History of the Apollo Program By George Abbey
George William Samuel Abbey (born August 21, 1932) was a former director of the Johnson Space Center (JSC) and Fellow in Space Policy at the Baker Institute of Rice University. He was instrumental in the creation of the Moon Landing 50th Anniversary stamps and we remember him with fondness.
At the time, he wrote:
In October 1957 the Soviet Union had startled the world by launching a man-made satellite into orbit, Sputnik. The launching of the first man-made satellite created great concern in the United States and the Western world, demonstrating the Soviets had unexpected advanced technology and capabilities. Technologies that could, in turn, lead to very capable intercontinental ballistic missiles. The Soviets subsequently achieved further firsts in space, launching another satellite with a passenger, a dog called Laika, as a first step toward launching humans into space. The United States suddenly found itself in a space race in which they were behind and trying to catch-up.
In October 1958, a year later, President Dwight Eisenhower and the Congress established the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), a civilian space organization formed to further America’s exploration of space, with both manned and unmanned spacecraft. In December 1958, the newly formed NASA announced the Mercury Program with the intent to send a human into space.
November 1960 brought the election of a new President, John Fitzgerald Kennedy. On April 12, 1961, less than three months after Kennedy’s inauguration, Cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin lifted off on a rocket launched from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan to become the first human to orbit the Earth. The adverse reaction in the U.S. to the Soviet Union’s spectacular achievement exceeded the negative response to the orbiting of Sputnik in 1957. It brought forth the admission by the new President at a press conference, “We are behind.”
Only days after Gagarin’s flight, a group of Cuban exiles armed and trained by the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) attempted an invasion of Castro-led Cuba that became a dismal failure. It became another major embarrassment to the young President’s administration.
Kennedy felt he had to respond with a bold step in response to Gagarin’s flight and the embarrassment of the failed CIA attempt to invade Cuba. He asked Vice President Johnson, head of the newly formed Space Council, to recommend a challenge of historical proportions, whose successful accomplishment would clearly demonstrate to the world the technological superiority of the United States.
On May 5, 1961, approximately three weeks after Yuri Gagarin’s flight, astronaut Alan Shepard became the first American to fly to space. His Mercury capsule launched on a Redstone rocket did not orbit the Earth but reached an altitude of 116.5 miles, landing 302.8 miles down range from the Florida launch site.
On May 25, not quite three weeks after Shepard’s sub-orbital flight, Kennedy addressed a special joint session of Congress on the challenges facing the U.S. around the world. He spoke of the need to continue to build free market economies, and continuing to advance in science, as means of promoting America’s future.
As he approached the end of his 46-minute-long speech, he closed speaking about space and made a declaration of great significance, “I believe that this nation should commit itself to achieving the goal, before this decade is out, of landing a man on the Moon and returning him safely to Earth.” The room was silent. As the audience realized the significance of the technological and scientific challenge and the near impossibility of accomplishing it before the end of the decade, and what its accomplishment would mean, the applause grew. The Apollo program was born and the “Great Adventure” began.
In May 1961, that goal of putting a man on the Moon seemed almost unattainable to those in NASA responsible for its accomplishment. John Glenn, the first American to orbit the Earth, did not fly until almost nine months later, on February 20, 1962.
Three leading ideas were considered by NASA for the Moon mission: Earth Orbit Rendezvous (EOR), Direct Ascent, and Lunar Orbit Rendezvous (LOR). A direct ascent configuration required an extremely large rocket to send a three-man spacecraft to land directly on the lunar surface. Earth orbit rendezvous would launch the direct-landing spacecraft in two smaller elements that would be assembled in Earth orbit. A LOR mission would involve a single rocket launching two spacecraft: a mother ship, and a smaller, two-man landing module which would rendezvous back with the main spacecraft in lunar orbit.
As a member of the Lunar Mission Steering Group, John Houbolt had been studying various technical aspects of space rendezvous since 1959 and he and several others at Langley were convinced that LOR was not only the most feasible way to make it to the Moon before the end of the decade, but it was the only way.
In November 1961, Houbolt, feeling the concept had not been fairly considered, wrote a letter directly to Robert C. Seamans, the Associate Administrator of NASA. Seamans forwarded Houbolt’s letter to D. Brainerd Holmes just recently hired by NASA as the Director of the Office of Manned Space Flight. Holmes in turn forwarded the letter to George Low, NASA’s Chief of Manned Space Flight, who felt it deserved careful consideration. Holmes sent Houbolt’s letter to his new deputy. Holmes felt Shea would bring a fresh approach to the problem, and help resolve the critical issue. Two new NASA centers were created and built, the Manned Spacecraft Center in Houston and the Kennedy Space Center at Cape Canaveral to test and launch the spacecraft and the new Saturn V rocket. All of these projects were begun as NASA continued to fly the Mercury spacecraft.
It also had become apparent that there was also a need to develop systems beyond those flown in the Mercury spacecraft and to demonstrate capabilities well beyond those being achieved in Mercury’s six flight program. It was a “bridge too far” to proceed without a significant demonstration of the systems, techniques and capabilities required for successful Apollo missions.
The ten manned Gemini flights in 1965 and 1966 provided the essential preparation and experience needed to accomplish the subsequent Apollo missions. The objectives of the Gemini program included: long duration flights; testing the ability to maneuver a spacecraft and to achieve rendezvous and docking of two vehicles in Earth orbit; training of both flight and ground crews; conducting experiments in space; extravehicular operations (standup sessions and spacewalks); active control of reentry to achieve a precise landing; and onboard orbital navigation. As the Gemini missions were being flown, preparations were underway for the first Apollo mission.
The first manned Apollo flight was to be launched in February 1967. A rehearsal of the launch countdown was scheduled approximately a month before the planned launch. On January 27, 1967, a Countdown Demonstration Test was held with the crew in the spacecraft with the hatch closed. Nylon Velcro was placed throughout the interior of the spacecraft to assist in securing items in position during zero gravity. There was a spark, probably caused by frayed wiring, resulting in a fire in the spacecraft. The crew frantically tried to open the inward opening hatch but it proved to be too difficult and all three crewmen subsequently lost their lives through asphyxiation.
The Lunar Module was experiencing delays and he was quite concerned that if the current planned sequence of flights were followed, a successful lunar landing could not be achieved before the end of the decade which, of course, was a primary goal. He came back to work with a new daring and courageous approach. If the planned October orbital flight of Apollo 7 was a complete success, he proposed taking the next flight two months later to the Moon with just the Apollo Command and Service Module. The Apollo 8 crew would only have to learn to fly one spacecraft and it would allow NASA to prove many of the systems, procedures and much of the technology and equipment for a lunar landing without having to be concerned about a second spacecraft.
George Abbey
Houston. 2018.