Moonshot: The Inside Story of Mankind's Greatest Adventure
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While preparing for the mission, in July 1968, Michael had begun to notice something strange. During handball games his legs didn't seem to be functioning normally, his knee would sometimes give way while walking downstairs, and hot and cold water produced abnormal nerve reactions. Finally he turned himself in to the NASA flight surgeon, knowing that as a pilot there were 'only two ways he [could] walk out: on flying status or grounded'.31 He was referred to a Houston neurologist who found that a bony growth in Michael's neck, between the fifth and sixth vertebrae, was pushing against his spinal cord. It was agreed that he needed surgery, despite the implications of the decision to operate. Collins would have to give up his seat on Borman's mission and accept that he was grounded.
Chapter 7
RISKS AND RISKY REMEDIES
Kennedy had said America should commit itself to putting a man on the Moon 'before this decade is out'. There was some discussion as to whether his choice of words demanded the landing be made by 1969 or by 1970. Either way, although it was a challenging deadline, the end of the decade was at least easy to predict.
The Russians, however, remained an unknown quantity. By late 1968, suspicions were growing that they were about to send men into lunar orbit. NASA's slow but sure approach to the redevelopment of the command module threatened to come at a cost as once again there arose the spectre of being beaten into second place. In 1957, the Russians had launched the first satellite; they had put the first man into space in 1961; they sent a woman into space in 1963 and pulled off the world's first EVA in 1965. But in January 1966, the death of chief designer Sergei Korolev temporarily grounded their space programme. For more than a year Russia suspended its flights, and some in America began to suggest that the space-race was no more than a self-inflicted struggle against time.1
During this period the Russians were quietly preparing to return to space. They worked in such secrecy that when cosmonaut Vladimir Komarov launched on 23 April 1967 – beginning Russia's first manned orbital flight in two years – the mission came as a surprise even to Komarov's wife, Valentina. His spacecraft, Soyuz 1, quickly developed technical problems, and when it became clear that he might not survive re-entry Valentina was rushed into the control centre. She was allowed to bid her husband farewell, their final moments of anguish ending only when Komarov, unable to bear any more, asked her to go home.2 After re-entering the atmosphere, the spacecraft's parachutes failed to open and Soyuz 1 plummeted into the steppes before bursting into flames. Komarov took the unenviable title of becoming the first man to die during a mission. His loss was a devastating setback to Russia's space programme. Coming three months after the Apollo 1 fire, it led to a similar period of delay to that experienced by NASA. Not until the autumn of 1968 was Moscow ready to send men back into space – the same time as Houston. The space-race was very definitely back on.
On 18 September, Zond 5, an unmanned probe, flew around the far side of the Moon, carrying turtles, meal-worms and other species. Harking back to the days of Laika, when the Russians sent a dog into space before sending a man, Zond 5 appeared to be a prelude to something more ambitious. CIA warnings, presented to NASA's senior chiefs, suggested Russia was developing a giant lunar rocket,3 these reports fuelling fears that Moscow was about to launch a manned attempt on the Moon. Even if cosmonauts were simply sent on a pass around the far side, this would still be enough to claim that men had been to Earth's nearest neighbour. For NASA, the years of hard work, the loss of the Apollo 1 crew and all the billions of dollars were overshadowed by the prospect of Moscow beating them to it, again. On 26 October, cosmonaut Georgi Beregovoi blasted into Earth orbit aboard Soyuz 3, intending to dock with the unmanned Soyuz 2 which had been launched the previous day. On the face of it, it was a bold mission with objectives that were more adventurous than those of Apollo 7 – which had launched two weeks earlier, on 11 October. Schirra's crew did little more than orbit the Earth. Soyuz 3, however, completed a successful rendezvous and even attempted a docking.
But while Beregovoi's flight essentially resembled a Gemini mission, by demonstrating the reliability of the Block II command module, Apollo 7 took NASA into a new arena of opportunity. Spending 11 days in space, Schirra proved the vehicle was capable of flying to the Moon and back. In fact the hardware out-performed the crew. The astronauts operated a 'watch' system so that one man was awake at any time, but his movements made it difficult for the other two to sleep. Tired and suffering colds, the crew became tetchy and hard to handle. Despite enjoying luxuries unheard of on Gemini, including hot meals and enough room to move about, the astronauts bickered with Mission Control so often that none of them was permitted to fly in space again.
Equipped with a safe spacecraft and a capable rocket, NASA was ready to combine the two in a mission that promised to take the space-race close to the finishing line. As a result of McDivitt's flight being delayed by the problems affecting the lunar module, the flight schedule was rewritten and the next crew pulled forward. In August Frank Borman, a broad-shouldered air force fighter pilot capable of making tough decisions quicker than anybody else, was given command of a daring mission to the Moon.4 The two remaining seats went to Bill Anders and Jim Lovell (who had replaced Collins). Borman's backup crew was also pulled forward, so that Neil Armstrong, Buzz Aldrin and Lovell's replacement Fred Haise found themselves supporting Apollo 8 instead of 9. This meant they now had an unexpected shot at flying Apollo 11. Aldrin became the backup command module pilot, with Haise training to fly the lunar module.5
Although the Houston neurologist who diagnosed Michael's problem had been unable to confirm its cause, Collins suspected that his life as a fighter pilot had finally caught up with him. While stationed in France he had ejected from an F-86, and he wondered whether this may have triggered the weakness in his neck. The neurologist suggested a straightforward operation to remove the offending section of bone. But the air force, still technically Michael's employers, insisted that if he hoped to fly again he would need something more substantial. Michael realised he had no choice but to agree to an operation that would remove the bone spur and then fuse two vertebrae together with a piece of bone from his hip.
Checking into an air force hospital on 21 July, Michael felt himself to have been 'dropped like a hot potato' from Borman's crew.6 After surgery he endured many weeks of frustrating uncertainty as he waited to find out whether the operation had been a success. By the autumn of 1968 he was back at work. But he was still grounded, and although offered a post at headquarters he got the impression it was a job being offered to an ex-astronaut, and turned it down.7 If he was to get back into space, Collins knew he needed to stay in Houston. While working with Lovell on preparations for Apollo 8, Michael tried to get back to a physical condition that would allow him to fly. For this mission it was too late; 'those bastards Borman and Slayton' had given his seat away and they weren't about to change their minds.8 'I don't think Mike has completely forgiven me yet,' Borman said recently, 'because I think he thought he could have come back. But the mission was more important than anybody.'9
While Borman, Lovell and Anders continued with their training, some within NASA struggled to accept that the target they had worked so hard to reach was finally within their grasp. Since 1961, NASA had been looking at the Moon through a shop window, wondering about the cash, the technology and the depth of willpower required to touch what seemed like forbidden treasure. Now that it was actually within their reach, a sense of nervous caution set in. On Sunday 10 November, less than six weeks before the launch of Apollo 8, George Mueller, Chris Kraft, Deke Slayton, George Low and other NASA managers met representatives of more than a dozen contractors to decide whether to commit to putting men into lunar orbit. Amid lingering apprehension, the managers adopted a veneer of confidence in giving the mission the go-ahead.10 The decision came not a moment too soon. On the same day, the Russians launched another unmanned probe on a mission to the Moon, raising fresh fears of cosmonauts making the trip before Christmas.
NASA could beat them to it, if only they could hold their nerve.
A rocket no-one had flown before was to be sent into deep space, on a course dependent on pinpoint mathematical calculations while carrying a spacecraft tested only once in flight. It was a mission so risky there was no point pretending to the press it was anything less. Three days before the launch, the Apollo programme's head of safety, Jerry Lederer, said that Apollo 8 had 5,600,000 parts and even if all functioned with 99.9 per cent reliability 'we could expect 5,600 defects'.11 Borman wasted no time in dismissing such worries. Believing 'the mission was more important than our lives, than our families', he declared that he had 'no hesitancy about the hardware'.12 For him the flight was no less than a potential Cold War victory. It was his to be won; 'that's what we were there for,' he said.13 Privately, one of Frank's teenage sons told his mother, 'You know, Dad's lucky, he gets to choose the way he's going to die. You and I aren't going to have that privilege.'14
At lift-off, on the morning of 21 December 1968, Collins was confined to Mission Control. As the launch CapCom he was prepared to call an immediate abort should anything go seriously wrong. 'With 5,600 things about to break,' he wrote, 'we would have plenty to talk about.'15 The tension eased once the crew reached space, but a hushed sense of apprehension returned to Mission Control when Collins gave them permission to blast out of Earth orbit. In doing so they became the first people to slip beyond the cradle of the Earth and venture out into the open void. Throughout the history of manned space-flight only 24 people have ever gone further than Earth orbit, all of them Apollo astronauts – led by Borman, Lovell and Anders.
For the first time, human beings would be travelling through the potentially harmful radiation belts that stretched out around the Earth. The Van Allen belts posed no great risk to people passing through them quickly, nevertheless all Apollo astronauts wore dosimeters which displayed a measure of the radiation they encountered.16 Updates were regularly given to Mission Control where they were monitored by the flight surgeon. A day into the mission senior doctors were asked to attend a private meeting, together with Michael Collins and a handful of flight controllers.17 Borman had suddenly become ill. Dragging himself into the lower equipment bay, Frank had thrown up and then suffered diarrhoea, leaving particles of vomit and faeces floating about the cabin. They had to be chased down by Anders and Lovell using paper towels, as if swotting a swarm of insects. 'Basically it was a mess in the spacecraft,' Anders later remembered.18 With the world watching such a prominent mission, Borman was reluctant to share publicly details of his illness. He had agreed to provide a short summary on tape, knowing this could be transmitted to the ground using a discrete telemetry channel.
Uncertain of the extent of the problem, flight managers were left wondering whether they would have to announce that the mission was in trouble before the crew were even halfway to the Moon. In a private meeting in Mission Control, the doctors and managers contacted the spacecraft. Borman, by now much recovered, blamed a sleeping pill he had taken a few hours into the flight, but rather than radiation or a reaction to pills it was later established that NASA had encountered its first case of space sickness. The Mercury and Gemini cabins had been so cramped that an astronaut was unable to move about properly. But in the relatively spacious command module there was plenty of room to float around in weightlessness. In doing so, the fluids in the inner ear sloshed about and for some people this induced an illness that lasted a day or so until their body acclimatised to the conditions of space-flight. Neither Lovell nor Anders was ill, and once it was realised that Borman was on the mend the decision was made to allow the mission to continue.
As the backup commander, Armstrong was in the Mission Operations Control Room, watching events. It was here that, on the day after Borman's illness, Deke found him and asked him to step into an office.19 In his usual direct manner Slayton offered Neil command of Apollo 11. He couldn't confirm the mission's objective since Apollo 8 had yet to be completed, and the critical tests to be carried out by 9 and 10 would have to be successful before a landing could be attempted. Not only was Slayton uncertain about Armstrong's mission, even the choice of crew remained open. By rights Aldrin and Haise could expect to be selected, but Deke had concerns about Buzz, and he wasn't alone. Buzz himself wrote that comments he made during the preparations for Apollo 8 riled Borman so much that, in front of Armstrong, 'Frank shot back that he didn't need any suggestions from me that would screw up his flight'.20 Deke told Neil that Buzz 'wasn't necessarily so easy to work with', adding that he could make Jim Lovell available if that's what Neil wanted.21 Currently flying as the Apollo 8 command module pilot (or CMP), Lovell would be well placed to perform the same role on Apollo 11.22
But Deke had another suggestion. X-rays had shown that Michael Collins, also a CMP, had made a complete recovery. He was back on flying status and itching to get back into rotation, and Slayton felt he deserved to be given a flight at the earliest opportunity – if Armstrong agreed. Asking for time to consider his choices, Neil slept on it before going back to Deke the following day.23 He knew that seniority in an Apollo crew ran from the commander to the command module pilot, and then to the lunar module pilot. On paper Buzz ought to fly as the CMP, but while Armstrong wanted Collins to serve on the crew he didn't want to relegate him to third position. Since Collins was a command module specialist it made sense to keep him in this role. Nor did Neil feel he could offer the third seat to Lovell since his Gemini and Apollo flights qualified him for his own command. Aldrin had trained as a lunar module pilot prior to the Apollo 8-Apollo 9 swap and could reasonably be asked to do the job again. Besides, Neil had been working with Buzz for months on Apollo 8 and felt that 'everything seem[ed] to be going all right'.24 Armstrong rated Aldrin's flying skills, noting that 'Buzz and I had both flown in Korea', and he appreciated the fact that Buzz's intellect, creative thinking and willingness to make suggestions made him a 'fine person to work with'.25 Neil had always stepped aside from the politics endemic in the Astronaut Office and was not about to start delving into personality conflicts now. In looking at Buzz he saw a man of ability; 'I'm not sure I recognised at that point in time what might be considered eccentricities,' Neil later said.26 As far as he was concerned, Collins would be the CMP and Aldrin the lunar module pilot, and in accepting his decisions Deke bumped Fred Haise into a place on the backup crew.
While Armstrong was weighing up his options, Apollo 8 entered lunar orbit. In passing behind the Moon the crew found themselves at a point further from home than had ever been experienced before by man.
Ever since John Houbolt had persuaded NASA to adopt the strategy of lunar orbit rendezvous it had been decided that a flight to the Moon would involve two spacecraft. It was assumed from an early point in the planning that should certain emergencies develop in the command module, the crew could use the lunar module as a lifeboat. Without a heat-shield the LM could never survive re-entry into the atmosphere. But equipped with a powerful engine, an independent set of thrusters and its own supplies of oxygen and electricity, it could provide a shelter in the event of a serious problem. The theory was later proved in practice when an explosion drained life from the command module during Apollo 13. The spacecraft was left with only enough power to carry the crew through the atmosphere, so for the four-day journey back to Earth the astronauts took refuge in their LM. The crew of Apollo 8 didn't have a lunar module, and were taking a gamble with every minute they remained in space.
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The fragile lunar module was only of use if it survived the rigours of being hurled into space while squashed inside its adapter. Apollo 11's LM had been extracted from its container a little over four hours into the mission, but by the morning of the third day of the flight no-one had yet been inside to see what condition it was in. Opening the way into the lunar module was not an easy process, since an elaborate probe and drogue docking assembly lay in the middle of the tunnel connecting the LM with the command module. The crew completed a round
of household tasks (including a waste-water dump and a P52 exercise) before preparing for the afternoon's TV broadcast – during which Aldrin would finally get a chance to assess the lander. Before the mission began, he had fought for an inspection of the LM to be included in the flight-plan at the earliest opportunity. If there was a problem, he wanted to know about it before they entered lunar orbit. At 55 hours into the flight, Neil examined the probe and drogue before Collins dismantled it, clearing the way into the LM. It was 3.32pm in Houston on Friday 18 July. The crew had been awake for seven hours and so far the third day had been relatively quiet. They were now 175,000 miles away from the Earth and travelling at less than 2,200mph.
Once the probe and drogue were removed, Buzz floated into the dimly lit tunnel and gingerly opened the LM's hatch. As it pushed gently inward, he could see that sunshine was filtering through the thin, silver-coloured window-shades, the light bouncing off a stray washer that was floating near the ceiling. Shooting TV pictures as he went, Buzz took a while to get his bearings inside a spacecraft he only knew from an Earth-bound perspective. The hot, cramped cabin was very different from the roomy command module, and was dusty enough to make Buzz cough. The white ceiling fittings, bathed in sunlight, reflected light on to the scores of switches and gauges set in the grey instrument panels. While the command module, like any home, was littered with personal possessions and equipment, the LM contained neatly packed white bags that gave it a sterile atmosphere. It was as if the cockpit were waiting in storage until whenever it might be needed. Although many of the gauges were already displaying meaningful information, the spacecraft looked less than ready for the monumental journey it would be making in a couple of days' time. Allowing the world its first glimpse of the vehicle that was going to go all the way to the Moon, Buzz panned round the cabin until he was looking back into the tunnel. 'Hey, that's a great shot right there,' said CapCom Charlie Duke, 'guess that's Neil and Mike. Better be, anyway.'