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:
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
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)
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.
Highways Into Space: A first-hand account of the beginnings of the human space program Page 21