by Von Hardesty
The Apollo 1 crew was led by the veteran “Gus” Grissom, a member of the original Mercury 7. He had flown on the second sub-orbital mission in 1961, that ill-fated flight where the Liberty 7 capsule had been lost in the Atlantic after the hatch door had blown away prematurely and Grissom had nearly drowned. In 1965, he flew on a successful Gemini mission, adding to his impressive flight log as an active astronaut. A combat veteran, he had flown as an Air Force fighter pilot in the Korean War. Now 40 years old, Grissom enjoyed status as an experienced member of the elite astronaut corps, a man highly regarded for his personal dedication and technical competence.
Edward White, also an Air Force pilot, had won fame on the Gemini 4 mission when he became the first American to walk in space. A San Antonio native, White was a West Point graduate and a former Air Force test pilot. Roger Chaffee, a Navy lieutenant commander, came to the Apollo program with a bachelor’s degree in aeronautical engineering from Purdue University. Apollo 1 was to have been Chaffee’s first spaceflight. The Grand Rapids, Michigan, native was a member of NASA’s third astronaut class, selected in October 1963, and had logged more than 2,300 hours of flying time.
When the three astronauts entered the command module, they began their simulation sequence in a pressurized chamber of 16.7 pounds per square inch of pure oxygen. As the crew went through the detailed checklist, they encountered several communications problems, which prompted delays. Links to the outside were maintained on four channels, by radio or telephone. Searchlights illuminated the Saturn booster rocket, which towered 20 stories above the launch pad. The crew had performed the same routine in the simulator, and the Saturn rocket was not fueled. All seemed routine until a garbled message suddenly came from the Apollo command module—“Fire!” A second message quickly followed, sent by Roger Chaffee: “We’ve got a fire in the cockpit!” Television monitors revealed Ed White’s arms reaching back to release the bolts that held the hatch shut. A television camera caught an ominous yellow glow from the interior of the capsule during these critical seconds. Flames soon appeared at the hatch window. In this enveloping maelstrom of fire and smoke, pad technicians looked on in horror as silver-clad arms attempted in vain to open the hatch. As the seconds passed, a third message reached the controllers: “We’ve got a bad fire…. We’re burning up!” An emergency crew rushed to the capsule and attempted to open the hatch door, only to be driven back by the intense heat. The temperature inside the cabin reached 2,500°F. Repeated efforts to reestablish communications with the astronauts failed.
Silence reigned when the hatch was finally opened. Two NASA physicians hurried from the blockhouse control center to the launch pad, only to discover that nothing could be done to save the lives of the trapped astronauts. Subsequent autopsies revealed that the three men had died from asphyxiation by the inhalation of toxic gases, not from their severe burns. Their nylon suits had melted and fused together in the intense heat of the fire. The tragedy cast a pall over the NASA space program. Three astronauts—Elliot See, Charles Bassett, and Theodore Freeman—had died in airplane crashes, but over the course of six years, no astronaut had perished in any space launch procedure.17
The Apollo 1 fire literally shut down the American space program for months. Webb set up a fact-finding committee under Floyd L. Thompson, the head of the Langley Research Center. Congress took a keen interest in the affair, as did the media. The NASA leadership feared that the Apollo program could be severely delayed or even cancelled. Congress held hearings to assess the reasons for the tragedy. Early in April, the Thompson committee made its report: a detailed set of findings divided into 14 booklets and numbering more than 3,000 pages. While the report did not cite one specific reason for the fire, it did identify a series of factors that led to the tragedy, among them: the pressurized cabin filled with pure oxygen; the existence of combustible materials; faulty wiring; and inadequate means for egress from the capsule. NASA had made the decision to use pure oxygen for simplicity and weight considerations. Notwithstanding all the safety measures, a spark had ignited the fire within the capsule, later traced to defective wiring in the lower equipment bay at the foot of Grissom’s seat. The Thompson committee findings implied that NASA and its contractors had failed to provide proper design, engineering, and quality controls for the Apollo spacecraft. Debate would rage over the accident in the years that followed, and some critics of NASA asserted that the space agency had sacrificed safety in the intense drive to overtake the Russians in the space race. Webb found himself in the crosshairs of public criticism throughout the Apollo 1 crisis, which placed enormous pressures on him. He left NASA in October 1968. His departure coincided with the final phase of the Apollo program.18
The Soviet space program faced its own setbacks during this formative period, although knowledge of these reversals was not fully disclosed until years later. As noted earlier, on March 23, 1961, cosmonaut trainee Valentin Bondarenko perished in a flash fire in a simulation test. He and other trainees spent many hours, even days, in an oxygen-saturated chamber. The 23-year-old Bondarenko died when he attempted to change sensors on his body, using an alcohol cotton swab. He dropped the swab on a red-hot spiral of an electrical element used for heating food. The resulting fire enveloped the chamber and killed Bondarenko. If the Soviets had been more open about the tragic fire and the dangers associated with a pure-oxygen environment, Bondarenko’s fate could have served as a cautionary tale for NASA contractors.19 Soviet cosmonaut Aleksei Leonov thought they did know. He followed the Apollo 1 story with great interest. “The Americans must have known of the tragedy that had befallen Bondarenko in a pure-oxygen environment,” Leonov argued many years later. For him, the “American intelligence services would not have been doing their job properly if they had not informed NASA about what had happened.” For whatever reasons, the lessons to be learned from the Bondarenko incident never influenced the NASA program in any discernable way.20
The Soviets also experienced disaster in that fateful year. On April 24, 1967, just months after the Apollo fire, Vladimir Komarov died during an aborted mission of the newly designed Soyuz 1 spacecraft. The Soviets had planned for Komarov, a talented test pilot, engineer, and veteran of the Voskhod series, to be the pathfinder on a remarkable space spectacular. The script called for Komarov to fly solo into orbit and then be joined the following day by another Soyuz spacecraft with three cosmonauts aboard. The two orbiting space vehicles would rendezvous and then dock, setting the stage for two cosmonauts to transfer to Komarov’s Soyuz 1 in an elaborate, high-risk spacewalk maneuver. Once the transfer had been completed, the second Soyuz spacecraft would return that same day with one cosmonaut on board. This maneuver would establish a new benchmark even as it perfected skills deemed essential for any future lunar mission.
The well-laid plans for the space docking never materialized. No sooner had Komarov reached orbit than his Soyuz 1 began to develop problems. First, one of two solar panels failed to deploy properly. This loss of a solar panel meant a dramatic reduction in power for the guidance and other critical systems of the spacecraft. Soon Komarov faced serious problems with attitude control of his spacecraft. In response, Soviet mission controllers called for Komarov to return as soon as possible and cancelled the second Soyuz launch. At reentry, Soyuz 1 entered the upper atmosphere at high speed, and the spacecraft spun out of control. The Soyuz 1’s parachutes failed to deploy properly, becoming entangled, and the spacecraft was propelled in a high-speed downward trajectory. Komarov was killed instantly. The rescue team found the crashed spacecraft near Orsk, at the tip of the Ural Mountains near the border of Kazakhstan. In the aftermath, the inquiries into the cause of the accident discovered that the complex design for the parachutes had not functioned properly, just one defect in a cluster of design and engineering problems associated with the new Soyuz design. Komarov had gone aloft in an untested spacecraft. Its essential design was sound, and in the years that followed, it evolved into a reliable spacecraft, one that would remain at the e
picenter of the Soviet space missions. In the context of 1967, however, the tragic accident dealt a powerful blow to the Soviets, similar to the consequences of the Apollo 1 accident.21
WERNHER VON BRAUN AND THE SATURN ROCKET
As the American space program unfolded, Wernher von Braun assumed an important role as the prime architect of the Saturn rockets. At this juncture he occupied a key position in NASA planning. Earlier, in January 1958, he and his innovative team of German rocket scientists had lofted America’s first satellite, Explorer 1, redeeming Vanguard’s very public launch-pad failure in December 1957. At the time of this triumph, von Braun already was thinking and planning for the time when the United States would send astronauts, space probes, and other very heavy payloads on adventurous journeys into Earth orbit and far beyond. In the spring of 1957, months before Sputnik 1 was orbited, von Braun and his Huntsville team had begun design studies for a new, massive multi-engine rocket booster, capable of lofting payloads far heavier than any existing launch vehicle. Given further impetus by the October launch of Sputnik, von Braun’s proposed super-booster continued to evolve and received funding for development in August 1958.22
The appeal of von Braun’s proposal, known as Saturn I, lay in its very concept: It would utilize existing components as building blocks to create the brute lifting power for a new generation of high-payload launchers. The first stage of Saturn I consisted of eight Redstone boosters, each with an H-1 rocket engine, an upgraded version of the engine used on the Army’s Jupiter missile. Together, the engines produced 1.5 million pounds of thrust. The engines and the tankage for their liquid oxygen (LOX) and kerosene fuel were clustered around a central core adapted from the Jupiter missile. Von Braun and others jokingly referred to the Saturn I first stage as “Cluster’s last stand.”23 Saturn I’s second stage was powered by four engines fueled by LOX and liquid hydrogen, a mix providing greater thrust than LOX and kerosene. However, this mixture was highly volatile, required special handling, and proved very difficult to develop.24
When they began work on Saturn I, von Braun and his team were still part of the Army Ballistic Missile Agency (ABMA). The Saturn program was transferred to NASA late in 1959 and the ABMA followed in 1960, despite fierce resistance by the Army to giving up its space program. The Army’s missile facility in Huntsville, Alabama, was renamed as NASA’s George C. Marshall Space Flight Center, and von Braun became its director. Throughout this period, which at times caused his loyal team considerable uncertainty about their future, he did not waver in his reassurances. He told them he had no doubt about an eventual “moon-landing project” that would include a major role for “our team.”25 Events would prove his statements true: The start of the Saturn development was a major milestone en route to the moon. While an important figure in the NASA organization, though, von Braun was not solely responsible for the success of the manned lunar program. He was part of a team. The combined creativity, managerial skills, brilliance and foresight of people like Webb, Gilruth, Phillips, Houbolt, Dryden, and others were needed to drive the American space program forward in the 1960s.
Saturn I, a concept demonstrator for multi-engine heavy-lift rockets, carried out 10 successful flights beginning in October 1961. Its successor, the Saturn IB, was upgraded with more powerful first-and second-stage engines. In January 1968, it boosted the Apollo 5 mission, placing the lunar module and an unmanned prototype lunar lander into Earth orbit.26
Saturn I and IB essentially were the warm-up acts for the main event: Saturn V, the rocket that would deliver humans safely to the lunar surface. Saturn V was an astonishing and elegant engineering triumph, unprecedented by any measure. It was 364 feet tall; fully loaded, it weighed 5.8 million pounds; and a total of 11 engines powered its three stages, producing 8.7 million pounds of thrust. The first stage was powered by five F-1 kerosene and LOX-fueled engines, each with a thrust of 1.5 million pounds. The second stage contained five J-2 engines running on liquid oxygen and liquid hydrogen, and the third stage used a single J-2 engine. Saturn V’s mighty engines could place more than 124 tons in Earth orbit or propel 50 tons toward the moon at 25,000 miles per hour.27 The launch vehicle generated superlatives at every turn, requiring a 52-story building at the Cape just to assemble it in a vertical position before it was rolled, complete, to its launch pad. Some have compared Saturn V to the construction of the Great Pyramid in ancient Egypt, noting that the Greek historian Herodotus had been told during a visit to the ancient site in 450 B.C. that 400,000 people had labored to build it. In the 1960s, nearly 2,500 years later, NASA employed a similar number of people on Project Apollo, with Saturn V the most visible product of their work.28
Saturn V’s first stage was so huge that once assembled it had to be transported by barge through the Gulf of Mexico and up the Pearl River to NASA’s isolated Mississippi Test Facility (later the Stennis Test Center). Only then, mounted on a special test stand, was the first stage far enough away from civilization to allow full runs of its engines without causing damage. Early tests of the F-1 at the Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville had caused windows to break and dishes to fall off walls miles away.29
As spectacular as it was, Saturn V was only part of the massive undertaking. The lunar journey would require parallel development of a unique spacecraft to carry humans to the moon, allow them to land and explore it, and then to return home safely. The Apollo spacecraft was composed of three parts stacked on and inside the Saturn V: the command and service modules, attached to each other and set atop the huge rocket, and, behind them, the lunar module, housed in a garage-like section of the rocket.
The command module (CM) contained the three-man crew’s quarters and flight controls, and the service module (SM) housed the propulsion and spacecraft support systems. Joined together, these two modules were referred to as the CSM. The lunar module (LM) was designed to carry two astronauts to the lunar surface, support them while there, and then return them to the CSM in lunar orbit.
Of the three components, each an extraordinary feat of engineering, one by definition stood out: the lunar module, which would carry humans to another celestial body for the first time. Since it would operate only in the vacuum of space, it did not have to be sleekly designed like an aircraft. In fact, it looked quite ungainly, a collection of odd angles mounted on landing struts, resembling a large metallic insect. Anthropomorphically, its twin triangular windows could be seen as eyes, and the centered main hatch as a mouth. Completing the portrait were more than a half-dozen antennae atop the LM.
Its unusual look sprang from the unique missions, which greatly influenced its design. It consisted of two sections. One was the descent stage, holding the rocket engine used for the descent and the landing gear; this stage would be left on the lunar surface. Set on top of the boxy descent stage was the ascent stage, consisting of the crew cabin, with its instrument-packed control panel, supplies, oxygen for breathing, and a separate rocket to blast the ascent stage back into lunar orbit for its rendezvous with the CSM.30 The driving force in the LM’s design was to make it as lightweight as possible. To achieve that, any aerodynamic curves were eliminated, along with seats for the crew, unnecessary in the weightlessness of space or on the moon, which has only one-sixth of Earth’s gravity. The imperative to eliminate every possible ounce resulted in the descent stage being skinned only with Mylar wrapping stretched over a frame. The crew cabin walls of the ascent stage were as thin as five-thousands of an inch; a screwdriver accidentally dropped by a worker inside the cabin during testing fell right through the floor.31
President Kennedy visited Cape Canaveral on November 16, 1963, just six days before his assassination in Dallas, Texas. He had come to inspect the Saturn I launch pad and to be briefed by von Braun on its capabilities. He also flew by helicopter over nearby Merritt Island, where construction of NASA’s huge Saturn V launch facilities was then under way. Kennedy showed great interest in a set of scale models illustrating how the Mercury-Atlas rocket that had carried the f
irst American into orbit was completely dwarfed by the Saturn V. Kennedy’s timely visit stirred great enthusiasm among the personnel working on the NASA space program. Following Kennedy’s tragic death, his newly sworn-in successor, Lyndon B. Johnson, renamed both the NASA and Air Force launch facilities located at the Cape as the new John F. Kennedy Space Center and Cape Kennedy Air Force Station, respectively.32
THE SOVIET SPACE PROGRAM IN CRISIS
American intelligence experts took a close look at the Soviet space program in 1965. Their report, summarized in the National Intelligence Estimate (NIE) for that year, focused on the Soviet Union’s “capabilities and probable accomplishments in space over the next five to ten years.” The NIE noted, “The Soviet space program will retain its priority, that its accomplishment will continue to be impressive, and that it will focus on goals for which the U.S.S.R. can most favorably compete.” These space initiatives would fall predictably into four main categories: lunar and interplanetary probes; manned spaceflight activities; strategic photo-reconnaissance; and unmanned robotic missions for near-Earth scientific explorations. As in the past, the NIE observed, the Soviets would continue to rely on military boosters, experiment with new techniques for rendezvous and docking, and push ahead with plans for a “new large booster with the thrust of two million pounds.” The latter project, a veiled reference to what became known as the N-1 booster, signaled the intention of the Soviets to make a manned circumlunar flight its prime mission, with the first attempt coming as early as 1967.
One key conclusion of the NIE was that the Soviets could not make a manned landing on the moon before 1969.33 “In sum,” the NIE concluded, “the Soviet space program appears to be in a state of transition. While we can estimate technically feasible extension of all current projects, we believe that the Soviets do not have in hand the necessary economic and technical resources for undertaking all such projects simultaneously.”34 If still awed by their recent space triumphs, the NIE expressed for the first time a measured skepticism of Soviet capabilities, identifying certain built-in restraints and weaknesses associated with Moscow’s future space initiatives.