Highways Into Space

The Early Years of Inventing the

Mission Control Center, Achieving the First

Interntional Docking Mission &

Deploying Skylab, the First U.S. Space Station

Glynn Lunney at Console Apollo XIII

Glynn S. Lunney

1st Edition 2014

Table of Contents

Highways Into Space

Copyright Page

Dedication

Credits

Acknowledgements

Foreword

Prologue

Part One: Origins

Chapter One: Early Times

Years of Formation

Coal Miner

Chapter Two: Leaving for The University and The Co-op Experience

Chapter Three: Graduating to the NACA Lewis Research Center

Part Two: Joining The Space Task Group, Projects Mercury & Gemini

Chapter Four: The Fight Dynamics Branch

Chapter Five: The People and Moving Towards Operations

John Llewellyn

Mercury Redstone

Back to Inventing the Discipline at STG

Christopher Columbus Kraft

Moving Towards Operations

Chapter Six: 15 Months to John Glenn on Mercury Atlas 6

Chapter Seven: Completing Mercury and Hello Houston

MA-7

Cliff Charlesworth

Moving to Houston

Completing Mercury

Chapter Eight: Gemini Begins, and FDP Staffing Up

Chapter Nine: Gemini Training Ground for Apollo

The Flight Dynamics Team Tackles Gemini

Bill Tindall

Debriefing at the HofBrau Garden

Chapter Ten: Family and The Trench

Chapter Eleven: Back to Gemini Flights

Part Three: Apollo

Chapter Twelve: The Apollo Fire

The Apollo Fire

Chapter Thirteen: Coming Back

Chapter Fourteen: Apollo VII

Chapter Fifteen: Apollo VIII

Chapter Sixteen: Apollo IX and X

Chapter Seventeen: Apollo XI

Chapter Eighteen: Apollo XII

Chapter Nineteen: Apollo XIII

One final note

Chapter Twenty: Apollo XIV and XV

Apollo XIV

Apollo XV

Chapter Twenty-one: The Last Apollo Flights: Apollo XVI and XVII

Apollo XVI is Next

Apollo XVII

Part Four: Moving Into Project Management

Chapter Twenty-two: Early Stages of Skylab

Chapter Twenty-three: Going to Moscow

History Recap

October 1970 Meeting

Chapter Twenty-four: 1971: Year of Project Definition

January 1971 Meeting

June 1971 Meeting

Preparing for December 1971 Meeting

Setting Up Working Groups

Not Understanding Their Organization

Chapter Twenty-five: 1972: Year of U.S./U.S.S.R. Summit

President and Premier Consider

We Had Leverage

Time for the ASTP Team to Implement

Twenty-six: 1973: Year of ASTP Mid-term and Skylab Flights

More Momentum to the ASTP Team

Skylab 1

Skylab 2

Skylab 3

Skylab 4

Alex Tatischeff

More Meetings Scheduled for Moscow

The ‘73 Mid-Term Closed the Soyuz 11 Issue

The Last Months of 1973

Chapter Twenty-seven: 1974 and 1975: Years of Completion

1974

1975-Flight Year

The Aerospace Safety Advisory Panel

ASTP Launch Day Is Here

Perspectives

Epilogue

Leadership

Teamwork

Preparation

Attitude

Family

About The Author

HIGHWAYS INTO SPACE

Copyright © 2014 by Glynn S. Lunney. All rights reserved.

ISBN: 978-0-9907127-2-5

Please send your comments to the address below.

Thank you in advance.

Glynn S. Lunney

Email: glunney@gmail.com

Printed in the United States of America.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording or any information storage and retrieval system without written permission of the publisher except for brief quotations used in reviews, written specifically for inclusion in a newspaper, blog, or magazine.

Requests for information should be addressed

to the above address.

To All Those Who Worked on the Beginnings of the

Human Space Program and Turned Impossible

Dreams into Reality

Credits

Credit to this source in capturing the detailed story before the author role began and as a reference for the timeline of events, minutes, and participants throughout the project.

Book title: The Partnership: A History of the Apollo-Soyuz Test Project by Edward Clinton Ezell and Linda Newman Ezell, 1978, NASA History Office.

Credit to this source in providing the detailed history of the Skylab program development and as a reference timeline for events, decisions, and participants throughout the project.

Book title: Living, Working in Space, a History of Skylab by W. David Compton and Charles D. Benson, 1983, NASA History Series.

Credit to NASA for the use of photos throughout the book.

Credit to Jim Jaax for his WG-5 photo collage.

Credit to Virginia Tech, Special Collections Archive, Chris Kraft material.

Acknowledgements

Over years, my wife, Marilyn, pursued a continued suggestion that I should capture my recollections of the early times in the manned space era. At an event in Seattle in 2009, the idea of a book took a big step towards reality. Six members of the original Flight Dynamics Branch agreed to write their stories in a collaborative effort, and so we had the peer incentive to actually start. We decided to write for our families and those who would join the families in time to come. For her perseverance, Marilyn was rewarded with being my typing and editing partner.

Dave Reed volunteered to provide the IT know how to prepare the product to the printer’s specs. Jerry Bostick was the inspirational psychologist for all of us. Jerry Woodfill provided an early prototype book so we could see what it might look like. Besides Dave and Jerry, Chuck Deiterich, Maurice Kennedy, Bill Boone and Bill Stoval assumed the new role of authors also. The first edition was published in 2010 and titled From the Trench of Mission Control to the Craters of the Moon.

At more urging from Marilyn, Arnie Aldrich and Dave Scott, the remaining Apollo flights, including my best work, Apollo XIII, and my role in Skylab and Apollo/Soyuz are now added to my original story that concluded at Apollo XI. We found new typing help from granddaughters Macy and Erin. Shea helped with the cover design. Abbey was indispensable as the excutive editor in managing the getting-ready-to-go-to printing. Thanks to Arnie and John Aaron for their help on Apollo XIII specifics and Arnie and Len Nicholson for recollections of Apollo/Soyuz. Milt Windler helped with Skylab and Ken Young with rendezvous.

Thanks to Rebecca Wright of the JSC history office for all things historic, and Mike Gentry and Jody Russell of the JSC Media Resource Center for their recall of the right photo for the right occasion.

As always, Chris Kraft was there for support and encouragement.

Thanks to all of you and the many others who gave moral support.

—Glynn Lunney, Black Flight

Foreword

By Chris Kraft

The start up of the NASA Space Task Group (STG) in 1958 required a large number of young engineers to initiate Project Mercury. The result of this recruitment was a rewarding experience for all concerned because it enlisted a group of very capable young men who were talented and eager to work on new ideas and new approaches to solving the myriad of problems that placing a man in space for the first time created. Glynn Lunney was one of these young men who came to the STG by way of the NACA Lewis laboratory in Cleveland, Ohio.

He had recently come to NACA and thereby became engaged in some of the technical issues facing a reentering spacecraft from orbital speeds. As a result, he found himself travelling to Langley Field, Virginia, in a makeshift NACA air transport on a weekly basis to aid in the studies being done regarding trajectory analysis for the launch, orbit determination and reentry of the Mercury spaceship. This early work placed him in a position to be selected to join the STG on a permanent basis. This was a very fortuitous event for both Lunney and NASA because he became one of the stalwarts who was responsible for developing the plans and test procedures for the Mercury Program.

The concept of real time flight control of a vehicle in space was a new field of operations and required the development of engineers and electronic equipment to make it happen. Lunney became intimately involved in this work. Because of his understanding of the Mercury flight test design and his knowledge of orbital mechanics his inputs to this work were very useful. In addition, as the need for engineers to become a big part of the flight control activity the unique personnel requirements made him one of the prominent leaders.

It was this early work that brought Lunney into the upper levels of STG management and gave him the opportunity to excel in the world of manned spaceflight. His work ethics and leadership qualities were a great asset to the work on Gemini and Apollo that led to landing men on the Moon, returning him safely to earth and fulfilling President Kennedy’s goal that he so boldly made.

Lunney was chosen to lead a number of other critical activities associated with the U.S. Space Program, including the highly visible flight with the Russians in the mid ‘70s. He was a major factor in the success of all of the space activities conducted by the Unites States in its first 3 decades and particularly the exemplary work he did as a Flight Director for Apollo XIII.

Glynn Lunney has chosen to record the salient parts of his private and professional life in a book. Those interested in the early days of the space program and interested in its history will find his writing a fascinating tale.

Prologue

It is daunting to try to do something like capturing history. In reading many of the books people have written about the space program, it is always impressive to realize the differences in the landscape that we each see. How it looks depends on our technical and emotional involvement in a particular set of events, and our place in the organization, which is a measure of how much scope we are exposed to. And then we have our own backgrounds, which are personal prisms for remembering and interpreting the events we were part of.

This book was written in two stages. The first was started in 2009 with a number of us who worked together to invent the trajectory control function in the Mission Control Center (MCC). We joined in a collaboration to capture our recollections of the early times in the human space program. Our intended audience was our families and descendants who might like to know how it was to participate in Apollo. The plan was to cover the events up to and including the Apollo XI lunar landing flight as a “mission accomplished” response to President Kennedy’s 1961 goal. Most of the other nine authors went past that point and completed their career histories. I was not that fast and always planned to finish later. This first effort was completed in book form and titled From the Trench of Mission Control to the Craters of the Moon.

My text from that book remains as the first part of this expanded version outlining more of my career. That book does have a “band of brothers” flavor, appropriate for young men, bound together in facing the almost overwhelming challenges of Apollo. Our crucible was the Mission Control Center and all that it took to be ready to perform and succeed in that arena. I had hired almost all of the other authors in the Trench book and most of the others who served in the MCC flight dynamics discipline for Gemini, Apollo and Skylab. It still feels like family after fifty years.

In a way, Apollo was a pivot point in history. This group of young men and their parents and grandparents came from a time before widespread electricity, cars, planes, phones, indoor plumbing, charge cards and fast food restaurants. It was a world much more like the one people lived in during previous centuries. Our children, grandkids and subsequent generations live in an entirely different world (i.e. the modern one that came into being in the second half of the twentieth century). This pivot coincided with the Apollo era, when all things suddenly seemed possible.

For me, the second career stage moved quickly in the transition from MCC operations to program management in both the Apollo/Soyuz Test Project (ASTP) and the first U.S. space station, Skylab. However, in the twilight of my time in operations, I had the opportunity to significantly contribute to the successful recovery of the Apollo XIII crew – a very satisfying exclamation point on my time in MCC. The transition to program management was unexpected and happened quickly. And, it became the mainstream agenda for the rest of my NASA career and my time later in Industry.

In retrospect, we in the MCC were a very small unit in the much larger enterprise that it took to get to the moon. All of us, and certainly, I believe that I was most fortunate and privileged to participate in this singular and most historic achievement that is the NASA human space program. It was a truly grand adventure. I loved it.

Part One: Origins

GLYNN AND DAD BILL

Chapter One: Early Times

My earliest memories were of the big yellow house on Main Street, in Old Forge Pennsylvania. It was the home of my mom’s parents, but my grandfather Joseph Glynn had already died in May, about six months before I was born. My grandmother, Winifred Hennigan Glynn, was the lady of the house, and we lived upstairs. It was common in those times for three or more generations to live in the same house, at least for some time.

Life was simple, compared to later times – no cars, no phones, not much indoor plumbing and the only packaged entertainment was the movies on Saturday afternoon. Restaurants were also extremely scarce and very rarely visited. In an interview with our mom sometime in the late ‘90s, we asked how things were during the years of the depression before the war. She offered that, “it was not so bad, we had enough to eat and, after all, everybody was in the same boat.” And that was the way Mom looked at life.

In terms of recollections, some simple and sometimes vague things come to mind:

All of the families had vegetable gardens in their yards.

The horse drawn wagon carried large blocks of ice for the ice boxes.

There were no refrigerators.

Outhouses were prevalent in all back yards.

Doctors made house calls.

We did not have a car until after the war. Hardly anyone did.

The town was divided along ethnic walls, not ethnic lines.

Everybody inside the Irish ethnic wall seemed related.

Everybody in the house ate at the big table at the same time, except Aunt Bea, who ate separately.

The smell of baking bread.

Mom singing.

Mountains cradling the valley.

Going to St. Lawrence Church on Sunday.

The smell of grass in the summer.

Terrible squeals as the next door neighbors slaughtered their hog.

Deep snow in winter.

Scary roots grew out of the potatoes in the cellar.

Catching fireflies in a jar.

Watermelon in the yard.

Swings and rocking chairs on porches.

And that was the way it was.

By the time of the war, I had two brothers Bill and Jerry. (At my age, it was hard to figure what little brothers were good for – although I did later.) In all our early photos, we were far over on the skinny side of life and it looked like cameras must have scared us. Clearly, no movie talent there. Once the war started, we moved first to Bethlehem where Dad worked at U.S. Steel. And soon, we moved to Philadelphia where Dad worked in the Navy shipyard, making submarines. We boys had a pretty good time in Philadelphia at 32nd and Pearl in a first floor apartment unit. The apartment was just a few blocks away from the University of Pennsylvania campus. There were a lot of kids on our block for kicking the can and playing stickball with. The idea of the war did not penetrate much at our age.

We also enjoyed the neighbor couple upstairs, Mabel and Grady Jones and Mabel’s mother, Floss. We thought Grady was cool. He was from North Carolina and had this drawl we tried to imitate. No matter how much Grady instructed us, we did not pass. Grady laughed at that a lot. He had a lot of funny, country sayings and was fun to be with. It was the first time that I ever met anybody from the South. Our parents always seemed to have a good time with Mabel and Grady and our folks continued to visit with the Joneses after we moved back to Scranton. Grady drove his 51 Ford sedan – a really cool car – up for a visit. He even let me drive it on the hill at the Old Forge home. It was the first time I ever saw an automatic transmission, let alone drove one. Also, it was on that visit that Grady bought me my first razor and showed me how to shave. They were great friends to our parents and us kids.

There was one group of outlaws on our block. Five kids lived on the second floor above our unit. We only knew them by their last name – Peppy. And we called them the Peppy Kids. They had a chicken wire fence around their second-floor porch. This “cage” allowed them outside. But, it also allowed them to taunt us street dwellers, and throw ugly things down on us. The unforgivable insult was when they urinated on the clothes that mom hung out to dry in the yard. But, even worse, they managed to add their urine to our apple pie which mom had set out on our porch rail to cool. Needless to say, all of this inflamed us natives. Very occasionally, the Peppy Kids would be out on the street by themselves. It might be by choice, by parent instructions or by God – we did not care. The cry went up – “the Peppy Kids are out” – and we would find them and bang them up, appropriate for their offenses. It was good that they were as skinny as we were.

The street fights were not always bloodless. I remember one battle against another neighborhood group of boys that was pretty intense. When I got home, I found that I was sweating profusely and, when I rubbed my hand through my hair, it came away covered in blood. Something heavy had pounded my head and split the skin open. I believe that it was my first time for stitches.

But our great adventures were mostly on the weekends when Dad was home. Everybody in the family except Jerry had a bike. Mine was a 24-inch one and Bill had a small wheel size of 20 inches. He had to peddle like the devil just to keep up with us. Jerry rode on the bar in front of Dad’s seat. This arrangement worked pretty well most of the time. Except once, Jerry held up our ride for about an hour because he could not find his pillow. By the time we got back from our couple of hours of biking, Jerry was in considerable discomfort and unable to sit. You can imagine the outpouring of sympathy for him. By my process of elimination, the pillow thief had to be Bill, but he did not own up. Bill was fairly stubborn about things. He could kneel down and bang his head on the sidewalk when he got mad or frustrated. He did turn out okay despite this affliction.

Many times, we biked down in the park and mom brought lunch in the basket attached to her bike. These were great times for the family. We liked to visit a park area called Lemon Hill. Many bike-riding families showed up there on the weekends and enjoyed being out of the city streets and flying kites on the rolling green hills. For the parents, it had to be a welcome break from the work routine and the concern for relatives off in military service. Mom’s brother, our uncle Steve, was out in the Pacific somewhere with the Seabees.

I started at St. Agatha’s grade school on Spring Garden Street, about eight to ten blocks from our place. Bill followed in two years and Jerry did not start school until we moved back to Scranton after the war. Brother Bill and I walked to school every day and, with no school buses or parents to chauffeur us, we would collect a crowd by the time we got there. This gave us too much of a chance to visit with other classmates on the way home and sometimes we were late.

St. Agatha’s grade school was run by the nuns. As anyone who went to school with the nuns back then will tell you, they were great for at least two things, one being the basics and the other being discipline. They were probably great human beings also, but in our station of life, it was all about the first two, with emphasis on the discipline part. Discipline came in the form of one of those three-sided rulers, about three-quarter inches on a side. They were designed by the devil, but the sisters used them anyway. And they were very good at it. They had our attention, so the basics could begin. And, if you got in trouble, your parents knew it was your fault, and no one else’s.

On August 6, 1945, just eight days before the news of the unconditional surrender of Japan, Dad was inducted into the U.S. Army and served in the Army Air Corps. Dad was stationed at a number of places around the country and I remember that Mom went to visit him one time when he was stationed in Georgia. This was during the winter and Mom expected the weather in such a warm southern state to be just like summer. It was not so.

Another problem followed Dad all of his service time. Somehow, the Army lost his papers, or at least the payroll papers. They could still ship him around to new assignments. But, the real downside was that he never got paid. Mom got a counter clerk job at the local drugstore. So, her paycheck had to support the home front and she also sent money to Dad for cigarettes and incidentals. The kids, of course, were never told any of this. It must have been about this time that Pop, my Dad’s father, came to live with us. Our guess is that it was to watch us while Mom worked.

Dad spent his last time in service at Shepherd Field in Texas. He told us of the German POWs who were kept there. We were surprised to hear that they were relatively free to walk around the base, not in serious confinement during the day. And, they were very happy to be where they were rather than on any front, especially the Eastern one. I remember the celebrations when V-E day and then V-J day occurred, people in the streets, car horns blasting, lots of cheering and weeping. I don’t think I was aware that the next destination for Private Lunney would have been the Pacific. When Dad finally got back home, he had this big duffel bag full of standard gear, all of which we thought was really cool. Uncle Steve of the Seabees brought home koala bear stuffed animals and a boomerang from Australia. It had been damaged some, but we loved throwing it out in the field. It did not work like we saw in the movies, but it was fun trying.

After the war, Dad bought a large truck, like you might see in the U-Haul lot today. The cargo section was accessible from the cab and was good for traveling and camping. I don’t know how Dad swung the money; maybe his Army pay finally caught up with him. Either way, Dad wanted to go into the moving business and tried to get a license to start the business but he was never successful. The story that I understood was that the local cab company blocked any approval. Whatever the reason, Dad was very disappointed and we did not forgive the yellow cab company.

With no more submarines to build in Philly, we moved back to Scranton. Dad was going back to the mines.

Years of Formation

When we moved back to Scranton, we rented the middle unit of a triplex in West Scranton at 1139 Eynon Street. This was probably in 1946 and we lived there for about five years. We went to school at St. Anne’s, which was a very large parish with a twelve-grade school. The nuns had different names than at St. Agatha’s, but they all went to the same training course. They looked the same and had the same three-sided rulers. (I make fun of what has become a stereotype of the nuns, but they were selfless teachers for generations of young kids and the world is now a poorer place as they and their schools become more rare.)

At St. Anne’s, I went in training to become an altar boy. The priest who led that instruction was Father John Mark. And he was a rigorous perfectionist and disciplinarian. But we really did learn the Mass and how to serve the priest who was conducting the service. Father John Mark drilled us on all the procedures and especially all the responses in Latin. Even today, I still find myself replying to myself in Latin to the prayers that the priest now says in English. And yes, I did get to try the wine.

Certainly, my early years were very strongly influenced by my family and the environment in which they lived. My Dad, my uncles Stanley and Steve, like so many others, worked in the mines of northeastern Pennsylvania. My two grandfathers also worked in the mines in their earlier times. My grandfather on my father’s side was always called Pop by everyone, and he lived with us occasionally. My maternal grandfather also worked in the mines but he had died six months before I was born. We believe that all of the generations of men in our family who came over from Ireland beginning in the mid-1800s worked in the mines at some point in their lives. It was the primary industry in the region and there was not much other work available.

As a young boy, Dad started working in the breakers where the coal was separated from the slag by boys straddling the conveyor. He started this work when he was about twelve to fourteen years old, leaving school sometime in junior high. Being a coal miner was very difficult and dangerous work. It required the miner to quickly develop a wide range of skills. They had to be equipment operators, explosives experts, structural engineers, electricians, carpenters and safety experts who were always conscious of the environment around them. They also had to be pretty tough. No, very tough.

These early years in the ‘30s before World War II were a time when people were not really recovered from the Great Depression. There were many aspects of life which were much more difficult than circumstances today. I never remember parents complaining about what had to be done. They simply did what was called for and conveyed those lessons to us by virtue of their example.

Everything that was done took considerably more effort than it did later. For example, the simple act of heating the house required a regular routine of shoveling the ashes out of the stove, carrying the ashes to wherever we were dumping fill at the time, refilling the pails with coal from the garage and then replenishing the fire. In the Old Forge house on River Street, the coal stoves were on the first floor. One was for cooking and heat in the kitchen and another stove on the first floor added heat to the living area. This encouraged a very fast run downstairs in the morning to get near the stove. In the area of food, meals were pretty simple and basic. Meat and potatoes were a staple along with pasta and stews. I don’t remember eating out at a restaurant until perhaps I was in high school and that was only on special occasions.

The River Street house was a family property on Mom’s side with a deed dating back to 1860. When we first moved into the home on River Street, it did not have an inside bathroom. This was one of Dad’s first major projects in the first home of which we were the owners and not renting. We were very willing and motivated workers on this project for obvious reasons. We had to add framing to create enough space for the extra room. And then Dad had to instruct us on lights and plumbing. Family transportation was never more than one car at a time and, at first, it was a 1930s something with a roll up front window for air conditioning. Later, Dad got a 1936 four-door Buick with a big straight eight engine and manual shift on the floor. This was the car I learned to drive on. Usually, there was no family ride available for us kids and the order of transportation was to walk, to bike or to hitchhike.

When we did get that one car, it was generally in need of regular repair and maintenance. So, Dad was very sensitive to any driving faults causing a problem to his only car. And, God knows, we had them. Despite his caution, it seemed that we were always dealing with flat tires, failure to start or run and I even had a battery fall out of the car through a corroded case to the ground. Seeing it in the rear view mirror, I knew I was in trouble. A contributing factor to this failure was that I was driving through a field with lots of serious bumps; that fact was best left out of my accident report to Dad. Bill was pretty good about the driving. In addition to being a pretty good driver, my brother Bill became an expert on fixing cars. He usually had a carburetor on the kitchen table and he got pretty good at all kinds of repairs. Throughout our careers and into retirement, Bill is the Lunney go-to brother if you want something fixed. But, we all live a thousand miles apart. Jerry, on the other hand, came near to serious bodily harm from Dad for some of his driving antics, such as losing the car. That was a father-son “interrogation for the age” and it got even more memorable as Jerry “lost” the car several more times, each time he was out late with his buddies. Dad could not comprehend how one of his own flesh and blood could do this.

Our parents had a common division of roles for family administration. Dad was in charge of the big D for all around discipline; he was project management and operations for the work to keep our facilities – house, yard and cars – in order; he provided training and direction to our small work force; he certainly assured quality; he provided encouragement to our sports endeavors and our progress in school. And, he provided example constantly. When he left us with a job, he came back later with a clear idea about how much should have been accomplished. We either got a nod for okay, or a frown and a suggestion that meant “increase your productivity.”

MOM AND DAD

Dad also had a continuing series of projects at his work at Niverts where he worked, after the mines, from about 1951 on. Niverts was a company that gradually became a metal supply and fabrication company, from an early beginning in the junk car parts business. These projects ranged from taking down a high smokestack, building retainer walls, designing and constructing a warehouse and learning to weld aluminum before it was a common technique. Dad always displayed a sense of pride in doing any of these jobs well and he had little patience for fellow workers who could not organize an implementation as well as he did. He usually did things in his head and knew what would work and how strong to make it. Dad was also big on sports, loved his Phillies and Eagles. He always encouraged us to play ball and do well. When we were of the age, he came home one night with three different baseball gloves – fielder, first baseman and catcher – probably far more than he could afford. And those gloves smelled just the way I imagined a new leather glove would. We learned to “perform” on projects and to “play” with spirit.

Dad and Mom were always so proud of my opportunity to be part of the manned space program. They probably did not appreciate how much their example flowed through all of their children’s accomplishments and would downplay it, when we pointed out that connection.

Two of Dad’s projects stand out as examples. In the summer of 1951, we were newly living at the old family homestead on River Street in Old Forge. The house sat up on a hill – overlooking a cemetery on the East Side and with an elevation drop of about thirty feet to River Street on the North Side. Under a thin covering of soil barely enough for grass, the hill was made of layers of rock gradually sloping down from the house to the street. Dad wanted a garage down near the street and its location would be such that there would be a forty to fifty feet run of driveway, running east towards the cemetery, climbing about ten feet in elevation above River Street. Nearest to the street was the beginning of a driveway of about twenty feet in length. The job was to excavate a volume about twenty-five feet in length, twelve feet in width with a rock shelf about two feet high on the side where our house was and tapering to about the right elevation on the street side of the driveway. The tools were wedges and sledgehammers. The workers were three. There was plenty of room to dump the fill in the low spots. The job took all summer and Dad approved, and was probably even proud of us for the job.

Then, one Saturday, Dad came home with sections of a garage on a flat bed. It took a few more adult friends to wrestle the pieces into a garage, with a roof sloping front to back. With the heavy lifting done, Dad was able to package the completion into doable sized work packages for the three of us. During the driveway job, we began to call ourselves the Coolie Labor Union. Finishing the garage was easy for the Union. Now we had a garage with a lift up door and a storage area for coal.

Mom tended to the nurturing side of life. As Dad had projects, Mom had passions. She was committed to education, which she saw as a way to change the direction and prospects of one’s life. She loved achievement and encouraged us to do well in school and all of our studies. She continued to write poetry throughout her life. We were consistently reminded, “You are not going to work in the mines, you will get an education and make something of yourself.” This became an expectation that we tried very hard to satisfy. To do less would be to disappoint Mom and that was not anything we would choose.

Mom was God’s steward of the Roman Catholic faith in our family. It was simply expected that we would attend Mass every Sunday, as well as days of obligation, and live in accordance with the teachings and precepts of our faith. No discussion. Even much later when we visited back home, Mom still preferred to get to church early by at least thirty minutes. It brought a smile to report the ritual to my siblings so that they knew it would be the same on their next visit. That faith was very much at the core of most of the people that we knew. It certainly was on display by the womenfolk, and perhaps less so by the men who did not say very much. But they did go to church every Sunday and they made sure that the kids did and that the kids behaved.

And in this time in March 1947, we gained a sister, Carol Ann, to complete our family picture. It took a while for brothers to grow to be fun. How long would it take a baby girl, I wondered. That too worked out in time.

In high school, Mom won a scholarship to Marywood College, a local school for girls. Graduating in 1934, she was not able to attend for reasons of supporting her parents. In her mind I’m sure, we had to take her place. She constantly reviewed our schoolwork and grades and was kind with praise for our achievements.

Sometime in the eighth grade, I participated in a spelling contest. I was pretty good at the subject. However, I did not win but came in second. I do not know how it happened but I was offered a half-scholarship to the Scranton Prep high school. Looking back, there was more to this than I realized at the time. The spelling contest had no apparent connection to the Prep. Someone with authority or access to it had to have noticed and pushed my name forward. The Prep was (and is) the most highly regarded academic high school in our region and there was a tuition fee to attend. I never saw any hesitation on the part of my parents in urging me to accept. I wonder now what they had to do to swing the fee. But it was a decision firmly consistent with one of Mom’s passions. It was decided that I could go. The Prep is a Jesuit school – Jesuits being one of the most notable teaching orders in the Church. At the time, it was not co-ed, although it is now. And it was a life-changer and a new gateway.

It was not a large school. At the time of graduation in 1953, my class was forty-three young men. Most of my classmates were the sons of professional or business fathers. The Prep was the first time in my school life that I had to stretch to compete. I was behind on several fronts. I was only age twelve starting freshman year, about two years behind my peers. Physically, I was small in the extreme, perhaps a hundred pounds. And I had limited social experience in comparison. It was obvious I was in a new league. But, I have to give credit that everyone was fair to me, even welcoming. I never was made to feel like an outsider except for my own awareness that this was an impressive group from a different world than mine and with much academic talent and two years of maturity on me. I did fine on the academic side, participated in debate, the newspaper, track, and enthusiastically in the outside basketball games even when the snow had to be often shoveled off the court to play. I never played inside on a real basketball court until I was at Langley field with the Space Task Group, circa 1959. But basketball was a passion even if played outside. We had the blacktop court in the schoolyard where play went on throughout the school year. We had one rock surface court at home and the Old Forge kids that we played with had several. Lots of hoops, but some barely had nets. Another new insight on life came when I visited the home of a classmate, Rob Newton, and was surprised to discover that Rob actually had ice cream in the freezer at home. Ice cream in the freezer – that was a new thought and it seemed like a good idea.

GLYNN AT 14

The Prep had a very strong influence on me and I have a hard time explaining it to myself. I just know that it did. During my space career, I often found that I was aware that I was thinking through a problem in a way different from my colleagues around me. Not necessarily better, just different. My brother Bill went to Prep three years after me, and we have had current discussions about what we got from the Prep. Bill had the very same sense as I that it shaped him for life. And he had the same difficulty in justifying that judgment, but he knew it was so.

The teachers at Prep were a major change from the nuns. They were young men of college graduate age, some of whom had high school careers in football and other sports. They were smart, strong and athletic. They tolerated no out-of-line behavior and were physical about it. They were in training to become priests and we called them Mister Haske, Coll, Long, et cetera. It was hard to forget that they selected themselves to serve a higher purpose – certainly impressive men. They pounded Latin, Greek, German, philosophy, logic, math and ethics into our heads and reinforced the subjects with a regular regimen of two to three hours of homework every night. The Jesuits prided themselves on providing a “classical education” and preparing young men for the priesthood or to become “Catholic gentlemen.”

Great as it was, there still was the matter of tuition. And that brings me to another unexplained chain of events. Dad was in a new job by this time and it could not have paid as well as the mines. But he did get started on a new path that was eventually better for him and Mom, and certainly safer than the mines. But there had to be less income for tuition. I wonder now if my folks talked to the Prep authorities about taking me out of school. And, if so, they were probably told to wait while other options were pursued. Here I am in my junior year, having just turned fifteen in November. During the next month, I found myself with a job opportunity perfectly fitted to my situation. The job was at the Diocesan Guild Studios, on the other end of the block from school. The store sold various kinds of religious articles to churches and individuals and was certainly tied into the organization of the Church and its workings. The job was close, part-time and somehow that opportunity found me out of all the other possible candidates when I was not even actively pursuing a job. Tuition problem solved. Fifty cents per hour. Was all that a coincidence? Again, nobody said anything by way of explanation to me. But from the perspective of sixty years later, no, it was not a coincidence. Somebody became aware of the problem and fixed it.

Part-time was about fifteen to twenty hours per week and full-time in the summer. I worked as a stock clerk, with the stock room being on the second floor. So, the stock team had to get everything up there, unpack and store it and bring it back down for sale. I was the only part timer in the store and at least five years younger than the next in age. Again, it was a stretch for me in many ways and fifty cents per hour became a lesson in earning money and seeing how far it might go. At one point, it was a shock to hear (unsubstantiated) that the boss, Mr. Maher, made $10,000 per year, an unimaginable sum. At my rate, I had a long way to go. I kept the job at full-time in the summer and back to part-time during my school term at the University of Scranton for my first two years of college studies. By the time I left, I was up to eighty-five cents per hour.

As another indicator of my standing in the social sphere and when it came time for this 16-year-old to get a date for the senior prom, I actually did not know any girls of suitable qualifications. I had some cousins, but that did not count. Eventually, one of the women at the Guild Studios arranged the date with her younger sister. And it worked out, but was an indicator that I had some growing up to do.

GLYNN’S HIGH SCHOOL GRADUATION

PLUS BILL, JERRY AND CAROL

In my senior year at Prep, I also began to focus on the pursuit of a college degree. I was pretty good at math and loved making model airplanes. I thought my choice was between accounting and engineering. My parents suggested that I talk to our local Doctor Marmo. He had been a long time doctor for our family who made house calls. He was only one of two people that we knew with a college degree. He listened patiently while I described my choices and he said, “Glynn, go for the engineering.” It was a simple, short conversation and set my course for life. Thanks, Dr. Marmo, and God bless your beloved Nittany Lions.

After graduation from the Prep, I knew I wanted to work on airplanes and the path became apparent. Two years were at the University of Scranton because it was so convenient and I could live at home. The University of Detroit offered an aeronautical B.S. through a co-op program. And, since it was also a Jesuit university like the one in Scranton, all my credits would transfer with a minimum of do-overs.

During my last summer at home in 1955, I had a state highway job near home before heading off to the University of Detroit for three years of their co-op aeronautical engineering program. Looking back, I really don’t know how I was offered that Prep scholarship. Somebody intervened and my guess is that it was a significant somebody from Prep. Likewise, how did the part time job at the Guild Studios come my way? Maybe someday, I will hear the whole story. I hope so.

On that path in 1953, I found myself repeating my early experience at Prep. I was sixteen and had filled out to a robust one hundred twenty pounds. This time, half of my class was comprised of Korean war vets back to get their degree. I was five to six years behind these guys and much more than that in terms of maturity. But, my study habits were current and sharp, so I had something valuable to offer. Many of them sought me out and I earned a place on the class roster.

There was another student from Old Forge in this pre-engineering class and his name was Tony Andreoni. Tony had a 1937 Chevy, which ran at least those two years at the University of Scranton and probably well beyond. We became close friends and did a lot of miles together. Tony had a year of chemistry in high school and I had none at Prep. College started in at least the second year of chemistry and Tony saved me. Our routine was something like this – Glynn worked until 5 to 6 p.m. at the Guild, went home, did homework for three hours while eating and then we were off to meet our other classmates for an evening of shuffleboard, the shells and lots of laughs. My peers were a college degree in themselves and it was a grand time for two years. We went to class in old barracks buildings, which the University used to handle the surge in attendance after Korea. They were comfortable and did the job. This was the precursor to another lesson from my work in the space program. We had engineers from many schools and states but not the “name” universities, and the young men did everything asked of them and more. This profession, as many others I would guess, is a matter of sound preparation, attitude and work ethic, not a school address.

Back to the family, we just absorbed the daily lessons of family and friends and took it as standard. Folks stopped by regularly for a visit or a glass of beer. Uncle Steve walked all of Old Forge every day on his regular daily visit to family and some of his friends, even if he only stayed ten minutes. Mom took on caretaker duties for my grandfather and both grandmothers as live-ins at various times. When our folks decided to tear down the old house on River Street and build a new one in 1968 after we had all left home, their cousins (Dot and Bernie Ostroski) immediately invited Mom and Dad to live with them for the construction duration in their home in Pittston. Our parents cemented their relationship with the three Ostroski kids that carried on the rest of their lives. Such was the way of family in the Lackawanna valley.

Relatively unspoken but pervasive at that time and in that place was the sense of patriotism for our country. It was very visible during the war years when so many went off to serve the country and the wives and mothers were left at home to care for the families. We did not have a lot of factories in the area where women went to work as in California in the aircraft factories, but there was plenty to do on the home front and women did it. And we never heard a complaint about it. Perhaps the last value that our parents worked hard to instill in us was something that I would call ambition. This was not the crass, self-involved ambition but rather a more noble desire for her children to be able to live a better life. In our family, even though I was going to a very difficult high-performance high school, the standard always was that you will learn; you will get an education and you will make something of yourself. It was considered mandatory that we do that and that we never even consider working in the mines.

Coal Miner

Christmas Eve, 1950. The men working in the Pagnotti coal mine in Pittston, Pennsylvania, were beginning to think about enjoying Christmas Day with their families and friends. And then, “Cave-in, Chamber #2.” The dreaded words ripped through the miners like a chainsaw. Our Dad instantly remembered that his brother-in-law, Stanley Kulick, was working there with his buddy, Teddy. He took off for chamber #2, running as fast as he could. Dad was halfway there before realizing that he was still carrying the jackhammer he had been fixing earlier. As he approached, he saw a few other miners scrambling into the shaft while struggling to see through the clouds of dust. This was a dangerous time because it was impossible to know how much more caving was imminent. The miners slowed their pace while calling out for the men in the chamber. Soon, a choking voice was heard, hard to understand but coming nearer. Then, the light from his helmet flickered through the dusty gloom and one of the miners emerged, so covered with black and dust that Bill was not sure who it was. And then he recognized Stanley’s voice, “Teddy’s still in there. The cave was on his side.” One out, the other still unknown. More miners arrived, more lights to see with. Carefully, they advanced, calling for Teddy. No answer. More calls, still no answer. And there would not be an answer from Teddy on that Christmas Eve or any other time.

The feeling of having little control over one’s fate had to be compounded for Stanley by the fact that he and Teddy switched sides of the coal car to shovel from on this particular night. Some of the other miners questioned that choice until Stanley explained that Teddy had asked to work on the side of the car where the roof later caved in. No matter, some measure of guilt must have attached to Stanley, although he never spoke of it. It was just one more burden that these brave and stoic men were accustomed to enduring, with never a complaint.

My Uncle Stanley left the mine that night and never set foot in the mines again. He moved his family to Connecticut, the closest place to our home in Scranton, Pennsylvania, where he could find work. Stanley and his family did not move back for many years. Stanley never did return to the cold, dark, dangerous network of shafts and chambers under the valley, some only a few feet high and often with a foot of cold water.

Stanley did not return, but my Dad did and worked in the mines into 1951. I absorbed this experience without much discussion from either of our parents directly with us kids. This was a time when kids did not ask questions of their parents, especially when it was a serious matter. Much later in life, I learned more about the fear that gripped my Dad during his years as a coal miner. Mom told me how Dad hated to go to sleep at night. He knew that when he woke up, he would return to that fearful, dark place again. It never got any easier for him. But, he did it, like thousands of other men in Pennsylvania and other mining regions. He did it because it was the only way he had to take care of his wife and family. Now in my seventies, the more I reflect on those times, the more I appreciate the simple human dignity, even nobility, of these men and their wives. It was only later that they became known, also to others, as our “greatest generation.” We already knew that.

The coal mines of the Lackawanna and Susquehanna valleys are gone now. Their demise can be traced to the Knox mine disaster in January 1959. At that time, mining operations were continually being extended to chase the coal seams, but got too close to the ice-swollen Susquehanna River. The subsequent cave-in of the river through the roof of the River Slope mine flooded a major part of the interconnected mines. The flooding could not be slowed even by dumping coal cars, truckloads of gravel and fill and some eight hundred railroad cars into the whirlpool. Sixty-two fortunate miners were able to escape, but twelve more were swept away by the deluge. After more than a century of commercial coal mining, Mother Nature finally ended this period in the history of our region.

But the mines continued to deliver more pain to the decent people of this area long after they were closed. The process of separating the coal from the useless slag resulted in large dumps of waste that still contained some coal. It is believed that these dumps eventually caught fire and the fire spread by burning exposed coal near the surface and then beneath the surface. This burning emitted a foul smelling gas (hydrogen sulfide) strong enough to peel the paint from houses and making it appear that, in many places, the ground was burning. It also was responsible for the deaths of families as the gases leaked into basements at night and filled the home like a silent killer. Or the erosion collapsed the support for the structure of the house.

And, finally, many of the miners – some of the toughest stock you can find – died early because of the damage from coal dust to their lungs. This condition took my Dad in 1985 after years of fighting to breathe. We were told that his heart was like a marathon runner but his lungs were simply unable to perform.

This awareness in my early years left me with many feelings and convictions, some of which I can identify and some are just baked into who I am. However, there are at least two occasions, which always trigger a response directly from the legacy of this experience:

First, any news report of a mine cave-in or trapped miners anywhere on the globe, immediately and with an emotional punch, causes me to stop, reflect and pray for their safe recovery and for their waiting families.

Second, much later in my life, and long after my time in MCC, I was occasionally confronted by employees who wanted to talk about the stress of the work in our comfortable offices. Stress? I could never muster any sympathy for the initiators of these discussions. I knew what my folks did for us. I could only guess what their parents and grandparents did for them. I wondered if they really understood and appreciated it.

Chapter Two: Leaving for The University and The Co-op Experience

For finishing my last three years, the University of Detroit co-op program was a great way to earn the college degree. Besides the fine academic preparation, it was also a chance to experience the real world of aero engineering in the nation’s pre-eminent aeronautical research organization. Besides that, the NACA pay was just about enough to live on, and then pay for the upcoming school quarter of expenses. Based on the three-month rotation, I was only in Detroit in summer and winter. That was only three months during the regular University school year. As a result, we did not really attach to the University or its other institutions such as the sports teams or any other students outside of aero engineering.

In attending several of my wife’s high school reunions, I was impressed by the closeness of so many of the men and women in her class. Also, Marilyn’s classmates lived very close to each other at the time, and walked to school, which was all in the same neighborhood as their homes. As a group, they were closer to each other than my Prep class because the Prep students came from a radius of up to thirty miles around the region. There was no common “place” except for extracurricular activities. These were relatively limited and not like living next door. In retrospect, it was the same scene at the University of Detroit, not really connected on the emotional level. It was almost more of a business relationship. The University provided a service and we paid for it. That is not a criticism; it was just the circumstance at the time. Detroit was about a fifteen-hour drive from the Scranton area, subject to car breakdowns. The southern route went via the Pennsylvania and Ohio turnpikes. The northern passage was around the north side of Lake Erie through Canada, a long way to home. I never realized how relatively disconnected I was from high school and college until I witnessed first-hand Marilyn’s class reunions and the experiences of our kids. All four of ours went to Texas A&M and rapidly developed far, far more of a lifelong emotional bond.

Most of the guys, from the Scranton area, and those we met in Detroit were all in the same financial boat, working six months of the year to pay for twelve months of expenses. Nobody else from Detroit co-oped at NACA in Cleveland, although there were a number of other University co-ops represented. Money was tight for all of us. I had two experiences that were memorable in that regard. In my first few weeks in Cleveland, I simply ran out of cash. I had no checking account. Such a thing as credit cards did not exist, and it really wasn’t much of an option to call home. So I went three days without eating any food, just lots of water. Finally, on the fourth day, my landlady may well have guessed the situation and invited me to dinner, the first real food in too many days. Whatever the menu was that night, it was the absolute best and got me over the hump.

In the last two quarters of school in the winter and spring of 1958, I had to stretch the funds to make it. It took a lot of dime hamburgers from the White Tower in Detroit for sustenance. I noticed that after that time, whenever I went close enough to smell the White Tower cooking, my stomach rolled over. People remember different things about college, and one of mine is about a few periods of hunger. While in Cleveland for some of my quarters, I also had a job at Seager’s Sunoco gas station at night and on weekends. That helped, too. Class work and study in my last three years had all the charm of class work and study. But it too passed. The grind of the study quarter was offset by the quarters of work at the Lewis Research center. I worked in five different units there. One of them involved the study of the air cooling of a plugged nozzle used to vary exit area in the jet engine exhaust plane for optimum engine performance. One was jet engine testing in engineering cells. One was to investigate shock tubes and I had several tours in wind tunnels. The most advanced of these was a ten by ten foot test section at speeds up to Mach 3.

Co-oping brought lasting rewards in beginning to understand technologies, analysis and testing. Jet engine testing relied on extensive pressure (and other) measurements throughout an engine. Today, you might marvel at how we took test points.

Glynn at College Graduation on left: Mom and Dad on right: Dot and Bernie Ostrowski

Pressure sensors were fed to a very large vertical board with many manometer tubes, side by side, a room full of them, with a background grid to measure the various mercury levels. As a test point stabilized and was taken, the field of manometers was photographed. This film was then provided to a room full of female data technicians, where they manually read the manometer tube levels in the photos and eventually calculated a pressure for each sensor. This then provided a pressure distribution either inside an engine or over the surface of an engine inlet. This was a very far cry from automated IT systems of modern times, but the process taught rigor, discipline and working with people.

One of my assignments was the study of shock tubes to create a certain type of photograph, called “schleiren,” of supersonic shock wave patterns. Another was in various wind tunnels, including the ten-by-ten foot wind tunnel, which was unique in all the world. Because of the amount of electrical energy used from the Cleveland grid, it was only operated at night. I was the engineer on duty and did everything the technician, who knew all about facility, told me to do. Respect the source of knowledge, especially when you don’t know zip. Whenever we finished in the morning, I hopped on the back of his motorcycle and went to the Airport bar on Brookpark road for beer and breakfast.

I really enjoyed my time as a co-op and the lessons lasted all my life. I remember George Smolak, George Wise, Len Obery, Jim Connor, Nick Samanich and Jim Useller, all of whom tried to help this young co-op. So many of the engineers at Lewis were great at what they did and in providing guidance and advice to a young kid. I thank them all.

Chapter Three: Graduating to the NACA Lewis Research Center

My brief time at Lewis was fulfilling and a continuation of learning for later challenges. Looking back on my brief time at Lewis after graduation, I see it now as the calm before the storm. As a research center, there was a certain tempo and it was different from what the early manned spaceflight effort was. Lewis had many brilliant engineers engaging the day-to-day problems of our aviation industry and trying to provide solutions, usually in the form of NACA technical reports. They were also working subjects well before their time, such as long duration, low thrust engines for interplanetary trajectories.

This work was lead by a man with the name of Wolfgang Moeckel. I doubt he ever knew of me but I was impressed with him, his work and the foresight he brought to this subject, many decades before it was ever seriously considered for flight. Lewis and the other NACA Centers, were intellectual property creators for the large and growing field of American aeronautics. The Center had the feel of a well-endowed University research organization. But NACA people were seldom directly involved in the application of their research by US Industry.

At graduation, in June 1958, I joined a branch headed by George Low. At an early age, George caught the attention of NACA management, both in Cleveland and NASA headquarters in Washington D.C. He was a very talented and highly respected engineer, who was comfortable with both technical and headquarters policy matters. Later in the ‘60s, George became the Apollo spacecraft program manager after the Apollo fire on the pad, which killed three astronauts. This turned out to be a relatively short but very intense period for George, who was one of the group of leaders who made Apollo a success.

In George’s branch, my section head was John Disher whose hobby was to help with the racecars that ended up at the Indy 500 each year. John’s section was exploring the new subject of the very high-heat loads on entry vehicles into the earth’s atmosphere at extreme speeds. In our small group, our testing was carried out by the air launch of multi-stage solid rocket propellant rockets with a small instrumented re-entry model on top of the stack. The first stage was used to accelerate the stack to higher altitudes and then fire the rest of the stages to propel the model down towards entry conditions of very high speeds. The air launch was from under the wing of a B-57 and flew over the Wallop’s Island test range off the coast of Virginia. There was another group from Langley exploring similar research and using ground launched solid propellant vehicles, one of which became the Scout launch vehicle. I co-authored a NACA technical report with Ken Weston on the heat transfer results on one of these flown models. Writing a NACA report was a rigorous and humbling process, with many reviews of the technical quality and one’s use of the English language to capture the essence of the subject. All young engineers should go through this process at least once.

As a research center, there were always classes of new graduates coming to work at the Center. And the average age at the Center was on the young side. I roomed with two older hands in Lakewood. One was Jim Useller, older by twenty years and full of experience to pass on to me. Jim was a mentor in many ways, but especially in the lore of NACA and what it took to succeed there. He was also the chef in the house. Pete Wanhainen was the other roommate, and his passion was iceboat racing on frozen Lake Erie. He also liked regular sailing, but that speed was tame compared to his iceboat.

There was a large group of younger folks still finding their niches. We had a great softball field on the Center grounds and it had a small-truck-size building, refrigerated and well stocked with beer and soft drinks, and a center of competition and fun during the summer months. There was an established softball league and we always had trouble beating the team from the rockets group. Bowling was the game for the colder months. Organized into leagues, bowling competition was a serious business. Some few did not even have a beer till after the frames were done. There were some good bowlers, and then there were most of us who were not so good. One of the friends in our crowd was Pat O’Donnell, who worked at Lewis in fuels and lubes. Her husband, Wally, owned the Fairview Park bowling alley. Pat and Wally hosted parties at their home. And, if you ever wondered what to do with damaged bowling pins, they made great fuel for the fireplace.

Into this sporting arena came one of the NACA nurses, Marilyn Kurtz. I had already met Marilyn during visits to the clinic and at lunch arranged by a friend. She was the junior nurse of the two at Lewis; the other, Ruth Elder, was more senior by a bunch. Marilyn was much prettier and more fun. Dr. Sharp, who was the center director and a very likable person, often asked Marilyn if the crop of young men was satisfactory to choose from or whether he should hire more. In the winter of 1959, a dozen or so of this intrepid band of bowlers went off to the mountains near Rome, New York, to try their hand at snow skiing. Marilyn taught water skiing as a hobby on Lake Erie, and transferred some of that to snow skiing. Most of the rest of us were complete amateurs. Marilyn was more accomplished with her Stem Christies while we were still snow plowing and trying other poor imitations of skiing. On the “one more run” for the day, Marilyn fell, and when her bindings froze up, broke her ankle badly. Gino Bertolli and I found a rescue carrier and dragged Marilyn on it down the hills to the lift area.

At the clinic, the doctors found the break, set it and put on a cast. That evening we drove off on our return to Cleveland. Maybe as a portent that we could survive together, I was driving the car on the turnpike, with three passengers asleep in the rear seat and Marilyn in the front passenger seat. Hard to see it, but there were stretches of ice. The car started to slide and then to rotate slowly. There was nothing to do but wait and it seemed like a very long time of absolutely no control. The car finally came out of the spin, traveling in the original direction, still at sixty-five miles per hour and okay. Marilyn was in the front seat with her leg propped up on the dashboard. We looked at each other, smiled at our good fortune like co-conspirators and silently thanked our angels. The three folks in the back did not know until later that we had this turnpike ballet. On return to Cleveland and then a check with the hospital, the doctors decided that the break was not set well. They had to re-break it and pin it with a rush nail.

This accident and recovery had two long-term effects. One is the consistent failure for Marilyn to pass the modern airport screening test and to be subject to special inspections. The other effect of my humanitarian visits to the hospital was the blooming of a flower which eventually became marriage and a full long life together with many wonderful fulfillments and joys. Some skiing accidents are for the best. This one certainly was for me.

At that time, something began that carried through my working career and even into retirement. And that was the association that I had with the pilots of the NASA aircraft division. Joe Algranti was a leader in the Cleveland aircraft operations and managed to get me back to Cleveland from Langley regularly. On one occasion, I was late getting from Goddard (GSFC) to Butler aviation, the private aircraft terminal at Washington National airport used by NASA, then called National airport and is now called the Ronald Reagan airport. Joe had already departed the terminal and was in line for takeoff. Butler dispatch called Joe, and Joe replied, “Bring him out but be quick about it.” Whenever I travel through Reagan airport today, I wonder how this high security complex would react to a Jeep driver discharging a scrambling engineer and helping him and his bag to climb through the rear open door of a DC-3 while ready for takeoff on the runway. I expect they would not be happy.

Joe knew that there was a reason beyond work for me to return to Cleveland. By this time, Marilyn and I were seriously dating. Occasionally, Marilyn also had to travel to the new nuclear facility at Plumbrook in Sandusky, Ohio, seventy-five miles or so to the west. And this travel was sometimes by way of the Lewis Navion, a two-seater that Eb Gough of Lewis Aircraft Operations loved to fly. Eventually all of this flying worked out. Both of us thank/blame Joe for keeping us together through those travel times. Afterwards, Joe moved to Houston and ran the MSC/JSC aircraft operations division for many years.

Over Christmas 1959, I worked up the courage to ask Dad Kurtz for permission to ask Marilyn to marry me. And we did on April 30, 1960. Marilyn loved her local church in Fairview Park, St. Angelas, in part because it was so beautiful. But our wedding turned out to be at the same time as a major repair and almost all of our photos included the scaffolds all over the sanctuary. So much for wedding planning.

Marilyn and Glynn 1960

Part Two: Joining The Space Task Group, Projects Mercury & Gemini

Trenchmen from the Flight Dynamics Branch

Chapter Four: The Fight Dynamics Branch

This is the story of a relatively small group of young men, all very early in their careers, most of them brand new college graduates. Each in their own way had been preparing themselves for their adult future when they came to NASA and human space flight. Our astronauts were selected in a national competition from the best of all of our test pilots, and indeed they were. However, we ground operators (and all the other engineers at NASA) actually selected ourselves by showing up to participate in this grand adventure of going to the moon.

If it takes motivation and attitude to be successful, these young men were already there, even on a project that could easily seem impossible. We knew almost nothing about space flight. We certainly didn’t know what it would take to land people on the moon and return them safely to Earth. But these young men came and they met the challenge. They had to invent it all – the control center, and all the tools of the trade such as orbital mechanics, propulsion and guidance systems, communications, the integration with crew members, the procedures that were necessary, and then the mission rules that we learned to live by.

Some of these young men had to master a very new and complicated discipline that we called “flight dynamics.” And all of them had to prepare themselves to make decisions in the MCC on any and all of the matters relevant to their disciplines. As pioneers in the field, they faced decisions that had to be made in real time, without consultation or deferral, sometimes in seconds, and of the highest consequence. There was not much time to prepare.

In March 1962, I was named section head, a first level supervisor with all of two of us. In the summer 1964, I became the chief of the newly formed Flight Dynamics Branch with a total of thirteen of us. By this time, we had finished Mercury and were preparing for Gemini and Apollo. We had seven men assigned to Gemini and needed at least nine – three trained operators on three different shifts by 1965. Plus, much more depth was still necessary to do the planning for the upcoming flights. Apollo had a mountain of work for the five assigned, with manned flights scheduled in 1967, less than three years away.

This growth came by March of 1968 – the branch had twenty-nine men to begin the final sprint to the moon landings. They were tested and tempered by ten manned Gemini flights, four unmanned Apollo flights and uncounted simulation exercises. They were ready for Apollo.

In reflecting on the branch, I am not sure how the interpersonal dynamics all came about but there was an extremely strong sense of unity, comradeship and mutual dependence, united by a powerful commitment to make the program a success. They were also competitive about earning the choice – and most difficult – assignments. This was a “Band of Brothers” in the best tradition of that honored term.

Some of this magic was the sense of coming together to do something really big, something that had never been done before. Some of it was in the mutual reliance of all of these men on each other. This was especially true and even necessary in the operations environment in the MCC. They had to come to an answer, sometimes very quickly, and they had to earn the trust that gave their answer credibility, and the answer had to be correct. They gradually learned what it took to prove their choices to their office supervisors, to their fellow flight controllers, to the best test pilots, to the Flight Directors and, most of all, to themselves. It was a magic time to see these twenty-something boisterous males come to grips with their new responsibility and embrace it. The three flight dynamics operators even adopted a team identity for their three console positions and they called their unit “The Trench.” They were amazing and inspiring. I have always felt privileged to have served with them.

The outstanding performance that these young men delivered will stay with them forever. They earned it. Today, looking back forty some years to the decade of the 1960s, I am still extremely gratified that these men and I were granted this historic opportunity. We were not necessarily the best and brightest in the whole world. But we certainly were the most passionate and the most committed to making the program succeed. Today, we still gather up on various occasions where the same opinionated comradeship and hassling of each other is the order of the day.

Chapter Five: The People and Moving Towards Operations

In October 1957, Sputnik shattered American complacency and changed the world. The U.S. political system responded with remarkable speed and cogency. As has so often been the case in American history, there were at least two men in critical leadership positions, President Eisenhower and Majority Leader of the Senate Lyndon Johnson, who were prepared to lead and did so most effectively. As the political process moved through the fact-finding and the seeking of counsel, major legislation began which became the Space Act of 1958, forming NASA with its Space Charter.

While the national policy deliberations were underway, the same emerging leadership process was occurring at the implementation level. NASA Headquarters (HQ) tasked Bob Gilruth in May to plan a program to put a man in space. Max Faget had already proposed a concept in a conference in March 1958. Building on that concept and with more leaders from the ranks of the Langley Center, such as Chuck Mathews, Chris Kraft and Caldwell Johnson, the leadership cadre of the Space Task Group rose and took command of the response to the Sputnik challenge. Their mission was to invent an American manned space program and to put it into flight safely and as quickly as possible.

In June of 1958, my first month after graduation, I saw the first line drawing of what became the Mercury spacecraft, prepared by Caldwell Johnson from the Langley Center in Hampton, Virginia, and I knew it was my future. (Later in the ’70s, Caldwell and I would work closely on the Apollo/Soyuz project.) He was part of a group of engineers from the Pilotless Aircraft Research Division (PARD) and other units at the Langley Center. PARD had a similar research focus as the Lewis branch I was in. PARD testing was based on a ground launched solid rocket vehicle, known as the Scout. We both used the NACA range on the Virginia coast, centered on Wallops Island. And the Lewis Center test models were air-launched from a B-57. As a result of this common focus, we were asked to begin some special studies in support of this emerging man-in-space effort, to be later named Project Mercury.

My Branch Chief was George Low, a highly respected engineer and manager. Within less than a year, George was also at NACA HQ, as a key leader in the study of what to do after the Mercury project. Out of this and other work, came the core ideas for President Kennedy’s later commitment to Apollo as a primary national goal. Looking back, I have to believe that the high regard which George had earned contributed to our being asked to join the Mercury team.

So our work started on Mercury, first on a part-time basis. But very soon, it became full-time and increasingly intense. At first in 1958, most of my time was spent in Cleveland with occasional trips to Langley. Then, I began to travel to Langley, spending most of the week there. The work was like a whirlpool, drawing me into the trajectory planning and plans for a control center. Eventually, I had a permanent change of station (PCS) To Langley.

The core of the Space Task Group (STG) was identified in a November 3, 1958, letter, requesting the transfer of thirty-six Langley personnel to the newly independent group. Not counting steno and file support, and with the status of one person changed to remain with Langley, there were twenty-nine engineers and managers put in place to create and manage the human space flight program. In 1958, ten more engineers from the Lewis Research Center, who were already working on Mercury, joined the Space Task Group. I was one of those. Twelve more from Langley, including John Llewellyn, also transferred to STG.

The number and high caliber of transfers from Langley caused some problems. It was becoming increasingly difficult to transfer people from the existing Centers to the new Space Task Group. And then, there was a major aerospace tragedy in Canada when the development of a new supersonic military airplane (CF-105) was canceled. This resulted in the loss of thousands of jobs in the AVRO Company and Canada. But it was like a gift from heaven for the STG.

Eventually, by April of 1959, twenty-five experienced and very savvy AVRO engineers joined the U.S. manned space flight program. This was perfect timing to complement the mix of talents and experience levels of the STG workforce. We already had a world-class set of leaders in place and the importation of the AVRO engineers added a great deal of depth and capability to the growing organization. It also served to build out the management and supervisory structure that was then in place when STG began to hire a significant number of new college graduate engineers, especially in the early sixties after Apollo was started. And, most significant for me, it brought Tec Roberts, originally from Wales, who eventually became a strong influence in my early career.

This was another interesting coincidence in timing because it was the same time that seven test pilots also joined STG and became known as the Mercury Seven. Their presence quickly became commonplace in the few buildings housing the fledgling Mercury team. There was a first-name-basis environment in STG. It was a heady time getting to know these new heroes and eventually traveling with some of them as the Atlas flight program began. As the group who would strap on these vehicles, it made the work more focused and personal for us.

In the middle of all this, I experienced another permanent change of status in my life when Marilyn agreed to be my wife. We were married on April 30, 1960, and moved into an eight by forty-five mobile home in Poquoson where many of the Air Force refueling crews and fighter pilots also lived.

Marilyn and I started our marriage with 360 square feet of living space, soon to be shared with our firstborn, Jenifer on February 1, 1961.

During the months before my PCS and up until March 1962, I worked in the Mission Analysis Branch, of which John Mayer was the branch chief. John was a quiet spoken man, and very intense in getting the analysis and the numbers right. He taught us orbital mechanics in a formal course and in all of our daily interactions. It was the equivalent of a PhD in that subject, in all of its practical aspects, without overdoing the theory. John was a doer, a manager and a leader in the best tradition of NACA. He demanded the best from us and mentored us so that we would be able to deliver that best. In the late forties, he had also served at Muroc (later known as Edwards) in the X-1 days and he described his part in Chuck Yeager’s X-1 flight, which first broke the sound barrier. John delivered the final proof of that achievement when he processed the tracking data and confirmed the onboard measurements. John was a link from the X-1 to MA-6 in orbit.

Mission Planning Team 1962

As our work progressed from analytical studies to inventing how to monitor and protect the spacecraft during the launch phase and how to navigate on-orbit and to determine the precise time for the de-orbit maneuver, John was pushing the team through the theory stage and into the practical domain of assuring mission safety and success through all flight phases. One key step in this process was the decision to create a computer center with the appropriate software to provide the necessary flight information in real time. We determined the operational requirements and the software equations. They were then negotiated with the ground systems organization for implementation at the Goddard Space Flight center. Before that Center was fully open for business, their contractor, IBM, was using a computer system seen through the front windows of an office on Pennsylvania Avenue between the Capitol and the White House. Eventually, GSFC housed the computing system for all of the launch and orbital mechanics processing in support of the MCC at the Cape. And this was our beginning in learning how to use this new technology – computers – in our control center. And later, when the time came, John supported me for the flight dynamics officer position, first at Bermuda and later at the MCC at the Cape, even though it meant I would transfer to a different branch from his. Not all managers are so kindly disposed.

The mission analysis, or planning, function was an early incubator for the flight dynamics operator positions. John’s deputy, Carl Huss, became the first console “Retro.” Carl worked that position for all the Redstone and Atlas flights and set the standards for that position, passing them on to John Llewellyn, starting with MA-7. And that was an interesting process to watch. Carl was Mr. Rigorous and John, for all his desire to pursue advanced degrees, was not. By the time preparations for Gemini began in earnest, Carl’s duties as a manager of the mission analysis were such that he could not also serve as a console operator. John Llewellyn moved from a remote site capsule communicator to a Retro-in-training during the manned orbital Mercury flights.

The re-entry analysis I started with lead to trajectory studies of the retro fire and entry phase of a mission as the spacecraft was returned from orbit to the earth. This return-to-earth function became an integral part of the two and, later, three console operator positions that supported the flight dynamics decision-making in MCC then, and to the present day. It used the call sign “Retro.” By this time, our studies included the launch phase of the Redstone and Atlas launch vehicles, which boosted the Mercury spacecraft into orbit. This brought me into the world of launch vehicle trajectory, reliability of our launch vehicles, launch phase monitoring as it might be done from a control center and the ground-based guidance system that was used for the Atlas vehicle.

John Llewellyn

John S. Llewellyn started with STG in about December 1958. I write these notes about John fully realizing that I can hardly do justice to his story. John is a larger-than- life character and the preeminent legend in the ranks of early (and probably all) of flight operations controllers. There are more John Llewellyn stories than any other ten guys combined. Just to give you an example of one of John’s stories, it goes as follows. When John was going to William & Mary, he was married to Olga and had two daughters, Lane and Vivien. John was sent on assignment to the grocery store and, on the way, ran into his drinking buddies from school. They were headed to Florida where the sun was shining and they intended to spend several days there. They invited John to go along, and so he did. He did not think to call Olga at any time during this jaunt. He was just AWOL from the family for the next few days. Somehow he survived his return.

John was born and raised in the Tidewater region of Virginia, in the small town of Dare. He grew up boating on the Yorktown River, helping his dad with the farm and loving the game of football. His mom was a schoolteacher and emphasized that point of view on his upbringing.

Before college, John had volunteered to serve his country in the United States Marine Corps. His service put an indelible stamp on this big, strong, gung ho soldier and, as the wheel of history turned, John found himself in far North Korea, and soon at a place called the Chosin Reservoir. John never did talk at all about his experiences in Korea, but like the rest of the 1st Marine division, he was cutoff there when the Chinese army invaded across the Yalu River. For John, this became a battle that was up-close, personal, brutal and terrifying in the extreme. He did make it out and managed to bury the horrors of that ugly time. Ultimately, these memories came back with a vengeance fifty some years later. He had a very severe case of Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) and learned more about it than he ever wanted to know. The treatment of this early trauma and its side effects over most of his adult life ultimately lead to profound changes in John, and all for his own good. He has earned an understanding of himself and saw his life much more clearly. He is also at peace with the past and with himself.

John and I came together in 1958. He had transferred to STG from the NACA center at Langley where he worked on high speed heat transfer problems as I did briefly at the Lewis Center in Cleveland. He began in the STG engineering organization, still working the heating problems. We were a very unlikely pairing of people and yet we are still close today after fifty years. John was big and physically strong; I was about one hundred forty pounds. John was very macho and gung ho; I was small enough and probably sensible enough to not physically challenge anybody. John was married with two girls; I was just beginning to get a real prospect in Marilyn. John was a vocal atheist; I had twenty-one years of Catholic faith upbringing. John was interested in continuing his education and in earning advance degrees in physics; I had had enough of school and wanted to get on with the business of manned space flight.

Other differences abound. It was impossible to get John to commit things to writing, while I had a knack for written explanations. John was the center of attention at gatherings. They were either robust when John arrived or he made them that way in short order. I was somewhat more careful and circumspect, preferring not to be at the center of a noisy crowd. John could win any ad-lib insult contest; I was not very good at the repartee. Out of this background of almost complete opposites came a friendship that has endured for over fifty years, even though being John’s boss was sometimes a challenge, probably for both of us. We only worked closely together for the first fifteen years. Our paths diverged at the time of the last few Apollo flights and there were long periods of no contact. And we each had many different experiences during those times. But our early work together made it easy to re-connect when we had the chance again.

To make up for some of my physical deficiencies, John took me to Judo class. Our instructor was a strong air police sergeant who worked on the Air Force side of the Langley base. I had been doing Judo at Langley for a year and learning some of the ropes. At that point, my folks came to visit us and Dad came to watch some judo. He saw John, at over two hundred pounds of solid muscle, throw me and then land on me, with his shoulder driving my solar plexus through my back and into the mat. It took me ten to fifteen minutes to be able to breathe. Dad reminded me that he had always advised me to be careful who I picked a fight with.

In our early times, John was not in the same flight dynamics analysis flow like I was. However, we did use personnel from the engineering function on a part time basis for flight support. John actually served as capsule communicator (capcom) and leader of a team that manned some of the remote stations in our network. He was the capcom for MA-4 at the Zanzibar station in September 1961 while the country was swept with some of the political volatility sweeping through Africa at that time.

John became something of an expert on the Mercury spacecraft clock, which was more complicated than just a clock. It had lockouts and other strange features, and it was the primary reference for retrofire. Because of that connection, Tec Roberts began steering John to learn the “Retro” controller trade from Carl Huss, the original Retro. Tec had his way at being persuasive about things like that, and coupled with some straight talk right at John, John saw the wisdom of Tec’s idea. It is easy to see why John loved the capcom line of work. He was a leader of a small, dedicated team, deployed to exotic locations all around the world, and well situated for more hell raising. But the role was being retired as the plans for a Houston-based Mission Control Center made the remote site teams obsolete. Finally he was shanghaied into Retro training for MA-6, John Glenn’s flight in February 1962. John loved to brief the astronauts on the clock and its arcane workings as it counted down to retrofire. I think the astronauts admired his expertise and enthusiasm and they were probably aware of his military service record from Korea.

I tried hard to get John to document his briefing in a written report. This would be a one-time event that he could then use many times for his subsequent briefings. Clearly this would be more efficient, but John loved the interactions that came with his free form briefing and that’s the way it stayed. This was also the beginning of a long-term attempt to inculcate “clear writing” into John’s repertoire – another waste of time. John still grouses about times that Tec or I shipped him to clear writing class, always with negligible success.

There was one more thing John never liked. As we moved into Gemini, the console positions were Flight Dynamics Officer, now also a Guidance Officer and still a Retro Controller. With the sensitivity of a Lance Corporal, John always wanted the title to be changed to Retro Officer. His very passion on the subject caused us to procrastinate and deploy flaky reasons not to do it.

In Houston at the MSC, one of the notable stories concerning John had to do with his penchant for collecting parking tickets on site. After a reasonable number with no correction in sight, Security talked to me as his direct boss (and probably John Hodge, our division chief). We temporarily pulled John’s pass and sticker for driving onto the Center. I expected that John would park across the street and walk into the Center or get a ride from somebody else. That would be what most people would do. Not John. Ever resourceful, John trailered his horse to a shopping center across the street and rode into the Center for work. The Center did not have stickers for horses, as the procedures did not anticipate this condition. And the mess from the all-day tie-up of the horse led to more discussions and promises not to do that anymore. So, the saga of riding the horse to work was gradually absorbed into the always expanding legend of John Star. John and his horse did make one more appearance that I know of in the Singing Wheel, one of our favorite watering stations in Webster. I’m sure it was a special occasion that prompted John to ride the horse up the steps and into the establishment. At least I did not have to visit with MSC security for that one.

One of John’s duties as a Retro was to conduct the countdown to retrofire over the net, 10-9-8-etc. In several simulations, John did so but scrambled the numbers: 10, 9, 7, 6, 8, 4, 5, 3, 2, 1, mark. He always got to “mark” at the correct time but he had to endure endless guffawing on his countdowns. As his boss (and friend), I did not want to see him embarrassed in front of his MCC peers. So, at night back in the motel, I made John practice the countdowns out loud. He was really ticked off about having to do that. In an angry, red-faced mood, he told me, “Lunney, you SOB, you can’t make me do that.” But, I did and John got the counts correct from then on. I felt like I was pushing things a little close to John’s edge on that and was glad when the problem receded.

John was one of a kind; nobody could make another mold like the one John came out of.

Mercury Redstone

All of this focus on the problem of creating a safe-flight-protection concept workable in the real world of tracking, computing and the control center lead to an early assignment for me, which was a terrific learning experience. It was the need to understand the workings of the range safety function at the Cape. It was a similar discipline to the one we were beginning to invent but it was aimed at protecting the safety of people and facilities on the ground. Our focus was aimed at protecting the safety and return of the spacecraft and crew.

One of my early trips to the Cape was in November 1960. At that time, we were trying to launch the first Mercury Redstone flight, MR-1. It was my assignment to observe the range safety officer in order to get a better understanding of what that position did to protect facilities and people from a wayward launch vehicle. I remember being impressed at how cool Captain Davis, the range safety officer, was. This was my first real countdown. My stomach was turning over at maximum RPM and yet he was so calm. When we had a hold in the countdown, he invited me to join him for breakfast. Captain Davis did a great job with the platter of eggs, bacon and all the trimmings. I was not able to do any more than a cup of coffee.

Range safety operations were a critical and important function. In a sense, it was similar to the job that we were beginning to invent for the flight dynamics officer. The RSO ensured that the vehicle would not deviate from its nominal path beyond a set of destruct limits designed to protect the people and the facilities on the ground. In those days, reliability of the launch vehicles was low enough that they had an average failure rate of about fifty percent. The RSO was often called on to destroy the launch vehicle before it did any damage. He had a number of systems that were used to aid him in that task. The first was a system of radars that displayed present position and projected impact location on plot boards in the range safety control room. There were also visual observers, located at strategic positions, who watched the launch vehicle through a template to detect deviations from the nominal path.

With this kind of information, the RSO could make a decision that the vehicle was approaching a destruct limit line. The RSO could then send the destruct command that would initiate the firing of a set of shaped charges usually running lengthwise along the tank or outer structure of the launch vehicle. These destruct systems were quite effective in splitting the stage open and spilling the propellants until the whole vehicle turned into a fireball. His action to destruct the vehicle was designed to protect property and people and, in a similar fashion, I was working on the problem of defining the limits of trajectory deviations that could imperil the safety of the astronauts.

The spacecraft had different abort modes, consider them escape routes for the crew, and our efforts turned towards assuring that those escape routes were not compromised by any trajectory deviation, hence some of our eventual limit lines. We also tried to control the location of the landing in case of a launch abort. Late in the launch phase, there was also some limited ability to vary the time of retro fire and control the landing point of the spacecraft to a designated recovery area in the Atlantic. Observing the RSO operation and knowing how often he had to take destruct action certainly underlined the importance and urgency of our efforts to develop a sound approach for limit lines that would protect the crew.

Eventually, the Mercury-Redstone countdown picked up and continued towards T-0. My stomach did not get any better. The countdown clock finally arrived at T-0 and there was considerable smoke on the launch pad. However, as the smoke cleared, it became clear that the Redstone rocket was still sitting on the pad and parachutes were being deployed from the Mercury spacecraft. This put the whole situation in a really high-risk condition. For unknown reasons, the Redstone had apparently begun to ignite its engines and then shut down. Although I didn’t figure all this out at the time, the spacecraft reacted as it should have following a normal shutdown of the rocket at the end of its planned firing. This resulted in the jettisoning of the escape tower and, since the barostats sensed an altitude below ten thousand feet (the normal altitude for chute deployment), out went the parachutes.

MR-1 Escape Tower Fires

So we ended up with a rocket that had been pressurized, armed, fired and released for flight and it was still sitting on the pad unconstrained by any hold-down device. On top of that precarious condition, the concern was that the parachutes would fill in the breeze and perhaps pull the vehicle over and cause it to collapse on the pad. The Redstone team in the blockhouse was scrambling to decide on a course of action to stabilize and “safe” this condition. I did not hear those conversations but I do know of one option that was being discussed with the range safety officer. Since all the ground umbilicals to the vehicle had been released for flight, there was really no way for the blockhouse to exercise any control. The option being discussed involved shooting a high-powered rifle at the Redstone tank and letting the fuel spill out.

I was completely new to this environment and knew nothing of “safing” techniques. But this did not sound like safety. My gut reaction to this rifle scheme was really negative. It was soon set aside.

The team in the blockhouse considered an option involving reconnecting the umbilicals. This approach involved sending some people, maybe only one, out to reconnect the umbilicals with a completely fueled vehicle precariously balanced on the pad. This was dropped soon also. Eventually, since the wind was very light and forecast to remain so, the concern about filling the parachutes and causing a tip-over seemed less threatening. Finally, it was decided to simply wait, let the launch vehicle batteries drain down and this would cause some of the valves to go to the safe position. There was risk with this path, but it was the one selected and resulted in the complete “safing” of the vehicle by the next day.

Up until this event, I had a rather constrained view of what my job as a flight dynamics officer might entail. This experience drove home the fact that unplanned failures or events could really happen, and that the automatic system, or the crew, or some intervention by the ground crew could start another chain of events. All of a sudden, the preparation for effectively operating in the MCC took on several more dimensions than I had been imagining. This was much more of a lesson than I had expected on my very first day of limited operations involvement. From that day on, my thinking and that of my colleagues embraced the idea that the unexpected could happen and things could get even more complicated from there.

Back to Inventing the Discipline at STG

Besides these lessons from the RSO world, another important job on the ground was to make sure that the spacecraft was in a suitable and safe orbit. We spent considerable time deciding what conditions had to be met in order to consider the orbit safe and give it a “GO.” The geometry of the launch phase was such that the point at which the launch vehicle was commanded to be shut down and the spacecraft was in orbit occurred halfway between the Cape and the station at Bermuda. These and other trajectory-related conditions were the responsibility of the console operator known as Flight Dynamics Officer, call sign “FIDO.”

Mercury Control Center at Cape Canaveral

By this time, the planning for control of the spacecraft in orbit had evolved to the concept of a Mercury Control Center (MCC) at the Cape and connected to multiple ground and ship-based stations around the world. The MCC – an acronym that worked equally well for the later Mission Control Center in Houston – was the command center at the hub of this network of facilities. It also received the telemetry and A/G voice from the local facilities at the Cape. The MCC was also supported by the Real Time Computing Center (RTCC) at the Goddard Space Flight Center (GSFC) in Greenbelt, Maryland. This computing center’s primary function was to process raw radar data and provide position, velocity and other derived parameters to the MCC, in support of the “FIDO” and “Retro” positions. The telemetry processing was not performed by the RTCC but was routed directly from the analog telemetry ground system to display devices, such as meters, strip charts or discrete events lights for review by the spacecraft systems controllers.

The implementation of the RTCC was a landmark case of multi-organizational cooperation. It involved the mission analysis people for the requirements for analytical tools and software formulations. Carl Huss and I represented the needs of the console operators for the definition of the content of displays, limit lines, abort mode actions, propulsion maneuver targets, mission events to sequence the programs and other operational parameters for MCC monitoring and control. Since the computers at the time were severely limited by memory capacity, balancing a useful requirement set within that constraint became a daily struggle. The management of the implementation was performed by Langley employees like Jim Donegan who eventually moved to GSFC to oversee the RTCC work. IBM won the contract for the hardware and software work. Lynn Dunseith, originally from Lewis like me, was the STG interface to the implementation team at GSFC and Lynn performed this role superbly well into the Shuttle flight program. Modern observers will be amused at the memory size constraint but the system was at the edge of the state of the art at the time. It was a regular cause for management review and a real test of the STG, GSFC and IBM team. But, the effective interaction of all the involved parties was driven by a uniform dedication to the same goals and was a tribute to the competence and professionalism of this team.

The network stations, referred to as remote sites, would be in contact with the spacecraft for a maximum of five minutes, often less, each time the spacecraft passed in their vicinity. The remote sites were capable of receiving telemetry and voice, sending commands and tracking the spacecraft by radar. The stations were also manned by a small cadre of operators whose job was to function like a mini-MCC, for the time the spacecraft was in contact with their station. In effect, they were the eyes and ears and more of MCC as the spacecraft traced its ground path over the globe. The remote stations sent data back to MCC after the pass on a teletype system, but it was mostly a manual capture of a standard set of parameters plus news of any anomalies or significant items. It was tedious and slow, but the guys made it work as well as it could. Voice quality between the MCC and the remote stations was mixed – some were good, but some had a habit of dropping out at inopportune times. The orbit was such that the spacecraft would traverse and flyover most of the globe in about twenty-four hours.

We had thirteen of these stations and the manning, training and logistics were major tasks in themselves. There were usually three to five operators called flight controllers at each one of these stations. The tasks were monitoring of the onboard systems, the health of the crew, a capcom and sometimes a designated leader of the team for sites involved in critical mission coverage such as retrofire. This effort was a significant training and logistics problem to manage. Gene Kranz earned his spurs and more in the orchestration of this global infrastructure of intelligence gathering and real time response to the frequent problems of early space flight.

The Bermuda station was additionally configured with a set of plot boards driven by the local radar and identical to the plot boards at the Mercury Control Center at the Cape. These were the tools by which we were going to assure that the spacecraft was safely in orbit or to assist in a few specific abort conditions. With the support of John Mayer, I was selected to be the flight dynamics officer at Bermuda and served on three unmanned Atlas launches and on John Glenn’s flight, designated MA-6. The station worked very well for this purpose and gave clear confirmation of safe orbit, which was also verified by the tracking displayed in MCC.

This was great operational experience for me and taught me how to get a station ready for its mission. All of our learning curves were very steep and I went on to be the Flight Dynamics Officer in MCC at the Cape for the next three flights, MA-7, -8 and -9. The early opportunity to serve at Bermuda was a great assist to my knowledge and confidence. With all of the other stations around the world, it was also a great opportunity for STG to develop many of our young engineers into competent and confident operators ready to take their place in the MCC for Gemini and Apollo.

Christopher Columbus Kraft

No record of these times can be remotely complete without testimony to the pervasive influence that Christopher Columbus Kraft had on the programs, the organization, and especially all of us, his young followers. Whatever his various titles were during those years, he was our leader – “the” Flight Director – and our role model. His influence was always a lesson in leadership, and we strove mightily to emulate the same.

Over five decades, while he and I were sometimes in different organizations but still associated, Chris demonstrated over and over again that great leadership cannot be overrated. Chris had the skill of clarity of thought in defining issues and solutions. In a world of many new and compounding complexities, Chris reduced problems to a crisp definition, to a few options and then a decision. He often left me wondering, “Why didn’t I think of that?” His calibration of his people at all levels seemed unerring and he located people where their talents were a match to the assignment. To others, he seemed to delight in stretching them to levels that they did not know they were capable of. Decisions were often quick and always crisp, “Yes, we’ll do it that way.” On personnel matters, he would ask, “So you want to move to this job? Tell me why.” Listening and then, “Fine, I agree, the discussion is over.” And I never saw Chris avoid a difficult decision; he seemed to enjoy them and even to seek them out. Once made, everybody moved on. Things were not allowed to fester or to sit on hold.

Chris had real respect for his troops and it showed in how he dealt with subjects that might impinge on them. On one occasion after a scrub and a launch delay of several days, he decided that all of us at stations around the world would stay at our respective sites and forgo travel back home. We did have one higher-level management person from a different organization who was in Bermuda to observe. He asked for an exception in his case, on the communication loop, essentially in front of the rest of us, and we all knew immediately how dumb that was. And, yes, he stayed deployed with all the rest of us. Perhaps the strongest demonstration of Chris’s leadership was his trust in us. That trust actually empowered and challenged us. You did not want to be found unworthy.

The work itself forced us to strive for crisp, clear communications. This was best illustrated in our mission rule discussions of what level of failure would cause a major deviation to the plan. As most of us came to operations work, there was a natural tendency to avoid or stall on a decision. Usually this manifested itself as a discussion of symptoms or preliminary troubleshooting steps, but not the final decision on a failed or failing system. This learning stage was often made apparent by the admonition, “Yes, but after all those preliminaries, what do you want me (or the crew) to do?” Since we had all been there, we recognized the clarity on the final recommendation being sought, and the implied rebuke to the stall tactic. By the way, this constant need for clarity in discussions, decisions, et cetera probably inhibited the already meager poetic in us and, I would guess, frustrated the interviewers who were always trying, properly so, to evoke some expression of feeling and/or emotion from us.

The benefit of the impassioned debates over the mission rules was real and enduring. The discussions forced out all aspects of any applicable considerations and there were always champions for more or less risk or response to each of all the failures under consideration. It was not apparent at first but after months of this, we began to be able to generalize what was evolving. For example, we wanted enough redundancy so that we could still tolerate one more specific failure and still recover the crew safely. In the early days, these were aimed at deciding the redundancy levels necessary to continue on-orbit, or conversely to terminate the mission early. As these rules were tested in the integrated simulations with the crew in the simulator and the MCC, they eventually became, in essence, a code of ethics that defined the risk-reward tradeoff. All of the operators and the crews gradually came together on a deep understanding of our compact with each other as to how we would manage risk. It was the process of going through each and every postulated condition and response, and testing of that framework in simulations that built the team confidence. The payoff is in invoking the familiar thought and judgment process when something outside the mission rules discussions occurs. And the unexamined conditions did happen. In those cases, we got to an answer consistent with our risk-reward framework.

The understanding that the team created was sometimes underappreciated. There were several occasions in the future when a compulsion to manage and be the decision maker would infect people. This usually showed up as HQ people attempting to inject themselves into operational decisions. It is probably a common disease, but, in these cases, they skipped all the prior steps that created a common understanding of the risk-reward trade. They probably viewed it as more of a prerogative matter and less as a culmination of the invention and training process. The foray never lasted long enough before correction so that it never did any harm, but it could have. Some incidents were testy and there will be more on some of those later.

Chris relished the give-and-take, the arguments, the new insights from our flight experience and all the other factors informing us of ways to improve the rules and the process. A favorite of Chris’s was the simulation (sim) ordeal. After each sim, there was always a debriefing – what was done well or badly and why. These sims were a baptism by fire – the palms always got sweaty; any decision had to be justified, and one’s honor was at stake, naked in front of his peers and the boss. And, most all of us spent some time in that naked position. But, it did raise one’s determination to avoid screwing up. These screw-ups were also the feedstock for ridicule afterward at every opportunity. Sympathy and propriety norms were uncommon. We had adult leadership role models all around us. Another of those, mentioned earlier, was Tecwyn “Tec” Roberts. Tec came by way of Canada and the AVRO windfall to STG. Originally from the country of Wales, he was raised in the small town of Trefnant Bach, Llanddaniel. He was the branch chief and leader of the Mission Control Center branch. He was about ten years older than the rest of us in the unit. But he patiently required our boisterous opinions to be backed up and reinforced by well-studied background, compelling logic and reasoning to support any positions we took. It was a maturity lesson that we all internalized very well and enjoyed using to the fullest with our other colleagues who did not have the benefit of Tec’s coaching. He was a quiet spoken man, but did not shy away from pushing a discussion to what he thought was the correct conclusion. And he did it with grace, charm and a kind of impish style with which one could not be angry.

All twenty-two-year-olds should have an engaging, talented role model like Tec to start their career with. We would all be better off. When I went to meet with Tec at my request, he often started with, “Well, Mr. Lunney, what are you trying to sell to me today?” Guilty as charged. To whatever extent I was successful at the art of framing and selling ideas, Tec was the teacher who got me started. I sometimes am unhappy with and disagree with what I say or write, but looking back on my oral history interviews, I was happy with these comments about Tec, only slightly edited for clarity.

“So for a number of years, Tec was our leader and mentor and kind of a – not quite a father, but maybe an uncle figure – to a lot of us young fellows in the flight dynamics discipline and he was a tremendous help to Chris in putting together the Control Center concept in both of its locations. Tec was the original Flight dynamics officer at the Cape when they operated out of the Mercury Control Center. But he was such a gentle and yet demanding kind of guy – those two words don’t go together, but he was that. He was kind of gentle with people and also demanding of their performance, and because of his talents, he evoked a tremendous amount of confidence that people had in him, management had in him, and it was like he was a perfect match for us.”

“We were a random group of young engineers that arrived from all over America and a little brash and a little hasty at times and sometimes a little emotional and he would counsel us along. After Tec died a few years ago, I wrote a note to Doris expressing my appreciation for all that Tec had meant to me personally, and I told her how much I and the rest of the men who worked for him had learned from him and how I felt that I used a lot of what I learned from Tec in raising our family. So I wanted her to know that there was some of Tec Roberts floating around here in Houston in the next generation of Lunneys. Tec was one of a kind and I felt blessed because Tec was such a jewel and he got to be our boss. We had a wonderful time learning from him, and he had a hell of a time dealing with us, I’m sure.”

In May 1962, Chris Kraft was Chief of the Flight Operations Division (FOD). Tec ran the Mission Control Branch and I was head of one of his three sections with an overly complicated title of “Mission Logic and Computer Hardware.” There were two of us – myself and Cliff Charlesworth. John Llewellyn was not yet a formal member of this section, but that happened soon thereafter. This unit was the precursor to the eventual Flight Dynamics Branch (FDB), formed later. Tec had to leave Texas for reasons of health before that August 1964 change. With his departure and the growing workload, a division reorganization formed the Flight Dynamics Branch.

Tec transferred to GSFC where he served in various management roles for the near-earth communication and tracking network that we used for manned flights. As expected, he was a great help to the network team and to us on the Houston end of the data lines. His example and teaching continued to make my life better long after he left us in Houston.

In 1964, the FDB had twelve men besides myself – seven assigned to the upcoming Gemini and five to Apollo – a very small staff indeed for the total effort. As another indicator of their task, I was also selected as a Flight Director in October 1964, joining Chris, John Hodge and Gene Kranz. Cliff Charlesworth, who was the FDB deputy Chief, was also selected as a Flight Director in January 1966 in the middle of the Gemini flight phase. We managed both jobs until March 1968 when we were both transferred to a new Flight Director Office as Apollo approached. It is up to the FDB-ers to say whether this organization arrangement was a problem or an opportunity for them. With Cliff and I not available for assignment to any flight dynamics console positions, I would wager on opportunity. But, I get ahead of the story.

Moving Towards Operations

My assignment as the Flight Dynamics Officer at Bermuda was a great opportunity to gain experience in what flight operations was becoming. The Bermuda station was in an excellent location to evaluate trajectory conditions after engine cutoff. At this point, it will aid in understanding to review the general subject of the launch phase and the abort (escape) modes available to the operations team.

The Atlas launch vehicle was selected for the Mercury program on the basis of its stage of development and its lift capability. Probably, the most significant reason was that it was the only national system available to perform the mission on the planned schedule. I was amazed at the design of this launch vehicle. The structure of the vehicle was basically two compartments containing kerosene and liquid oxygen respectively, separated by a common bulkhead. The overall structure was a very thin sheet of aluminum fairly close to what we know as aluminum foil. The vehicle structure was so light that it had to be pressurized with a gas like nitrogen for most of its life on the ground. The internal pressure is what gave it shape, form and whatever rigidity it had. Yes, it was like a high-tech balloon. It was equipped with three engines in a horizontal row at the aft end. Like other rockets, it employed some degree of staging but it only dropped off the two outboard engines, no tankage. The vehicle continued under the thrust of the middle engine, called the sustainer engine, until commanded to be cut off by the guidance system. Unlike all successor orbital launch vehicles that have onboard inertial guidance systems, the guidance was performed by a ground-based tracking and computing system at the Cape, known by its suppliers – GE (tracking) and Burroughs (computer for guidance).

Various factors combine to make the launch phase a very critical period of flight – booster reliability (about fifty percent in those years), short reaction times, high rates at which some failures develop, the catastrophic consequences of some malfunctions, limitations of the escape systems and techniques – to name some of the most obvious. I had the sobering experience of reviewing most of these films of launch vehicle failures. They stay with a person for life, just like the Challenger videos do.

The function of range safety (i.e. the protection of personnel on the ground, property and facilities) is discussed elsewhere in the Mercury Redstone experience and was a good starting point to begin to conceptualize how to protect the spacecraft and crew. Range safety required an onboard destruct system, basically a shaped charge running the length of the tanks and on both sides of the vehicle. The concept was to stop the propulsion and disperse the propellants so they did not land in a concentrated mass. For staged vehicles, they required a hot wire type system between stages to fire the destruct system in case of the stages separating in an uncontrolled fashion.

In the case of Mercury, the spacecraft was equipped with an escape tower, which was designed to separate the spacecraft from the launcher quickly enough and to a sufficient distance to survive the fireball created by the vehicle being destroyed by the range safety destruct system. There was a small delay of three-and-a-half seconds built into the system such that the command first alerted the crew and then delayed the actual destruct function to give the escape system opportunity to propel the spacecraft to a safe separation distance. By the time that the escape tower was jettisoned at about two minutes and thirty seconds, the vehicle was out of the zone of primary concern to the range safety officer. Then, escape was like a normal separation except that the crew action to separate also initiated an engine cutoff command to the Atlas engine. These were the onboard systems to separate the spacecraft.

Next came the techniques to decide to initiate an abort. Some vehicle failure modes, such as a hardover control signal or engine positioning system, could result in very rapid loss of control and vehicle breakup, especially during the first sixty to ninety seconds when the ship can be experiencing high dynamic pressures and resultant loads. Because of these possibilities, an automatic sensing and implementation system (ASIS) was designed to protect against this type of failure that exceeds the human ability to react quickly enough. This launch vehicle system would then trigger an abort sequence by the spacecraft. As in the destruct system, loss of electrical continuity between the spacecraft and Atlas would also trigger an abort. Operator intervention to initiate an abort was also available to the crew and to the Flight Director.

Unless we had the luxury of selecting a time to initiate an abort, the spacecraft would land anywhere in the Atlantic based on the trajectory conditions at the time. There was some possibility of landing point control for an abort in the last thirty seconds or so of Atlas flight. After separation at these velocities and altitude, the time of retrofire could be varied from a minimum of thirty seconds to turn around to blunt end forward to a maximum of four minutes and still have coverage of the retrofire sequence from Bermuda. The responsibility for selecting the fire time was assigned to the position of Retro Controller, consistent with his on-orbit responsibility for the calculation and orchestration of the retro fire maneuver. These two positions worked in very close coordination for the return to earth planning, with the FIDO assuring the best quality navigation solution for the retro calculation.

We spent a lot of time analyzing what combination of velocity and flight path angle would constitute an acceptable orbit. We finally ended up with a boundary of velocity and flight path angles that would provide the spacecraft with enough energy for a safe orbit. On the plot of velocity on the horizontal and flight path angle on the vertical, the go-no-go line looked like a slightly curved bow, as if the line representing a zero flight path angle was an arrow in the bow pointing towards a lower velocity than nominal. The boundary was about one hundred feet-per-second below the nominal cutoff velocity to assure energy for at least one safe orbit before the drag would cause the spacecraft to re-enter. This margin was a very small percentage (less than half of a percent of the required velocity of about twenty five thousand feet-per-second) and the evaluation required to assure an adequate margin could include the judgment of the operator since the random deviations of measured velocity could be a significant portion of the one hundred feet-per-second margin.

I did not appreciate it enough at the time, but the support of John Mayer was very important and gratifying to me in terms of the confidence he had in my ability to perform this job. For the position of Flight Dynamics Officer (FIDO) in the Mercury Control Center at the Cape, Chris selected Tec Roberts. This choice had been made sometime in 1960. Tec had arrived at STG in April of ‘59 with the AVRO contingent and within one year had established himself as one of Chris Kraft’s key managers and advisors. Although Tec did not have a detailed grounding in orbital mechanics, his common sense and good judgment made him the logical choice for this job. His performance in this role set the standard for the FIDO position and it remains so over four decades later. Probably about the same time, I became the candidate for the FIDO position at Bermuda. I remember a short and to-the-point discussion as John Mayer recommended my selection to Chris Kraft. I was twenty-four years of age.

We all were well aware of the criticality of this job. John Mayer was unequivocal, “Chris, Glynn knows this as well as I do. I am completely confident he can handle this job.” Chris listened and soon agreed. Without any dramatics or hesitation, Chris’s ready confirmation of my selection was just another in a constant and daily delegation of responsibility to the people who worked for him. Looking back on this time, I have to be in awe at the level of trust and confidence that we were accorded. It was not cavalier. Both of these men had many opportunities to measure and test me before and after this decision because all of us worked in a very intense and open team fashion and were not constrained by organization position. All of us believed that Chris had a very accurate calibration of all of us and assigned us accordingly. But this willingness to trust us and give us the room to grow created an environment of can-do and will-do-no-matter-what, which was the hallmark of the operations organization for decades and still is today. It drove us to an even higher level of performance to live up to Chris’ confidence in us. In later years, I was exposed to many training sessions on leadership by national experts. My reaction always was, “Gee, I was living this lesson with Chris and others of STG when I was twenty-two. We just did not have the buzzword terminology.”

This is a good time to underline the positive and demanding environment we worked in. I was too junior to see the relationships with other Centers and NASA HQ in action, though I did see more of those interfaces when I became a Flight Director in 1964. Early on, the local scene was my daily reality. The tone was clearly set by Dr. Bob Gilruth. In all the notoriety, very strong personalities and press attention of the time, Dr. Gilruth seemed like the forgotten man. And yet he managed the direction of the work, the extremely strong management team of the STG and later, in Houston, the Manned Spacecraft Center. Neither I nor anybody else ever heard or felt anything but the utmost respect for our leader, Dr. Gilruth. He had as much to do with the ultimate success of the first decade of manned space flight as any other player on the scene.

You have no doubt heard of different management styles – management by: the numbers, consensus, goals, fear/intimidation, ambiguity, among others. One of his direct reports who had also worked with him at Langley, before the space business began, described his style in a way that I have never heard of before or since. He called it “Management by Respect.” Interpret that anyway you like, but I thought it was a real capture of his modus operandi. And it flowed through the STG and the MSC like the elixir of achievement. We saw it most often in the person of Chris Kraft, who lived this philosophy with a strong streak of trusting us with the job, and demanding that we get it right. What a fantastic opportunity for all of us to be part of this amazing team and charged with this national imperative of manned space and then, Apollo. We were truly blessed.

Working at the Bermuda station on TDY was a great experience and a smaller stage to learn on. John Hodge was the Flight Director of the team, which included a capcom, two systems flight controllers, a flight surgeon and the FIDO. We stayed at the BOQ lodging at Kendall Air Force Base, which is where the station was. I served there for four flights, MA-3, -4, -5 and -6. MA-3 was planned to go into orbit but was destroyed by the range safety officer at forty-three seconds into the flight. The vehicle pitch and roll program failed to activate and the vehicle was climbing vertically. After the destruct command, the spacecraft sequenced just as it should have and was recovered. It actually flew on MA-4. The next three flights, MA-4, MA-5 and MA-6 were conducted with increasing orbital duration of one, two and three orbits before returning to Earth. The flights also progressed in a biological sequence, from unmanned to the chimp, Enos, and then to John Glenn’s flight.

Besides the actual flights, we also deployed several times before scrubs and launch delays extended our stay or sent us home. This gave us time to explore the island. Our transportation was small motorbikes. The government of Bermuda severely restricted the number of cars and trucks allowed on the island and that was probably a good idea. We really enjoyed the motorbike mode of travel and it wasn’t long before Al Shepard had us driving in a diamond formation. It was fun most of the time except that I got stuck once in the rear slot position when it started to rain. When we got to Hamilton, everybody else was a little wet but I had been sprayed with dirt for the entire drive. Al’s comment was, “Lunney, you look like hell, but at least you kept formation.”

The roads in Bermuda were cut out of the coral, which is the basic structure of the island itself. One of our guys found out that coral is really not good for humans. He went over the handlebars of his motorbike and landed with his palms and arms outstretched. It didn’t take long for the blood poisoning to show up. Jim was in the local Air Force hospital and the cure seemed a little barbaric. Every day, the nurse came in and scraped his hands and arms with a wire brush. We were able to make one medication contribution to his recovery. It was a bottle of Jack Daniels delivered two hours before his scraping treatment and then self-administered liberally.

I learned a few things about cards, rum, scuba diving and other matters from these trips, but one travel story really stuck with me. Our team arrived at the Newport News airport for one of our excursions to Bermuda. The airplane was not available, some technical problem. We had a connection to make on Pan-Am out of Idlewild (now John F. Kennedy in New York City) to get to Bermuda. Immediately, Gus Grissom went off to find a solution. He soon came back with one. He hired two local pilots, a local and his nephew, and an agreement to fly us to New York City. The flight in two separate small planes was uneventful and the uncle kept his nephew informed as to the details. I was in the nephew’s plane. No problem. As we were pulling up to park the plane, one of the ground crew was guiding our pilot into the parking slot and was giving us the cut-the-engine hand signal. At about this time, the nephew decided that something was wrong (i.e. instead of Idlewild, he landed at LaGuardia, the wrong airport). No hesitation on his part. He revved up the engine, and started to taxi back to the runway. Maybe he did, but I never heard him talk to the tower. He knew he was at the wrong place, so he rolled out on the runway and took off. He was probably more afraid of his uncle than the other aircraft traffic or the FAA. We soon landed at Idlewild and parked by the other plane. Mission accomplished. We had a rousing time debriefing this bit of piloting in the Pan Am Clipper club.

On another trip, I ended up with a really severe cold – coughing, sneezing and feeling ugly. In this case, our flight surgeon Dr. Chuck Berry, came up with a civilized treatment. He got a humidifier and filled it with Drambuie and little water. I don’t know how helpful it was for me but all of the guys enjoyed coming to my room and breathing in the Drambuie flavored air while they enjoyed their evening cocktail.

Besides Al Shepard, Gus Grissom was our capcom for one of the flights and Deke Slayton was capcom for MA-6. Back in Houston, Gus and Deke would occasionally drop by our home in Friendswood to drop off a load of fish from their day’s excursion into the Gulf for king mackerel and sometimes red snapper. Even today, when I order red snapper, that association comes flooding back. After John Glenn’s flight of MA-6, Deke was looking forward to his assignment on MA-7. So we had several reasons to celebrate – both the first manned orbital flight and the upcoming flight of Deke. And we did so.

When we got back to Langley, it was rather quickly announced that Deke had been taken off flight status and would not fly the next flight. Only Deke can describe his disappointment with this turn, but all of us who knew him shared in the disappointment. Deke was a favorite of most people and we all knew how much the flight assignment meant to him. He finally did get his first space flight in 1975 on the Apollo/Soyuz test project. By that time, I was the Technical Director of Apollo/Soyuz. But in between 1962 and his assignment to Apollo/Soyuz, he served primarily as flight crew operations director for the rest of Mercury and all of Gemini and Apollo. NASA and the flight crews were fortunate to have such a highly respected and experienced pro steering and supporting the decisions during this historic era. Deke was always a voice of common sense and helped me a great deal on flights that I was serving as a Flight Director.

By this time, we knew that we were moving to Texas and building a new control center there. Communications around the world had become much improved since early Mercury and we would be able to remote the voice, telemetry, command and tracking reliably from the worldwide sites back to the control center in Houston. Gemini was expected to fly in 1964 (i.e. within over two years). And Apollo was coming. Besides other personnel assignments, Chris wanted Tec to be in the middle of the action for the new MCC. So Tec retired from the FIDO position and I was assigned the role for MA-7 and subsequent flights. The flight experience also allowed us to delete the FIDO function at Bermuda. I was delighted to be at MCC, the center of action for flight operations.

Chapter Six: 15 Months to John Glenn on Mercury Atlas 6

Most of 1959 and 1960 zipped by in a blur of putting theory into the practical reality of participating in the invention of a control center with a supporting computing center at the Goddard Space Flight Center (GSFC) and the worldwide network of remote sites to provide the infrastructure for a mission control function. All of these elements were being created simultaneously while the concept for operations evolved from a set of thoughts in the head of Chris Kraft to a compelling vision in the minds of his leadership team and especially his young believers. This was what we wanted to do. Invent, create, cover all the bases, master the complexities and reduce them to workable sized packages. As 1960 drew to a close, we were at the point of testing ourselves and our ideas in the unforgiving world of manned space operations.

On November 8, 1960, our fellow citizens elected our next President, a young senator from Massachusetts named John Fitzgerald Kennedy. It was a heady time, full of possibilities and promise. But none of us could imagine what this President, in a few short months, would ask us to do. And so, we began the flight test campaign to put an American in space, on a mission designated MA-6.

MA-6 minus 15 months

November 19, 1960 – As discussed earlier, this flight of the Redstone rocket with the Mercury spacecraft on the front end was a very short and low altitude flight of about four inches. After which time, the escape tower fired and the landing parachutes deployed. This was a very precarious condition – a fully fueled rocket with engine already fired and shut down, all systems armed for flight, standing free on the pad with no hold-down devices engaged, parachutes billowing in the wind and threatening to fill with air and topple the entire stack to a fiery death on the pad. After considering some risky alternatives to safe the situation, it was finally decided to wait, as long as the winds stayed low. Do not take precipitous action and let the batteries bleed down to the point where the propulsion system valves would go to the unpowered (closed) position. This course led to a safe condition by the next day.

In the space business, like many others, a failure (or near failure in this case) can lead to much more in terms of lessons learned than a nominal success. The lessons from this attempted flight are dramatic testimony to this truth. First, there has to be integrity in the allegiance of the organization. The booster engineer was from the Redstone organization at the Marshall Space Flight Center and spent his time after the incident speaking to the blockhouse in German and ignoring Kraft. You can imagine how that went down. Suffice to say, it never happened again. Second, all the thrashing about what to do reinforced the admonition to “do nothing if you don’t know what to do.” Third, we really needed better drawings and information on how the flight vehicles were configured. Fourth, I was amazed at how this situation escalated in complexity. It was nowhere near as straightforward as I assumed. It was like suddenly being able to see brand new dimensions to situations, when before, I only saw two. And it all can happen very quickly.

MA-6 minus 14 months

December 19, 1960 – MR-1A flew a nominal flight.

MA-6 minus 13 months

January 31, 1961 – The Mercury/Redstone, MR-2, was launched with the chimp, Ham, onboard. By this time, those of us not assigned to the MCC or a downrange tracking ship, remained at Langley, getting ready for later Atlas launches. Again, the MR-2 events deviated from nominal because this Redstone burned its fuel at a higher rate than was planned. We therefore had an “early” shutdown, which triggered an escape tower abort, rather than a tower jettison from the spacecraft. This gave a very high 17-G kick to the occupant who was also being shocked despite his correct response to stimulus because of equipment failure. Events had not been kind to Ham, but he endured.

February 1, 1961 – Our first child, Jenifer, arrived on this planet.

MA-6 minus 12 months

February 21, 1961 – Mercury/Atlas, MA-2, was launched and proved that the STG design solution of a structural belly band between the Atlas and the spacecraft worked properly and was accepted as the definitive fix for the failure of MA-1 on July 29, 1960.

MA-6 minus 11 months

March 1961 – The Redstone team at MSFC wanted one more test of the Redstone and it worked fine. The STG team thought the extra test was unnecessary and cost time and effort. But it was done and time to move on.

From left: Tec Roberts, Carl Huss and John Glenn

April 12, 1961 – Yuri Gagarin flew one revolution around the earth. And, in the midst of so much progress in our program, the Soviet Union was back in the news with a really major step and we were still playing catch-up.

MA-6 minus 10 months

April 25, 1961 – MA-3, slated for an orbital flight, had a launch vehicle failure in the planned pitch and roll program and was destroyed by the Range Safety Officer (RSO) at forty-three seconds into the flight. Thirteen days after the Gagarin success, the hole seemed even deeper.

MA-6 minus 9 months

May 05, 1961 – Finally, the flight of Alan Shepard on MR-3 worked to perfection and America had its first manned space success. We were still behind – Yes. But, our stuff – the spacecraft, the launch vehicle, the flight crew, the MCC team, the launch ops team, the network and the recovery team – was coming together. Yes. The national reaction of pride and joy at our success was a major lift to our spirits. We can do this. And Alan was his charming and effective self in the White House and the Rose Garden. Little did we know of the efforts of a small study team lead by George Low to chart a course for the space program that went far beyond bold and daring. Little did we know of the vision and determination of our young President.

May 25, 1961 – What a speech – What a challenge. To go to the moon and to land there within the decade. My personal reaction was like many others of our brotherhood. Without knowing how such a thing could be done, it sounded way beyond any capability we would be able to achieve. Even today, I wonder if the President and his advisors really grasped the scale and difficulty of this endeavor. It sounded impossible. This may be how the big breakthroughs of history really happen. What a privilege to be part of it. And so we went back to work. The reaction of our fellow citizens to Al’s flight was an incredible morale booster in itself. And then this unbelievable and unexpected demonstration of confidence dominated our lives for the next ten years and beyond.

MA-6 minus 7 months

July 21, 1961 – MR-4, piloted by Gus Grissom, roared off the pad to duplicate the performance of MR-3. And it did. But another unexpected event almost caused the drowning and death of Gus and did cause the loss of the spacecraft. Something caused the backup explosive system to fire and blow the hatch allowing seawater to flood into the ship. The proximity of, and the skill of, the helicopter crew saved Gus because his suit was not completely closed and was also filling with water. I never heard an official closeout of this problem – as to whether it fired as a result of an equipment failure or, as some suspected, that the crewman inadvertently hit the trigger. Either way, it hung over Gus’ head for a while.

August 6, 1961 – Again, a reminder of our position in the space race was emphasized by the seventeen revolutions of the earth by Cosmonaut Gherman Titov.

MA-6 minus 5 months

September 13, 1961 – The campaign to test the Mercury and Atlas vehicle moved into high gear with the preparations for MA-4. It was an unmanned spacecraft planned for a one revolution orbital flight. This was the first time for the spacecraft to perform in orbit and the first time that the Atlas would be used to lift the spacecraft to its intended orbit. And the first time that I had the opportunity to see the Atlas cutoff conditions in velocity and the flight path angle of the velocity vector. The solution was a little noisy but still clearly a “GO” for orbit. It felt a little strange to see the actual orbital conditions on the plot board, rather than on a piece of paper, after so many discussions and speculation as to how good the processed data would be. It was a real pleasure to report to John Hodge, the Bermuda Flight Director, “Flight/FIDO, we have a ‘GO’ orbit.” This was a continuum from the work that John Mayer did to reduce the actual radar tracking to confirm that the X-1 flight of Chuck Yeager at Muroc (Edwards) actually broke the sound barrier (one day after the fact) to one of his protégés confirming that the first Mercury spacecraft was really in orbit (and within a few seconds).

September 19, 1961 – The awaited announcement came out. The STG was moving to Houston, Texas. This selection had been pending for some time and I was oblivious to the political process that arrived at that decision. Several factors came to my mind.

Several months previous, my wife Marilyn had been sending clothes and supplies to the people of Clear Lake who had been devastated by Hurricane Carla. Marilyn’s questions ran to, “Why are we going there? Isn’t it flooded? How far away is Texas?” When our Dad returned from the Army Air Corps in 1946, he had been stationed at Shepherd Field in Wichita Falls, Texas. I remember him clearly announcing that he did not want to hear about Texas again, saying, “All I ever saw was sand and rattlesnakes.” And that was probably true for him. Our experience was exactly the opposite of Dad’s. We found a place where the people had the same attitude as President Kennedy, as in, “Anything is possible. But you have to work at it to make it happen. Your future is what you make it.” The Texans really loved the space program. They loved the astronauts and the idea of a grand challenge to visit our nearest neighbor in the solar system. This was in stark contrast to our neighbors near Hampton, Virginia. Many of whom referred to NACA (the predecessor to NASA) people as “NACA-Nuts.” Our first impressions of local Texas support carried through a lifetime. We always felt most welcome and appreciated for what we brought to the State. Texas is home.

MA-6 minus 3 months

November 29, 1961 – The last precursor to a manned flight was the MA-5 flight of a Mercury spacecraft for a three-revolution mission carrying a chimp named Enos. It was only later as a Flight Director that I came to appreciate the situation the astronauts faced with the chimp flights. I should have been more empathetic. These guys came from a world of alpha males, fighter pilot squadrons and national test pilot schools for only the best in their profession. No room for chimps. And they heard the slurs from their fellow-jocks to their manhood when the description of space flight was “man-in-a-can,” or “chimps were the first.” I am sure they were happy to see the “long hairy line” of chimps at an end. The MA-5 launch was nominal and I got to see that beautiful radar tracking transformed on my plot board into the clear display of a “Go” orbit. Things settled down for a while on orbit but conditions in the spacecraft deteriorated. We all followed the changes in the first two orbits. Finally, because of elevated cabin temperature and excessive firing of the control engines, Chris Kraft ordered the mission terminated after two orbits. The MCC team concept was maturing and gaining confidence.

December 1961 – The follow-on to the Mercury program was announced. It was named Gemini, a two-man spacecraft for the constellation of the twins. In my opinion, the Gemini program was the enabler of the rapid pace of the Apollo flights once we began the flight campaign in 1968. The design teams and the operations teams – planners, flight controllers and flight crews – profited immensely from the “boot camp” of ten manned Gemini flights to roar into Apollo with a competence and confidence that only “being there and doing it” can provide. The Gemini systems transitioned from analog to digital. We learned and tested rendezvous and docking under multiple conditions (prepping for the lunar rendezvous), docked propulsion maneuvers (as in the Apollo command ship CSM and the Lander LM), guidance controlled entries (as in Apollo re-entries), long durations up to two weeks (the longest expected Apollo flight) and the space walk technology and techniques. To a man, the flight controllers and crews would testify that Gemini made Apollo possible in the time allowed. The experience gained avoided the need for an excessively long series of flights before the landing on the fifth manned Apollo. Imagine how history might look if Apollo XIII (the seventh manned Apollo) happened before the landing mission and with an operations team with less experience.

MA-6 arrives

February 20, 1962 – After multiple scrubs and delays, MA-6 lifted off on this date in February. Tens of thousands of Americans worked for this day and each can treasure the achievement and their role as a reward that they will always own. During the flight, a situation developed that was enough to try any man’s fortitude. During the second orbit, an obscure telemetry signal was observed that indicated that the impact bag had deployed. It normally deploys in the landing sequence in order to cushion the landing in the water. The real significance was that the bag was behind the heat shield and this indication could mean that the heat shield was not firmly attached for re-entry. This was an extremely difficult decision to grapple with. If the signal was not valid, the best and safest approach was to proceed nominally and jettison the spent retro package after the firing of the retro rockets. If the signal was valid, any assistance in keeping the heat shield in place (such as retaining the spent retro package after firing the rockets and reentering with the spent retro package in place) would serve to help keep the heat shield in place but the burning of the retro package could damage (or even destroy) the heat shield and/or change the vehicle aerodynamics to an unsafe condition. There were very competent advisors with strong opinions on both sides of the issue.

It was ultimately decided to retain the retro package for re-entry and John Glenn was so informed. He accepted the decision and it worked fine. The arrival of MA-6, coming through blackout, the parachute sequence and landing, was a special moment for this young space team. We had put our American in orbit and he was back home safely. But, again, we were forcefully reminded how quickly conditions could develop which can be a most serious threat to the survival of the astronaut and how we can be confronted with choices that have never been considered or studied.

The lessons learned from this experience still flow through the processes today. Much greater attention was (and is) paid to including redundant and/or complementary methods to absolutely confirm any indication of a threat by multiple paths. Gemini and Apollo quickly benefitted. In order to have a final authority, the mission rules now include an unequivocal statement defining the Flight Director as that final authority for any decision involving the safety of the crew and/or the success of the mission. Certain protocols were established to provide the program and engineering personnel with a communication path for answering questions or making inputs. This protocol evolved over the early programs to become a very well controlled, documented and powerful adjunct to the conduct of manned space operations, right up until today.

The significance to our country of this first big achievement in what had become known as the “space race” was manifested best by the outpouring of celebration and recognition of John Glenn across the country. One space flight and John went from a relative unknown to a national and international celebrity. And he carried it off with grace and dignity.

Completely absorbed at the time, we did not enjoy a lot of reflection time. But that period of fifteen months was a measure of what this country, and NASA in particular, can do. Six Redstone flights, five Atlas flights with three of them to earth orbit, two new programs: Gemini to prepare for the future and Apollo to be the future, and a prospective move to Houston. It was a time to really enjoy the enthusiastic support of our fellow citizens.

During this fifteen-month campaign, the Soviet Union flew two manned flights. Yuri Gagarin in Vostok-1 flew for one orbit on April 12, 1961. Gherman Titov launched in Vostok-2 on August 6, 1961, and flew for one day. The Soviets probably had other un-crewed test flights during this time, but not announced as elements of the manned program. We had not won, we were still behind, but we certainly felt a lot better about our prospects.

John Glenn Ingresses Friendship 7

Chapter Seven: Completing Mercury and Hello Houston

MA-7

John Llewellyn got the prime retro assignment for MA-7 and Carl Huss, our across the street Friendswood neighbor, took on the mentoring role for John and later for Jerry Bostick. By this time, Carl’s duties as John Mayer’s deputy in the Mission Planning Branch were growing with the upbeat of Gemini and Apollo. It was interesting to watch this interaction between John and Carl. Carl was almost over-the-top rigorous; they could not have been more different in approach, but they made it through.

John and I worked the MA-7 flight of Scott Carpenter together in the MCC at the Cape. From the beginning of the flight, there were problems with the spacecraft attitude reference. They were never really worked because Carpenter did not report that the instruments did not agree with the out the window view. He was also using an excessive amount of fuel trying to understand the source of “fireflies” around the spacecraft. John Glenn had reported on that phenomena, but Scott seemed determined to find out the source of the problem and solve the mystery of the fireflies. This caused a serious problem with the attitude control fuel that later ran out during re-entry. The upshot of this distraction and the attitude reference problem was that, at retrofire time, Carpenter was late getting in retrofire attitude and still less than one hundred percent focused on the retro sequence. At retrofire, the spacecraft was still out of planned attitude in the yaw axis by a significant amount and the retrofire impulse did not deliver all of the in-plane required braking velocity to land at the planned landing location. It wasn’t long before the tracking data began to display an overshoot in the landing position. Llewellyn reported to Chris, “Flight this is Retro, he’s coming down about two hundred fifty miles long” and that’s where the para-rescue team found Carpenter and Aurora-7 an hour later. When Carpenter was back on the carrier, he announced, “I didn’t know where I was and they didn’t either.” John took this as a personal affront to his manhood and Chris Kraft took it as incompetence on Carpenter’s part.

During the run-up to and conduct of any flight, the press corps shows up and press conferences and interview abound. Sometime during the flight PAO was receiving a lot of press questions about trajectory subjects. This was understandable because all of this was brand new to them. At any rate, Walt Williams and Chris Kraft called me over and Chris said, “Glynn, the press wants to understand more about ascending nodes and other trajectory stuff, why don’t you go out there and start their education on your subjects.” Both of them were chuckling to each other as my discomfort about this was obvious.

So, off I went to my first press conference, at age twenty-five to explain what the “longitude of the ascending node” was all about. It was the beginning of interaction with the press that carried throughout my career. These were testy at times because the press seemed to assume that we were not being truthful and/or accurate and they tried to catch us in mistakes. Over time, most of the press corps came to believe and even trust us. And we developed a better grasp of where the press fit in our American system and gave it its due. Many of the press regulars became lifelong supporters of manned space flight. Although in early times, we had a lot of laughs over how press reporting varied so far from the truth as we explained it. My wife, Marilyn, would be exasperated after listening to my press conference and then seeing the report either in print or on TV. “They never get it right, why do you guys bother?” was her recurring assessment.

Walt Williams joined the STG in September 1959 from the world of high-speed aircraft testing over the California desert at a facility known as the Muroc Army Airfield and then later Edwards Air Force base. He went there in 1946 from the NACA Langley center and was involved in the testing of all of the historic and breakthrough aircraft of that period. He was named the first Chief of the NASA High Speed Flight Station at that location in 1949.

After over thirteen years in that crucible of modern aviation, he saw the beginnings of the reach to go beyond the atmosphere. This was done first by stretching aircraft beyond any current limits at the time and then joining the STG on a new path to “higher and faster.” The new path envisioned propelling a crewed vehicle on an ICBM class launch vehicle to speeds and altitudes beyond the reach of aircraft even today, fifty years later. Walt was titled as an Associate Director working for Bob Gilruth, the Director of STG. His role was to help define and oversee the operations of this new venture into space.

Walt brought three important strengths to the space theater: a wealth of flight experience, tremendous respect for the flying machines, and even greater respect for the men who flew them. His presence set the tone and the priorities with the operations elements at STG. He helped make the operations team – the astronauts, the flight crew support division and the flight operation division, that I was in, into a real force. He also brought an attitude, much like that of a middle linebacker.

Williams, Kraft and Hodge

When you had a briefing for Walt, it was really necessary to prepare well and get it right. Walt had his own way of listening. He put feet on the desk, closed his eyes, and gave the appearance of napping. But after thirty minutes of an hour briefing, he would shrug himself to a standing position and summarize all of the essential points that were made. And then of course, he ruled on the issue that was being discussed. No games, nothing but the hard substance.

In both Mercury and Gemini, NASA bought the launch vehicle service from the Air Force and NASA dealt with the Aerospace Corp. (technical advisors to the AF) on all matters technical. I did not work with Walt much on the first program procurement, but I did on the Titan for Gemini. To my knowledge, Walt ran that activity with one technical helper, Bob Harrington. Bob kept the minutes and occasionally offered inputs, but Walt ran it as a one-man show. He must have had contracts and financial support but I never saw those functions in play. Maybe, Bob Harrington oversaw them. There were joint team efforts on the new abort sensing system for Mercury and its counterpart on Gemini, the malfunction detection system. These efforts involved additional NASA personnel, like Chris for the abort sensing system, on these specific subjects. But, Walt was the boss. When he walked in to run the meeting, the Aerospace Corp. team rose as one. The leader of that team was Ben Hohman, whom I understood to have worked at Peenemunde. It was probably my imagination but I could almost hear heels clicking at Walt’s entrance. It was quite a performance for this twenty-five-year-old to witness.

Cliff Charlesworth

In the first acquisition for what became the Flight Dynamics Branch two years later, I hired Cliff Charlesworth into the emerging Mission Logic Section in March 1962. If I had written a specification for my first hire and canvassed the country, I could not have selected better. Cliff was the first achiever in a long line of young men who joined the Flight dynamics team at the new Manned Spacecraft Center during the sixties. The solid majority of these young men, like Cliff, were exceptional and the work we were about to do offered them the opportunity to demonstrate their true potential.

Cliff was the start of that staffing process and he helped to frame what we were doing in so many ways – big and small. I don’t credit any magical interviewing skill on my part. Cliff, and the rest, came because they wanted to participate and contribute to this historic program. They selected themselves.

Cliff brought a demeanor of calm, thoughtful competence with a no-nonsense attitude towards people’s behavior, probably developed in his upbringing in Jackson, Mississippi and his couple years of service in the U.S. Army. He had nicknames like Mississippi Fats and the Riverboat Gambler – all of which conveyed a man of reflection and action, an ability to assess situations and handle them. That was also the job description for a Flight Dynamics Officer, Flight Director, Program Manager, Head of a Directorate, Deputy Center Director – all of which were positions Cliff served in with distinction over his career.

Cliff had various quirks, like: be on time, you are responsible for your work, take care of your hygiene duties before you come to work, get to the point and be clear in what you are saying and recommending. He also believed in supporting people, providing encouragement when folks screwed up, and helping them grow in their assignments. On visiting Cliff at home, I often found him in a lawn chair, having a beer and watering his lawn by hand. He claimed that he did his best thinking while watering.

He was a major contributor to the formation and leadership of the Flight dynamics team and in all his subsequent positions. Cliff was five years older than me, and although I was nominally the boss, he was always like the older brother I never had. He was always a good friend to me, and a trustworthy partner, in whatever we were doing. He tried to restrain my enthusiasm when appropriate by observing, “Lunney, you will never get an ulcer, you just give them to other people. You are a carrier.” And, he did temper my passion occasionally with just the code word “ulcer.”

Cliff recommended and we hired Bobby Spencer a few months later. Bobby was a friend and colleague of Cliff’s at his last job. Bobby joined the section in June 1962 and was assigned to the Apollo group in the July 1964 organization of FDB. Bobby served as a Retro throughout his FDB career and was the technical point man for the FDB command function of the Little Joe abort test at White Sands Missile Range, north of El Paso. Bobby sent the destruct command to the solid rocket when it got to the desired test conditions and that started the spacecraft abort sequence. We shared that project out at White Sands. When I was named as a Flight Director in August 1964, I was assigned as the over-all lead for the post-liftoff activities associated with these test flights, just like the handover between the MCC and the Launch Control Center. The White Sands Little Joe project was also my first opportunity to work with George Page of the Kennedy Space Center launch team. George went on to work Apollo, Skylab and Shuttle at KSC in various capacities, as did I.

Cliff and Glynn

Moving to Houston

We knew there was a site selection team formed to look for a permanent location for STG, as it was on its way to becoming the Manned Spacecraft Center (MSC). I was happy that we were going to move from Virginia, because, although it was home to many of the men I worked with, I was not wild about it and looked forward to the change. The decision was made and announced in December 1961 that we were moving to Houston, Texas and to a particular area of Houston around Clear Lake, twenty miles south of Houston on I-45.

Immediately prior to this announcement, the area had been hit by Hurricane Carla. Marilyn was active in some of the volunteer efforts to collect and ship supplies to the “poor” people in Houston. Little did we know that we would soon be living there. We all had many questions about it and felt that we knew little about Texas except for the movie portrayals of the state.

After MA-7, I drove our ’58 Chevy convertible, with no air conditioning, to Houston, while Marilyn and our daughter Jenny enjoyed their last visit for a while with her parents. As I was getting closer to Texas, I began to think of those movies, John Wayne – great big steaks and cold beer. And I couldn’t wait to get to a Texas town to enjoy some of that fare. However, as I ordered my first steak in Texas, I found out about the dreaded “dry county.” Yes, it meant you could not buy a beer to have with your steak, or anything else alcoholic for that matter in that county. I wondered what John Wayne would think about that.

I went on to Houston, and eventually got to a rental home in Deer Park. Our friends, the Tindalls, had rented this home, and gave us the key to stay there until they arrived later. This was the last part of June, and was my first experience with the wonderful heat and humidity so well renowned in Houston. In due course, Marilyn and Jenny, now seventeen months, were due to arrive in Houston at Hobby Airport. At this time, Marilyn was almost eight months pregnant with our second child. She had made matching outfits for herself and Jenny for this auspicious trip. Airports in the sixties did not have long tunnels that now permit people to leave the plane and remain in at least some air conditioning. In those days, exit from the plane was accomplished with a set of stairs that are rolled over to the plane, secured in place, so that the plane door opens at the top of the stairs. Other people came off and I was just inside the door watching for Marilyn. It was about 3 p.m. and when she showed up at the door of the airplane holding Jenny’s hand, the heat and humidity hit her “face-on.” Marilyn staggered back into the airplane as if the wall of heat was assaulting her.

That was her welcoming moment to Houston, and I’m sure she wondered what she was doing here. Off we went, in our car without air conditioning, and we stayed in the Tindall rental house for a couple of weeks, which also had no A/C. When I got home from work, I often found Marilyn and Jenny in the tub, sometimes with ice cubes on special occasions.

Shortly after arrival, the city sponsored a welcoming event in the Houston Coliseum in downtown. This was the original site of what is now the Houston Rodeo currently housed in Reliant Center. This started with a parade, where the Mercury astronauts and much of the brass of MSC were paraded through town. It was a fantastic reception. In the Coliseum, there was all kind of entertainment including bands, and even a family version show by a well-known stripper named Sally Rand. Houstonians were uniformly dressed in cowboy boots, big buckles, and cowboy hats. They were genuinely happy to have us here in Houston, and made sure that we had all the beer and barbecue that we could handle. This was an amazing change from the locals in Virginia. The people of Houston seemed to love everything about the idea of space and the fact that we were moving into their community. We could not have imagined a more friendly welcome.

As the time for the Tindalls’ move to Houston approached, we found an apartment, in a unit called the Chateau. It was South of 610 and a little west of the Gulf freeway.

We moved in, just in time for the birth of our second child, Glynn, Jr. born August 14, 1962. Our offices were close by on the Gulf Freeway, and I started in the Houston Petroleum Center at first. At about this time, there was some reorganizing and, in July of 1962, I became a section head in Tec’s Mission Control Center branch, with one person in the section, Cliff Charlesworth.

Just days before Glynn, Jr. was born, the Russians launched another space first. Vostok-3 flew into orbit on August eleventh, followed by Vostok-4 on the next day. The two cosmonauts, Nicolayev and Popovich flew by each other, with the closest approach being three point two miles. At first, this was portrayed as a rendezvous and/or formation flying, but it was not quite that advanced. They just flew by within a close distance of each other. It was not a real rendezvous and certainly not a docking. But it was still a first. Both landed on August fifteenth within six minutes of each other.

News of the flight must have come to the U.S. on the weekend. We were still asleep and expecting a hospital baby run at any moment. Our morning rest was over when John Llewellyn showed up banging on our door. He was very upset that the Russians had pulled this off and reminded me that we were still behind in this race. He wanted me to get up and go to work with him so we could “do something.” John was very passionate about our space program. He did not want to lose any more time. But he did eventually settle for coffee and talk on that morning.

Completing Mercury

After a gap between MA-7 in May, MA-8 flew in October 3, 1962. This period allowed many of us to relocate and find our initial housing in Houston before the whirlpool of another flight. It also gave us time to properly welcome young Glynn, our first son, to the family, our first born in Texas.

The astronauts must have been chagrined at the crew performance during the flight of MA-7. From the outside, it felt like a blood oath had been taken by the rest of the seven to deliver a textbook flight on MA-8. We all believed that Wally Schirra was the guy to do that. The flight was planned for six revolutions, nine plus hours and a big step along the way to a twenty-four plus hours flight on MA-9. We were still cautious about pushing the flight duration too quickly. On MA-8, our two consoles had a very nominal flight to monitor, as Wally ticked through the scheduled spacecraft tests. This performance was crowned by a Pacific landing within sight of the carrier. Even by the name of his spacecraft, Sigma 7, Wally was promising a precise performance that would redeem the past and open the door to the future. He delivered on that pledge and we celebrated the flight. Our mission control act was continuing to improve.

MA-9 was scheduled first for a one-day duration and, as launch date approached, increased to about thirty-four hours. The astronaut was Gordo Cooper, legendary for his stick and rudder skills, but sometimes used in buzzing the ground dwellers and ticking off his bosses. Because of the long duration, Cliff and I would share duties on the FIDO console, John and Carl on Retro. Because of concern for running into some software “funny” under new conditions, we ran the GSFC computer complex and the flight dynamics consoles in MCC in a full up dress rehearsal of the thirty-four hour mission. All worked as it should and we proceeded to the countdown on May fifteenth with confidence, as did the whole MCC team.

Nominal was the flight until very late when an.05g light was reported by Gordo. This eliminated the automatic mode for retrofire. Closer to retrofire, the automatic control system inverter failed. Gordo would now do a manually controlled retrofire and reentry. MA-9 landed within a few miles of the target ship, not bad for an astronaut uncompromised by thirty-four hours of zero g space travel. A great finish to our beginnings in space flight.

During the time from MA-7 until one month after MA-9, the Soviet Union conducted four crewed missions. On Vostok-3, Nikolayev was launched into orbit on August 11, 1962, for what was announced as a longer duration flight. On the next day, Vostok-4 carried Popovich into orbit. The Vostok-4 launch was timed to accomplish a near- approach to Vostok-3. And it did with a closest approach of three point two miles between ships. Then, during June 1963 and a month after MA-9, the Soviet Union performed an “almost” repeat of Vostok-3 and -4. Bykovsky launched on June 14, 1963 in Vostok-5, followed two days later by Vostok-6 which carried the first woman, Valentina Tereshkova, on another near-approach flight. They also passed very close, three point one miles, to each other’s ship. The flight durations were five and three days respectively.

These were not a rendezvous, nor a docking, nor even formation flying. But, it was a demonstration of four crewed flights within a year, two on-time launches (necessary for this close approach) and a crew total of fifteen days in space with Bykovsky logging five of those days. Later reports indicated that Tereshkova had coping difficulties during and after the flight. Still, it was an impressive display of an up-tempo operation, even with the near-approaches accruing more credit than deserved. The Soviets played them straight and brief but western observers were disposed to overplay their significance.

And so Mercury closed out, six successful manned flights and a ton of experience and lessons. The team was also developing a strong sense of confidence in each other. We were not caught up with the Soviet Union but not as far behind as at the start.

Shawn Lunney joined the family on August 4, 1963, our second Texan.

Chapter Eight: Gemini Begins, and FDP Staffing Up

As a caveat, these staffing discussions are the best we can reconstruct of the populating of the FDB as the tempo of Gemini and Apollo really began to fire up during1964. Our records are incomplete, fragmented and dates for arrival onto the FDB team for some people are not readily available. Up until the beginning of 1964, the team had eight people. We then added one per month during 1964, and five more during 1965. At the time of the July 1964 organization release, chartering the FDB, there were twelve engineers – seven in Gemini section and five in Apollo section – not counting myself as branch chief. And, I was about to be selected as the next Flight Director in August 1964. This took me out of any rotation for one of the console operator positions although I did continue to serve as chief of the unit for several more years.

Gemini flights were scheduled within the next year and actually occurred in April 1964 for GT-1, GT-2 in January 1965, and the first manned flight GT-3, in March 1965. The FDB Gemini section was headed by Cliff with John Llewellyn, Dave Massaro (another new Retro), Charlie Parker (Guido), Ed Pavelka (FIDO), Ken Russell (Guido) and Robert White (Retro). Although not listed on the July 1964 organizational chart, Jerry Bostick was also assigned as a Retro and soon as a FIDO, on detail from the John Mayer mission-planning branch until March 1965 when he transferred into FDB. Grady Meyer was the head of the Apollo section, with George Guthrie (FIDO/ Guido), Dave Reed (FIDO), Phil Shaffer (FIDO), and Bobby Spencer (Retro). All of these men performed admirably, and a solid majority of them went on to expand their contributions beyond their individual achievements by strong leadership and mentoring of the new engineers who were already there and those arriving over the next few years. As an example, Cliff was selected as a Flight Director in January 1966, and Phil Shaffer along with Neil Hutchinson, a guidance officer, plus Chuck Lewis and Don Puddy from two other branches were later selected as Flight Directors in 1971.

Jerry Bostick came to us by way of a three cushion bank shot. He seemed to know what he wanted and it took a little while for the tumblers of life to get to the “click” position. For his first cushion, he got the Army to assign him to the NACA Langley Research Center, and they put him in the Structures division, across the base from the STG. To his credit, it only took Jerry six weeks to start looking for another cushion. He did and joined John Mayer’s mission planning branch, working for Carl Huss. This was a great opportunity for one of Carl’s crash education programs and Jerry was helping with MA-7 retrofire sensitivity analysis and then in the support room for the Cape MCC for MA-8. Carl later had a heart attack and Jerry was positioned to become a Retro, joining John Llewellyn. This is where those cushions were steering him. By 1965, it was clear that Jerry was FIDO material and again, Chris agreed. Last cushion was completed. Cliff moved to the Flight Director role after GT-6 and Jerry was on for the GT-8 rendezvous and the first docking. He became the FIDO section head and, when Cliff and I moved to the Flight Director office in 1968, Jerry became the second chief of the FDB.

This staff of twelve in 1964, plus Jerry Bostick, nearly doubled over the next twelve months through the first quarter of 1965. In order of arrival in FDB, there were: Stu Davis, Will Fenner, Chuck Deiterich, Gran Paules, Will Presley, Steve Bales, Garry Renick, Bill Gravett, Maurice Kennedy, Jim I’anson, and Jay Greene. These arrivals added to the strength and depth of the team and many continued in FDB or related work through their careers in NASA MSC, other government agencies, or in industry.

For those who remained with NASA, Ken Russell and Steve Bales went on to Associate Director roles in the Mission Operations Directorate. Jay Greene became a Flight Director, a Shuttle Orbiter Project manager, and performed as Chief Engineer for the International Space Station (ISS) when his tough-minded judgment carried the ISS through a very difficult period; some would say he saved the ISS. Others in the group had the potential to be Flight Directors or project managers, but opportunities did not always show up at the right time for them. Competition in the JSC Mission Operations Directorate has only intensified over the subsequent decades, primarily because the work continues to challenge people to be the best they can be – and they respond as these pioneers did, creating an abundance of talent.

In the hot months of 1963, we moved into our first home in Friendswood on Royal Court. A christening was in order for Shawn and seemed appropriate for our new home also. A hamburger and hot dog cookout in the yard with plenty of cold beer seemed like the way to start the house on the right track. It was also a lesson in the local “critter” kingdom. I never heard of chiggers before, but they knew about us. Charley Parker, he of the zero-body-fat-body, sat in the yard amongst the sprigs of St. Augustine grass. It took a couple days for the chigger handiwork to show up. When it did, Charley gave us a peak at the dozens of red welts encircling his waist at the beltline and around the top of the sock line, very itchy. I never understood how this happened to a native born Texan and yet they did not bother our kids in the yard. Maybe the kids moved too fast, or maybe Charley was the bait for the whole herd of the hungry critters.

Grady Meyer was the Apollo section head. He was a very able engineer and augmented those skills with the experience of owning and operating his own airplane. When we got into the early unmanned Apollo, there was a capability to control the spacecraft attitude from the MCC with a hand controller and an eight-ball attitude reference display. Grady helped to make that capability operational but I still had real qualms over ever using it. Grady had an extra dose of confidence and it did not worry him. George Guthrie had a mission planning background also. George did not have the same aggressive attitude that most of the successful operators brought to the party. When guys questioned him about that, George allowed that he preferred to work in anonymity and not attract attention to himself. And he did a solid job on the early flights he worked.

Phil Shaffer was a welcome addition to our little band. Phil was the physically biggest of all of us and had a way of standing even taller and bigger when something was being debated or contested. He was called Jolly Red after the Green Giant ads for frozen vegetables. The red part was for the little bit of short hair left and for a very fair complexion, easily staying red in the Texas sun. Phil graduated from a university by the name of Panhandle A&M (a good school in Goodwell, Oklahoma) but a natural name for abuse. On occasion, I would kid Phil about his mail order degree in arithmetic. Phil had also worked at a Navy lab in Dahlgren, Virginia before joining us. He was a very quick study and would probably have excelled even without a degree. It was said that he belonged to the Mensa society for exceptional IQ individuals. And he assumed the role. He soon became the go-to guy in Grady’s Apollo section, not only mastering the intricacies for himself but also as a mentor for the younger guys.

Jerry Bostick went into the Army after graduating from Mississippi State and somehow swung an assignment to NASA. Jerry joined STG in 1962 after realizing that the Structures division at Langley was not for him. And a good choice it was – good for him and good for us. Jerry has a story about his hiring into STG. He was being interviewed by Chris Critzos, an aide to Kraft. When his degree in Civil engineering came up as a question, Chris Kraft was asked and he said, “Hire him. Hell, we may need to build roads on the moon someday.” When Kraft measured someone positively, the incidental of degree type did not matter. Jerry then started on a training path similar to my own. He worked for John Mayer and Carl Huss in the mission-planning unit. It was not long before Jerry was working the same retrofire analytics which started me on the path to become a flight dynamics officer. To make it official, he transferred to the FDB after GT-3 in April of 1965. When the yard parties at our home upscaled to oyster feasts, the Bosticks were the consistent champions with variations of an oyster Rockefeller creation, good enough to prevail over Hal Beck and his Jalapeno and Budweiser oyster dish.

We were really fortunate in our hiring results, since it is mostly a faith-based process for both parties. Ed Pavelka (“Fast Eddie”) came to us from the University of Texas and was an immediate winner. Ed was a man of many talents. Besides his engineering aptitude, this smiling young man was a real artist, proficient at painting and drawing. We have a small Picasso reproduction in our home, compliments of Ed. It always draws a second look when people see it for the first time. After 501, the first unmanned Saturn V in 1967, Ed gave me a large painting of that ship in flight, also still in our home.

Ed was always whipping out a drawing or sketch to commemorate various events. His most famous rendering is of Captain Refsmatt (a concept best explained by a guidance officer) who became the model for an ideal flight controller – pocket protector, slide rule, uniform, among other things. Ed had an ever-ready wit for all occasions both verbal and pictorial. He was not, however, one of the verbal brawlers, but always more soft spoken. His love of cars and their repair and/or restoration was legendary and manifested itself in the largest and busiest car workshop in the branch. He was a family camping man and paired up with Chuck Dieterich and family regularly. To my knowledge, Ed never played any musical instrument, but, given his many talents, I would not be surprised if Joyce found some original symphonies in his papers someday. That is the kind of guy Ed Pavelka was.

Speaking of Chuck Deiterich, he was a key addition to the Retro group. Chuck brought a background of hands-on experience with homemade rockets and the understanding and repair of electrical simulation equipment. He was also the only guy besides myself who hailed from Pennsylvania. He became the expert on how the entry guidance system worked and why it worked that way. He also belonged to the car-repair group who passed in and out of Ed’s workshop.

Dave Reed came along in the summer of 1964, graduating from the University of Wyoming that June. Dave was a weight lifter and looked the part. Cars seemed to run in this class of ‘64 arrivals. Dave had a classic Lincoln about 1950 vintage, which he kept and moved throughout all employment changes, although he didn’t drive it much. He had another passion that he picked up here in Texas. His friend, Clyde Hess, introduced him to sailing and Dave became quite adept at the tricks of sailboats. That came in handy because our first boat, the Crackerjack, arrived in the family about 1965.

Dave spent a lot of time with us on the waters of Galveston Bay. We lost a lot of sunglasses, buckets, beer and kids gear, but we only lost the outboard engine once. Dave was resting a hand on it when the up motion lifted the engine off of its attachment structure and into the Bay. We learned a lot the hard way. Dave remembered one instruction on how to hold course in case of a tiller failure by manipulating the sails and we got to try that one out for real when the tiller broke off. Dave walked right into Apollo under the tutelage of Phil who was busy with the CSM. So when Dave asked about his assignment, Phil gave him the task of figuring out how to use the lunar module throughout all of its mission phases. As a result of that assignment and eventual use on Apollo XI, Dave is still, forty years later, in periodic discussions with Neil Armstrong on various subjects. Four new Retros joined the team: Dave Massaro, Robert White, Jim I’Anson and Bill Gravett. Jim I’Anson brought another connection with American history. He was a B-17 pilot during World War II. Bill Gravett is still playing his music and also teaching, including a class with our grandson, Drake. Dave Massaro’s house in some isolated woods in Friendswood was also a gathering place for the Retros. Robert White was quiet spoken and therefore somewhat of a balance function with that gang.

The ranks of the Guidance officers increased by four, also. Gran Paules came to us from the Navy and looked like the central casting model for a young officer, tall, blond, smart and well spoken. Will Fenner always reminded me of my father, not in accent (Texan) but in how succinctly he expressed his thoughts: “I knew the dumb SOB would screw it up.” He brimmed with reliability. Gary Renick and Will Presley rounded out a solid, dependable complement to the Guido team.

The FIDOs had gotten ahead on staff and only drew two more during this period. Stu Davis and another UT graduate, Maurice Kennedy, joined the group. Both were solid contributors. Stu left the group early and I believe that Maurice was one of the longest serving FIDOs.

As the decade went on, more young men joined this team. Jerry Elliot, Bill Boone from Mississippi, Bill Stoval and Jerry Mill added their talents to the mix. Arrivals continued with transfers into the branch like Neil Hutchinson and Dutch von Ehrenfried. Dean Toups, Raymond Teague and Walt Wells joined at various times. Some stayed a while, some served a few years and moved on and the next wave began to appear and prepare for the later flights of Apollo. In the process of capturing these recollections, I feel disappointed in myself that I did not get to know everybody as well as I could or should have. This is my fault, not anyone else’s. I can only offer in explanation that the times were busy and my other job demanded a lot.

Chapter Nine: Gemini Training Ground for Apollo

In December 1961, NASA announced its plan for the Gemini program. It was to test as many as practical of the required spacecraft capabilities needed for Apollo in low earth orbit and in a two man spacecraft. Specific objectives for this intermediate step included:

- Long duration flight beyond the time required for Apollo

- Rendezvous, docking and docked maneuvers

- EVA experience

- Methods of controlled reentry and landing

Based on Mercury experience, Gemini was designed to be controlled by the astronauts. The design also incorporated easy access to remove and replace many spacecraft subsystems, as painfully learned during Mercury. Besides the entry module, it also had an adapter module for propellant systems, new fuel cells and other equipment. The design also had ejection seats instead of an escape tower and a paraglider for landing point control (a feature later cancelled). Gemini was to be launched on a two-stage Titan rocket that had been developed for the Air Force as an ICBM launcher. The Gemini/Titan also had new features and systems to enhance crew safety, like a malfunction detection system and redundancy in guidance, hydraulics, and electrical systems. Finally, a modified Agena D was selected as the target vehicle for rendezvous and docking. The Agena was equipped with a docking system, on-orbit propulsion and a command link for the crew.

In the following five years, through 1966, the Gemini program flew two unmanned flights and then ten manned missions. In terms of the achievement of program objectives, the flight program was:

- A very effective follow-up to Mercury and was completed in five years.

- Highlighted by one mission of fourteen days, one of eight days, and five missions of three to four days with no apparent long-duration problems.

- A wealth of experience in rendezvous, docking and docked maneuvers, such as ten sequences of rendezvous through station keeping, seven dockings and about ten docked propulsion maneuvers.

- A substantial learning experience for how to do EVA. There were eleven hatch openings But we did not master the subject until Gemini 12, the last flight.

- A complete success in automatic reentry and landing, with various degrees of closed-loop control and all with very accurate control of the landing point.

- Successful in zero G experience, both in terms of weightless effects on humans, and crew performance of operational tasks.

The performance record of the major flight elements was mostly successful with some notable problems. The Atlas Agena vehicle failed on two launch attempts. Before the first Gemini 6 rendezvous and docking attempt on October 25, 1965, the loss of the target vehicle resulted in a change of plan to rendezvous with the manned, long duration Gemini 7 flight two months later. The second failure of the Atlas Agena was before the planned launch of Gemini 9 on May 17, 1966. The Agena target vehicle was replaced by a simpler Augmented Target Docking Adapter configuration on top of the Atlas and launched successfully on June 1, 1966. This backup target vehicle was begun after the earlier Agena failure in the fall of 1965. Tom Stafford who was a crewmember on both of these flights has good reason to believe that the Agena stage did not want to fly with him.

The Titan launch vehicle performed extremely well in its task of delivering the Gemini spacecraft to its planned conditions. As a measure of the Titan’s dependability, it was the second vehicle launched after the target vehicle lift-off. It had to launch within very tight launch window constraints, now established by the target vehicle on orbit. The Titan team consistently met its launch window lift-off ninety minutes later.

Gemini-Titan Launch

The Gemini spacecraft accomplished all of its mission objectives except for some on Gemini 8. On that flight, a spacecraft thruster stuck open and caused the vehicle to roll with increasingly high rates. This condition forced the crew to undock and prematurely activate the entry control system to overcome the problem. Gemini 8 landed early in the Pacific, after only ten and a half hours of a planned four-day flight. There were other recurring failures mostly in the fuel cell systems and in the clogging of the attitude control adjusters. These failures were of continuing concern even thru Gemini 12, but they did not compromise the achievement of the flight objectives. Actually, the subsystems problems improved the trouble-shooting skills of the operation team members, both in the spacecraft and in MCC.

EVA presented us with surprises. From the experience of Gemini 4 in June 1965, EVA was not seen as exceptionally difficult. On that flight, Ed White egressed the spacecraft with a tether and an umbilical for all necessary services. He floated outside and moved around with a hand held thruster device, using pressurized nitrogen. It seemed relatively easy. However, one year later, the Gemini 9 EVA was an eye-opener in terms of how quickly events deteriorated to a life threatening condition facing Gene Cernan. The next EVA on Gemini 10 was relatively easy by comparison and then the Gemini 11 EVA was once again a very demanding chore for Dick Gordon. By Gemini 12, the provisioning of restraints for hands, feet, and body and water-tank training allowed Gemini to finish with a much better understanding of the necessary techniques for weightless EVAs.

The Flight Dynamics Team Tackles Gemini

The task confronting the Flight Dynamics Team as Gemini approached was immense. The question was how to use these flight vehicles to achieve orbit, rendezvous, docking, docked maneuvers, reentry, and accurate landings. These vehicles were a significant step up in technology and capability over the Mercury ship. The Trench had to understand the trajectory and orbital mechanics to master the necessary capabilities. They had to determine how to use the guidance and propulsion capabilities within the flight elements. They had to figure how to turn all that understanding into an MCC capability that can direct and support these phases in real time. They also had to smoothly fit their discipline into the operation of the overall MCC team and the flight crews. Starting in early 1963, before the last Mercury flight flew, we began to grapple with these subjects. As we did, the MCC Flight Dynamics team grew to include a third position, the guidance officer.

Expanding the Launch Phase Capabilities

The Titan launch vehicle had some major new capabilities compared to the Atlas used for Mercury. There was the capability to switchover to backup guidance from the Gemini spacecraft and/or hydraulics within the Titan. It would be reasonable to ask how we trained these young folks to perform this work. Perhaps the best way to explain is by example. Charley Parker came to the group from a long line of Texans in June of 1963. He was obviously observant. When he asked, “Well, Glynn how much travel should I expect?” My reply was, “Not very much.” My reply was based on the fact that things had changed since Mercury. The MCC was now in Houston and the Goddard computer complex was replaced by real time computing complex in the MCC. Both of the facilities, MCC and the RTCC, were right here at home in Houston. However, Charley was looking at my briefcase that had the remains of three years of airline baggage tickets on it. As it turned out, travel did not turn out to be as big a burden for us as it was in Mercury.

When Charley arrived, we were powering up for Gemini that brought a number of new features to manage. Gemini had a digital computer – new to our spacecraft repertoire – and with a launch vehicle guidance capability. A redundant set of hydraulics within the Titan launch vehicle and the ability to actually guide the launch vehicle through the launch phase added to our complexity. We also had to plan for rendezvous, docking, docked propulsion burns and reentry maneuvers. We had already decided to add a guidance officer position to the other two positions.

Without knowing the strength of Charley’s capability, we had the guidance officer role as a blank sheet, and assigned the whole package to Charley. For the first task of monitoring the Titan launch vehicle for either guidance or hydraulics switchover, we knew that we needed another console. For it, we envisioned a bank of strip charts to evaluate the guidance signals and the hydraulics response of the engine actuators for each of two first stage engines. That was about as far as Cliff and I got in definition and turned it over to Charley.

Charley accepted that assignment with little or no comment and moved right into the definition of the specifics for the console. He always seemed clear-headed and sure of what he was doing – always answering questions intelligently. But, it was when he sat down at the console for his first simulation that he really impressed all of us. Charley was slender of build and he had the habit of sitting with the right knee over the left one and snaking his right leg around the left leg, as if it were made out of rubber. Cigarette in hand, he was ready to go.

And he seemed to read the mind of that Titan launch vehicle. Cliff accused him of “doing a mind-meld with the Titan.” He read the vital signs of the rocket and could diagnose any guidance or control problems in very short order. After our first day of simulations, Cliff and I looked at each other, and I observed, “Well, it looks like we got ourselves a real guidance officer.” Charley was trained by taking on a big job and mastering it himself. Somewhere in these early days, Cliff tagged Charley as “the fox” and it is still a favorite handle, even today.

Once the early Gemini flights were accomplished, Charley turned to understanding how to use the on-board Gemini computer to control the attitude and propulsion capabilities. These capabilities were targeted to accomplish the maneuvers calculated by FIDO, Retro or in some cases by the onboard computer. So, in answer to the valid question about how we trained him, the answer is: “We did not train him, he invented the position, prepared and trained himself.”

We were always learning something from Chris that we could apply to our world. By example, he taught us, “Give them a big job and any help they ask for – let them do it – test them and satisfy yourself about their abilities – and then trust them to perform.” Sounds simple, and this story repeated itself many times as young men stepped up to big challenges. There were things like, how do we manage launch windows, rendezvous maneuvers, docking, maneuvers mated with the Agena target vehicle, and reentry for landing with the Gemini ship. And in Apollo, how did we use the new Saturn V, the command service module, the Lunar module, their prime and backup computers, targeting for the injection maneuver to the moon, midcourse maneuvers, the placing of the vehicle into lunar orbit, the lunar landing challenge, lunar module ascent and rendezvous with the command ship, return to earth and eventually reentry and recovery. While all of the nominal missions were being examined, understood, and mastered, it was also necessary to maintain a return to earth and abort capabilities throughout the mission phases, even with various degrees of degraded onboard systems.

The experience of seeing Charley blossom into a competent, trusted operator was repeated many times as our young men grappled with the unknowns of Gemini and Apollo.

Moving to Rendezvous

John Mayer’s organization had developed its usual group of technical wizards for many of these subjects. People like Ed Lineberry, Ken Young, Bob Becker and Bob Regelbrugge stand out as aces on the rendezvous subject. Several people in the Gemini program office had also begun to explore this subject and were making progress. Jim Chamberlain from Avro was the program manager for Gemini, but, in our work, we dealt with Dick Carley, also of Avro, and Jim Rose from Langley. Both of these men worked in the Gemini program office (GPO) and had started on their own understanding of rendezvous.

We soon realized that the problem could best be understood in three separate segments. First, the two vehicles have to be in the same orbital plane. Think of the orbital plane as a flat surface and round like a plate. The spacecraft traverses the outer edge of the plate, but the plane is fixed in inertial space relative to the stars. Think of a plate inclined to the equator at about thirty degrees but the plane or plate stays fixed and the earth rotates underneath the plane. The spacecraft flies around the edge of the plate to traverse one orbit in about ninety minutes. If you plotted the geographical position of the spacecraft over time, it would look like a sine wave passing over the earth, but displaced to the West each time around by the distance the earth has turned in the ninety minutes of orbital traverse. Assume the launches are due east from the pads in Florida as that is the most fuel-efficient direction. Then the maximum latitude above and below the equator of the sine wave is essentially the latitude of the launch site.

In one orbit or ninety minutes after launch of the target vehicle, a second spacecraft launch due east will come very close to being in the same plane as the original target spacecraft. The sine waves of each spacecraft would overlay each other. Because they are very close to the same plane, it takes only a relatively small amount of launch vehicle fuel to steer the second vehicle into the same plane as the target. Usually, because of inaccuracies and other difficulties, there is some small plane change correction yet to be made by either one of the spacecraft once in orbit to make the vehicles co-planar. And this became the approach for the first segment of the Gemini rendezvous problem. Actually, like all things in our business, there are often second or third order effects and there is one here which makes it a little more complicated than I just described. The earth’s oblateness and the initial differences in altitudes between the target vehicle and the chasing spacecraft create small perturbations, resulting in differential nodal regression, to the inertial planes such that a correction must be made to the yaw steering of the launch vehicle to match the planes at the planned intercept rather than the initial insertion into orbit.

The second segment of the rendezvous is called phasing. At orbital insertion, the vehicles are now in about the same plane, but displaced from one another on the edge of the plate. Typically this might have the chase vehicle trailing the target vehicle by five hundred to one thousand miles. There are many sequences of maneuvers that can bring the two ships together and we examined many of them. The chase vehicle with lower altitudes than the target’s is traveling faster and therefore catching up. The rate of catch-up can be controlled by altitude adjustments during this phasing period.

But, we were missing a part of the puzzle without knowing “the best way to bring the ships finally together.” This was resolved when Buzz Aldrin arrived at JSC. He had just completed his PhD, and his dissertation treated how best to approach a target vehicle in order to facilitate a consistent approach for a crewmember to monitor and provide visible cues as to how the closing part of the approach is going. To locate the final braking geometry, Buzz selected an approach in darkness, from below the target and slightly in front of it. This creates a line of sight to the target, which should be inertially fixed relative to the star field behind the target. Any relative motion of the target, against the star field indicates an error to be zeroed out by the approaching ship. The scale here is such that the distance to the target would be about ten miles when this condition applies. There is also a fore and aft correction that needs to be calculated or measured by radar. This amounts to a braking of about 30-40 feet per second as seen by the crew in the chase vehicle. Zeroing out this closing velocity occurs as the chase vehicle gets within a few miles or closer of the target vehicle. All nulling of relative motion is complete when the chase vehicle is within about the last hundred feet of the target. Manual crew control is then based on visual cues and is called station-keeping. The lighting is selected so that both vehicles are now out in the daylight for the station-keeping phase. The contribution of Buzz’s work coupled with a clear understanding of the orbital mechanics developed by Ed Lineberry and his team completed the picture.

This approach with the third segment provides the end point for the phasing maneuvers in the second segment. Buzz recommended that the chase vehicle fly in a lower co-elliptic orbit than the target vehicle with an altitude differential of about ten to fifteen miles. The crew can track or see the target vehicle from this closing position and at a known elevation angle to the target, perform a small propulsion maneuver of about thirty to forty fps to create an intercept path that will meet the conditions described in segment three. So the early maneuvers are calculated to set up this ultimate braking geometry. This all seems so apparent now, but there were a lot of possibilities and mysteries to fathom before we got there.

And this technique continued to evolve. For Apollo, some plans were for a fairly rapid rendezvous sequence, completing on the first orbit. It continues to be modified today because of the scale of the Shuttle and Space Station vehicles. It is less of a fighter plane intercept and more of a berthing of a large ship to a larger ship. So, in modern rendezvous sequence, the final approach is set up to approach the space station from below and by traveling up the earth radius vector (called r-bar). The orbital mechanics are such that the shuttle is beginning to slow down relative to the ISS and falls to a condition of zero relative motion at the ISS, at which point the Shuttle would fall back down the earth radius vector away from the target if no further propulsive maneuver was performed. To match the ISS conditions, the Shuttle adds energy (versus braking) to achieve identical orbital conditions. This acceleration maneuver also directs the plume from the thrusters to the rear of the shuttle and away from the Space Station with its many appendages. This is a more benign approach scheme for avoiding any contamination damage or disruption from the thruster plumes on the ISS target vehicle.

This all came about four decades later as a more suitable variant for the final approach to the target. And, as in Gemini, the desired final conditions for intercept determine the intervening sequence of phasing maneuvers, although the time between launch and actual rendezvous is measured in days rather than a few hours in order to allow the crew to adjust to zero-G. We conducted a terminal phase similar to the Apollo scheme on Gemini 11 with the first rendezvous and experimented with a variation to slow down the relative speeds on a re-rendezvous called the “standoff” technique. These exercises were very helpful in tailoring the sequence to new conditions and constraints in the future.

And Using a Guided Reentry to Landing Point

Gemini did have a small Lift/Drag ratio (L/D), established by an offset of the center of gravity. This small amount of lift was then modulated by rolling the vehicle during reentry to provide the correct amount of lift in plane to reach the target. Once our team got comfortable with this guidance scheme and the control system to achieve it, they added some simulator time to see it all in action. This capability quickly became a known and comfortable staple for the Retros and Guidos.

The first two Gemini flights were unmanned. The objectives of GT-1 on April 8, 1964, were to validate loads on a spacecraft shell and the combined structure of the spacecraft and launch vehicle. The vehicle was guided into a one hundred by two hundred mile orbit with an early planned reentry, which occurred on sixty-fourth orbit. During its time on the pad, GT-2 was subject to some lighting strikes in the area that caused a delay. Then, there were two delays due to the threats of two hurricanes, Cleo and then Dora, resulting in a destack of the vehicle. Back on the pad on December ninth, there was a pad shutdown at T+ one second. After resolving the problem, GT-2 finally launched on a short suborbital flight on January 19, 1965 with a duration of only nineteen minutes. These two flights were monitored by Cliff and me, John Llewellyn and Jerry Bostick as Retros and the “fox,” Charley Parker.

As we prepared for GT-3 that flew on March 22, 1965, the first manned Gemini was crewed by Gus Grissom and John Young. Cliff, John and Charley were the flight dynamics operators. It had been decided to “flight-follow” the MCC at the Cape with the new MCC in Houston. In my new role as a Flight Director in training, I and Jerry Bostick as FIDO and Retro, and Arnie Aldrich as the Gemini systems expert were in the Houston MCC as backup. For the next flight GT-4, we reversed locations and were on backup duty at the Cape. We enjoyed making an occasional offer to take over for any problems at the other MCC.

The flight was such a technical success that the coverage degenerated into the “ham sandwich” crisis as John Young had smuggled an unauthorized sandwich in his suit pocket. Much ado about not much, except that the configuration system that controlled what was in the spacecraft was strengthened, but even then, not enough. This subject came back to bite NASA much later during the Apollo XV stamp cover fiasco, which was an acknowledged violation of common sense standards if not an actual legal transgression. At the time of Apollo XV, Chris Kraft was Center Director at JSC and spent the best part of a year dealing with the fallout from that issue.

Back to GT-3, we were all especially pleased that this flight went so well after the loss of the MR-4 spacecraft when Gus almost drowned. Most of us were very supportive and proud of Gus and happy in this success for him. As a measure of NASA and Deke Slayton’s confidence in him, Gus flew the first Gemini and was scheduled to fly the first Apollo.

Right after GT-3, Cliff informed me about the possibility of a space walk. The EVA activity was being considered for GT-4 but was still under wraps pending completion of certain certification tests. This was a big step for all of us even thought the Flight dynamics team was mostly an observer of EVAs. Mercury did not have an EVA capability and it was believed that we had to exercise EVA in Gemini before we got to the moon, where so much depended on a successful walk on the moon. The EVA was approved for flight only ten days before the mission, when the necessary tests on the EVA equipment were successfully completed. The four-day mission was also a big step in flight duration from Mercury (one and a half days on MA-9) and three orbits on GT-3. GT-4 launched on June 3, 1965, with Jim McDivitt and Ed White as the crew. The orbit was nominal and, after separation, Jim attempted to station keep with the Titan second stage. As he came out of the night pass, he recommended the cessation of the station keeping exercise because it was causing excessive fuel usage. Chris at MCC agreed. This was an early indication that orbital mechanics played a big role in station keeping if the chase vehicle was very far away from the target, more than several hundreds of feet.

The EVA was next on the agenda and all preps were normal and “GOs” were given to depress the spacecraft. The EVA went for a short twenty-three minutes from Hawaii to crossing the States. Ed White found it easy to use the nitrogen gun as propulsion to move himself and control his attitude. The crew had some difficulty with the umbilical hose and the pressurized suits when it came time to close the hatch. This equipment configuration is akin to wrestling a very large snake and capturing all of its body within the confines of a very small cockpit. Two crewmembers already took up quite a bit of the volume even before the umbilical, but the crew got the door closed and latched in due course.

In retrospect, this experience probably misled us. We did not have any new or unexpected difficulty with EVA as it was conducted. We did not learn how difficult this kind of EVA was until a whole year later during the GT-9 EVA by Gene Cernan. Gordo Cooper and Pete Conrad crewed the Gemini 5 spacecraft on its eight-day mission, August twenty-first to twenty-ninth, 1965. This was a three-shift operation for the MCC including the Flight Dynamics team. Jerry Bostick, Cliff Charlesworth and Ed Pavelka were on the FIDO console – Tom Carter, Dave Massaro and John Llewyllen were on the Retro console. Parker, Fenner, Russell and Bales handled the guidance officer position. This group handled all of the Gemini flights with a few changes. Cliff dropped out of rotation after Gemini 6 and Bostick and Pavelka rotated the prime FIDO role. Stu Davis joined to cover the Agena and Bill Gravett joined the Retros on Gemini 7 and subs. Tom Carter was a new assignee out of John Mayer’s Mission Planning branch.

After the usual simulation runs, they were all ready for GT-5, the longest mission yet flown in manned space of eight days, with a deployable pod for evaluating the rendezvous radar, and seventeen science experiments. Once on orbit, the new fuel cell system replacing the batteries had a problem with the cryogenic oxygen tank, in that the pressure fell from the range of eight hundred to nine hundred PSI, to seventy PSI and then leveled off. This was a real concern because the cryo tank pressure forced the oxygen into the fuel cell to generate electrical power. This somewhat precarious position resulted in a daily “Go-No-Go” from MCC to continue each next day of the flight. The situation improved each day and the threat to the planned flight duration receded.

The rendezvous radar evaluation pod was deployed about two hours into the flight and successfully tracked by the Gemini radar. This radar testing was reduced in order to save electrical power but gave good results every time it was tested, including with an L Band transponder, ground based at the Cape. For the rest of the flight, experiments and “living in space” activities dominated, as the crew adapted to this new environment.

It is worth mentioning some background on this eight-day mission. Before Mercury flew, there were national levels discussions and debates about the capabilities of men to survive in the weightless environment. It was said that they would become disoriented, confused and generally fail at piloting in this environment. These dramatic predictions turned out to be overdone and incorrect. We did find later in Apollo that a noticeable percentage of crew members could become ill if they were not careful to avoid rapid head movements in the first two or three days of space flight. After which, they adapt and are generally fine and even with this condition, the crews have always been able to handle whatever was required. So there was some basis for concern but it was over played and not a showstopper. It did not even manifest itself in Mercury or Gemini, but did in Apollo, where there was a significant volume in the cockpit to move around in and to induce this space sickness condition. Once recognized, this is a manageable situation, by avoiding head motions and not scheduling intensive operational activity until there has been one to two days to adapt.

We faced the same extremes in some of the other national Apollo debates, where it was claimed that the spacecraft would sink into the lunar surface. This was in contradiction to the experience with the early unmanned landers on the moon, which did not sink.

During this same period of 1964 to 1965, the Soviets introduced a newly named ship, the Voshkod and flew it three times. We found out later that it was the same one-man ship, Vostok, with barely volume accommodations for three unsuited crewmen and elimination of the ejection seat. Komarov, Feoktistov and Yegorov flew on October 12, 1964, for one day. Apparently seen as upstaging the two-man Gemini, it had to be a nightmare to cram into and stay for a day. The next Voshkod was an unmanned test ship and launched on February 22, 1965. On-orbit OK, the EVA airlock was deployed. However, signals from the ship were soon lost as was the ship. On March 18, 1965, before GT-3, Leonov and Belyayev were in space aboard Voshkod 2. The airlock was deployed and Leonov was outside for ten minutes when he started to ingress the airlock.

We later learned that the ballooning of the suit prevented him from fitting back into the airlock. He had to depress his suit a slight amount, inch back thru the airlock while the suit was repressurizing and then repeat the depress several times before clearing the airlock. At the time for automatic retrofire sequence, there was no ignition of the rockets. This resulted in a ground decision to delay one rev and reenter manually. It was a real scramble for the crew and retrofire was late and out of attitude. The vehicle landed 1200 miles long in a forest and the craft wedged in some trees. They egressed after the rescue team skied in to their location, and eventually returned after about two days in the forest. The world believed that the Soviets had a real 3-man ship and an EVA capability. And they did, of sorts.

Bill Tindall

Bill and Jane Tindall and their family of four first became close to us while still at Langley. TheTindalls were the first family in Virginia to invite us – Marilyn and I – for dinner with their family of three (at the time) kids – Dana, Mark and Amy. At the time, Marilyn was just pregnant with Jenny. I was working in the same organization as Bill at the time. Bill had a love of sailboats manifested in a ‘34 wooden hull sloop, which he was refurbishing in his barn. The Tindall property, from Jane’s side of the family, was multiple acres with all sorts of equipment and out buildings. Bill used it all to get his required chores done so he would have time to work on his sailboat. Maybe it came from his time in the Navy, or maybe from his being raised on the water surrounding the family home on Cape Cod. However, the pace of the space program eventually caught up with Bill and he didn’t even move the sailboat from Virginia to Texas.

Marilyn, Glynn, Jane and Bill Tindall

Bill functioned as John Mayer’s deputy and he was really fascinated with all of the new challenges facing the Mission Planning and Flight Dynamics teams. He was full of insight to help us new, younger guys cope with these orbital mechanics subjects and he was very good at both – the subjects and the mentoring. Bill always had a variety of jobs and usually was plugged into the point position on the most difficult subjects. He was the first to focus our attention on the possibility of dramatically simplifying the operations concept for Mercury, with an MCC in Florida and a dozen remote stations around the world with small flight control teams. He promoted the improvements in worldwide communications as being the enabler of a single control facility with all voice data, command and eventually video being routed to the MCC in Houston through the global network of receiving stations. Bill was the NASA lead for the software development by Draper labs and MIT for the Apollo computer. But, most dear to our hearts was his integration of the mission trajectory planners, the flight controllers, and the flight crews.

This meeting started out as something called “data priority,” since one of the early issues was which source of navigation data to use in which phases and how to decide that choice in real time. At this level, the primary members of the MCC Flight Controller team to engage in these discussions with the mission planners and the Flight dynamics operators. However, this activity quickly evolved into a more comprehensive process gradually including all of the systems flight controllers, flight software providers, the experts from flight crew operations division who devised the check list and the flight plans and then, most significantly, the flight crews enthusiastically engaged. It was the forum in which we systematically talked through and vehemently argued about every step and decision in the process, precisely defining all of the “flight techniques” necessary to use the best of the spacecraft capabilities to accomplish back-up launch guidance, rendezvous, docking, docked propulsion burns, de-orbit and entry. In later times, the name for this forum did become “flight techniques.”

Bill was brilliant, enthusiastic, energetic, and he completely engaged all viewpoints in this process. Bill’s approach was to systematically start through all the mission phases and then on to the missions themselves that exercised different rendezvous techniques. This process reduced complexities to easy-to-understand building blocks. He would announce his subjects for upcoming meetings, for example “how much plane change correction to use from the launch vehicle”, “what data source to use for each of the rendezvous burns,” “what it is the most conservative rendezvous phasing sequence for the first mission attempt at rendezvous,” among others. Like a court hearing with many representatives for all points of view, Bill would orchestrate the discussion and arguments surrounding each step along the way. Since these decisions were often sketched out on a blackboard as the subject evolved, this was the root of the preferred method for winning, or at least controlling, the debate – “Let me have the chalk now,” or “He who has the chalk wins.” Vigorous and spirited are the descriptors that begin to capture the rough and tumble arguments of the day as each participant pressed his case. Almost a miracle of competence combined with the sincere search for the “right” answer, this worked for us. Bill would record the result by dictating the same to Patsy Sauer, his secretary, who would then have the draft minutes available for team review within hours. These “Tindallgrams” became mandatory reading, study, and a widely recognized record of the progress of flight techniques.

Bill’s enthusiasm was infectious. He was a master at blowing off some wild proposal without terribly offending the offerer, changing his mind as he came to accept another viewpoint, or strengthening his original position with new inputs from the team. In this regime of resolving the details of flight operations for all of these mission activities, Bill has to get significant credit for enabling the success of Gemini. Again, as typical of those times, he was unheralded in the larger picture, and that was just fine with him. The hundred plus participants went on to execute these plans and techniques superbly. He truly was one of the MVP’s for Gemini.

Not only did Bill contribute so much to the success of Gemini and later Apollo, with the same integration planning activity, but he was superb role model for accomplishment and leadership for our young engineers. And they soaked it up. You could see the growth in newcomers, like Ed Pavelka, Phil Shaffer, Dave Reed, Chuck Deiterich, Gran Paules, Steve Bales and others as they lived this education. The FDB-ers who went on to the most success, consistently employed this Tindall model, much more useful than a theoretical course on leadership. They learned to take command, tackle the problems, enlist all the necessary help, test all the options, decide and build support to go forward.

Debriefing at the HofBrau Garden

If the preparations and the flights were intense, the traditional but informal debriefings were a raucous release of emotion by a group of men having just accomplished something big, very difficult, important to the country, and loaded with risk. Sometime in the immediate aftermath of the crew returning to Houston, we scheduled our unofficial debriefing at the HofBrau Garden in Dickinson, along I-45 and about ten miles south of Clear Lake. In the back of the property, the Hofbrau had an outside open area, with trellises and vines surrounding picnic tables and benches. The restaurant served German food – sausages, sauerkraut, potato salad, black bread and an unlimited supply of beer kegs. It seemed that we always had the place to ourselves and there were not any outsiders. The people at the HofBrau garden seemed to love having us there for these events, so they probably had closed off at the least the outside areas for us.

The only protocol was that there was no protocol. And the present concept of political correctness was nowhere in sight. With the first beer, the debriefing centered on any mistakes, slips, and character flaws of each of us. It was common to see our space heroes, standing on the table shouting insults at each other. Llewellyn and McDivitt were especially good at this. And whoever it was at any given moment that was leading the attack was either booed or goaded on to even louder and more extreme expressions of ridicule and insults. It was a great way to celebrate our work together.

The Clear Lake region was a much different place in those days – a lot fewer people, and much less traffic. Since these sessions ran past 9 p.m., we were the only ones who were out. That made it easier for God to find us and look after us. My brother-in-law, George Kurtz, joined us for one session. Even with being a “people person” and a superb salesman, he was not sure how he would fit into this setting. It didn’t take George long to claim a good niche for himself, as he sprang for the first keg of beer of the evening. From then on, George was an insider. George ran a sales organization with many sales people. He could not get over the dedication (almost obsession) that our people brought to their work. He asked how I managed that and wanted to transfer “it” to his staff. “It” just didn’t travel that way.

Marilyn’s dad, the first George Kurtz, also loved the HofBrau debriefings. When he and Mom Kurtz visited us, he was always excited to learn that we were having another debriefing. I gathered that Dad Kurtz did not have too much opportunity to float free like that in Cleveland. I used to make a point of telling my mother-in-law, Lillian, that NASA and the astronauts requested his attendance. That was always sure to get us out of the house. Besides the comradeship, George was from Pennsylvania Dutch country and he loved the food and beer at the HofBrau. We were always looked at a little suspiciously when we returned home. Later in life, George and young George always talked about these excursions with fondness and wonder.

Chapter Ten: Family and The Trench

During these years, we had many occasions when members of the branch visited our home for food, drink and whatever frivolity was on for the day. Thanksgiving and New Year’s Day were big football days and one of our gathering times. Many of the guys were still bachelors and so it became something of a tradition to gather at our house for these occasions. Not only was January first Marilyn’s birthday, but on one of these New Year’s days Marilyn was also twelve days away from giving birth to our fourth child, Bryan. Marilyn’s description of these days was “the guys come early and leave late.” Sometimes they even needed a little nudge when we got to the late side. I believe Marilyn must have kept watch for shock material that she could use to hasten the exit and to inject a little humility into our outspoken guests. This happened after a day where they all sat around drinking, watching the games, or knocking our little kids over by throwing a football at them so hard no one could catch it.

Jay Greene somehow became Marilyn’s target on one of these January first holidays, just before Bryan’s birth; maybe it was the long day of cooking, serving, and hostessing into the late side of the day. But she started to quote Redbook, which was a woman’s magazine with presumably very accurate woman’s viewpoint articles. And, so she confronted Mr. Greene, “Jay, I have been reading recent research which shows that plumbers are better lovers than engineers.” I don’t know if Jay had been bragging or just talking to bring down this indictment on his ego. But, his jury of peers obviously thought that he had and they piled on with glee. (They seemed to forget that they were engineers too.) Eventually, Jay surrendered the debate. We have revisited this story many times since with Jay and his supportive buddies.

I had hired Jay when he was working in the wire room at Downey, California, the home plant of the CSM. This recently graduated engineer from Brooklyn had moved to California to cut various types of wire in various lengths, and put them in a plastic bag for the manufacturing floor. To his credit, he did not see this job as the high point of his career and he joined the FDB. But that was the only time that Jay needed rescuing. Once here, he excelled at all of it.

At one point, Phil Shaffer brought live lobsters back from one of his trips to Boston on a visit to MIT Draper Labs of flight software fame. Everybody wagered various numbers of the house beers on the lobster races. I believe our kids enjoyed the races most and were unhappy when their favorite racer had to go in the boiling pot. I don’t think they really cared for lobster eating at their age.

On football days, our boys took the most punishment. Football on television provokes the amateur observers to see how hard and far they can throw a football, especially at small moving targets. Our little boys enjoyed football and went out to innocently play with these men only to be blasted by their hard throws.

On a very hot humid day in the first days of July, our family was driving on NASA Road 1 in front of the Center. Walking along the side of the road was a young man wearing heavy corduroy pants and a long sleeved wool shirt. I told Marilyn, “This could be the kid I just hired from Wyoming. It looks like he doesn’t know how to dress for Houston but we better pick him up before he melts.”

Allegedly, Bill Stoval had a fiancée back in Wyoming. But it took so long for Ruth to show up in Houston that we began to suspect that this was just another Stoval story. But, there really was a Ruth and she was the complete antidote to Bill, delightful and charming. Later when we had the twins from Montana and Wyoming, Reed and Stoval, at the gatherings, we were able to send two each of our kids home with each couple for one night. Stoval found fruit loops in his beloved Corvette for a couple of weeks afterwards. Stoval always went out of his way to give his gracious hostess grief about over populating our corner of the world. (He and Ruth went on to contribute three of their own to our world once Bill caught on.) Although Bill left Houston in eight years to return home and take over the family business after his Dad died, our family had grown close to Bill during his short stay. Bill came as a bachelor and joined the regular gatherings. He was full of it and our kids – “rugrats” to him – loved to rally with him at the house. They liked Bill so much that he was their special target as they grew a little older for water balloons when he visited in his shiny Corvette. One day he showed up in brilliant yellow slacks and they did manage to get a couple of direct hits with eggs and water balloons on his slacks. He was not pleased, but he was thirsty and hungry so he stayed.

Bill became a protégé of Phil and he went on to be a FIDO for many launches up through 1975. We visited Bill, Ruth and their overpopulating three children when Jenny was in Vet School. Bill had arranged for an “internship” for a month during the summer. The “clinic” was an old place that couldn’t even be called a barn, and it must have dated back to the early 1800s. They had a gigantic bull that looked like it weighed five tons tied up in a small pen. We guessed this was Jenny’s first patient. Jenny’s room was in the attic of the clinic with about four to five feet of clearance in the center of the sloping room. The place had all the amenities that you could imagine from the 1815’s. Marilyn asked Stoval if there were any other college age kids around for Jenny to get to know, and his comment was, “The Indian boys would love to get to know her. They have never seen a redhead.”

We actually left our girl-child there and Marilyn seriously cried almost the entire drive back to Texas. Jenny toughed it out, did fine and eventually escaped from that medieval place.

As a reward, God gave her another internship in Kentucky. She had a friend at A&M who invited her to work on his Dad’s ranch for the summer. What Jenny didn’t know until she got there was that this was a fabled breeding ranch in Kentucky racehorse country. With neither the dad nor the son there, Jenny had a room in a Tara-like mansion that included a chef for all her meals, served in an opulent dining room, and a butler who drove her back and forth to the stable in the Mercedes. Stud fees at this ranch were between $100,000 and $200,000 and all performed in a stable of rich paneling and chandeliers. Makes a regular male feel inadequate.

Our family, all of us, always felt a strong bond with Bill and then Bill and Ruth. We served as godparents for their oldest son and Shawn invited Bill, who came to his wedding in 1987, to be in his wedding party. I was always proud of how our kids bonded with many of the members of the branch.

Marilyn and Glynn at NASA Picnic

The yard parties eventually moved on to become oyster feasts. Our boys were good at hosing off and cleaning the muddy shells, though they were not so wild about consuming the oysters.One of our bachelor sailing friends, Hal Beck, had a charming chuckle whenever he walked into one of our parties. He always carried a signature four-foot-wide ice chest from his sailboat, and his line always was, “You never know when you might run aground.” Hal was a North Carolina guy, and when STG was moving from Virginia to Texas, Hal decided he was not going to move that far away. He proclaimed his position for several weeks vowing that he would never see Texas. As move day approached, Chris called Hal in for a fifteen-minute discussion. Hal came out loving the idea of Texas and the big move.

I had considered taking flying lessons but that was out of the financial equation. So, sailing became the big part of our family leisure time. It was lot cheaper than flying and easily accommodated our whole family and friends besides. We spent a lot of time on Galveston Bay in our ‘19 sailing craft, Crackerjack. Bryan was sailing when he was just a few months old and this was before I learned how to get back through the channel in a big crosswind. Jenny and the boys learned quickly and were a big help with the sailing chores. In the seventies we had a real ship, a ’30 Morgan, fiberglass hull, and it even had a head. This was stepping up to the high life. And later on, we had the Wednesday afternoon sailboat races, where the boys worked the sling for firing water balloons at the other boats. Hal Beck was on the “Sundance” and was designated the committee boat, which meant that he did not race, but established the starting and finish line. Hal always had a bevy of bikini ladies to keep his boat clean and serve the beer and the food.

These were magic times for our kids and us. These were the years on the front end of the lifecycle when the primary world of the kids is family. That begins to change when their peer group moves towards more prominence, a natural part of growing up. We were lucky. Even moving into high school, there was a tight family circle until they went to college and then careers. Things changed, but we still remain very close and supportive of one another. Friendswood was a good choice for a place to live and raise family. It seems like such a different world from today. We always left the keys in the cars, house unlocked and if the kids did something wrong, we usually heard about it before they got home.

From seven years old on, Jenny constantly had a horse, and sometimes a couple of ponies in the mix. Her first horse pastured a half-mile down Melody Lane from our first home. Jenny regularly trooped off with a bucket of oats and a halter to go riding. Her riding progress around town was tracked by the “mom network” and the reports were called in as she made her way around town: “Jenny’s doing fine.” “She is by the rodeo park.” Traffic was not much of a problem. Jenny used to compete in the July Fourth celebration rodeo. She did the barrels and she always looked so small on top of her full sized paint. She was and still is a very determined person and the horse had no choice but to behave.

Once, her horse Jeep contracted an ear infection. So Marilyn and Jenny explained to me how I had to put my arm around the horse’s neck and hold him steady while they swabbed the medicine in to the ear. We started into this procedure and in a flash, I flew into the air and then landed on my back as the horse reared up. Jeep went trotting off, unhappy with this treatment and heading back to his pasture. Marilyn’s question was, “Glynn, what are you going to do now?” My answer involved getting a cold beer. Jenny and Marilyn went after Jeep and took him through the gate. Despite this lack of success, Jenny wanted to be a Veterinarian from the time she could talk, and so she is, even a specialist in cardiology and internal medicine.

Glynn, Jr. was the quiet, studious type and with some aversion to attention. When we planned a family photo, Glynn hid out for the afternoon. He just didn’t want his picture taken when he was young. He tried football in little league years and that was okay, but by the eighth grade, he had found other interests, like playing soccer.

Glynn and Kids Christmas Eve

Glynn could be very stoic and he did not go out of his way to let us know if he was hurt or felt bad. He was helping Father John at Mary Queen, at a Sunday morning mass, as an altar boy, when he threw up on the altar during Mass. He had cut his leg at Boy Scout camp earlier in the morning, but never told us, and wasn’t feeling well. Father John just went on with the Mass. He was a whiz at debate and speech and was an original computer “geek.” He used to spend evenings at the high school doing “whatever” on a mainframe computer system. He was very comfortable in the computer world and he could have easily made a career out of software and computing. He also played in the school band, and had a small group. We loved their “Glenn Miller” music. Glynn went to A&M on a scholarship, and became a petroleum engineer, trooped in the Chevron oil fields around LA for a year or two followed by a Law degree from Stanford and now teaches at Tulane Law School. He started in college and ran triathlons, and has since run marathons and a couple of Ironman races, designed for those who like ten to twelve continuous hours of strenuous exercise.

Shawn was the “leprachaun” and is a natural talker. Even today he can tell his mother the most preposterous story and her response is always to believe him: “Really, Shawn? I didn’t know that.” As another source of frustration for his mom, he had this thing of not liking to ride the bus from school. So he would get off at some early stop and go wandering. Folks would call and say, “Shawn got off the bus again and he is here.” Marilyn had to put Bryan on the back of her bike and go get him. He was always the kid that fell into the creek and ended up with croup every Christmas. Now we hear stories from Bryan and his friend of how Shawn and his sidekick, Dean, loved to terrorize and bully them. Bryan learned defensive living at an early age. Shawn was the jock among the boys. On the little league football team, he was the kid who brought the plays in from the coach as he was the only kid who would remember the play from bench to huddle. Shawn’s story is that he often counseled the coach with play selection. He was a good athlete and to this day is a “great salesman.” He went on to play second base for the high school baseball team. He was not a serious student, but the light went on in college, a little late, but it was bright and it stayed on.

As the last and youngest of the clan, Bryan was always easy going and “his parents spoiled him and gave him everything” according to his siblings. Bryan gave up football after a serious hip injury and became a swimmer on the high school team. Bryan was a good swimmer and eventually served as a lifeguard at AstroWorld. He really had to use a lot of Bullfrog sunscreen as his nose would get so sunburned. All the kids were good on the sailboat and could do anything required. Bryan was the lightest and the natural to be cranked up the mast as required on the bosun chair. Marilyn was always afraid of that part. Later in high school, Bryan was a friend to all. He never had a steady girlfriend in high school, but he got a lot of attention. The girls’ moms often called to get Bryan to take their daughters to dances, proms, and other events. When he came home from college for a visit, and this was before cell phones, the girls would just arrive as he drove in. After all, somebody needed to carry his bags. When I was doing the Apollo-Soyuz project later, Bryan was a real buddy to Professor Konstantin Busheyev, my counterpart and Victor Blagov, one of the Russian Flight Directors. Twenty-five years later, he worked with Victor when Bryan was also a Flight Director, as Victor still was.

The boys always had a group of other boys around the house. Jenny hated having all these boys around and eating everything in sight. She tried to insult them into leaving, but that never worked. The boys and their friends still talk about the “sand-spreading” trap. I would order a truckload of sand for spreading around the yard and leveling the lawn. We took delivery on Monday, and they played in the pile all week. On Saturday, wheelbarrows and shovels came out with Dad, and we had a good workforce, six to eight strong young boys. Thirty-five years later and with their own families, they still laugh about the “sand spreading” and admit they were never surprised by my trap, only happy to play along with it. Wonderful times.

Chapter Eleven: Back to Gemini Flights

Some time early in the operation of MCC in Houston, the unit of three flight dynamics consoles became known as “the Trench.” John Llewellyn probably started it when a number of p-tube carriers piled up around his console, looking to John like artillery shells in a trench. Since the three consoles were also in the front row of MCC, the guys liked to think of themselves as the first line of defense for the crew and the mission. I liked it because the single name also captured the concept of a trio of consoles, all working together as one unit.

After the Agena failure for the original planned launch of GT-6, a very quick turn around plan emerged. It was decided to launch GT-7 first on its long duration flight of two weeks. During the GT-7 flight, GT-6 would launch to rendezvous with it. This would not permit a docking, but would get us started on real rendezvous experience. By this time, the Soviet Union had also tried formation flying. For this GT 7/6 combination, the trench had the same operators as GT-5.

Frank Borman and Jim Lovell in Gemini-7 launched on December 4, 1965, and GT-6 attempted launch on December 12,1965. GT-6 shut down on the pad, because one of the umbilicals pulled early. And, as a very fortunate circumstance, a dust cap was found post-firing in a main propellant line in the Titan and was already causing a decrease in thrust level. There was no lift off, the vehicle was still safe on the pad, and there was no ejection as there were not enough cues to warrant triggering an ejection. The commander, Wally Schirra, made a great decision to sit tight. With different timing of the umbilical release, we could have lifted off with a blocked main propulsion line. That would have lead to the need for a flight abort and a crew ejection, an escape none of us ever wanted to see. Instead, the vehicle was fixed on the pad, the count recycled and Gemini 6 launched on December 15, 1965.

The rendezvous of GT-6 followed a perfect choreography and resulted in Gemini 6 station-keeping with Gemini 7 six hours after liftoff. What a celebration for the whole team especially the Trench. It was a wonderful experience to watch our new operators calmly and professionally execute the rendezvous process so close to the nominal plan.

There were some changes after the first of the year:

- Bryan Lunney was born on January 12, 1966.

- Chris Kraft removed himself as the Gemini Flight Director in order to focus on Apollo.

- Cliff Charlesworth was selected as a new Flight Director.

Gemini 7/6

John Hodge and Gene Kranz were the two Flight Directors for Gemini 8 as they planned to head a two-shift operation in MCC for what was planned to be a four-day mission on GT-8. The launch of the Atlas Agena worked fine and Agena 8 was on orbit as a target vehicle for the rendezvous. The crew of Neil Armstrong and Dave Scott launched in Gemini 8 on March 16, 1966. The same Trench team managed the same rendezvous choreography to a station-keeping position and then docking six-and-a-half hours after lift-off.

Not long after that, the docked vehicle began to have rates and deviations in attitude. At first, it was believed that the Agena control system was causing the problem and the crew disabled the Agena attitude control system. For a short time that seemed to help, but then the unexpected rates returned and began to roll the vehicle. The crew tried the Agena attitude control again. When that didn’t work, Neil Armstrong decided to separate by undocking from the Agena. Since the configuration was now lighter, it started to roll faster. This had to be arrested and brought under control quickly. Neil brought the entry control system on line and shut off the power to the primary control system used for on-orbit operations. The entry control system was actually two completely redundant propulsion systems but with limited fuel supplies. It was the “get-home” system as opposed to the much larger propulsion system used on-orbit but jettisoned with the adapter section prior to reentry. Because of its use to regain control, a significant portion of the entry control system fuel had been used up.

John Hodge, the Flight Director on duty, correctly found this situation to be very serious: primary control system off, the entry control system activated and now low on fuel, and the spacecraft heading onto ground tracks which would provide significantly reduced coverage of the spacecraft for the next ten to twelve hours. Faced with all that, John decided to land Gemini 8 early and in the Pacific with a flight duration of slightly less than eleven hours. The recovery was successful. And, clearly, it was another example of superb emergency decision-making by the crew Commanders - Wally on six and now, Neil on eight.

Another management change occurred after Gemini 8. John Hodge went to join Chris getting ready for Apollo and Gene, Cliff and I were to take up Gemini. After Gemini 9 with Gene as lead, it was expected that Gene would go back to Apollo. He did, but he did come back for Gemini 12, as we were not as happy with the two-shift operation as we expected.

By this time also, I had been the Flight Director on the first unmanned Saturn 1B launch of the new Apollo command service module (201) on February 26, 1966. This was a test of not only the active systems in the vehicles but also a test of the heat shield for reentry. It also had some significant challenges for the MCC operators, with a capability to control attitude by ground command if the automatic control system failed. I was very relieved that we never had to exercise that option. The countdown produced one space-first but it was not a pretty one. The launch had been scrubbed by the LCC at the Cape. The flight team in MCC was milling about, getting ready to leave but waiting to see if recycle estimates for the next countdown were coming in yet. After a number of minutes, Kurt Debus, the Launch Director at KSC called and asked, “Flight, can you unscrub the scrub?” This was a new term for me and everybody else, but the meaning was crystal clear. A check with our controllers, the M&O for the MCC and Network for the remote stations and data support resulted in a scramble. It all came back positive so our “GO” went back to Dr. Debus promptly. The flight was a nominal and excellent success. But as a result of the first scrub, our boss Chris had left to catch a plane for an out of town meeting and missed the flight, probably the only one he ever missed. He never said anything, as in happy, mad or raging. So I assume happy.

Gemini 9 was planned as a rendezvous and docking mission, with re-rendezvous sequences and a very extensive EVA. The EVA centered around a major new system mounted on the back end of the Gemini spacecraft adapter and called the Auxiliary Maneuvering Unit (AMU). This was a considerably more complicated EVA than any we had attempted so far, because Gene Cernan was actually going to don this back pack device by backing into it and “strapping” it on. After release from the Gemini, Gene would pilot the AMU through its paces, although with a tether. We still felt the tether was prudent. In talks with Tom and Gene before the flight, it was the first time that I came to really appreciate the physical demands of EVA. As a preparation for that, both of them were doing weight training, especially upper body. Wrestling that umbilical into the cockpit and getting the hatch closed were not optional.

Gene Kranz was the lead Flight Director for this flight. And so we came to launch day on the Gemini 9 mission, and on April 17, 1966, the Atlas Agena was launched first as a target vehicle and ended up in the Atlantic right off the coast of Florida. Because of the failure of the target vehicle last fall, a back-up stage was conceived and implemented as an alternative to the Agena stage. It was called an augmented target and docking adapter (ATDA). It was put on top of another Atlas and launched on June 1, 1966. The Gemini spacecraft was planned to follow one revolution, about ninety minutes later, but it was scrubbed when ground equipment failed to properly load the azimuth signal for the guidance computer. Quickly, this was resolved and Gemini 9 went into orbit on June 3, 1966.

Gemini 9 “Angry Alligator”

In the meantime, the Agena systems flight controllers had been observing high fuel usage on the ATDA stage since it got on-orbit. There was also no confirming telemetry signal indicating shroud separation. This set off some rapid response in trying to understand the shroud a lot better than we did. Some astronauts on travel on the West Coast (McDivitt and Scott) went by the factory and looked at flight hardware first hand. After review at the Cape, the launch crew reported the most likely cause of the hangup as a configuration error in attaching a lanyard. This explanation still left us with a dangerous condition.

The rendezvous went like clockwork and more of the new trench operators got to try their skills at orchestrating this new technique (Ed Pavelka and Bill Gravett). Tom Stafford had just flown GT-6 and the GT-9 sequence went smooth as glass. When the crew was station keeping, they reported that the shroud covering the docking system on one end of the ATDA was not fully deployed. It appeared to be still held together by the metal band and the partial opening made it look to Tom Stafford like an “angry alligator.” And the name stuck. Commands were sent to cause vehicle motions in an attempt to free the shroud. As expected, that did not improve the situation. We were left with an incomplete opening and two halves of a shroud with some amount of stored spring energy still sitting there.

Instead of the planned docking, we waved off and did a separation maneuver to buy a little time. This maneuver was designed to create an equi-period Gemini orbit that would return to the ATDA in one revolution. When the crew returned, there were no changes or any new ideas. “Don’t intervene if you don’t know what to do” was a guiding principle that had served us well over the years. And we stuck to it.

There had been another planned re-rendezvous scheduled for this mission to simulate a lunar module abort scenario. We decided to embark on that exercise at this point because we could not dock and to continue station keeping just expends fuel. That would also give us time to consider what if anything to do next. In MCC, we were opposed to going any further with crew EVA actions to attempt release of the shroud. But, we now had time if anybody came up with a different and workable idea. Assuming there would not be any such breakthrough, the crew could then get a solid sleep period before the demanding umbilical EVA to operate the AMU on the next flight day.

All was under control, until I was summoned to a special management meeting. On arrival, there was ongoing discussion about how to do an EVA to free the shroud. Most of the management of MSC was there: Dr. Gilruth, Chris, Deke and Chuck Mathews, the MSC Gemini program manager, and George Mueller, the Associate Administrator of manned flight and other NASA HQ people. Buzz was presenting and I wondered if this was his idea. Dr. Gilruth had been cross-examining Buzz and was negative on what he was hearing. The idea of trying to “do something” to release the shroud took on an air of unreality. We had been through this with the MCC teams and it was unanimous that the risks outweighed the gains by a clear margin: lack of EVA experience, lack of a real approach to fix the problem, and not the right balance of risk-reward. Long discussion and a good summary by Gene Kranz on the shroud and mechanisms did not seem to register. There was a sense of being enamored with the idea of successfully “doing something” on the part of some people there, especially those from HQ and two parties from MSC, Buzz and Chuck Mathews, the MSC program manager. Chuck spoke in favor of doing an EVA to fix the problem and there were no more objections voiced - Gene’s was already noted. I learned later that Chris and Dr. Gilruth felt that it was so obvious that this was a bad idea that it would be refused by the crew (or MCC team) later. It still seemed to me like an idea worthy of a resounding “Hell no” right up front.

My observation was: in decades of dealing with flight problems before and long after GT-9, this stood out as a bad idea deserving of firm rejection. Maybe, there was something else at work that we operators were not aware of. There was an easy way to handle that by just telling us. But we never learned of extenuating circumstances. Nevertheless, it goes down as an anomaly in our flight decision-making history.

There was an undercurrent of another ongoing dispute. We had a history of HQ attempts to inject themselves into operational decisions, at least the “big” ones. In early Gemini, HQ sent us a person (can’t remember his name), new to all of us and to this business, to make the “big” decisions in MCC. On his first countdown, Chris and the LV test conductor scrubbed the launch for good reason. But this fellow considered it his prerogative. His only problem was that he could not enter the discussion because he did not know how to work his intercom. Some boss. Later in that day, I inadvertently walked into a conference room, deserted except for Chris and this guy. In the silence, I could immediately feel that the temperature in the room was in the thirties. Chris was in one of his towering angries. I turned right around, left and never saw that guy again.

To tie this “compulsion-to-intervene” and the EVA decision on GT-9 into a package, I noticed later (by GT-10) that there was a pronounced change in attitude about the role of the HQ Mission Director. From then on, their only request was that we inform them of any change in plans so that they could keep HQ appraised. No harm, perfectly fair. No one talked to us about this shift to a more sensible role by HQ and it took a while to believe that it was real. But, it is easy to imagine their horror when they realized that they almost made a colossal mistake in over ruling MCC and ordering this decision on the Gemini 9 EVA. (There could not have been more dramatic evidence of what a bad decision it was than the results of the upcoming planned EVA within twenty-four hours.) They apparently and wisely decided to stay out of operational decisions and to support the flight team in the future. To their credit, they did.

Some of this urge to assert derived from the fact there were many people in our industry who participated in space hardware development programs and it is somewhat natural to assume that one’s experience applies to this new field of space operations. However, it did not. I have tried to convey the time and effort spent on mission rules (our code of ethics for risk/reward decisions), flight techniques, simulations, actual operations and years of immersion. These are the prerequisite experiences, much more so than design.

While this management dispute played out, Tom and Gene in Gemini 9 were doing the re-rendezvous to test the approach by the chase vehicle from a position above the target. In this approach, the crew is approaching the target from above and the features of the earth below are behind the target vehicle. The combination of ocean and desert background made it difficult to have a good continuous visual of the target vehicle during the whole time. Nevertheless, it was successful and the crew flew up close to the ATDA, within inches, and took more photos. By that time, the crew had been up a long time with the intensity required for three rendezvous sequences and Tom requested that any EVA to work on the shroud be postponed to the next day because of crew fatigue. This was essentially a “No-Go” for the shroud EVA because we did not have the fuel to park and re-rendezvous again. We were delighted with Tom’s assessment and agreed.

On the next flight day for the planned EVA, preps were nominal and the hatch opened at 49:22 elapsed time. The crew reported difficulty with the umbilical, much stiffer now as it was pressurized. This was followed by almost two hours of scary reports from our friends in Gemini 9. On the trip to the rear of the Gemini spacecraft where the AMU was located, Gene reported serious fogging on his visor. When he arrived at the AMU station, he reported that any work took four to five times the effort he expended in training. Gene had difficulty deploying the arms on the AMU and began to rest periodically to attempt to clear up the visor fogging. Only marginal improvement in vision resulted. This was becoming very serious and we could not do anything to really help. Tom, the decision maker on the spot, called off this excursion. Gene wrestled his way back into the cockpit. He and Tom got the umbilical pulled in and closed the hatch in a little short of two hours. It wasn’t until post-flight that suit inspection revealed a tear in several layers of Gene’s suit, caused by contact with an antenna. That’s closer than anybody wants to get. And another good call by the Commander. Gemini 9 landed and we truly celebrated their return.

And soon, Gemini 10 readied for launch on July 18, 1966. John Young and Mike Collins were the crew. The objectives were: to rendezvous and dock with Agena 10, to use the docked Agena 10 and Gemini 10 to rendezvous with the Agena 8 stage, to conduct EVA operations, to conduct docking practices and experiments. This was a fairly complex flight schedule, as demonstrated by having three vehicles lined up in the same plane, after orbital insertion. Gemini 10 was trailing the Agena 10 by 850 miles and leading the Agena 8 vehicle by five hundred miles. Rendezvous choreography had advanced to three active vehicles being managed in earth orbit. I was the lead Flight Director.

Because of the number of maneuvers, spacecraft fuel was a critical resource and Tom Holloway, the flight activities officer (FAO), developed a clever set of mission options whose choice depended on the level of Gemini fuel remaining at various mission points. Often, this type of “what if” analysis is not used, but it was a lifesaver on Gemini 10. During the initial terminal phase of the Gemini-Agena 10 rendezvous, there was a surprisingly high level of Gemini fuel usage due to deviations in the braking phase. This triggered a major mission change, which had been carefully thought out and extensively discussed in finalizing Tom’s contingency planning set of options. It was easy to decide to select the option to remain docked to the Agena 10 stage for an extended time of about thirty-nine hours. In this option, the necessary maneuvers for rendezvousing with the Agena 8 were made with the propulsion of the Agena 10 docked vehicle.

Once at the Agena 8 stage, the crew had already undocked from Agena 10 and initiated preparations for the second EVA that was an umbilical based excursion by Mike Collins to retrieve an equipment package mounted on the Agena 8. The EVA was limited to forty minutes (one daylight pass) because of the need to conserve fuel and not spend any more on station keeping with the Agena 8. It went okay, but the sample package slipped away on Mike Collin’s return to the hatch. The Trench team was the same one as GT-9 and they were getting very good at this rendezvous game.

Because of the complex set of mission options that Tom Holloway developed and coordinated with the rest of the team, his contribution and understanding were seen as vital to the execution of the flight. Therefore, I had decided preflight to move Tom Holloway into the front room of MCC, and it was the first time we ever had a FAO serving on console in the front room of MCC. (And, it has remained that way ever since.)

We had spent time over several months perfecting this set of mission options and I wanted Tommy’s expertise available to the Flight Director and his team. That caused some problem in the Astronaut corps, because the checklist and flight plan activities had been located in a back room and in direct support of the cap com. This was an organizational accident of sorts due to the fact that the astronauts and the FAO people worked in Deke’s flight crew directorate, which was parallel to Chris Kraft’s flight operations directorate. Two of our astronauts complained to Chris Kraft that this move of the FAO to the front room was a bad idea. Chris referred their complaint to Cliff and me. We were exceedingly ticked that they had gone to Chris directly without asking us for the rationale. Cliff and I went to see them in their office and after some discussion, the conclusions were: yes, the FAO position belongs in the front room reporting to the Flight Director and if they had any other problems, they would take them up with us first.

Cliff was the lead Flight Director for Gemini 11, and it flew on September 12, 1966, with Pete Conrad and Dick Gordon. Cliff was lead and I was in support. In this context, the “lead” role mostly affected pre-flight choices. The “lead” was the primary interface for coordination with the crew, mostly on scheduling activities and selected subjects. He also selected the rest of the Flight Directors and made their assignments as to mission phases covered. In this case it was easy, Cliff did the prime crew wake shift and I did some of that and all the rest. The Trench team carried over from Gemini 9 and 10.

Bill Tindall had been stretching the team to even more of a rendezvous challenge. One lunar rendezvous scenario envisioned an accelerated sequence with station keeping at the first apogee, or in about one-half of an orbit. So we needed to develop techniques to achieve this very fast paced rendezvous. Bill had managed the planning team through all the arguments and difficulties and by flight time, had an enthusiastic crew on board and in the MCC, ready to rendezvous in less than one orbit.

The third launch attempt was a charm. Gemini 11 made a small plane change correction after insertion, then a terminal intercept maneuver, and then a few mid-courses and braking had the crew station-keeping by an hour and twenty minutes. Docked burns and docking practice added to program experience and on the second day another umbilical EVA commenced. After hatch opening, Dick Gordon proceeded to the nose of the spacecraft and attached a tether from the Agena to the Gemini docking bar. Again, like Gene Cernan, all of this proved very difficult for Dick and his labored breathing, coming to us over the air-to-ground loop underscored his difficulty. The EVA was terminated early after about one-half hour, but the tether had been secured. The crew difficulty was clear evidence that we still could not execute an EVA successfully with reasonable crew workload and that we had more to learn.

One of the highlights of Gemini 11 is the series of iconic photos over the Indian subcontinent, taken from an altitude of seven hundred fifty miles. Gemini 11 flew in this kind of orbit for two revs after a docked burn by the Agena 11 stage. Once returned to the usual one-hundred-sixty-mile orbit, the crew did a stand up EVA, and later undocked from the Agena for tether operations. As Gemini 11 backed away from the Agena and the tether played out, the crew began the first experiments in tether dynamics. The crew was able to spin up the two vehicles attached by the tether and it seemed to be easier to control than we expected. We didn’t have a planned use of this capability but the sponsors of the tether test thought it might serve someday as a way to keep vehicles together in orbit when they weren’t able to dock. It was also thought that this might be a form of inducing a minor G-field on the vehicles.

Because of the high fuel usage during the terminal phase of Gemini 10, my intuition led us to try a modified terminal phase approach that slowed down the relative motion, as the chase vehicle approached the target. We were only going to try this re-rendezvous if we had sufficient fuel and the crew was okay with an early wakeup. Even before MCC called, the crew was up and powering up the guidance equipment for the test. As usual, the crew wanted to learn as much as we could about this new world whenever we had an opportunity. We called this a standoff rendezvous because we positioned the Gemini chase vehicle in exactly the same orbit as the target, but displaced behind so that it trailed the target by twenty-five miles. The rendezvous worked fine. And as late as the ninth manned Gemini flight (GT-11), we were still adding to our inventory of knowledge and experience at every opportunity. Some of this experience probably helped when the Shuttle/Station approaches were being adjusted from fighter pilot intercepts to the berthing of very large vehicles, which do not permit a lot of braking plume impingements on appendages. The terminal phase of the approach was targeted so that the point of apogee of the approach path coincided with the target vehicle. Just add the impulse of a posigrade maneuver at apogee and the ships will be in range for formation flying and then docking. This avoids a braking maneuver as the vehicles close on each other at velocities around twenty miles per hour.

Gemini 12 was crewed by Jim Lovell and Buzz Aldrin. It was the last of the Gemini flights and we were still looking for a solid EVA success. All other program goals had already been exceeded. Lift-off was on November 11, 1966, at 3:46:30. By three hours and fifty minutes GET, the crew was docked to the Agena. The rendezvous radar did not work for the last phases of rendezvous, but the experienced Trench team vectored Gemini 12 to its terminal phase conditions. Once on the intercept, Buzz Aldrin was the class expert on terminal phase without a rendezvous radar and lived out his PhD dissertation.

There were three EVAs – an extended standup EVA with hatch open for two and one half hours, a planned umbilical EVA that was the big test of new EVA restraint provisions and a later stand-up EVA to eject unneeded equipment from the cockpit. There was a continued set of Gemini system problems besides the radar loss – oxygen to water warning lights in the fuel cell system, some degradation in fuel cell performance, little or no thrust from several thrusters, and an increase in regulated pressure in one of the two entry control systems. The team of flight controllers and flight crew were quick to stabilize all these problems.

The EVA went very well. One significant improvement was a set of handrails for the crew to use in traversing to the rear of the spacecraft. Other handholds were in the rear of the ship where Buzz slipped his boots into very large slippers that restrained him at this workstation. Gemini 12 training for EVA also initiated the first time use of a large water tank to simulate some aspects of the EVA environment. This combination of aids and new training method coupled with scheduled rest periods led to a very controlled and successful EVA.

I have often wondered whether the Gemini EVA planning would have been more successful if it had been done in the same fashion as the Bill Tindall model that galvanized the attention of the total community on the rendezvous subject. The EVA planning was more of a closed shop exercise, totally within the flight crew directorate, where the leadership changed on each flight to the EVA astronauts themselves.

The Gemini flight program concluded with the return of Gemini 12, but the benefits cascaded down through the Apollo program and all subsequent manned flight programs. As the Gemini program finished, the operations team, comprised of mission planners, MCC flight controllers, and the flight crews, was ready to roar into Apollo, with the hard earned portfolio of solid competence, wide experience and strong self-confidence in the ability of this team to do the Apollo job well.

Since the Voshkod flight featuring Leonov’s EVA immediately before our first manned GT-3, the Soviets did not fly a manned spacecraft that we knew of during the ten manned flights of Gemini.

Part Three: Apollo

Dave Scott at Hadley Rille

Chapter Twelve: The Apollo Fire

President Kennedy announced in May 1961:

“First, I believe that this nation should commit itself to achieving the goal of before this decade is out of landing a man on the moon and returning him safely to earth.”

In fourteen months, NASA announced the selection of the Apollo mission mode of lunar orbit rendezvous (LOR), a dark horse and latecomer to the competition of ideas for how Apollo should be done. There were already two other options: all-on-one launch or earth orbit rendezvous (EOR). LOR became the mission framework for deriving the necessary flight hardware elements that then set the stage for the definition of new facilities, especially at the launch site. NASA had also contractually engaged American industry in the design and building of these major equipments.

By the start of 1967, five-and-one-half years after President Kennedy’s speech, many Apollo growing pains had already been experienced, overcome, rendered acceptable or were still pending:

- Most of the development work of the vehicles was well along, engaging ninety percent of the total workforce of more than three hundred thousand people.

- NASA assessment and critique of contractor progress was ongoing and shaking up some of the major companies, especially North American aviation, the builder of the Command Service Module (CSM). The progress at North American was the subject of the critical Phillip’s report, written before the Apollo fire.

- Many personnel and organization changes had already occurred during this early period.

By this time, the Apollo effort felt like a national mobilization, consistent with the fact that the peak NASA budget in the middle sixties was about four point five percent of the annual federal budget. (This compares to half a percent in the last decade or so.) There had been significant growth in the NASA ranks of the manned spaceflight team and the NASA organization structure. This process evolved from 1961 on and there were various regimes in NASA headquarters, plus the new roles for the Marshall Space Flight Center (MFSC) in Huntsville, Alabama and the launch team in Florida (now named the Kennedy Space Center, KSC). The new roles for these organizations were reasonably well established by the start of 1967.

In NASA Headquarters, a strong central program management function had been formed lead by George Mueller, previously of TRW, with General Sam Phillips of the Air Force as the Headquarters level program manager. There was considerable staff at NASA HQ and a special contract for Bellcom to assist headquarters as an integration contractor. Almost all of the new Headquarters executives had different background than NASA or NACA. With the new players and cultures came tension, some conflict, but also new ideas. Perhaps most significantly, George Mueller forced the concept of “all-up testing,” rather than “one component at a time,” an approach that was favored by the Von Braun team at MFSC, primarily for engines. Sam Phillips brought a wealth of program management experience from running the Minuteman ICBM development, and as vice commander of the Air Force Ballistic Missile Division. General Phillips established a formal design review process that became the core model for all of the subsequent NASA developments, with modifications as appropriate for new conditions. But NASA HQ was a major new player and it took some adjustment, especially at MSC that had been the singular leader of manned space until this shift. To the credit of all the management parties at HQ and the Centers, they gradually, and often painfully, worked their way through this “newness” and made it work, sometimes bending the rules to local culture.

For MSC, in Mercury and the early Gemini, the HQ interface was much simpler and more in the tradition of NACA. STG/MSC managed the spacecraft contractor and the procurement of the Air Force launch vehicles in the “Walt Williams” mode. The original Mercury launch site team was mostly staffed by STG engineers from the Lewis aircraft organization and some Langley engineers. They were a detached field site group from STG and then MSC.

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.

The Apollo Fire

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.

Chapter Thirteen: Coming Back

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.

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.

Chapter Fourteen: Apollo VII

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.

Chapter Fifteen: Apollo VIII

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.

It would take further study, but Von Braun and Sam Phillips thought it was great, the best idea they heard yet. And so, the marketing of a beautiful idea started, to the rest of NASA Headquarters, to the industry leadership, and the rest of Washington external to NASA. NASA did an amazing job keeping this plan close to the vest, until all the reviews were made, all the necessary approvals were reached and Apollo VII was successful. It is easy for me to imagine the excitement that was growing and then leaping across this Apollo team. This is what we came for. And in early November, the news went public with six weeks to launch.

1968 had been a year of turmoil for the American public. It started with the Tet Offensive in Vietnam, a U.S. military victory turned into an advertised defeat by the media, the hippie movement, the drug scene, the assassinations of Martin Luther King and Robert Kennedy, civil rights marches, President Johnson’s refusal to run for another term, and ended with the Democratic convention in Chicago with protest and mayhem in the streets. America had to be ready for some good news.

Cliff was the lead Flight Director joined by Milt Windler and me on the other shifts. This was a mission made for the trench team. It was all about navigation, guidance, and new lunar propulsion requirements for going into and leaving from lunar orbit. Jay Greene, Chuck Dieterich and Gran Paules were on the launch shift with Cliff. The other shifts would be manned by Ed Pavelka, first time as Apollo prime, Phil Shaffer, and George Guthrie at FIDO, Jerry Bostick, John Llewellyn at Retro, Charlie Parker, Ken Russell and Raymond Teague at Guidance. This was a very strong team and we still had an equally strong trench team supporting Gene’s preparations for Apollo IX. That mission was planning a work out with the command service module and LM manned vehicles in earth orbit. We would also add additional guidance operators to cover both of the ships.

The Marshall (MFSC) team did a superb job in quickly understanding and fixing the problems of Apollo VI. The entire Saturn stack was in countdown on the morning of December 19, 1968. After liftoff, the crew of Frank Borman, Jim Lovell and Bill Anders were in orbit in about twelve minutes and on an escape trajectory in a few short hours, aimed at orbit around the moon. Once on the coast phase, my team came on duty and we became involved in resolving an anomaly during the first SPS burn. There was an excess of helium in the propulsion system from the loading process at the launch site. The engine passed this non-combustible gas during the burn. The MCC operator’s analysis was confirmed by Harry Galenas of North American Aviation. He was able to match the anomaly to the helium loading process and restored full confidence in the SPS. At the time I was dealing with this anomaly, all of the MSC and HQ management were off listening to an onboard recorder that had just been dumped to the ground. (This meant that the contents did not go out over the normal air to ground loop.) On the tape, the crew reported the first motion type sickness in one of our astronauts, Frank Borman. This event made for much conversation with management and the flight surgeons, but in the end the crew had a three-day coast period out to the moon with light housekeeping duties. Before arrival at the moon, the symptoms had sufficiently abated.

Another peculiarity of the trajectory and the lighting was that the crew never did see the moon as they approached. My team was on for the lunar orbit insertion (LOI) burn. There was universal awareness that, once in lunar orbit, the SPS propulsion system was the only system that had enough energy to boost the CSM out of lunar orbit and on the way back to earth. NASA had become famous for redundancy, but here there was no backup to the SPS. Our mission rules said we had to have an essentially perfect system to proceed with LOI. We did and the capcom relayed the “Go for LOI.” Soon the spacecraft would go behind the moon and lose all communication with earth. The LOI burn would occur in the middle of the pass on the back side of the moon. In MCC, we would have an early indicator that the burn had started and then that it was close to nominal. One clock was set up to count down to the acquisition of signal of the communications system assuming there was no burn at all. This condition meant that the spacecraft would still be flying at much higher speeds and would arrive back in view of the earth about two minutes earlier than the nominal time line would be. We had a clock also counting down to the nominal arrival of the spacecraft within our communication coverage.

Waiting was something we had become used to, but this wait had a distinct edge to it. Most of the flight controllers sat quietly, eyes on the two clocks listening and probably offering a prayer. In due course, the first clock reached zero and there was no communication from the ship. The second clock continued to count, reached zero and almost at the same time, the crew reported that the spacecraft was in lunar orbit. It was lunar orbit on Christmas Eve 1968, and playing to an American audience, which was overdue for a reason to celebrate and it choked all of us. Misty eyes, nods all around, and touches on shoulders and backs were the shared signs of a decade of work together by the MCC team.

The crew had a good time picking out craters and landmarks and matching their visuals to their lunar maps. They were the first humans ever to look at the moon this close up, and to contrast it with their view of earth, a beautiful blue planet in the blackness of space. What a time, what a Christmas Eve. And then on the next to last orbit, the crew conducted a TV tour looking inside and outside the windows. It seemed to me to have an undercurrent of reverence for what we were seeing, and then Bill Anders started and they each contributed to the reading of the passages from Genesis. “In the beginning, God created the heaven and the earth.” And the familiar voices of our friends softly recounted the biblical story of creation. And as one, all of us in MCC felt the power and awe of the moment. We could only look at each other.

In another revolution, the spacecraft was on the way home – a nominal return, and a perfect splashdown in the blue Pacific. Apollo VIII was recovered by the Navy crew of the USS Yorktown, who gave up their Christmas holiday time to retrieve the spacecraft and three American astronauts.

Many citizens today may remember mostly the lunar landing mission as the symbol of Apollo. For us, Apollo VIII was the opening of the gates to the lunar landing mission. It was the breakthrough that made our path to the landing much less uphill, maybe even downhill. We even got a telegram from a citizen, who thanked NASA for “saving 1968.”

1968 and the second half of the sixties were a traumatic time in our country. Many people, even today, are defined by what they were experiencing and even participating in during those times. Certainly, we were. But ours was a markedly different experience, very strongly felt and limited to a small fraction of the population. For us, although we were aware of all the divisions and changes tearing at our country, it was as if we lived on an offshore island. The mainland was suffering through these turmoils and upsets. We felt the pain of our countrymen but we had a mission to perform. Our life was on the island and we were completely focused on the challenge of the space race. This was our Camelot, our special place where our work was our life. We lived, and were marked by, a far different view of the sixties than the vast majority of our people who were on the mainland.

Earth Rise

Chapter Sixteen: Apollo IX and X

By virtue of the preparations for Apollo VIII, we had captured the mission mechanization in our people, the RTCC computers, our procedures, and the mission rules. The following phases were now added to our portfolio of building blocks for Apollo:

- Launch windows to meet Lunar target conditions

- The translunar injection (TLI) from earth orbit by the S IVB

- The Coast Phase with mid-courses, passive thermal control and abort plans

- Lunar orbit insertion (LOI)

- Lunar orbit operations

- Transearth injection for return to earth

- Coast phase home with mid-courses to meet entry conditions.

Short of the actual landing and EVA, we were now planning to demonstrate the lunar landing sequence of propulsion maneuvers of both LM stages and the CSM. These would be performed first in earth orbit on Apollo IX and then in lunar orbit on Apollo X. This was a simple, logical plan to capture all of the requisite experience short of landing and EVA.

The crew of Apollo IX was Jim McDivitt, Rusty Schwiekart, and Dave Scott. Jim and Dave were Gemini veterans and this was the first flight for Rusty. Gene Kranz was the lead Flight Director for Apollo IX. The LM team, trench operators and systems flight controllers were ready while another set prepared Apollo X. Dave Reed was the experienced hand at the Lunar Module, and the leader of the Trench team at FIDO. Greene, Boone, Kennedy and Pavelka rounded out the FIDO team. Fenner, Renick, Paules, Paules and Wells were at Guidance with Jim I’Anson, prime at Retro, and Spencer, Deiterich, Elliot and Llewellyn on the other shifts. The crew and the MCC team put the vehicles through their scheduled paces and all of the new equipment worked just fine.

This was a tribute to another of the major Apollo contractors, Grumman and their sub-contractor team. The only threat to the timeline was not hardware but a human one. Rusty came down with the same kind of motion sickness which affected Frank Borman on Apollo VIII. The Apollo spacecraft was different from Mercury and Gemini because it was a bigger cabin and enabled the crew to move around, much more so than the strapped in the seat configuration of Mercury and Gemini. This resulted in a scrub of an EVA backpack test and a space walk by Rusty from the LM to the CSM. All in all, IX was a great test of the LM and the team was beginning to feel the lunar landing within reach. Next up was Apollo X on May 18, 1969.

Tom Stafford was the commander of Apollo X with a crew of Gene Cernan and John Young and a combined total of five Gemini flights in experience. Tom and Gene had flown Gemini IX together and with John Young, they were very well versed in the rendezvous sequences as was the MCC team. This Apollo X crew was the only one which carried three crewmembers, all of whom served as Commanders of Apollo flights. I was the lead Flight Director with Gerry Griffin, Pete Frank, and Milt Windler. Bill Stoval was the prime FIDO after less than two years with us, with Shaffer, Greene, Kennedy and Guthrie each on-console for some of the critical phases. Russell was the prime for a Guidance team of Paules, Renick, Bales and Teague. Tom Weichel was the prime Retro with Deiterich, I’Anson and Elliot. We had considerable depth in the Trench by this time, with a cast of solid operators at all positions.

The mission was planned to provide as much Apollo XI specific information as possible. Once in lunar orbit at sixty miles altitude, the timeline called for the descent orbit initiation maneuver that put the low point of the orbit about fifty thousand feet or eight miles above the moon surface where the powered descent to the moon would take place for the landing mission. This was the first time at this low altitude and it had to feel like the LM was clipping the mountains. Gene Cernan relayed that sentiment to the world with “We is Go – we is down amongst them.” And later, “That one looked like it was coming inside.” Tom was known for some salty language of his own. Picking out a crater, he remarked “there’s old Censorinus, bigger than shit.” Gene affectionately called Tom “mumbles” because it was hard to understand him sometimes. Tom’s annunciation always seemed to clear up just when he was compelled to observe something with a salty remark. No harm done, just men working. Gene Cernan added a “sob” later when the spacecraft control system put in a rapid attitude change when Gene was not expecting it. A big descent stage maneuver and later separation of the ascent stage with the crew cabin set up the rendezvous chase by the LM ascent stage just as it would be two months later. Rendezvous was completed, docked with the command ship and after almost sixty-two hours in Lunar orbit the crew was on its way home. One minor problem with fuel cell 1 caused it to be taken off line while in Lunar Orbit. The fuel cell was put back on line for TEI and then kept in reserve off line during the flight back home.

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.

Chapter Seventeen: 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.

Back in Ohio, we packed up again and, this time, in my brother-in-law George’s brand new, black Buick station wagon. He considered that more appropriate than our ‘64 wagon, given the circumstances. We were going back to my hometown of Old Forge, Pennsylvania, for what might be called, “hometown boy does well and brings honor to his town.” It was an outpouring of pride that one of Old Forge’s own played a role in our country’s space program and the achievement of President Kennedy’s goal of 1961. It was also a joy to see how much my folks, grandmother, aunts, uncles, cousins and friends felt that a part of Apollo XI belonged to them. This was a special time for my parents and they were loving it. May every son and daughter get to see his parents basking in the joy of their moment of success. A reception on Friday was a great time to see boyhood friends and many of the dignitaries in our town and in the region, many of whom were new to me. All in all, heartwarming. Chris’s long time deputy, Sig Sjoberg, made the trip to Old Forge. Sig had always been a great supporter of those of us in MCC, maybe because he had not worked on-console. He was the quiet voice in Chris’ councils. He seemed to fully enjoy meeting everybody and participating in all the festivities. Sig gave an inspirational address on Sunday and was a big hit with the locals.

The last time I had been to a parade in Old Forge was in 1953. Tom Gaylets, former star center on the Old Forge High School football team, came home from the Korean War. Officially, it was not a declared war but the GIs did not see any difference. Tom had been imprisoned for some time as a POW, held by the North Koreans. And this was the first time a hostile country tried to brainwash and turn our POWs. It had been bad for those men and their families, friends and fellow citizens. To welcome Tom, the townspeople of Old Forge released their joy and pent-up anxieties for one of their own in a wonderful, cheering, flag waving afternoon as Tom was paraded in an open convertible through the streets. And you might guess who the chairperson was for my Saturday parade. None other than Tom himself. What an honor.

Marilyn and Glynn at Century Plaza

And, it was a grand parade. Beautiful, sunny day. Flags waving all through town. Open convertibles and our kids just chomping to ride in them, And, I believe, they each had one to themselves. Mom and Dad got to ride in one and see their town in a new way. The parade ended up at the football stadium and, with some speechmaking, we were ready to launch a small rocket. By this time, everybody knew we launched rockets by counting backwards and a couple hundred of us did so and off it went, no doubt a “GO” for orbit.

On Sunday, the Old Forge Lions Club sponsored a testimonial dinner at St. Nicholas Hall and everybody enjoyed the afternoon. There were a number of speeches by congressional, state and local officials. The tone was light and easy. Sig gave the principal address and the people loved it. The hometown is a long way from a space center and they really enjoyed Sig’s recounting of some of our wins and some of our struggles. Eventually, we retired to Mom and Dads’ newly built home on top of the hill by the cemetery. We all sat out on the porch Dad loved so much. He had his flag flying on top of the flagpole he built for the yard. The time was mellow, smooth and happy.

Chapter Eighteen: Apollo XII

The Flight Director ranks had been expanded in 1967 after Chris and then John Hodge withdrew from active console duties to focus on the overall management challenge of Apollo for all of the Flight Operations Directorate. Gerry Griffin, Pete Frank and Milt Windler were selected as new Flight Directors and worked their share of shifts leading up to Apollo XI. The rotation of new Flight Directors soon claimed the role of “lead’ Flight Director for upcoming flights – Gerry for Apollo XII, Milt for Apollo XIII and Pete for Apollo XIV. Gene was also in a new role as deputy division Chief of the Flight Control Division and was feeling the tug of more office duties and less of the single focus on console duties and related preparations. In early 1968, I became the Chief of the Flight Director’s office in the division. Jerry Bostick took the reins of the flight dynamics branch and Phil Shaffer moved to the deputy slot – a good move for the branch since Cliff and I were fully absorbed as Flight Directors. Still, it was emotional for me since I started the flight dynamics discipline a decade earlier and loved the branch esprit-de-corps.

When we came off Apollo XI and, after reveling in the celebration events in Los Angeles and in my hometown of Old Forge, more real changes continued. George Low moved to NASA HQ in Washington as the deputy administrator and Jim McDivitt became George’s replacement as the program manager of the Apollo Spacecraft Program (ASPO). Chris Kraft became the deputy Center Director in January 1970 on his way to becoming the eventual replacement for Bob Gilruth as Center Director. Sig Sjoberg would replace Chris as the chief of the Flight Operations Directorate.

Other major changes were evolving as the scientific exploration of the moon moved into higher gear. Scientific planning became the driver for landing site selection and the surface exploration scenarios. For later Apollos, the lunar module was being upgraded in order to enable longer lunar surface stays of up to three days and with a lunar rover to increase the territory to be explored. One of the longitudinal bays of the service module was being modified to carry a suite of science instruments, including a camera. This was aimed at conducting scientific surveys of the moon from lunar orbit, including photo documentation of the future landing sites.

NASA had apparently been keeping the science community somewhat at bay until we actually landed the first mission. It was a first-things-first approach. Still, Apollo XI had a detailed plan for the surface time with science goals, objectives and a priority system to guide the overall plan and each of the separate activities. But, compared to later missions, it was closer to a “land and grab” scenario, with the emphasis on “land.” Perhaps to assure that I understood the new reality of science guidance of surface and orbital exploration, Chris sent me to a meeting with a few from the Apollo spacecraft program office, the flight controllers who managed the surface experiments and some of the planning/execution team like me. We were meeting to listen to a room full of scientists and PhDs in the old West mansion on NASA road one, which was being used for lunar science planning when they were in Houston.

In a very real sense, they were as rambunctious and opinionated as we were, albeit on their science subjects. The meeting had the feeling of a well kicked hornet’s nest, leaving none of the little critters at rest. It went on for hours and had the clear flavor of “it is about time that you engineers got us to the moon, now get out of the way and we will tell you what we are going to do there – once we stop debating and arguing among ourselves.” I was there to listen and so I did. I do remember going back to see Chris that evening and reporting what I heard. My observation went something like, ”Who the hell are all these people and where were they when all the real work of Apollo (i.e. ours) was going on?” As it turned out, the meeting was a jolting introduction to a whole new community of Apollo supporters who were skillful and clever practitioners of the art of teasing out real knowledge from an array of instruments, observations and sample return investigations. People like Lee Silver and Bill Muehlberger soon impressed us. Traverse planning and execution became a discipline unto itself. Jack Sevier of ASPO became very adept at drawing out a systematic set of science goals, with a priority system, and planning specific timelines.

We were able to incorporate the usual backup schemes and mission rules in our “what if” planning. In a short period of time, our respective commitments to excellence in our complementary spheres of work were the ties that bound these communities together. We were soon poring over the lunar maps and listening to various theories about geologic formations on the moon. The high point for me was going on a field trip with Bill Muehlberger and the Apollo XV crew to a desert site in Arizona. Bill taught us (just like his students at UT) that there was so much more to observe than sand and rock – but also types, distribution, coloring and a dozen other features. I was intrigued with Bill’s discussion of blow holes (my term) bringing up material from deep in the Earth. Sometimes that material could include diamonds and a telltale green colored dirt was the signature for such a gift from Mother Nature. I still look for the green dirt signature today when I am in desert country.

The later lunar surface science would be planned around scientifically attractive and interesting sites, usually far away from a clear, flat surface – good for a landing but not as good for science. And this led to the need for more accurate landings – Apollo XI was about three miles long. As usual, Bill Tindall and his band of lunar navigation wizards were already on the job, developing tracking techniques coupled with navigation updates to actually perform pin-point landings. And we were going to test them out on Apollo XII by landing next to an unmanned Surveyor III spacecraft, which had landed on the moon back in April 1967. This capability would also allow us to bring back Surveyor hardware, which had been exposed to the lunar environment for over two years. But, it was the pinpoint landing which would enable much more productive lunar science expeditions. And so we moved our destination from the Sea of Tranquility on Apollo XI to the Surveyor III landing site in the Ocean of Storms on Apollo XII.

The preparations were completed and the day, November twelfth, for the launch countdown was at hand.

As lead Flight Director, Gerry set up the shift assignments for Pete, Cliff, me and himself. As customary, the lead Flight Director was on duty for the final count, the vehicle launch and the eventual injection onto the translunar trajectory. Because it was Gerry’s first time for ascent, I rode shotgun with him. (The role of riding shotgun was only occasionally done, but potentially helpful on ‘first time’ events. Because the shotgun role does not have to respond to all the communications, that operator can focus on assessing the total picture and even call attention to subjects which may be partially submerged in the flow of communication, deliberations and decisions. The shotgun position also provides another source of counsel or, more likely, just confirmation of decisions. The role is advisory and the operator on-duty is the decider.)

The crew of Apollo XII was ready. Pete Conrad had flown Gemini 5 with Gordo Cooper and later as commander of Gemini 11, with Dick Gordon who was now the CM pilot. Alan Bean rounded out the crew as the LM pilot. Pete was a superb test pilot and everybody on the team enjoyed working with him. He was an outgoing, engaging individual who could always see the humor in any situation. He was the natural “life of the party” without even trying. Alan describes how they spent a day testing their spacesuits and procedures in the altitude chamber. Spacesuits become pretty rigid and stiff when they are pressurized, almost like a suit of armor. Alan went on to recount the technical difficulties, the hard work and sweating to get through the all-day test. By the end, Alan said he was exhausted. After work, off they go to a gathering at somebody’s home and Pete begins to regale the company about all the humorous things that happened in the test and how much fun they had. To Alan, Pete seemed to be talking about some other day than the one he had. That was the way Pete saw the world.

This all-Navy crew headed to their ships, Yankee Clipper and Intrepid, on the pad on the morning of November 14, 1969, overcast, threatening and drizzling – a fine morning for a trip to the moon.

After the vehicle lifted off, it rose into the clouds and rain in a very short time. At about thirty seconds, a bright flash lit up the pad area. Pete reported the “loss of the guidance platform and everything in the world dropping out.” On board, the caution and warning panel lit up with red indicators. And “fuel cells disconnected from the main bus.” The entry batteries took up the load. Telemetry to the ground went off and was intermittent with not much at all on spacecraft systems. Soon, the quiet, steady voice of John Aaron at the EECOM console called, “Flight, SCE to AUX.” This was a call to go to another power path for the signal conditioning equipment (SCE) feeding the telemetry stream. But nobody in the MCC besides John had a clue as to where the switch was and what function it performed. Neither did the crew. In response to the call, their question was, “Where do I find it?” Such was the confidence in John that the questions were in the nature of how to execute his call. The Saturn V was being correctly guided by its own guidance equipment above the last stage, the SIVB. It continued to work just fine and MCC so informed the crew. The team knew that the inertial platform could be realigned once on orbit.

After the GO orbit was achieved, the platform was reset, and the MCC team with the crew went through a complete check of the launch vehicle and spacecraft. Chris Kraft came by to remind Gerry that, “We do not have to go to the moon today if things do not look well.” So noted, this was another way of Chris saying that I am in your corner if you, Gerry, have to make a “No-GO” call. As the time for the “GO/NO-GO” for translunar injection approached, Gerry and I looked at each other. The team had checked everything that we could and all was well. None of our mission rules were violated. If something had happened to the lunar module, we would find out later in due course and deal with it as necessary. No words – but we both shrugged at each other as if to say – there is no reason to stop. There is a planned time to visit the lunar module once on the translunar coast and that will permit a LM checkout before committing to lunar orbit. My shrug was just confirmation for Gerry. And soon, Gerry had the capcom report “GO for TLI” and the Yankee Clipper soon set sail for the Ocean of Storms.

For landing, the flight software had been modified so that any down range error detected by the ground tracking during the powered descent could be compensated by a manual crew input to the guidance computer adjusting the landing point, long or short. Apollo XI had guided the LM to a position about three miles long and the Apollo XII landing site was adjusted by four thousand two hundred feet during the powered descent using the Bill Tindall and Emil Schiesser update. When Pete pitched the LM to a more upright attitude as he approached landing, he reported, “There it is, son of a gun, right down the middle of the road.” The actual landing was five hundred thirty-five feet from Surveyor III on November nineteenth, planned for a sufficient distance to preclude kicking up dust all over the Surveyor. Apollo XII featured two moon walks, each about four hours in duration. The crew recovered a camera and other hardware from the Surveyor. And then back into the LM for a rest period before Intrepid lifted off to chase Yankee Clipper in orbit. Dick Gordon had been busy in the CSM with photography assignments, including proposed landing sites for future missions. The docking and return were “nominal” – one of our favorite words. Upon recovery, the crew was rewarded with an R&R stretch in the luxury of the Mobile Quarantine Facility (MQF).

Surveyor with LM in Background

In reaction to the lightning strike after the mission, the mission rules for the launch director decision at the launch site were significantly strengthened. Don Arabian lead the activity to build a Faraday shield around the vehicle on the pad with a very high non-conducting fiber glass pole extending tens of feet above the complex and cables from the top of that tower to conduct any discharges/strikes to the ground and protect the enclosed vehicle and ground equipment. Better field instrumentation was put in place to measure conditions around the Cape that might trigger a discharge. Don lead a major effort to get the rules and the protective cage as good as practical and that effort continues to serve through the Shuttle program. The schedule gave us a welcome relax time for birthdays, Thanksgiving and the month before Christmas. We also began to see a flight schedule, more paced by the study of the science results and the validation of the science plans for the upcoming mission. It was more relaxed than the earlier launch schedule of Gemini and Apollo flights during the 60s. That was more like two to three months between launches. The interval as actually flown became: before Apollo XIII – five months; before XIV – nine months due in part to hardware fixes from the Apollo XIII explosion; leading up to XV – six months; before XVI – nine months; and XVII – eight months. Five months between XII and XIII seemed like a grand luxury compared to five Gemini launches in 1966 and four Apollo launches in 1969.

Chapter Nineteen: Apollo XIII

After the Countdown Demonstration test (CDDT), which started on March 13, 1970, a detanking of the two cryogenic tanks commenced. The first tank dropped normally to fifty percent while the other tank only drained eight percent out – a very small amount. This was attributed to an internal leak path causing refilling of a tank while draining the lox out. There had been an earlier incident in handling the tank, well before installation in the vehicle, and it dropped two inches. This supported the scenario of a mechanically caused misalignment of the concentric tubes in the tank, allowing lox to leak back into the tank and mostly offset the attempt to drain lox out.

So now, for the first time, the heaters in the tank were used to pressurize and expel the lox. Back in 1966, the voltage for the heater was increased from twenty-eight volts to sixty-five volts in order to aid in faster pressurization and lox removal. The sixty-five volts were supplied via a “ground-test-only” harness. However, the sixty-five-volt GSE harness also powered two thermostatic switch circuits, whose function was to protect the tank temperature from exceeding eighty degrees Fahrenheit by opening and unpowering the heater circuit. However, the thermostatic switches were never modified, qualified or acceptance tested at sixty-five volts. It was a serious error in our system of making changes and a reminder of how seemingly minor changes can propagate into something much worse than the situation you think you are improving,

As the tank was drained with the heaters on, the tank warmed and the thermostatic switches tried to open but were welded closed by the sixty-five-volt acing. Therefore, the heaters continued to draw power for hours and the teflon insulation protecting the fan motor wires inside the tank was mostly melted and destroyed.

A partial fill test was conducted on March thirtieth with the same signature of slow drain of the second tank. It was concluded that the leak was internal to the tank –partially refilling instead of draining – and we would not be draining the tank during flight. Therefore, there was not sufficient reason to replace the tank.

And so, the stage was set for the failure to come during Apollo XIII.

It also became more apparent that the media coverage and perhaps the public interest had cooled noticeably from the run up to Apollo XI. The timing was ironic because after some long period of deliberation – maybe years – NASA had agreed to allow two journalists to sit in a small booth within the viewing room, overlooking the floor of MCC. This was never much of an issue for us because the media had full time access to the air/ground loop with astronauts/capcom traffic and the Flight Director loop. So the granting of access added a real visual of the room, available to two journalists and, presumably, more personal than the ever-present TV coverage of the operations floor of MCC.

Certainly, to me, and I would say most others, it simply did not matter. We were familiar with some regular visitor traffic through the viewing room and we all just ignored it. The journalists’ presence made no difference to us. However, it was disappointing to some that the intensity of coverage diminished after Apollo XI. I thought it was a somewhat natural reaction by the media and it did not bother me. The intensity of Apollo XI media coverage could not be maintained indefinitely.

The Apollo XIII crew was Jim Lovell, Fred Haise and Ken Mattingly through many of our training runs. However, late in the flow, Ken was replaced by the backup Jack Swigert as the CM pilot, because of a medical concern for Ken’s exposure to a child with measles. Jim Lovell was the veteran of two Gemini flights and Apollo VIII. As with all other astronauts, the term “rookie” is really not applicable to the other two crewmen because of their total involvement and training in all the steps leading to this flight and their test flight pilot experience. For example, Fred Haise made it his business to know all about the LM, even to knowing where all the critical wires in the LM were routed behind the close out panels and how to use that knowledge for a hot start if necessary. Jack Swigert was the astronaut office initiator of the malfunction procedure methodology for the CSM. It turned out that Ken never developed measles, but a bias to the cautious side lead to his being bumped from the flight and later assigned to Apollo XVI. Although never done before, the CM pilot was the easiest person to swap out because his critical role at the moon was the solo tending of the CSM while the other two crewman landed. Nevertheless, I am sure it gave Deke and Jim a serious round of discussions.

Milt Windler was the lead Flight Director for XIII and was on duty for the launch phase. The countdown was normal and the Saturn V rumbled off the pad at 2:13 p.m. EST on April 11, 1970. Then, shades of Apollo VI, the second stage center engine shut down more than two minutes early. The Trench was able to verify that the guidance would perform well and the vehicle should burn all the propellant through the other four engines and end up close to a normal orbit, which it did. Then, a “GO for TLI,” the SIVB burned and we had the prospect of a quiet coast out to the moon.

About two-and-one-half days into the flight, I came out to MCC at about 8:30 p.m. CST on the evening of April 13, 1970, expecting a quiet night on the console. Gene’s White team was coming to the end of a long day for the crew, finishing with a narrated TV tour of the LM. They were back in the CSM getting ready for a sleep period. After reading the Flight Director log and catching up with Gene, I went on a walk-around through the back rooms to take the pulse of the team. As a routine procedure at that time, the crew was asked to turn on the fans in the cryo tanks to get a uniform mixture in the tanks for the sleep period. The vehicle was two hundred five thousand miles from earth, eighty percent of the way to the moon and just beginning to fall into the influence of the lunar gravity.

And this was the moment when the bare, and now-powered, fan wires contacted a metal surface in the tank, discharged in the oxygen rich environment of the tank and caused an explosion.

55:55 GET (Ground Elapsed Time since liftoff)

The crew report of, “Houston, we’ve had a problem here” changed the narrative from the start of a crew sleep period to something else – uneasy, but still not clear. Somebody turned to me and said, “Glynn, you may want to get back to the front room –NOW.” I did and plugged in at the Flight Director console to hear a confusing array of multiple indications of problems such as, “Main bus B under volt, fuel cell disconnect, O2 tank low pressure.” At first, it was necessary to be careful and rule out the possibility that some electrical/instrumentation problem was creating the appearance of a bad situation.

56:14 GET (0:19 minutes since problem start)

The fact of a really serious condition began to dawn on the team as the crew reported seeing the spacecraft venting particles out the window. (That’s where the O2 is going and why the O2 tank pressure is so low. And that could be associated with the loud bang initially reported by the crew.) We soon realized that this was not a matter of preserving the landing mission, but this was now about saving the crew. Gene’s team struggled to save what they could of the CSM cryo/fuel cell systems for further use and to reconfigure some of the systems so they would operate properly in the face of the electrical system failures. A CSM power down was started at 56:22 GET and reached a level of forty-one amps.

56:25 GET (0:30 minutes since problem start)

EECOM was concluding that this was not an instrumentation problem and two fuel cells were indeed lost. At about this point, the crew became involved in trying to control some unexpected vehicle rates, which were assumed to be due to the venting.

56:31 GET (0:36 minutes since problem start)

The pressure in the other oxygen tank, O2#1, was reported low and still dropping. More power down was needed. MCC had the crew turn on tank heaters and then the fans to try to arrest the pressure loss – but to no avail. Minutes later, the CM O2 surge tank was isolated to conserve it for entry. We had only one fuel cell and its supply tank of cryogenic oxygen was expected to go to zero in two hours or less. It was near time to start using the LM as a lifeboat. But a few things remained to be done first.

In trying to find a way to assist Gene and his team, I was already engaged with Jerry Bostick who was sorting options with the Trench for how to return home from this point. Jerry guided the Trench team through the options. John Llewellyn was also on scene to ride shotgun with Tom Weichel. John was able to focus on the downstream decisions while Tom was occupied with the immediate aftermath of the problem. It is very easy to understand that there was a very strong sentiment in MCC not to go to the moon, but to turn around, and get on the way home ASAP.

Understandable as that attitude was, it would take about six thousand feet per second to perform the necessarily very large maneuver. The only propulsion system with that much power was the Service Propulsion System (SPS) located in the service module. And we had some real concern that the service module had been damaged in whatever had caused the original loud bang. But more importantly, there was a limited amount of power in the CSM entry batteries that would have to be used for a powered-up SPS propulsion maneuver, about fifty amps. A major burn is normally done with the higher power capability of 1 or more fuel cells, but the last fuel cell was fading fast. The necessary electrical power drain would probably come close to depleting the small entry batteries (the only power available for entry) and we did not yet know if they could be recharged. And as another decisive negative consideration, in order to make the burn achieve six thousand feet per second, it would be necessary to jettison the mass of the LM descent stage, which contained most of the batteries and cooling water needed for the trip home. I summarized this situation for Gene, as described above, with Jerry’s help and the Trench confirming the situation and our assessment of options. This was not even a close call. We had to go around the moon.

56:48 GET (0:53 minutes since problem start)

Gene agreed and announced the go around the moon decision to the team.

57:05 GET (1 hour and 10 minutes since problem start)

With full recognition of how demanding this situation was, The Black team and I came on duty. Positions were manned by Jack Lousma at Capcom, Larry Keyser at AFD, Gary Scott and Ed Fendell at INCO, Bill Boone and Maurice Kennedy at FIDO, Tom Weichel at Retro, Gary Renick and Will Presley at Guidance, Merlin Merritt at Telmu, Hal Loden at LM Control, Clint Burton at EECOM, Jack Kamman at GNC and Spencer Gardner and Elvin Pippert at FAO and all the other off-shift flight controllers and astronauts who gathered to help within less than an hour of the problem. (Consoles had four jacks for headsets to plug in and they were all occupied.) This flight control team was a solid set of operators, but hardly any had been in this kind of circumstance.

Chris and Sig were also there by this time. Besides the flight controllers, we also had the best brains available through our offline SPAN communications and data network with all of the engineering and program organizations, both in NASA and industry, and from all regions of the country.

The MCC was full. Even so, the comm loop discipline was good. No illusions by now – we all knew that this was a very big hill to climb. And it was ours to handle. It was time to get on with it. The situation was:

- A loud bang was reported at the start of this problem and eventually the crew reported.

- Particles were venting from the SM.

- O2 tank #2 was at 0 pressure. O2 tank #1 was predicted to last no more than two hours.

- Fuel cells 1 and 3 were not supplying power.

- Main bus B and AC bus 2 were zero, since both were fed by fuel cell 3.

- Considerable reconfiguration had been performed to get enough thrusters on main Bus A.

- The trajectory was not on a free return to the entry corridor and it needed correction.

To help in understanding our response, actions can be considered in two categories:

1. Managing the Configuration of the Spacecraft Systems – Sometimes the configuration choices were driven by troubleshooting of problems (e.g. leak isolation, switching redundant paths, preserving capability, etc.) – sometimes to support a mission need (e.g. a propulsion maneuver, a power down, the optimum control system capability, etc.). The mission need to operate within the reduced consumables also stressed the configuration choices well beyond the normal. The choices also required closer coordination among the flight controller positions in the MCC because the window for an integrated solution (balancing the demands of propulsion, electrical power, time, coolant water, guidance equipment, communications, etc.) was much narrower.

2. Return Home Steps – The necessary mission steps to return the vehicle and crew to a safe landing.

In the minute-by-minute voice traffic within MCC and with the crew, the return-home steps provided an overall mission framework towards the primary goal. But, the majority of time and interactions was spent evaluating, deciding and implementing the spacecraft configuration choices to stabilize and/or improve our posture to support the crew and accomplish the return steps. And burned into us from years of training and operations was the CARDINAL rule – “Don’t screw anything up and make the situation worse than it already is.” It also helps to understand the evolution of the return-home plan as an incremental process. We did not begin by having a comprehensive plan – but, rather, took steps as we judged them to be necessary, appropriate or keeping us with the best range of forward options. Think of the process as the fog clearing enough to commit to the next step. For example, the decision at 56:48 GET to go around the moon, rather than attempting a direct return, was the first of the RETURN-HOME steps. This STEP #1 was driven by a fact-based analysis of options illustrating that the go-around option was the only workable one. Some of the next steps were more based on the judgment (without a full factual analysis) of what was best. I will highlight each of the return-home steps as our shift and the flight progressed, with the first one being Gene’s earlier decision to swing around the moon.

With the vehicle rates under control with a new RCS configuration, the Black team first focused on the last-ditch steps to try to save some of the CSM cryo-fuel cell capability. The last step was to close the reactant valves to the non-performing two fuel cells in an attempt to isolate the possibility of an O2 leak inside the fuel cell itself. Once closed, the fuel cell was without the fuel to run, and could not be restarted. No joy on the first cell and then the second one ended up with the same negative result. The O2 leak continued.

57:35 GET (1 hour and 40 minutes since problem start)

The two LM crewmembers were making their entry into the LM at the same time we were calling up that recommendation. “We’re already on our way” was the reply. At this time, we had one good fuel cell #2, but the oxygen pressure to feed it was still dropping. The crew began the initial activation of the LM, designed to get the batteries, life support systems, and communication/instrumentation systems online. MCC received the initial LM telemetry signal at 57:57 GET. On a personal note, in managing and prioritizing the flow of comm traffic with the crew, Jack Lousma was a pillar of stability for this team over the course of a very long night.

During the power-up, I had a short time to consider options. My first strong inclination was to power down quickly, conserve LM consumables and work out a plan. But, I also had serious concern that the venting particles would preclude getting a good guidance platform alignment for the burns that would be required later. Tom Stafford was intense about getting and maintaining the alignment in the LM. There were confirming nods from Jack Lousma and other Apollo crewmen. This was now our only opportunity to get the CSM inertial guidance alignment transferred to the LM guidance system, even if we later decided that we did not want to use it and powered the LM platform down. And I decided to take the time and electrical power from both vehicles to accomplish that transfer and then decide what was next. If not done now, this opportunity would be lost and no longer available. It was much too early to foreclose this option going forward.

57:54 GET (1 hour and 59 minutes since problem start)

The CMP powered down as much in the CSM as he could while keeping the CSM guidance system up. Because of the decreasing O2, Clint Burton at EECOM was watching to see a degradation in fuel cell 2 in order to know when to put an entry battery on to support the electrical bus. We intended to stay “up” in the CSM until a LM guidance alignment was transferred. Once we were on entry battery A, we wanted to minimize the number of amp hours withdrawn from it since we did not know if we could charge it from the LM for later use. The alignment transfer itself was a tedious process of crew/MCC coordination and the reading and checking of a lot of numbers as they were entered into the LM guidance computer. During the period of transferring the alignment, there was a short period with neither of the attitude control systems on. This was quickly recognized and corrected. It was upsetting that we (and I in particular) missed that condition. Although no real harm attended, we could not afford mistakes.

Around the time of these final CSM closeout steps, I had a brief period when the severity of the problem really struck home. For the first and only time in ten years of console experiences in training and actual flights, I had the sense of the bottom falling out from under me and my stomach heading for that dark hole. I would like to believe that it was due to an acute awareness of the “Abandon Ship” situation. But the feeling was emotional, not intellectual. “Holy xxxx. I can’t believe this is really happening.” Scary – but the ten years of experience kicked in and it took about ten to twenty seconds to return from that place.

58:40 GET (2 hours and 45 minutes since problem start)

Jack Lousma helped get the LM team back on tailoring an existing checklist for LM power-up and it was now time to turn the CSM power off. We had used about twenty amp hours – or fifteen percent of total entry battery power – before power down. The CM was going to get cold and uncomfortable and we still needed Odyssey to get home.

I considered the decision to transfer the CSM platform alignment to the LM as key to maintaining our future options and it was RETURN-HOME STEP #2 in our still evolving plan. We still had the choice to power it all down and reconsider later. At this point, keeping the LM alignment was a good trade for accurate, reliable control of future propulsion burns against a modest amount of LM power being used for a near term mid-course maneuver in a few hours to get back on free return. The free return mid-course would also verify that the alignment and the propulsion systems were in good shape. Also significant, the fact of being on a free return should be a psychological lift for the entire team. With respect to using the LM consumables, my judgment was that this team would find a way to stretch a nominal two plus days of mostly powered up LM consumables to a four-day, powered down survival mission. (But it still made us all nervous, some more than others.) And after the mid-course in the next two hours, we would have more accurate consumable forecasts available to decide whether to power down or stay up after that. This was a good example of the incremental development of the return-home plan. Take the bird-in-hand, especially when the tradeoff – in this case, the consumable cost – was reasonably low.

58:54 GET (2 hours and 59 minutes since problem start)

Jim Lovell then reported, “I still see a lot of particles and I cannot identify any constellations, at least in this attitude.” This strengthened my resolve to save the alignment reference in the LM until the propulsion maneuver and consumable picture became more clear. At about this time, we had more time to confer with the flight controllers studying the return to earth options. The LM coolant water was the critical item and the initial cooling water usage was high, about double what was normal for the electrical load, because it was cooling down the entire loop. The usage rate would soon slow down. But, the first estimates would have depleted the coolant water by 94:00 GET at current usage rates. This was obviously not good enough but the estimates had also been made for a very high power level in the LM, about thirty-five amps, for the remainder of the flight – both of these assumptions were much too conservative Merlin Merritt at the Telmu position pressed for a quick power down. I told him, “Merlin, I appreciate your concern, but I am still waiting for an overall plan from Control on the control system options.”

It was time to focus the team’s attention on our primary goal of returning the crew safely. We had to develop a sound plan to accomplish that goal with LM power management as a supporting consideration. I selected what seemed to be the most promising option of those provided by the Trench. Then I asked for LM consumable forecasts, assuming a continued power up but at more nominal (lower) H2O usage rates. The power up would continue until a major propulsion burn at pericynthion (closest approach to the moon) plus two hours and then reduce the LM power to fifteen to eighteen amps for most of the trip home, allowing two mid-course opportunities. I asked for a range of variations in power levels around that timeline so we did not wait for “more perfect” answers. For now, the approach should be based on faster results including reasonable variations in order to enable the selection of the return home plan. We knew that the CO2 fix was needed, but definition of it was not urgent and the engineering team was on it.

While that was being done, there was time to refine our near term maneuver options. We could do a mid-course correction quickly to establish free return and then still choose to power down or not. I decided to take the option of getting on free return as soon as practical. We then began to select a time for the mid-course that was adequate for the team to assure proper checklist procedures. We offered sixty-one hours GET and the crew wanted a little more time, settling on 61:30 GET.

61:30 GET (5 hours and 35 minutes since problem start)

The mid-course was performed and delivered a forty feet per second correction with the descent engine. Burn parameters were nominal and the tracking confirmed the maneuver. The accuracy of the burn also verified that we had a good alignment in the LM. This decision to go ahead with the mid-course to re-establish free return was RETURN-HOME STEP #3 – and an emotional lift for the crew and team. We were back on free return, but still a long way to go. LM current was decreased from about thirty-two amps to twenty-five amps in the period before the PC+2 burn.

Through all this, Chris and Sig were present all the time and it was so easy to communicate with them. They followed all the traffic on the comm loops. Sometimes, we would sum up a situation and give them a how-I-am-thinking-about-this-subject before it came to decision time. Sometimes, the understanding was conveyed by a look or a thumbs up or down. I don’t really remember any questions that they had as we went along. I do remember a strong feeling of support. I always felt completely in sync with them, even with very little explanation communications.

Once the free return mid-course burn was performed, an attempt was made to setup passive thermal control (PTC) to control the thermal balance of the spacecraft with the usual difficulty made worse by the fact that we were doing this with the LM control system for the first time versus the CSM as on past missions. The PTC was designed to cycle cold (away from the sun) and hot environments (facing the sun) uniformly around the CSM/LM stack to avoid extreme temperatures anywhere. The technique is to stand the stack perpendicular to the earth/sun plane and spin it slowly, about one revolution every couple of hours, to spread the heating and cooling throughout the vehicle in a uniform way. It is a delicate maneuver in that the vehicle tends to wobble off like a top slowing down and not spin on the same axis for very long.

63:05 GET (7 hours and 10 minutes since problem start)

After more trajectory and consumable discussions, I was confident enough to confirm the most reasonable return option in terms of propulsion, configuration and landing time and location. MCC passed a preliminary advisory for a PC+2 hour LM descent maneuver of about eight hundred ninety feet per ssecond designed to land at the mid-Pacific recovery site at 142:40 GET, twelve hours better than the present free return landing time. These advisories were regularly sent so that the crew always had the best return-home info, in case of communication loss. This was RETURN-HOME STEP #4 (preliminary) and basically the same plan we confirmed as the final plan to the crew about seven hours later.

63:20 GET (7 hours and 25 minutes since problem start)

We were able to soon reconfirm that the earlier advisory message sent to the crew would have adequate consumables. The time margin for the two most limiting consumables would be twenty hours of electrical power and the water margin would be 12 hours. This all assumed a continued power up through the PC 2 time of 79:30 GET, and then powering down to a life support and communications mode using about fifteen point five amps and with two power-up mid-course opportunities. We had a workable plan and expected that it would continue to improve as we had more chance to refine it.

At about this time, we got back to the CO2 removal concern, which was not immediately urgent. Span reported that they were already working with the Crew Systems Division on how to use the CSM canisters in the LM and planning to test the configuration. They expected a solution in a couple of shifts. And I knew from past experience that they would succeed. They were very good at improvising. Not to worry about that one.

63:50 GET (7 hours and 55 minutes after the start of problem)

The attempt to set up the rolling PTC was given up because of the difficulty in setting up a stable, slowly rolling spacecraft. With a crew man awake at all times, the simpler PTC attitude hold for an hour and then roll ninety degrees to a new attitude for another hour was selected. The Guidance team began looking ahead to later darkness opportunities while in the shadow of the moon to permit guidance system alignment checks or a new earth/sun technique for checking the present alignment. This Guidance initiative was typical of a fairly steady stream of configuration choices and future possibilities to consider and plan for. All shifts had some level of traffic like this as the mission progressed.

Span was also considering the pros and cons of jettisoning the SM in order to burn most of the descent fuel and achieve a one-day landing earlier time of 118:00 GET time. The two concerns for this option were the cold environment to which the head shield and the CM RCS would be exposed and the fairly small amount of descent fuel which would be left. None of us liked the idea of jettisoning the SM and dealing with the uncertainty of the cold environment. Unless we could get a lot more confidence, that option would not be exercised. Still, there was not a real urgency to decide that issue at this time and they continued with the analysis of that configuration.

67:00 GET (11 hours and 5 minutes since problem start)

Near the end of the Black team shift, the consumable projections were solid and MCC was comfortable with the plan. Four open issues were: SM jettison, CO2 removal, recharge of the CSM entry batteries and the entry procedures. Gerry and the Gold team were coming on duty and were well up to speed because they were following in MCC for hours before their on-duty call.

A number of flight controllers and I went to a press conference at about 9 a.m. CST for the regular change of shift briefing. At the press conference, the decision on the exact return plan was left open because we had a management briefing to discuss it scheduled after the press conference. I have never been to a press conference when the press, many of whom we knew well and by first names, was so supportive. They all cared as much for the safety of the astronauts as any of us doing the briefing.

69:30 GET (13 hours and 35 minutes since problem start)

A meeting was held with all of the executive management from NASA HQ, all the major NASA and contractor executives at JSC and representatives from other centers and the DOD recovery manager. Gerry and I attended and I recapped the events of the night before with the stipulation that we did not know the exact root cause of the original problem. But I did recount all the downstream effects and what the team did to cope with them. This got us to our present posture, still about ten hours to go before the PC+2 burn. Continuing with the RETURN HOME options, they encompassed the total range of possibilities. All speed up burns were scheduled right after the most efficient time (i.e. behind the moon) plus two hours to be well around the moon and in sight of our Earthbound communication coverage. The options were:

1. No speed up maneuver, landing in Indian Ocean at 155 GET.

2. Descent burn of 850 fps, landing in primary mid-Pacific at 143 GET.

3. Descent burn of 2000 fps, landing in South Atlantic at 133 GET.

4. Descent burn of 4800 fps, landing in mid-Pacific at 118 GET. Requires SM jettison.

5. SPS burn of 4800 fps, landing in mid-Pacific at 118 GET.

The recovery capabilities were much stronger in the planned mid-Pacific with a carrier and helicopters.

Option #1 was the longest return time to a difficult area with only aircraft support. Recommendation – NO.

Option #2 was conservative on fuel, leaving a large reserve for mid-courses, Best recovery posture, solid plan for consumables. RECOMMENDED.

Option #3 left LM descent prop nearly depleted, not much margin for mid-courses, South Atlantic recovery posture is only aircraft, no surface ship coverage. Saves ten hours over option #2. Not enough gain versus downsides – NO.

Option #4 improves return time by a day, twenty-four hours. But the SM jettison introduces new failure potential – NO.

Option # 5 improves return also but requires a power up and likely depletion of the CSM entry batteries, which may or may not be rechargeable. Also requires using the SPS engine where the problem started – NO.

Our recommendation was Option #2. Deke Slayton had a question about one of the faster return options. I answered. Gerry and I were still bracing for a prolonged discussion. The senior NASA official was Dr. Thomas Paine, the NASA administrator. He did not know us, but George Low, his deputy, did. After the one question from Deke, Dr. Paine took over and thanked me for the discussion and the clarity of the situation report and then he said, “I only have one question –-- What can we do to help you men?” WOW – Gerry and I looked at each other and I replied that we believe that we have all the needed support in place, but, “Thank you for the offer. We will certainly ask if we identify something needed.”

The meeting was over. The Administrator was satisfied and offered his full support. It was only later that I had time to reflect on that simple exchange and what it displayed about how NASA operated in those days. I can only assume that George Low “sold” the MCC team to his boss, probably on the airplane ride to Houston. It was an empowering conclusion to what could have been a much tougher meeting. I have thought about it often in later years and marvel at the delegation of trust that Dr. Paine bestowed on our team. Quite a man – Quite a leader. The return plan was settled.

About 70 hours GET (14 hours since problem start)

The RETURN-HOME STEP #4 (final) plan was confirmed with the same plan that we preliminarily sent to the crew at 63:05 GET (7:10 since problem start). We still had the CO2 fix, the battery charging and entry procedures to solve. Plus a raft of non-standard operations and procedures for the spacecraft, crew and mission still needed near continuous attention. The team was in full-court press mode. Outside the MCC floor, the engineering talents of every involved organization and company were fully engaged, from the prime contractors – North American Rockwell and Grumman – to the flight software at MIT, the space suit builders and to the laboratories and simulators across the country. Most of the crews assigned to upcoming flights, plus Ken Mattingly, were verifying procedures, duplicating the planned propulsion burns and the entry scenarios in the simulators and trainers. Another recovery ship was being added for the mid-Pacific landing site. And when people showed up and were un-busy, they could always get coffee for others. This was “whatever-it-takes-time.” Outside the team, we gradually became aware of the outpouring of concern, support and prayers from fellow humans across the globe. And it seemed to grow in intensity and scale all the way through landing and recovery.

As the time for the PC+2 maneuver approached, Gene and his White team went through a review of the mission rules for the burn and the attendant variations. The burn went just fine, the power down started to about twelve amps, equivalent to three one-hundred-watt light bulbs. Apollo XIII was on the way home. After this shift, Gene took the entry team offline and continued the work of detailing the CSM and LM plans for the end of mission phase.

CO2 Fix

90:09

GET (34 hours and 14minutes after the start of the problem)

Joe Kerwin, the Capcom who followed it the whole time, began to read up the procedure for using the CSM LIOH canisters to scrub the CO2 out of the LM cabin. Once implemented, the CO2 readings dropped from seven-and-a-half mm Hg to zero point seven mm in short order. The RETURN-HOME STEP #5 worked fine, full credit to the Crew Systems Division guys. A later seven feet per second mid-course correction was performed at 105:18 GET. The LM consumable status at 107 GET continued to improve to the point that the required consumables would have been supportable by the LM Ascent stage only consummables, augmented by the PLSS (backpack) O2 and H2O as supplements.

The MCC pipeline was regularly delivering a number of new and non-standard checklists for required activities. There were some very effective leaders of specific areas and probably hundreds of operations and engineering personnel evaluating all options and astronaut crews testing each procedure in the simulators.

Soon after the explosion and the CSM was powered down, Gene had gathered up most of his team offline in one of the staff support rooms and started to assess the situation. Very quickly, John Aaron announced that we did not have enough CM battery power onboard. Gene then put John in charge of approving all power usage for the entry phase. John took the challenge and did not go back to front room console duty until time for the entry phase. John was always effective at laying out a concept and power profile as a starting point and then engaging a wider group of experts to buy-in and refine the concept into a workable timeline. In this case, a back room expert named Jim Kelly was the key critical help to John in getting the solution ready for wider participation. A well-analyzed timeline was a prerequisite for the detailing of a checklist of “circuit breakers and switches.” In the hours before PC+2, the LM team did not want to commit any power to the CSM. Nevertheless, John still saw his work as having two options – one without a LM recharge of the CSM batteries and one with the recharge.

As a result of PC+2,the return trip was shortened by twelve hours and the team had the opportunity to see the LM power down to twelve amps. The support for a recharge improved. The team first had to devise an entirely new procedure for charging the CSM batteries. Jim Kelly (CSM) took the lead for this critical invention, with support from Bill Peters of the LM team, while John Aaron continued with the entry plan.

The spacecraft design for normal power transfer was from the CSM to the LM. The new procedure (from the LM to the CSM) had to be ready by the time when there was sufficient confidence in the LM power situation to charge the CSM batteries. Also, the solution was complicated by having to power up a Main DC bus and a Main AC bus plus its associated inverter in the CSM and live within the current limits of a seven-and-a-half amp circuit breaker on the charging line. It also required careful closeout once done. And it required Jack Swigert to configure the CSM switches and circuit breakers by flashlight and in the cold. This critical checklist was prepared almost entirely by Jim Kelly (CSM) and Bill Peters (LM). All done successfully.

From about 112 GET to 129 GET, LM power was used to bring the half depleted battery A to full charge and, finally, to top off the other two entry batteries. This was a small fifteen percent increase, but which proved very helpful in providing John’s team with just enough power to ease some of the earlier difficulties in fitting the desired power-up steps to the power available and it resulted in a less time-compressed timeline. In retrospect, the LM power was managed conservatively and that was understandable. The LM cabin had been cold, cramped and with difficult sleeping conditions. Even so, the crew never complained and performed heroically.

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

One final note

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).

Chapter Twenty: Apollo XIV and XV

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.

Apollo XIV

Returning to my role as chief of the Flight Directors office, Gerry had been the lead for Apollo XII, Milt for Apollo XIII. It was now Pete Frank’s turn for lead for Apollo XIV. My role was to help as needed or asked and I planned to ride shotgun with Pete or other Flight Directors on their shifts.

By the time the flight approached, the return of Alan Shepard to flight status and a flight assignment had played out through the ranks. After his Redstone flight in May of 1961, he was in the rotation for one of the first Gemini flights. It probably would have been the first, but a condition of the inner ear called Meniere disease changed all that. He was grounded and unhappy, but he served the astronaut office and the program well through the Mercury, Gemini and early Apollo years. He chose to have a new and risky surgery to fix the problem. Once the success returned him to flight status and after a run at the Apollo XIII assignment, Al settled into the preps and training for Apollo XIV. There were many advances by this time compared to the early Mercury spacecraft. These changes were especially in the digital computer systems now available on both the Apollo ships. Alan seemed to march right in and master it all in short order. His crew included Ed Mitchell of the U.S. Navy, and Stu Rousa, originally a smoke jumper and now Air Force, both on their first space flight. On January 31, 1971, the crew of Apollo XIV was on its way to the moon and ready to dock with the LM and remove it from the S4B stage. Not for the first time in the program, nor the last, the capture latches did not operate properly and the CSM/LM capture was still pending. After two hours of six unsuccessful attempts, it was decided to use the thrusters to force the structural docking rings of both spacecraft together and fire the docking latches manually. It worked.

Once in lunar orbit, the gremlins continued their work. It was assumed that some contamination in the crew abort switch moved in zero gravity to a place where it lodged on some electrical contacts and delivered an abort message to the computer. If the LM was on descent, the computer would recognize the signal and shift to the abort mode from powered descent to abort maneuvers to start the re-rendezvous sequence with the CSM. After trying the usual tapping on the panel with no joy or clearing of the abort signal, Gerry waved off this attempt. Dick Thorson and his LM team plus Jack Garman and his MIT team pulled out their software patch tool and invented a list of procedural commands to the LM computer. They loaded the software patch and we all hoped that they had thought it through sufficiently. The engine was started for descent at low power – ten percent – and the displacement caused by the engine firing was enough to clear the abort bit. Ed Mitchell hustled through the procedural commands and the LM was on its way to landing. Our combination of competence and trust worked again.

Gerry still had one more obstacle to clear. As they were a few miles altitude above the surface, the landing radar data did not transfer in to the computer. We had long debated the prospect of landing without the radar data. The final mission rules always said that the radar landing data was mandatory for attempting a landing. Some of the crews felt that they would be able to land without the landing radar by using less accurate navigation data, their VFR ability to discern altitude and using the dust coming up as a final cue. Again we tried what was a long-standing procedure and the crew was asked to cycle the circuit breaker for the radar. As often happened when it was tried, the data cleared up, came into the computer and Apollo XIV was able to land with all capabilities intact.

Al Shepard captured the fancy and affection of all golfers with his golf club head attached to a lunar soil scoop. His first was a practice shot that was allowed by USGA rules covering the case of wearing a bulky pressure suit on the moon. The legal shot was a solid drive of “miles and miles.”

Apollo XIV came home and landed with two hundred pounds of lunar samples.

Apollo XV

The “J” missions were another giant leap in the scientific emphasis and how that emphasis drove the spacecraft provisions and the operations. We were a far cry from the criticism I heard after Apollo XI from the science community. They were just unhappy that Apollo XI did not try to do more science on the first landing flight. I have to remind myself that they also waited many years to get to this point and they were chafing at the bit to get on with their science studies. Still, in retrospect, focusing Apollo XI on the challenge of landing and a simple grab-some-samples-EVA seemed the correct priority. After that, it did not take long for the planning and operations team at MSC and the lunar science team to coalesce with the goal of achieving the maximum science return for each mission. This became our common purpose and started in earnest on Apollo XII.

In the process leading up to the science issues, there was a need to significantly improve the lift capability that would deliver the CSM and the lunar module (LM) to lunar orbit. The MSFC team came forward with that improvement. The Saturn V was now able to propel more payload through the translunar injection and that paved the way for the additions needed for the J missions. The Grumman LM team along with MSC had been scrubbing the weight of their craft for years. Progress was measured in a few pounds here and there and the gains were always painfully earned. It was a great relief to get a big enough improvement in the lift capability of the Saturn V to accommodate essentially all the extra provisions that were needed.

The program had already achieved a pinpoint landing which allowed very detailed planning for specific lunar traverses even in difficult terrain. Apollo XII landed a short walk away from the surveyor, an unmanned robot/spacecraft that landed on the moon thirty-one months earlier. The follow-on flights to Apollo XII were all well within a very small range of dispersions, essentially pinpoint landings at selected locations. The extra Saturn V lift capability enabled:

1. The mobility of adding the LRV (lunar rover vehicle) increased to a seventeen-mile radius from the LM, versus the maximum of two to three miles walking

2. The extra provisions of O2, electrical power, food, and H2O allowed longer lunar stays (three days versus two days and three EVAs versus two EVAs)

3. More improved scientific and communications equipment

Apollo XII also saw the first deployment of an Apollo lunar surface experiments package (ALSEP). Various versions of this package were subsequently deployed on each of the landing missions. These packages had their own nuclear power and performed data observation over years and even tens of years. The instrument packages measured ion-pressure as caused by the solar wind, ultraviolet radiation and other measures of the energy spectra of the solar wind. The network of ALSEP sites grew with each flight, and data was relayed back to earth over the subsequent years. Retro laser reflectors were added and allowed stations on earth to track changes of the moon location to earth (one of the many obstacles for the “Apollo-was-made-in-a-movie-studio” crowd). The third instrument measured seismic activity and another package measured the fluctuations in the magnetic field. The crew of Apollo XIV deployed a second ALSEP in this network and did some traveling with a transporter cart to carry equipment on the lunar surface.

It was clear that the CSM was a superb platform for a scientific survey from orbit. We took one outer panel off one of the service module bays and installed a scientific instrument module, which permitted the mapping and characterizing of the lunar surface during most of the time when the CSM was in orbit around the moon. Film retrieval was later done on the trans-earth leg by an EVA from the CSM.

Further, the flight team, including Flight Directors and other operation members, went on some of the geology trips for the training of the astronauts. This brought us more understanding of the subject and improved our abilities to support the crew and the scientists. I believe Gerry Griffin was the MCC record holder for geology field trips as we became one Apollo exploration team.

Lunnar Rover Vehicle

On the lunar surface, the operation of the Lunar Rover Vehicle (LRV) was first achieved on Apollo XV. It was fun to watch the crews trying out their newly found freedom – back to being sixteen again. The lunar rover deployment from its launch fixture on the LM was like an erector set exercise. Even the wheels had to rotate from a towed in position to a lock in the drive position. It was equipped with a TV camera and a high gain antenna to get the signal back to Earth. And again, we learned, just as we did when TV was first added on Apollo VII, that the availability of TV coverage added immeasurably to the team’s ability to help with the exploration process.

And it was all of this new capability that opened up the possibility of major increases in the return of scientific knowledge for the last three Apollo missions. Apollo XV was targeted to land and explore the Hadley Rille, a mile wide canyon snaking around the foothills of the Apennine Mountains. The astronauts were Dave Scott, Jim Irwin and Al Worden, an all Air Force crew. Dave had Gemini and Apollo flight experience. Gerry Griffin was the lead Flight Director and Kranz, Windler and I rounded out the shift coverage.

Hadley Rille

Soon after TLI on Apollo XV, there were indications from a main engine thrust light that there was the start of arming of the service propulsion engine to fire. So we had to develop a new procedure to be sure we did not get any unplanned firings but that the start and shut down of firings we wanted would be safe. This new procedure was developed, verified and ready well before we had to fire the engine to go into lunar orbit (LOI).

The lunar landing phase went as nominally as a steep landing on a narrow strip of moon between mountains and a mile wide canyon can be. Once done, attention focused on the work ahead. About two hours after landing, Dave Scott stood on the case housing the top of the ascent engine in the cabin. He opened the hatch on top of the LM and did the first ever reconnoiter of the landing site from that vantage point. The TV coverage got better on each succeeding flight and the added TV on the LRV was like icing on the cake. The whole surface operation went well with only one core drilling problem encountered by Dave. But the apparent ease and competence of the crew disguised how difficult some of the conditions really were. They encountered an unexpected problem with working with the gloved fingers. Especially with Dave’s fingers, they became sore, raw and the nails turned black from the workout they endured. There was a full timeline of work and the crew set themselves to it. By the third EVA, this must have felt like a real grind to Dave and yet he never made a point of it.

Windler came on duty for the lunar ascent and rendezvous and it went by the book. I came on to wrap up the day with the major activity being the LM jettison. Suit integrity checks had failed the first time and Scott fixed the problem with a plug for one of the connectors in the Liquid Cooled Garment loop. But in the process leading up to the jettison, one of the most critical steps is to check the cabin integrity for the CM before separating the LM and exposing the pressurized tunnel hatch to vacuum. In doing the test, a reading from the pressure gauge in the tunnel was indicating what could be a leak from the CM to the now reduced pressure in the tunnel between the CM and LM. That is a potentially fatal threat to the crew and we needed to find a solution.

As a result, the crew opened the hatch, inspected both seals, and verified they were clean and undamaged. Because of the slight inaccuracy of the pressure readout available to the crew, the test should run for tens of minutes, longer is better. For reasons unknown to us, the crew terminated the test early. We then went through a very deliberate step-by-step repeat with callouts of the pressure as we proceeded. This finally settled the matter and the CM cabin integrity was judged good. It was disturbing because I expected that the circumstances would have provoked a much stronger engagement from the crew. However, it reminded me of an experience on my shift on Apollo XII when the crew became incommunicado after returning to the CM from the surface. They were so occupied with cleaning up that they had headsets off and took an extended time to be ready to answer the calls from the ground. And as I found out in a few minutes, they had another problem bearing on their exhausted state. Now with the cabin pressure resolved, LM jettison was performed. This is always followed by a separation burn. In this case, we had delayed the jettison by about an hour, which changed the attitude of the spacecraft at which the burn was to be done. The attitude didn’t look right to the crew, correctly so, and Bill Stovall at the FIDO position recommended the crew get in front of the LM and thrust away from it for several seconds. This established the proper separation.

Shortly after that, Dr. Berry, the flight surgeon, quietly talked with Gene and me and reported that he had observed premature ventricular contractions (PVCs) on one of the crewmembers and abnormal cardiac indications on the other while they were on the lunar surface.

Wow. That would have been helpful to know hours earlier. We could have made any number of choices to slow down the tempo or postpone events. And then my mind turned to why they didn’t tell us earlier. Clearly, that should have happened because the events under discussion had occurred at least one shift ago. Gene and I just looked at each other. If we were tired and frustrated, how must the crew feel? Some of this caution about reporting crew health issues was due to the emphasis on medical privacy. In this case, privacy should take a back seat to safety. Maybe this helps to explain the last couple hours of difficulty with the usually perfect synchronization between the crew and MCC.

Apollo XV went on to return to Earth, but, as a last reminder of the business we were in, one of the three main chutes failed to fully deploy during the ocean landing and that is one of the reasons we had three parachutes.

I really don’t remember when I knew that Apollo XV was my last flight as an MCC operator. The whole ASTP scenario was moving in that direction but the timing was uncertain. I was named to run the ASTP joint mission in June 1971. My reassignment papers to the Apollo Program Office were dated February 1972. Apollo XVI and XVII were yet to fly and I would not be “on console.” The passing of an era, especially this one, was very emotional for me. With a lot of other people, we had climbed the biggest mountain we could imagine. I did not want to let it go. But actually, I did not have to. It will always be with me.

Chapter Twenty-one: The Last Apollo Flights: Apollo XVI and XVII

Apollo XVI is Next

When the time for the flight ops of Apollo XVI rolled around, there was something missing. I did not go over to MCC, plug in my headset and engage in the usual flight chatter. But it wasn’t quite as sharp a loss as I expected. When I left, I did feel reconciled. And there was not a list of things left undone. And we had a slate of great new guys – Chuck Lewis, Don Puddy, Neil Hutchinson and Phil Shaffer. They were all waiting to get a shot at the best job they would ever have. Life goes on. I was in a new role, a new place already.

Apollo XVI was on its way to the Descartes highlands of the moon on April 16, 1972. John Young was the commander, Charlie Duke was the LMP and TK Mattingly (recovered from the Apollo XIII measles that never were) was the CMP. After the LM separated from the CSM, Mattingly found that the SPS appeared to be compromised (oscillations in the secondary “yaw-gimbal” actuator which steers the engine). After checking everything Mattingly re-rendezvoused with the LM to station keep there and WAIT. WAIT to see if some test or analysis could validate the redundant system for controlling the SPS burns. WAIT – for the MCC and its ground team to find a solution. WAIT – for six hours with the landing site so close. Finally, capcom Jim Irwin was able to report, “the mission is back on. We’re going for the landing at Descartes.” After that long delay – and no doubt much reflection on how it would feel to abort the landing – the crew did land. Their released joy was the mood on the moon for all of their EVAs and it was a pleasure to watch. This J mission came home with over two hundred pounds of lunar samples.

Apollo XVII

More old friends suited up for the finale that was Apollo XVII, Gene Cernan, Jack Schmitt and Ron Evans. Just to mention these names brings back so many times together, the work times, like learning Gemini together, dodging the alligator jaws of Gemini 9, the moon geology lessons from Jack Schmitt, and the laughs we had together training for Apollo X. XVII was the first night launch, appropriate for the last Apollo, because it turned night into day once it lifted off. It was a flawless, fitting last flight of Apollo.

Apollo XVII Night Launch

On the moon, the first EVA featured the deployment of equipment, the American flag, the scientific station called ALSEP, the cosmic ray exposure, and the local taxi called the LRV. The second and third EVAs were off to sample, explore and document the geology at Taurus Littrow. During EVA 2, Jack Schmitt observed, “There is some orange soil.” Schmitt was in a geologist’s heaven. EVA 3 was more Cernan’s time with stops for samples and the explosive packages for the seismic experiments. And the retrieval of a drill bit which had gotten stuck in a hole. The TV camera took us along on these forays and even tracked the LM lift off and the ascent from the moon, courtesy of Ed Fendell in MCC. And so our journeys to our nearest neighbor came to an end and decades later, we still wonder who will be the next moon travelers and when will they return.

NASA had a number of steps to take in closing the Apollo Lunar program. In NASA Headquarters, Rocco Petrone left the Headquarters Apollo Program Office and Captain Chet Lee stepped into that role. The organization names can be a little confusing because they are so similar. The Headquarters program office oversaw efforts at MSC, MSFC and KSC. They also orchestrated the interaction with other government levels and agencies, such as the U.S. Congress, who are involved in the success of the projects. In that sense, ASPO at MSC was one of the three field centers performing in the Apollo and now Skylab and ASTP projects. Petrone went on to Marshall as the new Center Director. Chet Lee and I had worked briefly together when Chet was involved with the mission directors. Captain Lee came to NASA from the Navy where he worked with Admiral Rickover in the Polaris Program. Owen Morris moved from the Program Manager of ASPO to the newly formed Space Shuttle Program office.

My job was now to manage the remaining Apollo spacecraft in its “up and down” missions to Skylab, including a last CSM 119 as a Skylab rescue vehicle. There were also two J mission configured CSMs: 115 and 115A. The office also managed the ASTP efforts, both within NASA and at the contractor facilities and as primary interface with the Soviet implementing team. For many years, the name ASPO embodied the core of Apollo and was led, in my time, by some of our very best executives, Low, McDivitt and Morris. Chet and I were both honored to inherit the mantle of the Apollo Spacecraft Program Office. Chet Lee was well respected by the people of all levels of MSC and the other Centers. Our relationship evolved, over the next dozen years, as we both moved through different but related assignments.

Around the time of my appointment as program manager of ASPO, Sid Jones came to be my deputy. Sid was the perfect fit for the job. He was an encyclopedia of experience with North American Rockwell, the CSMs and all the trappings that it takes to manage that activity and its contract. For years, Sid was deputy to Aaron Cohen who was the CSM project manager for most of the later Apollo years, probably since the Apollo fire. Earlier, Sid served as a project engineer. A project engineer would be assigned to each command service module, as it was making its progress through its lifecycle. The mode of operation was to spend every day with a few colleagues, some support, whichever engineering division was getting attention and focus that group on understanding and resolving whatever issues the prime contractor was working. It was an intimate relationship with the people and with the hardware. And it went on constantly at the office or at home, whenever there was a vehicle problem at the contractor plant or at the launch site. Sid would have the appropriate experts in our office and Rockwell standing by on the phone sometimes before I even heard about the problem.

Sid was versed in all aspects of that work, including overseeing the process into flight preparations phase at the launch site and eventually the flight readiness review (FRR). This support to the vehicle continued through the time that it was inflight. The mission evaluation room (MER) was organized and staffed to rapidly respond to any problem during flight. The same routine of coordination, consultation and the right people combined to deliver solutions to problems, now in space rather than on the ground.

Part Four: Moving Into Project Management

Soyuz is in Sight

Chapter Twenty-two: Early Stages of Skylab

Skylab traveled a tortuous path to reach the launch pad. Most space visionaries had long seen a form of orbiting Space Station as the logical step in the development of space. President Kennedy put space development on a different path and leap-frogged the step by step sequence. On the other hand, maybe “tortuous” would have been the descriptor in any case. It was buffeted by the forces that are usually unleashed in human endeavors – different priorities, different backgrounds, limited time to synch up the decision making team, turf protection, surprises and external changes.

To be clear, I did not have any role in the development of the Skylab concept. I have pieced this narrative together from post-facto verbal discussions and perusing some written records of the history. Even some later events escaped my attention because I was a primary participant in ASTP. Starting in 1973, I was also the program manager for the Apollo CSMs that were to be used for Skylab. This task was specifically focused on the up/down transport of the crews to and from Skylab, including the rescue CSM and not on the specifics of the Skylab operation itself.

The path to our first Space Station started early. The NASA Langley Center in Hampton, Virginia, began Space Station studies in 1959 that resulted in a symposium in the summer of 1962. It posed the question of the primary purpose of such a facility. Is it a science laboratory, or a node in a larger outward human expansion into space? Or can it be both? (For now, in the 2010s, the International Space Station is clearly on the path to be a science laboratory.)

By 1965, President Johnson approved the Manned Orbiting Laboratory, sponsored by the Air Force, representing the DOD. The name laboratory implied its purpose. The up/down transportation was to be a version of the Gemini spacecraft, referred to as a “blue” Gemini. This was the second campaign by the DOD to create a role in the manned space theater. The first was at the start of the space race when President Eisenhower decided on a civilian agency to lead the US response to Sputnik and created NASA. However, that debate continued in different forms during the early ‘60s. In short order, the manned moon program, articulated by President Kennedy, cemented that role for NASA.

By the mid-1960s, NASA HQ formed a program office for the Apollo Applications office with the idea of using Apollo or Apollo derived hardware as the core of the next step past the lunar exploration phase of Apollo. George Mueller, now head of the Office of Manned Space Flight (OMSF) in NASA HQ, packaged the best results of the last six years of study, including the use of Apollo systems. He began to sell the idea of Apollo Applications after Apollo as the next step in Manned Space Flight. When Mueller went to Congress with the story, they were unenthusiastic; within NASA the Administrator, Jim Webb, had his priorities strictly on the Apollo lunar program and the manned space centers wanted something beyond Apollo to sustain the team. One out of three, and a somewhat self-serving one at that, did not discourage Dr. Mueller.

One of the other constituencies was the NASA Space Science organization and their network of external scientists. The man versus unmanned debates occasionally heated up and sometimes went quiescent. But, manned space flight was the elephant in the room and the science elements usually felt squeezed by the disproportionate percentage of the budget going to manned programs (as they saw it). And then there were times when OMSF went looking for science experiments to build a science-oriented activity. And there were science ideas, but nothing close to hardware. One area that had advanced was the Solar Sciences. They had the makings of what became a major science laboratory, built around a telescope and other instruments to study the sun. This became the primary objective of Skylab along with life sciences and remote earth sensing.

Internal to OMSF, the two Apollo development centers at Marshall and MSC were very busy with Apollo. They enjoyed a clean separation of roles – MSFC for the launch vehicle and MSC for the spacecraft and the astronauts and MCC operations that flowed from the design and eventual operation of the spacecraft. This harmonious arrangement was not going to last.

The AAP planners were naturally interested in stations that would support long duration orbital stays. One of the attractive concepts was to use the spent SIVB stage in some way. The SIVB stage, which MFSC developed as the last stage of the launch vehicle, provided a large volume tank to serve as the core element of a station. In the case of the SIB launch vehicle, the SIVB was used as a propulsion stage to reach orbit. This was the smaller of the Saturn vehicles. The SIB last stage needed to be vented and safed from any residual LH2 propellant (at about minus four hundred degrees Fahrenheit) left in the tank. Eventually, this configuration became known as the “WET” workshop and MSFC was assigned the lead role. A Saturn V launch could deliver a fully equipped SIVB based station and it would not have been used for propulsion, avoiding the need to clean the tank of hydrogen and outfitting the station on-orbit.

The term outfitting does not convey the full difficulty of transforming the spent stage into a livable station. As one example, the Apollo Telescope Mount (ATM) carried the crown jewel of the solar science instrument suite and was to be delivered during the third and last crew visit. It was planned to fly on an unmanned LM stage and perform the first U.S. automatic docking. That is choosing a lot of new steps to get the primary science payload in place.

Either WET or DRY, the development of the SIVB by MSFC lead to a nearly complete reversal of the Center roles for Skylab from the Apollo flights. Other necessary augmentation, like an airlock and docking ports module was also assigned to MSFC. MSC still managed the CSM as the crew transport. All of this also entered on the territory of the crew and flight operations teams at MSC who were developing the Gemini techniques and readying for Apollo. Plus, MSC was opposed to the use of the LM stage because its design was so completely optimized for the landing mission. MSC was also concerned with the crew being in a LM stage that could not reenter and land. So the simplicity of the launch vehicle-to-spacecraft split became an almost one hundred percent overlap in roles and that caused some consternation.

MSC was having a difficult time supporting AAP content and roles. Dr. Gilruth summarized his views in a March 1966 letter to Dr. Mueller. He agreed with the fundamental idea of finding a way to use the legacy of the Apollo hardware. However, it needed a direction or a goal as to where Manned Space Flight is headed. AAP forecast a very high flight rate of activity that favored the choice of experiments that were ready to fly versus the best of the experiments to fly. Dr. Gilruth’s concern was that we would not be advancing the best kinds of space technology for the future of manned flight or for science. MSC also did not believe that the LM was at all appropriate for the AAP planned uses. The pace of flights would also seriously burden the MSC people and facilities performing the training and flight operation for both Apollo and AAP. Dr. Gilruth summarized his concerns in a letter to Dr. Mueller. But, there was no discussion of these points and AAP pressed on as before. Dr. Gilruth assigned George Low to head AAP office, although the Apollo fire would soon change that assigned post – from AAP to the Apollo Spacecraft Program Office.

I would have to guess that Dr. Mueller just did not want to introduce a significant change for fear that would start the AAP budget reductions. Perhaps he was waiting for a more propitious time. Or maybe he really liked the WET version.

In the late summer of 1967, AAP continued to evolve its Skylab planning around the concept of the WET workshop. Bob Thompson presented an alternative to delay the workshop missions for a year, separate the telescope mount from the workshop missions and delay it for a year for the experiments, and finally, switch to a DRY configuration so that the workshop could be outfitted on the ground before launch on a Saturn V. For the near term, he proposed small experiment carriers and two workshop missions in 1970, devoted to biomedical and engineering experiments. He also recommended using the LM with the solar telescopes docked to the CSM up to one month. No action to change course was taken.

At their management meeting in November 1968, Dr. Gilruth started by stating his concern for a number of AAP plans and the Skylab complexity. The objection to the WET concept was not so much one single bad thing that could not be corrected, but rather a litany of problems indicating trouble ahead. Thompson recommended a new and smaller volume launched inside the adapter. It had a living quarters and an experiment platform on the opposite end from the CSM. The proposal involved up to seven various configurations of experiment missions, each one being more focused on a single discipline. Thompson also listed what he called warning flags and called attention to at least ten major concerns. On the next day, MSFC presented their case: the missions as planned were workable and the Thompson proposal was a new start, perhaps requiring new authorization. Dr. Mueller asked several questions framing the debate around whether there were compelling reasons to change? No one voted that there were. Back in Washington, George Mueller moved on to continue with the present approach. Dr. Gilruth still felt that the change was an easier and better alternative. Von Braun was at first upset and then supported the DRY workshop, but for the second mission.

Another reality for which I did not have good appreciation from my position in MSC at the time was the scale of the AAP concept. A good example of the scale was the first AAP budget guidelines in 1965 to 1966, which were in addition to the Apollo lunar budget. And they called for thirteen new SIB launch vehicles and twelve new Saturn Vs to be launched between 1968 and 1971. (For reference, we actually used four SIBs and twelve Saturn Vs for all of Apollo.) These new vehicles and their missions were close to being on top of the lunar missions in schedule. One could call this either very robust, very optimistic or wishful thinking. The larger scale and the lukewarm support made it very vulnerable to budget shifts by events such as the escalation of the Vietnam War, the Great Society programs like the war on poverty, the new Medicare benefit and the Apollo fire in 1967. AAP received poor budget support in the fiscal year 1967 cycle, and it was promised to be better in 1968.

The Apollo fire happened in January 1967 and priority shifted back to Apollo from AAP. 1968 was the year of the Tet Offensive in Vietnam, the assassination of Martin Luther King and Bobby Kennedy, and President Johnson’s withdrawal from the upcoming Democratic primary: “If asked I will not serve, if nominated I will not run.” The upshot of all this turmoil was reordering of priorities and the federal budget. Because of the ongoing conflict of ideas about Skylab, Webb chartered Floyd Thompson, then the Center Director of NASA Langley to review alternatives. The conclusion was to encourage the effective participation of man in the orbital sciences and that man should be flight qualified for one hundred to two hundred days of orbital flight and also to resolve the need for artificial gravity. The WET workshop was deemed to be marginally adequate and if this uncertainty continued, OMSF should develop the DRY workshop. However, the DRY workshop development soon went silent again.

The CSM would be used as up/down transport for the crews. The main technical problems in going from two weeks to three months of on orbit duration were in the areas of wetted seals in the CSM propulsion systems and the addition of heaters to maintain the appropriate thermal balance in the spacecraft when it was basically unpowered for these long periods of time.

The fiscal year 1969 AAP budget was down fifty percent from the last time amid significant erosion of AAP plans. MSFC was down to seventy percent of the money it needed and JSC was at twenty-five percent of its needs. At this point, Max Faget again urged Dr. Gilruth to consider the DRY workshop. In October 1968, Jim Webb resigned from NASA and Dr. Tom Paine was installed as the acting Administrator. Dr. Paine supported the AAP concept, but that did not immediately change things in Washington. By the spring of 1969, the DRY workshop was becoming a favored way to proceed. All of a myriad of problems, called “warning flags” by Bob Thompson a couple of years earlier, helped to advance the willingness to change. However, in April 1969, George Mueller told a Senate space committee that he still supported a WET workshop and so did Von Braun.

Within a month, George Mueller and Von Braun were ready to change to the DRY workshop. In the May 1969 management council, the executives reviewed the alternatives, all of which were based on the Saturn V launch. They finally settled on the configuration that ultimately flew in 1973. Dr. Paine accepted the DRY workshop recommendation and an ATM deployment on a hinged mechanism. By the time Apollo XI landed, the management had committed to the idea of a DRY workshop and were already implementing it.

There was one more significant change implemented for the flight phase of Skylab. The MCC operation remained the same and, because of the MSFC role of developing the entire Skylab, the MSFC program office and its engineering representatives became tied directly into the MCC operation, just like Gemini and Apollo. In the Saturn launch days, there was in-depth technical support to the MSFC program decision making at the launch site and it was housed in a facility called the Huntsville Operations Support Center (HOSC). It was operative during the countdown and the very short time of the launch and TLI phase. This was very much like the same role played in the Mission Evaluation Room (MER) for the MSC/JSC managed programs. MSFC would participate full-up for the entire mission. Little did they know that they would soon be tested in a battle for the survival of Skylab.

Chapter Twenty-three: Going to Moscow

After Apollo XIII, the path of my career began to change. At first, I did not perceive how dramatic this shift was to be. But it was coming fast. The first indication was a call from Chris Kraft on October seventh, while I was on a speech trip at the National Airport Conference in Oklahoma. Chris told me to get ready for a trip to Moscow at the end of October. This was only a few short weeks away.

This was a stunner. The idea of going to Moscow, Russia, the Soviet Union, was a shock to me. Like all Americans, I was all too aware of the state of relations between our countries. In the decades after WWII, the Cold War between the U.S. and the USSR was the dominant feature of the geopolitical world that we lived in. We grew up with air raid sirens and “hide under your desks” drills. In Cleveland, a few blocks from Marilyn’s home, there was a site with ground-to-air missiles called “Bomarcs,” designed to shoot down Soviet aircraft. Hostilities were threatened and conducted. Korea, the Cuban Missile Crisis of 1963 and Vietnam were the stuff of the nightly news. New weapons like the H-bomb and ICBMs intensified the fear factor. The rhetoric of the Soviet leader was implacable. Premier Khrushchev spoke at the United Nations, pounded his shoe on the podium and threatened to bury us.

So, how did it come to pass that I got this call from Chris?

History Recap

During the mid-fifties, there was a rebirth of an idea from 1882 and 1932, which, at that early time, focused international science efforts to understand the polar regions. This modern version was called the International Geophysical Year (IGY), and planned from mid-1957 to 1958 for the purpose of better understanding the earth and its environment. There was significant international scientific cooperation. The United States announced the Vanguard project to launch satellites as a platform to conduct scientific studies. The USSR was silent on satellite plans. After several U.S. launch failures of the Vanguard project, the USSR unexpectedly launched the first satellite to orbit – Sputnik 1 – on October 4, 1957. The U.S. succeeded in February of 1958 with a Jupiter launch, by the Army team headed by Wehrner von Braun.

The space race was taking shape.

The USSR achieved the next first – a human in space, in April 1961. But by the time of President Kennedy’s speech in May 1961, outlining the Apollo goal, the dynamics of competition had taken over, inexorably driven by the larger conflict between the two major powers. Space was seen as the new frontier and the “high ground” for yet-to-be-realized military threats and capabilities. This was the state of the manned space competition in 1961 and this status quo was expected to continue for the indefinite future.

However, after the flight of John Glenn in early 1962, there was reaction from the Soviet Premier, congratulating the U.S. and references to the value of joint cooperation of some kind on this new Ocean. President Kennedy responded to this development with a March letter to Premier Kruschchev, proposing four specific areas to explore for possible joint studies: weather, tracking, Earth’s magnetic field and communication satellite testing plans. He also raised the subjects of space medicine and plans for future manned and robotic missions. In his reply, Kruschchev added spacecraft rescue (in the context of a ”fallen” ship) and space law. In a press conference, reporters delved into how far this idea of joint cooperation might go. President Kennedy described it as an important subject but premature for any firm comments.

Hugh Dryden, the NASA Deputy Administrator to James Webb, was named the leader of this bilateral activity and Academician Blagonravov was chosen to represent the Soviet side. Their first meeting was on March 27, 1962. The short interval meant there was not much time for preparation and most, if not all subjects, were rolled over to the next meeting. As an indication of how little the role of NASA was understood, there was mention of nuclear testing and spy satellites as possible impediments to the general idea of cooperation. Dr. Dryden had to make clear he only represented the U.S. on NASA technical subjects. There was a press communiqué released with some information and a preliminary schedule for the next meeting in May. The release did trigger more internal reaction, again, on how far this idea of cooperation might go. There seemed to be a view by the public that cooperation could be acceptable but they liked the clarity and simplicity of the present plan. That plan, now Apollo, continued to resonate with the public and others in the political realm.

The next meeting was in late May 1962. Agreement was reached on weather satellite measuring plans, study of Earth’s magnetic field and some optical tracking by the USSR of the Echo balloon satellite. Interestingly, these agreements were being signed off in October, about the time of the Cuban Missile Crisis.

Another major development occurred a little later as a result of a visit by Sir Bernard Lovell, Director of the Jodrell Bank Radio and Telescope Facility, to inspect the Soviet tracking facilities. He brought a startling report back to NASA. Mstislav Keldysh was the president of the Soviet Academy of Science and told him that they were postponing their manned lunar program because there was no practical solution for protection against the radiation of solar flares, there was not enough capability to deliver sufficient mass to the lunar surface and it could be done better with robots. This must have caused significant consternation in Washington, but, in a short time, President Kennedy decided that there were still valid reasons to stay the course and there was not any certainty that the Soviets were delaying or stopping their manned program.

On September 20 1963, another option was offered by President Kennedy in a UN speech--- a joint mission to the moon and a very big change. More consternation for everyone involved. NASA spokespersons said they were in favor of cooperation but it was much more difficult to integrate (the hardware and personnel) into a joint program than it was to coordinate agreements between two separate teams. In the wider political community, there was limited support for a bold proposal in the name of cooperation and there certainly were a lot of new risks and dependencies.

President Kennedy was killed in November. By December, the Congress had decided to preclude any funds from being used for a joint mission. The subject of a joint mission was shelved. The decision was made to re-scope the bilateral negotiations to smaller subjects. By 1965, there had been no real progress on this front. By December 1965, Dr. Dryden finally succumbed to an illness that had been with him for years. The bilateral space talks ended. (My personal opinion is that the death of President Kennedy did not cause this outcome. Given the state of the global competition, it may well have been inevitable.)

And so, the U.S. program accelerated through the experiences and rigors of the Gemini program, designed to test in earth orbit as many capabilities needed for the Moon missions as practical. Once flying, Apollo moved rapidly towards the lunar landing. On the U.S. side, a new leader began to emerge. Dr. Tom Paine joined NASA in February 1968 as Deputy to then Administrator, James Webb, and was subsequently appointed as Administrator in March of 1969 when James Webb retired. Dr. Paine came to NASA convinced that NASA needed to evolve from a fundamental mission based on Cold War competition to a leader in international cooperation. In April, he initiated correspondence with Academician Blagonravov of the Soviet Academy of Sciences and now Chairman of the Academy’s Commission on Exploration and Use of Space. Paine offered the opportunity to fly Russian experiments on U.S. satellites, a somewhat open-ended offer to “break the ice.” This offer stayed on the table, but several meeting opportunities were missed because of the press of business for either of the principals. Paine continued to pursue with an offer to Blagonravov to attend the Apollo XI launch. That was declined. In fairness, one of the savvy NASA executives in HQ observed that Blagonravov had talked about retirement (and was of an age for it) and he probably did not want to sponsor another major new initiative within his own bureaucracy.

After Apollo XI, Premier Kosygin offered congratulations to Vice President Humphrey and expressed interest in discussions of space cooperation. There were public comments of praise from Feoktistov, cosmonaut and designer, and Boris Petrov, whom we would later meet as a senior executive guiding their ASTP efforts. Paine then renewed his efforts, this time in correspondence with Academician Keldysh, the head of the Soviet Academy of Sciences, and offered the invitation to attend a meeting in September to review the experiment proposals for the Mars Viking mission and contribute Soviet proposals. There was not sufficient time for the other side to settle on experiments to propose. Paine continued with sending a package of the report of the Space Task Group, headed by Vice President Agnew, and charting the next stage of American manned space plans. Academician Keldysh responded in a positive fashion.

Dr. Paine persisted. And on his way to the Pacific to welcome the Apollo XI crew home, he flew with President Nixon, Secretary Rogers, Henry Kissinger and others. He brought up the possibility of cooperation in the manned space program to enhance safety by developing compatible docking systems and guidance equipment. This proposal played into the Nixon/Kissinger strategy, known as detente. It was a way to create another relationship with the Soviet Union. It was hoped that, with enough of these positive relationships, the competition between the powers could be gradually ameliorated.

In this case, the proposal resulted in chartering an interagency committee, which endorsed the idea of “compatible” solutions. NASA HQ chartered a small team of technical people to consider options and their work even included the possibility of a test mission with existing and/or upcoming flight programs. Coincident with this work were several positive developments – Neil Armstrong reception by the Soviets at the COSPAR meeting, Low and Keldysh had positive interaction at the same meeting and a separate meeting of Phil Handler of the U.S. National Academy of Sciences with counterparts in the Soviet Academy. Paine sent another letter on September 4, 1970, expressing strong NASA interest in common docking systems AND he raised the possibility of a test flight with a Soviet spacecraft docking with the US Skylab, scheduled for 1973. Keldysh sent a letter that crossed in the mail, outlining his specific recommendations for an agenda. More letters followed and the first meeting was scheduled for October 26 through 28, 1970, in Moscow. Our team traveled to Washington to review our respective presentations and receive some background from the interested agencies in Washington. The tone I recall was one of, “Don’t expect too much. Any progress, if any, will be slow.” I do not recall hearing any of HQ’s opinion on the previous suggestions of an early flight test of our results.

I had limited knowledge of the broader historical background except for an awareness that President Kennedy had discussed the possibility of a joint mission to the moon at the U.N. much earlier in 1963.

October 1970 Meeting

At first, I came to this discussion of a trip to Moscow in complete surprise, and then learned of the recent, higher-level Paine/Keldysh agreement to discuss the possibility of making rendezvous and docking systems compatible in some way. The context was to enable the rescue of stranded crewmen in orbit, an extension of the maritime parallel for providing assistance at sea. It was readily seen as a humanitarian effort to enhance the safety of subsequent space travelers. It had to be an accident of timing but there was an American movie, Marooned, that year portraying the rescue of an American crew by a cosmonaut. Even so, some on both sides harbored reservations about this cooperation. Another irony was that Dr. Paine, the initiator and advocate, resigned in September 1970 for personal reasons before our first Moscow trip in October.

I am sure that Dr. Gilruth, the Director of the Manned Spacecraft Center, was briefed on all of the history since he would be the head of this delegation. I had known Dr. Gilruth from a distance for years and saw his hand in the workings of MSC. He was highly respected and admired by all who worked with him. Further, Chris Kraft always made his respect for Dr. Gilruth, his boss, evident to all of us who worked for him. I was looking forward to this opportunity of working more closely with Dr. Gilruth.

The delegation included Dr. Gilruth, of course, Caldwell Johnson, a designer from the Engineering Directorate, and myself from the Operations Directorate. Also on the team were George Hardy from MSFC and Arnold Frutkin from NASA Headquarters, and the International Affairs Chief was also there. In retrospect, I wonder if they considered the option to fill us in on all of the background or whether they decided to let us play the hand without preconditioning. Perhaps, they did not concern themselves with our state of knowledge of the history and selected us because they counted on us to react to the circumstances as we evaluated the situation. That would be my guess and it was typical of the trust that flowed through our organization. I was just seeing it in action at a new level.

October 1970 Visit from left: Lunney, Shatalov from right: Feoktistov, CC Johnson, Frutkin, Dr. Gilruth

My career in manned space started with a drawing (inboard profile) of what became the Mercury spacecraft, which was drawn by Caldwell in 1958. I never before had a chance to work with Caldwell up close, but his earlier drawing was recommendation enough for me. Caldwell had also worked in the early program management of Apollo and now worked for Max Faget, the legendary designer of manned space vehicles. George Hardy was a designer from the MSFC and knew the Skylab program. He was on the team because Skylab might have become part of this cooperative initiative. George also represented the inclusion of MSFC in these discussions. To me, Arnold Frutkin was a completely new entity. He had long experience in arranging cooperative international efforts in NASA’s scientific projects. But this was his first in manned space. Throughout the entire project, Arnold was constructive and especially helpful in steering us through this new world of international negotiations. Our interpreter was Bill Krimer, whom I understood to have experience as an interpreter in the Strategic Arms Limitation Talks (SALT), a very high profile role. This was a good team. And we soon went off to Moscow, Russia, each with our own thoughts, and – at least in my case – some trepidation about how this trip would unfold.

So we went there. It was October of 1970. We made good travel plans by leaving on Friday, the twenty-third of the month, and arriving in Moscow on Saturday evening. It was cold with snow on the ground and seemed forbidding. The airport security was provided by armed soldiers and there seemed to be a lot of them. Dr. Gilruth picked out our welcoming party and was relieved to see the smiles and friendly manner of our hosts, about five of them, waiting to assist us through the arrival process. The reception was positive, welcoming and made us feel optimistic about our upcoming meeting. In the airport, we met Cosmonaut Feoktistov and Academician Boris Petrov. As it turned out, Feoktistov participated in one more meeting in January 1971. After that last appearance, Academician Petrov became the senior executive for most of our subsequent meetings.

A real reminder that we were in a different land was underlined by the answer to our questions regarding large structures of beams or I-beams rising out of the ground along the road just outside the airport. They represented Soviet anti-tank defenses, at the point of the closest advance of the Nazi-led German army to Moscow. Within an hour, we arrived at the Russiya hotel. The Russiya was about a block from Red Square, the location of Lenin’s tomb and those military parades I had watched all of my adult life. I was ready for a night’s sleep.

But, our hosts had arranged a dinner and then a driving tour of the city. Most notable for me was the view from the Lenin Hills. It was rather other worldly. At night, with very little traffic in the capitol, we were overlooking the Kremlin and the city with its lights, now covered by a blanket of fresh snow as its stage. Strange to be seeing this forbidden city of Moscow this way.

On Sunday morning, we went to Star City, about a forty-five minute drive from downtown. We were warmly received by the Commandant General Kuznetsov and escorted by General Beregovoy and Colonel Shatalov, who later became a regular participant on crew matters once the project got underway. Star City was more than the equivalent to a NASA center. It was also the home base for the military cosmonauts where they and their families lived. There were lots of young children to be seen around what you would think of as the campus of Star City. I understood that the civilian cosmonauts like Valerie Kubasov, who flew with Colonel Leonov on ASTP, lived in the city in what we would call condos or apartments.

We visited the training facility and toured the mockups. The two manned compartments of the Soyuz vehicle had different functions. They were stacked on top of an unmanned module that housed many of the propulsion elements and supported the solar arrays and other equipment. The service module was similar in function to the equipment adapter in Gemini and the service module in Apollo. In all these vehicles, the rear section of this service module was attached to the top of the launch vehicle. The manned module on top of the service module was the “cockpit” module. It was, and still is, the portion of the vehicle that serves as the reentry module with heat protection and parachutes. It is also where the cosmonauts perform control functions for ascent to orbit and reentry. It is approximately the shape of a gumdrop. The internal volume of this module, housing the three crewmen for launch and entry, is a tight fit with not a lot of spare space. And that is for the current flight configuration without bulky pressure suits. (It is not for “tall” crewmembers.) Forward of the cockpit module is the orbital module that is almost spherical with dimensions of approximately seven to eight feet. The two manned modules were connected and had internal hatches for access. The orbital module felt roomy and was used as a living quarters – eating, sleeping, exercise, some experiments. On the external front of the orbital module was the docking system and an internal hatch system for transfer to another vehicle or to conduct an EVA.

I had the opportunity to fly the simulator. The first impression was that there were far fewer displays and controls compared to the switches and circuit breakers in our ships. When our flight crews engaged later in the project, there was far more conversation about the philosophical difference in approach to the role of ground control and automated sequencers, which was the Soviet approach, and the American approach of a much larger role in the crew operation of the spacecraft. This debate never resolved itself completely, but it was typical of our experience with most of design and operations. At first, the response was to not understand why anyone would do it that way. But then go through the thought process and examine it for something to learn. There almost always was some different angle or it may have been based on having different capabilities. For example, the state of the art of each side sometimes dictated the solutions as in the case of using computers: the U.S. state of the art in computers enabled a more widespread use of math models to evaluate many conditions, while the Soviet side preferred to confirm design by more testing. (I hear that this general process of understanding the other side’s rationale is repeated often in the International Space Station today, more than four decades later.)

Back inside the simulator, Colonel Shatalov explained the layout of the cockpit – a globe to display position over the earth, a TV display of data, digital readouts, systems status lights and a TV camera mounted forward gave a display of the cross-shaped alignment target on the other vehicle. This was used to evaluate and correct, when necessary, the attitude of the vehicle for docking. Range and range rate came from other sensors and from the TV visual. My first lesson in how idioms do not translate well came on my exit from the simulator. I was actually trying to compliment the design and remarked that it felt just like flying by the seat of the pants (i.e. it was intuitive and comfortable). A lot of frowns and unfriendly looks, while my interpreter explained that the translation by the Russian interpreter came out as, “It felt like flying with my a-- going backwards.” Once explained, they took it as a laugh on all of us.

We did stay for a meal there at Star City. It was hosted by General Kuznetsov and attended by a dozen or more cosmonauts in military uniform. The General’s opening toast was a serious one and emphasized the importance of keeping space activities peaceful. We did get to the vodka and toast-making ritual. Well outnumbered, we held our own at that diplomatic exercise and even claimed victory. Toast-making stayed with us throughout the project. It was an art form. The choice of subject and delivery was a competition in itself, and sometimes, the performances were to be admired.

Back in the city and in keeping with our full schedule, we went to the Bolshoi ballet that night.

The next day was the start of our three-day meeting. On the Soviet side, Konstantin Feoktistov led their delegation. Academician Boris Petrov seemed to be the policy person. Vladimir Syromyatnikov represented the docking system, the guidance system was done by V. Suslennikov and Ilya Lavrov covered the life support systems. We also had the Science Attache from our Embassy. Apparently, the embassy stayed with visiting U.S. delegations to assure that we behaved according to some unspecified rules. I assume that we did because they soon left us to our discussions. Whenever we asked, they were very helpful.

Up first, I gave a summary of the primary systems necessary for rendezvous, such as communications, guidance and propulsion and a number of the related equipment including range measurements, lights, reflectors, targets and radios. I also summarized the rendezvous techniques and recognized that we each had differences in the degree of automation, but they seemed amenable to a joint solution.

Feoktistov presented the Soviet rendezvous model in three distinct phases: approach to the vicinity of the target, closure to station keeping distance and final docking maneuvers. They preferred to put the two vehicles in similar (coplanar) orbits and then perform propulsion burns designed to arrive at the station keeping point. The docking closure would be performed by small thrusters in auto or manual, with a preference for automatic.

Caldwell Johnson presented next on the docking system. He saw this as a major opportunity to avoid some of the difficulties inherent in the probe and drogue systems used on Apollo and Soyuz. For one thing, two spacecrafts with probes cannot dock with each other, nor can two with drogues. Probes also block the tunnel passage and can be inconvenient to remove. The probe and drogue concept can be described as male and female. Caldwell introduced the androgynous concept (without gender) as an ideal solution, permitting any spacecraft with one to dock with any other spacecraft so equipped. Think of it as two rings of interleaving fingers with capture latches to affect a “soft” docking and, when retracted, heavy-duty structural rings are drawn together to affect a rigid mating of sufficient strength to accommodate the mass and inertia of the spacecraft. In effect, something like a mirror image. Since this was different than the current Soyuz system, Caldwell couched it as illustrative of possible future options. They were interested.

While withholding response, Vladimir Syromyatnikov presented his briefing on the Soviet docking system. Vladimir was a serious young man, thirty-seven at the time, and very proud of the accomplishments of his team for their work on the docking systems for Soyuz. They used a “pin and cone” (like our probe and drogue) design, but their implementation precluded internal transfer. The Soviet design also included the engagement of electrical umbilicals, which were positioned by six-inch guide pins mating with sockets. Syromyatnikov also reported that they were working on an assembly of probe and drogue that could be rotated out of the tunnel for transfer clearance.

In the afternoon, George Hardy of MSFC, presented material on the upcoming Skylab program. George continued on the next morning. V. Suslennikov briefed on the radio guidance system of Soyuz. We gathered the points discussed earlier and compiled a list. Included in the listing of the issues was an action to define the cabin atmospheres – composition and characteristics – but it was not discussed in much detail as we expected that future ships would have cabins of one atmosphere of pressure (fourteen point seven pounds per square inch (PSI), as opposed to the Apollo cabin pressure of five PSI). Feoktistov then gathered all of the subjects and submitted a review draft. He listed the pertinent issues and documented our agreed forward plan of a document exchange by January-February 1971 and a second meeting in the March-April 1971 time frame. To address the subjects, he suggested a three working group arrangement to address the list of issues. After more discussion, this draft became the basis for the “Summary of Results” of this meeting and was signed the next day, with the intention to recommend it to the leadership of NASA and the Soviet Academy of Science. The speed of reaching understanding and agreement impressed and surprised all of us. And then it was time to come home.

We gave thought to the lessons of the meeting and recorded some of the major ones:

- Write a draft of the Summary of Results (minutes) before the meeting.

- Send the plan for the meeting with content and schedule of work to the other side.

- Write a draft Press Communique.

- Allow time for translation and verification of results into both languages.

- Select correct people for working groups and support.

- Plan travel to allow at least a day of rest before meetings.

- Slow down on social events.

- Prepare for documenting task – staff and equipment.

- Recognize the value of competent and consistent

- interpreters for each activity.

There were differences in Moscow and they really struck us. We were new to the scene, and looking hard at everything for the first time. We stayed at the Russiya hotel, which was a giant building, about a block off Red Square. Red Square was always brightly illuminated, with Lenin’s tomb across the square from us when we walked form the hotel. In the hotel lobby, there were watchers whose only job seemed to be checking people entering and leaving the hotel. They must have memorized the faces of those who belonged there. The rooms were simple and adequate. They favored balalika music on the hotel music system. It must be their equivalent to our elevator music.

The hotel had a restaurant on the top floor and did serve reasonably good food. There were different tastes than what we were familiar with. We usually went there on the first free night for a visit and ate our fill of caviar with black bread simply because we had never had it and we could order it in quantities. There were small breakfast areas in the corners of the corridors and our guys worked at getting eggs cooked in a familiar way. They were always passing around the locations of their favorites for breakfast. There were other stations occupied by what we called the “key ladies.” Their stations were located so they could see all the doors or access to the doors for which they had the keys. When you left the hotel, you delivered your key to the key lady, who gave it back to you when you returned. They were not happy if you forgot to leave your key.

On the streets, in the early morning, there were brigades of older women sweeping the streets. Their brooms looked homemade and they all wore babushkas. As expected, we called them the “babushka ladies.” The pedestrians on the sidewalks were always very serious, even somber, and dressed in various shades of black or gray. This was not the “smile capitol” of the world. Other ladies were in the coat rooms of office buildings; they took your coat in the morning and gave you a ticket. After a full day, you went back and got your coat from the same ladies. I wondered what else they did during the day, but this seemed like “full employment” in action. There was always a lot of construction underway. A lot of it was done by young soldiers. Caldwell used to watch the soldier working on the concrete or mortar mixing in their wheel barrels. He was always amazed at the amount of water that was added to the mix over the course of the day.

The car traffic we would call light. There were more buses than cars at work in Moscow. We hardly ever saw gas stations. But, then again, nothing had the signage that we were used to. Locals just knew where they were.

The Moscow subway was a striking exception to almost all of the other construction. The stations were very beautiful. We were always happy to see the next one. The subway seemed to be the main mode of transportation for the residents. In that regard, it was more like the NYC system than the Washington, DC, metro. Buying something in the store was at least a two-step process. Beer came by the single bottle. There were no six-pack containers. To buy, the first line was to pay for a ticket for whatever you wanted, the next line was to redeem the ticket for the product. We never bought more than one thing at a time. The experience of seeing something that was brand new caused me to observe the architecture more carefully. I noticed this started to apply when I was back home and I can now “see and admire” buildings that are a hundred years or older in my hometowns of Scranton and Houston.

Dr. Gilruth gathered us shortly after returning home to discuss our observations and reactions. All of us (Dr. Gilruth, Caldwell, George and myself) were encouraged by the tone and substance of the meeting. Each of us felt that we should move the effort towards a real test with current vehicles in order to bring a strong focus of reality to the work. We were unanimous that a real project would be much preferable to an exercise “in the abstract.” Abstract might not have the same sense of urgency and can trail off into a process of establishing a set of specifications and putting them on the shelf. A real design challenge like the docking system needs to be about real hardware. However, that approach obliged all of us to mature this possibility into a realistic and serious proposal.

In terms of implementation within MSC, two more organizational units were engaged. The first was a program office function, headed by René Berglund and called the Advanced Mission Office. René did many of the advanced studies for the Center and knew the ropes for lining up study funding and the right players to involve in the contractor organizations. Clarke Covington was supporting René’s studies, from the Spacecraft Design Office in the Engineering Directorate. Both of these men jumped in quickly and added their talents to this growing effort. They helped with some of the initial framing of options as background for MSC management and then George Low.

For reasons of keeping the options limited and focused, the René Berglund study concentrated on Apollo/Soyuz vehicles with various methods of crew transfer from EVA to internal transfer to the use of an airlock adapter to handle the two different cabin atmospheres. The result of this effort was presented by Clarke Covington to George Low and HQ staff. The first data package entitled “Preliminary Rendezvous and Docking System Requirements for United States Spacecraft” was prepared in accordance with the October 1970 actions. They also created a second, new paper entitled “A Concept for a United Socialist Republics/United States of America Rendezvous and Docking Mission.” Both of these were later transmitted in February to Academician Petrov. Dr. Gilruth explained the second paper as a follow-up to the Low/Keldysh discussions in January. He also explained that specific configurations were very useful in understanding the problems of compatibility. He also recommended this concept as a useful way to assess compatibility during the upcoming March/April meeting.

George Low planned to travel to Moscow in January for further discussion with the President of the Soviet Academy of Sciences, Dr. Keldysh, of four other cooperative space studies and/or projects, outside of manned space flight. Within manned space, the U.S. had concrete plans for Apollo and Skylab only at this time. Shuttle was under study but not yet approved. However, unknown to us, but probably known by Dr. Gilruth, there had been several months of active work by the NASA HQ staff in OMSF on the possibility of manned space cooperation in compatible rendezvous and docking systems. One of the outcomes was a similar proposal to conduct a test with an existing vehicle, Skylab. So, the proposal by Dr. Gilruth, Caldwell Johnson and supported by the rest of us to work on a real mission was a confirmation of the HQ efforts, albeit with a different U.S. vehicle. As far as we knew, the Soviet plans centered around the Soyuz. Our developing proposal did not preclude consideration of system compatibility of future vehicles but added the possibility of a real-live, near-term test of the larger questions: what would the White House and then the Soviet response be to such an idea?

Chapter Twenty-four: 1971: Year of Project Definition

January 1971 Meeting

The Low-Keldysh meeting seemed a perfect opportunity to “test the waters.” We were very fortunate to have George Low in the position of Acting Administrator, before a replacement for Dr. Paine was selected. George knew well the capabilities and people in the field centers and quickly earned the respect of our national leadership in Washington. In January, he scheduled and briefed Dr. Henry Kissinger, the President’s Foreign Policy Advisor. The proposal fit neatly into Kissinger’s approach, labeled “détente,” a process designed to establish and build on subjects of common interest to the U.S. and other nations. The response was very positive and George was given “carte blanche” to pursue any and all of the NASA subjects and had the President’s backing to explore cooperation in designing and flight testing compatible rendezvous and docking systems for manned space ships.

So in a remarkably short time, NASA went from an initial NASA HQ compatibility study, starting in about August 1970, with an internal-to-NASA concept to dock a Soyuz to the Skylab. Then, a meeting of the Cold War competitors occurred in October 1970 in Moscow, which later resulted in an internal NASA decision to explore the U.S. government and, separately, the Soviet interest in an Apollo Soyuz flight test. Such a mission would demonstrate the technical specifics of making rendezvous, docking and crew transfer compatible between our countries AND demonstrate the ability of the two countries to work together for this common, humanitarian purpose.

George Low and Arnold Frutkin proceeded to Moscow in January with the full support of President Nixon and Secretary of State Henry Kissinger. Their reception at the Russian airport was very warm and friendly and they had a relatively quiet and private dinner with the key players in the Russian delegation. On the next day, the meeting began with a very large Soviet delegation. That was to be expected because there were a number of subjects in various disciplines that were on the table for review. They covered weather satellites, meteorological soundings, natural environment research, and objectives for space lunar and planetary planning.

In a more private meeting George Low and Arnold Frutkin met with Academician Keldysh and cosmonaut Feoktistov. This gave George the opportunity to present our thoughts on using the Apollo and Soyuz spacecraft as a near term test for rendezvous and docking systems. At this point, George Low was careful to frame this not as a formal proposal, but rather an open-ended idea or concept for their consideration and reply. George went through the MSC study of Apollo Soyuz and there were several graduated options of increasing complexity. The first involved a rendezvous but no docking; the second was a docking and an EVA transfer of crew members; the third was a docking and internal transfer between Apollo and Soyuz; the fourth was a docking with an airlock to accommodate the different pressures in each spacecraft. In our studies, we tentatively concluded that raising the Apollo pressure would require significant work and expenditures. Likewise, lowering the Soyuz pressure would likely enrich the Soyuz atmosphere with oxygen and exceed their flammability limit. There was more work to do on that subject. The other advantage of the airlock between the two vehicles is that it provided a large platform on which much of the new equipment would be located, such as a docking system, lights, beacons and the antennas for rendezvous and communication. Low delivered two papers to the Soviet side; one was the rendezvous and docking requirements that were promised in the October meeting, and the second was a new concept for joint mission involving the Apollo and Soyuz spacecraft.

Since this concept for a joint mission was new, Academician Keldysh and Feoktistov explored it in their discussions. This then provided the background for the Soviet side to study our work and see how compatible our analysis was. They were pleased to receive this “non-proposal” and would give it serious consideration. It would be on our future agenda until decided to pursue or shelve it. All in all, the response by Keldysh and Feoktistov was encouraging and both Low and Frutkin took that as a positive from the meeting. My take on Frutkin was that he was a big help to us rookies-in-diplomacy. It was a big help in reinforcing what we already knew and practiced: be honest, straightforward and do not play games. It worked pretty well for us.

After their debrief at home and in a February seventeenth letter to Academician Petrov, Dr. Gilruth expanded on our rationale on why a flight proposal involving Apollo and Soyuz would advance the work on compatible rendezvous and docking systems.

June 1971 Meeting

We then began the process of scheduling a spring meeting. By the way, these original meetings and transmittals of information were much more cumbersome than the same activity within our own country. For example, when a letter was transmitted through diplomatic pouches, it then had to be translated on the receiving end and distributed to the appropriate parties. Then, a letter would be prepared in response. Throughout the first year, this process always took one month at a minimum. And letters suggesting meeting dates would not be translated and responded to until pretty close to the suggested meeting date. And this left us realizing there was considerable work to do in speeding up communication and streamlining our flow of information and written material. For example, Academician Petrov replied to Dr. Gilruth’s February seventeenth letter on March fifteenth. It went to Frutkin in Washington, DC, and the translation arrived in Houston on April eleventh. Even so, the first agreement was tentative for mid-May. However, a week before the meeting there was a cable to Arnold’s office on May that said that they were not coming and they needed to postpone. This presented us with a likely slip to June and that was a problem for me and some of the other players. That was getting close to the schedule for Apollo XV, which was July twenty-sixth. The last two months before a launch are usually the most intense in terms of preparation. However, we decided to wait for the Soviet side to be specific with a date.

Behind the veil of security during this period, they were working on a new manned space platform called Salyut and the first one had been launched on April nineteenth. We were unaware of this new vehicle or its mission. And there was no real information in our media. On April twenty-third, Colonel Shatalov commanded the flight of Soyuz 10 that docked to Salyut 1 for five-and-a-half hours but with no manned transfer. This left people in the U.S. wondering what this was about. The Soviets did launch Soyuz 11 on June 6, 1971, docked with Salyut and transferred the crew.

Academician Petrov, in a May twenty-fourth letter to Gilruth, proposed the twentieth of June. And although the meeting date bounced around some from March to June, nevertheless the launch of the Salyut 1 and the visit of the Soyuz 11 crew to Salyut in June made clear that there was significant new activity in the Soviet space program. Most of the technical specialists that we dealt with seemed to have some role in this program.

Sometime in 1971 before our joint meetings, we made one of our best moves on the subject of joint documentation by engaging an accomplished professional in that field by the name of Hugh Scott. He had been in the MSC configuration control documentation business for many years. This task had a few new dimensions – not only documenting, but in two languages and in real time during an ongoing meeting where products were always needed to continue the discussion. He brought his comrade in arms, Jerry Siemers, to assist on this job. He had to bring equipment, and enough help to get a somewhat unknown workload done. This was an era of typewriters with whiteout and bulky copy machines. Sometimes the Soviets were amazed at what his team could get done. Hugh created the document structure and a numbering system for all the subject matter we created in this project. The Soviets were always playing catch up, finally just deferring to Hugh. Even though Hugh’s operation had to be moved seven thousand miles, his was the go-to team. Hugh and his team earned our everlasting respect and thanks for the job they got done under pretty trying circumstances. They just got better as the project went on.

Their delegation arrived on a Sunday, the twentieth of June, and they had nineteen people in the delegation. We met them at the airport and planned to start on Monday morning. As you can imagine, the Soviet engineers were very proud of what their program had just accomplished. So they were riding high when they got to the meeting. Monday, the first morning, was for planning and confirming the activities for the week. In consideration of the fact that they had just arrived, it did not involve any real negotiations and in the afternoon we had a chance to display the facilities and people of MSC to our guests. A number of astronauts joined us – Fred Haise, TK Mattingly and John Young. On the next day, Johnson started by summarizing what the phases of any test mission would be: finding each other’s spacecraft, the guidance for getting to the docking point, the actual docking and crew transfer, issues related to the size of the hatches and any need for pre-breathing. The Soviets wanted to stick with the .8-meter hatch limit. If we built a new hatch, we would have preferred a larger one. It was at this meeting that we met Victor Legostayev, who was their expert on rendezvous and guidance and navigation equipment. He found no real differences in what we saw as the way forward and could easily arrive at an agreement. He did very well with English and was always constructive and a helpful participant in the discussions. Vladimir Syromyatnikov was their docking expert. He described how their docking system worked in detail and was very proud of what his system had contributed to the overall success of their program. Vladimir also spoke English very well. Between the two of them, they were able to expedite their group understanding and discussion. I believe their respective groups would have done well anyway, but their proficiency enriched all of the non-technical interactions also.

In the concept for the Apollo-Soyuz, the docking system was not specifically defined, but the Soviets did not want to use a system like the Apollo probe and drogue system. They felt that was a dead end and we agreed. We needed to find a docking system that did not require a male and a female part. Having the same system on both ships was preferable. We recognized that there were a number of mission alternatives. The Apollo could rendezvous with the Soyuz or Salyut. And Soyuz could rendezvous with either the Apollo or Skylab. All options had pros and cons. It was time to start narrowing.

That evening, at the request of the Soviet delegation, we arranged a bus to transport the group to a shopping mall. They were interested in a number of things such as electric saws, drills and tools of various kinds for the men and also a shopping list from their wives for clothes, especially children’s clothes. Marilyn told me the wives back home had a few wigs on the shopping lists. So they roared through Penneys where there was a sale on children’s clothes. They filled the bus with shopping bags. It was our first encounter with the reaction to something that we take for granted, which is the abundance of choice we have in our stores and products that is very suitable and reasonably priced. It was interesting to see the response of the men to the equipment we had in the tools department at Sears. They loaded up on what they thought they might need for a while. We discussed coordinate systems, atmospheres, hatches, transfers, et cetera. Apollo to Salyut was suggested as something that might be done subsequent to Soyuz to Skylab. By this time, we had assigned the above subjects to Working Group 1 (WG1). Working Group 2 (WG2) started on the guidance system and the radios. Working Group 3 (WG3) was the group that worked the docking system. It was the territory from which a dramatically new design would emerge. It was interesting to watch the interpersonal dynamics between the two chairmen, Vladimir Syromyatnikov and Caldwell Johnson. It was a case of the high competence of both men, with Caldwell embodying the grace and humor of a Virginia gentleman, and in Vladimir, a somewhat hard-edged perfectionist, with a very good command of the idioms of our language.

It was at this second meeting that Technical Directors for the project were named. Konstantin Bushuyev was named TechnicaDirector for the Soviets and I was named Technical Director for the Americans. Konstantin was about twenty years my senior. The meeting concluded with a lot of preliminary transfers of information on all the above technical subjects and more. We all felt that a good working relationship was in the making. We did not necessarily understand why they did everything they did, but we learned that they always did have a good reason.

Lunney and Professor Bushuyev New Technical Directors

A joint statement was issued by Dr.Gilruth and Petrov but they did not have a press conference. The Soviets departed with all of the material we exchanged and all they had bought at the shopping mall. It was all rather friendly and we had the feeling that we were working together towards an admirable goal. We parted company with congratulations and expressions of good expectations about our next meeting in Moscow. We had a press conference later with six of us Americans where we had a chance to report on what we did and what it was like to work with people from the Soviet Union. This whole business of the press was an interesting experience for us and I presume for the Soviets. For me, I had been doing press conferences for ten to twelve years and was very comfortable with them. But I found that I had taken our system for granted and did not think how it would look to someone else. One problem the Soviets had with the press was that they didn’t know who controlled them. They had a hard time accepting that it was not government controlled. In their world, everything is controlled by the government, so they are all on the same page. They didn’t know who controlled our press. They were aware of the criticisms that came from our Congress to incidents within the U.S. government. They had already learned about Senator Proxmire, who was a critic of very many activities of the government and its contractors. He enhanced his career with continued expose of overpriced activities and he gave out an annual Golden Fleece award to the most outrageous example. For them, this was just another puzzle piece that they did not know how to fit in. Since they did not see public criticism of their government by a member of the government in their world, this must have seemed chaotic and confusing. It was an interesting learning process for all of us. Bushuyev became able at it. He was adept at not answering yes-or-no questions or other subjects he wanted to avoid. And he learned to be informative where he could. He had a gentlemanly way about him that made it hard to be upset with him. We didn’t have any real trouble with their press because of their control. They were fairly docile with us.

This might have been a sign of the times, but I noticed a recurring condition in our media. They regularly brought up the matter of the relative sophistication of the technologies of the two countries. They were constantly seeking reassurance that “ours was better.” Their questions were framed to solicit a response like that. It seemed out of character from their usual critical tone. Maybe it was a reflection of the fear that permeated the Cold War environment, maybe even in the newsrooms.

After the Soviet team went back, Soyuz XI with three crewmembers, Georgie Dobrovolskiy, Vladislav Volkov and Viktor Patsayev, separated and descended from the Salyut 1 space station. However, after separation from the orbital module as is normal during the descent from orbit, there were no more communications with the crew. The radios were working but no conversation came through. When they recovered the spacecraft after a land landing, they found the three cosmonauts dead in the couches. They did not wear pressure suits in the Soyuz. This was a real blow, coming on top of an apparently very successful opening of their Salyut program. In a way, it would have been even more difficult for the Soviet visitors had it happened while they were in our country. It was as severe a shock to them as the Apollo fire had been to us. President Nixon sent Tom Stafford as his personal representative to the funeral service in what was a pretty solemn ceremony. The Soviets did announce that the program would go on and issued some brief discussion of what happened. Dr. Gilruth was concerned that something happened that might affect our upcoming Apollo XV flight and asked Academician Petrov. He responded in the negative and attributed the failure to specific components in the Soviet design. We chose to not pursue any more questions at this time, but we did later.

Leonard Nicholson first showed up during the early conceptual studies, which were sponsored by René Berglund. He was working in Structure and Mechanics Division (SMD). The members and alumni of any SMD organization will tell you it is the blood and guts of engineering. We had minimal interaction in the early studies, but Leonard was very creative in thinking about how to approach the issues with the Soviets. He soon became a reliable partner in framing those issues, very well versed in that line of thinking. Once we started on the ’71 meetings, he emerged as a sound thinker on both the technical and management issues. We began to think of our task as designing and implementing a campaign to make ASTP successful. We just started doing this together without describing or defining it. We had to get the feel and the sense of the work, before the words came to describe it. Nicholson had a good sense of what needed to be done, and how and when to stage the discussions for the best effect. He was also a strong supporter of writing the summary of results before the meeting was ever engaged. Nicholson stayed close to the engineering support to the project. His sense of where they were helped get me comfortable in this early stage of development. We soon became partners strategizing the joint meetings and our internal implementations to support this “campaign for success.“

Leonard also cultivated his contacts on the Soviet side. Boris Artemov served mainly as an interpreter but his value went far beyond that. In his dealings with Nicholson, we often got the insight to see things from their point of view and move the agenda along faster than it would otherwise. We were regularly engaged in the whole logistics of the joint meetings – what to address, when, why, how, what was missing, what needs improvement – and Leonard became the indispensable man through all of this. I appreciated the strategic view he brought to the work. He was a long way from Structures and Mechanics, his starting point. And, I was a long way from mine also. Nicholson soon became the de-facto Chief of Staff for ASTP with sorting and framing of issues for our negotiations. He was the first to urge the more structured approach to the documentation subject, which led to the selection of Hugh Scott earlier to handle that problem. Nicholson helped to bring Scott onboard and outlined the special needs that Scott’s team would face when we traveled. They came up to speed very quickly and they were excellent in accuracy and quality, including the work of translation. These, and many other contributions, were the solid stuff of Leonard’s many contributions. We had a long and constructive relationship well into the Shuttle program where I served as the second Shuttle Program Manager until I left NASA in the spring of 1985. Bob Thompson was the first Program Manager through the early development phase through the first Shuttle flight. In 1989, Nicholson was selected as the fifth Shuttle program manager, after Arnie Aldrich and Dick Kohrs as third and fourth.

Preparing for December 1971 Meeting

This was a time when NASA was coming to grips with the reality of major changes in the manned space program, some good, some bad. It was a given that lunar exploration would be curtailed by two flights, that we would concentrate on the earth orbit programs of Skylab in 1973 and the Space Shuttle, which was still under study, for operation in the ‘80s. Dr. James Fletcher became the new NASA Administrator in April 1971. Both the Shuttle and any near term test flight with the Soviets were as yet unapproved at the national level.

Our team started to look at the meeting that was scheduled at the end of the year November/December in Moscow. Chris Kraft underlined the urgency of our work by asking for a realistic schedule and estimate for one command service module (CSM)/Salyut flight. Based on the interest of the Soviets, the test flight plans were moving towards the Salyut. Dr. Gilruth was pushing Caldwell Johnson for a good model of the new docking system to be available for the November meeting. It was clear we were moving on to a more universal docking system. René Berglund was preparing for a contractor study of all the elements necessary for an International Rendezvous and Docking Mission (IRDM). The assignment of a CSM to the ASTP was in work at NASA HQ. CSM 119 was committed to be a rescue vehicle for the Skylab mission throughout 1973 or however long it flew. The whole idea of the docking module (DM) was beginning to take on a life of its own. Since it was new, it was easy to accommodate other new equipment that would be needed by locating them on the docking module. A design study by Clarke Covington was ready by the end of September. The docking module was long considered the only logical place to locate the new universal docking system. More definition of the DM and its launch position follows:

1. The DM would be launched in the adapter below the CSM. Once on orbit, the CSM would separate, dock (probe and drogue) with the DM and remove the CSM/DM from the adapter – like the Apollo LM

2. The DM operates as the airlock between Soyuz or Salyut

3. The DS is on the front end of the DM. The DM can also provide mounting locations for communications, guidance equipment and any other gear

We were still in debates about the size of the hatch but, in the end, we ended up settling for a smaller diameter, .8 meters. With these activities it was becoming clear that the window for a 1975 launch of this mission was very doable. In a letter to Professor Bushuyev, I asked about the diameter of the Salyut hatch that we would be using and the letter gave him our ideas for the near term CSM/Salyut mission and generic technical requirements for long-term compatibility. My opinion was that the schedule for a 1973 Skylab visit by Soyuz was too tight to consider further. The schedule for the late ‘71 meeting was proposed as November twenty-ninth to December seventh and agreed. We had an internal technical review with MSC management and a November tenth trip to Headquarters. In this meeting with George Low, there was a discussion of the launch schedule possibilities for a rendezvous with the Salyut: 1974 or 75? When would the DM contract be released? Was the plan to have each side build their own DS or would one side build part or all of it? We had the same question about the VHF radios (i.e. build or exchange)? Our Apollo VHF radios were outdated for Shuttle. We were reminded to avoid forcing compromises in equipment for Shuttle that was not designed yet. Although that was implied in the case of the DS.

We arrived in Moscow on Saturday, November twenty-seventh, on my thirty-fifth birthday. Dr. Gilruth and Chris Kraft joined us on the trip to Moscow. When we arrived, we were met at the airport and rode in with Professor Bushuyev. This gave us time to visit and talk over work plans for the meeting. At the hotel, we had a quiet dinner, which the Soviets hosted. It gave us time to adapt to the time zone.

On Monday, we went to the institute of automatics and telemachines. We provided copies of the U.S. papers of the general requirements and the Apollo Salyut mission and they provided the equivalent. We each spent the rest of the day studying what we had been given. We then discussed the highlights of the mission plan and the docking system. It was helpful to get both teams on the same page before the working groups started. For WG1, the Soviet team was good. Both sides were well prepared for the subjects to be discussed. WG2 had the subjects of the guidance and control systems. WG3 was more consolidated and tended to work as a team in the progression of designing the DS. On Saturday, we visited Star City and renewed our acquaintance with Feoktistov. This gave Kraft a chance to see the complex up close and to get acquainted with the mockups and simulators.

On Sunday, we visited a monastery forty to fifty miles outside Moscow in the area of Zagorsk. The visit was interesting because it displayed the role of the church in the Soviet system. I had the sense that the church was tolerated as an example of their good will, but it was clear that the government called the shots on what could be done. We had a tour of their museum but I have to say that I never heard such lengthy descriptions and backgrounds of one painting. We were ready to be done there.

When we went to the church, the entrance was in a silo shaped tower, three stories tall, with sunlight filtering through colored glass windows up at the second or third level. There was a wooden bench around the circular wall and a long run of bench straight as we approached the doors to the church. The bench was populated with very old people. Their faces were worn and very wrinkled. Many of the men, especially, were missing limbs. They looked like the remnants of the pre-revolutionary faithful. We went in to a basement service where they were serving communion. But the wine service seemed very unsanitary with no attempt to clean between communicants. The church was mostly full of the aged and there were only a few younger faces. There was a lot of coughing and it struck us as almost a hospital ward. Zagorsk was not our favorite stop.

We visited another facility during this trip and there were a lot of anti-American posters displaying various scenes of Vietnamese and American soldiers. When the posters were translated for us, Chris Kraft really started to object, very loudly, to our hosts about the inaccuracies of this portrayal of the Vietnam War. He had a testy exchange with Boris Vereshchetin, who seemed to operate mostly at a political level.

Back in the meeting, we were complaining that communications took too long and needed to be improved. This area needed expediting because there would be more calls, letters, documents and more need for speed in the execution of similar tasks. Diplomatic mail took too long. Kraft was insisting on bi-weekly or weekly telecons and, at first, Petrov was claiming they were too difficult and expensive to do. But Kraft continued to push for them. Again, Dr. Gilruth underlined the points that Dr. Kraft was making and made his own point that, “if we can’t agree to do things more effectively and have regular telecons, then we may as well go home now.” This exchange completely supported the position that I had been pushing. Over the course of the project, it was the pattern that NASA management at MSC and NASA HQ always supported the main issues that we in the project had been raising. Having Low, Gilruth and Kraft consistently do that was Big Time support.

Both sides agreed that it was necessary to make early decisions about the schedule of a 1975 flight either in the spring or summer. And in the summary of results we promised that by April of 1972 we would both state our position on the prospects for a test fight in 1975.

In WG1, we continued to have the same discussion about life support and how to avoid the overhead of pre-breathing during crew transfer and a good solution was not yet on the table. We recognized the need to establish a sound network of communications to handle the traffic between MCCs. This would include voice, data and TV. There was much we needed to know about Salyut, starting with launch window information and we scheduled that for two months from the meeting. The group also defined the mission objective and a preliminary list of project documents. The U.S. side agreed to provide a draft of a joint organization plan. WG2 continued to work on the appropriate use of the respective control systems for the various phases. They also began the work to specify the range of closing conditions that the DS would be designed to accommodate. Two docking targets would be placed on the Salyut, one on centerline of the hatches and the other in a location to be specified.

In WG3, this team benefitted from very strong leadership and a jumpstart on the design concept that progressed rapidly from the first discussion in October 1970 and a follow-up session in the June meeting. By this time, both sides preferred the double ring and cone. Johnson brought a pamphlet and an action movie of a one-meter double ring and cone docking system with four fingers. Syromyatnikov had also been doing his homework and his design had three interleaving fingers and the same kind of attenuators – electro-mechanical – as he had on his probe and cone system. Discussion ensued and the agreement was to have three guides and each side would choose their own attenuation method. This would be the baseline condition for the rest of the project. The use of a few drawings became the main communication media by which the system was refined. We informed the Soviet side that we planned to build a two-fifths scale model to help the process. Later, at home, Johnson summarized these decisions in a memo to all of the involved MSC personnel.

2/5 Scale Model Tom Stafford and Alexei Yeliseyev

We left Moscow on December 7, 1971, thirty years after Pearl Harbor and on Japan airlines. There was a stop in London that was a very different scene from Moscow. There was a bustle in London and the blare of a vibrant city of the West. It was a celebration of colors and the department store windows featured the goods of the world in this most crossroads of a city. Even the firm stride of the walkers seemed to be full of purpose. The differences seemed sharply drawn.

We also visited the Farnborough Establishment where Dr. Gilruth was welcomed as an old and trusted friend. He had worked with the Royal Aircraft Establishment before, during and after the war. It was like an NACA center where I first started. I did not know when they last saw Dr. Gilruth but they seemed genuinely proud of their colleague in leading such a historic achievement during the ‘60s. It was heartwarming and a reminder of what binds our two countries. This was really a grand and moving experience for this thirty-five-year-old American to witness.

Setting Up Working Groups

In the October 1970 meeting, Feoktistov suggested the three working groups as a way to address the technical problems and we agreed to it. We had to augment the scheme within one year but it was a good way to start. After agreement to consider a test mission, our forward plan had to grow – one for the longer term and the second one for the immediate future with current spacecraft. This was our plan for the September 1971 meeting. Working Group 1 (WG1) was to address the location of docking assemblies, atmospheric parameters, airlock, location of rendezvous aids, mission planning, flight operations. Initially, I was the chairman of WG1 and Bobkov was the chairman for the other side. He served as a Flight Director in the Soviet MCC. We also had Clarke Covington as follow on to his study contract work and Ed Lineberry who was our in-house wizard on the subject of rendezvous. We were also assisted by two life support experts: Ed Smylie of the MSC crew system division and Ilya Lavrov for the Soviet side.

Working Group 2 was to address requirements for lights, radios, guidance systems and spacecraft attitude control. The chairmen for WG 2 were Don Cheatham for us and Victor Legostayev for the Soviet side. WG3 was chaired by Caldwell Johnson and Vladimir Syromyatnikov. Their task was to agree on the basic functions of a universal docking system of the androgynous type, a move away from the probe and drogue devices we both used. The probe and drogue system did not allow a docking between any two spacecraft unless they were specially equipped with a complementary probes and drogues. (Caldwell loved the term “androgynous” and used it on every opportunity to explain the concept. He always did it with his sly grin.) We wanted to arrive at one universal configuration for a docking system so that any docking system could dock with another similar system. WG3 would also consult with WG1 on hatches, docking seals electrical connections. They would also consult with WG2 on the closing velocity and angle conditions for capture.

Comm Lab Testing (WG4) From Right: Rh Dietz and Boris Nikitin

In the June ‘71 meeting, Professor Bushuyev and I were appointed as Technical Directors. Since the number “one” was already assigned to a working group, we designated our group as WG0. There were lots of snickers about that number. The brief summary of the agenda above captures the issues that were on the front end of our work. Some of our preliminary ideas were presented in the technical proposal for the project. The proposal was sent early to the Soviets before the meeting so they had a chance to see our overall view of what the test mission might look like. This still allowed for significant changes if we found them useful during our discussions.

Working Group 5

Between the end of 1971 and before the June 1972 meeting, there were two more working group changes. We split the work of WG2 into two working groups. The designated WG2 would continue the work on the guidance equipment, GNC for all phases, closing velocities for the docking system and other related items. A new group WG4 was established for radios, communications, TV and related subjects. The chairmen were RH Dietz for NASA and Boris V. Nikitin on the Soviet side. It was also necessary to form another group, WG5, which was created to address all the subjects of life support, cabin atmospheres, airlock, flammability and other related life support subjects. The chairmen were Ed Smylie for us and Ilya Lavrov for the Soviets.

This final configuration of working groups through number five and, as of the first part of 1972, was the arrangement that continued for the rest of the project. Some chairmen were changed over time on both sides and for reasons internal to each side. As of the close of 1971, the major open issues or choices were:

1. WG0 – the management plan which addressed the methods and frequency of communications, written, oral and telex. It also addressed the logistics of the meetings and document support in both languages. We also made arrangements to accommodate management overview of the project by more senior levels in NASA and in the Academy of Sciences. The need for accurate and timely exchange of information and documents was a continuing challenge.

2. WG1 – the rendezvous mission sequence, rules and procedures, training and simulations (the sequence of launches was still unsettled and needed to be resolved).

3. WG2 – the use of the GNC systems, and all the provisions for locating them in the spacecraft.

4. WG3 – a significant new docking system design that moves beyond probes and drogues (not universal) and is more of an androgynous system, structural rings, guides, seals, latches and hatches.

5. WG4 – use of existing radios and communication equipment, exchange of hardware, any new equipment required.

6. WG5 – use of an airlock, design functions, reduction of the complexity of flight crew transfers because of the different atmospheres and flammability.

When the cabin pressure difference exceeds a certain level, Soyuz near fifteen pounds per square inch and Apollo near five pounds per square inch, crew transfer when moving from the higher pressure of Soyuz to the lower pressure in Apollo requires a period of special precautions. To avoid the bends, pre-breathing pure oxygen purges the blood stream of nitrogen bubbles. In the case of scuba divers, slowing the rate of ascent – even holding at certain depths – serves as the mechanism for avoiding the risk of bends. Pre-breathing oxygen gets complicated in equipment, procedures, time and it introduces some constraints. So, we wanted to avoid it. Based on their experience and abilities, Ed Smylie and Ilya Lavrov were perfectly matched for this task. Lavrov did not stay with the WG very long, but his initiative on his side provided the solution in 1972. From then on, Lavrov had made his contribution, moved on and Dolgopolov was named the chairman.

Not Understanding Their Organization

We always had difficulty fathoming their organization and methods. Partially this was because, by contrast, our organization had worked for a long time in the Apollo mode and we were comfortable with it. I know it had some kinks during its early time. But by my time, all of the resources at MSC, the other NASA Centers and at our contractor plants were operating at a very high level of cooperation and performance. I was lucky to be in such a focused and well-oiled system. By contrast, we could hardly ever determine where individual Soviet participants worked. It seemed that they were all in different bureaus or institutes throughout Moscow. It also seemed like they did not see each other except at our meetings. MSC was all on one campus. Of course, the rest of the needed U.S. infrastructure (other Centers, contractors) was scattered across the country and we learned how to work that with travel and mostly telecons.

Also, it was clear they were all part of a government system. Therefore, all parties were more or less equal with no hard authority over other units. It was more of a “we need this, will you do it for us.” Bureaucracies have every incentive to say no to peer bureaucracies. Or they try to extract some kind of compensation for compliance. At one time, later in ASTP, when comments were becoming more frank, the Professor was explaining his difficulties with one of our requests. He observed that when I wanted something, I simply called the contractor (or a government employee) and made my request. They were most impressed with the Rockwell response and he assumed that I controlled their profit in some way. He wished that his country had some equivalent system of incentives.

Chapter Twenty-five: 1972: Year of U.S./U.S.S.R. Summit

After returning to Houston in December, I prepared a very top-level outline of what had to be done for long term compatibility and the Apollo/Soyuz mission for the next two, three, four and six months. This was useful but I did not anticipate a higher-level event that would cause some new and accelerated milestones to be necessary. In the meantime, OMSF at NASA HQ worked on the assignments of CSM vehicles to ASTP and Skylab rescue and what to do with CSM 115 and 115A which both had the J mission SIM bay provisions.

Helping to clarify, NASA also ruled out a Soyuz to Skylab option, because Skylab had not flown yet but did fly in less than eighteen months. Looking forward, it would have been very difficult to accommodate a Soyuz visit to Skylab because it flew in the second half of 1973. That would have been a very tight schedule and, when it actually launched, the NASA Skylab program was severely tested when the first launch of the Skylab vehicle itself resulted in tearing away one of two sides of the solar panels. This left the Skylab damaged and underpowered and with a loss of its thermal protection so that inside it was overheating. This condition would have resulted in a very poor condition for most of its six months of flying. If we tried to schedule a Soyuz visit, it would have been a nightmare and probably would have been cancelled in the end.

The other issue was the procurement process to buy the new hardware, primarily the docking module. The options, of course, were sole source to the existing CSM contractor, Rockwell, or a competitive procurement. Wrapped around this question was another possibly complexifying (my meaning is “to make a situation or condition more complicated than it needs to be for no good reason”) decision as to which Center (MSC or MSFC) would oversee the docking module project. This particular option of dividing up a relatively simple job with new people at the MSFC and their fabrication contractor is typical of an agency with too many people for its mission. And the prospect of another group of people intimately involved in all the preparations and negotiations sounded like a recipe for unnecessary complexity.

Dale Meyers, the head of OMSF at headquarters, made several decisions in February ‘72. He capped the cost of the near term test project at two hundred fifty million dollars and he ruled out the use of 115 or 115A CSMs. He approved the plan of using CSM111 for ASTP and CSM119 as a backup after it is released from Skylab as a rescue ship. Meyers also capped the funding for the experiments, which would be flown on either the CSM, or the DM. He also decided that MSC would manage the development of any new hardware (DM, DS, et cetera). The other major management change was the appointment of Chris Kraft as the new Center Director, replacing Dr. Gilruth. Dr. Gilruth would take an advisory position for NASA. This had been planned since Chris Kraft moved in as the deputy to Dr. Gilruth after Apollo XII. Sig Sjoberg who was Chris’ long time deputy in flight operations, became the chief of that (my) Directorate and was in place for Apollo XIII. All in all, this was a good month for Dale Myers and us.

Our first teleconference occurred on March second, resulting from a January twenty-seventh letter to my counterpart, Professor Bushuyev. Note that that is more than a full month between “we need to do this” and doing it. I was in Washington and Caldwell Johnson spoke for us. The subjects were the agenda for the March meeting of WG3 in Houston and the WG2 meeting in Moscow in June. There were delays hooking up the telephone, about forty minutes, and the Soviets were using two phone handsets to pass between them. We had a conference hookup with voice available over speakers to the room. This whole telecom process was long used in our programs and we knew it could be made to work. The Soviets were not used to it and apparently did not use this as a communication method in their internal procedure for doing business. We were very surprised at that. But we were determined to make it work: we did not see any alternative. On the substance of the meeting, Syromyatnikov and Legostayev were constructive and helpful in gaining sufficient understanding for the next step.

Vladimir Syromyatnikov arrived with three other specialists on March twenty-seventh and quickly got down to the details, which was the MO we came to expect from him every time. Bill Creasy was our action leader to drive the work to resolution. They produced minutes and four engineering drawings. Both sides worked together on the same drawing board to analyze and finalize agreements. Their drawings endured as a faithful record of their progress with only minor changes over the next few years. They also provided a technical basis for entering into a contract for the new hardware.

President and Premier Consider

Early in 1972, NASA HQ proposed putting the Apollo/Salyut mission on the agenda of the May summit between President Nixon and Premier Kosygin. That possibility was not communicated to us until the White House approved and set a deadline for a NASA recommendation by April fifteenth. When we were informed of this development by HQ, this deadline was just about a month away. We had a lot to learn about Salyut, compared to Soyuz. And it recently took little over one month to request and conduct a telecon with our partners. That would not cut it.

In response, I outlined the three documents needed to capture the necessary joint agreements in order to be able to make a firm recommendation to the White House. They were: a project technical proposal, an organization plan and a project schedule. They were ready for transmittal by the end of March. Much of this was already discussed, especially the need for rapid and effective communications. But we felt that the agreements on how to manage the effort needed clarification and firm commitments. The very recent telecon experience was a real measure of the challenge.

This would take another face-to-face meeting. Dr. Fletcher and George Low decided to avoid any publicity so as not to create any political pressure on the subject of a test flight before the Summit. As a result, I went on a regular working trip to Washington and Low had our tickets (Low, Frutkin and Lunney) for an Easter Sunday departure to Moscow. This whole effort to keep this activity a secret exposed to us how open our everyday efforts really were.

We learned that Academician Keldysh had been hospitalized and Vladimir Kotelnikov was now acting as the Academy President. He would meet with us on Tuesday afternoon. The ambassador invited George to a lunch later in the week. But the ambassador’s son Robert Kaiser was a Washington Post reporter and in town (i.e. Moscow). More concern for a leak. But the lunch went off without causing a problem to our clandestine purpose. We met with Kotelnikov, Petrov, Vereshchetin, Bushuyev and Rumyantsev for two hours on Tuesday and then with Petrov until well into the evening. In opening remarks, George Low said that the joint mission, in his judgment, was technically feasible but NASA was not sure about the management terms that were not yet agreed upon and in place. This was the issue for NASA.

To confirm George’s point and almost on cue to demonstrate that we were not yet together, Kotelnikov told us that they had reevaluated the technical proposal and it would NOT be feasible (technically or economically) to use the Salyut. They proposed to use the Soyuz and would conform to all the present requirements. It was obvious that a discussion as to why Salyut could not be used was academic at this point. I wondered what their plan was to reveal this change to us before we initiated this unscheduled meeting. My reaction to the change was to consider whether the use of Soyuz would compromise our purpose for the test mission. Our thinking about a test project had started there, with Soyuz. Turning it over, it did not appear that we would be compromising anything. In fact, it might be more assured because they had much more experience with the Soyuz.

We would still have a live demonstration that we could test and verify our ideas for the joint compatibility of rendezvous and docking techniques. We would also demonstrate that we could indeed work together to achieve a substantive mission. We would also have the same astronaut/cosmonaut interaction for all the world to see. We continued to think about the implications and the conclusion remained positive without any real downside emerging. When George asked me for a formal response, my position was that the change was acceptable and we should proceed.

The next step was to review, explain and reach agreement on the document describing the organization and management plan. As I briefed the document, our discussion degenerated into picky word-smithing of each paragraph. It was apparent that this was not going to work. George Low took a time-out for our side to discuss how to go forward. When we resumed, George again took this opportunity to emphasize that we needed documented agreement on how to manage this project. And if in the end, he was not comfortable that we could make it work, he would recommend NOT going forward. He was smooth and polite but very firm. Honesty and clarity carried the day. They got the message.

I used the draft summary of results that I had prepared and took what went into the management plan and reduced it to a list of the major principles governing the “how we will work together.” There were seventeen of these major principles, separated into preflight and flight. After discussion with Low and Frutkin, I prepared a new draft using these principles with all seventeen listed on one page. The Soviets caucused and came back with only editorial comments and a position that this new draft of principles was completely acceptable to them. There was some discussion about crews and public affairs issues and again Low made clear that we would not compromise on our standard policy of full public disclosure.

On return from Moscow, George Low remained satisfied that the management plan agreements would work. And he gave a positive recommendation to the execution of what was now the Apollo/Soyuz test project (ASTP).

Back in Houston, we had a telecon with Professor Bushuyev on the WG2 meeting in May. There was no joy on tying me in on the phone at KSC but Don Cheatham, our WG2 chairman, picked it up and moved the discussion so that both sides were ready for the meeting in Moscow on May fifteenth to the twentieth. WG2 had a lot of ground to cover in this meeting. Afterwards, Cheatham felt that there were no irreconcilable differences and he could proceed. Low helped the State Department with the language for the May ‘72 summit. Ultimately, it was approved and signed by Nixon and Kosygin. The Strategic Arms Limitations Treaty was the most significant step and there were others, including some NASA science agreements. Now the action was back in our court. I was looking forward to engaging Professor Bushuyev, all the working groups, staffs and contractors in executing this test project. I felt confident.

We Had Leverage

Sometime during 1972 and after the Summit, Nicholson and I began to focus on a number of indicators, which, when added up, spelled leverage. The George Low discussion in the April meeting with the Soviet leadership emphasized that Low needed to be convinced that the Soviet side was willing to do what was necessary to improve our joint communications to an acceptable level. He was satisfied with the progress of the technicals, but it still took too long to get communications, understanding and/or documents in some cases. The perfect example was the internal Soviet decision that they would NOT use Salyut for our proposed mission. That was decided by them before our meeting in the first week of April. Why didn’t somebody call us? What were they waiting for? What would they have done if we did not schedule the quick trip to Moscow in April to confirm the management plan?

Low was clear. If he was not satisfied, he would recommend not doing the project. That certainly got their attention. He did not think that he was obliged to say yes. On the contrary, his superiors expected an honest assessment from him.

On the other hand, Leonard’s impression (and mine) was that the people in our meetings could not or would not say no. They seemed bound to it as something their bosses wanted or even demanded. No discussion. They did have a way of referring to “decisions made at the highest level.” Said another way, we felt empowered to blow a whistle if we were not satisfied. We felt that we could go back up our chain of command, but our story would have to be good. Fair enough. We began to believe that our counterparts had no such freedom and would not even try. In football terms, we could blitz and they could not – Leverage.

Each experience building opportunity reinforced our assessment that we had it right. Still, we did not want to use it in “bully fashion.” But, the understanding helped when it came to pressing a matter of principle, for example, our concern for crew safety because of the unknowns of the Soyuz 11 accident. Paired with Stafford later, I pressed the issue of more complete disclosure as a showstopper for us. And it was.

As of March 1972, I had been reassigned to the Apollo Spacecraft program office (ASPO), reporting to Owen Morris. Jim McDivitt had left NASA earlier and Owen Morris became the program manager for the last two Apollo flights XVI and XVII. Owen was responsible for all the CSM and LM work and for the follow on Apollo spacecraft for Skylab and ATSP. I would continue the ASTP efforts for Owen. I had a big assist from Jess Goree in helping in my early transition to program office work. He did all he could to prepare me for what was coming.

As another organizational matter, René Berglund suggested that I be given full control of the Rockwell contract. René’s specialty was in the early phase A of a contracted activity. He did not manage things past the early conceptual phase. I should say here clearly that it is often difficult when there are two parties doing almost overlapping work like René and I were doing. We were connected by the work, but not at all on the organization chart. I thought René and Clarke Covington, as the project engineer for René’s study work, were very helpful and always constructive. We had no problem and I appreciated their help securing funding and managing early activities. We were at the point where the whole job had to be consolidated. As another indicator of the growing scope of ASTP, Dave Scott, recently of Apollo XV, joined the office to assist with crew relations, management subjects and the expected surge in crew training and other associated activities.

Time for the ASTP Team to Implement

In a way, the meeting scheduled for July 1972 in Houston was the start – it was the first meeting since the May summit approved the test mission with the Apollo and Soyuz spacecraft – there was agreement on a mid-1975 launch date – there had been two previous plenary meetings in 1971 and two splinter meetings of WG3 and WG2 in 1972 – this meeting would include all of the six working groups. Leonard Nicholson had prepared a proposed operating plan for the meeting for each working group, including the scope, agendas and milestones and a draft Summary of Results. The logistics for facilities, documentation, interpreters, translations, transportation, social plans, et cetera were also in place.

We were T-minus three years from launch.

WG0 approved the three documents – technical proposal, organization plan and project schedule – as adjusted for using the Soyuz. It went much easier than the first time I introduced these subjects in our pre-summit meeting in April. And we settled on July as the launch month and, soon, on July 15, 1975.

WG1 was struggling with the question of which vehicle to launch first in the rendezvous sequence. Clarke Covington came across some reference in the Soviet documents that helped to resolve the matter. Their side was very insistent on wanting to launch Soyuz first. We could not understand their position because the stay time on orbit for the Soyuz was four days and Apollo could do up to two weeks, giving much more opportunity to get a second launch off. Somewhat inadvertently, Clarke discovered that they were committing a second Soyuz and launch vehicle. If the first Soyuz came down without the Apollo launched, they would launch another Soyuz to be the target for the Apollo rendezvous. We never knew that before and it explained why they were taking their position. It was very sensible once the availability of the second vehicle became known. As a matter of fact, it was a sign of their level of commitment to the project in funding two full vehicles. Once the sequence was resolved, Pete Frank moved the mission plan to specific features of timing, content and reserve time for further experiment exercises after the undocking from Soyuz.

ASTP Mission Sequence

The attitude control mode during the dock phase was not yet settled but was in work. Mandatory joint crew training was defined. A crew activity plan (timeline of all the activities) and a “detailed ops procedure” (checklist for operating individual sequences) were adopted.

There was still a transition in process on the newly chartered WG5 for the life support area. So, this was still covered in WG1. It was not working well because Lavrov was not in attendance. Dolgopolov was the acting leader and did not know the entire life support subject like Lavrov did. Confusion prevailed on the subject of whether the Soyuz carried stores of gas to replenish the cabin pressure. Dolgopolov had a schematic depicting gas storage, but he did not know if that was truly the case. I am not sure we got to a firm answer in the meeting but there were indications that there were no other cabin gas provisions onboard. That explained why they were interested in zero leak rates and not happy about our specifications for cabin tightness that were ten times more liberal than theirs. The number one open question of how to do crew transfer was not advanced at all. Our team did not have anyone to work the problem with.

Some of these things (no onboard gas and a second Soyuz and launch vehicle) just showed up at times. We needed to be alert for these kinds of situations because something important could be revealed that would help to understand the “why” of some of their positions. And they did not necessarily show up with fanfare. We were making an assumption that they surely had gas storage. In the end, it was confirmed that the Soyuz did not. It was also curious that they did not make more of the existence of the second Soyuz. We certainly would have. But the only way to minimize surprises was to use every opportunity to engage and explore.

WG2 completed the definition of requirements for the targets, lights, and control system use. The newly chartered WG4 agreed that the U.S. side would build the VHF/FM radio for operation on the Soviet selected frequency, as that frequency would continue to be used in the future. As I remember, we were not going to continue with our frequency and, therefore, it made more sense to provide one of our transceivers to install on the Soyuz.

WG3 inspected the U.S. two-fifths scale model of the docking system and made refinements. Joint testing was scheduled for the December meeting.

As the meeting proceeded and afterwards, the team experienced some of the same problems with language and getting to closure. It is a shock to come from the well-oiled process we lived in at the Center and then have to struggle with language problems, verification of translations, false assumptions, time sliding by very quickly, and the very different backgrounds of the participants. It is hard to take things for granted, but it takes time to be sure both sides understand things the same way. We noticed that you couldn’t assume that because you told one person that the message would be communicated. Their internal dynamics are different from ours. If our documenting score is ten, theirs is under five. Their Soyuz program was continuing; our Apollo program could see the end. Much was different.

In a few short and busy months, our delegation was off again to Moscow in October 1972.

Pete Frank and Vladimir Timchenko were the co-chairs of WG1. Both sides had qualified specialists to address all of the aspects of their work: mission plans, mission documents, Mission Control, flight crew training and contingency plans for non-standard events. They also had to reconcile to a standard set of gravity and mathematical models. Crew training sessions were planned for two sessions in 1973, one in Houston in summer and one in Moscow in the fall. On their side, the Soviets were in evaluation to select two prime and two backup crews.

Ed Smith was our new chairman of WG2 and joined Victor Legostayev. They decided to delete the TV camera for docking that was to be mounted on the hatch centerline. And, they completed plans for their next meeting.

Vladimir Syromyatnikov and Don Wade were the Chairmen of WG3 that was focused on completing the Preliminary Systems Review (PSR). The purpose of the review was to conduct a formal configuration review before commencing detail design. They also redid plans for the two-fifths scale model tests in December. The Technical Directors approved three safety items for follow-up – spring thruster failure to compress, indicators on structural latches, and the identification of any failure mode that would cause structural latches to open inadvertently.

WG5 came into the sunlight in their meeting. Ilya Lavrov was back as the Chairman with our Ed Smylie and it became apparent what Lavrov had been working back in Moscow. The crew transfer scheme was still not resolved and was the last major configuration question for the project. The situation revolved around the big differences in cabin pressure in each of the ships, approximately fifteen pounds per square inch (PSI) in Soyuz and five PSI in Apollo. The problem is the potential for the onset of bends when moving from the high to the low-pressure environment. When the ratio of pressures is greater than two, the risk of bends is there. The ratio between Soyuz and Apollo is three. Apollo cannot increase very much because five PSI is the Apollo structural design limit. Soyuz cannot reduce to Apollo levels because if its pressure is reduced to five PSI, the partial pressure of oxygen is reduced to one-and-a-half PSI, too low for breathing. One alternative is to schedule a period of pre-breathing pure oxygen to purge the nitrogen bubbles in the blood. But that becomes cumbersome in terms of equipment and time, an hour or so. So, Lavrov was prepared to lower the Soyuz cabin pressure once on-orbit to about ten PSI and to re-pressurize Soyuz to approximately fifteen PSI for the return to Earth. Ten pounds per square inch of air would have an oxygen partial pressure about three, sufficient for breathing. This required a new tank of air or nitrogen to replenish the Soyuz cabin. And, I am sure, he had much hard discussion to convince his in-house Soyuz managers. After tweaking the numbers, that became the baseline plan and was tested on-orbit in Soyuz 16. Thank you, Ilya. He did not participate again in our regular meetings, but he returned in early 1974 to join Walt Guy to witness the modified life support tests in Moscow.

Working Groups 2 and 4 would meet in November; Victor Legostayev transferred the WG4 agenda to Boris Nikitin at this meeting. WG2 focused on control systems, docking targets and analysis and tracking plans. They reviewed control laws as mechanized in the two ships and settled on a control system configuration for the docked phase. They also devised backups if the docking targets were misaligned. Credit was due to the Soviet members of WG4 for their strong efforts to satisfy the agenda, but some of that pressure was because they held to a fixed departure date. The WG agreed to the Soviet desire to build the Soyuz antennas for both radio frequencies. The WG also defined the compatibility test plans for next year and the installation of the AM radio aboard Soyuz at the launch site.

Vladamir Syromyatnikov and Don Wade (WG3)

WG3 tests of the two-fifths scale model found the Soviet team ready to go and they had English and Russian versions of the working subjects. The testing went well with no substantive problems. Discussions and closures went well. WG3 continues on track and on schedule. Syromyatnikov was clearly a pro in the development of docking systems. Sometimes I think he did not appreciate our WG0 reviews, and he would look displeased. But then, he would joke about it, referring to me as the big cheese.

Victor Legostayev and Don Cheatham (WG2)

I had made a point of identifying problems with Soviet readiness for our meetings and timely delivery of products to Professor Bushuyev. And, by the end of 1972, the overall performance was very good, with WG4 on probation. I conveyed that single weakness to Professor Bushuyev and asked him to pass my appreciation to his other Working Group chairmen. Professor Bushuyev stated that steps would be taken to resolve the WG4 problems. R.H. Dietz was our chairman of WG4 and he was even more frustrated than I was. He had to deal it with all the time. Every time we got ready to make a real issue out of it, Professor Bushuyev promised to take action. At times, I wondered if Nikitin was family of some high-ranking Party official.

In WG5, I was very impressed and so was Ed Smylie, our WG chairman, with Lavrov. He never travelled with his delegation to Houston, but he was impressive when he was involved.

NASA was very fortunate to have the “Two Georges” overseeing the manned space efforts at North American Rockwell. George Jeffs was the head of Rockwell’s Manned Space Division in Downey and George Merrick was the program manager. They both brought deep competence and a great passion for the work. I was always impressed by many of the traits displayed by George Jeffs, who might be described as a North American Rockwell Chris Kraft. He set the tone for his organization every day. He always sought the best solutions for his customers even if his own people did not agree. George saw serving the customer as his job and he saw that as winning. He was in the first Berlitz class at Downey to “learn Russian” and did better than most. He joined us on the December 1972 trip to Moscow to see for himself what this interaction was like. It was good trip to join us on. The Zagorsk Monastery visit was last year and he should have been glad to leave that one to Dr. Gilruth and Chris Kraft. Besides observing the interaction of the working groups, George went with us on a weekend train trip to Leningrad. Some called Leningrad the Paris of the North. Others still called it St. Petersburg. George did pick up the Leningrad bug and, with his research, helped explain it to us. There were mostly huge three to four story buildings fronting on the water. We visited the Hermitage museum. The highlight for me was the very large painting by Rembrandt, “Taking Jesus down from the Cross.” The scale and the power of that painting still sticks with me.

So, as 1972 came to a close twenty-six months since our first meeting in October 1970, it was time to take stock. We had significantly expanded the scope of the initial purpose, which was to define the requirements for compatible systems for rendezvous and docking to enhance safety of space travelers. We took it to the point of a test mission to verify and confirm that we could make technical systems compatible and we could demonstrate them in a real live mission. We considered several configurations – Apollo to Soyuz – Apollo to Salyut – Soyuz to Skylab – and settled on the Apollo/Soyuz option for the Presidential summit in May. We had staffed the working groups with excellent technical talent, and with the necessary human and diplomatic skills. We built a two-language documentation capability and developed a roster of translators and interpreters. Most of the significant project configuration choices were in place by this time – U.S. docking module to serve as an airlock – a rendezvous sequence supported by two Soyuz spacecraft and launch vehicles – a Soyuz cabin pressure reduction and repress system which greatly simplified the crew transfer between vehicles – the joint test of a two-fifths scale docking system model, with the same features as the full scale version. We know there is much to do and there will be more surprises and difficulties. But, at the two-year point, with two-and-a-half years to launch, I think we surprised a lot of people including ourselves.

Cutaway of Docked Configuration

As part of our look back, it was also clear that our working groups were operating at a higher level of productivity and autonomy. As a measure of that autonomy, a compilation of our total meeting schedule to launch clearly showed the trend.

Besides being an indicator of the strong Working Group ownership of their respective domains, it is also true that the project formation years of 1971 and 1972 were behind us. The number of individual working groups splinter meetings had matched and would soon be the predominant feature of working group engagement.

The larger plenary meetings with all or most of the working groups represented remained at two to three per year, throughout the project. By 1972, the splinter meetings exceeded the number of plenary meetings. Rather than a mere count, the rapid uptake of splinter meetings was a reflection of being at the point in the project where the “grinding out” of all the necessary work becomes the main operating mode. Dealing with the big options of how to configure the project was basically over by the end of 1972. What remained was implementation, execution and vigilance. There were thousands of details to be mastered. This was now where the project succeeds or fails. Sometimes, the need for a disciplined approach to this stage of the project life cycle can weaken or get lost. Grinding it out well made the earlier choices look good. Grinding it out with our partners created the common understanding that would hopefully prevail in case we faced an emergency. It was gratifying to see how quickly the team jumped into splinter meetings. They saw what was needed and did it.

Meetings Leading up to ASTP Launch

There are now physical models, breadboard systems, development units and testing, qualification tests and flight units in production. There are tests and checkout procedures and operational plans to be put in place, from PAO plans to docking module pressurization. Software is everywhere and must be configured to this mission. Technical arrangements are needed with the launch vehicle, launch site, recovery forces and weather services.

Twenty-six: 1973: Year of ASTP Mid-term and Skylab Flights

More Momentum to the ASTP Team

NASA started a new year of 1973 with a late January announcement of the names of the U.S. crews for ASTP. This was a real up-tempo step for our whole team. Now, we had a prime and back up crew, as well as a support crew, which always adds a strong sense of moving toward a launch. Tom Stafford was the commander of the prime crew, Deke Slayton would be the docking module pilot, and Vance Brand would be the command module pilot. Slayton had been grounded since early 1962, when he was expected to fly in the second Mercury orbital flight, after John Glenn. That was not to be and the NASA-wide team celebrated his return, just as was the case for Al Shepard. Tom Stafford had flown two landmark Gemini flights and Apollo X, the precursor to the moon landing.

Brand had been backup CMP for Apollo XV, and was still the backup commander for the last two Skylab flights scheduled for the second half of 1973. The backup crew for ASTP was Alan Bean, Jack Lousma and Ron Evans. Bean and Lousma were also assigned to the forthcoming second manned flight for Skylab. Ron Evans had just finished Apollo XVII. ASTP offered an opportunity for a full support team. Bob Crippen, Dick Truly, Bob Overmeyer and Carol Bobko, joined the program in 1969 after cancellation of the DOD program, known as the Manned Orbital Laboratory.

Bob Obermeyer would prepare and be the technical advisor in the Soviet MCC during the flight. Crippen, Truly, and Bobko would be capcoms. All of them would serve in many other ways over the course of the next two-and-a-half years.

As a first for me, I introduced the crewmen assigned to ASTP at a February first press conference. This was a full load of very talented pilots and they would add considerable value across our technical team. The press conference also gave Slayton the opportunity to recognize Dr. Berry, of MSC, and Dr. Van Camp, of Mayo Clinic, for their efforts leading to his return to flight status.

1973 brought name changes to two institutions, very close to my everyday work life. President Johnson died on January 22, 1973. The Manned Spacecraft was renamed in his honor, the Lyndon B. Johnson Space Center. This was made effective in February and celebrated in August 1973. President Johnson had been a very key participant in the startup of the manned space program, the Apollo XI goal and in the locating of MSC in Houston. People were proud to have the name Johnson Space Center, JSC. During the same year, North American Rockwell changed its name to Rockwell International. North American Aviation had a long and illustrious run in the history of aviation, producing forty-two thousand military aircraft between 1935 and 1945.

Later in May, the Soviets introduced their crews, Alexi Leonov and Valerie Kubasov as the prime crew. Leonov had flown one Voshkod flight and conducted their first EVA. Kubasov had served in back up roles in Soyuz 5 and 6. The prime crew for a precursor mission was Anatoly Filipchenko and Nicolai Rukavishnikov. Filipchenko was back up for Soyuz 4 and flew as the command pilot for Soyuz 7. Rukavishnikov flew on Soyuz 10. The Soviets also had a support team of cosmonauts who had not yet flown – Vladimir Dzhanibekov, Yuri Romanenko, Aleksandr Ivanchenkov and Boris Andrea. All combined, this was a very competent “A” team of highly skilled crewmembers.

The March 1973 meeting was a full meeting including all the working groups and it was held in Houston from March fifteenth to thirtieth, 1973. As a result of the crew announcement in January, General Shatalov, now the head of the Cosmonauts at Star City, joined this meeting to begin to define the crew training process. He and Bob Overmeyer started the development of the “Crew and Ground Personnel Training Plan” ASTP document numbered 40 700. This document would define the training content for each of the three training exercises in each country, a total of six sessions. The cosmonauts would visit in July based on the assumption that the Soyuz crew assignment would be made before that time. The astronauts were to visit Star City in the fall. I had met General Shatalov earlier in the October 1970 meeting. He did the familiarization ride with me in the Soyuz simulator. He was impressive and with a ready explanation of the workings of Soyuz. Most recently, he and two other cosmonauts had flown together in Soyuz 10, docked and flew around the Salyut station.

WG 1 had some solid accomplishments and they agreed to:

- Exchange of specialists to observe and participate in the MCCs before and during the mission.

- Conduct the joint work of medical doctors

- Prepare the crew and build the crew activities plan

- Review the scientific experiments and training schedule was conducted with the technical directors.

- More study was needed for the contingency return of a mixed crew and a decision was planned at the next meeting, during the summer.

Pete Frank, WG1, confirmed the guidelines for mission planning, specifically timing of orbital events for rendezvous, Soyuz propulsion maneuvers, docking orbit, inclination of the orbit, and time of the US launch at seven-and-a-half hours after the Soyuz launch. And confirmed that both sides would use the same math models for the atmosphere and gravity field. Development of the new control center interaction plan would contain all of the necessary voice and data traffic between the control centers.

The Technical Directors agreed that, during the mission period, the Flight Directors would be primary for decisions and the Technical Directors are in an advisory role. We also agreed to have a scheduled phone call between the Technical Directors every two weeks starting on April twenty-fourth. This is a reflection of the growing amount of traffic between all the working groups and provides a regular opportunity to engage.

WG2 discussed the tracking orientation requirements. This lead to a planned exchange of external materials to test for unwanted reflections in the optical tracking phase and added spacecraft lights to the planned exchange. They also conducted the PSR (preliminary systems review) of the docking targets on Soyuz and for the NASA fixture that would assure correct target placement.

WG3 worked the subject of the interface seals for the docking systems and then on to testing of the exchanged interface seals. The seals were specified to work over a wide range of temperatures and were giving our side some difficulties in meeting the specs. One action item from the docking system PSR, regarding inadvertent release of structural latches was reviewed and some further analysis was planned. WG4 continued discussion of signal characteristics for the radios and compatibility testing. The plans for communication lines and networks between control centers were regularly reviewed as the requirements definition matured over time. The preliminary design review of the VHF/FM radio was conducted. Training for the Soviet specialists involved in the testing of the VHF/AM radios at the Grumman Aerospace Company in Bethpage, New York, was scheduled to begin on April thirtieth.

WG5 made progress on life support compatibility, flammability safety and crew transfer procedures. The Soviets discussed the changes being made in the Soyuz oxygen regeneration system. And because of the higher O2 concentration in the docking module, all of their camera equipment, flight suits and electrical equipment exposed to the environment would have to be retested for safety in a fifty percent oxygen environment. We sent some of the material that we had developed for our space coveralls to assist the Soviets in their design to protect against flammability of their unpressurized clothing. In the end, they developed their own flight coverall material.

This was a full agenda and all of the subjects were advanced if not yet completed.

Earlier in this text, I outlined some of the differences and mysteries about how the Soviet side was organized and performed their work. In our programs, it is an integral part of our regular routine to visit the contractor plants where the hardware is being fabricated and tested. It allows the importing of those insights into our everyday consideration of decisions. It is always refreshing to look at the growing and evolving machinery. It is especially mandatory for the men who will strap on these machines to see, touch and feel the specific hardware they will fly in. More than mockups, more than “just like,” it must be the real thing. The arrival of the crews made that discussion imminent. Opening that discussion required a first move and we offered a tour of the Downey plant to Bushuyev and his delegation. Once opened, we asked about a reciprocal visit.

It became clear that a visit to his factory was a problem for Bushuyev. He could not make that happen. I don’t recall the sequence but, at either this meeting or the next one, he offered a visit by our delegation and the crews separately to the Soviet launch site where the spacecraft would be open to the crew. We would still tour the Downey plant, and the schedule was set for July. We added a visit to the KSC launch site for our delegation and separately one for the crews. This “compromise” satisfied our goal of access to the real flight hardware.

Somewhere in these few months, Chet Lee and I opened up the subject of a mid-term review by the senior leadership in NASA and the Soviet academy. We had already introduced the subject of a joint Flight Readiness Review (FRR) in June before the July 1975 flight. The idea of a mid-term review was to keep senior leadership on both sides engaged in a face-to-face project assessment, about halfway between the April 1972 meeting and the joint FRR, estimated to be in late June 1975. Without a mid-term, it would be more than three years between senior leadership face-to-face engagement. Too long a time. After more discussion of the value to both sides, Chet Lee took the initiative to propose it to our NASA HQ. It was soon agreed and was proposed to Academician Keldysh for a fall 1973 meeting.

Full Scale Apollo/Soyuz Mockup

We also had an opportunity to participate in an international event and call attention to the progress being made in ASTP. By mutual agreement in the PAO subgroup during December 1972, the two sides committed to build a full-scale mockup of the Apollo-Soyuz docked together. The purpose was to demonstrate the progress on ASTP by displaying this mockup at the May1973 Paris Air show. This turned out to be an excellent opportunity to focus attention on the project and its launch in 1975. Chuck Biggs, of the MSC PAO Office, was the point man for all of the arrangements for building the mockup and its display at the Air Show. Rockwell volunteered to build the mockup. And although we were late in identifying this possibility, the Air Show organization responded graciously and constructively, making room for the display with the mockup by co-opting some of the parking lot. It was heralded by some in the press as “the focal point for the Thirtieth Paris Air Show.” The Apollo-Soyuz was on display on May twenty-fifth to June third, 1973.

There was another key player in this venture. Larry Griffin, twin brother of Gerry Griffin, was active duty Air Force back from his tour as a forward observer pilot in Vietnam. Since the Air Force was beginning to prepare for their role in Shuttle operations, Larry Griffin was assigned to my office to help transition experience from NASA and JSC program operations. Larry had a great flying experience base to help with the 747 transport of the model from California to Paris. The trip even included a “show the flag, low altitude pass” over the city of Paris. You might wonder how I liked the Air Show. Well, I never saw it. The rest of my job, in the form of Skylab, claimed its rightful attention. The Skylab flight schedule began in May 1973 and the last of the manned visits landed in February 1974. This flight period contained some very tense weeks and it coincided with critical milestones in a busy ASTP year.

Skylab 1

I was at KSC for the launch of the Skylab workshop, our first U.S. Space Station. This launch was to be followed on the next day by the first crew, commanded by Pete Conrad with Paul (PJ) Weitz and Dr. Joe Kerwin. The launch was beautiful and awe-inspiring as they always are.

The pre-programmed commands from the SIB Instrument Unit began the process of waking up the workshop’s systems. One radiator cover away, four sections of the payload shroud away and the rotation of the telescope from forward to the side of the docking adapter readied the Skylab to receive our CSM on the nose of the assembly. In thirty minutes or so, the ship started to give out the early signals of distress. The solar arrays and the meteoroid shield both had erratic and confusing telemetry indications. One indicated a partial deployment, and another that both solar wings were not still attached. Don Puddy’s team in MCC anticipated that there were at least two problems. The possibility that both solar panels had failed would cut the onboard power drastically. The ATM arrays also provided five kilowatts. And, the loss of the micrometeoroid shield would fairly quickly result in high heating on the sun side. (Normally, the vehicle flies in the solar inertial mode where one side of the structure is always pointed towards the sun.) An unexpected indication from an accelerometer at the time of maximum dynamic pressure was found in a post launch data review. This suggested a failure of some part of the structure. Soon enough, temperatures on the external structure started to rise. Without a fix and in the same attitude, internal temps were calculated to reach seventy-seven degrees Celsius (one hundred forty degrees Fahrenheit) and one hundred sixty-five Celsius (two hundred ninety-three degrees Fahrenheit) on the outer skin. Some of the rate gyros were not averaging as they should and caused excessive usage of the nitrogen gas. It was decided to delay the crew launch by five days.

The heating and projected internal temperatures were the dominant problem for the operations team, with the HOSC fully engaged and contributing. The MCC flight control team did a great job of improvising around the bad data from the rate gyroscopes. They used the power received by the solar panel to estimate pitch up from the solar inertial and skin temps on the opposite sides to judge the roll. Calculation of momentum let them approximate yaw. They had to get the vehicle out of full solar inertial and find an attitude that provided sufficient power but was better for reducing internal temperatures. A pitch up attitude of about forty-five degrees seemed to be the best compromise; it was enough power to charge the batteries to get through the next night pass and stabilized the internal peak temperatures forty-two degrees Celsius (one hundred eight degrees Fahrenheit). There was work for everybody. How did the heat affect the rest of the provisions onboard? What should be resupplied? How to shade the ship? How to get more power? We had other subjects to address back in Houston, like the stowage in the CM for the rescue trip in a matter of days.

I remember George Merrick, of Rockwell, and Chet Lee being on the plane ride back to Houston after launch. We were all relatively unfamiliar with Skylab, but knew that there were two airlocks for exposing experiments, on the solar side and the anti-solar side of the ship. This seemed like a gift from above for the heating problem. Why not devise an umbrella of sorts that could be stored in one of the airlock boxes and extended into space to provide shade? The more we talked about it the better it sounded. When we got back to Houston, people had already thought of it but the frontrunner candidate was a standup EVA in the CSM open hatch and a wand-type device to attach it somewhere to the external structure. There were several good candidates and at least two came right down to the wire. At MSC, Jack Kinsler, of parachute competence, and Don Arabian, of getting-it-done competence, prevailed and so did the parasol. The box was about four feet long and about eight to nine inches on a side. It was this box and the many other new tools stowed under the couches that gave the CSM team and me a fit in trying to stay within the allowable center of gravity limits for safe uprighting of the capsule in an abort. And then we had to work at expanding those limits. Rusty Schweikart did a great job of representing the crew and prepping them for the parasol deployment.

Skylab Cutaway View

SL 1 Workshop launch

Skylab 2

Pete, PJ and Joe lifted off on May twenty-fifth, ten days late and loaded for an exciting trip. The probe and drogue docking took five attempts. We were getting a message that it was time to move to a new design. Most of my mission – following time was spent in the Mission Evaluation Room (MER). It was gratifying to see problem solving from that end of our system. The flight control team, the new Flight Directors and the HOSC team were impressive in how they handled this near-Apollo-XIII start to our new space station.

Skylab 2 Off the “Milkstool” on Pad

Parasol in Work

When the crew arrived at Skylab, they flew a planned external inspection of the whole lab. Pete reported, “Solar wing 2 is gone, it’s off the bird” and, “Solar wing 1 is partially deployed, there is a bulge of meteoroid shield under it in the middle, and holding it down,” and “the air lock is free of debris.” When the inspection fly-around was completed, Conrad was optimistic that they could clear the solar array wing from the hatch in standup EVA. Weitz stood up in the hatch, while Kerwin held on to him, and Conrad piloted the CSM. They just could not pull the solar array up, it was being held by the strap from the meteoroid shield. By mid-afternoon on the May twenty-sixth, the crew was in the workshop and it was warm enough to force them to the cooler docking adaptor module occasionally.

The parasol went out according to plan and when it was first deployed, Conrad reported that it was only covering two-thirds of the intended area. The ground was confident that as the material warmed up that it would gradually extend and cover what it was planned for. By the twenty-ninth, the cooling down was proceeding and the Huntsville engineers calculated that it would soon stabilize at twenty-six degrees Celsius, about eighty degrees Fahrenheit. The crew then went into actively performing their major experiments – medical tests, solar observations and preparations for earth resources tasks. One of the earth resources experiments involved decreasing the sunlight on the solar panels and going to batteries for the extent of the pass. Four batteries dropped off-line and the flight controllers were only able to restore three of the four. One battery is worth two hundred fifty watts.

Skylab 2 in Flight After Workshop Repair

The next major activity was to start on the plan to clear and erect the solar array panel; the crew rehearsed all this inside the workshop with Kerwin in a suit. Again, voice communications with MCC aided by TV coverage confirmed that the crew was ready to try freeing the solar array. The geometry on the outside can be thought of with the parasol being at the top of the workshop. The solar array wing was ninety degrees from the airlock that the parasol was deployed at. At first, Kerwin had a lot of trouble because he just couldn’t restrain himself to one position and he was having trouble getting the cutter on the strap that was holding the solar wing down and against the fuselage. Kerwin discovered if he shortened his space suit tether he was able to get the cutter device in place and cut the strap. Kerwin and Conrad went to pull the solar array wing up and very soon it just popped up and it was now in place, looking fine to the crew. This restored about twenty-five percent of the total original power in the workshop.

There was an investigation board on the cause of the failure of the meteoroid shield. The design was such that the shield was supposed to fit very tightly against the external wall of the tank and stay that way through launch. However, it did have some gaps that were apparently measured preflight. This allowed the air rushing by the vehicle to build pressure under the meteoroid shield and blew it off the vehicle. As a result, part of it wrapped around the solar arrays and just broke the latches on the other solar array 2, which was now gone. The meteoroid shield was large and fairly limp, so it was not able to be rigged to the specifications.

In March of 1969, the Administrator, Tom Paine, had supported an open program with private communications limited to special medical situations or operational emergencies. If held, a summary of any private communications would be provided to the press. John Donnelly, Chief of PAO, opposed routine medical conference on a private loop. In March 1973, the current administrator Jim Fletcher allowed routine medical conferences on a private line and the flight surgeon would release a bulletin describing the same to the press. They also approved private communications “in matters of extreme emergencies.” They could be initiated by the crew or the ground and would be paraphrased for the press. Late on May twenty-eighth, Conrad asked for a private conference; he was asked if this was an emergency.

“It’s not any emergency right now,” replied Conrad. Bill Schneider, who was the program director at NASA Headquarters, approved the request.

The conference was planned for May twenty-ninth and it widened the rift between OMSF and PAO. Conrad apologized for the difficulties with the ergometer, which was used for astronaut exercise and in one of the medical experiments. Conrad also brought up the solar array deployment, the docking probe and workshop temperatures. When the news media got the summary, the immediate question was, “Where is the emergency?” As a result of this event, Capcoms were instructed to be sure to ask if an emergency exists before any other private communications. There was another way to communicate by voice from the astronauts to the ground. There was an onboard voice recorder running all of the time and it had the nondescript name of “Channel B.” In February, well before the flight at a press conference, Conrad told the press that they would receive transcripts of Channel B recordings.

Donnelly and Myers agreed to release all Channel B data, but exclude comments specifically on the medical experiments. The flight surgeon wanted to do this because the experiments involved other doctors who sponsored them and their comments would be solely directed at the content of the medical experiments. Low backed the doctors’ exclusions also. In discussing this with the crew, Conrad felt he was left in the dark sometimes about upcoming plans for flight events. For example, he learned about the EVA plans to free the solar panel during a birthday greeting from his wife. These restrictions really had an effect on the last Skylab mission, causing a real communication block between crew and ground. When operators start to bias their communications or to use an alternative communications like Channel B, it disrupts the normal open conversations between the astronauts and the ground. I recall that something like this happened on Apollo XV, and it could have caused an even larger problem.

When it came to physical exercise by the crew, the doctors at first wanted control of all physical exercise before and during the mission; that did not play well. And for Skylab, it was decided to leave to the astronauts the choice of how much P.E. to do. There was a metabolic experiment M171, and it had a prescribed routine. It was very difficult for the crew to perform the routine with the equipment that they had onboard. For example, both Weitz and Kerwin did not finish the exercise. Conrad did, but he complained that it was like a maximum workload for twenty minutes.

Joe Kerwin at the Skylab 500

During week two, the astronauts were able to use the ergometer in an unorthodox way, so that the doctors wanted another M171 test before the EVA. The crew was surprised at this and requested a private conference. Conrad felt that they were in excellent health and they wanted to exercise. When he ran M171 protocol in a different way he finished without difficulty. It was observed that the first three days were very hectic and the workload ended up being fatiguing. They had a holiday for most of June first, and it was on that day that crew conducted what they called the “Skylab 500.” This involved the crewman running on lockers in the workshop, in what was a free running sprint around the outer circumference of the free volume of the workshop.

Because of my location in the MER and because some of my time was back in the office, I missed all of the background on the dispute over the use of the air-ground loop and the problem with full disclosure to the media. This was being handled by the on-console team, as it should be. And most of it was in face-to-face discussions between the principals and not on the Flight Director loop. And it was not my issue to resolve as the spacecraft program manager. It did resurface in ASTP.

The crew of Skylab 2 returned after twenty-eight productive days in Skylab. Most significantly, the Skylab was recovered from imminent failure and stabilized. Plans, equipment and procedures were being readied to replace the parasol material with more capability to endure the longer-term effects of the solar environment. The twenty-eight days was a new U.S. record but it would be surpassed on the last two flights.

Skylab 3

The crew of the second mission to Skylab included Alan Bean (also backup to Stafford on ASTP), Jack Lousma and Owen Garriot. Because of early concerns about the recovery of Skylab, the launch had been moved up by three weeks. My station for the launch period was at KSC for the FRR, about two weeks before scheduled takeoff, and back at KSC for several days as the launch countdown begins. July twenty-eighth was the liftoff, and the ride up was nominal. Once on orbit, quad B developed a leak and the quad was shut down. It was confirmed by seeing particles out the window. There are four quads on the service module outer surface each with four thrusters. They are located ninety degrees apart. The spacecraft can be flown with two good quads and mission rules allowed continuation with one quad out of service. This was the first time in Apollo that we had an RCS leak.

Alan Bean on Astronaut Maneuvering Unit

The World in Jack Lousma’s Visor

Very quickly on orbit, Lousma developed motion sickness, with nausea. An onboard medication was taken and did some good. But, the condition returned for Lousma and, by dinnertime, all three were feeling the effects. Things did not improve on the next day and it was bad enough that the crew asked for a break and some bunk time. This crew also found what many others did – they did fine on the planned activities but when they had to find something or troubleshoot an unexpected problem, it took a surprisingly long time. By the third day, they were getting better and were back on the activation. Getting behind with the sickness and dealing with unexpected trouble-shooting had started a ripple effect of not eating or sleeping right. The crew worked at getting their routine back in sync.

Skylab was a different animal than most of our previous experience in human space flight. For the first time, the primary objective of the flight team was to deliver a certain amount of experiment time and associated data to the Principal Investigators for the solar science, the life sciences and the new field of remote measurement of earth resources. These were the major science areas that Skylab was designed to serve. The Apollo lunar surface science was the closest analog but it was a short time out of the entire mission duration. This objective was viewed as a contract to provide a certain level of service to the science community and it dominated the operation.

Just as the work was returning to normal, quad D leaked and we were concerned that there might be a generic problem in the two leaky quads that would show up in the other quads soon. Simulator runs showed that the two remaining good quads would be adequate for a deorbit. Engineering analysis lead us to conclude that it was not a systemic condition. The records from the loading confirmed that there was no contaminated oxidizer. We still believed that it was likely that the two leaky quads could be used for deorbit, if necessary. The rescue capability of CSM 119 gave us the confidence that we still had another potential solution. And it gave us the time to fully understand what our remaining capabilities were with the two quad problems. From my vantage point in the MER, I was impressed at how much info on the leaks could be derived by the team, which was lead very effectively by Henry Pohl of Engineering.

Events proceeded at a fast pace. The EVA crew of Lousma and Garriott deployed a larger shade, made of longer lasting material and into a position over the parasol. The temperature inside dropped. This step left the crew mostly free to do their science work with the solar telescopes, earth resource observations, medical measurement and occasionally being a plumber or an electrician to keep the Skylab humming.

After the difficulties of a slow start, the crew seemed to exult in gaining on the planned timeline and logging more productive science time. The result exceeded the science contract and a new record of fifty-nine days duration was posted.

Skylab 4

NASA’s public reaction to the highly productive performance of the second crew was certainly to give them just praise, but it also raised the standard for the upcoming third visit to Skylab by Gerry Carr, Ed Gibson and Bill Pogue. And the content of the flight was increased accordingly. A newly discovered comet by the astronomer Lobas Kohoutek made its appearance in March 1973, eight months before Skylab 4. The best observation opportunity for Skylab would occur as it swung around the sun in December. So this assignment and its new maneuvering requirements were added to the flight. The man hours per day target for experiment time was raised to twenty-eight man hours, about a ten percent increase. The ATM program added twelve new joint observing programs. Ten to fourteen earth resources passes were added to the presently planned twenty. The new medical measurements were added. In almost three months of flight coming up, there will be more unplanned equipment repairs. In fairness to all, optimistic planning was the NASA MO. Aim high and you should get more results that you otherwise would. Another wild card was the matter of motion sickness and whether it would afflict this crew.

Final View of Skylab

The crew took off from Complex 39, Pad B, on November 16, 1973. The launch went well and in less than eight hours, the CSM was in position for docking. Again, the probe did not achieve capture. After two attempts, the crew initiated the hard docking technique and that was successful.

The crew took their prescribed anti-nausea medication, but it did not help Bill Pogue, he became nauseated and vomited a small amount. The crew requested a delay twice from the planned end of day status report and unfortunately decided to minimize Pogue’s condition as nausea only when they finally made their status report.

The spacecraft had the onboard voice recorder with the channel B. This channel recorded all the astronaut communications and dumped the contents to the ground. The internal crew discussion then resulted in a transcript in MCC within less than twenty-four hours. Their downplaying of Pogue’s problem became known and resulted in an admonition delivered by Al Shepard to “tell it straight.” And they did many times during the flight by using Channel B, the voice-dump with a built-in twenty-four-hour delay. This situation had to have been a downer for the crew and it probably inhibited their comments on the normal air to ground circuit, even in the case of the overload of work they were asked to do. They slept in the CSM the first night, as a precaution against moving around in the larger volume workshop, which was believed contributed to the likelihood of nausea.

Once they moved into the Workshop, activation began, and was immediately disrupted when iodine mix was dumped into the waste tank instead of the water tank. They did have an expected repair of the water coolant supply from the EVA suit. There were also some added girth measurements that also took a lot of time, as there was no preflight training for it. There was next a repair of a failed antenna that was on the earth’s side of the ATM. The repair resulted in half of the motion control capability restored, to the delight of the experimenters on the ground. A week into the flight, in a look back session over the first week, Carr explained that things were frantic and they were very frustrated that they were unable to keep up with the flight plan.

Once back at it, one of the control moment gyros (CMG) seized up. The gyros were the muscle of the attitude control system of the Workshop and they were backed up by a nitrogen gas and thruster system that had been used significantly during the early stabilization efforts. The flight controllers were working on procedures to operate in the degraded mode with one of the CMG’s inoperative. The crew continued to complain to MCC on Channel B, but that mode of communication had a limited audience and was delayed. It was certainly not as widespread as a primary air to ground communication loop. As an example of the crew difficulties, the teleprinter was an efficient way to send up changes to the checklist but a message that was three or four inches long on the teleprinter took thirty minutes to transcribe into the checklists. The program scientist, Bob Parker, estimated that the time spent on experiments was about twenty-five man hours per day, down ten percent from the planned rate.

The parahelion (the point of closest approach to the sun) was to occur on the twenty-eighth of December. In the Christmas day EVA, Carr and Pogue reloaded the ATM film, pinned the now functioning door open, then repaired a filter wheel and bent the shutter blade out of the way. Carr and Gibson performed another EVA on December twenty-ninth, specifically for comet observation and recording with hand held instruments. It should be noted that in the second half of December the crew kept up with timeline.However, the continuing sense of an overloaded timeline caused Carr to communicate his questions to the ground via the Channel B communication link. He wanted to know how they were doing. Did the single exercise take too much time? If the experiment program was behind, what can be done to close the gap? The ground also was inhibited by the open air to ground loop and they did not want to press the issue. In response they sent up a long teleprinter message trying to give an overall summary of where they were on the timeline. And they scheduled a debrief for December thirtieth on the open loop. The plan compared the experiment hours for Skylab 4 for just the second half of the first month and they were very close. This exchange made the parties wish they had done that earlier.

The flight controllers tried using heaters to warm the lubricating oil for the CMG. There was also a conference between all the crewmembers and all the experimenters. This was very good and helped to give both camps a better understanding of what had gone on and was coming in the future. Gibson spent a lot of time and even stretched his time trying to catch solar flares with the instruments and he finally did catch one in the last days of the mission and described it to the ground.

It was now time to deactivate Skylab and prepare for separation and entry. The CSM thrusters were used to increase the orbit altitude and added approximately five to eight years of on orbit time for the workshop. No one had any particular plan to use that time but it gave the maximum time possible. As they left, the vehicle was unpowered and left in a configuration with the docking port up, pointing away from Earth. During the period after deorbit and before entry, Carr was surprised because of the loss of attitude control of the CSM. He quickly switched over to the backup system. The crew landed safely after a record eighty-four days on orbit. No Skylab debriefings for me. It is time to recycle the clock to several months earlier in ASTP time and pick up the rest of the busy 1973 year.

Alex Tatischeff

I cannot exactly place when Alex Tatischeff showed up to help us with interpreter duties, but it was most likely during 1972. He was in his seventies and as soon as he showed up, I claimed him as my interpreter. He seemed happy with that. He had a courtly, gentlemanly manner about him and made a positive impression on all who met him. This was first impression, soon to be confirmed by various acts of kindness, thoughtfulness, caring and insights. They spread outward from Alex like rays from a light.

Alex was raised in an aristocratic family in the Czar’s court. His father was the Czar’s ambassador to Germany. He was especially well versed in Russian history. He always differentiated between his country, Mother Russia, and the present “regime,” as he called it, as if it were a temporary condition. At the time of the revolution, Alex was about sixteen. He fled the country and escaped through the Caucusus. I only know a few facts about the next times of his life. He got to Paris somewhere in the ‘20s and lived by singing in cabarets. His thirties and forties are unrecorded by us. He arrived in America by the ‘50s and worked in the Agricultural Department until a Senator named Joe McCarthy came on the scene. His purge of Communists caught this Russian émigré’ in its sweep and he was extradited to somewhere. He showed up in the ‘70s as an interpreter, maybe via the State Department or the interpreter community. He said he was drawn to the ASTP venture to help his new country, America, do something out of this world with his birth country, Russia. A patriot, twice over.

Sometimes, I forgot Russia was his home, now long removed. We were walking through a palace in St. Petersburg that was designated as an “Institute of Friendship and Peace” by our hosts. This was a typical over-done title, much like the Communist slogans on the buildings. As we walked listening to the guide’s description, Alex leaned over towards me and whispered that his sister had once owned this place. He was connected, even if by the past. Whenever we walked through Moscow, he would likely be wearing his three-piece-suit and overcoat, tall and distinguished. Almost all of the “babushka ladies” who passed us would give this nod of respect to Alex. It was definitely not directed at me. It was as if they saw something in him, maybe something they had lost and still missed. Or maybe it was just my imagination. But it happened all the time.

Alex Tatischeff and Professor Bushuyev

But, it was not my imagination to know how much Alex helped me in understanding our counterparts. He knew when I was pressing too hard and managed to get a time-out. Or he just let something cook a little and become ready in its own time. For good reasons, and some not to be discussed, he was also trusted by the Soviets in both little and big things. They respected him and sometimes used him as a conduit to us. It was heart-warming to see this honorable man, in his twilight years, finding ways to help both of us in this venture to make space travel safer for the humans who traveled there.

More Meetings Scheduled for Moscow

Dave Scott was head of the NASA delegation for the June 18, 1973, meeting in Moscow. I had decided to stay through the Skylab crew visit and return. Dave went through all the preps for the meeting and it was good to get another experienced hand testing the ASTP process. It was also an opportunity for Dave to live and breathe what our WG chairmen were dealing with.

WG1 introduced the experiments subgroup. They identified all the experiments and the schedule for them. Paul Jashke and Yuri Denisov were the co-chairmen of this group. This was our first opportunity to brief the Soviet team on what the experiments were and how they would interact with the crew and flight plan.

WG2 had a design acceptance review of the docking target. The docking target review was completed and the U.S. fixture for alignment of the docking system target on Soyuz was finalized. Soyuz control requirements for the docked phase were up for discussion. Earlier discussion outlined the problem and requirements for the Soyuz to perform, and the Soviets backed off their documentation obligation. They were not ready to provide the info at an appropriate level of detail to satisfy the terms of the problem. Legostayev decided to delay the discussion until a splinter meeting in Houston during July.

WG4 was reported as unsatisfactory. Dave Scott reported that they did not bring the agreed documentation, some was late and there were unexplained absences on the part of their key players. What they brought was poor and their chairman and people were sometimes missing. Dave had reported these failures to Professor Bushuyev, who again responded that he would take care of it.

In WG5, the U.S. side discussed the results of our thermal analysis on materials in the docking system, life support systems and comm gear. We agreed to provide analysis of the Apollo RCS impingement on the docking system seals.

The results in WG2 were disappointing. This group has spent much time discussing these issues without a lot of schedule pressure and there should be little room to not know what is expected. As to WG4, soon after I thought they were finally on track and had told Professor Bushuyev that they had improved, WG4 failed again. They did not bring the goods and were occasionally AWOL.

The continuing deficiency of the Soviet side in WG4 lead me to document specific failures over an extended period of non-performance and incorporate it in a private letter to my counterpart. (There may be some internal reason why this continues. If I had all these complaints over such a long time, the person would have long since been replaced. Why is Nikitin still here?) The letter was several pages, some of it very blunt and requested his firm action. These brief excerpts capture the tone:

“Despite these very significant accomplishments, I am still concerned about the delay we are experiencing in obtaining pertinent technical and program related data from your side. As I discussed earlier, we have experienced a delay in exchange of material of up to nine months. This has occurred even though we have signed minutes committing ourselves to specific dates for these exchanges. Our experience indicates that the need for rapid exchange of information reports greatly increases as the time for flight approaches.”

Referring to WG4, “I think we both agree that the work of this group has not been satisfactory, and this has been due to a lack of timely preparation, primarily, on the USSR side.”

In a splinter meeting on June twenty-seventh to July eleventh, 1973, WG3 signed off on the safety assessment report for the inadvertent opening of the structural latches. They defined the test procedures for the next docking systems tests and the Soviet docking system seals were provided for Rockwell to test the seals of both sides.

As I relate these various activities, I acknowledge that most of them are accounts of the WG process and surrounding events by which we negotiated all the necessary agreements and actions to implement the project on the level where it met the other side. While we construct and operate this new arrangement, there is a considerable amount of attention that must continually be paid to the daily flow of issues internal to our side – technical, budget, interactions, relationships, requests, et cetera.

As a way of trying to convey something of the rhythm that is Program Management at JSC, my office and others like it at JSC have a regular communication with the Center Director, Chris Kraft. My deputy and I would have a regular status meeting with Kraft once a week and more often as need arose. The purpose of the meeting is to report all of the major influences and issues relative to the project, the status of our progress, actions we are taking, items that Kraft might need to address. We include the regular flow of technical spacecraft problems and resolutions, budget matters, contracts and upcoming issues requiring interactions with other organizations, including HQ. The measure of success was whether we leave the boss informed, not surprised by developments and synchronized with our mutual priorities. For reference, the Skylab spacecraft were CSM 116,117 and 118 for the planned flights with 119 as the rescue ship. Plus, the presently excess CSM 115 and 115A were awaiting assignment or disposition. CSM 111 was the primary ship for ASTP and when 119 was released from Skylab support, it would serve as a backup to 111. There are also the docking module, docking system, other flight hardware and software, and other supporting facilities. Then there was the daily traffic and problem solving for all the CSMs.

To illustrate some of that parallel traffic, I selected two typical status sessions with Kraft. One is while we were preparing for Skylab and ASTP; the second one is after the Skylab missions were finished with ASTP left to go. The informal notes are those of Chris Kraft, as he received our weekly communications. Mostly, he is recording my report or occasionally his questions, suggestions or directions to the project. The notes are cryptic and I don’t remember what every item is about, but it conveys the type of significant activity that was constantly going on in parallel with the working groups and joint activities with the Soviet side. Chris took these notes on a simple tablet and when the meeting was finished, he had his office forward them to Virginia Tech where he was keeping his archives.

The meetings with Kraft served another very valuable purpose for the projects. These discussions were the first level of engagement that might lead to discussions with NASA HQ. On some occasions, issues were seen as requiring the attention of George Low. I always felt that the management chain was fully familiar with the major issues we identified within the project. Sometime this led to a discussion, but eventually we had complete agreement as to the positions we were going to take. We must have looked like a wall of Clones to the Soviets, because I, Kraft, Lee and George Low used identical language and positioning in our discussion of issues. The handwritten pages are copies of Kraft’s notes and capture a sense of the typical traffic before Skylab flies in 1973 and afterwards in 1974.

Chris Kraft’s Meeting Notes Page 1, May 8, 1973

Chris Kraft’s Meeting Notes Page 2, May 8, 1973

Chris Kraft’s Meeting Notes Page 3, May 8, 1973

In the fall of 1973, our family moved into our newly built home. It was five acres, half for Jenny’s horse and ponies and most of the rest adjoining a large section of woods for the boys. We often had our overseas visitors to our homes. One of the Soviet Flight Directors, Bobkov, gave our young Bryan a Soyuz model. They saw each other on several visits and interacted well. Interesting that some twenty years later, Bryan was on his way to becoming a Flight Director and worked at a console called Russia Interface Officer (RIO) for the Shuttle flights to their MIR space station. Bobkov was on the other end of the line. Small world. Bryan always took Professor Bushuyev out to the woods and gave him a running commentary on all they did out there. Bushuyev was fond of telling others that he understood Bryan better than he did me.

During the ninth to twentieth of July, there was a meeting of Working Groups 0, 1 and 2. This meeting was intended to complete some specific items and confirm project readiness for the October mid-term meeting. Most of the subjects for this meeting were under the purview of Pete Frank and now Alexei Yeliseyev as WG1 chairmen. Both of these chairmen would also serve as Flight Directors. The Soviets explained their plan to launch a precursor flight of a Soyuz equipped in ASTP configuration. The team sought additional opportunities to exchange observers and specialists in tests and flight preparations. More experience together was shown to be very helpful. Six safety assessment reports (SARS) were approved by the technical directors and turned over to the working groups. Professor Bushuyev was dismayed by the WG4 problems on the Soviet side and promised steps to resolve the problem. The PAO work and the communications interface between control centers was transferred to WG1. U.S. experiments were still under review, but the preliminary concepts were discussed to provide a basis for mutual understanding. The U.S. side of WG1 offered some specific suggestions for a future spacecraft such as hatch size and stronger latches for a larger docking structural ring. This was accepted as info but the Soviets wanted to put that subject on hold till after the ASTP launch. WG2 continued its discussion of the use of the control systems during the docked phase of the mission. This subject also was dragging.

Pete Frank and Alexei Yeliseyev (WG1)

In mid-July, we took Bushuyev and some of his delegation to Downey, California, for a tour of the factory where our flight hardware was in flow. The Rockwell team put on a great show. We received an orientation briefing on the state of the ASTP hardware in process there and the various facilities being used to finalize development, test and house the simulators for the spacecraft – all of which we then toured. The social activities involved receptions and dinners each evening at some of the best venues in Los Angeles: the Queen Mary in Long Beach harbor and the original Disneyland in Anaheim. Hard to top that.

Approaching the fall of 1973, Sid Jones went over to the Shuttle program to help Aaron Cohen with the Orbiter project. Arnie Aldrich came to my office as Deputy. This was very comfortable for me since I had known Arnie from the early days of Mercury when Arnie was one of those brand new graduates and lead flight control teams to our various stations around the globe. At the time, I thought this experience would serve any aspiring young flight controller as a great opportunity in technicals and leadership. It was for Arnie, as he delivered the right sense of calm control in difficult situations. He became the Branch Chief of the Spacecraft Systems Branch for Gemini and Apollo. We were peers as Branch Chiefs in the Flight Control Division, headed by John Hodge. Like my move to program management in 1972, Chris must have felt that Arnie was ready for that step also. So, he came as my deputy as Fall approached. Arnie was a great addition to the Office. I had every confidence that he would do a great job and he did, representing us in Moscow later when we had a late change to the docking system to settle with the Soviets.

The ‘73 Mid-Term Closed the Soyuz 11 Issue

In the lead-up to what became the mid-term review in October of 1973, George Low sent a letter to Academician Keldysh in August expressing his interest in a joint assessment of the project status and special attention to at least four related subjects. They were:

1. Soyuz 11 and the Salyut status

2. Joint participation in test and flight preparations

3. Project milestones

4. Preparation of documents

Keldysh responded in the positive at the end of August. However, in our early project meeting in Moscow, we learned that Keldysh had taken ill again. And he still wanted the mid-term meeting to go ahead and appointed Petrov to head the delegation. Chet Lee notified Low. It was decided that Low and Frutkin would continue on schedule.

Mid-Term Review George Low, Arnold Frutkin, Tom Stafford, Pete Frank, at table Prof. Bushuyev

Soyuz 11 Drawing

In our project meeting before the October mid-term review, there was another involvement by a NASA HQ office, Public Affairs, and that had gotten off to a bad start. The reason for the bad start was the attitude that I received from the chief of that office, John Donnelly. If his attitude animated the discussions with the Soviets, it would make things unnecessarily difficult. We had spent three years keeping this project on a constructive, but firm, basis. It would have been more constructive for the PAO Chief to have prepared a written set of four to five principles that would govern the PAO policy rather than just show up with attitude. That bad start led to an intervention by George Low. I considered that a failure on my part. I should have found a way to avoid it. George Low was concerned that we continue to maintain the longstanding NASA position on media access to the project and not compromise it for project reasons. Low also felt that the in flight TV was very high priority and we should accommodate inputs by the PAO office. (Of course, I agreed on both counts.) Bob Shaefer, an assistant to Donnelly, really wanted to manage that subject, and that seemed preferable to a continuous wrangling over the subject. Bob had obviously given it a lot of thought to it and seemed capable of leading it. That was how we left it. Path of least resistance but, hopefully, no more whining to Low.

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.

The Last Months of 1973

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.

By this time, Tom Stafford and Alexei Leonov had a solid and growing relationship as the public face of ASTP. We all enjoyed the exchanges between the two of them. And when it was time to tell an audience how it would be to fly on this pathfinder mission, Alexei would always finish the remarks with a heartfelt and a slightly accented, “We will do our best.” It was always a hit in any audience. Alexei and, even more often, Cernan, would rib Stafford about speaking a rare form of Rouston, little bit of Russian with a touch of Houston thrown in to cover the Oklahoman. It was also impressive to see the respect from everyday Russians accorded to Leonov who was usually recognized as one of “the cosmonauts.” When he came to the hotel Russiya to visit Stafford, the normally somber staff lit up with that “something special is going on tonight” energy. They were very proud of their cosmonauts and Leonov seemed to be one of the most popular.

Chapter Twenty-seven: 1974 and 1975: Years of Completion

1974

In 1974, the project had three plenary sessions and thirteen splinter meetings. This was a time of hardware testing of qualification and flight units across the board – a natural result of the design schedules. The testing and training exercises, sometimes over months, gave the teams the opportunity to explore details and build a much more complete understanding for handling the possibility of unexpected surprises later in the flow or during the flight itself. This was done with various accommodations for the language skills of their respective participants. The resultant problem solving capability added depth, resilience and speed to our team. It was another part of the growing confidence in project readiness on both sides.

WG1 had a full year of work in 1974. The operations planning cycle emphasized the drive to finalize the flight documentation and the training exercises of both the flight crews and the ground based flight controllers. This latter training was for the flight controllers of one side to learn the spacecraft systems and operations of the MCC of the other side. There was also still new work on the emerging definition of the experiments complement and the photo and TV plan.

In January, in Houston, the group focused on finalizing some details of the mission plan, understanding the requirements for the five joint experiments, use of the communications and tracking systems, and the crew procedures for the transfer between ships. The five bilateral “joint” experiments addressed biological interaction, microbial exchange, use of a multi-purpose furnace, an artificial solar eclipse, and ultraviolet absorption and the other U.S. experiments. All of these had gone through the usual screening by a science board. Notification of selected experimenters went out within two months of the proposals submission. We were still limited by the Dale Myers cap of ten million dollars for the full complement. This cap led to a loosening of the usual quality/reliability schedules. These experiments were not in the same category as the high value experiments of Apollo, which were the main objectives of the lunar science program. The ASTP experiments were not tightly tied to the main purpose of the flight. It was more of an opportunity to do as much science as practical with less overhead. At some point in this process, the cap was also raised to sixteen million dollars, by virtue of our keeping the spacecraft expenditures a little lower. Some additional experiments were added or traded for others and by the end of the year, the total was twenty-eight experiments – five joint, twenty-one unilateral, and two from other international sponsors. The artificial flare/eclipse capitalized on using the circular pattern of the spacecraft to eclipse the sun and then focus on solar flares. The WG1 use of communications and tracking and crew transfer capitalized on the work done in Working Groups 2, 4 and 5. This process also enhanced understanding across working groups.

WG4 was involved in a major test of the compatibility of the communication and tracking systems. The test ran from early February to early April 1974 and gave the interfacing systems a very thorough workout. In addition, there were several systems (e.g. voice, TV, power) supported by a drag-through cable so that we had hard wire backup to the wireless systems. Several minor problems were quickly corrected. The extended test period also gave this group the opportunity to improve their personal communications. And that better understanding carried through the rest of the preps and the flight.

In March, some of our WG5 experts traveled to a Soviet Air Force base near Moscow for an altitude chamber test of the modified Soyuz life support systems, Walt Guy was the leader of this team and they were briefed on the design and operation of this altitude chamber. Besides steady state operation, this test also permitted the varying of the Soyuz cabin pressure to simulate the planned changes in flight and to verify that the gas composition was safe during these and other changes. It all worked fine. More joint participation enhanced our understanding and communications with the Soviet specialists. Our old friend, Lavrov, attended this demonstration of his modified life support system.

As earlier, the next pages illustrate the content of our March eighth weekly session with Chris Kraft. ASTP is now at an advanced state and the Skylab work is in the history books.

Chris Kraft’s Meeting Notes Page 1, March 25, 1973

Chris Kraft’s Meeting Notes Page 2, March 25, 1973

Chris Kraft’s Meeting Notes Page 3, March 25, 1973

Working Group 0 joined the full complement of working groups in the plenary session in April. Experiment planning was still the major topic for WG1 and the development schedule of the hardware allowed completion of the ICDs and high fidelity mockups for training in the spring of 1974. Testing of the Soyuz pyros in the Apollo radiation field was approved. The PAO subgroup had already finished Part One of the PAO document, and Part Two still needed more work. Also, in response to its high priority, the subgroup on photo and TV planning and simulations for the docked phase was making appropriate progress. The definition of what might be called the “ceremonial” crew activities while docked proceeded. More work was done on the checklists, but this is an area that continues with changes well into the final weeks.

We discussed the upcoming Soyuz 16 flight, which was planned as a dress rehearsal for our flight. There was some sparring on one aspect of this flight. The Soviets wanted us to join in the tracking of Soyuz 16 as we would for the joint flight. They wanted to tell us the launch date, but on condition that we not reveal the scheduled date to our media. Based on our previous position, articulated in the PAO discussions, we would not agree to withhold that information from the media. Rather, we agreed that they would call us after launch and its announcement and we would commence tracking.

The call came in at 6:30 a.m. on December second, and was answered by a guard. I called back later, copied the state vector and our tracking exercise went perfectly. Soyuz 16 was completely successful. Professor Bushuyev filled us in on the details during our next telecom, which we were doing regularly now. This was another good step for the project and another example of the Soviet willingness to commit more resources to verify their readiness. Another interesting sideline was the press conference that was held at Star City after the Soyuz 16 crew returned. Our Bob White, WG3 chairman, was in Moscow for the mate check of our flight docking system and attended the press conference. Our western media also attended the conference and were able to ask questions of the flight crew – a first for them.

WG3 conducted the major dynamic docking tests on the facility at JSC from July to September to qualify the design of the docking system. This took an all-out effort by our facility team and both sides of the WG3 team. All the tests were completed successfully within the test window – a credit to all involved.

The Soviet ground controllers traveled to Houston for their familiarization and training on the Apollo spacecraft and MCC operations. Likewise, the United States flight controllers completed their training in September. The training schedule for the astronauts and cosmonauts was for June and September. Frank and Timchenko met in December to continue their work, with emphasis on the joint experiment plan. The group also confirmed the updates of the flight documents and the continuing definition of the photo and TV plan. Both sides were very interested in doing this well because of the global attention this phase of the flight would receive.

Crew Training

WG2 was close to finished in its major area of work. Certainly, they were complete in their plan for using the Soyuz GNC system. But they were also the group studying the RCS thruster impingement on Soyuz and the recently identified Soyuz pyrotechnic testing to verify safety in the radiation environment of Apollo. They also were analyzing the reflectivity of Apollo-Soyuz external materials as it affected their instruments.

During September, the Soviet side reviewed the facility at the Institute of Space Research that would be used in November to December for inspection of both flight docking systems and the mate checks of the two flight units. This was the second major test effort associated with the docking system in 1974 and they were almost back-to-back on the calendar and in different countries. This second WG3 docking system activity was conducted over October to December, and both sides were completely satisfied.

One more possible docking system problem was identified late in 1974. In a docking system mate test in the U.S. preparations for shipment of the docking system to Moscow, there was an apparent problem in being unable to retract the docking system guide ring sufficiently to be able to engage the structural latches. This was resolved as a problem with the ground alignment fixture, and not with the flight hardware. However, this event caused a further look at other possible conditions that could prevent a successful docking.

Rockwell analyzed some off-nominal conditions of temperature and pin/socket misalignment and concluded that there was such a possibility, remote but real. A slight change to pin/socket could avoid this condition. WG3 was split on the issue, Bob White’s team, who were already in Moscow for the mate check, felt it was remote enough to not warrant a late hardware change. Rockwell voted for the change. The worst-case conditions of side loads were two hundred fifty to four hundred fifty pounds (versus allowable side loads of three hundred pounds) combined with a very slight hesitation and retraction of the pin from the side exceeding .02 inches. We concluded that these conditions could be reached in flight.

Bob White discussed it in Moscow with the Soviet team. Syromyatnikov understood and was partial to the change of our hardware but was comfortable with his own. I approved the change and reviewed it with Chet Lee at NASA HQ since I expected it to be controversial with the Soviets. We then explained our logic to the Soviets, especially Professor Bushuyev on our telecom. Arnie Aldrich took the new hardware replacement parts to Moscow and represented our thinking and more details to Bushuyev and WG3 members. The Soviets affirmed that no change was needed with their docking system, but they accepted our change to the U.S. docking system. I may have been influenced by the repeated difficulties with our own docking probe. Something often prevented proper operation of the capture latches as recently as the last spacecraft mission to the Skylab. This late change was awkward, and even embarrassing to us. But, saving face was not the priority. I was confident that this was the right thing to do.

I will also give well deserved credit to Rockwell for their time-critical support to this change, and especially to our overall efforts. Ray Larson, the Rockwell Program Manager, was steadfast in his role as the leader of the Rockwell team. They were “one” with the NASA/ASTP team throughout.

1975-Flight Year

1975 was different from previous years. Up until 1975, the focus was on the design and test processes for the flight hardware – docking system, docking module with its life support equipment, the radios, use of the guidance system and docking targets. Now the testing phase was nearing completion and the designers were tracking the last of the open items. The operations focus for the crews and the ground operators had been on developing and learning the facilities, plans and procedures and how to define all of the above in two languages and with an equal partner. The operations teams were moving to put all that into practice and simulations would be their tests. It was also the beginning of the normal ramp-up of the intensity and adrenaline flow. Besides the simulations, the late traffic was dominated by the joint experiments, the ceremonials with the docked phase, the finalization of the PAO Part Two document and the completion of all onboard documentation.

One of the major confidence boosters at this point was the success of Soyuz 16, the precursor mission to ASTP. The flight duplicated as much as possible of the planned ASTP mission – including launch, orbital rendezvous maneuvers and especially the planned decrease of Soyuz cabin pressure fifteen PSI to ten PSI while on orbit, and then the planned increase to fifteen PSI for entry. Everything about the on-orbit tests of propulsion, the Soyuz life support system and all else performed exactly according to plan. Professor Bushuyev enjoyed giving his report on both our telecom after Soyuz 16 landed and then in person at our first 1975 meeting in January.

There was one remaining item of concern for the Soviet team. This was the subject of the Apollo forward firing “-X” RCS thrusters and effects on Soyuz during closing, docking, and the docked phase on orbit. Ed Smith had been working the issue during the last half of 1974 and determined the concern derived from a NASA motion picture of the Skylab as the Apollo CSM approached the station. Because of the Skylab launch failure, which tore away one of two of the solar panels and the thermal shield, there was a parasol that had been deployed on the first mission over the affected area to reduce the heating on the outer surface of Skylab and its warming effect on the internal cabin temperature in Skylab. The parasol was made out of very flimsy mylar-like material and the CSM RCS firings caused a rippling of the shade material. There was no damage, but the rippling of the material was upsetting to members of the Soviet team. There was concern for heating various systems external to Soyuz, and the potential for upsetting the Soyuz control system. As a result, WG2 had been discussing and analyzing the possible effects on Soyuz and actions to minimize those things. Ed Smith agreed to provide the history on the firing of the –X thrusters during approach to our own vehicles during Apollo and Skylab. During those phases, the thrusters firing duration is computer controlled to be very short pulses during firing on the order of 0.5 seconds. During these periods, the flight experience was that firing greater than 0.5 seconds were very rare and their repetitive firing was even more rare. This level of pulsing was analyzed earlier for thermal effects of the Soyuz external materials including the docking seals. The studies indicated no real thermal problem.

There was still concern the pulses could upset the Soyuz attitude control system. We provided all of the data during the late 1974 working group meetings. We hosted a return visit by one of the Soviet specialists after he analyzed the Apollo RCS pulsing flight history. We gradually learned that their concern was not the duration or frequency of firing but rather how we could guarantee that they would not continue firing after docking system capture. We were making progress on the real definition of the concern.

In January, the next round of discussion ensued. To limit the unwanted pulses, the Apollo procedure was: at capture, the Commander ceases translation and switches from the SCS to the CMC “free mode.” This mode will only fire thrusters when the hand control is operated by the Commander. Then, without moving the hand controller, the Commander turns off four RCS select switches that interrupt the electrical power to the four –X thrusters. They now have no electrical power to cause the firing. To his credit, Legostayev understood this very well and tried unsuccessfully to convince Professor Bushuyev and others.

Presented to the Soviet audience, all of whom believe firmly in automatic controls and don’t trust manual controls, the debate continued anew and became heated. We decided to try another route and offered Petrov and Yeliseyev (who was a skeptic but had flown with General Shatolov on several Soyuz flights) a session in the simulator with Stafford and another crewmember to call out “capture.” The procedure was run several times and the simplicity of it seemed to assure the two Soviet observers. As least they were ready to close the subject, and they did. I do believe that the resolution took a little arm-twisting internal to their delegation. It might take extra time to document this resolution in our formal documents, but that was workable. This was our last plenary before the FRR in six months.

DS mate checks From left: Bob White and Vladimir Syromyatnikov WG3 Chairmen

The Aerospace Safety Advisory Panel

There was one more important group to be satisfied and it had to be done at this meeting with the last planned visit by Professor Bushuyev to the U.S before the July launch. In the U.S., there is an independent review group, chartered by Congress after the Apollo fire. The group reports to the NASA administrator as part of the safety and flight readiness process for every manned space flight. It is called Aerospace Safety Advisory Panel (ASAP) and their work is well respected by the NASA team. Since approval at the May ’72 summit, they started in their normal reviews of all of our plans for the mission in order to assess the mission safety. They interviewed all of the U.S. working groups and one of the ASAP members (Charles Harrington) traveled to Moscow and witnessed the late 1974 docking system mating test. Also in December, we provided them with an evaluation of the Soyuz 16 flight results. That and the fact that Bushuyev would not be back before the flight led to a request from ASAP to ask some specific questions of Professor Bushuyev. This represented a legitimate request on their part to complete their picture of the overall safety. And it should have been raised and addressed earlier.

But, I was concerned about the appearances of this group. This was a very high-level U.S. panel, including the Commanding General of the Defense Nuclear Agency, and it could easily feel like an interrogation to Bushuyev. They wanted us to translate and give Bushuyev written questions. I suggested that they let me lead him into the areas under discussion and listen to Bushuyev talk about these subjects. I would follow up to be sure that the questions would be fully answered, and if some were not they could ask for clarification. They were good with that approach. I went back to talk with Bushuyev with my trusted interpreter, Alex Tatischeff, and explained the background of why this panel was chartered and who these men were. I told him that I thought he could make a valuable contribution to the U.S. understanding of what the Soviet side has done to assure the safety of our joint flight.

In turn, Alex explained that the Russian word for this actually had two meanings: “safety” as we know it and “security” as in guards, fences and secrets. We stressed that this was not about National Security, rather cosmonaut safety. I told him that he did not have to defend the safety record of Soyuz. I also explained that, “members of the panel only hear my voice.” For them, “Your opinions and your arguments will be very authoritative.” Bushuyev was good to do the interview. It covered hazards such as fumes, fire, toxicity, pryos firing and inadvertent release of the docking latches. Also to be discussed was the operational decision making, planning, simulations and testing of those decisions. I coaxed out reminders of the extended time we had for our specialists to work together and how that served our mutual understanding. In the end, I think the panel learned more about their questions in this style of interview and they also got an upfront example of how the two of us worked together. Bushuyev was very forthcoming and informative during these discussions. By now, he was accomplished in response to questions. It seemed that he surprised the panel with his open and straightforward answers. I assumed the project got a good report card.

During February, the cosmonaut delegation visited the KSC launch site. These were the same venues—KSC tour and Disney World—which Professor Bushuyev and key members of his team visited earlier with me. The KSC team outdid themselves in making our guests most welcome and very well informed. Great job. The ASTP crewmembers joined them for a tour of the facilities and the flight vehicle. Their Florida visit also included an enjoyable stop at Disney World. The group then traveled to Houston and continued their final tune-ups. Prime and backup crews went through the simulators, rehearsing all the planned joint activities and the joint communications and language training. The MCC operators participated with their counterparts in the three two-day training sessions of selected phases of the joint part of the mission. WG1 continued with PAO subgroup working part POA Part Two that was finalized five days before launch. Much attention was focused on the completion plan for the onboard documentation.

Most of our working groups, except WG1, involved in the simulations arrived in Moscow on May fifth. Our task was to finalize all of the remaining open paperwork and present our status and recommendations on the flight readiness to the senior level FRR board.

Besides, Low and Frutkin, John Yardley (AA for OMSF) and Walt Kapryan (KSC launch director) joined the group as did I and we toured the Baykonur launch site before the FRR on May twenty-third. Professor Bushuyev also joined our delegation at the launch site. The tour started with a visit to the launch pad used for the Gagarin launch in April 1961. The launch pad was different than ours; the vehicle was not held down on the launch pad, it actually flies out of the pad. The booms fall back and away from the stack as moved by a counter balance and then gravity. The stacking of the vehicle is done horizontally – first the spacecraft, then the shroud over the spacecraft, then that assembly is taken to the pad for fuel, later on, the spacecraft plus shroud is mated to the launch vehicle in the horizontal position. The final action moves the stack to the vertical and places it on the launch pad. On this trip, we learned the Professor Bushuyev visited and stayed in the cottage at the launch site with Korolev, who was the founder and Chief Designer of their space program. He began working with Korolev, right after the war in spacecraft and launch vehicles. Busheyev had told me earlier that he and his wife worked in an aircraft factory during the war and they had relocated with it to east of the Ural Mountains to get out of the range of the Luftwaffe. Back in Moscow at the FRR, the two Technical Directors reported on our respective readiness and completion of all the necessary certifications. Low asked several questions on Soyuz 16 and two Cosmos flights as to whether they had any significant anomalies. Bushuyev reported two minor conditions, namely – too much cooling on the feet and some food problems.

WG1 represented by Timchenko had four major work areas – flight operations, training, experiments, and spacecraft compatibility. The planning was increased because they developed multiple plans, with lighting at launch and recovery being different over time. Some of the experiments also required certain lighting conditions. They were completed and flight ready with no open issues.

Flight operations were to be directed by a Flight Director in each MCC, responsible for his own crew and spacecraft. There were teams of experts to consult if necessary, from each country and located in the other’s MCC. Low probed further in the area of command and control.

The discussions can be summarized in a few simple principles. The Flight Director in each MCC is in charge of his own spacecraft and crews. Likewise, Commanders can also be in charge of their own spacecraft and crew when there is no time to consult with MCC. If the crew is in danger, the respective Flight Director or crew can act unilaterally. The examined contingencies had been studied and documented onboard. Solutions to unexamined contingencies depend on the training of the crews and MCC teams. Victor Legostayev reported for WG2. The docking target was mounted and alignment verified with target fixtures. For Apollo control while docked, only two of four roll jets would be used, forward firing – X thrusters are shut off within two seconds of capture. Bob White spoke for the WG3 and described the basic functions of the docking systems. Since the mid-term review, three-and-a-half months of mating and dynamic development testing were completed in 1973. Two months of mating and dynamics qualification test over a temperature range of seventy degrees Celsius to minus forty degrees Celsius and a wide range of contact conditions were conducted.

One more possible docking system problem had been identified late in 1974. This led us to make a late change to the pin/socket alignment aids. The mating of two U.S. docking systems to two of the Soviet docking systems confirmed they were ready.

In WG 4, Nikitin presented the results on the radios and the drag through cable communication equipment. They verified these in place on the Soyuz to assure that any electromagnetic interference would be acceptable and it was. Nikitin also reported on the positive results of the testing of the Soyuz pyrotechnics in the spacecraft RF environment, which was of concern because Apollo was using the high gain antenna to communicate with the ATS-F satellite. The ATS-F provided coverage over a little more than half of the orbit. The pyrotechnics were safe.

Since the mid-term, Working Group 5 had completed an altitude chamber test of Soyuz including the procedural changes to decrease and later increase the cabin pressure. They also evaluated flight coverall material to satisfy our flammability requirements. Both sides participated in the manned and unmanned vacuum chamber test of the DM. The Soviets also subjected all of their equipment being brought into Apollo against our flammability requirement.

After the working group reports, the Technical Directors reported all the schedule items were complete, except for a few, that were planned for later completion. These included the next MCC simulation, the final versions of onboard documentation, the final checklist for joint experiments, a failure report on an experiment sensor, finalizing the PAO Part Two document and eventually the post flight report.

George Low was still worried about decision in unexamined or urgent contingencies situation. George also acknowledged that the teams had done all that they could and he thanked them for that. Low and Kotelnikov signed the FRR readiness statement and the project continued towards July 15, 1975.

Back in Washington, Fletcher and Low continued to deal with questions of Soyuz safety from Senator Proxmire. They had plenty of material to answer questions including those related to the April fifth Soyuz launch vehicle failure that triggered an abort sequence in the Soyuz. Two cosmonauts were safely recovered some eleven hundred miles downrange in deep snow. There were further questions from Senator Proxmire regarding the command and control system capacity to could accommodate Soyuz 18, Salyut 4 and the ASTP Soyuz at the same time. Professor Bushuyev clarified that, should the missions overlap, the Soviets would use separate control centers and teams. Further, ASTP had the higher priority in case of a conflict over resources.

NASA held its traditional in-house FRR later back in the U.S. NASA was ready to proceed to launch. Visiting specialists from Moscow arrived on July eighth, Chuck Lewis led our delegation to Moscow. Marilyn and the Lunney family traveled to KSC for the launch. My parents joined the gathering and all were focused on cheering (and praying) the launch vehicle into orbit. They enjoyed the beach also. All personnel and systems were ready to join the countdown for July fifteenth.

FRR SIgning From left: Prof Bushuyev, Academician Kotelnikov, George Low, Glynn Lunney

ASTP Launch Day Is Here

The morning of July 15, 1975, arrived and I entered the MCC control room at about 6 a.m. and Alex Tatischeff followed me in. We sat together in this place and, for a moment, the past and the future tried to merge. In a short while, the reality of the Soyuz launch complex was displayed on the large TV screens. The weather at Baykonur was good and the countdown was proceeding normally. Moscow was eight hours ahead in time zones from Houston. The TV picture of the launch pad was augmented with some public affairs commentary. I had a chance to check in with Professor Busheyev, who was in his position in Mission Control and ready for the liftoff, probably feeling the same way I was. We got to liftoff time and the launch vehicle flew from the pad just as advertised. After sequentially firing the three Soyuz stages, the Soyuz 19 spacecraft with Leonov and Kubasov was now in orbit. Another call to Professor Busheyev brought assurance that he was smiling and happy with the progress so far.

Our crew went through the usual wakeup routine medical exams, and then breakfast. They also watched the replay of the Soyuz launch. Once on the pad, all of the countdown steps proceeded normally and the Apollo liftoff was at 2:50 p.m. CDT. It was a beautiful launch and we were in the proper orbit to begin the space ballet that is rendezvous. Ten years ago, rendezvous had seemed so difficult and now we were old hands at it. Stafford’s docking of the CSM to the docking module was, in fact, excellent. Tom had the most accurate roll alignment that I could remember although he had sunlight in the COAS creating a problem to see the target. Two maneuvers put the Apollo on the proper schedule of catch-up rate with the target Soyuz. The Apollo crew was informed that the Soyuz crew had a problem with their TV camera. After the sleep period started, Tom Stafford reported a problem with the docking probe. Vance Brand could not insert the tool to collapse the arms of the probe, which was necessary in order to remove it from the tunnel. Brand was able to see that some part of the pyro connector was blocking the tool from full insertion. In that condition, the probe could not be removed. At first, Neil Hutchinson, Flight Director, and the Soviet Flight Director decided to just close the hatch and wait until morning. But they had to leave the hatch open because the probe still blocked the hatch closing. That problem was left to morning so the sleep period could begin.

The Soyuz crew woke up first and they were trying to fix the TV camera that would be used to photograph the Apollo as it approached Soyuz. Once our crew was awake, they got the probe collapsed and out of the tunnel. During the day, Brand was able to spot Soyuz with the tracking sextant and soon thereafter Apollo got radio communications with the Soyuz. The Apollo was maneuvered into its co-elliptic orbit and was on the way to intercept the Soyuz. At 11:10 a.m. in Houston, the crew reported capture. Stafford went through the planned steps, especially those required to assure no firings from the –X thrusters. Leonov had reminded him about that earlier and Stafford had asked Leonov to tell Professor Busheyev that all the –X thrusters were off. Stafford and Slayton started to open up the docking module, but there was a strong smell in the docking module. They decided to wait as it seemed to be getting better and within minutes it cleared sufficiently for Stafford and Slayton to enter the docking module. Then all that remained was to equalize the tunnel pressure, open the Soyuz hatch and then the most forward docking module hatch. This was done and we watched two of our old friends say hello to our two new friends in the Soyuz module. They exchanged flags as gifts to both countries. The cosmonauts brought a United Nations flag up in the Soyuz, and gave it to the U.S. crew to bring back to earth on Apollo. They also signed some papers of certification for the Federation Aeronautique Internationale commemorating this joint flight.

The crews heard from each of their national leaders: Premier Brezhnev, through a well-known announcer before the first handshake, and President Ford, afterwards in a conversation with all five crewmembers. The crew then had time for a quiet lunch together, with the whole world joined in on television. After these ceremonial events, Stafford and Slayton made their goodbyes and were back in the command module. After the hatches were all secured, there was a rise in pressure in the tunnel between the Soyuz hatch and the docking module hatch. The pressure rise in the tunnel could be an indicator that either of the two vehicles was leaking cabin gas into the tunnel. However, with time to analyze, there was a pressure increase but due to the warming of the air. Neil Hutchinson worked on this problem with the Soviet Flight Director Vadim Kravets. They had never worked together but found common ground in solving this problem and Neil was quite pleased with how easily the resolution occurred. Understanding was quick and the analysis was accurate.

On the next day, we had visits back and forth between both vehicles. Brand and Kubasov visited together in Soyuz, Stafford and Slayton hosted Leonov in the command module. Kubasov had taken an interest in the science demos especially the work with the gyroscope and he had a good time with the demos, with Brand narrating for the camera. Brand and Kubasov assembled two halves of a medallion representing their mission and they exchanged native tree seeds. Stafford and Leonov entered the Soyuz and Brand and Kubasov went back to the command module. There was a joint press conference with all of the crewmembers. When asked to comment on the food, Leonov made the point, ”It’s not the food you eat but who you eat the food with that makes it special.” The crews then moved to a farewell about 3:50 in the afternoon and closed the hatches. There were over fifteen hours of U.S. crewman in the Soyuz and ten-and-a-half hours of Soviet crewmembers in Apollo.

After a long day – and a very successful one – the crews moved to their sleep periods, but then again they were soon awakened by a master alarm that oxygen pressure in the docking module had decreased a little. It was soon pumped up and okay. On day five, after undocking, there would be a re-docking by Slayton and some complicated flying procedures for the joint UVA experiment. Plus, the U.S. crew backed the Apollo vehicle away such that its circular shape matched that of the sun and allowed measurements to be taken from Soyuz of the corona of the sun. There was another experiment called ultraviolet absorption (UVA), which was intended to measure atomic Oxygen and atomic Nitrogen at these altitudes.

Soyuz Launch

Apollo Launch

In getting ready for the re-docking, Slayton had the same problem as Stafford with the COAS, which is a sighting device to aid in docking. There was too much sunlight coming directly into the instrument. This was making it difficult to see well for the re-docking. Slayton did bring the vehicle in to capture, and the closing rate was less than the first contact. But after capture, there were some roll thruster firings commanded by Slayton for three seconds. This caused the combined vehicles to oscillate and the Soyuz control system quickly dampened the motion. The retraction and hard docking by the structural latches were nominal. The motion looked worse than it was and had people nervous for a few minutes. Syromyatnikov was satisfied that the docking system performed properly in this off-nominal condition.

After the second undocking, Slayton moved the Apollo away to begin the UVA experiment. This was a very exacting and complicated set of maneuvers. The Apollo ship was out of plane to the Soyuz, with the nose of Apollo pointing at the side of Soyuz and then swinging around the Soyuz from slightly ahead to slightly behind it. The data takes were at distances of one hundred fifty meters, five hundred meters and one hundred meters by sending a beam to hit the reflectors on Soyuz and back to Apollo to be captured by the spectrometer. The task of flying Apollo, operating the computer and operating the experiment doors and the sensors took the combined efforts of all three crewmembers. At the end of this day, the team was very happy with the success we had with the re-docking and the two experiments. It was a full and at times intense day. On the next day, the cosmonauts finished their stowage and entry preparations. When it was time, they began the entry checklist. The entry was nominal and they had a good landing in the Soviet Union. The report of their safe entry and landing was watched on TV in our MCC and reported to the Apollo crew. We had three more days of flying, which we used to conduct the unilateral experiments. Finally on July twenty-fourth, it was time to come home.

All preparations went by the book and the deorbit maneuver was at 3:37 in the afternoon. Telemetry and voice reports from the crew were the standard ones and they landed a few miles from the carrier, New Orleans. In the MCC, we were in a celebratory mood, totally unaware that our crew was struggling with a life or death condition on board the spacecraft.

Tunnel Meeting Alexei Leonov and Tom Stafford

When the ship gets to thirty thousand feet in altitude, there is a checklist call for two switches to be engaged, ELS AUTO and ELS LOGIC. “ELS” stands for earth landing system, and it controls the jettisoning of the apex cover, deploying the drogue chutes and the main chutes and shutting down the control system. All are done in a certain sequence. These two switches were not actuated when they should have been because of cabin noise or some distraction. And the apex cover stayed on and the drogue chutes did not deploy. At about twenty three thousand feet, Brand manually fired the apex cover and the drogues. He reported later, “Almost at the same time, the cabin was flooded with a noxious gas, very high concentrations it seemed to us.” They could see it, smell it and it was irritating the skin. They started coughing and Brand actuated the two ELS switches. That stopped the RCS firings that were trying to counteract the swinging on the drogue chutes. However, in that short time, the cabin pressure relief valve opened automatically and was drawing in outside air as it should and unburned oxidizer from the RCS system that should not have been firing. This all happened in seconds and left the crew in a very dangerous environment. Nitrogen tetroxide is hell on people. They worked through the checklists while struggling to breathe and coughing the whole time. The spacecraft landed hard and flipped upside down. This left the crew strapped in their couches and hanging against the straps. The location of the incoming air mixed with the fumes was closest to Brand. Stafford made his way to the oxygen masks and secured one on Brand. Soon they all had oxygen flowing, Brand activated the uprighting system. Stafford opened the vent valve and fresh air came in. They began to feel more in control. And their recovery proceeded normally except for the exposure and its effects. But they would have to spend two more weeks in Honolulu and in the hospital.

I have to say that, at first, I did not appreciate the severity of the conditions on board and the effect on the crew. Nor did I think that this was any more than a precautionary, conservative approach to the treatment of the crew. It gradually dawned on me that this was a very close call and not just a precautionary stay in the hospital. I felt better in a few days when the report was more favorable and the crew would be back within the two week forecast. And so they were, with Slayton delayed after a check on a lesion in the lung, which was benign. This problem cast a damper on our reactions in the days after the flight. It was a more sober mood than it might be otherwise. Still, ASTP was a remarkable accomplishment. And we came back to seeing our project that way, and even more so as time went on.

Several times in late 1974 and 1975, the issue of a follow-on flight was discussed. The Soviet suggestions were mostly in the category of repeats of ASTP, probably with different experiments. The Soviets were happy with the idea of a near-repeat, or even more than one flight. That is essentially what they proposed for our consideration. We did not have anything more attractive to propose. In reaching a decision, it was necessary for NASA to recognize the very different conditions that were bearing on the manned programs of both countries.

The Soviets were just beginning a Salyut/Soyuz program of understanding how to use a space platform in their development of space. This led to an ongoing Soyuz program, including its continuation for the foreseeable future. As we had learned, they were capable of producing additional Soyuz systems at costs that were very acceptable to them. On the other hand, NASA was at a transitional point away from the Apollo space systems to the development of the new Space Shuttle authorized in 1972. Within NASA, the Shuttle was a major budget challenge from the beginning and there was not much incentive to continue funding for the Apollo production and sustained engineering support unless there was a compelling reason to do so. We could not find one. We felt that we had already taken a very big step forward with ASTP and repeat flights would not add very much to the program or even its legacy. Furthermore, NASA believed that there was not much support in Congress for more repeat flights. NASA HQ was of the same opinion and there was simply no champion for the idea. I believe the Soviets were disappointed, but had to accept the NASA conclusion.

In the fall of 1977, during the Carter administration, the subject of another joint flight surfaced. I traveled to Moscow again in pursuit of a follow-on mission that would be compelling. The assumption was that the Shuttle/Salyut combination coupled with more time and new ideas for science experiments might lead to an attractive mission. In order to emphasize the science, Noel Hinners, the Associate Administrator for Space Science at NASA HQ, was the head of the delegation. Besides Jerry Bostick and I, the rest of the team was from the Space Sciences community with both NASA and university personnel.

I believe that Noel and his science team were aggressive about seeking new ideas and different ways to use the Shuttle/Salyut capabilities. They worked that issue hard over the several days that we were there. Jerry Bostick and I gathered some information and data relative to the Salyut. After the joint discussions, it still did not seem that any new breakthrough was on the table or even in the offing. We were not there to reach any firm conclusion, but rather to bring information back to NASA HQ for wider U.S. consideration (including the White House). But, there was no tentative proposal that looked like it would attract much or any support. And we were still years from flying the Shuttle, with all the uncertainty that portended.

I did encourage Hinners to conduct a private U.S. delegation discussion before we left Moscow so that we had a consensus package of observations for all of the members of the delegation to take back to the U.S. It was emphasized that the delegation was not authorized to decide on a follow-on flight one way or the other. This was worth doing because the delegation, once home, would scatter to very many institutions across the country and we members should avoid individual speculation on another flight. The issue of a follow-on flight was soon decided and communicated to the parties, including the Soviet side, by NASA HQ. The U.S. would not pursue a follow-on flight at this time.

Jerry and I had a great wrap-up to this trip. We visited my brother, Bill, his wife Becky and sons, Will and Tim, where they lived in Kilkenny, Ireland. Bill was there as the manager of a Fieldcrest project to build a textile plant in this small town. We visited the Kilkenny pub tht had just been chosen the best in Ireland. The locals called Bill the “Man from Fieldcrest.” We enjoyed a hurling match, sort of a hockey game on grass. We had a super visit catching up with all of the differences that Bill’s family experienced in their time there. They lived in Ireland about a total of three years.

Perspectives

Apollo started as a reaction to the mortal threat posed by the Soviet Union. And fourteen years later, the last flight of Apollo was a cooperative effort with the Soviet Union to make space flight safer for all who would travel there and perhaps in ways even beyond docking systems. In 1993, eighteen years after ASTP, the circumstances were right to return to cooperation with the new/old country of Russia. The Berlin wall was down and the old Soviet Union was gone. It was a disruptive time for all who lived behind the Iron Curtain. There was a U.S. interest in engaging the Russians in the Space theater in order to maintain the focus of that segment of Russian industry on Space (rather than proliferate those technologies to more threatening parties and purposes). The Russians also had significant experience in long duration flight.

This U.S. interest lead to an agreement to cooperate in merging the Russian MIR-2 plan with the U.S. space station development and the joint project was renamed the International Space Station. This initiative was begun by the Administration of Dan Goldin, NASA Administrator, with significant help from Tom Stafford of ASTP. At first, this cooperative effort lead to eleven Shuttle flights to MIR-1, the latest Russian space station, as a training base for the ISS. This extended from February 1994 to June 1998. The first flight to begin the ISS assembly was in November 1998 when a Russian rocket delivered the Zarya module to orbit on a Proton rocket. The first crewing was with the Expedition 1 flight in November 2000 and the ISS has been continuously occupied since then.

Just as the ISS assembly began to accelerate, the Space Shuttle, Columbia, was lost during entry in February 2003. The Shuttle flight of Discovery in July 2005 was the return to service of the Shuttle fleet. During this Shuttle hiatus of two-plus years, the ISS crewing and resupply was serviced by the Soyuz. So in this case, the partnership with the Russians clearly paid dividends.

In 2014, the U.S./Russian partnership is failing because of geopolitical conflict and it remains to be seen what the outcome will be. The lesson is that you have to anticipate some problems with partnerships and plan accordingly. That does not invalidate the cause of partnerships. The U.S. put itself in an inferior position by cancelling the Constellation Program (Return to Moon and eventually Mars) in 2010 and the Space Shuttle in 2011. The original understanding after the loss of Columbia was that NASA would cancel the Shuttle in 2010 in order to make funding available for Constellation. Early Constellation capability in spacecraft and launch vehicles would have enabled crew ISS visits by the middle of the decade. Instead, NASA lost both programs and had to rely on the Russian Soyuz again. This condition is planned to be relieved by the development of commercial crew vehicles. They seem to be making good progress, but are still not available. They are scheduled for first manned ISS flights in 2017.

I am hopeful that an exploration mission beyond low earth orbit will be approved in the future. If so, I believe that the program should be based on an international and commercial coalition. Yes, that presents difficulties and dependencies. It is also possible that the “partnership well” has been tainted/poisoned by real or perceived disappointments. I hope not. Such a coalition would bring political support, the prospect of reduced cost and an increase in the brainpower available. Smart people should be able to manage the risk of “failures of partnership” because they do add value to sustainability and cost reduction.

Cost is a major hurdle. I believe that the U.S. budget and debt posture will remain hostile towards major new starts. Since these programs extend over years and new administrations, any hope for such a start and its continuation requires a real-world approach towards cost that is both credible and sustainable. The only programs promising lower costs today are the commercial vehicle programs (unmanned and manned). Assuming that works out to be true, how can that capability be brought to bear on the next program start and can the commercial lessons be infused into NASA contracting? Or will some other solution prevail?

In our present state of technology, all programs are and will be severely constrained by propulsion performance. Program architecture should consider ways to avoid depending on the last measure of stretching those margins. This is especially true in the conceptual phase where the developer is still selling the program and there is real incentive to promise an attractive level of accomplishment per program dollar. That optimistic squeezing infects the performance, cost, schedule, contracting and other disciplines somewhat individually on the front end. Once in practice, the problem in one discipline tends to interact with some or all of the others and they become amplified, never diminished. This always leads to cost growth.

There is another issue that our participation with the Soviets brings to the surface. They had a heavier reliance on automatic systems and questioned our approach of much more crew involvement. Without revisiting all of that, I believe there is value in capitalizing on the modern systems being installed on our vehicles. Fly-by-wire systems with distributed architecture offer the option of various levels of automation, from one function to a complete mission phase. On the ISS, MCC actually commands the systems that control the flying of the ship and the crews operate the experiments. Some functions such as replacing equipment and requiring manual manipulation are performed manually on board the ship.

Perhaps the best way to make this point is by way of a Shuttle example. Imagine a scenario where it was required to fly the Orbiter back without crew involvement. The Orbiter had a guidance system which can separately control the retrofire, the entry phase and the landing phase, but there was not a programmed sequence which could be called up to do the entire sequence. Even if there were one, there were several functions that were only commanded by hard-wired, switches actuated by the crew – APU start to pressurize the hydraulic system for aerosurface control and another for landing gear deploy. These functions were not computer commands. We did not have a full-auto option for return. For future design, full-auto should be the goal, with crew as prime or backup for reliability, criticality or other reasons. Some functions may be difficult to automate but technology has come far – auto docking and auto land are only the latest. Special attention is needed for functions, like IMU alignments and even hatch management. To take advantage of the modern capability, we need to welcome the prospect of full-auto.

ASTP 20th Reunion From left Chet, Marilyn Alexei, Valeri, Glynn and Tom

To close this discussion of perspectives and the effect of ASTP on the manned space environment, the present International Space Station is an incredible achievement. It is orbiting our planet with an international crew of six on a 24/7 basis and was created by a joint endeavor of sixteen countries supporting five Space Agencies. As to where all this will take us in the future, we will see. Almost forty years ago, ASTP opened the door of possibilities wider than it had ever been. The future is for this generation to continue to imagine, design and bring to reality.

Epilogue

I went on to many more exciting challenges in the space program, both in NASA and later in the Aerospace industry. All of these roles tested and stretched me. And yet when I reflect on a career, I am always drawn to the first decade plus of Mercury, Gemini and Apollo and what we were privileged to do. The events of these years always emerge with a warm, golden glow around them. The lessons from these experiences are legion. Most of them can be captured with more universal or general categories.

Leadership

The value of leadership cannot be overrated. It is the talent of clarity that keeps a team moving confidently and on the correct path. It is about the direction rather than the mechanics. Lack of it ends up in muddling, loss of follower-ship and poorer decisions on the path to follow. It is not simply the province of the bosses. It is necessary at all levels in a team. Without doubt, the best example we had was Chris Kraft. He was uncanny in his ability to asses a complicated set of circumstances, reduce it to workable options and decide the best course. And I saw his example reflected in the actions of so many of his followers. They say leadership can be taught but the first step is the need to recognize and value it, then to strive to live up to it. Learn from the examples of those around you, when you see it in action. Leadership is trust of the leader and by the leader- and we had a grand abundance on both sides of the trust compact.

In my NASA time, the best examples of leadership were: John Mayer- from early days in mission planning. Bill Tindall – for his enthusiastic synthesis of possibilities into realities. Tec Roberts – for his grace in teaching us to marshal facts and logic to persuade. Chris Craft – for everything he did for me over five decades of friendship. George Low – for his profound contributions to the success of Apollo. There are so many examples of leadership in the flight operations area that it is not helpful to select just a few. They selected themselves. They answered the call and they prevailed.

Teamwork

This is so obvious that it hardly needs discussion. Our operations were a beautiful orchestration where the performance of the team far exceeded the sum of its individual parts. It reached new levels, beyond the ability of any of us as single contributors. We had so many examples of unselfish help being given to bring new people up to speed, to remove some problem or impediment and to explain the reasons behind some of our approaches. This transfer of comprehension and trust accelerated the learning process and made the execution stage much more reliable and dependable.

Preparation

In any endeavor, dues must be paid and a certain level of basic understanding and skills must be attained before even starting. This is a ticket to the show and gets you in the door. Then you will likely discover that several more levels of preparation are necessary which must be personally identified and then achieved. Activities have a way of looking simple from the outside. They usually are more complex than they appear. And, at least in our “real-time” world, they show up at unexpected times.

Attitude

This may be the underlying prerequisite to all of the three above. It enables performance and provides confidence that, even without knowing “how” at the start, the problem will be resolved. It is not so much asking, “How should I do this?” but rather, “When do you need the answers?” Attitude can overcome many drawbacks or disadvantages. It is as simple as how one chooses to look at the world—half empty or almost full.

For the men of the Trench, I will forever treasure your friendships and contributions to our shared grand adventure in space.

Family

Mom and Dad gave us our start in the small coal-mining town of Old Forge, Pennsylvania. Their faith in God and life was reflected in the birth of three boys, Glynn, Bill and Jerry, in the continuing depression of the thirties and our sister Carol after the war. Their faith in us was always evident in the high expectations they set for us, and the quiet encouragement that was ever present. From the present perspective of my own lifetime, I have a much sharper appreciation for what they did and what it must have taken. Thank you Mom and Dad – you set us all on different but satisfying courses, even if we then moved away from home and raised our families that you loved in distant places.

It is amazing how two decisions we make early in life have such long-standing consequences for us. Before we are mature enough to know much, we choose a career path and a spouse. Profession choices usually work out and, with an education, can be adjusted. But, this choice of spouse is a first order determinant to our wellbeing, state of mind and happiness. Marilyn and I recently celebrated our fiftieth anniversary with family and friends. We are on the other side of life from those choices now. And I treasure all the good times and joys with our loving family and I have to wince at my shortcomings.

With four kids, Marilyn served on every child-related activity in Friendswood. As a first, she initiated the start of the Catholic Church in town when baptism for Shawn was two towns away. Then came swimming, cub scouts, brownies, and boy scouts, little leagues for every sport, horse lessons, PTO, PTA, and others I probably never knew of. Eventually, the school board and then president of the school board were guided by her “close to the kids” insights. The community drafted her for a new justice of the peace position in recognition of her service and an election with four contending lawyers could only have one outcome. For the Trench, there was a magic time in the sixties and early seventies when our home was their home and gathering place, even after they married. It was part of the bonding of this band of brothers that has lasted a lifetime and Marilyn gave it all of her patience, caring and no-nonsense.

It goes without saying but must be emphasized – Marilyn made it possible for me to participate fully in this grand adventure. She managed the daily press and crises of family life and did so with caring, competence and common sense. It was comforting for me to know that all would be well with the Lunney unit while I contributed what I could to our Nation’s space program.

Our kids went on to professional careers. Jenny is a veterinary specialist in cardiology and internal medicine, and runs her own business with her husband Kyle of the same credentials. Their three girls are Erin, Caitlin Shea and Daira. Glynn graduated with a B.S. in Petroleum engineering, worked a few years in the Oil patch, went back to Stanford Law and now teaches Law at Tulane University in New Orleans. His three boys are Connor, Bryce and Grant. Shawn took his marketing degree and grew to become a business strategist VP and head of various departments for several small medical device companies. Shawn and his wife Becky have three girls: Abbey, Kendall and Jordan. Bryan was a Flight Director in MCC, first for the space station and later for the shuttle. We are the first family to have two generations serve in that position. His wife, Amori, works in the school system as a teacher substitute and they have three children also: Christopher, Macy and Drake. All of ours graduated from Texas A&M and are Aggies to the core.

When I look back on our family times especially early with the young men of the Trench, it is with a sense of joy and wonder. Being a husband, father and now grandfather is a wonderful gift. I confess that I have received far more than I may have deserved. It is true that the space work was an obsession for me, like so many others at the time. I missed a lot of kid activities and I never made time to coach one of the teams. However, I did try and fail (according to Marilyn and her girls) at umpiring some of Coach Marilyn’s girls’ softball games. The credit for bridging this gap in our family activities belongs one hundred percent to Marilyn. She was the glue that held us together and kept all of our aspirations supported and encouraged. Some years ago and somewhat accidentally, the subject of Dad’s missing time and its effect on our kids came up for family discussion. Our kids, old enough then to be our teachers, felt that they did get a life lesson out of those times. They did not attach much significance to Dad’s missing time from their games or events. Rather they saw the larger lesson. Living life with a commitment to a noble cause and the dedication to serve it well was the lesson they took away and internalized for themselves. I would add that they have improved on the lesson by a better balancing of their life’s priorities.

And now to close and gratefully acknowledge:

The gift of values and formation from Mom and Dad.

The gift of such wonderful children and grandchildren.

The gift of and by Marilyn to create and sustain this circle of love to encompass all of us.

You have blessed me beyond measure. Thank you.

About The Author

Glynn Lunney arrived as a new graduate in 1958 at NACA and the Space Task Group near the beginning of the Mercury Project--where they had to learn how to build, launch, sustain and land one man in a small ship. For Lunney, this involved the mastering of the essence of orbital mechanics and helping to design and eventually operate the monitoring and control functions for that discipline in the Mercury Control Center. He went on to Gemini-- the training ground for Apollo. His small group of operators, the ‘Trench’ in the new Mission Control Center in Houston, mastered the new world of rendezvous, docking, multiple maneuvers and guided entry. As a Flight Director for Gemini, he became one of the leaders of the operations team--planners, controllers and flight crews-- experienced and anxious to roar into Apollo. That was delayed by the tragedy of the Apollo fire. In time, Apollo was back on track and the fifth manned Apollo mission took Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin into history. Lunney went on to perform what he termed ‘his best piece of operations work ever’, coming on-duty one hour after the oxygen tank exploded on Apollo XIII.

Leaving operations, he moved to project management as the Cold War took a new turn in the space theater. After a decade of competition, both countries saw the value in cooperation on rendezvous and docking systems to enable the possibility of rescue of stranded space travelers. Lunney became the US Director and this concept was tested in 1975 with the success of the Apollo/Soyuz docking mission. He was also the project manager for the three transport ships, which brought astronauts up and down to repair and live in Skylab, the first US space station. He was known to refer to his work as “The Best Job in the World”!

Lunney grew up in Old Forge in North East Pennsylvania. He went to Scranton Prep, a Jesuit high school, the University of Scranton for 2 years and then the University of Detroit where he co-oped his last 3 years at the NACA Lewis Laboratory in Cleveland, Ohio. After the period covered by this book, he went on to other executive positions in NASA and to a dozen years in the Aerospace industry. He is most proud of the ‘Medal of Freedom’ award to the Mission Operations team for Apollo XIII.