An Integration Role for General Electric?

To Congress, the moon program meant money. To the American people, it was a contest of American skills pitted against the Russians or the mysteries of space. But for NASA, perhaps the biggest challenge was organization.

In retrospect, one of the major reasons for the program’s success was the ability of a lieutenant colonel and an aerospace engineer to sit down and work out a solution to a problem that, coupled with a few thousand more solved problems, could put a man on the moon. But someone had to get the lieutenant colonel and the engineer into the same room. This carried over on a far larger scale to the thousands of items of equipment that came together on the launch pad for the moment of truth at countdown. A fitting, designed in Huntsville and manufactured in California, had to connect precisely with a fitting designed in Texas and fabricated in New York. At KSC the ground support and electrical support equipment alone totaled more than 34,000 items. Each connection was an interface - eventually the most overworked word on Merritt Island - and keeping track of every interface, bringing together all the parts into a unified whole, was called integration.

Compared to earlier programs, Apollo-Saturn required drastically more coordination. During the 1950s, the Missile Firing Laboratory’s contacts were limited to the Eastern Test Range, a few support contractors, and Huntsville. The Apollo program added scores of contractors, labor unions, and government organizations. The new relationships brought conflicts. There were differences of opinion with contractors and struggles for power among the NASA centers - divisive tendencies that were balanced by the unifying urge of the lunar goal.

NASA Headquarters, unable to handle the many integration requirements of Apollo by itself, sought help from an outside source - the General Electric Company. NASA asked GE to do three things: develop checkout equipment for launch operations; assess reliability, which was largely the reduction and analysis of data from various tests; and perform the integration role. D. Brainerd Holmes, head of the Office of Manned Space Flight (OMSF), defined that term in congressional testimony:

General Electric Co.’s job is to... study and make sure that there is proper integration. By that I mean that the signals flowing across the various interfaces between pieces of equipment being built at various places in the country, are compatible. This is necessary whether it be electrical signals . . . or whether it be hydraulic flow that goes from a small quarter-inch tubing into a 2-inch pipe, or just a straight mechanical integration. ¹

GE teams at the centers and at stage contractor plants would provide OMSF with the information to coordinate the various pieces of Apollo. Within OMSF, James Sloan, the Director for Integration and Checkout, monitored the contract with GE.^*

Opposition to the GE contract appeared almost immediately. Directors of the Marshall Space Flight Center and the Launch Operations Directorate (LOD) believed that GE’s proposed mission would infringe on center responsibilities. At Huntsville 10 April 1962, the two set up a common front to restrict GE’s role. Stage contractors shared the feeling; North American, Boeing, and Douglas officials were loath to have a competitor supervise their operation. Petrone expressed opposition to the GE management role at a 15 May meeting with GE representatives. The group discussed appropriate and - as Petrone emphasized - inappropriate areas of GE activity. The following week OMSF sent Petrone’s office a revised work statement more in line with LOD’s position. Holmes clarified two important points at the 29 May OMSF Management Council Meeting. GE would work for the centers with Sloan’s Integration Office coordinating the effort. GE would not give work directions to stage contractors.²

Controversy continued during the summer. Lengthy portions of the July and August Management Council meetings were given over to discussions of GE’s proper role vis-a-vis the field contractors and stage contractors. At the Cape the Launch Operations Center (as of 1 July) prepared a list of seven tasks considered suitable for GE. The GE contract was the sole topic of discussion at a two-day meeting in late August. Officials from LOC, Marshall, and the Manned Spacecraft Center at Houston met on the 29th “to ensure that the tasks for GE written by each Center were properly and adequately integrated so as to minimize GE’s overall integration role and minimize interference from [NASA] Headquarters.” The three centers concentrated on checkout problems and agreed that they would not require “any overall integration guidance from either GE or Headquarters.”³ Sloan and GE’s top Apollo program managers joined the session on the 30th. The latter were dismayed to learn that the centers had rejected GE’s checkout concept and had relegated GE to a support role.

NASA officials were in agreement about what GE should not do, but could not formalize a positive statement of the company’s role. The issue generated three lengthy discussions at the 21 September Management Council meeting, and Holmes was disappointed at the lack of understanding. After a Cape visit in early November, Walter Lingle, NASA’s Deputy Associate Administrator for Industry Affairs, told Holmes that the centers could not work with GE. Debus expressed surprise when Holmes called him about this report. The LOC Director admitted that, while reliability and checkout roles were set, there were still loose ends, and “there seemed to be an absence of a clear description of what GE is supposed to do.” At the November Management Council meeting, there were further complaints about GE statements that suggested a management role for the company.⁴

Due to the broad nature of the contract and because it appeared to place the General Electric Company in the position of supervising or directing other NASA contractors, the House Committee on Science and Astronautics gave the GE contract considerable attention during the authorization hearings on the fiscal 1964 budget. In March 1963, the Manned Space Flight Subcommittee conducted hearings at GE’s Daytona Beach, Florida, office.⁵ NASA was still undecided about GE’s role three months later, and the issue, added to Congress’s first attack on the Apollo program [see chapter 8-7] and the Webb-Holmes dispute [see footnote 2, chapter 7-8], caused considerable unhappiness. After a visit to the Daytona office in early July, von Braun and Debus thought they had reached a satisfactory arrangement for GE work at Marshall and Merritt Island. However, von Braun notified Debus on the 9th that the plan had apparently fallen through. Joseph Shea, OMSF’s Deputy Director for Systems, still wanted GE’s assistance in integrating Apollo activities. NASA finally resolved the dispute in August. The centers and stage contractors prevailed; GE would not manage space vehicle development. OMSF would rely on a review board to help control and integrate the Apollo program, using GE as a management consultant and data processor. GE retained the reliability assessment and checkout roles.⁶

Intercenter Panels

The centers had begun coordinating their work on Apollo months before the GE integration role was proposed. In November 1960, the Space Task Group initiated Apollo technical liaison groups. Rapid program advances, following President Kennedy’s 25 May 1961 address, prompted closer relations. In October 1961, von Braun and Robert Gilruth established the MSFC-STG (later MSC) Space Vehicle Board to resolve all space vehicle problems such as design, systems, research and development tests, planning, schedules, and operations.⁷ Four panels were initially set up to integrate the efforts of Apollo and Saturn working groups. These panels served as “idea-exchange platforms,” where centers could discuss their plans before pursuing them in depth. The panels also established a formal level of agreement, a means of obligating each center to a course of action. Over the next two years, the panels provided working-level communication between the centers. Von Braun indicated their importance in a December 1963 letter to George Mueller, Holmes’s replacement as chief of Manned Space Flight: “The intercenter panels have proved to be the only effective medium of working out technical problems in detail which cut across Center lines.”⁸

A Launch Operations Panel was among the four panels initially established by the Space Vehicle Board. The charter stated that the panel would:

• Ensure the compatibility of the launch vehicle and spacecraft ground support equipment.
• Ensure that adequate space and facilities are available at the launch site for checkout and mating of the launch vehicle and spacecraft.
• Integrate the overall space vehicle countdown and operational plan.
• Define and resolve tracking and data requirements during launch.
• Define and establish the overall ground safety plan for pad operations.
• Review all areas of the space vehicle for compatibility and possible interface problems with launch operations.⁹

Saturn C-5 and Apollo design decisions and the selection of stage contractors crowded the MSFC and MSC calendars during the remainder of 1961, delaying the inauguration of the panels for five months. In early February 1962, the Preflight Operations Division at Houston asked LOD to join in an Apollo coordinating committee patterned after a Mercury group. Petrone’s Heavy Space Vehicle Office rejected the suggestion, citing the October agreement between von Braun and Gilruth. Petrone proposed, instead, a Launch Operations Panel meeting to discuss Apollo requirements.

When Petrone repeated his proposal the following month, Preflight Operations acceded to such a meeting on 15 March. The 27 members who attended the first session agreed to set up sub-panels that would exchange technical information at the working level. The panel would consider problems raised by the sub-panels; concur, where appropriate, with sub-panel conclusions or agreements; evaluate unresolved problems; and assign new tasks and deadlines.¹⁰

Attendance at the second meeting on 20 June 1962 nearly doubled, as representatives from NASA Headquarters, General Electric, and the stage contractors joined the discussion. The group organized seven sub-panels: electrical; facilities and complexes; launch preparations; propellants and gases; firing accessories and mechanical support equipment; trajectories and flight safety; and instrumentation, tracking, and data acquisition. As Petrone reported back to Debus, “It is now possible for all operating level personnel in respective areas of responsibility to directly resolve technical problems on an expedited basis in groups of reasonable size.”¹¹ During the following year, the Facilities and Complexes sub-panel met monthly, the others less frequently. Seventy-five NASA and contractor representatives attended the fourth meeting of the full panel on 1 August 1963. Although spacecraft requirements were the major topic, the participants also discussed the role of a proposed Panel Review Board.¹²

An OMSF-directed Panel Review Board had emerged from conversations between Wernher von Braun and Joseph Shea in May 1963. Previously, when panel matters required adjudication, the three center directors had met as a review board. Von Braun considered the arrangement unsatisfactory because, in striving for compromise, the directors had sometimes passed up the best solution; OMSF’s participation on the board might help correct this. Shea welcomed von Braun’s offer. OMSF had found itself exercising little influence over the panels; further, the board could control the proliferation of integration groups. The number of intercenter panels had increased to seven, and there were ten other groups handling OMSF-center interface matters.^* Many agreed with Robert Gilruth’s complaint, “there are too many meetings.”¹³ During its first session, held at Cape Canaveral in August, the Panel Review Board abolished two groups, placed several more under existing panels, and created a Documentation Panel to control the growing stacks of paperwork.¹⁴

New Contractors with New Roles

The Army Ballistic Missile Agency of the 1950s had represented the arsenal concept of weapons development - a largely self-sufficient government research and development program.^* Although Pan American had provided limited support at the Cape, the Missile Firing Laboratory had been a government show. The Launch Operations Directorate, short of manpower at the start of the Saturn I program, resorted to “level of effort” contracts, under which companies such as Hayes International and Chrysler’s Space Division supplied skilled technicians for a specified number of man-years. LOD assigned the technicians to particular tasks, directly supervised them, and approved their performance. Such contracts were not universally popular, and the terms body shop, flesh peddling, and meat market were sometimes used. LOD retained technical responsibility, and civil servants continued to work directly with hardware.¹⁵

A major change came in mid-1960 when MSFC awarded Douglas Aircraft Corporation a “mission” contract to build the Saturn I’s S-IV stage and check it out at the Cape. LOD exercised responsibility for the launch vehicle and supervised the contractor, but Douglas was responsible for accomplishing a clearly defined task. In doing so, the company supervised its own employees. The following year NASA awarded Chrysler a mission contract to build, check out, and test 20 S-I stages for the Saturn I. Chrysler’s role was subsequently expanded to include technical support for Saturn I and IB launch operations. The latter involved such things as the environmental control systems, umbilical arms, propellant operations, postlaunch refurbishment of support equipment, logistics, ground electrical networks, and telemetry checkout. On the early launches of the Saturn I block II series, Douglas technicians checked out the upper stage while a Chrysler crew worked alongside KSC engineers on the S-1 stage. SA-8 in early 1965 marked the first flight of a Chrysler-built booster with the contractor assuming responsibility for stage checkout. It also marked the end of an era for veterans of the Missile Firing Laboratory. Henceforth, KSC civil servants would no longer operate launch equipment, but would act more like traditional managers.

The transition to mission contracts was not always easy. LOD officials, accustomed to level-of-effort contracts, considered Douglas Aircraft uncooperative. In turn, the California firm, used to the Air Force’s broad guidelines, resented NASA interference. An early difference of opinion involved the loading of Saturn I propellants. Looking ahead to Saturn V operations, LOD planned remote, automated controls for the Saturn I. Douglas officials accepted the LOD position regarding checkout and main loading operations, but wanted manual control of the S-IV stage’s final slow fill. After meetings in March and May of 1961, LOD thought the matter was resolved. However, when Orvil Sparkman visited Douglas’s Santa Monica, California, plant in September, he was surprised:

The Douglas S-IV GSE to be utilized at Sacramento [the contractor’s test area] is designed and built with a complete disregard for instructions contained in the three referenced memorandums [minutes of March and May meetings mailed to Douglas as official working documents]. Not only are these panels designed for manual propellant servicing, but no attempt was made by Douglas to incorporate standard nomenclature developed by Douglas and LOD. . . . It is the intention of the contractor to furnish equipment of the same design at AMR.¹⁶

Douglas officials and Sparkman agreed that the control networks for SA-5 (the first two-stage Saturn I launch) could not be completed until the loading issue was resolved. The dispute was settled in LOD’s favor at an October meeting of the Propellant and Gases Panel, but only after Marshall’s intervention.

LOC’s peculiar relationship with the stage contractors caused difficulties during the next two years. The stage contractors, still working under contracts with Marshall, looked to Huntsville for direction and contract management. The launch team’s efforts to monitor contractor operations, suggest equipment modifications, or obtain information on contractor requirements were relayed by the contractor to his home office and from there to Marshall. Douglas officials pointed up the awkwardness of the arrangement during the SA-5 launch preparations when they questioned the launch team’s right to reject company work. Douglas officials refused to yield until Col. Lee B. James, Saturn I-IB Project Manager in Huntsville, notified company management that LOC was responsible for the quality of S-IV stage equipment at the Cape.¹⁷

Relations with Marshall Space Flight Center

The launch team’s separation from Marshall in July 1962 did not significantly alter the close ties between the two centers. Debus, believing that interfaces were best managed by locating responsible design elements in close physical proximity, was pleased that the Launch Vehicle Operations Division (LVOD) was both an operating element of LOC and an engineering element of Marshall. He wrote:

Through this arrangement launch operations requirements are fed back into the design organization and become incorporated in design criteria. For example, the Astrionics Division Electrical Systems Integration Branch of MSFC which is responsible for design of vehicle associated (active) GSE and checkout equipment incorporates into the design the operational requirements obtained from LVO; thus the interfaces are a responsibility of the group.¹⁸

Theodor Poppel’s design group, responsible for much of the launch equipment, remained in Huntsville where it could readily exchange information with launch vehicle engineers. One area of potential strife - the center’s relations with contractors - was eliminated in August 1964 when the two centers reaffirmed Marshall’s primary responsibility for Saturn vehicle development, but delegated to KSC the responsibility for preparation of support equipment and vehicle checkout. As a result, Hans Gruene’s Launch Vehicle Operations team dropped its formal ties with the Huntsville organization. The agreement also gave KSC contract authority to supervise stage and support equipment activities at the Cape.¹⁹ Seven months later Debus and von Braun signed a series of clarifying and implementing instructions, which included the provision that:

Design of components and equipment to be installed in the complexes at the Cape are responsibilities of each of the three MSF centers [Marshall, Houston, and KSC] resulting from decisions that have already been made and which are continuously coordinated through the workings of Intercenter Panels and the system of Interface Control Documents. The design and construction of facilities in which this equipment will be placed is the responsibility of KSC.²⁰

Marshall subsequently stopped contracting for launch checkout, and KSC negotiated its own contracts.

Coordination between KSC and Marshall got a boost in 1964 when their communications lines were organized into the launch information exchange facility (LIEF). Communications had been primitive by modern standards, with LOC personnel commuting between Huntsville and the Cape, and commercial wires carrying the daily message load. With the Saturn program, the need for a better system became apparent. A huge increase in information flow was expected with the launching of larger vehicles; engineers cited 88 telemetry measurements on the Redstone versus an anticipated 2,150 on the Saturn V.²¹

NASA Headquarters approved LIEF in August 1963, and the system met KSC expectations. The new communications network provided the backup support of designers to operations personnel in the analysis of unexpected problems, expedited transmission of additional information on demand, and made available the resources of the development agency throughout the checkout period. LIEF employed the voice, teletype, and facsimile circuits already linking the two centers, and a tape-to-tape transceiving system that carried digital engineering data and launch vehicle computer programs via a NASA automatic facsimile switchboard in New Orleans. More sophisticated equipment was added in time, eventually putting Huntsville displays on the scene for KSC launches.²²

Relations with the Manned Spacecraft Center

While KSC’s relations with Huntsville were relatively good, its early coordination with Houston was another matter. During 1962-1964, KSC officials frequently complained that the Houston center was tardy with its spacecraft-related requirements for the launch facilities. Some KSC officials believed their counterparts were less than frank in their dealings. This feeling gave way slowly as KSC gained an appreciation for Houston problems.

Information from Houston came slowly for two reasons. First, spacecraft design was dragging, and the July 1962 decision to rendezvous in lunar orbit imposed new assignments, including development of the lunar excursion module. The lunar module contract, won by Grumman Aircraft in November 1962, initiated one of Apollo’s most difficult projects, which by 1967 threatened to delay the entire program. The addition of a rendezvous and docking capability to the command-service module required two years of extensive study. Configuration work on the two vehicles culminated with the mockup review of North American’s block II spacecraft on 30 September 1964. Secondly, the Manned Spacecraft Center did not have enough experienced spokesmen on the intercenter panels. Many of the center’s engineers were occupied with the Mercury and Gemini programs. Houston’s Apollo team, understaffed for the large tasks it faced, allotted priority to its North American and Grumman relations. A reluctance to share information that might lessen a center’s authority also contributed to Apollo’s coordination difficulties. All three centers, however, shared in this sin of omission.²³

In August 1962, LOC had a detailed concept for Saturn V operations but only a general understanding of Apollo spacecraft needs. Early that month Debus, Petrone, and Poppel journeyed to Houston for a discussion of requirements. The two centers agreed that a spacecraft checkout center would be constructed in the Merritt Island industrial area, checkout of the spacecraft at the assembly building and later on the pad would be controlled from the launch control center, and Houston would not need a computer or display console on board the launch umbilical tower.²⁴

The disagreement about servicing the spacecraft (first expressed at the Management Council meeting in May 1962 [see chapter 6]) continued for several more months. At a Launch Operations sub-panel meeting in October 1962, MSC insisted that pad facilities provide access to the Apollo spacecraft from all sides. Design of the command and service modules was too far along to modify this requirement. The Houston engineers did not care whether LOC built the 360 degree service capability into the launch umbilical tower’s swing arms or made the arming tower mobile. Neither alternative appealed to LOC, but Petrone informed Houston in early November that a mobile arming tower would provide the necessary pad access.²⁵

While conceding that matter, LOC won a dispute over the responsibilities for establishing criteria in the industrial area. LOC’s concept paper on launch operations stated, “LOC will provide design, contracting, and construction monitoring services for facility construction . . . based on MSC functional and technical requirements.” The Florida Operations launch team of the Houston center interpreted this to mean that LOC would provide the services based on “design and specification requirements or criteria developed by MSC.” Debus objected to Houston’s providing fully developed criteria for the spacecraft facilities and won Holmes’s support at a meeting in October 1962. Subsequently, the LOC director and G. Merritt Preston, chief of Florida Operations, agreed that Houston would provide rough criteria while LOC selected the architect-engineering firm and approved the final design.²⁶

A bigger problem - one that dragged on for several years - concerned submission of spacecraft data. In October 1962, Petrone wrote Houston’s Apollo Project Office that spacecraft requirements were “urgently needed” so that LOC could proceed with the criteria studies for the assembly building, launch pad, and mobile launcher. He restated LOC’s needs the following month and frequently thereafter.²⁷ Unfortunately, the Houston engineers could not ascertain all their spacecraft requirements. In October 1962, they projected a need for one 6-meter console in the firing room of the launch control center. By early 1963, this had grown to thirty-five 48-centimeter racks and two 6-meter consoles. A year later Houston was still uncertain about the checkout equipment for the mission operations room; in February 1964 a Houston representative asked if the Manned Spacecraft Center could simply indicate what spacecraft functions had to be performed and the approximate locations for the test consoles.²⁸

Problems in achieving a final design for the command and service modules delayed LOC’s design of the mobile service structure well into 1964. By September 1963, the design of the tower was nearly a year behind schedule, and the growing number of spacecraft requirements increased the likelihood of a top-heavy, overweight tower. The contractor, Rust Engineering, undertook a weight reduction program, redesigning the service platforms and modifying the lower structure. Petrone reported in December that Rust had the tower’s weight and wind-load factors back within the limits of the initial criteria. Seven months later, the design work completed and construction bids on hand, there were two more changes: a KSC decision to relocate ground servicing equipment at the base of the arming tower, and a late list of cabling requirements from Houston. KSC made the necessary modifications within a month.²⁹

Since the lunar module had started late, a delay in its requirements was expected. After the data became available in January 1965, launch engineers modified their facilities to accommodate the third spacecraft module. The changes affected the electrical and fluid systems of the mobile launcher, office space in the assembly building as well as the second level of platform B in the high bays, and platform 3 of the mobile service structure. KSC altered the pad area to provide space for the lunar module’s ground support equipment and additional power receptacles.³⁰

Range Safety

The question of safety was always paramount at KSC and usually involved much intercenter negotiation, as well as long study sessions with the Air Force. The possibility of the space vehicle colliding with the umbilical tower during launch touched off a study in mid-1962. The LOC group concluded that the Saturn I’s proposed emergency detection system would not catch all possible failures in time to signal an abort. If engine number 1 of the first stage failed, attitude and rate mechanisms in the detection system would not sense a rocket drift that could result in a collision with the tower. An initial experiment with backup television coverage (the SA-3 flight of 16 November 1962) was disappointing; flame and dust kept astronaut D. K. Slayton and Marshall’s John Williams from seeing the rocket as it climbed by the face of the tower. Petrone concluded from film of the liftoff that ground level visibility would always be sharply limited by blast and flame. He recommended placing a television camera at the top of the umbilical tower to look down between the tower and the vehicle.³¹

The Crew Safety Panel (one of the intercenter panels) took charge of this study in early 1963. LOC’s chief representative on the panel, Emil Bertram, examined several proposals for ground support instrumentation including color television, an electronic “beat-beat” system based on the Doppler principle, and the placement of sensing wire on the umbilical tower. The panel finally settled on television and field observers. The launch team had to overcome further problems with the television during the latter Saturn I flights; for example, the intensity of light at liftoff burned holes in the camera’s vidicon tube. The panel, satisfied with the coverage by 1965, approved an abort advisory system for LC-34. (With no manned flights scheduled LC-37 did not require a similar system.) Since the light intensity bleached out colors, the system employed four black-and-white cameras. Two cameras, pointing downward from the 72-meter level of the umbilical tower, covered the space between the tower and the rocket. Three hundred meters away on opposite sides of the launch vehicle, zoom-lensed cameras mounted on 5-meter towers provided a profile of early flight. The four cameras formed part of the complex’s operational television network. Telescope sites, located around the perimeter of the complex, supplemented the TV. Gordon Cooper, an influential voice on the Crew Safety Panel, and other astronauts helped man the observation posts. LC-34’s operational intercom system gave the posts instant communication with the blockhouse. The coverage proved satisfactory, and a similar arrangement was prepared for LC-39.³²

While the establishment of the abort advisory system went smoothly, the matter of who held abort authority during the first ten seconds of flight (until tower clearance) proved more troublesome. KSC officials believed the launch operations director was in the best-position to command an abort. The astronauts objected, arguing that the launch director might abort the mission at an undesirable moment for them or the spacecraft. Eventually the astronauts won the argument. As information came to the launch director during the first seconds of flight, he would assess the situation. If an abort appeared necessary, the director could trigger the “Abort Light” on the flight panel in the spacecraft. If the “Thrust O.K.” light indicated a malfunction or if the astronauts sensed a problem, the crew could manually activate the launch escape system.³³

Range safety matters caused considerable disagreement between NASA and the Air Force before the issues were ultimately resolved. The Air Force had exercised responsibility for range safety at the Cape since launching the first rocket back in 1950. The basic concern was to prevent an errant rocket from landing in a populated area. Accordingly, when NASA scheduled a mission, the Air Force wanted details on the flight plan: launch azimuth, trajectory, and impact point. Range safety policies required that the launch vehicle have at least one tracking aid and two digital range safety command receivers on each active stage. The receivers had to be compatible with range instrumentation. If a destruct signal was received from the ground, the receivers would cut off the flow of fuel to the engines and then detonate small explosive charges to rupture the propellant tanks. The propellants would then mix and their explosive force be consumed before vehicle impact.³⁴

The command receivers were activated prior to liftoff. The range safety officer sat at a group of consoles located in the range control center of the Cape Kennedy Air Force Station. The display had been developed in the 1950s and it remained relatively unchanged during the succeeding 15 years. The consoles received tracking data on the vehicle from the Eastern Test Range tracking system. This information was processed by a digital computer, and the display showed both the present location of the vehicle and its impact point if thrust were terminated.³⁵

The plot included a set of lines that followed the planned path of the vehicle. These so-called “destruct” lines indicated the maximum deviation of the impact point from the trajectory that could be allowed without endangering life or property. As long as the impact point remained within the destruct lines, no action was required. Should a failure occur or the destruct lines be crossed, the safety officer first sent an arming signal to the receivers aboard the vehicle. This performed the dual function of initiating thrust termination and preparing the destruct system for activation. After an appropriate built in delay, a second signal was transmitted. It caused the detonation of the explosives in the propellant dispersion system. Within seconds the vehicle would be transformed into tumbling, burning chunks of scrap.³⁶

The Air Force’s authority in matters of range safety was reaffirmed in the Webb-McNamara Agreement of 17 January 1963. Essentially, the agreement confirmed the authority of the Air Force to require flight termination and propellant dispersion systems on NASA vehicles as well as those of the military, and this authority extended from liftoff through orbital insertion. The agreement was supplemented by the Air Force Missile Test Center-Launch Operations Center agreement of 5 June 1963, which gave NASA the responsibility for ground safety within the confines of KSC but left flight safety with the Air Force.

LOC acknowledged the Air Force’s responsibility for range safety, but in a letter of 10 May 1962, General Davis noted that “there are occasional differences of opinion on what constitutes reasonable safety practices” and asked for Debus’s comments on Air Force policy. In his response, Debus hesitated to cite specific disagreements since many rules were undergoing review and change. However, he did list a few areas where NASA and its contractors felt uninformed as to how the Air Force reached its decisions. One area concerned the computation of destruct areas; a second was the amount of trajectory data required on a new program. Debus also questioned the rationale for a dual destruct capability in all powered stages.³⁷

This last matter involved KSC in a lengthy debate which found the Manned Spacecraft Center and the Air Force at odds over the latter’s insistence on including a destruct system in the Apollo spacecraft. The dispute began in March 1962, when Houston requested a waiver - spacecraft engineers did not want the astronauts carrying a destruct package with them to the moon. The Range Safety Office proposed to restrict Apollo flights severely if the spacecraft did not carry a destruct system. Neither side altered its position in the next twelve months. When the NASA centers and the Eastern Test Range discussed Apollo-Saturn V safety requirements in May 1963, Houston again asked to fly the Apollo spacecraft (including the S-IVB stage) without a destruct capability. Engineers cited the possibilities of an errant signal triggering the systems or of an explosion during docking.³⁸ The Air Force stood firmly by the requirements of the range safety manual: “Both engine shutdown and destruct capability are required for each stage of the vehicle.”³⁹

The sparring over the destruct systems soon took on the trappings of international diplomacy. On 9 May Dr. Adolf Knothe, LOC’s range safety chief, warned Debus that a crisis could develop. Although no agreement had been worked out by June, Knothe and his assistant, Arthur Moore, began damage probability studies to justify omission of a destruct system. Their calculations indicated that an explosion of the three launch-vehicle stages, triggered by the range safety officer, would also destroy the lunar and service modules with their propellants. (In the meantime the launch escape system would have pulled the astronauts’ command module away from the explosion.) Their plan employed a shaped charge on the front end of the S-II stage to explode the S-IVB stage. The results were inconclusive, however, and the Air Force stressed the possibility of a spacecraft falling back onto the Cape. Range officials contended that a spacecraft destruct system would not endanger the mission; NASA could design the system with a jettison capability.^* Knothe recommended a detailed destruction probability study by the Lear-Siegler Corporation but saw “no absolutely objective answer to this dilemma.”⁴⁰

The Air Force countered LOC’s calculations with a July presentation on a liquid explosive, Aerex. Impressed with Aerojet-General Corporation’s product, NASA engineers gathered in Houston two weeks later for a North American briefing on a destruct system using the liquid explosive. Afterward, Moore sounded out spacecraft officials. There was still misunderstanding between the two centers in August when Christopher C. Kraft, Jr., chief of Houston’s Flight Operations Division, moved to break the impasse. His call for an Apollo Range Safety Committee, modeled on a Gemini group, included AFMTC participation. LOC and MSFC vetoed Air Force representation until NASA had achieved a common front.⁴¹

At the first meeting of the Range Safety Committee, Knothe reviewed safety problems including the Range requirement for dispersion trajectories on all propelled stages.^** The destruct systems on the S-I and S-II stages caused no concern, and Knothe believed that Aerex might prove acceptable for the S-IVB and spacecraft. Houston, however, was sharply divided over the destruct requirements, with the astronauts leading the opposition. The committee put the matter aside until the Manned Spacecraft Center could reach an understanding within its own ranks.⁴²

In October, Kraft managed to add Air Force representatives to the Range Safety Committee. In the minutes of the 22 October meeting, he noted: “It was apparent at the meeting that the Range Safety Office is just as concerned that their regulations do not hamper the program as we are that we are not hampered by range safety.”⁴³ Kraft’s note foreshadowed the agreement reached with the Eastern Test Range the following month. North American would prepare a destruct system for the service module. The spacecraft could fly early tests without the destruct capability since the service module tanks would contain little fuel. The decision, however, did not bring the matter to a close. Marshall and KSC officials were visibly upset in March 1964 when North American Aviation presented five spacecraft destruct systems, none of which incorporated the designs of the Saturn stage destruct system.^*** When von Braun and Debus raised the issue at an Apollo Review Board, Mueller, head of Manned Space Flight, asked the KSC chief to seek elimination of the destruct requirements. Over the summer of 1964 KSC officials met with Air Force officers, including Lt. Gen. Leighton I. Davis, who had moved from the Missile Test Center to the command of the National Range Division. KSC stressed among other things the weight penalty. A 120-pound service module destruct system would require nearly 7,500 more newtons (1,700 pounds) of thrust or a reduction in the weight of the S-IC stage. When Mueller submitted a formal request for waiver in September, General Davis directed the Range to go along.⁴⁴

Summary

Integration matters at KSC required a great deal of attention during the early years of Apollo. KSC officials worked closely with Marshall, Houston, and the stage contractors in shaping the launch facility to Apollo-Saturn dimensions. While an integrating role for General Electric was rejected, intercenter panels provided an effective means of coordination. The increased workload altered KSC’s relations with its contractors. The launch center took on the direction of contract work previously performed for Marshall or Houston. In turn contractors assumed more responsibility under mission contracts. The Apollo coordination brought its share of disagreements--witness the dispute over a destruct charge on the command and service modules. By 1965, however, most of the conflicts were resolved. KSC had achieved a good working order between its government team and contractors, and relations with other organizations were reasonably well defined.