Highways Into Space: A first-hand account of the beginnings of the human space program (24 page)

CSM From LM

The LM worked to perfection, the last set of questions and uncertainties, which could be answered, were, and we and the world started counting the days to Apollo XI.

After the years of anticipation, the time for landing on the moon was at hand. Two choices remain open until fairly close to launch. The first was: which crewman would climb down the ladder first and into the history books. The second choice was when to do the moonwalk after landing (relatively soon or after a sleep period). The landing crew was Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin while Mike Collins flew the CSM solo in lunar orbit. Each had flown one Gemini flight.

Probably of equal or greater significance to Gemini experience, Neil had strongly supported the use of the lunar landing training vehicle (LLTV) at Ellington and flew it when he could. The LLTV was an ungainly contraption that looked like a metal bed frame with a throttle-able engine to simulate the descent propulsion system and an attitude control system with small thrusters. There was an ongoing discussion between the crew office and some of the MSC management, Chris and Bob Gilruth in particular, about the wisdom of continuing to fly this machine. Neil had ejected from it once during 1968. A new version was produced to fix previous problems and the chief of the aircraft pilots, Joe Algranti, ran a test flight. He also had to eject. The crew office, especially Neil, insisted that it provided the necessary link in training for the final minute of selecting a landing spot and putting the vehicle down safely. Much discussion ensued but still Neil and Buzz separately flew this training vehicle on different days in the month immediately before their launch. I believe that Neil was one of, if not the only, pilot who could have convinced management to continue to fly it. Such was the respect earned and accorded to Neil and his piloting judgment. When the decision of which crewman would be first down the ladder, the initial deliberations revolved around the unspoken assessment of the respective qualifications of the two men. At this stage of consideration, the choice leaned heavily to Neil. Eventually, it was observed that the path of opening the LM hatch swung the edge of the door inward and from left to the right side of the cabin, making it conclusive that the crewman on the left side of the cabin, Neil, was clear to go out first. In my view, this supplied a technical rationale for what the choice would have been anyway.

Returning to the subject of whether to do the moon walk soon after landing or schedule a sleep period, we flew with the latter timeline as the baseline plan with the understanding that circumstances might well lead to the early moon walk. After the actual landing, the early EVA won out, as in, “How could anybody just go to sleep while the long sought prize was there for the taking?”

The Trench team had many tough phases to prepare and train for and more than enough talent to cover them all. Greene, Reed, Shaffer, Boone and Bostick were the FIDOs. Deiterich, I’Anson, Spencer, Elliot, Weichel and Llewellyn manned the Retro position. Guidance assignments were Presley, Paules, Bales, Russell, Renick, Fenner, Mill and Wells. Certainly, the Guidance officer was about to earn his pay.

Another late development found in the landing simulations was the appearance of computer program alarms during the powered decent to the surface. To Gene Kranz’s landing team, this was a brand new problem to be understood and defensed. It fell to the guidance team to orchestrate the solution technically with advice from the onboard software team at MIT and Houston. The program alarms were an indication that the computer was being asked to do more then it could within the computing cycle and this is what the alarm was trying to tell us. More was learned and understood about program alarms in these last few weeks than we ever knew about them in the years leading up to the flight. With that in our tool kits, the team was “GO” for the moon.

Apollo XI lifted off on July 16, 1969, to the rapt attention of the entire world and especially the hundreds of thousands who would see and feel it at the launch site. Man’s first big step in reaching for the stars was underway. The mission events occurred as nominal- a term we had learned to dearly love. We are often asked how it feels to be in MCC. Most of the time is a relaxed but guarded diligence. But, for the big mission phases, it is like an electric field is raising the hair on the body and stimulating the synapses firings inside ones brain. I love that feeling of readiness and concentration.

The MCC team – the Trench, the systems controllers for the CSM and LM, the communications controllers, the planning positions and the Flight Directors – was an average age of twenty-eight and ready for the biggest events of their young lives. And, no matter what shifts we were assigned, we were all plugged in at the consoles for landing and the expected moonwalk.

Apollo XI Liftoff

And then during descent, program alarms started. Neil reported, “program alarm 1202, 1202.” Our young guidance officer Steve Bales, with his SSR team lead by Jack Garman, responded, “We are Go on that alarm, Flight.” Three more program alarms showed up on the way down. Steve and his team assessed them all as “Go.” And then it was “sixty seconds” called from the MCC, alerting the crew they had that much more fuel before having to abort. Buzz reported “sixty feet, down two point five feet per second, two forward.” Neil was searching for a landing spot. Then “thirty seconds” called up. Buzz called “forty feet, getting some dust here, thirty feet.” Landing was close and then “contact light, engine stop.” Landed. Soon Neil came on to tell us and the world, “Houston, Tranquility base here, the eagle has landed.” Capcom Charlie Duke replied, “Roger, Tranquility. We copy you on the ground. You got a bunch of guys about to turn blue. We’re breathing again. Thanks a lot.” And it was true. The last stages of landing seemed to be the longest seconds in our flight history.

Cliff was the lead Flight Director and was on duty for the Moon Walk. From “one small step for man, a giant leap for mankind” to back inside the cabin, the grainy images captured us and the world for a short time of absolute wonder. Soon it was time for the ascent and rendezvous with Mike Collins in orbit and my black team was on duty. For most of the MCC shifts, we were always mindful of the possible mission conditions that would lead to terminating a phase and downgrading to a reduced mission. Once the phases began that were “coming home,” there was no “No-GO,” only “GO” and whatever it might take to keep it that way. LM ascent was the start of the only “GO” stage of the mission. Some events might be delayed but only temporarily. After LM liftoff, we experienced more of that wonderful “nominal” stuff-docking, LM jettison, TEI, mid-courses, entry and splashdown.

The recovery carrier carried a new trailer onboard, which looked much like one of those gulfstream travel trailers. This would be home to our astronauts for an evaluation period as a precaution against bringing back to earth some alien biological agents. They smiled through the window and through this process, perhaps knowing that these were their last few days of privacy and calm. We stood around the control center, flags in hand, cigars all lit, congratulating each other and not wanting the moment to pass. My mind turned to what it took to get to this point and the people who made it happen- the work, the good times, the tough times, the sacrifices, the fire, our leaders and this MCC team of mostly twenty-somethings all of it came flooding in.

We did something that started out as impossible. And it was accomplished in eight years and two months from President Kennedy’s speech in May 1961, less than one hundred months. Quite a job, guys.

On the Soviet side, since the first flight of Soyuz 1 in April of 1967 that ended in the death of Vladimir Komarov, their program was going through a recovery of its own. In 1968, Soyuz 3 flew with one crewman, Georgy Beregovoy. On January 14, 1969, Soyuz 4, commanded by Vladimir Shatalov, lifted off. Three cosmonauts, Krunov, Yeliseyev and Volynov followed the next day in Soyuz 5. The mission was a real rendezvous and their first manned docking. Two of the Soyuz 5 cosmonauts transferred into and returned in Shatalov’s Soyuz 4 spacecraft. And that was the last manned mission for our competition before the moon landing. Unknown to us at the time, the giant heavy lift, Russian N-1 rocket failed and blew up on the pad in July 1969. An unmanned probe, Luna 15, crashed on the moon on July 21, 1969, during the Apollo XI mission.

LM Back From The Surface

Apollo started as part of the US-Soviet Union global confrontation known as the Cold War. The Cold War began shortly after the end of WWII and was the global state of affairs until the Soviet Union formally dissolved in 1991. While it was ongoing, this confrontation was competed in many theaters and at various levels of hostilities, some conducted by proxies. It lasted for about forty-six years. The “space race” began with Sputnik in 1957, approximately the start of the second quarter of the Cold War. By the halfway point in 1969, the “space race” had been won. Within fifteen months of Apollo XI and after Apollos XII and XIII, I would travel with a five person delegation headed by Dr. Gilruth to Moscow in October 1970 to discuss the possibility of establishing requirements for the technical systems for rendezvous and docking in order to make possible the rescue or of astronauts or cosmonauts by spaceships of the other countries. From a competitive condition to a limited but admirable cooperative effort was the next step. This eventually led to the test flight of all these equipments. It was also a test of the mutual trust and commitment of both countries to this humanitarian purpose. During this effort, I met many of the cosmonauts from the sixties flights and some of the men behind the Soviet programs. The Apollo Soyuz flight experience also was the foundation for the decision in the nineties to invite the Russians to join the existing international partnership on what is now the International Space Station – a global effort involving sixteen countries and expanding.

As Apollo recedes in time and becomes more historical then contemporary, the significance of Apollo will draw more discussion and debate. Eventually, in the long sweep of history to come, it will be seen as a starting point. We might ask ourselves what else happened in the 1400s besides Christopher Columbus in 1492.

In the immediate aftermath of Apollo XI, I remember somebody interviewing many of us in NASA and soliciting our views as to the significance of Apollo. Many answers were in the geo-political, security and technology realms. You could classify mine as more a view as to how far and fast this human race has come – the first time we humans left the planet and visited our nearest neighbor in the solar system – two hundred thousand years since homo sapiens appeared and about a million of our generations. And of all of those humans, we were the fortunate few who were given the opportunity to work the Apollo program. What a gift. I will forever be proud of this operations team – planners, MCC operators and astronauts and especially the young men of Mission Control. And to our leadership, thank you for your trust in us. It has been the greatest of pleasures to serve with all of you.

The aftermath of Apollo XI kept us all busy, but it was the enjoyable and satisfying kind of busy that comes from pride of accomplishment. There were some really large gatherings on the strip of hotels, bars and restaurants, now called NASA road one. Many folks from Houston came down to help us celebrate. The crowds soon spilled out into the pool, sidewalks and streets. It felt like Mardi Gras.

In the middle of August, we packed up the four kids and drove to Ohio to visit Marilyn’s folks and to deposit the four grandkids there while Marilyn and I flew to Los Angeles. We were invited to attend an Apollo XI gala, hosted by President Nixon at the Century Plaza hotel. We found our “black ties” and I was delighted that Marilyn and the other wives had the opportunity to attend. They had made their own indispensable contribution to getting to the moment. The occasion to celebrate the flight at the President’s invitation, with our friends, enjoying the allure of LA and our first visit to Rodeo Drive – all combined to make the trip magical. And, there was still more to come.