Highways Into Space: A first-hand account of the beginnings of the human space program

by Glynn S. Lunney

  In this case, the proposal resulted in chartering an interagency committee, which endorsed the idea of “compatible” solutions. NASA HQ chartered a small team of technical people to consider options and their work even included the possibility of a test mission with existing and/or upcoming flight programs. Coincident with this work were several positive developments – Neil Armstrong reception by the Soviets at the COSPAR meeting, Low and Keldysh had positive interaction at the same meeting and a separate meeting of Phil Handler of the U.S. National Academy of Sciences with counterparts in the Soviet Academy. Paine sent another letter on September 4, 1970, expressing strong NASA interest in common docking systems AND he raised the possibility of a test flight with a Soviet spacecraft docking with the US Skylab, scheduled for 1973. Keldysh sent a letter that crossed in the mail, outlining his specific recommendations for an agenda. More letters followed and the first meeting was scheduled for October 26 through 28, 1970, in Moscow. Our team traveled to Washington to review our respective presentations and receive some background from the interested agencies in Washington. The tone I recall was one of, “Don’t expect too much. Any progress, if any, will be slow.” I do not recall hearing any of HQ’s opinion on the previous suggestions of an early flight test of our results.

  I had limited knowledge of the broader historical background except for an awareness that President Kennedy had discussed the possibility of a joint mission to the moon at the U.N. much earlier in 1963.

  October 1970 Meeting

  At first, I came to this discussion of a trip to Moscow in complete surprise, and then learned of the recent, higher-level Paine/Keldysh agreement to discuss the possibility of making rendezvous and docking systems compatible in some way. The context was to enable the rescue of stranded crewmen in orbit, an extension of the maritime parallel for providing assistance at sea. It was readily seen as a humanitarian effort to enhance the safety of subsequent space travelers. It had to be an accident of timing but there was an American movie, Marooned, that year portraying the rescue of an American crew by a cosmonaut. Even so, some on both sides harbored reservations about this cooperation. Another irony was that Dr. Paine, the initiator and advocate, resigned in September 1970 for personal reasons before our first Moscow trip in October.

  I am sure that Dr. Gilruth, the Director of the Manned Spacecraft Center, was briefed on all of the history since he would be the head of this delegation. I had known Dr. Gilruth from a distance for years and saw his hand in the workings of MSC. He was highly respected and admired by all who worked with him. Further, Chris Kraft always made his respect for Dr. Gilruth, his boss, evident to all of us who worked for him. I was looking forward to this opportunity of working more closely with Dr. Gilruth.

  The delegation included Dr. Gilruth, of course, Caldwell Johnson, a designer from the Engineering Directorate, and myself from the Operations Directorate. Also on the team were George Hardy from MSFC and Arnold Frutkin from NASA Headquarters, and the International Affairs Chief was also there. In retrospect, I wonder if they considered the option to fill us in on all of the background or whether they decided to let us play the hand without preconditioning. Perhaps, they did not concern themselves with our state of knowledge of the history and selected us because they counted on us to react to the circumstances as we evaluated the situation. That would be my guess and it was typical of the trust that flowed through our organization. I was just seeing it in action at a new level.

  October 1970 Visit from left: Lunney, Shatalov from right: Feoktistov, CC Johnson, Frutkin, Dr. Gilruth

  My career in manned space started with a drawing (inboard profile) of what became the Mercury spacecraft, which was drawn by Caldwell in 1958. I never before had a chance to work with Caldwell up close, but his earlier drawing was recommendation enough for me. Caldwell had also worked in the early program management of Apollo and now worked for Max Faget, the legendary designer of manned space vehicles. George Hardy was a designer from the MSFC and knew the Skylab program. He was on the team because Skylab might have become part of this cooperative initiative. George also represented the inclusion of MSFC in these discussions. To me, Arnold Frutkin was a completely new entity. He had long experience in arranging cooperative international efforts in NASA’s scientific projects. But this was his first in manned space. Throughout the entire project, Arnold was constructive and especially helpful in steering us through this new world of international negotiations. Our interpreter was Bill Krimer, whom I understood to have experience as an interpreter in the Strategic Arms Limitation Talks (SALT), a very high profile role. This was a good team. And we soon went off to Moscow, Russia, each with our own thoughts, and – at least in my case – some trepidation about how this trip would unfold.

  So we went there. It was October of 1970. We made good travel plans by leaving on Friday, the twenty-third of the month, and arriving in Moscow on Saturday evening. It was cold with snow on the ground and seemed forbidding. The airport security was provided by armed soldiers and there seemed to be a lot of them. Dr. Gilruth picked out our welcoming party and was relieved to see the smiles and friendly manner of our hosts, about five of them, waiting to assist us through the arrival process. The reception was positive, welcoming and made us feel optimistic about our upcoming meeting. In the airport, we met Cosmonaut Feoktistov and Academician Boris Petrov. As it turned out, Feoktistov participated in one more meeting in January 1971. After that last appearance, Academician Petrov became the senior executive for most of our subsequent meetings.

  A real reminder that we were in a different land was underlined by the answer to our questions regarding large structures of beams or I-beams rising out of the ground along the road just outside the airport. They represented Soviet anti-tank defenses, at the point of the closest advance of the Nazi-led German army to Moscow. Within an hour, we arrived at the Russiya hotel. The Russiya was about a block from Red Square, the location of Lenin’s tomb and those military parades I had watched all of my adult life. I was ready for a night’s sleep.

  But, our hosts had arranged a dinner and then a driving tour of the city. Most notable for me was the view from the Lenin Hills. It was rather other worldly. At night, with very little traffic in the capitol, we were overlooking the Kremlin and the city with its lights, now covered by a blanket of fresh snow as its stage. Strange to be seeing this forbidden city of Moscow this way.

  On Sunday morning, we went to Star City, about a forty-five minute drive from downtown. We were warmly received by the Commandant General Kuznetsov and escorted by General Beregovoy and Colonel Shatalov, who later became a regular participant on crew matters once the project got underway. Star City was more than the equivalent to a NASA center. It was also the home base for the military cosmonauts where they and their families lived. There were lots of young children to be seen around what you would think of as the campus of Star City. I understood that the civilian cosmonauts like Valerie Kubasov, who flew with Colonel Leonov on ASTP, lived in the city in what we would call condos or apartments.

  We visited the training facility and toured the mockups. The two manned compartments of the Soyuz vehicle had different functions. They were stacked on top of an unmanned module that housed many of the propulsion elements and supported the solar arrays and other equipment. The service module was similar in function to the equipment adapter in Gemini and the service module in Apollo. In all these vehicles, the rear section of this service module was attached to the top of the launch vehicle. The manned module on top of the service module was the “cockpit” module. It was, and still is, the portion of the vehicle that serves as the reentry module with heat protection and parachutes. It is also where the cosmonauts perform control functions for ascent to orbit and reentry. It is approximately the shape of a gumdrop. The internal volume of this module, housing the three crewmen for launch and entry, is a tight fit with not a lot of spare space. And that is for the current flight configuration without bulky pressure suits. (It is not for “tall” crewm
embers.) Forward of the cockpit module is the orbital module that is almost spherical with dimensions of approximately seven to eight feet. The two manned modules were connected and had internal hatches for access. The orbital module felt roomy and was used as a living quarters – eating, sleeping, exercise, some experiments. On the external front of the orbital module was the docking system and an internal hatch system for transfer to another vehicle or to conduct an EVA.

  I had the opportunity to fly the simulator. The first impression was that there were far fewer displays and controls compared to the switches and circuit breakers in our ships. When our flight crews engaged later in the project, there was far more conversation about the philosophical difference in approach to the role of ground control and automated sequencers, which was the Soviet approach, and the American approach of a much larger role in the crew operation of the spacecraft. This debate never resolved itself completely, but it was typical of our experience with most of design and operations. At first, the response was to not understand why anyone would do it that way. But then go through the thought process and examine it for something to learn. There almost always was some different angle or it may have been based on having different capabilities. For example, the state of the art of each side sometimes dictated the solutions as in the case of using computers: the U.S. state of the art in computers enabled a more widespread use of math models to evaluate many conditions, while the Soviet side preferred to confirm design by more testing. (I hear that this general process of understanding the other side’s rationale is repeated often in the International Space Station today, more than four decades later.)

  Back inside the simulator, Colonel Shatalov explained the layout of the cockpit – a globe to display position over the earth, a TV display of data, digital readouts, systems status lights and a TV camera mounted forward gave a display of the cross-shaped alignment target on the other vehicle. This was used to evaluate and correct, when necessary, the attitude of the vehicle for docking. Range and range rate came from other sensors and from the TV visual. My first lesson in how idioms do not translate well came on my exit from the simulator. I was actually trying to compliment the design and remarked that it felt just like flying by the seat of the pants (i.e. it was intuitive and comfortable). A lot of frowns and unfriendly looks, while my interpreter explained that the translation by the Russian interpreter came out as, “It felt like flying with my a-- going backwards.” Once explained, they took it as a laugh on all of us.

  We did stay for a meal there at Star City. It was hosted by General Kuznetsov and attended by a dozen or more cosmonauts in military uniform. The General’s opening toast was a serious one and emphasized the importance of keeping space activities peaceful. We did get to the vodka and toast-making ritual. Well outnumbered, we held our own at that diplomatic exercise and even claimed victory. Toast-making stayed with us throughout the project. It was an art form. The choice of subject and delivery was a competition in itself, and sometimes, the performances were to be admired.

  Back in the city and in keeping with our full schedule, we went to the Bolshoi ballet that night.

  The next day was the start of our three-day meeting. On the Soviet side, Konstantin Feoktistov led their delegation. Academician Boris Petrov seemed to be the policy person. Vladimir Syromyatnikov represented the docking system, the guidance system was done by V. Suslennikov and Ilya Lavrov covered the life support systems. We also had the Science Attache from our Embassy. Apparently, the embassy stayed with visiting U.S. delegations to assure that we behaved according to some unspecified rules. I assume that we did because they soon left us to our discussions. Whenever we asked, they were very helpful.

  Up first, I gave a summary of the primary systems necessary for rendezvous, such as communications, guidance and propulsion and a number of the related equipment including range measurements, lights, reflectors, targets and radios. I also summarized the rendezvous techniques and recognized that we each had differences in the degree of automation, but they seemed amenable to a joint solution.

  Feoktistov presented the Soviet rendezvous model in three distinct phases: approach to the vicinity of the target, closure to station keeping distance and final docking maneuvers. They preferred to put the two vehicles in similar (coplanar) orbits and then perform propulsion burns designed to arrive at the station keeping point. The docking closure would be performed by small thrusters in auto or manual, with a preference for automatic.

  Caldwell Johnson presented next on the docking system. He saw this as a major opportunity to avoid some of the difficulties inherent in the probe and drogue systems used on Apollo and Soyuz. For one thing, two spacecrafts with probes cannot dock with each other, nor can two with drogues. Probes also block the tunnel passage and can be inconvenient to remove. The probe and drogue concept can be described as male and female. Caldwell introduced the androgynous concept (without gender) as an ideal solution, permitting any spacecraft with one to dock with any other spacecraft so equipped. Think of it as two rings of interleaving fingers with capture latches to affect a “soft” docking and, when retracted, heavy-duty structural rings are drawn together to affect a rigid mating of sufficient strength to accommodate the mass and inertia of the spacecraft. In effect, something like a mirror image. Since this was different than the current Soyuz system, Caldwell couched it as illustrative of possible future options. They were interested.

  While withholding response, Vladimir Syromyatnikov presented his briefing on the Soviet docking system. Vladimir was a serious young man, thirty-seven at the time, and very proud of the accomplishments of his team for their work on the docking systems for Soyuz. They used a “pin and cone” (like our probe and drogue) design, but their implementation precluded internal transfer. The Soviet design also included the engagement of electrical umbilicals, which were positioned by six-inch guide pins mating with sockets. Syromyatnikov also reported that they were working on an assembly of probe and drogue that could be rotated out of the tunnel for transfer clearance.

  In the afternoon, George Hardy of MSFC, presented material on the upcoming Skylab program. George continued on the next morning. V. Suslennikov briefed on the radio guidance system of Soyuz. We gathered the points discussed earlier and compiled a list. Included in the listing of the issues was an action to define the cabin atmospheres – composition and characteristics – but it was not discussed in much detail as we expected that future ships would have cabins of one atmosphere of pressure (fourteen point seven pounds per square inch (PSI), as opposed to the Apollo cabin pressure of five PSI). Feoktistov then gathered all of the subjects and submitted a review draft. He listed the pertinent issues and documented our agreed forward plan of a document exchange by January-February 1971 and a second meeting in the March-April 1971 time frame. To address the subjects, he suggested a three working group arrangement to address the list of issues. After more discussion, this draft became the basis for the “Summary of Results” of this meeting and was signed the next day, with the intention to recommend it to the leadership of NASA and the Soviet Academy of Science. The speed of reaching understanding and agreement impressed and surprised all of us. And then it was time to come home.

  We gave thought to the lessons of the meeting and recorded some of the major ones:

  Write a draft of the Summary of Results (minutes) before the meeting.

  Send the plan for the meeting with content and schedule of work to the other side.

  Write a draft Press Communique.

  Allow time for translation and verification of results into both languages.

  Select correct people for working groups and support.

  Plan travel to allow at least a day of rest before meetings.

  Slow down on social events.

  Prepare for documenting task – staff and equipment.

  Recognize the value of competent and consistent

  interpreters for each activity.

  There were differences in Moscow and they really struck
us. We were new to the scene, and looking hard at everything for the first time. We stayed at the Russiya hotel, which was a giant building, about a block off Red Square. Red Square was always brightly illuminated, with Lenin’s tomb across the square from us when we walked form the hotel. In the hotel lobby, there were watchers whose only job seemed to be checking people entering and leaving the hotel. They must have memorized the faces of those who belonged there. The rooms were simple and adequate. They favored balalika music on the hotel music system. It must be their equivalent to our elevator music.

  The hotel had a restaurant on the top floor and did serve reasonably good food. There were different tastes than what we were familiar with. We usually went there on the first free night for a visit and ate our fill of caviar with black bread simply because we had never had it and we could order it in quantities. There were small breakfast areas in the corners of the corridors and our guys worked at getting eggs cooked in a familiar way. They were always passing around the locations of their favorites for breakfast. There were other stations occupied by what we called the “key ladies.” Their stations were located so they could see all the doors or access to the doors for which they had the keys. When you left the hotel, you delivered your key to the key lady, who gave it back to you when you returned. They were not happy if you forgot to leave your key.

  On the streets, in the early morning, there were brigades of older women sweeping the streets. Their brooms looked homemade and they all wore babushkas. As expected, we called them the “babushka ladies.” The pedestrians on the sidewalks were always very serious, even somber, and dressed in various shades of black or gray. This was not the “smile capitol” of the world. Other ladies were in the coat rooms of office buildings; they took your coat in the morning and gave you a ticket. After a full day, you went back and got your coat from the same ladies. I wondered what else they did during the day, but this seemed like “full employment” in action. There was always a lot of construction underway. A lot of it was done by young soldiers. Caldwell used to watch the soldier working on the concrete or mortar mixing in their wheel barrels. He was always amazed at the amount of water that was added to the mix over the course of the day.