by Jay Barbree
MOON SHOT
The Inside Story of America’s Apollo Moon Landings
Alan Shepard AND Deke Slayton
WITH Jay Barbree
INTRODUCTION BY Neil Armstrong
Moon Shot is for the quintessential space journalist Howard Benedict, the senior aerospace writer for the Associated Press and a perennial winner of spaceflight’s top awards.
Howard employed his magnificent talents to herd the facts and details for the original Moon Shot. He was simply the best and we miss him.
CONTENTS
PREFACE
INTRODUCTION by Neil Armstrong
CHAPTER ONE: 2011
CHAPTER TWO: The Beginning
CHAPTER THREE: The Pilots
CHAPTER FOUR: The Astronauts
CHAPTER FIVE: Training
CHAPTER SIX: The Selection
CHAPTER SEVEN: The Cape
CHAPTER EIGHT: First in Space
CHAPTER NINE: Freedom Seven
CHAPTER TEN: NASA Is Made
CHAPTER ELEVEN: Mercury
CHAPTER TWELVE: Houston
CHAPTER THIRTEEN: Space Walk
CHAPTER FOURTEEN: Gemini: A Bridge to the Moon
CHAPTER FIFTEEN: We’ve Got a Fire in the Cockpit
CHAPTER SIXTEEN: Aftermath
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN: Apollo 8: First Around the Moon
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN: Getting There, Getting Back
CHAPTER NINETEEN: The Landing
CHAPTER TWENTY: Boots on the Moon
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE: Apollo 13: NASA’s Finest Hour
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO: Apollo 14: All or Nothing
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE: No Turning Back
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR: Longest Walk on the Moon
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE: An Astronaut’s Heart and The Last Stages of Apollo
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX: A Handshake in Space
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN: Yesterday, Today, Tomorrow, and the Day After
Image Gallery
About the Authors
Index
PREFACE
“Houston, Tranquility Base here. The Eagle has landed.”
MORE THAN A BILLION PEOPLE heard this terse message from the surface of the Moon on July 20, 1969. It was a singular moment for humankind, and the world was united in awe at the enormity of the accomplishment. Nowhere was the jubilation greater than in Mission Control near Houston where Alan Shepard and Deke Slayton watched history unfold and led the cheering as it did. Both were members of the Mercury Seven, America’s elite original astronauts. Shepard was the first American in space, and the astronaut who took the longest walk on the moon. Slayton would fly on the last Apollo mission—the historic first rendezvous with the Russians in earth orbit.
They were at the very heart of America’s effort to reach the moon, and no one else was more qualified to write this fascinating and thrilling account of victories won and defeats endured by a small, but remarkable, group of astronauts. Here are the successes: the first space flights, the first spacewalk, the first rendezvous and docking in space, and the first moon landing. Here, too, are the failures: the masterful saving of an out-of-control Gemini 8, the Apollo 1 launch pad fire that resulted in the deaths of three astronauts, the split-second decision to land Apollo 11 on the moon despite overloaded computers and low fuel, and the Herculean “failure is no option” effort to save the crippled Apollo 13.
Moon Shot reflects the risks and accomplishments of those who traveled faster and farther than any before or since. As the captain said, fasten your seat belt. We’re going to the moon, the damnedest trip you’ll ever make.
INTRODUCTION
Neil Armstrong’s Moon
LUNA INCOGNITA. THE UNKNOWN MOON. A silent sentinel. For all of man’s history it had hung overhead, remote, unreachable, unknowable.
Marching across the heavens each day and circling our earth monthly, the moon has fascinated scientists and inspired poets. Its changing shape provides a perpetual clock-calendar in the sky, a marker for planting, for holidays, for religious celebrations. So near and yet so far, men and moon intertwining for millennia, but never touching.
In the twentieth century, two distinctly different technologies emerged: the digital computer and the liquid-fueled rocket. Two great world powers, ideological adversaries, each recognized that the rocket, which could operate in a vacuum, and the computer, which could enable precision navigation, might break the barrier to space travel.
Both the Soviet Union and the United States believed that technological leadership was the key to demonstrating ideological superiority. Each invested enormous resources in evermore spectacular space achievements. Each would enjoy memorable successes. Each would suffer tragic failures. It was a competition unmatched outside the state of war. Finally, and unpredictably, the competitors would join in a cooperative effort that would contribute to the demise of the Cold War that enveloped them.
The moon’s isolation of nearly five billion years would soon end. Early in the space age, man-made probes flew near the moon. Others soon crashed into the lunar surface. Robot craft landed and transmitted pictures and scientific measurements back to earth laboratories. The stage was set for a visit by man.
The Soviets established an impressive number of “firsts”: first to place a satellite in orbit, first to send a probe to the moon, first to place a human in space, first to orbit two manned craft simultaneously, first to have a human exit his craft in space. But it would be the Americans who would accomplish the seemingly impossible, sending men to the moon and returning them safely to earth.
History will remember the twentieth century for two technological developments: atomic energy and space flight. One threatened the extinction of society, one offered a survival possibility. If Earth were ever threatened by man-made or natural catastrophe, space flight could, just possibly, provide protection or escape.
Alan Shepard and Deke Slayton knew the practical aspects and the visceral feelings of flight. Both were experienced airplane test pilots. Test pilots have the responsibility for finding errors in airplane design. The may discover them during flight, but they would much prefer to identify the problems before going aloft. As two of the seven initial American astronauts, this search for perfection served them well.
Deke and Alan were at the heart of the manned space program. Deke was responsible for the selection of flight crews and their preparedness to fly in space. He took an intense interest in the well being of his flock, protecting, supporting, and encouraging them. They were test pilots, and he understood them. He was a superb boss.
Alan, as chief of the Astronaut Office, was responsible for day-to-day operations. Astronauts were needed for spacecraft tests, for design reviews, for newspaper interviews. With equanimity, he distributed these seemingly limitless tasks to a very limited number of “his boys.” He was an impenetrable barrier to inappropriate or untimely requests. He was “the man in the middle” and handled it well.
Moon Shot is their story. Much more than the story of their flights in space, it details their central role in the most exciting adventure in history. Jay Barbree, one of the world’s most experienced space journalists, reported the triumphs and the tragedies from the dawn of the space age. He is exceptionally well qualified to recall and record the remarkable events and emotions of the time.
Luna is once again isolated. Four decades have passed without footfalls on its dusty surface. No wheeled Rovers patrol the lunar highlands. Silent ramparts guard vast territories never yet visited by man. Unseen vistas await the return of explorers from Earth.
And they will return.
—Neil Armstrong
CHAPTER ONE
2011
DURING THE FIVE DECADES FOLLOWING Alan Shepard’s first laun
ch in 1961, NASA’s enormous accomplishments were respected and admired the world over. Those responsible for the agency’s successes followed a simple axiom: Good is the enemy of great. Yet they were now watching NASA leaders aim for good enough and settle for misions on the cheap. On this particular night many of the old guard had gathered to witness the countdown for the final night launch of a space shuttle. Among the gathering was a man known to few in today’s NASA. Only veterans recognized him as a member of the astronauts’ original trio of command—the space flyer that had replaced Alan Shepard in the astronauts’ front office, had taken the helm when Shepard left to fly Apollo 14 to the moon’s third landing. This day he still served at a meaningful post in NASA as the Chairman of the International Space Station Advisory Task Force.
He had not always been at a desk. Thomas P. Stafford had sat atop four rockets: Gemini 6, the first ever rendezvous of two manned spacecraft; Gemini 9, with Astronaut Gene Cernan; and Apollo 10, again with Cernan, a full dress rehearsal of the historic Apollo 11 mission. It was Tom Stafford’s fourth and final spaceflight that would arguably be the planet’s most important. He commanded the historic Apollo-Soyuz flight with Deke Slayton and Vance Brand. More than 80,000 nuclear warheads were pointed by and at the Soviet Union and America when Apollo and Soyuz launched. The rendezvous, docking, and handshake in space were credited with arresting the Cold War.
This day, in large part—
“May I have your attention please,” the words boomed over speakers across the center. “This night launch is from Complex 39. Although an accident during the first 30 seconds of flight is unlikely, some safety cautions are necessary.
“A potential danger exists from toxic vapors . . . ”
Stafford had heard all the safety announcements before. He looked up as clattering helicopters filled the night. Rescue blades chopping the black sky. The final warning the big space plane was ready.
“T-minus 15 seconds and counting.”
At T-minus 9 seconds, the first of the shuttle Discovery’s three main engines ignited, followed swiftly by the second, then the third, and then it was almost possible to hear the hush seconds before the twin booster rockets ignited. There was an enormous burst of flame from the boosters that swept away the night, seemingly bringing day as they blasted their way downward, into the sloping cavity where they met a Niagara of cooling water in the pad’s flame trench, tens of thousands of gallons turning the boosters’ overwhelming fire into a mountain of steam. Tom Stafford identified with the astronauts. He too had been there in that instant of full alert when he had to perform with catlike precision.
Not one of the thousands of spectators surrounding the spaceport could take their eyes off the enormity of it all: The shuttle was alive and that wonderful space machine, that great, not just good enough, engineered and honed million assembled parts working in magnificent harmony lifted from earth shaking a shower of ice and snow from the skin of its gargantuan fuel tank. The—
That’s when it hit . . .
The space shuttle’s voice was mighty, a thousand jetliners tearing across the Florida sand and scrub brush, pounding its way through hands cupped tightly over ears—hands that helped but did not stop the shaking. Bodies felt as if they were being shaken by King Kong himself, shaken without mercy. People were instantly startled to see their skin move—to see their flesh roll in small yet perfect patterns. It did not hurt. Only the sound brought the stunning and numbing. It pounded and leapt and trampled. Not thunder, not roar. It was too loud for that. Sound created by the shock waves from the shuttle’s engines and boosters. It mixed and swirled and collided, banged and crashed and slammed, poured out in all directions as a series of staccato explosions—a terrible crackling pain to the ears, assaulting the body, yet sweet and exhilarating and worth the beating the thousands assembled were taking, and they reeled back from the sheer fury of it all.
And as the assemblage drank in the unbelievable assault on their senses, they stared into the blinding mass of golden fire, as if they were children enjoying a perfect Christmas. Tom Stafford watched the flames grow, watched them wash downward as the shuttle heaved itself farther into the—no, there was no night. It had been banished by Discovery’s flames. The brightness of it all tore into Stafford’s eyes and he managed a moment to catch his breath as he saw the flames form a ragged spear as the great space plane climbed higher and higher, and he could only stare deeply into the golden color, watch it turn into a rich orange, watch as red appeared along the edges and then the shuttle’s flaming thrust was longer than three football fields hooked together and he knew if one could love a machine he loved that one and he shouted, “Go you beautiful son-of-a-bitch, GO!”
Stafford had been part of the small group of visionaries who counseled President Nixon to build the space shuttle fleet. He had been there at the beginning and on this night he was there at the end as he watched Discovery’s contrail thin and grow wide, twisting in the high winds. The shuttle’s twin boosters burned out and tumbled away, falling into a parachute recovery on the sea.
The engines would now spend the next six minutes pushing their spaceship faster and faster up the eastern seaboard as the raucousness of it all suddenly faded. As night returned so did the protesting cries of fowl that had been shaken from their roosts. It was the kind of night pilots call severe clear and Stafford settled his nerves and pounded muscles and watched and watched as the bright pinpoints of the three core engines faded.
The magic was suddenly gone. Time was moving again. Stafford could see no more and he filled his lungs with ocean air, felt his body finally relax. His muscles were all used up but his mind was clear and he spoke quietly only to himself. “Life was good when magnificent machines flew.”
CHAPTER TWO
The Beginning
THERE ARE SOME SOUTHERN TOWNS that are cocooned in time, content to let the industrial and technological age pass by. In the 1950s one such community was Huntsville, Alabama. It was like many other towns of its vintage and size, moving with a courtly glide, its major contribution to its citizens a courthouse centered in the town square.
The future loomed barely ten miles west of Huntsville. The future was Redstone Arsenal, an unlovely complex along Alabama Highway 72 in the thick of the north Alabama clay hills and tall pines that stretched on to the Tennessee River. Here the U.S. Army loaded explosive materials into artillery shells, bombs, and other weapons that helped America secure a hands-down triumph in World War II. With the war over, however, activity at the Redstone Arsenal ceased. The Army closed the facility, and Huntsville returned to its tranquil times.
Five years later, in 1950, the arsenal came back to life as hundreds of engineers, technicians, specialists, scientists, and their support personnel descended. Their number included 118 men who had come with their families from the center of Europe. The most prized rocket team of the infamous Third Reich.
They came to a run-down Redstone Arsenal to work, to Huntsville to live, and their purpose was to construct a rocket laboratory that would propel the Western world into the second half of the twentieth century. They represented Hitler’s finest, recruited by the U.S. government from a nation where only a few short years earlier Alabama’s young men had fought and died. They were German citizens by birth that had been offered American citizenship and a new home amid the quiet cotton fields of rural Alabama. Having designed, constructed, tested, and launched deadly missiles for the Reich, including the V-l and V-2 rockets whose explosive force had terrorized London during the Blitz, these scientists and engineers were now commissioned to design, construct, test, and launch long-range missiles for the United States. Arriving in Huntsville, they were confident they could exceed their past performance.
Nobody questioned his or her expertise. The American military was without any missile skills and considered these Germans to be the most valuable booty from the defeated Third Reich. They had been recruited through Operation Paperclip, a secret U.S. Army program created to scour Germany f
or rocket, atomic, and aircraft specialists who could be brought to America and kept together as a team.
The lead German scientist was Dr. Wernher von Braun, a brilliant propulsion engineer with a dynamic, commanding presence. He was a visionary who from his youth had dreamed of developing rockets to explore outer space. Many of his fellow scientists and engineers shared his vision and had established rocket clubs in pre-war Berlin. With the advent of war, these engineers had been forced to build weapons of destruction for Adolf Hitler. When von Braun’s V-2 rocket first hit London, he remarked to some of his colleagues, “The rocket worked perfectly except for landing on the wrong planet.”
With Germany crumbling, with the Americans and their European allies advancing from the west and the Russians from the east, von Braun called his top men to a secret meeting.
“Germany has lost the war,” von Braun announced. “But let U.S. not forget that it was our team that first succeeded in reaching outer space. We have never stopped believing in satellites, voyages to the moon, and interplanetary travel. We have suffered many hardships because of our faith in the great peacetime future of the rocket. Now we have an obligation. Each of the conquering powers wants our knowledge. The question we must answer is: To what country shall we entrust our heritage?” The answer was unanimous. They all wanted to surrender to America. In America they might still realize their dreams—explore space and reach the moon.
The Armament Ministry in Berlin directed von Braun to destroy all classified material relating to his missile research. He disobeyed. He hid his documents and von Braun and several of his top scientists and technicians were moved by SS troops to an area south of Munich where they suspected they would be murdered to silence their missile know-how.
But in the confusion of Germany’s collapse, the rocket men were able to surrender to the American Army near the Bavarian ski resort of Oberjoch in May 1945. The Americans were delighted to have found the German scientists, and von Braun and 117 of his key team members were sent to the United States under contract to the Army to build rockets. Once the Germans arrived in the United States, however, the country hardly knew what to do with them. The world was at peace, and Congress was not of a mind to appropriate much money for rocket research, much less space exploration. So von Braun and his team, lonely and discouraged, were deposited at Fort Bliss, Texas, and left to tinker with captured V-2s and instructed to teach rocketry to those in the Army who were interested.