NOVA; To the Moon; Interview with Rocco Petrone, mechanical engineer and director of NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center from 1973-1974, part 1 of 3

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Okay. And... Okay. Patronum 69, mag 2, take 1. So, how did landing site and trajectory issues limit the schedule? Well, we talked about a window. A window meant those few days you have to launch another moon as a moving target. And when you select a target on the moon, you've got to go in roughly a three to four day period. So, that much meant you had to get the launch vehicle ready, the spacecraft ready, and go within a three or four day period. Now, the actual site, what that did, it limited you further. Another, there were some sites that you'd only go to at a certain time of the year. However, those were not the driving factor. The factor of the window, this three days, four days out of every 28. So, you had to get the vehicle ready in that time frame to be able to meet the window.

If you should have a problem, you'd have to wait another total 28 day cycle. So, in that regard, you were sort of pinned down to the calendar. And the site itself had its demands, but it was the three or four day window that was the prime thing we had to aim for. Now, when we get to the testing of the Saturn 5 rocket, okay, getting that thing ready, how did Von Braun feel about testing the whole thing at one time versus one stage at a time? Was there some discussion about that? Yes, the all-up concept, which we did pursue on Saturn 5, was an idea brought into the program by George Miller, was a program director. And prior to that, we had been launching the first stage with the upper stages in the second stage, and he said, hey, the hardware is really cheap figuratively. It's the program that costs money.

So, let's do it all up, let's get everything ready at one time, and go from there. Now, what it did to us and me, it decayed specifically. We had to have the vehicle, now, the launcher in the equipment for the launch vehicle. Everything was ready and day one. We were going to work into it programmatically, have the equipment for the first stage, and equipment for the second stage, and give us maybe six months to a year longer before we had to have an all-up vehicle. However, the all-up concept, it all ascents in the world when one looked at it and backed off, because you've got to prepare hardware for the upper stages. The vehicle's got to stay together, it's got to fly. You might as well go with the end hardware, and we did, and it worked out very successfully. Did it scare you at first when they started talking about it? No, no, it just meant more work, and it meant more work in a shorter period of time, because when one looks at a launch site, my complex 39, and looks at all the equipment has got to be ready, you'd like to program it in, where you can sequentially get equipment

ready over a period of a year or two, and now it ought to be ready on day one. Day one, everything was up, and that was a job, but when we met. How did Bond Brown feel about testing it all at once? Well, initially, because his total background had been a sequential approach, he was not overly enthused, but I think within a short period of time, we came to the conclusion that it was the thing to do, and with the fact we had been proceeding, like on a Saturn one, we launched three of those, with only one vehicle, and then we launched two more with two stages, and it took a longer time, and you weren't really working that far behind the curve, so that the all-up concept, as we called it, everything up, except we would not man it, unless the all-up, we'd have a spacecraft have all those items, but you would not man it the first time, or we would normally go, we had two launches, and then the third one we manned on the Saturn five.

Now, describe for me, if you would, the first time you watched that Saturn five actually successfully launch. What was that experience like? Well, the launch of the Saturn five, the first one, November of 1967, was a technical logical breakthrough, as well as an emotional breakthrough. It was so large, here 33-foot diameter, 363-foot tall, that it boggled the imagination, what one had to do, my coin to phrase, the Saturn five minute, because the guys would say, well, I need five minutes for this, and 20 minutes later, you're still waiting. How we came down to the thing was huge, it was large, whereas you could pick up a valve of a Saturn one and walk from the parts bend to the vehicle, here you need a forklift truck. So it made a different scale of things, there was a different diameter, a different perspective.

However, we soon got used to it, and we soon made it function. So the first one, remember we had a term called countdown demonstration, where we would fuel the vehicle, no spacecraft, no menaboard, and go from there, it took us some 16 days to get through just one fueling operation. We'd stop and start, stop and start, there'd be something wrong, but that learned, it caused us to learn how to prepare this hardware. In those days, that cauldron of time and the intensity of pressure, we evolved account, we evolved the way to go out of where to put in built holes, and we're not ready for launch. Well, I know, there were journalists who were coming out to see the launch, who said, well, give them two, three hours, it won't go off on time. Saturn five went off to the second, this first one, 501, we call it. It went off to the second, she took off, it was a beautiful sight.

To me, it was the opening of the space age. Once we had that bird launched, once we knew we could count it down and get it off, I knew then it was just a matter of time until we got to the moon. What was the physical experience of that thing taking off? What did it do? Well, the ignition, you imagine there are five engines, one and a half million pounds of thrust each, and you're going to have a cycle where you count up and at six seconds, roughly you give the first signal to the bird. And then you see that intense flame. Now we've got five swing arms that are attached to that bird until she's flying. That's a very touchy deal. The swing arms which could cut that bird, if they did not swing out of the way, the bird had to climb some two inches before the arm starts to swing. And that's an emotional time, I must tell you.

And right until the last one, those swing arms getting out of the way were always what I counted and made sure they were happening. It was all automatic, but still you could always have a hold up. So as the bird started the climb, she lifted slowly and programmed a little to the right to get away from that launcher, and took us about seven, eight seconds to clear the tower. And that flame was belching all the way back and hitting on the launcher and as that vehicle was up over some three, four and a feet high, and we were on our way and she went all the way, you know, the beautiful launch. Loud? Oh yes, oh yes. The windows in our control center, because we were now 17,000 feet away from the launcher. We were far enough away where if there were an explosion, we would be safe, but the large windows started to vibrate. But we had them well engineered and well designed, but she moved.

And it's three miles away. You could feel the building shake and the windows start to vibrate. And I'm looking right through those windows, but never worried a bit. Now if she went. Great, cut for a second. That's good. It's January 27, 1967. Where were you? What did you experience? I was the actual launch director for that test in which we had the fire on Apollo 1. We had been having a series of problems, holes that you call it. It was the first time at the pad with the vehicle, with the menaboard. And we had had different problems, small in nature and so forth, but still hold you up. And it was around 625 or so when we had picked up the count. And we're going into our final count.

And we were going through a simulated T-0. There was no fuel aboard the vehicle, but there would have been a countdown bringing a spacecraft and all up into its final fade before a lift off. Then we had a simulated T-0. Right about then, I was looking at a TV on my launch director's console. I saw a flash. And on another TV I saw some wire shake that were outside the bird on the second on the floor below it. And I literally couldn't put it together because why was the line shaking and why was the flash? And all within a matter of seconds, which we evaluated later, the spacecraft really burst into flames. It was because we had a pure action on board. There were numerous consumables in a spacecraft.

And it just took off fire and I believe it was all over in 13 to 14 seconds where in the pressure built up to a point where it ruptured the spacecraft. It was a hard thing to accept, a hard thing to understand. At the time, we did not know what the circumstances were, so there was a crew at the pad right at the level who tried to get the door open. Unfortunately, we just ran out of film. I'll pick you up right here. Thank you. Mark, Rock of the Trone. JFK speech, where were you, what did you think? I was a Cape Canaveral and I was going to lunch with a colleague. And I remember it was a pretty stormy day and we were listening to it over the car radio.

And so we stood outside the mess all in the car and I could hear Kennedy speech. And it came across, well, and we were expecting something along this line, but this was the announcement now. And I guess I turned to my colleague and said, well, our work's cut out for us. We've got a job ahead. Did you think it was doable? Did you? Well, we always thought it was doable. Now, doable doesn't mean straightforward, doesn't mean easy, doesn't mean it's all going to go according to plan. But doable, yes. Now, why Cape Canaveral? Why was that chosen as a website? Why did that make sense? Well, we actually looked at six different launch sites in the study of where to locate. So the Cape was not a given. It was one of six sites. But where the Cape won out, one was along the ocean so that you could drop your booster downrange and not affect anyone. Second, the Cape already had instrumentation in place.

And the terrain there was generally accessible. There wasn't much housing, although there were some we had to take. So the Cape won out, but there were six different sites we looked at. What was some of the other sites just at a curiosity? Oh, we looked at a play called Cumberland Isle. Cumberland is just north of Jacksonville, it's in Georgia. It was very appealing. It had many of the characteristics of the Cape. However, there was a problem with the inland waterway coming through there, which we would have had to enter deck. And that would have been an impossibility. We also looked at a place in Hawaii. We looked at Padre Islands. It was in the Gulf of Mexico down near Brownsville, Texas. So we did look at various spots, made some pretty good studies of what it would take, what the trade-offs were. We also looked at an offshore site, going maybe 10 miles off the Cape. So he wouldn't have to buy any five to 10 miles.

So he wouldn't have to buy any real estate and dislocate some people. Because there were armed girls and homes and things that were going to have to relocate. But we finally settled on the Cape as de-place. And Merritt Island was just north of the Cape. It was purchased 88,000 acres, and that's where we built the complex. Describe those early days, Rock. What was the work environment like? You know, I understand during those years the divorce rate was higher at the Cape than any place else in America. How hard did you guys work describe it to me? Well, we did work hard. I'll say that. I wish I could keep notes on all we had done. But I recall we had scheduled meetings, and it would be like two o'clock and three o'clock. But it would be two o'clock, three o'clock in the morning. And we'd get a few hours' sleep, and we worked around the clock. We had the schedule of presenting to the Administrator, James Webb, by the first of August. After Kennedy made it announcement on the 25th of May, A site, what it was going to look like, what it was going to cost.

And you might say everything, including bells and whistles. So we really had to put out. So when I mentioned we were having meetings of two or three in the morning, that was the case. And everyone started to bore up, although there was a tired crew, you can imagine. What was it like to prepare a place like the Cape, which was basically virtually desert to launch Saturn Rockets and Nova Rockets in those days? Well, we speak of the Cape, and the Cape is the whole geographical area. But north of the Cape is Marin Island, and that was the part that was totally new. Primarily mangrove swamp, and a lot of alligators, and so forth. To build it to start a new launch site was both a challenge, a blessing, but also a terrible job. The problem of building in a swamp, you've got to search for ground, you've got to search for spots where the soil is going to give you a good foundation.

So there's an awful lot of pumping, dredging. And doing it, we built canals, which allowed us to get the rockets in, and dredging the canal. We also got surcharge to build our pad. Basically it was a challenge, and one that we met, but it was a job doing it, and it cost money. Now talk to me about the Nova rocket. Was the Nova a feasible plan? What did it have worked? A lot of people thought that was the way to go. How big was the Nova? Well, I can't give you exact dimension because it was a conceptually, a problem, a conceptually a large scale rocket. The main thing was there was a single launch to take all your hardware to the moon. At the same time, people were looking at Earth-Arbor rendezvous, where one would launch two or the four rockets, organize your spacecraft and its propulsion and Earth orbit, then go to the moon. Now the Nova, which I say was conceptually, thought out, would have been a very huge rock, bigger than Saturn V.

We at the time thought it might have 12 million pounds of thrust in the first stage, and we thought it might be about 400 feet high. However, what we ended up with the Saturn V, still a single launch to the moon, once we decided to go mooner orbit rendezvous, seven and a half million pounds of thrust, looked a bit like Nova, except Nova would have been larger, as they may be 12 to 15 million pounds of thrusts on a basic stage. To me, when we decided to go mooner orbit rendezvous, and it was after about a year of studies and all before decisions were made, we at the Cape had to be prepared to go either way. So we were preparing launch site with as many as four pads, and a VAB vertical assembly building to be able to prepare for the Earth-Arbor rendezvous, the Nova, however, was so large, we did not, at that time, consider moving it. The launch rate would not have been as high, it would not have required it. So the Nova played a part for about a year in our studies, but then we settled on Earth-Alunar orbit rendezvous, where we'd organize and bring all the equipment to the moon, and then rendezvous there, and that made it the present complex that we have today, which was the Saturn V with the Apollo on top, and a single launch for every lunar mission.

Rather than multiple launch, I say, four, we'd have to get four birds ready. Let's start about it. Tell me, what were the complications of an Earth orbit rendezvous? Give that back to me, the complications. We would have, for Earth-Arbor rendezvous, we think we would have had to prepare four rockets at one time. Now, we don't launch them simultaneously, but you launch within days of each other, because you don't have too much time for consumables. You have fuels on board, you'd have cryogenics, and they would be boiling off. So we would have had to prepare four rockets, and then you want to launch, like there's one in two and three in four. One in two could have been the propulsion part of the vehicle, three in four could have been a spacecraft, and then you bring it together in Earth-Arbor.

So you launch, and if you get your first one up, find then you go to three and four, and you get one of those up, and you still got a backup. But the complication would have been great. It would have been a tremendous operation, a large number of people. So it would have had problems. Now, the Saturn V had its problems. It's size and all, but it made it possible to do. And when we settled on that in about a year, the summer of 1962, I believe, was about the time it was settled. We were able to then settle down and design our pad, design our control center, design our assembly building, to prepare a single vehicle, space vehicle for launch, rather than multiple. Terrific. Good. Here you go. I try and take two. What about the emotional price you guys paid in those days were describing to me? Well, the pressure was tough. The workload was hard, and it was long, and there were certain pressures on the families.

We're not getting home for supper. You're not getting home. See, the kids go to bed. However, we were all dedicated to meeting a schedule. Kennedy had set the goal of making a landing and returning safely in this decade and meant 69. We all knew what 69 was. This was now 61. So we were wound up. There's no question about it. However, I have to say the environment, the pressure on people, was not overwhelming. I mean, if there were troubles in the family, this wasn't going to make it easier. But where I think a family was settled and in shape, you might say, let's just put pressure on it, but we managed to live through it and succeed. You know, the divorce rate in all I repeat, just off the side, was not that high. You hear rumblings of it, but very frankly, among all my direct reports and all, there were no divorces.

There were a lot of strain, a lot of problems. I mean, you couldn't be with the kids on the night, weekends, you're probably working. It was a strain. But...