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The Apollo Years

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The Apollo Years THE APOLLO YEARS YOU'RE WELCOME, ED coolly termed it a "non-catastrophic failure" and we all went back to work. After Apollo 14 touched down on the moon astronaut Ed Mitchell called back Fortunately this sort of drama was rare, but the past decade was nevertheless an to Mission Control and said, "Tell those exciting time for all of us. Success pro- guys at MIT thanks. .they saved the vides its own excitement and the re- mission". This appreciative comment warding triumphs are too numerous to referring to the efforts of a handful of list here. Hundreds of people here at the - Draper people in the wee hours of the Draper Laboratory, who have partici- morning is one of the high points of the pated in what is probably the greatest Apollo program, but it should not over- achievement of their lifetime, can be shadow the ten-year effort by all. Special APOLLO Edition Jan 73 proud. We have been privileged to be It has been a long trip. part of a great team, and we can look APOLLO: THE WAY IT WAS back at this program with a glow of ac- Draper engineers and technicians were complishment. As Doc told us, "You're The following reflections on the Apollo pro- already working on Apollo back when no longer saying that you are going 10 gram were written by five men intimately Alan Shepard sat inside a tin can atop a involved in the moon effort. The pieces are do it-YOU DID IT!" critical, whimsical and sentimental, but all Redstone and waited for a bunch of en- represent the feelings of the Draper five who gineers who had never sent a man into And we'll do it again. With the ap- held prime responsibilities for APOLLO. space before to touch it off. We were in proaching SKYLAB missions and the beginnings of the Shuttle work we can RALPH RAGAN: on the ground floor back in the days see that not only is the space program THE GOOD OLD DAYS when NASA had few experts but plenty of money, and we have watched while here to stay, but the Draper Laboratory It is difficult to judge a painting when that situation slowly reversed. is in it to stay. Perhaps we can even look you stand close to it. Likewise, it has forward to a time when Draper Labora- been difficult to judge the Apollo pro- Draper Laboratory was a key part of tory technicians and engineers ascend to gram while being involved in it from the this effort when, during Apollo 13 Jim an orbiting space station to field-test inside. We, at the Draper Lab, have al- Lovell drawled, "ah,. .Houston we've their equipment. ways been dedicated and interested in got a problem". He didn't know just Astronaut Eugene Cernan paused before the challenging technology that it has how bad his problem was, with a large entering the Apollo 17 command mod- been our fortune to have. So it was not part of the butt end of his vehicle blown ule and said, ". .Any part of Apollo 17 surprising to see our people apply them- out taking with it many of the con- or any part of Apollo that has been a selves eagerly to the most difficult tech- sumable~. Draper experts participated success is for the most part due to the nical task of guiding manned spacecrafts with NASA in the crucial decisions thousands of people in the aerospace to the moon. However, as the program necessary to bring the crew back safely. industry who have given a great deal. gained momentum, many found that A unique corrective burn by the lunar to make it all reality. I would just like their favorite solution to a complex module's descent engine sent the cold, to thank them. .God bless you and technical problem had to be compromi- nearly-dead spacecraft around the moon thank you." sed to interface with a schedule, a cost and back to earth. The aborted mission restriction, or an associate's needs. became a triumph of sorts and Houston Gene, Baby-it's been a pleasure. My most poignant memories of the pro- gram will be of watching the many young outstanding engineers who faced this conflict for the first time and suc- cessfully met the challenge. Time and again I saw our people dig in to tedious and tiresome tasks which restricted the creativity of the individual concerned - maybe it was coding someone else's equations, or maybe it was making a reliable circuit with unreliable relays when it was obvious that better equa- tions and better relays were wanted. cont pg 2 D-NOTES is published for the personnel of the Charles Stark Draper Laboratory, Cam- bridge, Massachusetts. News and contributions should be addressed to D-NOTES and for- warded to Publications, Room DL141 1, 68 DL7 on December 19th, just before the splashaown of Apo~lo17-members of the Albany Street, Cambridge, Massachusetts 02139 press share the excitement with the SCAMA Room crew. Telephone: (6171-258-3547. THE WAY IT WAS cont Lunar landing accuracies were specified which were exceeded in every mission But year after year our people worked to be within 0.5nm of a specified landing by the combined use of the spacecraft the long hours required to overcome site. At that time it was felt that this GNCS and earth-tracking systems. was the maximum distance an astronaut these obstacles and to meet the overall It is seldom that a large project such as could walk on the moon and then return objectives. For many the tasks were not the Apollo program, with its extensive to the LM. With Apollo 12, a "pin-point" fun, but they did what they had to do public exposure, exceeds its design ob- landing within a few hundred feet of a and most can now look back and say, jectives in such a spectacular manner. Surveyor Spacecraft was achieved, and "Those were the good old days." The Draper Laboratory should be proud this type of performance later became of the major role it played in supporting routine. such a national program. Again, in the early design phase of the program, lunar orbital rendezvous ap- RICHARD BATTIN: peared to be a major GNCS performance PRETTY HEADY STUFF problem since several of the first earth orbital rendezvous missions on the Gem- While the flight director called out the ini program were difficult to complete increasing velocities during the trans- and required more propellant than was lunar insertion burn of Apollo 8, an desired. eerie sensation crept over me as I gradu- ally began to realize that men .were No less than six guidance and naviga- actually going to the moon. We had tion systems were designed for this phase of the mission; three on the LM Deputy Director for NASA Programs (PGNCS, AGS, and CHARTS); two on the CSM (PGNCS and CHARTS); and It was clear to me that the motivation finally the earth-trackingsystem. to bear this drudgery was the thrill of participating in the great adventure of The Lab'stwo primary GNCS of the LM the Apollo program. We all felt it. We and CSM performed so well from the are convinced that centuries from now first Apollo 7 rendezvous, using only the Apollo program will be judged the optical sightings, that all subsequent great achievement of the twentieth cen- rendezvous became routine. It reached iun/. There are others not so intimately the point of lunar mission crews failing involved who agree with us. Even some to report, until post-mission debriefing of the younger members of our families, sessions, mid-course correction man- who are now questioning how tech- RlCHA RD BA TTIN: euvers performed on the far side of the Director of Mission Development nology should be used, think so. We are moon. Some of the most impressive fortunate to have received so much rec- worked many years toward this event camera and television pictures taken ognition in real time. but, somehow, the reality of the Apollo during the program were those of the program had not struck me fully until terminal phases of the lunar rendezvous. then. NORMAN SEARS: JUST1 FIABLY PROUD Personally, I had already been to the moon via equations and simulations and In looking back over the past ten years meetings many times during the pre- of the Apollo program, I believe that the vious eight long years. I had been re- Draper Laboratory can be justifiably sponsible for the flight computer soft- proud of its major role in the design of ware of Apollo even before the word the Apollo Guidance, Navigation and "software" was coined. Schedules, de- Control system (GNCS)-one of the velopment plans, manpower estimates most sophisticated subsystems involved -these things were reality. Flying to the in the program. moon was only the goal-pretty heady stuff to be sure-but too many things The continued support of the GNCS had to work, too many pieces had to throughout the operational missions to fall into place. It was all an enormous the moon was an equally significant fantasy. achievement for the Lab. But to my mind, the most impressive accomplish- On the other hand, a host of analytical ment was the performance of this sys- NORMAN SEARS: problems in guidance, navigation and Director of Systems Development tem in both the CSM and the LM control had been solved at MIT during spacecraft, with respect to reliability those eight years. We could take final Another mission phase providing its and accuracy.
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