Apollo 6 Pre-Launch Press Conference

8/4/2019 Apollo 6 Pre-Launch Press Conference

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APOLLO 6PRE-LAUNCH PRESS CONFERENCE

Cape Roya l Mews Center, 'Cocoa BeachJohn F. Kennedy Space CenterIJational Aeronautics and Space Administration

Wednesday, April 3, 1968

ParticipantsWi l l iam C. Schneider, Apol lo ~ i s s i b n i rector , NASAGeargo,M . Low, Apol lo Spacecraft Manager, \IASACl if fo rd Charlesiyorth, Apo llo 6 Flight Director, Manned Spacecraft Center,NASADr. Arthur Rudotpf~, Saturn V Proyrs.m Office, Mzushali Space Fli yht Center,NASARocco A. Pctrone, Apollo 6 Launch Director, l(cnnedy Space Center, NASACof. Royce Olson, USAF, Director DOD Lhnned Spacerlight Suppott Orfice,Patrick AFBChri s Kraft, Director o f Fliai~tOperations, Manned Spaceciaft Center


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Mr. K ing : M ay I have your at tent ion please? We're ready to proceed wi th theA p o l l o 6 pre launch br ie f ing a t t h is t ime.I ' d l i k e to cover a few log i s t ics before we go in to the actua l conferencehere. W e 'l l be open a l l night tonigh t. The phone nunrber for any newar r iv als who have not been wit h us before i s 783-7781. We' l l havesomebody on duty a l l n ight and through the m orning hours lead ing upt o launch.You 've a l l been accredi ted. You have your badges. You have theinst ruct ion s you require to f ind your way out to the press si t e atLaunch Complex 3 '9 . You w i l l be able to take your own transportat ionout there. There w i l l be a guard who w i l l d i rect you to the parking lotwhich i s located r ight in f ront o f the press s ite i tse l f . We request thatyou do n't go up on the mound a t the press site, but bring your car intothe parking lo t i n front .W e ' l l start a commentary at about 2 a.m. tomorrow rnouning, rugningabout every hal f hour un t i l the crowd grows a l i t t le larger. We w i l l begiv ing a complete commentary later i n the co ~l nt . The countdowncommentary wil l be handled from here unti l we clear thc tower at l fkoffa t wh ich t ime i t w i l l s witch to the Manned Spacecraft Center i n t louston,I n add i t ion to your own transportat ion we w i l l have a bus depart ing hereroughly on the hour, s tar ting a t r i id n i~ k t ,wi t h i ts last departure fromthe News Center at 5 : 3 0 a.m. tomorrow. You a l l might keep i n mindtha t i t 's possib le there could be some pretty good traf f ic in the xrea aswe get c los e to launct.1 t ime and it might behoove you a l l l o considerleaving ear ly enough to notgget caught i n t raf f ic at the last m inute.W e ' l l have a post- launch br ief ing at the press si te at T plus 60 minutes.Th is w i l l be fo l lowed by a second conference, a post-*mission brief ing,wh ich w i l l occur about ten hours af ter launch. Th is also wil l be a two-way conference, wi th pa rt ic ipan ts from both the Kennedy Space Centerand the PJlanned Space craft C enter i n Houston .I ' d now l ike to introduce these gentlemen to you here, and one gentlemanwho i s a lso s tanding by for us a t the PAanned Sp ace cra ft Cen ter i n I-louston.T h i s w i l l a l so be a two-way conference. We w i l l f i rs t take quest ionsfrom here and then stvitch to your colleaqiies in !-!ouston so that they w i l lalso have an opportunity to asl: questions.


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T o niy right, here a t l


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Th is is, of course, the f inal qual i f icat ion f l ig ht on the Saturn Vlaunch vehicle, since we have previou sly q ua lifie d the command andserv ice modules and the lunar module for manned flig ht i n previou smissions. We are looking forward to having a goocl la ~l nc h ehic le f l ig ht,and as a niatter of fact, a good spacecraft fl ig ht, too, George, but asI said, the spacecraft obje ctive s are on th is tnission, secondary. It i seven conceivable that, and I stress the word conceivable, that the missionmay have accomplished a l l of i ts primary m ission objec tives at the t imeof ins ertio n int o orbit, although, o f course, tha t cou ldn 't be determinedfor qu ite a long time.We do have one, I shal l not ca l l it a dark cloud, but one que stion mark,and th is i s the quest ion that kept us out at the Launch Control Centerfor the past couple hours. Tha t i s the que stion of a temperature thatwe experienced during the Countdown Demonstration Test on the S - I lstage J-2 engines where some of the propellant pump discharge tempera-tures were a few degrees above what we c al l our redlin c values, that i sthe values th at we expect to achieve for launch.W e have taken some co rrective a ction and we have examined it. Wethink we've solved the problem. We have re as o~ ab le ope that we'vesolved the problem. However, there i s no way to tes t whether we w i l lachieve the proper redline withou i going through a cryogenic test and sothe cryogenic te st i s going to be i n the morning.If , for example, we do not achieve th is proper temperature o n the f ir stcyc l e we w i l l be forced to do what we did during the CDDT, and thatis, namely, cu t off, stop at about 2 2 seconds 0: thereabouts and recycleback to about 24 minutes, then w ai t and assess the problem and seewhether or not we can stab il iz e condit ions again, and try again. Wope-fu l ly that w i l l not happen, but i t i s a very dist inct possibi l i ty.Wi t h that, I 'd l i ke to turn i t over to Rocco and ask Col. Petronit i f hewould now give LIS a discussion of how things have been go ing out atthe Cape.


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Mr. Petrone: Well, we have been busy, as yo11 know. We fin ishe d our Count-down Demonstration Sunday, then we had to re cycle for thecount and also work our way throtrgh.sorne of the things we foundi n the Countdown Demonstration, but we succeeded in pic kingup the count at one o'clock this morning. We have a final 24-hour terminal count wh ich we pick ed up at one, and at the timewe lef t tl iere -- as of now, I understand -- the count i s on .schedule. We pla n a hold at the eight-hour mark, T minus eighthours. We plan a hold of s ix hours. We have no scheduled workand at thi s time it does not appear that there will be any necessarywi thin that hold; We zre on schedule wi th a!l of our checks,everything is going fine. So, roughly at 17 0 0 , in another hourand fift ee n minutes, we w i l l complete our task on schedule, Wewi l l have a six-hour hold and pick up again at 11o'clock tonightfor the Final portion of the count of e ight hours to a seven o'clockl ftoff.A t 10:30 p,m. we w i l l have a look at the weather to see i f thesit ua tio n has changed. Right now, the forecast would indicat etfiat our niort~ingime i s the best time to go, tha t is Thursdaymorning. We w i ll take a look at the weather at lO:3 0, thencommit a t 1 1 : 0 0 p.m., that i s EST, a t T rnitius eight in ourcount for the launcli. A t T minus seven hours vie stait our cryo-genic tanking and shortly theuezfter we wi l l st at i getting cryogenicsinto the stage. Up un ti l T minus eight hours vJe can s i t there and .recycle on a 24-h our basis. I f we dccidc not to pick up the counta t 13.:00, and assuming we had no prob!er?i ca us ir~g1s to go inand change something, we could s i t there and hold,, ' v V ~ an dothat through Saturday as tve now see it. We could wait throughThursday, Fr iday and Saturday on our latrnch attempts, asstlin ingfar.some reason 'at T minus eight Iiouus we do not want to pick upthe count, other than for hardware diffi cult ies s om ew ht ?~n theprogram,Once we get our cry og a~ ic s board the stage we thei~ re in the .po sit iot ~ f a 72-ho ur recycle. These are my conclusior~s nwherz we have been and what we have bee!^ doing since our C D D Tended, and now we expt.ct to pick up the count at 1 1 :GO p.m.for a launch s t 7: 0 0 a.m.

Col. Olsot~: Departn:ent of Defense support for this mission is esse ntially thesame as i t was for Apollo 4 -- 501, hie have roi~yhl.y45 air-craft and 1.1 ships involved. CZ'c are taking advantage of thisunmanned mission, of co l!ae, to fu i ther t~ai!; o w crews and checkout the eyuipn~ent the new Y C S D ~ ~ Y C C Si:zk zrt? c on~ i r~ gi l to the


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inventory to support Apollo, such as the Apo llo ships and theARIA aircraft, There w i l l be two aircraft in the Hawaiian areafor reentry, there wi l l be three of them out here i n the Atlant ic,There are three Apollo ships involved. One of them, the Mercury,i s si tt i ng out here in the port, but we are getting training as thespac ecra ft passes over, so i f you're in terested in Ap ollo ships,there is one right here at the port.

Question: I'd li k e a recap on the postponements, the seriousness o f them,etc,, from March 21. There have been five postponements,is that correct?MY, Schneider: I don 't know the numbers. We did stark ou t for Ma rch 21, Wedid have a number of minor probtems, normal problems. PerhapsRocco would like to go into them,Mr. Petrone: Those of us work ing i n the program, doing the job day by day,perhaps don't see much of the calendar sh ifts -- there are shi ftsthroughout our scheduleo I can't think of anything -- you see, i nthe CDDT we did have three attempts. On one attempt we had aleak i n the faci lit y, tha t we had to repair. On a second attemptwe had fuel diff i cul t ies . So it was those kin d of problems thatwent on and moved us from the 2 I s t to the 4 t h -- throughoutour preparation schedule, 1 can't recal l a single large item thatwe changed out,, There was ad di ti ve work, things took a l i t t l elon ger at;d on some of our tasks, eith er we di dn 't h i t it the Firstti me or had to go. back i n and change a component, bu t there was

, nothing sig nif i can tly large that gave us a two week s l i p by i tself,There were many additive situations.Question: I 'd I ke to ask George Lo w i f a!! the objectives of thc spacecraftare regarded as secondary as f a as he is concerned, is thereanyth ing tha t coul d happen to the spacecraft, inclu ding washoutor fail ure to recover, that might mxke you want to have anotherpreparztory f l ight before manned fligh t ?Mrb Low: Wel I, I have to say yes to that question, but I can't give you amore specific answer, IF we should lose a spacecraft because of

a spacecraft failure, we would hate to lool< at that fai lur2 t odetermine whether we would need another fl ight or car? so lve itby ground test or analysis or what have you, These questions arevery di ff ic ul t to answer before a flight, b[r"tome very easy aftera f l iyht,


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Question: Fo r Mr. Sctllreider or Mr, Petrone, Can you ex pla in in a l i t t l efurther detai l the J-2 pump discharge problem?Mr. Petrone: We have a redl ine that we have to zchie ve in order to assure thatwhe1.1your turbopump starts pumping your liq ui d oxygen or your

l iqu id hydrogen int o your engine, that you do no t cav itate . Theterm means tha t you don't c onvert the flu ids into gases, becauseyou want to de liver l iqu ids. You want to del iver a good sol dl i q u i d , Th is has to do wi th ten~perature nd pressure. So we havea temperature reading tha t we look for at the engine inlet, Theredl i n e we're look ing for and we're se t at, is minus 286 degreesFahrenheit, It .is now, w i th l o o k i n g at the engines sp eci f ic al lyand h avin g ru n through our Countdown Demonstrat on Thursday,we have, in effect, raised that two degrees to minus 284 andwhat you're doing here is looking for a number that ~ v j l l ssurethat the pumps function properly so that the l iq uid doesn't g asifyas it goes through the pumps. These are very cold l iquids andas you s i t there, you tend to p i c k up heat, ju st by virtue 6f thefa ct that they ar2 cryogenic. So the question of a redlineon an engine, and it has to do wi th these particular engines andthe head tha t you have on it, th e prim2 purpose of it is to preventcavi tat ion or to prevent the I quids from being converted to a gasbefore you get to the injector of th at engine,


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Question:Mr. Petrone:Quest on:Mr. Petrone:

Quest on:

Mr. Petrone:

Question:Dr. Rudolph:

Question:Dr. Rudolph:Mr. Petrone:

Dr. Rudolph:

M a y I fo l low up on that?Yes .T hi s was on the oxygen side, rather than on the hydrogen?We had actua l ly , Bi l l , three on the oxygen sid e and one on thehydrogen side. W e had one hydrogen feed l ine and three oxygen feedlin es i n the second stage wherein we were, say, a few degreeshotter than the redl ne l mits .You don't redline hydrogen at any temperature as high as minus286, do you?No. The number I gave was for oxygen. Hydrogen i s m inus 4 2 0 ,i f my memory serves, minus 4 2 0 .Can you account for the heat sources?No. Rea l l y , hi s i s not so easy to exp la in . We know that theremust be a change i n the heat source, but wha t it rea l l y i s we ares t i l l s t ru g g li n g w i th . It could be. . .I s t h i s a novel s i tuat ion ? Has i t ever happened before?It has no t happened before.It did not happen on 5 Q l . However, i t has beet1 seen on pri orprograms.Maybe 1 can say the fol low ing . Since this compartment where theseengines are we can only test here at the Cape fo r the f i r s t time, notin our c apt ivef i r i r r js on our te st stands, and therefore the cond it ionsare ent i re ly di f feret i t because n~!rdhe engines are enclosed and arebetween the oxygen tank of the second stage and the oxygen tank onthe fir st stag ?. .So we have to d2liver h2aE to protect against toomuch cold . Now any sl igh t ch a~ gc !n the construct ion, an insulat ionchange, would af fect the condi t ion in there . We ti;lve taken covrcctiveact ion b y inpro ving in sulat ion and as Racco already meni ioned, wecha nged th e rc;dli;le so we c-an accept a highet. tenrpeiature, but whati t w i l l r e a l l y t ur n o ~ r tomorrow ri lorniny, we don 't ku ov ~ or suye.


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Question:

Mr. Petrone:

Dr. Rudolph:

Question:Dr . Rudolph:Question:Mr. Petrone:

Question:

Mr. Schneider:

One part of my question may.have been answered. You changedthe redline. Was that the figure you gave, Rocco, wo degreesdifference; and how much different.was it; was it the CD DT whenth is turned up? How many degrees was it past the redline value?It was about fou r or fiv e below---or hotte r---with these temperatureswe're w orking i n the negative. We were fiv e degrees warmer thanwe wanted toebe and there was some var iatio n between the engines,but about f iv e degrees.Th at was the worst one. The others were better. Now here wecan, we have done some improved insu la ting and I hink it w i l lcontribute to a better con dition and also, we changed the r edline .We give two degrees, so that we think wi l l get off i n the stock box,what we ca l l it. The engines are very sensitive to temperaturesand pressures and that should do the tr ick. Again, we are no t sure.Is th is only on the S- l l?That's only on the S-li .Wha t i s getting too hot, the cryogznics or some of the metal?The cryogenics. Tile cryogenics ur,der the head and under thepressures in eff ec t get superheated and that!s what th is increasei n temperature is .Th is i s for Mr. Schneider. Las t week Bob Moser told us that hispeople are anxious t o get the 503 vehicle out on the pad withinten days, i f it has to be unmanned, and he'd li ke t o have a decisionfrom you within seven days whether it's going to be manned orunmanned. Cou ld you give him one i n t!mt time?Wel l , I'll hasten to state that tile decision i s not mine. (Laughter).A l l 1 car1 say i s that ttls decis ion wi l l be made as soon as there i san adequate analy sis o f the data, so that we can determine whetheror not the mission satisfied a ll of our requirements. As a l it t l easide, it 's di ffic ult sometimes at the completion of 2 mission todetermice whether or not it is a completely si~cce ssfu lmission,because you've got to await analys is of al l of the data. You canhave what appeals to bc a pcrfect mission 2nd i f you had a telemetryli n k go out or a n iu liip lexe r yo o ~ tnd Iiave no clata frorn thc tcchrricalstatidpoint, it 's a cornpletz f ailiir e .


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Sim ila rly , on the other hand, you can have one where things changecons iderab ly during the mission, such as what happened on Ap oll o5, but you get ai l of the data that you've been rea l ly lo oking for inthe f l igh t . So it w i l l take some time to make tha: dec isio n and we al lknow how everyone wants the decis ion as ear ly as poss ible . Sotha t ' s a l l I can say now.

Question: To fo l low that up, i f you don' t say have a decisio n wit hin te n ortwelve days but it s t i l l looks goad, would you hold up the rol lou t ofthe 503 to the pad?Mr. Schneider: I thin k we'd w ait , that we'd hold that dec ision and make that wtienwe see how good the d ata i s or how bad the data i s . We'll maicethat depending on how i t looks.Quest ion: Regarding the engine, again. Did thi s affect al l engines andsecondly, a t what po int w i l l you know wtiether i t has been solved?Mr . Petrone: It affected three of the five of the l iquid oxygen feed ducts and oneof the five of the l iq ui d hydrogen. \fire w i l l not know we have solved

i t to proceed wi th the mission uf i t i l 2 2 seconds before l i f toff .Q~ tes t ion : Fo r B i l l Schneider. B i l l , you said i t ' s possib le a l l the pri tnarymission object ives w i l l be acenmpl ishcd by inser t ion into otb i t .What has to be accomplished by i i~sert ion nto orbit to meet al l ofyour pr imary object iv es?Mr. Schneider : We ll , let me hasten to add thzt a l l o f the primary object ives, asl is ted i n your press ki t , do include an S-IV-43 restart and we w i l lbe mighti ly disappointed and w i l l not consider the ri l issiorl a completes ucc es s i f we do n ~ tct that. What 1 am saying is that, i f forsome reason or ckher we do not get a restart, we may arid D hasten tosay "may", we may have suff icie nt information to make a ptaperdecision on whether or not th? Saiirun V i s ready for man rating.We w i i l not know that unt i l long after- ihe f l i yht , because that wouldbe as 2 result of catefl i2 analysis of t f ~ ~ :ata.Question: I ' d l i ke t o go back to the hzating problerri, just for a moment. 1"Y'hent he . . . This pvoblt.ri1 occurs , as I LII-iderstand i t , as thc cryogenicsare being pumped i n t o the tanks?


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Mr. Petrone: No. The problem ac tuall y i s seen when we go into automaticsequence at three minutes and, I believe , seven seconds. Westarted pressuriza tion ac tiv ity . The cryogenics heat up under thepressures. These are the fli gh t pressures that we're bu ild ing up.Now what we have to do i s read, and we do th is on every flight,we read the temperature at the in le t. to the engine. We establisha band width. Vie ca ll it a redline and wd say we must be wit hin .tha t band width or below tha t redline i n order to function properly,and on the S -l l you're reading a value on the ground and ac tua llythe engine is n't going to igni te un til some two and a ha lf minutes,so what you're doing i s extrapolating a ground con dition into whati t w i l l be two and a ha lf minutes later, but you see your temperaturerise, in your automatic sequence. I t 's the or11 y time we can seeit.. That's the reason Dr. Rudolph mentioned we've got to gothrough our term inal sequence. We 'l l be reading these values andour tinies are down to minus.22 seconds. I f we are with in theredline, we would then proceed. I f we're not, we plan to cut off.

Question: A t the time the fuel i s injected into the engine, i n which statei s i t ? i s it liq uid and then i t gasif ies in the engine?Mr. Petrone: You gc through the inje cto r as a li qu id w ith your l iqui d oxygen.The d if fic ul ty comes at your pump i f you start to c avitate .or bu ildup an ai r bubble there. The pump w i l l not work effic ien tly andtherefore your mixing ratios are entirefy different than what you've

planfied and you can get any mi xi ~ igatio, which can lead, of'course, to many consequences, whether i t wou ld go in the engineproperly, or whether you would get too much fue l ancl no t enoughoxygen, bu t basica lly, what you do, i s you're upsetting your ratioof fue l to oxidizer going into the engine.Dr. Rudolph: And you want to start fircl rich, not oxygen rich. Both areliquid.Question: Fo r George Low . George, what's the status of the spacecraft forthe 503 mission? Where is i t and how soon can you bring i t ou t

to the VAB to stack it, assuming that the flig ht tomorrow i s asuccess?hl . Low: Are you ta l king about a spacecraft for an unmanned or a mannedf l ight? Wel I, George, that would be comrnand modulc 103,whic11 i s about to go into clieckont i r l Dowt~ey nrl LM-3 which hasbcer~ n ctleckout a t Bztilpagc f3r SO~ ! IC~irria. tdeitl~evoite of tliesevehicles arz schsduled for dslivery t~eve n t i l surnrr;crtin;e.


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Question:

Answer:

Answer:

Question:

Answer:

Question:

Answer:Question:

Mr. 'Petrone:

I'm a li t tl e confused, then, on the ba sis of Howard Benedict'squestion and then the answer to th is la st one,, what i s the sweatabout moving the ne xt Saturn V out to the pad i f you don't havethe command module and the lunar module for the manned flighthere?We ll, because o f some of.thz interactions i n getting some of ourwork done ou t on our remote sites, some of the programs that mustbe put in. W e have a situa tion where our missions are pressingone on the other. . .I believe we've got a boilerplate on 503 now, and i f tihe decisionwas made to f l y unmanned, and what we have planned and broughtup to th is point, we have on board a boile rpla te spacecraft wi tha l l the weights and the simulations i n there and that's what v~ ou ldf l y .And you'd want to gct that out in a hurry i n order to make way f o i504, which would then be ycur fir st manned fl ig ht? But.. . .That's our planning as o f today. We've broughl the 503 to tl iepoin t of checkout, where it 's near rollo ut wit hin these ten daysthat Howard ment ion ~d. Now v~ e' l l ook at tl ie resul ts o f 5 0 2 .before we make further decisioiis. We have brought it to the pointwhere the boilerplate that would f l y for the eventuality tha t wehave to launch it, we would no t wa it on another delivery of aspacecraft. I belie ve that was the ques tion that was raised.I n other words, i f you decided that you were going to have another.. .i f you decided tha t your next fl ig ht was going to be the manned one,then you would not be in a hurry to get the Saturn V out o f theVAB?That's correct.Two more brief qirestions on the temperature problem. Ro'cco, I 'ms t i l l no t sure whether one of t l ie J-2 ellgines or two of then1 werenot affected in any way b y this problem, and secondly, do you haveany indication of villy they were not affected and the others were?It turns out that the t h r w that were affected by l i q ~ i id xygen,andtwo were not. The otie that was affected b y l iqu id h'yduo5cn was,not affected by l iquid oxygen. So vie !lad the cr?nter engine thatVJC ran fickter on t i le l iquid hycluogzn that d i d not, t f ~ tas with in


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Question:

Mr. Petrbnz:Dr. Rudolph:

Mr. Petrone:

Mr. Klng:

Question:

Mu. Petronz:

the redline, on the l iq ui d oxygen. So what you have i s a caseof three engines where they're out of spec. on liq ui d oxygenand one engine out of spec. on liq ui d hydrogen, no t the sameengines.Can you expl ain in anyway why the f ir st engine did n ot have th isproblem on eith er sid e?No .*..No, the fi ft h engine had the problem on the hydrogen side, thecenter engine, the hydrogen side, and it has a longer feed duct.You see, the feed duct comcs down the side of the stage and thengoes to the engines, and they are not a ll down on one side, butare dist ribu ted. Now theti, the lines are equ ally long for the fourouter engines, bu t the center engine, being farther away, needs alonger f ~ e dine, so it i s therefore more se ns itiv e to an y temperaturechanges whi ch might occur i n that stretch of the l i ne to the centerengine.It's a frrtiction of geometry and heat distri buti on, as Dr. Rudolphmentioned. The flow i n that interstage, the only time you see i tis here at the launch si te. The only time you have a f i r s t stage tosi t on topof and therefore the fuel c on di t io i~ s oit get . We haveelect ror~ lcs n there and actually v:? nitlst pump warrn air in there.Now you get a series of factors so that you end up wi th a result:and therz's going to be same movemet;t of values, the i n le t temperatures,and l i te ral ly, one can only experiment wi th it here to see what theend resul t i s going to be. It cannot be done on a test site.We had two pati ent hands in the front row and there's a third handup now. Vde'll take these two quest ions 11t;vrt , hen we' l l go toHouston for questions, therl we' i l ccltrle back here far anybody w hohas que stions. Go ahead.Another question on this heat probier;!. If you go to F mint!s22 seconds and havc to hold, w i i l that be a prolonged hofd or.. .We wiff not hold at T minus 2 2 . A t I" n i n ~ ~ s2 secofids, anybyhereafter three minutes seven seconds, we w i l l revert back, we' igo back to T minus 24 minutes.


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Question: Is there some quic k fi x or do you have something in'm ind that youcan make a change .to get th e temperature down aga in?Mr. Petrone:. B y observing the particular trace o f the temperature, we 'll be

watch ing the temperature on. the recorder and have it plotted.There are adjustments, such as inl et, emperatures o f that interstage.That i s one adjustment we can make .,Dr. Rudolph: We als o expect that we had during the CDDT, that on the secondround as we call it , the situation had improved. It did . on thefi rs t attempt, or rather on the second attempt, during the CDDT,improve, Only one LOX side was out of the specs. or the .redline.Que.stion: I believe this i s for Dr. Rudolph. A t an earlier briefing, BobMoser to ld us th at i f vie go manned on 503., the S-11 stage w i l l

go back. to Michoud for man ratin g and certain mod ifications . 1-lesp ec ific all y nlentioned possible relocation or strenthening of thebaffles, the LOX baffles which hzve given some trouble on 5 0 1 .Could you pinpoint this and explain a l i t t le b i t about it.Dr. Rudolph: Yes, you talk two di fferent is s ~ e s t the same time, so tha t wetalk fir'st about a one where you mention the second stage, th3 S-11would go back to the test site. That's correct. We would indicatethat 503 wou ld be manned, take the second stage, ship it'b ac k tothe Mississ ipp i Test Fa ci l i ty znd make a cryogenic proof test, sothat answers one question, I be liev e. The other one .is tha t during

the 501 LOX loading i n the .S-I!, we had damage of baffles andi n order to save time during the countdown and avoid crew fat iguewe want to go to a f ast f i l l on 503 manned. Now sin ce we hadth is problem wit h the. baf fle damage of 501, we have to do some-thin g to the baffles . Strengthen them for instance.Question: What? Spec ifically, how?Dr. Rudolph: We ll, we, for instance, changed the baffles , wh ich are shapedl ike a rhomboid and sit down at the bottom of the LOX sun,p. Wetook the lower half off, so in a way, LV. ,~ took them out of ti12 stream

of the incoming liq uid oxygen. That helps, but we also have tostirdy the flow dynamics inside. It isn' t al l that simple. As I sayi t here, and again, you can on ly fin d that out by testing, not byanaf.ysis, by si tt in g down at your desk ancl trying i n your mind tofigure o.ut what the f ~ r c e s re. ' Any~ lay , vt? t i l ink we, by alsoniaking certain changes to the fac i l i ty , Kocccr, understand the probler~iw e l l eno:!gh tha t on 503, manned, we c2n fas t load zgaln.


15/22

Mr. K ing:

\ lo ice:

Thank you. We'l l now switch to Houston. I understand bothMr. Kraft and Mr. Chaviescvorth have a statement.Th is i s I- lauston. We have one lo gi st ic al announcement to makef i r s t . The Houston News Center wi l l be open unt i l ten p .me,Cen tral time, th is eveni ng and reopen at fowr a.m., Central time,tomorrow morning. Next we 'l l hear from M r. Kra ft and M r.Charlesworth.


16/22

Mr. Kraf t :

Mr. Kraft:

Question:

Mr . Kraf t :

I v o t ~ l dik e to point out that this is another ~~n ma nne dl ight o f amanned vehic le and therefore another complex job for the flight con-tro l and ground crew to accomp listl. There are a large number ofthing s t hat we ca n and may have to do and i t may be a d i f f ic u l tm i s s i o ~ lrom tha t p o i ~ t f view. The other point I would l ik e to makeis that we have been making a large number of modifications to thewhole network over the last two years and th is f l igh t i n i t se lf i s sortof a dress rehearsal for our upcoming .firs t manned fl ig ht o f the 101Spacecraft. We have made a lo t of changes, we've added a l ot ofequipment and we feel now that thi s fl i gh t w i ll he proof that al l oftha t equipment i s ready to support our manned space fli gh t program.About a l l 1 would like to add that we have completed our tralning todate wit h what I hirlk i s good results a i d i t seems prepared to dowhatever is required to he done. I n tern s of the fa cil it i es , ourground support facilities, computers, network, etc. , re proceedingalong normally wit h our part of the count to meet the pad's. We haveno problems a t thi s time, and based on past tes ting support and theCDDT we don't re ally expect any and we expect to be ready to Meetthe pad launch i n the morning and have a good flight.Okay, we are open now here in klouston fo r questiorrs,Assuming a l a r~nchomorrow morning, has anyone recalculated theapogee and perigee of the S-IVB, and how mzny degrees i t wifi ' missthe moon, and whether i t wi l ! come hack to earth ?Mr. Chaulesworth has. l t v e got a few nirrnbeus, 1 knew someone wouldask. Assuming we launch on time, the bes t ifiform ation I have isto expect the apogee o f the S-IVS to be some 27 9 thousand 13autica.lmiles. With a perigee, that i s wker; it comes back to the earth, ofaround 1700 m i l e s , with a period of some 16 clays. Now we don'texpect it tc enter essentially the area of the moon's sphere of infiuence,i f we go on time. No v~ , f you try to pin me down v1itl.1 launch delays ordifferent days I can't t~onestfy nswer it becairse it i s a variable depend-ing .on the tim e of the day you launch, location , ay of the month, eir:.What about i n reentering the atmosphere? LViI I i t corrle back and d nthat under ihe present plans.The f irs t t ime out i t d;oesnlt look l i ke it w i l l , ut the next time aroundi f we get into the spherz o f the ~ O D ~ I ' S t-rfiuence becatlse of thetrajectory, i t could, It 's probably a good probabilit y that i t wi l i comein .Any further questions Fiom I-louston here ?


17/22

Mr. King: Thank you. We 'll continue the questions here as has been theprac tice and is the practice once again. Mr. Schneider passed oila note to me to remind me that he does have an airplane to catch.We wil l continue this for a short while.Question: I f we had to put a do llar value on that beast out there - from the topof the LE S down to the base of the model - what would that f igure b e?Mr . Lodge:. We don't judge our program that way. It 's kin d of meaning!ess . Thereare so, many thin gs tha t you don't see that you pay for that there i sno real way of coming up with what the dollar value i s of that. Thedo1 ar value i s immense when you con sider the value to the UnitedStates. The value to the United States i s incalculable. What itcosts, I don't have any way of f igu r i r~g ut.Question:

Mr. Petrorie:

Question:

Rocco, how many times is it feasible to recycle back t o 24 minutes,Would you do it just one time or.. .No. We have a multiple opportunity. We are lo oking for a rnaximum.of four.. Th at i s going to depend upon many things. As far as gaseoushydrogen that we use to charge our bottles for the J-2 engine, wefeel vde have 4 recycles that the t ime duration goes back t o T -24does not mean'we will go back and pick up and then yo in again.You have to loolc at data, look at the va,lues, lool


18/22

co lle cte d as part o f our refurbishment and maintenance, i f you goin to maintenafice items and refurbishment. However I must say thatIwas most please d with the very lim ited damage on the 501 and Ionly hope i t i s an indication of what we wi l continue to see i n thefuture. It was very, very minor in the larger picture.

Question: We ll, from a money standpoint, can you give us the ballpark. Wasit under one hundred m i l i on? - It was more than $10. Somewherealong there must be fai ly close.

Answeu: That's a pretty b ig broad spectrum you put out. Why don't we ju stuse that?Question: Yo u must be able to do better than that.

No - le t's say yes. It's between those tw o numbers.Question: Av iati on Week i n the current issue says that i f tomoru~w's l ightgoes v~ el l , here is a good chance that tbe manned fl ig ht to themoon cou ld go in the f i rs t half of 1969. Would you comment pleas e?Mr. Low: There can be a lo t of problems t o take yet between tomorrow's fl ig htand the f irst f i ig ht t:, the moon. Vde /lave to get manned flig ht inApallo in earth orbit and we have to do a number of earth or bita lrendezvous flights on the Sziurn V, and then with th e L M andthe CSNI, f think it w i l l be a most dif f i cu it ' jo b to get the lunar landing

by the end of 1969. 1 think we've got a very good chance of doingthat.Question: I ense a cer ta in ~ 'e iucta i ~cco ta lk about money. However, I haveto press th is quest ion a l i t t l e b i t to Mr. Schneider. In testimonybefore the sub-committee last fdair'ch 16, 1967, I believe it was,von Braun put a pri ce tag, a fa i r ly precise one of $ 2 0 5 mi l l ionfo r a laut~chedSaturn V. Peopie at NASA tell me that that figurei s still kind o f hanging and that's alright. Nr~w f von Braun can beas precise in 1967 when zsked by Congress about the price of avehicle, why can't we be equally precise in 3-968when aslced by the

puess. I on't agree that this is just an edito rial comment i s pqssing -it i s kin d of meaningless to ta lk about the p rice of anything.Mr. Schneider: I m ;he mi ss ion clirectou - not the Senate director. As missiondirector I couldn't 'even te l l rot! what u!lu bt~dgcts. I m not in thatbusiness. That's why i cannot answer that q t ies t i o t~ .


19/22

Question: Wel , can anyone ?Answer: Nobody here at the tab le has the answer for you and we w i l l do ourbest to get it for you. We'l l check.Question: For B i l l Schneider . B i l l , just so I airly accurately understandthis point . I f yoLi don't get a second stage burn of the S-IVB,haveyou met your primary mis sion obj ect ive ? Can you man rate for503 and start manned fl ig hts with 503?Mr. Schneider: The answer to the fi rs t one i s no. We would not have met theprimary mission ob jectives as stated in the document because theydo include an S- IVB restart. The answer to the second question is -it i s per fec t ly c o i~ce ivab lehat after analysis of the data we could'f ind that the reason for restart failure had no implications on whetheror not the ve hic le was man-ratable. The fi rs t planned Saturn Vmission does not currently include the manned restart o f the S-IVB.Question:

Mr. Lovr:

Question:

Dr. Rudolph:Question:

Dr. Rudolph:

Fo r George Low . Why i s the new hatch being flow n aboard th isspacecraft other than the fact i t was ready.I uess you have almost answered your own question , Joe. We d idat the time we made the decision on the nevi hatch know that wecould no t get it oil Spacecraft 017 . LVe knew we c o ~ ~ l det i t onSpacecraft 0 2 0 so we nloved it outand pit it on 0 20 t o get thebest possib le test of the hatch at the speeds, heat transfer rates,etc., bu t we have comp leted some very sati sfa cto ry ground tes ts.We have more t o go and also we have seen the very low heating rate inthat area on Spacec raft 0 1 7 so that since tha t deci sion was madewe have convinced ourselves that we don't need a f l ig ht te st o f th isha tch fo r man ra tin g pi.!rposes,I have two short questions. The first one is what is the off iciall i f t i ng capaci ty of the Saturn V.

200,000 pounds? Then th is i s an increase of 10,000 poundsi n about the last three or foi i~ears is i t?No. Fo r the last 2 years, i f my nlernory serves rile right., 98,000pounds.


20/22

Quest ion:

Answer:

Quest ion:

Second ques t ion. The S-IVB t rajectory, and I si ippose th is mightgo to Mr. Char lesworth in Houston. I bel ieve th is is one of the fewand pos sib ly the only c i rc~ imlu nar ra jectory that we have flown.Po ss ibly there has been one, or maybe a sc ie nt i f ic exper iment hasf l own th i s way. As I understand it, this is an orbi t that goes aroundboth the Earth and the Moon - i s i t not - am I wrong about that? Isee Mr . Schneider shaking h is head. Wei i , I can just add th is . Isth is the k ind of t ra jectory tha t one would f l y i f one were f l y in g menaround the moon?In terms o f energy imparted to the t rajectory, yes. In terms of theactual ta iget ing , o. LVe are es se nt ia l ly shoot ing for a f ict i t ioi rsmoon, so to,spea l


21/22

Question:

Answer:Question:

Answer:Dr. Rudolph:

Question:Dr. Rudolph:

Question:

Mr. Schneider:

Question:

Mr. King:

i ust want to rei terate th is p oint since it was rai sed again. As Iunderstood, the ascent part, the orb it of the S-IVB would go aroundthe Moon and then on it s return would go around the Earth and thengo back up to the Moon.Why don't t draw you a picture after we're done here.One more time on the J-2's . Bi d you detect th is problem i n theCDDT? And als o in some way you detected it today. I'm confusedon that.Jus t on the CDDI ; Sort of been l ivi ng wi th it ever since.Yes. Discussing it, analyzing it, looking at what shifts we shouldmake. Bu t in order to detect it, you have to have cryogen ic supportand go through your terminal sequence.The fuel f low has to s ta i l before you detect i t ?You don't have to start fuel flow. No, you've got sta tic con dition sof the fuel i n the pump. You've got a valve downstream of tha tpump. When you are measuring your temgeuature and pressure,geometry-wise - just above the entrance to the engine itse lf. Youdo not measure the flo w. We get the flow at ign i t io r~ n the f i rststage. On the second stage there would not be flo w un ti l you start,actual iy 2-1/2 minutes into the mission.Mr. Schneider, if for some reason you are unable to mail rate thisve hi cle tomorrow, how firm are your plans to go to a dua! laurrchconcept using the Saturn IB after the 205 f l i gh t?We have that i n our plans and we wi l l retain it i n our plan s. However,i f we do not have a satisfactcry Flight on t . l~ is ne, the 5 0 2 fl ight, ourcurrent plans are to go out with 503 boile r pla tes . Mow i f we do that.and that i s a successful f l ight then i t is conceiveable that we wouldgo to the Saturn V matlned launch on the 504 and not clo a dual launch,but we w il l re tain that capabil i ty u nti l some later date.Jack., any pi lo ts i n training and i f so how maily and w i l l they bewatching it tomorrow. ,We are supposed to be gettin g a lis t, George, of which astronauts w i l lbe here for the launch. 1 1 1 1 check on that as soon as this i s over andwllatevcr information we have we w i l l be g lad to pass i t on. 1 certainlyexpect ve wilt habe i t by tonio;:roa rnorillng.


22/22

Question:

Dr. Rudolph:

Question:

iwou ld l i ke to ask one question. What are the reasons, a l l thereasons for the S-IVB shoot ing for th is f ic t i t ious moon target?You w ould ex eiScis e he antennas on the s tage and find out whetheryou can communicate. That is, whether you can rec eiv e sig nalsor can send sig nals up and have them bounce back , There i s cer tain lyone very signif icant advantage and y.ou would also f ind out whetheryou achieved your velo ci t ie s you are loo king for.I would l ike to add something so that there is no misconception.The S-IVB has a guaranteed l i fe of about six hours, but we hopethat w i l l go on , to about 1 0 or I 1 ours. As you hcard earl ier, th ishas a 15- da y per iod, so we would only be able to get actual s ignalsback from the S-lVB f or those f i r s t 1 0 hours - not out at lunardistances.I woi l ld l ike to pursue Mr. Le wi s ' questior i fur ther. You said thatthe Saturn V is now rated to lift 1 0 0 ,0 0 0 pounds. The p resen tweight, the pay load for tornorrow, comes to ju st under 94,000pounds, according to the press information. However, this i s onlya 6 , 00 0 pound lunar tes t a r t i ~ le . The rea l load, as I understand it,w i l l be about 3 2 ,0 0 0 , maybe Inore, If we add th i s 6 ,000 we w i l ljust barely make it wi th 1 0 0 , 0 0 0 pounds o f pay load in a veh ic lecapab le o f l i f t i ng 9 0 0 ,0 0 0 pounds. Very marg ina l. Maybe Mr. LOWwould l ik e to answer.

M r . Low: True. We do have a we igli t problem in Apo llo. Comrnand Servic emodules and the lunar moduie are esscniialfy at t he l i m i t of w c i g i ~ tthat we can f ly . Vlle have the s i l ~ ~ a t i o i ~nder control, thecornmand/service modules ren~ainec! teady ellough though at t h e ircurrent weight for the last 4 or 5 m o t 2 t i ~ . I am talking about thecomrnand/scrvice module f rom th e Block 2 ve l l ic le that w i l l be on thelur;ar rrrissioii. P,nd we sti l l hzve som? margirl l e f t . Thc s i tua t ion onthe lunar module is sotneavhat tighter since we made the post-accidentchanges s o ~ ~ ~ e w h a later and we d id riot get t i la weights on the controla s q ~ i i c k l y ,b u t they loo are l eve l ing of f now aud wi th very t ightwe igh t co i~ i vo i nd sorrle possible weight recfuction I am confidentwe are going to niako it, but v,e esscr l t ia l iy arc at the l i rn i t .

Mr. King: I am afra id we are going to have to terinlnatc the conference now.Thai~ !< orl very inuch.

Documents

Apollo 6 Pre-Launch Press Conference