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

by Glynn S. Lunney

  The car traffic we would call light. There were more buses than cars at work in Moscow. We hardly ever saw gas stations. But, then again, nothing had the signage that we were used to. Locals just knew where they were.

  The Moscow subway was a striking exception to almost all of the other construction. The stations were very beautiful. We were always happy to see the next one. The subway seemed to be the main mode of transportation for the residents. In that regard, it was more like the NYC system than the Washington, DC, metro. Buying something in the store was at least a two-step process. Beer came by the single bottle. There were no six-pack containers. To buy, the first line was to pay for a ticket for whatever you wanted, the next line was to redeem the ticket for the product. We never bought more than one thing at a time. The experience of seeing something that was brand new caused me to observe the architecture more carefully. I noticed this started to apply when I was back home and I can now “see and admire” buildings that are a hundred years or older in my hometowns of Scranton and Houston.

  Dr. Gilruth gathered us shortly after returning home to discuss our observations and reactions. All of us (Dr. Gilruth, Caldwell, George and myself) were encouraged by the tone and substance of the meeting. Each of us felt that we should move the effort towards a real test with current vehicles in order to bring a strong focus of reality to the work. We were unanimous that a real project would be much preferable to an exercise “in the abstract.” Abstract might not have the same sense of urgency and can trail off into a process of establishing a set of specifications and putting them on the shelf. A real design challenge like the docking system needs to be about real hardware. However, that approach obliged all of us to mature this possibility into a realistic and serious proposal.

  In terms of implementation within MSC, two more organizational units were engaged. The first was a program office function, headed by René Berglund and called the Advanced Mission Office. René did many of the advanced studies for the Center and knew the ropes for lining up study funding and the right players to involve in the contractor organizations. Clarke Covington was supporting René’s studies, from the Spacecraft Design Office in the Engineering Directorate. Both of these men jumped in quickly and added their talents to this growing effort. They helped with some of the initial framing of options as background for MSC management and then George Low.

  For reasons of keeping the options limited and focused, the René Berglund study concentrated on Apollo/Soyuz vehicles with various methods of crew transfer from EVA to internal transfer to the use of an airlock adapter to handle the two different cabin atmospheres. The result of this effort was presented by Clarke Covington to George Low and HQ staff. The first data package entitled “Preliminary Rendezvous and Docking System Requirements for United States Spacecraft” was prepared in accordance with the October 1970 actions. They also created a second, new paper entitled “A Concept for a United Socialist Republics/United States of America Rendezvous and Docking Mission.” Both of these were later transmitted in February to Academician Petrov. Dr. Gilruth explained the second paper as a follow-up to the Low/Keldysh discussions in January. He also explained that specific configurations were very useful in understanding the problems of compatibility. He also recommended this concept as a useful way to assess compatibility during the upcoming March/April meeting.

  George Low planned to travel to Moscow in January for further discussion with the President of the Soviet Academy of Sciences, Dr. Keldysh, of four other cooperative space studies and/or projects, outside of manned space flight. Within manned space, the U.S. had concrete plans for Apollo and Skylab only at this time. Shuttle was under study but not yet approved. However, unknown to us, but probably known by Dr. Gilruth, there had been several months of active work by the NASA HQ staff in OMSF on the possibility of manned space cooperation in compatible rendezvous and docking systems. One of the outcomes was a similar proposal to conduct a test with an existing vehicle, Skylab. So, the proposal by Dr. Gilruth, Caldwell Johnson and supported by the rest of us to work on a real mission was a confirmation of the HQ efforts, albeit with a different U.S. vehicle. As far as we knew, the Soviet plans centered around the Soyuz. Our developing proposal did not preclude consideration of system compatibility of future vehicles but added the possibility of a real-live, near-term test of the larger questions: what would the White House and then the Soviet response be to such an idea?

  Chapter Twenty-four: 1971: Year of Project Definition

  January 1971 Meeting

  The Low-Keldysh meeting seemed a perfect opportunity to “test the waters.” We were very fortunate to have George Low in the position of Acting Administrator, before a replacement for Dr. Paine was selected. George knew well the capabilities and people in the field centers and quickly earned the respect of our national leadership in Washington. In January, he scheduled and briefed Dr. Henry Kissinger, the President’s Foreign Policy Advisor. The proposal fit neatly into Kissinger’s approach, labeled “détente,” a process designed to establish and build on subjects of common interest to the U.S. and other nations. The response was very positive and George was given “carte blanche” to pursue any and all of the NASA subjects and had the President’s backing to explore cooperation in designing and flight testing compatible rendezvous and docking systems for manned space ships.

  So in a remarkably short time, NASA went from an initial NASA HQ compatibility study, starting in about August 1970, with an internal-to-NASA concept to dock a Soyuz to the Skylab. Then, a meeting of the Cold War competitors occurred in October 1970 in Moscow, which later resulted in an internal NASA decision to explore the U.S. government and, separately, the Soviet interest in an Apollo Soyuz flight test. Such a mission would demonstrate the technical specifics of making rendezvous, docking and crew transfer compatible between our countries AND demonstrate the ability of the two countries to work together for this common, humanitarian purpose.

  George Low and Arnold Frutkin proceeded to Moscow in January with the full support of President Nixon and Secretary of State Henry Kissinger. Their reception at the Russian airport was very warm and friendly and they had a relatively quiet and private dinner with the key players in the Russian delegation. On the next day, the meeting began with a very large Soviet delegation. That was to be expected because there were a number of subjects in various disciplines that were on the table for review. They covered weather satellites, meteorological soundings, natural environment research, and objectives for space lunar and planetary planning.

  In a more private meeting George Low and Arnold Frutkin met with Academician Keldysh and cosmonaut Feoktistov. This gave George the opportunity to present our thoughts on using the Apollo and Soyuz spacecraft as a near term test for rendezvous and docking systems. At this point, George Low was careful to frame this not as a formal proposal, but rather an open-ended idea or concept for their consideration and reply. George went through the MSC study of Apollo Soyuz and there were several graduated options of increasing complexity. The first involved a rendezvous but no docking; the second was a docking and an EVA transfer of crew members; the third was a docking and internal transfer between Apollo and Soyuz; the fourth was a docking with an airlock to accommodate the different pressures in each spacecraft. In our studies, we tentatively concluded that raising the Apollo pressure would require significant work and expenditures. Likewise, lowering the Soyuz pressure would likely enrich the Soyuz atmosphere with oxygen and exceed their flammability limit. There was more work to do on that subject. The other advantage of the airlock between the two vehicles is that it provided a large platform on which much of the new equipment would be located, such as a docking system, lights, beacons and the antennas for rendezvous and communication. Low delivered two papers to the Soviet side; one was the rendezvous and docking requirements that were promised in the October meeting, and the second was a new concept for joint mission involving the Apollo and Soyuz spacecraft.

  Since this concept for a joint mission
was new, Academician Keldysh and Feoktistov explored it in their discussions. This then provided the background for the Soviet side to study our work and see how compatible our analysis was. They were pleased to receive this “non-proposal” and would give it serious consideration. It would be on our future agenda until decided to pursue or shelve it. All in all, the response by Keldysh and Feoktistov was encouraging and both Low and Frutkin took that as a positive from the meeting. My take on Frutkin was that he was a big help to us rookies-in-diplomacy. It was a big help in reinforcing what we already knew and practiced: be honest, straightforward and do not play games. It worked pretty well for us.

  After their debrief at home and in a February seventeenth letter to Academician Petrov, Dr. Gilruth expanded on our rationale on why a flight proposal involving Apollo and Soyuz would advance the work on compatible rendezvous and docking systems.

  June 1971 Meeting

  We then began the process of scheduling a spring meeting. By the way, these original meetings and transmittals of information were much more cumbersome than the same activity within our own country. For example, when a letter was transmitted through diplomatic pouches, it then had to be translated on the receiving end and distributed to the appropriate parties. Then, a letter would be prepared in response. Throughout the first year, this process always took one month at a minimum. And letters suggesting meeting dates would not be translated and responded to until pretty close to the suggested meeting date. And this left us realizing there was considerable work to do in speeding up communication and streamlining our flow of information and written material. For example, Academician Petrov replied to Dr. Gilruth’s February seventeenth letter on March fifteenth. It went to Frutkin in Washington, DC, and the translation arrived in Houston on April eleventh. Even so, the first agreement was tentative for mid-May. However, a week before the meeting there was a cable to Arnold’s office on May that said that they were not coming and they needed to postpone. This presented us with a likely slip to June and that was a problem for me and some of the other players. That was getting close to the schedule for Apollo XV, which was July twenty-sixth. The last two months before a launch are usually the most intense in terms of preparation. However, we decided to wait for the Soviet side to be specific with a date.

  Behind the veil of security during this period, they were working on a new manned space platform called Salyut and the first one had been launched on April nineteenth. We were unaware of this new vehicle or its mission. And there was no real information in our media. On April twenty-third, Colonel Shatalov commanded the flight of Soyuz 10 that docked to Salyut 1 for five-and-a-half hours but with no manned transfer. This left people in the U.S. wondering what this was about. The Soviets did launch Soyuz 11 on June 6, 1971, docked with Salyut and transferred the crew.

  Academician Petrov, in a May twenty-fourth letter to Gilruth, proposed the twentieth of June. And although the meeting date bounced around some from March to June, nevertheless the launch of the Salyut 1 and the visit of the Soyuz 11 crew to Salyut in June made clear that there was significant new activity in the Soviet space program. Most of the technical specialists that we dealt with seemed to have some role in this program.

  Sometime in 1971 before our joint meetings, we made one of our best moves on the subject of joint documentation by engaging an accomplished professional in that field by the name of Hugh Scott. He had been in the MSC configuration control documentation business for many years. This task had a few new dimensions – not only documenting, but in two languages and in real time during an ongoing meeting where products were always needed to continue the discussion. He brought his comrade in arms, Jerry Siemers, to assist on this job. He had to bring equipment, and enough help to get a somewhat unknown workload done. This was an era of typewriters with whiteout and bulky copy machines. Sometimes the Soviets were amazed at what his team could get done. Hugh created the document structure and a numbering system for all the subject matter we created in this project. The Soviets were always playing catch up, finally just deferring to Hugh. Even though Hugh’s operation had to be moved seven thousand miles, his was the go-to team. Hugh and his team earned our everlasting respect and thanks for the job they got done under pretty trying circumstances. They just got better as the project went on.

  Their delegation arrived on a Sunday, the twentieth of June, and they had nineteen people in the delegation. We met them at the airport and planned to start on Monday morning. As you can imagine, the Soviet engineers were very proud of what their program had just accomplished. So they were riding high when they got to the meeting. Monday, the first morning, was for planning and confirming the activities for the week. In consideration of the fact that they had just arrived, it did not involve any real negotiations and in the afternoon we had a chance to display the facilities and people of MSC to our guests. A number of astronauts joined us – Fred Haise, TK Mattingly and John Young. On the next day, Johnson started by summarizing what the phases of any test mission would be: finding each other’s spacecraft, the guidance for getting to the docking point, the actual docking and crew transfer, issues related to the size of the hatches and any need for pre-breathing. The Soviets wanted to stick with the .8-meter hatch limit. If we built a new hatch, we would have preferred a larger one. It was at this meeting that we met Victor Legostayev, who was their expert on rendezvous and guidance and navigation equipment. He found no real differences in what we saw as the way forward and could easily arrive at an agreement. He did very well with English and was always constructive and a helpful participant in the discussions. Vladimir Syromyatnikov was their docking expert. He described how their docking system worked in detail and was very proud of what his system had contributed to the overall success of their program. Vladimir also spoke English very well. Between the two of them, they were able to expedite their group understanding and discussion. I believe their respective groups would have done well anyway, but their proficiency enriched all of the non-technical interactions also.

  In the concept for the Apollo-Soyuz, the docking system was not specifically defined, but the Soviets did not want to use a system like the Apollo probe and drogue system. They felt that was a dead end and we agreed. We needed to find a docking system that did not require a male and a female part. Having the same system on both ships was preferable. We recognized that there were a number of mission alternatives. The Apollo could rendezvous with the Soyuz or Salyut. And Soyuz could rendezvous with either the Apollo or Skylab. All options had pros and cons. It was time to start narrowing.

  That evening, at the request of the Soviet delegation, we arranged a bus to transport the group to a shopping mall. They were interested in a number of things such as electric saws, drills and tools of various kinds for the men and also a shopping list from their wives for clothes, especially children’s clothes. Marilyn told me the wives back home had a few wigs on the shopping lists. So they roared through Penneys where there was a sale on children’s clothes. They filled the bus with shopping bags. It was our first encounter with the reaction to something that we take for granted, which is the abundance of choice we have in our stores and products that is very suitable and reasonably priced. It was interesting to see the response of the men to the equipment we had in the tools department at Sears. They loaded up on what they thought they might need for a while. We discussed coordinate systems, atmospheres, hatches, transfers, et cetera. Apollo to Salyut was suggested as something that might be done subsequent to Soyuz to Skylab. By this time, we had assigned the above subjects to Working Group 1 (WG1). Working Group 2 (WG2) started on the guidance system and the radios. Working Group 3 (WG3) was the group that worked the docking system. It was the territory from which a dramatically new design would emerge. It was interesting to watch the interpersonal dynamics between the two chairmen, Vladimir Syromyatnikov and Caldwell Johnson. It was a case of the high competence of both men, with Caldwell embodying the grace and humor of a Virginia gentleman, and in Vladimir, a somewhat hard
-edged perfectionist, with a very good command of the idioms of our language.

  It was at this second meeting that Technical Directors for the project were named. Konstantin Bushuyev was named TechnicaDirector for the Soviets and I was named Technical Director for the Americans. Konstantin was about twenty years my senior. The meeting concluded with a lot of preliminary transfers of information on all the above technical subjects and more. We all felt that a good working relationship was in the making. We did not necessarily understand why they did everything they did, but we learned that they always did have a good reason.

  Lunney and Professor Bushuyev New Technical Directors

  A joint statement was issued by Dr.Gilruth and Petrov but they did not have a press conference. The Soviets departed with all of the material we exchanged and all they had bought at the shopping mall. It was all rather friendly and we had the feeling that we were working together towards an admirable goal. We parted company with congratulations and expressions of good expectations about our next meeting in Moscow. We had a press conference later with six of us Americans where we had a chance to report on what we did and what it was like to work with people from the Soviet Union. This whole business of the press was an interesting experience for us and I presume for the Soviets. For me, I had been doing press conferences for ten to twelve years and was very comfortable with them. But I found that I had taken our system for granted and did not think how it would look to someone else. One problem the Soviets had with the press was that they didn’t know who controlled them. They had a hard time accepting that it was not government controlled. In their world, everything is controlled by the government, so they are all on the same page. They didn’t know who controlled our press. They were aware of the criticisms that came from our Congress to incidents within the U.S. government. They had already learned about Senator Proxmire, who was a critic of very many activities of the government and its contractors. He enhanced his career with continued expose of overpriced activities and he gave out an annual Golden Fleece award to the most outrageous example. For them, this was just another puzzle piece that they did not know how to fit in. Since they did not see public criticism of their government by a member of the government in their world, this must have seemed chaotic and confusing. It was an interesting learning process for all of us. Bushuyev became able at it. He was adept at not answering yes-or-no questions or other subjects he wanted to avoid. And he learned to be informative where he could. He had a gentlemanly way about him that made it hard to be upset with him. We didn’t have any real trouble with their press because of their control. They were fairly docile with us.