Highways Into Space: A first-hand account of the beginnings of the human space program (29 page)

Arnie Aldrich was the chief of the CSM Systems branch and had been coordinating the approval of the entry checklist with the program engineering and management teams, both NASA and industry. Eagerly awaited by all of us, and especially the crew, Arnie approved the release of the final entry checklist by 125 GET. The checklist was six pages and had gone through 6 revisions, every twelve hours. John Aaron walked it into the MCC. The read-up was delayed briefly to get checklist copies in all the right hands and recommenced at 126:15. With its arrival onboard, RETURN-HOME STEP #6 was accomplished.

The LM was still cold and the power margins permitted an early power up at about 132 GET, which warmed up the cabin for the comfort of the crew. As a measure of our earlier electrical power management efforts, the LM was able to supply the highest level of electrical power of the entire mission, about forty-two amps, and sustained that level for the last nine hours of the LM operation. The crew performed a LM guidance alignment using the new sun-moon technique, as developed with the Trench and the supporting mission planning team. This LM alignment saved time and power later in the CSM timeline because the LM guidance reference could be transferred to the CSM quickly and easily. The last mid-course was at 137:90 GET. It took FIDO Bill Stoval the whole shift to get the sun/earth alignment procedure worked, including involving all three crew men in the execution of the burn, another team innovation. Jack Swigert was the timekeeper to start and end the burn, with the other two crewmen controlling attitude with the hand controller and the translation controller, a trick never done before. Jim Lovell’s comments on the state of the SM after jettison were sobering. “And there’s one whole side of the spacecraft missing. Right by the high gain antenna the whole panel is blown out, almost from the base to the engine... It’s really a mess.”

SM Damage

Later in the CSM power up sequence, the crew reported, “Main Bus A and B up and on.” This report told the MCC and especially the CSM team that the CSM was back from the earlier explosion and from being unpowered for almost four cold days. Now it was ready to do its job. A little later after LM separation, a grateful salute went out “Farewell, Aquarius and we thank you.” Onto the blast furnace of entry and Odyssey had one more surprise for us. For some reason, the end of blackout extended by about two or so minutes past the normal time and we stayed that much longer in our respective “Our Fathers” as uneasy silence stole the air out of MCC. And then, “Two drogues” pulling out the three beautiful main chutes, landing in sight of the Carrier and onboard her in a fast forty-five minutes. The crew of Apollo XIII was safely home.

Apollo XII Landing

We all had our reactions to the flight. I believe that the safe return was a result of leadership, courage and high competence. All of which were character traits of the flight crews, the MCC team and the surrounding engineering/staff support. This was by the design of our Center leadership as it was impressed on us throughout the first decade of manned space flight. For me, I felt that the Black team shift immediately after the explosion, and for the next fourteen hours, was the best piece of operations work I ever did, or could hope to do. It posed a continuous demand for the best decisions often without hard data and mostly on the basis of judgment, in the face of the most severe in-flight emergency faced thus far in manned space flight. There might have been a “better” solution, but it still is not apparent. Perhaps, we could have been a little quicker at times but we were consciously deliberate. During the eighty-seven hours from explosion to recovery, there were likely thousands of spacecraft configuration and mission timeline choices. There were numerous new innovations imagined, perfected and made available on time. All of these were vital contributions to achieving a safe and successful outcome.

We created a quarter-million mile, return-to-Earth space highway, which was supported by repeatedly delivering one invention, one innovation at a time, as they were needed. This new highway guided the crippled ship back to planet Earth, where people from all continents were bonded in support of these three explorers-in-peril. It was an inspiring and emotional feeling, reminding us once again of our common humanity. I have always been so very proud to have been part of this Apollo XIII team. We delivered our very best when it was really needed.

There were some extraordinary events that occurred in rapid succession after the flight. President Nixon arrived at JSC to award the Presidential Medal of Freedom to the entire mission operations team. The ceremony was held outside on a beautiful spring day to accommodate as much participation as possible. Sig Sjoberg received the medal on behalf of the team. Speeches appropriate to the event resounded across the campus.

Next, I was assigned to brief the Senate Aeronautical and Space Sciences committee, Senators Clinton P. Anderson, chairman, and Margaret Chase Smith presiding. It was April twenty-fourth, just a week after landing. And a very great honor for me to tell the story of what our team did. I also had a chance to visit with Bill Anders who was now on Vice President Agnew’s staff of the new National Space Council. This was the start of an amazing career for Bill outside of the astronaut role. I was also invited to the home of Ethel Kennedy and family for a small party to commemorate the event. It seemed like everyone wanted to celebrate the successful return of Apollo XIII. Senator Ted Kennedy was there and he was already into “re-ordering our priorities,” meaning less money for the space program which had peaked at four-and-one-half percent of the federal budget. Understandable reaction even though it was President Kennedy’s goal of the end of the decade that drove that funding. And NASA never came close to that level again – more like half of a percent in recent times.

Nixon Visit

Just got home from that excursion and we – Sig Sjoberg, Apollo XIII astronauts (except Fred Haise – still on the mend from an infection) and Flight Directors – were on the Gulfstream, headed for Chicago. What a whirlwind trip that was – and a chance to see the legendary Mayor Daley in action and full command. I had my most vivid memory of him from the TV coverage of the 1968 Democratic convention in Chicago when the protests and the Chicago response filled the streets of that famous city with a very ugly scene. This was different, and the machinery of the city purred like the sleek machine that it was. The former President Johnson had just left the city and we saw access control of the on-off ramps to the main freeway, superbly timed to clear the path of traffic and then re-open as we passed and to resume normal flows. We were on a fast dash to meet many city and state officials, schoolteachers and kids. We rushed into a hotel expecting more of the same and, when we got to a beautiful suite with a grand view of the city, the mayor announced that we had thirty minutes to catch our breath and the bar was open, favoring Bloody Marys at this time. We traveled then in open convertibles on a parade around the city loop and waving to a multitude of people with American flags and joyful at what we had just pulled off. When we did get back to the plane, we found silver bowls engraved for the occasion for our wives. Pretty classy operation, Mayor Daley, and thanks for a spectacular day.

Lunney at console, astronauts to left, flight controllers in front and management behind Lunney

Forty some years after Apollo XIII, Andy Chaikin wrote Voices from the Moon quoting the astronauts on their involvement in the history of Apollo – certainly one of the best of the Apollo books. Ken Mattingly was the CMP, ready to fly Apollo XIII when an exposure to measles caused him to be bumped from the flight and reassigned to Apollo XVI Ken was constantly present in the MCC and then in the simulators once checklists were available, doing everything he could to help his crew mates.

When the Chaikin book was ready to come out, Andy called and urged me to read Ken’s comments. Doing so, I was surprised and humbled by his observations of the operations that night and the following days.* Ken speaks for himself:

“The most impressive thing that I have ever seen was, Glynn Lunney walked (into Mission Control). And if there was a hero, Glynn Lunney was, by himself, the hero. Because when he walked in the room, I guarantee you, nobody knew what the hell was going on . . . And Glynn walked in, took over this mess. And he just brought calm to the situation. I’ve never seen such an extraordinary example of leadership in my entire career. Absolutely magnificent. No general or admiral in wartime, could ever be more magnificent than Glynn was that night. He and he alone brought all of the scared people together. And, you’ve got to remember, that the flight controllers in those days were – they were kids in their thirties. They were good, but very few of them had ever run into these kinds of choices in life. And, they weren’t used to that. And all of a sudden their confidence had been shaken. They were faced with things that they didn’t understand.

And Glynn walked in there and he just kind of took charge. Restored everybody’s confidence: Don’t know what happened. Don’t know where we are yet. That’s our first job, is to figure out what our options are and what we do. And, we’ll just get on with this thing . . . . At that point, nobody would even think of saying anything about disasters…it’s just professionalism at its finest. That was all exclusively caused by one Glynn Lunney. Absolutely the most magnificent performance I’ve ever watched.”

—Ken Mattingly

CMP, Apollo XIII to XVI

*This use is with the permission of Ken Mattingly and the author of Voices from the Moon (Viking Studio).

Part Three covers the remaining Apollo flights – consecutively. This technique removes the distraction for the reader in jumping back and forth between the Apollo stream and the growing Apollo Soyuz activity. My Apollo participation was riding shotgun on Apollo XIV and my last time on console for Apollo XV, followed by a bystander role for Apollo XVI and XVII. I was appointed as Apollo Soyuz Technical Director (Program Manager) in June 1971. It really becomes a very busy overlap when the Apollo Soyuz demanding year of 1973 was overlapped with the Skylab flight schedule of four launches in 1973. For ease of following, the Apollo flights are treated consecutively as are the Skylab flights.