Apollo Moon Missions: The Unsung Heroes

225 Pages·2005·12.86 MB·English

by  Billy Watkins

APOLLO MOON MISSIONS
THE UNSUNG HEROES
Billy Watkins
Foreword by Fred Haise
PRAEGER Westport, Connecticut
London
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Watkins, Billy W., 1953-
Apollo moon missions : the unsung heroes / Billy Watkins ; foreword by Fred Haise.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 0-275-98702-7 (alk. paper)
1. Project Apollo (U.S.)—History. 2. Aeronautical engineers—United
States—Biography. I. Title.
TL789.8.U6A6645 2006
629.4,092,2—dc22 2005022473
British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data is available.
Copyright © 2006 by Billy Watkins
All rights reserved. No portion of this book may be
reproduced, by any process or technique, without the
express written consent of the publisher.
Library of Congress Catalog Card Number: 2005022473
ISBN: 0-275-98702-7
First published in 2006
Praeger Publishers, 88 Post Road West, Westport, CT 06881
An imprint of Greenwood Publishing Group, Inc.
www.praeger.com
Printed in the United States of America
The paper used in this book complies with the
Permanent Paper Standard issued by the National
Information Standards Organization (Z39.48-1984).
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 32
Contents
Foreword vii
Preface xi
Acknowledgments xvii
Introduction: History of Apollo xix
PART I ". . . The Eagle Has Landed"
CHAPTER 1 Steve Bales 3
2 Bruce McCandless 15
3 Richard Underwood 25
4 Clancy Hatleberg 37
PART II "We're Not the Soviets"
5 Julian Scheer 51
6 Joseph Lai tin 63
7 Hugh Brown 77
PART III Thunder at the Cape
8 JoAnn Morgan 91
9 Joe Schmitt 105
10 Jack King 117
PART IV Marriage, Missions, and Moon Cars
11 Joan Roosa 131
12 Rodney Rose 147
CONTENTS
VI
13 Gerry Griffin 159
14 Saverio "Sonny" Morea 175
Appendix: U.S. Manned Mission Summaiy 187
Glossary 193
Bibliography 195
Index 197
Foreword
Ihave spoken to many different audiences over the past several decades
about my experiences as a test pilot and astronaut. A centerpiece of
my commentary is on the Apollo 13 mission, which received great
notoriety through the Hollywood movie of that dramatic rescue. I find
it a great subject in my public appearances to highlight the ingredients
that make for success: having the right people and the right training, and
worldng together as a team with the right leadership. I make it a point
to ask if anyone in the audience knows the number of people who worked
at the peak of the Apollo moon program. The answers I receive are always
numbers fewer than 100,000. It is apparent that not many people really
appreciate the true size of the team and brain trust that enabled us to
travel to the moon. The workforce peaked at over 400,000 people a year
or so before we achieved the first landing on the moon during the Apollo
11 mission. Of course, I have noted that a large number of the people I
speak to today either were not yet born at the time of the Apollo program
or were too young to remember it. The media attention has focused on
the astronauts who fly and on mission control personnel who are the
visible "real time" participants during the missions. Behind the scenes,
solutions to many of the problems that arose during missions leaned on
talent from NASA centers and their contractors across the country. Such
was clearly the case during my Apollo 13 flight, which offered the team
across the country a suite of challenges to be worked out.
But years before the final act—that is, the launch—the team was at
work on the design, the manufacturing, the ground testing, and finally
the launch prep at Kennedy Space Center. Through this process the team
VI I I FOREWORD
changed somewhat in skill mix and in number, but every step was essential
to get to that launch and to achieve mission success. I, along with other
astronauts, made numerous visits to contractor plants and facilities to
meet personally with the workers on the floor, the people at their "work
stations." We took the time to impress upon them the importance of
their efforts to get it right. We made sure they knew how the component
they were building fit into the overall success of the mission and, in
particular, the serious ramifications if it failed. It was clear to me that the
workers were awed and dedicated, as I was, to ensuring America's success
in carrying out the mandate of our president, John F. Kennedy, to land
on the moon. When people ask me about the Apollo 13 mission, their
first question is often, "Were you scared?" or, "Did you think you would
die?" My answer is "no," an answer that many people have difficulty
believing because they cannot conceive of the confidence I had in the
capability and dedication of the team. The often-used quip about "flying
on a machine built by the lowest bidder" clearly was not the case with
the highly directed motivation of the workers during the Apollo program.
My path to the space program was in a way accidental. Through high
school and the first two years of college, I was headed toward a career
as a reporter. I became enamored with journalism through my assignment
as sports editor on my high school newspaper, and I subsequently
worked as sports editor and then editor of the junior college newspaper.
As with many of us in life, one decision changes everything thereafter. With
the Korean War ongoing, I decided it was time to serve my country
in that endeavor. This path took me through navy flight training and a
commission in the U.S. Marine Corps with an assignment as a fighter
pilot. Until that time I had never been in an aircraft of any type and had
never had an interest in aviation growing up. Of course, when I grew
up, no one could desire to be an astronaut because there were none;
there was no space program. But from the first time I was airborne in a
navy SNJ training aircraft, I knew this was to be my life.
The strongest emotion I felt, both during the Apollo 13 mission and
for a short time thereafter, was disappointment at not carrying out the
mission that was planned—a landing in the highlands area of Fra Mauro
on the moon. But through a number of public appearances following
the flight, including an overseas tour, I became aware of what went on
here on Earth during the mission. I spoke to many people who expressed
their concern, their hope for our return through prayer vigils in so many
places. This realization changed my feeling to one of gratitude and thanks
that I had made it back. And as the years have gone by, I have noted that
not many people have gone back to the moon. Today I just feel lucky
FOREWORD IX
and privileged to have been born at the right time, to have acquired the
right background experience, and to have been chosen as a member of
the Apollo program—the greatest engineering and exploration program
of the twentieth century.
I'm pleased that Billy Watldns, whom I have known for a number of
years as a fellow Mississippian, has written this book to highlight some
members of our Apollo team who weren't on the media front line. I told
Billy that it would be a difficult assignment to choose those to be
included in this book, for the Apollo program enjoyed such great success
from the talent and contributions of so many hard-working, dedicated
people. But Billy's selections were excellent. I learned things about the
Apollo program that even I didn't know. The people profiled capture
the sense of team spirit, a desire to assure success, and really bring out
the human interest side of the program.
FRED HAISE
Apollo 13 astronaut
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Preface
T
his book was born in May 1999 after a phone call from an administra
tive assistant at the Johnson Space Center in Houston, Texas. I wish
I remembered her name. She was confirming my interview the next
month with John Young, who commanded Apollo 16 and walked on
the moon in April 1972.
I excitedly jotted down the information and thanked her for calling.
Before I could hang up, the woman said, "I should tell you some
thing. Captain Young doesn't do interviews anymore. But he pulled your
letter out of a huge stack of requests and said, 'Set this one up.' I thought
you'd like to know that."
I thanked her again. Then I found a copy of the letter I had written
Young about a month earlier. It was a simple, two-paragraph note, asking
for an in-person interview for a package I was working on about the
thirtieth anniversary of the first moon landing. Cynthia Wall, my features
editor at the Clarion-Ledger newspaper in Jackson, Mississippi, at the
time, had given me the okay to travel to Houston and write the story if
Young agreed to the interview. I thank her for that.
And to this day, I still don't know why Young chose my letter over
the others. I thank him, too.
Young was my target for a couple of reasons: Neil Armstrong and
Buzz Aldrin, the first humans to set foot on the moon, had quit granting
one-on-one interviews, and Young is perhaps the most decorated astro
naut in history. He flew two Gemini missions. He was the first to orbit
the moon alone, on Apollo 10. He spent two days, twenty-three hours,
and two minutes on the lunar surface during Apollo 16. He commanded