Apollo - Part 5
This chapter for me was difficult to write. I had to wrap in a lot of changes and this is where things really start changing in this TL as Kennedy tries to setup his legacy with a large space program than we are used to. I hope people enjoy reading it. This chapter was originally written several weeks ago but I have been going over it several times and tweaking things, even moving on written the next several chapters. One of the key changes that I am incorporating is the use of multi-year procurement contracts for funding of launch vehicles to drive per launch vehicle costs. Thank you for taking the time to read this.
Apollo - Part 5
1968 would start off very quickly with the launch on January 23 of Apollo-5 an un-manned Lunar Module on a Saturn 1B into Earth orbit. The mission would test both the Descent and Ascent engines of the Lunar Module in Earth Orbit. The initial firing of the Descent engine did not work correctly. However the ground controllers where able to move to alternate way to fire the Descent engine and it was fired successfully twice. The Ascent engine was then fired and everything performed well. The LM-1 was left in Low Earth Orbit and within a couple of weeks both the Descent and Ascent stages would re-enter the Earth Atmosphere and burn up. The successful completion of this mission cleared the way for the next launch which would be another un-manned test launch of the Saturn-V called Apollo-6.
February 5, 1968 AeroJet Production and Test Facility outside Homestead Florida.
“Welcome Dr. Von Braun to or facility.” The AeroJet Company representative shook Dr Von Braun’s hand.
“Thank you, are we ready to begin the testing soon?”
“Yes Dr. we will be ready to being shortly. This will be a full scale test of the 260” inch solid. We should be able to generate over 7,000,000 lbf of thrust. The Solid is so powerful we have had to invert it and stick it into the ground in a specially excavated silo. We heard that during or last test the flame from the rocket was visible in Miami over 30 miles away.”
Von Braun snorted “Well we will see if you can generate over 7,000,000 pounds of thrust with one solid engine. If you are successful you will be generating almost as much thrust of the 1st stage of the Saturn V.”
“All or data and testing shows that we should be able to. The last test we generated over 6,000,000 pounds of thrust. We are in the final countdown now. “
A couple of seconds later a huge jet of flame shot out of the ground. The test was being conducted at night and the sky was being lit up by the flame. Shortly after the roar of the solid rocket engine hit Braun. The solid engine burned for 114 seconds and hit a peak thrust of 7.2 Million pounds of thrust. Von Braun and the MSFC team where impressed. This type of thrust attached to the 1st stage of the Saturn-V would allow for a significant increase of payload. Also a solid this powerful allowed for some interesting rocket combinations of varying payload capability relatively cheaply compared to using liquid fueled stages. Now he needed to talk to Boeing on how they were coming along on the new 1st stage design that would be able to withstand the power of having 4 of these AeroJet beasts attached to it.
To keep the production lines running until the new version of the Saturn-V rocket came online the original order for 15 Saturn-V had 3 more launch vehicles added to it bring the total to 18 Saturn-V launch vehicles. The incremental cost of adding 3 more launch vehicles was not large since all the development work had already been paid for and the production lines where already running. A couple of the manufacturers had already assumed that more orders would follow and had already started ordering long team items for the 16th and 17th Saturn V’s. After the 18th Saturn-V came off the line then the production line would shift to the improved Saturn-Vs. For the Improved Saturn-V the 1st stage would be stretched by almost 500 inches, the 2nd stage would be stretched by 156 inches and the 3rd stage by 198 inches. The new stages would have more propellant and more powerful engines. For the Saturn IB first stage, it was going to be replace entirely by the 260” SRB. However before the S-IB production line was shutdown NASA wanted to have a stock of S-IB’s on hand. The original buy of S-IB stages was currently planned for 14 units. This was increased by 4 more units and then the S-IB production line would be shut down for good. This would allow an inventory of S-1B stages that NASA could draw on in case of issues with the new 260” SRB.
Each stage would have its own challenges to deal with a area of concern was the 1st stage. The original Saturn-V 1st stage the 1C has been designed by the MSFC (Marshall Space Flight Center) by Dr Von Braun’s team of engineers. In typical Germanic fashion the 1C stage was built like a German King Tiger Tank and it was over engineered structurally for the job. However when it came time to stretch the stage by 41.5 feet and add in mounting point for the four 260 inch Solid Rocket Boosters the Boeing engineers were glad that the 1C stage was over engineered structurally. The new F1A engines where not an issue, the current design could easily handle this. The problem was the 260 inch Solid Rocket Boosters. Each Booster would put out almost 7.2 Million lbs of force and each of the SRBs full of solid fuel would weigh over 1600 metric tons each. At lift off the rocket full of fuel would weigh over 10,700 tons which was staggering considering what was being called the block-1 Saturn-V, weighed only 2800 tons at lift-off. The 4x 260inch Solid Rocket Boosters and the F1A engines on the 1st stage would have at lift off a staggering 40+ Million lbf of thrust at sea-level and over 178,000 Kilo-Newtons of force. All of this force and weight would be on the new 1st stage. The old 1st stage had a Dry Mass of 135 tons; the new 1st stage would easily have a Dry Mass of over 200 tons. Not only would the new 1st stage have to cope with the tremendous forces, parts of the 1st stage vehicle would have to withstand the extreme highly temperatures from the jet of flame that the SRB’s would be producing. This would be a tough engineering challenge for Boeing. However with assistance from the MSFC they felt they could meet the challenge of producing a new 1st stage that could cope with the massive forces it would be exposed to in this new design.
Compared to what the Boeing Team had to deal with the team at North American Rockwell felt they were getting off easy. This was welcome change, from the reaming they got from NASA leadership in 1967 over the challenges with the Apollo Command module. However North American Rockwell had worked through the challenges and had come out of with better processes and procedures. The new S-II stage would be called the S-IIB stage and would involve a stretch of 156 inches and new engines from Rocketdyne which were being called the HG-3. The Dry mass of the S-II stage was 42 tons and North American expected the stretched S-IIB stage would weigh around 60 tons Dry. However they were hearing that the HG-3 engine development was not going as smoothly as expected and there could be change in engine from the HG-3 to the J2-S. They were also informed that possibly the last 3 recently ordered S-II stages might have their engines changed over to the J2-S also. However the engineering team took this all in stride. They didn’t want another visit by General Phillips.
The new 3rd stage of the Saturn would also become the new stage for the improved Saturn 1 which would have it’s 1st stage replaced with the 260” Solid Rocket Booster from Aerojet. The stretch of the S-IVB would be a 198 inches. The old S-1VB had a dry mass of around 13 tons and the new stage being called the S-IVC would have a dry mass of around 20 tons. The difficulty for McDonnell Douglas (McDonnell and Douglas Aircraft Corporations had merged in 1967) was the demand for the S-IVB. They not only had all the Saturn-V 3rd stages to produce but the S-IVB was the 2nd stage of the Saturn 1B. Between the orders for the all the rockets, the total S-IVB production run would be at least 36 S-IVB stages, not including static test units. McDonnell Douglas also had an order for 4 additional S-IVB stages. They would be converted into space stations to be launched on the Saturn-V as part of the Skylab project. In between these busy fabrications schedule, McDonnell Douglas would also have to design and build a stretched S-IVC stage. To make the entire thing more interesting there was discussion that the HG-3 engine wouldn’t be ready anytime soon and there could a change in engine from the HG-3 to the J2-S on the S-IVC and design the stage with either engine in mind. This wasn’t helped that the only firm design plans they got from Rocketdyne where for the J2-S and they only got vague details on the HG-3. NASA had also informed McDonnell of the last block of stages that were ordered.
The Saturn-V also known as SA-502 lifted off on April 4, 1968. Everyone hoped that this mission being called Apollo-6 would be a repeat of the successful Apollo-4 launch. This time the S-IVB would be burned to place the CSM (Command-Service-Module) into trans-lunar injection. Immediately after trans-lunar injection the CSM main engine would be ignited replicating a direct abort scenario. However 2 minutes after launch the 1st stage experienced severe pogo oscillations up and down the entire rocket body for about 30 seconds. These oscillations where so severe, that the adapter that attached the CSM to the rocket started to have structural issues. Airborne cameras recorded several pieces falling off the rocket during the final part of the 1st stage burn. If a crew was on-board the pogo oscillations would have probably caused an abort. However the problems were not over for SA-502. Shortly after the S-II stage ignited, this stage also started to have problems. The number 2 engine started to have performance problems and finally the performance dropped off so much that the Instrument Unit shutdown the number 2 engine but within a couple of seconds the number 3 engine also shutdown. Despite having two engines shutdown, the instrument unit was able to compensate with the 3 remaining engines and SA-502 was able to limp into orbit. However the problems would continue with Apollo-6 when the J2 engine on the S-IV stage failed to reignite for Trans Lunar Injection. Instead the CSM engine had to be used to raise the orbit of the CSM. There wasn’t enough fuel to speed up Atmosphere entry to lunar return speeds and the capsule re-entered the atmosphere at 33,000 feet per second instead of the planned 37,000 feet per second of a lunar return speed. Despite all the issue the Command Module managed to splash down on target in the Pacific Ocean.
The key now was to first identify what caused all the problems and get them corrected before the next Saturn-V flight which would probably be carrying astronauts. The pogo problem seemed the easiest to fix since it had was well know what was causing the issue. To further dampen oscillations, the cavities in the fuel pumps and feed line systems would be filled with Helium gas and this would act like a shock absorber. The problems in the 2nd and 3rd stage would be more difficult to trace down. After reviewing closely the telemetry during the launch and further testing on the ground. The fault would be traced to the fuel line that fed the engine igniters with liquid Hydrogen. The line had frozen and had then broken because of the vibration. This resulted in too much Liquid Oxygen being fed directly into the pressure chamber and this eventually caused the failure of the chamber so the Number-2 engine was shutdown. However the wiring for engine 2 and 3 were crossed so when the command was given to shutdown Engine 2 it also shutdown engine 3. The line had also broken on the S-IVB stage but the pressure chamber had not failed. However without the igniter the engine couldn’t be restarted for the TLI burn. The fix for the igniter problem was to replace the flexible parts of the line where the break occurred with stainless steel pipe. While all these failures would have aborted a manned mission. However NASA considered the flight a valuable shakedown of the Saturn rocket. It was better to have these types of failures occur on an un-manned flight than on a manned mission.
In June of 1968 President Kennedy worked with Lyndon Johnson and James Webb to put together legislation that was called the 1968 National Space Framework. Johnson was already busy preparing for the 1968 presidential election. He had secured enough delegates for the Democratic presidential nomination, however Kennedy knew that the 1968 Presidential Election would still be a tough fight for Johnson. His opponent would be Richard Nixon who had staged a comeback after his humiliating loss to Pat Brown in the 1962 election for CA Governor. The proposal they were hoping would set the tone for the national space program through the next decade by leveraging the hardware that was developed this decade. They knew it would be a tough sell to the US public and administration. The proposals would secure multi-year contracts for both the development and production of new Apollo based hardware. The first contract was for the launch vehicles. The manufacturers had already been selected and the contract would be broken up into several parts. The AeroJet Company would be building the Solid Rocket boosters in both 156” and 260” sizes in their facility outside of Miami. By building at this facility this would allow the easy movement of the massive monolithic SRB bodies by barge up the Florida coast using the Intercostal waterway. The total Saturn V series block-II contract would run over 12 years with the contract delivery from all manufacturers of 3 complete rocket’s a year for a total delivery of 36 Saturn-V launch vehicles over the length of the contract. For Earth Orbit work the Saturn 1B S-1B first stage manufactured by Chrysler would be replaced by the Aerojet SRB’s. For Earth Orbit missions it was planned for 3-4 missions a year so a multi-year contract for a total of 48 launch vehicles over 12 years would be purchased. By establishing long multi-year contracts the Kennedy administration hoped to achieve the best pricing and also secure a strong legacy that would be difficult for any future administrations to cancel without incurring the strong financial penalties of contracts already signed.
The McDonnell Douglas Company and Aerojet would have a large amount of launch hardware to deliver under the contract. For AeroJet just the Saturn V series block-II contract called for 144 260” Solid Rocket bodies. The contract also called for the retrieval and re-use of the rocket bodies. The facility outside of Miami would need to rapidly expand beyond the current setup which wasn’t setup for production but development and testing. However with a multi-year contract setup for production over 12 years Aerojet felt comfortable in expanding the facility to accommodate the contract and hiring additional employees that was a real boast to the local economy. The rocket bodies would be manufactured by Sun Shipbuilding outside of Philadelphia and then barged down to the AeroJet facility where they would be finished. The SRB would then be moved up the Florida Coast to Cape Canaveral as needed. The Cape was only a couple of hundred miles up the coast so the rocket bodies would be stored at the AeroJet facility and then delivered as needed. AeroJet as part of the contact requirements was responsible for retrieving the rocket bodies out of the Atlantic Ocean after a launch. They would then be refurbished for re-use. The AeroJet ships would also have the dual responsibility of also being range stand-by for retrieval as needed if any aborts happened and the crew needed to be retrieved from the Atlantic. For McDonnell Douglas the Saturn rocket contracts called for a total of 84 S-IVC stages including a couple of static test rigs and two more stages for dynamic testing and facilities integration. This would call for at least 7 stages a year to be delivered. McDonnell Douglas would need to expand to meet the production needs. McDonnell Douglas in discussions with NASA decided to locate the S-IVC-500 production line at the Michoud Assembly facility in Louisiana. The S-IVC-200 production line would be in Huntington Beach. The design and engineering work would remain in Huntington Beach. The S-IVC-500 was the 3rd stage for the Saturn-V and the S-IVC-200 was the 2nd stage for the Saturn-1. However as before with Aerojet with a contract in hand for so many stages they felt comfortable in "ramping up" to meet the delivery schedule specified in the contract.
The last part of the puzzle for launch vehicles was the Instrument Unit. These units contained the guidance system for the Saturn rockets. The electronics contained are the digital computer, analog flight controller, emergency detection system, internal guidance system, control accelerometers and the control rate gyros. The Instrument Unit was designed by the MSFC but was manufactured by IBM. IBM received a multi-year procurement contract to deliver a total of 84 Instrument Units spread out over 12 years. The new instrument units for the Saturn would be called version 4 and would feature some incremental improvements of the version 3 that was currently being used.
The second part of the contracts would be for block buys of the Apollo Hardware. The first part of this was the block buy of Apollo Command Modules from North American Rockwell. There would be a new Command Module called the Block-III. The new command modules would replace the fuel cells of the Block-I and II with batteries and solar panels. The switch to solar panels would allow the CSM long times of hibernation either attached to a Space Station or in Lunar Orbit. The Block-III CSM would be able to transport 4 astronauts at once. Since interior volume inside the Command Module would be at a premium a new addition called a Mission Module would be added. This was possible because of the extra payload capability of the new launch vehicle for the Saturn series. The Mission module was 2.5 meters in diameter and 4 meters long and massed around 6 tons empty. This mission module would have storage lockers, food preparation area and would also have a toilet. All this would vastly improve the habitability of the CSM. With the mission module, the crew wouldn’t have direct vision for docking. They would have to depend on video feeds and radar for the docking since after the docking with the Mission Module the forward radial port would no longer be visible.
North American Rockwell had assumed that there Apollo CSM would be used for both Lunar or BEO missions and LEO Missions. However the Apollo CSM was expensive and had features that where just not needed for Earth Orbit work. In stepped McDonnell Douglas with a proposed solution. Mc Donnell had built both the Mercury and Gemini capsules and where never very happy with North American getting the contract for the Apollo CSM. McDonnell Douglas had leveraged its experience with Gemini to propose what it was calling Big G (Big Gemini). Big G was an enlarged Gemini Module that could carry up to 12 astronauts or a mix of re-turn cargo and astronauts. The proposed configuration included 6 astronauts and over 1,000kg of return cargo capability. The original Gemini Capsule was extended out in a conical shape with the same Diameter of the Apollo CSM. A door would be added to the original 2 man Gemini Capsule in the rear to allow access to a large passenger/cargo compartment that was added. All this improved capability would have the same re-entry mass of the Apollo Command Module. The Big G (Big Gemini) would also have a rear maneuvering and cargo module that could carry both pressurized and un-pressurized cargo. The Big G would dock with its aft end to the space station and would have a control station in the rear for this docking maneuver and would use the Apollo docking probe assembly. A pressurized pass through tunnel would allow access from the Passenger compartment and into the cargo area and this would allow the transfer of cargo and passenger without EVA into a docked space station. McDonnell Douglas had proposed the Big G to both NASA and the USAF for their MOL (Manned Orbital Laboratory) project.
President Kennedy had never really been too fond of the USAF MOL program and did not see the need to militarize space. However NASA knew that the Big G could fill an important niche and like the improved capability over the CSM for Low Earth Orbit work. NASA decided to solicit proposal from both North American Rockwell and McDonnell Douglas for future Earth Orbit NASA missions. As Webb pointed out, working in Low Earth Orbit was fairly well known let’s put out some specifications and see what North American Rockwell and McDonnell Douglas propose and see if we can lower costs. North American came back with a proposal for a simplified, cheaper version of the Apollo CSM stripped down for Earth Orbit work that was cheaper than the lunar CSM. Looking over this proposal NASA officials were not really inspired. However the McDonnell Douglas proposal blew away NASA officials. The Big G proposal called for the building and use of 12 capsules. The Big G would use a parasail and skids to land at Edwards (or other dry lake beds) and would allow over 1,000kg of cargo to be brought back along with 6 astronauts. The capsule itself since it didn’t splash down in the ocean would have an easy recovery and would be refurbished and re-used for future spaceflights. McDonnell proposed a block buy contract for 12 capsules and 48 Maneuvering/Cargo Modules for a total of 48 space flights to Earth Orbit over 12 years. All this would be delivered at a lower cost than North American’s CMS proposal. Even including the additional development costs that the Big G would require. The other benefit that wasn’t previously considered is that this would give NASA two spacecraft for Earth Orbit work. While the Big G couldn’t be used for Lunar flights the Apollo CSM could be used for Earth Orbit work. This would insure that if one space craft had an issue, NASA wouldn’t lose access to space until it was resolved. While North American was disappointed to lose the contract for Earth Orbit work they still had a large buy of the CSM for the Apollo program and the first missions of the Skylab program would still use the Apollo CSM. McDonnell Douglas where ecstatic to finally be building spacecraft again.
The multi-year block buy contracts would also include both current and new lunar module spacecraft. The original lunar module purchase from Grumman was amended as part of the multi-year contract buys to include the purchase of more lunar modules with LM 10-15 being modified into what was being called the J-series which was called the ELM (Extended Lunar Module) which would allow stay times of up to 75 hours on the moon. A new vehicle was needed for the proposed follow on Lunar missions using dual launches of the more powerful block-II Saturn-V’s. The new vehicle would be called the LLV (Lunar Landing Vehicle) which would be considerably larger than the LM. This vehicle was planned to have a fully loaded and fueled mass of 90-tons. There would be two versions of the LLV. One version would be the LLV base which would have no ascent stage and was designed to land on the Lunar Surface, completely automated. The second version would the LLV Taxi. This version would feature the same base stage of the LLV however the upper part where the crew quarters where located on the base would be a modified Lunar Module ascent stage. The Lunar Module Ascent stage was an enlarged version of the original LM to allow the transport of 4 astronauts and up to 500kg of Cargo back to Lunar Orbit. The Descent stage of the LLV Truck would land an enclosed and pressurized rover called MOLAB, a smaller unpressurized lunar rover, scientific experiments and consumables. Grumman with its experience with the Lunar Module, secured the contract for the LLV.
The multi-year contracting would allow the companies to amortize nonrecurring “start-up” costs over the life of the contract. This would also allow the contracted companies to maintain a stable workforce to fulfill the needs of the contract. This would then result in overall cost savings for the entire program. President Kennedy and Johnson knew this would be a tough fight with Congress. Congress usually liked to fund things one year at a time which drove up overall costs but allowed a program to be easily canceled. Even with the Kennedy Administration able to keep the US military out of deep involvement in Vietnam there was significant budget considerations. Congress wouldn’t keep funding NASA at the rates they were earlier in the decade. However Kennedy was able to work with Congress to keep the slashing of programs to a minimum. He had worked with them to slowly draw down NASA’s budget until it would be projected to fall to about 2-2.5% of the Federal Budget by 1972. It was a tough fight but Kennedy was still very popular and he did see the Space Program as his legacy to the United States. Besides he also had a powerful force in Lyndon Johnson and Johnson knew where all the skeleton’s where buried on Capitol Hill. Johnson had to give several reluctant Senators and Congressmen “The Treatment”. By the end of July 1968, the 1968 National Space framework legislation passed and was signed by President Kennedy. The key part of the legislation would be structuring of future NASA programs into multi-year procurements which drove down overall costs. The development of space hardware was already difficult and having the programs be subject to the whims of Congress every year made things cost a lot more and made the program run in-efficiently.