Eight Years to the Moon

by Nancy Atkinson

  While Apollo 10 cleared the way for the first formal attempt at a lunar landing, everyone on the ground knew it would take a tremendous amount of additional training and planning to be ready.

  IN 1969, THE SIMULATORS IN HOUSTON and at the Cape were in almost constant use, with integrated sims for the flight controllers almost nonstop.

  “If we weren’t testing the crew, we were testing modifications to the spacecraft, to the flight software,” said Frank Hughes. “The work was constant. That’s why none of us were married at the time, or if you were, you weren’t later. You were married to the job.”

  Meanwhile, the Simulation Branch at MSC remained on the lookout for any potential glitches in every system that could be possible malfunctions they could throw into a simulation.

  “I’d go to the Mission Rules review meetings and listen for ideas for problems to put in the sims,” said Jay Honeycutt. “One of astronaut Charlie Duke’s responsibilities was to go to the same meetings, and we would sit side by side. Sometimes during conversations of certain issues, we’d whisper to one another, ‘We should put this one in one of the sims.’ And we’d jot them down.”

  Neil Armstrong participates in training for lunar surface operation in Building 9 in April 1969. Credit: NASA.

  Grumman and North American Rockwell had each supplied two people to the Simulation Branch who could go anywhere on the factory floors to get information from all the engineers about potential bugs or anomalies to help with ideas for the simulations. Jack Neubauer and Hank Otten were from Grumman, while Don Findlay and John Wills were from North American Rockwell.

  At some point in early 1969, Neubauer came into the sim office and said to Dick Koos, “I asked the engineering guys about what could fail on the onboard computers, and they said, ‘Oh, don’t worry about it; it can’t fail because it has rope memory.’ But there has to be something that could give us a problem, right?”

  Koos knew it would be hard to simulate a computer problem, because tinkering with the computations in the simulator might mess up the simulator programs.

  Dick Koos working as a SimSup, listening in on two communications loops at once. Image courtesy of Harold Miller.

  “Why don’t you just figure out how to get the simulator to do some type of erroneous event,” Koos suggested, “or input a single event or signal into the computer program so it will give an error code?”

  Neubauer said he’d look into it, but Koos didn’t hear any more about it. And in the meantime, the simulation schedule and sequence of flights kept everyone on the sim team so busy, their lives were a blur. Koos thought about that conversation with Neubauer a few times, but he figured perhaps there wasn’t a way to simulate a computer problem.

  But Neubauer talked with Jack Garman in the Apollo Guidance Software Section at MSC and asked if he knew of a computer issue, something that might be totally software-related. Garman did a little research, jotted down a couple of semi-fatal computer errors (errors that would cause the computers to restart but not cause permanent damage) and told Neubauer how it might work to insert them in the simulation software.

  July 5, 1969, was the day of the last scheduled set of integrated sims in Houston before the launch of Apollo 11. Armstrong, Aldrin and Collins were already at the Cape, so the astronauts in the LM simulator were the Apollo 12 backup crew: Dave Scott and Jim Irwin. Gene Kranz and his team of flight controllers were on the consoles in Mission Control and Koos was the SimSup.

  Flight director Eugene F. Kranz is pictured during a simulation at the flight director console in Houston’s Mission Control Center at the Manned Spacecraft Center site in 1965. Credit: NASA.

  Jack Garman is second from left (wearing a jacket) in this 1969 view of the AGC Staff Support Room in Building 30 at MSC. Credit: NASA, image courtesy of Colin Mackellar.

  “During the last afternoon session, a few of the guys came to me and said they wanted to put in this computer program alarm idea they had gotten from Neubauer,” Koos said. “I said, ‘Wait a minute, is that going to cause an abort?’ We have a rule that the last simulation before the flight, everything should be fairly nominal as a confidence builder for everyone, so you can’t put anything in that will cause an abort.”

  The rest of the team convinced Koos that Garman had assured them and provided documentation that the computer alarms they were inserting into the simulation were not serious enough to cause an abort.

  A few minutes into the simulation run, Koos prompted the LM’s computer to issue an alarm. Steve Bales, the guidance officer, was monitoring the LM’s simulated computer telemetry and saw the caution and warning signal, listed as a 1201 alarm. Bales checked his manual and saw the 1201 alarm was an executive overflow, which meant the computer was overloaded. Garman, who was on station in the SSR and supporting Bales, knew this simulated alarm was a derivation of what he provided Neubauer, so he had to play both sides. He didn’t offer any advice to Bales, and Bales didn’t ask for any. No Mission Rules had been written on computer alarms because the flight controllers had never experienced any in a simulation before. Because the alarm kept sounding, Bales decided he needed to call an abort to the simulated Moon landing.

  In the sim control room, Koos thought, Oh, God. He knew what was coming.

  In the post-sim debriefing, Kranz was furious. First, he was mad at Koos for inserting an issue in the final sim that would cause an abort.

  “We aborted, and I was really ready to kill Koos at the time, I was so damned mad,” Kranz said. “We went into the debriefing, and all I wanted to do was get hold of him at the beer party afterward and tell him, ‘This isn’t the way we’re supposed to train!’“ Kranz was sure his flight control team had done everything right during the sim.

  But, Koos explained, they had not done everything right. “You should not have aborted for those computer program alarms,” he said. “What you should have done was taken a look at all of the functions. Was the guidance still working? Was the navigation still working? Were you still firing your jets? If so, ignore those alarms. And only if you see something else wrong in conjunction with that alarm should you start thinking about aborting.”

  An engineering test version of the Apollo 11 US Flag, with Tom Moser, design engineer, Apollo Subsystem manager for Structures and Materials. Credit: NASA.

  Jack Garman’s handwritten “cheat sheet” of computer alarms. Image courtesy of Colin Mackellar.

  After Kranz realized Koos was correct, then he was furious with his team for not knowing what to do with these alarms, literally two weeks from launch. Specifically, he told Bales to work with Garman to study every computer alarm that existed in the code, from alarms that were normal to ones that could not possibly happen. And he didn’t give a damn how long it might take—if they had to work all night or all week or every day from that moment until the launch, they needed to understand all the program alarms and know instantly what to do if this type of issue cropped up.

  Bales and Garman conferred and wrote down all the alarm codes on a sheet of grid paper, with crib notes on what they meant and what their response should be. They each stuck the sheet under the plexiglass of their consoles. And then they asked Koos for more sims.

  JUST TWO WEEKS BEFORE THE FLIGHT of Apollo 11, Tom Moser was working late one evening in the Structures and Mechanics Division at MSC when his boss, Joe Kotanchik, entered Moser’s office and shut the door.

  “I’m going to give you an assignment, but you can’t tell anyone about it, not your coworkers or your family,” Kotanchik said to Moser, pausing to make sure the significance of what he was about to say was understood. “I need you to figure out how you can put a US flag and a mast somewhere on the LM so Neil and Buzz can put it on the Moon.”

  Moser knew that NASA had not been planning to place a US flag on the Moon. In 1967, the UN adopted the Outer Space Treaty, which stated that any planetary body or region of space could not be claimed by any nation. In the opinion of many, this effectively ruled out placing a flag on the l
unar surface. But about three months prior to Moser’s assignment, a few members of Congress approached NASA administrator Tom Paine, sharing their opinion that the Apollo 11 astronauts should place a US flag on the Moon to visibly show that this historic achievement had been accomplished by the United States. But it needed to be done in a way that wouldn’t violate the UN treaty. Paine appointed an internal committee to come up with a plan, and they recommended that if NASA were to place a US flag on the lunar surface, there should also be a plaque bearing an inscription:

  A team from MSC packs the US flag prior to the Apollo 11 mission in Building 9, Technical Service Shop. Left to right, unknown, Tom Moser (design engineer, Apollo Subsystem manager for Structures and Materials), Billy Druman (Technical Services technician), T. McGraw (deputy chief, Technical Services Division) and Jack Kinzler (chief, Technical Services Division). Caption courtesy of Tom Moser. Credit: NASA.

  Here men from the planet Earth first set foot upon the Moon

  July 1969, A.D.

  We came in peace for all mankind

  Additionally, the committee recommended Apollo 11 should carry small flags from each of the fifty US states and all member countries of the UN to be presented to each entity after the flight.

  Besides carrying out the task in secret, Kotanchik gave Moser a few parameters.

  “Joe told me there was no room in the Command Module or Lunar Module, so the flag and mast would have to be attached somewhere outside the LM,” said Moser, “and the astronauts needed to be able to reach it and deploy it easily while wearing their spacesuit gloves. I also had to figure out how far they needed to stick the mast in the lunar surface and how far away from the Lunar Module the astronauts should put the flag so that it didn’t burn up or blow over when they lifted off from the Moon.”

  A technician holds the commemorative plaque that was later attached to the leg of the Lunar Module Eagle, engraved with the following words: “Here men from the planet Earth first set foot upon the Moon July 1969, A.D. We came in peace for all of mankind.” It bears the signatures of the Apollo 11 astronauts Neil A. Armstrong, commander; Michael Collins, CM pilot; and Edwin E. Aldrin Jr., LM pilot, along with the signature of the US president Richard M. Nixon. Credit: NASA.

  Moser also needed to the assure the flag assembly could withstand the extreme environments of the launch, flight and lunar landing. He worked with three people in MSC’s Technical Services Division—Jack Kinzler, Dave McCraw and Billy Drummond—and they developed and tested the concept.

  Kinzler drew up a design for a specially designed, lightweight, telescoping flagpole that included a horizontal crossbar to hold the flag out fully unfurled to compensate for the lack of atmosphere on the Moon. It deployed similar to an umbrella, with a hinge on the horizontal bar.

  “I was told someone went to different local department and hardware stores and bought plain old, regular 3-by-5-foot US flags and cut all the tags off so no company or store could claim it was their flag,” Moser said.

  The flags each cost about $5.50. A seam was sewn along the top of the flag where the horizontal bar could be inserted. The group made plans to put the flag assembly inside a protective shroud and attach it to the ladder of the LM. They wrapped the shroud in insulation so that it wouldn’t be damaged by exhaust from the LM during landing.

  Neil Armstrong, standing, and Buzz Aldrin, sitting, during spacesuit training at Kennedy Space Center. Credit: NASA.

  Since Moser was a design engineer, he made sure the strength of the LM ladder wouldn’t be compromised by attaching the shroud.

  “Not being able to talk to anyone about this,” he said, “I did all the stress analysis myself on the ladder with the flag assembly attached by putting it on a shake table, and shaking the hell out of it, with the loads it would experience during all the phases of flight.”

  The group erected and deployed the flag assembly to ensure it would operate properly on the Moon. Because the decision to include the flag and attach the plaque came so close to the launch date, George Low chartered a Learjet and flew Kinzler to Kennedy Space Center, where the flag assembly and the commemorative plaque were installed in secret on Apollo 11’s LM, out on the launchpad at 4:00 in the morning as the spacecraft sat atop its Saturn V rocket ready for launch.

  The design and testing of the flag assembly had all happened within a few days. Realizing the significance of their work, Moser went back and retrieved a few of the scraps from the flag that had been cut off during its modification as momentos. And then he waited for the launch of Apollo 11.

  EARLE KYLE WAS GOING TO THE APOLLO 11 launch. When the opportunity arose, he could hardly believe it. Kyle’s family owned a small weekly African American newspaper in Minneapolis called the Twin Cities Courier, and somehow someone at NASA heard about Kyle’s work on designing the Apollo hardware and asked his family’s publication to send a representative to the Apollo 11 launch. The Courier was the only newspaper of its size and type in the country to get clearance for on-the-spot coverage of the Moon shot at the Cape.

  Kyle knew he needed to capture the experience in the best way possible, not only for the newspaper but also for his own remembrance of this incredible opportunity. But he didn’t have a good camera of his own, so he rented a Canon SLR from a local camera shop. As an engineer who tested everything, Kyle decided he needed to test out how to best take photos of the launch. He found the perfect setup right in front of him.

  The Foshay Tower was the tallest building in Minneapolis in 1969, and it just happened to be about the same height as the Saturn V rocket as it sat on the launchpad. And the Honeywell plant where Kyle worked sat on a hill east of Minneapolis about 2.8 miles (4.5 km) away—as the crow flies—from the Foshay Tower. That was same distance between Launchpad 39A and the viewing stands at Kennedy Space Center where Kyle would be standing. During the week before he and his wife flew to Florida, Kyle used the Canon to test out various sun angles and camera settings, playing with the sensitivity and aperture settings, using up a few rolls of film just on the Foshay Tower. And all the while, he tried to imagine what it was going to be like to see the Saturn V start its journey to the Moon.

  The rollout of Apollo 11 Saturn V space vehicle from the Vehicle Assembly Building to Launch Complex 39A. Credit: NASA.

  CHAPTER 9

  APOLLO 11

  The launch of Apollo 11 on July 16, 1969. Credit: NASA.

  There’s no other way to classify what happened on Apollo 11’s reentry except to say that we got lucky.

  —GARY JOHNSON, NASA electrical systems and safety engineer

  BEFORE DAWN ON JULY 16, 1969, EVERYONE began assembling at the Manned Spacecraft Center (MSC): the flight controllers and directors, as well as the engineers for the Mission Evaluation Room (MER), all the Staff Support Rooms (SSR), the Spacecraft Analysis Room, the auxiliary computer room and the Real Time Computer Complex (RTCC). With this being the fifth Apollo launch with a crew on board and the third mission to fly to the Moon, a hint of routine filled everyone’s work. But today felt distinctly different.

  Each of the missions leading up to Apollo 11 had their own unique characteristics: the successes and accomplishments, the problems in preparations, all the step-by-step processes that needed to be learned and mastered in simulations, the personalities of the crew and everyone involved. And the quick sequence of missions—five within nine months—meant there wasn’t any time to bask in any successes. Instead, there was urgency and intensity.

  “But in the whole course of it,” Glynn Lunney said, reflecting on that morning, “the program had this energy that was pervasive. We had been involved in this whole thing for a long time—over eight years. There was a powerful sense of people wanting to pull off the Apollo Moon landing and return within the decade, of meeting the challenge and the goal.”

  The sense of intensity and excitement Lunney could feel that day was “like an electric field raising the hair on the body and stimulating the synapses firing inside the brain.” He loved t
hat feeling because, to him, it meant readiness and concentration.

  And nobody wanted to screw up because July 16 was the launch day humanity had always dreamed about.

  The early morning of July 16, 1969, found thousands of spectators on the beaches and roadways near the NASA Kennedy Space Center where they had camped the night before to witness history by watching the epic beginning of the journey of Apollo 11. Credit: NASA.

  THE DAY BEFORE APOLLO 11 WAS SCHEDULED to lift off, Bob Wren and a few of his friends from MSC took off for Florida. “We had been working so hard, and we just decided at the last minute to go down there,” Wren said, “and of course, we couldn’t get a commercial flight. But one of the guys said, ‘Heck, let’s just fly ourselves down there!’“

  Six friends piled into a Cessna Skywagon at the Houston airport and started their flight. But they had to fly around a thunderstorm, and the plane had mechanical problems—twice. They ended up making an emergency landing in northern Florida, then renting a car and barreling down the road among the hordes of traffic, barely arriving in time to see the launch.

  Earle Kyle stands at Kennedy Space Center, on hand for the launch of Apollo 11. Image courtesy of Earle Kyle.

  EARLE KYLE HAD BEEN UP SINCE BEFORE 2:00 a.m. The bus that brought the media out to the Kennedy Space Center press site and launch viewing area left the hotel at an ungodly hour, and even at 2:00 in the morning, the air was uncomfortably warm. As the bus approached its destination, the view of Launchpad 39A looked like something out of a science fiction movie. The Saturn V rocket was bathed in floodlights, and the warm, humid air created a halo effect.

  Now the morning sun was hot and bright, and the rocket gleamed as it sat on the pad, poised and peaceful. Humidity hung in the air and Kyle’s eyeglasses and camera lens kept fogging up. On-site were thirty-five hundred members of the media and twenty-thousand VIPs, along with a million people packed onto the beaches in cars, campers and tents and parked alongside logjammed roads. They were all there to watch history. In the VIP viewing area, Kyle saw former president Lyndon B. Johnson and his wife, Lady Bird, Vice President Spiro Agnew, TV icon Johnny Carson and Ethiopian emperor Haile Selassie. Kyle even had the chance to talk with CBS News anchor Walter Cronkite.