NOVA; To the Moon; Interview with James T. Rose, Engineer, part 1 of 2

Well, yeah, Jiminy, not only was it important, but it was important, but it was important. Well, yeah, Jiminy, not only was it important, but I think his time goes by more and more of the people who work there really do understand the importance of Jiminy. It was important because Mercury simply showed us we could put a man in space and bring him home. Could maneuver him, we couldn't control where he was coming in or doing it, we did to launch him. It was a tremendous effort. Jiminy showed us how to do things that were absolutely necessary to go to the moon. And the Apollo didn't start flying until 97, Jiminy flew 11 flights in the 96, 95, 96

time frame. I mean, 67. I mean, 67. Right. Apollo flew in 67 the first time, Jiminy completed 11 flights in 65 and 66, two month intervals and proved you could stay up there two weeks and still function. It proved you can rendezvous, you can dock, and you can do EVA, and you can do especially EVAs that are meaningful. In fact, if you look at what we do today in space, it was all done because we developed those techniques on Jiminy. So when Apollo got started in 67, it already had that background. And the same astronauts who had done these things on Jiminy were now flying with the astronauts as part of the astronaut team on Apollo. And we got to the moon in 69, I don't think we would have otherwise. Now, but what the audience has to understand is, nobody was thinking about Jiminy.

I mean, when did Jim, when did the idea for Jiminy come along? Well, I think after the Apollo program got started, I think there was enough wisdom in the management to recognize. There's a big jump. There is a jump between Jiminy and Apollo. We need something in between. Between Mercury and Apollo. Between Mercury and Apollo. Take me back on that. Did Jim Chamberlain come up with the idea? No. I think Jim Chamberlain, yes, I think he was working, but Bob Gilruth, the center director or the head of space task group at the time, and Abe Silverstein, who was the head, running headquarters for the man activities, they had enough sense to recognize we need to put, get somebody working on something to come in between basic Mercury and Apollo. They didn't know exactly what, but they asked Jim Chamberlain in January of 1961 to begin to look seriously at what should we do.

And by the March time frame, he had come up with a total new design within a month. We had two men in it, and we were looking at then, and then that's when he brought me on board in April of that year to do the missions, because they said, here we've got a design, now what are we going to do with it? How would you define the difference between Mercury and Jiminy? I mean, in one sense, what I'm looking for, I guess, is Mercury was totally automated, and Jiminy was completely manual. Well, there were a lot of automated features in Jiminy, but we left certain crucial decisions to the astronauts. So set me up with this. The difference between Mercury and Jiminy. In fact, in fact. Number one. Give me that back. Well, the difference between Mercury and Jiminy now, and I think they were distinct. When Mercury started, we did not know what a man could and could not do, so it had to be automatic. Now, it was a very simple flight plan. You go into orbit, you turn around, you have attitude control, and you take, you look at the window, you do a few things, you turn it up after about three orbits and fire the

retro rockets, and you make sure you've got the right angle, and then you reenough, and you hope the sheet's going to open, you're going to land, and it's all done automatically. When Jiminy wrote, came along, we said, the man can do things, and he's got to be able to do things. He's going to have to run to view, he's going to have to do a lot of things. He's got to be an integral part of the sequence of events. In fact, we didn't even let the automatic, we didn't have an automatic abort sequence on it, we took the escape tower off and put ejection seats, and he had the, he was the man that would have to pull the ejection seat cord to eject, because we had enough concern in some of the Mercury missions, where a pressure spike in the engine could have triggered a premature abort of a couple of those missions, which would have been disastrous. We would have saved the astronaut we think, but it would have been, it would have certainly hurt the mission. So simply put, did the astronauts, like Gus Grissim, I know he had a lot to do with that

original Gemini capsule, what kind of input did the astronauts have to the Gemini, and Gus in the same way? Well to Mercury, very little, but Gemini, from almost the onset, when we really got started on the Gemini design in 61, Gus wanted to be the astronaut that, that, that helps work on the design, he was very interested in that, and so he worked very closely with Jim Chamberlain, myself, and all the other engineers on Gemini, because he wanted the astronaut input into it, so it would be, as many, you know, the old cliche user friendly, he's the user, he wanted it to be user friendly to the, to the astronaut's viewpoints, and, and he, and it worked fine, we had a, we had a very good relationship. Did, did, did the astronauts feel that the Mercury capsule was, was really just too automated, they weren't getting to be test pilots? To some degree, I think yes, but I think they clearly understood the reason for it, because until they had gone up there, they wouldn't have known, you know, how they would function,

how they wouldn't function, and, and would they get tired, would they get to the point that they, they would be, forgetful of, of what was happening. So it was almost necessary. To what extent was Mercury, really just a medical experiment? Well, Mercury, I think, to get up there, in the time frame we, we, we would, I think Max Fajet should be given the full credit, he and his team of figuring out the best thing we can do in this country to get there the fastest is to use a ballistic type shape. There were a lot of arguments about it, shouldn't we use lifting bodies and do these types of things, which would have been a much more sophisticated vehicle, and, and at the time was probably have set us back even further. We were in a rush with the Russians to get there, and not knowing what the, what the astronauts would do, and I do know that the, the true test pilots in the air force were, in the Navy, they, they, what do they call them, something spam and a can, because they, the astronauts are used to, and pilots are used to flying things, and it really wasn't

much to fly. This was a ballistic entry coming in. You didn't do anything, but roll it, so it, it came in straight, and the, and the pilot had nothing to do, and exiting, and he had nothing to do. And it was very little to do on orbit, because we simply put him up there. If you think about it, most of the missions were done in two or three orbits. We finally extended the last one with considerable effort, and about six months of time to go one day. Good, good, terrific, good, great. The, the individual flights, they all have a specific problem. Germany we flew 11 flights. I think ten oven were manned, one of them, the first one, there was one unmanned, just before we started in the manned, and they were done in two month intervals, and that is, that is unique, from the Mercury experience to be able to do that, but if we were going to run to view effectively, and do it routinely, we had to be able to learn to launch these

things. That's one, one example, they, I've lost the question again. One other, one other specific, like each specific mission, I need back when you, each mission had a specific objective, they had to. Each mission on Germany did have specific objectives. We had to create and do rendezvous. We had to do rendezvous with another element, not with one that we ejected out of the, out of the payload bay. EVA was important to us, a man, could he, could he do things outside, so could Apollo expect a man to be able to do jobs outside of the spacecraft? And he was in space. This was an objective, the long duration, for a man to go to the moon and back, we had to make sure that, that, that the man could, could survive 14 days in space and be productive during those 14 days.

If he was going to go to the moon, come return home. This was the time frame you were talking about. So when we looked at all of those things we wanted to do, now another important thing, when we docked with this, a Gina. We wanted to be able to ignite that a Gina and go to a higher orbit to prove that you could do this type of activity. Because that's one of the steps you would have to take to, to come home from the moon. Now rendezvous and then, then, then power yourself further out. So yes. And when we looked at, at what it was going to take, it took at least these 11 missions to do the things, assuming it was going to take in some, a couple of more than the other to do them. And what did the name, Gemini, come from to? Well, it was called originally Mark II Mercury. And I was, Jim Chamberlin and Jim Rose were the two on it. And when all of a sudden we heard that name was going to be Gemini, it was Gemini. So we got to be kick out of that.

But it turns out it was some engineer and NASA headquarters came up with the name. And this was just about January, I think, of 62. Right after we were made an official project, and it became known as Gemini, or Gemini. And there was never settled, which was the correct pronunciation. So we would answer by any name. Now, what, why did it get to those? Mark I, Mark II, which is the twin, that's where Gemini is. Well, Mark, the original concept of a change from Mercury, that was a Mark I version, which was a minimum change. Then there was a Mark II version, which was major change. And that's what, and with the two men, from a one man to a two man, and then every, all the, when we came up with the first project plan for, for Gemini, we thought, excuse me, to be a little ambitious.

We saw no reason why if Gemini does the things of rendezvous and long duration, and it doesn't, very successfully and quickly, why we couldn't put Gemini around the moon and a circumstances flight. And so that became an option in our first project development plan in the early part of August 1961. It was, it was thought to be very realistic because the C3, or the Saturn C3 vehicle, could put a Cintar rocket into orbit, we could rendezvous with that Cintar rocket, and that had enough propulsion to push Gemini into a free return transfer to the moon and back. We would go around the moon and come home and land, very similar to what Apollo 8 ultimately did. Why didn't we do it? Well, it was not seriously considered because Apollo with a three man system and the direct approach, this was the way things were going to be at the time, so it was not seriously

considered, and it was that time within a week or ten days that Jim Chamberlain called me and asked me to put together a plan to put Gemini on the moon. With a one man, Linda, using Luna rendezvous, the technique that John Hobolt over at Langley had become the champion of as a the best method in his mind to make such a ventures this. What did you think of lunar orbit rendezvous when you first heard about it? Take me back now. Well, when I first heard about it, because I was a, I was a, because from the start of Gemini in April of 61, of looking at what his mission was going to be rendezvous was clearly a major mission of Gemini, so I was a very astute, let's say, advocate of rendezvous and the virtues of it, and I had studied this very precisely with several people at Langley

Research Center who were developing the techniques, and so when the idea of putting Gemini on the moon with a one man, Linda, using rendezvous, I thought it was marvelous, and so I put this study together in about, about a week's time, that clearly showed that the difference between using Luna rendezvous with a real machine, and everyone could, could, could debate what a Gemini weighed, or what, you know, the system we, we were talking about, could do and not do, and the only question was it was, it was a lunar lander, but we showed that you could put for 29,000 pounds in using a C3 Saturn rocket, which could lift 38,000 pounds to escape. You could replace a Saturn, a nover class vehicle, which would, it would take to put the Apollo on direct ascent to the moon and bring it back, 150,000 pounds, so between 29,000 and 150,

now that's a great difference, but it caught people's attention. John Holbolt was considered, and the Langley people said to be theory additions, the Apollo group saying, you know, well, you know, they, they don't have any real experience, but they couldn't say that about Jim Chamberlain, or Jim Rose, and that's in the same way, and they had to look at it. Well, talk to me about who bolt, how was who bolt received, how was who bolt's plan for a lunar orbit rendezvous received? Well, the meeting that I was in, which is, I am sure was the first meeting between, officially between Holbolt and the space task group people, occurred right after this meeting where I had, my work had been presented to a meeting to show the difference, this 29,000 pounds versus 150,000 pounds to escape, to do the mission. That was a big meeting called the next day at Langley at headquarters, and I was there,

and Holbolt was there, and it was not very, it was not very well received. I think it was, I think this was kind of a shock to the Apollo, this was not on their agenda to have to go through this right away to look at something like this, they had accepted Director Sennis being the way to go, and they were more concerned with the Apollo spacecraft at the time, and the three mancraft, and what it could do and what it couldn't do. So I think they were caught, all of a sudden, here was, here was something being thrown at them, a Germany could go to the moon and land with one man, lander, for something that was a much smaller vehicle, and yet it, when you start to think about it, it makes all kinds of sense, I only have to design a system to land, it doesn't have to come back, and the system that's going to take it out there doesn't have to land, the Apollo portion of it, it comes back, or the Germany portion, whichever you want to look at, but Holbolt really was, I think he took a fairly large beating that day, and... What was it like, I mean, did Fajet get upset about the numbers, and he said, Fajet said

your numbers lie. Well I think they were all, I think, there was a lot of ups, he was, he was accused, this is the most, I remember expressions like this is the most ridiculous thing I've ever heard of, the most unsafe thing, how could anybody go up there and land and to rendezvous 250,000 miles away, blah, blah, blah, well you know, we hadn't even put a man in orbit yet. So some of those, some of those concerns were probably valid, but the point is when John Kennedy said we're going to put a man on the moon before the end of this decade, time then became a very serious factor, and Lunar rendezvous saves us tremendous time because it allows us to build smaller systems, systems we can test much easier, and therefore the probability of them working faster, and being capable of going and doing the job is much larger. Describe simply the difference in John Hubolt's calculations numbers and what the NOVA rocket would have taken.

Well as I'm saying, the numbers that I can equate for you because I used Hubolt's technique, and I would simply apply it to a real spacecraft, the Germany spacecraft, and we took a, and conceptually designed a one-man lunar lander in which I made the estimates for the propulsion and requirements and this and that and the other, and they are, the difference as I said before was 29,000 pounds versus 150,000 pounds. Describe that NOVA rocket. Why was that the darling for a while? What would have taken to use that rocket? Well the Saturn V, which went to the moon, using Lunar rendezvous, had the potential of putting approximately 80,000 to 85,000 pounds to escape. Escape is a word we used because it's the velocity it takes to get away from the Earth's gravity.

The moon is so far out that you have to almost get to escape velocity to do an ellipse that takes you all the way to the moon so that you can go around it and come back. So we just refer to it as having to go to escape to get to the moon, which is a coincidence by the way, but it's the way it works. But the NOVA was the class of vehicle that would take 150,000 pounds, so you can, if you can look at the Saturn V, which is, you know, we have a big museum on it now and it keeps an Avril and Kennedy Space Center and a vehicle that could put twice that much to escape. You're getting the idea of what we're talking about. I don't know how we would have tested such a vehicle under one G here on the ground that had to do that in one six G up there because you'd have to find a way to test it down here. And so it's just, if when you start to think about it, well listen, the Apollo people, I just don't think they had taught about it.

We forced them to think about it quickly within a, I tell you, within a month and a half's time, they were touting the virtue of lunar rendezvous by the November timeframe of 1961. And they still had to overcome the challenge from Werner von Braun and his crowd who was still pushing for lunar, for Earth orbit rendezvous. And it was I think June the next year that the final decision was made to go lunar rendezvous. But what did Jim, back to the meeting in a second, what did Jim Chamberlain tell you about Hoopold before the meeting? Well, I had, I knew John Hoopold. In fact, when he called on me to tell me to put the study together, I immediately got hold of John and then discussed it with him and he gave me the parameters and things that I needed to, needed to have to go, to work the, work the problem and get the numbers together. But it was Chamberlain simply, I think, presented this information at this meeting and from what I can gather, it shook up the meeting because they were, the meeting was there to

talk about the, about Apollo and going to, and what was happening, I guess, and aspects of it and the, and the, and the Nova vehicle and what have you. I think Jim Chamberlain simply said, you know, I can do it for 29,000 pounds using lunar orbit rendezvous. And the other guy said, what did the other guy say, what did the space task group say? Well, this, we were all in space task group, this we were, but we were the Germany part of the space task group, or the Mark II, whatever you want to call it, the time. He said, they told, well, I was not in that meeting. I was at the meeting the next day when they brought Hoopold over to crucify, for causing all this trouble because of Hoopold hadn't done this thing, I couldn't have done my thing, you see. And they jumped on me a little bit about the mass fractions that I'd used in one particular mass fraction. I used.9 rather than, in.8, that means,.9 means it's, it's more perfect,.85, I said, well, use.85, everybody knows you can do that, and you're still less than the, than

what the C3 can carry, and that's a, that's a minimum Saturn. It's, that they're talking about developing, which is, which is a real, plus. Good, great, roll out terrific. Bank speed, and it turns out, because by the time we did go to the moon, they said they didn't have a lunar program, and a lot of the other people said they didn't have it. But when, when some of our professors from MIT went over there, they were shown, the space vehicles and so on, they were actually going to go to the moon. They had a lunar program, and we knew they had a, we knew they had an aggressive, well-run program, and we had to really work hard to even get even, much less get ahead of them. Good. Okay. Switch fell. Change from Mercury, that was a Mach 1 version, which was a minimum change. Then there was a Mach 2 version, which was major change, and that's what, and with the

two men, from a one man to a two man, and then every, all the hardware taken outside the pressure vessel and, and modularized, these were the things that made what we call Mach 2 Mercury, instead of Mach 1 Mercury. But then someone said that's not a good name, and they came up with the idea, we'll name it Jiveini. Okay. And you had two men in it, and then the twins are there, so it, it, it applied. Okay, good. Okay, let's switch fell.