Problems Aren’t New for NASA, Apollo Crew Recalls

For NASA, mired in the space shuttle’s woes, the Apollo era may seem like a golden age light years away. But the moonwalkers say there were problems then, too.

“Hopefully, all of the folks at NASA who have to be discouraged at the moment can remember that things were not all sweet and precise” during the Apollo years, said Alan Shepard, 66, the first American in space in 1961 and the fifth man to walk on the moon 10 years later.

NASA’s fourth attempt to launch Columbia failed recently when hydrogen flooded the shuttle’s engine compartment again despite repeated repairs. Columbia is grounded until the leaks are found and fixed; that could take until early 1991.

Leaking hydrogen, like hardship, is nothing new for NASA.

Apollo 12 had a leaky hydrogen tank that had to be replaced during the countdown in November, 1969. In April, 1970, Apollo 13’s oxygen tank exploded 205,000 miles from Earth, forcing the mission to be aborted without the planned moon landing. In August, 1971, Apollo 15 lost use of one of three parachutes during landing.

“You can go on and on and on,” said Chris Kraft, director of flight operations during the 1960s and early 1970s. “I don’t know a space program in those days that didn’t have all kinds of things go awry.”

There also was the fire.

Three astronauts died Jan. 27, 1967, when flames engulfed their capsule during a countdown rehearsal for the first manned Apollo mission. It was America’s first space tragedy and the only one until the 1986 Challenger explosion killed all seven aboard.

“We had problems all along, but we kind of got lucky on them” in that more lives were not lost or plans shelved, said Alan Bean, 58, moonwalker No. 4. “Now we’ve got the same old problems, but we’re not quite as lucky.”

Until Discovery’s flight last week, a shuttle has not flown since April because of hydrogen leaks crippling Columbia and Atlantis. A repaired Atlantis is to follow in early November with a secret military cargo.

Nine shuttle missions were planned for 1990; three have flown. The National Aeronautics and Space Administration is hoping now for five, maybe six if Columbia’s leaks can be fixed.

Apollo 11’s Edwin E. (Buzz) Aldrin, 60, who walked on the moon after Neil A. Armstrong took the first steps July 20, 1969, sees “tremendous” differences between the NASA of today and yesteryear. The quality of people is one. Inadequate financing is another.

“The brightest, most energetic people in government and industry became the leaders of Apollo,” Aldrin said.

But many of those people eventually left because of a dwindling budget and the long wait for the next manned space flight, Aldrin said.

“Leaving you with what? Now you don’t have an increasing program, so you hold on to what you’ve got,” he said. “The leadership and the management of the maturing space program is being carried out by those who didn’t find it more attractive to move elsewhere.”

For Kraft, the difference is not in quality but rather in “the esprit de corps, the willingness of people to make sacrifices.”

“We looked at the moon for thousands of years before we went there, and to expect the same kind of environment would exist in NASA today that existed then doesn’t compute,” Kraft said.

NASA’s problem, according to former NASA historian Alex Roland, is its insistence on pursuing “manned space spectaculars” like the moon landings with a woefully insufficient budget.

The agency’s peak financing, in terms of its share of the federal budget, was during the mid-1960s.

Although problems were plentiful during Apollo, “it’s a question what you do about problems,” said Roland, now a history professor at Duke University.

“What has happened to NASA in recent years is that politics and budget are influencing technical decisions, and out of that you get bad technical decisions,” he said.

NASA’s decision against conducting a test on the Hubble Space Telescope after it was assembled is one such example, Roland said. A manufacturing flaw in Hubble’s primary mirror was not found until June, two months after the $1.5-billion telescope was placed in orbit.

Bean sees that as the risk of progress. It’s impractical to expect perfection in as complicated a technology as space, he said, but understandable that people do.

“They expect near perfection because we gave them near perfection for a while” during Apollo, Bean said. “It was accidental that we did.”