Highways Into Space: A first-hand account of the beginnings of the human space program (45 page)

Years later, I discovered that Donnelly had a problem with Pete Conrad on the first Skylab mission, after Pete was on-orbit coping with that emergency. That was in June 1973, a few months previous. At any rate, Donnelly reportedly wanted to give an official reprimand to Pete Conrad for allegedly improper use of a private voice channel (i.e. not available to the press). He was overruled. Perhaps these events increased his intensity for defending the Public Affairs positions. My stance for “constructive” seemed to be taken for obstruction.

The PAO plan, a formal document, in our system, was divided into two parts – preflight and flight. After much internal review we released Part One version at the October meeting. That and the development of the Part Two document were planned for the October agenda. The PAO subgroup had difficulty getting to agreement and Low decided to raise the issue with Petrov. Final approval of the products came afterwards in November. Equal access by the media was a tough subject. Even then, the Soviets made it difficult for Western media, preferring to give the benefit to their Iron Curtain media allies.

Most of the time in the project meeting was taken up by resolving whatever we could of the open subjects and with reviewing the presentations prepared by the working groups for briefing the senior executives at the mid-term. The entire team made a strong showing of the project progress and readiness.

There was still the issue of the Soyuz 11 failure and any possible safety implications for our flight. We had raised this several times after staying away from it while it was still raw for them. We made it clear each time that we wanted a more complete report to assure ourselves that it did not have possible applicability to our flight. George Low had added it to the mid-term agenda earlier in his letter to Keldysh. In our Working Group 0 meeting with Professor Bushuyev, the Soviet side, in the person of Academician Kotelnikov, provided a detailed presentation explaining the results of their Soyuz 11 accident investigation. We judged it to be a very credible and complete summary of the cause and its effects. Sometime after the de-orbit maneuver, which was nominal, and before the entry into the earth’s atmosphere, it was planned to separate the orbital module from the crew entry module. This separation is initiated by the firing of pyrotechnic devices to sever the attachments between the two modules. Normally, the pyros fire in a sequence with very short delays between the firings. In this case, all the pyros fired simultaneously and delivered a stronger than normal shock to the vehicle. This caused a seal in the isolation valve to dislodge and allow the cabin air to vent to the vacuum of space. (The design of the Soyuz is to accommodate three crewmen and there is not sufficient space in the entry module to wear the bulky pressure suits.) The entry module lost all of its pressure very quickly and it was estimated that the crew died within thirty seconds. As further corroboration, the escaping air caused a disturbance to the vehicle that the automatic attitude control system tried to correct by a series of thruster firings. This response correlated to the size of the disturbance created by the escaping gas.

After some discussion among ourselves, we were satisfied that this was an accurate and consistent account of the accident and the data presented supported the sequence of events and their conclusion. And since this set of events was directly related to the entry sequence long after the joint docked phase was completed, the Soyuz 11 failure would not be a constraint or apply to ASTP. I also expressed the view that this presentation should be repeated for George Low for his concurrence and we would recommend to him that the subject should be closed.

The presentation was by Kotelnikov but the victory belonged to Professor Bushuyev. He and his team were proud of the fact that they had won the internal struggle to explain this to the ASTP team. Even without knowing what it took to get this approval, our team was equally proud of him. He demonstrated again that the Soviet team was clearly on the side of what was right for the ASTP project. One more insight into his world transpired as a handful of us gathered in his office after the meeting. I started to ask him another question. He stalled and gave a “be quiet” sign and wrote a short note. Alex wrote out a translation, “I cannot say any more than K just said.” And Bushuyev pointed up to the ceiling. That closed the discussion. But we were satisfied. Our firm conclusion was reported to Low on his arrival. At the formal mid-term meeting, George Low expressed his agreement that the Soyuz 11 questions were answered and now closed. He expressed his appreciation to Kotelnikov, Petrov, Bushuyev and the others for their strong efforts in reaching this resolution. And, also, to the entire ASTP project for advancing the work to this stage of completion.

The Soyuz 11 report and closure was a major step in our ASTP process. In addition, there was another positive indicator on the political front.

At the October ‘73 meeting, we were in Moscow during the Yom Kippur War. The U.S. and USSR supported different sides in this conflict, but there was no effect on our joint work. ASTP seemed to be compartmented as a separate and valued effort and therefore continued without interruption. During the conflict, we received telexes from the embassy on the progress of the war. We posted them on our bulletin board for our working group members. There were often Soviet working group visitors reading the telexes.

On joint participation, we had observers in the life support testing both in Houston and Moscow. We were also planning on joint docking seal tests in December and a two-month test period in the Dynamic Docking Test Facility in Houston. We agreed to the participation of U.S. specialists in the preflight checkout of the VHF/AM radios at the Soviet launch site. We had ongoing crew training exercises, total of six in all. And we had plans to provide observation and training exercises for the two flight control teams in each others’ MCCs. Joint activities were golden in terms of enhancing understanding and teamwork.

On documentation, we were generally making good progress. But, we were still concerned that the time was growing short to launch and there was less opportunity to accept slippage. Petrov promised that he would personally watch the Soviet performance and it certainly was on our watch list.

Later, as further background, we were informed that there were three flight tests to verify the system changes caused by the Soyuz 11 accident – two cosmos tests #466 and #473 were flown in 1972 and 1973. Soyuz 12 was flown shortly before this meeting with two cosmonauts in pressure suits. From this point on in their program, the Soviets would use only two men crews, suited for entry and that would be their standard.

There is another lesson here. Notice the number of flights to satisfy their solutions – two unmanned flights and one manned flight. That would be considerably more flight testing than we would have done. Likewise, in the earlier dispute, which ran in our Washington circles, the Soyuz 15 must have been a failure in terms of failing to dock. Professor Bushuyev had reported that they could not accomplish an automatic docking which was their main purpose of the flight. So with the loss of that primary objective, it was time to return. In our program, we flew less often to verify or test developments. But when we did fly, we tried to do everything we could. It was a different approach based on their respective capacity to fly quickly and often. This enabled them to take smaller steps and come back and try it again later.

Once it was decided, the Soviets were forthcoming in explaining the Soyuz 11 accident. Their scenario was completely credible and understandable. It is obvious that the Soviet side representing ASTP (Professor Bushuyev, Academician Petrov) had pushed the view to their internal colleagues that we had the right to know what happened and our position was justified. We were also confident that this failure during entry did not constitute a risk to the on-orbit docked phase of our mission. The frank and honest revelation of needed details was an act of solidarity with the purposes of ASTP.

In terms of the performance in the technical working groups, there had been significant progress and this was summarized for the Review Board.

It was the result of very serious technical effort on the major issues confronting the project. We were far advanced in the development and testing of a new and universal docking system that we believe is more appropriate for the future than previous designs of both countries. One of the significant planning difficulties had been alleviated by the positioning of a second Soyuz ready for launch in case of a problem with the first. The guidance control for the docking phase was settled. And, a major concession from the Soviet side of lowering their space craft pressure to about ten pounds per square inch and adding repress gas and tankage, made internal transfer of the crewmembers much easier by eliminating the need for lengthy pre-breathing before returning from the higher pressure of Soyuz to the lower pressure of Apollo. The PAO subgroup on the U.S. side rightfully insisted on preserving open access to the project and its people. And that was underlined again by George Low. One of the working groups (4) specializing in radio systems had been very weak in their delivery and completion of scheduled work. This had been acknowledged by Professor Bushuyev and Petrov and they promised to fix it.

The last comment on the working groups is an intangible. But it was observed and commented on by both Arnold Frutkin and Chet Lee. They were impressed by the very strong sense of dedicated professionals working through the barriers and making the project work.

The Soviets, and particularly Petrov, were very pleased that George Low wanted to visit some of their facilities in Moscow. Even though he was not able to attend, I would guess that Academician Keldysh made a point to his colleagues that he wanted a first class showing for Low. They visited a laboratory that housed their lunar samples and then to the Institute of Space Research which was directed by R. Sagdayev, a well-known name to us. They discussed the Soviet exploration of Mars and the four spacecraft involved. Low visited Star City and was impressed with the pace of construction there for training facilities for Apollo Soyuz. They were also building what they referred to as a hotel that was living quarters and a dispensary for the astronaut group. Leonov took George for a ride in the Soyuz simulator and I expect that Low surprised him with his quick study and hands-on approach. Next was the spacesuit familiarization by Kubasov. Feoktistov gave Low a tour of the Salyut mockup. And that gave both of them the chance to talk about their January 1971 meeting where the joint mission got a kickstart. A number of us joined Low for the visit to the Soviet MCC in Kaliningrad. This was a little eerie; it felt like such a familiar place. The room had far more similarities to ours than differences. There were very large displays all across the front wall. It had a very tall ceiling, more than two stories. There were levels of consoles, much like ours. Their management levels sat in the back row, and the consoles tiered down toward the front of the room. Visitors entered on the balcony level. All in all, it felt like our MCC at home.

There were three more splinter meetings through the end of the year. Two of the three meetings engaged WG3; there was a series of docking tests, one with a full-scale development version of the docking system to prove the design adequate. Over the months from September to December, there was a very extensive testing period on the Dynamic Docking Test Facility in Houston. This was a very sophisticated test facility and it had been a race for the facility team to have it ready on time. Yet still, there were some facility delays on the front end of the testing. There were some heroic efforts to make up the time loss, long hours and extra effort by both WG3 and the facility teams. The intensive testing over a wide range of conditions generated a strong basis for confidence in the new docking system design. The three plus months tests were an opportunity for bonding of U.S. and Soviet teams and they took full advantage. They even mixed the players on the two teams in order to compensate for the U.S. lack of soccer skills.

In November, docking system seal tests were performed at the Rockwell plant in Downey and the Soviet team witnessed the test. The joint effort also helped our team towards a solution relative to the seals at extreme temperatures which the NASA/Rockwell team had been struggling with.

DS Dynamic Testing Team

Additionally, the ASTP crews joined each other in Star City for their first training exercise in the USSR. Training and language were a full time agenda for all the members of the crew complement. Free time was filled with language practice. By this time, Gene Cernan had joined our office after Dave Scott was reassigned to the NASA Flight Research Center as Center Director. Gene had flown twice with Tom Stafford (Gemini 9 and Apollo X) and they both were happy to be teamed up together again. And the hosts at Star City arranged snow for their visitors.

Our crews were impressed with the progress of the Soviet crews in language proficiency. Based on their experience, our language officer, Nick Timacheff, selected four individuals to shadow our crews. Their tasks included classroom work and a buddy system with individual astronauts resulting in near-full time language awareness and usage.