Chariots for Apollo: The NASA History of Manned Lunar Spacecraft to 1969

by Courtney G. Brooks, James M. Grimwood, Loyd S. Swenson Jr.

Written by a trio of experts, this is the definitive reference on the Apollo spacecraft and lunar modules. It traces the design of the vehicles, their development, and their operation in space. More than 100 photographs and illustrations highlight the text, which begins with NASA's origins and concludes with the triumphant Apollo 11 moon mission.

Genres: Space, Nonfiction, History, Science

576 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1979

Reviews

[Philip · Rating 3 out of 5]

Having read Stages to Saturn: A Technological History of the Apollo/Saturn Launch Vehicles, I wanted to learn more about the command, service and lunar modules sitting on top of the mighty Saturn V. However, this book doesn't have "technological" in its subtitle, and the difference is apparent.

The book is structured roughly chronologically as opposed to by hardware component, so there's less opportunity to dive deep into technical issues and a bit of repeated information. More room is given to organizational issues and long lists of names of people in various committees and groups.

The treatment of the mode descision (direct flight, earth-orbit rendezvous, or lunar-orbit renderzvous) is more detailed than in Stages to Saturn, but could certainly have been more technical. At the time, chosing lunar-orbit rendezvous appears to have been rather daring, considering "the specter of an orbital coffin circling the moon, perhaps forever." Had astronauts died on or around the moon, the Apollo program would appear in a completely different light now, many decades later.

Finally, the book says almost nothing about Apollo 12-17, which is a shame; Apollo 13 seems to be excellent material for exploring the safety features of the spacecraft and mission mode.

Highlight quotes, in the order they appear in the book:

Chapter 1:

Silverstein … had been looking for a suitable name for a payload for the Saturn rockets. … One day, while consulting a book on mythology, Silverstein found what he wanted. He later said, “I thought the image of the god Apollo riding his chariot across the sun gave the best representation of the grand scale of the proposed program.” … When no one objected, the chariot driver Apollo … became the name of the proposed circumlunar spaceships.

The Senate and the House of Representatives responded to Kennedy’s challenge by increasing funds … At this juncture, the Americans had chalked up 15 minutes and 22 seconds of manned space flight experience. The Russians had clocked 108 minutes.

There was a vague feeling … that direct ascent would eventually be the answer, but no one had worked out the tradeoffs in much detail. Subsequently, as Apollo planning progressed, the question of how to fly to the moon and back loomed ever larger. In the end, the choice of mode was perhaps the single greatest technical decision of the entire Apollo program. … The United States was just on the threshold of manned space flight, and orbital flights around the earth were in themselves mind-boggling. A program to land men on the moon, 400,000 kilometers away, and bring them safely home was nearly too stupendous for serious contemplation.

Chapter 2:

The Rosen Committee concluded that rendezvous (preferably a single operational maneuver) could be performed in either earth or lunar orbit, but the latter had the advantages of a single Saturn launch from the earth, using the C-4 or C-5, and a smaller, specially designed landing craft. A missed rendezvous, however, would prove fatal in lunar orbit.

Chapter 3:

Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California, suggested a link-up of vehicles on the moon itself. A number of unmanned payloads—a vehicle designed to return to earth and one or more tankers—would land on the lunar surface at a preselected site. Using automatic devices, the return vehicle could then be refueled and checked out by ground control before the crew left the earth. After the manned spacecraft arrived on the moon, the crew would transfer to the fully fueled return vehicle for the trip home.

(Cf. Mars Direct)

Another approach was the proposal to send a spacecraft on a one-way trip to the moon. In this concept, the astronaut would be deliberately stranded on the lunar surface and resupplied by rockets shot at him for, conceivably, several years until the space agency developed the capability to bring him back! … While he waited for NASA to find a way to bring him back, they said, the astronaut could perform valuable scientific work. Cord and Seale, in a classic understatement, acknowledged that this would be a very hazardous mission, but they argued that “it would be cheaper, faster, and perhaps the only way to beat Russia.” There is no evidence that Apollo planners ever took this idea seriously.

(Cf. Mars One)

Most of the early criticism of the lunar rendezvous scheme stemmed from a concern for overall mission safety. … In lunar orbit, where the crew would be days away from home, a missed rendezvous spelled death for the astronauts and raised the specter of an orbital coffin circling the moon, perhaps forever.

Holmes and Shea, in addition to deciding on the best approach, were still determined to settle for nothing short of unanimity. They scheduled yet another series of meetings at each center, “in which we asked them to summarize their studies and draw conclusions” so everyone would feel like a real part of the technical decision process.

Chapter 4:

The mysterious nature of the moon’s surface received much attention … Although a model of the lunar surface drawn from the best available data was used for these engineering studies, Gilruth’s men realized that there were varying views among scientists about the lunar surface characteristics, especially the depth of the dust layer.

Chapter 5:

Deputy Administrator Hugh Dryden termed the Apollo program “the largest, most complex research and development effort ever undertaken.”

Shea asked Max Faget … to pick experts in the engineering shops to act as subsystem managers. … When changes in one unit became necessary, other systems had to be considered, and any conflicts resolved, before alterations could be made. The subsystem manager concept was therefore an excellent device for restraining engineers eternally eyeing good hardware for chances to make it better.

Chapter 6:

The seating arrangement in the lunar module was perhaps the most radical departure from tradition in tailoring the cockpit. It soon became apparent that seats would be heavy, as well as restrictive for the bulky space suits. Bar stools and metal cagelike structures were also considered and discarded. Then an idea dawned. Why have seats in the lander at all? Its flight would be brief, and the g loads moderate (one g during powered flight and about five on landing). Since human legs were good shock absorbers, why not let the crew fly the lunar module standing up?

Gilruth had stated that one fundamental requirement for mission success was employing “the kind of people who will not permit it to fail.” The basic reliability philosophy, he said, was “that every manned spacecraft that leaves the earth … shall represent the best that dedicated and inspired men can create. We cannot ask for more; we dare not settle for less.”

Chapter 8:

The introduction into Earth’s biosphere of destructive alien organisms could be a disaster of enormous significance to mankind. We can conceive of no more tragically ironic consequence of our search for extraterrestrial life.

Chapter 9:

“We’re in a risky business,” Grissom himself had said in an interview several weeks before the fire, “and we hope if anything happens to us, it will not delay the program. The conquest of space is worth the risk of life.”

On 23 April 1967 the Soviet Union announced the launching of Vladimir M. Komarov aboard a new spacecraft. Soyuz I appeared to be functioning normally at first. On its second day of flight, however, the craft began to tumble, and Komarov had to use more attitude fuel than he wanted to get the ship under control. He tried to land during his 17th circuit but could not get the proper orientation for retrofire. Komarov succeeded in reentering on the 18th revolution, but his parachute shroud lines entangled. The cosmonaut was killed on impact. So both Soyuz I and Apollo 1 put their programs through traumatic reassessments. No one found any consolation in a “rebalanced” space race. In fact, Webb took the occasion to emphasize the need for international cooperation by asking: “Could the lives already lost have been saved if we had known each other’s hopes, aspirations and plans? Or could they have been saved if full cooperation had been the order of the day?”

When the five engines in the first stage of the Saturn V ignited, there was a man-made earthquake and shockwave. As someone later remarked, the question was not whether the Saturn V had risen, but whether Florida had sunk.

Chapter 13:

Although [Phillips] still did not agree that both pilots should get out, he conceded that more data would be gained from the interaction of two men with the lunar surface. Phillips added that the psychological effect on a crewman of landing on the moon and then being forbidden to step out on the surface must be considered.

Epilogue:

The agency’s top administrators … were dubious of suggestions that landing men on Mars should be the next step. Deputy Administrator Hugh Dryden said … “I don’t think you’ll ever get another commitment out of the nation like [Apollo]. You just can’t guarantee to make a national commitment that will extend over 8 or 10 years.”

NASA might have wanted to aim for a planetary voyage, but the agency consensus was that it was best to amortize a significant percentage of Apollo’s costs in near-earth orbital operations.

[Jeff · Rating 5 out of 5]

Like so many, I've had a bug this year to relive the heady days of 1969 when members of our species first set foot on a different world. And Chariots for Apollo turned out to be an excellent choice to help me do just that.

The book covers in exquisite detail the history of the Apollo program from its inception in 1960 — even before John Kennedy's challenge to land a man on the moon (and safely return him home) in the span of a decade — through the first lunar landing, which, of course, met that challenge. Please note, however, that this is a history of the Apollo program, as opposed to the history of the space program; there are plenty of allusions to the Mercury and Gemini programs, but always placed in the context of the Apollo program's needs.

And I say "exquisite detail" because the authors do an amazing job of providing enormous amounts of detail without getting bogged down in the minutiae (that is, after all, what footnotes and appendices are for). The end result is a very readable history and one that I highly recommend for anyone, whether they are using it to relive their memories or they want to learn more about a time when we came together as a nation and set out to do one of the most amazing things humans have ever done… walk on the moon.

[Paul Foley · Rating 4 out of 5]

Despite the bombastic title, this is meticulous and authoritative history of Project Apollo. It is available as a free PDF from NASA, part of their official history series. Factual and somewhat dry, it nonetheless contains a number of revelations, one being the degree to which the prime contractors (North American Aviation and Grumman) shaped the Apollo program. They not only designed and built the command, service, and lunar modules, they chose subcontractors and even had a role in mission design.

When the nation committed in 1961 to land a man on the Moon by the end of the decade, nobody really knew how to go about doing it. Or if it was even possible. It had proved difficult enough to shoot one man into Earth orbit in a tiny Mercury capsule and drop him back in the sea. How to get someone to the Moon, land there, take off again, and get him back to Earth? The initial plan actually imagined a kind of Buck Rogers spaceship that would have to be refueled in orbit and would land and take off from the Moon in one piece- the “direct return” mode. It would involve gargantuan booster rockets, and seems now to be more the stuff of ‘50s comic books than an engineering plan. A reminder of how long ago Project Apollo was. Apollo was designed and built in the days of vacuum tube black & white television sets and propeller driven airliners.

[Ushan · Rating 3 out of 5]

If you were NASA and were told to put a man on the Moon, how would you do it? The route favored by science fiction movies and Tintin comics was to launch a rocket from Earth, land it on the Moon, and have it launch from the Moon and fly back to Earth. The problem was that the booster launching this rocket would have to be gigantic; it was not clear whether such a booster could ever be built. Another route, championed by Wernher von Braun, was to put the propulsion unit in low Earth orbit, launch the manned spacecraft separately, and have them dock and fly to the Moon together. The route actually taken was to have two spacecraft: one would fly around in Moon orbit, and the other would separate from it, land on the Moon, later take off from it, dock with the first spacecraft and fly back to Earth; the fuel and the rocket mechanisms needed to escape Moon's gravity would not have to be hauled to the surface of the Moon and back, and neither would the capsule necessary for landing back on Earth. It was invented outside NASA (it was actually independently invented half a century before by a Ukrainian visionary not mentioned in the index), but quickly gained adherents within NASA. As a NASA engineer put it, "I would rather bring down 7,000 pounds to the lunar surface than 150,000 pounds;" and there was no atmosphere or weather to complicate launching from the Moon and docking in Moon orbit. By the time this was decided, the conical pyramid-shaped landing capsule had already been designed; it had to be redesigned to have a docking mechanism and a pressurized hatch on top in order to allow the astronauts to get from one spacecraft to the other. Now the Moon-landing craft would have to be designed, both the stage landing on the Moon and the stage launching from it - the rockets, the landing radar and the docking radar, the ground-sensing probes. Unlike in science fiction movies, it would not have to look aerodynamic, since the Moon offers no air resistance to overcome.

This is a detailed (and fascinating to technology geeks) technical history of one of the greatest engineering achievements in history. The gyroscope company used a commercial detergent to degrease its gyroscopes, when it suddenly stopped working; NASA troubleshooters found that Procter & Gamble had changed the formula beneath the covers to make it easier for housewives to wash dishes. The political side of the story is also fascinating, but it is covered in many other books. This book mentions "a microminiaturized photoprint of letters of good will from representatives of other nations" left on the Moon by the Apollo 11 astronauts, but not the fact that not all nations were represented: the Soviet Union wasn't included; China was represented by Chiang Kai-shek, as President Nixon would not go to Mao Zedong's People's Republic of China for two more years. The book does mention that China, Albania, North Korea and North Vietnam did not tell their citizens about the Moon landing. There was no clean separation between the space program and its concomitant Cold War.