WEBVTT

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Welcome everybody.

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We are extremely fortunate and proud to have
with us today Christopher Kraft.

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Actually, Christopher Kraft, Jr.

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He told us last night that his father, Christopher
Kraft, was born within about a block of Columbus

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Circle and that is how he picked up the name
Christopher Columbus Kraft, which was passed

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onto Chris Kraft, Jr.

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I don't really need to say very much by means
of introduction because Chris Kraft is a name

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that has been associated with America's Space
Program since the very beginning.

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And, actually, from the very beginning of
his career, right after he graduated from

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a university in Virginia, he went to work
for the old NACA, the National Advisory Commission

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for Aeronautics.

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01:00 And
eventually the director of the Johnson Space
Center which is the home of Human Space Flight

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in this country.

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He had that position through 1982, which was
the end of the original orbital flight test

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phase of the orbiter.

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So, he really was in charge of the Space Center
when the Space Shuttle was being developed.

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And, of course, this course is of course in
the systems engineering of the Space Shuttle.

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I just want, in public here, to acknowledge
that there have been expenses involved in

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bringing all of the special lecturers that
we have had who have participated in this

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course.

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And would not have been possible without the
support of the Draper Laboratory.

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And we thank Dr. Eli Gai who has provided
that support.

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We couldn't have done it without you, and
we really appreciate it.

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That is enough for me.

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We all came here to hear Chris Kraft talk
about the invention and development of Mission

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Control and the systems engineering and development
of the Space Shuttle.

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I will tell you that Chris Kraft is somebody
who is not afraid to express his opinions.

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And we are looking forward to hearing them.

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Chris.

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Good morning.

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It is not hard but sometimes difficult to
return to MIT where I have a lot of friends

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who came this morning.

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They sort of overwhelmed me then, and I am
sure they would overwhelm me now if we got

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into some deep technical subject about which
I knew very little at the time.

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And I will say a little bit more about that.

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What I did want to say, though, is that the
people that preceded me in lecturing to you,

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you've been very fortunate.

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Because they indeed are the stars of the Space
Shuttle.

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They did a fantastic job.

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And I hope you got that sense from them as
they spoke to you.

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They are the best.

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And if I were going to say two things about
management that I have learned in my lifetime,

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the first would be you are absolutely no better
than the people around you.

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Without a lot of great brains around you you're
not very good, no matter if you're the best

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person in the world.

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And too many people have learned that the
hard way and not recognized that fact.

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The second thing we talked about last night
around dinner, and that was the second thing

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you learn as an engineering manager is that
every day is a compromise.

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Everything you do you have this idealistic
view of doing it the best way possible, doing

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it better every day, doing it without worrying
too much about the cost, too much about the

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budget, too much about schedule.

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You go in with that idea.

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But those things you have to face every day,
and so managers become great compromisers.

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If the systems that you end up with are not
what you really wanted, but if you're smart

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they do the job.

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If I were going to add two things to your
education at MIT, that is where I would come

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from.

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The third thing I would say is that, whether
you like it or not, you people sitting here,

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no you old heads, but you people sitting here
are the people that are going to do the next

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Space Program.

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You are the ones that are going to take us
back to the Moon, if and when we get there.

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It is going to be up to you to do the job.

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In 1968, the average age of my organization,
and I think I was 44, was 26.

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We had an awful lot of young people who did
the job and did it extremely well.

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The guy sitting there on Apollo 11 screaming
into his headset that it was still go I think

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was 25 years old at the time, and he was a
veteran.

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And if he hadn't been a veteran, he sure in
hell was a few minutes after he kept yelling

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into that microphone that it was go.

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And I hope you've seen that on television.

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If you haven't it's a really great moment
in Apollo.

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Let me start from the beginning.

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In Project Mercury, we started with a space
task group of 35 people, eight of which were

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secretaries.

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And those of us that came out of the NACA,
the National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics,

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were smart guys.

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We were very capable people, but we didn't
know a damn thing about how to fly in space,

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believe me.

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If you would have asked us at the time how
do you get fluid out of a tank at zero G,

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I don't believe you would get the right answer
from more than two guys.

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Maybe Max Faget would have said well, you've
got to put a bladder in there and put pressure

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behind it and squeeze the stuff out because
it is going to be floating.

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You don't know where it is in the tank.

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And, secondly, how much have you got left
in a tank?

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Kind of an interesting project if you don't
know what zero G is all about.

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When we started in Project Mercury we didn't
know much about systems design for space.

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We certainly had high questions about man's
capability to perform a task in space.

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And I would say 98% to 99% of the medical
community in the United States thought that

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the astronaut, when he got there, would be
a blithering idiot, that he would probably

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swallow his tongue, that he couldn't see because
his eyeballs were bulging out or that because

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of the worry he was going through he would
have a 24 hour ulcer sitting on the pad.

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And they would suddenly have to be at his
side, the medical community thought.

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That is where we were coming from, so we decided
we're going to put man in space.

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It was a daunting task but one which most
of us realized from the get-go that we were

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in the middle of probably man's greatest adventure.

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Believe me.

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We did know that.

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I felt it and I think everybody felt it.

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It was sort of a euphoria.

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And we were in what you might call engineering
euphoria like Ed White was on Gemini 4.

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When he was outside the spacecraft, I am absolutely
certain he was euphoric.

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The press said he must have been euphoric.

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And I said oh, no, he was worried about doing
the right things and doing all the right things

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at the right time.

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He was euphoric.

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And you don't recall but they said something
finally at the end of that.

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They said well, what does the flight director
have to say?

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And I said get him back in the spacecraft
as loud as I could say it.

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I think that is only one of the few times
I have ever spoken on the air to ground.

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We were faced with putting somebody into this
new environment for the first time.

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And how do you do that?

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What are the problems you are faced with?

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When we began to think about how we did flight
tests on airplanes, you would sit it on the

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ground and you would write a flight test requirement,
a set of things you wanted them to do on a

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flight.

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You would sit on the ground, hold a microphone
and talk to him.

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And he would say I just did so and so.

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And, if he was one of the best test pilots,
he probably didn't tell you damn thing.

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They just kept quiet like Neil Armstrong did
most of the time.

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He just kept quiet.

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And you kept having to prompt them to tell
you what they were doing.

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That is where we were coming from.

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We had instrumentation.

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We had been developing telemetry from the
bomb drop tests that we had made at Langley.

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So, we knew quite a bit about telemetry.

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We knew very little about air to ground.

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We knew that we would like to talk this guy
about 15 minutes or so.

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That is what you did when you went across
the country as an airplane pilot.

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If you're going around the world, we would
like to talk to them about every 15 minutes.

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And so we got out the geography books and
said well, we're going to fly around this

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thing and here is what this Chinese finger
puzzle looks like as it goes around the Earth.

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And we are going to be over this part of the
Earth and this is where insertion is going

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to take place and this is where we're going
to do orbit determination and this is where

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we're going to do retrofire.

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And we are going to be up there going around
this particular section of the Earth.

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And you looked at the geography and said well,
we've got a tracking range in Cape Canaveral.

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We've got tracking range on the West Coast.

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We have a few radars in Australia.

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But, if we're going to speak to them every
15 minutes, this is where we would like to

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be.

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And so we end up saying well, there are the
Canary Islands, there is Kano, there is Zanzibar,

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there is Muchea and Australia and so on.

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And immediately said well, if we're going
to have to talk to them, we're going to have

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reception there so we're going to have to
build a station at each one of those locations.

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And then we're going to have to tie them all
together.

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And, Lord have mercy, here we are with a whole
requirement to build a worldwide network and

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nobody to do it with, 35 people to do it with.

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And so we immediately got a group together.

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And we got
Western Electric and Bell Labs and a bunch
of people like that and started building the

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worldwide network.

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That was a heck of a project to do at that
point in time.

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And just the diplomatic requirements in all
the states that we had to deal with around

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the world was a project in itself.

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Having done that we just said how many times
around the Earth do you think we would like

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to go or need to go on the first flight?

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And what do you think would determine that?

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Well, in 1959, if you put a spacecraft up
from Cape Canaveral or from Vandenberg Air

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Force Base and you asked is it in orbit, of
the then flight director, he would say I don't

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know.

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I will tell you when it comes up over Kodiak,
Alaska 45 minutes from now.

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And I am saying to myself well, if this thing
isn't in orbit and I want to bring it down

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in the water before it hits the coast of Africa,
I have got to know when to turn that spacecraft

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around and fire the retrorockets.

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I have to know immediately, or at least within
two or three minutes to turn the spacecraft

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around and fire the retrorockets, what the
orbit is.

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Because, if I don't, I don't know where it
is coming down and I don't know where to send

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the ships to pick that young astronaut up.

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Realize that in 1959 nobody knew what a short
arc solution was from a C-ban radar in 30

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seconds of data.

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Furthermore, they didn't have a computer to
do it with.

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We were slide rule people, Marchant computers,
crank computers.

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And you were suddenly faced with the fact
that you've got to build a computer system

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to take radar data from Cape Canaveral and
Bermuda, massage that data and within 30 seconds

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of the short arc solution tell the people
that have got to turn that spacecraft around

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and fire the retrorockets in two minutes.

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Today that sounds unbelievable.

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When you talk about air to ground communications
or ground to ground communications, in Africa

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the best you had was 20 words of teletype
per minute.

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Now, you've got to know what is going on in
the spacecraft or what the astronaut said

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as he flew over Kano, Nigeria.

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You were going to get it back in 20 words
of teletype.

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How do you make real-time decisions under
those circumstances?

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What is a real-time decision?

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Where are you going to make a decision?

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Do you need some central facility which invented
Mission Control?

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And suddenly then, if we're going to do this
job and we're going to have people looking

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at this data, we have got to train a group
of people to go to all these locations around

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the world.

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And if you're going to make decisions in a
central location then you've got to have some

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means of getting that data back to them, of
massaging that data, letting people know outside

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the limits of that control facility what is
going on so they can interrelate with each

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other.

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Nobody had ever done that before.

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And the first time we cranked ourselves up
in a bunch of small cubby holes in an old

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wind tunnel building in Langley Field, Virginia
and started doing what we would call the initial

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simulations, we found that we didn't even
know how to talk with each other.

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And everybody was talking at once.

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And so we had to invent a whole new language
and had to have negative reporting and things

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like that which people had never heard of
before.

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And rapidly then we began to realize that
we had a big task in front of us.

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If you're going to recover this gentleman
at the end of the flight, that is not too

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hard.

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We can send a few ships out there.

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And we probably ought to have a helicopter
there to pick them up.

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And maybe we could have one of these light
carriers.

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But if the doctors are right, we might have
to come down anywhere in the 360 degrees on

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those three revolutions.

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Now, who are we talking to?

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We're talking about talking to the search
and rescue people.

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We're talking to destroyer captains.

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We're talking to people that have got to fish
this thing out of the sea.

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And how do they do that and how do they not
get burned with the fuel that might be running

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out of the spacecraft.

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And suddenly we have to train probably 10,000
people on how to recover this machine.

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If the spacecraft is sitting in the water,
we've got to train several hundred frogmen

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how to jump out of an airplane with tools
to get to the astronaut.

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It was a tremendous task for a group of people
who had never done much but do wind tunnel

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tests or flight tests out of Langley Field,
Virginia.

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The early days we had to come up with orbit
determination.

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How to look at the astronaut's health.

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How do we get something down that we can look
at?

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Can we get an EKG down?

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Can we get his breath rate down to each one
of these stations so we know what the man's

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health is?

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An interesting story.

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We did eventually build a simulator to train
the astronauts, and we had no way of getting

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data to each one of these sites around the
world that would allow us to run a full-fledged

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worldwide simulation in real-time.

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We would put it on tape.

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Cut it up in sections.

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Send out a script of what the astronaut was
going to say and do.

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And play this six or eight minutes of a tape
as that's what they would see as the spacecraft

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appeared over their station.

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And when we said we've got to train a bunch
of doctors, an interesting story was we went

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down to the Veteran's Administration in Houston
and said we'd like to put some instruments

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that we were developing on people that are
sick here.

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And so, as they come in, various types of
diseases.

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And, fortunately, one day we had a guy instrumented
and he had a heart attack.

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We were able to record all of these things
that were going on in this gentleman, his

00:20:18.850 --> 00:20:25.760
temperature, his EKG, his breath rate, what
his blood pressure was and so on, and put

00:20:25.760 --> 00:20:27.850
all that on the tape.

00:20:27.850 --> 00:20:30.809
And we sent that out to the remote sites.

00:20:30.809 --> 00:20:37.260
And then at each of the sites, as this occurred,
had the doctors diagnose what was wrong with

00:20:37.260 --> 00:20:39.250
the astronaut.

00:20:39.250 --> 00:20:45.130
I don't believe in any one of the 17 stations
we had anybody diagnosed it as a heart attack.

00:20:45.130 --> 00:20:52.130
They all said he had an appendicitis or he
was having some kind of shock take place to

00:20:52.860 --> 00:20:56.500
him because he was frightened to death.

00:20:56.500 --> 00:20:58.320
Anything but a heart attack.

00:20:58.320 --> 00:21:05.320
So, that was sort of classical of the things
we did and improvised in order to get ourselves

00:21:07.340 --> 00:21:14.340
capable of running a worldwide operation which
allowed us to make decisions in real-time.

00:21:15.029 --> 00:21:20.390
Now, the other thing that we invented at that
time, I say invented, it just came about by

00:21:20.390 --> 00:21:22.830
evolution, was a book called Mission Rules.

00:21:22.830 --> 00:21:26.500
And that was probably the smartest thing we
ever did.

00:21:26.500 --> 00:21:32.500
As we began to look at the spacecraft systems,
we started asking questions.

00:21:32.500 --> 00:21:39.460
If this system is failing, what are the measurements
that we're going to have there?

00:21:39.460 --> 00:21:44.480
And, if it is failing and it isn't operating
at the right temperature or the right pressure

00:21:44.480 --> 00:21:49.350
and it is off nominal, what will the system
do?

00:21:49.350 --> 00:21:51.029
And how do we measure that on the ground?

00:21:51.029 --> 00:21:52.630
How do we detect it?

00:21:52.630 --> 00:21:58.350
Where is the instrument located on the system
because it might be effected by the position

00:21:58.350 --> 00:21:59.940
it is located in the spacecraft.

00:21:59.940 --> 00:22:00.580
It might be hot.

00:22:00.580 --> 00:22:01.539
It might be cold.

00:22:01.539 --> 00:22:06.419
It might be suffering different kinds of pressures
than it was measured on the ground.

00:22:06.419 --> 00:22:13.419
And, as we began to ask those questions of
the system engineer, the "system" engineer.

00:22:13.649 --> 00:22:19.130
Not "systems" engineers because I don't think
we had any at the time.

00:22:19.130 --> 00:22:22.370
And they would say why the hell do you want
to know that?

00:22:22.370 --> 00:22:25.360
The system is either working or it ain't working.

00:22:25.360 --> 00:22:30.409
And we said yes, that's a good answer except
that now we've got this system in space.

00:22:30.409 --> 00:22:34.120
And if we want to continue this flight and
not have a contingency operation, we would

00:22:34.120 --> 00:22:39.240
like to know how long the system is going
to last if it isn't operating under normal

00:22:39.240 --> 00:22:41.490
conditions.

00:22:41.490 --> 00:22:47.470
That prompted us then to start thinking about
how the system failed and what we were going

00:22:47.470 --> 00:22:50.250
to do about it.

00:22:50.250 --> 00:22:57.110
If the thermal system that kept the astronaut
from getting hot or getting too cold wasn't

00:22:57.110 --> 00:22:59.490
functioning properly, what could we do about
it?

00:22:59.490 --> 00:23:06.490
How long could he stand being at a temperature
of 85 degrees inside his space suit?

00:23:07.520 --> 00:23:12.390
And then that said well, if it stays there
and we can only go X number of minutes, what

00:23:12.390 --> 00:23:13.710
are we going to do about it?

00:23:13.710 --> 00:23:20.440
What is the rule of the game that says we
should re-enter or not re-enter or go to the

00:23:20.440 --> 00:23:23.789
next primary recovery area, et cetera?

00:23:23.789 --> 00:23:29.710
And it allowed us then to write down, for
every system, and the man what we would do

00:23:29.710 --> 00:23:31.669
under certain circumstances.

00:23:31.669 --> 00:23:33.820
Called those a set of mission rules.

00:23:33.820 --> 00:23:39.250
And that prompted us to develop a bunch of
malfunction criteria.

00:23:39.250 --> 00:23:42.679
What malfunction procedures are you going
to go through?

00:23:42.679 --> 00:23:47.260
And then that prompted us to ask the contractor
and the manufacturer of the systems.

00:23:47.260 --> 00:23:52.149
And that developed a whole new set of schematics
that they hadn't been used to.

00:23:52.149 --> 00:23:55.220
It cost us a lot of money to do that, and
they didn't want to do it.

00:23:55.220 --> 00:23:57.429
They didn't know why we wanted to do it.

00:23:57.429 --> 00:24:02.010
But as they began to see the mission rules
-- We got those out in front of them and said

00:24:02.010 --> 00:24:05.580
we're going to do this with your spacecraft
and your system.

00:24:05.580 --> 00:24:08.529
Then they began to realize they better start
thinking about those things.

00:24:08.529 --> 00:24:15.110
And that is what brought, in my mind, a group
of people together in "systems" engineering

00:24:15.110 --> 00:24:21.950
because you began to find out how the systems
reacted with each other.

00:24:21.950 --> 00:24:27.289
And that was a question that most engineers
didn't think about.

00:24:27.289 --> 00:24:33.240
If the thermal control system is not functioning
properly, what does it do to the reaction

00:24:33.240 --> 00:24:34.640
control system?

00:24:34.640 --> 00:24:41.529
Or, as we had on one of our first orbital
flights, the seats on the small thrusters

00:24:41.529 --> 00:24:45.730
they were using for attitude control were
not seating properly.

00:24:45.730 --> 00:24:47.260
And the experts said it is freezing.

00:24:47.260 --> 00:24:53.330
It is getting slush in the system and is causing
the valves to stay open and they're not getting

00:24:53.330 --> 00:24:54.679
the proper fluid to it.

00:24:54.679 --> 00:25:01.260
So we put a thermostat on the next spacecraft
and it wasn't freezing, it was getting hot

00:25:01.260 --> 00:25:06.059
because the feedback from the thruster was
getting on the lines and causing the seats

00:25:06.059 --> 00:25:06.620
to warp.

00:25:06.620 --> 00:25:12.039
And it was sitting there dribbling out and
causing the attitude to be sloppy and jump

00:25:12.039 --> 00:25:12.289
around.

00:25:12.220 --> 00:25:17.850
And, as a matter of fact, on one flight we
had to reenter early with the first chimpanzee

00:25:17.850 --> 00:25:22.779
flight because the machine was running out
of propellant.

00:25:22.779 --> 00:25:29.779
It began to have everybody start thinking
about how does my system fit with everybody

00:25:30.659 --> 00:25:31.649
else's system?

00:25:31.649 --> 00:25:36.529
How does that fit with the game plan that
we're trying to come up with?

00:25:36.529 --> 00:25:43.529
And, at the same time, the organization then
was able to look at all of these things that

00:25:47.929 --> 00:25:51.750
we said we were going to do and became a heck
of a management tool.

00:25:51.750 --> 00:25:58.750
I remember James Webb used to come down, the
Administrator of NASA at the time, and I would

00:25:59.399 --> 00:26:04.309
show him, in the Control Center, how we ran
an operation and how we made decisions.

00:26:04.309 --> 00:26:11.309
And he was absolutely livid about that because
he said that's what I want in Washington.

00:26:12.100 --> 00:26:15.919
I want to be able to have those kinds of things
put in front of me so I've got all these things

00:26:15.919 --> 00:26:17.240
so I can make a decision.

00:26:17.240 --> 00:26:18.750
I need you in Washington.

00:26:18.750 --> 00:26:23.990
I want you to come up here and tell me how
to build a system like that to do management.

00:26:23.990 --> 00:26:30.190
I must say that I have never been able to
do that, but he was very emphatic about wanting

00:26:30.190 --> 00:26:34.980
to do that.

00:26:34.980 --> 00:26:37.830
Jump to the conclusion of Mercury.

00:26:37.830 --> 00:26:40.309
I think we learned an awful lot form that
program.

00:26:40.309 --> 00:26:43.590
We learned that man could do a job.

00:26:43.590 --> 00:26:46.090
He could do it just as well at zero gravity.

00:26:46.090 --> 00:26:51.260
Particularly, in Mercury where he couldn't
move around and he didn't get sick, fortunately,

00:26:51.260 --> 00:26:54.580
as he did eventually in some of our spacecraft.

00:26:54.580 --> 00:27:01.130
But certainly man could do the job in space
as well up there as he could in a fighter

00:27:01.130 --> 00:27:05.470
airplane on the Earth.

00:27:05.470 --> 00:27:07.750
But it was child's play.

00:27:07.750 --> 00:27:10.169
Mercury was child's play.

00:27:10.169 --> 00:27:15.240
We put it up there, we fired the retrorockets
and it landed, and then we picked them up.

00:27:15.240 --> 00:27:19.149
A hell of a job at that time, but it was child's
play.

00:27:19.149 --> 00:27:21.029
And so Mr.

00:27:21.029 --> 00:27:28.029
Kennedy, in his great wisdom, in April of
1961, when he saw the reaction of it, we were

00:27:31.850 --> 00:27:38.850
all down in Sheppard's first flight, asked
NASA what can we do to ace the Russians?

00:27:42.320 --> 00:27:49.320
And NASA, in its great wisdom said well, probably
in about ten years we can go around the Moon.

00:27:49.630 --> 00:27:56.630
George Low and others at Washington had been
doing some work on a lunar spacecraft.

00:27:58.669 --> 00:28:05.179
And in the great wisdom of whoever made such
a decision, the president asked why can't

00:28:05.179 --> 00:28:08.120
you land on the Moon?

00:28:08.120 --> 00:28:15.120
Now, I want you to know that that was 1961
and Chris Kraft did not know how to determine

00:28:17.850 --> 00:28:23.450
orbital mechanics from 30 seconds of radar
at Cape Canaveral.

00:28:23.450 --> 00:28:30.450
And this man, in 1961, says we're going to
the Moon in this decade.

00:28:32.590 --> 00:28:36.220
And I thought he was a little daft.

00:28:36.220 --> 00:28:40.820
I must say, I thought he was a little daft.

00:28:40.820 --> 00:28:47.820
The second day I thought a little bit better
of it.

00:28:48.049 --> 00:28:55.049
And then about three months later, when he
came to make that famous speech in Rice Stadium,

00:28:59.139 --> 00:29:04.750
I was called back from Cape Canaveral to tell
him how we were going to go to the Moon.

00:29:04.750 --> 00:29:11.750
And, I am telling you, I did not know a damn
thing about how to go to the Moon.

00:29:13.139 --> 00:29:20.139
If you had said free return trajectory to
me, god, I'd a thought it was a pass to the

00:29:20.389 --> 00:29:24.860
Astro's baseball game.

00:29:24.860 --> 00:29:28.799
But here I was faced with the fact I've got
to stand up in front of the President of the

00:29:28.799 --> 00:29:34.750
United States in a room, much like this one,
only with about ten or 12 people in it and

00:29:34.750 --> 00:29:39.299
tell that gentleman how you're going to go
to the Moon.

00:29:39.299 --> 00:29:45.460
And that was a quick learn, I'm telling, a
really quick learn from people like these

00:29:45.460 --> 00:29:52.460
guys, John Mayer and Bill Tindall taught me
in a few hours how to do the orbital mechanics

00:29:53.460 --> 00:29:54.260
to go to the Moon.

00:29:54.260 --> 00:29:59.250
Not how to do it but what took place.

00:29:59.250 --> 00:30:00.519
Here we were at the end of Mercury.

00:30:00.519 --> 00:30:03.340
And we are going to then have to go to the
Moon.

00:30:03.340 --> 00:30:04.620
And how are we going to get there?

00:30:04.620 --> 00:30:05.740
And how are we going to train ourselves?

00:30:05.740 --> 00:30:08.059
What are the systems we need to do the job?

00:30:08.059 --> 00:30:09.850
What new control center do we need?

00:30:09.850 --> 00:30:12.799
What kind of operation do we need to think
about?

00:30:12.799 --> 00:30:15.429
What kind of trajectory analysis do we need?

00:30:15.429 --> 00:30:17.220
And what kind of computers do we need?

00:30:17.220 --> 00:30:19.649
And what kind of communications do we need?

00:30:19.649 --> 00:30:23.580
Suddenly, we've got a whole new set of problems.

00:30:23.580 --> 00:30:27.340
If we're going to do rendezvous at the Moon,
we've got to teach ourselves how to do rendezvous

00:30:27.340 --> 00:30:30.460
at the Earth.

00:30:30.460 --> 00:30:36.679
If we're going to send something around the
Moon, we better have a heck of a system to

00:30:36.679 --> 00:30:42.830
determine whether we are truly aiming at the
Moon or whether we're going to hit the Moon.

00:30:42.830 --> 00:30:48.159
And, in fact, on Apollo 8, I wasn't sure that
George Miller, who was the head of Manned

00:30:48.159 --> 00:30:55.080
Space Flight, was sure we weren't going to
hit the Moon when we told him that we wanted

00:30:55.080 --> 00:30:58.600
to do the trajectory as we were going to do
it when we landed.

00:30:58.600 --> 00:31:04.580
Then it ended up being 60 miles above the
lunar surface as you entered orbit around

00:31:04.580 --> 00:31:04.899
the Moon.

00:31:04.899 --> 00:31:11.899
And can you really tell me 270,000 miles away
whether the spacecraft is going to hit the

00:31:13.580 --> 00:31:19.970
Moon when you are ten hours away or is it
going to go around the Moon?

00:31:19.970 --> 00:31:21.919
So, we were faced with all those new problems.

00:31:21.919 --> 00:31:24.990
That is what got us to the Gemini program.

00:31:24.990 --> 00:31:30.039
We wanted to be able to build a spaceship
that would allow us to do maneuvering in orbit.

00:31:30.039 --> 00:31:36.580
That would allow us to stay up there 14 days,
which is how long the spacecraft flight to

00:31:36.580 --> 00:31:43.580
the Moon and back would be, that would allow
us to do reentry guidance using the L/D of

00:31:44.500 --> 00:31:51.500
a blunt body, enough to skip it out as you
came back to Earth and then go back up and

00:31:53.500 --> 00:31:58.690
then reenter at a much lower velocity so you
wouldn't burn up the spacecraft.

00:31:58.690 --> 00:32:03.299
Those are the kind of things we were suddenly
thinking about as we built the Gemini spacecraft.

00:32:03.299 --> 00:32:05.460
We needed an onboard computer.

00:32:05.460 --> 00:32:08.169
Unheard of in that time period.

00:32:08.169 --> 00:32:15.169
The Air Force had been putting some on airplanes
but never had we had on onboard a spacecraft.

00:32:15.559 --> 00:32:20.299
So Gemini was designed to be a maneuvering
capability in space to rendezvous and dock

00:32:20.299 --> 00:32:27.299
with a target, to determine the capability
of man to survive for 14 days, to do a heat

00:32:29.450 --> 00:32:35.690
shield which was much more flexible and reusable.

00:32:35.690 --> 00:32:37.889
And to build a maneuvering system.

00:32:37.889 --> 00:32:44.889
And, finally, to do guidance and control for
landing point and control and develop a footprint

00:32:46.169 --> 00:32:51.100
on the Earth for Gemini which is what we were
going to have to do on Apollo.

00:32:51.100 --> 00:32:54.000
Gemini was a very successful program.

00:32:54.000 --> 00:32:55.600
Without it we could never have gone to the
Moon.

00:32:55.600 --> 00:32:58.970
We learned how to operate in space, how to
maneuver in space.

00:32:58.970 --> 00:33:05.570
We learned how to do EVA, which was a total
disaster as we flew in Gemini.

00:33:05.570 --> 00:33:12.570
I don't think we even, by doing it five or
six times on the final flight of Gemini 12,

00:33:13.899 --> 00:33:20.130
Buzz Aldrin was able to do a reasonable job
in extra vehicular activity.

00:33:20.130 --> 00:33:23.919
We had to build a suit that was flexible to
be able to walk on the Moon.

00:33:23.919 --> 00:33:30.919
We had to build a backpack which was, in truth,
another spacecraft to do Apollo.

00:33:33.299 --> 00:33:40.299
We had to build a new control center because
we had a computer which we actually doubled

00:33:40.860 --> 00:33:46.210
the storage capacity on Mercury and then gave
it 64,000 words.

00:33:46.210 --> 00:33:52.830
Today, you have that in some kid's thing that
he carries on his airplane and one touch of

00:33:52.830 --> 00:33:53.899
his stroke.

00:33:53.899 --> 00:33:56.870
But 64,000 words was all that we had then.

00:33:56.870 --> 00:34:01.190
When we flew Gemini, we had a million words.

00:34:01.190 --> 00:34:07.000
When we flew Apollo, we had 5.5 million words,
so that computer complex was changing on us

00:34:07.000 --> 00:34:07.620
continuously.

00:34:07.620 --> 00:34:13.918
When we did Mercury, we used a grease pencil
to write down the numbers as they came back

00:34:13.918 --> 00:34:17.679
from Kano, Nigeria and 20 words of teletype.

00:34:17.679 --> 00:34:23.469
We had to build a new display system, a digital
display system with a computer.

00:34:23.469 --> 00:34:28.159
And the first digital display system was not
graphics at all.

00:34:28.159 --> 00:34:35.159
What we did was build a slide that was the
background for the display that you wanted.

00:34:37.589 --> 00:34:44.589
We had a set of 4.5 inch lantern slides, a
bank of 100 for each station in the Control

00:34:47.879 --> 00:34:50.899
Center, and then the computer filled in the
numbers.

00:34:50.899 --> 00:34:56.290
Now, that was in 1964, '65 and '66.

00:34:56.290 --> 00:35:01.510
It wasn't until we got to the latter stages
of Apollo that we had computer graphics.

00:35:01.510 --> 00:35:05.950
I don't know whether you can realize that
or not.

00:35:05.950 --> 00:35:11.839
Computer graphics today is, golly, you have
football games on computer graphics.

00:35:11.839 --> 00:35:17.030
But then we didn't have it so we had to redesign
a control center and continuously redesign

00:35:17.030 --> 00:35:17.690
a control center.

00:35:17.690 --> 00:35:22.230
We had to have a computer controlled communication
system.

00:35:22.230 --> 00:35:23.440
All of those things were built.

00:35:23.440 --> 00:35:30.440
We had to utilize and build in NASA the first
communication satellite from which came the

00:35:32.210 --> 00:35:37.680
revolution in the world, in my opinion.

00:35:37.680 --> 00:35:44.680
I want to go through Apollo and things like
translunar trajectories and free return trajectories

00:35:50.079 --> 00:35:56.540
and what might happen if you were off by a
few feet per second or a few tenths of a degree

00:35:56.540 --> 00:36:03.540
when you fired the orbital maneuvering system
of Apollo on the backside of the Moon, which

00:36:05.960 --> 00:36:11.280
is where you had to do it for optimum performance
characteristics.

00:36:11.280 --> 00:36:18.270
When the thing showed up as it came out on
view on the front side of the Moon, and it

00:36:18.270 --> 00:36:24.200
was not in the right trajectory, what the
hell are you going to do about it?

00:36:24.200 --> 00:36:24.810
Where is it going?

00:36:24.810 --> 00:36:27.859
Is it going around the sun?

00:36:27.859 --> 00:36:30.650
Is it coming back to Earth?

00:36:30.650 --> 00:36:33.060
Is it going to hit the Moon?

00:36:33.060 --> 00:36:40.060
And what am I going to do about it if it is
on one of those paths and my maneuvering engine,

00:36:40.460 --> 00:36:46.150
which has 10,000 pounds of thrust, is not
working or not working properly or it wasn't

00:36:46.150 --> 00:36:47.660
pointed in the right direction?

00:36:47.660 --> 00:36:54.660
You had to be prepared to think about those
problems and make a real-time decision as

00:36:55.359 --> 00:36:58.569
to what to do.

00:36:58.569 --> 00:37:02.750
I hope I am impressing you with that because
that is what you guys are faced with in going

00:37:02.750 --> 00:37:05.960
back to the Moon.

00:37:05.960 --> 00:37:09.880
It isn't just a simple problem of orbital
mechanics.

00:37:09.880 --> 00:37:16.170
It is a problem of what are you going to do
if it isn't correct, if it isn't on the right

00:37:16.170 --> 00:37:16.589
path?

00:37:16.589 --> 00:37:22.339
If the system isn't working properly can you
land?

00:37:22.339 --> 00:37:29.339
Those things have to be thought out and thought
out carefully before the fact, not in real-time.

00:37:31.020 --> 00:37:36.329
You can make all of the decisions in the compute
which you would have made after you had thought

00:37:36.329 --> 00:37:43.329
about it in real-time, but think of the orbital
mechanics problems associated with that in

00:37:46.950 --> 00:37:53.140
real-time and the background then of the math
and the thought processes that have to go

00:37:53.140 --> 00:37:56.720
into making those decisions.

00:37:56.720 --> 00:37:58.329
You're descending to the Moon.

00:37:58.329 --> 00:38:05.329
And as one of these gentlemen sitting here,
you start to do the descent to the Moon, and,

00:38:10.650 --> 00:38:17.339
low and behold, you bring up the system on
the LEM and the abort light is on.

00:38:17.339 --> 00:38:20.079
What the hell does that mean?

00:38:20.079 --> 00:38:27.079
Well, it means if you start the engine right
now it is going to start doing a rendezvous

00:38:27.950 --> 00:38:29.060
back with the command module.

00:38:29.060 --> 00:38:33.150
It is not going to land on the lunar surface.

00:38:33.150 --> 00:38:39.319
And I've got a computer program that is hardwired
to do that job with.

00:38:39.319 --> 00:38:44.540
I don't have the capability of reprogramming
it like you would have by just sending up

00:38:44.540 --> 00:38:46.660
a whole new set of software.

00:38:46.660 --> 00:38:48.900
How am I going to figure that damn thing out?

00:38:48.900 --> 00:38:55.900
I've got a thousand words of pad in this computer.

00:38:56.329 --> 00:39:03.329
Is it possible in real-time to obviate that
abort signal and still land on the Moon?

00:39:06.000 --> 00:39:08.690
And this gentlemen sitting over here figured
that out.

00:39:08.690 --> 00:39:15.690
He figured out how to tell the computer to
ignore that signal by going into the certain

00:39:17.290 --> 00:39:24.290
places in that hardwired software and saying
don't listen to the abort signal for a while.

00:39:25.680 --> 00:39:31.740
Don't listen to it, but if I need to listen
to it on the way down then listen to it.

00:39:31.740 --> 00:39:33.930
You've got to do that with a thousand words.

00:39:33.930 --> 00:39:40.930
That is a pretty tough problem in real-time,
one which nobody had thought about before

00:39:42.720 --> 00:39:44.069
until it happened.

00:39:44.069 --> 00:39:51.069
Or, as I said, this 25 year old young man
on Apollo 11 and the vehicle is descending

00:39:51.310 --> 00:39:57.890
to the Moon and he is getting all these signals
back that says the computer is overloaded

00:39:57.890 --> 00:40:02.849
and is doing so many tasks and stopping.

00:40:02.849 --> 00:40:03.910
Why is it doing that?

00:40:03.910 --> 00:40:08.980
We've done it on Apollo 10 when we started
down to the Moon and it worked fine, and we

00:40:08.980 --> 00:40:14.250
did a rendezvous from it, but we had the radar
on.

00:40:14.250 --> 00:40:17.200
And going down to the Moon, we didn't need
the radar on it.

00:40:17.200 --> 00:40:21.150
That radar was going into the computer, it
was flooding the computer with data, but these

00:40:21.150 --> 00:40:23.569
guys didn't know that.

00:40:23.569 --> 00:40:29.059
They had to figure out how to get around that
signal.

00:40:29.059 --> 00:40:35.150
If I sound like that is a big problem, it
is a big problem, and it is going to get bigger.

00:40:35.150 --> 00:40:40.650
With a spacecraft you're going to get more
complex with each passing day and you're going

00:40:40.650 --> 00:40:43.230
to have to figure out how to do that stuff
in real-time.

00:40:43.230 --> 00:40:49.369
And that is what you, the flight operations
people and the designers of tomorrow are going

00:40:49.369 --> 00:40:55.680
to be, and that is what you're going to be
faced with.

00:40:55.680 --> 00:41:02.680
I know you're working on the Space Shuttle
trying to make it better.

00:41:03.670 --> 00:41:10.670
That is what your task is in this class.

00:41:11.359 --> 00:41:18.359
We should have had you around for the last
25 years because it needs to be made better.

00:41:19.559 --> 00:41:26.559
And it is a travesty, I will use that word
again, that we haven't been making it better

00:41:29.309 --> 00:41:33.849
and making it less costly to fly.

00:41:33.849 --> 00:41:36.780
We should have been doing that.

00:41:36.780 --> 00:41:43.780
Let me start into the Space Shuttle a little.

00:41:45.460 --> 00:41:52.460
One of the questions that Jeff asked me that
these people will be interested in hearing

00:41:52.680 --> 00:41:59.680
is how did you decide to do it manned as opposed
to unmanned on the first flight?

00:42:07.309 --> 00:42:12.450
Sort of out of necessity I guess you would
say.

00:42:12.450 --> 00:42:19.329
The more we looked at the systems, the more
we looked at the Space Shuttle the more we

00:42:19.329 --> 00:42:26.329
realized that the man could furnish us a certain
amount of reliability in space operations

00:42:26.609 --> 00:42:27.960
and in space systems.

00:42:27.960 --> 00:42:33.710
And in choosing systems the more reliable
the machine would become.

00:42:33.710 --> 00:42:39.190
But we had to convince ourselves that that
was a rational thing to do.

00:42:39.190 --> 00:42:46.190
Now, let's go back and give you some thought
process about the Space Shuttle design.

00:42:48.369 --> 00:42:54.660
As we did the initial design, we wanted an
escape system.

00:42:54.660 --> 00:43:01.660
We wanted to build a pod into the cockpit
to allow the astronauts to escape if we had

00:43:05.500 --> 00:43:05.750
problems.

00:43:05.569 --> 00:43:11.079
And building the Space Shuttle main engine
was very difficult.

00:43:11.079 --> 00:43:14.980
Do these people know about sub-synchronous
whirl?

00:43:14.980 --> 00:43:19.780
They heard about it from J.R.

00:43:19.780 --> 00:43:24.069
We couldn't find any bearings in the world
that would withstand that load.

00:43:24.069 --> 00:43:24.859
They were failing.

00:43:24.859 --> 00:43:31.450
And you didn't know when they were going to
fail, so we built an automatic shutdown system

00:43:31.450 --> 00:43:35.819
into the engine.

00:43:35.819 --> 00:43:42.099
And Aaron and I were talking about that this
morning with Professor Cohen.

00:43:42.099 --> 00:43:46.550
That was well, we'll just figure out what
all the parameters are that tell you when

00:43:46.550 --> 00:43:51.480
the engine is malfunctioning and shut it down
because we don't want it to blow up.

00:43:51.480 --> 00:43:56.740
We are going to look at RPM of the pumps and
we're going to look at temperature in the

00:43:56.740 --> 00:44:01.660
prompts and we're going to look at the pressure
in the engine head and we're going to look

00:44:01.660 --> 00:44:05.280
at the fuel flow rates, et cetera.

00:44:05.280 --> 00:44:12.010
That sounds like we can do that, but how do
you know it is right?

00:44:12.010 --> 00:44:14.940
How do you know you're not shutting down a
good engine?

00:44:14.940 --> 00:44:21.940
And the point I am making there is that reliability
of the instrument becomes more important than

00:44:22.420 --> 00:44:25.230
the engine.

00:44:25.230 --> 00:44:26.579
Think about that.

00:44:26.579 --> 00:44:29.119
You can say I will have an automatic shutdown.

00:44:29.119 --> 00:44:34.579
I will have the automatic abort and get the
astronaut away, but somebody has got to make

00:44:34.579 --> 00:44:36.450
that decision.

00:44:36.450 --> 00:44:41.410
Nobody on the ground can do it fast enough
if the engine is going to blow up.

00:44:41.410 --> 00:44:42.750
The astronaut cannot do it.

00:44:42.750 --> 00:44:46.740
His reaction time is about 1.5 seconds, no
matter how much data you give them or how

00:44:46.740 --> 00:44:47.940
good the data is.

00:44:47.940 --> 00:44:51.150
So, it has got to be automatic.

00:44:51.150 --> 00:44:54.900
And that is a very difficult task for an engineer.

00:44:54.900 --> 00:45:01.900
He can make this system work but he cannot
tell you very rapidly when it is going to

00:45:04.050 --> 00:45:04.750
fail.

00:45:04.750 --> 00:45:11.750
And rocket engines have a bad, nasty habit
of going like that and it is gone.

00:45:12.720 --> 00:45:18.140
You've got to figure out when that is going
to happen, so designing instrumentation to

00:45:18.140 --> 00:45:19.720
do that.

00:45:19.720 --> 00:45:26.720
We then started thinking about that in application
to the Space Shuttle.

00:45:26.800 --> 00:45:33.800
And our experience with redundancy, reliability
numbers thinking about that we said we want

00:45:36.670 --> 00:45:43.670
a system in the Shuttle that is going to be
fail operational, fail safe.

00:45:44.760 --> 00:45:51.760
That is quad redundancy, so every critical
system has quad redundancy in the Space Shuttle.

00:45:56.819 --> 00:45:59.140
It sounds like a good idea, doesn't it?

00:45:59.140 --> 00:46:02.849
We will come back to that in a minute.

00:46:02.849 --> 00:46:09.849
We said we would like to have an escape pod
but the escape pod has got to have a stability

00:46:11.940 --> 00:46:13.109
and control system.

00:46:13.109 --> 00:46:17.550
It has got to have a control system because
it is going to be a spacecraft.

00:46:17.550 --> 00:46:19.300
When is it going to use the pod?

00:46:19.300 --> 00:46:26.300
Is the pod going to be used at 100 feet off
the pad, 100,000 feet off the pad, 500,000

00:46:28.660 --> 00:46:31.250
feet off the pad?

00:46:31.250 --> 00:46:37.230
And if this thing is descending from any one
of those altitudes, how are you going to control

00:46:37.230 --> 00:46:38.160
it?

00:46:38.160 --> 00:46:40.829
Very rapidly that is another spacecraft.

00:46:40.829 --> 00:46:46.609
It is probably a bigger job in building that
spacecraft than building the Space Shuttle

00:46:46.609 --> 00:46:47.309
itself.

00:46:47.309 --> 00:46:49.890
So you can see why we didn't do it.

00:46:49.890 --> 00:46:56.319
It is too tough, too big a job.

00:46:56.319 --> 00:47:00.809
We said we would like to have a go around
capability on this machine.

00:47:00.809 --> 00:47:07.809
It is going to have an L/D of about four to
five at best and the descent angle that you

00:47:11.609 --> 00:47:15.839
come down to land is 23 degrees.

00:47:15.839 --> 00:47:17.240
Let me tell you something.

00:47:17.240 --> 00:47:24.240
I have flown in a Gulfstream II on a 23 degree
descent trajectory and that is scary as hell.

00:47:26.030 --> 00:47:28.680
You're flying a brick.

00:47:28.680 --> 00:47:35.680
That machine is coming down like that and
you're hanging on your straps.

00:47:37.030 --> 00:47:38.780
We would like to be able to have a go-around
capability.

00:47:38.780 --> 00:47:42.059
OK, we'll put some jet engines on it.

00:47:42.059 --> 00:47:43.309
It has got to have fuel.

00:47:43.309 --> 00:47:44.380
It has got to have a tank.

00:47:44.380 --> 00:47:45.970
It has got to have lines on it.

00:47:45.970 --> 00:47:50.790
It has got to have a certain amount of redundancy
with it and a certain amount of power.

00:47:50.790 --> 00:47:56.470
It has got to be absorbed into the thermal
protection system and come out and extend.

00:47:56.470 --> 00:48:01.980
What I want to do is go around as I'm reentering
from space so I can go once around the runway

00:48:01.980 --> 00:48:04.230
and land.

00:48:04.230 --> 00:48:08.760
It didn't take us long to figure out if we
built that system we couldn't carry a damn

00:48:08.760 --> 00:48:12.250
pound into orbit.

00:48:12.250 --> 00:48:16.760
There went our payload.

00:48:16.760 --> 00:48:23.760
And we very rapidly started figuring out how
to do dead-stick landings and how to preserve

00:48:25.349 --> 00:48:32.349
the energy and how to get this machine lined
up on the runway at way high altitudes, et

00:48:33.089 --> 00:48:34.349
cetera.

00:48:34.349 --> 00:48:37.290
So we did away with the go-around capability.

00:48:37.290 --> 00:48:38.410
We've done away with the pod.

00:48:38.410 --> 00:48:40.849
We've done away with the go-around capability.

00:48:40.849 --> 00:48:44.660
Now we don't have an escape system.

00:48:44.660 --> 00:48:48.609
What is your escape system on the Shuttle?

00:48:48.609 --> 00:48:55.609
Well, on Mercury and Apollo the escape system
is a solid rocket.

00:48:57.500 --> 00:49:02.309
Solid rockets have close to 100% reliability
as you can get.

00:49:02.309 --> 00:49:05.819
Usually, if it lights it burns and it goes.

00:49:05.819 --> 00:49:10.190
God, we've got two solid rockets on the Shuttle.

00:49:10.190 --> 00:49:13.150
Why aren't they our escape system?

00:49:13.150 --> 00:49:20.150
Because, if we can get this thing to 200,000
feet, it will fly.

00:49:21.940 --> 00:49:27.579
We can return to the launch site and land
from 200,000 feet because you aren't very

00:49:27.579 --> 00:49:31.150
far down range at 200,000 feet.

00:49:31.150 --> 00:49:38.150
That is a good idea, a great idea, but the
rockets have to be 100% reliable.

00:49:38.190 --> 00:49:45.190
It wasn't 100% reliable in the Challenger
accident.

00:49:49.290 --> 00:49:56.290
Unfortunately, I cannot account for the fallacies
of man.

00:49:56.440 --> 00:50:01.609
And I will come back to that, if you want
me to talk about the Challenger accident.

00:50:01.609 --> 00:50:08.609
But we built solid rockets to have 100% reliability,
and they were our escape rocket.

00:50:10.740 --> 00:50:17.740
We've got quad redundancy, we've got engines
that will perform to the best of our ability

00:50:19.680 --> 00:50:26.680
and shut down if they are going to explode,
we've got solid rockets as an escape system,

00:50:27.430 --> 00:50:33.770
and we will teach the pilots, with the best
control system we can come up with, to land

00:50:33.770 --> 00:50:38.180
this machine dead-stick.

00:50:38.180 --> 00:50:42.089
Now we've got to convince ourselves and the
management that the best way to fly this thing

00:50:42.089 --> 00:50:48.030
is unmanned or manned on the first flight.

00:50:48.030 --> 00:50:49.799
And we looked at flying it unmanned.

00:50:49.799 --> 00:50:50.750
We could have done that.

00:50:50.750 --> 00:50:56.400
We could have put an automatic control system
in to take the place of man.

00:50:56.400 --> 00:51:03.400
And these pilots that tell you they do manual
control during reentry in the Shuttle, hogwash.

00:51:06.540 --> 00:51:09.780
Pure hogwash.

00:51:09.780 --> 00:51:15.049
The Shuttle will not fly without the automatic
control system.

00:51:15.049 --> 00:51:19.640
The pilots are flying the outer loop.

00:51:19.640 --> 00:51:20.950
I could fly it.

00:51:20.950 --> 00:51:23.480
I have flown it in the simulator.

00:51:23.480 --> 00:51:25.040
You know how I do it?

00:51:25.040 --> 00:51:29.319
I don't touch the damn thing.

00:51:29.319 --> 00:51:36.319
You set the damn end of the runway into the
computer, right down.

00:51:36.880 --> 00:51:42.210
And that's the way 95% of the airliners land
today, on automatic control.

00:51:42.210 --> 00:51:45.359
And, frankly, that is how the astronauts ought
to do it.

00:51:45.359 --> 00:51:47.520
They haven't done it yet.

00:51:47.520 --> 00:51:50.440
They keep telling me what are we going to
do if the system fails?

00:51:50.440 --> 00:51:55.410
And I say to them you better wind your damn
clock because if that system fails the thing

00:51:55.410 --> 00:51:56.089
is gone.

00:51:56.089 --> 00:52:01.349
It is an unstable machine.

00:52:01.349 --> 00:52:08.260
From mach 25 to touchdown it is an unstable
machine.

00:52:08.260 --> 00:52:11.900
If it diverges it is gone.

00:52:11.900 --> 00:52:18.900
If pilots tell you they are doing manual entry
on the Space Shuttle, I repeat that statement,

00:52:20.589 --> 00:52:21.549
hogwash.

00:52:21.549 --> 00:52:24.970
It cannot be done.

00:52:24.970 --> 00:52:31.970
Now, I can teach them, however, by building
a Gulfstream II into a space shuttle like

00:52:33.859 --> 00:52:34.140
vehicle.

00:52:34.140 --> 00:52:37.200
I can put the control system that they've
got in there.

00:52:37.200 --> 00:52:38.890
I can repeat that.

00:52:38.890 --> 00:52:40.450
I can make it come down.

00:52:40.450 --> 00:52:45.520
I can put reverse thrust, if you believe,
on both engines in a GII.

00:52:45.520 --> 00:52:50.930
And you're descending and you've got both
those damn engines back there going like that

00:52:50.930 --> 00:52:57.030
as it does its reverse thrust to match the
drag of the shuttle during entry.

00:52:57.030 --> 00:52:59.780
But I can teach them pretty well how to do
dead-stick landings.

00:52:59.780 --> 00:53:06.240
And so, I put all that together.

00:53:06.240 --> 00:53:13.240
And Professor Cohen and myself and a few others
go to Washington to convince the powers that

00:53:13.569 --> 00:53:19.869
be that we can fly this machine manned on
the first flight because it is the most reliable

00:53:19.869 --> 00:53:22.880
way to fly the machine.

00:53:22.880 --> 00:53:23.770
And we convince them.

00:53:23.770 --> 00:53:30.770
It took a little doing, a lot of fancy talking,
I guess, but that is what we decided to do.

00:53:30.950 --> 00:53:33.540
And I think it was a good decision.

00:53:33.540 --> 00:53:40.540
In retrospect, it was a lousy decision.

00:53:40.630 --> 00:53:41.780
Why?

00:53:41.780 --> 00:53:48.480
Because if we had had unmanned flying capability
on the orbiter and we had the Challenger accident,

00:53:48.480 --> 00:53:55.480
we could have flown it again the next day
with the unmanned control system and proved

00:54:01.089 --> 00:54:03.079
that it was OK.

00:54:03.079 --> 00:54:06.710
Well, we didn't have that capability.

00:54:06.710 --> 00:54:13.710
And, when you get into the politics of flying
men in space in this country, rational thinking

00:54:15.690 --> 00:54:19.559
does not carry the day.

00:54:19.559 --> 00:54:22.799
Political thinking carries the day, even in
NASA.

00:54:22.799 --> 00:54:29.400
You will find that out as young engineers
also, that you not only have to be an engineer,

00:54:29.400 --> 00:54:36.400
you do have to be somewhat of a politician
in order to sell your programs.

00:54:38.920 --> 00:54:45.920
We convinced ourselves that it was the best
thing to do at that time to fly man on the

00:54:48.349 --> 00:54:52.140
first flight.

00:54:52.140 --> 00:54:57.180
Because it is in my head and it comes out,
I want to say a little bit about the problems

00:54:57.180 --> 00:54:59.730
that they face today.

00:54:59.730 --> 00:55:06.730
Or the way in which they use the Space Shuttle
today is frankly not how we intended the machine

00:55:09.990 --> 00:55:12.230
to fly.

00:55:12.230 --> 00:55:16.020
We have quad redundancy.

00:55:16.020 --> 00:55:23.020
And the way NASA uses it makes it less reliable
than if we had just had a damn single string

00:55:25.510 --> 00:55:27.569
system.

00:55:27.569 --> 00:55:29.640
Why?

00:55:29.640 --> 00:55:34.900
Because they have to have all quad redundant
systems working at liftoff.

00:55:34.900 --> 00:55:40.569
So all four systems have to be operating at
liftoff.

00:55:40.569 --> 00:55:42.130
That is hard.

00:55:42.130 --> 00:55:45.789
It is hard enough to have one operating properly.

00:55:45.789 --> 00:55:51.650
Now you have to have all four in all the places
where you have quad redundancy.

00:55:51.650 --> 00:55:54.589
That isn't how we intended it to work.

00:55:54.589 --> 00:55:58.119
What we intended it to do was, you would get
to the pad and get ready to launch and one

00:55:58.119 --> 00:56:00.740
system fails, you would keep right on going.

00:56:00.740 --> 00:56:04.680
If you have two fail you keep right on going.

00:56:04.680 --> 00:56:11.680
That is the way we intended it to be because
we wanted it to be a reusable system with

00:56:13.039 --> 00:56:14.869
quick turnaround.

00:56:14.869 --> 00:56:21.369
Two weeks we want to be able to turn that
machine around.

00:56:21.369 --> 00:56:26.339
And you could do that today because they've
flown in 100 and something times.

00:56:26.339 --> 00:56:27.150
They know that machine.

00:56:27.150 --> 00:56:28.140
They know it well.

00:56:28.140 --> 00:56:29.640
They know how the systems perform.

00:56:29.640 --> 00:56:35.559
You can look at the telemetry when it lands
and say all three of the four were working

00:56:35.559 --> 00:56:36.859
and I've got a thing over here.

00:56:36.859 --> 00:56:38.579
I can fix that in ten minutes.

00:56:38.579 --> 00:56:40.349
I am ready to go.

00:56:40.349 --> 00:56:47.349
They put more time on the systems on the ground
than they do in flight testing the machine.

00:56:50.299 --> 00:56:53.450
Is that expensive?

00:56:53.450 --> 00:57:00.450
My God, that's the reason it cost $4 billion
a year to keep all those running standing

00:57:02.539 --> 00:57:07.420
Army at Cape Canaveral.

00:57:07.420 --> 00:57:14.049
If you're going to build redundancy in the
future, you guys, if you're going to put redundancy

00:57:14.049 --> 00:57:20.059
in this machine, don't tell them about it.

00:57:20.059 --> 00:57:22.660
Now, that may sound funny.

00:57:22.660 --> 00:57:27.140
But that is how your computer is designed.

00:57:27.140 --> 00:57:31.720
You don't have BITE in your computer anymore,
built-in test equipment.

00:57:31.720 --> 00:57:32.880
Do you know why?

00:57:32.880 --> 00:57:36.780
Because damn engineers kept using it.

00:57:36.780 --> 00:57:42.539
Now the computer builders build in the test
equipment but they don't tell you it is there.

00:57:42.539 --> 00:57:45.980
The redundancy works automatically.

00:57:45.980 --> 00:57:50.440
Probably got three or four in there just like
we do in the Shuttle, but your computer keeps

00:57:50.440 --> 00:57:50.690
working.

00:57:50.599 --> 00:57:56.260
It might be a little slower, sometimes it
can get you as mad as hell, but they don't

00:57:56.260 --> 00:57:57.619
tell you about it.

00:57:57.619 --> 00:58:01.859
My advice is don't tell the people about it
the next time.

00:58:01.859 --> 00:58:05.130
Don't tell the people at the Cape this thing
has quad redundancy.

00:58:05.130 --> 00:58:12.130
Now, that is probably somewhat foolishness
but I guaranty that if I had anything to do

00:58:12.260 --> 00:58:18.119
about it the next time, I might very well
do it that way because it is not the right

00:58:18.119 --> 00:58:20.720
way to think about this machine.

00:58:20.720 --> 00:58:27.720
The machine is a beautiful, wonderful piece
of hardware.

00:58:28.510 --> 00:58:35.510
The orbiter system, the most complex system
ever built by man to fly, I was talking to

00:58:39.140 --> 00:58:46.140
some coops a few days ago, I've said that
word 14 times, it has never had a failure.

00:58:48.770 --> 00:58:55.770
The orbiter has never had a failure that would
have prevented that machine from landing safely.

00:58:59.010 --> 00:59:06.010
NASA is now going to use, however, all of
the components that have failed.

00:59:07.690 --> 00:59:12.940
They are going to use the solid rocket.

00:59:12.940 --> 00:59:19.940
They are going to put a command-like service
module on top of it with an escape rocket

00:59:20.910 --> 00:59:22.510
and fly it.

00:59:22.510 --> 00:59:24.400
That system has failed.

00:59:24.400 --> 00:59:28.780
They are going to use the tank.

00:59:28.780 --> 00:59:35.780
Engineers, this day and time, cannot figure
out how to put insulation on the tank.

00:59:36.150 --> 00:59:37.450
Ridiculous.

00:59:37.450 --> 00:59:39.329
Not only ridiculous.

00:59:39.329 --> 00:59:40.660
Ludicrous.

00:59:40.660 --> 00:59:44.319
You mean to tell me there is not a design
engineer sitting in this room that cannot

00:59:44.319 --> 00:59:48.020
tell you how to keep the foam insulation on
that tank?

00:59:48.020 --> 00:59:50.160
Hell, my son could do it.

00:59:50.160 --> 00:59:57.160
In fact, my grandson could probably do it.

00:59:57.400 --> 01:00:04.400
The Space Shuttle main engines, now that is
a damn tough piece of hardware.

01:00:04.599 --> 01:00:05.369
That is what we're going to use.

01:00:05.369 --> 01:00:12.369
That is what we're going to put in orbit and
use as a propulsion system to send you to

01:00:13.510 --> 01:00:14.119
the Moon.

01:00:14.119 --> 01:00:18.650
Now they say we're going to make some changes
to it and make it better.

01:00:18.650 --> 01:00:25.650
I will probably be dead and gone, but I would
like to see it.

01:00:27.660 --> 01:00:31.329
That thing is designed right up to the teeth.

01:00:31.329 --> 01:00:38.329
The maximum power you can get out of hydrogen
and oxygen has an ISP of about 460, and the

01:00:38.619 --> 01:00:40.349
engine on the Shuttle is 458.

01:00:40.349 --> 01:00:47.349
I don't know how you could get much more efficient
than that, but that really is a tough engine.

01:00:48.039 --> 01:00:51.369
You're continuously changing components on
it.

01:00:51.369 --> 01:00:53.920
But those are the three components.

01:00:53.920 --> 01:01:00.760
NASA says I am going to use those to go to
the Moon, but I will throw the orbiter away.

01:01:00.760 --> 01:01:04.420
Never had a failure on the orbiter.

01:01:04.420 --> 01:01:11.420
We talked a little bit about RTLS, return
to launch site.

01:01:13.299 --> 01:01:17.520
That sounds like something easy to do, but
think about the software involved in that

01:01:17.520 --> 01:01:24.520
little dude in figuring out how to do it,
how to take that machine back to land at Cape

01:01:27.069 --> 01:01:29.250
Canaveral if you do have an abort.

01:01:29.250 --> 01:01:31.049
Think about the software involved in that.

01:01:31.049 --> 01:01:32.640
Think about the possibilities.

01:01:32.640 --> 01:01:34.950
Think about the cutoff conditions.

01:01:34.950 --> 01:01:41.950
Think about the mach number range you're going
to have to fly.

01:01:42.760 --> 01:01:49.760
Return to launch site was part of our philosophy
of not having an escape system per se on the

01:01:52.280 --> 01:01:56.549
Shuttle.

01:01:56.549 --> 01:02:01.750
I know we have some navigation and guidance
people in this audience.

01:02:01.750 --> 01:02:04.309
How then did we decide?

01:02:04.309 --> 01:02:08.609
Jeff asked me to fly the first time.

01:02:08.609 --> 01:02:14.299
That was tough, very difficult.

01:02:14.299 --> 01:02:19.940
We had some of the best experts in the world
come review what we were doing and look at

01:02:19.940 --> 01:02:22.029
all the systems.

01:02:22.029 --> 01:02:28.349
The one thing, two things, really, that they
had the most trouble with in making sure we

01:02:28.349 --> 01:02:31.849
knew what we were doing.

01:02:31.849 --> 01:02:34.960
First was the thermal protection system.

01:02:34.960 --> 01:02:41.960
And we never really convinced the experts
that we did have a thermal protection system

01:02:42.480 --> 01:02:43.690
that would work.

01:02:43.690 --> 01:02:50.690
As a matter of fact, the man who invented
lunar orbit rendezvous, he didn't invent it

01:02:52.210 --> 01:02:57.920
but he sold the day in using lunar orbit rendezvous.

01:02:57.920 --> 01:03:04.920
And the chief structures engineer in the United
States, that is probably a stretch but one

01:03:05.980 --> 01:03:12.980
of them at Stanford wrote me a cosigned letter
on T minus one month after we had reviewed

01:03:17.079 --> 01:03:19.809
this system, we had done everything they asked
us to do.

01:03:19.809 --> 01:03:25.859
We ran combined loads test, we ran worst loads
test, we ran combined worst loads test to

01:03:25.859 --> 01:03:29.750
prove to ourselves that the thermal protection
system wouldn't fail.

01:03:29.750 --> 01:03:32.490
I got this letter at T minus one month.

01:03:32.490 --> 01:03:36.038
It is now in my effects at Virginia Tech.

01:03:36.038 --> 01:03:41.520
As a matter of fact, Virginia Tech said are
you sure you want this letter in your files?

01:03:41.520 --> 01:03:44.619
I said oh, yes, I want that letter in my files.

01:03:44.619 --> 01:03:48.160
It is probably the most important letter you
will ever have in my files.

01:03:48.160 --> 01:03:55.160
But these two gentlemen said we implore you
not to fly the orbiter because the tiles are

01:04:02.380 --> 01:04:03.369
going to come off.

01:04:03.369 --> 01:04:10.369
It may not come off while you're at the max
heating pulse, but by the time you get ready

01:04:11.119 --> 01:04:17.559
to land NASA is going to be totally embarrassed
because all the tiles are going to fall off.

01:04:17.559 --> 01:04:24.559
And we would ask you to put a steel net around
this vehicle so that they won't fall off.

01:04:31.750 --> 01:04:37.309
I am still aghast at that letter because I
don't know what else we could have done to

01:04:37.309 --> 01:04:40.599
satisfy them that we had done everything they
asked us.

01:04:40.599 --> 01:04:47.109
They were concerned that the strain isolation
pad, which is what the tile sits on, and you've

01:04:47.109 --> 01:04:52.890
had that explanation, they were concerned
that the combined vibrations and aerodynamic

01:04:52.890 --> 01:04:59.890
loads would cause a failure in the SIP or
at least at the glue joint.

01:05:00.220 --> 01:05:04.329
And that, indeed, all the major tiles that
had gone through the large heat pulse would

01:05:04.329 --> 01:05:06.710
fall off.

01:05:06.710 --> 01:05:13.710
Professor Cohen and I met them on the Queen
Mary at an AIEE meeting after the first flight

01:05:22.950 --> 01:05:23.839
had taken space.

01:05:23.839 --> 01:05:25.038
It was satisfactory.

01:05:25.038 --> 01:05:26.829
It flew well.

01:05:26.829 --> 01:05:29.319
It flew beautifully.

01:05:29.319 --> 01:05:34.130
Those two gentlemen came running out and asked
Aaron if we could come and sit down and have

01:05:34.130 --> 01:05:38.049
a drink with them.

01:05:38.049 --> 01:05:45.049
And we said hell, no, and walked away from
them.

01:05:45.130 --> 01:05:52.130
That is what I thought of that letter.

01:05:52.730 --> 01:05:58.069
Say that again.

01:05:58.069 --> 01:05:58.549
We didn't get the last part.

01:05:58.549 --> 01:06:02.470
Now, the other thing I want to talk about
is the control system of the Shuttle.

01:06:02.470 --> 01:06:09.210
We had several gentlemen [NOISE OBSCURES]
and said we are infinitely smarter today.

01:06:09.210 --> 01:06:10.859
Yes, I did.

01:06:10.859 --> 01:06:17.859
The public affairs officer said we need a
comment from you, after the machine had landed,

01:06:19.029 --> 01:06:21.520
on what you think of this flight.

01:06:21.520 --> 01:06:27.210
I said we have just become infinitely smarter.

01:06:27.210 --> 01:06:32.049
Not so much about the tile were we infinitely
smarter but the story I'm about to tell.

01:06:32.049 --> 01:06:39.049
The automatic control system, in terms of
the aerodynamic parameters that it has to

01:06:41.170 --> 01:06:48.170
deal with, there are roughly 35 variables
in the aerodynamics of the machine all the

01:06:50.569 --> 01:06:53.970
way from products of inertia to cnBeta.

01:06:53.970 --> 01:07:00.890
Does everybody know cnBeta?

01:07:00.890 --> 01:07:07.890
CnBeta is the capability of the rudder to
stabilize the machine, the yawing moment due

01:07:12.279 --> 01:07:14.900
to side slip.

01:07:14.900 --> 01:07:20.900
And I still do remember a little bit of my
aerodynamics.

01:07:20.900 --> 01:07:27.900
Anyway, there are no facilities in the world
to measure those 35 parameters, very accurately

01:07:33.809 --> 01:07:40.809
anyway, that would tell you what to design
the automatic control system to.

01:07:43.460 --> 01:07:50.460
It is not so difficult at high mach numbers
above, say, ten.

01:07:51.400 --> 01:07:56.970
You can use, what do you call it, Newtonian
flow?

01:07:56.970 --> 01:08:00.680
And, as you well know, you use the aerodynamic
controls when you can.

01:08:00.680 --> 01:08:07.680
You use the thrusters when you can, and you
combine the two as you transfer from one to

01:08:08.059 --> 01:08:11.250
the other in the range of flight regimes.

01:08:11.250 --> 01:08:17.170
But, actually, it is a guess.

01:08:17.170 --> 01:08:24.170
We looked at all of the possibilities that
had been done on the X-15, had been done on

01:08:24.729 --> 01:08:29.290
the Dyna-Soar program, had been done in wind
tunnel tests of almost every configuration

01:08:29.290 --> 01:08:32.190
for hypersonic flow.

01:08:32.190 --> 01:08:37.630
And you just couldn't nail down what those
35 parameters were.

01:08:37.630 --> 01:08:44.630
What we did was said here is what we think
it is, here is a variation on top of that,

01:08:45.940 --> 01:08:52.940
and here is a deviation on top of that and
here are those 35 parameters throughout the

01:08:53.279 --> 01:08:55.500
total mach range.

01:08:55.500 --> 01:09:02.500
And we are going to do a Monte Carlo analysis
at every tenth of a mach number from 25 to

01:09:07.640 --> 01:09:11.090
touchdown and have no failures.

01:09:11.090 --> 01:09:17.990
And, if we have a failure, we have to change
the gains and go back and run it again.

01:09:17.990 --> 01:09:20.870
I don't know about you.

01:09:20.870 --> 01:09:26.220
That sure convinced me that that machine would
fly.

01:09:26.220 --> 01:09:30.830
But I still said we just became infinitely
smarter.

01:09:30.830 --> 01:09:37.830
I said, before we flew, we certainly have
to change the gains because there will be

01:09:39.040 --> 01:09:46.040
regions where the machine is oscillatory coming
down and might frighten somebody, even if

01:09:47.220 --> 01:09:49.910
it were going to damp.

01:09:49.910 --> 01:09:51.350
That was post-flight.

01:09:51.350 --> 01:09:55.240
I said I don't ever want to change the gains.

01:09:55.240 --> 01:09:59.130
The damn thing worked.

01:09:59.130 --> 01:10:06.130
So, those two problems were the fundamentally
hardest problems to be able to test and assure

01:10:06.740 --> 01:10:09.540
yourself that you were ready to fly.

01:10:09.540 --> 01:10:15.170
But, in the end, how did we decide to fly?

01:10:15.170 --> 01:10:21.790
Frankly, I didn't know what else to do.

01:10:21.790 --> 01:10:28.500
In my mind, Professor Cohen's mind, John Yardley's
mind who was head of Manned Space Flight,

01:10:28.500 --> 01:10:34.210
these gentlemen sitting in front of me that
worked on the automatic control system, we

01:10:34.210 --> 01:10:34.820
didn't know what else to do.

01:10:34.820 --> 01:10:38.000
We had done everything we could think of.

01:10:38.000 --> 01:10:41.520
We suspected that there were some unknown
unknowns.

01:10:41.520 --> 01:10:47.120
A good old NASA term, "unknown unknowns".

01:10:47.120 --> 01:10:49.120
But we didn't know what they were.

01:10:49.120 --> 01:10:56.120
We didn't know how to test it so we've got
to go light the torch and do it.

01:10:56.580 --> 01:11:03.580
I don't think it took a lot of guts or nerve.

01:11:12.940 --> 01:11:19.940
71:00 And

01:11:34.920 --> 01:11:40.600
the responsibility of the program because
it may very well be something that just causes

01:11:40.600 --> 01:11:45.270
the Space Program to collapse in the United
States.

01:11:45.270 --> 01:11:48.970
And that is a tough task.

01:11:48.970 --> 01:11:50.960
You don't learn that overnight.

01:11:50.960 --> 01:11:54.420
You just sort of have to learn to live with
it.

01:11:54.420 --> 01:11:59.020
And, frankly, you have to like it.

01:11:59.020 --> 01:12:02.930
You have to like being in that position.

01:12:02.930 --> 01:12:09.930
I had one of my flight directors who became
very much affected by it mentally.

01:12:16.170 --> 01:12:20.630
So affected that he quit and went and became
a psychiatrist.

01:12:20.630 --> 01:12:27.630
Did not ever perform as a psychiatrist but
got his degree in psychiatry.

01:12:29.220 --> 01:12:35.540
Phil Shaffer, if you know him, one of my very
closest friends.

01:12:35.540 --> 01:12:42.540
He is now making me kind of rich because we
own a lot of oil wells in Oklahoma together.

01:12:45.120 --> 01:12:51.340
It is a tough job but it is a marvelous job.

01:12:51.340 --> 01:12:58.040
There is nothing I can think of, including
pitching in the World Series or winning the

01:12:58.040 --> 01:13:05.040
US Open that comes close to being in this
business.

01:13:06.900 --> 01:13:13.900
Every day is a challenge, every day is hell
and everyday is the best feeling you've ever

01:13:16.700 --> 01:13:18.710
had in your life.

01:13:18.710 --> 01:13:22.370
That is how you feel every day.

01:13:22.370 --> 01:13:28.230
You go through those transients almost every
day.

01:13:28.230 --> 01:13:31.480
I highly recommend it to you.

01:13:31.480 --> 01:13:37.370
I don't think you can get rich until you retire
and become a board member like some of us

01:13:37.370 --> 01:13:44.370
have, but before that you're not going to
get rich but you're going to be happy every

01:13:44.980 --> 01:13:45.410
day.

01:13:45.410 --> 01:13:49.380
And you are going to feel like you contributed
every day.

01:13:49.380 --> 01:13:54.700
And I don't know, at least in our business,
anything better than that.

01:13:54.700 --> 01:14:00.160
And these gentlemen all sitting here in front
of me will attest to that.

01:14:00.160 --> 01:14:03.320
It is a great life.

01:14:03.320 --> 01:14:10.320
With that I will stop and take your questions.

01:14:12.380 --> 01:14:19.380
[APPLAUSE] Chris, well, I'll start off.

01:14:23.760 --> 01:14:26.590
Aaron, can you stand up?

01:14:26.590 --> 01:14:26.890
Yes.

01:14:26.890 --> 01:14:33.890
What would be the systems that you would think
could use most improvement on the Shuttle

01:14:34.559 --> 01:14:36.470
today?

01:14:36.470 --> 01:14:43.470
With today's technology and then as you see
things, what would be the systems that you

01:14:52.440 --> 01:14:59.440
think could use the most improvement in terms
of performance margin?

01:15:06.010 --> 01:15:13.010
Well, again my first answer would be political.

01:15:14.750 --> 01:15:21.580
I would approve the thermal protection system.

01:15:21.580 --> 01:15:28.200
I don't think it has to be improved very much,
but it would sure get a lot of people off

01:15:28.200 --> 01:15:32.160
our backs if we improved the thermal protection
system.

01:15:32.160 --> 01:15:35.059
And there are ways of doing that today.

01:15:35.059 --> 01:15:42.059
There are some advancements in the state-of-the-art
of the materials probably in the way you attach

01:15:42.750 --> 01:15:47.490
to the plow to the machine, probably the way
you proof test it.

01:15:47.490 --> 01:15:52.059
All of those things, I think, would be where
I would go first.

01:15:52.059 --> 01:15:57.390
I would put an electric system in secondly.

01:15:57.390 --> 01:16:00.360
What about hydraulics?

01:16:00.360 --> 01:16:07.360
And get rid of the hydraulics because I think
that is a maintenance problem.

01:16:08.710 --> 01:16:13.120
And I think that the APUs are always going
to be a problem because that is something

01:16:13.120 --> 01:16:20.120
that is turning up at 400,000 RPM, a rotor
that is about that big turning up 400,000

01:16:20.170 --> 01:16:20.870
RPM.

01:16:20.870 --> 01:16:27.420
And, because at 400,000 RPM, actually, instead
of being this diameter is now an eight to

01:16:27.420 --> 01:16:33.460
a quarter of an inch bigger because the metal
is stretching under those conditions.

01:16:33.460 --> 01:16:36.750
The valves we've had trouble with, as you
well know.

01:16:36.750 --> 01:16:40.920
The material where this thing is pulsing.

01:16:40.920 --> 01:16:44.940
And these are nothing new.

01:16:44.940 --> 01:16:49.940
There are designs, there are electric motors,
there are power systems that would do it much

01:16:49.940 --> 01:16:56.940
better than a hydraulic system.

01:16:57.340 --> 01:17:00.620
Those two systems, I think, are primary.

01:17:00.620 --> 01:17:04.640
Now, the other thing is you have to keep up
with the state-of-the-art.

01:17:04.640 --> 01:17:10.580
And one of the biggest problems you have with
the Shuttle today is nobody builds the parts

01:17:10.580 --> 01:17:11.550
anymore.

01:17:11.550 --> 01:17:15.220
You go to the manufacturers and they say oh,
we stopped building that system ten years

01:17:15.220 --> 01:17:16.870
ago.

01:17:16.870 --> 01:17:20.809
All the circuit boards and everything is passé.

01:17:20.809 --> 01:17:23.530
And that sounds like, well, we'll just change
the circuit boards.

01:17:23.530 --> 01:17:29.000
Well, that is a tough problem because the
process specs have got to be looked at.

01:17:29.000 --> 01:17:35.940
The sneak circuitry, the sneak paths have
got to be looked at because that was the thing

01:17:35.940 --> 01:17:42.809
that always got to us in space flight, everything
works fine and then some day somebody turned

01:17:42.809 --> 01:17:47.790
something off and the thing glitches and it
fired the retrorocket or something like that.

01:17:47.790 --> 01:17:54.790
And so you have to be sure that when you do
redesign the circuitry into the modern world

01:17:55.150 --> 01:17:59.710
that it is properly done.

01:17:59.710 --> 01:18:03.550
A lot of things you don't need on Space Shuttle
probably, you don't need the backup flight

01:18:03.550 --> 01:18:09.140
control system which costs a lot of money.

01:18:09.140 --> 01:18:16.140
And then I think the biggest thing I would
do is force the system to use automated checkout.

01:18:16.200 --> 01:18:20.240
That is where all the money is, I think.

01:18:20.240 --> 01:18:27.240
And maintaining the machine, nobody is willing
to use automatic checkout.

01:18:27.870 --> 01:18:34.870
It is there and you can do it very easily
but the people at Cape Canaveral, they need

01:18:37.640 --> 01:18:40.270
to be flight controllers.

01:18:40.270 --> 01:18:47.270
What I mean by that is the people at Cape
Canaveral who prepare and maintain the machine

01:18:47.309 --> 01:18:54.309
have a totally different approach to the space
machine than the flight controllers do.

01:18:54.350 --> 01:18:58.230
The people at the Cape want it to be perfect
when it is launched.

01:18:58.230 --> 01:19:03.510
And so, when they do the checkout and it doesn't
work right, they go plug a new board in or

01:19:03.510 --> 01:19:07.200
they go put a new system in or change out
the fuel cell.

01:19:07.200 --> 01:19:09.930
A flight controller does not have that prerogative.

01:19:09.930 --> 01:19:16.930
He has got to figure out how do I live with
what I've got and make the best of it?

01:19:17.100 --> 01:19:18.280
I think that is the best attitude.

01:19:18.280 --> 01:19:23.520
And they need more of that in the maintenance
side.

01:19:23.520 --> 01:19:28.100
I think that is where the biggest savings
and the biggest improvement could be made

01:19:28.100 --> 01:19:30.250
in the Space Shuttle.

01:19:30.250 --> 01:19:35.620
The other thing I think about is the engine,
SSME.

01:19:35.620 --> 01:19:42.620
I think if you derated the SSME that the turnaround
time on the engine and the reliability of

01:19:43.890 --> 01:19:48.890
the engine would go up significantly.

01:19:48.890 --> 01:19:55.450
If you derated the engine, i.e., instead of
asking it to put out 108% every time you go

01:19:55.450 --> 01:19:58.970
to the Space Station because you're going
up to the higher inclinations.

01:19:58.970 --> 01:20:05.970
You just put a bigger head in it or whatever
it takes to derate the engine.

01:20:07.720 --> 01:20:09.170
Make it run at 95% power.

01:20:09.170 --> 01:20:16.170
Gee whiz, the thing would last forever if
you did that.

01:20:23.980 --> 01:20:29.809
Chris, you mentioned in your talk about going
back to the Moon.

01:20:29.809 --> 01:20:34.540
And I was going to ask you a couple of parts
of the question.

01:20:34.540 --> 01:20:35.940
One is what for?

01:20:35.940 --> 01:20:42.780
Two is it to go to the Moon or is it set in
stone to do something else?

01:20:42.780 --> 01:20:49.240
And then perhaps you could comment on what
your prediction is for the Space Program for

01:20:49.240 --> 01:20:51.490
the US in the future.

01:20:51.490 --> 01:20:54.640
You're going to get graded on it.

01:20:54.640 --> 01:20:59.430
Why go back to the Moon?

01:20:59.430 --> 01:21:06.430
Well, I think that there are enough resources
on the Moon to make it economically viable,

01:21:12.420 --> 01:21:14.080
number one.

01:21:14.080 --> 01:21:21.080
Number two, I think you could develop enough
electrical power on the Moon to provide enough

01:21:28.280 --> 01:21:32.350
power for the people that were going to live
there and be stationed there permanently.

01:21:32.350 --> 01:21:36.050
And you would do it on the backside, by the
way, not on the front side.

01:21:36.050 --> 01:21:40.820
That is where you would want your permanent
base on the Moon to be on the backside because

01:21:40.820 --> 01:21:44.750
it would be shielded from all the electronic
signals from the Earth.

01:21:44.750 --> 01:21:49.880
It is the best place in the world to look
at the rest of the universe.

01:21:49.880 --> 01:21:55.170
I would build my space base on the backside
of the Moon.

01:21:55.170 --> 01:22:02.170
And then I believe there are possibilities,
although it is not technically sound yet.

01:22:02.470 --> 01:22:09.470
But I believe there are possibilities of providing
enough electrical power to the Earth from

01:22:11.080 --> 01:22:16.059
the Moon that you could shutdown every power
plant on the Earth.

01:22:16.059 --> 01:22:20.070
You get that much electrical energy from the
Moon.

01:22:20.070 --> 01:22:26.000
And that would certainly offload the power
requirements on the Earth which are almost

01:22:26.000 --> 01:22:26.250
logarithmic, aren't they?

01:22:26.160 --> 01:22:33.160
China is going to end up using more electrical
power than we do shortly, so we need electrical

01:22:36.020 --> 01:22:36.430
power.

01:22:36.430 --> 01:22:38.660
And I think you could get that from the Moon.

01:22:38.660 --> 01:22:45.660
Plus, I think that the geophysicists and the
geologists, astrophysicists all can give you

01:22:49.620 --> 01:22:56.620
a thousand reasons why you should go back
to the Moon because of what Professor Yuri

01:23:01.970 --> 01:23:03.320
said.

01:23:03.320 --> 01:23:07.400
It is the Rosetta Stone of the universe.

01:23:07.400 --> 01:23:14.160
There is more to be known from the Moon about
the Earth than you can ever get out of the

01:23:14.160 --> 01:23:15.940
Earth.

01:23:15.940 --> 01:23:19.900
It is still very useful to go back there from
a scientific point of view.

01:23:19.900 --> 01:23:26.480
Plus, the engineering and economics of it.

01:23:26.480 --> 01:23:33.480
I didn't say it because I wasn't sure you
wanted to have such a discussion.

01:23:33.490 --> 01:23:35.260
But I will.

01:23:35.260 --> 01:23:40.790
I think it is a travesty that we aren't doing
it with the Space Shuttle and the Space Station

01:23:40.790 --> 01:23:46.130
to go back to the Moon or to go to Mars.

01:23:46.130 --> 01:23:47.600
Why do I think that?

01:23:47.600 --> 01:23:53.890
Because, in either case, I don't understand
why you would want to build an Earth entering

01:23:53.890 --> 01:23:57.090
vehicle to go to the Moon.

01:23:57.090 --> 01:24:02.590
What you want is an interplanetary spacecraft.

01:24:02.590 --> 01:24:05.180
Why does it have to have a heat shield?

01:24:05.180 --> 01:24:09.580
Why does it have to have parachutes or some
kind of landing capability?

01:24:09.580 --> 01:24:13.770
Why not just go to and from Earth orbit?

01:24:13.770 --> 01:24:20.770
And the Space Shuttle is the greatest machine
for carrying things too and from orbit that

01:24:21.290 --> 01:24:22.760
has ever been thought of.

01:24:22.760 --> 01:24:28.350
And the one they are going to build, even
if it's an unmanned vehicle, is still going

01:24:28.350 --> 01:24:31.950
to have an awful lot of complexity to it.

01:24:31.950 --> 01:24:36.790
And I think that if you've made the Space
Shuttle economically viable, which nobody

01:24:36.790 --> 01:24:37.910
thinks you can.

01:24:37.910 --> 01:24:40.550
And maybe Chris Kraft is the only one that
thinks you can.

01:24:40.550 --> 01:24:43.730
If that is true then that is true.

01:24:43.730 --> 01:24:44.680
I don't think that way.

01:24:44.680 --> 01:24:51.680
I think the Space Shuttle is an economically
viable machine, and so it is a travesty to

01:24:53.520 --> 01:24:55.120
me to throw it away.

01:24:55.120 --> 01:25:00.390
And the Space Station could be used as the
place where you assemble all this stuff.

01:25:00.390 --> 01:25:02.900
And everybody says well, it's at the wrong
inclination.

01:25:02.900 --> 01:25:04.700
Yes, it is at the wrong inclination.

01:25:04.700 --> 01:25:11.700
You were foolish to put it there in the first
place, but that is where it is.

01:25:12.330 --> 01:25:18.790
Every time I had a little bit of fuel left
over, I'd inch it down a little bit, and the

01:25:18.790 --> 01:25:22.580
first thing you know we'd be down to 28.5
degrees [NOISE OBSCURES].

01:25:22.580 --> 01:25:28.790
Today it costs you 15,000 pounds of payload
to go to the Space Station, and that is a

01:25:28.790 --> 01:25:30.600
travesty, too.

01:25:30.600 --> 01:25:33.830
You wouldn't want to do that continuously.

01:25:33.830 --> 01:25:38.930
I would use the Space Station as my assembly
point and I would use the Space Shuttle as

01:25:38.930 --> 01:25:40.250
the machine to go there.

01:25:40.250 --> 01:25:47.250
And then I would build myself a bunch of interplanetary
spacecraft to go to and from the Moon and

01:25:48.430 --> 01:25:48.900
Mars.

01:25:48.900 --> 01:25:55.900
And when I did that I would be smart enough
to build all these newfangled structures,

01:25:56.100 --> 01:26:00.070
inflatable structures, et cetera, which you
could use not only as the interplanetary spacecraft.

01:26:00.070 --> 01:26:05.260
You would use that where you would live on
the Moon.

01:26:05.260 --> 01:26:11.740
I think it has a better approach from an engineering
point of view.

01:26:11.740 --> 01:26:17.620
Whether that is the political way to sell
the program, Mr.

01:26:17.620 --> 01:26:18.520
Griffin has got to do that.

01:26:18.520 --> 01:26:20.470
I mean that is what his job is.

01:26:20.470 --> 01:26:23.850
Fortunately, it is not mine.

01:26:23.850 --> 01:26:30.390
I was asked to be the Deputy Administrator
and the Administrator of NASA several times.

01:26:30.390 --> 01:26:34.380
And you can hear the way I talk here that
I would have lasted about six days to six

01:26:34.380 --> 01:26:38.640
months.

01:26:38.640 --> 01:26:44.470
What do I think about the possibilities of
today's plans?

01:26:44.470 --> 01:26:51.470
I hate to say this but I think it is going
to fail.

01:26:52.160 --> 01:26:55.520
I don't think it will work.

01:26:55.520 --> 01:27:02.520
I don't think that the program as stipulated
today is the way to do it.

01:27:06.020 --> 01:27:13.020
And I don't think that political climate is
such that the budgetary support will be provided.

01:27:14.570 --> 01:27:16.180
And I hope I am wrong.

01:27:16.180 --> 01:27:19.590
I don't think I am.

01:27:19.590 --> 01:27:23.960
Do you think the Chinese will be there?

01:27:23.960 --> 01:27:24.420
Beg your pardon.

01:27:24.420 --> 01:27:25.330
Does that mean the Chinese will be there?

01:27:25.330 --> 01:27:25.580
No.

01:27:25.430 --> 01:27:28.770
Hell, the Chinese are 50 years from going
to the Moon.

01:27:28.770 --> 01:27:30.180
They cannot buy it from Russia.

01:27:30.180 --> 01:27:32.710
That is what they're doing today.

01:27:32.710 --> 01:27:39.320
They're buying all their technology to put
man in space from Russia.

01:27:39.320 --> 01:27:45.130
You know, that makes me think the Russians
are still using the same spacecraft, with

01:27:45.130 --> 01:27:50.559
slight variation, that they put Gagarin up
in 1961.

01:27:50.559 --> 01:27:54.790
Literally, it's pretty close to it.

01:27:54.790 --> 01:27:56.290
I've sat in it.

01:27:56.290 --> 01:27:59.450
Have you sat in it, Fred?

01:27:59.450 --> 01:28:02.610
You sit in it like this.

01:28:02.610 --> 01:28:09.150
But they used it over and over and over and
over again.

01:28:09.150 --> 01:28:13.870
The B-52 has been used over and over again.

01:28:13.870 --> 01:28:15.450
It has a new wing.

01:28:15.450 --> 01:28:16.770
It has new electronics.

01:28:16.770 --> 01:28:18.050
It had new bombs.

01:28:18.050 --> 01:28:21.010
It has new everything on it.

01:28:21.010 --> 01:28:25.270
The only thing that is the same is the configuration.

01:28:25.270 --> 01:28:27.970
It had new engines probably five times in
its lifetime.

01:28:27.970 --> 01:28:33.650
That is what we ought to be doing with the
Shuttle, isn't it?

01:28:33.650 --> 01:28:38.380
We seem to have this great propensity in this
country for building something wonderful and

01:28:38.380 --> 01:28:44.059
great and high performance and then throwing
it away.

01:28:44.059 --> 01:28:46.600
We put up the SkyLab.

01:28:46.600 --> 01:28:46.850
Wonderful.

01:28:46.760 --> 01:28:51.590
Throw it away and don't build anymore.

01:28:51.590 --> 01:28:52.990
Build the Saturn 5.

01:28:52.990 --> 01:28:59.610
Gee whiz, it will put 200,000 pounds to the
Moon.

01:28:59.610 --> 01:29:05.280
It is rotting away at Johnson Space Center.

01:29:05.280 --> 01:29:09.050
The Trekkies in the country got so mad at
the Johnson Space Center that they made them

01:29:09.050 --> 01:29:14.280
build a hanger to put it in so it wouldn't
rot anymore.

01:29:14.280 --> 01:29:17.460
We built a Space Station and we're throwing
it away.

01:29:17.460 --> 01:29:21.540
We built a Space Shuttle and we're throwing
it away.

01:29:21.540 --> 01:29:28.540
Golly, my mother would have gone bananas.

01:29:28.880 --> 01:29:33.650
We had leftovers almost every other meal.

01:29:33.650 --> 01:29:40.650
I know that's trite, but don't you think that
is foolishness to do things that way?

01:29:41.970 --> 01:29:45.480
I think it is.

01:29:45.480 --> 01:29:52.120
We did learn from space flight that everybody
seemed to learn from everybody else's experiences.

01:29:52.120 --> 01:29:56.620
That was an amazing factor to me, in the early
days particularly.

01:29:56.620 --> 01:30:03.550
The astronauts, each one that flew was so
much better than the one before.

01:30:03.550 --> 01:30:10.090
And knew how to do the job better than the
one before.

01:30:10.090 --> 01:30:16.500
All of those things, you could see yourself
advancing, and they just built on this experience

01:30:16.500 --> 01:30:17.600
of each man.

01:30:17.600 --> 01:30:19.860
And I don't know how they transmitted that
to each other.

01:30:19.860 --> 01:30:23.660
They didn't, obviously, because they didn't
have a brain connection.

01:30:23.660 --> 01:30:26.190
But that is the way we ought to be doing it
here.

01:30:26.190 --> 01:30:31.670
We've got all these things that we build and
then throw away and don't take advantage of.

01:30:31.670 --> 01:30:33.140
That doesn't make a lot of sense to me.

01:30:33.140 --> 01:30:34.860
Now, I know there are politics involved.

01:30:34.860 --> 01:30:40.460
And that is a reason I said you had to take
into account the politics.

01:30:40.460 --> 01:30:41.750
When can you get the money?

01:30:41.750 --> 01:30:43.720
How do you convince people that you need to
do things?

01:30:43.720 --> 01:30:47.940
What does it do to the job situation?

01:30:47.940 --> 01:30:53.360
How does it affect each senator's and each
congressman's state in terms of the money

01:30:53.360 --> 01:30:56.610
that you bring into that area, et cetera.

01:30:56.610 --> 01:31:03.610
When we built the Space Shuttle we had a contract
in every state in the union except Alaska.

01:31:04.940 --> 01:31:10.440
And we did that on purpose.

01:31:10.440 --> 01:31:17.440
Aaron and I flew to every one of those 75
major subcontractors in the Shuttle.

01:31:17.860 --> 01:31:23.320
They were all over the country, and we would
go visit them at least three or four times

01:31:23.320 --> 01:31:26.460
n a period of a couple of years.

01:31:26.460 --> 01:31:30.230
The politics has to be there.

01:31:30.230 --> 01:31:33.140
We were lucky in Apollo.

01:31:33.140 --> 01:31:38.160
I call it the conjunction of the stars and
the conjunction of the politics.

01:31:38.160 --> 01:31:43.830
That is a story I meant to tell.

01:31:43.830 --> 01:31:50.830
By 1978, '77 maybe, we were really behind
a power curve on the budget for the Shuttle.

01:31:59.120 --> 01:32:06.120
We had been pushing a wave of about 10% less
funds than we needed each year.

01:32:06.880 --> 01:32:13.600
At about that time period we needed, if we
were going to have any semblance of making

01:32:13.600 --> 01:32:20.600
a 1980 or '81 first flight, we needed a $600
million supplement and about that much per

01:32:24.080 --> 01:32:27.700
year more than we were getting.

01:32:27.700 --> 01:32:32.440
And NASA had this big meeting down at the
Johnson Space Center.

01:32:32.440 --> 01:32:35.930
And we all talked about what the problems
were and how we were going to meet that.

01:32:35.930 --> 01:32:41.550
And everybody, absolutely all the politics
said you cannot go ask for a supplement, you

01:32:41.550 --> 01:32:45.710
cannot go ask the Congress for any more, you
cannot go to the White House and say we need

01:32:45.710 --> 01:32:46.720
more money.

01:32:46.720 --> 01:32:53.720
So we may just have to turn this thing into
an X-15 project, a research project.

01:32:53.990 --> 01:32:58.540
The first Shuttle flight will be whenever
we can build it and it will just be a test

01:32:58.540 --> 01:33:01.380
vehicle.

01:33:01.380 --> 01:33:03.930
We were all very downhearted about that.

01:33:03.930 --> 01:33:10.930
Dr. Frost, who was then the administrator,
went up to the White House about three days

01:33:11.270 --> 01:33:12.950
later.

01:33:12.950 --> 01:33:18.990
And Carter, who was the President, called
him in and said I want to tell you how wonderful

01:33:18.990 --> 01:33:22.340
that Space Shuttle is.

01:33:22.340 --> 01:33:28.010
And Frost said he could feel himself tighten
up.

01:33:28.010 --> 01:33:33.520
And he said, you know, I just had this meeting
with the Russians at the Salt Talks, whatever

01:33:33.520 --> 01:33:35.880
SALT meant.

01:33:35.880 --> 01:33:40.070
And I was pointing out to them that we were
building this marvelous new space machine

01:33:40.070 --> 01:33:43.220
and we were going to be able to do all kinds
of things with it.

01:33:43.220 --> 01:33:48.110
We were going to be able to fly over Russia
and look at the world.

01:33:48.110 --> 01:33:53.430
And he said it carried the day.

01:33:53.430 --> 01:34:00.100
And Frost said, oh, my God, what is NASA going
to do about that?

01:34:00.100 --> 01:34:07.100
He came back, thought about it for a few days
and went back to see the President.

01:34:07.200 --> 01:34:07.840
He said, Mr.

01:34:07.840 --> 01:34:11.940
President, I have to tell you, this Shuttle
is in trouble.

01:34:11.940 --> 01:34:12.690
We don't have the money.

01:34:12.690 --> 01:34:14.820
We're not going to make the launch dates.

01:34:14.820 --> 01:34:19.200
It is questionable whether we can even build
the machine at this point in time because

01:34:19.200 --> 01:34:20.830
we haven't built the thermal protection system.

01:34:20.830 --> 01:34:25.690
We didn't even have the factory built yet
to build the tiles in.

01:34:25.690 --> 01:34:25.940
Mr.

01:34:25.880 --> 01:34:32.880
Carter said how much do you need?

01:34:34.910 --> 01:34:41.910
And he said, well, I think we need about $600
million this year and I think we will need

01:34:42.639 --> 01:34:45.210
about $400 million a year.

01:34:45.210 --> 01:34:50.050
That was a WAG on Dr. Frost's part.

01:34:50.050 --> 01:34:53.690
And the President said you will get it.

01:34:53.690 --> 01:35:00.690
That was how close we were to the Shuttle
failing from a political point of view.

01:35:07.420 --> 01:35:11.719
I don't know what the politics of tomorrow
is that might change our mind.

01:35:11.719 --> 01:35:18.460
It would be wonderful if the Chinese would
land on the Moon tomorrow because that might

01:35:18.460 --> 01:35:21.400
get the Congress back in action.

01:35:21.400 --> 01:35:28.400
But can you see the Congress, in the face
of what has happened with Katrina and Rita

01:35:29.520 --> 01:35:35.490
and a few other things that happened in the
United States, and the Iraqi War and the budgetary

01:35:35.490 --> 01:35:39.990
problems they face -- I cannot see them giving
NASA the money they would need to do the program.

01:35:39.990 --> 01:35:46.990
And NASA says they can go back to the Moon
between now and 2018 for $106 billion.

01:35:54.270 --> 01:35:54.520
Mr.

01:35:54.469 --> 01:35:57.300
Webb doubled the price.

01:35:57.300 --> 01:36:02.950
All us great cost estimators, we estimated
the cost of the Shuttle, and Jim Webb got

01:36:02.950 --> 01:36:06.340
it and multiplied it by two.

01:36:06.340 --> 01:36:12.300
Today I would say you would have to multiply
that by ten if you think you're going back

01:36:12.300 --> 01:36:16.020
to the Moon.

01:36:16.020 --> 01:36:19.010
I cannot imagine.

01:36:19.010 --> 01:36:23.700
Aaron and I worked on a program in 1998.

01:36:23.700 --> 01:36:30.700
When did we do the Mars study?

01:36:34.480 --> 01:36:36.880
In '89.

01:36:36.880 --> 01:36:43.880
We estimated the cost in 1989 dollars to go
to Mars at $400 billion, and I think we were

01:36:47.460 --> 01:36:54.460
low.

01:36:55.020 --> 01:36:58.050
I keep have to catch myself.

01:36:58.050 --> 01:37:02.059
I know it's the politics that you have to
be concerned about.

01:37:02.059 --> 01:37:07.730
If you told them that it was going to cost
$400 billion dollars then for sure it would

01:37:07.730 --> 01:37:10.040
be cancelled, right?

01:37:10.040 --> 01:37:13.700
You've got to tell them something that is
rational, but I don't think they will get

01:37:13.700 --> 01:37:18.980
supported even with the amount of money they
say it is going to cost.

01:37:18.980 --> 01:37:20.480
I hope I am a pessimist.

01:37:20.480 --> 01:37:20.770
Yes, sir.

01:37:20.770 --> 01:37:21.230
I have two separate questions.

01:37:21.230 --> 01:37:22.090
One is the improvements you said that were
made in computing capability from Mercury

01:37:22.090 --> 01:37:29.090
through the Shuttle, I was wondering if there
was any thought into making the computer systems

01:37:29.930 --> 01:37:34.080
on the Shuttle more upgradable?

01:37:34.080 --> 01:37:41.080
And, if there was, would there have been any
value in using modern systems?

01:37:43.020 --> 01:37:50.020
And then the second question is related to
the comment you made about if the Shuttle

01:37:51.170 --> 01:37:54.170
was designed to fly automatically after the
Challenger accident they could have just flown

01:37:54.170 --> 01:37:55.600
again the next day.

01:37:55.600 --> 01:38:02.600
I wasn't really sure what you meant by that
so if you could elaborate on it a bit.

01:38:02.840 --> 01:38:03.690
Let me go to your first question.

01:38:03.690 --> 01:38:04.200
It isn't the hardware.

01:38:04.200 --> 01:38:04.710
It is the software.

01:38:04.710 --> 01:38:10.320
And it is the software checkout and it is
the software validation that you have to worry

01:38:10.320 --> 01:38:12.920
about on the orbiter.

01:38:12.920 --> 01:38:18.889
When you have four systems that are operating
on a 40 millisecond time cycle and checking

01:38:18.889 --> 01:38:25.889
with each other at the end of that cycle that
they are all in lock-step -- John is looking

01:38:27.150 --> 01:38:29.530
at me saying my God, how did we ever do that?

01:38:29.530 --> 01:38:32.050
And I don't know how we ever did it, but we
did it.

01:38:32.050 --> 01:38:36.110
It is the software and not the hardware.

01:38:36.110 --> 01:38:43.110
When you have an updatable computer, which
you should have and will have, it is the software

01:38:44.130 --> 01:38:46.430
that is the problem, not the hardware.

01:38:46.430 --> 01:38:51.190
That has always been the case.

01:38:51.190 --> 01:38:56.660
Trying to make the software fit into the new
computer, the way the hooks are in system

01:38:56.660 --> 01:38:59.090
is just totally different.

01:38:59.090 --> 01:39:06.090
And, therefore, the guaranty that the system
doesn't have a bunch of glitches in it that

01:39:08.370 --> 01:39:15.370
are going to get to you, you know, when we
flew to the moon on Apollo 11, we had a book

01:39:16.410 --> 01:39:20.880
about that thick with computer anomalies in
it.

01:39:20.880 --> 01:39:26.340
We understood them all, but that is how many
software fixes we needed to make.

01:39:26.340 --> 01:39:33.340
We just didn't make them because we didn't
want to nor had the time to do them.

01:39:33.490 --> 01:39:40.490
What I meant by flying an unmanned shuttle
was that you couldn't convince the politicians

01:39:41.340 --> 01:39:48.340
or the powers that be, whoever they are, that
you could fly the shuttle the next day manned.

01:39:48.950 --> 01:39:53.500
But, if you didn't have a man in it, who would
have cared?

01:39:53.500 --> 01:39:57.340
And so you could have flown it the next day
and it would have worked perfectly because

01:39:57.340 --> 01:39:59.830
it was warmer at the Cape.

01:39:59.830 --> 01:40:06.830
Do you know what the condition on the pad
was the morning they launched Challenger?

01:40:09.820 --> 01:40:16.820
There were icicles hanging off the gantry
that long and that big around at Cape Canaveral.

01:40:19.059 --> 01:40:21.690
Let me tell you something.

01:40:21.690 --> 01:40:23.550
You know why they got there?

01:40:23.550 --> 01:40:26.650
They did what we did in 1920.

01:40:26.650 --> 01:40:33.650
They turned the water on and let it run all
night because they were afraid that the fire

01:40:33.840 --> 01:40:40.670
suppression system on the pad was going to
freeze and not be able to be turned on when

01:40:40.670 --> 01:40:47.670
they launched so they let it drip all night.

01:40:47.809 --> 01:40:54.389
And I am sitting there saying that solid rocket
has not been qualified for temperatures below

01:40:54.389 --> 01:40:59.219
47 degrees Fahrenheit.

01:40:59.219 --> 01:41:06.219
And they're convincing themselves that the
core temperature of the solids is much higher

01:41:06.500 --> 01:41:10.920
than that because it has been sitting in the
sun for the last two months and the temperature

01:41:10.920 --> 01:41:15.510
is so and so, but they didn't think about
the seals.

01:41:15.510 --> 01:41:21.740
If you remember that professor sticking the
seal in the ice.

01:41:21.740 --> 01:41:25.930
Well, that's what I meant.

01:41:25.930 --> 01:41:30.860
The next day the temperature would have been
warmer, put new rockets on it.

01:41:30.860 --> 01:41:36.160
Max Faget said the next day, why don't you
just put a heater around the joint and put

01:41:36.160 --> 01:41:38.820
a belly band over the top of it and fly?

01:41:38.820 --> 01:41:42.130
Damn good idea.

01:41:42.130 --> 01:41:44.340
Yes, sir.

01:41:44.340 --> 01:41:51.340
You mentioned that one of the reasons the
Shuttle is so expensive is because you have

01:41:53.500 --> 01:41:55.680
so many redundant systems onboard.

01:41:55.680 --> 01:41:58.050
Now, what would be your solution?

01:41:58.050 --> 01:42:03.730
Not to have them onboard or just not to have
them all upgrading at launch?

01:42:03.730 --> 01:42:05.980
No, you got the wrong implication there.

01:42:05.980 --> 01:42:12.800
It is expensive because they insist on having
them operating at the time of launch.

01:42:12.800 --> 01:42:17.580
It is not the redundancy that makes it more
expensive.

01:42:17.580 --> 01:42:23.250
It is the checkout and the testing and proof
that it's there and the replacement of the

01:42:23.250 --> 01:42:28.400
systems and the use of the systems that makes
it more expensive.

01:42:28.400 --> 01:42:35.400
But what makes the Shuttle so expensive are
the numbers of people involved in preparing

01:42:35.860 --> 01:42:37.980
it.

01:42:37.980 --> 01:42:44.980
There are roughly 10,000 people involved in
that operation who make X number of dollars

01:42:46.190 --> 01:42:48.650
per hour or day.

01:42:48.650 --> 01:42:55.650
And it costs, in today's money, about $5 billion
a year to fly the Shuttle seven times.

01:42:56.150 --> 01:43:00.580
It probably cost $5 billion a year to fly
it 30 times.

01:43:00.580 --> 01:43:01.570
Not much difference.

01:43:01.570 --> 01:43:02.120
Maybe $5.5 billion.

01:43:02.120 --> 01:43:03.260
So, it is the people.

01:43:03.260 --> 01:43:06.180
You've got to get rid of the people.

01:43:06.180 --> 01:43:13.030
And people have been trying to do that ever
since Mercury, get rid of the amount of people.

01:43:13.030 --> 01:43:20.030
And they try and they put in the automaticity
and the automatic checkout and then don't

01:43:20.670 --> 01:43:22.469
use it.

01:43:22.469 --> 01:43:23.790
Check it out.

01:43:23.790 --> 01:43:29.880
And, as I said, they put more hours on it
in the hanger than they do in space.

01:43:29.880 --> 01:43:32.440
It wears out the system checking it.

01:43:32.440 --> 01:43:36.559
And it takes people to do that, so it's people.

01:43:36.559 --> 01:43:39.980
So what's your solution to that?

01:43:39.980 --> 01:43:46.980
I think you have to have some hardnosed SOB
that says I'm going to get rid of the people,

01:43:47.860 --> 01:43:52.450
and you do it with automaticity, automatic
checkout, automatic everything.

01:43:52.450 --> 01:43:57.639
In today's world, why would you do it any
other way?

01:43:57.639 --> 01:43:58.820
I will give you another example.

01:43:58.820 --> 01:44:05.820
When we built the caution and warning system
on the Space Shuttle, the safety and reliability

01:44:08.590 --> 01:44:13.480
people said it has to be hardwired.

01:44:13.480 --> 01:44:16.630
Can you imagine that?

01:44:16.630 --> 01:44:20.809
Why wouldn't you use bits instead of hardwire?

01:44:20.809 --> 01:44:23.480
Oh, but it's a lot safer and a lot more reliable.

01:44:23.480 --> 01:44:26.030
I will use my same word, hogwash.

01:44:26.030 --> 01:44:31.650
It is a lot safer and more reliable with bits.

01:44:31.650 --> 01:44:36.510
But that's the system.

01:44:36.510 --> 01:44:39.150
You've got to change it.

01:44:39.150 --> 01:44:44.030
And two of us have tried.

01:44:44.030 --> 01:44:47.880
You can see us flying down in flames almost
everywhere.

01:44:47.880 --> 01:44:49.559
Yes, sir.

01:44:49.559 --> 01:44:56.559
For the young engineer, a lot of us hear about
the Apollo Mission and talk about the good

01:44:59.510 --> 01:45:02.330
old days where we wish we were in the days
of engineering by the seat of your pants.

01:45:02.330 --> 01:45:08.219
Is that type of job and that type of excitement
of engineering possible in NASA's environment

01:45:08.219 --> 01:45:12.010
today or should we look elsewhere like towards
private enterprises?

01:45:12.010 --> 01:45:16.350
Could we find the type of job we hear about
in NASA these days?

01:45:16.350 --> 01:45:21.840
I have to be careful how I answer that.

01:45:21.840 --> 01:45:26.730
I want you in NASA.

01:45:26.730 --> 01:45:30.320
It is important that you guys be in NASA.

01:45:30.320 --> 01:45:35.130
Or at least in the Space Program working in
the industry.

01:45:35.130 --> 01:45:42.130
Because you are tomorrow's opportunity.

01:45:42.300 --> 01:45:47.900
Just because you hear Chris Kraft say things
that doesn't mean a damn thing tomorrow.

01:45:47.900 --> 01:45:49.480
You have to do it yourself.

01:45:49.480 --> 01:45:51.730
And you have to want to do it yourself.

01:45:51.730 --> 01:45:55.700
And you have to bring the ideas to the program.

01:45:55.700 --> 01:45:58.460
And you have to be willing to do that.

01:45:58.460 --> 01:46:05.460
And this willingness to take on the things
that must be taken on in order to get the

01:46:07.550 --> 01:46:09.510
job done.

01:46:09.510 --> 01:46:13.650
Your question about seat of the pants, et
cetera, sure, we did a lot of things when

01:46:13.650 --> 01:46:19.750
we first started by seat of the pants because
we didn't know any other way to do it.

01:46:19.750 --> 01:46:20.980
We did it by feel.

01:46:20.980 --> 01:46:23.830
We did it by past experience.

01:46:23.830 --> 01:46:30.590
A lot of us had been in an airplane flight
test world.

01:46:30.590 --> 01:46:37.590
So, we did it by having seen the past doing
things the right way.

01:46:37.750 --> 01:46:39.870
That was our seat of the pants.

01:46:39.870 --> 01:46:46.870
Our seat of the pants wasn't just a scarf
around our neck, so to speak.

01:46:47.540 --> 01:46:51.940
It was an educated seat of the pants.

01:46:51.940 --> 01:46:53.480
And that is what you have to provide.

01:46:53.480 --> 01:46:59.300
In the end it will take a lot of the seat
of the pants.

01:46:59.300 --> 01:47:06.300
I think the way I know Aaron and I have done
it was to believe in the people you had.

01:47:07.719 --> 01:47:14.160
You have to learn how to find out who the
guys are that know what they're talking about

01:47:14.160 --> 01:47:15.080
and trust them.

01:47:15.080 --> 01:47:21.639
You have to put them in the job, give them
the responsibility and authority to do it

01:47:21.639 --> 01:47:23.250
and then trust them.

01:47:23.250 --> 01:47:27.260
And you have to build them.

01:47:27.260 --> 01:47:33.160
The biggest problem that you have today, that
NASA has today and the aerospace industry

01:47:33.160 --> 01:47:40.160
has today, the biggest problem, I cannot say
that too strongly, is that they have not built

01:47:41.000 --> 01:47:45.590
anything in 25 years.

01:47:45.590 --> 01:47:51.500
And so they've forgotten what it takes to
do it.

01:47:51.500 --> 01:47:53.309
You don't know how to do it.

01:47:53.309 --> 01:47:59.340
But if I put you on the job and gave you the
authority to do it, you could do it in three

01:47:59.340 --> 01:48:01.210
or four years.

01:48:01.210 --> 01:48:08.210
You need my help and guys like me to tell
you where the bumps in the road are.

01:48:08.670 --> 01:48:14.340
But you're going to do it a hell of a lot
better than I did given the opportunity to

01:48:14.340 --> 01:48:16.260
do it.

01:48:16.260 --> 01:48:19.650
Did that answer your question?

01:48:19.650 --> 01:48:23.150
[AUDIENCE QUESTION] I think it is.

01:48:23.150 --> 01:48:30.150
You might have to help it.

01:48:31.930 --> 01:48:35.440
You have to vote.

01:48:35.440 --> 01:48:42.010
In the `60s, I was hoping that all these space
cadets, all these Trekkies, all those guys

01:48:42.010 --> 01:48:49.010
would now be in the Congress and that they
would vote for the Space Program.

01:48:49.050 --> 01:48:53.809
Boy was I ever dead wrong.

01:48:53.809 --> 01:48:55.900
There aren't enough Grateful Dead fans around.

01:48:55.900 --> 01:48:56.150
Yes, sir.

01:48:56.139 --> 01:49:03.139
Do you think the success of the Apollo Project
was in some way linked to the ferment that

01:49:08.219 --> 01:49:13.710
was taking place in the `60s?

01:49:13.710 --> 01:49:14.990
Oh, absolutely.

01:49:14.990 --> 01:49:21.990
I think that we had an enthusiasm at the time
that is probably unparalleled in engineering

01:49:27.260 --> 01:49:28.740
circles.

01:49:28.740 --> 01:49:33.969
Now, we had the Manhattan Project to build
a nuclear bomb.

01:49:33.969 --> 01:49:40.710
Draper had the project to build a Polaris
submarine, but it was clustered.

01:49:40.710 --> 01:49:45.840
What is that word?

01:49:45.840 --> 01:49:52.760
And it wasn't seen as we brought it to the
fore.

01:49:52.760 --> 01:49:55.030
It wasn't a national program.

01:49:55.030 --> 01:49:56.969
It wasn't a national priority.

01:49:56.969 --> 01:49:58.840
It wasn't national pride.

01:49:58.840 --> 01:50:01.440
Nobody knew about it.

01:50:01.440 --> 01:50:05.110
Everybody knew about Apollo.

01:50:05.110 --> 01:50:12.110
I was damn proud to walk into any room where
I ever went to say I worked on Apollo.

01:50:12.389 --> 01:50:19.389
That reminds me of a horrible cartoon, to
make my point.

01:50:21.820 --> 01:50:28.820
I was in Austin, Texas following the Challenger
accident.

01:50:29.320 --> 01:50:33.950
And here I am one of the proudest people to
ever be in NASA.

01:50:33.950 --> 01:50:39.350
The cartoon in the paper when I got up that
morning was the following.

01:50:39.350 --> 01:50:46.350
It showed these kids playing with a Frisbee.

01:50:46.530 --> 01:50:52.330
The first one throws it over here to this
guy.

01:50:52.330 --> 01:50:53.940
The second one throws it back.

01:50:53.940 --> 01:50:57.090
The third one the damn thing explodes in his
face.

01:50:57.090 --> 01:51:00.010
The fourth was says his father works for NASA.

01:51:00.010 --> 01:51:07.010
Boy, that brings it home to you pretty damn
fast, doesn't it?

01:51:09.910 --> 01:51:16.910
Nobody in 1967, '68, '69 would have dared
put that cartoon in the paper.

01:51:20.820 --> 01:51:27.820
By having new people in a space program there
is always this lack of experience which you

01:51:29.570 --> 01:51:31.440
have to train just to have.

01:51:31.440 --> 01:51:36.840
How do you transmit that experience to the
new people?

01:51:36.840 --> 01:51:42.050
You intermingle the young with the old.

01:51:42.050 --> 01:51:49.050
You bring the elderly engineers into the system
and make you responsible for designing the

01:51:50.760 --> 01:51:54.930
system but have me in your hip pocket.

01:51:54.930 --> 01:52:01.930
After six months, two years, you won't need
me in your hip pocket anymore because you

01:52:02.610 --> 01:52:08.050
would have learned all those things And learned
them better and done them better.

01:52:08.050 --> 01:52:10.600
You have to mix them.

01:52:10.600 --> 01:52:14.870
The ingredients for the pie and the cake have
to be there.

01:52:14.870 --> 01:52:18.420
And that is part of the ingredient.

01:52:18.420 --> 01:52:21.530
And why hasn't that taken place?

01:52:21.530 --> 01:52:24.860
Because of two reasons.

01:52:24.860 --> 01:52:31.210
NASA hasn't done anything in terms of building
new hardware, other than the Space Station

01:52:31.210 --> 01:52:33.969
which really wasn't testing the state-of-the-art.

01:52:33.969 --> 01:52:38.280
It was a great program but didn't test the
state-of-the-art.

01:52:38.280 --> 01:52:41.880
The industry has been doing the same thing.

01:52:41.880 --> 01:52:45.370
The industry has been building airplanes,
but they haven't been building any spaceships

01:52:45.370 --> 01:52:47.730
so they've lost that capability also.

01:52:47.730 --> 01:52:49.460
That's the travesty, too.

01:52:49.460 --> 01:52:52.760
You've got to rebuild them both at the same
time.

01:52:52.760 --> 01:52:57.480
But it only happens by experience.

01:52:57.480 --> 01:53:04.480
I cannot take what Professor Cohen knows and
what I know and put it in your head.

01:53:05.630 --> 01:53:09.900
You have to fail a few times.

01:53:09.900 --> 01:53:15.080
It is only by the failures that you're going
to learn.

01:53:15.080 --> 01:53:22.080
I once heard a sermon that said when you're
a young Christian or Hebrew walking down the

01:53:26.910 --> 01:53:33.430
aisle all your doors are open.

01:53:33.430 --> 01:53:39.600
I am walking down the aisle and I'm pretty
close to the end and all the ones behind me

01:53:39.600 --> 01:53:43.400
are shut.

01:53:43.400 --> 01:53:47.639
You're willing to go in all those doors.

01:53:47.639 --> 01:53:52.250
I am frightened to death to go in those damn
doors.

01:53:52.250 --> 01:53:58.830
We need you and you need me, but you don't
need me very long until you get up to speed.

01:53:58.830 --> 01:54:00.320
Don't be frightened of it.

01:54:00.320 --> 01:54:01.780
Go do it.

01:54:01.780 --> 01:54:04.980
And don't be afraid to fail.

01:54:04.980 --> 01:54:11.980
You learn much more from our failures than
you ever learn from our successes.

01:54:14.610 --> 01:54:15.370
Back there.

01:54:15.370 --> 01:54:22.370
Given all these problems with NASA that we've
seen just growing over the years, what do

01:54:26.040 --> 01:54:32.050
you think about the commercial efforts to
access space?

01:54:32.050 --> 01:54:34.260
Not necessarily what is going on now but also
in the future?

01:54:34.260 --> 01:54:34.510
If we had that ability to sort of bypass NASA's
framework with all the [UNINTELLIGIBLE] bureaucracy

01:54:34.360 --> 01:54:37.800
issues, is that a possibly way for us to continue?

01:54:37.800 --> 01:54:44.800
Well, I think it is very possible but the
problem is investment.

01:54:52.139 --> 01:54:58.950
The investment specialists say if you cannot
give me a return on investment in three years,

01:54:58.950 --> 01:55:03.400
maximum five years, I won't invest in it.

01:55:03.400 --> 01:55:06.460
And the aerospace industry is worse than that.

01:55:06.460 --> 01:55:07.670
They don't have any money.

01:55:07.670 --> 01:55:12.880
They aren't willing to make an investment
in the future.

01:55:12.880 --> 01:55:16.480
The investors who have the money want a return.

01:55:16.480 --> 01:55:22.750
The guys that have the capability to do it
don't have the money to invest.

01:55:22.750 --> 01:55:29.550
Until it gets to the point where it is a little
more realistic from the return on investment,

01:55:29.550 --> 01:55:34.750
it is not going to get to the point where
commercial ventures are willing to do it.

01:55:34.750 --> 01:55:38.940
Because it is just too expensive.

01:55:38.940 --> 01:55:45.940
And probably if failure is so high in our
business that investors shy away from it.

01:55:49.670 --> 01:55:56.370
I think it will come to that, but I don't
think it is going to come very rapidly as

01:55:56.370 --> 01:56:00.780
it did, for instance, in the airplane business.

01:56:00.780 --> 01:56:07.780
I mean even today we wouldn't be flying the
transports we have or the supersonic airplanes

01:56:12.000 --> 01:56:19.000
that we have without government having made
that investment at the time.

01:56:19.520 --> 01:56:26.520
The 707, the first big really good jet transport,
was totally dependent upon the B-47 airplane,

01:56:30.969 --> 01:56:36.980
which is built by the same people, right?

01:56:36.980 --> 01:56:38.830
And so it was a government investment.

01:56:38.830 --> 01:56:44.520
I said, well, we did it in an airplane business,
to a certain extent, but nowhere near as much

01:56:44.520 --> 01:56:45.960
as people think.

01:56:45.960 --> 01:56:52.840
All of the technology was done by the government
investment in the airplane.

01:56:52.840 --> 01:56:59.530
And the next step, the supersonic transport,
which we ought to have.

01:56:59.530 --> 01:57:06.530
That is another travesty, that we don't have
a supersonic transport.

01:57:06.830 --> 01:57:13.830
That hasn't been done by Boeing or Lockheed
because they won't invest that kind of money

01:57:16.880 --> 01:57:19.100
on their own.

01:57:19.100 --> 01:57:26.100
They take the investment of the government
in supersonic aerodynamics and engines and

01:57:27.740 --> 01:57:33.730
structure and use it in a supersonic airplane.

01:57:33.730 --> 01:57:34.940
I think it is a ways off.

01:57:34.940 --> 01:57:41.940
A lot of people have tried it, the most notable
being Kistler recently, and have failed.

01:57:44.900 --> 01:57:48.650
I think it can be done and done better.

01:57:48.650 --> 01:57:52.219
You can do it better outside of the government
because you don't have all those regulations

01:57:52.219 --> 01:57:57.840
to contend with and all the GAOs on top of
you.

01:57:57.840 --> 01:58:02.580
It is just going to take a while.

01:58:02.580 --> 01:58:08.230
I hesitate to say this but I will.

01:58:08.230 --> 01:58:15.230
Programs like SpaceShipOne, that is trickery,
that is child's play what he is doing.

01:58:26.480 --> 01:58:31.320
Wait until he tries to go to orbit.

01:58:31.320 --> 01:58:32.920
That is his next step.

01:58:32.920 --> 01:58:39.920
Tell me when that is going to happen.

01:58:41.360 --> 01:58:44.800
He is kidding the world at the moment.

01:58:44.800 --> 01:58:47.710
Chris Kraft says that.

01:58:47.710 --> 01:58:54.469
I want you to remember that because I could
be dead wrong, but that is my opinion.

01:58:54.469 --> 01:58:59.000
Just child's play.

01:58:59.000 --> 01:59:00.330
We did the X1 in 1946.

01:59:00.330 --> 01:59:06.559
And we didn't have any buckling in the structure
either, which he had.

01:59:06.559 --> 01:59:09.570
Where do you think that buckling came from?

01:59:09.570 --> 01:59:16.530
What do you think happened there?

01:59:16.530 --> 01:59:17.420
Where did it come from?

01:59:17.420 --> 01:59:24.420
But if his plane renews interest in space,
I mean if it inspires a ten year old to end

01:59:27.830 --> 01:59:29.070
up working for NASA 15 years from now, isn't
that a good thing?

01:59:29.070 --> 01:59:29.350
That is great.

01:59:29.350 --> 01:59:29.600
Absolutely.

01:59:29.440 --> 01:59:35.590
But don't kid yourself that the next step
is flying a machine to orbit.

01:59:35.590 --> 01:59:42.590
I am at fault for being so negative about
it because, you're right, I think it does

01:59:42.940 --> 01:59:47.380
inspire the young to do it.

01:59:47.380 --> 01:59:53.520
As much as I hate to cut us off, it is 11:00.

01:59:53.520 --> 01:59:55.260
Class is over.

01:59:55.260 --> 01:59:57.780
Students again remember to pick up your papers.

01:59:57.780 --> 02:00:04.610
Chris, that has been just an extraordinary
opportunity and an experience for all of us.

02:00:04.610 --> 02:00:08.300
And, once more, we are very appreciative.

02:00:08.300 --> 02:00:15.300
We know you don't give very many public lectures
these days, and that you chose to come here

02:00:15.970 --> 02:00:21.680
and talk to everybody at MIT, we truly appreciate
it and we would like to thank you again.

02:00:21.680 --> 02:00:21.930
[APPLAUSE]