Our Cosmic Ancestors (3 page)

How I was put in charge of all of this within a few months after I had started my new job at North American, I will never understand; but that is of no importance now. The only thing that really counts is that everything went well. Everything functioned much better than we thought it would at the beginning, or even better than we ever expected. I think that it must have happened because of some divine influence, not by human intelligence alone. Since that time I firmly believe in benevolent intervention of the gods into human affairs.

In April 1963 some technical publications announced the convocation of an international astronautical congress in September in Paris, and specialists were invited to submit papers for presentation at the conference. I did not want to pass up such an opportunity; in addition, I badly needed a vacation. Without telling anyone, I sent to Paris the text of a lecture about the communications system of the Apollo spacecraft, by that time very well known to me. In a few weeks, to my surprise, there was a letter from Paris confirming that my lecture had been accepted. They promised to let me know soon the exact day and hour when I was to deliver my presentation at the congress.

That was the exact moment when my troubles began. First, I was not supposed to submit any lecture about Apollo on my own. I should have asked for an authorization to do so from NASA. Secondly, I could not be given a vacation, because I was needed all the time at the Apollo project, not even if this vacation could be squeezed in during the congress in Paris. Thirdly, and most seriously, North American unbeknown to me had already assigned a few other men, with less to do and more backing than I had, to go to Paris and talk about Apollo.

But then again, the gods smiled upon me. A miracle happened that I can only describe as benevolent divine intervention. Suddenly somebody found out that during the projected Apollo Moon flights, sunspot activity would be at its peak. Sunspots can severely impede and even completely disrupt radio space communication. It should be pointed out here that, considering the number of people involved in Apollo, this discovery certainly could have been made somewhat earlier.

Naturally, once it was discovered, a new countdown schedule - a new sort of horoscope - had to be established without delay, in order to take into account solar radiation from sunspot activity. This activity had to be calculated years in advance of the projected flights to the Moon. The missions had to be rescheduled for the most opportune periods of minimal sunspot interference.

No doubt it was sheer coincidence that at the time the most qualified observatory for sunspot predictions was at Meudon, France, near Paris, where the astronautical congress was to convene. It would have been useless to discuss sunspot activity with French astronomers who spoke little English. Somebody was needed who could speak French, had at least some knowledge of astronomy, and knew everything there was to know about space communications.

Believe it or not, of all the people at North American Aviation there was only one person with all of these qualifications; and so it was decided that I would spend four weeks in France after all - two in Paris with expenses paid by NASA and two on the Cote d'Azur at my own expense. Remembering the many long faces at North American, I think that was the day I lost quite a few friends.

That is how, on one beautiful afternoon in August 1963, I arrived in an Air France Boeing 707 at Orly airport and an hour later was in a Renault convertible, dashing down the Autoroute du Sud on my way to St Tropez, without taking one look back at Paris. There would be time enough for Paris later on. First I had to get to St. Tropez. Why St Tropez? For several reasons, although not all of them shall be discussed here. St Tropez is the home of my friend Robert, who owns one of the most famous restaurants on the Moorea beach in nearby Pampelone, and is my best friend in France.

Although I was born in Paris, every time I go to France I feel more at home in St Tropez, and that is where I spend most of my vacation time. The Paris that I knew as a young man does not exist anymore; and so far I have not had enough time to acquaint myself with the
new Paris, so I go to St Tropez, where I know everything and everybody.

I was back in Paris only two days before the congress of astronautics began when I received a telephone call from someone I had never heard of and whose name I will not mention here. He informed me that he was greatly interested in space communications and extraterrestrial life and that he would be glad to meet me for dinner to discuss these topics.

Since I had nothing else to do that day and since this man intrigued me, I accepted the invitation. It was a fascinating evening. After I had told him just about everything that I knew about Apollo, I learned from him a lot of things of which I had no knowledge whatsoever -like ancient civilizations that probably had been brought here by astronauts from space many, many thousands of years ago.

My presentation at the congress went very well. I lectured on space communications in general and about the Apollo systems in particular and was swamped with questions not only about the spacecraft communications, which I expected, but also about the possibility of contacting extraterrestrial civilizations and the consequences that these contacts would produce. For that I was not quite prepared.

The congress should have been primarily interested in questions concerning the Apollo spacecraft and the exploration of the moon; but the most lively discussions developed about the possibilities offered by the huge antennas of radio telescopes to explore the universe. The Russians were all well versed in these matters because their government supported such exploration; but some American scientists, who knew how badly such scientific endeavours were received in Washington, tried to strike a pose of indifference.

Reminding myself that I was an American, too, I tried to avoid these taboo topics; but I couldn't suppress entirely my curiosity, and kept discussing galactic theories with some Russians privately. A great deal of new information and stimulation to explore intelligence in space came from my Russian colleagues. I cannot give their names here, but without their help I possibly would never have written this book.
As for the Apollo spacecraft itself, I should mention here that, as everybody knows by now, it consisted of three main parts. First there was the command module, a truncated cone about 8 feet high, 13 feet wide at the base, and over 3 feet wide at the top, where the landing parachutes and the radio antenna to be used after the splashdown were snugly stowed away. A tunnel provided passage to the lunar exploration capsule. The service module, to the rear of the command module, was nearly 17 feet long and also 13 feet wide and contained all the life-support systems.

Another truncated cone contained the lunar exploration module and its moon vehicle, the lunar jeep, ready for man's first ride on the Moon. The jeep was abandoned on the Moon, the lunar module left in orbit around the Moon, and the service module discarded in orbit around the Earth. Only the command module, with the heat shield at its base, could withstand the tremendous temperatures caused by friction during descent through the atmosphere; and the three astronauts and everything that they had taken with them from the Moon returned to the Earth in it.

Magazines all over the world have described the Apollo spacecraft and all that it contained, but there are still a few interesting things that have not been mentioned. The fuel cells were the source of both electric current and water supply for the Apollo. These ingenious cells, developed for the Moon mission, combined liquid hydrogen and oxygen to produce both electric current and water in one operation. It was a simple idea, but somebody had to think of it.

The navigation system was not complicated either. A platform stabilized by three gyroscopes was supporting a sextant and a telescope and was connected to an electronic computer in permanent contact with Earth. It was enough to turn either the telescope or the sextant and take aim of certain points of the Moon's surface or some star - Canopus, for example
- and the computer would transmit the exact angles of the sightings with the three axes of the stabilized platform to Earth with all the necessary information.

The distance from Earth or Moon was measured simply by taking the angular reading of the Moon's disc or the two sides of the Earth. To take these readings, the capsule had to be moved on all three principal axes, and this was achieved by firing small rockets placed all around the service module. To avoid overheating, Apollo had to be
rotated constantly so that one side would not be exposed all the time to the Sun.

What were the means of communication between Apollo and the Earth? At close distances, the exact position of Apollo was measured by tracking radar from Earth in the C band between 5,715 and 5,815 MHz (megahertz, a unit of frequency). The radar signal was received and amplified by a transponder and retransmitted by Apollo back to Earth. The coded messages from Houston to Apollo were transmitted in ultrahigh frequencies (UHF) on the 450-MHz band, on one direction only. Voice and telemetry were carried on very high frequencies (VHF) on the 259- and 296-MHz bands.

When Apollo arrived within proximity of the Moon, the communications systems previously used could not reach that far; so all communications went through one single, very powerful, transmitter with a directional antenna in the S band, between 2,106 and 2,287 MHz, with a great number of channels, each transmitting several signals at the same time through multiplexing. For instance, there were seven channels to feed medical information about the physical condition of the astronauts, nine to retransmit the stored telemetry data from the passage behind the Moon that could not be beamed directly. The communication systems were improved from one Apollo mission to the next, especially the television system.

Today the Apollo program has long been terminated and nearly forgotten. So perhaps it would be useful to recall these eleven sensational missions in the order that they were launched. Altogether there were twenty Apollo modules built, of which twelve were supposed to be launched. The rest were to be tested for endurance, heat resistance, buoyancy, and many other qualities.

The first of the dozen modules intended for launch, named Apollo 6, burned up in a flash during a practice countdown on the ground on 27 January, 1967, killing all three astronauts on board - Virgil I. Grissom, Edward H. White II, and Roger B. Chaffee. The whole Apollo program was interrupted until the command module could be redesigned and rebuilt so that an electrical fire in the oxygen-laden atmosphere inside the module could not occur again.

Apollo 7 with Walter M. Schirra, Jr., Donn F. Eisele, and R. Walter Cunningham stayed in orbit around the Earth for eleven days, 11-22 October, 1968, for a breakdown test. All worked well. Apollo was ready to fly to the Moon.

Apollo 8, with three astronauts, Frank Borman, James A. Lovell, Jr, and William A. Anders aboard made man's first Moon orbit, at an altitude of about sixty miles above its surface, the first time the hidden face of the Moon had ever been seen by man himself. This first Moon mission lasted 21-27 December, 1968.

Apollo 9, carrying the lunar module for the first time, with James A. McDivitt, David R. Scott, and Russell L. Schweickart aboard, hung ten days long in orbit around the Earth 3-13 March, 1969, to test the separation and rendezvous of the command module and the lunar module. Schweickart went outside the command module and took a spacewalk, attached to the ship by an umbilical cord.

The Apollo 10 mission took place 18-26 May, 1969, with Thomas P. Stafford, John W. Young, and Eugene A. Cernan aboard. Young stayed in the command module in orbit around the Moon, while Stafford and Cernan descended in the lunar module to less than ten miles above the surface and then rejoined the command module in orbit.

Apollo II , with Neil A. Armstrong, Michael Collins, and Edwin E. Aldrin, Jr. aboard, was the first Apollo flight to reach the goal. While Collins flew in orbit around the Moon in the command module, Armstrong and Aldrin descended in the lunar module, landing in the Sea of Tranquility at 4:17 pm, 20 July, 1969, after a flight of 102 hours 45 minutes from the Earth. After 6 1/2 hours of rest, Neil Armstrong opened the door of the module and climbed down, the first man ever to walk on the moon. The time was 10:55 pm EDT. Aldrin followed him after a few minutes. The Americans were first on the Moon! All returned to Earth safely on 24 July.

Apollo 12 carried Charles Conrad, Jr., Richard F. Gordon, and Alan L. Bean through thunderclouds right at the start, experiencing an electrical discharge of short duration that did not hamper the flight. The mission, lasting ten days, 14-24 November, 1969, took Conrad and Bean to the Sea of Storms, right next to Surveyor 3, which had landed there two and a half years before. Some of the more important parts from Surveyor 3 were brought back in remarkably good condition.
Apollo 13, with James A. Lovell, Jr., Fred W. Haise, Jr., and John L. Swigert, Jr., aboard, ran into trouble, seemingly confirming the superstition tied to this number. The mission which took place 11-17 April, 1970, was already halfway to the Moon when one of the oxygen tanks exploded, knocking out some instruments. The question was no longer how to land on the Moon but how to get back to Earth as soon as possible. It was decided that the best solution was to continue the flight to the Moon, make a loop around it, and come straight for a splashdown, all the time saving as much oxygen as possible. Everything went as planned, and Apollo 13 returned safely without further complications. The cause of the explosion was never determined, although several official explanations were given.

Apollo 14
,
with Alan B. Shepard Jr., Stuart A. Roosa, and Edgar D. Mitchell aboard, went to the Moon from 31 January to 9 February, 1971, landing in the hills of Fra Mauro, and using a cart to transport the scientific instruments.

Apollo 15 took David R. Scott, Alfred M. Worden, and James B. Irwin, 26 July - 7 August, 1971 to the Apennine Mountains of the Moon. It carried a 'lunar rover', an electric vehicle that made it possible for Scott and Irwin to take several trips on the Moon's surface, covering nearly twenty miles. This Moon 'jeep' also made it possible for people on Earth to see the takeoff blast of the lunar module on live television, since the rover and its television camera and transmitter were left behind on the Moon.