Progress Report January To June 1967

to like the state we are very  impressed with this mock-up block two is about as different from  block one as block one was from Germany there's quite a difference in the two vehicles  block two is the basic manned Apollo configuration this is Captain Shira Mission commander of the  first manned flight he is speaking at a press conference at North American Aviation one month  and 10 days after the 204 accident board ended its investigation to attain the confidence  that we need again to fly a manned spacecraft it made eight recommendations  directly concerned with the spacecraft how effectively does the first crew believe  those recommendations were carried out where do we stand in the overall  manned space flight program with Captain Shira a veteran of both  Mercury and Gemini will be two young astronauts making their first man flights  Don Eisley Command Module pilot Center couch and Walt Cunningham lunar module pilot right couch we have kept standard Apollo crew  designations for the first manned flight but without a lunar module we have to  make some changes in crew responsibilities of course the mission Commander Bears full crew  responsibility on this and all Apollo flights however the Command Module pilot now becomes  the guidance and navigation expert he will also handle any Rendezvous procedures included  in the mission since there is no lunar module the right couch pilot Walt Cunningham will  be the expert on all spacecraft systems I think it's appropriate that we at  least Identify some of these changes to you that are in this mock-up I'd  like now to have demonstrated to you by Don Eisley who is our Center  couch man demonstrating hash itself I'd like to call attention to the new hats  design we now have a hat which is hinged to the spacecraft and it seals on the outside  rather than from the inside when the hatch is closed these dogs go over Center and pull the  hatch down against the outer seal and form a seal that way if there is any pressure Bill  up inside and you had to get the hatch open in a hurry there's a quick release device  which pulls these dogs back and lets the hats swing open very quickly it's very similar  to The Gemini hatch design and we find this is uh much Superior to operationally and it's  also a lot safer than the old design which was sealed from the inside with hatch panels  that had to be installed from the interior we can open the hatch I'd say within two  or three seconds now getting all three men out is the timeline and that's  the kind of thing that we practice what kind of timeline are you looking  at for getting the crew out of the spacecraft including hatch opening and egress I'd say we could with the help of the  external crew get out in 15 or 25 seconds I would rather not be pinned down on the time  until we train and practice emergency egress in addition to the hatch design major changes  have been made in the spacecraft interior the wiring electronic boxes and plumbing  runs are covered by protective panels storage space is used more economically in all  flammable materials such as paper checklists meteorite garments even tissue containers  are now stowed in hard metal containers Tom Stafford Mission commander of the backup  crew a crew familiar to us from Gemini Stafford made his first flight with Captain Shira  and later was command pilot of Gemini 9A with Gene cernan now his lunar module planet John Young  Command Module pilot is another space veteran he made his first flight on the first man  Gemini and was also command pilot of Gemini 10. in all the two Apollo Crews represent  more than 275 hours of manned space flight Cunningham have the same privilege I did all the wire runs that used to be exposed  are now enclosed under metal covers they will protect the wiring from damage and isolate  the whole wiring system from the wear and tear of people getting in and out of the spacecraft  these covers also form a good fire break these flat boxes are stowage containers  they are all hard cover rigid metal boxes anything that is flammable or really  anything that is flammable for which we do not find a good substitute material  will be enclosed in these protective cases the fire as we can best determine was caused  by a wiring malfunction this was a trigger which ignited the combustible materials in  the spacecraft and they burn very rapidly those materials have been almost  completely removed we have a very large list of substitute materials that  are being developed daily to replace them some obviously flammable materials remain they  include of course the three crewmen themselves and they eat food that is combustible as a result the  food and the crew will be packaged more carefully the suit we will be wearing will not be flammable so if we remove all the triggers that we  can possibly remove and if we remove all the combustibles that we possibly can and in case the  combustibles that we must have in non-flammable material there should be no cause for anything  to burn even in a pure oxygen environment we have retained the 100 oxygen environment  as a basic life support system for Apollo the spacecraft will be purged to a 5 PSI level in  orbit however we have added the capability of employing a two gas system on the launch pad  if it should seem feasible at a later time through some changes in systems as well one of  the changes in the systems is to accommodate the spacecraft to be launched with air  or nitrogen and then purged in orbit to have a pure oxygen environment now in orbit  this would be approximately a 5 PSI oxygen environment not 16 to 19 PSI as we see on the  launch pad and there is a tremendous difference in the flammability characteristics  of materials at this lower pressure can you relate the complexity and the  preparations for this mission to the complexity and preparations for Gemini and Mercury training for the first flight is about two and  a half times as complex as it was for some of the latter phases of the Gemini missions training  wise I think the crew will be in good shape for example I think we're going to be a lot better  for this first Apollo flight than Gus and I were getting ready for Gemini 3 the first man Gemini  because there will be more simulators available the flight crew Support Division MSC has three  Apollo simulators at the Kennedy Space Center seven at the manned spacecraft Center where  Germany required one basic Mission simulator Apollo needs two separate pieces  of Hardware to simulate a complete mission the lunar module simulator  and the Command Module simulator this follows from the two  spacecraft phases of the mission foreign module simulator realistically  duplicates flight Hardware the crew area contains active controls switches  and instruments it also presents visual displays through the spacecraft window of the lunar module  Earth scenes lunar scenes star fields and so forth looking at the simulator from the outside the  display is bulk very large and sometimes the astronauts call them the boxcars a digital  computer complex programs the simulation an instructor directs crew training at a console  which duplicates the instruments and displays of the Command Module simulator the instructor can  insert given Mission phases from his station and repeat that phase immediately for review training  should he or the crew feel this would be desirable the lunar module simulator which fills  in Mission phases unavailable in the Command Module simulator follows a like pattern there is the simulator itself and displays  such as star scenes and lunar surface scenes it is also furnished with an instructor's  console computer and Equipment racks to the left of the simulator is a  three-dimensional Mosaic of the Moon surface through closed circuit television it presents  typical lunar Landing displays marked by craters mounds and boulders the Mosaic gives the astronaut  a realistic feel for his final landing approach lunar module motion is simulated by moving  the map up and down for vertical motion a camera on a dolly track  provides lateral movement lights around the camera lens  simulate lunar lighting conditions with these two simulators a crew can  practice the basic flight elements of the Apollo Mission from launch complex to  landing on the moon and return to Earth for more detailed training of critical phases  the astronaut turns to specialized simulators let us look at some of them wherever possible these  have been modified from existing Gemini Hardware the dynamic crew procedure simulator which stresses launch and launch abort  training was converted from Germany it provides a physical environment such as motion  sound and the onset of gravity so that the crew can evaluate launch vehicle performance  six five four three two ignition liftoff [Music] Apollo 7 be advised to have  pressurization problems in the J2 standby for possible abort situation larger pressure still decreasing Apollo 7 decision is to have you abort  at staging so I will give you a countdown in three two one abort with such training Captain Shira was able to react immediately to the shutdown  of Gemini 6 on the launch pad this is the old Target and docking  simulator as used by Gemini Crews range if you're ready I'll reset it has  undergone a face lifting substituting the Apollo Command Module and lunar module stations  for the Gemini and the agena target vehicle slow your closing velocity in approximately  one tenth to three tenths of a foot per second small latches probes should be retracting  okay it seems to be okay that's it and then you can back it on out again  okay okay I'm releasing all right and you're in positions you gotta 90 degree  pitch down his degree you all right zero roll you're offset a little to the left laterally  that's probably why you have the yaw right in there you're lined up vertically contact  velocity is 110 foot per second okay fine Eva training centers around  two complementary simulators the water immersion facility and  Pogo a partial gravity simulator the value of underwater training as  realistic simulation of weightlessness for study of space tasks was borne out  by Buzz Aldrin during Gemini 12 Eva this experience is being applied to the  lunar Mission and to the space Workshop but the astronaut on the moon will work  under 1 6th Earth gravity setting up scientific experiments and  Gathering geologic samples Pogo simulates both zero g  and 1 6 gravity conditions for lunar work simulations a pneumatic tube  counterbalances five six of the astronaut's weight Germany Crews had the use of two Mission  simulators one at Kennedy Space Center one at MSC these have been combined into a single  Apollo procedures development simulator it has two crew stations one Command Module one  lunar module in them the astronaut can practice specific flight elements of the mission such  as thrust Maneuvers star sighting and so forth however the sheer number and complexity of Apollo simulators and related equipment  has strained existing facilities ground was broken in February on a new flight  crew support building to be completed in 12 months it will house the procedures development simulator with a new computer complex to  increase the depth of training but this is looking a little to the  Future for the present all simulators needed to support the first manned Apollo  Mission are man rated and operational the slow details the hundreds of  hours of simulator training have begun progress in Apollo support was exhibited  by the real-time computer complex rtcc the older 70-94 computer which supported Germany  abley had reached the end of its growth potential it had been modified to the fullest  extent and was operating at capacity the rtcc has replaced all 70-94s with  five IBM 360s model 75-j computers in addition another model 75 computer  is housed in building 422 it generates simulated network data used  in Mission training exercises Apollo now has a computer with three  to four times the internal speed of the 7094 the model 75 is modular  in form and open-ended for growth among other advantages to the conversion  is the fact that the model 75 has more checking circuits than were available on the 7094s despite the increased speed growth potential  and capacity rental is cheaper than the 7094s we should also look for a moment  at the communications command and Telemetry system abbreviated  phonetically to Sea cats it is composed of three univac  494 computers two used online for Mission support one for program development through this system the rtcc receives All Mission  data except voice teletype and some aeromed data it is fed into a univac 494 and from there to  the two model 75 computers supporting the mission in addition to this function  retained from Gemini ccats now replaces the master digital command  system in sending out Mission commands let us say that the flight director admission  control center wishes to send a command to the spacecraft onboard computer the  information goes from his console to ccats which encodes the message it is sent to  Goddard space flight center which transmits the information to a remote site in contact with  the spacecraft for this example let us say Hawaii and from there it is sent by radio signal to  the onboard computer with the older system we could only command one site at a time which meant  commanding only one spacecraft manned or unmanned with sea cats we can command  four sites simultaneously beneath the smooth tile floors and corridors  of building 30 stretches a network of more than 195 million feet of wiring enough to  go around the earth one and a half times wiring for computers that can perform an addition  in eight tenth of a billionth of a second computers which can receive Telemetry or  trajectory information from Goddard check it and display it on a flight  director's console in one second when we set up scientific experiments  during the lunar Mission we will have the information displayed in mission control  four or five seconds after it is sent in this one room is the greatest  computer capacity in the Free World seven days before the end of the report period  the lunar receiving laboratory was opened the newest facility at MSC contains 83 000 square  feet it is divided into three areas there is a crew reception area for isolation and study of  the Apollo crew immediately after the mission its supplies necessary housekeeping facilities living quarters and medical facilities for crew examination sample operations provides for preliminary  investigation of lunar samples including physical chemical tests gas analysis and radiation Counting  both these areas are in quarantine isolation the third area support and  administration is outside of isolation IT Supplies conference rooms office space and support activities such as  biological support Laboratories quarantine actually begins far from this  laboratory it begins when the crew leaves the moon's surface with 40 to 50 pounds of lunar  samples vacuum sealed in a special container it continues Unbroken by means of a  mobile quarantine laboratory which the crew and samples will enter on shipboard  direct from their returning spacecraft the seal spacecraft will also be brought to  the lunar receiving lab and housed in this room which is normally opened to the outside if  the spacecraft must be entered for any reason the outside doors will be sealed and the room  will become part of the crew reception area lunar samples must be protected against  Earth contamination and the crew will be observed by doctors for the remote  possibility of lunar contamination quarantine period for crew three  weeks four samples four weeks quarantine continues at the lunar receiving lab by  means of primary and backup systems of containment a biological barrier is provided by  special filters on air conditioning systems and by airlocks irradiated with ultraviolet  light by special ceiling of floors and walls and by sample cabinets and by other means 50 feet below the ground is a radiation  laboratory part of the sample operations area as soon as possible a radiation  count will be made of the samples to assure us that very short-lived  Isotopes are identified and not lost the laboratory is put underground  to Shield out Cosmic radiation extreme care is taken to obtain a  true Count of activity of the samples for example radon a radioactive  gas is present in the atmosphere in minute quantities it will be filtered  out by the air conditioning system walls of The Counting Room are eight feet  thick five feet cement three feet donut is a natural mineral Rock which is an  effective radiation barrier using it we avoid the cost and weight  penalties of lead shielding the biological support Laboratories and  the support and administration complex are raising plants and animals to be used in tests  of different media for possible lunar viruses cultures will be prepared in the  support Laboratories sterilized and sent within the quarantine barrier  of sample operations for testing in studying these cultures the electron microscope gives us the possibility of direct  visualization of virus material preliminary analyzes will also  be made to classify and catalog the samples at the laboratory and  to identify the elements present as soon as possible the samples will be  distributed to scientists for study in their own Laboratories distinguished scientists  will concentrate in their specialty areas studies will continue for years participating will be  scientists from countries all over the Free World they will share with us an experience unique in man's history first-hand study  of the composition of the Moon we have reviewed the most active six months  in the history of the manned spacecraft Center it required total effort to  recover from the late days of January and move forward with the Apollo mission for the first manned flight the spacecraft has  incorporated the recommendations of the 204 board the first crew is in training and  has the simulators to do the job mission control is ready  to support upcoming Apollo missions with new computers and new capabilities we are looking ahead and preparing  for the day when the crew will return from space and bring to the lunar  receiving laboratory part of the Moon [Music]