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Time Travel Research Center © 2005 Cetin
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Apollo Expeditions to the Moon
CHAPTER 3
The Spaceships
By GEORGE M. LOW
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Circling the Moon once every two hours
in the CSM, one lunar explorer awaits his colleagues from the lunar
surface. At the nose of the craft is the extended docking probe, ready
to receive the LM. The bell-shaped rocket engine at the rear must work
one more time for return. |
On April 3, 1967, NASA 2, a Grumman Gulfstream, was taxiing for takeoff
at Washington National Airport. Bob Gilruth, Director of NASA's Manned
Spacecraft Center and I (his Deputy at that time) were about to return to
Houston after a series of meetings in Washington. But just before starting
down the runway, the pilot received a cryptic message from the tower: return
to the terminal and ask the passengers to wait in the pilot's lounge. Soon
arrived Administrator Jim Webb, his Deputy Bob Seamans, George Mueller, the
head of Manned Space Flight, and Apollo Program Director Sam Phillips.
Counting Bob Gilruth, everybody in the NASA hierarchy between me and the
President was there.
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Like a spider dancing upside down the
lunar module makes its first solo flight in Earth orbit. The rods
protruding from the footpods are to give first indication of contact
with the lunar surface. The ladder on the front leg would soon serve
Neil Armstrong to take that "small step for a man. . . ." |
Jim Webb, using fewer words than usual, came right to the point: Apollo
was faltering; the catastrophic fire on January 27 that had taken the lives
of three astronauts had been a major setback. All its consequences were not
yet known; time was running out on the Nation's commitment to land on the
Moon before the end of the decade. Then the punch line: NASA wanted me to
take on the task of rebuilding the Apollo spacecraft, and to see to it that
we met the commitment.
Thus began the most exciting, most demanding, sometimes most frustrating,
and always most challenging 27 months in my career as an engineer. Not that
Apollo was completely new to me. Six years earlier I had chaired the NASA
committee that recommended a manned lunar landing and provided the
background work for President Kennedy's decision to go to the Moon. In the
intervening years I had not been involved in the day-to-day engineering
details of the Apollo spaceships - yet 27 months later, sitting at a console
in the Launch Control Center during the final seconds of the countdown for
Apollo 11, I had come to know and understand two of the most complex flying
machines ever built by man. |
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