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

438 Project Apollo: Americans to the Moon
The Scientists Are Not Happy
Tensions between those who saw Apollo as an opportunity to gather valuable
scientific data and materials and those who saw it as primarily a challenging
engineering enterprise intended to demonstrate U.S. technological and
organizational might had been present since the start of the program, and
persisted through to its conclusion. For example, Donald Wise, the chief scientist
of NASA’s Apollo Lunar Exploration Office, left the Agency in the immediate
aftermath of Apollo 11, telling Associate Administrator Homer Newell that his
office, with the responsibility for getting lunar science moving, “was largely
wasting its time running in tight circles within the bureaucracy and the various
competing elements of NASA.” He felt that this situation would persist until the
NASA leadership “determines that science is a major function of manned space
flight.” (Volume V, I-25) Echoing this concern, George Mueller wrote to Manned
Spacecraft Center Director Robert Gilruth in September 1969, reminding Gilruth
that after Apollo 11 “increased interest and direct participation of the scientific
community in Apollo is taxing our capability to the limit. Despite this, we will
certainly detract measurably from the success of Apollo 11, and the missions yet to
be flown, unless we meet the challenge. Therefore, we must provide the support
required in the science area.” With respect to criticisms from the scientific
community about the scientific aspects of Apollo, Mueller added “some members
of the scientific community are impatient and as you know, are willing to air their
views without necessarily relating those views to what is practicable and possible.
Public discussion aside, it is our policy to do the maximum science possible in
each Apollo mission and to provide adequate science support.” (II-75)
There were some members of the scientific community who were excited
by the potential scientific returns from Apollo, and were very upset as NASA
canceled three Apollo missions in 1970. A letter from 39 scientists protesting
these cancellations was sent to Representative George Miller, Chairman of the
House Committee on Science and Astronautics, soon after NASA announced
the cancellation of the Apollo 15 and Apollo 19 missions. The scientists argued
that “the Apollo lunar program is intended to supply not merely information of
interest to scientists, but to give us finally a clear understanding of the origin of
the earth-moon system and with this, an understanding of the origin and mode
of construction of our earth.” “Because the structure of the Apollo program is
one of increasing capabilities,” they stated, “the two canceled missions represent
much more than one third of the planned scientific program. With this
curtailment, the program may fail in its chief purpose of reaching a new level of
understanding.” (II-80)
The Final Missions
Pressure from the science community had one tangible result. On 13 August
1971 NASA announced that the crew for the last mission to the moon, Apollo 17,
would include as lunar module pilot Harrison H. “Jack” Schmitt, a Ph.D. geologist