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<!DOCTYPE HTML>
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<HEAD>
<title>Chariots For Apollo, ch4-5</title>
<meta http-equiv=Content-Type content="text/html; charset=UTF-8">
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<BODY BGCOLOR="#FFFFFF">
<p>
<h2>Fitting the Lunar Module into Apollo</h2>
<p>
Since responsibility for the Apollo command and service modules already
rested with Gilruth's Manned Spacecraft Center, NASA assigned Houston to
procure and manage the lunar excursion vehicle. NASA officials decided
to hire a separate contractor to develop the lunar landing
spacecraft.<p>
North American had made a strong bid for the lander when the lunar
travel mode became a hot issue. Although the company was sent a request
for proposals in July 1962, it was first discouraged, and then
precluded, from bidding on this contract. NASA evidently believed that
North American already had all the Apollo development work it could
handle.<a href = "#source59"><b>59</b></a><p>
Facing the loss of the glamor associated with landing its own craft on
the moon, North American did not give up gracefully. Harrison Storms
carried his case to Administrator Webb, suggesting that his company be
selected as sole source contractor for the lander, farming out most of
the actual hardware work. This arrangement would have made North
American the systems manager, responsible for integrating all the
payload vehicles. Legal and procurement officers within NASA warned Webb
against this approach. The agency should contract the lander directly,
they urged. To permit an industrial firm to take over this task without
competition, even though NASA would have the final approval of the
selection of the subcontractors, "might be regarded as a delegation
of NASA's inherent responsibility to perform its procurement
function."<a href = "#source60"><b>60</b></a><p>
Requests for proposals on the lander were issued on 25 July 1962, and a
bidders' briefing was held in Houston on 2 August. On 5 September,
barely five weeks after the issuance, NASA announced that nine companies
had submitted proposals and that the agency planned to award the
contract in six to eight weeks. Of the 11 companies originally invited
to bid, only McDonnell - and North American - had not submitted
proposals.<p>
Evaluations began at Houston immediately after the proposals were
received and they ended on 28 September. At Ellington Air Force Base in
mid-September, company officials made formal presentations to the Source
Evaluation Board and a number of technical management panels. NASA teams
then made one-day visits to the company plants, to see what facilities
each bidder could draw upon to support the development program.<a href =
"#source61"><b>61</b></a> Early in October, officials from Houston
presented their findings and recommendations to NASA Headquarters.
Holmes wanted the selection completed, approved, and announced by the
middle of the month. But the last-minute demands by PSAC postponed the
contract award for three weeks. On 7 November, NASA formally announced
that the Grumman Aircraft Engineering Corporation of Bethpage, New York,
would build the excursion module.<a href = "#source62"><b>62</b></a><p>
Several bidders had been very close, both technically and managerially,
William Rector later said. Any of them could have done the job -
"Grumman didn't turn in the only good design." A major factor
in Grumman's selection had been its facilities: spacious engineering
design and office accommodations, ample manufacturing space, and a
clean-room complex for vehicle assembly and testing.<p>
The Manned Spacecraft Center continued its studies, even after the
requests had been issued. Rector remembered that "our designs were
really beginning to take shape. . . . We were getting a much better feel
for what we wanted this thing to look like." The Apollo Spacecraft
Project Office had been realigned on 1 August, to give the lunar module
an organization of its own. Rector became project officer for the lander
and Thomas Markley for the command and service modules. Rector and
Markley then revised the North American statement of work to reflect
Grumman's and the lunar module's place in the Apollo-Saturn stack,
particularly in the arrangements for docking and for stowage within a
protective adapter section.<p>
Rector's office began defining the lander's subsystems: propulsion,
guidance and control, reaction control, electrical power, and
instrumentation. The planners hoped to use Mercury and Gemini spacecraft
components as well as Apollo command and service module parts
("common usage" equipment) in the new vehicle. The guidance and
navigation system in the command module received the closest initial
scrutiny for common usage parts. MIT studies indicated that the inertial
measurement unit, the telescope, and some computers and displays might
be modified for the lander.<a href = "#source63"><b>63</b></a><p>
Numerous lunar-module-related design problems were examined during the
last weeks of 1962. Among the most pressing were requirements for
rendezvous and landing radar (and where to put the equipment); analyses
of individual vehicle systems, such as electrical power and thermal
control; considerations of mission trajectory from lunar orbit and back
and of abort trajectories from any point during the descent; projections
of overall costs for developing the vehicle; and questions of dust
layers on the moon, the blast effect caused by descent engine exhaust,
and the influence of these factors on both vehicle design and landing
site selection. During this time, NASA decided that the lander's
propulsion systems would be tested at White Sands in facilities similar
to those being developed at Sacramento for testing the service module's
main engine.<a href = "#source64"><b>64</b></a> Apollo leaders also
expected to flight-test the lunar module in New Mexico, using the Little
Joe II booster.<p>
Simulating lunar landings to train the crews would require ingenuity;
imitating one-sixth g within the earth's gravitational field is complex
and difficult. Three methods were considered, the simplest being a
fixed-base simulator like those built for the Mercury and Gemini
programs. More complicated were plans for tethered flights of a model of
the lunar lander at Langley on a huge A-frame structure that used cables
and rigging to relieve the descent engine of most of the vehicle's
weight.
<p align=center>
<img src = "images/c109.jpg" width=579 height=401 ALT="LLTV">
<p>
<cite>The Bell Aerospace lunar landing research vehicle, manufactured
for NASA as a trainer for the moon landing, was frequently referred to
by the news media and others as the "flying bedstead."</cite>
<p>
<hr>
<p>
The third method, which would simulate in free flight the actual landing
on the moon, employed a unique and specially fitted flying machine
called the lunar landing research vehicle. Dubbed the "flying
bedstead" or "pipe rack," this was a complex combination
of rocket motors and a vertical jet engine designed to accustom the
astronauts to flying in the lower gravity of the moon. Work on the
vehicle, based on concepts proposed by Bell Aerosystems, had already
begun at NASA's Flight Research Center at Edwards Air Force Base in
California. After awarding a contract to Bell in January 1962, that
center solicited support from Houston in designing, building, and flying
the craft. Paul F. Bikle, Director of the Flight Research Center,
insisted that close contact with the builders of the lunar module during
the designing of the hover craft was essential to make certain the
handling characteristics of the moon lander were accurately
represented.<a href = "#source65"><b>65</b></a>
<p>
<hr>
<p>
<a name = "source59"><b>59</b>.</a> Seamans memo for file, "Apollo
Procurement," 2 June 1961; Rector and Seamans interviews.<p>
<a name = "source60"><b>60</b>.</a> Ernest W. Brackett to Seamans,
"Comments on North American Suggestion for Lunar-Excursion
Contract," 18 July 1962.<p>
<a name = "source61"><b>61</b>.</a> Bothmer, minutes of OMSF Staff
Meeting, 3 Aug. 1962; "Apollo Chronology," MSC Fact Sheet, p.
26; Ivan D. Ertel and Mary Louise Morse, <cite>The Apollo Spacecraft: A
Chronology,</cite> vol. 1, <cite>Through November 7, 1962,</cite> NASA
SP-4009 (Washington, 1969), p. 130; ASPO activity reports, 2–8 Sept., p.
2, and 23–29 Sept. 1962, p. 2; Rector interview; Dave W. Lang,
interview, Houston, 18 Nov. 1962.<p>
<a name = "source62"><b>62</b>.</a> Robert G. Ferris, minutes of OMSF
Staff Meeting, 28 Sept. 1962; Bothmer, minutes of OMSF Staff Meeting, 5
Oct. 1962; Donald T. Gregory, recorder, minutes of MSC Senior Staff
Meeting, 12 Oct. 1962, p. 2; William M. Allen to Webb, 12 Sept. 1962;
NASA TWX, "Grumman Selected to Build LEM."<p>
<a name = "source63"><b>63</b>.</a> Rector and Lang interviews; Saul
Ferdman, interview, Bethpage, N.Y., 2 May 1966; Frick memo,
"Appointment of Project Officers, Apollo Spacecraft Office,"
31 July 1962, with enc., "Duties of the Project Officer";
"Markley, Rector Appointed Apollo Project Heads," MSC
<cite>Space News Roundup,</cite> 22 Aug. 1962; MSC, "Project Apollo
Spacecraft Development: Statement of Work," pt. 3, "Technical
Approach," 18 Dec. 1961, rev. 14 Aug. 1962; Project Apollo
Quarterly Status Report No. 1, for period ending 30 Sept. 1962, pp.
25-30; Hubert P. Davis to Clinton L. Taylor, "LEM Common Usage
Components," 31 Oct. 1962; Cohen to Rector, "C/M and LEM
G&N systems interface," 27 Aug. 1962; Paul E. Ebersole and
George Burrill to LEM Project Officer, "LEM Control and
Stabilization System Common Usage Parts," 29 Oct. 1962; Cohen
interview.<p>
<a name = "source64"><b>64</b>.</a> MSC, abstract of Proceedings,
Guidance and Control Systems Meeting No. 5, 16 Aug. 1962; C. Dale Haines
and J. T. Taylor, "Considerations toward the Selection of
Electrical Power Systems and Thermal Control Systems for the Lunar
Excursion Module," working paper No. 1055, MSC, 18 Dec. 1962;
Charles W. Frick, "Some Considerations of the Lunar
Excursion," MSC Fact Sheet 210, n.d.; Jack A. White, "A Study
of Abort from a Manned Lunar Landing and Return to Rendezvous in a
50-Mile [80-Kilometer] Orbit," proposed Langley technical note
L-3131, 15 June 1962; J. D. Haulbrook memo for record, "Extension
of LEM Projected Cost," 29 Oct. 1962; Robert M. Mason, "A
Preliminary Analysis of the Effects of Exhaust Impingement on the Lunar
Surface during the Terminal Phases of Lunar Landing," working paper
No. 1052, MSC, 20 Dec. 1962; Seamans to Buckley C. Pierstorff, 2 Nov.
1962.<p>
<a name = "source65"><b>65</b>.</a> "Gilruth at Houston Explains
Astronaut Training and Equipment at Manned Spacecraft Center,"
<cite>Data,</cite> 1963, no. 1, p. 26; Kenneth Levin, interview,
Buffalo, N.Y., 8 June 1971; Gene J. Matranga, interview, Flight Research
Center (FRC), Calif., 28 July 1971; Paul F. Bikle to MSC, Attn.: Walter
C. Williams, "Transmittal of proposed Free Flight Lunar Landing
Simulator Program," 9 Jan. 1962, with enc., "Proposed
Free-Flight Lunar-Landing Simulator Program," FRC, 9 Jan. 1962;
Donald R. Bellman to those concerned with the Lunar Landing Research
Vehicle, "Suggested areas for investigation based on a survey of
proposals for the Lunar Excursion Module," 24 Sept. 1962.
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