alternatehistory.com
Apollo 8 - part 1
The Apollo 8 decision, August 1968
Friday August 9, 1968
MARILYN, WE ARE GOING TO THE MOON !
The truth hit Judy Wyatt like an evidence. She already knew. She knew it all the time. She had been a silent witness of history.
That day the clock marked 8:45 in the morning when George Low, head of the Apollo program office left his suite, a large paneled office with space for a conference table and windows looking out over Clear Lake to the east of the Manned Spacecraft Center, Houston, Texas.
Houston was at the heart of NASA and the Apollo program; and between flights, Houston center of gravity was there, Building 2, the nine-story headquarters building at the south end of the complex. The higher the floor, the higher the position.
Thus when George Low had became top manager of the Apollo Office, taking a demotion from his old position as deputy director of the center, his office shifted from the top floor, the ninth, down to the seventh. And he had the best team of secretaries with him – Marylin Bockting and Judy Wyatt and many others. It was the same as with any large business - the bosses came and went, but the good executive secretaries lasted forever.
Marylin Bockting had held her secretarial job at the Manned Spaceflight Center for many years, had served plenty of NASA managers, and if the truth were known she probably had as good a feel for what was going on within the Apollo program as did engineers in the adjacent office.
"There had been a lot of 007s over the last weeks," Wyatt said. "so I knew that something important was bound to happen. But you knew the exact details all the time !"
Marylin Bockting just smiled. The so-called 007s were internal memos shrouded in secrecy. Only George Low and his secretary would know the contains.
Perhaps one day I will reveal the exact process by what the first men went around the Moon. I could add that my boss George Low was a James Bond fan. I felt like Monneypenny, destroying classified memos that shall never leak to the outside world.
"Yes, they want to go the Moon as soon as possible, Judy. Perhaps you already know that from the 007s Low and Kraft and Slayton exchanged over the last three months. What's new is that the mission will happen earlier, before the end of this year, and without any lunar module, since the thing's not ready."
Meanwhile George Low walked from his office up the two flights of stairs to Bob Gilruth' s office. This is probably the most important day of my life Low thought as he shook hand of Gilruth. They briefly spoke behind closed doors. Low and Robert Gilruth then met with director of flight operations Chris Kraft. And Low dropped the bombshell.
"Gentleman, we should turn Apollo 8 into a lunar orbit mission. It’s now or never." To this point Apollo 8 had been an Earth orbit mission. NASA was still recovering from the fire that had killed astronauts White, Chaffee and Grissom a day of January 1967.
Gilruth was highly enthusiastic. So was Kraft.
At 9:30 a.m. Low, Gilruth and Kraft met astronaut boss Donald “Deke” Slayton, and they unanimously decided to seek support from legendary Wernher von Braun and Apollo Program Director Samuel Phillips. From there the news spread; all across the United States phones were ringing, with secretaries handling the communications.
Gilruth called von Braun and, after briefly outlining the plan, asked if they could meet in Huntsville, Alabama, that afternoon.
Low called Phillips, who was at the Kennedy Spaceflight Center, Florida, and asked whether he and KSC Director Kurt Debus could participate in the meeting.
And on, and on, all across the American nation.
The meeting was set up for 2:30.
Five hours later, Low entered Marshall Spaceflight Center auditorium. Key people in the Apollo program were all there. They were Werner Von Braun, Eberhard Rees, Lee James, Ludie Richard, Sam Phillips and George Hage, Kurt Debus and Rocco Petrone, Gilruth, Kraft, Slayton - for seven years these men had devoted their lives to Kennedy great endeavour, landing a man on the Moon before the decade was out.
George Low opened the meeting.
"Yes, we can fly a lunar orbit mission within six months. The hardware is ready. This is technically feasible if Apollo 7 proves successful. If not, well, Apollo 8 will simply orbit Earth as planned. Chris ?"
Kraft said "I'm with George. Let me insist on the fact that we have to orbit the moon, not simply flyby it. This way we strengthen the case for a lunar Apollo 8; the crew will snap pictures of future landing sites for a day. Sam, a word about Kennedy Space Center ?"
Sam Phillips "I'm go. I can't see any obstacle to launch before December 1"
Neither Marshall engineers found any difficulties.
Then Bob Gilruth just said " I'm go, to. We only need to look at the differences between spacecraft 103 and 106 and find a substitute for the Lunar Module. A big ballast heavy enough to reassure the Saturn guidance system."
“A ballast ?” George Low asked
“Yeah, we need a mass close enough from a Lunar Module. The lunar module weights 15 tons and stands at the tip of the 300 feet long Saturn. With the pogo that happened with AS-502, we have to be careful with the rocket weight balance. So we need some ballast to be placed below the 30 tons, fully-fueled Apollo CSM.”
“Ok.” All of suden George Low had an idea. An idea that was straight out of a James Bond movie he was fan of. Surely, there were all kind of uninteresting ballasts and dummy Lunar Modules to be carried by AS-503. But...
Low focused his attention back on the meeting and concluded it
"So technically we are go. Next step is to convince top management. Unfortunately, at this crucial moment our top management is on leave. Indeed you all know that George Mueller and Jim Webb are on their way to the UNISPACE conference in Vienna, with a stopover in London. They are out for the next two weeks !"
Mueller was head of NASA manned spaceflight office, while Webb was the agency top Administrator. Present this day was Thomas Paine, the second highest ranking manager or Deputy Administrator.
And Paine was enthusiast.
"Today Mueller and Webb attend a meeting of the British Interplanetary Society in London. After that they will go to the UNISPACE 1 conference in Vienna, staying there for a week or so. We can't wait for them to return; the agenda is too tight. I suggest we ask them straight, then that we meet a second time in Washington next week to discuss the result. August 14 would then be decision day. Sam ?"
Sam Philips answered "Well, if we agree I will then go to Vienna and discuss the plan with them."
Low day was not over. He had another meeting later in the evening - to find a ballast to be substituted to the Lunar Module and ensure North American Apollo moonship was ready. A ballast ? – he was haunted with a truly outlandish idea - but he had to check first whether that was feasible or not.
As far as he knew, the vehicle Low had in mind had been tantalizingly close to flight capability when it was canceled the year before. At that time, two of the planned five flight units were close to completion. In fact, the first unit was to begin vibration/acoustic testing at the Manned Spaceflight Center in Houston on September 15, 1967. Low knew they were in storage – they had not been destroyed, not yet.
George M. Low
Friday August 9, 1968
MARILYN, WE ARE GOING TO THE MOON !
The truth hit Judy Wyatt like an evidence. She already knew. She knew it all the time. She had been a silent witness of history.
That day the clock marked 8:45 in the morning when George Low, head of the Apollo program office left his suite, a large paneled office with space for a conference table and windows looking out over Clear Lake to the east of the Manned Spacecraft Center, Houston, Texas.
Houston was at the heart of NASA and the Apollo program; and between flights, Houston center of gravity was there, Building 2, the nine-story headquarters building at the south end of the complex. The higher the floor, the higher the position.
Thus when George Low had became top manager of the Apollo Office, taking a demotion from his old position as deputy director of the center, his office shifted from the top floor, the ninth, down to the seventh. And he had the best team of secretaries with him – Marylin Bockting and Judy Wyatt and many others. It was the same as with any large business - the bosses came and went, but the good executive secretaries lasted forever.
Marylin Bockting had held her secretarial job at the Manned Spaceflight Center for many years, had served plenty of NASA managers, and if the truth were known she probably had as good a feel for what was going on within the Apollo program as did engineers in the adjacent office.
"There had been a lot of 007s over the last weeks," Wyatt said. "so I knew that something important was bound to happen. But you knew the exact details all the time !"
Marylin Bockting just smiled. The so-called 007s were internal memos shrouded in secrecy. Only George Low and his secretary would know the contains.
Perhaps one day I will reveal the exact process by what the first men went around the Moon. I could add that my boss George Low was a James Bond fan. I felt like Monneypenny, destroying classified memos that shall never leak to the outside world.
"Yes, they want to go the Moon as soon as possible, Judy. Perhaps you already know that from the 007s Low and Kraft and Slayton exchanged over the last three months. What's new is that the mission will happen earlier, before the end of this year, and without any lunar module, since the thing's not ready."
Meanwhile George Low walked from his office up the two flights of stairs to Bob Gilruth' s office. This is probably the most important day of my life Low thought as he shook hand of Gilruth. They briefly spoke behind closed doors. Low and Robert Gilruth then met with director of flight operations Chris Kraft. And Low dropped the bombshell.
"Gentleman, we should turn Apollo 8 into a lunar orbit mission. It’s now or never." To this point Apollo 8 had been an Earth orbit mission. NASA was still recovering from the fire that had killed astronauts White, Chaffee and Grissom a day of January 1967.
Gilruth was highly enthusiastic. So was Kraft.
At 9:30 a.m. Low, Gilruth and Kraft met astronaut boss Donald “Deke” Slayton, and they unanimously decided to seek support from legendary Wernher von Braun and Apollo Program Director Samuel Phillips. From there the news spread; all across the United States phones were ringing, with secretaries handling the communications.
Gilruth called von Braun and, after briefly outlining the plan, asked if they could meet in Huntsville, Alabama, that afternoon.
Low called Phillips, who was at the Kennedy Spaceflight Center, Florida, and asked whether he and KSC Director Kurt Debus could participate in the meeting.
And on, and on, all across the American nation.
The meeting was set up for 2:30.
Five hours later, Low entered Marshall Spaceflight Center auditorium. Key people in the Apollo program were all there. They were Werner Von Braun, Eberhard Rees, Lee James, Ludie Richard, Sam Phillips and George Hage, Kurt Debus and Rocco Petrone, Gilruth, Kraft, Slayton - for seven years these men had devoted their lives to Kennedy great endeavour, landing a man on the Moon before the decade was out.
George Low opened the meeting.
"Yes, we can fly a lunar orbit mission within six months. The hardware is ready. This is technically feasible if Apollo 7 proves successful. If not, well, Apollo 8 will simply orbit Earth as planned. Chris ?"
Kraft said "I'm with George. Let me insist on the fact that we have to orbit the moon, not simply flyby it. This way we strengthen the case for a lunar Apollo 8; the crew will snap pictures of future landing sites for a day. Sam, a word about Kennedy Space Center ?"
Sam Phillips "I'm go. I can't see any obstacle to launch before December 1"
Neither Marshall engineers found any difficulties.
Then Bob Gilruth just said " I'm go, to. We only need to look at the differences between spacecraft 103 and 106 and find a substitute for the Lunar Module. A big ballast heavy enough to reassure the Saturn guidance system."
“A ballast ?” George Low asked
“Yeah, we need a mass close enough from a Lunar Module. The lunar module weights 15 tons and stands at the tip of the 300 feet long Saturn. With the pogo that happened with AS-502, we have to be careful with the rocket weight balance. So we need some ballast to be placed below the 30 tons, fully-fueled Apollo CSM.”
“Ok.” All of suden George Low had an idea. An idea that was straight out of a James Bond movie he was fan of. Surely, there were all kind of uninteresting ballasts and dummy Lunar Modules to be carried by AS-503. But...
Low focused his attention back on the meeting and concluded it
"So technically we are go. Next step is to convince top management. Unfortunately, at this crucial moment our top management is on leave. Indeed you all know that George Mueller and Jim Webb are on their way to the UNISPACE conference in Vienna, with a stopover in London. They are out for the next two weeks !"
Mueller was head of NASA manned spaceflight office, while Webb was the agency top Administrator. Present this day was Thomas Paine, the second highest ranking manager or Deputy Administrator.
And Paine was enthusiast.
"Today Mueller and Webb attend a meeting of the British Interplanetary Society in London. After that they will go to the UNISPACE 1 conference in Vienna, staying there for a week or so. We can't wait for them to return; the agenda is too tight. I suggest we ask them straight, then that we meet a second time in Washington next week to discuss the result. August 14 would then be decision day. Sam ?"
Sam Philips answered "Well, if we agree I will then go to Vienna and discuss the plan with them."
Low day was not over. He had another meeting later in the evening - to find a ballast to be substituted to the Lunar Module and ensure North American Apollo moonship was ready. A ballast ? – he was haunted with a truly outlandish idea - but he had to check first whether that was feasible or not.
As far as he knew, the vehicle Low had in mind had been tantalizingly close to flight capability when it was canceled the year before. At that time, two of the planned five flight units were close to completion. In fact, the first unit was to begin vibration/acoustic testing at the Manned Spaceflight Center in Houston on September 15, 1967. Low knew they were in storage – they had not been destroyed, not yet.
George M. Low
- Archibald
- Word Count: 1.3k