“It actually handled kind of like a sports car,” said Schweickart. “It was very crisp when you did rotational maneuvers, and it had a very snappy kind of response, which you want when you’re going to land on the Moon, as you might have to make some last-minute maneuvers. So, Spider was a very fun vehicle to fly.”
As Schweickart and McDivitt maneuvered the LM approximately 10 miles (16 km) below and 80 miles (129 km) behind the CM, Scott, still inside Gumdrop, watched in wonder as Spider became a small point of light in the distance.
Spider returned for a rendezvous and docking to practice what would take place in the upcoming missions in lunar orbit, and the two spacecraft came back together cleanly and solidly. As everyone in Mission Control and the Mission Evaluation Room (MER) monitored the events in space, the performance of the spacecraft left no doubt that the LM was ready to make the lunar trip. “Apollo 9’s uniqueness was in the technical and engineering aspects of making the Apollo Moon landings possible,” said Schweickart. “We did our jobs, we showed the design worked well, and nothing really went wrong during our flight, in terms of spacecraft design.”
The crew remained in orbit until March 13 and splashed down in the Atlantic Ocean north of Puerto Rico. They came down about 3 miles (5 km) from their recovery ship, the USS Guadalcanal, in full view of Milt Heflin and his landing and recovery team, who again worked their magic to bring the crew and the spacecraft on board.
A view of the Apollo 9 Lunar Module photographed from the Command and Service Modules on the fifth day of the mission. Credit: NASA.
The Apollo 9 crew on board the USS Guadalcanal as they step from a helicopter to receive a red-carpet welcome. Left to right, are astronauts Russell L. Schweickart, David R. Scott and James A. McDivitt. Credit: NASA.
Even with such a successful mission, questions remained about Schweickart’s illness. Was his experience typical? What was the best way to adapt to being in space? Did NASA understand enough about this? Schweickart knew these questions had to be answered not only so that NASA could get a handle on how space motion sickness might affect upcoming missions but also so he could understand what he’d just been through. Schweickart made the tough decision to step out of line in the crew rotation schedule—likely giving up the chance for a later mission to the Moon—to undergo testing. His conscience told him it was the right thing to do.
“I didn’t think we should be going to the Moon without knowing the answers,” he said. “It wasn’t clear to me if this was going to risk people’s lives, because what if someone got sick while they were on the Moon? The only way we were going to be able to make a rational decision about committing with confidence to the upcoming lunar missions was to have more data.”
He volunteered to be tested and shortly after Apollo 9 returned to Earth, Schweickart started spending weeks at a time at the Naval Aerospace Medical Institute in Pensacola, Florida.
WITH THREE MISSIONS NOW UNDER THE Apollo program’s belt, everyone felt they were hitting their stride, especially the flight control team. This group of engineers was perhaps the most visible aspect of the Mission Control team; however, behind the scenes, several support teams provided real-time technical expertise for the controllers. Several different Staff Support Rooms (SSRs) were scattered around the Manned Spacecraft Center (MSC), and each was home to a large number of experts across all the different spacecraft disciplines.
One unique support room was the MER (the Mission Evaluation Room). Most other support teams were made up of experts for specific systems, but the MER housed a diverse team of engineering experts across several disciplines for both the spacecraft and the crew, primarily from the Structures, Propulsion and Power, and Guidance and Control Divisions. George Low formally organized the MER after the Apollo 1 fire, and it operated for all the Apollo flights. The technical-systems engineers assigned to the MER provided engineering expertise to whoever needed it, and the MER helped coordinate the efforts between MSC’s Engineering and Development Directorate and engineering representatives from the spacecraft and system contractors who would be on-site while a mission was in progress. This included more than thirty subsystem managers and their contractor counterparts.
The Mission Evaluation Room in Building 45 during the Apollo 11 mission. Gary Johnson is wearing the striped shirt at the far end of the front table. Credit: NASA, image courtesy of Gary Johnson.
The MER provided around-the-clock support during flights, using three shifts of personnel organized under individual shift team leaders. Those who manned the MER were all engineering experts for their systems; for example, Norman Chaffee regularly took shifts for propulsion, Gary Johnson was there to oversee the electrical systems and Jerry Woodfill monitored the Caution and Warning System.
While not in the same building as Mission Control (which was in Building 30), the MER was only about 300 yards (274 m) away and comprised most of the third floor of Building 45. During missions, the MER buzzed with activity and noise. One engineer likened its bustle to the commotion in a police precinct in a big city on a Saturday night. Even during nominal parts of the mission, or what others might consider downtime (such as during a crew sleep period), MER engineers constantly analyzed the incoming data from the spacecraft and shared any pertinent data with other support rooms and the flight control team. But during important points in the mission, such as orbital insertion maneuvers or lunar landing, everyone in the MER swung into action. Compared to the calm, ordered, military-like correctness in Mission Control, the MER, as one MSC engineer said, saw times when it seemed like everyone’s hair was on fire.
Unlike the roomy, long rows of consoles in Mission Control, engineers in the MER sat shoulder-to-shoulder on gun-metal gray straight-backed steel chairs, positioned along both sides of large government-issue gray tables. Woodfill compared the arrangement to sitting “picnic-like around church basement potluck dinner tables.” The MER needed to fit as many as one hundred engineering experts at once. Sometimes, during key points of a mission, even extra engineers were on hand to monitor and observe critical events.
None of the engineers in the MER had individual console displays like the people in Mission Control; instead, data were displayed on 19-inch (48-cm) cathode ray tube (CRT) monitors that hung around the room near the ceiling. So that everyone could see the monitors, the MER was slightly darkened and heavy curtains hung over the windows. Still, it might be difficult to see the small numbers and letters on the monitors, so many MER engineers—especially those sitting on the far ends of the tables—used binoculars or spy glasses to better see the details on the screens. As far as keeping records of the ever-changing data displayed on the monitors, the engineers could acquire telemetry printouts from the Real Time Computer Complex (RTCC) data team, but that took time. The preferred method was to take a Polaroid photo of the screen. For the early Apollo missions, the Polaroid film would need to be pulled out and rubbed with a special emulsion. But by Apollo 11, MSC acquired the near-instant “picture in a minute” Polaroid cameras, which allowed the plastic covering over the photo to be pulled off after one minute. Because of the room’s darkness and the small details on the photos, many in the MER used a specially designed magnifying glass with a flashlight attached to view the photos.
Most of the engineers, like Lonnie Jenkins who worked in the Propulsion and Power Division, meticulously hand-plotted the data on graph paper from each of the Polaroid snapshots and over the course of a mission would acquire a box full of pictures and a three-ring binder full of data plots.
Mission Evaluation Room during Apollo 11. Credit: NASA.
Don Arabian (yelling into the phone) at the center of his table in the Mission Evaluation Room during the Apollo 11 mission. Credit: NASA.
Having the data at their fingertips was crucial. “If we had an issue come up during a flight,” said Jenkins, “one of the first things we did was establish a timeline. All the data had a time stamp and some of it was available in increments of microseconds. If we knew exactly when the p
roblem started showing up and compared it with other data, we could see the whole picture of what happened and when it happened. We eliminated a lot of possibilities because of having an accurate timeline of our data and were able to enact fixes for any hardware problems.”
The only “decorative” picture adorning the MER wall confirmed these engineers’ devotion to data. It was a framed 8-by-11 piece of paper on which someone printed, “In God we trust, all others bring data.” That was the MER motto.
But full-scale, hand-drafted technical drawings and blueprints were taped to the walls around the room—sometimes even out in the hallway—so that engineers could consult them whenever they needed.
Lonnie Jenkins’s specially designed magnifying glass with an attached flashlight to view small Polaroid pictures of data captured from the monitors in the MER. Credit: Nancy Atkinson.
MER staff wore headsets to listen to all the loops. But they could only listen, not transmit. A shared phone was available, two phones per table. Accompanying the headsets was a push-button audio channel selector box. Jenkins became particularly adept at being able to listen to all eight voice loops at once and could keep straight who was saying what. Somehow, he could ascertain how one conversation might relate to another or tune certain loops out.
“Lonnie was our data guru,” said Chaffee, who worked closely with Jenkins. “He made sure everyone had the data that they needed, and he also coordinated all the troubleshooting for any anomaly. He saved the bacon for us many times by being able to give us the exact data we needed.”
Any “hair on fire” activity in the MER was likely fueled by the man in charge, Don Arabian, chief of the Test Division for Apollo. Some called him Mad Don.
Arabian’s main mode of communication was yelling. He would shout, swear, holler; whatever it took to get an immediate answer to his questions. His mind operated so quickly, he couldn’t get the words out fast enough, and the faster he talked the louder he got. But everyone knew to listen because Arabian was always right.
Woodfill said Arabian commanded the MER team from his “throne-like” center seat of one of the long tables. “His loud, challenging voice could carry the entire length of the MER,” he said. “Despite his fierce personality, he was a brilliant engineer. No one had a greater ability of assessing a spacecraft anomaly than Don.”
Arabian would have a list of all the spacecraft anomalies and would check them off with gusto as the problems were solved. Whenever a problem came up, he wanted to know all the options, and he worked in absolutes. If anyone ever said, “I think this might be the problem,” Arabian would retort, “I don’t give a damn what you think, give me your data!”
Jenkins, quiet and reserved, was one of two people that Arabian never yelled at, but there were several people that seemed to be constant targets for Arabian’s ass chewings. But Jenkins knew Arabian’s temper was never meant as a personal attack. Jenkins compared Arabian’s actions to the cartoon of a wolf and a dog that were constantly fighting, but when the noon whistle blew, they would sit down and peaceably eat lunch together.
“Don was like that,” Jenkins said. “He could be chewing you out, but when lunchtime came, he would offer you a sandwich or an apple. Yelling and arguing was just his style. But he also respected your conclusions, as long as you had the data to back it up.”
Outside of the MER, Arabian continued his high-energy ways, running a tight ship. His office was located on the third floor of one of the MSC office buildings, and when he wanted to talk to someone, he didn’t bother picking up the phone—he’d just holler out their name.
“The guy he wanted most was one of his assistants, a guy named Bob Fricke,” said Chaffee, whose office was on the same floor. “Whenever Arabian wanted Bob, he’d just holler out, ‘Frickeeeeee!’“ The sound would resonate throughout the building, and Fricke would come running down the hall.
Even after a mission concluded, the MER remained important, as one of its primary assignments was to certify that all systems were ready and that it was safe to proceed for the next flight. After each flight, analyst managers like Jenkins met with managers for all the various systems and they would go over the mission report line by line, meticulously inspecting all the data gathered by the MER teams.
Throughout the Apollo program, the efforts of those in the MER resolved countless problems, constraints and crucial issues, ensuring mission success.
The crew of the Apollo 10 mission. Left to right are Eugene A. Cernan, Lunar Module pilot; John W. Young, Command Module pilot; and Thomas P. Stafford, commander. In the background is the Apollo 10 space vehicle on Pad B, Launch Complex 39, Kennedy Space Center, Florida. Credit: NASA.
IF FRANK HUGHES HAD TO CHOOSE A favorite crew, it would be the crew of Apollo 10: Gene Cernan, Tom Stafford and John Young. Hughes had spent a lot of time with this crew and got to know them well. The night before the mission launched, since there was no quarantine requirement before this flight, Hughes was able to have a drink with the crew. Suddenly Cernan said, “Okay, one more and then I need to hit the sack. Gotta go to the Moon tomorrow.”
“Working with these guys was a delight,” Hughes said. “They just had such a good time, they knew they couldn’t land on the Moon, so there was no pressure. They always had a good time together getting ready for their dress-rehearsal flight.”
An Apollo 10 view of crater Schmidt which is located at the western edge of the Sea of Tranquility. Schmidt has a diameter of 7 statute miles. The shadowed area is on the east side of the crater. Credit: NASA.
Replicas of Snoopy and Charlie Brown, the two characters from Charles Schulz’s syndicated comic strip, Peanuts, decorate the top of a console in the Mission Operations Control Room in the Mission Control Center, Building 30, on the first day of the Apollo 10 lunar orbit mission. Credit: NASA.
Dress rehearsal. Test flight. Dry run. Practice mission. In NASA’s world of sims, mock-ups and all-up testing, Apollo 10 became the most significant simulation run of them all. Besides giving the spacecraft and NASA’s entire mission support team a near-complete workout, this mission provided a full checkout of the guidance and navigation system. It also gave the Manned Space Flight Network—the set of tracking stations around the world, built to support Apollo missions—a complete test in tracking and communicating with spacecraft at lunar distances.
On May 18, 1969, the Saturn V rocket sent Cernan, Stafford and Young on a near-perfect trajectory to the Moon in the spacecraft named Charlie Brown (the CSM) and Snoopy (the LM). Apollo 10 duplicated absolutely everything for a Moon landing—except for the landing part. Cernan and Stafford were to rehearse all the landing mission steps, up to the point where the LM would begin its powered descent. This would permit an all-up test of both the descent and ascent engines and other systems.
After a three-day cruise, Apollo 10 entered lunar orbit. A day later, Cernan and Stafford took Snoopy for a six-and-a-half-hour pathfinding test flight, going down to within 10 miles (16 km) of the craters and crags of the lunar surface.
“I’m telling you, we are low,” Cernan excitedly radioed back to Earth. “We’re close, baby! We is down among ‘em!”
They flight-tested the LM’s communications, propulsion, attitude-control and radar systems. They took numerous photos of the lunar terrain, especially the planned landing sites. They gathered data on the lunar gravity field to answer questions about the gravitational irregularities detected by the Lunar Orbiter and experienced by Apollo 8.
The crew reported that all systems were working perfectly. But when it came time to return to orbit to rendezvous with Charlie Brown, Snoopy suddenly tumbled out of control. On NASA’s live broadcast feed, Cernan shouted, “Son of a bitch, what the hell happened?”
While flight controllers and the MER team back on Earth scrambled to look at their data to understand what was happening, Cernan and Stafford quickly realized one of them had put the rendezvous radar switch in the Auto position too soon. Instead of concentrating on how far above the Moon th
e LM was ascending, Snoopy‘s radar began searching for Charlie Brown, causing the guidance system to flip the LM around wildly. Quickly, the two astronauts turned the switch off and jettisoned the descent stage to regain control of the gyrating ascent stage. For three unnerving minutes, the crew worked to stabilize the LM and gradually brought it under control.
During those three minutes, time both stood still and rushed by far too quickly for anyone on the ground to grapple with what was going on at the Moon. The radio signal went in and out as Snoopy pitched around, making communications and the data feed intermittent and spotty. While the crew ultimately solved the problem—putting their fighter-pilot skills to an incredible test—this episode highlighted for everyone, both on the ground and in space, that spaceflight was nowhere near becoming a routine experience. They could take nothing for granted.
When the two spacecraft came together after rendezvous and docking, Stafford radioed, “Snoopy and Charlie Brown are hugging each other.” And the crew may have shared a few hugs among themselves too. They headed back to Earth, splashing down on May 26 in the Pacific Ocean.
“Apollo 10 was our last clearance test for the Apollo 11 lunar landing,” said Glynn Lunney, “and basically the whole system—hardware and the people—passed the clearance test that we needed to be sure that we could go land on the Moon on the next flight.”
The Apollo 10 Command and Service Modules (CSM) are photographed from the Lunar Module (LM) in lunar orbit. The high-gain antenna can be seen on the lower part of the CSM, which allowed for communications with Earth via the Unified S-Band system. Credit: NASA.
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