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

There were a number of us, as we were getting into the Germany program, it thought Germany could go to the moon. It could maybe go to the moon faster than Apollo, and since the President was talking there about a moon landing before the decade was out, that meant nine years. If we could do the other things early in Germany, the rendezvous, the long duration, and things in Earth orbit, then we could go to the moon with a one-man lander we thought, and because we had two men, one would stay in Germany when it reached the moon, one would take this one-man lander in land using the lunar rendezvous theories that had been developed by John Hobold and his colleagues at the Langley Research Center. Up until then, Apollo had been stuck with the idea of direct descent, was the way they

were going to go, because it was simpler. I'm just saying that through some committees that were studying the problem, they thought rendezvous was going to be extremely difficult. From the simulations and things going on, Langley didn't look to be that complex, so we really seriously thought to save time if we were very successful in early Germany, why don't we push it a step further and go to the moon, and we could make sure we got there before the Russians did. We wouldn't have been able to do much in that particular Germany landing vehicle. We could just get there and land. Now, we could have probably added some things in what have you later, as time went on if we thought about it, but the intent was, could Germany go to the moon? And yes, it could. It could have gone to the moon. It could have gone to the moon, and we could have developed a one-man lunar land, as opposed to a two-man lunar land, which ultimately Apollo did, but it would not have been as comprehensive

a program as it ultimately was and Apollo was, and so I can't say that we would have done exactly what Apollo did, but we could have gotten there earlier, I think. Now, back to the rendezvous issue. One last little point. Was Von Braun in favor of lunar orbit rendezvous, just simply tell me yes or no, and when did he finally come around? Von Braun, Renovan Braun was always an advocate of rendezvous. Even from his early back his 1958, when NACA became NASA, and he was still in the Army at Army ballistic missiles, he was a strong advocate of rendezvous. And he started developing these multi-engine systems, which became known as a Saturn. And so he was concentrating his effort there, but he was always interested in rendezvous. During some of Bob Seaman's committees, in the 61 timeframe, headquarters were looking

at different alternative ways to get to the moon. That descent was in one committee, he appointed another committee, which consisted of martial people and headquarters people of looking at Earth orbit rendezvous as a way to go to the moon. And so he was pursuing that with some vigor. And even after the, we put Germany on the moon with the one-man lander that stimulated the Apollo team's interest in lunar rendezvous, it was not until even into 1962 time frame. Von Braun was still pursuing Earth orbit rendezvous, using the Saturn's to rendezvous with shuttle, with Apollo, and then carrying it on to the moon. And to do that, he wanted to use Germany to develop the Saturn hardware.

And this occurred in early 1962, in which I had to go argue the point that that's not in the best interest of Germany in learning how to do rendezvous. And he ultimately accepted that and became a very strong supporter of Germany in the rendezvous program in the lunar program. Good, all right, just briefly touch on that second group of astronauts known as the Germany Nine astronauts, the new nine, actually is what they were called. How good were they? How crucial to a policy success were they? Well, I think they were ultra important to it because these people were really, they were really very sharp technically, all of them. And they'd been trained, I guess, to some degree. They're training in what have you seem to be somewhat different from the original seven, which they were all good, but I'm just saying this particular group of astronauts, I thought were very, very competent.

And I think they proved that. I think they did the Germany and then they went right on and all of them to some degree participated strongly in Apollo. Well, we're talking about meeting Buzz Alder now. You met Buzz before he was in Aspen. Oh, yes, Buzz was working on his doctorate up here at MIT and in orbital mechanics. And so he had, I was in charge of mission planning on Germany in Houston at the time. And so I got this call from headquarters saying that this, I think it was a major at the time, or Captain or major, was coming down and he wanted to talk to me and that he had some ideas about rendezvous. So I met with Buzz all one day and he had a lot of information about, and doing it in actually in a totally manual way. And I said, well, oh, that's wonderful, Buzz, there's a lot of work and you got to have a lot of support equipment and what have you.

But I said, but we have a radar. We think that's going to be a much simpler way to do it, but we probably do need a manual system as backup in case we, you know, if the radar fails during a mission, it turns out that on his mission, the last Germany flight, the radar did fail during that phase of the mission and Buzz used the manual system to get us, get the rendezvous very successfully done. How did Buzz strike you as a brain, as a figure? He was probably one of the hardest workers, I mean, persistent in pursuit of what he did. I think from all indications, he was the man that really showed us how to do EVA, how to train through EVA. Up until that in Germany, the Germany flights we had EVAs, there was trouble. They were getting overheated, overworked and they weren't completing the task that they

were set out to do. I think what Buzz showed us, it's how dedicated you are to training. And if you look what we do today in space, men do today in space in repairing and we just put the two pieces of the space station together flawlessly, the men outside working, yes, you can do it. But I think Buzz Aldrin was the guy that really showed us, with the way you have to train for it in order to make it like you want it. So I think there's no question he impressed everybody else, that's why he was on number 11. John Hobolt, yes, in the meetings that we had that concerning using Lunaranda Vue, and that was brought to the attention of the Apollo people, to some degree that he was crucified that day, chastised, the system was considered to be risky, unsafe, ridiculous, everything it could be thought of, but a couple of months later, these people that were hurling these

types of insinuations were then had become advocates of Lunaranda Vue, but I think Hobolt had been, you know, from that even though they accepted Lunaranda Vue then stepped Hobolt. And I think John was never received, ever received the proper credit for what he has, what he contributed to it, because I don't think we could have started with his background and knowledge at the time to start from zero at that point and discuss Lunaranda Vue at Apollo. We would have, we might have used Earth orbit, or something else, but we would probably have, and they would have never, if it hadn't been for John Hobolt. But Hobolt had to write a couple of letters to Siemens, it didn't happen very fast, simply, you know, Hobolt wrote two letters to Siemens to say, nobody's listening to me. Well, if my understanding of history is correct, John Hobolt had his first meeting with Siemens actually in 1960, and Siemens was not, I think he was the type that then in 1961

began to assemble committees to study. And as I said, the Fleming Committee came up with direct descent was the way to go because it was the safest. We don't know what it would be, if it's even practical to do, or not practical to do. And John Hobolt, yes, he had to have meetings, he had to talk to keep pushing because all the work that Langley was doing, and John wasn't the only one in Langley, Langley had a several teams of people working on Randevue, the Max Kerbgeon, I remember, and... All right. Yeah. Okay. Cut a second. Okay. I think I was very, very fortunate to... A land position as a young engineer right out of college in 1957 at the Langley Research

Center, which was then part of the NAACA National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics. I got there simply because I had good grades, that was from a technical school. They had a good graduate program, and so I decided to go and try. And it happened to be a sign to work for a small group of people that had just acquired the right to build a satellite for the Vanguard program. I didn't even know what a satellite was or a rocket was. But within three months, four months, I was up at Wallop's Island shooting rockets to test different elements of this satellite that we were going to build, and then ultimately we expanded it into a device called Highball to measure, so you could... So we could work with radars, and the experimental radars coming along, and so I had a whole background

within a year's time. I was an expert on flying rockets, and then the mercury started. Of course, three months after I went to work, the Russians put up sputting. All of a sudden, we're all going to space. And so in 1959, the Vanguard failed, our payload didn't never made it all, but I had to choose between going into developing, helping develop the echo, which became the big inflatable satellite for communications purposes, or go to the man program. So I was elected to go with mercury, and I got a sign to go to Wallop's Island to help launch the little joes. And so I became heavily involved in that, and then got to be a system capsule manager on capsule 13 of mercury that was going to be the capsule of Shepard flew in. And then my new boss, who had come aboard Jim Chamberlain, sent me to Wallop's Island to be project engineer on the actual mercury flights of the mercury capsule all with little

joes up there. Now, how exciting the time was for you? I mean, well, good Lord, I don't know any other time. You were actually doing something that had never been done before. It was in the, it was like, I guess, the 49ers felt when they were looking for gold in these boom towns. I mean, you came down here to keep Canaveral Florida. It was a boom town, you know. Like Gentry's going up, lunch is going off all the time, explosions in mid-air, I mean, it really was a pioneering, if you want to call it, a really pioneering day. When I went to Wallop's Island, it was no way to get off the island at night, so we had to live there. And you'd be amazed how much the, the night watchman was the cook, you'd better be amazed how good that food was, because there was no other food, I mean, to get there. But it's, those days of gone, but a young engineer, within three years or two years, you've haven't much experience as anybody, so you can, you, you, you got responsibility very early

in your career in those days. And in fact, I said I went there to get a master's degree. I got all my experience in working. I didn't have time. We were so busy and moving from one, from little Joe to, to Mercury then from Mercury to Germany, right on the Germany in 19, I did three things in the, in the first half of 61, ending up being the first assigned engineer to work on Germany. And so that's, that was my, that's my heritage. What was the, what was the work like, what were the work days like, did you mind working hard? No, no, no, we all, we put in during those little Joe days that we would, we put in 70 hour weeks. And you get one day off, you get like a Sunday to go and, and rest and, and, and we just stayed, I stayed in bed all of a sudden, you know. But because we worked right up until 10 o'clock at night. And, and that's the way it was in Florida as well.

It was, and people didn't mind. They, they took the responsibility. In other words, and, and the, and the organizations were so small in those days that every person had a responsibility, you see, we didn't have, it was new bureaucracy in those days. Great. Yes, I can get a lot of it. When Kennedy said that, that was May of 1961, I, it was a Langley Phil Virginia, I just returned from Wallops Island, one of the, we'll find a little Joe flights. And I don't think any of us doubted we could do this. I don't think we were, it didn't frighten us in any way. I think, and we looked at it as being marvelous. Here we are, we've, because Apollo had been talked about, and had been, and there were some contracts already let to plan it, but to, to have the president of the United States give us a deadline. I think that was significant, because let me tell you, deadlines are the best things you can have in programs like this, because otherwise, you will continue to design it, and design

it, and design it, extending the time and the money, ultimately. And I wish in, in the future, that most of our space programs, they would put deadlines on them, because I think, they're quite important. What would have happened to Jim Rose, it hadn't been to the space program, or do you think you would have ended up as a young engineer? As a young engineer, without the space program, as I said, I, I, I went to Langley, I had the choice, my university had offered me a teaching associate ship in the math department for $3,300 a year, and when I, I found out about this NACA, and, and, and wrote them a letter, and they sent me an application, I'll fill it out the next thing I know, I've got a job offer for $4,440 a year, and I said, my God, I've never heard so much money in my life. And I said, and they have a graduate program, you can go to, go to graduate school, and

the summertime, and they'll pay your salary while you go. So I went primarily for that reason, and if I hadn't found something interesting to do, I might very well have, have simply worked to get on the masters, or either going back to North Carolina State or somewhere else. But the, how could you leave a space program, especially when, when, and to put up a satellite like Vanguard, that was kind of a one of a shot deal, you know, what's going to happen after that? But three months after I went to work, the Russians put Sputnik up. And a few, and a next month they put a dog up, like a, and if you can put a dog up, you know they want to put people up. So the whole future began to open, and I just happened to be sitting right in the, right in the beginnings of it. And so I'm, I would have, I never thought about leaving the space program. I made changes. I went from, I went to companies. I came back to NASA and, and made several trips.

When, when Sputnik went up, what did you think? I was, yes, I was startled. I was, in fact, I remember, when, when Sputnik went up, tell me that. When Sputnik went up, I was, it was, I, if I have my members correct, it was on a, I was on a Friday. I was on the way to my home in North Carolina from Virginia, and a car had the radio on in the car, and they come over the radio and says that the Russians have put a satellite in orbit, and I had never heard it and even mentioned that the Russians were even trying to, but they had told people they were, they were going to do that. I don't think anybody believed them. I don't think anybody believed the Russians had that type of technology. What did that say to you, and where did you feel? Well, we felt, by God, we've got to really go to work. And I think that's what Americans did. And I think, I, I just happened to recently visit the, the Kennedy Museum in Library with Kennedy Library. And I remember that speech of his. He says, it's going to be hard. We're not going to catch them right away. And I'm very happy that it was Germany when

we caught them. When we put them in, when we did flight seven and six, where we ran the food for the first time, and, and, and, and, and seven went on to 14 days in orbit. We broke their record. So we are, for the first time, went ahead of the Russians, and I don't think we've ever looked back really since then. They're, they're good. The Russians are good, but I think we caught them. And I think that was something that stimulated this country, not only in space, but I think in many other ways that we're going to have to, to, to always put our best foot forward, or else we could be caught. Yeah. Last thing, just a side thing that I could use. How tough was it to, to rendezvous vehicles? How good was Wally's performance in Gemini seven six? The, uh, was rendezvous difficult as it turns out, as it was, uh, proclaimed to be by some of these committees. Uh, it turns out it was not. It was very, uh, reasonably easy

to do for the amount of fuel, but it took qualified people to do it. And Wally, Shirah, was the first one to do it. And Wally, really, I was absolutely amazed at the amount of energy that he expended. It was, it was minimal for what we had. And we were worried we didn't have enough fuel to do it. If they really didn't do a superb job, well, he did even better than superb. And, and, and, and, um, what it was a techniques. He learned, he demonstrated techniques. And those techniques that would carry it over into Apollo that Apollo didn't have to develop. You see, that's where Gemini was so important techniques were developed that these astronauts could then use with the Apollo vehicle. And so Gemini really worked in tandem with Apollo to go to the moon. That's what I believe. Apollo just didn't go it by itself. Gemini was there too. Alright, thank you.