13 10 510 https://oralhistory.uah.edu/files/original/78ec7fa073fd317edb444455ddb5514e.jpg 4598197eb9b09fa4ae86fb6882190ee7 https://oralhistory.uah.edu/files/original/732c2fa9adb1a3945e5fd45378d06771.mp4 dbd7c3046cd24db3156d79572a508de0 Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Saturn V Collection Oral History A resource containing historical information obtained in interviews with persons having firsthand knowledge. Interviewee The person(s) being interviewed Shettles, Mack Interviewer The person(s) performing the interview Bilstein, Roger E. Duration Length of time involved (seconds, minutes, hours, days, class periods, etc.) 0:57:42 Transcription Any written text transcribed from a sound [00:00:00] Mack Shettles: See, here's another thing, talking about the complexity in this thing. See, in an orbiter, in the space shuttle, right now they're planning to build at first a couple and later on perhaps five orbiters. But here we had a program where we were going to build 15 of these stages. How many stages are involved when we build fifteen Saturn Vs? Plus simultaneously building a number of Saturn IBs, like the S-IVB stages. On that chart, you'd just be surprised how many S-IVB stages had to be built. Let's see…One, two, three, four. Four stages on every Saturn V times fifteen stages is sixty stages—flight stages. Then you had your ground test stages, you know, like the static firing, the facilities check out, the structural tests. This goes into dozens and dozens of stages for the Saturn V. These things had to follow in some sequence too. Here's one that's taken a different slice of the cake. He's following [nice is nice?]. We get 501 launched, you can't forget that we haven't gotten to the moon. We've got to get 502, 503, 504 down there, delivered, and they have to meet these technical requirements—increased payload, for example. So here's a chart which follows these things and shows the interval and checks overlap and possible problems in transporters and the like. This thing got rather complicated. [00:02:20] Roger Bilstein: Okay, well, maybe we should...Oh, I know one of the things I wanted to ask about again was these things by Colonel [Sweet?]. Was that his name? [00:02:30] MS: Oh, yeah. Well, that wasn't really the main part of the Saturn program. [00:02:38] RB: No, it was just an interesting little sidebar. [00:02:40] MS: Yeah, well, it was typical of the briefings that we had to give people. We would have generals and admirals and people like that coming in for visits. Occasional congressmen or governors of the state, or just a group of educators, you know, the president of So-and-So University and his group would come in, any number of people would be briefed on the Saturn program. We were told about Colonel [Sweet?] would be here, but Colonel [Sweet?] never showed up. There really was a Colonel [Sweet?], but he simply used his name to send unknown groups. We were always told that the composition of the group was classified, and all you were supposed to do was to brief them on the Saturn program. Sometimes they would come in, and they would be wearing turtleneck shirts and looked a little academic. Then again, they'd come in and half of them would be in uniform with a lot of brass and medals. Occasionally, they would be with an Oriental. I went over to brief one Colonel [Sweet?] group, it turned out the only guy that could speak English was their leader, and the others were all Japanese. [00:04:09] RB: [Sweet?] was in the Pentagon some place? [00:04:12] MS: No, he was in NASA headquarters. He was the DOD interface. He had a title called NASA Interagency Affairs Coordinator, something to that effect. Interagency Affairs Coordinator. [00:04:33] RB: But he was acting as representative of DOD in that sense then? [00:04:38] MS: DOD, State Department, CIA. See? No matter what agency. Sometimes we'd have people like…guys would come in, another swarthy-skinned individual with a handlebar mustache and sixteen stars. I know this guy's a general from Honduras or someplace or someplace down in South America. You know a whole bunch of people with him and they... I couldn't tell you who they were, but I knew they weren't… [00:05:15] RB: I just think that it's indicative too of the number of kinds of people that were sent down here because Weber apparently felt very strongly about the success of this particular operation. [00:05:28] MS: One of the things that NASA was supposed to do was to make public its findings and its results. That's in our charter. We're an arm of the American people. [00:05:47] RB: Well, I'll guess that’s about [over it?]. I just want to kind of get some of these things back down and talk a little bit about the overhead stuff here. And you did have television, closed-circuit television from both Houston and the Cape? Is that right? [00:06:01] MS: Yes. Yes. [00:06:04] RB: So you could cover the launch. [00:06:05] MS: Launch only, right. Now that wasn't applicable…You couldn't pick up people in the rooms. You could pick up tests, like a wet countdown demonstration test at the Cape. That's where you load the fuel onto the plane… [00:06:21] RB: You weren't hooked up to [MTF?] by any chance? [00:06:27] MS: I'm not sure about that. It seems to me at one time they were going to be hooked up to [MTF?]. I don't know if it ever came to pass or not. [00:06:36] RB: I'm just curious—not that it makes that much difference. Do you have a direct hookup with [KSC?] or does that come through the HOSC over here that you pick it up? [00:06:44] MS: It comes through the, well, the LIEF board, Launch Information Exchange facility is what they call it. HOSC is on the LIEF circuit. Huntsville Operations Support Center is, in effect, a room where all these people meet. They are serviced by this LIEF board network, which is all tied into the overall communications facility—your regular telephone systems, plus your television transmission, and [communicating?] and like that. [00:07:20] RB: I'm just curious what is stored behind these doors. [00:07:24] MS: Oh, those are supplies. [00:07:27] RB: Okay, just pads, pencils, and stuff like that. [00:07:31] MS: Extra tapes and magnetic gadgets for these boards. [00:07:36] RB: I heard that Rudolph had problems getting this thing set up. Do you know anything about that? [00:07:41] MS: A little bit. See, Rudolph was convinced of the necessity of this, and nobody would put out any money for it. So I think he had to sort of scramble around and scrounge. He just took this space here, which isn't necessarily the ideal space, but it's what he could come up with. In fact, at one time—sort of a fun little thing to me—people would come in and look at the paneling, and they'd say, “Oh, these people are living plush! Plush!” So Dr. Rudolph had Harold Price—who at that time was the guy that operated the control room—he had Harold Price prepare a sign that says, “The cost of the vinyl wall covering in the hall is seven cents per square foot. The cost of this paneling is six and a half cents per square foot. We are not wasting governmental money by having paneling in this thing. It's cheaper than the stuff out in the corridor.” He had it right up next to the door there. [00:08:56] RB: [laughs] Well, was that the main problem? He couldn't get authorization to use the money for this thing? [00:09:02] MS: See, they needed it in the back back here—you've been in the back?—you know, there's a…A teleprompter came in here and rigged all these, well, carousel slide projectors, view-graph projectors, movie projector, television projector, recording device…Then had this…This all can be remotely controlled from this lectern here. You can start the movie machine, you can operate the slides, you can’t operate the view-graph of course. But you can dim the lights, turn out the lights, and so forth. Teleprompter put all that in. I think the total cost was something like $35,000. That's what I heard for this room. We have had a lot of people ask us what it cost. A lot of people looked at the design. I think I told you, I got a call one day from Raymond Loewy Associates in New York out of the clear blue. To this day I don't exactly know what they were up to, but they wanted to help. They wanted to discuss the layout of this control room. Apparently Raymond Loewy Associates—who I think, I think, “Gee whiz, Raymond Loewy!”—they wanted to, they had somehow heard about room 319, and they wanted to know how it was laid out. [00:10:30] RB: Why was Rudolph so insistent about getting it? Was it his experience in the Pershing program, you think? Or why did he make such a big thing about getting this thing? [00:10:40] MS: Well, I think it was just his personal philosophy that if you couldn’t put down information on a chart in a clear, graphic form that you didn't know what you were talking about. He could perceive it better that way too. He was just one of those persons. Some people don't mind reading page after page of writing. He would rather look at a graph. Well, I think a lot of businessmen are that way. They don't see how the sales trends are. We all see this thing. Look at the stock market report, you know, things going up and down, you track the thing. To describe this in words would be practically impossible. In fact, you said it yourself a while ago. So I think it boils down to that. It's a matter of transmitting. It's a way of communicating. It's as old as drawing an arrow in the dirt and saying, “We went this way.” [00:11:38] RB: Yeah, that's more graphic. [00:11:40] MS: It's graphic, you know? If your [trial’s?] behind you, and you lay out that arrow or sit stones down, and that's the way you go. This is a little bit more refined. When you get into the business of semantics and communication, you're getting beyond my capabilities. It must be related to that field. It may have been impossible, as you say, I think really it would have been impossible to put in words all that was summarized in graphic form here. [00:12:27] RB: Well, I think that really kind of covers it. [00:12:31] MS: I haven't said anything about PERT. I don't know if I should say anything about PERT or not. [00:12:34] RB: Okay, what do you have to say about PERT? [00:12:36] MS: PERT was one of our more unsuccessful things. We’ve been talking about success, and I think something should be said about PERT and its unsuccess [sic]. [00:12:45] RB: Okay. [00:12:50] MS: The critical path method that this construction firm first came up with…I think they were the first users of it. Forget who it was…Catalytic Construction Company or somebody. [00:13:03] RB: I had the impression that PERT was the thing that was developed in the Polaris program. [00:13:07] MS: Well, there's a matter of debate about that. I suspect that this Catalytic Construction Company, which I believe is—I'm not sure—might have been a division of Dupont. Man, the name's all wrong. Anyway, it was a pretty big outfit. In building large buildings and all, they found out they had to have this, this, this, and this, and this. They began to chart this thing out, and then they see what the critical path was. We better be getting the electrical wiring in because if we don't, we're not going to be able to perceive the rest of these things. It's a logic diagram, and you put the time intervals between events on there. Okay. I think that they did that first. [00:13:55] MS: Now, the Polaris people grabbed it and called it PERT. They refined it somewhat, carried it to a great extreme and said, “Well, this is a really terrific idea.” Now, we used PERT mainly because we were forced into using PERT. Most of the people liked the Gantt chart approach because it had a time scale across the top. PERT doesn't have a time scale across the top. The times are simply written digitally between events. You can't really compare when things are happening. Now, there is a version of PERT called a squared PERT network in which you put a time scale across the top, and you put the events on this time scale. Which improves the heck out of it, as far as conveying the information, then you begin to grasp the thing. But we didn't have that. We required our contractors to have PERT diagrams of all our activities, and I understand this went into the tens of thousands of events. These tens of thousands of events, again, in the same manner as this, flowed up into our project offices. We in turn summarized this thing and put it on this rear wall back there—a little picture of that PERT diagram. I think it may have been helpful in 501, but then it became apparent that simply having the same network… First of all, you didn't do the same things for 502 because a lot of these things were done. Once done, there was no need to show them again. You had to revise the network. You didn't do exactly the same thing in 502 like you didn't activate the test stands every time for every vehicle. There were things like that. You didn't re-qualify the component. You see the things I'm talking about there? [00:15:53] RB: So there's a lot of useless information that was clogged up the PERT network in a sense? [00:15:57] MS: Well, on the first one it was there, okay. But on the second one you didn't need all that. Finally it became obvious that you weren't getting anything out of it that you couldn't get out of one of these Gantt-type waterfall charts. So we dropped it. [00:16:12] RB: [What did you follow?] in the early R&D phase there? [00:16:21] MS: I think we had more problems than we had problem-solves from it. I'll give you an example. You're supposed to have a critical path. This critical path tells you, “Now get on this subject here.” Well, what happened was we'd have this thing up here, and you'd come out with thirty-seven negative paths. Are you familiar enough with PERT to know? A negative path is one in which you have an end objective set up, and you have a time now and an event. If there's not enough time to take from this event and achieve this objective, then you have what you call a negative path. It has negative time. Now, if from this time event to the end objective you have more than enough time, then you have a slack path. You've got extra time in the path. Okay. Now, whichever path requires the most time between now and the end objective, it may have slack in it. It could still be the critical path. It still hasn't had time to do it all, but it just has the least amount of slack time. [00:17:32] MS: Now, carrying it on further, if from this event now to the end objective, it turns out to be, requires 15 weeks more than you've got, then you've got a negative path, which is the critical path. You've got a negative time critical path. We wound up—like I say, at one time, I think somebody counted—thirty-seven paths, all with negative time on them. The time that separated them was not great. Let's say that the most critical path had seventeen weeks of negative slack. You had to make up seventeen weeks in order to still meet the end objective. The next critical path might have 16.5 weeks. The next one might have 15.3. The next one 13.5. There was no way of knowing how difficult the effort would be to improve this time so that you could meet the end objective. In other words, if you simply took the one with the greatest amount of negative slack and worked on it, it might have been the simplest problem to solve. Whereas the one way down here, the seventeenth most critical path, might have had a technical problem that was going to be so difficult to solve that you just could not get the slack time out. It may have been a really critical path that you really need to be working on. [00:19:04] MS: We discussed this with some people who were supposed to be PERT experts. So we kept thinking, “Well, we're learning about this.” We turned to IBM, and we turned to—I forget who all—there was supposed to be experts. The comp lab was real hot on this because it required a lot of computer time. Boy, it ran computers night and day over there on this PERT thing. When it boiled down to it, they didn't know a damn bit more about it than we did. In fact, they never had realized the practical operating problems in the application of this thing. Did I come through to you about this negative path? I've covered it really quickly. And if you're familiar with it, it'll make sense. If you're not, I hope it's made sense anyway. I hope I've been able to explain it. [00:19:57] MS: But at any rate, there was a certain amount of judgment, which did not come out of a computer printout. Now there's another thing. Here comes this computer printout umpteen inches thick. Now that you've got it, what do you do with it? You see, the program managers didn't have time to sit down and flip through this thing. It's very complicated. About every two or three weeks, they'd change something to do in column A to column C and this, that, and the other. It didn't come through graphically. It didn't communicate with you. The machine to man communication was difficult. It took an expert to sit down and analyze the printout and then transfer that into something that could be understood quickly by a busy program manager. [00:20:46] RB: Well, I've got an impression that sometimes it was useful because since the contractor was required to make PERT reports all the time, it was on occasion possible for a staff manager to find a glitch quicker than a project manager could because they were getting stuff directly off the floor, hardware floor [inaudible]. [00:21:09] MS: If this occurred, you can bet your bottom dollar the next time the printout came around, that wouldn't occur again. As soon as the project manager found out about it, he picks up his pencil, and he says, “Well, really the time between this, fifteen and sixteen, I have here estimated as sixteen weeks. That's really six weeks.” [clicks tongue] Makes that a six. The next printout, it doesn't show up at the critical path anymore. It's that simple to rig it. Just change your time estimate. And they did it. [00:21:41] RB: The managers here? Or the managers and contractors? [00:21:43] MS: Everywhere, at all levels, wherever the pressure was put on. The contractors…I don't think our program managers did it because they didn't have the input. But I suspected at the contractor level and at the resident management office level, they'd have a confab, and they'd legitimately say we're going to work out a different plan. You see, this is what you can't argue about. You say, “Well, the reason we reduced that from sixteen to six is we worked out an action plan.” You can't tell the difference between a legitimate action plan and simply a rig in the network unless you go through the whole thing yourself. You see, there's more work involved than there is savings that comes out of it. Incidentally, I say this not as a prejudiced PERT man, because I was one of the first persons involved in PERT back in the old ME lab—manufacturing engineering lab—when we drove PERT networks for SA-5, and I thought it was the most interesting thing I had gotten into. I really went at it in a very positive attitude: “Hot dog! This is very scientific, you know?” All these prints out and all… [00:22:57] RB: So you didn't really become disenchanted with it until though you got into this program control. [00:23:02] MS: The more complicated the program gets, the worse that thing gets. The day-to-day application is horrendous. [00:23:11] RB: What would you have done otherwise? [00:23:14] MS: What we did: use these summation-type bar charts. [00:23:19] RB: The guy…The information from the bar chart comes from some guy here picking up the phone out at Los Angeles and saying, “Hi, Kevin, I’m the…” [00:23:29] MS: Picking up the phone, being on a plane, getting a written report. We required scheduled reports to be submitted weekly, bar chart type. We required technical reports. This is what all these people are being paid for is to put together two-in-two. They see a technical welding problem, yet they see a schedule that says bulkhead number three is going to be completed on so-and-so day. Then you pick up the phone and say, “Look, how are you going to complete bulkhead number three when your welding problem hasn't been solved? In fact, it looks to me like you're going to be running a test on that at the time you're completing the bulkhead. You can't do that.” Then they work the problem. [00:24:18] RB: Well, that's interesting about PERT. I have to see if I can’t describe that a little better when I write. [00:24:26] MS: I had a guy on the United Airlines, if I remember, said they were about to get into PERT very heavily one day in a briefing. I just told him very frankly, I said, “I would walk cautiously.” He said they've been told that that would solve all their problems. I said, “Let me tell you a little bit about PERT when you get down to operating that thing.” I said, “In theory, there's no more beautiful system in existence. In fact, it is! It sounds terrific! I've never come across any management thing that sounded better that worked worse!” [00:25:08] RB: [laughs] Well, is PERT being used increasingly or decreasingly? [00:25:08] MS: Decreasingly. I very seldom see anything about PERT. [00:25:14] RB: They're getting back to Gantt charts again [inaudible]. [00:25:17] MS: Well, you'll see logic diagrams of people doing the early planning of projects and all, but I don't think they put times on all these things. I think it's…If I were going to plan the space tug, let's say, if I were a project manager, I might sit down and have my schedules chief fill me out of PERT network or a logic diagram of what we had to do—this and this and this—and how maybe interface with the shuttle had to be available here. I might have this on the chart, and I might look at it and think about it and have it crystallize in my mind the sequence of events. But as far as writing a computer program and start getting a weekly printout on that, I’d never, never do it. It just wouldn’t be worth it. [00:26:11] RB: They're not using PERT now with the shuttle or with the Sky... [00:26:17] MS: You would have to check them, but not to my knowledge. I haven't seen anything about PERT. I get a copy of the monthly report schedules book that the shuttle people put out, and it has nothing about PERT in there. [00:26:32] RB: [Inaudible] or is that different? [00:26:35] MS: Well, [SART?] is just a name for this Gantt-type bar chart approach. That's what they use. [00:26:50] RB: Okay, that’s very good about PERT [inaudible] [00:26:54] MS: I don't want somebody to jump into that thing. That's one of our replies to this Syracuse University report. They were [knocking?]...A lot of our management techniques were rather expensive. We brought out that PERT was fairly expensive, and we did not recommend its use again. But there were techniques that we thought were worth the money by configuration management. It provided that iron framework that kept things from going to hell in a [wheelbath?]. Things could have really gotten bad without that. They could have gotten bad without all that component qualification programs, all that ground testing—you know—bugs worked out of this thing before they launched. I didn't mean to take it so long. I know I got one of them… [00:27:53] RB: Okay, that's good. [tape cuts out] [00:28:38] MS: ...A rather busy period and production of the latter stages had already started. [00:28:44] RB: This is early 1966? [00:28:46] MS: This is early 1966, so I'll get into those charts in a minute. First, let me tell you about the control room, and most of these things…I read your write-up. You've got the hang of it already. But I think what you want me to say is how do I see it, okay? [00:29:08] RB: Yeah. [00:29:09] MS: Okay. [Inaudible] I'm going to repeat some of the things you said in order to keep this in my mind. [00:29:23] RB: That's fine, because I want to really get all this down on the paper for posterity here. [00:29:27] MS: The Saturn V was… [00:29:36] Third person: Let me interrupt you a second, Roger. [00:29:37] RB: Okay, go ahead. [00:29:39] MS: All right. Dr. Rudolph, I think, will have to be given credit to [inaudible], case may be, for this control room concept. This was inherent in Dr. Rudolph's philosophy of management. We both know that every manager of anything, from the lumber mill to Polaris missile, has his own idea about how to do things. Some people get involved very personally, some people delegate the heck out of things. Dr. Rudolph had a lot of traits, one of them which was he wanted to get all the management data…You’re really breaking in, aren’t you? [00:30:27] Third Person: Now, now [inaudible]. Roger, [inaudible] be glad to do it [inaudible]. [00:30:43] MS: Dr. Rudolph had a thing about transferring knowledge into graphic form. Some people refer to this as a fetish for charts. But there [inaudible] to be said for that. He was one of the prime movers, although headquarters would probably say [inaudible] in having this control room set up. Each chart in here is a summarization of what went on in a pyramid, as you well know, Saturn V, let’s say, S-IC stage office, S-IC contractor, and all the S-IC subcontractors. This is the hardware [fashion?] now. He had all this data [feeding?]. Parallel to this, he had all these functional things that went on, which are a little bit more difficult to describe. He had a functional manager, you know, for [inaudible] quality, for mission operations, for systems engineering, and that man was responsible for going into each stage, going to other centers, and keeping track of management across the entire stage. [00:32:39] RB: The vertical… [00:32:41] MS: The vertical thing. That data was just played on charts in here. Basically at one time, on this side of the room, this western end of the group, these were all hardware or stage oriented charts, and those were all functional charts. The only significance of that is that he attached just as much importance to the functional part that he did to the hardware part. [00:33:12] MS: Now, in addition to strictly hardware data, for example, in order to know what his hardware problems, progress, trends, and so forth were on a Saturn V launch vehicle in totality, he had to know what was going on on each stage. He therefore delegated to this stage manager the responsibility for accumulating all data related to this stage. Once the S-IC stage manager [returned?], [went to?] the S-IC contractor. The S-IC stage manager, as we both know too, and I don't mean to make this a little complicated, but he had lateral connections with working panels, with the laboratories. This thing was more complex than I'm drawing it right here. I mean, the S-IC stage manager had to keep on top of how his electrical system was going, for example. He also had to make contact with the engines people. At that time, the engines office was a separate office from Saturn V. [00:34:29] MS: Anyway, Rudolph said, “All right, you Mr. S-IC or you Mr. Instrument Unit, go out and get all this data together. [Inaudible] plan to do it. What I want to see is a summarized situation for me. I want this to be summarized in this control room in 319. I want it in a graphic form. I want it [inaudible]. I want somebody specifically responsible,”—as you pointed out, which is one of the key things to it wasn't an office, but a group of people responsible. He had a person—you can still see that person's name on these charts even to this day—that was responsible for making sure that information was correct. [00:35:12] MS: So all this data fed up, [inaudible] it fed laterally like to the engines office or one of these labs. They summarized it on charts like these, which is a very standard method. This is just a waterfall or just a Gantt-type chart back to the picture of what activities are occurring on which stage. Now, the reason I've got this other set of charts out here is that this entire control room has been an evolving process. As our problems change, what we show changes. This thing is pretty well all done. Now, we're in a storage portion of S-II. All active, all building, all testing and everything else has been done. This will show you that this was all tracked. We had a systematic method of showing whether an event was going to be early or late. If the latter was going to be late, then this thing was followed up. We've got a red arrow [that says?] problem area in addition to having a scheduled slide thing. This was part of a big board over here. [00:36:42] RB: The problem areas? [00:36:43] MS: We have two things covering problem areas. We had one that was a problem area board, which listed the problem and who did what to take care of it, and what the status was…The other thing was on the overall schedule, which is still here. This was a whole Saturn V program [thing?] This gave Dr. Rudolph an overall view of things. It went back even prior to President Kennedy’s declaration we're going to make it to the moon [inaudible]. [00:37:27] RB: Master summary schedule in other words? [00:37:30] MS: Here's JFK’s decision in May ‘61, and here's land on the moon July ‘69. All this stuff [inaudible] vehicle development, test facilities, test programs, showing all of these things. This was the big picture. These large arrows stick out in different places. Everywhere you have an arrow, on the problem board, you had a problem listed. We tracked that thing down so it got solved. I'll show you some charts in here. If the problem were of enough significance, he would make a special chart just for that problem. Generally, just listing it and using words was sufficient. [00:38:25] MS: This sounds [relative?] and minor also, but it’s important—and you've already written it down—this control room represented the acme of data collection for Saturn V. It corresponded in every way—in symbology, in width of the bars, in everything—to the control rooms that the other centers had, that Washington had, and that the contractors had. [00:39:03] MS: Dr. Rudolph, in fact, would get on people if they didn't have their triangles just exactly, they had their upside down to his. He didn't like that at all. Rudolph, most people feel like was a nitpicker, a [inaudible], [an imperialist?] What he really wanted, I think, was clear communication. He would just go on and on until everybody he was sure was saying the same thing and knew that they were saying the same thing. You’ve been in a meeting many times, everybody says, “Yeah, this is so, and this is so, and this is so.” Everybody at the center had a different idea. Rudolph would wrestle with this thing, and he would knead that dough until he knew everybody was on board. Then he'd go over to the next point. [00:39:51] MS: All these control rooms were [inaudible]. A great deal of effort was spent on this. Contractors weren't particularly happy because they had to display their data not only for Rudolph, but they had to display it the way he wanted it seen. A number of cases felt like they had better ways of doing it. You can imagine the Boeing company…They've been building planes, you know, since the old P-26 and all this kind of stuff, so they felt like they knew how to run a program. This didn't matter to Rudolph one wit. He wanted it done like this. And he was right—I think—because it enabled him to go and visit and all the people under him to go and visit from place to place. Immediately the thought process was simplified. They didn't have to go learn all this symbology. Like I say, this sounds like a small thing. This isn't a…In the totality of Saturn V, this is a small thing, but in the matter of management, it sure does save a heck of a lot of time once it got set up. [00:40:58] MS: Let me show you some of the [charts?] that he had. There were a number of special purpose charts here. He said, “Our number one objective here is to get 501”—the first Saturn V—“down to the Cape and get that thing launched.” So he's got stages of development. He's got activities—see, these are battleship tests and so forth—that must be accomplished prior to the deliverance of 501. These things were all related. See, he's got this drawn out here, and shows how the dynamic test vehicle, all the tests and all…Are we going to get these things? Is this [shaking?] going to get done in time? Will we get the results back? Will it be analyzed? How does that tie into the facility’s checkout vehicle, which was down at the KSC? What sort of problems are we having? [00:42:05] MS: The whole thing gets back to the fact that this thing was very…It took place in so many diverse geographical locations, with so many different companies, so many different organizations, that tying it all together was the problem. Much, much activity went into this tying together business. I think this is what Jim Webb was talking about when he said he had never seen anything so pulled together. Anybody can make charts, but these charts represented a coherent display of data. Every major item could be tracked back down to its finest points. This isn't so obvious, especially today, looking back on it. I mean, you have to have been here almost to see some of this thing. You can see the gist of this. You can see that he has things other than the 501 vehicle itself. Then he shows what's going on on 501. You can see all these things, you know, like this is a milestone that's taking place early. Here's one that's early. Here's one that's late. He's got major milestones circled around…Intermediate milestones…And it's just all there in a very systematic manner. [00:43:29] MS: They wanted to track the activation of a launch facility. Are we getting our GSC down there on time? So he's got all this graphically depicted, see? Howard Burns was a test and checkout project manager. Howard Burns couldn't direct anybody to do anything legally. That's an interesting thing. He was in charge of the test office. He had no directive authority in the classical sense at all, but Dr. Rudolph looked to him to see that this whole thing was being done. He had to get with the [LVGSE?] manager, he had to get with the Cape, Lord knows who all he had to get with…The Sanders display people up in New Hampshire or whatever. Rudolph didn't care, but Burns, in his opinion, was the functional manager to see that all the tests…Well, he had test, and one of the things under test he just allocated to him was this site activation thing here. [00:44:37] MS: There’s a KSC detailed flow plan, shows how this thing is going to be processed. Let me just cut through some of these. Here's a blow-up. Remember we showed you the dynamic test program and how it fed into 501? This is just a blow-up of that, of the dynamic test program. One chart, [inaudible]. If you want to see, there were some little bitty tabs back there a while ago says, “We've got a little problem,” flip over the end of the chart so-and-so, and you can follow this problem even more closely. Then here's the verbal problem area board I was talking about. The date the problem was reported, identifying it—that is—what piece of hardware is involved? [00:45:29] RB: The S-II. [laughs] [00:45:32] MS: The S-II. And LC-39-500F checkout, see? Which ties into the fact we just had a chart on the LC-39-500F checkout activation. He's got a man honchoing that thing. S-IIT captive firing program, and then it shows the status. Here's an extremely tight schedule for system development facility—red board—in development and debugging of integrated [gets?] operating system programs. The estimates are delivered to KSC 16 March ‘66. Then he's got another thing that says, “See display 40,” which is 500F-LC-39 and SA-501 tape requirements. So we just mentioned LC-39-500F chart. He's got another chart on the 501 tape—that is, you know—the control tapes, the launch vehicle digital control, and the launch site. They have some tapes and all. When a problem arose, it was expanded upon to the point necessary. [00:46:52] MS: This is another thing. Not only did he identify the problem, he said, “Fine, so we know that, we know the status, and we know that this man here is reporting this thing. Now who are the points of commitment?” He had a...Rudolph—I keep quoting Rudolph because I really feel like he was the guy behind this thing—he didn't believe in systems alone. This looks like a massive system. He tied people into these systems under points of commitment. He says, “Industrial operations” —this is for the S-II-1—he says, “Industrial operations is certainly involved, and R&DO is involved, and the contractor.” Then he says, “Who at each one of these places?” Colonel Yarkin, Mr. Widener, and a fellow named Greer. Now these guys, when he says points of commitment, that terminology in itself was debated, thrashed about, defined and redefined until everybody was nauseous with it because nobody could quite decide what a point of commitment was. Some people want to say, “Well, it's the top man on the pile. He's the only guy that can really commit.” But that really wasn't the case because back in this project component qualification test programs, they got guys down at lower management levels that they could work this thing out. That's all Dr. Rudolph wanted to know. It just tells you whether the problem was something that the top man in the organization—Colonel Yarkin was the head of the S-II project at that time—or whether somebody at a lower point in the organization can solve the problem. That's all he was wanting to do. He wanted to find out who was working that thing. [00:48:40] MS: I think I've told you before, I know I've been briefing people who have come in here. So many people from the Army to American Airlines have these control rooms, and they've got about four or five guys or something like that, and these guys run out and try to dig up all this data. They're just scroungers of data, and they come in and they make the best chart they can. So when the vice president in charge of operations comes in, they say, “Okay, now here's a picture on American Airlines progress, so and so, our passenger rate on the West Coast route, so and so on, so and so,” and they give them all this information. That's not the way this worked. There were people who kept up these charts, but they were simply hands of people who were truly responsible. And that's the difference between—in my opinion—an active, efficient control room like this and just whitewash, you know, just hanging stuff out. [00:49:44] RB: The people who are really involved in the actual operation were in fact responsible for the charts? [00:49:51] MS: That's right, and they have their name on the chart. The head of the office has his name and then the man in that office—it didn't matter what his position was either. I mean, first of all, they had to have an office symbol up there so they could, you know, you just had a name, you said, “Well, what office is he in?” So they had the office chief to get you zeroed in to that degree. Then they had a person, and he could have been just a plain engineer, or he could have been a branch chief, whoever it was, that man was responsible for that data on that chart. When I say he was responsible for that data that meant he had to collect it. He had to verify it, and he had to do this periodically. He had to really know what he was putting on there. [00:50:44] MS: Well, you came across those management matrices. That's the same thing. Rudolph wanted to show who was responsible for structural integrity of the S-II stage within the Saturn V program office, within the S-II project office, at North American Rockwell, in the R&D lab. He wanted to know who is responsible for structural integrity on the S-II stage. We had that thing plugged out. It had a structural subsystem. It had a person. If you wanted to talk that subject, you'd get these guys together, and boy, you could talk that subject. There wasn't any doubt about…“Well, gee whiz, I don’t know, I think the laboratory does that.” Then you have to call the laboratory chief and go through some rigmarole. There was none of that. It was very specific. These are quite a…Problem area things…Let's see… [00:52:02]: MS: Now, these problems I was just talking about, that could be anything from a technical problem to a financial problem to a contractual problem. There's no limitation on what these problems are. Now, here's a specialized chart. He had his engineering manager—Lou Bell at the time—Lou Bell picked out the major technical problem areas that he as the systems engineering chief…Here's a thing called “Uncontrolled Instrumentation For Captive Firing Tests, MTF, MSSC, SACTO, and Santa Susana.” Apparently, they had a lot of different types of instrumentation for captive firing at all these places. You see, a stage might be fired at Santa Susana and then fired at MTF, and they couldn't correlate the findings because the instrumentation was different. They may have it located in different ways or it might have had a different range of pickup or you couldn't compare a thrust on the S-IVB stage with thrust on the S-IVC stage because they had it instrumented differently. The project manager for the S-IVB and the project manager for S-IC could [sic] care less. They were doing it the way they thought best. [00:53:29] MS: So here's where this functional manager comes in. He says, “Look, you fellas are doing this differently. We can't compare it. We've got to get this thing coordinated.” The same thing would occur in reliability. One project office would be testing a LOX relief valve to certain criteria, and another stage office would be testing it to a different set of criteria, and you couldn't correlate the things. Dr. Rudolph, as the program manager, says, “Look, this has got to be integrated.” That's why he put so much emphasis on the functional managers. I don't know that we'll ever have that much emphasis again. Maybe so. But as you think about it, you'll see why he had to have not staff members but functional managers: because they had so damn many pieces of hardware that had to fit together. [00:54:23] RB: The functional manager, in a sense, had the authority to say to the S-IC and S-IVB, “We've got to get the instrumentation together,” and they had to do it. They could get together because if you had the right matrix chart, the S-IVB instrumentation manager could pick up a chart and see exactly who his counterpart was in the S-IC [stage?]. They could just get together and talk the same language and say, “Okay, we'll do this.” The systems engineer was the action manager overall for that, and he would [inaudible] them until he got it all…. And if he wanted help from R&DO, the systems engineer could pick up another matrix chart and find out exactly who R&DO was to help the two guys solve their mutual problems. [00:55:05] MS: Right. And see, this is extended in a number of things from instrumentation to welding problems between stages. You see, I mean, why…If one guy's got a welding problem on one stage, then you need to get the people that are specialists in welding. Maybe another stage has got this problem licked. You said it very well. [00:55:34] MS: Here's another example of a functional thing that was so necessary. This shows the mission requirements. For example, it shows the payload required for 501. It shows that 501 will be an unmanned vehicle. It says it's a launch vehicle and CSM development, 501 and 502. That's their primary mission. It shows how the payload commitment has to increase. I have to stop a minute here and think in terms of, I think, more like a mini historian. See, the [Manned’s?] building 501, and it's so far down the track that you can't go back and, let's say, reduce the weight of the S-II stage. But a report comes from Houston that the CSM is growing in weight, and fellas, the CSM is going to weigh five thousand pounds more than we thought it was going to weigh. Now, the first one doesn't, but later on we find out we're going to have to add these systems to the third and fourth flights and subsequent, so you're going to have to boost five thousand pounds more. So while you were building 501, you were changing 503 and 504, perhaps going to a different material. This did occur. It wasn't in those particular stages. They would upgrade the engine thrust, and all this sort of a mishmash. The more you think about it, you wonder how they kept it straight. This was configuration management can. We even have charts that show which vehicle, so-called first-effectivity charts, shows when this change first… [tape ends] Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context ohc_stnv_000039_A Title A name given to the resource Shettles, Mack (Part 2) Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource .MP4 Type The nature or genre of the resource Interviews Audio Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived University of Alabama in Huntsville Archives and Special Collections, Huntsville, Alabama Language A language of the resource en Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource This material may be protected under U. S. Copyright Law (Title 17, U.S. Code) which governs the making of photocopies or reproductions of copyrighted materials. You may use the digitized material for private study, scholarship, or research. Though the University of Alabama in Huntsville Archives and Special Collections has physical ownership of the material in its collections, in some cases we may not own the copyright to the material. It is the patron's obligation to determine and satisfy copyright restrictions when publishing or otherwise distributing materials found in our collections. Description An account of the resource Dr. Rudolph, his love of charts, and their impact on the Saturn V project https://oralhistory.uah.edu/files/original/27f4ac9f4ce414721fd1b4ea86eed7cf.pdf 609bd34cbb2bc8ad428f7b5ec93a65bb Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Saturn V Collection Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context ohc_stnv_000038_T Title A name given to the resource Seibel, Mathia P. (Transcript) Description An account of the resource Manufacturing problems and achievements with Saturn, contractor and vendor relations. Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1971-08-30 Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource .pdf Type The nature or genre of the resource Interviews Text Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived University of Alabama in Huntsville Archives and Special Collections, Huntsville, Alabama Language A language of the resource en Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource This material may be protected under U. S. Copyright Law (Title 17, U.S. Code) which governs the making of photocopies or reproductions of copyrighted materials. You may use the digitized material for private study, scholarship, or research. Though the University of Alabama in Huntsville Archives and Special Collections has physical ownership of the material in its collections, in some cases we may not own the copyright to the material. It is the patron's obligation to determine and satisfy copyright restrictions when publishing or otherwise distributing materials found in our collections. https://oralhistory.uah.edu/files/original/7745ffd3b47370df4464dee487827309.jpg 4598197eb9b09fa4ae86fb6882190ee7 https://oralhistory.uah.edu/files/original/1613abc414ee4f49ab6920c1b333a8cc.mp4 75d9f501d93675f148c1c3fcbc6691e8 Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Saturn V Collection Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context ohc_stnv_000038_A Title A name given to the resource Seibel, Mathia P. Description An account of the resource Manufacturing problems and achievements with Saturn, contractor and vendor relations. Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1971-08-30 Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource .MP4 Type The nature or genre of the resource Interviews Audio Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived University of Alabama in Huntsville Archives and Special Collections, Huntsville, Alabama Language A language of the resource en Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource This material may be protected under U. S. Copyright Law (Title 17, U.S. Code) which governs the making of photocopies or reproductions of copyrighted materials. You may use the digitized material for private study, scholarship, or research. Though the University of Alabama in Huntsville Archives and Special Collections has physical ownership of the material in its collections, in some cases we may not own the copyright to the material. It is the patron's obligation to determine and satisfy copyright restrictions when publishing or otherwise distributing materials found in our collections. https://oralhistory.uah.edu/files/original/51c5c97276e0352b3e67c758ecd67aab.jpg cc0c4f909af1a8ef79e706ad5968148a https://oralhistory.uah.edu/files/original/674773f0f82ef413dd806d591b3974b5.mp4 a3fe8859fc37c6c869e10dacdc258c03 Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Christensen, David Collection Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context ohc_crst_000023_A Title A name given to the resource Schilling, Martin Description An account of the resource Experience in V-2 developemerit during WW II in Gernany. Role played by foreign workers at Peenemuende. Notes on interview, not interview. Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1972-07-24 Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource .MP4 Type The nature or genre of the resource Interviews Audio Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived University of Alabama in Huntsville Archives and Special Collections, Huntsville, Alabama Language A language of the resource en Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource This material may be protected under U. S. Copyright Law (Title 17, U.S. Code) which governs the making of photocopies or reproductions of copyrighted materials. You may use the digitized material for private study, scholarship, or research. Though the University of Alabama in Huntsville Archives and Special Collections has physical ownership of the material in its collections, in some cases we may not own the copyright to the material. It is the patron's obligation to determine and satisfy copyright restrictions when publishing or otherwise distributing materials found in our collections. https://oralhistory.uah.edu/files/original/6760b8f1d7906b1d5ff0eac87c07debb.jpg cc0c4f909af1a8ef79e706ad5968148a https://oralhistory.uah.edu/files/original/5357c22cc4cb7da33fc8fb2b8a0226a5.mp4 015cfb6c26ef0c9b651e669eb07ed437 Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Christensen, David Collection Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context ohc_crst_000022_A Title A name given to the resource Samaniego, Ramone Description An account of the resource Experiences with test stand construction and design at White Sands. Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1971-08-23 Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource .MP4 Type The nature or genre of the resource Interviews Audio Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived University of Alabama in Huntsville Archives and Special Collections, Huntsville, Alabama Language A language of the resource en Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource This material may be protected under U. S. Copyright Law (Title 17, U.S. Code) which governs the making of photocopies or reproductions of copyrighted materials. You may use the digitized material for private study, scholarship, or research. Though the University of Alabama in Huntsville Archives and Special Collections has physical ownership of the material in its collections, in some cases we may not own the copyright to the material. It is the patron's obligation to determine and satisfy copyright restrictions when publishing or otherwise distributing materials found in our collections. https://oralhistory.uah.edu/files/original/6f126e3d6fb5e1e82586e0d044d52a8d.jpg cc0c4f909af1a8ef79e706ad5968148a https://oralhistory.uah.edu/files/original/c5da4190081be0a5531a6195886b31c0.mp4 87b34a806c4d8afc9e8d021e3efa6a42 Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Christensen, David Collection Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context ohc_crst_000021_A Title A name given to the resource Rudolph, Arthur Description An account of the resource Audio is of a presentation to American Institue of Aeronautics and Astronautics (AIAA), not an interview. Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource .MP4 Type The nature or genre of the resource Interviews Audio Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived University of Alabama in Huntsville Archives and Special Collections, Huntsville, Alabama Language A language of the resource en Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource This material may be protected under U. S. Copyright Law (Title 17, U.S. Code) which governs the making of photocopies or reproductions of copyrighted materials. You may use the digitized material for private study, scholarship, or research. Though the University of Alabama in Huntsville Archives and Special Collections has physical ownership of the material in its collections, in some cases we may not own the copyright to the material. It is the patron's obligation to determine and satisfy copyright restrictions when publishing or otherwise distributing materials found in our collections. https://oralhistory.uah.edu/files/original/34346bcc87c80dcd1f16ebb34e663d66.jpg 4598197eb9b09fa4ae86fb6882190ee7 https://oralhistory.uah.edu/files/original/1f0dbba22caab53777bb112474cf3fde.mp4 eb499797a6777f7d64e1911de9ad9db7 Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Saturn V Collection Oral History A resource containing historical information obtained in interviews with persons having firsthand knowledge. Interviewee The person(s) being interviewed Rogers, Richard Interviewer The person(s) performing the interview Bilstein, Roger E. Duration Length of time involved (seconds, minutes, hours, days, class periods, etc.) 0:29:32 Transcription Any written text transcribed from a sound [00:00:01] Richard Rogers: Well, let me tell you what my background is. I came on J-2 when I came here in August of ‘60. The contract was [let?] September of ‘60. As far as my dealings with Lewis prior to that time, I had none. From the time that I got on the contract, it was a matter of…It was already a design that had been bought by the government, so to speak. Of course, the design that we bought as we progressed through development ran into problems, which there were times where we borrowed on past experience. Best of my knowledge, all of the design concepts in that engine, Rocketdyne had certainly utilized those. [00:01:01] RR: At that time, the only thing we had [hydrogen fueled?] was the RL-10. It was a somewhat different engine in that way it started and, of course, the thrust levels. It was quite a jump from the RL-10 engine to the J-2 in the thrust level, weight, and so forth, and also requirements. I guess mainly what the restart requirements at that time. We had restart requirements. I guess from the…There were probably a couple of areas that…Problems that we encountered, the experiences that we took from the RL-10 program—one was an injector. The concept developed there—the rigid mesh injector—which is nothing more than a transpiration cool of the face by bleeding hydrogen through the backside. [00:02:08] RR: Hydrogen came into a manifold and dumped in between the LOX side and the combustion side. There was an annulus, which the LOX fluid was in the middle. The fuel fed into that annulus and was then mixed with LOX and, of course, the combustion process took place. A percentage of that, I think would vary anywhere from two or three percent, flowed through the rigid mesh face. Early injectors that Rocketdyne proposed—the old flat face H-1 type—I never had much dealing with H-1 before I got on J-2. They were the old flat face, like on like, ringed injectors—copper rings. We had face burning with them, and also a type impingement they had. [00:03:03] RR: We weren't able to get the performance specific impulse out of them. I guess we struggled along there for the early part of the program in the thrust chamber injector program trying to meet the C-STAR requirements. A number of the problems ran into was this face burning problem. This is what we did: we pulled that experience out of the [RPM?] program and applied it to J-2. This resolved the face burning problem. [00:03:38] Roger Bilstein: I was going to ask you how long were you trying to use the H-1 injector face in there before you went to the rigid mesh stuff? How many… [00:03:47] RR: I have to go back. We got records, but as I remember, it was all…I have to go back and check to be sure, but as I remember, it was up into October. See, we fired in ‘60, ‘62, ‘61, ‘62. We were in ‘61—about the middle part of ‘61—before we made that change. They cranked up—I believe about four months into the program as I remember—from the time they had the contract. The first firing in the thrust chamber stand, which was a water-cooled jacketed combustion chamber, was when we began to find out some of the face cooling problems we had. After several design iterations…You know, a contractor never likes to be asked to use a concept somebody else has used. It's just general nature. He'd rather design around it than somebody stand up and tell him he's got to take something that his competitor has used. That's not for the record, but that's the way it goes. Sometimes it's not invented here, they're not interested, especially when it's the competitor's idea. [00:05:05] RB: Did you have to start to kind of push that down Rocketdyne’s throat? [00:05:09] RR: Oh, we had to. I mean, we were way behind on performance. Like the spec at that time was based on a mixed ratio of 5:0 and 200k engine. The spec at that time was 422 seconds. We were running around somewhere around 415 to 419 with those type of injectors. The main reason being was, I guess, trying to get the mixed ratio distribution across the injector face with that type of injectors is pretty difficult. Not only that, but as you go out towards the periphery, you have to be very careful about how your LOX impinges is emitted out of the injector. If you get too much up against the wall, then you're either forced to put more film coolant in, which is you lose performance if you add fuel to the wall to keep it cool. You lose performance because then you're getting out of balanced mix ratio. In this case, you'd like to run around 5:1. That's injector mixed ratio now, not overall engine. If you're running 5:1 in a core, on a wall you're running 3:5:4. That's performance [LOX?]. Ideally you'd like to approach stoichiometric. I would say the thing we talked about, what do we learn out of PAS program, what was probably a major benefit from PAS program, or what technology base did we extrapolate from, I would have to say that probably the RL-10 in the injector area was a great benefit to it. [00:06:51] RB: Do you know anything…Was it the Pall Company or a guy named Paul who developed that rigid mesh? [00:06:58] RR: Pall Company. [00:06:59] RB: Yeah, face. Does that strike a bell with you? [00:07:01] RR: Yeah. [00:07:02] RB: Okay, is that the one? P-A-L-L? [00:07:04] RR: Yeah, I think that's it. I think…You know Dave Christen [sic]? [00:07:07] RB: He's the one who put me on you. [everyone laughs] Thank him for that later. [00:07:13] RR: Yeah, I think Dave used to represent them at one time. That was Pall Corporation, I think they’re the only ones who got it. They're the sole source of that material. [00:07:25] RB: Do you know any more about it? I mean how it was used in earlier programs? Do you have a line on that? [00:07:30] RR: I think, as best I understand, it got started…The application was for filters. That's how it really got started. It was a filter cartridge or a filter, used as a filter media. Someone had the bright idea, I guess, you know, that one of the things you got to do is keep the face cool, and how do you do it? When you start taking flat faces where you got to drill a hole in the face, you got to depend on heat transfer, which is they use copper. With the combustion temperature we had, it's pretty hot to handle, you know? You got to watch junctures. The copper alone won't work by itself without having steel ends in order to support the copper, so you got a juncture there where you got heat transfer problem. With the heat fluxes that we use associated with LOX hydrogen engines, as opposed to those that are associated with LOX kerosene engines and LOX RP engines. [00:08:29] Second interviewer: Is it different? Fluctuation in heat in the engine? [00:08:34] RR: In the combustion chamber, yeah. It gets a little different when it comes to base area because it has to do with the emissivity of the gas, of the exhaust product. In the F-1, you always had that fuel rich shroud around the periphery. [00:08:50] Second interviewer: And is that effect performance like hydrogen cooling of the walls in the J-2? I mean, does the same principle operate? [00:08:58] RR: Well, it's not. You're talking about the rigid mesh face? [00:09:00] Second interviewer: No, I'm just talking about when you're talking about LOX dumping out on the edge and ruining your balance on the wall. [00:09:06] RR: Well, yeah. Well, see you got to put the fuel…To answer your question, what I was talking about there is that you got to keep the wall. You got a certain heat flux at the throat, and your walls have to be kept cool. You got two things you got to worry about. Right where your combustion is completed—the face—as you progress down, you got to build up a boundary layer. You always have film coolant. You want to minimize that film coolant because it's used to fuel rich, and it's way out of balance. It's the way you ought to be burning to get maximum performance. But what I was telling you there is in flat face, you've got to impinge back in this way with your LOX. You don't dare to get on the side of the wall because of the inertia difference between the density of LOX and those of the fuel. The LOX penetrates through that stream where you've got to, say, relatively low velocities at the outer periphery in comparison to what you got at the center core. Then you begin to burn on the side of the wall at a very high temperature because locally the mixed ratio is real high. You're getting up close to stoichiometric, even higher than that. So what you've got to do is you've got to be able to minimize that film cooling so that the spray, the LOX—the last element—the time it gets over there that you've got a uniform mixture, not a glob going through that sheet of fuel and setting up a very local mixture ratio which are real high. If you do, then you burn right through the wall because the local temperature is really high at that point. [00:10:44] RB: Did you have trouble finding the right kind of steel tubing? Did you have trouble finding the right kind of steel tubing for the LH tube return post up to keep your wall cool? [00:10:56] RR: No, [inaudible] uses 347. 347 tube. No, they haven't had any trouble with the tube. We had more than adequate cooling at the throat because we put all the fuel except when we went to the gas generator which was three or four pounds a second. The rest of that flow was, say, seventy-eight pounds a second going through the chamber, so we had more than adequate cooling as far as taking care of the heat fluxes were there as long as everything was uniform. Of course, you get local conditions like sometimes in transit, you know, J-2 was plagued for a while with a fuel pump stall. Whenever you open the LOX valve, about that time, it begins to deprive the system of fuel because of the resistance in the system was so great and there wasn't enough head output at that time when you really needed it in order to open the LOX valve to pour the right amount of fuel in the chamber. You starved the system, in other words, you had almost the fuel flowing down because of the resistance and the fact that your pump was decaying down, you weren't putting out the head. You opened the LOX, which is a good quality, and sometimes we burnt the walls trying to tune the sequence up. This fuel pump stall problem the way we got out of that was going back through the system, taking out Delta P where we could. Initially, I guess you might say it was kind of sloppy as far as their care and design. I'm not assuring that they had the lowest Delta P system. We had to do that, plus we had to add another stage to the fuel pump. We had a six-stage axial flow pump. We had to come back in and add another stage, which went to seven stage pump, which increased the head output. Of course, this had to do too with the tuning of the LOX valve so that it cracked at the right rate, so that the fuel system wasn't overpowered by the LOX system. You got to affect chamber pressure, and they're both seeing the same thing. Now, if the LOX side is running ahead of the fuel side in pressure, then what's creating the chamber pressure is the LOX side. The fuel side now has got to work against it, so you got to tune the LOX valve so that the fuel essentially is leading the LOX in pressure. [00:13:21] RB: When we were out in Los Angeles, we talked to some people. Paul Fuller, do you know him? He’s out there. [00:13:26] RR: Yeah. [00:13:27] RB: Bob Fontaine was working on the F-1. I think John asked the question, “Does engine development and design be kind of a black art sometimes?” that you maybe make a fix on it, and the thing works, and you're not really quite sure what you did to make it work in the long run. Do you ever have that feeling? [00:13:48] RR: Well, no, not really. I guess the biggest thing sometimes is when you make several changes at one time. That's the thing, you know? [00:13:53] RB: Okay, that would be that. Right. [00:13:57] RR: A lot of times you have a problem, and you think that, well, if you do this and that and so forth, it does correct the problem. It's your best estimate through your analysis and observation of hardware. Sometimes you make those changes and then you have another problem, and then you're not quite sure which one of the three fixes you made simultaneously caused the other problem. But I think you all, in fact, I don't know of any case of any problem we ever had that we didn't eventually thoroughly understand it. We knew what the cause was. We sometimes, like I say, we make too many changes at one time. Sometimes schedule pressures force you to make two or three changes at one time rather than doing one at a time. As you know, it depends on what part of the development program you're in. If you're in the early phase and things are going kind of slow, and it seems like every day you test something's coming loose, you know? It seems like it's never going to end. As opposed to your get on out in the program where you got a lot of testing behind you and the bulk of the problems have gone away or solved. Then you get these sporadic problems like you [cook?] through two damn engines, and you don't even have the problem. In the third engine, there was something you did in manufacturing or there's some little something that you did is all of a sudden now creeping into an engine. Because there are changes going on all the time, really. If you're going to get there, you got to make them. Just, you know, several approaches to developing a rocket engine. You can take that first engine out there, and you just test it and test it and test it and repair and repair. You get all the problems, and you make one big block change. Sometimes that may take you a long time ever getting there or you can make the change, and you make that change in the pipeline over here where the engines are being built. There's pros and cons to developing an engine like this like that. Some people think it's better to do it on a block basis. Some people think it's better to do it when you got a problem, fix it and get it into your line. [00:16:01] RB: Is that the way you usually handle it then? [00:16:03] RR: That's the way it’s usually done. It just isn't time because every time you run a test, you don't want to let a component ride on there you know you're going to change. You test your [reliabilities?] based on the number of units and the number of tests, and if you're losing time by not going ahead and making a change, really soon you can. [00:16:30] RB: I had a question to ask about the failures in the J-2 engines on the S-2 and S-4B stage when you had 502. Now there was something that you discovered after you put it into a vacuum chamber, tested it in vacuum at altitude. Now weren't there vacuum and altitude tests done before or was that basically on just the engine throat areas that you didn't get up into the ASI area? Why didn't you discover that before? [00:16:56] RR: No. Well, we did testing at Tullahoma. We pulled the sail down, you know, about two tenths [PSI?] or something like that, which would have been adequate except Tullahoma sitting in a big hole, which the whole bottom of the hole was filled with water. Even though there's nitrogen purge, there's still quite a bit of moisture, and that's what this particular problem thrived on. That is, when you were at moist conditions, the minute the fuel started through the line, you started to liquefying the air or the moisture. Or you even froze the moisture on the bellows. Therefore that acted as a dampening device, see? Then when you put it in, say, an environment of helium where there is no moisture, there's no ice accumulation, then the thing is allowed to go through its thousands of cycles right quick. [00:17:46] RB: Where did you finally do the test with the helium atmosphere? [00:17:49] Second interviewer: Was that after the failure? [00:17:51] RR: That was after the failure. [00:17:52] RB: Yeah, it was after the failure. [00:17:53] RR: We didn't do any tests. We didn't have any failures. [00:17:55] Second interviewer: Did them out Santa Susana, that test with the helium? [00:17:59] RR Yeah, that was done there in Canoga Park. [00:18:01] RB: Okay, after the failure. [00:18:02] RR: After the failure, yeah. I tell you, I think that was just a stroke of luck, really, that we found that thing that quick. That's my personal feeling. Because that's the one you just don't ever, you would never think about. [00:18:19] RB: Yeah. [00:18:20] RR: I have to give Rocketdyne credit. They did a fantastic job of taking what test data and flight data and piecing all, you know, putting all the pieces together. If you took the data, it would tell you two things that went on. One was when the line failed, the start fuel to the injector, to the ASI. Well, when they, we didn't know it was flying, but as you start the fuel, you begin to roll the ASI out. Just begin to burn the whole center of it out. When you did that, then of course that changes your C-STAR. Now, if one takes the flight data and tries to go back and says, “Well, you know, I know something happened. I know I'm losing fuel.” We could see that in the environmental data. You could see temperatures. It had to be a fuel leak. Then you say, “Well, wherein a world. How much fuel am I losing?” Well, if you go back and assume in the calculations that you've got no damage to the injector, you know what the C-STAR is. You got hundreds of tests to tell you what that is. Then you try to balance the engine out with that C-STAR, not knowing if a damn big hole in the injector. It comes out in terms of you losing so much fuel. It came out like six or seven pounds of fuel going someplace. You try to balance it out that way. Well, we're talking about an ASI line that was flowing something like a pound or two at the most. That kind of fogged the issue there, trying to use the balance of what was going on that flight to say, where in the hell could we lose that much fuel? You know, what sources and start taking instrumentation, track it through the system. Someone got the bright idea out there, you know, you better start trying some of these lines to see what they do under flow condition. By doing the test and the environment they did it in, they found out right quick, you know? It’s amazing. I don’t know if you've ever seen in pictures or not. The actual failure. [00:20:15] Second interviewer: I heard there were pictures. [00:20:16] RR: They turned the valves on to start the test, and the line fails like that practically. What amazes me is how we went through all these other flights up until that time. Then had two failures, one on S-2 and one on S-4B. [laughs] [00:20:32] RB: Well, that first one was a suborbital flight, though. Of course, the S-4B is on the S-1… [00:20:37] RR: It's in a vacuum, always in a hard vacuum to start. [00:20:40] RB: Yeah. Were there any other problems with the J-2 engines that you recall? [00:20:46] RR: Any other problems? [00:20:48] RB: Yeah. You mentioned the injector face and that little problem with the ASI fuel line. [00:20:54] RR: Of course, that was the pogo problem. I think that was more of a…I would say it was the engine’s problem. It's just more of a structural problem. [00:21:05] RB: What about some of the materials that were used in the J-2 like Rene 48 [sic] and Inconel? Were those around at the beginning? [00:21:14] RR: Yeah. [00:21:15] RB: Okay. Could you tell me where you used some of those things specifically? [00:21:18] RR: Yeah, 718 was used in the injector billet. The injector's made from a big billet, which is eloxed out. In other words, the post of the injectors use an eloxed graphite plate. It's electrical discharge machining. You just take it, make the post. Later on, they drilled it first, then they came back and did elox on the post with a drill with elox process. The injector assembly, manifold, pumps—that's 718. [00:21:56] RB: What about the Rene? Was that primarily an F-1 material? [00:22:00] RR: Rene was an F-1 material. [00:22:02] RB: Yeah. What are the Kel-F lines? I just don't know. [00:22:05] RR: Huh? [00:22:06] RB: Kel-F. [00:22:07] RR: Kel-F liners? [00:22:08] RB: Yeah. [00:22:09] RR: Kel-F? It’s just… [00:22:10] RB: I have no idea what that is. [00:22:14] RR: We have a Kel-F liner LOX pump. [00:22:18] RB: In the LOX pump? [00:22:20] RR: [Inaudible] area. All that was for was to protect the blade surfaces from the walls of the housing in case there’s ever a part that came in and got lodged between they [wouldn’t?] be scrubbing against the surface. You have a plastic protection, you know, keep from building up any heat or if an inducer ever kissed [inaudible] bearing or something suddenly went bad, you have a certain amount of motion then you’d be kissing plastic for a while before you finally got to the metal. Well, then you could build up heat and blow the LOX pump. [00:22:56] RB: There was another question I had…Oh! About the gimbaling system…Did you ever build a mechanical screw system? [00:22:58] RR: Mechanical screw? [00:23:03] RB: Yeah. [00:23:04] RR: No. [00:23:05] RB: Rocketdyne was testing that on some test stands [00:23:06] RR: The program did some work on a pneumatic actuator, hydrogen driven turbine ball screw. [00:23:14] RB: But it never worked out very well? [00:23:15] RR: They never did much on it. It’s what they proposed. It’s a proposal they made. They built one or two and tried them out, but they didn’t have enough umph to them. They didn’t have power to give the rates that we required. Very sluggish. [00:23:32] RB: Okay, another question: how do you go about upgrading an engine when you went from 200 to 230k? When you start with a 200k engine what do you have to do to it to meet the desired thrust level? The higher one? [00:23:44] RR: Went from 200 to 225 then went 230k a second. [00:23:49] Second interviewer: In two separate steps? [00:23:50] RR: It was two separate steps. That’s kind of a hard one. First of all, the engine, when it was designed, was designed at a thrust point of 200k and a 5:0 mixed ratio. It had a PU valve, which allowed an excursion of five mixed ratio units on either side of that. In other words, that would’ve taken you to 5:5 mixed ratio or up to 4:5 from another 5:0. That’s if you vary the mixed ratio. In this case it was bypassing LOX around the LOX pump. Then your thruster is going to vary. You’re either taking out LOX or you’re putting more in. One or the other. In this case your thrust is going to rise. Well, in J-2 when it was bought it was a 5:0, 200k, and that’s the way it was going to be acceptance tested with the PU excursion. Since the engine was orificed [sic] 5:0, then you had no control of the exact thrust that you’d get when you’d go to either end of the excursion. It just so happened that when you went to the 5:5, you’d go as high as 238k. [00:25:13] RB: What was the factor…. [00:25:14] RR: As high as, okay? So as the design of the S-2 stage progressed, and they got thinking about the mission and what the requirements were, they came up with a scheme of flying the first portion of it at 5:5. When they needed the high thrust then the last third portion of the burn going back down to the lower mixed ratio with the specific impulse. As soon as you go up you lost gain [inaudible] like this occur second impulse. As you go out towards the higher mixed ratio, you don’t get the specific impulse but you get the higher thrust. That’s more important than the trajectory equations at that particular time in the S-2 boost. Later on in the flight you’re not so concerned about thrust anymore, you need Isp. You switch it back the other way, so your thrust is going down, but your Isp is going up. That was kind of the way the engine was burned in the S-2 and the S-4B. It had that same profile. [00:26:33] RB: Do you have to start upgrading stuff though like the turbo pumps and everything else when you start doing that? [00:26:37] RR: Well, you got to start testing that way. [00:26:39] RB: Yeah. [00:26:43] Second interviewer: Okay, what about the structures that these interface with? Has that all been taken care of beforehand that it will stand the stress of another... [00:26:51] RR: Well, so yeah, when we went to 225k, we orificed [sic] the engine at the 5:5 mix ratio in. They gave us very precise thrust at the end. We calibrated the engine 225 plus or minus about 6k. Usually the engine ran within 2 or 3k of the value. Every firing would be within that dispersion about 225. Well, wherever it was calibrated, you had about…Sometimes it was calibrated 227k. [00:27:20] Second interviewer: How do you go about calibration? [00:27:22] RR: Just change the orifice. Bouncing out there. [00:27:26] Second interviewer: Where do you get your calibration standards? Just accumulated data? [00:27:31] RR: Well, you got a computer program that models the engine. Before you have a flow test on various components, you have this data. You got pump data. All your pumps are green run before they go in the engine, so you know what their performance are. You take all this data, and you put it in the computer, and it comes out and tells you where the first cut to make. What the orifice should be put in there. It's not exactly the first run that you make. Then you come back and change the orifice, and you make another cut at it. Usually about two runs, I mean, you get really...Further along you get in the program, you get pretty good at it. You usually make it the first cut. But until you develop that skill and learn to get enough data, I guess, that's what it amounts to on valves. What kind of spurs, what influences the valves have on the balance of the engine. The chambers have various Delta Ps in them, and pumps have different efficiencies. They're very narrow. But when you start talking about hitting something within 3K out of 225, that's a pretty close shooting. [00:28:49] RB: So one other question. We're about out of the tape here, and we want to ask for a half an hour, so that we’ve done it. What does the J in the J-2 mean? [00:28:56] RR: The J? [00:28:58] RB: You know where they got the F in the F-1 and the H in the H-1? [00:29:02] RR: I don't know. I never really stopped to think where they got it. It's a series of A, B, C, D, H-1, F-1, and J, H. I don’t know. I never thought to how they… [00:29:07] Second Interviewer: It's kind of a series, Roger. [Inaudible] started off with… [00:29:13] RB: [Inaudible] start off with F. [00:29:19] Second interviewer: It's kind of in the series. It’s not like anything else. It’s not uniform. [00:29:23] RB: It's like playing the SA-203 before the SA- 202, okay. [laughs] [00:29:27] RR: I don't know. [00:29:29] Second interviewer: That's what it comes from. That's what people at Rocketdyne told me. [tape ends] Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context ohc_stnv_000037_A Title A name given to the resource Rogers, Richard Description An account of the resource J-2 Engine Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource .MP4 Type The nature or genre of the resource Interviews Audio Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived University of Alabama in Huntsville Archives and Special Collections, Huntsville, Alabama Language A language of the resource en Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource This material may be protected under U. S. Copyright Law (Title 17, U.S. Code) which governs the making of photocopies or reproductions of copyrighted materials. You may use the digitized material for private study, scholarship, or research. Though the University of Alabama in Huntsville Archives and Special Collections has physical ownership of the material in its collections, in some cases we may not own the copyright to the material. It is the patron's obligation to determine and satisfy copyright restrictions when publishing or otherwise distributing materials found in our collections. https://oralhistory.uah.edu/files/original/e15bdc37d578af79422bf48a0bd67702.jpg 4598197eb9b09fa4ae86fb6882190ee7 https://oralhistory.uah.edu/files/original/eee7642679fa09032afa9a5fce224660.mp4 6f07ea7ce6d9d700689dda735f91a5d5 Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Saturn V Collection Oral History A resource containing historical information obtained in interviews with persons having firsthand knowledge. Interviewee The person(s) being interviewed Rees, Eberhard Interviewer The person(s) performing the interview Bilstein, Roger E.; Beltz, John Stuart; and Christensen, David Duration Length of time involved (seconds, minutes, hours, days, class periods, etc.) 0:32:32 Transcription Any written text transcribed from a sound [00:00:07] Eberhard Rees: …I think we have to do it in the right way, as newspaper people like to do: who is guilty that this was done and who is not guilty that this was done and this kind of things. I do not believe we should write a controversial story only just for sensation. We ought to leave that to the newspaper people. [00:00:28] John Stuart Beltz: We certainly do not have that as the intent. Roger and I are interested in the history of technology and that is what we would like to concentrate on is the research and development in the phase and then the manufacturing phase. We want to go into management. Quite frankly, we are interested in the controversial stories but we just do not have time to go into that right at this point. We are doing a program history of the Saturn I, IB and the V. As you know, this will be extensively reviewed both by yourself and headquarters before it comes out. It is in a very rough state now. You might have seen some of the working papers that Roger and I have done. We still have to part of the story. We just learned from Hans Wuenscher this morning on relative strengths of tankage on the Saturn I which throws out a couple of paragraphs that I wrote on that already that I have to go back and correct. There will be a lot of that kind of revision as we learn more and more about that. [00:01:31] ER: I hope Wuenscher is right because the strengths business and this kind of things were done in some other department in astronautics. I hope he has given you the right thing. This is troublesome. [00:01:47] JSB: That is why we are going to need to do a lot of checking. [00:01:50] Roger Bilstein: That is the value of the review too. We only wish you had time to write the history actually. [00:01:56.] ER: You know, these things are very, very often hard to remember them even. [00:02:07] RB: John, do you want to do some questions or do you want me to? [00:02:13] JSB: We have several areas that we would like to talk about. We probably won't just finish in an hour today. Maybe we might like to come back later and talk to you. Maybe we could start by talking in the area of contracts and some of the major reasons why the prime contractors were selected both for technical reasons that Marshall thought that they had the ability to do the job best and were most cost effective, but also any other reasons like plant location, economic reasons for employment in various sections of the country, the ability to spread the word around. [00:02:50] ER: A very controversial subject. A very controversial subject. We might wind up in court. [00:03:00] JSB: You or me? [00:03:02] ER: No, no, no, no. We, NASA. And some contractors sticking out and said, “No, this wasn't so.” We would have really to go with a lawyer through the papers. Is it necessary to bring out the whys? Then we have to have long, long, long story adventures. We have then to get all the proposals in of all the contractors, and I even can't remember who all was bidding on the S-II, on the S-IC, on the IU, on all the others. [00:03:51] David Christensen: I agree with Dr. Rees on that, really taking the other side. I'm not so sure it's necessary either, you know, to bring in the whys. [00:03:59] ER: Can't we just say we have selected this contractors after a contest, after a competition? If you go into the why of that whole thing, then you, and make one little legal mistake, then, then... [00:04:25] DC: It opens up a can of worms. [00:04:27] ER: Some of the bidders again said, "No, this was not so. We had a better proposal.” This is very, very, very controversial. [00:04:38] JSB: There's a lot of times when a bidder will propose on something, get the contract, and then adopt the technology of his competitor to build it. [00:04:50] ER: Yeah, this has happened, and contracts don't want to hear that. Even don't want to read it in a history book. [00:05:01] DC: Could we do this maybe? Glance at the questions that we have, and right now, and see the ones that you might want to... [00:05:09] JSB: We'll get back to contracting, maybe by a backdoor way, but maybe we can talk about management right now. That’s also kind of controversial, but internally. Can you go back in your experience even to the, maybe, some of the carryover activities from Peenemuende under Dornberger; as your role as technical assistant to von Braun in managing this large enterprise; when you were in the development operations division and then into formation of NASA or Marshall Space Flight Center; and your particular role in going out and seeing that the contractors were doing their job, enforcing schedules, making sure that the necessary quality was being built in for manned rating? Can you talk in that area? [00:06:12] ER: Yeah, we could talk about that. We'll talk about that a little bit. [long pause] When we talk about the management of the Saturn, we should in the history book just describe how the management was and maybe less about the whys. See, I could now give you a long, long, long story how we have asked the manager of the So-and-So Company. We had to change managers almost everywhere, and I don't want to go into that. This is all gone. There were controversial points during the…When the 204 fire was and those three astronauts were killed, and then Mr. Webb was put in front of Congressional committees, and then the famous Phillips report came out. Those kind of things, and they are very, very controversial. This goes also into the spacecraft more than into the launch week. [00:07:56] JSB: When you were out there troubleshooting that, did you also get in touch with people at Seal Beach and work with them at all or was your prime responsibility with investigating the fire? [00:08:10] ER: I was never in the investigation of the fire. I only was then assigned to help that we could get out of it, the whole operation. The design was all done, and I had some designers from Houston with me at that time, but all what we want to do is we want to see that we get out of it rather than pointing fingers. Now, newspaper people want to have, of course, the finger pointing. They like that. They like that I have trouble with [skill rules?] or that I have trouble with this and this. There's a controversy and just this kind of things. I do not believe a history should now be written that way, always bringing out these controversial things, but rather the facts how it has turned out. [00:09:09] DC: Actually, we haven't really been hitting this controversial area with any of the others. Since you're the director, this is really the first time that we've been hitting, because you would have the answers, but again, I agree with you on that. I think that we should not write in a newspaper account, maybe something more technically oriented, really, and less controversial. [00:09:33] ER: You could write that thing, that whole history book, that in summary, one reader would say, “Well, for heaven's sake, well, this is a stinking mess.” You could write it that way. You could slant it that way. [00:09:46] DC: Maybe sell more copies. [00:09:48] ER: Even going sentence by sentence through, we could not prove that you were wrong. Just things which came up at that time out of context and so on. We had our trouble. We had blow up of test stands and so on and so on, and the questions all the time. You know, it's still going around now again since everybody's now disenchanted all of a sudden with space flight, which is, after my opinion, a dumb thing to do. First to be enthusiastic about something, and after we have accomplished it, now say, “The hell this was. We threw that money away because there are some poor people whom we had all the time.” The question is all the time, should we make everybody equally rich, no matter how dumb he is and no matter whether he wants to work or not, and not make any progress anymore? You know, the issue is even there's anti-research and science and technology now being brought up by the newspaper people. Say there's an anti-wave going through the country against science, which is just by some loudmouth in the hippie area. That's all that there is to it. There's no wave in the country, anti-science. But newspaper people want to bring this out. They constantly, I was asked that. [00:11:17] DC: It sells papers. [00:11:18] ER: It sells papers. But it's not even a fact that there's always some loudmouth hippie type guy who is too lazy to work, and he says, “Well, scientists argue that our air is contaminated,” and this kind of thing. At the same time, he drives to this assembly place where he opens his big mouth with an unadjusted car, which really is contaminated because he hasn't gotten the money, because he's too lazy to work, to adjust that, to tune his motor and this kind of thing. If we wouldn't have cars, we would have probably eliminated more than half the percent of our air pollution, because it's the automobile, mainly, not the big plant. That can be resolved. What we cannot solve is that everyone runs around with a car and makes an equal distribution. We have in the United States about 70 million automobiles, and in average per day, we burn about two to three or four gallons. If we take three gallons and 70 million cars, we have about 210 million gallons of gasoline burned every day into the air. [00:12:47] DC: That's why I'm really putting this [inaudible]. [00:12:50] ER: We have the best distribution all over the country. If we have some smokestacks there, there something can be done. It's just very local. But the cars distribute this thing evenly all over the country. What we ought to do is tell the guys, “You walk again.” [00:13:11] DC: Or ride a bicycle, whichever you’ve got. [00:13:13] ER: But they like to make science responsible for this, which is awfully dumb. [00:13:21] JSB: Within the development of the Saturn program, though, there were changes in the management structure here at Marshall Space Flight Center. I wonder if you would be willing to comment on…Historians, go and ask why. This is what we're trying to find out. If we can't ask you why, then we're not writing a history. What we wanted to ask you is why you changed some of the management structure. You went to project managers or program managers. Why did you bring Lee James in? Why did you put someone in head of a lab? We're trying to tell a story of how the Saturn developed. We can't not tell that story unless you tell us some whys. [00:13:58] ER: Well, shall we say now because So-and-So was an S.O.B? [00:14:02] JSB: No, I'm not asking you that. Let me say this. No, I'm not asking you to say that. But you changed the structure. Maybe as you put one lab under one industrial organization at one point, perhaps you put it under science and technology at another point. What happened in the Saturn program that caused you to do that? I'm not asking you to call anybody a son of a b*tch or anything else. I'm just trying to get a part of the story. [00:14:26] ER: Yeah. Well, the question is really should we put in too much whys? Or could we just factually say, “In 19-so-and-so, the management structure was changed?” [00:14:40] JSB: Okay, we can just say that. [00:14:41] ER: Could be writed [sic] that way, just as the facts. Because as soon as you go deeper into the whys, then you go immediately into controversial things. We certainly had the [post?] of some leading people because we haven't felt they were as good as others. [00:15:01] DC: Okay. Now, what about maybe let's... [00:15:09] JSB: What constraints in the Saturn…We're asking all why questions, I'm afraid. [00:15:18] ER: What were the major reasons for the selection of the prime contractors, Chrysler, Boeing, North American, Douglas, and IBM? [00:15:27] JSB: This is a supplementary question. [00:15:29] DC: [Flipping through papers] Oh, these are the supplementary. Let's come over here. Let’s try these here, Dr. Rees. Somewhere in here…Yes. These, we… [00:15:40] ER: In general, how would the EOR method have changed the Saturn design in comparison with the LOR mode? [00:16:02] DC: Or perhaps some other question in there. [00:16:06] ER: I have now ready to go into the EOR mode again. [00:16:13] JSB: Can you tell us where there are some people here at Marshall that supported EOR over LOR in the earlier discussion? [00:16:19] ER: Yeah. One of the most... [00:16:31] DC: Like it's been a real controversial issue, not so much... [00:16:34] ER: One of the strong promoters was Dr. Geissler for the EOR mode method, have changed the Saturn design. I think it was this way that we at that time have said, “Let's go up to an Earth orbit, and then in a smaller launch vehicle and then refuel it with oxygen, and then come up with another vehicle and refuel that with oxygen again, and then go from there to the moon. We would have rather than one big launch vehicle have to have smaller ones. What I would suggest in order to answer this question number one, that we give you a write-up on that. This might be better on two or three pages. It was this way that we said, “Let us go with two small launch vehicles into an Earth orbit and then refuel the one with another one.” The one was rather an oxygen carrier and the other one had only so much oxygen that it could just reach Earth orbit. Then there was the refueling mode, and this was considered quite a problem in orbit under weightless conditions. This was one of the big problems, and it was considered quite a problem to do that. Then we would have gone with the first vehicle from there to the moon. It would have also taken a somewhat bigger lunar lander. It goes about this way so that you may understand it. We would, and here's the Earth orbit. Here's the Earth. We would have gone with two vehicles up to an Earth orbit. First with one and then with an oxygen or two carrier. Then do refueling if you link. Then we would have gone from here and land directly on the moon without going into lunar orbit. This would have meant a bigger lunar lander because that lunar lander would have had then to have directly from the surface of the moon the fuel to go back here. It was a matter of propellant management and therefore a matter of the size of the vehicle. [00:20:10] DC: It would have meant a smaller Saturn though, wouldn’t it? [00:20:12] ER: It would have meant a smaller Saturn, but it would have meant a bigger lander. We shied away from such a bigger lander as never anybody had landed on the moon. I'm glad that we have such a small lander. The landing is still a difficult thing. We have weighed this mode against each other and this refueling problem under weightless conditions versus…And then we would have also had the landing problem. You know when we compare these methods, there was number one, the Nova, with a real big rocket going directly from Earth to the moon and land there. Then the second one was the EOR, the smaller things, but then with a bigger lander, which also looks easier. Then the third thing was going first in Earth orbit and then going into lunar orbit and then land again and then go up to the lunar orbit and then go down to Earth. Everybody had said at that time and still now not anymore, but before we have to head down, it isn't that the most complicated way, the lunar orbit way, which of course would also have meant an Earth orbit. We would have also in this fashion had to go to an Earth orbit, namely for doing that refueling. Anyhow, but I would prefer to give you a little write up. You might also want to talk about this with Dr. Geissler. [00:21:55] JSB: Dr. Rees, could you speculate if there were no constraints imposed by schedule? In other words, if President Kennedy just said get to the moon when you're ready and didn't say by the end of the decade, would you have maybe gone a different way or done the program differently? [00:22:12] ER: No, I don't think so. But we might have not pressed the program so strongly. It might have then gone into the 70s, and it would have probably cost us more money. Then second, there's another thing. If you do any work in this world without a schedule, you don't get anywhere. The first thing what you have to do for program management—and for yourself, even personally—to have a schedule. As soon as you work anymore without a schedule, for instance, when I'm retiring, I want to be on a schedule also, to do something on a schedule. If you don't do that anymore, then you are dragging along, and you are dying earlier. If you want to run an operation as Marshall Space Flight Center or any factory or any place whatsoever, you'd better set a schedule so that you can tell your people you do this by that time, you do this by that time, you do this by that time. This is the principle of management, after my opinion. If we just would tell our people, “Well, you do this and this and this sometime, don't worry when that's supposed to be done,” then the people get lazy. We can also now not say, “We need so and so much money” because somebody can always say, “Well, you need 100 million for this and this. If you do it longer with less people, then you might not need now 100 million. You might need them later.” You know, there's always two constraints. The one is the total amount a program costs, and the money we need for fiscal year. As soon as we say, “We need for fiscal year sounds so much, then we say we need it because we want to do this and this and this at that time.” So a program without a time schedule is no program. I want to go that far to say that. [00:24:17] DC: That was one of the biggest advantages of the Kennedy deadline. [00:24:21] ER: Yeah, it was the biggest. “I want you to go on the moon with men, land them safely there, and bring them back safely in this decade.” This is the important thing, and this ought to be [stressed?] very much in the whole thing. [00:24:38] DC: This is a little bit… [00:24:40] ER: And then in this decade, so we said then that the decade ends 1970. So we want to do it at least in 1969 at the latest. [00:24:51] DC: Along that line—and this is the leading question, you might not want to answer it, I don't know that I would—if Congress or NASA should authorize you all the money that you wanted for the Saturn program, generally, how much more would you ask for, if any? Or what in general would you use it? Or…The reason I'm asking that is, is the Saturn program…Have we gotten out of it about what we need to get out of it? [00:25:16] ER: Yeah, it's about what we needed. You know, when the program was set up by Kennedy, Kennedy incidentally said, “How much would that thing then cost?” Mr. Webb and Dr. Seamans said, “Well, 20 to 40 billions.” This was all right at that time. [00:25:36] DC: So we have pretty well gotten what we want out of the Saturn program. [00:25:41] ER: Yeah, we have pretty well gotten what we want out of the Saturn program. We did not need more money. [00:25:53] DC: Very good. Now we need it for the other two major programs, or at least the space shuttle, which is something else, of course, from Skylab... [00:26:02] ER: Unfortunately for the space shuttle, it is now first asked, “How much does that cost?” Whenever you bring up the total cost, then set off [inaudible] and say, “Let's not do that.” [00:26:20] DC: It'd be nice if we could have a deadline for the space shuttle, wouldn’t it? [00:26:23] ER: Yeah, well, we made one, but people always say, “Well, why, why, why, why, it doesn't have to be done.” The first thing that we made was before we even ask how much money we'll get and so on, when would such a thing possibly be ready? So we put right a deadline on that. Nobody…The President has not done this. We would very much like to have a commitment by the President of the United States for the shuttle. This is the difference between the Apollo program and this program, and then really go down the road. So you cannot do any work without a schedule. [00:27:04] JSB: Were there any special techniques of forecasting and scheduling developed to move the program along, like configuration management, things of this nature, that you were involved in? [00:27:16] ER: Yeah, we had to be at quite some…We have, of course, quite some techniques to do this, but the major technique in management of a program I found out is establishing the means for good visibility. This is after my opinion, the major point in all program management, and in everything also what you are doing. This is basic that you have visibility. What is going on at the present time? Now, for instance, budget visibility we get only after several weeks or so because the accounting process takes so long. When a contractor then is overrunning, we very often learn that only too late. We were pressing in our management business to have visibility all the time in the three major fields: how we stand on the schedule, how we send out the money, and how we are doing into technical performance. These are the three major points all the time. [00:28:32] JSB: How did you go about making the contractors aware of the need to make these things more visible? Roger and I went out and talked to the people out of North American, Bill Parker and Paul Wickham, and they said they had some troubles in knowing where they were. [00:28:49] ER: This was our major difficulty with all the contractors since ever I have been in this business that the contractor first establishes for himself visibility. Otherwise he can't manage either. Why the contractors hadn't seen this or don't want to see it, it's beyond my understanding. Because the first thing what you have to do is that you get visibility. This goes again for your everyday work. [00:29:21] JSB: Where did you develop these concepts of visibility here at Marshall? Were they developed here and then you took them out to the contractors and some of these [inaudible] establish these schedule boards and these control rooms and those types of things? [00:29:35] ER: Yeah, into schedule boards and this…You make a kind of a schedule. [Tears paper] Let's do it that way, that we say, “All right, you know the problem is all the time, that before you do any planning…” [interview interrupted] I think I should have with you some time, some longer time on this whole business. [tape restarts] [00:30:04] ER: …To try to put out [rather effects?] that this and this and this and this had happened, and put...I know you cannot await quite the why question. It also shouldn't be a dull story, but put down the skeleton effects first and then see whether we could put the whys in there. As to this EOR mode, you might want to talk to Dr. Geissler. He was strongest in this whole business. Then there's of course a man who has at that time done these things for us, and this is Mr. Williams who is now with Dr. von Braun. Frank Williams. [00:30:52] JSB: I've been trying to get a hold of him sometimes when he's down in Houston. [00:30:54] ER: Yeah, yeah. Now I do not know how this would work out, there is a man in Washington who writes the Apollo history, including the launch rate, and this is Bob Sherrod. He's been sitting on this thing now for a long time. I have the feeling without a time schedule. [All laugh] [00:31:17] DC: Yes, he had it when he slipped it. The publisher feels the same way. [00:31:19] ER: Nice guy, eh? [00:31:23] DC: Advanced [him $100,000?]. [00:31:24] ER: I do not know how professional [this dude is?] now. He might not want to have a discussion even with you because he might have the feeling that you copy his story. On the other hand, I would hate a little bit that three, four, five books come out. The one with that story, the other one with that story, and the third one with that story. [00:31:45] JSB: The work being published by the government printing office with NASA's… [00:31:48] DC: His is a commercial... [00:31:52] ER: Yeah, under a NASA contract. [00:31:54] JSB: Yeah, and his is going to be done, what? MacMillan? [00:31:56] DC: MacMillan and a commercial [inaudible]. [00:31:58] ER: Who is the man in Washington? I forgot the name again. When we had the contract with you, there was some man in Washington. [00:32:06] DC: General Smart, Gene Emme, Dr. Emme or…? [00:32:06] ER: Yeah, Emme. [00:32:08] DC: Yes, Gene Emme. [00:32:10] ER: Maybe his views, how you want to work together with Sherrod might be important. [00:32:16] DC: We've been working on this. Matter of fact, I’ve taken him out for dinner. [00:32:20] ER: The big trouble…I want to develop this program with you by making a lot of drawings eventually on a pad or on a blackboard. The problem with all these programs is… [tape ends] Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context ohc_stnv_000036_A Title A name given to the resource Rees, Eberhard Description An account of the resource General Saturn development & problems, benefits of earlier programs, special approach of von Braun team to development of Saturn program, kinds of executive meetings and frequency, relations with major contractors. Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1971-08-30 Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource .MP4 Type The nature or genre of the resource Interviews Audio Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived University of Alabama in Huntsville Archives and Special Collections, Huntsville, Alabama Language A language of the resource en Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource This material may be protected under U. S. Copyright Law (Title 17, U.S. Code) which governs the making of photocopies or reproductions of copyrighted materials. You may use the digitized material for private study, scholarship, or research. Though the University of Alabama in Huntsville Archives and Special Collections has physical ownership of the material in its collections, in some cases we may not own the copyright to the material. It is the patron's obligation to determine and satisfy copyright restrictions when publishing or otherwise distributing materials found in our collections. https://oralhistory.uah.edu/files/original/8ed2de1382a23e2c312f7811083d68fd.jpg cc0c4f909af1a8ef79e706ad5968148a https://oralhistory.uah.edu/files/original/1a58b7e13eaee6662f76cd72cd1667e1.mp4 2a40f4f52a7f6385bea7147359a6ab99 Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Christensen, David Collection Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context ohc_crst_000020_A Title A name given to the resource Rees, Eberhard Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource .MP4 Type The nature or genre of the resource Interviews Audio Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived University of Alabama in Huntsville Archives and Special Collections, Huntsville, Alabama Language A language of the resource en Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource This material may be protected under U. S. Copyright Law (Title 17, U.S. Code) which governs the making of photocopies or reproductions of copyrighted materials. You may use the digitized material for private study, scholarship, or research. Though the University of Alabama in Huntsville Archives and Special Collections has physical ownership of the material in its collections, in some cases we may not own the copyright to the material. It is the patron's obligation to determine and satisfy copyright restrictions when publishing or otherwise distributing materials found in our collections. https://oralhistory.uah.edu/files/original/d34aacad1ceb1358da39012b07f14e85.pdf 756dc526f9717a89b14d09d468e053ed Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Saturn V Collection Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context ohc_stnv_000035_T Title A name given to the resource Raiklen, Harold (Transcript) Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1971-03-11 Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource .pdf Type The nature or genre of the resource Interviews Text Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived University of Alabama in Huntsville Archives and Special Collections, Huntsville, Alabama Language A language of the resource en Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource This material may be protected under U. S. Copyright Law (Title 17, U.S. Code) which governs the making of photocopies or reproductions of copyrighted materials. You may use the digitized material for private study, scholarship, or research. Though the University of Alabama in Huntsville Archives and Special Collections has physical ownership of the material in its collections, in some cases we may not own the copyright to the material. It is the patron's obligation to determine and satisfy copyright restrictions when publishing or otherwise distributing materials found in our collections.