Transcripts For CSPAN3 Lunar Module Development Operations

And engineers discuss the design and development of the lunar module and how it operated during the apollo 11 moon landing. This panel was part of an event hosted by Space Center Houston to mark apollo 11s anniversary. And happy Lunar Landing day. [applause] its great to have you all here. I am the chief operating officer here at the Space Center Houston. We are a smithsonian affiliate. Worlds First Certified Autism Center as a science center. We believe very much in equity, inclusion, accessibility, and we take that honesty great badge of honor that our staff has had extra training to ensure that our staff is able to work with people who have any type of learning disability or challenge or anything like that. If you see that there is a needed that we are not meeting, please let us know because we always want to improve. Welcome today for our first panel discussion. [applause] i spent 20 years of my life nows the end of the industry. I have been around a lot of. Olks this is been a fantastic experience for me. Many of these gentlemen we have been involved with planning discussions like this or have been a part of Mission Control that has been restored as a National Historic landmark where they actually have the missions from midgemini up through shuttle but also the Lunar Landing for apollo 11 and many other great race flights. If you have not got your ticket should do that. It they will go quick. If youre not able to go today werun a quick circuit but will be open for quite a long time today so hopefully you will be only get that and see if you can be back tomorrow. It was great for us to partner with nasa Johnson Space center. We did the hundreds and for them we did the fund raising for them. [applause] today without first panel, we thought it would be best to have a discussion as we are talking about the Lunar Landing. Talk about the lunar module and issues to start off with. Presentationsk and discussions. We just wanted to have some commentary from the audience as well. We ask that you have a quick question so that we can also have others who can ask questions and our gentlemen are able to answer those. Nameoing to introduce by and i will allow them to give a quick synopsis of what they did and they were in Mission Control. First is richard to go. [applause] middle. The jack on the far end. Richard please start us off. I graduated college in 1966 and went to work for grumman at the time. I started testing the Environmental Control systems on the lunar module. That involved getting co2 out of the atmosphere because in a closed environment, you have to scrub it otherwise you are in trouble. All the life support tech things were my focus during the testing and development phases. Bill . Good morning. I grew up in arkansas and got here as fast as i could. [laughter] [applause] joined here in 1967 and went straight to the Flight Control division and was a Flight Controller on the lunar module and on the electrical power system group. We were responsible for all the Power Systems which was just batteries and the Distribution System and keeping track of power profiles. We were also in charge of the power pyrotechnic devices that separated the stages and opened valves in the kind of stuff. Room called back the Vehicle System Staff Support rim. We were the people that made the people in the front room look good. [laughter] [applause] anyway, i was 25 years old when apollo 11 landed. Ands on the previous shift wasnt actually on during the landing but none of us left from shift to shift. We all hung around and watched it. I will turn it over to jack area. I was a member of an air force family that bounced around the world a number of times. I went to georgia tech, graduated in 1965 and came straight here. Also in operations. I was assigned to the lunar module but it wasnt quite ready at the time so i participated in the gemini and a gina programs a little bit. Over, apolloe group doubt. The first lunar module was an unmanned and i was involved in that. It was launched on the saturn one b. It automatically executed some of the critical events that had to happen such as burning dissent and i sent engines. Keeprents were just to atmospheric integrity because there were no people on board. That, we started to pick up and i was involved in all of the manned flights of apollo nine through 17. Roomrted out in the back for apollo nine and all subsequent. Michelle was 11, right after the landing shift. Happen then that to i came out immediately eva. After for the i got to see armstrong step on the moon and the rest of the eva. The subject of this was issues and there were quite a number of vehicles, the the command Service Module as well as lunar module. Of course everyone is probably aware we had the apollo one fire that set things back a little bit. We kept progressing and managed rebuild thethat, interior of the command Service Module. The lunar module was running in parallel with all that. Number of interesting things to meet later on and they were in areas that were not my specialty but in particular, the ascent engine. At nasa had a process by which there was uncertainty in a particular area, they would put two contractors to work. The first one to come up with a , yousolution, youre it will do the rest of it and the other guy was paid and moved on to other things. In this particular case of this engine, the problem was the injector. They did manage to make it work but as it turns out, you could only fire the engine once. Engine was ever tested other than the Development Time by firing its complete parts until it launched from the moon. To me, that is interesting thing. [laughter] i just wanted to chime in on bills, about being in the ussr. I was in the Mission Evaluation room working the back room to those guys. We help them look good. [laughter] [applause] you can see theres a lot of healthy discussion here. [laughter] theyd only had about 50 years to work up to this area. That is a fact. That was the beauty of the flight ops organization. It was a very competitive environment. I always thought that the Unsung Heroes of the program were the training people trained all of us and put together the simulations and all the failures and. Those people were behind the scenes and did a great job. Talking about issues, how many of you all have heard or seen the lunar module described as the lem . Documentation in fact when i first got here there was a lot of documentation that call it that which stood for lunar excursion module. The original design of the vehicle was to be able to move around but that was dropped early on for cost and weight reasons. So they took the name and changed it to the lunar module. The power system in the lunar module that i was working on was strictly batteries. Focus we would take the checklist that was being developed as to what we were going to do and we had to resolve the checklist into power draw so we knew at any point how much power was being drawn out of the batteries and how much we had left area there were four major batteries and the dissent and there were two that powered the ascent stage. One of the big design issues we ran into was the ascent batteries were on parallel on the powered buses the dissent arteries during the landing in case you had to abort. Stage vehicle and go back to the command module. What we found out was the ascent batteries which is not in use for quite a while timewise in the mission were sitting on cold plates and they were getting very cold. Silver zinc batteries at a characteristic where the voltage was very under table for the first 10 or 12 and hours before the voltage that stable. We found out that if you stage the vehicle without getting the first 10 or 12 amp hours out of the batteries, the voltage would drop during the staging to the point that it would dump the computer and affect a lot of equipment areas we had to come up with a power scheme to put the batteries on a certain point in time to get that preconditioning out of the way. That was quite a challenge to do that and during the mission, we found out that they were drawing as much as they were supposed to so we wound up having to play some games. All is well that ends well. [laughter] [applause] out that ifto point you wonder around out here, there is a lunar module thing hanging from the sky. That was the test article number eight. Hereompanied that down from where government was located and through a full thats of tests to validate the Environmental Control system as well as the thermal control keep theuld manage and vehicle for getting too hot or too cold and to help the equipment to make sure the equipment didnt get too hot. Space, thereore in is no atmosphere. Heat gets carried away only by direct contact with cold plates. That is what bill was talking to. Vehicle was brought down here and put in the Space Environment Lab out on the back part of the center. It is a huge vacuum chamber. Vacuum, runbably liquid nitrogen through the walls, and they also had a number of lights that simulated sunlight. Unlike the command module that was always in space and rotating so it would barbecue until the sun would see a different side or it would see the sun on different sides of the vehicle constantly. The lunar module with a set on sat there andnd did not barbecue so wherever the sun was, it was going to impinge on that part of the lunar module all the time. Its thermal design was different and validating the design was done out there in the chamber. Among other things. Another issue another thing there was a number of changes made to the lunar module fairly minor once it arrived at kennedy. Which was the during testing down there, the paper would be the chamber down there and its crewmen would get in it and one of the things that happened kind of late and armstrongs flight apollo 11 was he indicated he was too warm. In the lunar module in the chamber and at that time, it was only air cooled, air blowing through the suit and out. Our plans had always been when we were landing that the crew was completely suited. Airflow andling was he got to warm. Toause they were also going be on the lunar surface, they were wearing a liquid cooling garment which is a fabric that had water tubes running through it. With aure in a suit support system, it ran water through that for cooling it just didnt have enough capacity just for air cooling and the crew would be working too hard. And veryt, graham quickly built a little pump and tubing system and put a heat exchanger and that lunar module and all subsequent ones while it was at the cape. So that made available when we got to the moon, the crew could plug in those little water tubes and use those while they were still in the lunar module. Late inre other changes the game when certain subjects came up. That capability was there. I am on aeration, slightly different tack. One of the agreements we had was that each of the contractors graham and the north american was those programs provided technical representatives that had contact to the factory to flight operations. We were making drawings and procedures and malfunction procedures, normal procedures. Very contacts were valuable because they knew the people back at the plant. They could call and get thanmation somewhat easier a voice no one had ever heard. Key was one of the fairly decisions that was made in the program. Another big problem with the lunar module was that when it was first built, it turned out to be too heavy. It was way overweight and you have heard stories about apollo 10 which was a complete dress rehearsal for apollo 11. It did everything except land. It had gone through a Weight Reduction program to get the weight down to work it could land and take back off. Apollo 11 was the first lunar module that had gone through the Weight Reduction program. The lunar module on apollo 10 was to have the anyway. About fuel articles offloaded so they wouldnt land. [laughter] thats really not true. Use theffloaded to vehicle until we got through the where reduction program. That Weight Reduction program affected the thickness of the skin on the lunar module itself so it was more like an oil can than anything else. We would hear a pop will be pressured it up. In the Weight Reduction program they went from 18 gauge to 22 gauge wire. Guess what. When the people working on the vehicle touched those things, they broke. They broke the wires. It was a massive amount of time spent troubleshooting where the break was. Question orrivia statement was the lunar module was a unique vehicle. It only flew a vacuum and only had to land on the moon and get back off. And not reenter the earths atmosphere. We had a motto that heat shields were for sissies. [laughter] [applause] i guess turnabout is fair play. That was a hard one to follow. I do remember that heat field had aon which they comeback which escapes me at the moment im trying to remember. [laughter] i dont remember it unfortunately it was 50 years ago. [laughter] something to the effect that youre not getting home about it. Drummond at the time made aircraft for the navy. Those things had to land on carriers. They had a lot of experience and reputation for structures. Lunaras a part of the module it had to land on the moon. Assume thatst youre going to land on a nice flat surface. You had to account for you might be falling straight down. You might be going so much forward to the left or right. Then some rate of dissent. The surface might be tilted. All of that had to be built into the design of the struts. The struts were honeycombed. Aluminum. They just crushed. There was no spring or anything like that they would just crushed. On, there was a scientist named thomas gold. He had a very good habitation but he also had a ruby tatian forassuming reputation assuming certain fallout things. That he realized the lunar dust would be very loose and very deep. If the lunar module it could just disappear in the dust. [laughter] anddy knew that for certain other people thought differently and designed it differently. If you have ever oured back in history, first moon shots were called ranger. Ranger shot straight from the earth to the moon, went straight in and crashed but while it was going in, it had a camera and its not teachers. You get closer and closer and get the feel that might be a landing spot. Informationed landing areas. The other ones that followed that was surveyor. Surveyor landed directly on the lip moon. It had three landing gear and it heads that would give you information about whether or not you would sink and how much pounds per square inch the service with support. We found out what the reality was with those missions. When the lunar module was designed, they put pads and took that kind of thing into account so the area of those pads, we had a good idea there was not going to be a problem provided the service was within the it was designed to secure would not tilt over. If you look at maybe apollo 15, you see that one of those landed with a fairly obvious tilt. The tilt just stayed there until you took off. Jacks point about the honeycomb structure and the mr. Armstrong put that thing down so gently i dont think he crushed one but about two inches area. Also, on the pads there was a probe sticking down on each pad that was about five feet long and it had a little switch on the end of it. Design, whatever those probes would touch, it would mean you are five feet off of the service. They were wired so that diagonally, if any two of the four probes dagley tripped that switch, it would shut the engine would drop the last five feet and crush the struts. He said nobodys turning my engine off of me. [laughter] they shut the engine off. On those probes. There was a concern with the one that was right by the latter. I think they ended up taking was went off because if it sticking up it would be a surprise when they jumped down. [laughter] i think armstrong that pointed that out on one of his visits and i took that one off. So you only had three. A sides and it back. The engineering was a little i it was not my area so i didnt care that much about it. Module,ook at the lunar the engine bell expense extends to the bottom of the pad. If you land with the engine still running and youre on them you haventthing, enclosed engine. The engineers worried about that thats what he had the original design he was talking about. They would shut the engine off hopefully before anything like that happened. If you hear the actual air to ground, contact like, engine off, engine arm off, if you count the time that they were on the moon the first words were engine off. [laughter] then there was a moment of silence and then it was Tranquility Base here the eagle has landed. They also had a pretty good indication for thermal analysis which turned out to be very good because when you get into the Weight Reduction and you have to take out various and sundry things, what is remaining, those sheet just reflected the sun fantasy and did a very good job. It was another change that was late and that was the down firing thrusters they finally determined that if you had enough down firing thrusters, it could damage the thermal percent thermal protection on the descent stage. So they added to collectors under each of the four down firing thrusters. Game,e it was late in the that turned out to me because a bit of a communication problem on apollo 11. Modeldeflectors to docket did not get modeled in the communication analysis. When they came around to do the deorbit burn, the descent engine is pointed toward the earth. The antenna has to point down. If the antenna is pointing right get multipath you hadthat is probably why we ready communication early on. The other thing which was unusual was that neil wanted to be looking down at the moon when they started the burn. Duringant that somewhere the descent, they had to rotate 180 degrees. When you got to the point when you pitched over, he would be looking forward. Also reduced the reduce of communication and thats why they had a call to go up and get him to new angles for his steerable antenna to regain