Getting Uphill on a Candle

Crushed Spines, Detached Retinas and One Small Step

On July 20, 1969 a quiet man from Ohio set foot on the Moon.

On December 13, 1972 an outgoing man from Chicago was the last to step off the Moon.

We talk about the Apollo Project as if it is too big to ever do again.

We talk about this as if humanity has lost something essential to itself.

But we haven’t.

1903 North Carolina

Orville Wright takes off in Flyer 1.

This is the first powered flight in human history.

The Wrights continue their research and

begin selling it in the US and in Europe.

By 1910, advances are being made in Europe using adapted Wright Brothers technology.

The U.S. is the world leader in aeronautics

research.

Then the Great War happens.

Early aircraft are not for combat.

Early aircraft are for reconnaissance purposes.

That is, until a Frenchman takes a machine gun up

in a reconnaissance craft.

Great Power advances in aeronautics happen

rapidly.

Meanwhile, the U.S. is twiddling its rudders.

It’s obligated to buy French aircraft on entering the war.

1915 Washington, D.C.

NACA is formed.

National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics

A government agency conducting basic R&D for the benefit of American industry.

1922 Langley, Virginia

Variable Density Wind Tunnel

1928 Langley, Virginia

Aerodynamic engine cooling.

1934 Langley, Virginia

photograph of airfoil

shockwave

American aviation makes great strides.

1934 London→Melbourne

DC-2 leisurely keeps pace with custom race aircraft.

Let’s talk about

Artillery

Single biggest threat to infantry in WW1.

(Other than the flu.)

Very difficult to maneuver.

Tanks are mobile, but you still have to be right in the action.

Airplanes tend to fall out of the sky.

What’s wanted is a remote weapon.

1923 Göttingen, Germany

Hermann Oberth publishes “Die Rakete zu den Planetenräumen”

1926 Auburn, Mass.

Robert Goddard achieves first-flight of a liquid fuel rocket.

His paper on the flight casually mentions sending a probe to the Moon.

He is promptly ridiculed in the New York Times.

Members of the Verein für Raumschiffahrt in Germany take notice.

1930 Berlin

Oberth fires his liquid fuel rocket.

Werhner von Braun is one of his research assistants.

1932 Roswell, New Mexico

Goddard stabilizes rocket flight gyroscopically.

1934 Kummersdorf, Germany

von Braun group fires Aggregat-2 into the North Sea.

Gyroscopically stabilized, it’s based on Goddard’s designs.

1940 Peenemünde,

Germany

1940 Peenemünde,

Germany

A-4 takes flight.

The von Braun group solve a key problem: guidance.

They perfect the use of gyroscopic control.

The Aggregat-4 is also called the

Vergeltungswaffe-2.

This was not for peaceful purposes.

1942 Oak Ridge, Tennessee

Mass production of U-235.

The US project to construct a nuclear weapon is the largest practical R&D project in the nation’s history.

1945 Los Alamos, New Mexico

The research pays off.

This was not for peaceful purposes.

Nuclear weapons pose a particular problem.

It’s real easy to

kill yourself.

What’s needed is a remote delivery

mechanism.

You can bazooka

them.

You can shoot them out of an artillery cannon.

You can drop them from a bomber.

All much too close for comfort.

In the late 40s there were two options:

In the late 40s there were two options:

1. Hypersonic aircraft

In the late 40s there were two options:

1. Hypersonic aircraft 2. Long-Range Rockets

Neither were available.

1946 Pinecastle Army Airfield, Florida

Jack Woolams pilots the NACA designed Bell X-1.

The X-1 is a drop-craft rocket plane.

1947 Rogers Dry Lake, California

Chuck Yeager hits Mach 1.07.

The United States has hypersonic aircraft.

There’s a slight problem.

It is believed that greater than 18G’s of acceleration are fatal.

1948 Edwards Air Force Base

Captain John Stapp survives 35G’s on the “Gee Wizz”

All the capillaries in Stapp’s eyes burst, filling them with blood.

“"This time, I get the white cane and the seeing eye dog."

He was only temporarily blinded by the ride.

1945 White Sands Missile Range,

New Mexico

Captured V-2s are studied by the U.S. Army.

The rocket is significantly more sophisticated than the solid rockets the Army used in the war.

1946 Fort Bliss, Texas

Operation Paperclip brings the von Braun group to the United States.

In exchange for a clean slate, they bring the Army up to speed on the V-2 rocket.

1946 WSMR, New Mexico

The first U.S V-2 sounding rocket flies.

The V-2 is a single stage rocket.

Single staging is an extreme limit on the efficiency of a rocket.

Staging correctly requires sophisticated coordination in the rocket control system.

1950 Cape Canaveral, Florida

Bumper-8 delivers its payload 320km downrange.

V-2

V-2

WAC Corporal

The U.S. sophistication in rocketry advances rapidly.

1953 Huntsville, Alabama

Army Ballistic Missile Agency flies first Redstone.

This is a multi-stage derivative of the V-2, designed by the von Braun group.

Semi-secretly, the von Braun group has used Army money to build a LEO satellite system.

Per spec, payloads are nuke sized.

But not necessarily

just nuke sized.

1954 Bell Aircraft Corporation,

United States

Walter Dornberger proposes a manned spaceplane.

The idea is to test re-entry procedures in a reusable craft.

NACA bites and starts assembling the funding.

The U.S announces it will launch a satellite.

The U.S announces it will launch a satellite.

The USSR announces

it will launch a satellite.

The Space Race is on.

Fun fact: Soviet nukes are heavier than U.S. nukes.

Extra fun fact: Soviet rockets are bigger to

make up for this.

1957 Baikonur, Kazakhstan

Sputnik 1 becomes the first artificial satellite.

Eisenhower insists on the civilian designed Vanguard.

It doesn’t go well.

The United States seems to be rapidly falling behind the Soviet Union.

1957 Washington D.C.

NACA becomes NASA.

Disparate military programs are folded into the new civilian agency.

Some projects survive, some are put into cold-storage.

Among the survivors, an early stage proposal for

a Moon landing.

1958 Cape Canaveral,

Florida

1958 Cape Canaveral,

Florida Explorer 1 launches atop a Juno.

Explorer 1 is the first US satellite.

The Juno is an ABMA improvement over the ABMA Redstone.

1959 Edwards Air Force Base,

California

Albert Crossfield pilots the first X-15 flight.

The X-15 will prove out controlled re-entry techniques, flight equipment.

1960 Huntsville, Alabama

ABMA becomes the Marshall Space Flight Center.

They bring plans for an exceptionally large rocket.

Originally commissioned by the Army to heft

fusion bombs…

von Braun semi-secretly designed a rocket that could heft a spacecraft

to the Moon.

1961 Bay of Pigs, Cuba

The US backs a failed invasion of Cuba.

President Kennedy has been working closely with NASA regarding the “missile gap”.

He has also been steadily briefed by his aids regarding the NASA proposed lunar mission.

1961 Washington, D.C.

I believe that this nation should commit itself to achieving the goal…

before this decade is out, of landing a man on the moon and returning him safely to the earth.

No single space project in this period will be more impressive to mankind … or expensive to accomplish.

We propose to accelerate the development of the appropriate lunar space craft.

With a massive influx of money, NASA aggressively runs projects in parallel.

“Feeder” projects are established for Apollo.

1962 Edwards AFB, California

X-15 is flown with fly-by-wire system.

The X-15 flights validate interactive fly-by-wire systems.

Apollo will be fly-by-wire.

The X-15 also underscores the need for careful rocket

maintenance.

1957 Langley, Virginia

Wind tunnel tests show re-entry shockwave on

Mercury capsule.

Mercury is intended to prove out ballistic capsule re-entry and retrieval.

“Man in a can”

1962 Low Earth Orbit

John Glenn orbits the Earth three times.

Mercury launches atop an Atlas rocket.

An uprated ICBM.

Nuke

Nuke

Glenn

As the flight plan for Apollo shapes up it’s clear there are many unknowns.

1961 Langley, Virginia

Gemini is a bridge between Mercury and Apollo.

Its re-entry is precise.

It holds two crew.

1965 Gemini 4, LEO

Ed White performs

the first US EVA.

1966 Gemini 8, LEO

Neil Armstrong accomplishes

first dock in space.

1966 Gemini 12, LEO

Buzz Aldrin perfects long-duration EVA.

Saturn V, the largest rocket ever flown, is ready for the Moon.

All the techniques that, just ten years ago, were unknowns are ready.

1968 Apollo 8, Moon

Humans orbit the Moon for the first time.

Humans leave Earth for the first time.

1969 Apollo 10, Moon

LEM descends to 14km

above lunar surface.

Docking with CM checks out okay.

1969 Sea of Tranquility, Moon

Neil Armstrong walks on the Moon.

Buzz Aldrin joins him.

Citing Apollo’s high cost, Nixon

approves a reusable

spaceplane project.

And cancels three Apollo flights.

On July 20, 1969 a quiet man from Ohio set foot on the Moon.

On December 13, 1972 an outgoing man from Chicago was the last to

step off the Moon.

We talk about the Apollo Project as if it too big to

ever do again.

Why?

Progress takes time.

Flying for twelve seconds is one thing.

Flying across an ocean is another.

Flying to the Moon a whole

other.

Each step requires circumstance, effort

and dedication.

We went to the Moon. Why not Mars?

As our ambitions increase, the difficulty increases

exponentially.

We don’t know how to do long-term spaceflight.

We

are

learning.

We don’t know how to write

safe software.

Even when it really matters.

We don’t know how to do cheap launches.

$1billion / launch

Yet.

$0.16billion / launch

We don’t know how to do a lot of stuff.

But we’re figuring it out.

Slowly but surely.