14 10 510 https://oralhistory.uah.edu/files/original/3f25a0d62c186b0fc8ca0defce3ff5bc.jpg 4598197eb9b09fa4ae86fb6882190ee7 https://oralhistory.uah.edu/files/original/76e7eddc1b8c164be21555013fd638f2.mp4 4ff417b33e7f3c78a36b71f1fe45ed04 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_A Title A name given to the resource Raiklen, Harold 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 .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/570d3a4d8935ea32b272c135cfd949a3.jpg cc0c4f909af1a8ef79e706ad5968148a https://oralhistory.uah.edu/files/original/34c9e09620f0fa74491e71f54a19eb1c.mp4 959916d3f77fe17688878ac7308c2a45 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_000019_A Title A name given to the resource Poppel, Theodor Description An account of the resource History of the Von Braun team in World War II and in the early days in the USA. Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1971 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/f21e88c42ca20fd35036ad91d4147483.jpg 4598197eb9b09fa4ae86fb6882190ee7 https://oralhistory.uah.edu/files/original/ee6dafb39e1e305c237ca8067e9c96fb.mp4 a40c384983640b334ef325741d10aae5 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 Pool, Carl (Roger Bilstein's summary) Interviewer The person(s) performing the interview Bilstein, Roger E. Duration Length of time involved (seconds, minutes, hours, days, class periods, etc.) 0:20:45 Transcription Any written text transcribed from a sound [00:00:00] Roger Bilstein: Part of the larger story of the logistics problem involved the use of barges not only on the Tennessee and Mississippi rivers, but also through the Gulf of Mexico, Panama Canal, and up on the Pacific side of California. And to get that story, Carl DeNeen suggested that we talk to the head of the NASA fleet, as he called it, a man named Carl Pool. [00:00:37] And Mr. Pool turned out to be an intriguing character. DeNeen described him as an old Navy boatswain, and Mr. Pool certainly had the look of an old Navy hand. He had a gorgeous tattoo, a very large tattoo on his forearm. He had also an appropriate [bay window?]. Not to denigrate him in any way, but just a very interesting character, [cut a?] very interesting figure. [00:01:08] So we picked up Pool at the headquarters area, and John Beltz was along. We drove his car down to the docks on the Tennessee River, where the three barges then in port were tied up. Pool was going to use the government car. Although his own car was out there, he wanted to use the government car. He was having trouble getting a hold of the keys, so John volunteered to take his own car, use his own gas. Mr. Pool obligingly agreed. [00:01:41] On the way down to the docks, Pool made some comments about the barges used in the Saturn program. They were the YFNB class, developed during the Second World War as floating supply repair maintenance areas or bases in forward areas in the Pacific. They were self-contained. They were not self-propelled, but they were self-contained. They had their own power supply, complete galley, very large work areas, and storage areas, keeping supplies, making these repairs to keep the fleet going in support of the military effort in World War II. [00:02:31] The three barges are tied up at the end of a very large, broad highway that runs all the way through the Marshall Space Flight Center complex, through some of the Army test areas, down to the dock side. The road was built especially to carry the various Saturn stages, the test assembly areas when they were manufactured at Marshall, down to the docks were loading aboard the barges, where they were carried either to Cape Kennedy or, in some instances, to the Mississippi Test Facility for further testing. The three barges in port at the time, as we faced them, on our left was the Palaemon, and the center was the Orion—the largest of the three barges—and on the right—as we looked at them—was the barge Promise. [00:03:26] These barges—as I understood it, as Carl Pool, talked to us—each carried, normally, about a twelve-man contingent. There was a five-man marine crew to see about the handling and running of the barge itself. There was a six-man stage crew who were aboard to make sure that the stages arrived and were cared for properly en route to their destination. There was one government observer. As I understood it, the government observer was there as the final arbiter to make decisions when decisions were necessary, perhaps if the marine group disagreed with the stage crew and also just as an observer. [00:04:12] For loading the barges, there were two different methods. For the Palaemon and the Promise, the procedure was to ballast the barge so that it sank down the water to a point where its edge was about eight inches above the lip or the edge of the dock. Then a sort of plank or platform was installed from the dock to the edge of the barge, and as the stage was rolled on, the weight of the stage itself would help bring the barge down to the level of the dock for easy loading. This was done with the Palaemon and the Promise, which carried the first S-Is and the first S-IB stages. The Orion was constructed especially to carry the S-IC stages, and in the case of the Orion, the edge of the barge was kind of stepped. It butted right into the edge of the dock, and there rested very firmly on a little ledge that was stepped into the dock, using approximately 500 tons of balance to snug the barge in. [00:05:36] We first went aboard the Promise, and one of the things that struck me immediately, and which Pool pointed out to us, were the reinforcement strips or aprons that ran up the length of the deck, one on each side. These were to take the weight of the tires of the transporter, as the whole thing with the loaded stage was rolled aboard. It was interesting to see then that this was a necessary step to take to beef up the basic structure of the barge. [00:06:06] There were a series of tie downs at each wheel, what he called an eight point tie down system. By each wheel were two points, and then the thing was secured at the top and down on the other side at two other points. So by each wheel there were two tie down points making a total of eight in all. 00:06:30] The barge was equipped with dehumidifiers—two on the port side, two on the starboard. There was considerable room beneath the deck in the original ship for storage. The original YFNB was about twenty-four feet in depth, two separate decks then, twelve feet each. To carry the stages they used the lower deck, there were still twelve feet below the lower deck, twelve feet then to the gunnels. But then of course a huge over structure had been prepared to take the stages of the rolled board. [00:07:17] The NASA organization kept the barges as completely self-sufficient transportation vehicles. Each barge had a power plant to run its air conditioning, provide power for light, provide power for the water system, plumbing system, machine shop, kitchen, general electronic gear needed to keep the barge in running order. [00:07:47] The Promise in particular was a floating repair ship for the Navy after World War II, based in Florida. It came into the NASA fleet as a result of the collapse of a lock in a dam in the Tennessee River. One of the stages was on its way down at the time, and the lock had collapsed stranding the barge and its cargo upstream. So another barge was brought up to meet it, known as the Compromise. The stage was unloaded, the special road had to be built around the damaged lock, it was reloaded aboard the Compromise, and the voyage continued. Later on, it was found that the Compromise was not really an appropriate name for NASA and so the C-O-M was dropped and the Compromise simply became the barge Promise. [00:08:46] The various YFNB barges acquired by NASA were largely in the Navy's “Mothball” fleet. The Promise in particular was a good example of its emergency requisition. There was very much a look of the carpenter about it, much rougher in feeling. Going aboard a barge or a seagoing vessel, one would expect to see more metal bulkheads, metal equipment, welding, things of this type, riveting. But the Promise definitely had a kind of almost a shack-like atmosphere about it. It was obvious that people who had inverted its various areas into bunk areas, crew areas had simply gone in and put up plywood partitions in the easiest manner, easiest load possible. It was livable, there wasn't anything particularly wrong with it. It just had this definitely rougher look about it. [00:09:49] One of the structures in one of the large work areas that we saw had been originally used as a radio repair shack, kind of inside the barge. The exterior of this room appeared to be just regular housing siding, the kind of thing you'd find on a normal ordinary home. The effect I must say was rather incongruous. The air conditioning unit was just hung from the ceiling at that time, it was leaking very badly, and there was a jerry-rigged catch on the runoff. It just had a very rough, different, compromised look about it. [00:10:34] In the early days of the barge operations, according to Pool, a lot of top management kind of liked the idea of riding along. It was sort of novel, especially the voyage down the California coast to Panama Canal and the Gulf. Karl Heimberg, he said, was the one who made the trip a couple of times. Vandersee was another. There were slightly larger bunk areas then for the VIPs from NASA who might have wanted to make a barge trip. [00:11:05] We passed into the galley area, which was a very interesting thing. Again, it had a kind of rough look about it, a compromised look. Confirming my stereotypes about Navy galleys, there were a couple of very luscious, girly calendars hanging on the walls. The galley was fairly well equipped with large stoves, fairly large refrigerators, and of course, the usual complement, table chairs, things of this type. [00:11:41] The power for the Promise was a Caterpillar diesel engine, AC, 60 kilowatts. Nearby was a repair room, a lathe, welding equipment, drill press, what appeared to be at one time a rather complete tool area, again fulfilling this self-standing, self-contained philosophy. There was enough tools and machinery on board ships to make emergency repairs, keep underway, do whatever was necessary. [00:12:20] We left the Promise and then went aboard the Orion. The difference really was quite obvious. On the Promise, the outside where the huge bulbous over structure had been added. On the outside of the vessel it was necessary to add metal V-shaped supports and metal supports on the sides. The bulbous structure overhung the original gunnels by about maybe three or four feet. There were metal supports then that went down to other parts of the original structure. It had the look of an American gunboat, the kind that you used to see on the Yangtze back in the 20s and 30s, kind of like a large canopy, canvas canopy aboard the thing. [00:13:11] The Orion was very much different, it was much slicker. As Poole pointed out to us, it had been taken into a Navy yard and constructed and engineered from the very beginning as a barge to carry a large S-IC stage. In getting the S-IC aboard the Orion, the crew made use of turnbuckles to sort of winch the thing in. Then it was secured, and there were guidelines painted on the deck of the barge. It had to be aligned rather exactly, because once it was aboard it was snugged up to an A-frame, very large, which it would have to be to accommodate the S-IC. The A-frame point, of course, was the center of the stage, and used not only to take the S-IC, but the S-II stage. There was a handling ring built into the S-II and S-IC stages attached to the A-frame. The A-frame took the entire weight, so that literally if the ship moved side to side, the stage would stay in one point. The barge literally moved around the stationary stage as it was affixed to the A-frame. [00:14:37] The equipment on the Orion included not only the dehumidifying equipment, but nitrogen port and starboard to keep pressure on the interior tanks of the S-IC and S-II stages to keep them from collapsing. When the Orion was built, the Coast Guard was on the spot in the shipyard. Although one got the impression from Pool that the barges were not entirely up to, say, Coast Guard or maritime regulations. They were enough to do the job, but maybe they weren't quite as up to snuff as they might have been. [00:15:19] We went up into the pilot house of the Orion, and Pool emphasized, as did Carl DeNeen, the role of the Mechling Barge Lines, Incorporated. M-E-C-H-L-I-N-G. Mechling Barge Lines, Incorporated based in Juliet, Illinois. As we understood it, the Mechling Barge Lines were unique in the fact that they had seaway rights to go from one river into the next, into the Gulf of Mexico, into the Pacific Ocean, into the various inland channels. Apparently other barge lines don't have the right to go into all these things. The cargo has to be transferred or even offloaded from one barge line to the next. The Mechling Line's seaway rights from port to port made it an extremely valuable asset to NASA and accounts for a large amount of business that the Mechling Barge Lines got. They made considerable use of the tugboat Carl Fuqua, F-U-Q-U-A. Fuqua is what it's sometimes called. The Fuqua was remotely equipped. In ordinary operation, the barge pushed, excuse me, the tug pushed the barge from behind. In the case of the Promise and the Palaemon, control took place then from the pilot house to the tug. But in the case of the Orion, control took place from the pilot house of the barge itself. [00:17:05] Some of the barge captains had to relearn the different kind of control that they experienced in this kind of thing. The power was supplied by the tug in the rear. Control took place forward. In case something did happen, there was an automatic remote control that switched back to the tug's pilot house so that it could be done from either place. When the captain and the barge and tug were underway, the crew or captain, whoever was doing the piloting, would do a six hour stint and six hours off, the tug captain and the pilot then alternating. The pilot house of the Orion, of course, included a full array of various electronic communications here since it was in all respects the command post whenever the barge and tug was underway. It was a loaded cargo. [00:18:020] A few random bits of information. When the locks collapsed with the dam, the Tennessee Valley Authority had the responsibility to build the roads around the locks. It was done fairly rapidly because the NASA program, or the Saturn program at this time, had a national priority rating because the roads got built fairly fast. It not only served NASA, however, it also served the Atomic Energy Commission, which also used the Tennessee River with large and sometimes bulky and highly valuable cargoes. [00:18:40] Typically, the tug boats would push barges and cargoes in river areas and at sea they would be towed. But in much of the seaborne operations of NASA, the ship used was the Point Barrel. The Point Barrel was an AKD, a Navy designation ship. It was originally used in the Navy as a dry dock ship. The aft part of the ship then was a rather hollow thing designed to be used as a dry dock in forward areas. The Point Barrel actually served five years in Arctic duty. It could stay frozen in the ice for long periods of time. It's a cargo area, if you want to call it that, it provided easy access, and it was fairly uncluttered for the stowage of materials and supplies for the Arctic party. The Point Barrel is now in Brooklyn in the Navy's reserve fleet, and although the Navy is responsible for its maintenance, the bill for it is still paid by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration. [00:19:57] Whenever NASA got ready for a mission using the barges and tugs, they acquired their crews from the Mechling Company. As I recall there was an annual contract signed with the Mechling Company for the first time for it to supply the required crew whatever NASA demanded it. Usually NASA had to give about a two weeks notice to get a crew from Illinois down, get them aboard the barge, get the thing ship shape, and have also then signed a tug, and a crew for the tug to handle the necessary work. [00:20:44] And this is the conclusion of the tape concerning the logistics interview with Carl Pool. 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_000034_A Title A name given to the resource Pool, Carl (Roger Bilstein's summary) 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 Roger Bilstein discusses his interview with Carl Pool and the barges that carried various stages of Saturn. https://oralhistory.uah.edu/files/original/365453a508f48922e1e8de0182708e30.jpg 4598197eb9b09fa4ae86fb6882190ee7 https://oralhistory.uah.edu/files/original/7b33c85bc48c988fa6dfef2f243c371d.mp4 757daddee4f043d6393f242af49035b3 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 Pease, Robert Interviewer The person(s) performing the interview Bilstein, Roger E. Duration Length of time involved (seconds, minutes, hours, days, class periods, etc.) 0:57:30 Transcription Any written text transcribed from a sound [00:00:00] Roger Bilstein: Interview with Bob Pease, J-2 engine. Now one of these things in the design of the J-2, I get the impression that it was designed to be tested at altitude and sea level or something like that. But no, designed to be tested at sea level although it was going to be fired very high. Was this a particular problem? Was it the first engine to be designed that way at least in the liquid hydrogen technology class? [00:00:32] Bob Pease: No, let me say that there was a particular desire to be able to fire the complete engine including the bell nozzle which was a 27.5 to 1 air ratio nozzle, under the sea level test stand conditions. The reason for doing this of course was number one to ensure that we had the ability to fire the engine with more ease, which you can do in a sea level environment than if you have to do it in an altitude chamber. The test frequency—the question was important—so the engine bell nozzle was designed to flow full at the sea level test conditions. This was important in order to get the proper heat fluxes and so forth into the chamber. In other words, the chamber was being cooled by hydrogen. The hydrogen of course picks up heat as it goes up through the wall and comes into the injector, so trying to get as near as possible the proper heat transfer conditions on the chamber under sea level firing. Another thing involved was the fact that if the nozzle didn't flow full, not only would it affect the heat transfer to the thrust chamber wall, it would also make it difficult to [tape cuts out] …Not recording? [00:02:36] RB: Okay, we're on again. [laughs] [00:02:38] BP: Did you miss all that or should I go? [00:02:40] RB: Why don't you just recapitulate? I think I moved this over here because sometimes we get a lot of overtone noise from air conditioning equipment. [00:02:48] BP: Well, I think I can shorten that down now. [00:02:50] RB: Okay. [00:02:52] BP: I think if I understand your question, you're saying…The basic question you asked was the engine, some reason for having the engine designed to both be fired at sea level and at altitude, and was this a first in the engine business? To recapitulate, yes, there was a reason for having the engine be able to fire both at sea level and altitude. The reason to have it fire at sea level is in order to obtain more easily the testing, numbers of tests and so forth, and to do it under an easier test environment than you have to when you're playing with the diffusers and altitude equipment. That facilitates your development effort that way. Because of this, the engine was designed to give as near as possible the proper performance on the sea level test by having the nozzle flow full. If it doesn't flow full, you have problems in measuring the thrust, and you also have a difference in heat transfer to the thrust chamber wall. [00:04:23] BP: As it turned out, the engine…There were still differences in the way the engine performed at sea level and the way it performed on the altitude test. There were some changes in the engine power balance due to the difference in pressure ratio between sea level and altitude across the turbine areas. There was also some difference in the heat transfer to the thrust chamber wall simply by the fact that under the altitude conditions you had, I'd say, a very reduced atmospheric situation, and you weren't even transferring atmospheric heat into the thrust chamber wall. [laughs] There were some differences, both in those two areas. However, I don't know if I'm answering your question completely on this. Was this a first? I think it was a first from the standpoint of trying to get a nozzle of a higher expansion ratio to flow fully at sea level. The nozzle was a special contour which was designed in order to facilitate this. That part of it was a first. I believe on previous programs, such as the RL-10, we had to use some type of diffuser system if we were going to flow the full, complete [engine?] nozzle. So I don't know, does that…? [00:06:07] RB: Yeah. That answers the question, I think. I’ll have to do some research on it too, try and find out some more things. Maybe I can pick up the phone sometime, just call you back. [00:06:16] BP: Yeah, fine. [00:06:17] RB: Now, they did use vacuum diffuser equipment in the J-2 development. [00:06:22] BP: Yes, they did. [00:06:23] RB: Was there a difference, say, in the diffuser equipment that Rocketdyne installed there and what was used at Tullahoma? [00:06:31] BP: Yes. [00:06:32] RB: Why was there a difference? I mean, how did the difference occur and what was the intent? Why do some of the testing at Susanna and why do some at Tullahoma? [00:06:41] BP: Well, what amounts to this is that when the program started, it was recognized that there still had to be an altitude system type test to verify the engine behavior on their altitude. Even though the engine was designed such that it could be tested at sea level, it was still recognized there would be some differences when testing in an altitude environment. From a very important beginning program outset, the steam operated diffuser was planned at Santa Susanna to evaluate the engine under vacuum operating conditions. The steam operated diffuser operated in such a manner as that steam was supplied during the engine start transient, which pulled the capsule pressure down to something in the neighborhood of 80,000 feet. When the engine started, the diffuser would operate in a manner of…It would be activated by the exhaust gases of the nozzle in order then to maintain the capsule vacuum pressure under main stage operating conditions. When the engine shut down, the steam would come on again to try to maintain the altitude conditions. Well, when this system was actually put into operation, it was discovered that the steam system was unable to maintain the 80,000 foot altitude during the start transient. Part of the reason for this was the fact that when the diffuser and steam system were designed, they didn't anticipate the amount of hydrogen fuel lead that was going to be produced by the engine. Hydrogen being densities and so forth it is, this fuel lead very quickly saturated the altitude producing capabilities of the steam system such that the altitude would drop down to less than 20,000 feet during the start. [00:09:12] RB: If you're shooting for 80, that's not a very good condition. [laughs] [00:09:16] BP: Right. Not only that, they also found that there was considerable steam blowback and turbulence that came back and got into the nozzle area, which also fouled up the heat transfer inputs to the chamber one thing or another. Between the pressure ratio across the oxidizer turbine and the steam blowback, it was felt that our altitude simulation was less than optimal. From that standpoint, we then made an investigation to find out if the Tullahoma facility would be available in order to run some additional series of altitude tests. In fact, along with this investigation, we also investigated constructing another altitude facility at Santa Susanna, which would have been operated by another type of steam system, one which would have kept the altitudes up in the neighborhood of 90 to 100,000 feet at all times. Rocketdyne had successfully demonstrated what they called a hyper flow steam system using basically an H-1 engine to generate steam. Instead of having a steam accumulator, which had limited capacities, they were going to fire essentially a rocket engine with water injection, which would have generated a very large steam capacity instantaneously upon demand for keeping the altitude up. That system looked very good and would have cost us, however, several million dollars to put that in at Santa Susanna. In the process of looking at all this, it became apparent that it would be more cost effective to activate the Tullahoma stand, the J-4 cell at Tullahoma for this purpose. That's how the Tullahoma program came into being. Once we got into the J-4 cell, we did find that we did learn some further knowledge as to the engine starting characteristics that wasn't apparent at the testing at Santa Susanna, either under the altitude or the sea level testing. [00:11:55] RB: So you had to do a little redesign? [00:11:580] BP: Yeah, there did cause some redesign, but it was not of a major nature, mainly orificing and balancing of the engine start primarily. The Tullahoma conditions on the transfer to the thrust chamber and so forth were further verified as being accurate. This is just a side note, when I looked at the flight data, they found that the flight data substantiated our performance results at Tullahoma. Tullahoma was a pretty good facility for that standpoint. One thing that Tullahoma didn't do, or any of the testing didn't do, was did not find what we call the ASI problem of 502. [00:12:51] RB: Can you go into that a little bit? [00:12:55] BP: Sure. [00:12:57] RB: We're still running. [00:13:02] BP: You might have already got some history on this, you may have known, we did fail an ASI line in the S-II stage and also in the S-IVB stage on flight 502. The ASI fuel line was later discovered to be a fatigue failure of the line caused by flow vibration, or its flow induced vibration. Turns out that this was not discovered under sea level testing or even under altitude conditions of the Tullahoma stand because, well, number one, under sea level conditions, there's a condensation of air that gets in between the bellows section. This does two things. Number one, it's maybe a lesser effect of it, but it does provide some damping in the bellows. Secondly, it does affect the heat transfer boundary layer conditions on the inside of the flow path. When Rocketdyne ran laboratory tests and took photographs, movie photographs, and made other flow dynamics studies, they found out that the heating effect of the line actually changed the flow induced vibration characteristics. I'm not a flow vibration expert, so I'm trying to explain it in… [00:14:49] RB: Neither am I. [both laugh] [00:14:53] BP:…Simple terms as I understand it. In other words, apparently it changed the boundary layer conditions on the inside of the line so that the flow pattern wasn't the same. Now, why didn't this happen at Tullahoma? Well, there's a good altitude condition we were obtaining—100,000 feet or so—there's still enough nitrogen present in the cell to—this is a theory is presumed on to, at least the calculations have been made—to provide the same effect. [00:15:35] RB: Okay, I didn't understand that then. So was nitrogen still existing in the cell to create that kind of frost buildup and have the same damping effect? [00:15:43] BP: Well, there's both nitrogen and water, and I say nitrogen because I believe in Rocketdyne's testing they proved that frost alone would not prevent the failure. It really, really had to be the air condensation. In other words, yeah, if it were packed with ice, it's one thing, but a minor frost buildup, I think alone was not considered sufficient to prevent the failure. The way I understand it now is that they believe there was enough nitrogen condensation within the cell to have done this. Now, I guess one way of…Maybe another way of tackling the problem is that I don't really know if this is a feasible way if nitrogen could have been substituted for some other gas such as a helium purge. The reason they don't like helium is because the lighter the gas is the harder it is to pump it out. [00:16:45] RB: But isn't that the way they finally got to fix on it though? They put it in a helium tank or something? [00:16:51] BP: Yes, as a matter of fact, in the testing at Santa Susanna, they tested with a helium environment, vacuum environment, with [arid?] environments, and they found out that it would fail under the helium environment because the helium wouldn't condense. It would fail under the vacuum environment, the hard vacuum environment in a test small test capsule, they can pump it down quite a bit higher altitude to Tullahoma. So that's how they finally pinpointed it was by isolating these different environments. [00:17:34] BP: So it's quite an interesting investigation. I think to many of us it's sad that there are always certain problems that one cannot predict in advance and all the analytical techniques cannot even plan for. Well, now that we know about this one, we will always plan for it. I'm sure that in the space shuttle management program or other future programs, we will still continue to plan altitude type testing. Although in this particular case on J-2, it didn't find this problem. [00:18:22] RB: You were out at Rocket...Were you the MSFC representative out there? [00:18:27] BP: I was the resident manager for the J-2. [00:18:32] RB: Do you remember very much about the story on the injector face and the use of Rigi-Mesh? Were you involved in that? [00:18:42] BP: Yes. [00:18:43] RB: Could you give me a little bit more? [00:18:45] BP: What would you like to know about it? [00:18:46] RB: It's my understanding that it was the Pall Corporation that came up with the Rigi-Mesh stuff in New York, and they got this out of the Atomic Energy Commission program and used it for filtering gases or something? [00:19:00] BP: Yes, I believe that's correct. I know the material was produced for purposes of such of that nature. I guess it also had been used on the RL-10 program. [00:19:15] RB: My question is this. You had some problems with the injector, I guess. Well, normal development problems. Where does the decision come to get into Rigi-Mesh? Does Marshall say that? [00:19:28] BP: Well, I just happened to be intimately involved in that one. We started the J-2 program. Rocketdyne had proposed a copper ring type injector, which was typical of most previous Rocketdyne designs with the various orifice holes drilled at various angles in the copper. The Rigi-Mesh had been used successfully on the RL-10 program and had been in fact introduced to the RL-10 program by Lewis people. Before that, where they got it from—I think what you say is right—the Atomic Energy Commission may have used it for filtering devices, one way or another. But it was used in the RL-10 program as an injector plate medium in order to allow the hydrogen to filter through and partially cool the face by that means. People were concerned at that time about the problem of cooling the face and felt that Lewis people felt we might have some problems with the copper. In the early part of the J-2 program, we got back to the initial discussions on how to get it into the program. It was suggested to Rocketdyne by NASA that they include in the development program an alternate design of a Rigi-Mesh face type injector, and that they evaluate both the copper design which they proposed and this alternate Rigi-Mesh injector. Sometime downstream, there would be a decision made as to which one was best. [00:21:27] RB: In this case, the impetus came from NASA to Rocketdyne? [00:21:30] BP: Right, and this is part of NASA's transfer of technology, whatever you want to call it. We were aware of the material, we were aware that it had been used in the rocket engine programs, and we felt that Rocketdyne ought to look at it also. So after—I don't remember the exact time frame, but I think it was within probably about the first six to nine months—the early injector testing, they did test several copper versions and several Rigi-Mesh versions. The overall assessment of Rocketdyne came to the conclusion—and NASA agreed—that Rigi-Mesh performed not only performance-wise better in terms of the particular concentric post orifices where the hydrogen came out around each post, each LOX [oxidizer?] post in the Rigi-Mesh face. The design performed well from an Isp standpoint, and it performed well from a cooling standpoint, there was no problem with burning. We did have some problems with the copper injector on burning the rings and lands and so forth. I remember one where we had green flame coming out the chamber during one test. [both laugh] I'm sure they could have solved the copper problem, I'm sure they could have solved the cooling problem, but it just turned out that in that evaluation the Rigi-Mesh was best. [00:23:04] RB: This is an interesting feature it seems to me of the Saturn, or NASA programs generally, that you do hear here is Marshall operating, cooperating with Lewis and with the contractor. It's the kind of technology of one center, in this case Lewis, that comes through Marshall into the Rocketdyne facility, that there’s this interchanging [inaudible]... [00:23:23] BP: I remember that particular one because I had worked with the Lewis people on the technical committee of the source evaluation for the J-2. In that capacity I got familiar with those people and that particular subject. I was a part of convincing Rocketdyne that we should do this. [00:23:53] RB: Now again there's a question I wanted to ask, kind of a specific one. Rocketdyne got the contract and started to work to put together an experimental engine and later fired an experimental engine. Now where the hell do you get an experimental engine? Do you just go out in the shop and start hand working an injector face, put together a few tubes? How do you do that? [00:24:18] BP: Well, you first have to design it. [00:24:20] RB: Yeah [laughs]. Well, what I'm getting at is there's no manufacturing lines set up yet really. The first test engine really is a handmade product. Is it accurate to say that? [00:24:32] BP: No, no it isn't. Now the J-2, Rocketdyne designed a J-2 engine as they envisioned it in their original proposal model. [00:24:43] RB: Oh, the computer model. I know they used a lot of computer stuff, configurations… [00:24:47] BP: That's true, they looked at their analysis, and they sized the ducts, tubes and so forth with a proper thrust chamber size with a proper heat transfer and all that type of thing. In other words, they designed the engine from a dimensional standpoint based on all their analysis. They went out and released orders for material, which is not just raw material but vendors to make certain basic castings and forgings and so forth, and even some components which they purchased from vendors, which was either modification off the shelf items like small valves and things of that sort. Or they actually ordered components from certain vendors to their own specifications. This material comes in house, it's machined to the drawings; it's checked out to the specifications; and they put an engine together. Now they call this an experimental engine. I believe the first one was essentially called “Experimental Engine” because they had very little if any experience with the major components. One exception was the hydrogen turbopump, which was basically a modification of one that they had already built and run for the Atomic Energy Commission on the Rover program. We were starting with basically an off the shelf turbopump, which was modified somewhat for the J-2 application. The oxidizer pumps were not too unsimilar from the previous engine programs like the H-1 and the Atlas and other LOX/RP engines. The oxidizer pumps were quite similar in design to what they had used before. Some modifications such that J-2 they used separate pumps rather than two pumps run by a gearbox. Each pump had its own turbine and that was a new innovation from previous engines. [00:27:12] BP: It is not just a handmade type of thing. It's actually analyzed, designed, hardware is released and built, and so forth. Not only that, they didn't just release one set of hardware, they released groups of hardware. I think they released maybe four or five engines worth of hardware, probably even the initial release. From the first engine firing, the experimental engine, they found out some things, which they went back and made some corrections to. The hardware was already in the pipeline. It was like they might have to, well, I can't think of a specific example that occurred on the J-2 but…Well, I think of one thing that happened, our famous 27.5 to 1 thrust chamber, which was flows full at sea level, developed a phenomenon which they hadn't predicted, and that's called side loads. During the start transient, a very eccentric load developed in the chamber, forcing the chamber over to one side. Some of the first engines they ran, they actually physically distorted the chamber, distorted the actuator systems, and things trying to hold the chamber in place, engine in place. They had to quick come up with what they call a horse collar, which was a device that came in and grabbed the chamber at the throat. It would hold the engine stable, take the load during the start, and once it was running then the thing would drop away so the engine could be gimbaled. But that was not predicted, and that's an example of a kind of a modification to find out you have to make. [00:29:02] RB: Were they able to work out the side load problem that they were on and get rid of that horse collar thing? [00:29:07] BP: No. [00:29:08] RB: That stayed in the whole program? [00:29:09] BP: Yes it did. The S-II stage and ground firing used devices to hold the chambers in place. [00:29:14] RB: And the S-IVB then also has the same thing? [00:29:17] BP: During ground firing. [00:29:18] RB: During ground firing. [00:29:19] BP: And that's ground equipment. [00:29:20] RB: Okay, it's not flight hardware? [00:29:21] BP: No, the side loads don't exist in flight because of the vacuum condition. [00:29:26] RB: Okay. [tape cuts out] [00:29:27] RB: It takes a minute or a second to get here, to run up. Okay, I think we're probably back on here. [00:29:35] BP: Okay, so I kind of went beyond maybe the scope of your original question. [00:29:39] RB: No, I'm glad to find out. I didn't know about it. [00:29:41] BP: There were any number of problems that, of course, came out of the early engine firings, which caused either modification of hardware, which had been released in the system, or certainly got cranked into the next batch of hardware design that was going to be released in the system. [00:30:04] RB: Could you pick out a problem that you remember, especially that developed during the test and qualification program that brought about a redesign of hardware? [00:30:14] BP: We had lots of those. [laughs] I don't know if there's any one you want me to emphasize... [00:30:22] RB: We read the NASA press releases and the AIAA presentations by Rocketdyne people—which isn't to say anything against them, you know?—but you get the impression that this was a beautiful program. You know there must have been a problem somewhere. [00:30:36] BP: I guess this is a matter of debate. I don't know. My own personal philosophy is that you have a development program to find out what's wrong with things and correct it. In other words, I think it's more accurate to say that happiness should be finding a failure rather than not finding a failure because if you don't find it, then you're going to be hung up sometime in a critical mission or flight or something of that sort. The J-2 program did find lots of failures and had to correct them during the program. The most difficult part of it came into play when we had to release engines for production, and we had engines in the production pipeline, and we were still finding failures. It's particularly difficult because then it means that the solution has to be found that we can crank into the production line and fix that particular piece of production hardware. Not only before it's delivered from the line, but we had cases where engines had already been delivered to the field that we had to send out modification kits to fix them. A lot of people look at this as saying, “Well gee, why didn't you find all those things before you sent those engines out to production?” Truth of the matter is that the program always needs the production hardware before it's fully developed. [00:32:18] RB: For schedules? To meet your schedules? [00:32:21] BP: For schedules. We have not only on the Saturn program, but on every program in the missile rocket business that I've ever looked at including the Air Force program, we have a situation of what we call concurrent development and production. General Schriever recognized that during the early IBM days. We certainly had it during the Saturn Apollo. The engine being one of the long lead items for the entire system suffers particularly because the vehicle people would like to get an operational engine cranked in their vehicle as soon as possible. Many times they'd like to have it rather than waiting to have it at some point where you install the engine down at the Cape before you launch it. They're not satisfied with that. Usually they want to crank the engine in in the early part of the vehicle build up cycle back at the vehicle manufacturing area so that the whole system, engine to vehicle, goes through the system checkouts. Maybe sometime in the future, we can promote a philosophy to give us more time in the engine area where we can install the engines at the other end of the line. [both laugh] Which just means maybe as much as a year of expert development and maturity. [00:33:47] RB: Can you give an example? Do you remember what kind of modifications you were sending out? [00:33:53] BP: Yeah. Well, let me give an example that hit us in the production line before we were just beginning to deliver the first flight engine for Saturn IB, which was going to Douglas with engine number fifteen, 2015 I believe. Now this engine was in the stages of final assembly when we discovered that we had burned out a section of the gas generator wall, actually put a hole in it. In fact, I believe this happened on one of the battleship engines that we had sent to Douglas Sacramento. It happened on another engine or two that were being fired in Santa Susanna. This launched an intensive development effort to solve this problem, which Rocketdyne came up with a change to the throat of the gas generator. They call it [inaudible] choke ring, which diverted the gases somewhat so they didn't impinge on the wall. So this [inaudible] choke ring then had to be worked into all the gas generators that were on the line. It meant actually cutting the gas generator, which was welded to the fuel turbine [manifold?], taking this assembly off, reworking it, re-welding everything back up again. It was quite a re-working turnaround problem. It was a modification that could be incorporated into existing hardware to solve the problem. That's an example of a problem that hit us during the manufacturing cycle. [00:35:56] BP: One of the most serious development problems I think in terms of seriousness that we found was the fact that we had some very definite problems in the engine start sequence. During an attempted semi-qualification, which we call PFRT testing, we did discover that we did have a control problem or a sequencing problem. We started build up which actually caused the LOX valve to be forced closed such that the LOX valve had such hydraulic pressure against it it wouldn't open properly. This caused excessive back pressure since the gas generator was tapped off above the LOX valve. The gas generator LOX balance went LOX rich. We got too hot temperatures and burned out the turbine and a few other things. This did point out the fact we had a problem there. [00:37:17] BP: We'd also been having problems in starting the engine due to the hydrogen pump stall, which in case power balance was very sensitive between the LOX and fuel turbine speed buildups. If the pressure in the chamber built up too fast because the LOX pump was putting more LOX in the main thrust chamber causing the main thrust chamber pressure to build up too fast, this caused excessive back pressure on the hydrogen side. It got ahead, you might say, of the hydrogen pump buildup, and we had that condition which forced the operating and the operating curve of the pump, which pushed it over into the stall region. The pump would stop pumping. That was called hydrogen stall. [00:38:13] BP: There was extensive development effort launched to find improvements to the start sequence, which necessitated running a much larger number of engine system tests than we had originally planned. The only way you could work on this problem was to run the engine system. The other problem I mentioned when we burned out the gas generator, we solved the problem in the gas generator pit. In this case, there was no other way to solve the problem except to make many, many cut and tries, as it will, at the engine test itself. Rocketdyne used all of their analytical methods in the start computer, which they had developed and so forth, and tried to make refinements on that computer in order to get a better handle on things. They used all the techniques that they could. Really what it came down to is that you had to make an adjustment and then try it. The final solution had to be tested under altitude conditions to make sure that it was also valid because of the altitude affecting the start. [00:39:37] RB: Okay, that's very good. You know, these are a good example, I think, you know, of what happened [inaudible]. Another brief question here, and then I've taken enough of your time, I think. J-2 was built for a mission of around 500 seconds, but the lifetime was about 3,750 seconds around that area. [00:40:01] BP: Yes, 3,750 was the qualification one. [00:40:04] RB: Okay, now why the difference? What were you doing inside those 3,750 seconds that you needed that many of when the actual mission was only 500? [00:40:16] BP: Well, I guess that's a philosophical sort of question. It gets back down to some basic assumptions. Number one is the fact that I guess when an engine is delivered to the Cape for flight, it's already going to have a certain amount of time on it. It's not going to be zero time. There's about 750 seconds allocated for the acceptance test of the engine. Then there was another 500 seconds allocated for the vehicle test, ground test. They did fire the S-II stages and S-IVB stages on the ground for quite a while. I guess they fired all of the S-II stages. Then as a reserve, there were additional time allocated beyond that. [00:41:19] BP: Suppose you have a vehicle problem or a reason to refire the vehicle for some reason on the ground, you might have to run another complete test. You can rationalize yourself that you might have engines at least 1,500 seconds that would still have to be qualified for flight. It turns out most of them didn't have that much time on them when they got to the Cape. More like, I say 1,500 to 2,000 seconds, you could rationalize. You might be in that range, but most of them were in the 1,000 to 1,200 range that actually turned out. All right, so then beyond that, you say, “Well, why would you need any more time?” This is strictly a matter of judgment in fact that trying to make a maturity reliability type assessment, I think the goal of 3,750 was chosen because it would also increase the confidence level upon which the engine say of some lesser time would have their flight. [00:42:34] RB: Is this part of the manned rating philosophy too? [00:42:38] BP: Yes. Well, it was at least in our minds at that time. The fact that we were going to fly manned in previously qualified engines, much less time. We felt that 3,750 seconds was perhaps not an unreasonable amount of time at all for a hydrogen type of an engine. I can't say that this is any magic number for a manned space flight because it wasn't. The F-1 had a qualification time of 2,250 seconds, which was felt reasonable for the conditions that you expect with a LOX/RP type engine. The fuel made a considerable difference because there were more effects on the F-1 life by using RP fuel because of coking, carbon deposits, and other other types of problems that you've got with the fuel. Hydrogen engine stays just brand shiny clean. You don't have those kind of problems, and you can expect a longer life inherently from a hydrogen engine. This was one reason why I'd say somewhat arbitrarily 3,750 was chosen to be at least some measure beyond what we have done in the LOX/RP type engines. That's about it. There are probably some other philosophical reasons that you might get from some other people. I don't know. [00:44:14] RB: [laughs] Well, do you have any, you know, things that you'd like to say? [00:44:16] BP: Well, just to make one more little sidelight on this whole thing…In fact, I don't know when the designer looks at 3,750 seconds, whether he designed the bearing carrier much different than whether it was 3,000 or 2,000 or what. We actually ran some R&D engines with, of course, some component replacement here and there, but we had components on R&D engines which had gone well over up to 20,000 seconds. We had several other samples at ten, 15,000, that range. [00:45:00] RB: It gives you a pretty high confidence factor. [00:45:02] BP: Well, yeah, as a matter of fact, it's because of this kind of data that we feel rather confident that the space shuttle main engine we can eventually attain the seven and a half hour life on mission requirements. In fact, we don't even know today that some of the J-2 components wouldn't have gone much beyond the 20,000 seconds because we just gave up at that point. Some of them weren't even worn out. If we had to today take a J-2 engine and make it a reusable type of engine to go to a long life—many missions—we have some data, which there will be some areas in the J-2 that we know are life limited, which would have to be redesigned. From a general standpoint, it did give us high confidence in the J-2 from the J-2 data that many of the hydrogen type components would run considerably longer than what we ever tested before. [00:46:18] RB: Well, I've taken a good share of your time here. [00:46:22] BP: Well, I understood you wanted about an hour. Anything else you have on your list that you want to go into? [00:46:30] RB: No, some of the…There are questions that I picked up just reading odds and ends of things. One thing that is really a stupid question, but what does J-2 mean? [00:46:43] BP: [Laughs] Doesn't mean anything particularly. The Rocketdyne had a system of numbering engines. Well, maybe it's a lack of system. We had…I can't really say where it started. Rocketdyne had an E-1 experimental engine program. They had the F-1 program. It seemed to me there was a D program somewhere that didn't live very long. I don't know what happened to some of the other numbers in between. They probably died in the proposal [mill?] somewhere. But there was H-1, of course, which was picked on H-1. I think they skipped I for obvious reasons. The next thing that came out of the bag after H-1 was the J-1. [00:47:48] RB: Oh, J-1? [00:47:50] BP: Rocketdyne peddled this around the country in the advanced design sales department, I'd say, for a while. [00:48:00] RB: Was it a hydrogen engine? [00:48:02] BP: Yeah, it was an advanced design concept really, which they called J-1. Then when NASA got serious about going into a development of a hydrogen type engine of the 200,000 pound class, then to distinguish from the version that they had been peddling around the country, they would call it the J-2. I guess basically I don't even think J-2 appeared in their proposal, but when they got down to negotiating the contract, they said, “Well, we're going to call this the J-2 since we had J-1. Does anybody object?” NASA didn't have any numbering system established for engines like the Air Force had the [XLR?] type series. We didn't have any official numbering system, so we said, “We don't know it makes any difference.” Well, J-2. Of course, we already had the H-1 being one, and the F-1 program had already been started. It seemed chronological to us to call it the J-2. [both laugh] [00:49:13] RB: While you were out there, do you remember any incidents that struck you or remember as being humorous or funny? People out there who were really strong characters, little anecdotes about any of them? [00:49:30] BP: I probably could if I thought about it a little bit. After all those years, we certainly had a lot of interesting meetings. [laughs] It got pretty wild at times, but let me think a minute here. Well, I really can't remember anything offhand. As I say, I'm sure I would if I thought about it a bit. [00:50:07] RB: What about Von Braun? [00:50:09] BP: He used to come out quite often to the West Coast and visit the Rocketdyne and review the program. He attended many of our review meetings that we had in the early days. Later on, he got…Demands were heavier on his time, he came out less often. He usually managed to come out once a year and review all of the activities at Rocketdyne. [00:50:40] RB: Did you find those helpful, necessarily, or was it something you did because it was for his primary information benefit? [00:50:47] BP: No, I wouldn't say…Obviously, I think that it was not only a general feeling by the NASA people, but I think the contractor, too, appreciated the opportunity to bring the center director—Von Braun, of course, being the center director at the time—up to date on what was going on. I think this helped the morale a lot because you did feel that the top management was interested in the effort. Not only that, I think that Von Braun himself was quite an inspiration to the program and any meetings that he attended. His comments and observations were—I would say—very, very helpful because it put what we were doing in one detailed part of the center—Apollo—and the whole system somewhat in more context as to really what our objective was. That was helpful. I think those types of meetings perhaps gave us more insight on where we really should be going and probably some of the day-to-day directives that we used to get. [both laugh] [00:52:17] RB: It's too easy to put the director of File 13 down there, I suppose too. [00:52:24] BP: My only general comment on the whole thing, I thought it was a very interesting program. I think that certainly learned a lot from the program. Much of what we learned from the program, we will attempt to apply in general to our management of future programs. In other words, not just learning what to do, but certainly a few things that we learned, I hope perhaps, not to do in a future program of this type. One thing I think that we learned, I think might be of specific interest, in looking back over the J-2 program history…We've done a lot of this in the last couple of years, going back into our history and deciding how we might possibly improve the approach, the management as a development approach in the management. This is even over and above the technical things that are obviously going into the new program. We're trying to apply this to our management approach now, the take on the shuttle engines. Just for example of this, I think we learned in looking over the J-2 program we need to have more emphasis on the component and subsystems testing. Also, we learned we need to get in earlier to testing limits of the hardware in J-2. For example, we had run the hydrogen turbopump a number of months at some fairly nominal type missions. They're within specifications, so to speak. Performance was fine, no problems. Well, I won't say no problems, but the things seemed to perform well basically. When they started to run what you might call higher limits to higher power levels, higher speeds and things of this sort, it might be on the outer fringes of the operational environment. In other words, the engine probably wouldn't run there, except maybe under some unusual conditions or what have you. We failed the turbine wheel, and found we got into a serious vibration problem with the turbine wheel, what they called a non-synchronous whirl. [00:55:29] RB: A non-synchronous whirl? [00:55:31] BP: That's right, but it was a critical vibration problem at a certain speed, the turbine just wouldn't stand up and developed a fatigue crack and came apart. Unfortunately, that caused us then to put some limits on the production hardware in the sense that we had to inspect turbine wheels out in the field for a certain number of engines until we got to the production model that had the new turbine wheel in it. People look back on that and say, “Now had we the first couple of weeks, we’d run that turbopump, taken that machine up to that condition, we would have found the problem sufficiently early to prevent any impact at all on the program.” This might sound a little critical of some of the things we did in the program. It doesn't bother me to talk about it because I think that a development program is a learning process in itself, and nobody can be 100% smart in developing something that's completely unknown or… You just can't predict everything. These types of things will, I think, make us a little smarter going into the new programs. On the other hand, there are probably some things about the new high-pressure designs that we think we understand today, but we'll come crawling out of the woodwork at it. [both laugh] [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_000033_A Title A name given to the resource Pease, Robert 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/783fa47a5d58dec71ce74100fcbed50b.jpg 4598197eb9b09fa4ae86fb6882190ee7 https://oralhistory.uah.edu/files/original/a9e05afcb8f95dc5b7373339f1bbf464.mp4 c854a1abfc0cd3cf0f11245e9f8b1d8e 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 Paul, Hans G.. Interviewer The person(s) performing the interview Bilstein, Roger E. Duration Length of time involved (seconds, minutes, hours, days, class periods, etc.) 0:10:37 Transcription Any written text transcribed from a sound [00:00:00] Hans Paul: You tell me what you want to, what you're interested in. I don't know. I have not... [00:00:08] Roger Bilstein: I think we’re interested in everything you said [inaudible]. [laughs] [00:00:11] HP: I have not prepared anything for this [inaudible]. It might be good; it might be bad. I don't know. [00:00:21] RB: Well, we have lots of questions. Perhaps we can just call you back sometime. [00:00:25] HP: Are you ready now? [00:00:26] RB: Yeah, go ahead. [00:00:27] HP: What I wanted to say…I made it a point that many people think the [rapid?] engine is the whole of the [propulsion system?], and it is not. It is a very essential and a very important part, but there are many, many other aspects that are equally important, which cannot be neglected [inaudible]. I tried to illustrate this. The thermal engineering was extremely important, as was the orbital restart of the J-2 engine. Again, on the S-IVB. You know, they run up [inaudible] and say, “You cannot [inaudible] orbit extremely difficult.” Furthermore, on the ground, you have still the atmosphere. If you are not careful, the atmosphere is [cool?] You don't see it; you don't pay for it. And orbit, [inaudible] [and what happened?] [00:01:22] HP: First of all, we insisted that we run our test in…Now if I say so, I might [inaudible]...We felt that we should simulate orbit in the Tullahoma test facility [inaudible]. Then we had to prove it, I guess, for three months. Presentation after presentation. Finally [inaudible] “You’re sure about this?” [Inaudible] Are you familiar with it? You know, you can fire the J-2 engine, the vacuum, up to and so-and-so many thousand of feet. And what did we find? We found that the cross-over duct [overheated?]. There was heat [soaked?] back [or whatever?] it was. During restart, so oxygen pump—or turbine first—got more energy than intended or designed for. If you do so, then you change, during the start-up, the mixture. You get more oxygen in your gas generator and in your gas generator mainly. This increases your temperature, so you exceed the upper temperature. If you do so, then you burn up your turbine [case?], and there is no second start. [00:02:58] HP: So we found this out. Then, of course, after you have this proof, then you can sit down…And then the contractor, of course. They analyze it. They should have done this before. They didn’t because they are confident that during their tests on the ground, they never really have a problem like this. An engineer must never be overconfident. He must always be suspicious. He must be skeptical by profession, otherwise he is [inaudible]. What I wanted to say is that our thermal properties, [inaudible] the whole propulsion system—from the lowest temperature, the [reach?] or [real?], close to zero, up to the highest temperatures, which can be handled at the present time technologically—they play a very important part. Regardless of which new project comes in [inaudible] the temperature control, the astronaut basically brushes off the radiator, then turns around and brushes himself off and brushes the dust back on the radiator again, which causes low temperatures and the missing [inaudible] after take off temperature problems. This aspect is extremely essentially the point. It is not normally as a rule realized by, except for the few who are intensively involved in it [inaudible]. [00:04:37] RB: Did you get involved very much with insulation problems then too? [00:04:41] HP: Oh yeah, we do. We call it the high temperature heat protection. On the lower end, the conservation of hydrogen, we call it cryopropellant preservation. We do this. I think we are on the forefront. [00:05:00] RB: I was curious about the difference in design—if you want to comment about it—between the S-IVB, which had the internal insulation, and the S-II, which had the external. [00:05:09] HP: I can show it to you. This is the data—the evaporation, lots of liquid hydrogen storage. The hydrogen evaporation is [inaudible] day is shown here, and here is the storage volume, liters. So if you have a container that is 100 liters, and you lose one percent, then it’s here. If you lose ten percent, it’s here. If you lose 100 percent a day, then it’s here. Is that clear? Can [inaudible]. [00:05:41] HP: Now you asked about the S-IV. The hydrogen loss of the internal insulation on the S-IV is 0.9 here. In orbit, it is down here. On the S-II stage, with the external insulation, the helium-purged foam on the S-II stage on the ground is here. The NAPCO spray foam insulation, we consider this on the ground, because the attitude is not high enough. The pressure is too high. But it's here. Does this answer your question? [00:06:16] HP: In other words, the S-IV on the ground would have an evaporation loss of over 100 percent. The S-II, there’s not much difference. It's at 100 percent, but it is a little bit better. Whereas in orbit, the S-IVB—now this would be in orbit it would be better too—it has ten, I would say it is probably fifteen, around fifteen or twenty percent. [00:06:50] HP: Now you asked what we are doing in insulation. We just tested a few weeks ago this 105 inch in diameter liquid hydrogen storage tank. It's 10,000 liters, a little bit more than 10,000 liters capacity. You see it is less than one percent, it is 0.3 percent. In thirty days, you would have ten percent loss. That is [inaudible]. [00:07:23] RB: Excuse me, going back to the S-II, there is a problem because you really don't consider it lost in orbital mode. [00:07:28] HP: Let me tell you, this insulation was not available at the time [this stage had been built?] ten years ago. This insulation was not in [inaudible]. For the time being, you must say that if you are on the ground you can always replenish. It's a short flight of five minutes, doesn't amount to anything. I think it was adequate. It was very adequate. But the improvement from year to year if you show it on a log scale is peanuts. What we need now. I should not interrupt you. You asked a question. [00:08:07] RB: The S-IVB was a little…Can you say that the S-IVB was a little more efficient then? [00:08:13] HP: No, because on the ground, it was even…Let’s see…We are nitpickers who say, [“Was it working?”] I would say—if you ask me—I would say the S-IVB and the S-II were the state of [inaudible]. It served the purpose. [00:08:30] RB: Okay, that's what I'm getting at, I guess. [00:08:32] HP: It served the purpose. And now, the requirements are greatly increasing and are much tougher. These insulations for orbital storage would not be good enough. Unfortunately, we have been able to reduce this by roughly two orders of magnitude. Let me explain. You see, in a storage container, the surface area of the volume changes with the third rule of the volume. [00:09:12] RB: I’ll take your word for it. [00:09:12] HP: In other words, what it loses…Take a sphere. If you have a small sphere, then the external area is relatively large compared to the content. If you have a big sphere, then the volume can hold increases faster [compared to surface area?]. For a storage container, a big container is always [at an advantage?]. I have shown this by plotting in here the one-third power of the volume. In other words, if you take this volume here, you go three or you could go three over here. One, one, two, three. This line would come from here to here. In other words, if you have 100,000 instead of 100, then your loss comes down by the third rule of thousands, which is [inaudible]. That is exactly what we choose here. In other words, what I should not do, I should not compare the loss of a small container to that of a big container. I have to normalize it. This is what these lines do. [00:10:33] John Stuart Beltz: Excuse me, I hate to interrupt. We've run over our time, and we also have no energy. [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_000032_A Title A name given to the resource Paul, Hans G. 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/306b64963df175b7c656c0e395dd57b9.pdf 4fc48558363e4d0712055ae9b531ce59 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_000031_T Title A name given to the resource Parker, William (Transcript) Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1971-03-23 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/e4911694ff8aac4c296c7b0a714b74e3.jpg 4598197eb9b09fa4ae86fb6882190ee7 https://oralhistory.uah.edu/files/original/e09cfcf6eed351406ea5238a7b765fe1.mp4 7907c34c84587d84f5e2bb03e0f622ac 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_000031_A Title A name given to the resource Parker, William Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1971-03-23 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/d7593d2496237b828aeaa7966926144f.jpg cc0c4f909af1a8ef79e706ad5968148a https://oralhistory.uah.edu/files/original/52b4d077287a60a9734341464ade2784.mp4 b7164f6fdffd367a1c25591523068700 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_000018_A Title A name given to the resource Palaoro, Hans Description An account of the resource Experiences at Peenemunede in developing propulsion systems. Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1971-04-23 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/52c8ddae01c0229e935bb995efa8af81.jpg 4598197eb9b09fa4ae86fb6882190ee7 https://oralhistory.uah.edu/files/original/3d51647171809abd33bff8f5e857b295.mp4 9400e415005681e262b951258a1e26e2 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 O'Neal, Adrian P. Interviewer The person(s) performing the interview Bilstein, Roger E. Duration Length of time involved (seconds, minutes, hours, days, class periods, etc.) 0:15:44 Transcription Any written text transcribed from a sound [00:00:00] Adrian O’Neal: One thing that evolved—at least that I recognize evolving—when I started the S-IVB program to time now—which ten or eleven years—has been the breaking down if you will—or whatever term you want to use for it—of the barriers from company to company to company. I noticed it significantly from the time we started on the S-IV contract when at that time back in the middle ‘50s if someone from North American, Boeing, or Grumman, or any other aircraft company wanted to come in and talk with us, he was discouraged first. Usually we didn't tell him everything we knew anyway when we sat down and vice versa. I think probably if you talk to some engineers that have gained most of their experience during the Apollo program, you'd find that they're pretty free with themselves, with other companies, and their experiences. [00:01:20] Roger Bilstein: Was there something too that began to generate about the middle part of the ‘60s, ‘64-‘65, as things really began to pick up? [00:01:31] AO: Yeah, I’d say a point in time, I'm not sure, but I don't know if it was the middle ‘60s. Probably so. Probably the time the Apollo program really sprung out. See, because we worked on the S-IV from ‘60 to…I guess we lost the first one in ‘64. At the time we launched it, it was essentially going out of business, and everyone knew it, so it was probably ‘64-‘65. [00:02:11] RB: Could you make some comments about the evolution and difference of materials used in the S-IVB? You used a different kind of aluminum in the skirts, right, than you did in the tanks? I was wondering if you could make some comments about the design parameters that dictate these kinds of decisions. [00:02:35] AO: Well, to be honest with you, I've forgotten. I imagine that we used 75—what's now called 7075-T6 aluminum—in the skirts and inter-stages. If that's correct, I could find out before you leave. That's a carry on of the aircraft days because the 7075-T6 aluminum was really developed for commercial airplanes. I know they use it on military airplanes also. It has even better strength properties than 2014, but it's not weldable at all. Anytime you have use for aluminum where you don't need to weld it, you're going to rivet it or bolt it, that type of thing, we generally have gone to 7075-T6 for its better strength properties and hence lighter weight. [00:03:56] RB: What happens when you…Does 2014 become a better material under cryogenic temperatures? Do I remember that correctly from some [point?]? [00:04:08] AO: Well, in fact, almost all materials become stronger as you lower the temperature, the physical properties rise. Some materials exhibit an increase in brittleness as you decrease the temperature. In fact, I guess almost all of them do—some worse than others. Twenty fourteen does lose some of its elongation. Some people try to say that makes it more not sensitive [sic] and all this type of thing. To be just factual, it gets stronger at lower temperatures, and it also loses elongation. We used it. There's only one place on the S-IVB where the 2014 aluminum ever gets to hydrogen temperatures. That's in the forward face of the common bulkhead. See, we used internal insulation in the hydrogen tank, and hence the aluminum never gets lower than minus 100, minus 150 degrees. The LOX tank, of course, gets to minus 300 degrees, but we felt like we had a lot of experience with that on the Thor. In fact, I guess some of those Thors were built—if I remember my numbers right—a Delta was not too long ago. It had a first stage—a Thor—which was built back in about the late 50s, which kind of tells you the material doesn't degrade with time anyway. [00:06:08] RB: Well, what happens when you start adding the effective engine thrust on some of these materials? Did you, you know, when you fire off the J-2s and so on, did you have any difficulties working out some of these relationships with people at Rocketdyne or again, is that a fairly straightforward engineering approach? [00:06:31] AO: No, it's fairly straightforward because we'd worked with Rocketdyne before on the Thor program. They built the engine for Thor. It was so straightforward, and the interfaces were established that both of us knew where the interface was and who was to supply the designs and hardware on either side and how they had to make together. Of course, when we started using the J-2—first our battleship program in Sacramento and then on the stages of Sacramento—Rocketdyne had a contingent of field engineers there working with us. In fact, we had a man stationed at Rocketdyne, like several, during the development part of the S-IVB, just to make the exchange of information better. [00:07:36] RB: Did Rocketdyne supply the thrust structure? Was that part of their…? [00:07:39] AO: No, we supplied the thrust structure, but the interface is established essentially at the gimbal block because the J-2 engine had the gimbal mechanism—at least the load carrying part of the gimbal on the engine—then the electrical interfaces and the two fluid interfaces—LOX and hydrogen. We supplied the actuators. The actuators were used to really actually gimbal—move the engine and the thrust structure to our tank. [00:08:29] RB: Somewhere too now—I’m just remembering it—it seems to me I read that Von Braun at one time just wasn't happy about liquid hydrogen. I forgot if this was the time Centaur began running into trouble. Do you remember anything about that? Did you run into any problems along those lines? [00:08:49] AO: Well, I remember that there was a fair amount of consternation about the time Centaur tried to fly the first couple of times. That's about the point in time we had the S-IV coming along. We learned some things with that. We learned how to put hydrogen into a big tank. It was about the first time we tried, we almost collapsed all the pressure inside it so that…We didn't ruin the tank, but we buckled it a little bit and made us all stop and sit back and think. We learned to do that. I don't remember Dr. Von Braun ever being afraid to use it. I'm sure he was worried about it after the Centaur. [00:09:43] RB: The impression, and I forgot [inaudible], somebody was talking to me that the…There was a feeling maybe that liquid hydrogen was maybe too far advanced, would be better stick with some sort of uprated H-1 or RL-10…Not RL-10, but H-1 or F-1 engine, something like that. [00:10:04] AO: Personally, I never heard him express that kind of sentiment. [00:10:17] RB: I had a question in the back of my mind now, and I've forgotten what I was going to ask you. You mentioned you had some problems with early tanking, did this create a real difficulty at the very beginning? Because as you said you hadn't handled this quantity of stuff before. [00:10:35] AO: No, it didn't. The actual incident occurred when we built what we called an all systems S-IV stage—which essentially was flight weight tanks, real RL-10 engines but with not all flight electronics and so forth on the stage to control it—and took it to Sacramento and one of the first…Well, we married it also there with the GSE or the loading equipment that was going to be used at the Cape when it came time to fly. The first time we tried to flow liquid hydrogen into the tank, we theorized later that we came into the tank with a big slug of liquid hydrogen, and it went up into the tank and of course cooled all the gas inside the tank down very rapidly, causing the pressure inside the tank to go below ambient pressure, which then collapsed the part of the tank. As soon as we figured that out, then we changed the loading procedure so that we made sure that we had good phase, good change between flowing gas into the tank and liquid. As I remember, it just slowed down and increased the length of time that we flowed liquid hydrogen gas through the lines into the tank and out and out the vent, so that we cooled everything down before we actually got liquid coming into it. [00:12:30] RB: Can you remember any particularly humorous things that happened that stand out in your mind? [00:12:42] AO: [laughs] There must be hundreds. [tape cuts out and restarts] I think once we started flying men in Apollo—at least as far as the S-IVB crews went, and I think this last launch is the first one I haven't been either to Cape with or in Houston—the S-IVB anyway performed so long that the guys were just completely whipped by the time the IVB part of the mission was over, and they just didn't feel up to having any big parties. If you go way back in time after things like Thor when the Thor philosophy kind of was build them fast and shoot them and find out your problems, so we had a few failures intermingled with some success. When you have a success, the people really did kind of let go. One difference with the guys that I've been associated with on the IVB is that they just physically couldn't stand it because the counts almost always picked up ten or eleven hours before liftoff. By the time they went through a normal count liftoff and then six or seven hours of S-IVB performance, they had stretched their waking time out to eighteen or twenty hours, and they were in really not much shape to go out and do too many things. [00:14:34] RB: That's interesting about the Thor program—build them and shoot them off and accept the failures. [00:14:41] AO: There is a school of thought…In fact, you can probably still find some people today that as long as you don't have a man involved where you're really risking life that would argue with you that you can develop a program quicker and cheaper by just building and flying rather than going through all the extensive testing that we went through in the Apollo program. I'm not sure who's right. There are two camps to it. The Thor camp really was kind of that. We ran very little development testing before we actually tried to fly the first one. [00:15:30] Beginning of Morata (Part 1) recording [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_000030_A Title A name given to the resource O'Neal, Adrian P. 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/a58582aecabf3314568036cb9360031e.pdf aae62c3e13932d5e71179e7b53e4b3de 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_000029_T Title A name given to the resource Neubert, Erich W. (Transcript) Description An account of the resource General Saturn development and programs, benefits of earlier programs, contractor and vendor relations. 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 .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.