The Unbroken Chain

Chapter 8 - A giant's reach...

Complex 39 was a spaceport. Pure and simple. It was designed exclusively to process and launch the world’s largest booster, the Saturn 5. Nowhere else on Earth did any facility exist which could rival it. When you drove through the main gate, you felt like a Lilliputian, stumbled into the land of Gulliver.

After Schirra’s flight, every Apollo mission started in the VAB, the immense hangar constructed to support the assembly of the vehicles. The VAB was - and is - so large that four full Saturn 5s could be assembled simultaneously. The Saturn stack was built up, stage by stage, on a steel base called the mobile launcher platform. A sophisticated umbilical tower was integrated into the base and would stay next to the vehicle until the instant it took flight. Once assembly was completed, you had a 363 foot tall vehicle and a 380 foot tall umbilical tower, both standing straight up and weighing in at over 12 million pounds. Transporting this load to the launch pad, three and a half miles away, was the job of the crawler-transporter.

Looking like something out of a science fiction movie, the crawler-transporter was a huge, flat platform, well over 100 feet in each dimension. It reminded me of a giant, metallic crab. Gargantuan steel tracks, similar in concept to those found in military tanks, were located on the four comers. Each of the four sets of tracks was independently powered by an electric motor, powered, in turn, by a self-contained diesel-electric generator. The crawler-transporter could carry its launcher and spaceship load to the pad (and likewise, the Shuttle today) at a speed of about one mile per hour. It seems that a trip to the moon would start out very slow, indeed.

The transporter had a glassed-in steering cab on both ends and could be driven from either. Since the driver sat offset from the crawlerway’s centerline, a yellow rope was laid out as a guide for steering.

The “rollout” was always a highly celebrated event, but getting the vehicle to the pad was just the beginning. After parking its Saturn-Apollo load atop the concrete launch pad, the crawler-transporter would scurry away (at about 2 mph) and return with another steel monstrosity called the mobile service structure. Usually just referred to as the MSS, it looked like the skeleton of a thirty story building. With this gantry on one side and the umbilical tower on the other, the vehicle was safely sandwiched in place and crews had complete access to all areas. Just prior to launch, rather than being simply “rolled back,” the mobile service structure was completely removed from the pad and returned to its parking spot a mile away.

The two launch pads at Complex 39 were essentially copies of each other. There were, and still are, no notable differences between them. Roughly two miles east from the VAB, the crawlerway split, giving equally easy access to either pad.

If we use 39A as an example, an overhead view would show the pad area to be a rough octagon shape, over a half-mile in diameter. The pad itself is located virtually dead center and stands 48 feet above sea level on a mound of poured reinforced concrete.

Transporting a launch vehicle up to the pad was an engineering marvel in itself. The crawlerway is flat and level for its three mile length. But at the pad’s gate, there is an inclined ramp which rises some forty feet over a distance of about 500 yards. The trick was keeping the launch platform and cargo level as the crawler-transporter made this upward climb. The most obvious solution was selected: jack up one end of the transporter’s deck to keep it level in the climb. That is actually much more difficult than it seems, however. As the front tracks of the crawler-transporter met the ramp, a flatter angle resulted than would be the case when all four tracks were on the incline. That meant the deck angle would have to be a progressively steeper incline as the transporter met the ramp and then drove up onto it. With a load that heavy, standing nearly 400 feet tall, you can imagine that this would be a very delicate affair.

The electronics which controlled the leveling function were driven by an old punch card system. I remember one time when the transporter driver left work after a shift change and took the stack of punch cards with him in his shirt pocket. The whole operation came to an abrupt halt, dead in the water until those cards could be located. Dozens of people stood idle around a hundred million dollars worth of stalled hardware. Phone calls to the driver’s home went unanswered so the Sheriff’s Department dispatched a deputy to find him. It took some time, but they finally located him at one of the local bars in Titusville.

Considering that the explosion of a fully-fueled Saturn 5 would rival that of a small atomic bomb, personnel evacuation and protection issues were addressed from the very beginning. Engineers designed a new rapid escape system based on our old slide wire. The new slide wire employed a little cab, sort of like a cable car gondola. It could hold nine people, whisking them groundward to a hardened revetment 2300 feet away. The nine people would generally be the flight crew and my six-man closeout crew.

Built underneath the pad was a concrete blast room whose floor was supported by heavy springs. Capable of holding twenty people for up to three days, it was designed to survive the explosion of a Saturn 5. In an emergency, we would make our way quickly down to the base of the tower, then slide down a forty foot chute through the mobile launcher base and straight down through the concrete pad itself. The chute terminated in the “rubber room,” a small area lined with rubber bumpers to soften the impact. In initial tests, the chute was found to be insufficiently slippery, and during one of them I got stuck. When the NASA complex manager, Jim Ragusa, came barreling down behind me, he crashed into me - feet first. My shoulders took a real bruising.

To man rate the blast room, Ragusa, Norris Grey (the KSC fire department chief), myself, and six other volunteers agreed to spend 24 hours inside. After a good breakfast, we donned our NOMEX gear and headed out to the pad. Once in the blast room, the massive doors were closed and all external power was shut off to simulate an explosion outside.

So there we were, inside with nothing but battery power, a portable toilet in the center of the floor, and no effective ventilation. To add to the realism of the exercise, Jim and I had conspired with the astronaut medical staff to add an injury into the mix. I dumped some ketchup I had brought in all over my pants and announced to the group that I had a compound leg fracture. They got on the radio to the test supervisor in the control center. He, then, patched us through to the main medical office at KSC. As a doctor listened, Jim read from a script describing the symptoms of my injury. What followed next was a real eye-opener.

The doctors discussed how to handle this. Since nobody on the outside could get to us, they asked one of our members to follow the directions. First, he was to get out the first aid kit and administer a pill for the pain. No pain pills. Next he was to get some hydrogen peroxide and cleanse the wound. No hydrogen peroxide. As I groaned realistically in the background, they told our man to find anything in the kit that could be used to stop the bleeding. Some rolls of gauze were found and he went to work trying to bandage the injury as best he could. The next instruction was to get me as stable as possible then apply a splint. No splint. At this point, Jim informed everyone listening on the loop that this had been a simulation. I’m sure the doctors were relieved to hear that, but you can bet that someone got a reprimand for the lack of essential first aid supplies that were provided.

In a little over six hours, the temperature and humidity both seemed close to 98. We had some hand cranked ventilators, but they did not work very well. For food we had military K-rations, but no hot water was available. Someone got the idea of sitting cups on exposed light bulbs to heat water for coffee.

By the end of the day, we were all stripped down to just our underwear. We made efforts to try to find positions comfortable for sleeping, but those efforts were pretty much futile. The ten hours or so that we had been in the blast room already seemed like an eternity. We did manage to make it the full twenty-four, but it was as unpleasant a test as any 1 had ever done. The bottom line, though, was that the blast room did its job. We lived to tell the tale.

During the weeks preceding a launch, my desk would be set up in Level 4C of the mobile service structure. From here I monitored all activity around the spacecraft. The tiny white room was attached to Swing Arm 9 which extended from the umbilical tower at the 320 foot level. If you can visualize it, Level 4C on the MSS and the 320 foot level on the umbilical tower were essentially at the same elevation and separated by the spacecraft itself. On launch day, the flight and closeout crews arrived at the while room after a ride in one of die umbilical tower’s two high-speed elevators. At all other times, though, to get to the spacecraft, you had to come up the MSS and check in at Level 4C. We monitored all access to the spacecraft extremely closely. Every visitor, no matter who he was, went through the same ritual. After entering Level 4C, sign in at the Ingress and Egress Monitor station was mandatory. Following that, you got your shoes cleaned in the electric scrubber. Next, you either removed all your glasses, rings, and watches, or had them taped or secured with string. Then, you donned a white, static resistant smock, or if you were going to enter the spacecraft itself, put on one of the full coverage “bunny suits.” These had large yellow straps sewn over the shoulders, to be used as handles in case someone needed to quickly haul you out again. I was never a fan of red tape, but the rules at the spacecraft levels were critical in nature and there was no room for exceptions.

In fact I recall one episode where George Page and Tom O’Malley came up the umbilical tower for a peak into the spacecraft. Page was NASA’s Spacecraft Operations Division chief and O’Malley was a North American vice president. I had known Tom since the Mercury days when he had been with Convair. We never had gotten along all that well. Tom could be quite a character and was certainly one of the roughest and gruffest individuals you would ever find. He was the type that you either loved or hated. In our case, I guess you could say that we maintained a healthy disregard for each other. Anyway, the two men crossed over Swing Arm 9 and asked if they could go into the white room. No, I told them, they’d have to go back down the umbilical tower, cross the pad, and then come back up the MSS and sign in with the Ingress and Egress Monitor.

O’Malley turned to Page, obviously ticked off. “See, I told you that son of a bitch wouldn’t let us in!” Apollo 8 had originally been scheduled as a checkout of Grumman’s lunar module, the ungainly-looking little craft that would ultimately land on the moon. Jim McDivitt, Dave Scott, and Rusty Schweickart had been training for the mission which was to be conducted in Earth orbit, but the lunar module was weeks behind schedule for flight checkout. Somewhere along the line, reports came in from the Central Intelligence Agency that the Soviets were planning a lunar fly-by before the end of the year. The information was sketchy, but still disturbing enough that it was decided to change the order of the next two flights. Apollo 8 would be a lunar orbit mission!

McDivitt, the commander of his flight, decided that they wanted to continue with the checkout of the lunar module and declined the offer to go to the moon. Thus, his mission would be moved up to Apollo 9, and Frank Borman was offered the revised Apollo 8 - the lunar orbit attempt. With little reservation, he snapped it up. On August 19, NASA made the announcement that Frank Borman, Jim Lovell, and Bill Anders would crew the historic journey.

Frank and Jim both had Gemini flights under their belts. Even though they would not be carrying a lunar module with them on the trip, rookie Bill Anders would occupy the right couch as the lunar module pilot. I knew Borman pretty well, and had been exceptionally good friends with Jim Lovell for several years. But Anders was a relative new-comer and a bit hard to get to know. He rarely smiled and wrapped himself with an aura of intensity. If it wasn’t mission related, we usually did not talk about it.

The three astronauts spent long hours in training. If they weren’t out at Pad 39A where their monstrous Saturn 5 stood, they were in the simulator in the training building. The pressure was on and the clock was running. With the completion of Apollo 7, my own crews felt it too, as we rushed into preparations.

The launch was scheduled for the 21st of December.

The CDDT - Countdown Demonstration Test - began early in the morning on December 5 and quickly ran into problems. Glitches in the astronaut communications systems and the cryogenics systems caused a hold in the count that dragged on for fourteen hours. On the 8th, a telemetry problem caused a hold at the T-9 hours mark. Later on that day, a faulty heat exchanger once again caused a hold, this time at T-2.5 hours. When that was diagnosed and fixed, the test conductor recycled the count back to T-9 hours. It was late in the afternoon on the 10th when we finally completed the exhausting test.

With the launch planned for just over a week away, I was spending very little time at home. Usually just long enough to take a shower and grab a few hours of sleep. As launch day approached, the sleep opportunities got shorter and fewer.

The moon formed a moving target for Apollo 8. In order to hit it, a precise trajectory had to be followed, starting at a very specific point in time. This was the launch “window” - the short period of time available for launch. The window opened at 7:51 a.m. on the morning of the 21st. If we missed our timeslot, the launch would have to be scrubbed and a new window calculated. Everyone knew how important it was that we keep the operations moving along smoothly. On December 15, the long, complicated countdown began.

The five and a half day countdown for a Saturn launch was a highly structured affair. Thousands of individual activities were laid out in a timeline chart. All of this was published in a basic document with checklists several hundred pages long. Added to that were from thirty to fifty supporting documents, each with their own sets of checklists. Some thirty hours of built-in holds were spread through the count to allow for the inevitable glitches that were bound to occur. Many groups of people were involved in the complex operations.

The job of orchestrating the entire process fell on the CVTS - the complete vehicle test supervisor. For most of the Apollo launches, this role was filled by Bill Schick. He was a highly respected professional, known for his even temper and ability to keep things running in spite of unpleasant surprises.

It was close to midnight on the 20th when the sensitive process of vehicle tanking began. Not long after, I arrived at the VAB and breathed a sigh of relief to discover that the rest of my closeout crew had checked in. While the mechanical technician verified that our two station wagons contained all the tools and equipment he needed, I went over the setup sheets with an inspector. Next I checked with the spacecraft test conductor for any late changes or additions to the countdown documents. Lastly, I verified that Fred Haise, the backup command module pilot, had the latest updates to the command module switch settings. With everything in order, we all climbed into our NOMEX underwear, socks, and coveralls and boarded our cars for the short drive to Roadblock 11. Here, just a few hundred yards from the Launch Control Center, we awaited the completion of vehicle tanking at T-3 hours and 30 minutes. When we got the GO from the CVTS, we raced on out to the pad.

The pre-dawn skies were pitch black, but as we drove up, the spectacle of the giant rocket towering high above me was something I will never forget. The mobile service structure had been moved away revealing the clean, white vehicle. Sections of its sides were frosted over with ice and clouds of hydrogen fog drifted away from couplings. Lit up brilliantly on all sides by large arc spotlights, it took on a surrealistic glow.

At the 320 foot level on the umbilical tower, we grabbed our emergency air-packs and earned them into the white room. The hatch had been closed during fueling so we quickly reopened it. Haise climbed in and got to work setting all the switches to their preflight configuration. Outside the spacecraft we had a checklist containing about one hundred and fifty items. Time began to rush by and the countdown clock had become our enemy. Soon I would spot the approaching motorcade, with the white astronaut transfer van in the middle. Then the familiar face of Joe Schmitt would appear at the elevator and the time for a flight to the moon would be upon us. It was all very clinical and technical at the time. As I look back today, it seems to have had a touch of magic to it.

The crew insertion was quiet and professional. We had all done it dozens of times before. After getting the flight crew settled in and hooked up, I gave an important key to Borman. It unlocked a cover which protected the escape rocket arming switch. An accidental firing of the escape system with people on the towers would be a catastrophe, so that key was always carefully guarded. With a clearance from the test conductor, my technician closed the hatch and we performed a cabin leak test. Everything checked out so we disconnected the test gear and closed the hatch on the boost protect cover. While the suit technicians carried the astronauts’ galoshes, helmet covers, and ventilators down to the car, the rest of us prepared the white room for retraction. With all tasks completed and a GO from the test conductor, we vacated the white room and drove back to the MSS parking site where I, once again, reported in. With us clear of the pad, Borman was given the GO to arm the escape rocket. Then, our final clearance was given and we drove on to the fallback area at Roadblock 11. As the eastern horizon brightened, I could see thousands of people milling around the Press Site, just a few hundred yards south of us. An incredible battery of cameras and telescopic lenses were aimed toward 39A, three and a half miles distant. The large countdown clock in front of them ticked away the seconds in oversized, lighted numerals.

As the dawn continued, the last trace of the arc light beams faded into the brightening sky. I looked across the low vegetation that separated us from the pad. The Saturn 5 and umbilical tower were crisp against the horizon but now looked oddly small and remote.

Although I didn’t hear it, Jack King announced on the radio. The whole world listened.

“This is Apollo Saturn Launch Control at T-21 minutes and counting and we are GO for the Apollo 8 mission at this time. We really have a beautiful morning for the flight to the moon. The weather conditions are satisfactory for the launch attempt. Surface winds in the area are from the northwest at 7 knots, the temperature is about 60 degrees. We appear to have some scattered clouds from 10 to 12,000 feet high.”

As I monitored the spacecraft test conductor’s channel, the minutes ticked off. Occasionally feet shuffled around in the sand and someone momentarily looked away. Not only was this mankind’s first journey to the moon, but it was three astronauts’ first ride on a Saturn 5. The unspoken concern was clear on every face.

At T-5 minutes, the swing arm that held the white room was fully retracted to its park position at the 320 level on the umbilical tower. Anticipating the automatic launch sequencing that would take over at T-3 minutes 6 seconds, the countdown was handed off to the launch vehicle test conductor. Like clockwork, the “firing command” was issued and the rest of the countdown was under computer control. It was happening.

Tanks within the booster began pressurizing in preparation for the computer issued ignition sequence that would be given moments before launch. There was less talk on the test conductor’s channel now.

T-90 seconds and the report comes in that pressurization is nearly complete. We wait.

T-60 seconds and the vehicle is completely pressurized.

T-50 seconds and the spacecraft is reported on internal power.

It was always strange to me. The final minute of the countdown seemed so slow, but it marched by so fast. The wait seemed interminable, yet you still did not have time to drink it all in.

“T-15 seconds”. Now there was no longer any time to think about it.

“T minus 10..., 9..., 8..., ignition sequence start..., 5..., 4..., 3...”

A tiny, bright light sparkled for an instant under the tail of the booster. Then a white cloud of steam appeared before suddenly erupting from the two ends of the flame trench. The thick clouds boiled up fiercely, partially obscuring the view of the vehicle. Four hold-down arms released their load and we could see the beast start to move. Rising up from its cloud of smoke and steam, the Saturn 5 slowly cleared the tower while its fiery plume increased in length. Even in full daylight, the blast from the five main engines was so bright you could not look directly at it. On your face and hands, you felt the power of its heat. It was as if the rocket was balanced on a piece of the sun. And then the sound started.

It came rumbling across the marshes like a freight train headed straight for you. It was odd that you could “hear” it getting closer. Then, with a sudden rush, it smacked you in the face and chest with this deep, bass, crackling sound. Everything around you seemed to rattle, even your clothes. Beneath your feet the ground vibrated like an earthquake. It was as if you were inside of thunder.

We watched the giant spaceship climb higher into the sky, its brilliant plume stretched out two thousand feet behind. Behind that, a long tendril of white smoke reached back toward the ground. After about two and a half minutes, staging occurred and the giant S-IC stage, now empty of fuel, fell uselessly away. The lighter and faster vehicle continued to climb as it arced out of view over the Atlantic. As everyone shook hands and slapped backs, I felt elated. After eight years of hard work. I knew we were finally on our way to the moon.

The ride into space took eleven and a half minutes. With the crew on orbit, they immediately got busy with preparations for the three day journey that lay ahead of them. All that remained of the mighty Saturn 5 was the S-IVB third stage and the thin, circular band called the instrument unit, still attached to the booster’s payload.

A multi-stage rocket like the Saturn 5 was designed to burn fuel, fly, then shed its dead parts. The payload was also in a multi-part configuration. On a lunar landing mission, the lunar module would be a part of that payload. Since it was neither ready nor needed on this orbital flight, no LM (pronounced LEM, by the way) was brought.

The spacecraft, the most important part of the payload, was made up of two parts: the command module and, underneath it, the service module. Usually the pair was simply referred to as the CSM. Between the CSM and the S-IVB stage were two final segments. Directly below the CSM was the adapter section. In future flights, this would be stowage for the lunar module. The adapter section attached to the S-IVB via the circular instrument unit.

It sounds a bit confusing, but let me summarize it for you. During the eleven or so minutes after launch of a Saturn 5, the first and second stages consume their fuel and are jettisoned. By the time orbit is achieved, all that remains is the third stage (the S-IVB) which is attached via the circular instalment unit to the adapter section, which in turn is attached to the service and command module pair (the CSM).

Apollo 8 made one and a half orbits of the earth before firing the S-IVB engine one final time. This was the famed TLI - the trans-lunar injection. It was the point that the spacecraft was boosted out of orbit and set on course to the moon. The astronauts bid farewell to the S-IVB, the instrument unit, and adapter section and continued on in their CSM spacecraft, the first humans to leave the vicinity of Earth.

The long flight from Earth to Moon covered nearly 240,000 miles. As Apollo 8 sailed away, the crew became the first humans to ever leave the gravitational influence of their home planet, and the first to see the earth as a full disk. Most of the time was spent coasting, growing slower and slower as Earth’s gravity tried to pull them back. Late in the second day, at a range of about 200,000 miles, the gravity of the moon became sufficient to override that of Earth. The CSM began picking up speed again as it fell toward the lunar orb. It is easy to imagine the sight of the moon’s surface, growing in size with each passing hour until it filled the entire window.

Early on the morning of Christmas Eve, Apollo 8 slid in past the moon and swung around to the back side. The crew aligned the spacecraft so that its tail was aimed in their direction of flight. In a braking maneuver, the service module’s SPS engine was fired. This was designed to put them into lunar orbit. Controllers in Houston would not know if the burn was successful, and orbit achieved, until the spacecraft reappeared on the opposite horizon. I am sure jubilation broke out in Mission Control some thirty minutes later when they heard Lovell’s voice on the radio, “Go ahead, Houston. Apollo 8.” One of the most memorable events of Apollo 8’s lunar visit happened during their ninth, and second to last, orbit. At 9:30 in the evening I sat with my wife and daughters in front of the television set. We joined hundreds of millions of other people around the world as Jim, Bill, and Frank read from the Book of Genesis in one of the most profound Christmas presentations ever given.

The flawless journey of Apollo 8 ended with a pinpoint landing in the Pacific on December 27. What an astounding feat the whole mission had been. Now, nearly thirty-five years later, I still marvel at the magnitude of the accomplishment. In eight years time, we brought together several hundred thousand people to work on a goal that we didn’t even know for sure was possible to attain. These people developed materials, technologies, and procedures that would have taken generations to produce under normal circumstances. People died, giving all their efforts to the goal of reaching the moon. Guided by the visions of individuals like Wernher von Braun and Bob Gilruth, we had proven that mankind’s destiny is to explore, and that his domain extends far past planet Earth.