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

Exploring the Unknown
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did so for the test, and would not at that time have regarded the operation as
involving substantial hazard. However, he stated that his work on the board has
convinced him that there were hazards present beyond the understanding of
either NASA’s engineers or astronauts.”
The Apollo 204 Review Board submitted its final report to Administrator
Webb on 5 April. (II-50) The board found that “the test conditions were extremely
hazardous.” Once the fire started, “the crew was never capable of effecting
emergency egress because of the pressurization before rupture and their loss of
consciousness soon after rupture.” With respect to the spacecraft, “deficiencies
existed in Command Module design, workmanship, and quality control.”
On 27 February, the Senate Committee on Aeronautical and Space Sciences,
chaired by Clinton Anderson of New Mexico, held the first congressional public
hearing since the accident. While he supported the space program, Anderson
did not get along with James Webb, who had resisted Anderson’s attempts to exert
influence over NASA activities, and was not willing to wait until the Review Board
issued its final report to begin congressional questioning. At the hearing, junior
Minnesota Senator Walter Mondale asked Webb about a “Phillips Report” severely
critical of North American Aviation’s management of its parts of the Apollo effort.
Webb did not know what Mondale was referring to, and stonewalled the Senator’s
inquiry. George Mueller told the committee that no such report existed. Later
that day Webb became furious when he discovered that there was indeed such a
document, in the form of a set of notes and a cover letter sent to North American
Aviation President Leland Atwood after a late 1965 visit to North American by a
NASA review team led by Apollo program director Sam Phillips. (II-44) In his
cover letter, Phillips had told Atwood that “I am definitely not satisfied with the
progress and outlook of either program [the Apollo Spacecraft and S-II stage of
the Saturn V]” and that “even with due consideration of hopeful signs, I could
not find a substantial basis for confidence in future performance.”
Neither Seamans nor Mueller thought that what Phillips had prepared in
1965 constituted a “report,” but Webb saw immediately that semantic quibbling
would not extricate NASA from appearing to be withholding information from
Congress. After discussing how best to give Congress access to the material,
NASA decided to have Sam Phillips present its contents to an open hearing
of Andersen’s committee. As he probed further, Webb discovered that there
had been continuing criticism of North American’s performance of which he
had been unaware. Webb had a developing sense “that the men he trusted the
most—his senior officials at headquarters— had let him down.” In Webb’s view,
George Mueller “had deliberately presented a filtered picture of the situation,
and Seamans had failed to press him on it.” Determined to change this situation,
Webb reasserted control of the Apollo program “with a vengeance.” 61 One of his
moves was to force North American to remove the senior manager of its Apollo
efforts, Harrison Storms, from his position as head of the company’s space
61. Lambright, Powering Apollo, p. 161. Lambright’s book includes a thorough discussion of how
Webb reacted to the Apollo fire and its aftermath.