NOVA; To the Moon; Interview with John Cornelius Houbolt, aerospace engineer behind the Lunar Orbit Rendezvous (LOR), part 1 of 4

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What was the idea to get there? Well, I first heard about going to the moon. That was Joel's Wern kind of book that he wrote on how to go to the moon. And even von Braun had written a little book on notions about going to the moon. But none of that, we thought that was sort of fictional, and nobody really took it seriously. To get back more to the point of your question, we really didn't think anything about going to the moon until NAACA became NASA by Congress Act in 1958. Then we, they have more or less formed and splintered off our research and development side of the house at NAACA, a group of around 30 people that they called the Space Task Group. They were charged to do research and development work and actually make spaceflight in their realm of activity. Of course, the first thing that we thought about then was we didn't know anything at all about space. We had no textbook, no knowledge, no experience, as we sat around the table number of the managers and we discussed, well, let's think and we more or less adopted a space station as a target

project. We didn't want to do it, but make it as a target project, we would help identify the research and development problems that would be necessary to put up a space station. Oddly enough, we're still talking about space station, then the notion about man spaceflight came into me, which led to Mercury, and then when Mercury was completed and then we had the Gemini program, which was dealing with the rendezvous problem, then the notion, well, let's think about going to the moon. That's the first time we really start thinking about going to the moon. That was around 1958-59. Okay, hold on a second. Let me take you tag off. That's fine. So tell me, when did you really first start thinking about the moon and how are you going to get there? We started thinking about the moon after we had gotten heavily involved with the Mercury project. Of course, that had a number of headaches and a development problems, but we finally did get a man up in space, and so that, of course, embellished our thoughts a little bit

more. Then that notion just sort of spontaneously occurred, well, if we're going to do this, what does think about going to the moon? The first thoughts about it were without thinking too much about it, the notion is, well, we have a simple rocket to put up a Mercury. Let's just build a big rocket and go to the moon with it, and right to begin with, it was called the direct flight mode. It was a huge rocket, send the men to the moon, land on it, explore, and return to Earth. But that was the initial thought of, and somewhere along the line I got involved in thinking about the problem myself, and the notion occurred to me that that wouldn't really the proper way of doing it. It probably wouldn't work as my initial reaction to it, I said it. So that led me to think, well, perhaps we ought to think of different ways by which we could accomplish this, hence enter the concept of rendezvous, and can we use rendezvous as a way of enhancing our ability to go to the moon and land on it.

Tell me about that first rocket, the Nova Rocket. What would that have required? Was it possible? Tell me, the audience doesn't know anything about it. What is the Nova Rocket? The Nova Rocket was an enormous rocket. It had a thrust of around 12 million pounds, 15 million to 15 million pounds. It had a height of three to 400 feet, a tallness, and a diameter of 60 feet. So we were talking about a huge article, imagine a 15 million pound kind of object. And that's what the first thoughts were involved in trying to think, what can we do to go to the moon by this so-called direct flight mode? Why so big? It had to be, because that's just the general rules that came up from the equations for rocket flight. It has to be an enormous thing, and it has to be done with stages. No one rocket alone could do it, no one rocket alone can put any object into space around

the earth. It has to be done in stages. And so at least three stages, each one weighing less and less as they built up one after the other. A rocket that size, what would it have been like to go up? I've heard people say that that rocket could have sunk Marit Island that it was launched from. That sort of was my sentiments at the time too. Matter of fact, I made a chart one time and compared it to the Washington Monument. Let me show you a chart on that. This is jumping ahead of the story here, because it does indicate in silhouette form all the man's place flight missions that we did starting from Mercury here, Gemini program, a workhorse type of development rocket. And way over here is the so-called NOVA rocket that you just ask about, 15 million pound vehicle. And notice, the base diameter, this is 60 feet, where the Washington Monument is only 55 feet in diameter.

And then somewhere later along the line in the development of the plans for going to the moon, the concept of Earth orbit rendezvous came in, and it would involve these two vehicles right here, two Saturn Vs. And then, let's put into that NOVA again, that's a NOVA rocket. Now tell me, John, and then you can put it down once you start to answer the question. What is that rocket, and was that practical? Could we have done it with that rocket? Would it be practical to build a rocket this size? I think it could be built, but I wouldn't call it practical, because it's just enormous inside, very cumbersome, and required tremendous development facilities, a tremendous launch pad. And then the question has to be asked, would it even work if we could be able to build it? It could be built, I'm sure, but the chances of a failure would be much greater, because you'd have many more rocket engines down here.

It's difficult enough to make five rocket engines work simultaneously, let alone 12 of them, so to speak, work simultaneously. So to me, I wouldn't call it a practical way of doing something, even though possibly could have been built. I believe it was eight that they had, one, not five? No, no, on the Saturn V depicted here and here and here, had five rockets, each with a million and a half pound capability, so the total thrust was seven and a half million pounds. Right. And what about the NOVA? And that was up to 15 million pounds, and so they've been involved eight to ten engines at a million and a half pounds each. If we had gone for direct ascent, what would have the problems been that we would have run into? The biggest work, just as— You don't have to hold that anymore. The biggest problem we'd run into when trying to go by the direct flight mode was just the normative of building that rocket itself, then launching it, making sure everything

is going to work. The laws of probability come into here. When you have ten things that have to work operationally, the probability of it working successfully is much greater, much less than if we had five things that had to work simultaneously. But a big concern I had, and I can do that with another chart here, is—and this was my biggest concern, that it would involve the size of the machine or vehicle that would have to be landed on the moon. And that's what I've depicted over here. We know about an Atlas vehicle, that's near a hundred feet tall, 21 feet in diameter. They were going to land a rocket with no help at all, remember, and get an Atlas vehicle off on the Earth's surface, requires three thousand men, a big launch facility, control tower and everything, they were going to try to land something in a backward fashion on the moon, the size of an Atlas vehicle.

Even at that time too, when they thought there might be a five-foot thickness layer of dust on the moon, and I said it just couldn't work, and that, to me, was the primary reason why I felt a direct flight mode was not feasible. And by contrast, you see, in the notion I often mentioned, is when you get to the moon, why take the living room down to the moon's surface with you, and then have to bring it up again. It requires a lot of energy to take it down, a lot of energy to bring it up. The notion is when you get there, why not get out of the living room and get into a small little lander, which is depicted here, land on the moon's surface with it, explore, come back, make the rendezvous with the mothership that you left in orbit, and then return to Earth. And to me, that was much more feasible, much more practical way of going to the moon and landing on it, doing this scheme rather than this scheme. Tell me that analogy again, as if you hadn't said it. Because I liked what he was saying, you were down on that.

The analogy, you take your house to the moon, but you only need to take a living room down to the surface. No. Tell me what you had said, as if we hadn't said it. All right. The notion about the one, the latter concepts that came into consideration was what we called lunar orbit rendezvous. And that is involved the notion that when you got to the moon, I was more or less made the analogy. Why take the living room down to the moon's surface with you, and then bring it back again because it requires a tremendous amount of energy to go down and back? The thought I simply was expounding there was when you got to the moon, get out of the living room, leave it in orbit around the moon, and get in a lander, and go to the moon's surface with a small lander, explore, come back up with it, make the rendezvous of your lander with the living room, then the lander's done its job, it can be dispensed with.

As a matter of fact, a couple of times, more or less, thrust it back onto the moon's surface to cause a seismic type of test that they can measure some of the earthquake properties, not earthquake, moonquake properties of the moon, and then return to earth in the mothership. All right, great. Okay, come for a second, we're getting into some good stuff. In my opinion, would direct a cent flight to the moon have worked, I have a strong conviction that it never would have been able to work, and I don't stand alone in that, matter of

fact, I can mention a letter that George Lowe, who was a manager of the Apollo program, wrote to me shortly before he died, and he said in there, giving me a few acolytes and pets on the back and so forth, and winding up his letter by saying, you know, John, it's difficult to really judge what could be and what could not have been, but I am firmly of the belief that if we had not adopted LOR, we still would not be on the moon. So that's another way of saying the direct flight would not have worked. What about Earth orbit rendezvous? That sounds like an attractive proposition. What was the problem with Earth orbit rendezvous? Let's cut it off. What about Earth orbit rendezvous? Well, let me answer the question about Earth orbit rendezvous. Let me show a little chart here that quickly depicts the three modes that finally became under consideration. At first there was only one, the so-called direct flight mode, which is depicted here.

I won't go through the whole sequences, but it involves sending a big lander to the moon to land it. Then the Earth orbit rendezvous mode became into consideration. This is one Von Braun adopt, and that's depicted down here. That involved two big Saturn vehicles to make a rendezvous in Earth orbit, then to send the package to the moon, which is identical to the package sent in their direct flight mode. I maintained that if it won't work here, therefore it wouldn't work this way either. Then the third scheme came into being the lunar orbit rendezvous scheme, which is depicted in the middle here, which means build a smaller rocket to begin with, send a smaller package to the moon. When you get to the moon, again, don't take the living room down, go down to the moon and a small lander, explore, come up, make the rendezvous, attach, crawl back into the mothership, and return to Earth. To me, that was much more simple way of doing the whole job, and much more practical.

What was the problem with Earth orbit rendezvous in your opinion? Was it more safe for the astronauts? No, the Earth orbit rendezvous only had this so-called attribute. It would not require the development of the Big Nova vehicle. It could be done with two smaller so-called Saturn V vehicles. But again, we got to emphasize, the package that went to the moon by the Earth orbit rendez vous method would be identical to the package that went to the moon by the direct flight mode. If it couldn't work in the direct flight mode, therefore it couldn't work in the Earth orbit rendezvous mode either. Where did you come up with the LOR concept? How did you come on to that? Did you buy it right away when it first popped into your consciousness? We had at Langley Research Center, a little group formed, and I was chairman of it because he knew of my interest in rendezvous, and we just studied various aspects of rendezvous

and did a lot of research on the docking maneuver, the landing maneuver, and then of course the notion that, well, there could be rendezvous in various kinds, one in Earth orbit, one around the moon, one on the way to the moon, and even a rendezvous on the way back from the moon. It was sort of a ridiculous idea, but that would involve this notion. If you have a heat shield on your command module, why take it all the way to the moon and then bring it back? Because it's only going to be useful when you re-enter the Earth's atmosphere. The notion is, sounds a little crazy, but when you come back from the moon, make a rendezvous with the heat shield and use it when it was needed. But then now the question, the possibility of success or failure looms into it, and when you think about it, then you eliminate it as a possible way of going to the moon. What did you see as the potential payoff of lunar orbit rendezvous?

It certainly is one thing. The potential payoff of the lunar orbit, method of going to the moon, yes, indeed. The weight factor was very much, as a matter of fact, my original figure is on it indicated that the amount of weight being sent to the moon would be from a third to a half of that required by the direct flight or the Earth orbit rendezvous flight. So there's a factor of two there. That's the way it actually worked out in the end, too. And there were other salient points about it. Let me pull out a little chart and just list some of the key elements that I was very much in favor of. I'll just read them here without these are some of the salient points about the Earth, the lunar orbit method of going relative to the other. It had a basic simplicity about it relative to the other two ways. It was quicker, develop a small vehicle rather than a big vehicle, it's going to be quicker.

It obviates large boosters, that was one of the points. We didn't have to build a Nova vehicle with the question of mark about it. It requires fewer boosters, it causes the least development to develop the booster to begin with, and of course less facilities to manufacture and develop and test it. And all the way through, if you did a point by point, it minimized all the operational problems to complete a mission. What are all these charts and papers that you've got here? Is this your pitch as it were as we call it in the business? You still have all these charts and stuff. Is this how you made your case? And it came to a point where I decided that the only way to get people to pay pension attention to the lunar orbit run is to write a minority report. So I wrote a minority report to Bob Seaman, who was the associate administrator of NASA at the time, and included in the minority report what I called, what we called it, a time in an annuals page, and that's what this really is.

I know if you write something 50 pages, people are not going to read it. So I put everything I could think of that was important on one page, and that would be more or less the intention of forcing people to pay attention and read it. Here are the three modes. Here's the weight saving involved. Here's an interesting point here. This shows that LOR, the lunar orbit run of a mode, had a degree of safety that no other mode offered. The point here is not only necessary, I mean, it isn't necessary to build one lander and go to the moon surface. You could actually build two small landers, and you send one down with a man of something to happen to it. It failed you have another lander to go down and rescue him. No other mode gave that factor a safe. Then this was the notion of three different lander designs. We called them the shoestring kind of operations. Just have a single man get in a simple platform in a space suit and go down.

It didn't have to be a large lander. Then we had the economy mode, shown here, and then what we called the plush mode, which is the one that was eventually adopted. We did it for various fuels, and the one that we... The plush mode. In each state, the plush mode. The plush mode is the one that we finally adopted, and it came in with a weight of around 24,000. The actual one that went to the moon was around 26, so we were pretty close in our estimates. Now when you first proposed lunar orbit rendezvous, what was the reaction you got? Complete negativity. Nobody would listen to it. They all thought it was nuts. That was the beginning and of a three-year struggle to convince people even to think about it. It was interesting. Simply because I guess the reason could be, well, that's an idea from an outside source.

You see, I hadn't joined the space task group. I'd talk with them on a daily basis, but I hadn't joined them. They weren't going to listen to an outside source, tell them what to do. I think there was something like that involved. They were just fearful that it could even work. The idea that I expressed by many of conducting a rendezvous around the moon is just crazy. What if something happened? There's no way of getting the astronauts back, but that didn't bother us one bit. To us, rendezvous was a very elementary thing. It's easiest driving a car in the garage. Great. Terrific. Cut for a second. That's the point you want to make. Direct send. There was something simple, not direct send. It had no complications like rendezvous.

It had the complications of landing a horrible thing on the moon. All right. We'll talk about that. Here we go. You can film. Ready? Yes, sounds me. What was the benefit of direct send and the drawback? Well, the benefit that people could argue about it, it would not need a rendezvous maneuver to accomplish the mission. The drawback was landing a huge rocket on the moon in a backward fashion with no help whatsoever and then taking off again. Were you worried about rendezvous, is it dangerous thing to do with it? With respect to any worry I might have had about rendezvous, I had none at all. The point is, we at Langley Research Center had done quite a bit of research on it. We weren't just talking off of our hat. We had studied it. We made simulators, landing simulators, docking simulators, landing apparatus, and we proved to us, I mean, we more or less convinced ourselves and we were convinced that rendezvous presented no problem at all.

It was very, very...