space colonies - lunar settlements: chapter 5. apollo knowledge transfer preserving and...

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5Apollo Knowledge Transfer: Preserving and Transferring the Apollo Legacy to a New Generation

Charles A. LundquistResearch Institute, University of AlabamaHuntsville, Alabama

Dennis Ray WingoSkycorpHuntsville, Alabama

Charles A. Lundquist received a BS in engineering physics in 1949 from South Dakota State University and a PhD in physics in 1954 from the University of Kansas. During the 1953−1954 academic year, he was an assistant professor of engineering research at the Pennsylvania State University. He served in the Army for the following two years, assigned to the Technical Feasibility Study Office, Redstone Arsenal, Alabama. From 1956 to 1960, he was chief, Physics and Astrophysics Branch, Research Projects Division, Army Ballistic Missile Agency, Alabama. In this position, he participated in planning, launch, and analysis of Explorer 1 and other early U.S. satellites. Following the creation of the NASA Marshall Space Flight Center in July 1960, he was chief, Physics and Astrophysics Branch, Research Projects Office of MSFC. From 1962 to 1973, he was assistant director for science at the Astrophysical Observatory of the Smithsonian Institution, Cambridge, Massachusetts and research associate, Harvard College Observatory. While at the Astrophysical Observatory, he was a member of the NASA Group for Lunar Exploration Planning (GLEP) throughout the Apollo program. He was co-editor, with G. Veis, of the 1966 Smithsonian Standard Earth, the first comprehensive solution for the gravity field of the earth and the corresponding global coordinate system based on satellite tracking data. Subsequently, in1973, Dr. Lundquist returned to the Marshall Center as director of the Space Sciences Laboratory. In 1981 he joined the University of Alabama in Huntsville, first as director of research and later as associate vice president for research until 1996. Concurrently from 1985, he was director, Consortium for Materials Development in Space, a NASA and industry-sponsored commercial space center. Dr. Lundquist

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© 2010 Taylor and Francis Group, LLC

56 Lunar Settlements

formally retired in 1999, but continues his efforts at UAH on a part-time basis as director, Interactive Projects Office in the Research Institute, University of Alabama, Huntsville.

AbstRACt A perplexing issue is how to convey knowledge and experi-ence from the Apollo Program in a way that is efficiently helpful to present-day teams planning the return missions to the Moon. Such a transfer of knowhow is hard even when there is a continuity of workforce, but the trans-fer is exceedingly difficult when an interval of some 40 years must be bridged. Present-day lunar team members and students who will become team mem-bers have grown up in the era of computer databases. They are skilled at accessing such information. This suggests that one obvious option is to pro-vide Apollo knowledge and experience in a computer searchable format. The Archives and Special Collections Department in the library at the University of Alabama in Huntsville (UAH) is among many organizations that have recognized and implemented this option. At UAH, the document holdings relevant to lunar exploration include a Saturn V collection, a Lunar Roving Vehicle Collection, an Apollo Missions Collection, and documents from the Apollo Group for Lunar Exploration Planning (GLEP). An online catalog has been produced for these materials and each entry has at least an abstract and sometimes a full online text. Further, many video history interviews have been conducted with original participants in the Apollo Program. These are also accessible online. Other information includes reformatted electronic records from the Apollo era and surveys or reviews of Apollo documenta-tion. Given the scope of the past, present and future lunar operations and rec-ognizing the large number of organizations involved, the Apollo information preservation and transfer task is indeed challenging.

the Knowledge transfer Problem

In response to a space policy announced by President George W. Bush, the United States is again preparing to send people to the Moon. Current plans envision extended stays at lunar bases equipped appropriately for lengthy occupation. This objective requires the design and production of a new fam-ily of large rocket vehicles comparable to the Saturn rockets of the Apollo era. It also requires design and procurement of structures, facilities and equip-ment for use on the lunar surface. The return to the Moon is scheduled for the second decade of the century.

A perplexing issue is how to convey knowledge and experience from the Apollo Program in a way that is efficiently helpful to present-day teams plan-ning the return missions to the Moon. Such a transfer of know-how is hard

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Apollo Knowledge Transfer 57

even when there is a continuity of work-force, but the transfer is exceedingly difficult when an interval of some forty years must be bridged.

Surely historical documents from the Apollo Program exist in many places and forms that are accessible with enough effort. Realistically, the present government and contractor team members are so pressed with current issues that they may feel they can devote but little time to primary literature searches. They can be aided by the broader space community.

Online Information Access

Present-day lunar team members have grown up in the era of computer data bases. They are skilled at accessing online data. One obvious way to aid them is to provide access to Apollo knowledge and experience in computer search-able data bases. Unfortunately, when the Apollo Program ended, little of its technical documentation and human experience was preserved in a comput-erized format.

For the knowledge from the Apollo Program to be accessible online, old documents must be cataloged and digitized, data in obsolete computer for-mats must be translated into current formats and oral or video material must be presented in digital form.

Clearly, the effective transfer of Apollo knowhow will not be accomplished by any single entity. Cooperation between national agencies, private compa-nies, universities, libraries and other entities will be required.

the UAH Role

An acknowledged role of any university is to provide a repository of knowledge and to convey that knowledge. Recognizing its long-standing relationship with the NASA Marshall Space Flight Center and the Huntsville space contractor community [1], the University of Alabama in Huntsville (UAH) has embraced a role as a repository for space information deserving preservation in a publicly accessible archive. In the UAH Salmon Library, the Archives and Special Collections Department has this repository role [2].

The space collections in the Archives got a significant start in 1969 when the book collection of Willy Ley was placed in the UAH Library. Willy Ley had been a space enthusiast and an associate of Wernher von Braun in Germany before World War II. However, Willy immigrated to the United States before the war. When he died, his large library was sold by his widow.

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Donations from Huntsville residents provided the money to buy this collec-tion for UAH.

As the Saturn V Program neared completion, UAH accepted a contract from NASA to assemble program documents as a reference source for a his-tory of the rockets used by Apollo. The history was written by R.E. Bilstein and published by NASA [3]. Subsequently, this very substantial reference collection was deposited in the UAH Archives and cataloged. This was the second large space collection in the Archives.

A more recent function of the Archives has been acceptance of personal materials donated by retirees from the Marshall Center and other individu-als. This function is in part a result of an understanding between UAH and the Marshall Retirees Association. Many of the retirees who have donated their holdings are individuals who initiated the U.S. space program and executed the Apollo Program. The materials so donated have been very sub-stantial and inclusive. Large collections have been organized and abstracts of each item prepared for online finding guides. Some of the most important documents have been scanned and made available in full.

The initial motivation for the UAH Archives was to provide a resource for historians and other research scholars. This objective remains intact. However, UAH personnel now recognize that the collections can serve fur-ther as a reference to specific space knowledge and experience that can be useful in the new space programs.

The document collections that are most pertinent as sources of informa-tion for the return to the Moon are listed in Table 5.1.

As already mentioned, the Saturn V Collection was assembled at the end of the Saturn Program. The collection was cataloged then and a finding guide prepared. Recently, many of the significant Saturn V documents have been scanned and their full text is available online. An Apollo Mission Collection was prepared in 2007 from materials donated by NASA retirees. Currently, this initial collection is being augmented by further donations. The Lunar Roving Vehicle Collection was completed in 2006. It contains extensive docu-mentation preserved by participants in the vehicle design, fabrication and utilization. During the Apollo Program, NASA established the Group for Lunar Exploration Planning (GLEP) to provide analysis and advice concern-ing exploration and scientific operations planned for the successive missions to the Moon [4]. This collection contains many documents and working papers generated and used by the GLEP.

Table 5.1

UAH Archive Collections Most Pertinent for the Return to the MoonSaturn V CollectionApollo Missions CollectionLunar Roving Vehicle CollectionGroup for Lunar Exploration Planning Collection

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Interviews and talks

In the 1980s, Professor Donald Tartar of UAH recorded video interviews with a number of early members of the rocket team directed by Wernher von Braun [5]. These interviews included some ten members of the original von Braun group who came to the United States to work for the Army imme-diately after World War II. In conducting these interviews, Dr. Tartar was joined by Conrad Dannenberg, himself a leading member of the original German team. Recently, when the UAH Archives began to expand its online collections, these early interviews were re-transcribed in a digital format appropriate for access by personal computers.

Beginning in 2006, the UAH staff undertook to augment these interviews with comparable online interviews with other early members of the rocketry activities in Huntsville. By the end of 2007, some 80 people had been inter-viewed. Many of those interviewed were scientists and engineers born in the United States who were recruited, starting in about 1950, to join the von Braun team. These individuals had significant roles in the Apollo Program. To guide current efforts to revisit the Moon, it is instructive to extract from these interviews what factors were cited as contributing to the outstanding success of the Apollo Program. A list of the factors identified is shown in Table 5.2.

In addition to video interviews, the UAH Archives had tapes of vocal interviews with many individuals. One large collection of these was taped as resource information for the Bilstein book Stages to Saturn. This tape collec-tion was a counterpart to the Saturn V document collection. Again, the for-mat of the original tapes was not suitable for online computer access, and the tapes had to be digitized and reformatted. Also some old interviews were recorded on 33 rpm plastic discs. They of course had to be reformatted.

Still further, the Archives had access to video recordings of various talks, space symposia, forums and memorial events. These were translated from their original forms into a digital form for online access. A sampling of the many recorded talks by Wernher von Braun was put online by UAH. As a guide to

Table 5.2

Factors for Apollo Success Distilled from Oral HistoriesUnequivocal political and popular supportAdequate budgetRecognized skillful leadershipExperienced teamFeasible planSchedule disciplineCommitment to testingOpen personal communications

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finding remarks by particular individuals, an alphabetical list of speakers was compiled with information citing in which events each speaker participated.

Electronic Records

There are very few surviving electronic records from the Apollo era, although many magnetic tapes were produced. Those that survive are in obsolete digital or analog formats. Also the machines that originally read them do not exist or have not been functional for decades. To recover these data sets, dedicated efforts must be undertaken by skilled engineers and by retirees originally involved in the pertinent operations.

The Lunar Orbiter analog data tapes are an informative example. The high-est resolution Lunar Orbiter images of the lunar surface were transmitted to Earth and recorded on 2 inch analog tapes. Initially, only a small, selected fraction of these tapes were processed to obtain the maximum resolution of about one meter for sites near the equator. Computer capabilities at the time made this process time consuming and expensive. The lunar surface areas processed for maximum resolution were primarily the potential and actual Apollo landing sites.

Fortunately, the full collection of Lunar Orbiter magnetic tapes was pre-served by NASA under controlled environmental conditions. However, the tape drives to generate maximum resolution are 40 years old and have not operated in over 20 years. A set of surplused drives has been located and is available for refurbishment. An effort to accomplish the refurbish-ment and to demonstrate tape processing for highest resolution is being pursued.

The data potentially available from reprocessing the Lunar Orbiter tapes is a further informative example of how Apollo era information can support the renewed lunar program. The Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter planned for an early mission to the Moon will have image resolution comparable to the best Lunar Orbiter image resolution. There is great value in having compara-ble images of the lunar surface separated by some forty years. A comparison will allow identification of craters with a diameter greater than a few meters that have been caused by meteoroid impacts during the years between Lunar Orbiter and Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter.

The Apollo experience found that the nature of the lunar regolith is dominated by the continuing cultivation and mixing caused by meteor-oid impacts. Hence the phenomena associated with meteoroid impacts are keys to understanding the regolith. Craters and ejecta from cratering are easily observable lunar surface features. Recent craters are prime sites for exploration missions because they expose material from beneath the lunar surface.

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Reviews

Besides online access to original literature, another aid to present-day lunar team members is recourse to comprehensive surveys and reviews of earlier experience and understanding. A number of useful reviews have been pre-pared and can be accessible online.

A typical example of a recent review is “Lunar Outpost Development and the Role of Mechanical Systems for Payload Handling [6].” This document consolidates the findings of a number of previous studies. It is accessible online.

Conclusions

The Apollo era data sets, documents, and experience can provide the USA with valuable insights as well as guidance on how to maximize results from the return to the Moon. Providing this information online via professional archival methods brings an orderly and timely resource to the nation today and for future generations.

The authors fully recognize that providing online and in-library access to information is only one option in preserving and conveying the Apollo experience. Given the scope of the past, present and future lunar explora-tion programs, and recognizing the large number of organizations involved, the information preservation and transfer task is indeed a challenging problem.

References

[1] Charles A. Lundquist, “The Wernher von Braun Research Hall at the University of Alabama in Huntsville,” pp. 114–115, 50 Years of Rockets and Spacecraft in the Rocket City, Huntsville, Alabama, Turner Publishing Company, Paducah KY, 2002.

[2] Anne M. Coleman, Charles A. Lundquist and David L. Christensen, “Organizational History of the Space Collections at the University of Alabama in Huntsville,” IAC-04-IAA.6.15.2.07, International Astronautical Congress, 2004.

[3] R. E. Bilstein, Stages to Saturn: A Technological History of the Apollo/Saturn Launch Vehicles, National Aeronautics and Space Administration, Washington, D. C., 1980.

[4] The initial members of the Group for Lunar Exploration Planning, 1967, were W.N. Hess, chair, E. King, P. Gast, J. Arnold, E. Shoemaker, R. Jahns, F. Press,

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C. Lundquist, M. Calvin, F. Johnson, D. Williams, N. Roman, P. Culbertson, R. Allenby, M. Faget, W. Stoney, H. Gartrell, H. Schmitt.

[5] Anne Coleman, Robert L. Middleton, Charles A. Lundquist and David L. Christensen, “The Oral History Tradition at the University of Alabama in Huntsville,” International Astronautical Congress, 2006.

[6] Dennis Ray Wingo, Gordon Woodcock and Mark Maxwell, “Lunar Outpost Development and the Role of Mechanical Systems for Payload Handling,” 112 pages, report by Skycorp Inc., 10 Feb. 2007.

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