"One man’s dream"

by Apollo Instructor Thoral E. (Gill) Gilland 

Wernher von Braun, the principal architect of the Apollo Lunar Mission and a leading scientist in space exploration, started his career at an early age. He joined the German Verein fur Ramschiffahrt (VfR) "Society for Space Travel" when he was only seventeen years old and was enamored by the writings of Hermann Oberth, a Romanian scientist who vigorously promoted the idea of spaceflight. It was probably Dr. Oberth’s treatise Die Rakete zu den Planetenräumen "By Rocket to Space" that prompted von Braun to master calculus and trigonometry to understand the physics of rocketry.

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Wernher von Braun (center), pictured here with his brothers, was born in Wirsitz, Germany, March 23, 1912.

Dr. Hermann Oberth

Von Braun went to work for the German army in 1932 developing ballistic missiles in a secret laboratory at Peenemünde on the Baltic coast. While engaged in this work, he earned a Ph.D. in physics, which was presented to him on July 27, 1934. As the leader of the "rocket team," which developed the V-2 ballistic missile for the Nazis during World War II, it became obvious to von Braun by 1945 that Germany could not achieve victory against the Allies, so he began planning for the postwar era.

He negotiated the surrender of 500 of his top scientists to the Americans, together with plans, documentation and test vehicles. They came to this country through Mexico and their destination was Fort Bliss, adjacent to El Paso, Texas. A few miles North, the Fort Bliss Military Reservation is in New Mexico and encompasses the White Sands Missile Test Range (WSMR), named after the White Sands National Monument, near Alamogordo. The U.S. Army made housing arrangements for the Germans on the military base because, for the next fifteen years, von Braun and his colleagues worked with the Army developing ballistic missiles. This became "Project Paperclip" in Army parlance.

Map Fort Bliss Military Reservation

Hardware and documentation from Peenemünde were shipped to Las Cruces, New Mexico instead of Fort Bliss because several laboratories, workshops and testing facilities are located in the Organ Mountains, which are part of WSMR. Significantly, the U.S. government invited American firms to participate in Project Paperclip for information exchange supporting the then-young aerospace industry, including the Apollo program.

At that time this author was employed by Rocketdyne, a Division of North American Aviation, Inc., Research Department, Propulsion Field Laboratory (PFL), Santa Susana, California. My responsibilities included operating several test stands that supported rocket engine research and development. When company engineers traveled to WSMR they frequently brought hardware to our facilities for special testing and evaluating. Later, we made field trips to WSMR, mainly to observe launchings of various missiles under study, including V-2s, where experiments for gathering meteorological data aloft were in progress.

Camaraderie came easy among the factions, each liking what they saw in the other. In my view, this group represented the older, more stable German citizenship; these were the people with the expertise to build beautiful cars, airplanes and rockets; the type who made Germany a great industrial nation.

Government housing complexes, designed for a Spartan lifestyle, are frequently stodgy. With many handymen and homemakers in the group, the Germans added a little class to their accommodations with niceties like: fresh paint, patios, drip systems, landscaping, gardens and curtains.

With resources of a well stocked commissary on the base, together with their gardens, our hosts were able to organize a first-of-its-kind "Block Party" in our honor, which turned out to be a memorable evening. Cuisine served represented German ingenuity at its best. The women, who did most of the food preparation, had a unique talent for delicacies with unusual names. Few of the guests knew, for sure, what they were eating, yet nobody could resist sampling the next dish brought to the table. This fare was a great improvement over daily sustenance from local restaurants and, of course, there was the batch of homebrew. Great German beer!

The favorite subject for discussion that evening was the fuel used in the V-2, which was Ethyl alcohol, or Ethanol. Our hosts explained that, aside from a few small fields in Romania, Germany had no petroleum reserves. Alcohol was the most popular fuel for their transportation needs, as well as their war machines. Early in the war, German agronomists developed a huge hybrid potato that was the favorite feedstock in Germany’s alcohol distilleries, which kept the wheels rolling in Germany, literally. Toward the end of the war, there was a fuel shortage and some speculated that Hitler might have won the war if he had been able to solve that problem. Others disagreed authoritatively, pointing out that fuel shortage was only one of Hitler’s many headaches.

Back in California, Rocketdyne’s participation in Project Paperclip enabled our engineers to design a rocket, based on the German V-2, which became known as the "Redstone Missile." Later, this vehicle was used in the Mercury program, which explains the "Mercury/Redstone" nomenclature. The company built a special test stand at the PFL for static firing the Redstone, where concentrated effort brought that program to fruition.

Like its V-2 counterpart, the Redstone missile featured alcohol for fuel, liquid Oxygen for the oxidizer and hydrogen peroxide for a steam generator to drive the turbopump. The Rocketdyne model number of this engine was 75-110, denoting 75,000 pounds of thrust for 110 seconds duration. This was an increase in performance, equating to approximately 19,000 pounds more static thrust than the V-2. Interestingly, this vehicle was the launch platform for the 15 minute suborbital flight of Freedom 7 with Alan Shepard aboard, giving him the distinction of being the first American in space.

In 1950, von Braun and his team moved to the Redstone Arsenal near Huntsville, Alabama, where they established a rocket development center and built the Army’s versatile Jupiter missile. First, besides being a tactical weapon for U.S. forces, the Jupiter also supported NATO operations in Europe. Additionally, von Braun conducted a "Juno" program, which, among other things, utilized this missiles for landing instruments on the moon.

The American space program was gaining momentum at this time and Rocketdyne was awarded a contract for manufacturing Jupiter’s rocket engines. This opened a career opportunity for me so I transferred to the newly organized Field Service organization as a company representative. My first assignment was the U.S. Army’s Ordnance Guided Missile School (OGMS) at the Redstone Arsenal, where Italian Army and NATO personnel were being trained for handling, maintenance and operation of the Jupiter ballistic missiles, then deployment to Europe after graduation.

Those were busy times at OGMS, with intense training and tight schedules. On the other hand, my secondary responsibilities, supporting von Braun’s Juno program, offered frequent opportunities for more relaxing working assignments.

Since each engine was optimized to satisfy a mission’s objectives, a company generated report showing the exact configuration of any particular engine used in a missile launch was required. It was my responsibilities to deliver one of these reports to von Braun when he used a Jupiter missile in an experiment. Another requirement was that a company representative witness launches where these missiles were used. These seem more like mandates from the accounting office but that is a moot point; they were, nevertheless, rules of the game.

Von Braun didn’t really need my counsel on these engines, after all, he designed them, which is one reason these were stress-free assignments. If somebody else wanted engine information, NASA personnel, for example, I often answered questions and von Braun seemed to appreciate having me there because he liked to concentrate on the launch. When the countdown started he was all business and he normally had binoculars hanging from his neck, which he used to read all monitors in the room if necessary, enhancing his total awareness.

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The Juno II launch vehicle, shown here, was a modified Jupiter Intermediate-Range Ballistic missile, developed by Dr. Wernher von Braun and the rocket team at the Redstone Arsenal in Huntsville, Alabama. Between December 1958 and April 1961 the Juno II llaunched space probes Pioneer III, as well as Explorer satellites VII, VIII and XI.

In 1960 the rocket development center was transferred from the Army to the newly established NASA in Huntsville with von Braun the appointed director of NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center. The Apollo program needed a booster and von Braun had a design in mind so he became the chief architect of the Saturn V launch vehicle with Boeing, North American Aviation, Douglas Aircraft Company and IBM as lead contractors. This remains the most powerful launch vehicle ever brought to operational status, from a height, weight and payload point of view; although the Russian Energia, which flew only two test missions, had slightly more takeoff thrust.

The Saturn V was a three-stage booster with the first stage designated S-IC, also, demanding requirements dictated the need for a new rocket engine, designated F-1, which Rocketdyne manufactured. Five F-1 engines clustered on the S-1C stage, which Boeing manufactured, produced more than seven and a half million pounds of thrust for 150  seconds  (in ballpark figures), using RP-1 (kerosene) and LOX (liquid Oxygen) for propellants.

Each launch vehicle was designed for a specific mission with payload weight being the main consideration; variables include combustion chamber pressure, turbopump speed, calculated propellant density and flow rate, all of which are controlled with propellant flow orifices. Thus, performance of each vehicle is customized for a mission by installing the correct size orifices, making it impossible to quote exact performance figures until mission parameters are established.

The second stage, designated S-II, built by North American Aviation, had a cluster of five Rocketdyne J-2 engines running on LH2 (Liquid Hydrogen) and LOX, producing one million pounds of thrust for 360 seconds.

The third, S-IVB stage, built by Douglas, produced 225,000 pounds of thrust for 165 + 335 seconds (two burns) with a Rocketdyne J-2 engine running on LH2/LOX.

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Standing taller than the Statue of liberty, Apollo 11 mounted on the Saturn V booster prepares to launch Neil Armstrong, Buz Aldren and Mike Collins on the historic "One giant leap for mankind" mission. For a size comparison, note the autos and trucks parked on the ramp.

A significant impetus to the space program came about with President John F. Kennedy’s special message to Congress on May 25, 1961. A short excerpt from the president’s speech is all it takes to get the gist of his message, without embellishment and forceful: "First, I believe that this nation should commit itself to achieving the goal, before this decade is out, of landing man on the moon and returning him safely to the earth."

This event launched an era of progress, prosperity and potential. With a complex network of contractors participating, gainful and meaningful employment provided a long overdue economic stimulus. Spin-off benefits of technological advances contributed to the world’s highest standard of living, and career opportunities created new jobs that continue, even today, to force educational and training facilities to march in double-time to keep up with the times.

In a way, the president got more than he bargained for. In all, NASA launched thirteen Saturn V rockets with Apollo moon landing payloads between 1967 and 1973. One of these, Apollo thirteen, experienced a malfunction in the electrical system, making it impossible for that mission to meet its objectives. Despite this, resulting from almost instantaneous crew reflexes and incredible coordination with ground-based support personnel, the three crew members were brought home safely, which was a bonus, a genuine bonus.

The motion picture Apollo Thirteen chronicles these events and aficionados of space history consider this production a classic. Credibility of this story is enhanced when one considers that James A. Lovell, Jr., Commander of Apollo Thirteen, was the technical consultant.

Of the thirteen Apollo payloads launched, six were manned moon landings, which meant twelve U.S. Astronauts walked and worked on the lunar surface and were brought home safely. Further, the Saturn V went on to launch the Apollo Soyuz and skylab space station. This seems like a good investment of the U.S. taxpayer’s space dollar.

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 Dr. Wernher von Braun at the Apollo 14 Launch

Unfortunately, Dr. Wernher von Braun died in Alexandria, VA on June 16, 1977 but, fortunately, he was a prolific writer with an extensive bibliography, as were most of the people who worked with him. Therefore, there are records in the archives that promise continued support of U.S. space activities for years to come.

One of these programs, the Orion, is in the design stage as this is written and it seems that von Braun and his VfR colleagues have always considered the moon as a land-based waypoint for space travelers.

REFERENCES (hyperlinked)

MSFC History Office

The Evolution of the Rocket

Saturn V - Wikipedia - the free encyclopedia