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[May 28, 1969], The Big One Before the Big One (Apollo-10)

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by Kaye Dee

May has been an exciting month for space exploration, with two Soviet space probes arriving at Venus and Apollo-10 safely returning just days ago from its epic lunar voyage, which has constituted a full-dress rehearsal for the first manned Moon landing.

A philatelic cover referring to Apollo-10 as "the Big One before the BIG One"! (Meaning Apollo-11, of course)

The Bridesmaid, not the Bride
Before Apollo-10 lifted off on its big mission as NASA’s final test flight ahead of the planned landing of Apollo-11 in July, for a while there was the possibility that the landing attempt might actually be made on this flight, to ensure that American astronauts reached the Moon before any Soviet cosmonauts!

I’m told by my friends at the Honeysuckle Creek Tracking Station, that there was considerable discussion within NASA about accelerating the lunar landing programme. As early as February, even before the launch of Apollo-9, there were suggestions that, if the Earth orbit test of the Lunar Module (LM) was successful, Apollo-10 might go for the first manned lunar landing. George Mueller, Head of NASA’s Office of Manned Space Flight (left), supported this approach. He may not look it, but Dr. Mueller has been described as someone who “always shoots from both hips”, and he strongly pushed for the Apollo-10 landing scenario.

However, a dress rehearsal mission had been planned since June 1967, and the consensus was that the programme was not quite ready to safely achieve a landing with Apollo-10, with more work needed on different docking techniques, as well as more experience with communications and tracking capabilities at lunar distances.

There were concerns that not enough is known about the effect on planned lunar orbit manoeuvres of the Mascons (gravity peaks caused by heavy material under the lunar surface) discovered by Apollo-8. In addition, the lunar landing computer software wasn’t quite ready, and the LM allocated to the Apollo-10 mission was one that had been planned for use in an Earth orbit flight test. Since it was heavier than a LM intended for a lunar landing, its greater weight might have caused problems lifting off the lunar surface.

LM-4 being prepared for the Apollo-10 mission at Kennedy Space Centre

Thus, on 26 March, with the Saturn-V for its mission already on the launchpad, senior NASA officials finally announced that Apollo-10 would remain the bridesmaid and not become the bride, performing the final full-dress rehearsal for a Moon landing with Apollo-11, rather than itself attempting the historic first lunar touchdown. “With the exception of the actual landing of the Lunar Module on the lunar surface, the mission planned is the same as for the [Apollo-11] lunar mission”, NASA’s announcement of the decision said.

Dr. Paine (right) with Mr. Robert Gilruth, Director of the Manned Spacecraft Centre, celebrating the safe return of Apollo-10

Perhaps Dr. Thomas O. Paine, only confirmed as NASA's third Administrator on 20 March – and a Democrat in the Republican Nixon Administration, which has yet to demonstrate strong enthusiasm for continuing the spaceflight programme of the previous Administration – preferred to err on the side of caution, rather than take another bold gamble like Apollo-8 at such a late stage in the Moon landing programme.

Seasoned Crew
Whether Apollo-10 remained the lunar landing dress rehearsal, or if it had become the first mission to land on the Moon, its crew were well-qualified for either mission scenario, as seasoned veterans of Gemini spaceflights.

Mission Commander Colonel Thomas Stafford previously flew as Pilot of the Gemini-VI mission, and then as Commander of Gemini-IX. On the latter flight, his Pilot was Commander Eugene “Gene” Cernan, assigned as LM Pilot for Apollo-10. The third member of the Apollo-10 crew, Command Module (CM) Pilot Commander John Young, made his first spaceflight as Pilot of Gemini-III, before becoming Commander of Gemini-X. I think NASA would have been hard-pressed to assemble a more experienced crew for this crucial flight.

A Mission Patch with Mission Heritage
North American Rockwell artist Allen Stevens, who has previously collaborated with the crews to design the mission patches for Apollo-1 , 7, and 9, apparently wanted to break away from the circular shape used for so many previous missions. He initially offered the Apollo-10 crew some concepts based on polygonal patch shapes, but these did not appeal.

Instead, US Navy officers Cernan and Young primarily developed the patch, which Stevens then illustrated. Their concept drew heavily on the design of Stafford and Cernan’s Gemini-IX mission patch, especially using the shape of a shield.

Astronaut Cernan has said that the mission patch was based on the mechanics and goals of the mission, and this is exemplified in the dominance of the spacecraft and the mission number represented by a large Roman numeral in the middle of the design.

The final version of the Apollo-10 patch depicts the CM circling the Moon as the LM makes its low pass over the surface, with the Earth in the background. The three-dimensional rendering of the Roman ‘X’ gives the impression that it is sitting on the Moon, its prominence in the illustration indicating the mission’s significance in furthering the Apollo programme. The crew names appear around the rim of the shield.

A Mascot Namesake
With two spacecraft operating independently around the Moon, the CM and LM would need their own individual callsigns, as was the case with Apollo-9. For their historic mission, the Apollo-10 crew looked to the popular “Peanuts” comic strip, injecting a light-hearted note into a critical mission by designating the Command Module “Charlie Brown” and the Lunar Module “Snoopy”. It seems that NASA executives were once again unhappy with the crew’s choice of names, being particularly concerned about the perception of the hapless Charlie Brown as a born loser.

But the two characters, particularly Snoopy, have been associated with spaceflight since last year, when the lovable beagle was adopted as the mascot for NASA’s Manned Spaceflight Awareness programme. This safety campaign, begun in 1963, focuses on encouraging the workforce constructing spacecraft and equipment for NASA to remember that astronaut lives, and mission success, depend upon the quality and reliability of their work: a message that has taken on new meaning and urgency following the Apollo-1 fire. Snoopy, with his daring imaginary adventures (as a World War 1 flying ace, Olympic skater and other action roles), seemed an ideal choice for a mascot to raise morale and increase visibility for the renewed effort.

In 1968, with the permission and participation of “Peanuts” creator Charles Schultz, Snoopy became not only the mascot for this programme, but the symbol of its special achievement award, the “Silver Snoopy”. The award recognises individuals within the NASA workforce and contractors who have made valuable contributions to safety and mission assurance. Recipients receive a silver lapel pin which depicts a spacesuited Snoopy doing his famous “happy dance”.

A batch of Silver Snoopy pins was carried to the Moon on Apollo-8, and each award pin is presented to its recipient by an astronaut. As a person can only be honoured once with a Silver Snoopy award, it has already become a highly-coveted form of recognition.

Snoopy-ing Around
In March this year, Snoopy beat the Apollo-11 crew to a Moon landing in his comic strip fantasies, but he and Charlie Brown are turning up in many guises across the space agency, frequently featuring on motivational posters.

Small models of the boy and his dauntless dog are found in the Apollo spacecraft simulator area, where the astronauts spend much of their time in training. The astronauts have also taken to calling their communications headgear “Snoopy caps”, because of their resemblance to the flying helmet Snoopy wears in his daydreams of battling the Red Baron. The black-and-white design of the caps also recalls Snoopy's white head and black ears. Toy models of Charlie Brown and astronaut Snoopy also graced the consoles in Mission Control while Apollo-10 was in flight.

In an interview in April, Col. Stafford explained why the astronauts adopted the Snoopy and Charlie Brown callsigns. “Since we're going to the Moon to find all these facts and kind of snoop around, we decided that the Lunar Module is going to be called Snoopy. Snoopy is a comic character that’s a favourite, I know, of many people in the United States and around the world, and to go with it, we'll call the Command Module Charlie Brown”. In the same interview Commander Cernan also referenced the Silver Snoopy as a reason for the name choice, saying “Snoopy is a sort of champion of the space programme, anyway”.



Getting Ready
Despite not landing on the Moon, Apollo-10 was still going to be a big mission, with its flight plan closely following that of Apollo-11. To enable detailed photography of the designated Apollo-11 landing site at the Sun angle planned for the July mission, the launch was postponed from 16 to 17 May. In March, it was delayed again to 18 May, to allow for a better view of the backup landing site. An extra day in lunar orbit was also added to the mission to provide time for additional testing of the LM’s systems and photography of possible future Apollo landing sites.

Col. Stafford and Commander Cernan training for their flight in the LM simulator

The Apollo-10 crew’s intensive mission training schedule saw them putting in five hours of formal training for every hour of their mission’s eight-day duration. This included more than 300 hours each in the CM or LM simulators, and centrifuge training to prepare for the high-acceleration conditions they would endure during re-entry.

An accidental fuel spillage from the first stage of the Saturn V at the end of April fortunately caused no damage, and countdown preparations went ahead as planned, with no major delays. On 14 May, the astronauts received their final lunar topography briefing from scientist-astronaut, geologist Dr. Harrison Schmidt, and were pronounced fit and ready for lunar flight in their final medical checks. Everything was ready for the full-dress rehearsal of a manned lunar landing!

Mission Commander Stafford pats a giant Snoopy plush toy for luck, as the crew walk out to the Astronaut Transfer Van. Snoopy is being held by Cernan's secretary, Jamye Flowers

Lift Off!
Due to mission scheduling requirements, Apollo-10 was slated to lift off from Launch Complex 39B at Kennedy Space Centre, the first Apollo mission to use that pad. (LC 39A, used for Apollo-8 and 9 is being used for Apollo-11, whose Saturn V vehicle was rolled out to the pad just a few days before the Apollo-10 launch). Firing Room 3, at Kennedy Space Centre’s Launch Control Centre was also used for the first time on Apollo-10’s launch.

Mission Director of Flight Crew Operations Deke Slayton and other NASA officials in Firing Room-3 during Apollo 10's pre-flight preparations

Apollo-10 lifted off exactly on time at 16.49 GMT on 18 May. Although pogo effects gave the astronauts something of a rough ride into orbit, this fortunately had no impact on the mission. However, during Trans-Lunar Injection (TLI) burn, shuddering vibrations caused by the S-IVB stage pressure relief valves blurred the astronauts’ vision, to the point that they feared that the mission might have to be aborted. Fortunately, after five minutes the burn ended satisfactorily, with Apollo-10 safely on the way to the Moon.



The TLI burn occurred about 100 miles above outback Queensland, witnessed on the ground by thousands of people thanks to perfect observing conditions. A local official in the town of Cloncurry gave an interview to NBC News, which I understand was broadcast live in the US, describing what they saw: “The veil surrounding the relatively large white spot of the rocket’s rear end could best be described as resembling a mercury vapor street light seen through thick fog, although it was of a tenuous nature.”

I've not yet seen a picture of the Apollo TLI burn from Queensland, but this photo of the Apollo-8 TLI burn above Hawaii will give some idea of the amazing sight seen by many in remote Queensland towns

Coming to You in Living Colour
The Apollo-10 Westinghouse colour television camera and its custom-made viewing monitor for onboard use in the CM

Apollo 10 has seen the first use of a compact colour television camera, developed by Westinghouse. Installed in the CM, the camera was first used to show mission controllers in Houston the complex transposition, docking, and extraction manoeuvre performed by CM Pilot John Young, to extract the LM from the S-IVB stage, attaching it to the nose of the Command Module for the journey to the Moon.

Soon after the special LM extraction transmission, the first public broadcast on the way to the Moon treated the audience to live colour vistas of the Earth from 25,000 miles away in a thirteen-minute show.



This was followed, before the crew's first sleep period, with a 24-minute TV transmission, that began with views from 36,300 nautical miles in space, showing the Earth floating in the black void of the cosmos. The scene moved LM Pilot Cernan to say: "It's just sitting out there in the middle of nowhere. It's unbelievable…it's just incredible".

The camera was then turned inside the the CM showing the astronauts themselves. Capcom Bruce McCandless commented, “It’s really great. The colours are fantastic.”

Images of the Apollo-10 crew captured during one of the broadcasts from the CM. Stafford (top), Cernan (middle), Young (bottom)

The Apollo-10 crew must have thought their colour camera was a great new toy, as they treated Earth audiences to nineteen colour television transmissions, totalling 5 hours 52 minutes across the entire mission. In one of the early broadcasts, the crew displayed colour illustrations of Charlie Brown and Snoopy, produced by a NASA illustrator, which I understand were intended as colour calibration checks.



During another broadcast on the way to the Moon, Astronauts Stafford and Young were shown side by side, with Young upside down to demonstrate the weightless environment. Col. Stafford, using just a light touch, moved his CM pilot up and down, as Young joked “I do everything he tells me.”

Monitors in Mission Control show the Stafford-Young broadcast from the CM demonstrating the weightless environment

The first broadcast after Trans-Earth Injection was initially received in Australia and distributed to the local television networks (albeit in black and white, since we don't yet have colour television), prior to transmission back to the United States and on to the rest of the world. This functioned as a test for the systems that have been put in place to handle Australia's potential role as the prime receiver for Apollo-11's lunar surface transmissions.

Amusingly, the normally laconic Cernan and Stafford gushed like schoolboys on an outing, clearly excited to be floating in weightlessness, on their way to the Moon. Speaking of which, it was just shortly before this flight that NASA determined what was causing some astronauts to get "space sick" during missions. It wasn't a cold or food-related; it was weightlessness, itself, affecting the inner ear adversely.


Eating Out
Food for the astronauts is being continually improved, and new items were added to the menu on this mission, such as small sandwiches with real bread, and ham, chicken and tuna salad. I've heard that this expanded menu was a real boost to the crew's morale as they travelled to the Moon – although looking at pictures of some space foods, I'm not so sure that they are appetising, even if they are nutritious.



(above) Some of the new menu items available to the Apollo-10 crew. (below) I'm not so sure about the new dehydrated chicken salad!



Another innovation for Apollo-10 has been the introduction of the "wet pack" or "spoon bowl" packaging, allowing the astronauts to eat many meals with a spoon! To reduce the risk of food floating away and becoming a nuisance and potential hazard to electronic equipment, the spoon-eatable wet pack food is mixed with just enough water to make it sticky, so that it clings to the inside of the container and sticks on the spoon.

(above) A spoon-bowl container with a beef and vegetable meal. It looks a lot more enjoyable to eat than that chicken salad

Unfortunately, some food on Apollo-10 was not so morale-boosting, as Col. Stafford apparently put too much chlorine in the drinking water used to rehydrate the meals, making the dehydrated foods taste strange.

Cruising Along
The astronauts had a relatively light workload on the way to the Moon, with only one slight course correction to place Apollo-10 on the trajectory Apollo-11 is expected to take. The only real problem they encountered was that the mylar cover of the CM’s hatch pulled loose, spreading shreds of fibreglass insulation into the docking tunnel, CM and LM.

Photograph of the Earth from 100,000 miles, showing parts of Africa, Europe and the Middle East

About 62 hours after launch, Apollo-10 crossed into the Moon’s gravitational sphere of influence, passing about 10 hours later into the darkness of the lunar shadow. Just on 76 hours into the mission, Apollo-10 passed behind the Moon, with the Lunar Orbit Insertion burn occurring out of radio contact with the Earth. Fortunately, this manoeuvre experienced no issues and Apollo-10, now safely in lunar orbit, emerged from the behind the Moon to begin the real work of the mission. “You can tell the world that we have arrived,” Col. Stafford announced.

The Real Work Begins
Almost as soon as they were back in contact with the Earth, the crew began describing the lunar terrain they were flying over, with Commander Cernan saying, “It might sound corny, but the view is really out of this world.” Within the first couple of hours at the Moon, after circularising their orbit at approximately 60 nautical miles above the Moon, the crew began planned observations of lunar surface landmarks. This included photographing three of the proposed Apollo-11 landing sites (which the astronauts would also photograph at a lower altitude from LM Snoopy), as well as many craters and other surface features.

(top) A view of the prime Apollo-11 landing site. (bottom) Crater Necho on the far side of the Moon

For their first telecast from lunar orbit, the Apollo-10 crew described the lunar terrain speeding below them, which included the approach to the Apollo-11 landing site in the Sea of Tranquillity. I could only see this broadcast in black and white, but I understand that for viewers in the US and other parts of the world, the colour and quality of the television images was quite breathtaking: these stills made available to me by the Australian NASA representative certainly suggest that!

(top) Colour view of craters Messier and Messier-A (bottom) Crater Maskelyne

Waking Up Snoopy
When Commander Cernan opened Snoopy’s hatch for the first time, to be engulfed in fibreglass particles from the earlier damage to the CM hatch, bits got into his hair and eyebrows. Col. Stafford helped remove some of these particles, remarking that the LM Pilot “looked like he just came out of a chicken coop”. Though the astronauts used a vacuum cleaner to remove as much of the fibreglass particles as possible, tiny flecks annoyingly continued to circulate in the spacecraft, making the astronauts itch. They got into the air conditioning system and had to be constantly scraped from the CM’s filter screens for the rest of the mission.

Despite the fibreglass nuisance, Cernan partially activated the LM, conducted communications checks, and prepared the vehicle for its test flight. “I’m personally very happy with the fellow”, the LM Pilot later reported to Mission Control, saying in reference to the next day’s flight “We’ll take him out for a walk and let him stretch his legs in the morning.”

A spectacular Earthrise image captured during Apollo-10's first orbit of the Moon

Taking Snoopy for a Walk
Apollo-10’s first full day in lunar orbit was going to be its busiest, with the critical eight-hour sequence of manoeuvres in lunar orbit to simulate all aspects of Apollo-11 mission operations except the landing itself. Stafford and Cernan transferred to Snoopy, while Young remained in Charlie Brown. Despite some issues with the docking tunnel, Mission Control assured the astronauts that it was safe to undock, and the two craft separated while they were out of contact behind the Moon.

Returning to contact with Earth, Commander Young made a visual inspection of the LM and then fired the CM’s thrusters to separate from Snoopy. With a GO from Mission Control, Snoopy commenced its Descent Orbit Insertion burn while on the lunar farside, to lower itself to about 50,000 feet. This critical manoeuvre took place behind the Moon, so that the low point of its orbit would be reached on the nearside near the Apollo-11 landing area in the Sea of Tranquillity. As they looped back around to the nearside of the Moon, Cernan reported to Capcom Charles Duke, “We is down among them, Charlie,” referring to their low altitude over the lunar landscape.

A low-altitude view of the Apollo-11 prime landing site, focussed towards the upper right of the image

Snoopy successfully tested the landing radar, a particularly critical test in advance of the actual landing mission, as the crew maintained a running commentary describing the landscape below them, including all the landmarks leading up to the planned Apollo 11 landing site. This was followed by a firing of the LM’s Descent Propulsion System to set up the right orbital geometry for a simulated liftoff from the Moon during the next orbit.

Crisis averted
As Snoopy’s crew prepared to separate the LM’s ascent stage from the lower stage, the vehicle began to gyrate and tumble out of control, causing Cernan to utter a shocked expletive that was broadcast live, bringing some complaints about his language (though I think his outburst was perfectly understandable in the circumstances).

Col. Stafford quickly discarded the descent stage and fought to manually regain control of the LM, suspecting a thruster stuck firing.  Fortunately, after about eight seconds Snoopy was brought back under control and the Ascent Stage, was able to safely climb to orbit, mimicking the orbital insertion manoeuvre after launch from the lunar surface that Apollo-11 would have to conduct.

For a tense hour, it looked as if the Apollo-11 mission was in jeopardy. If the ascent stage always subjected its crew to "wild gyrations" upon firing, that was a problem that had to be solved, and pronto. Fortunately, the actual cause of the problem was determined quickly: it seems that a switch controlling the mode of the abort guidance system, a sort of back-up computer, has been left on, conflicting with the main guidance computer. That issue is easily resolved with a better checklist!

Blue Moon
There are rumours that NASA deliberately did not load Snoopy with enough propellant to safely land on the Moon and return to orbit, in order to dissuade Stafford and Cernan from unofficially attempting the first lunar landing. However, I’m told that, since Snoopy was overall too heavy to attempt a safe return from the lunar surface, the ascent stage was loaded with the equivalent quantity of propellant that it would have had remaining if it had lifted off from the lunar surface and reached the altitude at which the Apollo-10 ascent stage was fired.

After coasting for about an hour, Snoopy performed manoeuvres to bring it close to Charlie Brown, while the two craft were behind the Moon. Just after they returned to contact with the Earth, Commander Young completed the CM-LM docking, with Stafford joking that “Snoopy and Charlie Brown are hugging each other.” During its independent flight of 8 hours 10 minutes, Snoopy met all planned objectives for the Lunar Module flight tests.

The scene in Mission Control as the LM and CM are safely docked together

With all the astronauts safely back in the CM, Snoopy was cut free from Charlie Brown. To prevent any further contact between the two spacecraft, Snoopy’s ascent engine was automatically fired to fuel depletion, sending it safely out of lunar orbit and into an orbit around the Sun. LM Pilot Cernan said sadly, “I feel sort of bad about that, because he’s a pretty nice guy; he treated us pretty well today.”

On Their Way Home
During their final day in lunar orbit, the Apollo-10 crew took stereo images of the Apollo-11 landing site, gave another 24-minute colour TV broadcast, and prepared the spacecraft for its critical Trans Earth Injection manoeuvre, that would send the CM out of lunar orbit and on its way back to Earth. Just as with Apollo-8, this critical engine firing occurred while the spacecraft was behind the Moon and out of radio communications with Earth.

With extra fuel left over from the lunar activities, Apollo-10 burnt it off to accelerate the spacecraft back to Earth, the return trajectory taking only 42 hours rather than the normal 56. By the time it reached re-entry, the CM was travelling at 24,791 mph relative to Earth on re-entry, making the crew of Apollo 10 the fastest humans in history!

During their relatively lazy return to Earth, the Apollo-10 astronauts indulged themselves with the first shave in space. Using safety razors, a thick shaving gel and a wet cloth to wipe away gel and whiskers, the crew displayed freshly shaven visages during their final broadcast from space.

Eight days after launch (with a mission elapsed time of 192:03:23), Apollo-10 splashed down safely in the Pacific Ocean on 26 May, about 400 nautical miles east of American Samoa and just a couple of miles from the recovery ship USS Princeton. The carrier crew witnessed the spectacular sight of the Service Module streaking across the pre-dawn sky in a blazing fireball as it burned up, followed by the Command Module silhouetted against the brightening sky under its three big parachutes.

When the astronauts, waiting in their “rubber-ducky” to be retrieved, looked up at the recovery helicopter hovering above they saw “Hello there Charlie Brown” written across the underside of the fuselage!

After taking a congratulatory phone call from President Richard Nixon, the crew were flown to Pago Pago and then on to Ellington Air Force Base near Houston, where they are now undergoing medical checks, debriefing and, of course, re-union with their families.

Apollo-10 has completed an epic voyage that has in many ways surpassed even Apollo-8. Its completion of a successful full-dress rehearsal, means that nothing now stands in the way of the first manned landing taking place in July 1969, with Apollo-11 – that will be the BIG one, to stand on the shoulders of this big test-flight mission. I can't wait!

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Science / Space Race

[January 22, 1969] NASA’s Christmas Gift to the World Part 2 (Apollo 8 continued)

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by Kaye Dee

Last month, I began this article just hours after the crew of Apollo 8 returned safely to the Earth from their historic mission around the Moon. But even while the mission was in progress, I felt that it might be best to wait to tell the story of the lunar flight in detail, until it could be illustrated with the photographs taken by Col. Borman, Major Anders and Capt. Lovell during their epic journey – images whose breathtaking full-colour views were only hinted at in the low-resolution b/w television broadcasts and the astronauts’ excited descriptions of what they were seeing during the mission.

"Oh my God!" is what Astronaut William Anders said just before he took this awe-inspiring photograph of the Earth rising over the Moon, as seen from lunar orbit. That was my exact response – and yours, too, I expect – on first seeing this incredible sight. I confidently predict that this amazing view will become one of the defining images of the Space Age

Now that we can see for ourselves the awesome sights that the Apollo 8 crew witnessed, I think I made the right call.

On Course for the Moon
We left Apollo 8 on the way to the Moon, after a successful translunar injection. Just 30 minutes later, the CSM separated from the S-IVB stage, which was ordered to vent its remaining fuel to change the stage’s trajectory. The S-IVB gradually moved away from the CSM and is now in orbit around the Sun.

Fuel venting isn't visible in this image of the jettisoned S-IVB stage, but small debris from the separation can be seen floating around it. Although Apollo 8 carried no Lunar Module, this shot shows the LM test article contained in the S-IVB stage

As the crew rotated their spacecraft to view the jettisoned stage, they had their first views of the Earth as they moved away from it—the first time human eyes have been able to view the whole Earth at once. The perspectives of the two images below, taken less than 45 minutes apart, help us gain an impression of how fast the Apollo spacecraft was travelling (around 24,200 mph).

Taken just around the time of TLI, this view from high orbit shows the Florida peninsula, with Cape Kennedy just discernible, and several Caribbean islands

The view of Earth after S-IVB stage separation. From the Americas to west Africa, and from daylight to night, for the first time humans could see their entire planet at a glance!

Mission Commander Borman has said that he thought this must be how God sees the Earth, while Astronaut Lovell felt he was driving a car into a dark tunnel and was watching the entrance dwindle into a distant speck! But perhaps Major Anders best summed up the awesome view: “How finite the Earth looks. Unlike photographs people see there’s no frame around it. It’s hanging there, the only colour in the black vastness of space, like a dust mote in infinity.”

On the way to the Moon, the CSM adopted the PTC (Passive Thermal Control) or “barbecue” mode tested on Apollo 7, slowly rotating the spacecraft to keep temperatures evenly distributed over its surface. As the CSM turned, every so often the Earth would appear in one of the windows, making the astronauts aware that they were travelling away from their home planet: it became steadily smaller, until eventually they could cover the whole Earth with a thumb.

Where No Man Has Gone Before
I’m stealing that wonderful Star Trek catch phrase because soon after the S-IBV jettison, Apollo 8 surpassed the altitude record set by Gemini 11 in 1966 and was truly setting out into that “new ocean” of space only previously traversed by unmanned probes.

The coast to the Moon was relatively uneventful, with only a few issues arising, including some window fogging, like that experienced on Apollo 7, and a bout of space sickness that it was initially feared might lead to the cancellation of the orbits around the Moon.

Col. Borman reported diarrhoea, nausea and vomiting (none of which you want to have in weightlessness, given the unpleasant consequences!) and both Lovell and Anders also said they did not feel too well. Dr Charles Berry, the medical director at Cape Kennedy, at first feared a 24-hour viral gastro-enteritis that might “play ping-pong”, with the crew re-infecting each other and leaving themselves too weak to carry out their complex tasks correctly. Fortunately, with longer sleep periods, medication and additional rest, the complaint cleared up and did not prove a showstopper for the mission. 

The first mission status report for Apollo 8, sent to the NASA tracking stations around the world, for release to local media. Dated some 19 hours after launch, it outlines some of the activities of the early part of the coast to the Moon

A slight course correction saw the large SPS motor fired for the first time, providing a check that the spacecraft’s main propulsion system was working correctly. Had there been any problems, Apollo 8 would not have gone into lunar orbit, but looped around the Moon to return to Earth.

Out of this World Broadcasts
About halfway to the Moon, at 31 hours and 10 minutes after launch, the astronauts conducted the first of six television broadcasts during the mission. Like Mission Commander Schirra on Apollo 7, Borman was apparently not in favour of television broadcasts – holding that the weight of the camera was better used for other equipment and additional food supplies – but was overruled by NASA.

For this first deep space show, the approach was light-hearted, with the opening scenes from the spacecraft showing Capt. Lovell upside down in the lower equipment bay making jokes about preparing lunch. Bill Anders played with his weightless toothbrush, with quips from Frank Borman about his crewmate cleaning his teeth regularly. Jim Lovell sent birthday wishes to his mother. The crew tried to show us the Earth through the one of the CM windows, but without a viewing monitor, they couldn't quite capture it in their camera's field of view.

Astronaut Anders shows us his toothbrush (top) and Jim Lovell wishes his mother "Happy Birthday" (bottom) during Apollo 8's first deep space broadcast

The astronauts were disappointed to find their view of the approaching Moon was washed out by the Sun’s powerful glare. It should have been a spectacular sight to see its cratered surface increasing in size and detail as they closed in, but they were not able to get good views of the Moon until they were relatively close. However, during their second television broadcast, 55 hours into the mission, the crew of Apollo 8 were finally able to capture the Earth through one of their spacecraft's windows.

While the resolution of the image may not have been very high, this first ever live view of our planet from 180,000 miles out in space was yet another step in science fiction being made into reality! During the 25 minute broadcast, there was a delightful exchange between Lovell and Anders, with Capcom Michael Collins in Houston, wondering what a traveller from another planet would think of the view of Earth from that distance, and whether they would imagine it was inhabited.

The Apollo 8 second broadcast view of the Earth as we saw it on television (above) and how Capcom Collins saw it on his monitors in Mission Control (bottom). Would alien visitors to our solar system think anyone lived there?



Moving into the Moon's Sphere of Influence
Shortly after their second broadcast, Borman, Lovell and Anders became the first humans to leave the Earth’s sphere of gravitational influence: they were 202,825 miles from Earth and 38,897 miles from the Moon. This move into the lunar gravity field meant that soon a decision would need to be made as to whether or not Apollo 8 would go into lunar orbit, or loop around the Moon and return directly to the Earth. So concerned was Col. Borman about any trajectory perturbations that would preclude the spacecraft from achieving lunar orbit that he even checked with Houston before dumping urine overboard!

A view of the Moon, finally visible as Apollo 8 approached and prepared to go into orbit

Then came the moment to go behind the Moon – and the decision whether or not to orbit. “Apollo 8 this is Houston,” Capcom Jerry Carr called. “At 68 hours 4 minutes you are Go for LOI (Lunar Orbit Insertion).” But the necessary SPS engine burn to change the CSM's trajectory from "free return" to lunar orbit had to take place above the far side of the Moon, where Apollo 8 would be completely out of contact with the Earth.

On 24 December, just on 69 hours after lift-off, Apollo 8 slipped behind the Moon. Col. Borman was so impressed with the exact predicted timing of the loss of communication with the Earth that he joked about whether the Manned Space Flight Network had turned off its transmitters! But, in truth, the situation was very tense, as all the astronauts and Mission Control could do was wait and hope that all would go well with the burn to put Apollo 8 into lunar orbit. The Service Propulsion System engine had to work perfectly, or the astronauts would be in serious trouble.

The Manned Space Flight Network station at Honeysuckle Creek, near Canberra, was tracking Apollo 8 as it went behind the Moon and received the first signals as it re-emerged, safely in lunar orbit

Fortunately, Apollo 8 slowed in response to the 4 minute 6.9 second burn – “Longest four minutes I’ve ever spent,” according to Capt. Lovell. This put the spacecraft into a 194 x by 69 mile orbit around the Moon after a Trans-Lunar Coast of 66 hours 16 minutes and 22 seconds.

Round (and Round) the Moon
Safely in orbit, the plan was for Apollo 8 to make 10 orbits around the Moon over a twenty hour period. Even though the far side of the Moon was first seen as far back as 1959, by the USSR's Luna 3, the first order of business was for the crew to observe the far side surface for themselves. The three astronauts were stunned by the crater-pitted Moonscape sliding below them, revealing a tortured terrain so unlike the familiar face of the Moon. Out of contact with the Earth, totally isolated from home, Borman, Lovell and Anders forgot their mission for a few moments to press their faces against the CM windows and soak up the sights!



The astronauts were not exactly impressed with the gritty, grey, plaster-like surface they observed as they orbited the Moon. Col. Borman described it as as “[looking] like the burned-out ashes of a barbecue,” while Capt. Lovell said “It’s like a sand pile my kids have been playing in for a long time. It’s all beat up with no definition. Just a lot of bumps and holes.” Major Anders felt the surface looked "whitish-grey, like dirty beach sand with lots of footprints in it.”

Jim Lovell's "sand pile" on the Moon!

Back on Earth Mission Control held its breath, waiting for Apollo 8 to re-emerge from behind the Moon and confirm that the SPS engine had performed as planned. But once the crew were back in contact with Earth, a packed routine of surface observations was quickly established: these images comprise the bulk of the more than 800 70 mm still photographs and 700 feet of 16 mm movie film that the astronauts took during the mission. Among their tasks, the astronauts observed Earthshine (the light reflecting from Earth shining on the dark face of the Moon) – which they found provided enough light to see surface features clearly – and took detailed photographs of the area within the Sea of Tranquillity where, all going to plan in the next few months, the Apollo 11 mission will make the first manned lunar landing.

On the second orbit, Apollo 8's 12 minute long third television broadcast was almost entirely dedicated to allowing us back on Earth to see the astronauts' view of the Moon. Even when it was difficult to see much detail in the views of the lunar surface passing below the spacecraft, this broadcast made us, as it were, part of the mission.

View of the Moon's surface during the third Apollo 8 television broadcast

Earthrise
Busy with lunar surface observations, during their first three orbits the Apollo 8 crew failed to even notice an incredible sight. It was not until their fourth orbit that the astronauts experienced perhaps the most sublime view provided by space exploration to date – the vision of the Earth rising above the lunar horizon!

On this fourth orbit, a navigation sighting meant that the CSM was rolled to look outwards into space instead of down towards the Moon's surface. As the lunar horizon came into view, the astronauts witnessed a magnificent sight – the cloud-mottled blue orb of the Earth swimming into their view. Awestruck, they scrambled so quicky to capture the vision that no-one is quite sure now who took which picture, although it seems that Col. Borman may have snapped the first black and white photograph, and Bill Anders a number of breathtaking colour images of the Earthrise.

Apollo 8's Earthrise images are usually published oriented with the lunar horizon at the bottom, as that is how we are used to seeing the Moon rising over the horizon on Earth. But the orientation of astronauts' orbit meant that they actually saw the Earth appearing to rise 'sideways', as seen in this original version of Major Anders' photograph

While Apollo 8 isn't the first space mission to capture the vista of the Earth rising over the Moon – that honour goes to Lunar Orbiter 1 – the impact of the superior quality and colour of the astronaut's photographs is profoundly inspiring, and Major Anders' evocative Earthrise image is already well on its way to becoming the most reproduced image of the Space Age so far.

This spread from the 15 January issue of the Australian Women's Weekly is just one example of thousands of magazine and newspaper articles already featuring the Earthrise photograph and Apollo 8's other amazing pictures

I'm so moved by the Earthrise image that I find it hard to put all my feelings into words, but perhaps those I quoted above from Astronaut Anders go some way to expressing them, as do Captain Lovell's similar thoughts on the view: “The vastness up here of the Moon is awe inspiring. It makes you realize just what you have back there on Earth. The Earth from here is a grand oasis in the blackness of space.”

This view of the living Earth in the immensity of the Cosmos truly brings home to us the fragility and isolation of our home planet and its finite resources, providing the visual encapsulation of the expression "Spaceship Earth" popularised over the past few years by Buckminster Fuller among others. The environmental movement needs to utilise the power of this image to help encourage us all to be better stewards of the Earth and preserve our environment, so necessary for our survival, for future generations.

"Something Appropriate"
Acutely aware of the historic nature of the Apollo 8 mission, NASA wanted the astronauts to “do something appropriate” for their fourth television broadcast. Due to occur on the ninth lunar orbit, this finale to Apollo 8’s time at the Moon was scheduled for late evening on Christmas Eve in the United States (comfortably at lunchtime on Christmas day for us here in Australia). The program was to be transmitted via satellite to 64 countries (where it was seen or heard by an estimated one billion people!), so it was a major global event, comparable to 1967’s Our World broadcast.

What would be appropriate for such an international audience? The astronauts wanted to present something spiritually significant and memorable, but not overtly religious, that would be relevant at Christmas to both Christians and the millions of non-Christians who would be tuning into the broadcast. It seems that the wife of a journalist (I’m sorry, I don’t know her name) suggested that they read from the opening of the Book of Genesis, which has meaning for many of the world’s religions and expresses concepts relevant to many other faiths. The crew liked this idea and planned to incorporate it into their broadcast. A view of the Moon seen by the audience on Earth while the crew of Apollo 8 read from the Book of Genesis

The fourth telecast from Apollo 8 began with the astronauts talking about their impressions of the Moon and the experience of being in lunar orbit. Following some views of the lunar terrain, described by the astronauts as they passed over, Major Anders said that the crew had a message for everyone on Earth. In turn, Anders, then Capt. Lovell and finally Col. Borman read the first 10 verses of Genesis, as we watched the Moon’s surface pass by, with a view through one of the CM windows. Borman then ended the broadcast with “And from the crew of Apollo 8, we close with good night, good luck, a Merry Christmas and God bless all of you – all of you on the good Earth.” I watched this transmission at lunch with my sister’s family: it left us all profoundly moved.

Families around the world gathered on Christmas Eve/Christmas Day (depending on where you were!) to watch Apollo 8's broadcast

Set Course for Earth
Two and a half hours after the end of the fourth television broadcast, on Apollo 8’s tenth lunar orbit, it was time to perform the trans-Earth injection (TEI). This manoeuvre was even more critical than the one which had brought the CSM into orbit around the Moon: if the SPS engine failed to ignite, the crew would be stranded in lunar orbit. Like the previous SPS burn, this critical firing had to occur above the far side of the Moon, once again out of contact with the Earth. Despite all the telemetry indicating that the SPS was in good shape, tension was high while the spacecraft was behind the Moon, but the burn was perfect and Apollo 8 re-emerged exactly on schedule 89 hours, 28 minutes, and 39 seconds after launch.

It was Christmas Day, and when voice contact was restored with Houston, Lovell announced to the world, “Please be informed, there is a Santa Claus” – apparently for the benefit of one his sons, who had asked before the flight if his father would see Santa while visiting the Moon.

A view inside the Command Module, during the fifth Apollo 8 television broadcast

At about 100 hours and 48 minutes after launch, Apollo 8 crossed back into the Earth’s sphere of influence and began gradually speeding up. After the astronauts carried out the only required midcourse correction at 104 hours into the mission, the crew had some time to relax before their fifth television broadcast. During this 10 minute transmission, they gave viewers a tour of the spacecraft, showing how they lived in the weightless environment. An image from the fifth broadcast taken directly from a monitor at the Honeysuckle Creek tracking station. It shows Bill Anders demostrating how to prepare a meal

A Christmas Dinner to Remember
After the broadcast, the crew were finally free to tuck into their Christmas dinner – and found a surprise in their food locker. It was a specially packed Christmas dinner wrapped in foil and decorated with red and green ribbons! A gift from Director of Flight Crew Operations Deke Slayton, the special meal included dehydrated grape drink, cranberry-applesauce, and coffee, as well as a new “wetpack” containing turkey and gravy. Also hidden with the surprise dinner, the astronauts found small presents from their wives.

Slayton also included three miniature bottles of brandy with the meal, although Borman decided that they should be saved until after splashdown!

The astronauts thought the food was delicious, more like a TV dinner, and much more appetising than the food they had been eating on the mission. In fact, the crew had found their meals so unappealing that they had been under-eating throughout the mission, so their turkey dinner was a real morale booster.

The new “wetpack” container is breakthrough in space food development: a thermostabilized package that retains the normal water content of the food, which can be eaten with a spoon. I’ll have to write more soon about space food, as the new meals and menus that are being developed for Apollo lunar missions are a real breakthrough in astronaut nutrition.

The Final Leg
The return cruise to Earth was the quietest part of the mission for the crew, giving them time to rest after an eventful historic mission. Around 124 hours into the flight, the astronauts broadcast their sixth and final telecast, showing the approaching Earth during a four-minute broadcast.



The crew also had time to take more spectacular photographs of the Earth, such as this image of Australia as they homed in towards their eventual splashdown in the Pacific Ocean.

Re-entry is the most dangerous phase of any spaceflight, and Apollo 8 marked the first time that a manned spacecraft had returned from the Moon, re-entering the atmosphere at 24,695 miles per hour! The spacecraft had to enter the Earth’s atmosphere at an angle of 6.5 degrees, with a safe corridor only 26 miles wide – there was very little margin for error! 

After jettisoning the Service module and turning the CM around so its heat shield was facing in the direction of flight, Apollo 8 entered the atmosphere, deceleration hitting the astronauts with forces up to 7 Gs, and temperatures outside the spacecraft reaching 5,000 degrees.

Apollo 8's re-entry, captured by one of NASA's Apollo Range Instrumented Aircraft that operate as airborne tracking stations

Ionized gases around the spacecraft caused a three-minute communications blackout period. But Apollo 8 came through and safely deployed its three main parachutes, splashing down in the dead of night local time, in the North Pacific Ocean, southwest of Hawaii, home safe after a momentous mission which even the crew had rated themselves as only having a 50% chance of a successful return!

Map of Apollo 8's splashdown area

Recovered by the USS Yorktown, Borman, Lovell, and Anders were in excellent health after a flight of 147 hours. They returned to Houston for several weeks of debriefing, but he success of their flight means it is now clear that the likelihood of meeting President Kennedy’s goal of a Moon landing before the end of the decade is much higher: Lt.-General Phillips, head of the Apollo programme, has already said there is a slim chance Americans could land on the Moon with Apollo 10 in May or June – one flight earlier than presently planned

After their recovery, the Apollo 8 astronauts addressed the USS Yorktown's crew, very glad to be home!

“You Saved 1968”
As I noted at the beginning of the first part of this article, 1968 was a year that saw much upheaval around the world. Yet Apollo 8 allowed the year to end on a hopeful note, with its technical triumph of the first manned mission to the Moon, its awe-inspiring views of the Earth from space, and the deeply moving “Genesis broadcast”. Its impact has been beautifully summed up in a telegram from an anonymous well-wisher to Col. Borman which simply said, “Thank you Apollo 8. You saved 1968.”

< For the influence and impact of their mission, Time magazine has chosen the crew of Apollo 8 as its Men of the Year for 1968, while Life has selected the post-TLI image of the Earth for the cover its 1968 retrospective issue.

The Apollo 8 astronauts have been honoured for their successful mission with ticker tape parades in New York, Chicago and Washington, D.C; they have spoken before a joint session of Congress, and been awarded the NASA Distinguished Service Medal by President Johnson. Has Apollo 8 won the Space Race for the United States? I think it's too early to say, especially in light of the recent Soyuz 4 and 5 missions. But NASA is certainly giving the Soviet Union a run for its money!
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Science / Space Race

[December 28, 1968] A Christmas Gift to the World – Part 1 (Apollo 8)

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by Kaye Dee

Commentators are already referring to 1968 as the most turbulent year of the 1960s. We’ve seen civil unrest and sectarian violence; uprisings and brutal repression; new wars and intensification of old ones; political turmoil and assassinations; drought, famine and natural disasters, just to note some of the tragedies and strife dominating the headlines.

 
Yet this “worst of times” has still ended on a high note, thanks to NASA’s Christmas gift to the world – the Apollo-8 mission to the Moon.

 
As I write, the first daring spaceflight to the Earth’s nearest neighbour was completed only a few hours ago, splashing down in the early hours of the morning here in Australia. I’m tired but elated at the successful conclusion of the mission and the safe return of the crew. This historic mission has taken another crucial step in turning the ancient dream of reaching for the stars into reality, vindicating the inspiration that readers of the Journey draw from science fiction.

Taking the World on the Journey
Thanks to the growing number of communications satellites now linking the world, almost three quarters of humanity has been able to participate vicariously in Mankind’s greatest space adventure to date. Apollo-8’s voyage has been vividly described to us through pictures, voice and the printed word by the world's journalists, and live from space by the astronauts themselves in their broadcasts during the mission.

The Earth seen through a window of the Apollo-8 Command Module during the second television broadcast en route to the Moon. I can't wait to see the much higher resolution, full colour pictures!

While we here in Australia may have missed out on some of the live broadcasts from space for technical reasons, people in Europe, the Americas, Asia and, it seems, even the nations of the Warsaw Pact have seen the view of the Earth from greater distances than ever before, live from the inside of the Apollo-8 Command Module. Around the world, spirits have been lifted and the public inspired by the courage of the Apollo-8 crew and the successful completion of their mission. I expect that, like me, many of you reading this will have been moved by the solemn reading from the Book of Genesis, a sacred text to three great religions, from lunar orbit on Christmas Day. It was a moment truly evoking “peace on earth and goodwill to men” – the spirit of Christmas – at the end of a fraught year for the world.

The Moon seen through a window of the Apollo-8 Command Module while the crew read the opening words of the Book of Genesis

I think that the full impact of Apollo-8’s mission will take some time to emerge, especially once the photographs of the sights that the astronauts described to us during their flight become available to the public in the coming weeks. For this reason, I have decided to break my coverage of Apollo-8 into two parts. The first, today, will describe the background to the mission. Once NASA begins to process and release the photographs and films taken during the flight, the second part of my mission coverage will explore the lunar flight itself in more detail, illustrated by what I’m sure will be the magnificent images captured by the crew.

From Earth Orbit to Lunar Orbit
Originally planned as an Earth orbiting mission to check out the Lunar Module (LM) necessary to land astronauts on the Moon, delays in that vehicle’s development resulted in a radical change to the Apollo-8 mission profile.

As early as August, Apollo Programme manager Mr. George Low, suggested the idea of converting the first crew-carrying flight of the mighty Saturn 5 rocket into a flight to the Moon without a LM. His initial circumlunar flight concept soon became transformed into an even bolder proposal for a lunar orbit mission, as a counter to a possible lunar flight by Soviet cosmonauts, for which the Zond-5 and 6 missions are thought to be a precursor.

  A telex sent to NASA's Manned Space Flight Network at the conclusion of the Apollo-7 mission, which refers to the future lunar mission

With the successful test flight of Apollo-7, the daring plan for Apollo-8 to orbit the Moon was publicly announced on 12 November. A successful flight around the Moon would demonstrate that a manned lunar landing was achievable, and hopefully beat the USSR to placing the first humans into orbit around the Moon. 

Swapping Crews
Director of Flight Crew Operations, Mr. Deke Slayton, planned early for the proposed change in the mission profile, bumping the original Apollo-8 crew to Apollo-9, since that crew had been training hard for the mission to check out the Lunar Module. Instead, the original Apollo-9 crew – Colonel Frank Borman, Captain James Lovell and Major William Anders, who had been training to test the Lunar Module in cislunar space, became the astronauts destined to fly the first manned mission to the Moon. While the new crew for Apollo-8 was announced on 19 August, the potential lunar flight plan was initially kept secret.

The Apollo-8 crew in front of the Command Module simulator. L-R Col. Borman, Major Anders, Capt. Lovell

40-year-old Col. Borman, the mission commander, and Command Module (CM) Pilot Capt. Lovell (only 11 days younger than Borman), had previously flown together on the Gemini-7 mission, during which they set a long-duration record of 14 days in space. Lovell went on to command Gemini-12, while Borman served as the astronaut representative on the Apollo-1 Fire Investigation Board. The combined space experience of these two seasoned mission commanders undoubtedly played an important role in the success of this critical NASA mission.

Rookie astronaut Major Anders, the third member of the crew, is a former US Air Force fighter pilot. He holds an advanced degree in nuclear engineering and was selected as part of NASA’s third astronaut group, with responsibilities for dosimetry, radiation effects and environmental controls. Despite its lack on this flight, Anders was designated as Lunar Module Pilot and assigned the role of flight engineer, responsible for monitoring all spacecraft systems.

Uniquely Symbolic
The unique design of the Apollo-8 mission patch has a simple elegance that perfectly symbolises the flight. The shape of the patch recalls the gumdrop shape of the Apollo CM, while the red figure 8 circling the Earth and Moon represents both the number of the mission and the free-return flight trajectory for a lunar mission.

Captain Lovell claims credit for the basic design of the patch, developing it during a flight from the Apollo spacecraft manufacturing facility in California back to Houston, after learning about the change in mission assignment.

However, he may have been inspired by earlier patch designs by Allen Stevens, who has previously been responsible for the Apollo-1 and Apollo-7 patches. Mr. Stevens used the CM shape on some of his early designs for Apollo-7. His design for the original Apollo-9 patch – that Col. Borman and his crew had apparently approved – also included a CM-shaped frame and was repurposed as an alternative Apollo-8 lunar mission design.

I’ve heard it suggested that the figure-8 design element, representing mission number and lunar trajectory, may also have been influenced by the similar use of an 8 symbol to indicate a circumlunar trajectory on documents from the Mission Planning and Analysis Division (MPAD) at the Manned Spaceflight Centre. 

This logo from NASA's MPAD may have inluenced the Apollo-8 patch design. What do you think?

Rumour has it that the Apollo-8 crew wanted to name their spacecraft, but –maintaining its long-held ban on such names – NASA would not allow it. Had they been given permission to do so, Columbiad (after the massive cannon that fires a projectile spacecraft to the Moon in Jules Verne's 1865 novel From the Earth to the Moon) might have been the name the crew selected.

Countdown to a Historic Flight
The un-manned Apollo-6 Saturn 5 test flight in April experienced major problems, including severe pogo oscillation while the first stage was firing, two second-stage engine failures, and the failure of the third stage to re-ignite in orbit. Resolving these issues was a priority before Apollo-8’s Saturn-5 launcher, AS-503, could leave the ground carrying human passengers.

Pogo oscillation was a serious concern: it could not only hamper engine performance, but the g-forces it created might even injure a crew. NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Centre (MSFC) investigated the problems and determined the cause to be the similar vibration frequencies of the engines and the spacecraft, creating a resonance effect. AS-503 was therefore fitted with a helium gas system to absorb some of the vibration.

Similarly, MSFC engineers determined that fuel lines rupturing when exposed to vacuum and a mis-wired connection were the cause of the engine shutdowns. The use of suitably modified fuel lines on Apollo-8’s launch vehicle prevented these issues recurring.

The fact that the Saturn-5 thundered off Pad 39A at Kennedy Space Centre exactly as scheduled months earlier is a tribute to the 5,500 technicians and other personnel working behind the scenes to ready the launch vehicle and spacecraft for flight. Preparations for the launch were considered among the smoothest in recent years, although two equipment issues arising during the dress rehearsal countdown threatened to delay the commencement of the formal launch countdown on 16 December.

The historic first mission to the Moon was scheduled to launch at 12.51 GMT 21 December. This specific date and time would allow the crew to observe the site in the Sea of Tranquillity, where the first Apollo landing was planned to touch down, at the ideal Sun elevation of 6.7°, with shadows throwing the cratered lunar terrain into sharp relief.

As a precaution, the 103-hour countdown commenced a day early to allow time for the correction of any unseen snags and keep the lift-off on schedule. Computerised systems, now a feature of the need to support the incredible complexity of the Saturn 5 launcher, provided comprehensive data to the launch controllers giving the “go”/”no go” calls prior to launch.

The computerised Launch Control Room at Kennedy Space Centre, about three hours before launch

Avoiding the Flu – and Radiation Poisoning
With the so-called Hong Kong Flu epidemic sweeping the United States, NASA was taking no chances with the crew’s pre-launch health (especially following the issues created by astronaut Schirra’s head cold during Apollo-7). The astronauts were kept in isolation in quarters at the Kennedy Space Centre for more than a week before the flight and were immunised against the influenza virus – along with anyone likely to come into contact with them.

Emerging from pre-flight isolation into history, the Apollo-8 crew walk out to the astronaut transfer van, ready for their spaceflight

The astronaut’s pre-flight medical examination collected data for comparison with their post-flight examination. Since the Apollo-8 crew has been the first to pass through and beyond the protection of the Van Allen radiation belts, this comparison of pre- and post-flight medical data will reveal any physical changes or health effects resulting from the first human flight beyond Earth orbit.

Basic cross section of the radiation belts around Earth (not drawn to scale). The outer belt is composed of electrons, the inner belt comprises both electrons and protons.

Major Anders’ expertise in dosimetry and radiation effects has undoubtedly been relevant to this aspect of the mission, as each astronaut wore a personal radiation dosimeter which could return data back to NASA’s flight surgeons. The spacecraft also carried three passive film dosimeters recording the cumulative radiation to which the crew were subjected. Initial indications are that the radiation dosage received by the astronauts was at an acceptable level and should not preclude future missions to the Moon.

Apollo’s “Sun Screen”
Beyond the Van Allen Belts, the Apollo-8 crew was travelling in the realms of the intense and deadly radiations of deep space, particularly the streams of charged particles spewed out into the Solar System from solar flares. The astronauts would have been seriously at risk from radiation poisoning if a major solar event occurred during their spaceflight.

To ensure astronaut safety during lunar missions, NASA has established the world-wide Solar Particle Alert Network (SPAN). Stations in Houston, Texas, the Canary Islands, and Carnarvon, Western Australia, provide a 24-hour watch on the Sun, to spot dangerous solar activity. SPAN stations are operated by the US Environmental Science Services Administration (ESSA), which also collects data from twelve satellites that monitor for deadly solar flares. This space-based early-warning system is comprised of four sun-orbiting Pioneer spacecraft (including Pioneers 6, 7 and 8 carrying cosmic ray detectors developed by Australian physicist Dr. Ken McCracken) and eight Earth-orbiting Vela nuclear test detection satellites.

The ESSA SPAN facility in Carnarvon, Western Australia, equipped with both optical and radio telescopes to observe the Sun

ESSA aims to give NASA at least 24 hours’ warning of major solar eruptions, providing enough time enough to delay a launch or alter an orbit to protect the astronauts. Fortunately for Apollo-8’s important flight, the Sun smiled kindly and there was no dangerous solar activity, but future Apollo missions may be grateful for the early warning provided by NASA’s “Sun screen”.

The Whole World was Watching
Television coverage of Apollo-8’s launch was the most extensive to date. The BBC, going “live” for the first time from Cape Kennedy, provided coverage to 54 countries, across Europe and beyond in 15 languages, in a broadcast whose complexity must have rivalled its role in the Our World satellite project. Seven television networks in Britain, the United States, Japan, Canada and Mexico, provided live coverage of the launch, with NASA’s ATS-3 satellite over the Atlantic providing transmissions to Europe and ATS-1 over the Pacific, serving Japan and the Philippines. Even the Communist nations of Eastern Europe were apparently able to watch the launch, although we in Australia could not.

All eyes were trained on the sky at the crowded press site at Kennedy Space Centre as Apollo-8 lifted off

To the Moon, Alice!
When Apollo-8 launched on 21 December, Gemini veterans Borman and Lovell found the ride “less demanding than Gemini from a ‘g’ standpoint, because it didn’t reach the high ‘gs’”, they had experienced on their earlier missions. However, the ride to orbit was still “powerful and noisy… and the stagings were really kind of violent.”

Apollo-8 entered Earth orbit with the third stage still attached, its engine needed for the Trans-Lunar Injection (TLI) burn to put the spacecraft on course to the Moon. For a little over two and a half hours every system of the Command Service Module (CSM) was thoroughly checked out in orbit, to ensure it was fully operational.

Staff at the Honeysuckle Creek tracking station in Australia mark the first time humans have ventured beyond Earth orbit. The fine print of their sign reads:“In space: Borman, Lovell, Anders. On the ground: Hicks, Cross, Holland.”

Then Mission Control gave Apollo-8 the crucial permission call “You are Go for TLI”. The S-IVB stage’s engine sent the first human mission to the Moon on its way out of Earth orbit, with the spacecraft reaching escape velocity (25,000 mph) in just five minutes! As it left the Earth, Apollo-8 was placed on a “free return” trajectory, that would ensure that lunar gravity would slingshot the spacecraft around the Moon and back to Earth in the event of a failure of the CCSM’s powerful onboard engine. An amazing voyage was underway!

I am going to pause my recap of Apollo-8 at this point, and will take it up again in January, when what I anticipate will be amazing photographic imagery from the flight to the Moon and back becomes available. Please join me then. In the meantime, let me wish everyone on the Journey a Happy New Year' looking forward to an exciting 1969 – knowing that the Moon is now within our grasp!

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Science / Space Race

[October 26, 1968] Phoenix from the Ashes (Apollo-7)

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by Kaye Dee

In early October Wernher von Braun said that he was “beginning to doubt” America's ability to land an astronaut on the Moon before the Russians, following the Soviet success with its automated Zond-5 mission. But speaking just a few days ago, General Sam Phillips, the Apollo Programme Manager, has described the recently completed Apollo-7 flight as “a perfect mission. We accomplished 101 percent of our objectives”. With both the United States and the Soviet Union finally back in space following the tragedies that struck their respective space programmes in 1967 (an article on Soyuz-2 and 3 is coming soon), NASA has risen from the ashes of the Apollo-1 fire and is once again on track to achieve its manned lunar landing goals.


A Critical Test Flight
Possibly no NASA mission has been more critical to the future of US spaceflight than Apollo-7. The main purpose of the mission has been to prove that the new Block II Apollo spacecraft, extensively redesigned after the Apollo-1 fire, is capable of performing the 480,000-mile round trip to the Moon. If Apollo-7 did not establish the overall safety and performance of the new CM design, von Braun’s pessimism would probably be proved right!

The four critical mission objectives were:

  • test the spacecraft’s navigation and guidance systems in the performance of an orbital rendezvous;
  • prove the Service Propulsion System (SPS) engine’s performance and reliability;
  • demonstrate the safety of the redesigned Command Module (CM) and the performance of its life support systems over the duration of a lunar mission; and,
  • carry out a precise re-entry and splashdown.


The Apollo-7 crew. L – R: LM Pilot Walter Cunningham, CM Pilot Maj. Donn Eisele and mission commnader Capt. Wally Schirra. They were rarin' to go!

The First Team
With a lot riding on their shoulders, the crew of the first successful manned Apollo mission unusually combined a seasoned veteran astronaut with two rookies. Originally the back-up crew for Apollo-1, the three astronauts of Apollo-7 all have US Navy connections.

Mission commander Navy Captain Walter (Wally) Schirra, 45, is the oldest man to make a spaceflight so far. One of the original Mercury astronauts (MA-8 Sigma-7, 1962), he was also the Command Pilot for the Gemini-6 mission in 1965. Apollo-7 makes Schirra the first astronaut to fly all three types of US manned spacecraft. Rumour has it that Capt. Schirra was not particularly interested in making a third spaceflight prior to the loss of Apollo 1 but stepped up to the challenge of ensuring that Apollo-7 was a success in honour of his lost friend, Apollo-1 Commander Gus Grissom. This seems to be borne out by the fact that he announced his intention to resign from NASA two weeks before the launch of his flight.

Apollo-7’s two rookie astronauts both come from Group 3, selected in 1963. 38-year-old Major Donn Eisele (USAF), designated Command Module Pilot, graduated from the US Naval Academy but was commissioned in the Air Force. Originally slated as a member of the Apollo-1 crew, he was switched to the back-up team due to a shoulder injury. Major Eisele has specialised in the CM’s new digital guidance and navigation computer, which is vital for conducting rendezvous during lunar missions.

Mr. Walter Cunninham, 36, is a civilian scientist with a military background. Nominally the Lunar Module Pilot (even though Apollo 7 did not carry a LM), he assumed the role of the crew’s general systems expert on this flight. With a Master’s degree in physics, Mr. Cunnigham spent three years as a physicist at the RAND Corporation before becoming an astronaut, but he is also a former Marine pilot who saw service in Korea and currently a Major in the Marine Corps reserves.

Symbolising a Test Flight
Apollo-7’s mission patch was designed by North American Rockwell artist Allen Stevens, who also created the Apollo-1 patch. Its similar design to the earlier patch depicts an Apollo Command Service Module (CSM) circling the globe trailing a tail of orange flame – a reference to the test firings of the CSM’s SPS engine. The navy-blue background symbolises the depths of space: it’s also a nod to the Navy background of the crew. Centred in the design, North and South America are flanked by blue oceans, with a Roman numeral VII appearing in the Pacific Ocean region. The crew’s names appear around the patch’s lower rim. 

Although refused permission by NASA, Capt. Schirra apparently wanted to name his ship “Phoenix”. I can’t help wondering what mission patch design we would have seen had the name been allowed. We do know, however, what the patch would have looked like (as envisioned by the daughter of backup Commander Tom Stafford) if Eisele's whimsical name "Rub-a-dub-dub" had been adopted…

 

A Safer Spacecraft
Apollo-1’s CM was a Block I type, designed for Earth orbital missions, while Apollo-7 has been a shakedown test for the redeveloped Block II Command Module specifically designed for lunar voyages and able to dock with a Lunar Module (LM). Following the fire, the Block II CM was significantly redesigned to reduce or eliminate fire hazards (especially the use of flammable materials) and increase astronaut safety: many of these modifications, particularly a fully-redesigned quick-opening crew hatch for emergency escape from the spacecraft, were tested on the unmanned Apollo-4 and 6 flights. Emergency breathing masks and a fire extinguisher were also added to the cabin.

Experiments with starting fires in the redesigned cabin have also led to another crew safety enhancement: NASA now uses a 60/40 oxygen/nitrogen atmosphere in the CM during launch, before switching to a lower pressure pure oxygen inflight environment about four hours after lift-off. The astronauts’ spacesuits, and their new casual flight suits, have also been redeveloped using fire retardant materials. 

Luxury Accommodation
Compared to NASA’s previous Mercury and Gemini spacecraft, the Apollo CM is a luxury suite, its greater interior volume allowing the crew to move around freely in zero gravity. Beneath the flight couches, where the crew sit for launch and re-entry, there is room for “sleeping quarters”, where two astronauts can zip themselves into sleeping bags underneath their flight seats to keep from floating around.

With ample water provided by its fuel cells, and new food preparation and packaging techniques, the Block II spacecraft finally gives NASA’s astronauts the opportunity to enjoy hot meals! The CM provides both hot and cold water dispensers to rehydrate food packages. Capt. Schirra, a coffee lover, enjoyed his first pouch of inflight instant brew just five hours after launch!

The expanded Apollo flight menu now offers some 60 different food choices, not all of which are dehydrated. Thermostabilisng techniques allow some foods, like frankfurters, to be eaten in their natural state, while small slices of bread, covered in a coating to prevent them crumbling, can now be enjoyed – although judging by the Apollo-7 crew’s complaints about crumbly food, this may not have been entirely successful.

Some of the new bite-size, possibly crumbly, foods available to Apollo astronauts

Bending the Rules
On 11 October (US time), almost four years to the day after the launch of the three-man Voskhod-1 spacecraft, Apollo-7 lifted off from Cape Kennedy Air Force Station's Launch Complex 34 on its crucial test flight. Since the LM is still not ready for spaceflight, and so could not be tested during this mission, a Saturn 1B lofted the mission into orbit.

High-altitude winds threatened to scrub the lift-off, as a post-launch abort might have seen the CM blown back over land, instead of splashing down in the ocean, potentially exposing the crew to serious injury. Mission commander Schirra disagreed with the decision by NASA managers to waive the wind restriction, but finally yielded. However, his unhappiness over this issue may have contributed to his further disputes with Mission Control during the flight.

Despite Schirra reporting the ride to space as “a little bumpy” a few minutes into the flight, ten minutes and 27 seconds after liftoff Apollo-7 was smoothly inserted into its elliptical low Earth orbit.

Coming Together
Rendezvous and docking practice, demonstrating that the CM’s navigation and guidance systems could successfully handle this vital technique for lunar missions, was a major element of the Apollo-7 flight plan, and the first major exercise began within three hours after launch.

Although Apollo 7 was not carrying a Lunar Module, the Spacecraft-LM adapter (SLA) that would normally house one was mounted on top of the Saturn 1B’s S-IVB second stage, carried into orbit to be used as a rendezvous target.

With the S-IVB still attached to the CSM, the astronauts manoeuvred as if conducting the necessary engine burn for Trans Lunar Injection. After separation from the S-IVB, Schirra put his Gemini rendezvous experience to good use, manoeuvring Apollo-7 towards the rocket stage and closing in as if to dock. This simulated the manoeuvre needed to extract the LM from the SLA. He then flew in formation with the stage for 20 minutes, before moving about 76 miles away to prepare for the first practice rendezvous. 

Apollo-7's S-IVB stage, with the SLA petals open to reveal the docking target. The target was designed by Royal Australian Air Force opthalmologist, Dr. John Colvin. (note that one of the petals did not quite open all the way, restricting some of the possible maneuvers)

Power and Precision
The initial rendezvous exercise, occurring about 30 hours after launch, included the first inflight test of the Service Module’s powerful Service Propulsion System engine. Although tested on the ground, the SPS had never yet been fired in space, despite being vital to the success of a lunar mission: its 20,000 pounds of thrust is needed to slow the Apollo spacecraft into orbit around the Moon and propel it on its way back to the Earth. The SPS has to be totally reliable – it must work, every time.

The purpose of the rendezvous itself was to demonstrate the CSM’s ability to match orbits with a LM returning from the lunar surface, or an aborted landing attempt, even without an operating onboard radar (which Apollo-7 lacked, though later missions will have one). The SPS rendezvous burns were computed at Mission Control, but the final manoeuvres to close on the S-IVB saw Major Eisele making observations with the CM’s telescope and sextant to compute the final burns using the onboard guidance computer.

When the SPS engine ignited for the first time, Eisele was apparently startled by its violent jolt, while Schirra yelled excitedly “Yabba Dabba Do! – That was a ride and a half!” The inaugural nine-second burn went perfectly, and Schirra completed the rendezvous using the ship's reaction control system (RCS) thrusters, bringing Apollo-7 to within 70 feet of its tumbling target. The exercise successfully demonstrated that, even without radar data, an Apollo Command Module pilot could effect a rendezvous in lunar orbit.

A (Mostly) Smooth Mission
For the most part, Apollo -7 could be described as a “smooth” mission, with few real technical problems. The flight plan was “front-loaded”, with the most important experiments and activities scheduled for the early part of the mission, in case problems forced an early return to Earth. By day five of the mission, Flight Director Glynn Lunney estimated that the astronauts had already accomplished 70 to 75 percent of the planned test objectives.

The SPS engine was fired eight times in total, working perfectly every time and proving its reliability. The crew tested the fuel cells and battery chargers and checked out the cooling capacity of the thermal control system, putting the CSM into “barbecue mode,” rolling slowly around its long axis to distribute the heat load evenly over the spacecraft skin. Major Eisele thoroughly tested the sextant, telescope and guidance computer: even when vented, frozen urine crystals obscured his star targets, he proved that the optical instruments could provide sightings accurate enough to steer a spacecraft to and from the Moon.

It obviously wasn't easy for Maj. Eisele to take star sightings during the rendezvous exercise!

But the mission did experience a few technical issues. A power failure briefly struck Mission Control abut 80 minutes after launch. A mysterious “fuzz” or fog partially obscured the spacecraft’s windows, blurring the external view, although it gradually eased as the mission progressed, enabling photographic observations of the Earth (there are early indications that this may have been due to window seals outgassing). Perhaps the most annoying problem was the difficulty of using the crew’s “solid waste disposal system” – bags taped to an astronaut’s buttocks into which he excreted. The process proved to be very messy and rather smelly! 

Despite issues with window fogging, the Apollo-7 crew has returned impressive images like these, showing the Gulf of Mexico (top) and Hurricane Gladys (bottom)

Grumpy Astronauts
About 15 hours into the flight, Schirra reported that he was experiencing a head cold. Unfortunately for him, a cold in space quickly becomes a miserable experience, because congested sinuses don’t drain in weightlessness. Cunningham and Eisele also developed stuffy noses and dry nostrils, but as they experienced colds a few days before the flight, flight surgeons believe that their condition may have been due more to breathing pure oxygen for long periods.

An astronaut with a head cold is not a happy man!

Despite the use of aspirin and decongestant tablets, the cold made Schirra tired and irritable and prone to sharp exchanges with Mission Control. When Houston suggested early in the mission to add some new engineering tests into the already busy flight plan and power up the TV system ahead of schedule to check the circuits, the mission commander testily refused, citing scheduling pressures and the need for the crew to eat. Over the first few days, Schirra repeatedly delayed the scheduled public television broadcasts, considering them non-essential.

Throughout the flight, the crew had difficulty sleeping, particularly as NASA insisted that at least one astronaut was always on duty to monitor the new spacecraft’s systems during the crucial test flight. Lack of sleep and exhaustion from working long hours on a packed flight plan undoubtedly contributed to the crew’s irritability throughout the mission.

Are You a Turtle?
Capt. Schirra has a reputation for playing practical jokes and "gotchas" and decided at one point to take out his frustrations on fellow astronaut and Director of Flight Crew Operations Deke Slayton. Both men are members of a private club, which has a joking requirement that if one member asks another "Are you a turtle?" the person so asked must immediately respond with a specific vulgar reply, or else buy drinks for everyone who heard the question.

Slayton had tried to catch Schirra out during his Mercury flight by publicly asking on an open communication if Schirra was a turtle. The Apollo-7 commander decided to "return the favour" during this mission by mischievously holding up a card during the second television broadcast from the spacecraft that said "Deke Slayton, are you a turtle?" Slayton avoided giving the rude answer in a public broadcast by recording it to be played to the crew after the mission.

The Mission Commander is in Command!
Perhaps the most serious disagreement between Schirra and Mission Control arose over the issue of whether or not the astronauts would wear their space helmets during re-entry. During the descent from orbit, cabin pressure rises from 5.9 to 14.7 psi (sea level pressure). Still suffering from his head cold Capt. Schirra apparently feared a sealed helmet would prevent him from pinching his nostrils to equalise the pressure, possibly leading to a ruptured eardrum. Although helmets protect the astronauts from cabin depressurisation and landing impact forces, Schirra stood on his right to make a decision as the mission commander and insisted that the crew would not wear their helmets for re-entry.

The discussion between Apollo-7 and the ground became quite heated on this point. Although Mission Control finally acquiesced to Schirra’s decision, comments suggest that they were exasperated and surprised by the astronauts’ testiness throughout the mission, which was definitely a departure from the usual respectful communications between space and the ground. While Capt. Schirra may have been prepared to speak his mind and have his way because he has already decided to leave NASA and has nothing to lose, I wonder if the clashes between the crew and Mission Control will impact upon the careers of Major Eisele and Mr. Cunningham?

“From the Lovely Apollo Room”
Despite Schirra’s early refusal to conduct television tests, the crew became TV stars when the first live television broadcast from an American spacecraft finally occurred on 14 October. Technical limitations with the television system meant that the live broadcast was restricted to the United States, but the audience was reportedly treated to a lively piece of entertainment, with Cunningham as camera operator and Eisele as MC.

Drawing from an old radio tagline, the “Apollo-7 Show” opened with a card reading “From the lovely Apollo Room high atop everything”. The seven-minute broadcast treated viewers to a look inside the spacecraft and showed views of Lake Pontchartrain and New Orleans, before closing with Schirra holding up another sign reading “Keep those cards and letters coming in folks”, another radio tag line re-popularised by Dean Martin.

For the rest of the mission, daily television broadcasts of about 10 minutes each took place, with the crew holding up more fun signs and describing how the Apollo spacecraft worked. Since the broadcasts seem to have been very popular with audiences in America, I wonder if television’s newest stars might find themselves in line for an Emmy Award next year? 

Back to Earth
Without the crew wearing helmets, Apollo 7 made a successful re-entry on 22 October splashing down about 200 nautical miles SSW of Bermuda, with a mission duration of 10 days, 20 hours, 9 minutes and 3 seconds. The conical CM landed upside down in the water, although it was soon righted with the use of floatation bags. However, the inverted position apparently interfered with communications, giving Mission Control an agonising 10-minute wait for contact to be established by search helicopters and aircraft.

The astronauts’ arrival by helicopter on the recovery ship USS Essex was carried live to the world on television, relayed via satellite – although we here in Australia were not able to see most of the broadcast due to technical difficulties. Despite the issues with colds and stuffy noses, the crew experienced no trouble during re-entry and are said to be generally in good health. They are now back in Houston, facing three weeks of technical debriefings and medical tests.

While the disagreements between the crew and Mission Control may have cast a shadow, Apollo-7 is being hailed as a technical triumph, with the mission successfully verifying the flightworthiness of the redesigned Command Module and SPS engine.

What comes next?
Even before Apollo-7 launched, Apollo Spacecraft Manager George Low proposed that, with the delays in the construction of the LM, Apollo-8 should be a manned circumlunar flight, to build programme momentum and pre-empt a possible similar mission by the USSR. This mission prospect was being openly discussed while Apollo-7 was in orbit. With its safe and successful return, let’s hope a decision will be made very soon on this ambitious and exciting next step in space exploration: Apollo-8 is already on the pad!

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Science / Space Race

[August 26, 1968] No time for a breath (Summer space round-up)

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by Gideon Marcus

There are some months where the space shots come so quickly that there's scarcely time to apprehend them all, much less report on them!  Every other day, it seems, the newspaper has got a headling about this launch or that discovery, and that's before you get to the announcements about the impending moon missions.

So, in rapid-fire style, let's see how many exciting new missions I can tell you about on a single exhale (while you stand on one leg, no less…that's a Jewish joke).

A Pair of Yankee Explorers

On August 8th, a Scout rocket took off from Vandenberg Air Force Base (the Western Test Range) in Southern California carrying the two latest NASA science satellites.  It was a virtual duplicate of the launch nearly four years ago of Explorers 24 and 25: a balloon for measuring air density in the upper atmosphere, and a more conventional satellite with an array of instruments for surveying the Earth's ionosphere.  Affectionately dubbed "Mutt and Jeff", these two craft were sent into polar orbit (hence the Pacific launch site).  If you're wondering why NASA is repeating itself, that's because the sun has a profound effect on the Earth's atmosphere.  It is important to measure its impact throughout the 11 year solar cycle, from minimum to maximum output, to better understand the relationship between the solar wind and the air's upper layers.

Not much can go wrong with a balloon, but Explorer 40, after deploying its spindly experiment arms, suffered a malfunction.  Its solar panels are not delivering as much power as they should.  NASA is confident, however, that this will not compromise the mission, which is planned to last more than a year.

Alphabet Soup

Time was, we gave proper names to our satellites.  Now it's all acronyms and arcane jumbles of letters and numbers.  That's all right.  I can decipher them for you!

Advanced Technology Satellite (ATS) 4

August 10 marked the launch of "Daddy Longlegs" ATS 4, the fourth of seven satellites in this series.

Some of you may remember ATS-1–you may recall that ATS-1 helped relay the first worldwide "Our World" broadcast last year. 

ATS-1 is actually still working, just like its two siblings.  ATS-2, launched April 5, 1967 was judged a failure since the second stage of its carrier rocket malfunctioned, stranding it in an eccentric orbit.  Still, the several science experiments onboard have returned information on cosmic rays and such in space.  ATS-3, which went up November 5, 1967, was the last to ride an Atlas Agena D rocket.  Armed with a panoply of experiments, including two transceivers, two cameras, and a host of radiation detectors, that satellite worked perfectly, returning the first color picture of the entire Earth!

ATS-4, unlike its predecessors, is a strictly practical spacecraft, carrying no science experiments, but makes up for it in engineering marvels.  One is a a day-night Image Orthicon Camera, a teevee transmitter that would provide continuous color coverage of the world from high up in geosynchronous orbit (i.e. orbiting at the same rate as the Earth turns, keeping it more or less stationary with respect to the ground).  Another is a microwave transmitter, turning ATS into a powerful communications satellite like its progenitor

ATS-4 also was to test out a gravity gradient stabilization system, basically using the subtle gradations of the Earth's pull on the satellite's arms to keep it oriented in orbit.  Finally, ATS-4 has an ion engine aboard.  These drives, perfect for space, work by shooting out Cesium electrons.  They are incredibly economical compared to conventional rockets, but their thrust is quite low, meaning they must be fired continuously to have an appreciable effect on velocity.

Sadly, as with ATS-2, ATS-4's Atlas Centaur failed on the second stage, stranding the satellite in a low, largely useless orbit.  Well, I guess that's why you launch lots of them!

ESSA 7

We haven't given the ESSA series of satellites much love, which I suppose is what happens when a technology stops being novel and instead becomes routine, even essential.  After all, who reports on every airplane that takes off anymore?

But it's worth talking about the latest satellite, ESSA 7, launched August 16, to summarize what the system has done for us over the last several years.

There were eleven satellites in the TIROS series of weather craft, the first launched in 1960.  In February 1966, with the launch of ESSA 1, the Environmental Science Services Administration (ESSA) took over the cartwheel satellites, making the series officially operational.

All of them have worked perfectly, launched into sun-synchronous polar orbits about 900 miles up that circle the Earth from north to south as the planet rotates eastward beneath.  So perfect is ESSA 7's orbit that it will cross the equator at virtually the same time every day, drifting from that time table by only four minutes every year.

ESSA satellites have returned 3000 warnings of hurricanes, typhoons, and cyclones, reporting not just on the existence but the intensity of these dangerous storms.  As of May 27 of this year, ESSA satellites had taken a million photos of the Earth's weather–that's $42 per picture, since the total launch cost of an ESSA is $6 million.


An image of Tropical Storm Shirley taken August 19, 1968

Up in the Kosmos

If we had to cover the launch of every Kosmos (Cosmos) satellite out of the Soviet Union, we'd have to go to a daily schedule.  There's such a thing as too much of a good thing, right?

But the Russkies are putting them up on the average of one a week, so it's worth sampling them occasionally to keep tabs on all the stuff they're putting in orbit.  Especially since the Kosmos is a catch-all designator, even more broad than our Explorer series.  It includes military satellites, science satellites, weather satellites, even automatic tests of the Soyuz spacecraft.

Here's a brief outline of the launches this last month:

Kosmos 230

This is a typical Soviet launch press release:

The Soviet Union launched another Cosmos satellite today and the Sputnik was reported functioning normally, Tass, the official Soviet news agency, said.  The device, Cosmos 230, is sending information to a Soviet research center for evaluation.

We know it was launched July 5 into a 48.5 degree inclined orbit, that it soars between 181 and 362 miles above the Earth, and that it's still in orbit as we speak, circling the Earth every 92.8 minutes.

As for what it's for… well, your guess is as good as mine.  That said, it's probably not a spy satellite.  How do I know?  Read on, and I'll show you what a spy sat looks like so you can spot them yourself!

Kosmos 231

The Soviet Union has launched another satellite in its program of exploring outer space, the official Tass news agency said Thursday.  It said Cosmos 231 was launched Wednesday [July 10] and is functioning normally.  The latest Cosmos is orbiting the earth once every 89.7 minutes in a low orbit from 130 miles to 205 miles.  Its angle to the earth was 65 degrees.

Seems innocuous enough, right?  Doesn't tell you anything more than the other one.  Except…

First tip-off: the angle.  A zero degree angle would be along the equator, never leaving 0 degrees latitude.  A 90 degree angle is polar, heading due north and south.  The lower the angle, the narrower a band of the Earth a satellite covers.

A 65 degree angle is sufficient to cover a wide swathe…including all of the continental United States.

The altitude is quite low, too.  The closer, the better–if you want to look at something from orbit.

But the real kicker is this: the spacecraft reentered on July 18, just eight days after launch.  Normally, when you send a science satellite up, you want it to stay in orbit as long as possible to get more back for your buck…er…ruble.  You only deorbit a spacecraft (and make no mistake–Kosmos 231 had to have been deorbited; its orbit wasn't that low) when there's something onboard you want to get back.  Like a person…or film.

We know there wasn't anyone onboard Kosmos 231.  The Soviets would have told us.  By the way, I'm not the only one who thinks the Kosmos was a spy satellite, taking pictures in orbit and then landing the film for processing.  There's a blurb in the July 15th issue of Aviation Weekly and Space Report which says the same thing.  And they reached that conclusion before the craft even landed, just based on the orbit!

By the way, if you're wondering what the Soviet spy satellites look like, we actually have a better idea of theirs than ours!  We're pretty sure they're based on the Vostok space capsules used to carry cosmonauts.  In fact, it's an open question whether or not the spy sat was evolved from the Vostok or the other way around!

Kosmos 232

Launched July 16, its orbital parameters were as follows: 125 to 220 miles in altitude, 89.8 minute orbit, 65 degree inclination.  The newspaper article I read noted that the satellite's path was a common one, and predicted the satellite would be recovered in eight days.

Sure enough, it was on the ground again on July 24.

Sound familiar?

Kosmos 233

Here's another oddball: launched on the 18th, the Soviets didn't release news of its orbiting until at least the 20th.  It's in a near polar orbit, soaring up to 935 miles, grazing the Earth with a perigee of 124 miles.

That's no spy sat.  In fact, I'd guess this one might be a bonafide science satellite, exploring the Earth's Van Allen Belts.  But it could just as easily be the equivalent of our Transit navigational satellites or something.  We won't know until and unless the Communists publish scientific results.

Kosmos 234

Launched July 30, it soared from 130 to 183 miles up with a period of 89.5 minutes and an inclination of 51.8 degrees.  Low orbit?  Check.  Cryptic announcement describing its purpose as "the continued exploration of outer space"?  Check.  But the inclination's a bit low.  Better wait for more information.

Oh wait.  It landed August 5.  Pretty sure we know what this one was!

Kosmos 235

Up August 9, down August 17.  Orbit went from 126 to 176 miles, period was 89.3 minutes, and the inclination was exactly the same as before–51.8 degrees.

I'm not sure the significance of the different inclinations.  Maybe it's a matter of the rocket or the launch location.  Generally, the higher the inclination, the more expensive the shot in terms of fuel since the rocket doesn't get the extra boost of the Earth's rotation.

Operator?

It's been a while since we covered the Molniya communications satellites, one of the few Soviet series we do know something about.  July 5 marked the launch of the ninth comsat in the series, zooming up to a high, not quite geosynchronous, orbit, where it has a nice vantage of the whole of Asia.

This launch comes less than three months after the orbiting of Molniya H, the eighth in the series.  Whether Molniya I is replacing its predecessor, which may have been faulty, or whether the ninth Molniya is simply acting as a backup, is not certain.  The latter seems unlikely, though.  When Molniya G went up just three weeks after Molniya F, it was widely believed that the Russians had sent up two to make sure they could televise their annual November Moscow parade to the other Communist countries.

That's all folks!

That's the big news for this month.  The rest of the year is going to be really exciting, what with the upcoming launch of Apollo 7 and Zond 5.  We're about to enter a new phase of manned lunar exploration.  That said, we promise to keep covering the significant shots closer to home, too.  For us, all space missions are out of this world!


The prime crew for Apollo 7 (l-r) Astronauts Donn F. Eisele, Command Module Pilot; Walter Cunningham, Lunar Module Pilot; and Walter M. Schirra, Jr., Commander




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Science / Space Race

[April 8, 1968] Ups, Downs and Tragedy: An Eventful Month in Space (Gagarin's crash, Zond-4, OGO-5, Apollo-6)

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by Kaye Dee

Despite the continued hiatus in human spaceflight on both sides of the Iron Curtin, March and early April have been a busy time in space exploration. But, sadly, I have to commence this review with the tragic news that Colonel Yuri Gagarin, the first person in space, was killed in a plane crash during a training flight on 27 March. Very little is currently known about the circumstances surrounding Gagarin’s death, which has occurred just one month shy of the first anniversary of the loss of Cosmonaut Vladimir Komarov in the Soyuz-1 accident.

Loss of a Space Hero
There have long been rumours that the Soviet leadership refused to allow Gagarin to fly high performance jets or make another spaceflight due to his invaluable propaganda status as Cosmonaut No. 1. However, it seems that since Gagarin completed an engineering degree in February, he had finally been allowed to resume flight status and was undertaking training flights to regain his lapsed jet pilot qualifications.

According to an official government commission investigating the crash, Col. Gagarin was flying a two seat MiG-15 trainer with Colonel Vladimir Seryogin, 46, described as an experienced test pilot and instructor on the training flight. Taking off at 10 a.m., Gagarin and Seryogin apparently flew east 70 miles from Moscow. After completing the training flight, around 10.30, Gagarin radioed that he was returning to base. The plane was then at 13,000 feet. A minute later ground control could not establish contact.

A MiG-15UTI, the same type as the aircraft Gagarin was flying at the time of the crash

An air search began, and a helicopter found the wreckage in a forest. The plane had dived into the ground at an angle of 65 to 70 degrees and was destroyed, killing both men. No information as to the cause of the crash has so far been forthcoming, but a story has been circulated that Gagarin heroically sacrificed himself, refusing to bail out of his stricken aircraft to guide it away from crashing in a populated area. How much truth there is to this, or whether it is pure propaganda, cannot be determined at this time.

Cosmonaut No. 1 is “flying through space forever”
Following an autopsy, the bodies of Gagarin and Seryogin were cremated the day after the crash and the ashes returned to Moscow, where the urns lay in state for 19 hours in the Red Banner Hall of the Soviet Army. Thousands are reported to have filed past to pay their respects to the world’s first space traveller. Thousands more lined the streets as the flower-covered urns, borne on a caisson drawn by an armoured troop carrier, moved slowly to Red Square along a 2½-mile route. The funeral procession included the Gagarin and Seryogin families and the highest leaders of the Soviet state and Communist Party.

The funeral procession for Gagarin and Seryogin making its way towards Red Square

Gagarin and Seryogin were both interred in the Kremlin Wall, behind Lenin's Tomb in Red Square. In what is said to be a rare honour, car horns, factory whistles and church bells sounded in unison as the urn bearing Gagarin's ashes was inserted into a niche in the red brick wall. Then the nation fell still for a minute of silence, followed by a final salvo of cannon fire. A day of national mourning was also declared, the first time this has ever been done in the USSR for someone not a national leader. President Johnson, UN Secretary General U Thant and other world leaders sent messages of condolence. John Glenn sent a personal letter of sympathy to Col. Gagarin’s wife Valentina.

Seryogin and Gagarin buried side by side in the Kremlin Wall. Their various honours and awards are displayed before their portraits

Gagarin was just 34 years old when he died, leaving two young daughters, aged nine and seven. He was based at the cosmonaut training centre near Moscow, involved in training other cosmonauts when not engaged in official duties as a public figure. Little is known about Col. Seryogin, but he has been described as a Hero of Soviet Union and the commander of an air unit. It is unknown if he is also a member of the Soviet cosmonaut corps or has any other role in the Russian space programme.

Gagarin’s words upon landing after his space flight were “I could have gone on flying through space forever”. Though he never returned to space in this life, his spirit surely resides in the cosmos now.

Making up Lost Ground?
The somewhat mysterious Zond-4 unmanned spacecraft was launched on 2 March. A TASS news agency announcement of the launch described Zond-4 as an “automatic station”, “designed to study the outlying regions of near-earth space.”

Thanks to my friends at the Weapons Research Establishment, here is a photo of a Proton rocket, rumoured to be the type used to launch Zond-4.

TASS reported that Zond-4 was put into an initial 170-mile parking orbit, before being sent on a “planned flight” further into space, apparently reaching the environs of the Moon. According to my contacts at the WRE, Zond 4’s flightpath reached an apogee of 240,000 miles, “comparable to lunar altitude”.

No further information was released by TASS about the mission, which has occurred several years after previous launches in the Zond series: Zond-1 was launched in April 1964, Zond-2 in November that year, and Zond-3 in July 1965. “Zond” is the Russian word for “probe” and these earlier spacecraft were apparently planetary or lunar missions. Could Zond-4 actually have been an attempt by the Soviet Union to make up lost ground with a test of the new Soyuz spacecraft, presumably redesigned or modified following the failed Soyuz-1 mission last year?

Does this cutaway illustration represent mysterious Zond-4? My WRE friends think it might!

It would hardly be the first time that the Soviet Union has concealed real purpose of a space mission behind the name of a different spacecraft series. (paging Mr. Kosmos/Cosmos!). As the Soyuz vehicle is believed to be the USSR’s answer to Apollo, a test of an improved spacecraft out to lunar distance would certainly make sense at this time, with the Apollo 6 mission (see below) testing out the Apollo Command and Service Modules just a few days ago.

Whatever its mission, Zond-4 returned to Earth on 9 March, but there was no official communique on the conclusion of the flight. This silence suggests that the re-entry failed in some way and that the spacecraft was either destroyed on re-entry or crashed on landing. If Zond-4 was a test of the Soyuz vehicle, could its loss have been due to a repeat of the parachute failure that doomed Soyuz-1 last year? If this was the case, it does not bode well for the USSR getting its lunar programme back on track in time to challenge the United States in the race for the Moon.

Go, OGO-5!
Just two days after the launch of Zond-4, the United States launched the latest satellite in its Orbiting Geophysical Observatory (OGO) series of scientific satellites. OGO-5 soared aloft on 4 March, establishing itself in a highly elliptical orbit with a 170 mile perigee and a 92,105 mile apogee. The orbital inclination was 31.1 degrees, with the satellite taking 3796 minutes to complete one orbit. The 1,347 lb satellite carries more experiments than any other automated spacecraft to date.

OGO-5 First day Cover and informational insert, courtesy of my Uncle Ernie, the philatelic collector

OGO-5 is primarily devoted to observation of the Earth’s upper atmosphere and its interaction with conditions in the space environment. Like earlier OGO satellites, it carries instruments for studying solar flares (which can also detect cosmic X-ray bursts) and a gamma-ray detector. This will enable it to examine the hazards and mysteries of Earth's space environment at a time when radiation-producing flares on the Sun are intensifying. It will also chart magnetic and electric forces in space, measure gases in Earth's upper atmosphere, investigate the Aurora Borealis over the North Pole and listen for the puzzling radio noises that have been detected from the planet Jupiter.  Each of OGO-5’s predecessors is still operational at this time, so let’s hope the latest Orbiting Geophysical Observatory also has a long life ahead of it.

Apollo 6: NASA Keeps Moving Forward
If Zond-4 has been an un-announced trial of the USSR’s Soyuz lunar spacecraft, Apollo-6 has been NASA’s very public test flight of the Saturn-5 rocket and some of the modifications to the Apollo Command Module.

Launched on 4 April, Apollo-6 marked the second test flight of the massive Saturn-5 launch vehicle, crucial for reaching Moon. The primary objective of the mission was to test the performance of the Saturn-5 and the Apollo spacecraft, the first time that the Command and Service Modules (CSM) would be fully tested in space. In particular, the mission was intended to demonstrate that the Saturn-5’s S-IVB third stage could send the entire Apollo spacecraft (CSM and Lunar Module) out to lunar distances. Although things didn’t go quite to plan, Apollo-6 did accomplish its basic objectives.

An All-Up Test Flight
The Apollo 6 launch vehicle was the second flight-capable Saturn-5, AS-502, its simulated payload equal to about 80% of a full Apollo lunar spacecraft. The CSM it carried was a Block I (Earth-orbit mission) type, with some Block II (lunar mission) modifications. According to NASA “more than 140 tests since last October showed modifications of the Apollo spacecraft since the 1967 disaster had drastically reduced the hazard to life”.

Possibly the most important modification was a new crew hatch, intended to be tested under lunar return conditions. This new hatch incorporated the heat shield and crew compartment hatches of the original Apollo design into a single hatch, called the "unified" design. This has been in response to the Apollo-1 investigation board finding that the dual hatches were too difficult to open in case of emergency and had contributed to the deaths of the crew.

Apollo-6's redesigned unified hatch, photographed during a post-flight inspection of the Commend Module

Like the earlier Apollo-5 test flight, Apollo-6 carried a simulated Lunar Module (LM) which lacked the descent-stage landing gear. It also had no flight systems, and its fuel and oxidiser tanks were liquid-ballasted. While the LM remained inside the Spacecraft-Lunar Module Adapter throughout the flight, its ascent stage was instrumented to determine the craft’s structural integrity and the vibration and acoustic stresses to which it was subjected.

Apollo-6's "legless Lunar Module", formally called the Lunar Test Article LTA-2R

A few weeks prior to launch, NASA announced that, to further reduce fire hazards that contributed to the deaths of Apollo-1 astronauts, it intended to change to a mixture of 60% oxygen and 40% cent nitrogen in the Command Module, while the spacecraft and its crew are on the ground and during launch. Once their spacecraft left the launch pad, the astronauts would switch to pure oxygen. Since the gas mixture will be used in the spacecraft only during ground operations, NASA has not planned any change in the existing environmental control system, so the decision did not affect the Apollo 6 mission.

Apollo 6: What Was Planned
The original Apollo 6 mission plan intended to send the CSM and simulated lunar module into a trans-lunar trajectory. (That trajectory, although passing beyond lunar orbit distance, would not encounter the Moon, which was in another part of its orbit at the time.) The Saturn-5’s S-IVB third stage would be fired for trans-lunar injection, with the CSM separating from the S-IVB soon after. The Service Module engine would then fire to slow the CSM, reducing its apogee to 11,989 nmi.

NASA illustration showing the CSM and LM inside the Spacecraft-Lunar Module Adapter, as they would be at trans-lunar injection

The CSM would then return to Earth as if it had experienced “direct-return” abort during a Moon mission. As it returned, the SM engine would fire again, accelerating the CSM to simulate the conditions that an Apollo spacecraft would encounter on its return from the Moon: a re-entry angle of −6.5 degrees and velocity of 36,500 ft/s. The entire test flight was planned with a duration of about 10 hours.

Not Quite Going to Plan
After the launch was delayed for some days due to problems with guidance system equipment and fuelling, Apollo 6 made a smooth lift-off from Kennedy Space Centre. However, during the last ten seconds of first stage firing, the vehicle severely experienced a type of longitudinal oscillation known as “pogo”. Pogo occurs when a partial vacuum in a rocket’s fuel and oxidiser feed lines reaches the engine firing chamber, causing the engine to “skip”. The pogo phenomenon is well-known, since rockets have experienced it since the early days of spaceflight, and it occurred in launchers such as Thor and Titan II (used for the Gemini program).

While the Apollo-4 Saturn-5 also experienced a mild form of pogo, Apollo-6 was subjected to extreme pogo vibrations. It appears that these oscillations, travelling along the length of the huge Moon rocket, caused multiple problems with the vehicle. Two engines in the second stage shut down early, although the vehicle's onboard guidance system was able to compensate by burning the remaining three engines for 58 seconds longer than planned. The S-IVB engine also experienced a slight performance loss and had to burn for 29 seconds longer than usual. Intense vibrations were felt in the Command Module that could have caused injuries had a crew been onboard. There was also some superficial structural damage to the Spacecraft Lunar Module Adaptor (SLA). A chase plane image of the Apollo-6 launch, taken at approximately the time of the pogo oscillations. It shows an area of discoloration on the SLA indicative of superficial damage and what appears to be falling pieces of debris, perhaps a panel or two shaken lose by the pogo vibrations

The underperformance of the apparently pogo-damaged engines resulted in the third stage being inserted into an elliptical parking orbit, rather than the planned 100 nmi circular orbit. Although Mission Control decided that this did not prevent the mission from continuing, when the vehicle was ready for trans-lunar injection, the apparently damaged S-IVB engine failed to restart.

Repeating Apollo-4
Without the ability to continue with the original flight plan, Mission Control decided to complete some of the mission objectives by adopting a flight plan similar to that of Apollo-4. The SM's Service Propulsion System (SPS) was used to raise the spacecraft into an orbit with a 11,989 nmi apogee, from which it would re-enter. However, the SPS engine did not have enough fuel for a second burn to accelerate the atmospheric re-entry and the spacecraft was only able to enter the atmosphere with a velocity of 33,000 ft/s, instead of the planned 36,500 ft/s that would simulate a lunar return.

With the SM was jettisoned just before atmospheric re-entry, the CM splashed down 43 nmi from the planned landing site north of Hawaii, ten hours after launch. It was recovered by the USS Okinawa.

A Rocket's Eye View
Unlike earlier unmanned missions, the Apollo-6 Saturn-5 was fitted with several cameras intended to be ejected and later recovered. Three of the four cameras on the first stage failed to eject and were lost and only one of the two cameras on the second stage was recovered. Fortunately, this camera provided spectacular views of the separation of the first and second stages.

Two spectacular views of the interstage between the first and second stages falling away, taken from Apollo-6's second stage camera. How amazing that we can now see events happening during a launch that cannot be observed from the ground!

The CM also carried two cameras: a motion picture camera, intended to be activated during launch and re-entry and a 70mm still camera. Unfortunately, as the technical issues meant that the mission took about ten minutes longer than planned, the re-entry events were not filmed. However, the still camera, pointed at the Earth through the hatch window provided impressive photos of parts of the United States, the Atlantic Ocean, Africa, and the western Pacific Ocean. Advanced film and filters, improved colour balance and higher resolution have provided images that are a significant improvement on the photographs taken on previous American crewed missions and demonstrated that future imagery from space will be useful for cartographic, topographic, and geographic studies.

A view of the Dallas-Fort Worth area in Texas, taken from the Command Module's 70mm still camera. Special thanks to the Australian NASA representative for providing me with rush copies of these incredible Apollo-6 images for this article

What’s Next for Apollo?
NASA announced in mid-March that its first Earth-orbiting Apollo mission will be launched on a Saturn 1 vehicle and spend as long as ten days in orbit. The flight, which could come as early as mid-August, will be crewed by astronauts Walter Schirra, Donn Eisele and Walter Cunningham. If that mission goes well and the Saturn-5 is cleared for manned launchings, astronauts James McDivitt, David Scott and Russell Schweickart will ride a Saturn-5 into Earth orbit two or three months later to conduct flight test of the lunar module.

Following the return of Apollo-6, Apollo Programme Director Samuel C. Phillips said, “there's no question that it's less than a perfect mission”, although the Saturn-5’s demonstration of its ability to reach orbit despite the loss of two engines, was “a major unplanned accomplishment”. However, Marshall Space Flight Centre Director Wernher von Braun has recognised that the “flight clearly left a lot to be desired. … We just cannot go to the Moon [with this problem],” referring to the extreme pogo experienced on the flight. This means that solving the pogo phenomenon is now a major priority for NASA in order to keep the Apollo program on track and bolster confidence in the Saturn-5 vehicle. Can they do it? 








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Science / Space Race

[January 24, 1968] On Track for the Moon (Apollo 5 and Surveyor 7]

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by Kaye Dee

As we approach the first anniversary of the shocking loss of the crew of Apollo 1, the success of the recent Apollo 5 mission reminds us that the spirit of Grissom, White and Chaffee lives on as NASA continues developing and testing the technology to make a manned lunar landing a reality.

Apollo 1's Legacy
Although the fire that engulfed Apollo 1 and killed its crew destroyed its Command Module, the accident took place on the launchpad during a launch simulation, and fortunately the Saturn IB booster intended to loft that mission into orbit remained undamaged. Because that AS-204 vehicle was the last Saturn IB with full research and development instrumentation, NASA decided that this rocket would be re-assigned to Apollo 5, the much-delayed first test flight of the Lunar Module – the spacecraft essential for successfully landing astronauts on the Moon – while manned Apollo missions continue on hold.

From LEM to LM
The spacecraft we now call the Lunar Module (LM) became part of the Apollo programme in 1962, when NASA decided to adopt the technique of lunar orbit rendezvous (LOR) for its Moon landing missions. First proposed in 1919 by Ukrainian engineer and mathematician Yuri Kondratyuk, the LOR technique uses two spacecraft that travel together to the Moon and then separate in lunar orbit, with a lander carrying astronauts from orbit to the Moon’s surface. The LOR method allows the use of a smaller and lighter lander than the large, all-on-one spacecraft originally proposed for Apollo, and also provides for greater flexibility in landing site selection.

An early diagram comparing the size of a lunar landing vehicle using the Direct Ascent method of reaching the Moon and a LOR lunar excursion vehicle

The version of lunar orbit rendezvous suggested to NASA by engineer John C. Houbolt called for a landing vehicle consisting of two parts: a landing stage, that would accomplish the descent from orbit and remain on the Moon’s surface, and an ascent stage that would carry the astronauts back to the main spacecraft in orbit. This design gave us the Command Service Module as the Moon orbiting spacecraft, and what was originally called the Lunar Excursion Module (LEM, pronounced as a word, not as the individual letters) as the vehicle that would land astronauts on the Moon.

Dr. Houbolt illustrating the main spacecraft needed for his Lunar Orbit Rendezvous proposal for the Apollo programme

In June 1966, NASA changed the name to Lunar Module (LM), eliminating the word “excursion”. My friends at the WRE tell me that this was because there were concerns that using “excursion” might make it sound like the lunar missions were frivolous, and so reduce support for the Apollo programme! Despite the official name change, the astronauts, as well as staff at Grumman, still call it “the lem”, which certainly feels easier to say.

Delays…Delays…
However, the two-stage LEM/LM has proved much harder to develop and manufacture than the contractor Grumman originally anticipated, because of the complexity and level of reliability required of the hardware. Originally, NASA planned for the automated test flight of LM-1, the first Lunar Module, to occur in April 1967, but the delivery of the spacecraft was repeatedly delayed: the two stages of LM-1 did not arrive at Cape Kennedy until late June last year.

The separately-crated stages of LM-1 arriving at Kennedy Space Centre on board a Super Guppy cargo plane. The stages were mated to each other four days later

A team of 400 engineers and technicians then checked out the spacecraft to ensure that it met specifications. The discovery of leaks in the ascent stage propulsion system meant that the ascent and descent stages were demated and remated multiple times for repairs between August and October. LM-1 was finally mounted on its Saturn IB booster on 19 November and a launch date was set for the latter part of January 1968.

LM-1, encased in its SLA, being hoisted up for mounting on its launch vehicle

Lift Off at Last!
Although the launch was delayed for 10 hours when the countdown was held up by technical difficulties, Apollo 5 finally lifted off on 22 January 1968 (23 January for us here in Australia). The mission was designed to test the LM's descent and ascent propulsion systems, guidance and navigation systems, and the overall structural integrity of the craft. It also flight tested the Saturn V Instrument Unit.

Because they would not be needed during the Apollo 5 test flight, LM-1 had no landing legs, which helped to save weight. NASA also decided to replace the windows of LM-1 with aluminium plates as a precaution, after one of the windows broke during testing last December. Since the mission was of short duration, only some of LM-1’s systems were fully activated, and it only carried a partial load of consumables. 

LM-1's "legless" configuration is clearly seen in this view of it during checkout at Kennedy Space Centre

The Apollo 5 flight did not include Command and Service Modules (CSM), or a launch escape tower, so pictures of the launch vehicle show it to look more like its predecessor AS-203 than AS-202, which tested the CSM. The Apollo 5 stack had an overall height of 180ft and weighed 1,299,434 lbs. The LM was contained within the Spacecraft Lunar Module Adapter (SLA), located just below the nose cap of the rocket. The SLA consists of four panels that open like petals once the nose cap is jettisoned in orbit, allowing the LM to separate from the launcher.

The Saturn IB worked perfectly, inserting the second stage and LM into an 88-by-120-nautical-mile orbit. After the nose cone was jettisoned, LM-1 coasted for 43 minutes 52 seconds, before separating from the SLA into a 90-by-120-nautical-mile orbit. NASA’s Carnarvon tracking station in Western Australia tracked the first six orbits of the mission, while the new Apollo tracking station at Honeysuckle Creek, near Canberra, followed LM-1’s first orbit.

Putting LM-1 Through its Paces
Since it had no astronaut crew, the LM-1 test flight had a mission programmer installed, which could control the craft remotely. The first planned 39-second descent-engine burn commenced after two orbits, only to be aborted by the Apollo Guidance Computer after just four seconds, as the spacecraft was not travelling at its expected velocity. Exactly why this occurred is now being investigated. Of course, if there had been a crew onboard, the astronauts would probably have been able to analyse the situation and decide whether the engine should be restarted.

Instead, Mission Control, under Flight Director Gene Kranz, decided to conduct the engine and "fire-in-the-hole" tests under manual control, as without these test firings the mission would be deemed a failure. The "fire in the hole" test verified that the ascent stage could fire while attached to the descent stage, a procedure that will be used to launch from the Moon’s surface, or in the event of an aborted lunar landing. It involves shutting down the descent stage, switching control and power to the ascent stage, and firing the ascent engine while the two stages are still mated.

Apollo 5 Flight Director Gene Kranz (right) with future Lunar Module crew Astronauts McDivitt (left) and Schweickart (centre) discussing LM-1's control issues

Both the ascent and descent engines were fired multiple times during the flight to demonstrate that they could be restarted after initial use. Eight hours into the mission, a problem with the guidance system did cause the ascent stage to spin out of control, but the vital engine test burns had been completed by then. LM-1 also demonstrated its ability to maintain a stable hover, and the guidance and navigation systems controlled the spacecraft's attitude and velocity as planned.

At the conclusion of the flight testing, the separated ascent and descent stages were left in a low orbit, with the anticipation that atmospheric drag would naturally cause their orbits to decay so that the craft would re-enter the atmosphere. The ascent stage re-entered and was destroyed on 24 January, but as I write the descent stage is still in orbit.

Another Step on the Road to the Moon
NASA considers that the LM performed well during its test flight, and have deemed Apollo 5 a success. One wonders now if the second unmanned test flight with LM-2, planned for later this year, will need to go ahead. NASA also plans to return astronauts to space with a test flight of the redesigned Command Module in September this year. Once that goal is accomplished, every part of the Apollo system will have been tested in spaceflight and it will finally be “Go!” for astronauts to shoot for the Moon. I can’t wait!

Lunar map showing the landing sites of all the successful Surveyor missions

So Long Surveyor!
As the Apollo programme powers forward, the last of NASA’s automated lunar exploration programmes is coming to an end, with Surveyor 7 now in operation on the Moon. The Surveyor project was developed with the goal of demonstrating the feasibility of soft landings on the Moon's surface, ensuring that it would be safe for Apollo crews to touch down in their Lunar Modules. The Surveyor landings have complemented the Lunar Orbiter programme (which drew to a close in the latter part of last year), which imaged the Moon from orbit, mapping the lunar surface and providing detailed photographs of many proposed Apollo landing sites.

Making It Safe for a LM Landing
Of the seven Surveyor missions, five achieved their objectives, returning valuable data and images from the lunar surface. Surveyor 1, launched on 30 May (US time) in 1966, was the first American spacecraft to soft land on the Moon (following the successful landing of the USSR’s Luna 9 on 31 January that year), returning 11,237 images of the lunar surface. Unfortunately, its successor, Surveyor 2, failed in September 1966, impacting onto the lunar surface when a malfunction of the guidance system caused an error in the mid-course correction as it travelled to the Moon.

Surveyor 1's panorama of the lunar surface, which captured its shadow, cast by the light of the Earth

Surveyor 3, which lifted off on 17 April 1967, was the first to conduct in-situ experiments on the lunar soil, using its extendable arm and scoop. The spacecraft also returned over 6,000 images, including the famous "Surveyors Footprint" shot, showing its footpad on the lunar surface. The probe had a lucky escape as it tried to land: a problem with its descent radar caused the descent engine to cut off late, resulting in the lander bouncing twice on the lunar surface before settling down to a final safe landing!

Surveyor 3's footprint and footpad on the lunar surface, showing how it bounced on landing. The extendable arm and scoop are visible on the left of the picture

Just three months later, in July, Surveyor 4 was not so lucky. After a textbook flight to the Moon, contact was lost with the spacecraft just 2.5 minutes before touchdown in the Sinus Medii (Central Bay) region and it crashed onto the lunar surface. It’s believed that the solid-fuel descent engine may have exploded.

Launched on 8 September, Surveyor 5 also encountered engine problems on descent to the lunar surface, with a leak in the spacecraft's thruster system. Fortunately, it survived to make a safe landing and returned over 20,000 photographs over three lunar days. Instead of a sampler arm, Surveyor 5 carried an alpha backscattering experiment, and had a bar magnet attached to one landing pad. It carried out the first off-Earth soil analysis and made one of the most significant finds of the Surveyor missions — that the Moon's surface is likely basaltic, and therefore suitably safe for human exploration.

Surveyor 5's alpha backscattering experiment, sometimes described as a chemical laboratory on the Moon

Surveyor 6 landed safely near the Surveyor 4 crash site in November 1967 carrying an instrument package virtually identical to Surveyor 5. The spacecraft transmitted a total of 30,027 detailed images of the lunar surface, as well as determining the abundance of the chemical elements in the lunar soil. As an additional experiment, Surveyor 6 carried out the first lift-off from the Moon. Its engines were restarted, lifting the probe 12 ft above the lunar surface, and moving it 8 ft to the west, after which it landed again safely, and continued its scientific programme. 

Surveyor 7 – a Last Hurrah!
The successful completion of the Surveyor 6 mission accomplished all the goals that NASA had set for the Surveyor programme as an Apollo precursor. The JPL Surveyor team therefore decided that for the final mission they would aim for a riskier landing site, in the rugged highlands near the Tycho Crater. The engineers gave Surveyor 7 a less than 50-50 chance of landing upright due to the rough terrain in the area!

Tycho crater was the challenging landing site for NASA's last Surveyor mission

Launched on 7 January, Surveyor 7 is the last American robot spacecraft scheduled to land on the Moon before the Apollo astronauts. Its instrument package combines all the experiments used by its predecessors, in order to determine if the rugged terrain would be suitable for a future Apollo landing site.

During its first lunar day, the spacecraft’s camera has returned more than 14,000 images, including some views of the Earth! One of Surveyor 7’s innovations is the use of mirrors to obtain stereoscopic lunar photos. Laser beams directed at the Moon from two sites in the United States have also been recorded by cameras aboard Surveyor 7.

A view of the Earth captured by Surveyor 7's camera

Getting a Scoop
Surveyor 7’s versatile soil mechanics surface sampler is a key instrument on this mission. Designed to pick up lunar surface material, it can move samples around while being photographed, so that the properties of the lunar soil can be determined. It can also dig trenches up to 18 inches into the lunar surface to determine its bearing strength and squeeze lunar rocks or clods. The sampler is a scoop with a container which can be opened or closed by an electric motor. The scoop has a sharpened blade and includes two embedded magnets, to search for ferrous minerals and determine the magnetic characteristics of the lunar soil. So far, the moveable arm and scoop have performed 16 bearing tests, seven trenching tests, and two impact tests.

Only a few Surveyor 7 pictures are currently available, but this view of Surveyor 3 digging a trench into the Moon's surface shows how the scoop carries out this task

The scoop is mounted below the spacecraft’s the television camera so that it can reach the alpha-scattering instrument in its deployed position and move it to another selected location. In fact, the scoop helped to free the alpha-scattering instrument when it failed to deploy on the lunar surface. It has also been used to shade the alpha-scattering instrument and move it to different positions to evaluation other surface samples. During 36 hours of operation between January 11 and January 23, 1968, the sampler has performed flawlessly. Soil analyses have been conducted, as well as experiments on surface reflectivity and surface electrical properties. 

Surveyor 7 is now “sleeping” through its first lunar night. If it survives this period of intense cold, hopefully it will continue to produce significant results during its next lunar day. But if it doesn’t, the scientists and engineers at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory are already describing the Surveyor programme as a “treasure house of information for landing a man on the Moon before the end of this decade”. This has to be a fitting epitaph for any space mission.








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Science / Space Race

[November 12, 1967] Still in the Race! (Apollo-4, Surveyor-6, OSO-4 and Cosmos-186-188)

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by Kaye Dee

As I noted in my previous article, October was such a busy month for space activity that I had to hold over several items for this month. But November has already provided us with plenty of space news as well. Even though both American and Soviet manned spaceflight is currently on hold while the investigations into their respective accidents continue, preparations for putting astronauts and cosmonauts on the Moon are ongoing and the Moon race is still on!

“Oh, it’s terrific, the building’s shaking!”

Opening the door to human lunar exploration needs an immensely powerful booster, and the successful launch of Apollo-4 a few days ago on 9 November has demonstrated that NASA has a rocket that is up to the task. Although the Saturn 1B rocket intended to loft Apollo Earth-orbiting missions has already been tested, Apollo-4 (also designated SA-501) marked the first flight of a complete Saturn V lunar launcher.

The sheer power of the massive rocket took everyone by surprise. When Apollo-4 took off from Pad 39A at the John F. Kennedy Space Centre, the sound pressure waves it generated rattled the new Launch Control Centre, three miles from the launch pad, causing dust to fall from the ceiling onto the launch controllers’ consoles. At the nearby Press Centre, ceiling tiles fell from the roof. Reporting live from the site, Walter Cronkite described the experience: “… our building’s shaking here. Our building’s shaking! Oh, it’s terrific, the building’s shaking! This big blast window is shaking! We’re holding it with our hands! Look at that rocket go into the clouds at 3000 feet! … You can see it… you can see it… oh the roar is terrific!”

Firing Room 1 in the Launch Control Centre at Kennedy Space Centre, under construction in early 1966. The Apollo-4 launch was controlled from here

Could it be that the sound of a Saturn V launch is one of the loudest noises, natural or artificial, ever heard by human beings? (Apart, perhaps, from the explosion of an atomic bomb?) I hope I’ll get the opportunity to hear, and see, a Saturn V launch for myself at some point in the future.

The Power for the Glory

Developed by Dr. Wernher von Braun’s team at NASA’s George C. Marshall Space Flight Centre, everything about the Saturn V is impressive. The 363-foot vehicle weighs 3,000-tons and the thrust of its first-stage motors alone is 71 million pounds! No wonder it rattled buildings miles away at liftoff!

The F-1 rocket motor, five of which power the Saturn V’s S1-C first stage, is the most powerful single combustion chamber liquid-propellant rocket engine so far developed (at least as far as we know, since whatever vehicle the USSR is developing for its lunar program could have even more powerful motors).

The launcher consists of three stages. The Boeing-built S1-C first stage, when fully fuelled with RP-1 kerosene and liquid oxygen, has a total mass of 4,881,000 pounds. Its five F-1 engines are arranged so that the four outer engines are gimballed, enabling them to turn so they can steer the rocket, while the fifth is fixed in position in the centre. Constructed by North American Aviation and weighing 1,060,000 pounds, the S-II second stage has five Rocketdyne-built cryogenic J-2 engines, powered by liquid hydrogen and liquid oxygen. They are arranged in a similar manner to the first stage engines, and also used for steering. The Saturn V’s S-IVB third stage has been built by the Douglas Aircraft Company and has a single J-2 engine using the same cryogenic fuel as the second stage. Fully fuelled, it weighs approximately 262,000 pounds. Guidance and telemetry systems for the rocket are contained within an instrument unit located on top of the third stage.

Soaring into the Future

This first Saturn V test flight has been tremendously important to the ultimate success of the Apollo programme, marking several necessary first steps: the first launch from Complex 39 at Cape Kennedy, built especially for Apollo; the first flight of the complete Apollo/Saturn V space vehicle; and the first test of Apollo Command Module’s performance re-entering the Earth's atmosphere at a velocity approximating that expected when returning from a lunar mission. In addition, the flight enabled testing of many modifications made to the Command Module in the wake of the January fire. This included the functioning of the thermal seals used in the new quick-release spacecraft hatch design.

 
Up, Up and Away!

Apollo-4 lifted off on schedule at 7am US Eastern time. Just 12 minutes later it successfully placed a Command and Service Module (CSM), weighing a record 278,885 pounds, into orbit 115 miles above the Earth. This is equivalent to the parking orbit that will be used during lunar missions to check out the spacecraft before it embarks for the Moon.

After two orbits, the third stage engine was re-ignited (itself another space first) to simulate the trans-lunar injection burn that will be used to send Apollo missions on their way to the Moon. This sent the spacecraft into an elliptical orbit with an apogee of 10,700 miles. Shortly afterwards, the CSM separated from the S-IVB stage and, after passing apogee, the Service Module engine was fired for 281 seconds to increase the re-entry speed to 36,639 feet per second, bringing the CSM into conditions simulating a return from the Moon.


An image of the Earth taken from an automatic camera on the Apollo-4 Command Module

After a successful re-entry, the Command Module splashed down approximately 10 miles from its target landing site in the North Pacific Ocean and was recovered by the aircraft carrier USS Bennington. The mission lasted just eight hours 36 minutes and 54 seconds (four minutes six seconds ahead of schedule!), but it successfully demonstrated all the major components of an Apollo mission, apart from the Lunar Module (which is still in development) that will make the actual landing on the Moon’s surface. In a special message of congratulations to the NASA team, President Johnson said the flight “symbolises the power this nation is harnessing for the peaceful exploration of space”.

Goodbye Lunar Orbiters…

While Apollo’s chariot was readied for its first test flight, NASA has continued its unmanned exploration of the Moon, to ensure a safe landing for the astronauts. In August, Gideon gave us an excellent summary of NASA’s Lunar Orbiter programme, the first three missions of which were designed to study potential Apollo landing sites. Lunar Orbiter-3, launched back in February this year, met its fate last month when the spacecraft was intentionally crashed into the lunar surface on 9 October. Despite the failure of its imaging system in March, Lunar Orbiter-3 was tracked from Earth for several months for lunar geodesy research and communication experiments. On 30 August, commands were sent to the spacecraft to circularise its orbit to 99 miles in order to simulate an Apollo trajectory.

Lunar Orbiter-3 image of the Moon's far side, showing the crater Tsiolkovski

Each Lunar Orbiter mission has been de-orbited so that it will not become a navigation hazard to future manned Apollo spacecraft. Consequently, before its manoeuvring thrusters were depleted, Lunar Orbiter 3 was commanded on 9 October to impact on the Moon, hitting the lunar surface at 14 degrees 36 minutes North latitude and 91 degrees 42 minutes West longitude. Co-incidentally, Lunar Orbiter-4, which failed back in July and could not be controlled, decayed naturally from orbit and impacted on the Moon on 6 October. Lunar Orbiter-5, launched in August, remains in orbit.

…Hello Surveyor 6

A month after the demise of the Lunar Orbiters, NASA’s Surveyor-6 probe has made a much softer landing on the lunar surface, achieving a “spot on” touchdown in the rugged Sinus Medii (Central Bay – it’s in the centre of the Moon's visible hemisphere) on 10 November (Australian time; 9 November in the US). This region is a potential site for the first Apollo landing, but since it appeared to be cratered and rocky, mission planners needed to know if its geological structure (different to the ‘plains’ areas where earlier Surveyor missions have landed) could support the weight of a manned Lunar Module.

Only an hour after landing safely, Surveyor-6 was operational and sent back pictures of a lunar cliff about a mile from its landing point, which has been described as “the most rugged feature we have yet seen on the Moon”. The first panoramas from Surveyor indicate that the landing site is not as rough as anticipated, and seems suitable for an Apollo landing.

Deep Space Network stations in Australia are helping to support the Surveyor-6 mission, as well as Surveyor-5, that landed in the Mare Tranquilitatis (Sea of Tranquillity) in September and is still operational. Hopefully both spacecraft will survive the next lunar night, commencing two weeks from now. NASA plans to send one more Surveyor probe to the Moon, in January, so look out for a review of the completed Surveyor programme early next year.

Watching the Sun for Astronaut Safety

With the Sun moving towards its maximum activity late next year or early in 1969, and likely to still be very active when the Apollo landing missions are occurring (assuming that the programme resumes some time within the next 12 months), NASA has wasted no time in launching another spacecraft in its Orbiting Solar Observatory (OSO) series, to help characterise the effects of solar activity in deep space. A NASA spokesman was recently quoted as saying that “A study of solar activity and its effect on Earth, aside from basic scientific interest, is necessary for a greater understanding of the space environment prior to manned flights to the Moon”.

OSO-4 under construction

Launched on 18 October, OSO-4 (also known as OSO-D) is the latest satellite developed under the leadership of Dr. Nancy Grace Roman, NASA’s first female executive, who is Chief of Astronomy and Solar Physics. The satellite is equipped to measure the direction and intensity of Ultraviolet, X-ray and Gamma radiation, not just from the Sun, but across the entire celestial sphere.

The OSO-4 spacecraft, like its predecessors, consists of a solar-cell covered “sail” section and a “wheel” section that spins about an axis perpendicular to the pointing direction of the sail. The sail carries a 75 pound payload of two instruments that are kept pointing on the centre of the Sun. The wheel carries a 100 pound payload of seven instruments and rotates once every two seconds. This rotation enables the instruments to scan the solar disc and atmosphere as well as other parts of the galaxy. The satellite’s extended arms give it greater axial stability.

Hopefully, OSO-4 will have a long lifespan, producing data as solar activity increases across the Sun’s cycle, and enhancing safety for the Apollo and Soviet crews who will venture beyond the protection of the van Allen belts on their way to the Moon.

What are the Soviets Up To?

The USSR has been remarkably quiet about its manned lunar programme. One could almost think that they had given up racing Apollo to the Moon, if not for the rumours and hints that constantly swirl around. Rumours abounded at the time of the tragically lost Soyuz-1 mission that it was intended to be a space spectacular, debuting in the Soyuz a new, much larger spacecraft which would participate in multiple rendezvous and docking manoeuvres, and possibly even crew transfers, with one or more other manned spacecraft.

Such a space feat has yet to occur, but the mysterious recent space missions of Cosmos-186 and 188 suggest that the Soviets have something of the sort in mind for the future, and are still quietly working to develop the techniques that they will need for lunar landing missions and/or a space station programme.

It Takes Two to Rendezvous

On 27 October, Cosmos-186 was launched into a low Earth orbit, with a perigee of 129 miles and an apogee of 146 miles and an orbital period of 88.7 minutes. Cosmos-187 was launched the following day, and there has been speculation that it was intended to be part of a rendezvous and docking demonstration with Cosmos-186 but was placed into an incorrect orbit. However, as is so often the case with Cosmos satellites, the Soviet authorities only described their missions as continuing studies of outer space and testing new systems, so the actual purpose of this mission remains a mystery.


A rare Soviet illustration of what is believed to be the Cosmos-186-188 docking

However, Cosmos-186 was joined by a companion on 30 October, when Cosmos-188 was placed into a very similar orbit with a separation of just 15 miles. This clearly demonstrates the precision with which the USSR can insert satellites into orbit. The two spacecraft then proceeded to perform the first fully automated space docking (unlike the manual dockings performed by Gemini missions from Gemini-8 onwards), just an hour after Cosmos-188 was launched. Soviet sources, and some electronic eavesdropping by the now-famous science class at Kettering Grammar School in England, using surprisingly unsophisticated equipment, indicate that Cosmos-186 was the ‘active’ partner in the docking. It used its onboard radar system to locate, approach and dock with the ‘passive’ Cosmos-188.

While the two spacecraft were mechanically docked, it seems that an electrical connection could not be made between them, and no other manoeuvres appear to have been carried out while Cosmos-186 and 188 were joined together. Perhaps there were technical issues surrounding the docking, but an onboard camera on Cosmos-186 did provide live (if rather low quality) television images of the rendezvous docking and separation, and some footage was publicly broadcast.

After three and a half hours docked together, the two satellites separated on command from the ground and continued to operate separately in orbit. Cosmos-186 made a soft-landing return to Earth on 31 October, lending credence to the speculations that it was testing out improvements to the Soyuz parachute system, while Cosmos-188 reportedly soft-landed on 2 November.

Speculating on Soviet Space Plans

Was Cosmos-186 a Soyuz-type vehicle, possibly testing out modifications made to prevent a recurrence of the re-entry parachute tangling that apparently led to the loss of Soyuz-1 and the death of Cosmonaut Komarov? Building on speculations from the time of the Soyuz-1 launch, there have even been suggestions that Cosmos-186, while unmanned, was a spacecraft large enough to hold a crew of five cosmonauts. There is also speculation that Cosmos-188 may have been the prototype of a new propulsion system for orbital operations. Does this mean, then, that the USSR is planning some kind of manned spaceflight feat in orbit to celebrate the 50th anniversary of the Communist Revolution? Or that it will soon attempt a circumlunar flight, to reach the Moon ahead of the United States?

Whatever their future plans may be, the automated rendezvous and docking of two unmanned spacecraft in Earth orbit shows that the USSR’s space technology is still advancing rapidly. The joint Cosmos 186-188 mission proves that it is possible to launch small components and assemble them in space to make a larger structure, even without the assistance of astronauts. This means that massive rockets like the Saturn V might not be required to construct space stations in orbit, or even undertake lunar missions, if the project is designed around assembling the lunar spacecraft in Earth orbit. Has the Cosmos 186-188 mission therefore been a hint of what the USSR's Moon programme will look like, in contrast to Apollo? Only time will tell…


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Science Fiction/Fantasy, TV

[September 28, 1967] We have met Divinity, and He is Ours (Star Trek: "Who Mourns for Adonais")

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God is in the Details


by Janice L. Newman

After Star Trek’s incredible second season debut episode last week, we were on pins and needles. Would the episode hold up to the new standard set by “Amok Time”?

The episode starts out unpromisingly, with Kirk, McCoy, and Scotty ogling a pretty female lieutenant. Scotty invites her for coffee, and McCoy and Kirk exchange quips on how she’s just going to “get married and leave the service”.

Given later events in the episode, one can squint a bit and pretend that they’re talking about this specific crewperson, not women in general. Still, it was jarring, particularly in the context of “Balance of Terror”, where we saw a female officer getting married and still doing her job just fine.

The ship continues on its mission, only to be interrupted by what appears to be a giant hand floating in space, which reaches out to grab the ship. No matter what they try, they cannot break free of its grasp. The crew is sharp and competent here, a pleasure to watch. As they experiment, a floating head appears on the viewscreen. It hails them and begins to talk of welcoming them after a long wait. When Kirk tells it to release the ship, it says it will close its hand, increasing the pressure both inside and outside the ship. Kirk, having no choice in the face of this superior power, agrees to accede to the being’s demands.

Spock, in a refreshing change, remains in command aboard, while Kirk, Scotty, Chekov, McCoy, and the pretty lieutenant, Carolyn Palamas, join him in beaming down to the planet. Once there, they are greeted by the self-proclaimed god “Apollo”, who states that they will remain on the planet and worship him, herding flocks and playing the music of the pipes. It sounds like an idyllic, and very boring, life.

From the start, Apollo is much taken with Palamas. For a nominal ancient history scholar and archaeologist, she doesn’t seem terribly interested or excited about meeting a being that claims to be an actual god and who supposedly interacted with humans on earth 5000 years ago. She is excited when Apollo transforms her uniform into a shiny, pink, skin-baring outfit, though! (My reaction to having my clothes suddenly transformed into something else would not be, “Oh, it’s beautiful!” no matter how lovely the dress.) Apollo sweeps off with Palamas, leaving the remaining crewmembers to look for a way out.

Kirk, as is always the case when the Enterprise is in peril, doesn’t care about anything but getting his ship and crew back. He repeatedly defies Apollo, who punishes him in various painful ways. Scotty apparently loses his head trying to protect Palamas, and also challenges Apollo repeatedly, even going against Kirk’s orders to do so. All this defiance and punishment leads to the discovery that Apollo seems weakened after he shoots lightning bolts or otherwise displays his ‘godlike’ powers.

Meanwhile, the crew on the Enterprise have been looking for a way out. They are a pleasure to watch, with Spock issuing crisp orders and the crew following without question (a nice change from “The Galileo Seven”). Uhura even gets to do some soldering at one point!

Back on the planet, Kirk corners Palamas and orders her to spurn Apollo and break his heart, which will hopefully cause him to use his powers and weaken him enough to give them a chance. At first Palamas resists, but Kirk convinces her. She tells Apollo that he’s only interesting to her as a ‘specimen’, infuriating him and causing him to call a great storm.

The crew aboard the Enterprise is able to get a message through just in time. Kirk orders them to use the ‘holes’ they’ve been able to make to shoot through Apollo’s barrier and attack the source of his power on the planet. The crew obey, and great phaser beams come from the sky, focusing on the temple. Apollo screams at them to stop, but the phasers continue until the temple is left in ruins. Apollo weeps, turns his face to the sky, and lets himself dissolve as his fellow gods and goddesses did thousands of years before.

I think the best word to sum up this episode is: “uneven”. There were parts I liked very much. Anything with the crew being smart and competent was fun to watch. I found Apollo’s monologue at the end to be very affecting. And there were other small moments of brilliance, such as when McCoy complains at Chekov’s insistence on being thorough, saying, “Spock’s contaminating this boy, Jim.”

On the other hand, the subtle deprecation of women was not only frustrating, it didn’t make sense. Apollo calls Palamas, “Wise, for a woman.” As even the most cursory review of Greek mythology reminds us, the god of wisdom was a goddess: Athena. Add to this Kirk’s humanocentric speech to Palamas – strange, considering that his first officer isn’t human – and his line about finding “one god quite sufficient”, which felt artificial and forced in the context of the rest of the story. Scotty’s unprofessional buffoonery was more annoying than funny and Chekov’s really terrible wig was distracting.

Still, the episode as a whole was worth watching, and I’ll probably even catch it on the rerun this summer. As such, I give it three stars.

Update: Having just re-watched this episode in the summer re-runs, I've decided to increase my rating. While there are still a few irritating flaws, the episode as a whole was strong enough to hold up extremely well to a re-watch. Apollo's monologues in particular were very effective. Even knowing it was coming, I still got goosebumps when he talked about Hera spreading herself thin on the wind and later calling to his friends to take him. Palamas, too, seemed less like silly damsel and more like a woman struggling to protect her crewmates. When she initially goes with Apollo, it seems more appeasement than interest. It's only after Apollo's promise to raise her up and make her the mother of gods that she truly seems to become enamored with him, and as I said aloud to my friends, I'd go with him after a speech like that! And in the end, in the face of that temptation, she still does her job. Upon re-evaluation, I'm raising my rating to four stars.

A finely tuned machine, or Deus ex Machina


by Lorelei Marcus

Something I have always appreciated about Star Trek is the seamless operation of the crew of the Enterprise. While on the bridge, one can always hear the murmur of radio chatter as various ship sections give their status reports. If a crewman has to leave his post, there is always another ready to take over at a moment's notice. Repair personnel can often be seen in the halls, patching up the damage after an attack. All of these details give the impression that the USS Enterprise is a plausible naval vessel, well-trained and well-run.

This became particularly apparent in this week's episode, when Spock is left in command of the ship, with no contact with the ground crew or his Captain, while in the grip of Apollo. All of the First Officer's actions are purely logical, of course, but the best part is seeing how his crew carries out the orders without fault or question. Everyone is competent at their station, providing innovative solutions to problems, like Uhura manually soldering a bypass circuit, or Sulu scanning the planet for major energy signals. I personally love the line Spock says when Sulu can't pinpoint the exact origin of the energy: "Simply scan where the energy is not, and use process of elimination to determine its origin." Such a simple, yet ingenious solution.

In addition to being smart and creative, the crew also works well under pressure (sometimes literally!) Even after the ship is almost crushed by Apollo, status and damage reports come flying left and right from the edges of the bridge. McCoy reports the situation in sick bay, Scotty states the strain on the engines, and Sulu notes how the ship has lost all speed. It's moments like these that remind me how good Star Trek can be. I can truly believe that the Enterprise is a highly trained military vessel, and one of the best on television, sci-fi and not. I'd like to see how Admiral Nelson's submarine would fare against Apollo's antics!

While the scenes on the Enterprise are excellent, the scenes that take place on Pollux IV are inconsistent, and so I give the episode three stars. But so long as the shipboard action remains as taut and believable as it was this episode, it will be hard for an episode to fall below that baseline.

5000 YEARS OF LONGING


by Joe Reid

Do you remember the good old days?  Those times long ago, when men were more manly, and women were reserved.  I do.  Those were great times!  Should those times ever visit us again, I know that I for one would be overjoyed!  To reclaim the simple pleasures of life.  Those days when I felt truly alive.  Surrounded by people that loved and appreciated me.  They needed me, and I needed them. 
These are the sentiments that I hear from old (and not-so-old) folks reminiscing at the family gathering.  This sentiment was the very soul of the antagonist in this week’s episode of Star Trek, “Who Mourns for Adonais?”.

As I have stated in my previous observations, Mr. Rodenberry’s weekly excursion to the stars seeks to take us to far away places, to meet sensational characters, and to capture our eyes and minds in order to fill them both with images of who we are today in 1967.  I love that Star Trek gives me a positive vision of a future time, I hate that it at the same time shows me a negative image of who we are.  Of who I am.

In this episode we got to meet an honest to goodness god.  Not the “Gee-Oh-Dee” of the Good Book, although the title may cast allusions in that direction.  Apollo is the god the crew of the Enterprise must contend with and is he ever a handful!  I’d rather go twelve rounds with Ali than get into a fight with this bruiser.  Apollo remembers a time when he and others like him lived with humans.  5000 years ago to be exact!  They were times that Apollo remembered and loved.  When humans loved, worshiped and revered him.  When he loved them in return, guided them, cherished them.  The episode doesn’t go into detail on how the relationship between the gods and mankind was broken but is the very clear that the advent of humanity to his new home brings him hope that the relationship with mankind will be renewed.  It is this hope which is the root of the conflict in this episode.

In Apollo we see a wounded exile.  One given the hope that a bond as old as recorded history will be restored.  That he will be able to pick back up where he and the people of ancient times left off and go back to paradise.  In the end humanity wanted something different for themselves and the hoped-for reunion left Apollo in tears.

How much like Apollo are we?  We think back to times past and wish they were here again.  We hold on to temporary things as if they were permanent.  Whether those things be people, places, positions, patterns, or our own potential.  In reflection of this story, I must ask a question.  Who might the crew of the Enterprise have encountered on that world if Apollo had been able to move past his longing and desire for what he had long ago?  I leave the answer of that to your own imaginations, friends.  That question invites a second one.  Who might we be if we are able to let go of the past and accept people, places, positions, and potential as we find them today?  As they are right in front of our noses.  If we can answer that for ourselves, then we may no longer need to mourn what we lost.  We only need enjoy what is.

3 stars

A Woman’s Place is on the Enterprise


by Robin Rose Graves

While at times Lt. Carolyn Palamas played into the stereotypes women often play in television, ultimately Star Trek went against expectations.

“One day [Lieutenant Palamas] will find the right man and off she'll go, out of the service,” McCoy observes at the start of this episode, mirroring what many viewers probably think upon seeing Scotty’s flirtatious invitation for coffee. This reflects a trend in our own world, as women are often expected to abandon their careers to focus on home and family when they marry. With this setup, I assumed the episode would conclude with Lt. Palamas abandoning all scientific pursuits for a man.

But Star Trek did not give in to social pressure!

The episode reaches its climax when Lt. Palamas, despite her love for Apollo, rejects him to preserve the Enterprise crew, suggesting there is more to a woman’s life than being an object of a man’s affections.

It’s also worth noting Lt. Uhura’s active presence in this episode. She is shown to be both competent and crucial to returning the crew to the Enterprise. Her plot reinforces the theme in this episode that women are just as important to the crew as the men. In Uhura's case, indispensable.

I rejoice thinking of the young girls who might be watching, who will admire both Lt Palamas and Lt. Uhura’s beauty, knowledge and capability and think “I, too, belong in science.”

Four stars.

This article, we welcome Amber Dubin, an editor of a scientific journal who spends far too much time wondering if her 10 year old cat has become more human than she is.

She has a decidedly different opinion on the portrayal of Lieutenant Palamas than Robin…

Lackluster Elegy to a God


by Amber Dubin

My biggest problem with this episode is its inconsistent and disparaging narrative about the nature of women.

In a disappointing start to the episode, Captain Kirk and Dr. McCoy make a condescending observation about Lieutenant Palamas, that she's approaching that 'time in every woman's life' where she'll throw away her career for a marriage. Star Trek usually transcends the sexist zeitgeist of our time, so the presence of this message personally disillusioned me. Moreover when she betrays her crew the way it was foreshadowed, her seduction itself makes absolutely no sense. In an analogous scenario in the episode "Space Seed" the bewitching of the female Lieutenant is much more plausible. In "Space Seed," historian Marla McGivers has a documented obsession with powerful men throughout history; thus when Khan appears to step directly out of her fantasies and shows her intense interest, she is putty in his hands. Though the lieutenant here has had significantly less character development in her episode, even by what we do know about her, how easily Lieutenant Carolyn Palamas is seduced is nonsensical.

First, it is implausible that a 'typical space faring woman' like Palamas would want nothing more from life than to be offered a pretty dress and ruling status over a deserted planet. Second, Apollo's plan for seduction is as follows: 1) Show up half naked 2) alter her appearance without her permission 3) isolate her from everyone she knows 4) Call her beautiful four times and 5) Rank her among his previous conquests. If she was a lonely, bored shepherd woman like Apollo is used to impressing, this would be sufficient, but to imply that a woman whose job it was to study cultural evolution would be impressed by this culturally unevolved male display is insulting to both women and anthropologists. It's almost as if her character was written by a man who doesn't understand how to write a woman.

In stark contrast, the concurrent scenario on the bridge casts Uhura in the role of 'strong, dependable woman' in a way that's so jarring with the rest of the themes of this episode that one has to wonder if it was penned by a different hand. In trying to save the landing party, Uhura is tasked with a complex and delicate maneuver and Mr. Spock expresses respect for her intelligence and competence implicitly. Uhura is trusted to take care of herself and fulfill her duties, the exact opposite of how Scotty insists that Palamas is a helpless prop. It makes no sense to praise one woman for her intelligence on the ship, while in the presence of a God, a woman who reveals the same level of intellect is met with revulsion, outrage and literal divine wrath.

Overall, I felt personally let down by this episode because I feel like the narrative voices did not harmonize well and the resulting cacophony of misfiring ideals made for a lackluster elegy to a God.

Two stars.


by Gideon Marcus

With Great Power…

There is much to both enjoy and to wince at in this episode.  It treads familiar ground, from "The Squire of Gothos" to "Space Seed" to "Charlie X".  But there is also a poignant message about outgrowing the need for external deities, and the folly of a godlike being of trying to force worship from a race that can no longer give it.

What really fascinated me about "Adonais" was its contradiction of Acton's Dictum, which says "Power tends to corrupt and absolute power corrupts absolutely."

Apollo was a second-generation God, descendant of space traveling beings capable of projecting tremendous power. Yet, his race almost assuredly started out as baseline human.  This would be laughable in any other setting, since the odds of human beings evolving twice (John Campbell's beliefs notwithstanding) are vanishingly small–I'm not even convinced there is life on other worlds.  But in Star Trek, it's a given; q.v. "Miri" and "Return of the Archons", for instance.  For some reason, humans and even Earths exist all over the galaxy.

So it is not implausible that, say ten thousand years ago, Apollo's race was indistinguishable from us, complete with smog, network television, and bad wigs.  Then they developed space travel and scattered among the stars.  Some of them may have become the Metrons or the First Federation.  One group came to Earth and settled in Hellas.  They were, accordingly, worshiped and revered.

Yet they let that worship and reverence die!  Apollo's brood did not long mingle with mortals, instead repairing to Mount Olympus.  They didn't continue to demand adoration from the increasingly sophisticated philosophers and leaders of Greece and Rome.  They didn't search out another group of shepherds to lord over.  They simply left, even though, in the end, it meant their death.

Why didn't "superior power breed superior ambition (a la "Space Seed") in this case? I have an idea.

Apollo's god status is never disputed.  His story is taken at face value.  We've simply, as a species, outgrown him.  Why?

Because we are now gods. 

Take the Enterprise. While Apollo initially had the upper hand (haha), by the end of the episode, Kirk had at his command power equal to and even surpassing that of the Greek deity.  Humans are now at the level of Apollo and his cohorts.  To any primitive society, what else could we be but gods?

What a responsibility that is!  It is no wonder that the #1 rule of the Federation, the so-called "Prime Directive", is not to interfere with aboriginal cultures (first referenced, I think, in "Return of the Archons").  It is a wise rule given the stakes.

Perhaps Apollo's brood had this same rule.  Maybe a small group allowed themselves to give in to temptation for a little while, mingling with the Greeks they found so charming.  And then, realizing their corrupting influence, first removed themselves from direct interaction, and finally, from any contact at all.  Apollo might have been a dissenting vote, though in the end, he knows the same tragedy as his comrades.

Would that we not suffer the same fate!

Four stars.

The next episode of Trek is TOMORROW! You won't want to miss it:

Here's the invitation!



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Magazine, Science Fiction/Fantasy, Serial

[April 30, 1967] Strange New Worlds and Staid Old Ones (May 1967 Analog)

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by Gideon Marcus

To Boldly Go

In the days of the Gold Rush, the Forty-Niners staked out the most promising spots in the hopes of striking it rich.  They set out across thousands of miles, making harrowing overland or overseas trips to California, setting wobbly feet in the land that would soon be The Golden State, hoping that a survey of their claimed land would be a promising one.

Two Surveyors have made their way to the Moon, the second of which (Surveyor 3–Surveyor 2 didn't make it) has just broken ground on our celestial neighbor.

While we can't pan for gold on the Moon (and, indeed, if there is a precious resource we're hoping to find there, it's water), Surveyor did spread lunar soil on a white surfaced background.  This has allowed geologists…well, selenologists now…to make tentative guesses as to the composition of the Moon.  More importantly, it has been categorically shown that the lunar surface is solid and can be landed upon by Apollo astronauts!  Together with the photos from the several Lunar Orbiter spacecraft, the Sixty-Niners will have a good lay of the lunar land they'll be exploring.

By the way, the first Apollo crew has been chosen.  These are the folks originally slated for Apollo 2, an orbital flight that would have flown a few months after the tragically lost mission of Apollo 1.

They are Walter M. Schirra, Donn F. Eisele, and R. Walter Cunningham.  The first name should be a well known to readers; the other two are rookies from the third group of astronauts, folks recruited specifically for Apollo.  It is unlikely that their flight will take place before 1968, and there will be at least one more manned test before the big jump to the Moon.  There's currently even talk of a trip around the Moon before a landing attempt.

To Timidly Creep

The latest issue of Analog isn't bad, per se.  It's just more of the same.  I suppose it's a winning formula to keep doing what works, but I expect a little more innovation from my scientifiction.


by Kelly Freas

Of Terrans Bearing Gifts, by Richard Grey Sipes

Things don't start promisingly.  We last saw Mr. Sipes in a truly awful epistolary piece a couple of years back.  In his sophomore work, a smug Terran trader, name of Winslow, arrives at planet Nr. 126-24 Wilson Two, UTCC, and proceeds to turn things upside down.  His store for sale includes a teleporter, an instant translator, a nuclear nullifier, a matter duplicator, and much more.

It's all really smug, which I suppose it's possible to be when you're wielding Godlike power.  Winslow justifies his toppling of Wilson Two's society by noting less scrupulous folks will show up sooner or later and do the same thing.  It still doesn't make the story fun reading.

Two stars.

Experts in the Field, by Christopher Anvil


by Kelly Freas

Terran linguists assigned to the planet Marshak III are convinced that the indigenous apex animals are sapient, language-using beings.  But since they can't decipher the language they use, an interstellar rest stop construction concern is going to come in, claim the planet, and pave over the preferred lands of the aborigines.

It's up to Lieutenant Commander Andrew Doyle to solve the linguist riddle and save the day.

For a Chris Anvil story, particularly one appearing in Analog, it's not bad.  Sure, it begins with "[Rank] [Man Name] strode onto the scene…" like virtually every other Anvil story.  Yes, the ending paragraphs seem custom made to tickle editor Campbell's fancy (and guarantee a sale).  But I liked the puzzle, and it was reasonably well written.

Three stars.

Burden of Proof, by Bob Shaw


by Kelly Freas

There's one ray of bright light in this issue, if I may be indulged the pun.  Scottish author Bob Shaw offers up a sequel of sorts to his promising story, Light of Other Days.  In this one, he explores the criminological effects of his "slow glass", a substance that rebroadcasts all of the light received from a certain time over that length of time.  It is the perfect impartial eyewitness to any crime–provided one is willing to wait long enough to get it (a "ten year" pane might well not disgorge its evidence for a decade, and no speed-ups possible).

This particular tale is told from the viewpoint of a judge, who sent a man to the chair for murder…on circumstantial evidence.  What if the eyewitness pane of slowglass, due to show the actual scene ten years after, says something contrary?  Is it a miscarriage of justice?  Can justice wait a decade?

I particularly liked this tale for questions it raises.  It might not be slow glass, but certainly some other technology will arise in the future, like a perfect polygraph or enhancements in fingerprinting, may cause old evidence to be superseded.  Does justice wait for these improvements?  Can it?  And how irrevocable is a decision made on an imperfect data set?

Shaw still is a little clunky in incorporating the explanations of his technologies.  Nevertheless, he has a deft, romantic touch to his writing, sorely needed in his magazine.  I'm glad Campbell found him.  Four stars.

Target: Language, by Lawrence A. Perkins

Mr. Perkins discusses the differences between a variety of languages, and the commonality that may underlie them all.  I don't buy his idea that humans develop an internal language that they then translate/adapt to the local vernacular, but it is clear that our species instinctively picks up language at an early age, and what it doesn't learn, it creates on the fly.

If nothing else, it's one of the most readable pieces I've yet encountered in Analog, and on a subject quite interesting to me (and I can verify much of what he says, having studied Russian, Spanish, Japanese, and Hebrew).

Four stars.

Dead End, by Mike Hodous


by Kelly Freas

Did you ever read The Man Who Never Was?  It's the engaging true tale of how the British hoodwinked the Nazis into thinking the Allied invasion would go through Sardinia rather than Sicily.  It involved seeding a corpse, dressed in a Major's uniform and handcuffed to a briefcase full of forged documents, off the coast of Spain.  He was picked up, turned over to German agents, and the story was swallowed, hook, line, and sinker.

Dead End involves a Terran spaceship disabled by belligerent aliens, the capture and investigation of which is certain to give them the secret to our faster-than-light.  Or lead them down a blind technological alley…

It's an eminently forgettable story, not helped by the aliens being human in all but name (and extra pair of legs), and the humans being smug in the Campbellian tradition.

Two stars.

The Time-Machined Saga (Part 3 of 3), by Harry Harrison


by Kelly Freas

At last, the exploits of Barney Henderson, movie producer extraordinaire, come to a close.  As expected, the only reason there is archaeological evidence of a Viking settlement in Vinland is because Climax Productions made a movie starring Vikings in Vinland.  The whole thing is a circle with no beginning and no end.

It's a compelling thought, further exemplified by a piece of paper that switches hands endlessly between two iterations of Barney.  When did it start?  Who initially drew the diagram on the paper?  Of course, unsaid is the fact that, after endless passings back and forth, the paper should disintegrate…

If the first installment was a bit too silly and the second rather engaging, this third one feels perfunctory.  Harrison tells us how the film got done, but the whole thing is workmanlike.  Not bad, just a bit sterile.  Also, given then carnage involved in the making of the film, I would have preferred a more farcical tone or a more serious one.  The middle-of-the-road path makes light of the horror of first contact and the bloodshed that stemmed therefrom, and it taints the whole story.

So, three stars for this segment and three and a half for the book as a whole.

Summing Up

What a lackluster month this was!  The outstanding stuff would barely fit a slim volume of a single digest.  Analog garnered a sad (2.9) stars.  It is only beaten by Fantasy and Science Fiction (3), and it very slightly edges out IF (2.9) and Fantastic (2.9)–they rounded up to 2.9, while Analog rounded down.  The last issue of Worlds of Tomorrow (2.4) is left in the dust.  We won't have WoT to kick around anymore…

Women wrote 7.41% of the new fiction this month–dismal, but par for the course.  On the other hand, we've got a new star in the screenwriting heavens in the form of Star Trek's D.C. Fontana.  Perhaps TV is where the new crop of STF women will grow.

In any event, I've already gotten a sneak preview of next month's IF.  We have a stunning new Delany to look forward to.  Stay tuned!



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