It's fascinating that a man with a thoroughly Muslim name from Azerbaijan in in charge of a unified space program.
Relaunched Moonshot "The Journeys of the Saturn"
- Thread starter brovane
- Start date
Lol. JFK just camping out at NASA. Interesting idea though, maybe have the Director give him a simple office and title. Like Inspector General, to do what he has already done here.
Bobby should probably have better things to do though.
Bobby should probably have better things to do though.
great new chapter, the worry about Astronauts safety by Pain is very good , what happen to the Soviets , must be avoided at all costs . Lets see the landing of the Moonbase , expandable , And amazing discoveries . Cant hardly wait for the next chapter.
Apollo-Part-19
With the landing of the Soviet Union on the moon the Kennedy Administration was able to secure increased funding for NASA and the overall budget for NASA was increased by 1.5 Billion for 1975. This would put the Independence Space Station program back on track but the EML-2 space station program was put on hold. For the Saturn rocket program the long term procurement as amended to included the switch over to the Block-II launch vehicles that would use the HG-3 engines and the lightened stages. The Saturn-IC production line would switch over with launch vehicle SA-326 starting in January 1976 and the Saturn-VB production line would switch over in 1977 with launch vehicle SA-614. The replacements program for the Apollo CSM was also started with the authorization of funding for the development of a Lunar Big Gemini to replaced the Apollo CSM capsule. In addition Grumman started the development and testing of a Cargo lunar lander based on the Apollo lunar module.
As 1974 ended the deaths of the Zvezda-2 crew added a somber note to the ending of the year. As the year ended a new launch vehicle was being stacked on LC-37B. It was the Saturn-IC with a Apollo-Centaur. By adding a Apollo-Centaur to a Saturn-IC its performance was increased to make it a very effective rocket for Beyond Earth Orbit missions and it could launch upwards of 16,000 kg to the Moon. This would be the first test launch of the Saturn-IC. The Saturn-IC would be carrying on this launch two surplus TIROS satellites. The TIROS satellites had been a series of early weather satellites that had been the first satellites capable of remote sensing of the Earth. The use of real satellites on a test launch was highly debated within NASA. The original planned first launch of the Saturn-IC-Centaur had envisioned using only mass simulators for the payload. However the launch of the rocket had set off a debate within NASA and the scientific community if a possible scientific payload could be launched. Two surplus TIROS satellites in storage would be possible candidates to be launched to support this. At this point the scientists couldn’t agree on how the TIROS satellites should be modified to allow some scientific payload that would be useful and meetings got bogged down in endless debate. At this point NASA administrator Thomas Paine was ready to just launch the original proposed Mass simulators. However John Kennedy asked if he could try to sort things out and Paine readily agreed to allow the ex-president to try and sort out the situation.
The next meeting to review the Tiros satellites scientific payload, the attendees encountered a Secret Service agent standing outside the meeting room doors. The scientists suspected that meant trouble for them. John Kennedy called the meeting to order and informed everyone that he was placing one scientist in-charge of the decisions for this proposed mission as the principal investigator. A technique that he had already used to good effect on the “Grand Tour program”. By placing one person in charge of the overall project this tended to focus the mission on it’s task and give a clear line of responsibility. This one person would be responsible for the proposed mission from the budget to it’s scientific payload. Also he informed all attendees the budget was $10 Million dollars and not a penny more would be spent. If they couldn’t meet this budget then the launch vehicle would fly with no scientific payload. Kennedy’s blunt announcement stunned the scientists at the meeting. He then introduced the principal investigator for the mission and left the meeting. The ultimatum by Kennedy made the scientists realize that more accommodation was needed if anything was going to fly and everyone would lose out. So compromises had to be made to quickly produce a scientific payload that could be added to the Tiros satellites that would meet both the budget and timeline that was laid out. On January 14, 1975 SA-312 lifted off from LC-37B and lift off went without issue. The Apollo-Centaur was ignited while in earth orbit and both Tiros Satellites now headed towards EML-2. Several days later both satellites entered EML-2 halo orbits successfully.
Over the years with Apollo missions the communication between the Moon and Earth had never been encrypted. For the last several years a discussion had been happening within NASA if some communication should be encrypted for at a minimum for privacy purposes. The communications between the Apollo astronauts operated in the S-band portion of the microwave spectrum and could be intercepted by anyone in Earth that was pointing receiving equipment at the moon and was listening in the right band. For Apollo missions even some amateur radio operators in the US had been able to listen in on lunar communication. It was understood that the Soviet also intercepted Apollo mission transmissions, even if the Soviet’s never publicly acknowledged intercepting any Apollo conversations. For long duration LESA missions NASA wanted to be able to have a secure way of communicating to the astronauts that was not susceptible to eavesdropping.
The other issue that NASA faced for the upcoming long duration Apollo LESA missions was the limited bandwidth capability of the DSN (Deep Space Network). The DSN was a network of large antennas at three different sites spread across the globe in Spain, California and Australia. These sites provided continuous communication coverage for any spacecraft that was more than 30,000 km from Earth. The DSN primary purpose was to communicate with unmanned probes that had been sent beyond Earth Orbit. NASA also had the MSFN (Manned Space flight Network) which was over 10 stations located around the globe and it’s stations handled communication for Earth Orbit missions. For Apollo mission Communication a 26 meter antenna was added to the three DSN sites. However each of the Apollo flights also used some of the DSN resources during certain parts of the flights, especially during the lunar orbit. With proposed 6-month Apollo LESA missions this would place even more strain on the current communication networks for long periods of time. With the need for continuous support of the Skylab missions the current MSFN tracking stations spread around the globe had been seeing heavy utilization. With the advancement in communication technology NASA wanted to move the MSFN from mainly ground based stations to space based satellites for both Skylab and Apollo LESA communications. This would not only improve the overall communication but it would be also result in lower maintenance costs as the number of ground based stations would be greatly reduced around the globe. In addition the countries for some of the ground stations had become politically unstable over the years since the network was first established.
NASA had a limited budget to work with so it reached out to the US military and the Defense Communications Agency to discuss what technology the DOD was using could possibly be used by NASA to improve both beyond Earth orbit and Earth orbit communications for manned spaceflight. The Military discussed with NASA in classified briefings the capabilities of the current Department of Defense communication DSCS II satellites that provided secure voice and data communication for the DOD. The satellite hardware could be adapted to NASA’s needs with minimal modifications. Also the DOD and other US government agencies wanted to expand their communication abilities. While some people at NASA questioned the dual use of military hardware for NASA mission purposes. For NASA administration it didn’t make any sense to pay the development cost of to develop a new communication satellite, when with minimal modification a current military design could serve NASA’s purpose easily. NASA and the DOD launched a joint program to modify current DOD satellites so they could meet the needs of multiple US govt agencies including NASA.
The DOD communication satellites manufacturer was TRW, and they normally had two 20-watt transponders. The communication satellites built for NASA would have two additional higher wattage transponders added to improve communication back to Earth, more solar panels to support the increased power which increased the mass of the satellites. From a Saturn-1C-Centaur perspective the increased mass wasn’t an issue. NASA and the DOD settled on a program to procure a total of 10 satellites over the next several years. Two would be launched to EML-1 and two more to EML-2, the other 6 satellites would be placed in geosynchronous orbit around Earth. The satellites themselves had more communication capacity than NASA would ever use. The DOD and other US Govt agencies would also use the satellites to meet their increasing global communication needs. While the satellites at EML-1 and EML-2 would primarily be used by only NASA the rest of the satellite network could be easily used by multiple operators with the understanding that NASA had priority on these satellite resources. The satellites would enable easy communication from any two points on the lunar surface and communication back to Earth. In addition to voice communication the satellites could also support 100 Mbps of data and could also support encryption of data or communication as needed. The new network would be called TDRSS (Tracking and Data Relay Satellite Systems). The TDRSS network would significantly improve both lunar communication and Earth orbit communication.
As the April launch date approached for the Apollo-21 Astronauts, the Apollo-22 Prime and backup crews started undergoing elective surgery to remove their Appendix. This had been a controversial and debated item within NASA and the Medical community as to what was ethical and best for the manned spaceflight program. The Appendix had no identified function in the human body however at some point in a persons life about 1 out of 7 individuals will experience acute appendicitis and this requires the removal of the Appendix by emergency surgery as soon as possible. To delay the surgery to long could result in death. For previous Apollo missions that lasted less than 2-weeks, if a astronaut started to suffer acute appendicitis the mission would be aborted and the astronaut would be given antibiotics until they landed back on Earth. With only a 2-week mission the risk was considered minimal of this medical emergency happening during the mission. For Skylab missions if a crewmen suffered the same issue, this would require a mission abort and return from orbit but this could be accomplished in less than 6-hours. For the Apollo LESA missions with up to 6-month duration stays on the lunar surface it was felt that the probability of a crew member suffering from acute appendicitis during the mission was higher and should be considered. This meant three options, trying to do emergency surgery in the LESA base on the lunar surface, an immediate abort and return to Earth, or have the Appendix removed by elective surgery before the mission. The NASA medical team recommended that all LESA crew members have their Appendix removed by elective surgery before the mission. This was the best option to eliminate the possibility of a disruption of a mission by a episode of acute appendicitis.
On April 5, 1975 the crew of Apollo 21 sat in the dining room of the Astronaut crew quarters, enjoying a breakfast before leaving to get suited up for the flight. For the commander of this mission, Mercury veteran Gus Grissom this would be his last spaceflight of a career that started with his Mercury suborbital flight in July of 1961. Gus was taking a rookie crew into space with him on this mission of Bruce McCandless, Don Lind and William Lenor. Dining with them this morning was Director of flight crew operations Michael Collins, astronaut Corp commander Jim Lovell and fellow Mercury astronauts Deke Slayton and Al Shepard. The Apollo-21 mission would be testing the new Lunar Landing vehicle in Earth Orbit. Just as with Apollo-9, it was considered critical to test out the new spacecraft in Earth Orbit before a manned landing was attempted on the Moon. Compared to Apollo-9, the peculiarities of lunar orbit was understood to a much higher degree than during the early Apollo missions but the lunar landing vehicle still needed to be tested by astronauts. The best man for the job was Grissom who had extensive experience in flying different spacecraft over his long career as an astronaut. The three rookie astronauts all considered themselves lucky to be flying a mission with Grissom and as McCandless put it “I couldn’t have picked a better commander to fly with on my first spaceflight”. The crew finished breakfast and then went into suit-up room to put on the crew launch suits for the flight. Laying on a chair in the room as the crew entered was a crew launch suit that said Slayton on it.
“What the hell!!” Gus Grissom exclaimed as he looked at the suit laid out on his chair.
Shepard and Slayton entered the room laughing “Well, if you got cold feet or something before the launch. So we just thought we should be prepared if you couldn’t hack it.” Deke Slayton grinned at his friend Gus. Gus, Al and Deke knew exactly what he was referencing to. Before Alan Shepard’s first flight John Glenn had his space suit all laid out in the suit-up van in-case Sheppard couldn’t make the flight.
“Well you guys can rest easy. This old veteran is going up on this flight.” Gus laughed at his friends.
The suit-up crew helped the 4 astronauts get into their crew launch suits and start the 100% Oxygen pre-breath. The weather was looking clear for launch and the VB was passing through all of it’s normal pre-launch checkouts. After the pre-breath was complete the crew existed the suit-up room and did the traditional walk out to board the crew transfer van for the ride out to the pad LC-39C. After exiting the van at the pad, Grissom paused and looked at the massive Saturn-VB rocket that towered above him. The redstone rocket he rode on his suborbital Mercury flight was a fire-cracker compared to this monster. The Redstone rocket was only 30 tons, its single engine put out 78,000 lb’s of thrust and stood a little over 80 feet high. This Saturn-VB rocket was over 10,000 ton, it’s first stage and the four Solid Rocket boosters would be putting out over 30,000,0000 lb’s of thrust and was over 400+ feet tall. The Saturn-VB seemed to be alive with the metal on the rocket creaking and vapor constantly vented as the Cryogenic propellant boiled off. The rocket stood there almost like it was daring somebody with enough guts to get in and ride it. Grissom always loved launch day and he was taking it all in for his last flight. The ground crew paused gave the veteran astronaut his moment to gaze at this mammoth piece of machinery that he would be riding into space. Grissom then turned and gave the thumbs up to the other 3 members of his crew. The Apollo-21 crew grinned at each and then boarded the elevator for the ride up. The backup Command Module Pilot, Ken Mattingly was already in the command module conducting the pre-flight checks on the vehicle. The Apollo-21 crew entered the Command Module one at a time and the pad crew quickly strapped them in to await lift-off. Mattingly paused to shake hands with the crew and wished them a safe flight before climbing out. The door of the CSM was then swung shut and the crew was now alone waiting for the liftoff.
Several hours later, SA-604 ignited after a trouble free countdown and the crew could feel the massive Saturn-VB beneath them rumble to life. The massive turbo pumps of the F1A engines started first and you could feel the rocket rumbling as all 4 F1A engines powered up to full thrust. Once the computer verified all F1A engines performance was within specification then all four of the 260” SRB engines ignited. At this point 7.2 Million pounds of thrust of the F1A engines had an additional 28 Million pounds of thrust added and there was no stopping the Saturn-VB from lifting off the Earth and winning the fight against Earth’s gravity. While the Saturn-V could be very much described as a gentleman by fellow astronauts during lift-off. Despite all the shaking the G-forces never climbed above 4 as the vehicle gradually accelerated. Gus had even heard that the engineers in the later production models had even reduced the shaking as part of the effort to moderate “Pogo Vibrations”. The Saturn-VB was more of a kick in the pants as a total of 35 Million pounds of thrust seemed to hurl you and the rocket off the pad. To the astronauts that had ridden the Titan-II into orbit on the Gemini missions the acceleration reminded them of riding this much smaller rocket. As described to them by the Apollo-20 crew the first 110 seconds of the launch was full of extreme vibration, groaning of the rocket from extreme stress and the deafening sound of the launch penetrating the Capsule that made even communication difficult inside the capsule despite all the sound proofing. After the four SRB’s fell away then the ride became much smoother for the crew. Well for Gus, he would forever describe SA-604 as the best ride of his life and In a little over 10 minutes the Apollo-21 was in Earth orbit.
Once in a secure 300x300 orbit the crew traded seats and Command Module Pilot Don Lind took over the left hand seat. He separated the CSM(Command Service Module) from the S-IVC and Lind maneuvered the CSM to dock into the Multi-Mission Module on top of the Apollo stack. The Apollo stack was then released from the S-IVC and the CSM used it’s thrusters to back away from the S-IVC. The crew could now get out of their space suits and rest and wait for the next part of the mission the following day. The next day the crew entered the Lunar Landing Vehicle and checked out all the system to verify that the vehicle survived the launch without issue. Compared to old Lunar Module the Lunar Landing Vehicle was extremely spacious and had room for 4 crew members during a lunar descent and ascent. On day-3 of the mission McCandless suited up in the A8L lunar spacesuit. He entered the small 2-person airlock on the LLV, depressurized it and exited the airlock. Using handholds on the outside of the LLV he maneuvered himself around to check the ability to maneuver around outside of the vehicle. He then re-entered the LLV using the airlock and another new Apollo system had been successfully tested. On day-4 both McCandless and Lenor entered the airlock and depressurized. After they stepped outside they then made their way over to the door on the CSM using the handholds that had been designed for just such a contingency. This EVA was to test the emergency procedure in-case hard docking couldn’t be achieved with the CSM and a EVA was required to transfer the crew. Inside the CSM was Lind in the crew entry suit, his role in this exercise was to monitor and be prepared to assist only in an emergency. The docking tunnel was sealed and Grissom was in the LLV monitoring the test from a window. The CSM door for the block-III had a special valve outside the capsule that would allow the atmosphere to be vented. McCandless vented the CSM atmosphere, opened the capsule door and Lenor and him entered the CSM and shut the door and another procedure had been validated in space.
For the next couple of days the Astronauts rested, conducted a few experiments and prepared for the next test. The next item on the list when presented to the crew, Commander Grissom took one look at the planned procedure and immediately told the mission planners that they better think again if they thought any Astronaut was getting into that damn thing voluntarily. It was what was called a personnel rescue ball. This 1-yard in diameter ball was to be used to in an emergency to transfer astronauts between vehicles when a space suit was not available. The ball was composed of 3 fabric layers with a zipper and small window so the astronaut could look out. The astronaut would get inside with small life support device with 2-hours of Oxygen. A space-suited astronaut would then have to carry the astronaut to another spacecraft. On the outside of the ball was several hand-holds and attachment points. Despite Grissom’s announcement that somebody had to be crazy to get into the rescue ball, McCandless and Lenor agreed to test it out. Grissom smiled at McCandless and lenor and told them both, “good thing we have rookies that don’t know any better!” For the test McCandless was in a spacesuit and Lenor was zipped inside the rescue ball. The airlock was depressurized again and McCandless with the rescue ball tethered to him made his way slowly over to the CSM door and repeated the procedure from the EVA several days earlier. After McCandless and Lenor made it back inside, the CSM was repressurized. After getting out of the rescue ball, Lenor would only describe his experience in the rescue ball as something he never wanted to ever do again in his life. Grissom told Lenor that he wasn’t sure if he had bigger balls than him or was just too afraid to tell the mission planners, no.
The crew spent the next several days in orbit continuing to verify systems and run tests on the LLV spacecraft. The next test was the most important one of the mission and this would involve undocking from the CSM with the LLV and testing out the spacecraft. This was the part that Grissom was most looking forward to, the testing of a brand new spacecraft and actually flying it. Grissom and McCandless boarded the LLV and the docking hatch between the Multi-mission module and the LLV was sealed. The LLV un-docked and Grissom fired up the RL-10 Descent engines and proceeded to lower the orbit of the LLV and move away from the CSM. Grissom and McCandless proceeded to completely test out the flight systems of the LLV and flew the spacecraft through several changes in orbit. They then ejected the Descent stage and fired up the Ascent stage engine. However they would not be returning to the Apollo-21 CSM for docking.
The SA-602 Saturn-VB test launch a year earlier had left both a LLV and CSM in orbit. The LLV had already been de-orbited several months earlier and had burned up in the atmosphere. The CSM had been left in hibernation status in Earth Orbit for over a year. It had been waiting all this time while being remotely monitored by Houston. This would a a important validation of the ability of the CSM to remain un-manned in lunar orbit and be monitored remotely. The vehicle had been remotely verified to be in good condition by NASA and now Grissom and McCandless would verify this. Grissom fired the Ascent stage and used the computer and radar on the LLV, plotted a intercept with the hibernating CSM. The rest of the Apollo-21 crew, Lind and Lenor waited in the Apollo-21 CSM a mile away from the SA-602 CSM and stood by ready to assist in-case anything went wrong. They would also film the docking between the two vehicles. Grissom maneuvered the LLV and easily brought it into docking with the SA-602 CSM. The hard dock mechanism was remotely activated by the LLV which brought the two vehicle securly together. Before the tunnel was open between the two vehicles, McCandless took a air sample from the CSM and found no issues with the atmosphere of the hibernating vehicle. They then entered the SA-602 CSM and completed activating it’s systems. The two CSM’s then spent the next couple of days orbiting in formation as Grissom and McCandless verified the SA-602 CSM was operating correctly after spending a year in orbit. Grissom used the CSM SPS to conduct multiple burns to test out the engine. It was critical that the CSM SPS worked flawlessly even after the vehicle spent a year in orbit and the engine passed all of the tests without issue. They would remark that even the food on-board was just fine after it’s year long slumber in orbit. The LLV was jettisoned and on April 20th Grissom and McCandless fired the thruster to de-orbit the SA-602 CSM. The CSM plunged into Earth’s atmosphere and landed in the Pacific Ocean near Hawaii to be picked up the Navy. Several hours Lind and Lenor re-entered in the Apollo-21 CSM and splashed down in the same location. The crew of Apollo-21 was finally back together on the flight deck of the Amphibious Assault Ship the USS New Orleans. The crew had achieved all their missions objectives and the mission was a complete success. NASA administration now felt confident that all the hardware would work for the planned Apollo-22 landing in October of 1975.
With the landing of the Soviet Union on the moon the Kennedy Administration was able to secure increased funding for NASA and the overall budget for NASA was increased by 1.5 Billion for 1975. This would put the Independence Space Station program back on track but the EML-2 space station program was put on hold. For the Saturn rocket program the long term procurement as amended to included the switch over to the Block-II launch vehicles that would use the HG-3 engines and the lightened stages. The Saturn-IC production line would switch over with launch vehicle SA-326 starting in January 1976 and the Saturn-VB production line would switch over in 1977 with launch vehicle SA-614. The replacements program for the Apollo CSM was also started with the authorization of funding for the development of a Lunar Big Gemini to replaced the Apollo CSM capsule. In addition Grumman started the development and testing of a Cargo lunar lander based on the Apollo lunar module.
As 1974 ended the deaths of the Zvezda-2 crew added a somber note to the ending of the year. As the year ended a new launch vehicle was being stacked on LC-37B. It was the Saturn-IC with a Apollo-Centaur. By adding a Apollo-Centaur to a Saturn-IC its performance was increased to make it a very effective rocket for Beyond Earth Orbit missions and it could launch upwards of 16,000 kg to the Moon. This would be the first test launch of the Saturn-IC. The Saturn-IC would be carrying on this launch two surplus TIROS satellites. The TIROS satellites had been a series of early weather satellites that had been the first satellites capable of remote sensing of the Earth. The use of real satellites on a test launch was highly debated within NASA. The original planned first launch of the Saturn-IC-Centaur had envisioned using only mass simulators for the payload. However the launch of the rocket had set off a debate within NASA and the scientific community if a possible scientific payload could be launched. Two surplus TIROS satellites in storage would be possible candidates to be launched to support this. At this point the scientists couldn’t agree on how the TIROS satellites should be modified to allow some scientific payload that would be useful and meetings got bogged down in endless debate. At this point NASA administrator Thomas Paine was ready to just launch the original proposed Mass simulators. However John Kennedy asked if he could try to sort things out and Paine readily agreed to allow the ex-president to try and sort out the situation.
The next meeting to review the Tiros satellites scientific payload, the attendees encountered a Secret Service agent standing outside the meeting room doors. The scientists suspected that meant trouble for them. John Kennedy called the meeting to order and informed everyone that he was placing one scientist in-charge of the decisions for this proposed mission as the principal investigator. A technique that he had already used to good effect on the “Grand Tour program”. By placing one person in charge of the overall project this tended to focus the mission on it’s task and give a clear line of responsibility. This one person would be responsible for the proposed mission from the budget to it’s scientific payload. Also he informed all attendees the budget was $10 Million dollars and not a penny more would be spent. If they couldn’t meet this budget then the launch vehicle would fly with no scientific payload. Kennedy’s blunt announcement stunned the scientists at the meeting. He then introduced the principal investigator for the mission and left the meeting. The ultimatum by Kennedy made the scientists realize that more accommodation was needed if anything was going to fly and everyone would lose out. So compromises had to be made to quickly produce a scientific payload that could be added to the Tiros satellites that would meet both the budget and timeline that was laid out. On January 14, 1975 SA-312 lifted off from LC-37B and lift off went without issue. The Apollo-Centaur was ignited while in earth orbit and both Tiros Satellites now headed towards EML-2. Several days later both satellites entered EML-2 halo orbits successfully.
Over the years with Apollo missions the communication between the Moon and Earth had never been encrypted. For the last several years a discussion had been happening within NASA if some communication should be encrypted for at a minimum for privacy purposes. The communications between the Apollo astronauts operated in the S-band portion of the microwave spectrum and could be intercepted by anyone in Earth that was pointing receiving equipment at the moon and was listening in the right band. For Apollo missions even some amateur radio operators in the US had been able to listen in on lunar communication. It was understood that the Soviet also intercepted Apollo mission transmissions, even if the Soviet’s never publicly acknowledged intercepting any Apollo conversations. For long duration LESA missions NASA wanted to be able to have a secure way of communicating to the astronauts that was not susceptible to eavesdropping.
The other issue that NASA faced for the upcoming long duration Apollo LESA missions was the limited bandwidth capability of the DSN (Deep Space Network). The DSN was a network of large antennas at three different sites spread across the globe in Spain, California and Australia. These sites provided continuous communication coverage for any spacecraft that was more than 30,000 km from Earth. The DSN primary purpose was to communicate with unmanned probes that had been sent beyond Earth Orbit. NASA also had the MSFN (Manned Space flight Network) which was over 10 stations located around the globe and it’s stations handled communication for Earth Orbit missions. For Apollo mission Communication a 26 meter antenna was added to the three DSN sites. However each of the Apollo flights also used some of the DSN resources during certain parts of the flights, especially during the lunar orbit. With proposed 6-month Apollo LESA missions this would place even more strain on the current communication networks for long periods of time. With the need for continuous support of the Skylab missions the current MSFN tracking stations spread around the globe had been seeing heavy utilization. With the advancement in communication technology NASA wanted to move the MSFN from mainly ground based stations to space based satellites for both Skylab and Apollo LESA communications. This would not only improve the overall communication but it would be also result in lower maintenance costs as the number of ground based stations would be greatly reduced around the globe. In addition the countries for some of the ground stations had become politically unstable over the years since the network was first established.
NASA had a limited budget to work with so it reached out to the US military and the Defense Communications Agency to discuss what technology the DOD was using could possibly be used by NASA to improve both beyond Earth orbit and Earth orbit communications for manned spaceflight. The Military discussed with NASA in classified briefings the capabilities of the current Department of Defense communication DSCS II satellites that provided secure voice and data communication for the DOD. The satellite hardware could be adapted to NASA’s needs with minimal modifications. Also the DOD and other US government agencies wanted to expand their communication abilities. While some people at NASA questioned the dual use of military hardware for NASA mission purposes. For NASA administration it didn’t make any sense to pay the development cost of to develop a new communication satellite, when with minimal modification a current military design could serve NASA’s purpose easily. NASA and the DOD launched a joint program to modify current DOD satellites so they could meet the needs of multiple US govt agencies including NASA.
The DOD communication satellites manufacturer was TRW, and they normally had two 20-watt transponders. The communication satellites built for NASA would have two additional higher wattage transponders added to improve communication back to Earth, more solar panels to support the increased power which increased the mass of the satellites. From a Saturn-1C-Centaur perspective the increased mass wasn’t an issue. NASA and the DOD settled on a program to procure a total of 10 satellites over the next several years. Two would be launched to EML-1 and two more to EML-2, the other 6 satellites would be placed in geosynchronous orbit around Earth. The satellites themselves had more communication capacity than NASA would ever use. The DOD and other US Govt agencies would also use the satellites to meet their increasing global communication needs. While the satellites at EML-1 and EML-2 would primarily be used by only NASA the rest of the satellite network could be easily used by multiple operators with the understanding that NASA had priority on these satellite resources. The satellites would enable easy communication from any two points on the lunar surface and communication back to Earth. In addition to voice communication the satellites could also support 100 Mbps of data and could also support encryption of data or communication as needed. The new network would be called TDRSS (Tracking and Data Relay Satellite Systems). The TDRSS network would significantly improve both lunar communication and Earth orbit communication.
As the April launch date approached for the Apollo-21 Astronauts, the Apollo-22 Prime and backup crews started undergoing elective surgery to remove their Appendix. This had been a controversial and debated item within NASA and the Medical community as to what was ethical and best for the manned spaceflight program. The Appendix had no identified function in the human body however at some point in a persons life about 1 out of 7 individuals will experience acute appendicitis and this requires the removal of the Appendix by emergency surgery as soon as possible. To delay the surgery to long could result in death. For previous Apollo missions that lasted less than 2-weeks, if a astronaut started to suffer acute appendicitis the mission would be aborted and the astronaut would be given antibiotics until they landed back on Earth. With only a 2-week mission the risk was considered minimal of this medical emergency happening during the mission. For Skylab missions if a crewmen suffered the same issue, this would require a mission abort and return from orbit but this could be accomplished in less than 6-hours. For the Apollo LESA missions with up to 6-month duration stays on the lunar surface it was felt that the probability of a crew member suffering from acute appendicitis during the mission was higher and should be considered. This meant three options, trying to do emergency surgery in the LESA base on the lunar surface, an immediate abort and return to Earth, or have the Appendix removed by elective surgery before the mission. The NASA medical team recommended that all LESA crew members have their Appendix removed by elective surgery before the mission. This was the best option to eliminate the possibility of a disruption of a mission by a episode of acute appendicitis.
On April 5, 1975 the crew of Apollo 21 sat in the dining room of the Astronaut crew quarters, enjoying a breakfast before leaving to get suited up for the flight. For the commander of this mission, Mercury veteran Gus Grissom this would be his last spaceflight of a career that started with his Mercury suborbital flight in July of 1961. Gus was taking a rookie crew into space with him on this mission of Bruce McCandless, Don Lind and William Lenor. Dining with them this morning was Director of flight crew operations Michael Collins, astronaut Corp commander Jim Lovell and fellow Mercury astronauts Deke Slayton and Al Shepard. The Apollo-21 mission would be testing the new Lunar Landing vehicle in Earth Orbit. Just as with Apollo-9, it was considered critical to test out the new spacecraft in Earth Orbit before a manned landing was attempted on the Moon. Compared to Apollo-9, the peculiarities of lunar orbit was understood to a much higher degree than during the early Apollo missions but the lunar landing vehicle still needed to be tested by astronauts. The best man for the job was Grissom who had extensive experience in flying different spacecraft over his long career as an astronaut. The three rookie astronauts all considered themselves lucky to be flying a mission with Grissom and as McCandless put it “I couldn’t have picked a better commander to fly with on my first spaceflight”. The crew finished breakfast and then went into suit-up room to put on the crew launch suits for the flight. Laying on a chair in the room as the crew entered was a crew launch suit that said Slayton on it.
“What the hell!!” Gus Grissom exclaimed as he looked at the suit laid out on his chair.
Shepard and Slayton entered the room laughing “Well, if you got cold feet or something before the launch. So we just thought we should be prepared if you couldn’t hack it.” Deke Slayton grinned at his friend Gus. Gus, Al and Deke knew exactly what he was referencing to. Before Alan Shepard’s first flight John Glenn had his space suit all laid out in the suit-up van in-case Sheppard couldn’t make the flight.
“Well you guys can rest easy. This old veteran is going up on this flight.” Gus laughed at his friends.
The suit-up crew helped the 4 astronauts get into their crew launch suits and start the 100% Oxygen pre-breath. The weather was looking clear for launch and the VB was passing through all of it’s normal pre-launch checkouts. After the pre-breath was complete the crew existed the suit-up room and did the traditional walk out to board the crew transfer van for the ride out to the pad LC-39C. After exiting the van at the pad, Grissom paused and looked at the massive Saturn-VB rocket that towered above him. The redstone rocket he rode on his suborbital Mercury flight was a fire-cracker compared to this monster. The Redstone rocket was only 30 tons, its single engine put out 78,000 lb’s of thrust and stood a little over 80 feet high. This Saturn-VB rocket was over 10,000 ton, it’s first stage and the four Solid Rocket boosters would be putting out over 30,000,0000 lb’s of thrust and was over 400+ feet tall. The Saturn-VB seemed to be alive with the metal on the rocket creaking and vapor constantly vented as the Cryogenic propellant boiled off. The rocket stood there almost like it was daring somebody with enough guts to get in and ride it. Grissom always loved launch day and he was taking it all in for his last flight. The ground crew paused gave the veteran astronaut his moment to gaze at this mammoth piece of machinery that he would be riding into space. Grissom then turned and gave the thumbs up to the other 3 members of his crew. The Apollo-21 crew grinned at each and then boarded the elevator for the ride up. The backup Command Module Pilot, Ken Mattingly was already in the command module conducting the pre-flight checks on the vehicle. The Apollo-21 crew entered the Command Module one at a time and the pad crew quickly strapped them in to await lift-off. Mattingly paused to shake hands with the crew and wished them a safe flight before climbing out. The door of the CSM was then swung shut and the crew was now alone waiting for the liftoff.
Several hours later, SA-604 ignited after a trouble free countdown and the crew could feel the massive Saturn-VB beneath them rumble to life. The massive turbo pumps of the F1A engines started first and you could feel the rocket rumbling as all 4 F1A engines powered up to full thrust. Once the computer verified all F1A engines performance was within specification then all four of the 260” SRB engines ignited. At this point 7.2 Million pounds of thrust of the F1A engines had an additional 28 Million pounds of thrust added and there was no stopping the Saturn-VB from lifting off the Earth and winning the fight against Earth’s gravity. While the Saturn-V could be very much described as a gentleman by fellow astronauts during lift-off. Despite all the shaking the G-forces never climbed above 4 as the vehicle gradually accelerated. Gus had even heard that the engineers in the later production models had even reduced the shaking as part of the effort to moderate “Pogo Vibrations”. The Saturn-VB was more of a kick in the pants as a total of 35 Million pounds of thrust seemed to hurl you and the rocket off the pad. To the astronauts that had ridden the Titan-II into orbit on the Gemini missions the acceleration reminded them of riding this much smaller rocket. As described to them by the Apollo-20 crew the first 110 seconds of the launch was full of extreme vibration, groaning of the rocket from extreme stress and the deafening sound of the launch penetrating the Capsule that made even communication difficult inside the capsule despite all the sound proofing. After the four SRB’s fell away then the ride became much smoother for the crew. Well for Gus, he would forever describe SA-604 as the best ride of his life and In a little over 10 minutes the Apollo-21 was in Earth orbit.
Once in a secure 300x300 orbit the crew traded seats and Command Module Pilot Don Lind took over the left hand seat. He separated the CSM(Command Service Module) from the S-IVC and Lind maneuvered the CSM to dock into the Multi-Mission Module on top of the Apollo stack. The Apollo stack was then released from the S-IVC and the CSM used it’s thrusters to back away from the S-IVC. The crew could now get out of their space suits and rest and wait for the next part of the mission the following day. The next day the crew entered the Lunar Landing Vehicle and checked out all the system to verify that the vehicle survived the launch without issue. Compared to old Lunar Module the Lunar Landing Vehicle was extremely spacious and had room for 4 crew members during a lunar descent and ascent. On day-3 of the mission McCandless suited up in the A8L lunar spacesuit. He entered the small 2-person airlock on the LLV, depressurized it and exited the airlock. Using handholds on the outside of the LLV he maneuvered himself around to check the ability to maneuver around outside of the vehicle. He then re-entered the LLV using the airlock and another new Apollo system had been successfully tested. On day-4 both McCandless and Lenor entered the airlock and depressurized. After they stepped outside they then made their way over to the door on the CSM using the handholds that had been designed for just such a contingency. This EVA was to test the emergency procedure in-case hard docking couldn’t be achieved with the CSM and a EVA was required to transfer the crew. Inside the CSM was Lind in the crew entry suit, his role in this exercise was to monitor and be prepared to assist only in an emergency. The docking tunnel was sealed and Grissom was in the LLV monitoring the test from a window. The CSM door for the block-III had a special valve outside the capsule that would allow the atmosphere to be vented. McCandless vented the CSM atmosphere, opened the capsule door and Lenor and him entered the CSM and shut the door and another procedure had been validated in space.
For the next couple of days the Astronauts rested, conducted a few experiments and prepared for the next test. The next item on the list when presented to the crew, Commander Grissom took one look at the planned procedure and immediately told the mission planners that they better think again if they thought any Astronaut was getting into that damn thing voluntarily. It was what was called a personnel rescue ball. This 1-yard in diameter ball was to be used to in an emergency to transfer astronauts between vehicles when a space suit was not available. The ball was composed of 3 fabric layers with a zipper and small window so the astronaut could look out. The astronaut would get inside with small life support device with 2-hours of Oxygen. A space-suited astronaut would then have to carry the astronaut to another spacecraft. On the outside of the ball was several hand-holds and attachment points. Despite Grissom’s announcement that somebody had to be crazy to get into the rescue ball, McCandless and Lenor agreed to test it out. Grissom smiled at McCandless and lenor and told them both, “good thing we have rookies that don’t know any better!” For the test McCandless was in a spacesuit and Lenor was zipped inside the rescue ball. The airlock was depressurized again and McCandless with the rescue ball tethered to him made his way slowly over to the CSM door and repeated the procedure from the EVA several days earlier. After McCandless and Lenor made it back inside, the CSM was repressurized. After getting out of the rescue ball, Lenor would only describe his experience in the rescue ball as something he never wanted to ever do again in his life. Grissom told Lenor that he wasn’t sure if he had bigger balls than him or was just too afraid to tell the mission planners, no.
The crew spent the next several days in orbit continuing to verify systems and run tests on the LLV spacecraft. The next test was the most important one of the mission and this would involve undocking from the CSM with the LLV and testing out the spacecraft. This was the part that Grissom was most looking forward to, the testing of a brand new spacecraft and actually flying it. Grissom and McCandless boarded the LLV and the docking hatch between the Multi-mission module and the LLV was sealed. The LLV un-docked and Grissom fired up the RL-10 Descent engines and proceeded to lower the orbit of the LLV and move away from the CSM. Grissom and McCandless proceeded to completely test out the flight systems of the LLV and flew the spacecraft through several changes in orbit. They then ejected the Descent stage and fired up the Ascent stage engine. However they would not be returning to the Apollo-21 CSM for docking.
The SA-602 Saturn-VB test launch a year earlier had left both a LLV and CSM in orbit. The LLV had already been de-orbited several months earlier and had burned up in the atmosphere. The CSM had been left in hibernation status in Earth Orbit for over a year. It had been waiting all this time while being remotely monitored by Houston. This would a a important validation of the ability of the CSM to remain un-manned in lunar orbit and be monitored remotely. The vehicle had been remotely verified to be in good condition by NASA and now Grissom and McCandless would verify this. Grissom fired the Ascent stage and used the computer and radar on the LLV, plotted a intercept with the hibernating CSM. The rest of the Apollo-21 crew, Lind and Lenor waited in the Apollo-21 CSM a mile away from the SA-602 CSM and stood by ready to assist in-case anything went wrong. They would also film the docking between the two vehicles. Grissom maneuvered the LLV and easily brought it into docking with the SA-602 CSM. The hard dock mechanism was remotely activated by the LLV which brought the two vehicle securly together. Before the tunnel was open between the two vehicles, McCandless took a air sample from the CSM and found no issues with the atmosphere of the hibernating vehicle. They then entered the SA-602 CSM and completed activating it’s systems. The two CSM’s then spent the next couple of days orbiting in formation as Grissom and McCandless verified the SA-602 CSM was operating correctly after spending a year in orbit. Grissom used the CSM SPS to conduct multiple burns to test out the engine. It was critical that the CSM SPS worked flawlessly even after the vehicle spent a year in orbit and the engine passed all of the tests without issue. They would remark that even the food on-board was just fine after it’s year long slumber in orbit. The LLV was jettisoned and on April 20th Grissom and McCandless fired the thruster to de-orbit the SA-602 CSM. The CSM plunged into Earth’s atmosphere and landed in the Pacific Ocean near Hawaii to be picked up the Navy. Several hours Lind and Lenor re-entered in the Apollo-21 CSM and splashed down in the same location. The crew of Apollo-21 was finally back together on the flight deck of the Amphibious Assault Ship the USS New Orleans. The crew had achieved all their missions objectives and the mission was a complete success. NASA administration now felt confident that all the hardware would work for the planned Apollo-22 landing in October of 1975.
very good new chapter , the test performed flawlessly , lets see Apolo 22 landing on the Moon, establish the Moonbase , to develop further during the 6 months of the Mission . Can't hardly wait for the next chapters .
Lunar Landing Vehicle
Sorry for the delay but real life has been kicking my butt right now. As always any feedback positive or negative is appreciatted.
A critical pacing item for the Apollo LESA program was Lunar Landing Vehicle (LLV) manufactured by Grumman Aerospace Corporation. The vehicle would be the enabler to allow the Astronauts to live and work on the lunar surface for months at a time. As before with the smaller lunar module the success of the lunar missions would hinge on the capability of the new lander. As Grumman was building the first 15-ton Lunar Modules it’s designer had started looking ahead to the possible future of lunar exploration. The near future for landings was the modification of the original Lunar Modules to the ELM (Extended Lunar Module). The ELM would be used for the Apollo J class missions. The ELM supported increased scientific payload to be delivered to the lunar surface including a Lunar Rover. The Extended Lunar Modules also enabled a significant increase in lunar surface stay times. These modifications increased the mass of the Lunar Module by 3,000 Lbs. Grumman had thought the next logical step would be what they had called a Lunar Module shelter, which was closely based on the existing ELM spacecraft. This was a Lunar Module modified to support an automated unmanned landing and that had it’s Ascent engine and fuel tanks removed. With no weight devoted to a Ascent stage the Lunar Module Shelter could support a 2-man crew on the lunar surface for 14-days. The missions would be dual launches. A Saturn-V would launch the unmanned lunar module shelter. Another Saturn-V launch, would carry the astronauts and a modified Lunar Module which would take two astronauts to the lunar surface and return them to lunar orbit. The other astronaut would remain in the Command module waiting in orbit. Grumman was extremely surprised in 1967 to hear that NASA had much more ambitious plans for improvements to it’s Saturn V vehicle. Grumman had expected some incremental performance improvements in the Saturn-V. Instead the Kennedy administration agreed to the Von Braun’s proposal from the MSFC to replace the Saturn-V with the much larger Saturn-VB vehicle. This monster rocket would be able to launch 260,000 lbs to the moon versus the 100,000 lbs of the earlier Saturn-V. NASA planned to still use a dual launch but the increased payload capability of the Saturn-VB made possible 3-6 month lunar surface missions. This was a huge change from the incremental program that had been part of previous NASA studies for lunar missions to follow the Apollo program. This forced a radical rethinking by Grumman as to lunar lander design.
Grumman engineers started with clean sheet design for a new lunar lander that could take advantage of the increased payload performance of the Saturn-VB. NASA was calling the next series of Lunar exploration, Apollo-LESA(Lunar Exploration System for Apollo). Grumman over the last several years had gained significant experience in lunar landers from it’s work on the current Lunar Module and this experience showed in it’s design for the lander for the Apollo-LESA missions. This new lander would be over 200,000 lbs which made the current Lunar Module which tipped the scales at around 33,000 lbs seem tiny by comparison. Grumman leveraged their experience in lunar landers to win the contract to build the new lunar lander in 1968. This contract would require a whole new set of design problems to be solved and as before NASA was on a tight time schedule. The current Apollo mission planning called for the first LESA landing in the middle of 1974. Grumman managers took one look at the ambitious schedule and knew they would have their work cut out for them. It was extremely helpful that Grumman now had a experienced team of engineers in Lunar lander design and these engineers could carry all the accumulated experience into the design and testing of the new Lunar LESA lander. However as before it was a overly optimistic schedule.
Grumman had worked hard to shed every possible ounce from the current Lunar Module. This new Lunar Lander would have some very different design problems. One of the first decisions that needed to be made was what Descent and Ascent engines would have to be used for the new lunar lander including propellant choices. The engine choice was complicated by profile of the dual launch missions. The unmanned lander would need to either reduce it’s Delta-V before reaching the moon or the Descent engine would have to brake the lander as it neared the moon, this would add over 800 m/s to the delta-V requirement of the vehicle. For the manned Apollo LESA missions, the mass of the Apollo spacecraft stack with the CSM and LLV would exceed the Delta-V capability of the Apollo CSM using the current service module tankage. The fuel tankage in the service Module just wasn’t sufficient to slow down the greatly increased mass to allow it to enter Lunar Orbit. NASA was treating the required Delta-V change for the manned and unmanned Apollo missions as separate issues that required separate unique solutions. Grumman engineers in consultation with Convair employees had a possible solution that worked for both mission profiles.
Convair was working on a new Centaur stage that was under development for the replacement for the Saturn-IB, the Saturn-IC. The Centaur upper stage on the Saturn-IC would be used for launching large unmanned probes beyond Earth’s orbit. This Centaur stage could be adapted for the Apollo LESA Missions to brake the the new lunar lander as it neared the moon. The critical adjustment to the new Centaur design would be the ability to minimize cryogenic fluid loss during the 3-day journey to the moon. This change would increase overall mass of the Apollo-Centaur but would allow the stage to be used for the Apollo LESA missions. The Apollo LESA program actually would become the savior of the Centaur Upper stage for the Saturn-IC. With the cuts to unmanned programs the Centaur upper stage for the IC was a prime target since it wouldn’t be needed to launch unmanned probes from Saturn-IC’s. There was no funding for probes that required the launch capability of the Saturn-IC with it’s Centaur upper stage. When first approached about using the Centaur in Apollo the program managers had refused since the modifications to support Apollo would increase mass. When it was realized that they either worked with the Apollo program or face having the program cut completely the decision was quickly made to accept the increased mass penalties. This saved the new Centaur development program for the Saturn-IC. By 1972 the new Centaur stage, which was now called Apollo-Centaur was assembled and tested. The Apollo-Centaur stage was designed to be used on either the Saturn-IC or on the Lunar Landing Vehicle for lunar braking purposes for both the manned and unmanned Apollo LESA Missions.
Even with the lunar braking requirement needs meet by the Centaur, the new landers would still need to have a Delta-V budget of around 2000 m/s to land on the lunar surface. The current LM used Hypergolic engines for both ascent and descent but had a much smaller mass than the planned mass of the new lunar lander. The Grumman engineers could agree that the ascent stage would use a hypergolic engine because it would have a dry mass of 7500 kg. The ascent stage engine needed to both have a high degree of reliability and the stage would have to be able to spend 6 months or more on the lunar surface before lifting off. The use of hypergolic fuels assured a simple and reliable engine that would function even after sitting for months on the lunar surface. The current LM descent stage engine could be easily adapted to lift the LLV ascent Stage with it’s fully loaded wet mass of around 15 tons from the lunar surface. This then left the problem of the descent stage engines. To land such a large mass on the lunar using Hypergolics would require an inordinate amount of fuel. The Grumman designers after much discussion finally settled on using the same RL10 engine that was to be used on the Apollo-Centaur. Throttling capability would need to be added to the this engine. The RL10 engine, which used Liquid Hydrogen and Liquid Oxygen had an extensive flight history. The RL-10 was a much higher performing engine than the Hypergolic fueled engines and would require less propellant to land such a high mass on the lunar surface. The use of RL-10 would require about 14 tons less propellant to land on the lunar surface when compared to hypergolics. The use of the Cryogenic propellant would require additional insulation to minimize fluid loss during the lunar coast but the additional weight in insulation was a minor compared to how much additional hypergolic fuel would be required. The other reason to select the RL-10 was the ability to use the residual cryogenic propellants in the fuel cell power system that would power the LLV. By including some additional plumbing the residual Liquid Hydrogen and Oxygen could be moved into the reactant tanks for the fuel cells.
The actual LLV itself would be built as two distinctly different versions that shared a common structure but would have different purposes for the LESA missions. Grumman’s original proposal had two different vehicles that didn’t share a common structure. Within months of starting the contract both NASA and Grumman came to the realization while using different bus structures would save weight it would mean more development time and would increase costs. NASA asked Grumman to continue the development using a common bus structure for both LLV’s. The more massive vehicle was LLV- LESA Base (LLV-LB). This vehicle would be launched on a Saturn-VB about 30-60 days before the actual planned moon landing. The LLV-LB would have a overall wet mass of 100 Tons, not Including the Apollo-Centaur stage. At a little over 25 tons was the Apollo-Centaur which would do the initial braking as it neared the moon. Unlike previous Apollo vehicles the LLV-LB would not enter lunar orbit. Instead it will be launched on a direct trajectory towards the moon and the Apollo-Centaur would do the initial delta-V change before being ejected to crash into the lunar surface. After the Apollo-Centaur is ejected, four RL-10 engines would fire to guide the LLV-LB on it’s landing trajectory towards it’s target on the lunar surface. The LLV-LB Guidance computer would do handle the landing of the vehicle on the lunar surface. The LLV-LB would have no ascent stage and was designed as the astronauts home on the lunar surface for the duration of the mission. The mass of the LLV-LB minus landing propellant would be 67,700 kg. The other lander was the LLV-LESA Taxi (LLV-LT) which would be launched with the mission crew on a Saturn-VB 30-60 days after the LESA Base had landed. The LLV-LT would also use a Apollo-Centaur to do the braking near the Moon. However unlike the LLV-LB, it will be entering lunar orbit before descending. The Apollo-Centaur after it’s burn would be ejected and the engine fired again to take it into a solar orbit trajectory. The astronauts then entered the LLV-LT for the descent. The CSM would be left unmanned in lunar orbit. The LLV-LT would then descend to the lunar surface using a beacon from the LLV-LB on the lunar surface to to help them landing within 1km of the LESA Base. After landing the LESA Taxi would be unloaded and placed placed in hibernation status on the lunar surface. The LLV-LT would have a total dry mass on the lunar surface of 45,000 kg including the 15,000 kg Ascent module.
The LLV-LB base’s overall exterior pressurized structure was a cylinder 8 meters in Diameter and 14 meters high. The lander would rest on 4 legs on the lunar surface that could self adjust to level the vehicle. The bottom portion was unpressurized and had the 4 RL10 engines and fuel tanks that supported the landing and the fuel cell. Then above this was the pressurized volume for the living area. The Airlock entrance was reached by climbing up a ladder that was deployed after landing. As a backup a ladder was also mounted on a landing leg that could also be used to reach the airlock. Directly outside the airlock was a porch that was large enough for two astronauts. The porch area had a electric winch that could be used to move equipment, supplies, lunar samples from the lunar surface to the porch or lower it back down onto the lunar surface. The porch area would be used to do the initial brushing of lunar soil of the space suits before entering the airlock which was large enough for two astronauts. After exiting the airlock the astronauts would enter the equipment room. This room featured a powerful vacuum to be used on the space suits and a heavy duty filtration system for the room. The feedback from the earlier Apollo missions was that lunar dust would be an issue. It was critical to minimize lunar dust transfer from the space suits to the environment inside of the LLV-LB. The equipment room had a airtight door added that sealed it off from the rest of the lunar base and was specifically designed to prevent dust from entering the other areas of the base by an over-pressure system that kept the rest of the base at a slightly higher pressure than the Equipment room so dust in the air would stay in this room. The equipment room featured storage lockers with room for 2 spacesuits for each astronauts and additional lockers for the storage of equipment that was used on lunar surface but should be brought in after each EVA. The room also had a storage drawers for lunar sample containers. The drawers could also be opened from the laboratory area next door. After changing into coveralls the astronauts would then enter the rest of the lunar base. The next room from the equipment room was a work room to do maintenance on equipment like spacesuits, tools etc. This room also had a sink to allow the cleaning of hands and a urinal. The next major room on the first floor was a laboratory area with a computer terminal, teletype machine, communication equipment, scientific equipment and a high resolution imaging system. The laboratory area could also double as a photography darkroom so photos and film could be developed on the surface. These rooms all surrounded a room at the center of the cylinder, this was a 2 meter diameter inner cylinder. The design of these inner cylinder walls was a aluminium composite sandwich that provided the most radiation protection that had ever flown on a US spacecraft, 20 g/cm² which was double the radiation protection of the Apollo CSM. In addition the inside of the cylinder was lined with emergency supplies of food and water and also had a emergency communication terminal. This was the astronaut’s storm shelter, which would protect them from the increased radiation during a solar flare. This inner cylinder also had a main ladder, which was for moving between the 1st and 2nd floor of the LESA base.
The 2nd floor was devoted to the astronauts living, eating and recreation area. The 2nd floor living area had been carefully designed by the same industrial design firm that designed the interior of Skylab to maximise both form and function. With the rapidly increasing body of knowledge on long term living in space that was being gained with Skylab missions, special attention was paid to the overall habitability of the lunar base design. It was being realized that a happy and comfortable crew made for a much more productive mission. Previous Apollo missions had emphasized function and weight savings over crew comfort. This was worked fine for a 1-2 week long mission but it wasn’t realistic to expect even highly motivated astronauts to work in such conditions for 6 plus months. So NASA was paying a lot attention to the overall habitability for the LESA missions. It was found that even choosing the correct paint color could positively affect crew morale. The 1st floor kept a more utilitarian approach but the 2nd floor emphasized comfort. Extensive testing had been done on Earth including having a 4 man team spend 3-months in a prototype of the lunar base in a polar desert region located in Canada. This testing was so successful that this facility was now turned into a full time research station for testing lunar mission procedures, equipment and habitability with rotating crews usually spending 3-months at time at the facility. The 2nd floor featured 4 small but functional private rooms for each astronaut. While not very big, they still offered privacy and a place for a astronaut to relax but still only took up about 30 square feet. A big debate had been about using hammocks or some type of mattress for sleeping. While sleeping in Zero-G had never been a concern, an astronaut could simply slip into sleeping bag and just secure it to a wall. In ⅙ lunar gravity some type of substantial sleeping arrangement needed to be implemented. The final decision was to mimic a sleeping arrangements of naval ships with bunks that could also fold against the wall when not in use. The rest of the 2nd floor had a small but functional kitchen, a dining table for eating and relaxation, Television set, bathroom, shower and a computer terminal and communication console. The 2nd floor also featured multiple windows that could be used to look out at the lunar and each private room also had a small window. Each window was equipped with a air tight shutter that could be closed if necessary. The last feature was a crawl space in ceiling of the 2nd level that had storage for food and and spare equipment. The last area of the LLV-LB was what some astronauts called the basement. This was beneath the first floor and provided additional storage for supplies but also provided access to the Environmental systems and the primary and backup power systems. By having these systems in a pressurized area it was then possible to provide easy access to these critical systems if repair or maintenance was needed. Overall the long term feedback for living in the LLV-LB would have to wait for the first mission but Grumman engineers and designers had high hopes that it could function as an efficient lunar home for astronauts.
The next lander was the LLV-LT and while sharing the same bus structure had a very different function for the mission. It’s primary job was to get the crew down onto the lunar surface and at the appropriate time get them off the lunar surface and back to CSM waiting in orbit. The secondary job of the LLV-LT was to transport to the surface the MOLAB vehicle and an improved version of the Lunar Rover used on the Apollo J missions. The MOLAB vehicle was a key part of the LESA missions and would have a mass of 7,000 kg and could support 2-astronauts for up to 21 days with a range of 600 km. MOLAB was fully pressurized and was analogous to a small lunar RV that would give a crew unprecedented mobility to fully explore a lunar region. The vehicle was powered by a fuel cell and would also tow a trailer with the reactant tanks for fuel cell. The vehicle could be refueled from either Liquid Hydrogen in either the LLV-LB or LLV-LT. It was in the mission planning that the vehicle would be able to do the first fueling from the residual propellant in the LLV-LT. The Lunar Rover vehicle was unpressurized and was designed to range upwards of 10km from the lunar base. The vehicle was designed to improve on the original LRV, including additions like aluminum fenders so the fenders would not break when brushed by an astronaut in spacesuit. The vehicle also featured an improved camera, improved radiator and rechargeable batteries that would be charged from the fuel cell on the lunar base. The vehicle also was equipped with a tow hitch for a equipment trailer was included. This would allow the easy transport of equipment from the LLV-LT to the LLV-LB and to also transport equipment like the lunar core drilling rig to a selected site. The LLV-LT beyond the ascent stage had a small airlock for access to the lunar surface. The rest of the LLV-LT was unpressurized and could carry an additional 6-tons of cargo which included supplies and equipment for the mission. For power the LLV-LT would use a solar power to charge a 1-ton battery that would then provide the necessary power to allow monitoring of the hibernating vehicle while on the surface.
The most controversial item for the Apollo LESA base was the power system. Maintaining power to a long term lunar base was extremely challenging because the moon takes a little over 29 days to complete one full rotation of it’s axis. This long 29 day rotation meant for around 355 hours a lunar region has sunlight and then it is plunged into darkness for 355 hours. This made designing a power system that only used solar panel extremely challenging because of the weight of batteries required to power the Lunar base through the long lunar night. The first thought was to use a SNAP(System for Nuclear Auxiliary Power) for this requirement. A nuclear reactor weighing about 5 tons could be developed that could generate 20+ KW for 5-years. Using a nuclear reactor quickly started losing support for the initial LESA exploration because of the cost of development and production of the the nuclear reactor. A nuclear reactor was possible when the final base location was selected but NASA wanted to see if a different route for power was possible that didn’t involve nuclear for the Apollo LESA missions. The final choice settled on a power system that combined both fuel cells, solar panels and electrolysis.
The General Electric designed power plant for the LESA base weighed a total of 6 metric tons without reactants. The system was designed to generate continuously supply 12kw of power through the complete lunar cycle. The Power System used Solar Panels during the day to both supply power and run a electrolysis cell that would separate out the water that came out of the fuel cell into Hydrogen and Oxygen gas. The Liquefiers would turn the gas into a Cryogenic liquid. While in testing the actual electrolysis process would run without issue the liquefaction of the gas back into Cryogenic liquid caused so many headaches that at some point the General Electric designers did look at scrapping the liquefaction piece of the power system and just depend on storage of the Hydrogen and Oxygen as gas. The engineers persisted with the testing of liquefaction system and making adjustments. By early 1974 the LESA base power system had been developed into a fully functioning system that would use the water produced from the fuel cell and convert it back into Cryogenic Liquid Hydrogen and Oxygen. The power system was tested on the SA-602 launch in a LLV in Earth Orbit. The system functioned for a little over 3-months and then cryogenic process started to break down so by the 4-month the Cryogenic system had completely failed.
While some observers looked on at this test as a complete failure the General Electric engineers gathered valuable data on how the system would function in a vacuum environment. By early 1975 the LESA 12-kw Mark-II Power system for the Apollo-22 was being assembled for installation in the first LLV-LB intended to land on the lunar surface. General Electric incorporated all the knowledge gained from the years of testing into the Mark-II. The system had redundant Electrocyclic Cells and redundant liquefier units. The system also included 16x415 AmpHour rechargeable batteries. The batteries served as a backup power source and could power the life support and basic systems of the LESA base for 2-days in-case of complete fuel cell failure. Also as part of the system was the solar panels. The amount of solar panels that would be needed far exceeded what was practical to include on the vehicle. A 10kw Solar System was incorporated into the LLV that would extend on two wings from the side after landing. One of the first steps the crew would have to undertake soon after landing would be the construction of the solar field. The crew would need to erect a 50 kw solar field which would take planned 30 hours of EVA surface time. This was the longest and most time consuming part of the setup of the LESA base. Overall 60 hours of EVA hours surface time was dedicated to setup of the LESA base for the 6-month long mission. However a considering over a 6-month mission over 1,200+ man-hours of surface EVA time would be planned for so this loss of surface time was considered acceptable. The Mark-II power system was also designed for ease of access to critical systems from inside the LESA Base. This type of access would make it easier for astronauts to conduct maintenance or repairs on the system. The system would be launched with 2000 kg of reactants in it’s storage tanks and it was expected that at least 1,000 kg of reactants can be scavenged from the descent tanks after landing. The storage tanks of the system would have a capacity of 4,000 kg of reactants. Despite the closed loop nature of the system it was expected that over a year from cryogenic loss and the losses through the system that 20% of the reactants would be loss.
The other critical component of the LLV fortunately didn’t have nearly as many issues in development, the ECLSS (Environmental Control and Life Support System). Over the years NASA had improved on it’s ECLSS and the LLV-LB was a continuation in that evolution. The Skylab ECLSS was the first time at adding a closed loop system but this was only for Oxygen. For the LLV-LB things would be taken a step further. The Skylab Oxygen recycling system was improved to create a system that could recycle 70% of the Oxygen. The next part was for water which was a critical mass item The water system was separated into a greywater and blackwater system. The blackwater system, which was human waste was simply stored in tanks and was not processed any further. If any waste samples required for medical reasons the samples would be stored in bags with the solid waste being exposed to vacuum to freeze dry it. The greywater system was designed to recycle 80% of the water used so it could be re-used again. The basic LLV-LB configuration was to launch with 240 days of Oxygen, food, and water for 4-people. For those basic consumables .5kg of dry good and 1Kg of Whole wet food was allocated per person per day. While this seemed generous, NASA had learned from experience that food was critical to moral. With the heavy planned EVA load astronauts would be needing the energy from a healthy diet. Included in this allocation was 4kg of drinking water per astronaut per day and this water was not recycled. With the amount of exercise the astronauts would be getting on the lunar surface and overall grime of working on the lunar surface the astronauts would have a generous allocation of 26kg per person per day for wash water. This grey water would be 80% recycled by the ECLSS system. It had been discussed that possible more efficient ECLSS systems could be created including the recycling of urine and moisture in the atmosphere of the base from sweat and respiration. However in the interest of having a reliable ECLSS system this type of recycling of water would not be occurring with the initial deployed system. This left the possibility in the future of improvements to the ELCSS to improve the recycling of both Oxygen and water. The LESA base also had stored for emergencies 60-days of emergency dehydrated rations and water and Oxygen.
The LESA base also featured several emergency systems. The LESA base had stored for each floor 50kg of Emergency Oxygen. In the event of a hull breach the LESA base ECLSS system would immediately start dumping Oxygen from these tanks into the atmosphere of the base. By doing this depending on the size of the breach, this would give the astronauts several additional minutes to evacuate the area and done spacesuits if necessary. This system had been incorporated into the design of the ECLSS system by Grumman from the beginning. With the deaths of the Cosmonauts from the Zvezda-2 mission by a loss of pressurization on the the lunar surface. NASA had conducted a deep review of the LESA base to determine if any “corner scenarios” had been over-looked in the design. The ability of the LESA base to handle unexpected depressurization events meant that Grumman had already in-place a system to handle the type of emergency that probably doomed the Zvezda-2 crew. The next emergency situation, was the possibility of fire. To minimize this risk Grumman had switched from the 100% Oxygen environment at 5psi of the Apollo and LM systems to a 5psi atmosphere with 72% Oxygen and 28% Nitrogen that was used in Skylab. By the inclusion of 28% Nitrogen the risk of fire was greatly reduced and facilitated the easier inclusion of items like books. Still fire was a risk and the base was equipped with chemical fire extinguishers for fires.
The key feature that Grumman built into the LLV’s was adaptability and flexibility. Through experience with the Lunar Module Grumman engineers had planned that changes would be made as flight experience was gained. The original lunar module had been adapted to support mission durations over twice as long as the first landing missions. The other key ingredient was going to be feedback from the first lunar crew. Grumman had worked closely with the Apollo-22 crew for several years and had been working with specifically Astronauts Ed Mitchell and Pete Conrad for over 4-years. Pete and Ed know the LLV inside and out and Grumman felt confident that with the tools and parts on-board that Pete and Ed could handle about any issue that came up and if they couldn’t they could clearly communicate the issue back to Houston so Grumman engineers could then troubleshoot the problem remotely . Pete reminded all the scientists that supported the mission that Apollo-22 was essentially a shakedown flight of the LLV on the lunar surface. Which for the engineer and test pilot side of Pete this was just fine. That meant that they should plan on extra time would have to be devoted to the LLV over any planned science. Science was a focus of the mission but for Pete he knew how important it was to discover any issues before Apollo-23 landed inside of Tsiolkovskiy Crater on the far side of the moon.
Sorry for the delay but real life has been kicking my butt right now. As always any feedback positive or negative is appreciatted.
A critical pacing item for the Apollo LESA program was Lunar Landing Vehicle (LLV) manufactured by Grumman Aerospace Corporation. The vehicle would be the enabler to allow the Astronauts to live and work on the lunar surface for months at a time. As before with the smaller lunar module the success of the lunar missions would hinge on the capability of the new lander. As Grumman was building the first 15-ton Lunar Modules it’s designer had started looking ahead to the possible future of lunar exploration. The near future for landings was the modification of the original Lunar Modules to the ELM (Extended Lunar Module). The ELM would be used for the Apollo J class missions. The ELM supported increased scientific payload to be delivered to the lunar surface including a Lunar Rover. The Extended Lunar Modules also enabled a significant increase in lunar surface stay times. These modifications increased the mass of the Lunar Module by 3,000 Lbs. Grumman had thought the next logical step would be what they had called a Lunar Module shelter, which was closely based on the existing ELM spacecraft. This was a Lunar Module modified to support an automated unmanned landing and that had it’s Ascent engine and fuel tanks removed. With no weight devoted to a Ascent stage the Lunar Module Shelter could support a 2-man crew on the lunar surface for 14-days. The missions would be dual launches. A Saturn-V would launch the unmanned lunar module shelter. Another Saturn-V launch, would carry the astronauts and a modified Lunar Module which would take two astronauts to the lunar surface and return them to lunar orbit. The other astronaut would remain in the Command module waiting in orbit. Grumman was extremely surprised in 1967 to hear that NASA had much more ambitious plans for improvements to it’s Saturn V vehicle. Grumman had expected some incremental performance improvements in the Saturn-V. Instead the Kennedy administration agreed to the Von Braun’s proposal from the MSFC to replace the Saturn-V with the much larger Saturn-VB vehicle. This monster rocket would be able to launch 260,000 lbs to the moon versus the 100,000 lbs of the earlier Saturn-V. NASA planned to still use a dual launch but the increased payload capability of the Saturn-VB made possible 3-6 month lunar surface missions. This was a huge change from the incremental program that had been part of previous NASA studies for lunar missions to follow the Apollo program. This forced a radical rethinking by Grumman as to lunar lander design.
Grumman engineers started with clean sheet design for a new lunar lander that could take advantage of the increased payload performance of the Saturn-VB. NASA was calling the next series of Lunar exploration, Apollo-LESA(Lunar Exploration System for Apollo). Grumman over the last several years had gained significant experience in lunar landers from it’s work on the current Lunar Module and this experience showed in it’s design for the lander for the Apollo-LESA missions. This new lander would be over 200,000 lbs which made the current Lunar Module which tipped the scales at around 33,000 lbs seem tiny by comparison. Grumman leveraged their experience in lunar landers to win the contract to build the new lunar lander in 1968. This contract would require a whole new set of design problems to be solved and as before NASA was on a tight time schedule. The current Apollo mission planning called for the first LESA landing in the middle of 1974. Grumman managers took one look at the ambitious schedule and knew they would have their work cut out for them. It was extremely helpful that Grumman now had a experienced team of engineers in Lunar lander design and these engineers could carry all the accumulated experience into the design and testing of the new Lunar LESA lander. However as before it was a overly optimistic schedule.
Grumman had worked hard to shed every possible ounce from the current Lunar Module. This new Lunar Lander would have some very different design problems. One of the first decisions that needed to be made was what Descent and Ascent engines would have to be used for the new lunar lander including propellant choices. The engine choice was complicated by profile of the dual launch missions. The unmanned lander would need to either reduce it’s Delta-V before reaching the moon or the Descent engine would have to brake the lander as it neared the moon, this would add over 800 m/s to the delta-V requirement of the vehicle. For the manned Apollo LESA missions, the mass of the Apollo spacecraft stack with the CSM and LLV would exceed the Delta-V capability of the Apollo CSM using the current service module tankage. The fuel tankage in the service Module just wasn’t sufficient to slow down the greatly increased mass to allow it to enter Lunar Orbit. NASA was treating the required Delta-V change for the manned and unmanned Apollo missions as separate issues that required separate unique solutions. Grumman engineers in consultation with Convair employees had a possible solution that worked for both mission profiles.
Convair was working on a new Centaur stage that was under development for the replacement for the Saturn-IB, the Saturn-IC. The Centaur upper stage on the Saturn-IC would be used for launching large unmanned probes beyond Earth’s orbit. This Centaur stage could be adapted for the Apollo LESA Missions to brake the the new lunar lander as it neared the moon. The critical adjustment to the new Centaur design would be the ability to minimize cryogenic fluid loss during the 3-day journey to the moon. This change would increase overall mass of the Apollo-Centaur but would allow the stage to be used for the Apollo LESA missions. The Apollo LESA program actually would become the savior of the Centaur Upper stage for the Saturn-IC. With the cuts to unmanned programs the Centaur upper stage for the IC was a prime target since it wouldn’t be needed to launch unmanned probes from Saturn-IC’s. There was no funding for probes that required the launch capability of the Saturn-IC with it’s Centaur upper stage. When first approached about using the Centaur in Apollo the program managers had refused since the modifications to support Apollo would increase mass. When it was realized that they either worked with the Apollo program or face having the program cut completely the decision was quickly made to accept the increased mass penalties. This saved the new Centaur development program for the Saturn-IC. By 1972 the new Centaur stage, which was now called Apollo-Centaur was assembled and tested. The Apollo-Centaur stage was designed to be used on either the Saturn-IC or on the Lunar Landing Vehicle for lunar braking purposes for both the manned and unmanned Apollo LESA Missions.
Even with the lunar braking requirement needs meet by the Centaur, the new landers would still need to have a Delta-V budget of around 2000 m/s to land on the lunar surface. The current LM used Hypergolic engines for both ascent and descent but had a much smaller mass than the planned mass of the new lunar lander. The Grumman engineers could agree that the ascent stage would use a hypergolic engine because it would have a dry mass of 7500 kg. The ascent stage engine needed to both have a high degree of reliability and the stage would have to be able to spend 6 months or more on the lunar surface before lifting off. The use of hypergolic fuels assured a simple and reliable engine that would function even after sitting for months on the lunar surface. The current LM descent stage engine could be easily adapted to lift the LLV ascent Stage with it’s fully loaded wet mass of around 15 tons from the lunar surface. This then left the problem of the descent stage engines. To land such a large mass on the lunar using Hypergolics would require an inordinate amount of fuel. The Grumman designers after much discussion finally settled on using the same RL10 engine that was to be used on the Apollo-Centaur. Throttling capability would need to be added to the this engine. The RL10 engine, which used Liquid Hydrogen and Liquid Oxygen had an extensive flight history. The RL-10 was a much higher performing engine than the Hypergolic fueled engines and would require less propellant to land such a high mass on the lunar surface. The use of RL-10 would require about 14 tons less propellant to land on the lunar surface when compared to hypergolics. The use of the Cryogenic propellant would require additional insulation to minimize fluid loss during the lunar coast but the additional weight in insulation was a minor compared to how much additional hypergolic fuel would be required. The other reason to select the RL-10 was the ability to use the residual cryogenic propellants in the fuel cell power system that would power the LLV. By including some additional plumbing the residual Liquid Hydrogen and Oxygen could be moved into the reactant tanks for the fuel cells.
The actual LLV itself would be built as two distinctly different versions that shared a common structure but would have different purposes for the LESA missions. Grumman’s original proposal had two different vehicles that didn’t share a common structure. Within months of starting the contract both NASA and Grumman came to the realization while using different bus structures would save weight it would mean more development time and would increase costs. NASA asked Grumman to continue the development using a common bus structure for both LLV’s. The more massive vehicle was LLV- LESA Base (LLV-LB). This vehicle would be launched on a Saturn-VB about 30-60 days before the actual planned moon landing. The LLV-LB would have a overall wet mass of 100 Tons, not Including the Apollo-Centaur stage. At a little over 25 tons was the Apollo-Centaur which would do the initial braking as it neared the moon. Unlike previous Apollo vehicles the LLV-LB would not enter lunar orbit. Instead it will be launched on a direct trajectory towards the moon and the Apollo-Centaur would do the initial delta-V change before being ejected to crash into the lunar surface. After the Apollo-Centaur is ejected, four RL-10 engines would fire to guide the LLV-LB on it’s landing trajectory towards it’s target on the lunar surface. The LLV-LB Guidance computer would do handle the landing of the vehicle on the lunar surface. The LLV-LB would have no ascent stage and was designed as the astronauts home on the lunar surface for the duration of the mission. The mass of the LLV-LB minus landing propellant would be 67,700 kg. The other lander was the LLV-LESA Taxi (LLV-LT) which would be launched with the mission crew on a Saturn-VB 30-60 days after the LESA Base had landed. The LLV-LT would also use a Apollo-Centaur to do the braking near the Moon. However unlike the LLV-LB, it will be entering lunar orbit before descending. The Apollo-Centaur after it’s burn would be ejected and the engine fired again to take it into a solar orbit trajectory. The astronauts then entered the LLV-LT for the descent. The CSM would be left unmanned in lunar orbit. The LLV-LT would then descend to the lunar surface using a beacon from the LLV-LB on the lunar surface to to help them landing within 1km of the LESA Base. After landing the LESA Taxi would be unloaded and placed placed in hibernation status on the lunar surface. The LLV-LT would have a total dry mass on the lunar surface of 45,000 kg including the 15,000 kg Ascent module.
The LLV-LB base’s overall exterior pressurized structure was a cylinder 8 meters in Diameter and 14 meters high. The lander would rest on 4 legs on the lunar surface that could self adjust to level the vehicle. The bottom portion was unpressurized and had the 4 RL10 engines and fuel tanks that supported the landing and the fuel cell. Then above this was the pressurized volume for the living area. The Airlock entrance was reached by climbing up a ladder that was deployed after landing. As a backup a ladder was also mounted on a landing leg that could also be used to reach the airlock. Directly outside the airlock was a porch that was large enough for two astronauts. The porch area had a electric winch that could be used to move equipment, supplies, lunar samples from the lunar surface to the porch or lower it back down onto the lunar surface. The porch area would be used to do the initial brushing of lunar soil of the space suits before entering the airlock which was large enough for two astronauts. After exiting the airlock the astronauts would enter the equipment room. This room featured a powerful vacuum to be used on the space suits and a heavy duty filtration system for the room. The feedback from the earlier Apollo missions was that lunar dust would be an issue. It was critical to minimize lunar dust transfer from the space suits to the environment inside of the LLV-LB. The equipment room had a airtight door added that sealed it off from the rest of the lunar base and was specifically designed to prevent dust from entering the other areas of the base by an over-pressure system that kept the rest of the base at a slightly higher pressure than the Equipment room so dust in the air would stay in this room. The equipment room featured storage lockers with room for 2 spacesuits for each astronauts and additional lockers for the storage of equipment that was used on lunar surface but should be brought in after each EVA. The room also had a storage drawers for lunar sample containers. The drawers could also be opened from the laboratory area next door. After changing into coveralls the astronauts would then enter the rest of the lunar base. The next room from the equipment room was a work room to do maintenance on equipment like spacesuits, tools etc. This room also had a sink to allow the cleaning of hands and a urinal. The next major room on the first floor was a laboratory area with a computer terminal, teletype machine, communication equipment, scientific equipment and a high resolution imaging system. The laboratory area could also double as a photography darkroom so photos and film could be developed on the surface. These rooms all surrounded a room at the center of the cylinder, this was a 2 meter diameter inner cylinder. The design of these inner cylinder walls was a aluminium composite sandwich that provided the most radiation protection that had ever flown on a US spacecraft, 20 g/cm² which was double the radiation protection of the Apollo CSM. In addition the inside of the cylinder was lined with emergency supplies of food and water and also had a emergency communication terminal. This was the astronaut’s storm shelter, which would protect them from the increased radiation during a solar flare. This inner cylinder also had a main ladder, which was for moving between the 1st and 2nd floor of the LESA base.
The 2nd floor was devoted to the astronauts living, eating and recreation area. The 2nd floor living area had been carefully designed by the same industrial design firm that designed the interior of Skylab to maximise both form and function. With the rapidly increasing body of knowledge on long term living in space that was being gained with Skylab missions, special attention was paid to the overall habitability of the lunar base design. It was being realized that a happy and comfortable crew made for a much more productive mission. Previous Apollo missions had emphasized function and weight savings over crew comfort. This was worked fine for a 1-2 week long mission but it wasn’t realistic to expect even highly motivated astronauts to work in such conditions for 6 plus months. So NASA was paying a lot attention to the overall habitability for the LESA missions. It was found that even choosing the correct paint color could positively affect crew morale. The 1st floor kept a more utilitarian approach but the 2nd floor emphasized comfort. Extensive testing had been done on Earth including having a 4 man team spend 3-months in a prototype of the lunar base in a polar desert region located in Canada. This testing was so successful that this facility was now turned into a full time research station for testing lunar mission procedures, equipment and habitability with rotating crews usually spending 3-months at time at the facility. The 2nd floor featured 4 small but functional private rooms for each astronaut. While not very big, they still offered privacy and a place for a astronaut to relax but still only took up about 30 square feet. A big debate had been about using hammocks or some type of mattress for sleeping. While sleeping in Zero-G had never been a concern, an astronaut could simply slip into sleeping bag and just secure it to a wall. In ⅙ lunar gravity some type of substantial sleeping arrangement needed to be implemented. The final decision was to mimic a sleeping arrangements of naval ships with bunks that could also fold against the wall when not in use. The rest of the 2nd floor had a small but functional kitchen, a dining table for eating and relaxation, Television set, bathroom, shower and a computer terminal and communication console. The 2nd floor also featured multiple windows that could be used to look out at the lunar and each private room also had a small window. Each window was equipped with a air tight shutter that could be closed if necessary. The last feature was a crawl space in ceiling of the 2nd level that had storage for food and and spare equipment. The last area of the LLV-LB was what some astronauts called the basement. This was beneath the first floor and provided additional storage for supplies but also provided access to the Environmental systems and the primary and backup power systems. By having these systems in a pressurized area it was then possible to provide easy access to these critical systems if repair or maintenance was needed. Overall the long term feedback for living in the LLV-LB would have to wait for the first mission but Grumman engineers and designers had high hopes that it could function as an efficient lunar home for astronauts.
The next lander was the LLV-LT and while sharing the same bus structure had a very different function for the mission. It’s primary job was to get the crew down onto the lunar surface and at the appropriate time get them off the lunar surface and back to CSM waiting in orbit. The secondary job of the LLV-LT was to transport to the surface the MOLAB vehicle and an improved version of the Lunar Rover used on the Apollo J missions. The MOLAB vehicle was a key part of the LESA missions and would have a mass of 7,000 kg and could support 2-astronauts for up to 21 days with a range of 600 km. MOLAB was fully pressurized and was analogous to a small lunar RV that would give a crew unprecedented mobility to fully explore a lunar region. The vehicle was powered by a fuel cell and would also tow a trailer with the reactant tanks for fuel cell. The vehicle could be refueled from either Liquid Hydrogen in either the LLV-LB or LLV-LT. It was in the mission planning that the vehicle would be able to do the first fueling from the residual propellant in the LLV-LT. The Lunar Rover vehicle was unpressurized and was designed to range upwards of 10km from the lunar base. The vehicle was designed to improve on the original LRV, including additions like aluminum fenders so the fenders would not break when brushed by an astronaut in spacesuit. The vehicle also featured an improved camera, improved radiator and rechargeable batteries that would be charged from the fuel cell on the lunar base. The vehicle also was equipped with a tow hitch for a equipment trailer was included. This would allow the easy transport of equipment from the LLV-LT to the LLV-LB and to also transport equipment like the lunar core drilling rig to a selected site. The LLV-LT beyond the ascent stage had a small airlock for access to the lunar surface. The rest of the LLV-LT was unpressurized and could carry an additional 6-tons of cargo which included supplies and equipment for the mission. For power the LLV-LT would use a solar power to charge a 1-ton battery that would then provide the necessary power to allow monitoring of the hibernating vehicle while on the surface.
The most controversial item for the Apollo LESA base was the power system. Maintaining power to a long term lunar base was extremely challenging because the moon takes a little over 29 days to complete one full rotation of it’s axis. This long 29 day rotation meant for around 355 hours a lunar region has sunlight and then it is plunged into darkness for 355 hours. This made designing a power system that only used solar panel extremely challenging because of the weight of batteries required to power the Lunar base through the long lunar night. The first thought was to use a SNAP(System for Nuclear Auxiliary Power) for this requirement. A nuclear reactor weighing about 5 tons could be developed that could generate 20+ KW for 5-years. Using a nuclear reactor quickly started losing support for the initial LESA exploration because of the cost of development and production of the the nuclear reactor. A nuclear reactor was possible when the final base location was selected but NASA wanted to see if a different route for power was possible that didn’t involve nuclear for the Apollo LESA missions. The final choice settled on a power system that combined both fuel cells, solar panels and electrolysis.
The General Electric designed power plant for the LESA base weighed a total of 6 metric tons without reactants. The system was designed to generate continuously supply 12kw of power through the complete lunar cycle. The Power System used Solar Panels during the day to both supply power and run a electrolysis cell that would separate out the water that came out of the fuel cell into Hydrogen and Oxygen gas. The Liquefiers would turn the gas into a Cryogenic liquid. While in testing the actual electrolysis process would run without issue the liquefaction of the gas back into Cryogenic liquid caused so many headaches that at some point the General Electric designers did look at scrapping the liquefaction piece of the power system and just depend on storage of the Hydrogen and Oxygen as gas. The engineers persisted with the testing of liquefaction system and making adjustments. By early 1974 the LESA base power system had been developed into a fully functioning system that would use the water produced from the fuel cell and convert it back into Cryogenic Liquid Hydrogen and Oxygen. The power system was tested on the SA-602 launch in a LLV in Earth Orbit. The system functioned for a little over 3-months and then cryogenic process started to break down so by the 4-month the Cryogenic system had completely failed.
While some observers looked on at this test as a complete failure the General Electric engineers gathered valuable data on how the system would function in a vacuum environment. By early 1975 the LESA 12-kw Mark-II Power system for the Apollo-22 was being assembled for installation in the first LLV-LB intended to land on the lunar surface. General Electric incorporated all the knowledge gained from the years of testing into the Mark-II. The system had redundant Electrocyclic Cells and redundant liquefier units. The system also included 16x415 AmpHour rechargeable batteries. The batteries served as a backup power source and could power the life support and basic systems of the LESA base for 2-days in-case of complete fuel cell failure. Also as part of the system was the solar panels. The amount of solar panels that would be needed far exceeded what was practical to include on the vehicle. A 10kw Solar System was incorporated into the LLV that would extend on two wings from the side after landing. One of the first steps the crew would have to undertake soon after landing would be the construction of the solar field. The crew would need to erect a 50 kw solar field which would take planned 30 hours of EVA surface time. This was the longest and most time consuming part of the setup of the LESA base. Overall 60 hours of EVA hours surface time was dedicated to setup of the LESA base for the 6-month long mission. However a considering over a 6-month mission over 1,200+ man-hours of surface EVA time would be planned for so this loss of surface time was considered acceptable. The Mark-II power system was also designed for ease of access to critical systems from inside the LESA Base. This type of access would make it easier for astronauts to conduct maintenance or repairs on the system. The system would be launched with 2000 kg of reactants in it’s storage tanks and it was expected that at least 1,000 kg of reactants can be scavenged from the descent tanks after landing. The storage tanks of the system would have a capacity of 4,000 kg of reactants. Despite the closed loop nature of the system it was expected that over a year from cryogenic loss and the losses through the system that 20% of the reactants would be loss.
The other critical component of the LLV fortunately didn’t have nearly as many issues in development, the ECLSS (Environmental Control and Life Support System). Over the years NASA had improved on it’s ECLSS and the LLV-LB was a continuation in that evolution. The Skylab ECLSS was the first time at adding a closed loop system but this was only for Oxygen. For the LLV-LB things would be taken a step further. The Skylab Oxygen recycling system was improved to create a system that could recycle 70% of the Oxygen. The next part was for water which was a critical mass item The water system was separated into a greywater and blackwater system. The blackwater system, which was human waste was simply stored in tanks and was not processed any further. If any waste samples required for medical reasons the samples would be stored in bags with the solid waste being exposed to vacuum to freeze dry it. The greywater system was designed to recycle 80% of the water used so it could be re-used again. The basic LLV-LB configuration was to launch with 240 days of Oxygen, food, and water for 4-people. For those basic consumables .5kg of dry good and 1Kg of Whole wet food was allocated per person per day. While this seemed generous, NASA had learned from experience that food was critical to moral. With the heavy planned EVA load astronauts would be needing the energy from a healthy diet. Included in this allocation was 4kg of drinking water per astronaut per day and this water was not recycled. With the amount of exercise the astronauts would be getting on the lunar surface and overall grime of working on the lunar surface the astronauts would have a generous allocation of 26kg per person per day for wash water. This grey water would be 80% recycled by the ECLSS system. It had been discussed that possible more efficient ECLSS systems could be created including the recycling of urine and moisture in the atmosphere of the base from sweat and respiration. However in the interest of having a reliable ECLSS system this type of recycling of water would not be occurring with the initial deployed system. This left the possibility in the future of improvements to the ELCSS to improve the recycling of both Oxygen and water. The LESA base also had stored for emergencies 60-days of emergency dehydrated rations and water and Oxygen.
The LESA base also featured several emergency systems. The LESA base had stored for each floor 50kg of Emergency Oxygen. In the event of a hull breach the LESA base ECLSS system would immediately start dumping Oxygen from these tanks into the atmosphere of the base. By doing this depending on the size of the breach, this would give the astronauts several additional minutes to evacuate the area and done spacesuits if necessary. This system had been incorporated into the design of the ECLSS system by Grumman from the beginning. With the deaths of the Cosmonauts from the Zvezda-2 mission by a loss of pressurization on the the lunar surface. NASA had conducted a deep review of the LESA base to determine if any “corner scenarios” had been over-looked in the design. The ability of the LESA base to handle unexpected depressurization events meant that Grumman had already in-place a system to handle the type of emergency that probably doomed the Zvezda-2 crew. The next emergency situation, was the possibility of fire. To minimize this risk Grumman had switched from the 100% Oxygen environment at 5psi of the Apollo and LM systems to a 5psi atmosphere with 72% Oxygen and 28% Nitrogen that was used in Skylab. By the inclusion of 28% Nitrogen the risk of fire was greatly reduced and facilitated the easier inclusion of items like books. Still fire was a risk and the base was equipped with chemical fire extinguishers for fires.
The key feature that Grumman built into the LLV’s was adaptability and flexibility. Through experience with the Lunar Module Grumman engineers had planned that changes would be made as flight experience was gained. The original lunar module had been adapted to support mission durations over twice as long as the first landing missions. The other key ingredient was going to be feedback from the first lunar crew. Grumman had worked closely with the Apollo-22 crew for several years and had been working with specifically Astronauts Ed Mitchell and Pete Conrad for over 4-years. Pete and Ed know the LLV inside and out and Grumman felt confident that with the tools and parts on-board that Pete and Ed could handle about any issue that came up and if they couldn’t they could clearly communicate the issue back to Houston so Grumman engineers could then troubleshoot the problem remotely . Pete reminded all the scientists that supported the mission that Apollo-22 was essentially a shakedown flight of the LLV on the lunar surface. Which for the engineer and test pilot side of Pete this was just fine. That meant that they should plan on extra time would have to be devoted to the LLV over any planned science. Science was a focus of the mission but for Pete he knew how important it was to discover any issues before Apollo-23 landed inside of Tsiolkovskiy Crater on the far side of the moon.
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"or the Descent engine would have to break the lander". Broken landers would be really bad idea. Let's try "braking" them, eh?
Thank you for pointing that out. I fixed the "were" "where" problem but stumbled on another one. It has been updated to reflect the correction.
I looked this over and had a nightmarish thought:
"I would like you all to meet Dr. Hall. While his current field of endeavor is biology, where he has become one of the leading researchers in X-ray microanalysis, he has a physics background, and was the youngest scientist working on the Manhattan Project. His brother, Colonel Hall, was the developer of the Minuteman missile, and we expect him to be coordinating with his brother and with you in this development."
Eep!
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theodore_Hall
"I would like you all to meet Dr. Hall. While his current field of endeavor is biology, where he has become one of the leading researchers in X-ray microanalysis, he has a physics background, and was the youngest scientist working on the Manhattan Project. His brother, Colonel Hall, was the developer of the Minuteman missile, and we expect him to be coordinating with his brother and with you in this development."
Eep!
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theodore_Hall
Apollo- Part-20
Things have been hectic but I have found time to get the next update together. Thanks for everyone's patience. Hope you enjoy and Dathi doesn't find to many Grammer errors.
As 1975 progressed the excitement was continuing to build for the Apollo-22 launch not only inside of NASA but with the US public. The Soviet Lunar Landing had served to re-ignite the interest in the US space program that had languished after the 1st lunar landing. The first launch of the Apollo-22 mission would be SA-605 with the LLV-LESA base on-board. The lift-off was scheduled for September 14, 1975. NASA Public Affairs Administrators emphasized that this mission was a test of the LESA base’s ability to land un-manned on the lunar surface. Nobody had ever attempted to land so much mass on the lunar surface before. Despite the caution from NASA officials that a successful landing wasn’t expected, the warnings where all but ignored by the press. The Apollo-22 crew was having regular meetings with Soviet Engineers and a mockup of the LK-Habitat had been delivered to the Houston so the US astronauts could practice working around it and inside of the Soviet lunar base. The US Apollo life-support backpacks were bulkier than the Soviet life-support backpacks. This proved a challenge in trying to figure out a way to get a US astronaut in a A8L lunar space suit through the the hatch on the LK-Habitat, that had not been designed for it. However the ever resourceful Pete Conrad was able to figure out a way to get his 5’ 6”½ frame through the hatch, even in a US spacesuit. He would be the only astronaut to enter the Soviet base and document the interior. Fellow crew member Al Bean would stand outside of the Habitat on the porch and would assist in passing Pete equipment and also removing items as Pete handed them to him. Pete insisted on having a veteran astronaut like Bean helping him at the door with this procedure.
There was much discussion as to what condition the bodies of the Cosmonauts would be in but it was theorized that they would be essentially freeze-dried by contact with vacuum. Conrad after entry would both photograph and film the interior of the base. This part of the mission radio conversations would be encrypted. A hand-held TV camera would also be used that would communicate through a encrypted channel. NASA wanted to remain respectful of the Cosmonauts families and they didn’t want somebody listening into Conrad’s descriptions of the deceased Cosmonauts or getting access to the TV footage of the inside of the Habitat. It was theorized as to what pressure relief valve had failed and the Soviet’s had given NASA unprecedented access to their design diagrams for habitat. Conrad felt that he was starting to know the Soviet LK-Habitat base just as well as the Cosmonauts did and he wasn’t impressed. Compared to the Apollo-LESA base, the entire thing was downright primitive. After he had filmed and photographed the interior he would recover the sample containers and film containers from inside the base. It was also thought that both Cosmonauts had been writing in personal journals while on the lunar surface and Pete would also retrieve these items and any personal items. After these items were removed, Bean would then hand in two body bags. If possible Pete would place both Cosmonauts in the body bags and place them in the hammocks inside the lander. He would place with the Cosmonauts a small bag containing personal items given to him by the families and the “The Hero of the Soviet Union” medals that had been awarded to each Cosmonaut posthumously. Then Pete would exit the LK-Habitat and the door would be closed and small plaque would be placed on the door recognizing the two Cosmonauts inside and the Habitat would now become officially a crypt.
As preparation continued for Apollo-22 the launch of the first two of the new TDRS (Tracking and Data Relay Satellites) lifted off from Pad LC-37B on May 5, 1975 on-board a Saturn-IC-Centaur. The satellites were both placed into EML-2 Halo orbit without issue and the first part of the new NASA communication system was in-place. A little over 3-months later a second Saturn-IC-Centaur lifted off from LC-37B on August 10 and two more TDRS satellites were placed into EML-1 Halo orbit. Now NASA had a full and robust communications system allowing easy communication for the upcoming lunar Missions. The wait wouldn’t be long. Already by August 1975 a Saturn-VBs where sitting on Pad LC-39A and LC-39C at the Cape. On September 14 SA-605 lifted off from LC-39A with the LESA base for the Apollo-22 mission. Three days later the As the LESA base flew towards the moon the Apollo-Centaur fired to slow down the LESA base from it’s interplanetary trajectory. The Apollo-Centaur with it’s job now completed was then ejected from the LESA base. The Apollo-Centaur would continue its trajectory and impact on the lunar surface. The four RL-10 engines on the LLV now ignited to decelerate the LESA base on it’s lunar landing trajectory. All the knowledge gained by previous Apollo landings and the high resolution photography from Apollo-20 was critical for the success of the landing. Compared to the first landing in 1969 NASA had extensive knowledge of the gravity fluctuations of the Moon and the high resolution photos allowed a landing site to be picked with a high degree of precision. The telemetry was carefully watched in Mission control as the LESA base continued it’s powered descent. The LESA base radar acquired the lunar surface and adjusted the trajectory to make corrections as it descended toward the planned landing site. A TV camera was fixed to the bottom of the LESA base and the lunar surface continued to loom larger and larger in the picture. The RL-10 engines started to throttle back as the velocity was continued to be reduced and the LESA base was burning off propellant. As the surface got closer 2 of the engines were completely shut down leaving just two RL-10 engines burning. The computer was completely in-control of the descent and everyone watched the telemetry carefully as LESA base adjusted it’s trajectory for it’s final descent. The horizontal speed finally dropped to zero several hundred feet above the lunar surface. The LESA base now started it’s terminal descent. At about 4 feet above the lunar surface the probes on the footpads touched the surface and the engines died out as the lander dropped the rest of the way onto the surface.
Mission Control broke out in applause with the landing but the flight director quickly brought everything back in control. The solar panels were deployed and then system checks were run to verify that everything was working correctly. The TV camera on top of the LESA base was activated and the high gain antenna was also deployed. The 12 kw Fuel cell power system was brought online and checked out to be functioning correctly. Over the next week the Electrolysis of H20 water being produced by the fuel cells into Hydrogen and Oxygen gas would be verified. The functioning of the Hydrogen and Oxygen liquefiers could be tested to turn the Gas into Cryogenic Liquid for storage for re-use again. This had been one of the most difficult parts of the LESA base was getting the power plant liquefiers to work properly. Through diligent testing both in space and on Earth most of the bugs had been worked out of the system. Even then the liquefiers had been setup in a dual configuration so there was redundant Oxygen and Hydrogen liquefiers in case of failure. The Astronauts themselves were well trained in troubleshooting of the LESA Base and particular attention has been paid to the Power system. The LESA base had a inventory of spare parts and if necessary the Astronauts could work on any part of the base that stopped functioning. Over the week the remaining Liquid Oxygen and Liquid Hydrogen in the propellant tanks was moved into the Fuel Cell Cryogenic storage tanks until they were 80% full. The tanks would be filled up the rest of the way by the processing of some of the on-board water to test the liquefiers. The remaining propellant was then vented to space so as not to present a danger to the future crew.
The Apollo-22 crew had been training together for almost 4-years for this lunar mission. The crew commander of Apollo-22, Pete Conrad had been picked the beginning of 1971 and Conrad worked with Slayton and Lovell to select the rest of his crew. Conrad had pushed heavily for the inclusion of fellow navy astronaut Al Bean on his crew as the LLV pilot. Al had already flown on Apollo-9 and then he had moved over to the Skylab program and was assigned to command the skylab-3 mission. With the failure of Skylab-A this had created a scheduling problem because now Al’s Skylab mission was pushed back to August 1972, because his planned mission had to wait for Skylab-B to be launched launched. The Apollo-22 was supposed to start training together by the end of 1971. The mission planners had pushed to have Bean make a decision to either command Skylab-6 and be rotated to a later Apollo mission or allow the backup Commander of Ed White to take over his Skylab mission position and Bean would rotate immediately to the Apollo-22 crew. This ultimatum pissed off Conrad greatly. He sat down with Slayton and Lovell and told them that that forcing Al to make that decision was stupid. He would much rather move Bean to the Command Module Pilot position and rotate the rookie Ed Mitchell to the LLV position. He would rather have a crew member with additional mission experience from Skylab than anybody else. Most of the first year training for the Apollo-22 crew would be bringing the rookies of Ed Mitchell and the science astronaut Gordon Swann up to speed on the spacecraft systems. The lunar landing was the most difficult flying part of the mission. By rotating Ed Mitchell to the LLV position this would allow Mitchell to get plenty of simulator time with Conrad for the landing. Al Bean would already knew the system of the Apollo CSM and would need little additional training to get up to speed on the Block-IV CSM. So as Commander of the mission he was requesting that Bean be retained as crew member, but as the CMP. With the understanding that after the landing of Skylab-6 and the debrief that Bean would be released to join the rest of the Apollo-22 crew. At that point any training that Al had missed that was considered important Conrad would make sure it was completed. Despite this the mission planners still had reservations but Slayton sent them a one line memo. “Bean will fly on Skylab-6 and then rotate to the CMP position for Apollo-22, Ed Mitchell take over the LLV spot”, signed Deke Slayton. This ended any discussion about removing Al Bean from the Apollo-22 mission.
The crew of Apollo-22 had been training differently that any previous Apollo Lunar mission. While previous missions had concentrated training heavily on the flying parts of the mission. This meant getting to the lunar surface and back home alive again. For the crew of Apollo-22 the actual flying would be a very small part of the mission. The bulk of the mission time would be spent on the lunar surface doing science not flying. The crew delved into the training and learning all the systems of the LESA base including paying particular attention to the LESA power system and the life support system. It didn’t help that some of the systems where not even completed yet so the astronauts had to train on equipment that could change before it was launched. Essentially the crew not only had to be Scientists but also jack of all trades with the LESA base systems. The EVA planning itself was very different. The planning for the EVA’s of the earlier Apollo missions was carefully laid out months in advance. Each stop during the EVA was carefully planned out to make best use of the lunar surface time. The astronauts would practice the tasks for the planned EVA’s ahead of time so as little time as possible would be wasted on the lunar surface. The EVA’s planned stops would change as needed but the overall tasks and planning stayed the same. It was planned out so diligently that the astronauts had a EVA cuff checklist that showed them minute by minute what to do. This had to change with Apollo LESA and move to a more free flowing system of the Skylab planning where a week’s worth of tasks where laid out but the final plan of the day wasn’t made until the evening before and sent up to the Teletype machine. Since he knew how import EVA planning was for the mission Conrad assigned Bean who had his Skylab experience to draw on to help adapt the Skylab system to Apollo lunar surface EVA’s.
A problem for the planners was there was not much agreement as to how much EVA time would be available. Nobody had tried to work out on the lunar surface during the lunar midday when the surface temperature could reach 253 degrees and the during the lunar night when the surface temperature plummeted to minus 243 degrees. While the lunar spacesuits could handle this temperature nobody was sure the effect that this would have on the duration of the EVA. The spacesuits worked fine during EVA’s that came in and out of sunlight during Earth orbit. For the lunar surface EVAs the Astronaut’s would either be in continuous sunlight or darkness for the entire EVA. During a EVA the lunar spacesuits circulated cold water to cool the astronauts as they worked on the lunar surface and removed the BTU heat generated by their bodies. During the middle of the day it wasn’t known for sure if the spacesuits could supply cold water during an 8-hour EVA or would the astronauts run short because of the increased heat load from the sun. Could the spacesuits only handle a 4-hour or 6-hour EVA, nobody knew for sure despite testing on the ground. During the lunar night the opposite problem occurred. The spacesuits had excellent insulation, the question was how much heat would be retained. As part of the design for the new lunar space suits and PLSS (Primary Life Support System), the water cooling flow rate switch was adjusted to provide a greater degree of control over the flow rate. The actual answers to these questions would have to wait until the mission. The EVA time was just one of dozens of issues that had to be either worked worked through or wait until the actual mission to resolve.
Bean worked with mission planners drew up what was called a EVA planning framework. The first decision was the normal EVA flow would divide the astronauts into a Gold and Blue team and the teams would alternate EVA days. While Gold-team was on the surface the Blue team was in the LESA-base doing maintenance and preparing for next day’s EVA. The 7th day of the week, both crews would stay inside and conduct maintenance checks on spacesuits and the LESA base and basically have a day off to rest and recover the previous day’s EVA. The maximum planned EVA time would be 6-hours for a 2-man team with additional time added if consumables allowed. The EVA plan would be sent to a crew the day before the EVA. So while one crew was operating on the surface the other crew would go over the EVA plan. Mission control also created Gold and Blue backroom science teams for the EVA’s. This meant that one backroom team wouldn’t have to do both EVA’s in Mission Control. In a nod to unmanned probe planning a APSI (Apollo Principal Science Investigator) position was added. This person would be responsible for coordinating all science for the mission. The other key change based on experience with Skylab was the rule of only have astronauts talking to other astronauts while on a mission. With the experience from Skylab, Mission Control was feeling more comfortable with having the science backroom talk directly to the Astronauts. For a planned EVA briefing, the science backroom would go over the EVA plan with the 2 astronauts in essentially a long distance conference call the day before. The planned CapCom astronaut for the EVA would be in attendance but the scientists would be able to talk directly to the astronauts. These meetings instead of being held in main mission control room would be held in one of the science back rooms. This type of communication was made possible because the LESA Base had two main communication antennas and the communication satellites at EML-1 and EML-2. This meant that two separate communication feeds could be conducted simultaneously from the mission surface without impacting each other. So while Mission Control could focus on the EVA being conducted the next day’s EVA planning meeting could be held with the other 2 astronauts on the surface.
The last item that almost didn’t make it onto the mission was a IMAX camera. A IMAX camera had been used very successfully on the Skylab-11 mission and had also gone into lunar orbit on Apollo-20. The IMAX movie “Skylab” had been so popular as a IMAX file that it actually drove the creation of several new IMAX movie theaters in the US, just so this film could be shown. While previous IMAX movies had been somewhat dull despite the great scenery being shown. The “Skylab” movie not only had the spectacular background of Earth Orbit but a lot of interesting scenes for the audience showing the astronauts working in space. The two EVA’s by Rusty and John was one of the most exciting sequences ever shown in the IMAX format. When the “Apollo-20” movie was released in June of 1975 this produced even more of a buzz of excitement. While Skylab-11 commander John Young had been relatively dull on camera the Apollo-20 commander Stuart Roosa was much more exuberant and entertaining. The Apollo-22 crews had trained with the IMAX cameras and Conrad was actually looking forward to using them on the lunar surface. Some people would say that Conrad was almost a natural in front of the camera. In March 1975 the cameras were removed from the flight equipment. The two main concerns of NASA was the cost of the Cameras, the IMAX cameras were heavy and expensive and it was planned that they would be left on the lunar surface. The second concern was radiation effects on the film. While “Skylab” had not been affected too much by radiation exposure while filming in orbit. The “Apollo-20” film had significantly increased radiation degradation to the exposed film. Most of the Apollo-20 mission occurred in Lunar Orbit which was outside outside the Earth’s magnetic field that provided shielding against radiation. This had never been a big issue with 16mm film because of the lower resolution and some degradation had always been accepted by NASA and the science community.
When the “Apollo-20” film was developed the director Graeme Ferguson had thrown a fit about the additional degradation in the film. This caused arguments back and forth between IMAX Corporation and NASA. Some people at NASA felt it would be better to stop doing any IMAX filming on space mission. Michael Collins who had originally pushed for the IMAX filming to be included had to visit the IMAX Corporation headquarters in Canada and have a frank discussion with them about expectations. After this discussion IMAX Corporation was much more cooperative with NASA. For the “Apollo-20” film a disclaimer was added that the the film had been affected by deep-space radiation but as pointed out by NASA it was hard for the movie audience to tell that the film was affected by radiation. After the success of Apollo-20 in theaters a last minute push was made to get the IMAX cameras back on the crew equipment list. After last minute discussions with the IMAX Corporation it was decided to include the cameras back on the launch manifest. So while the Apollo-22 vehicle was on the launch pad two IMAX cameras and film where added to the equipment on-board the LLV-LT and would be flying to the moon.
Things have been hectic but I have found time to get the next update together. Thanks for everyone's patience. Hope you enjoy and Dathi doesn't find to many Grammer errors.
As 1975 progressed the excitement was continuing to build for the Apollo-22 launch not only inside of NASA but with the US public. The Soviet Lunar Landing had served to re-ignite the interest in the US space program that had languished after the 1st lunar landing. The first launch of the Apollo-22 mission would be SA-605 with the LLV-LESA base on-board. The lift-off was scheduled for September 14, 1975. NASA Public Affairs Administrators emphasized that this mission was a test of the LESA base’s ability to land un-manned on the lunar surface. Nobody had ever attempted to land so much mass on the lunar surface before. Despite the caution from NASA officials that a successful landing wasn’t expected, the warnings where all but ignored by the press. The Apollo-22 crew was having regular meetings with Soviet Engineers and a mockup of the LK-Habitat had been delivered to the Houston so the US astronauts could practice working around it and inside of the Soviet lunar base. The US Apollo life-support backpacks were bulkier than the Soviet life-support backpacks. This proved a challenge in trying to figure out a way to get a US astronaut in a A8L lunar space suit through the the hatch on the LK-Habitat, that had not been designed for it. However the ever resourceful Pete Conrad was able to figure out a way to get his 5’ 6”½ frame through the hatch, even in a US spacesuit. He would be the only astronaut to enter the Soviet base and document the interior. Fellow crew member Al Bean would stand outside of the Habitat on the porch and would assist in passing Pete equipment and also removing items as Pete handed them to him. Pete insisted on having a veteran astronaut like Bean helping him at the door with this procedure.
There was much discussion as to what condition the bodies of the Cosmonauts would be in but it was theorized that they would be essentially freeze-dried by contact with vacuum. Conrad after entry would both photograph and film the interior of the base. This part of the mission radio conversations would be encrypted. A hand-held TV camera would also be used that would communicate through a encrypted channel. NASA wanted to remain respectful of the Cosmonauts families and they didn’t want somebody listening into Conrad’s descriptions of the deceased Cosmonauts or getting access to the TV footage of the inside of the Habitat. It was theorized as to what pressure relief valve had failed and the Soviet’s had given NASA unprecedented access to their design diagrams for habitat. Conrad felt that he was starting to know the Soviet LK-Habitat base just as well as the Cosmonauts did and he wasn’t impressed. Compared to the Apollo-LESA base, the entire thing was downright primitive. After he had filmed and photographed the interior he would recover the sample containers and film containers from inside the base. It was also thought that both Cosmonauts had been writing in personal journals while on the lunar surface and Pete would also retrieve these items and any personal items. After these items were removed, Bean would then hand in two body bags. If possible Pete would place both Cosmonauts in the body bags and place them in the hammocks inside the lander. He would place with the Cosmonauts a small bag containing personal items given to him by the families and the “The Hero of the Soviet Union” medals that had been awarded to each Cosmonaut posthumously. Then Pete would exit the LK-Habitat and the door would be closed and small plaque would be placed on the door recognizing the two Cosmonauts inside and the Habitat would now become officially a crypt.
As preparation continued for Apollo-22 the launch of the first two of the new TDRS (Tracking and Data Relay Satellites) lifted off from Pad LC-37B on May 5, 1975 on-board a Saturn-IC-Centaur. The satellites were both placed into EML-2 Halo orbit without issue and the first part of the new NASA communication system was in-place. A little over 3-months later a second Saturn-IC-Centaur lifted off from LC-37B on August 10 and two more TDRS satellites were placed into EML-1 Halo orbit. Now NASA had a full and robust communications system allowing easy communication for the upcoming lunar Missions. The wait wouldn’t be long. Already by August 1975 a Saturn-VBs where sitting on Pad LC-39A and LC-39C at the Cape. On September 14 SA-605 lifted off from LC-39A with the LESA base for the Apollo-22 mission. Three days later the As the LESA base flew towards the moon the Apollo-Centaur fired to slow down the LESA base from it’s interplanetary trajectory. The Apollo-Centaur with it’s job now completed was then ejected from the LESA base. The Apollo-Centaur would continue its trajectory and impact on the lunar surface. The four RL-10 engines on the LLV now ignited to decelerate the LESA base on it’s lunar landing trajectory. All the knowledge gained by previous Apollo landings and the high resolution photography from Apollo-20 was critical for the success of the landing. Compared to the first landing in 1969 NASA had extensive knowledge of the gravity fluctuations of the Moon and the high resolution photos allowed a landing site to be picked with a high degree of precision. The telemetry was carefully watched in Mission control as the LESA base continued it’s powered descent. The LESA base radar acquired the lunar surface and adjusted the trajectory to make corrections as it descended toward the planned landing site. A TV camera was fixed to the bottom of the LESA base and the lunar surface continued to loom larger and larger in the picture. The RL-10 engines started to throttle back as the velocity was continued to be reduced and the LESA base was burning off propellant. As the surface got closer 2 of the engines were completely shut down leaving just two RL-10 engines burning. The computer was completely in-control of the descent and everyone watched the telemetry carefully as LESA base adjusted it’s trajectory for it’s final descent. The horizontal speed finally dropped to zero several hundred feet above the lunar surface. The LESA base now started it’s terminal descent. At about 4 feet above the lunar surface the probes on the footpads touched the surface and the engines died out as the lander dropped the rest of the way onto the surface.
Mission Control broke out in applause with the landing but the flight director quickly brought everything back in control. The solar panels were deployed and then system checks were run to verify that everything was working correctly. The TV camera on top of the LESA base was activated and the high gain antenna was also deployed. The 12 kw Fuel cell power system was brought online and checked out to be functioning correctly. Over the next week the Electrolysis of H20 water being produced by the fuel cells into Hydrogen and Oxygen gas would be verified. The functioning of the Hydrogen and Oxygen liquefiers could be tested to turn the Gas into Cryogenic Liquid for storage for re-use again. This had been one of the most difficult parts of the LESA base was getting the power plant liquefiers to work properly. Through diligent testing both in space and on Earth most of the bugs had been worked out of the system. Even then the liquefiers had been setup in a dual configuration so there was redundant Oxygen and Hydrogen liquefiers in case of failure. The Astronauts themselves were well trained in troubleshooting of the LESA Base and particular attention has been paid to the Power system. The LESA base had a inventory of spare parts and if necessary the Astronauts could work on any part of the base that stopped functioning. Over the week the remaining Liquid Oxygen and Liquid Hydrogen in the propellant tanks was moved into the Fuel Cell Cryogenic storage tanks until they were 80% full. The tanks would be filled up the rest of the way by the processing of some of the on-board water to test the liquefiers. The remaining propellant was then vented to space so as not to present a danger to the future crew.
The Apollo-22 crew had been training together for almost 4-years for this lunar mission. The crew commander of Apollo-22, Pete Conrad had been picked the beginning of 1971 and Conrad worked with Slayton and Lovell to select the rest of his crew. Conrad had pushed heavily for the inclusion of fellow navy astronaut Al Bean on his crew as the LLV pilot. Al had already flown on Apollo-9 and then he had moved over to the Skylab program and was assigned to command the skylab-3 mission. With the failure of Skylab-A this had created a scheduling problem because now Al’s Skylab mission was pushed back to August 1972, because his planned mission had to wait for Skylab-B to be launched launched. The Apollo-22 was supposed to start training together by the end of 1971. The mission planners had pushed to have Bean make a decision to either command Skylab-6 and be rotated to a later Apollo mission or allow the backup Commander of Ed White to take over his Skylab mission position and Bean would rotate immediately to the Apollo-22 crew. This ultimatum pissed off Conrad greatly. He sat down with Slayton and Lovell and told them that that forcing Al to make that decision was stupid. He would much rather move Bean to the Command Module Pilot position and rotate the rookie Ed Mitchell to the LLV position. He would rather have a crew member with additional mission experience from Skylab than anybody else. Most of the first year training for the Apollo-22 crew would be bringing the rookies of Ed Mitchell and the science astronaut Gordon Swann up to speed on the spacecraft systems. The lunar landing was the most difficult flying part of the mission. By rotating Ed Mitchell to the LLV position this would allow Mitchell to get plenty of simulator time with Conrad for the landing. Al Bean would already knew the system of the Apollo CSM and would need little additional training to get up to speed on the Block-IV CSM. So as Commander of the mission he was requesting that Bean be retained as crew member, but as the CMP. With the understanding that after the landing of Skylab-6 and the debrief that Bean would be released to join the rest of the Apollo-22 crew. At that point any training that Al had missed that was considered important Conrad would make sure it was completed. Despite this the mission planners still had reservations but Slayton sent them a one line memo. “Bean will fly on Skylab-6 and then rotate to the CMP position for Apollo-22, Ed Mitchell take over the LLV spot”, signed Deke Slayton. This ended any discussion about removing Al Bean from the Apollo-22 mission.
The crew of Apollo-22 had been training differently that any previous Apollo Lunar mission. While previous missions had concentrated training heavily on the flying parts of the mission. This meant getting to the lunar surface and back home alive again. For the crew of Apollo-22 the actual flying would be a very small part of the mission. The bulk of the mission time would be spent on the lunar surface doing science not flying. The crew delved into the training and learning all the systems of the LESA base including paying particular attention to the LESA power system and the life support system. It didn’t help that some of the systems where not even completed yet so the astronauts had to train on equipment that could change before it was launched. Essentially the crew not only had to be Scientists but also jack of all trades with the LESA base systems. The EVA planning itself was very different. The planning for the EVA’s of the earlier Apollo missions was carefully laid out months in advance. Each stop during the EVA was carefully planned out to make best use of the lunar surface time. The astronauts would practice the tasks for the planned EVA’s ahead of time so as little time as possible would be wasted on the lunar surface. The EVA’s planned stops would change as needed but the overall tasks and planning stayed the same. It was planned out so diligently that the astronauts had a EVA cuff checklist that showed them minute by minute what to do. This had to change with Apollo LESA and move to a more free flowing system of the Skylab planning where a week’s worth of tasks where laid out but the final plan of the day wasn’t made until the evening before and sent up to the Teletype machine. Since he knew how import EVA planning was for the mission Conrad assigned Bean who had his Skylab experience to draw on to help adapt the Skylab system to Apollo lunar surface EVA’s.
A problem for the planners was there was not much agreement as to how much EVA time would be available. Nobody had tried to work out on the lunar surface during the lunar midday when the surface temperature could reach 253 degrees and the during the lunar night when the surface temperature plummeted to minus 243 degrees. While the lunar spacesuits could handle this temperature nobody was sure the effect that this would have on the duration of the EVA. The spacesuits worked fine during EVA’s that came in and out of sunlight during Earth orbit. For the lunar surface EVAs the Astronaut’s would either be in continuous sunlight or darkness for the entire EVA. During a EVA the lunar spacesuits circulated cold water to cool the astronauts as they worked on the lunar surface and removed the BTU heat generated by their bodies. During the middle of the day it wasn’t known for sure if the spacesuits could supply cold water during an 8-hour EVA or would the astronauts run short because of the increased heat load from the sun. Could the spacesuits only handle a 4-hour or 6-hour EVA, nobody knew for sure despite testing on the ground. During the lunar night the opposite problem occurred. The spacesuits had excellent insulation, the question was how much heat would be retained. As part of the design for the new lunar space suits and PLSS (Primary Life Support System), the water cooling flow rate switch was adjusted to provide a greater degree of control over the flow rate. The actual answers to these questions would have to wait until the mission. The EVA time was just one of dozens of issues that had to be either worked worked through or wait until the actual mission to resolve.
Bean worked with mission planners drew up what was called a EVA planning framework. The first decision was the normal EVA flow would divide the astronauts into a Gold and Blue team and the teams would alternate EVA days. While Gold-team was on the surface the Blue team was in the LESA-base doing maintenance and preparing for next day’s EVA. The 7th day of the week, both crews would stay inside and conduct maintenance checks on spacesuits and the LESA base and basically have a day off to rest and recover the previous day’s EVA. The maximum planned EVA time would be 6-hours for a 2-man team with additional time added if consumables allowed. The EVA plan would be sent to a crew the day before the EVA. So while one crew was operating on the surface the other crew would go over the EVA plan. Mission control also created Gold and Blue backroom science teams for the EVA’s. This meant that one backroom team wouldn’t have to do both EVA’s in Mission Control. In a nod to unmanned probe planning a APSI (Apollo Principal Science Investigator) position was added. This person would be responsible for coordinating all science for the mission. The other key change based on experience with Skylab was the rule of only have astronauts talking to other astronauts while on a mission. With the experience from Skylab, Mission Control was feeling more comfortable with having the science backroom talk directly to the Astronauts. For a planned EVA briefing, the science backroom would go over the EVA plan with the 2 astronauts in essentially a long distance conference call the day before. The planned CapCom astronaut for the EVA would be in attendance but the scientists would be able to talk directly to the astronauts. These meetings instead of being held in main mission control room would be held in one of the science back rooms. This type of communication was made possible because the LESA Base had two main communication antennas and the communication satellites at EML-1 and EML-2. This meant that two separate communication feeds could be conducted simultaneously from the mission surface without impacting each other. So while Mission Control could focus on the EVA being conducted the next day’s EVA planning meeting could be held with the other 2 astronauts on the surface.
The last item that almost didn’t make it onto the mission was a IMAX camera. A IMAX camera had been used very successfully on the Skylab-11 mission and had also gone into lunar orbit on Apollo-20. The IMAX movie “Skylab” had been so popular as a IMAX file that it actually drove the creation of several new IMAX movie theaters in the US, just so this film could be shown. While previous IMAX movies had been somewhat dull despite the great scenery being shown. The “Skylab” movie not only had the spectacular background of Earth Orbit but a lot of interesting scenes for the audience showing the astronauts working in space. The two EVA’s by Rusty and John was one of the most exciting sequences ever shown in the IMAX format. When the “Apollo-20” movie was released in June of 1975 this produced even more of a buzz of excitement. While Skylab-11 commander John Young had been relatively dull on camera the Apollo-20 commander Stuart Roosa was much more exuberant and entertaining. The Apollo-22 crews had trained with the IMAX cameras and Conrad was actually looking forward to using them on the lunar surface. Some people would say that Conrad was almost a natural in front of the camera. In March 1975 the cameras were removed from the flight equipment. The two main concerns of NASA was the cost of the Cameras, the IMAX cameras were heavy and expensive and it was planned that they would be left on the lunar surface. The second concern was radiation effects on the film. While “Skylab” had not been affected too much by radiation exposure while filming in orbit. The “Apollo-20” film had significantly increased radiation degradation to the exposed film. Most of the Apollo-20 mission occurred in Lunar Orbit which was outside outside the Earth’s magnetic field that provided shielding against radiation. This had never been a big issue with 16mm film because of the lower resolution and some degradation had always been accepted by NASA and the science community.
When the “Apollo-20” film was developed the director Graeme Ferguson had thrown a fit about the additional degradation in the film. This caused arguments back and forth between IMAX Corporation and NASA. Some people at NASA felt it would be better to stop doing any IMAX filming on space mission. Michael Collins who had originally pushed for the IMAX filming to be included had to visit the IMAX Corporation headquarters in Canada and have a frank discussion with them about expectations. After this discussion IMAX Corporation was much more cooperative with NASA. For the “Apollo-20” film a disclaimer was added that the the film had been affected by deep-space radiation but as pointed out by NASA it was hard for the movie audience to tell that the film was affected by radiation. After the success of Apollo-20 in theaters a last minute push was made to get the IMAX cameras back on the crew equipment list. After last minute discussions with the IMAX Corporation it was decided to include the cameras back on the launch manifest. So while the Apollo-22 vehicle was on the launch pad two IMAX cameras and film where added to the equipment on-board the LLV-LT and would be flying to the moon.
Really it isn't so much the camera. Since the film doesn't spend to long in the camera. It is storage in the actual film canisters and yes additional shielding on the canisters can be added without to much fuss. Even water can work. The ISS astronauts have found by storing IMAX film between bags of water that it offers fairly good protection against the radiation. It is just a learning experience and then dealing with a director's ego.
Apollo Part-21
My apologises for the slower pace of writing. I was hoping to get back to postings once a week but real life keeps interferring.
The morning sun slowly rose over Launch Complex 39 at Cape Canaveral on October 13, 1975. The massive Saturn-VB SA-606 waited patiently on pad LC-39C for permission to release the power of all the propellant that rested in its tanks and solid boosters. The rocket continually vented gas as the Cryogenic propellant boiled off. Sheets of ice clung the outside of the rocket from the extreme cold of the Liquid Hydrogen that was inside. The four man Apollo-22 crew was waiting inside the Apollo Block-IV Command Module that rested on very top of the 10,000+ ton rocket. Right on time at 0810 local time the rocket ignited and the crew was hurled into the sky on top of the world’s most powerful rocket. Watching the launch was a delegation from the Soviet Union including Cosmonauts, Soviet officials and the two widows of the Zvezda-2 crew. The previous day Marina Popovich and Valentina Makarov, had visited the Apollo-22 crew. The widows handed pete conrad a talisman that as per Soviet space tradition would serve as a visual indicator when the spacecraft had reached orbit. The crew was also handed carnations that would be left with their husbands on the lunar surface. The crew spent time talking with the widows through interpreters. Marina and Valentina wished the crew a safe journey and thanked them for their efforts with their husbands remains. Marina Popovich was a test pilot and Lt-Colonel in the Soviet Air Force. Conrad and Popovich spent several minutes talking about flying. Pete was surprised to hear that she held multiple aviation world records on different types of aircraft. The widow’s wished the crew a safe journey before leaving the crew quarters.
As the Soviet Delegation watched the Saturn-VB liftoff they were stunned by the noise given off from the rocket as it lifted off from the pad and climbed rapidly into the sky. After Apollo-22 reached it’s temporary 100 mile parking orbit the crew got busy with the complicated choreography of making the spacecraft ready for TLI (Trans-Lunar-Injection). Most of the work fell on Command Module Pilot Al Bean and he hurried to take star sightings, verify the navigation platform and worked to check out the CSM before the TLI burn. The rest of the crew tried to stay out of the way as Bean floated back and forth. The rookie astronauts Ed Mitchell and Gordon Swann where crowding around the windows to view the Earth below. This would be their only chance to view the Earth from orbit. Soon the crew got back into their seats and buckled themselves back in ready for the TLI burn. The S-IVC stage ignited for a second time and burned for almost 6 minutes as another 10,200 ft/s of velocity was added to Apollo-Stack. With the burn completed Al Bean moved over to the commander’s position. He then completed the transposition and docking while the rest of the crew got out of their crew launch suits. The CSM was now hard-docked to the Multi-Mission module that sat on top of the LLV-LT. Using thrusters Al released the Apollo Stack from the S-IVC and backed away from 3rd stage. Now Al could finally relax and get out of his spacesuit. Shortly after the hatch was opened to the Multi-Mission module and all the crew launch suits could now be stowed away. The crew could finally settle down for their first meal in space. For the next 3-days the crew relaxed and watched the Earth get smaller in the window. Because of how they approached the Moon they wouldn’t see it until right before entry into lunar orbit. On October 16, the Apollo-22 crew prepared to go behind the moon. The Apollo-Centaur would ignite on the Far-side of the Moon to slow them down by almost 3,000 fps which would be enough to enter into lunar orbit. Unlike every other previous lunar mission the satellite at EML-2 allowed continuous communication as the spacecraft passed behind the Moon. The Apollo-Centaur on the bottom of the LLV-LT ignited right on time and slowed the spacecraft enough so it would be captured by the Moons gravity. The Apollo-22 crew had entered Lunar Orbit.
The following day the crew got into their A8L lunar space suits and prepared the Apollo CSM for it’s stay in Lunar orbit un-manned. As the crew entered the LLV-LT, Pete told Al “Hey Al, Don’t forget where we parked the damn thing. I don’t want to have to hunt around for the CSM, 6-months for now. Well gentlemen lets get ready to land this bird.” Pete hung the talisman inside the LLV-LT given to him by the widows and told Houston they were ready to un-dock and start the descent. Al helped Gordon get the IMAX camera ready to start filming. For Al and Gordon their only role for the landing was to stay out of the way of Pete and Ed. Compared to the earlier barebones LM the LLV-LT had a HUD display to show Pete critical information as he was landing. Even when the crew slipped around the far side of the Moon there was no loss of signal. The satellites at EML-1 and EML-2 allowed a constant link back to Houston. Pete backed away the LLV-LT from the CSM and then Houston remotely fired the CSM SPS for a short burn to raise it’s orbit. This maneuver verified that Houston had effective control of the CSM. After the CSM burn, Pete was cleared to begin powered descent. The Apollo Guidance computer took over and right on time the descent RL-10 engines started firing and the very quickly the lunar lander was dropping it’s altitude. The much larger LLV also featured a more powerful landing radar and by the time they dropped below 100,000 feet the radar had already picked up the surface and the guidance computer also picked up the beacon from the LESA base already on the surface. Pete carefully monitored the guidance computer as the LLV continued dropping towards the surface. He wanted to fly the LLV but Pete had been forced to admit though simulator sessions, the guidance computer was more accurate than him and would better fly a trajectory that would minimize propellant usage. A argument had ensued between the astronauts and the mission planners if the guidance computer should be used all the way to the surface. The argument was with the better guidance computer and beacon the pilot only needed to fly the LLV if it looked like they were off course. The mission planners had won out for the most part. If the Guidance computer was keeping the LLV on course , only below 1000 feet Pete would take-over for the computer and do the actual landing on the surface.
The LLV continued it’s automated descent and as it turned over at 4,000 feet the crew could now see the landing site for the first time out the windows. All the experience and knowledge gained from previous Apollo missions now paid off because the computer had the LLV right on target. The forward motion of the LLV was dropping off and the rate of descent was slowing. Back in Houston Lovell and Leonov watched the descent as they sat near Gene Cernan on CapCom. For Leonov who never expected to be seated in Houston Mission control during a lunar landing the experience for him was surreal. While Soviet and US control rooms shared a lot of similarities he was impressed how effectively the US control teams worked together. Cernan would be landing the LLV on the lunar surface for the Apollo-23 mission next year. He was paying close attention to how the new lunar lander performed. Compared to the first Apollo-11 landing the descent was trouble free with no computer errors and navigation deviations. A TV camera mounted on top of the LLV-LB on the lunar surface was panned over to show the LLV-LT as descended. The LLV dropped below 1,000 feet and as it continued dropping it’s forward velocity dropped to zero and Pete Conrad took over. As the LLV dropped below 500 feet lunar dust was being blown around. The LLV continued dropping and below 100 feet more dust was being picked up and blown about as the RL-10 engines neared the surface. The probes in the pad touched the surface and the contact light illuminated. From the recommendation of Cernan, Pete counted one potato and then cut the engines and the LLV-LT dropped the last several feet onto the lunar surface. The crew of Apollo-22 was now on the surface. The two Talisman’s who had been floating earlier now hung down in the ⅙ lunar gravity. Conrad radioed Houston that the crew of Apollo-22 had reached the surface.
The mission control team celebrated briefly and then got right back to work. The LLV-LT now needed to be secured and prepared for it’s long stay on the lunar surface. The solar panels slowly extended from the side of the lunar vehicle and the crew started securing the cabin. They had a busy EVA ahead. They had to unload both the MOLAB vehicle and the lunar rover. The tanks for the fuel cell in the MOLAB vehicle needed to be filled using the unused propellant from landing. They also had to load the trailer for the rover with supplies and then make there way about 1km over to the LESA base that had been waiting for them a little over a month. Once there the crew had to start assembling the rest of the solar array for the LESA Base that would be deployed on the lunar surface. However before exiting the vehicle Conrad has a small surprise for Houston. Pete liked hats, so he had some creative spacesuit engineers put together hats that could go over the Astronauts helmets on the lunar surface. So as Pete stepped out of the airlock on the LLV the TV camera showed him wearing an oversized ball cap on with a propellor on top of his helmet. As each crew member came out of the airlock each one had a different hat on over the top of their helmet. Pete claimed on the radio that this would make it easier for mission control to tell who was who on the surface.
As the crew exited the airlock and stepped onto the surface, they quickly go their bearings and started getting the LLV-LT ready to unload. The crew opened up panels on the side and deployed a sectional ramp to make unloading easier from cargo area. Ed got into the Cargo area and entered the MOLAB vehicle. He quickly powered it up on battery power and then drove it down the ramp and then parked it near the LLV-LT and he worked with Gordon to then connect hoses to the the vehicle that would fill the tanks in the vehicle with Liquid Oxygen and Liquid Hydrogen. While this was going on Al and Pete had started working in the cargo area getting the lunar rover deployed and then the trailer assembled. All the practice on Earth was paying off and within a couple of hours the crew had the Lunar Rover deployed and the trailer also deployed and loaded with over 2 tons of solar panels and equipment. There was still over 8 tons of equipment and supplies still in the LLV-LT. With Pete and Al sitting in the LRV and Ed and Gordon riding on the back of the trailer Pete started driving toward the LESA base about 1 km away. They could see the Soviet LK-lander and LK-Habitat. The grim task of investigating the LK-Habitat would be for another EVA. The four man crew spent the next 3-hours getting the solar panels they brought assembled and laid out on the lunar surface in a simple 51 degree lean to arrangement. The actual spot had been picked out in advance about 100 meters from the LESA Base. The power control unit was set up and then cabling was run back to the LESA Base. The crew looked everything over and then the power control unit was turned on and the Houston was able to confirm that the base was receiving the power now. They would have another EVA to set up more panels but after almost 5+ hours they were ready to go in. When the solar system install was finished the total power output would be over 50kw. For the last task they got out the American flag and planted it on the surface and took turns taking photos. Al setup the camera with a timer and they even managed to get a group photo with all 4 astronauts. The astronauts then got ready to go inside the LESA base for the first time.
Gordon and Ed went into the LESA base first and cycled through the airlock while Pete and Al waited on the surface. Once they entered the Equipment Room they started using a powerful vacuum on each other’s spacesuits. Houston turned on the TV camera that was mounted inside the Equipment room so they could observe how the process worked. The use of Camera’s inside the equipment room had started a big discussion between the Astronauts and NASA scientists. Originally scientist wanted to have cameras mounted all over the interior of the LESA base so scientists could study how the crew interacted and the functionality of the LESA base. When Pete heard about this he had a few choice words for those scientists. The TV cameras had been eliminated from the 2nd floor living area and cameras would be on the 1st floor only. After about 30 minutes Gordon and Ed had gotten out of their spacesuits and had placed them in the appropriate storage lockers. They then exited the equipment room so Pete and Al could enter. In theory they could have stayed in the room but they knew how much dust that Pete and Al would bring in and the room was not that big. Pete and Al finally entered the LESA base and repeated the process. A while later the crew entered the 2nd floor living area and activated the communication terminal to have a short debrief with Houston. The crew was tired and hungry, they had a very busy day and had been going since waking up in lunar orbit this morning over 12-hours earlier. While they talked with Houston, Ed and Gordon where getting dinner ready. For a first a crew would be able to have a hot meal on the surface. The previous Lunar Module didn’t have hot water or even a hot plate to warm a meal. The crew sat around the wardroom table with a speakerphone in the center and went over the EVA with Houston as they ate. Everyone knew that 6-months from now the crew really wouldn’t remember how things went and lessons learned so it was important to try and capture important information as possible during these debriefs. This would mean constant debriefs throughout the mission. After dinner and with debrief over, the crew finally had time to relax. Conrad went looking for the butter cookies and the rest of the crew spent some time relaxing except for Ed. While in theory Houston could remotely monitor every LESA base system remotely, the base functioning was still Ed’s responsibility and he took the time to go over the LLV and double check that all systems where functioning correctly for himself. Al planted himself in front of a window and was sketching the lunar surface and Gordon started reading a book out of the library. As the crew prepared to go to sleep they found a surprise in each of their bunks. The backup crew had placed in each bunk several playboys and a bottle of lube with a note, “For those long lunar nights”. Before signing off for the night, Pete gave Houston a cryptic message that the bottle was too small. When asked to clarify by CapCom Astronaut Story Musgrave he told him to ask the backup crew for further details.
The crew was awoken the next day to the hit Carl Douglas song “Kung Fu Fighting”. Pete who preferred country music, rolled quickly out of bed and went looking for the volume control to turn that damn music down. The crew quickly settled down and started to prepare breakfast. Ed went downstairs and retrieved the EVA plan from the teletype in the laboratory room. It was a standing agreement between the crew and Houston, if possible all teletype messages sent while the crew was sleeping would be sent to the machine in the laboratory so they didn’t have to hear the teletype machine that was upstairs chattering away. While Al prepared the breakfast and made coffee; Ed, Gordon and Pete started going over the EVA plan. They knew that the plan today was for all four to go out again and finish the Solar Panel assembly if possible and there was surprise for Pete and Al. If the solar panel assembly stayed on the schedule NASA wanted them to check out the LK-Habitat and verify access and the condition of the door, before the planned memorial EVA tomorrow. The crew after breakfast made use of the bathroom and washed up and then went downstairs to get ready. Ed and Gordon got suited up first as Pete and Al helped them and they then cycled through the airlock to get to work and then it was Pete and Al turns to get suited up and go outside. The crew over the next 5-hours worked together to get the solar panels setup and the array working at full power. The LESA power plant now had enough excess power to run the LESA base at full power and start taking the water generated by the fuel cell and turning it back into LOX and LH2. Ed and Gordon would go back inside while Pete and Al went over to the LK-Habitat. They sat down in the lunar rover and Pete immediately grabbed the joystick to make the LRV go forward and nothing happened.
“What the hell Al, this damn thing is already broken”
“Pete it doesn’t go go while plugged in, remember the briefing on that safety feature?”
“Oh crap, I am a idiot.” Pete got out, unplugged the LRV and then sat back down.
“Lets try this again Al.”
This time the LRV moved forward and Pete quickly covered the 1.5 km distance to the LK-Habitat. Pete parked close by and then Al and him dismounted. Unlike the old LRV they could just park and go. The LRV had both a omni directional antenna and a small directional antenna. While the LRV was within line of sight of the LESA base the omni directional antenna would feed the signal the to the LESA base which then relayed it up to a satellite at EML-1 and then the signal was relayed to Earth. If the LESA base was not visible they would need to position the small antenna to point at EML-1. Houston used the TV camera mounted on the LRV to pan over the LK-Habitat. Pete quickly spotted a small motorcycle sitting outside and moved over to investigate it closer. The battery was dead but he bet that he could probably figure out a way to charge it. That would have to wait for later. Al and Pete moved around the LK-Habitat and documented the condition. Pete tried out the ladder and verified that it was solid. Houston radioed to them that they wanted Pete to climb up the ladder and check to see if the door would open but he wasn’t to enter. Houston also informed them that they were moving the conversation over to a encrypted channel. Al got the flashlight out of the LRV toolkit and handed it to Pete. Pete clipped the flashlight to his suit and climbed up the ladder. With the limited access of the hatch Pete didn’t want to use the normal Lighting attachment for the space suit, so a flashlight would do. Originally the NASA engineers wanted to design a whole new light attachment that Pete could use for this purpose. Instead Pete figured out a simple attachment with some clips and a flashlight that would work, much to some engineers disappointment. Pete wasn’t really looking forward to looking inside the base. In training he has said it was no big deal dealing with the bodies inside but as the launch date got closer he was still uneasy. Pete reached the top of the ladder and climbed onto the porch. He moved over and turned the latch and the door opened fairly easily. He got down on one knee and shined the flashlight inside. He didn’t see any major obstructions inside. He could see what must be Makarov who was laying on the floor partially in a spacesuit. He was startled by a second to see Papovich with what looked like a emergency breathing mask on and that he was over by the controls for the Habitat. It looked like as he was trying to re-pressurize the habitat but he had collapsed. The emergency breathing mask wasn’t built to operate in a vacuum and he wouldn’t have lasted long with just a mask. However it looked like he fought to survive and save himself and his fellow crewman to the very end. Pete had to salute that type of dedication. He radioed back to Houston everything he was seeing.
The condition of Papovich was surprising to NASA and the Soviet’s. Did Papovich fix the leak before collapsing and this was why he was over at the controls to re-pressurize? They asked Pete to look further inside and see if he could see the suspect valve that the Soviet’s believed had failed. Pete looked inside and he could see the value but it looked like a rock was shoved into the valve. Pete chuckled to himself, that was quick thinking. It looked like Papovich shoved a moon rock into the valve to try to seal the leak as best he could. Houston told Pete that Al that this was enough work for the day and they could head back to the LESA base. Pete and Al got back into the rover and drove back to the base. They entered the LESA base and got ready to eat and relax after another long day. After the debriefing the crew had time to sit around the wardroom table and enjoying the spaghetti and meatballs that Al had heated up for dinner. The wet pack meals that they enjoyed on the LESA base where a world of difference from the squeezable toothpaste meals from Gemini and the dehydrated meals from earlier Apollo missions. After dinner the crew spent some time playing poker and then it was time to get some sleep before the next day’s EVA. The constant sunshine was a little confusing to their bodies but it helped when they closed the shutters before heading to bed. That night Al Bean slept fitfully as he thought about the upcoming EVA.
My apologises for the slower pace of writing. I was hoping to get back to postings once a week but real life keeps interferring.
The morning sun slowly rose over Launch Complex 39 at Cape Canaveral on October 13, 1975. The massive Saturn-VB SA-606 waited patiently on pad LC-39C for permission to release the power of all the propellant that rested in its tanks and solid boosters. The rocket continually vented gas as the Cryogenic propellant boiled off. Sheets of ice clung the outside of the rocket from the extreme cold of the Liquid Hydrogen that was inside. The four man Apollo-22 crew was waiting inside the Apollo Block-IV Command Module that rested on very top of the 10,000+ ton rocket. Right on time at 0810 local time the rocket ignited and the crew was hurled into the sky on top of the world’s most powerful rocket. Watching the launch was a delegation from the Soviet Union including Cosmonauts, Soviet officials and the two widows of the Zvezda-2 crew. The previous day Marina Popovich and Valentina Makarov, had visited the Apollo-22 crew. The widows handed pete conrad a talisman that as per Soviet space tradition would serve as a visual indicator when the spacecraft had reached orbit. The crew was also handed carnations that would be left with their husbands on the lunar surface. The crew spent time talking with the widows through interpreters. Marina and Valentina wished the crew a safe journey and thanked them for their efforts with their husbands remains. Marina Popovich was a test pilot and Lt-Colonel in the Soviet Air Force. Conrad and Popovich spent several minutes talking about flying. Pete was surprised to hear that she held multiple aviation world records on different types of aircraft. The widow’s wished the crew a safe journey before leaving the crew quarters.
As the Soviet Delegation watched the Saturn-VB liftoff they were stunned by the noise given off from the rocket as it lifted off from the pad and climbed rapidly into the sky. After Apollo-22 reached it’s temporary 100 mile parking orbit the crew got busy with the complicated choreography of making the spacecraft ready for TLI (Trans-Lunar-Injection). Most of the work fell on Command Module Pilot Al Bean and he hurried to take star sightings, verify the navigation platform and worked to check out the CSM before the TLI burn. The rest of the crew tried to stay out of the way as Bean floated back and forth. The rookie astronauts Ed Mitchell and Gordon Swann where crowding around the windows to view the Earth below. This would be their only chance to view the Earth from orbit. Soon the crew got back into their seats and buckled themselves back in ready for the TLI burn. The S-IVC stage ignited for a second time and burned for almost 6 minutes as another 10,200 ft/s of velocity was added to Apollo-Stack. With the burn completed Al Bean moved over to the commander’s position. He then completed the transposition and docking while the rest of the crew got out of their crew launch suits. The CSM was now hard-docked to the Multi-Mission module that sat on top of the LLV-LT. Using thrusters Al released the Apollo Stack from the S-IVC and backed away from 3rd stage. Now Al could finally relax and get out of his spacesuit. Shortly after the hatch was opened to the Multi-Mission module and all the crew launch suits could now be stowed away. The crew could finally settle down for their first meal in space. For the next 3-days the crew relaxed and watched the Earth get smaller in the window. Because of how they approached the Moon they wouldn’t see it until right before entry into lunar orbit. On October 16, the Apollo-22 crew prepared to go behind the moon. The Apollo-Centaur would ignite on the Far-side of the Moon to slow them down by almost 3,000 fps which would be enough to enter into lunar orbit. Unlike every other previous lunar mission the satellite at EML-2 allowed continuous communication as the spacecraft passed behind the Moon. The Apollo-Centaur on the bottom of the LLV-LT ignited right on time and slowed the spacecraft enough so it would be captured by the Moons gravity. The Apollo-22 crew had entered Lunar Orbit.
The following day the crew got into their A8L lunar space suits and prepared the Apollo CSM for it’s stay in Lunar orbit un-manned. As the crew entered the LLV-LT, Pete told Al “Hey Al, Don’t forget where we parked the damn thing. I don’t want to have to hunt around for the CSM, 6-months for now. Well gentlemen lets get ready to land this bird.” Pete hung the talisman inside the LLV-LT given to him by the widows and told Houston they were ready to un-dock and start the descent. Al helped Gordon get the IMAX camera ready to start filming. For Al and Gordon their only role for the landing was to stay out of the way of Pete and Ed. Compared to the earlier barebones LM the LLV-LT had a HUD display to show Pete critical information as he was landing. Even when the crew slipped around the far side of the Moon there was no loss of signal. The satellites at EML-1 and EML-2 allowed a constant link back to Houston. Pete backed away the LLV-LT from the CSM and then Houston remotely fired the CSM SPS for a short burn to raise it’s orbit. This maneuver verified that Houston had effective control of the CSM. After the CSM burn, Pete was cleared to begin powered descent. The Apollo Guidance computer took over and right on time the descent RL-10 engines started firing and the very quickly the lunar lander was dropping it’s altitude. The much larger LLV also featured a more powerful landing radar and by the time they dropped below 100,000 feet the radar had already picked up the surface and the guidance computer also picked up the beacon from the LESA base already on the surface. Pete carefully monitored the guidance computer as the LLV continued dropping towards the surface. He wanted to fly the LLV but Pete had been forced to admit though simulator sessions, the guidance computer was more accurate than him and would better fly a trajectory that would minimize propellant usage. A argument had ensued between the astronauts and the mission planners if the guidance computer should be used all the way to the surface. The argument was with the better guidance computer and beacon the pilot only needed to fly the LLV if it looked like they were off course. The mission planners had won out for the most part. If the Guidance computer was keeping the LLV on course , only below 1000 feet Pete would take-over for the computer and do the actual landing on the surface.
The LLV continued it’s automated descent and as it turned over at 4,000 feet the crew could now see the landing site for the first time out the windows. All the experience and knowledge gained from previous Apollo missions now paid off because the computer had the LLV right on target. The forward motion of the LLV was dropping off and the rate of descent was slowing. Back in Houston Lovell and Leonov watched the descent as they sat near Gene Cernan on CapCom. For Leonov who never expected to be seated in Houston Mission control during a lunar landing the experience for him was surreal. While Soviet and US control rooms shared a lot of similarities he was impressed how effectively the US control teams worked together. Cernan would be landing the LLV on the lunar surface for the Apollo-23 mission next year. He was paying close attention to how the new lunar lander performed. Compared to the first Apollo-11 landing the descent was trouble free with no computer errors and navigation deviations. A TV camera mounted on top of the LLV-LB on the lunar surface was panned over to show the LLV-LT as descended. The LLV dropped below 1,000 feet and as it continued dropping it’s forward velocity dropped to zero and Pete Conrad took over. As the LLV dropped below 500 feet lunar dust was being blown around. The LLV continued dropping and below 100 feet more dust was being picked up and blown about as the RL-10 engines neared the surface. The probes in the pad touched the surface and the contact light illuminated. From the recommendation of Cernan, Pete counted one potato and then cut the engines and the LLV-LT dropped the last several feet onto the lunar surface. The crew of Apollo-22 was now on the surface. The two Talisman’s who had been floating earlier now hung down in the ⅙ lunar gravity. Conrad radioed Houston that the crew of Apollo-22 had reached the surface.
The mission control team celebrated briefly and then got right back to work. The LLV-LT now needed to be secured and prepared for it’s long stay on the lunar surface. The solar panels slowly extended from the side of the lunar vehicle and the crew started securing the cabin. They had a busy EVA ahead. They had to unload both the MOLAB vehicle and the lunar rover. The tanks for the fuel cell in the MOLAB vehicle needed to be filled using the unused propellant from landing. They also had to load the trailer for the rover with supplies and then make there way about 1km over to the LESA base that had been waiting for them a little over a month. Once there the crew had to start assembling the rest of the solar array for the LESA Base that would be deployed on the lunar surface. However before exiting the vehicle Conrad has a small surprise for Houston. Pete liked hats, so he had some creative spacesuit engineers put together hats that could go over the Astronauts helmets on the lunar surface. So as Pete stepped out of the airlock on the LLV the TV camera showed him wearing an oversized ball cap on with a propellor on top of his helmet. As each crew member came out of the airlock each one had a different hat on over the top of their helmet. Pete claimed on the radio that this would make it easier for mission control to tell who was who on the surface.
As the crew exited the airlock and stepped onto the surface, they quickly go their bearings and started getting the LLV-LT ready to unload. The crew opened up panels on the side and deployed a sectional ramp to make unloading easier from cargo area. Ed got into the Cargo area and entered the MOLAB vehicle. He quickly powered it up on battery power and then drove it down the ramp and then parked it near the LLV-LT and he worked with Gordon to then connect hoses to the the vehicle that would fill the tanks in the vehicle with Liquid Oxygen and Liquid Hydrogen. While this was going on Al and Pete had started working in the cargo area getting the lunar rover deployed and then the trailer assembled. All the practice on Earth was paying off and within a couple of hours the crew had the Lunar Rover deployed and the trailer also deployed and loaded with over 2 tons of solar panels and equipment. There was still over 8 tons of equipment and supplies still in the LLV-LT. With Pete and Al sitting in the LRV and Ed and Gordon riding on the back of the trailer Pete started driving toward the LESA base about 1 km away. They could see the Soviet LK-lander and LK-Habitat. The grim task of investigating the LK-Habitat would be for another EVA. The four man crew spent the next 3-hours getting the solar panels they brought assembled and laid out on the lunar surface in a simple 51 degree lean to arrangement. The actual spot had been picked out in advance about 100 meters from the LESA Base. The power control unit was set up and then cabling was run back to the LESA Base. The crew looked everything over and then the power control unit was turned on and the Houston was able to confirm that the base was receiving the power now. They would have another EVA to set up more panels but after almost 5+ hours they were ready to go in. When the solar system install was finished the total power output would be over 50kw. For the last task they got out the American flag and planted it on the surface and took turns taking photos. Al setup the camera with a timer and they even managed to get a group photo with all 4 astronauts. The astronauts then got ready to go inside the LESA base for the first time.
Gordon and Ed went into the LESA base first and cycled through the airlock while Pete and Al waited on the surface. Once they entered the Equipment Room they started using a powerful vacuum on each other’s spacesuits. Houston turned on the TV camera that was mounted inside the Equipment room so they could observe how the process worked. The use of Camera’s inside the equipment room had started a big discussion between the Astronauts and NASA scientists. Originally scientist wanted to have cameras mounted all over the interior of the LESA base so scientists could study how the crew interacted and the functionality of the LESA base. When Pete heard about this he had a few choice words for those scientists. The TV cameras had been eliminated from the 2nd floor living area and cameras would be on the 1st floor only. After about 30 minutes Gordon and Ed had gotten out of their spacesuits and had placed them in the appropriate storage lockers. They then exited the equipment room so Pete and Al could enter. In theory they could have stayed in the room but they knew how much dust that Pete and Al would bring in and the room was not that big. Pete and Al finally entered the LESA base and repeated the process. A while later the crew entered the 2nd floor living area and activated the communication terminal to have a short debrief with Houston. The crew was tired and hungry, they had a very busy day and had been going since waking up in lunar orbit this morning over 12-hours earlier. While they talked with Houston, Ed and Gordon where getting dinner ready. For a first a crew would be able to have a hot meal on the surface. The previous Lunar Module didn’t have hot water or even a hot plate to warm a meal. The crew sat around the wardroom table with a speakerphone in the center and went over the EVA with Houston as they ate. Everyone knew that 6-months from now the crew really wouldn’t remember how things went and lessons learned so it was important to try and capture important information as possible during these debriefs. This would mean constant debriefs throughout the mission. After dinner and with debrief over, the crew finally had time to relax. Conrad went looking for the butter cookies and the rest of the crew spent some time relaxing except for Ed. While in theory Houston could remotely monitor every LESA base system remotely, the base functioning was still Ed’s responsibility and he took the time to go over the LLV and double check that all systems where functioning correctly for himself. Al planted himself in front of a window and was sketching the lunar surface and Gordon started reading a book out of the library. As the crew prepared to go to sleep they found a surprise in each of their bunks. The backup crew had placed in each bunk several playboys and a bottle of lube with a note, “For those long lunar nights”. Before signing off for the night, Pete gave Houston a cryptic message that the bottle was too small. When asked to clarify by CapCom Astronaut Story Musgrave he told him to ask the backup crew for further details.
The crew was awoken the next day to the hit Carl Douglas song “Kung Fu Fighting”. Pete who preferred country music, rolled quickly out of bed and went looking for the volume control to turn that damn music down. The crew quickly settled down and started to prepare breakfast. Ed went downstairs and retrieved the EVA plan from the teletype in the laboratory room. It was a standing agreement between the crew and Houston, if possible all teletype messages sent while the crew was sleeping would be sent to the machine in the laboratory so they didn’t have to hear the teletype machine that was upstairs chattering away. While Al prepared the breakfast and made coffee; Ed, Gordon and Pete started going over the EVA plan. They knew that the plan today was for all four to go out again and finish the Solar Panel assembly if possible and there was surprise for Pete and Al. If the solar panel assembly stayed on the schedule NASA wanted them to check out the LK-Habitat and verify access and the condition of the door, before the planned memorial EVA tomorrow. The crew after breakfast made use of the bathroom and washed up and then went downstairs to get ready. Ed and Gordon got suited up first as Pete and Al helped them and they then cycled through the airlock to get to work and then it was Pete and Al turns to get suited up and go outside. The crew over the next 5-hours worked together to get the solar panels setup and the array working at full power. The LESA power plant now had enough excess power to run the LESA base at full power and start taking the water generated by the fuel cell and turning it back into LOX and LH2. Ed and Gordon would go back inside while Pete and Al went over to the LK-Habitat. They sat down in the lunar rover and Pete immediately grabbed the joystick to make the LRV go forward and nothing happened.
“What the hell Al, this damn thing is already broken”
“Pete it doesn’t go go while plugged in, remember the briefing on that safety feature?”
“Oh crap, I am a idiot.” Pete got out, unplugged the LRV and then sat back down.
“Lets try this again Al.”
This time the LRV moved forward and Pete quickly covered the 1.5 km distance to the LK-Habitat. Pete parked close by and then Al and him dismounted. Unlike the old LRV they could just park and go. The LRV had both a omni directional antenna and a small directional antenna. While the LRV was within line of sight of the LESA base the omni directional antenna would feed the signal the to the LESA base which then relayed it up to a satellite at EML-1 and then the signal was relayed to Earth. If the LESA base was not visible they would need to position the small antenna to point at EML-1. Houston used the TV camera mounted on the LRV to pan over the LK-Habitat. Pete quickly spotted a small motorcycle sitting outside and moved over to investigate it closer. The battery was dead but he bet that he could probably figure out a way to charge it. That would have to wait for later. Al and Pete moved around the LK-Habitat and documented the condition. Pete tried out the ladder and verified that it was solid. Houston radioed to them that they wanted Pete to climb up the ladder and check to see if the door would open but he wasn’t to enter. Houston also informed them that they were moving the conversation over to a encrypted channel. Al got the flashlight out of the LRV toolkit and handed it to Pete. Pete clipped the flashlight to his suit and climbed up the ladder. With the limited access of the hatch Pete didn’t want to use the normal Lighting attachment for the space suit, so a flashlight would do. Originally the NASA engineers wanted to design a whole new light attachment that Pete could use for this purpose. Instead Pete figured out a simple attachment with some clips and a flashlight that would work, much to some engineers disappointment. Pete wasn’t really looking forward to looking inside the base. In training he has said it was no big deal dealing with the bodies inside but as the launch date got closer he was still uneasy. Pete reached the top of the ladder and climbed onto the porch. He moved over and turned the latch and the door opened fairly easily. He got down on one knee and shined the flashlight inside. He didn’t see any major obstructions inside. He could see what must be Makarov who was laying on the floor partially in a spacesuit. He was startled by a second to see Papovich with what looked like a emergency breathing mask on and that he was over by the controls for the Habitat. It looked like as he was trying to re-pressurize the habitat but he had collapsed. The emergency breathing mask wasn’t built to operate in a vacuum and he wouldn’t have lasted long with just a mask. However it looked like he fought to survive and save himself and his fellow crewman to the very end. Pete had to salute that type of dedication. He radioed back to Houston everything he was seeing.
The condition of Papovich was surprising to NASA and the Soviet’s. Did Papovich fix the leak before collapsing and this was why he was over at the controls to re-pressurize? They asked Pete to look further inside and see if he could see the suspect valve that the Soviet’s believed had failed. Pete looked inside and he could see the value but it looked like a rock was shoved into the valve. Pete chuckled to himself, that was quick thinking. It looked like Papovich shoved a moon rock into the valve to try to seal the leak as best he could. Houston told Pete that Al that this was enough work for the day and they could head back to the LESA base. Pete and Al got back into the rover and drove back to the base. They entered the LESA base and got ready to eat and relax after another long day. After the debriefing the crew had time to sit around the wardroom table and enjoying the spaghetti and meatballs that Al had heated up for dinner. The wet pack meals that they enjoyed on the LESA base where a world of difference from the squeezable toothpaste meals from Gemini and the dehydrated meals from earlier Apollo missions. After dinner the crew spent some time playing poker and then it was time to get some sleep before the next day’s EVA. The constant sunshine was a little confusing to their bodies but it helped when they closed the shutters before heading to bed. That night Al Bean slept fitfully as he thought about the upcoming EVA.
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Good update, and liking the piece showing how the LESA Base is capable of supporting proper hot meals and other small luxuries, which would be of immense aid to the crew morale.
A small typo in the second-to-last sentence, where it looks as if there's a few words missing there: The constant sunshine was a little confusing to their bodies but it [*] when they closed the shutters over the windows before bed.
From what I read, it looks as if they tried to use the lunar rocks to clog the valve shut before re-pressurising the LK Habitat, collapsing before it could be completed, and dying as a result. Truly a Space First that nobody wants...
A small typo in the second-to-last sentence, where it looks as if there's a few words missing there: The constant sunshine was a little confusing to their bodies but it [*] when they closed the shutters over the windows before bed.
From what I read, it looks as if they tried to use the lunar rocks to clog the valve shut before re-pressurising the LK Habitat, collapsing before it could be completed, and dying as a result. Truly a Space First that nobody wants...
Great update.
I hope that Pete won't have PTSD from view/exploring the Soviet grave site.
The first EVA does seem kind of long with not just getting ready to transport equipment to the hab but also setting up part of the solar panels.
I wonder how the debriefing on the ground would be for the "contrabands" on-board
I hope that Pete won't have PTSD from view/exploring the Soviet grave site.
The first EVA does seem kind of long with not just getting ready to transport equipment to the hab but also setting up part of the solar panels.
I wonder how the debriefing on the ground would be for the "contrabands" on-board
Thank you More luxuries will be talked about in the next part on the LESA base. When you spending 6-months on the surface on the Moon, small luxuries like good food can go a long ways.
Thanks for spotting the typo. I have to proof-read myself which is difficult. Yes the Soviet’s had a space first that nobody wants.
Thank you. The next section has more on the Soviet Base.
Thank you
The first EVA is long but you have to remember that J missions like Apollo-17 landed and went right into a 7-hour long EVA after landing.
As far as contra-band, it isn’t brought up unless the crew brings it up. Multiple different contra-band items went up some from the backup crews and some from the hardware manufacturers.
It isn’t until the Space Shuttle that NASA Astronaut Corps really started getting more Politically Correct.
Very good new update , Now they will perform the Ritual for the soviets cosmonauts that died . maybe bury them . Lets see what amazing discoveries will they make during their 6 months mission on the Moon . Cant hardly wait for the next part .
. Cant hardly wait for the next part .