Moonshot by Dan Parry

Author:Dan Parry [Dan Parry]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
ISBN: 9781407027494
Publisher: Ebury Publishing
Published: 2011-05-05T16:23:20+00:00

Chapter 10

PUSHED TO THE LIMIT

The final say on whether Apollo 11 would launch on schedule was down to the crew as much as anyone, and determined to make the deadline they pushed themselves through their training regime. For six months, Armstrong, Collins and Aldrin regularly spent 14 hours a day, six days a week, preparing to fly to the Moon.1 With evenings and weekends often devoted to studying, this was the most demanding period of their lives. While Michael got to grips with the computer and the rendezvous procedures, Neil and Buzz worked in the lunar module simulators, particularly Grumman's elaborate replica at the Cape. Like its command module counterpart, the cabin of the LM simulator mirrored the real thing. Hooked up to external computers, the instruments indicated apparent changes in the flight-path as the crew perfected engine burns and other manoeuvres. Initially the practice flights were straightforward and free of problems – 'nominal' in NASA-speak. But like Michael, as their skills developed, Neil and Buzz began to be tested by their instructors.

Shortly after the mission rules were issued on 16 May, the flight controllers were due to begin their own training for the descent to the surface. In a spacecraft, as in an aeroplane, the commander has the final say and the controllers knew that in certain situations Neil might overrule them. To discuss this possibility, Gene Kranz held a meeting with the crew.2 They were joined by Charlie Duke, an astronaut who had been selected in 1966. Duke, who had yet to fly in space, had served as a CapCom on Apollo 10, doing the job with such a degree of reliability and easy confidence that Armstrong requested he serve as CapCom for the descent. An air force pilot from North Carolina, Duke successfully supported both the flight controllers and the astronauts. To the controllers he represented the accessible side of an overstretched and rapidly tiring crew, who spent much of their time at the Cape. At the same time, he defended the crew's opinions among a tight team of people who had little personal experience of the demands facing the astronauts. Sometimes occupying a precarious position, Duke did a smooth job in extending understanding on both sides.3

In his meeting with the crew, Kranz said that if difficulties developed early in the descent Houston would halt the mission and start the rendezvous procedure. Such problems were potentially easier to deal with than emergencies that might occur during the middle of the flight. If the mission needed to be aborted, the descent stage could be jettisoned and an attempt made to return to orbit. But the lunar module had been tested in just two manned missions and both had ditched the descent stage under calm conditions at high altitude. Armstrong considered aborts to be 'not very well understood'. The theory called for the descent engine to be closed, pyrotechnic bolts to be ignited, the descent stage to be jettisoned and the ascent engine to be fired. 'Doing all of

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