[FPSPACE] Tom Stafford at NASM
CHARLES, JOHN B. (JSC-SL) (NASA)
john.b.charles@nasa.gov
Tue, 19 Nov 2002 11:13:57 -0600
DDay,
Thanks for another high-caliber report, and for taking the time to do these
for the benefit of those of us who weren't there.
A few observations and questions:
Re: visor fogging on Gemini-9: Dave Scott is quoted (in the latest
Spaceflight magazine) as saying that they had an anti-fogging compound
available for his planned EVA on Gemini-8, but obviously they couldn't use
it because the mission was aborted. If true, I wonder how they decided not
to use it on Gemini-9?
Re: ejection from Gemini: The Apollo 204 post-fire report reproduced a memo
from Deke Slayton himself recommending against testing space suit material
under actual ejection conditions at China Lake, apparently because of cost
and time issues, saying that they had already tested swatches of material
and were not concerned. This memo was dated ca. early 1965 (IIRC). I
wonder why Stafford wasn't reassured, if his boss and friend Slayton wasn't
worried. I don't think Slayton was cavalier just because he wasn't flying
himself--there is lots of evidence that he consistently sided with his crews
in other circumstances. (BTW, I shared the memo with Mike Cassutt during
the period when he was interviewing Stafford for the book.)
Once again, thanks for this on-the-spot report, and please keep them coming.
John Charles
Houston, Texas
-----Original Message-----
From: wayneday [mailto:wayneday@gwu.edu]
Sent: Monday, November 18, 2002 5:31 PM
To: FPSpace
Subject: [FPSPACE] Tom Stafford at NASM
It was a dark and stormy night in Washington, DC on Saturday night when
Lieutenant General Tom Stafford spoke at the National Air and Space Museum
in
their Lockheed Martin Imax Theater. (Sorry for the purple prose, but it was
truly icky that night-cold, rainy and windy.) This is a summary of what
Stafford said.
First, I should offer a caveat: I am not really a big fan of astronauts.
Yes,
they are impressive people, but I do not really worship them. I have more
personal interest in the engineers who build things and the decision makers
who
decide why things should be built. But I still find astronauts interesting
and
am willing to hear what they have to say.
I have listened to a number of astronauts speak over the years. They have
almost never been good speakers. Buzz Aldrin always comes across as a
little
weird and absent-minded, and constantly needs to remind you that he walked
on
the moon (he once showed a brief videotape about Apollo 11 that never once
mentioned Neil Armstrong, and only showed one picture of him-afterwards my
colleagues joked about Buzz’s solo flight to the moon). Harrison Schmitt
thinks
that any audience he speaks to is composed of college-level geology students
and
he instantly jumps into discussions of isotopes in basaltic rock. John
Young
uses lots of folksy expressions, but tends to not have much of a point to
his
talks other than to lament that nobody is as hardworking and committed as
they
were in the 1960s. A few years ago I saw Gene Cernan speak. Although all
my
colleagues thought he gave a great talk, I felt that it was mostly a
collection
of fighter-pilot anecdotes rather than a coherent speech.
The one person who I was VERY impressed with was Al Bean. He is one of the
most
genuinely nice guys on the planet. He was humble and funny and even though
he
was not the most eloquent speaker in the world, I think that he had the
audience
worshiping him after his talk. A great guy.
So having seen all these other astronauts before (and a bunch that I have
not
mentioned), I was not expecting much from Stafford, who flew on two Gemini
missions, Apollo 10 and then the Soyuz-Apollo Test Project. But it turns
out
that I was very pleasantly surprised. Stafford was a great speaker.
My impression is that this is partly because he was a Lieutenant General.
In
order to rise up to that rank, you need to possess a certain amount of
communication skills. Either that or you develop them along the way.
Stafford
has certainly seen and done a lot of things, but he also knew how to arrange
them into a coherent story with a beginning, middle and end. I did not take
notes at the talk (it was videotaped by the Smithsonian, but I do not know
if
it
will be shown anywhere), so this is going mostly from memory.
Stafford was there in part to promote his new book, written with former
FPSpacer
Mike Cassutt. The book is called We Have Capture and is published by the
Smithsonian Press. I have a copy, but have not yet read it, although Mike
told
me about some of the stories in it ahead of time. The talk was unabashedly
patriotic (it was dedicated to military veterans). It started with the
singing
of the national anthem, which I do not believe I have seen before in that
auditorium. (In other words, singing the national anthem is not usually
part
of
Smithsonian evening lectures.)
Stafford started with discussing his early Gemini flights. He mentioned the
fact that on Gemini 6 they had an on-pad abort. He considers this the
"closest
call" that he had ever had on his spaceflight missions (although he also
mentioned a jet aircraft flight where he had a serious malfunction just
before
landing). He said that the Titan had a "dead man’s curve" that I did not
quite
understand. This had something to do with the time between firing the
ejection
seats and how the rocket would fall back to the pad. In short, they would
probably have been killed even if they had decided to eject. He also said
that
they were supersaturated with oxygen inside the cabin, and firing the
ejection
seats would have turned them into roman candles.
Of most interest was his command of Gemini 9. He said that just after they
suited up and just before he put on his helmet, Deke Slayton came in the
room
and closed the door. Stafford’s co-pilot Gene Cernan was scheduled to
perform a
risky EVA. Slayton told Stafford that "NASA Management" had decided that if
Cernan died outside the spacecraft, Stafford had to bring him down. "They
do
not want a dead American astronaut endlessly circling the earth."
This really ticked Stafford off. He started to list to Deke all of the
things
that could go wrong if he tried to bring the spacecraft back with the hatch
open
and Cernan’s corpse trailing behind the spacecraft. This included the
difficulties of steering with a large mass tethered behind the spacecraft,
the
blast furnace that would be right over his shoulder with an open hatch, and
the
possibility that the steel cable inside the tether would wrap around the
parachute lines if he even made it that far. Apparently Stafford worked
himself
into quite an anger. He then told Slayton that he was the commander of the
mission and he would do what he would use his best judgement. He then
snapped
his helmet on and stormed out of the room. Cernan asked him what Deke
wanted
to
speak to him about and Stafford said "He told me he wanted us to have a good
mission."
During the flight, Cernan got into a lot of trouble with the EVA. The
details
of this are really fascinating and probably covered in several sources and
certainly in the book (and in Cernan’s book). He mentioned, for instance,
that
Cernan’s faceplate had fogged up and nobody had thought of using
commercially
available anti-fogging spray on their faceplates. But he also said that at
one
point, while Cernan was behind the spacecraft, he announced that his back
was
very hot. It turns out that Cernan’s spacesuit insulation had split open in
the
back, meaning that he got the full thermal effect of the sun on the inside
of
his suit. Later, when he returned to earth, doctors discovered that he had
a
class one burn on his back.
They lost communications and had other problems during the EVA. Stafford
then
told Cernan to come back in and he had to verbally guide Cernan in by
watching
him in the mirror, because Cernan could not see out of his spacesuit. He
finally had to pull Cernan’s legs down into the vehicle (I am not sure if he
also had to advise Cernan where to reach to pull the hatch closed). When
they
pressurized the spacecraft, Cernan opened his faceplate and his face was
bright
red "As if he had been in a sauna" Stafford said. During a two hour EVA,
Cernan
apparently lost 10 and a half pounds of body weight due to sweating.
He had a great quote about this. It was something like "We really did not
know
anything back then." He said that it was after this mission that they
started
the underwater training.
He said that after the mission, he told Cernan about Deke’s talk with him.
"Would you have left me up there?" Cernan asked. "What would you care?"
Stafford replied. "You would already be dead!"
Stafford said that he never found out who "NASA Management" was, but he
suspected that it was either George Low or possibly Bob Gilruth who had made
that crazy order about bringing Cernan back.
He described the Gemini launch as very unpleasant. He said that they went
from
8 gravities to zero-gee in a fraction of a second. He did not like that at
all.
Stafford also talked about his Apollo 10 mission. He said that on the
return,
they flew back from the moon faster than any other spacecraft. He explained
why
this was. He did not talk too much about flying the LM.
The Apollo 10 launch was very rough. He said that they experienced a lot of
shaking and were really slammed around in their seats. He said that he
seriously considered an abort, but decided that if the rocket blew up, they
would go with it. He said that they later discovered that a pin had not
been
removed from their acceleration couches, and therefore the couches had
shaken
rather than absorbed the vibration of the launch.
He then discussed his role in the Apollo-Soyuz space mission. He said that
it
was the hardest mission to train for because he had to learn Russian (he
also
mentioned that he had earlier represented the United States at the funeral
for
cosmonaut Komorov). He showed some pictures from that mission and described
his
friend Alexei Leonov. He said that later Leonov admitted that he had been
present when one of the N-1 rockets had exploded. Leonov said that it was
very
powerful (but did not provide more details like how far he was from the
explosion). Stafford said that Leonov told him that they found pieces of
the
rocket 10 kilometers away from the launch pad.
What I found most interesting were Stafford’s comments about what he did
after
ASTP. He later commanded a unit at Area 51. "That’s where we keep all the
dead
aliens after moving them up from Roswell," he said. He did not talk much
about
this other than to mention the early work on the stealth fighter. He noted
that
they went from initial contract to flying aircraft in a remarkably short
time.
He also noted that the aircraft was built without a clear requirement from
the
government. It was a technology demonstrator that later turned into an
operational aircraft.
But he was really rather interesting when he discussed taking his Apollo
experience and using it in the Air Force. He said that he used to use
Apollo
as
an example for aircraft designers--it was proof that they could accomplish
the
impossible. He said that during a meeting of the Air Force Association, he
met
with the head of an aerospace company and he drew up the initial
specifications
for what became the B-2 stealth bomber on a piece of hotel stationery. He
said
that he always considered Leonid Brezhnev to be his co-designer for the B-2.
The reason is that Brezhnev had recently argued that the Tu-22M Backfire
bomber
was not a strategic bomber. Therefore, Stafford figured that if he came up
with
an American bomber with a similar range and payload capability to the
Backfire,
by the Soviet calculations it would not be a strategic bomber, even though
it
would be invisible to radar. (I may be misremembering exactly what he said
here.)
He was quite proud of his work getting the B-2 bomber started. He showed
some
photographs of it along with the F-117 and said something like "If we attack
Iraq, these will be the first planes over Baghdad."
I later discussed this with a physicist friend of mine from England and he
said
that he was rather surprised by Stafford’s remarks about applying Apollo
experience to something like the B-2. He imagined that such comments would
make
a lot of non-Americans nervous. They view Apollo as something noble and
pristine and would not like hearing that its management approach was applied
to
military weaponry. I imagine he is right.
Stafford then took questions and as usual these were pretty good (the NASM
lecture series usually attracts a pretty sophisticated crowd). There was
one
young boy who asked him if he had fun on any of his space flights. At first
I
thought that this was a typical kid question. But then I realized that most
of
what Stafford had discussed were the dangers. He admitted that on several
of
his missions they had come close to dying.
I cannot forget his exact answer to this, but he did say that he made some
great
friends during his missions, particularly Alexei Leonov. He hoped that
Leonov
could attend the talk, but he could not (that would have been a fascinating
talk, huh?). They will both participate in a duck-hunting competition next
week. He says that neither of them has gone duck hunting for a long time
"So
my
money is on the ducks."
He was asked about the Russian approach to safety. His answer to this was a
little muddled. He said that the individual Russians that he worked with
were
safety conscious, but that their system was not. He did not really explain
this.
The final question was about his views about life in space. All I can say
is
that his answer, about John Young on Apollo 10, was very scatological and
VERY
funny. He nearly brought down the house with laughter.
I guess the two most interesting things about Stafford’s talk were the
things I
listed above--his comments about using Apollo management experience in the
Air
Force, and his discussion of the dangers of spaceflight. Neither comment
was
what you would expect from him.
As my British colleague pointed out, there is a comment by a scientist who
worked during World War II who said that when people hear about World War II
now
they always start with the part about how we won. But back then, that was
not
at all a foregone conclusion. Similarly, with Stafford, we know that he was
successful and that Apollo was successful, but what his talk made clear is
that
there were MANY cases where something could have gone horribly wrong and the
crew could have died. So even though we often talk about the success of
Apollo
11, at that time there were very few people who knew in their hearts that it
would be successful--a lot of things could have gone wrong.
Afterwards he signed copies of his book. I stood in line with my colleagues
Roger Launius and Howard McCurdy. Stafford was on a dais underneath the
Apollo-Soyuz display in the Space Race exhibit hall. (They have an Apollo
CSM
and a Soyuz linked up there.) We joked that we were sort of like kids
waiting
to meet Santa Claus. Even though I am not a fan of astronauts, Stafford
impressed me a lot. He wanted to shake the hand of everyone in line to meet
him
and he thanked them for attending.
A real class act.
DDAY
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