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

Exploring the Unknown
421
with the F-1 engine that powered the first stage of the Saturn V appeared to have
been resolved, and the mammoth booster was moving towards its first test flight.
The technical reality was rather different. There were major problems in the
Apollo spacecraft program and the S-II second stage of the Saturn V launcher,
both being developed by North American Aviation, 55 and the lunar module being
developed by Grumman was running well behind schedule and was overweight. 56
By the end of 1966, Apollo’s Washington managers were stressing publicly that
it would be difficult to attempt an initial lunar landing mission until sometime
in the second half of 1969. Thus Administrator James Webb was quite surprised
to read an interview with Wernher von Braun that appeared in the 12 December
1966 issue of U.S. News & World Report headlines “A Man on the Moon in ’68?”
In the interview, von Braun suggested, with a number of caveats, that “there is
a distinct possibility that, if everything really clicks and we don’t hit any major
snags, it [the first landing attempt] may come off in ’68,” on the fourth flight of
the Saturn V launcher. 57
In response to the interview, Webb fired off an annoyed memorandum to von
Braun. (II-47) He told von Braun “there is certainly a very, very low possibility
that complete Saturn V systems will be available for flights out as far as the Moon
in 1968. Under these circumstances, it seems to me that you will need to be
very careful in dealing with the press.” Webb’s concern was that NASA needed
to “take account of all the difficulties we are likely to encounter in this very
complex Saturn V-Apollo system, particularly as we are now so hemmed in, have
so little room to make adjustments, and have no financial margins.” He was also
concerned that statements like von Braun’s could “undermine the credibility of
those of us who are working so hard to get the money to continue this program
and to avoid having the vehicles now approved (15 Saturn V’s) deleted from the
program on the basis that they are not needed to accomplish the mission.”
Soon after Lyndon Johnson became President, he had asked NASA to begin
to identify post-Apollo options. NASA responded by January 1965 with a “laundry
list” of future possibilities. (Volume I, III-18) But by that time, “Johnson did not
want to hear about the possibilities, nor did he particularly want Congress to hear
them.” 58 Recognizing that a second Apollo-like initiative was not in the offing,
NASA focused its post-Apollo planning on an interim effort that became known
as the Apollo Applications Program. The program initially was ambitious in
scope, but never received significant funding. (II-45) Ultimately only one of the
proposed Apollo Applications missions was flown; this was the 1973 Skylab, using
an upper stage of a surplus Saturn V launch vehicle as an interim space station.
Lacking any additional missions for the Saturn V, in August 1968 Webb found
himself forced to make the painful decision to begin the process of shutting
55. See Murray and Cox, Apollo, Chaps. 12–13, for a discussion of these problems.
56. For an account of the development of the lunar module, see Thomas J. Kerlly, Moon Lander:
How We Developed the Apollo Lunar Module (Washington: Smithsonian Institution Press, 2001).
57. “A Man on the Moon in ’68?” U.S. News & World Report, 12 December 1966, p. 63.
58. Lambright, Powering Apollo, p. 139.