Exploring the Unknown: Selected Documents in ... - The Black Vault

414 Project Apollo: Americans to the Moon
The staff at Marshall Space Flight Center was “incredulous” when they
first heard of Mueller’s dictate. It violated the step-by-step approach to rocket
testing they had been following since their time in Germany. 36 But they could
not provide compelling counterarguments, particularly given the pressure to
have the first lunar landing attempt come before the end of 1969. Von Braun
wrote Mueller on 8 November, saying that “We believe the philosophy of flying
live all stages, modules, and systems, beginning with the first R&D launching,
to be a worthy objective. There is no fundamental reason why we cannot fly
‘all-up’ on the first flight.” Von Braun hedged his response a bit, saying “Our
practical application of this philosophy should recognize this objective, but with
the important reservation that clear, alternative, ‘fall back’ positions are also
formally recognized.” 37 Von Braun was later to agree “in retrospect it is clear that
without all-up testing the first manned lunar landing could not have taken place
as early as 1969.” 38 Mueller’s “all-up” decision thus joined the selection of lunar
orbit rendezvous as keys to Apollo’s success. According to one account, “the crisis
in Apollo leadership that had begun in 1962 with Holmes’s mutiny thus ended in
1963 with an astute new manned space flight director, a stronger overall Apollo
management team, and decisive steps to get Apollo back on schedule.” 39
1963—A Year of Uncertainty
Increasing Criticisms
Even as internal steps were being taken to get Apollo on track to meet its
“before the decade is out” goal, external to the space agency there were several
developments that placed the future course of the program in some doubt.
After President Kennedy’s 25 May 1961 speech announcing the lunar
landing goal, the public and political reception to the president’s initiative was
in general very positive. Beginning in 1963, however, criticism of Apollo in the
context of overall national priorities, as well as scientific ones became much more
widespread. 40 Much of this criticism was in the form of newspaper articles and
editorials, but there were also the beginnings of dissent regarding the Apollo
goal within the political system. On 10 and 11 June, the Senate Committee on
Aeronautical and Space Sciences, under its new Chairman, Senator Clinton
Anderson of New Mexico (Robert Kerr had died on 1 January 1963), listened as 10
scientists discussed Apollo. The majority complained about the priority that had
been assigned to the lunar landing program, and provided dramatic examples of
36. Howard McCurdy discusses this difference in approach to testing in Chapter 2 of his book
Inside NASA: High Technology and Organizational Change in the U.S. Space Program (Baltimore: Johns
Hopkins University Press, 1992).
37. Wernher von Braun to George E. Mueller, 8 November 1963, Folder #18675, NASA Historical
Reference Collection, NASA History Division, NASA Headquarters, Washington, DC.
38. Murray and Cox, Apollo, p. 162.
39. Lambright, Powering Apollo, p. 118.
40. Compton¸ Where No Man Has Gone, Chap. 3.