28 thoughts on “The Apollo Program”

  1. I think Apollo was worth it. Figuring out how to solve the combustion instability problems, F-1, J-2 and the RL-10 are enough reasons. IMO the problem was that once they figured out Saturn V was uneconomic they threw the whole infrastructure by the wayside. They could have made a smaller rocket with just a couple of F-1 engines and a single J-2. We could have had rockets with EELV performance levels two decades earlier. If we ever needed to build a Saturn V class rocket again the engines would still be in production.
    Instead NASA put all the eggs in the Shuttle basket. While the SSME is an interesting engine the Shuttle turned out to be a dud as a launch vehicle. I have little doubts we could produce an economically more viable TSTO with today’s technology but it would most likely use a different launch configuration.

    1. It is indeed sad that there never was an EELV-like evolution of Saturn I. But given that there wasn’t, I don’t think you can say Apollo was worth it for F-1 and J-2 alone, since both were dead ends. And wasn’t RL-10 started independently of Apollo? I think Marshall fought Lewis over using it for Apollo.

      1. It is indeed sad that there never was an EELV-like evolution of Saturn I.

        The Preliminary Design Branch at MSFC had a single F1A stage, single J2S upper stage way back in the early 80’s. I saw a model of the vehicle in a glass case in the little museum in 4203 in the early 90’s.

        1. A bit late. Now, if this had happened instead of Shuttle, in conjunction with Dyna-Soar… I believe von Braun wanted something like that, but sadly George Mueller and his ilk won the day.

        2. There was also a design that replaced the first stage with a single huge solid motor. Shades of Ares I.

      2. I think Marshall fought Lewis over using it for Apollo.

        No, the Saturn 1 original second stage was a cluster of five RL-10’s. The RL-10 was funded by the USAF for an upper stage for the Atlas, that we now still have an evolution of known as the Centaur.

        1. I meant that Marshall originally didn’t want to have anything to do with RL-10 or even with LH2. I think I read that in “Taming Liquid Hydrogen”. In my other post I was thinking of the S-IV, mistakenly (?) thinking it had been used on early Saturn Vs, when it had only been used on Saturn Is.

    1. It was also used on the second stage of the Saturn I. That was an extremely minor role, though, since the Saturn I was quickly replaced by the Saturn IB.

        1. On early Saturn Vs too I believe.

          The Apollo Applications Program had some variations of fourth stage that would carry RL-10’s. I think that this was the baseline for the original Voyager 4 spacecraft launch for the original grand tour mission.

  3. I think Apollo was worth it. Figuring out how to solve the combustion instability problems, F-1, J-2 and the RL-10 are enough reasons.

    Poor argument. NASA did not need to build the F-1 and J-2 (and all the other hardware) to solve combustion problems in the RL-10. This is a variation of the “spinoff” fallacy.

    They could have made a smaller rocket with just a couple of F-1 engines and a single J-2.

    That was pretty much the plan for the Lunar Gemini landing. But that wouldn’t have required building Apollo, so Houston would have been cut out of the development role.

    Yes, I know, “it would have been different without the politics.” But governments never do anything without politics (by definition).

  4. But without Apollo the Soviets would’ve kept at it, eventually doing a manned lunar flyby in a Zond, followed by landings (probably by the late 1970’s), then the contruction of lunar bases powered by high-output Chernobyl-style Soviet nuclear reactors. By the time Reagan was entering his second term those would power beam weapons aimed at America, and since the Apollo CSM was never developed, he would have to send a small squadron of Gemini-derived capsules to engage the Soyuz fighter defenses, slip through, and score a direct hit on their reactor’s exhaust port.

    Instead we landed first, and that whole cheesy history never came to pass.

    1. You might like Martin Caidn’s ‘No Man’s World’ (1967) in which we were less than two years behind the Soviets…

  5. I have a different opinion on the benefits of Mercury, Gemini, Apollo:

    Yes, the race to the moon was a purely political stunt. Yes it sent us down a path that was not the most efficient regarding space exploration and infrastructure. All the inefficiencies I concede.

    But without the political push, I don’t think we would have gone very far. We would not be as advanced as we are. You need impetus…a reason…to spend billions and focus all that energy and manpower on a project.

    The Russkies gave it to us.

    Plus, I don’t believe that a non-political program would necessarily have been be any more efficient.

    These days I see only one reason the Gubbmint has kept NASA and a space program operating:

    That is to keep a cadre of experienced, trained scientists ready for any national emergency – another Manhattan project.

    Oddball point of view, I know….

      1. MfK:

        The space program provides employment for a lot of scientists outside of direct hires. I work at the Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics. We have astrophysicists who study shock waves and do lots of fluid dynamics simulations.

        Remember: not all of the Manhattan scientists were working directly on atomic stuff before they were asked to join the team.

        1. Yeah, and I worked on the development of ICBMs for the first 12 years of my career. Now that we have extended the life of Minuteman until 2030, there will be no one left alive when we need a new one. And I’ve seen some of the attempts at defining another ICBM in the past 20 years. The people they put on it were never involved in one, and haven’t a clue how to do it.

          The Navy, on the other hand, maintains continuity in the SLBM office. They could almost turnkey develop a new SLBM.

          As for the Manhattan scientists, they did things and took chances that would never, ever be allowed under OSHA, NEPA, and all of the other impediments to progress we’ve put in our own way. The NASA people are steeped in “risk avoidance.” They’re probably more unsuited to a crash military development program than a homeless person brought in to do something, anything…

          2. I wonder what OSHA and the DOE would say about the “demon core” these days.

            Though playing with a pit like that was kind of stupid.

    2. But without the political push, I don’t think we would have gone very far. We would not be as advanced as we are. You need impetus…a reason…to spend billions

      You equate “advanced” with expensive.

      What was needed was an impetus *not* to spend billions.

      1. Ed writes:

        “You equate “advanced” with expensive.”

        I consider the progress from Redstone to Shuttle as advancement in the technology. I agreed it wasn’t necessarily the most efficient progression.

        “What was needed was an impetus *not* to spend billions.”

        *shrug* then you rely on the market. Was military space use and weather/comm sats enough of a market to advance the technology as far as the moon landing had?

        I believe in the market, first last and always. But belief in the market DOES NOT guarantee that any particular advancement *must* happen.

        Taking the long view – like hundreds of years – whether we went the inefficient Apollo path or some other more efficient path will, I believe, make very little difference.

        1. p.s. I agree that by the time Apollo was finished and the shuttle started to be thought about, the market should have been allowed to take over. This is because the market is better at finding solutions when there’s money to be made.

          My comments are pointed towards the 1950-1970 time frame.

          1. “First, we scare off all the investors by making spaceflight look as difficult, dangerous, and expensive as possible. Then, we allow the market to take over.”

            There seems to be a flaw in that plan.

        2. Was military space use and weather/comm sats enough of a market to advance the technology as far as the moon landing had?

          You assume the goal is to “advance technology” rather than reducing costs.

          Technology is never an end in itself.

          Whether Apollo was more “advanced” than DynaSoar is irrelevant. The question is, which would have put us on a path toward routine access to space?

          And, yes, the military use of space was sufficient to do that — if the military had been allowed to develop space the way it wanted to, rather than being restricted to unmanned systems.

      1. Refresh my memory, what ever happened to Mr. Pham? I remember his comments were among the most thoughtful in this place. Did he start his own blog? Was he encouraged to “move on” because some took offense at what he had to say?

        This site hasn’t been quite the same without his regular remarks.

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