispute.” From the CDR came, “Tape, tape, what tape?” I told them it was standard practice to help us with the debrief and reconstruction if necessary. All of a sudden, the tone changed and confrontation melted into cooperation. This change in attitude was fine by me and we went through the next two months or so with no disputes and again I thought it was behind us.

On October 11, 1968, the countdown culminated in a perfect launch and a brand new Apollo spacecraft in a nominal orbit with a crew of three ready for ten days of wringing out our new Apollo CSM ship. By the next day, Wally had come down with a bad head cold. Lot of flight surgeon talk back and forth and by the 2 a.m. press conference, we had a big audience of “newsies” looking for the “head cold” story. This interest in the head cold continued for the rest of the flight, but things got worse. In the meantime, we had a lot of work to do and a lot to learn about this new vehicle. We had preplanned tests and a longstanding approach to follow up on those tests results to learn all that we could.

We soon had a problem with the first time use of an onboard television camera to connect the country with what was going on in our spacecraft. Wally had been against this idea of an onboard TV from the beginning and refused to use it in the first scheduled slot. This led to more discussions/arguments with Deke. Finally, the CDR was willing to use it later and we soon listened to the “Wally, Walt, and Don show” for ten to fifteen minutes every day. It’s amazing what being on TV will do for your disposition. He still had an outburst about “going to be an onboard Flight Director for these updates,” which are computed on the ground to get to the desired conditions and often vary from the preplanned nominals. This griping was really starting to get to me. About half way through the flight, my wife, Marilyn was walking me around our street every night to let off steam. This was done out of the earshot of our children, because my reaction was becoming bluer in tone. Wally had his final argument with Deke prior to entry. Wally refused to wear his helmet because he was concerned about clearing his passages during entry and having his hands free to get to his nose. On the other side, the risk was losing cabin pressure that would result in the loss of the crew. Wally did what he wanted.

This had to be really hurtful to Deke also, who was always a great defender of crew prerogatives and choices and a long time friend of Wally. It was a very rare occasion when Deke communicated personally with the crew during the flight. And Deke must have had more than his fill of arguing in public and rebukes from his Commander. He was done with these fun and games. Apollo VII landed.

None of the crew ever flew again, either by their choice or other circumstances. Wally had already announced his decision to retire before the flight. However, his crewmates, Walt and Don, had been in a “no-win” box and seemed to get more uncomfortable with it as the flight progressed. Allegiance, in this case to their Commander, should be a two way street with a balanced set of reciprocal obligations. The example of the leadership of Chris Kraft illustrates how he gave opportunity, wise direction, support and trust to us. In return, we gave him our loyalty, respect and very best efforts. The result was in perfect harmony for all of us and with the purpose and mission of the larger manned space team. Everything fit and the net balance for all parties overflowed with mutual satisfaction. In the case of the crew, the Commander received the allegiance of his crewmates. But, what did the Commander provide in return to his crew and the entire Apollo team? Did his actions support the interests of himself, his crewmates, the MCC team and the larger manned space team? Did they lead to benefits that were appropriately balanced for all parties? The answer is No. As a case study of real-world leadership, this had to grade as a sorry failure. The actions did not even support his own interests and resulted in a sad way to end an otherwise great career.

I was often asked what the other astronaut reactions were to the Apollo VII fiasco. Although I never said this publicly, I privately pointed, not to any verbal comments by members of the astronaut corps, but to the FACT of complete cooperation from the crews of Apollo VIII, IX, X, XI, et cetera. They were the testaments that said it all.

Somewhat overshadowed by the circus environment, Apollo VII made an absolutely vital contribution to qualifying the new CSM to support the upcoming flights. I did not know what the next step was until my friend Cliff Charlesworth, who was assigned as lead Flight Director of Apollo VIII, laid the plan out for me before I even left the MCC building. He told me there was good chance of going to the moon on the next flight. My first reaction was, “that’s crazy, we are not ready yet and that’s a big change to the planned sequence.” But, by the time Cliff and I left the control center, twenty to thirty minutes later, I was smiling, no, grinning, about what was to come.

In the aftermath of Apollo VII, Chris and I and others were invited to a visit at President Johnson’s ranch. And, that was quite a show. Chris was included in a driving tour of the ranch, with the President driving through the pastures in a Lincoln convertible at a brisk speed, as he introduced his herd to the NASA officials. The President impressed me as a big, strong, forceful man very accustomed to getting things his way. He was much more impressive in person than the schoolteacher image he conveyed on TV. And Lady Bird Johnson was as gracious a lady as I have ever met. She saw to it that we were well attended while her husband was touring. She was far more gracious and engaging than the media portrayals of her at the time. Not the first or last time that the media should be ashamed.

Unbeknownst to me, Chris had discussions with some of his planning staff in April of 1968 that blossomed later. He was thinking out loud and brainstorming with the staff about the current state of problems – schedule delays of the LM and its software. He was insistent that each mission should make a real contribution to clearing the hurdles to the earliest possible lunar landing. I was told later that the concept of a lunar flyby or a lunar orbit mission was mentioned in that context. John Mayer jumped on these ideas enthusiastically and Chris told him to continue to develop such options. I am sure that John went out and had his lunar wizards at full speed within the hour. Ideas for lunar alternatives were in play. This raises another dimension of the Kraft/Mayer synergism.

Whenever we moved into a new field such as rendezvous, lunar trajectories, LM landings, or navigation around the moon – Chris always seemed very proud to ask John Mayer to illuminate this new territory for all of us. And John was the coach who always seemed to have whatever was needed in development. I called them the mission planning wizards – Ed Lineberry, Hal Beck, Emil Schiesser, Dave Alexander, Ken Young, Bob Becker, Bob Reggelbrugge, dozens more and they showed up when needed, always with answers.

By late July, George Low was discouraged about the rate of LM progress. Shortly thereafter, he introduced the idea of flying to the moon on Apollo VIII without the LM, with Bob Gilruth and Chris; Deke soon joined them. I expect that they had the same reaction as I did later when I found out about the plan. At first, I thought, “this is crazy, it’s too big a change, we can’t get ready, et cetera.” And then the idea sinks in, we have the CSM ready after Apollo VII, Marshall knows how to fix the Saturn V, we have an “open” flight slot. We can go to the Moon and we can fill in one big hole in our experience. When Cliff told me about it, after Apollo VII, I went in minutes from “crazy” to “brilliant, breakthrough, and why didn’t I think of that?” And this is where the earlier staff work paid off. John Mayer and Bill Tindall were aware of the difficulty of lunar orbit navigation from the earlier unmanned probes, so their approach was to go for a lunar orbit with the same geography as the landing mission planned. This would map all the specific mass concentration anomalies in the gravity field. With that work as background, Chris quickly persuaded the MSC brain trust. Lunar orbit was a bigger step with more risk than a lunar flyby, but we had to do it soon anyway. To state the obvious, we can’t land on the moon until we go in orbit around the moon. They, the MSC management, immediately (on that same day) flew to Huntsville, Alabama, to describe the concept and enlist Von Braun’s team in being part of the solution.