Fly Chrysler to the Moon: the Saturn Rockets
The close of the 1950s saw a changing of the guard developing in Washington D.C. President Dwight Eisenhower was ending his 8 year term as President, and John F. Kennedy was coming in.
1960 brought a new sense of spirit into the United States. It is hard to describe how the election of John F. Kennedy had the effect of lifting up the whole country. It was a very narrow win for the youngest man ever elected to the White House (at age 43). Perhaps his youthful looks, coupled with a young, beautiful wife, and young children, led him and the energy of the public. Dwight Eisenhower was eager to see the couple on inauguration day, with he and his wife greeting them enthusiastically, having a great anticipation to finally retiring.
Project Apollo was a NASA-initiated program to get Man to the nearest celestial body, our own Moon. This was the heart of programs that Werner Van Braun had been advocating and dreaming about for many years. The program emerged late in February 1960 with its final development in March or April 1960 while Eisenhower was still President. Like Project Mercury and Project Gemini gone before it, Apollo was a logical build up, with calculated steps, and associated risks, set up to gain more with each successive test of the Apollo manned capsules.
Going forward with Apollo was by no means certain. Eisenhower was never given to decisive displays of support in the space programs. He never respected Werner von Braun or his German associates; Eisenhower personally inspected the first "death camp" found by American soldiers, after leading the battles against the Nazi machine in Europe. He privately disdained their work, with too many recent memories of the Nazi atrocities. He also knew that Von Braun not only had been a Nazi, he had committed acts that were war crimes.
When the Russians launched Sputnik on October 4, 1957, President Eisenhower had felt betrayed by the CIA; he took a public relations hit from Congress and the public when the Russians appeared to have achieved a huge technological lead. As President, he had to deflect the constant negative press as well as the hue and cry of the public that the United States was lacking technological leadership, and was somehow seen as a big failure. Congress had not yet been given the huge bill that NASA was asking to be paid to achieve getting a man on the Moon with Apollo.
Chrysler Corporation was still under contract to the Army for the Redstone Missile system, although that contract was scheduled to end in 1961. By this time, the Redstone was being outclassed and was largely obsolete even as it came off the Warren production line. The Army had made formal notification to the Chrysler Corporation that for the first time, an extension of an existing contract would not be forthcoming. (A lot of the final missiles were sold to Australia for their space missile development program, recouping some of the expenditures) Chrysler was also building a few Jupiter C missiles in Warren, and had been able to squeeze the much larger Saturn I first stage booster into a production line at Warren.
Chrysler Corporation’s leadership had been through the ringer, with forced resignations, reappointments, more resignation, and scandals with charges of inside deals. Their cars were poorly designed in many ways, with a lingering doubt about their quality due to the 1957 debacle. They should have applied their acute technical knowledge about missiles to their cars!
The Saturn I missile program was a real eye opener for Chrysler and NASA. It was a very large size, and thanks to Chrysler-developed engine clustered couplings, a reliable booster for NASA. However, with the spreading of knowledge about the Apollo Program, it was realized that Chrysler alone could not be expected to deliver the much more huge Saturn V (five) rocket that would boost Apollo out of Earth obit towards the Moon. There was no way, given the size of Saturn V, that any attempt could even be contemplated for building it within the Warren, Michigan, Chrysler facility. It would never fit. Another place would have to be found.
Investigative committees were formed to see who could assist, keeping an anxious watchfulness that provisioning for the funding, and the political will, was to be had for continuing with Apollo. Von Braun, thanks to some inside information from Chrysler, already had a place in mind.
As a candidate, John Kennedy had said that America could not afford to be second in the race for space supremacy. He warned that a (sound byte) "missile gap" existed between the Soviet Union and the United States, and we could not be second. His run for the Presidency caused Plymouth division of Chrysler Corporation to publish a booklet in his honor, which was 7"x7" some 22 pages long.
In fact, Russia was technologically challenged by its hardware as well as its lack of engineering acumen. They also lacked the production line ability that was so embedded with US manufacturing. Even as JFK took office, the missile gap was technologically heavier in favor of the USA, particularly in large lift boosters.
The situation in Russia
The USA had no way of knowing that, given the lack of intelligence, the super secretive nature of the Soviet Government, and the very remote location of the Baikonur launch facility. The Russian moon rocket was a colossal beast. One Soviet designer, responsible for the Sputnik rocket, kept up a repeated, often very heated, harangue of the moon rocket, calling it a disaster, a severe setback, a wasted expenditure. Privately, he had needled Soviet Premier Khrushchev to the point he was nearly reprimanded, which would not have been career enhancing.
By the end of 1946, the Soviets had assembled 30 V-2 Rockets from the parts that had been left at Nordhausen. The Soviet Design Bureau also became highly classified, known as OKB-1. While it was situated in a Moscow City suburb, it didn't show on any maps. The man in charge was a Stalin gulag survivor who had been appointed a full Colonel in the Red Army, then appointed as design bureau chief. His identity became another Soviet State secret.
A Russian was in charge of the Soviet missile design bureau for intercontinental ballistic missiles, but he was not in charge of anything concerning the German scientists, except their work. All else was handled by The Ministry of Defense.
Russia test fired many of the captured German V-2 missiles early in 1947. Their experience was that while it might be a reliable lift body, it was not highly accurate. Out of 12 tests, 5 were on target, a 40% record. By then, a new missile was sought for production, and Stalin authorized it for production in April 1947. While it may have been based on the German V-2, this was an all Soviet rocket, built with Soviet parts, labor, materials, design, and manufacture.
Suddenly, in 1951, the Minister of Defense sent a group of the German scientists home to Germany. It took them no time at all to be in touch with Werner Van Braun in America. By 1953, all the captured Germans had been sent back to Germany. None of them were offered any work or given a choice to stay. Russia had developed the R-7 ICBM which could lift a 3.5 megaton warhead. This is what would become the Sputnik rocket. It had proposed in early 1953, to put a satellite into orbit using the R-7. Had it been allowed, it would have really put the spurs to America, which would have had nothing to answer back until 1955 with the Jupiter C.
America lacked a central cohesiveness in their programs at that time. The Army, Navy, and US Air Force were all building their own systems, pulling for development money in different areas for different designs. The Soviet missile program was centralized, but highly compartmentalized, and their Moon Rocket program was not given the attention of the military rocket development. Russia had no huge engine such as that as the US Air Force was in the process of developing in the mighty 1.5 million pound thrust Rocketdyne F-1 engine. Russia also had not known about some of the flight dynamics that were later discovered by the engineers of Chrysler Corporation when they sent about to adapt the Rocketdyne F-1 under NASA contract. One was what was termed "pogo effect." The other was fuel flow inconsistencies that caused dynamic instability. This was attributed to "pockets" of liquid oxygen that were like balls in the steam of fuel. These pockets would "pop" and "flare" while the flame was burning causing uneven thrust characteristics to occur.
Chrysler and NASA worked diligently alongside US Air Force personnel to overcome the problems. Russia couldn't get an engine to achieve much over 300,000 pounds of thrust, and the rocket director proposed "bundling" 30 (thirty) of them to achieve the thrust necessary to leave orbit and get to the Moon.
Russia had no concept of the dreaded pogo effect. Pogo works just like the toy. Inconsistent fuel delivery, even minor variations, cause the engines to ebb and flow, like air bubbles in a pipe, thrusting hard, then backing out, bouncing the vehicle up and down. Coming to flight, as it set out to reach higher speeds, it would simply burst the engine and blow the vehicle up. Fuel flow inconsistencies also caused a change in dynamics, causing the vehicle to wobble or go off flight and destroy itself. Chrysler finally achieved control of both problems and no more of the pogo effect or fuel flow issues followed.
In 1959, NASA had not really been given a go ahead for the Apollo program. Congress had not been given a clue as to the enormity of the cost involved. When John Kennedy took office, America and Russia had launched several satellites apiece, with America seeking to establish that the recently formed NASA would bring the country back to the lead in space.
Kennedy had campaigned hard, hitting at the Eisenhower administration for the American lag in space. His "missile gap" pledge was that he would "not make American first but, first and, first if, but first, period." After his November 1960 election, JFK had started to receive briefings about the state of the government. He had no real technological knowledge about space flight and, it was definitely not a priority of his. He was stunned to learn that the Apollo program would cost about $25.4 billion. Later, when he talked with the NASA administrators, he was given another shock that Apollo was underfunded, so it truly needed an additional 30% increase! That was a total of $33 billion (in 2008 dollars, around $330 billion). The huge cost put Kennedy off space exploration.
JFK kept silent after taking office, until the Russians put their first man in space. The mission named Vostok I carried Yuri Gagarin for one revolution of the Earth for 108 minutes of space time, on April 12, 1961.
Photo distributed under the GNU Free Documentation License
Again, the United States was beaten. The public was set back, much of it wondering what happened, or how this came to be. Khrushchev exploited the windfall. The outcry from the public and Congress landed directly at Kennedy's feet where his campaign promise were about to rise and haunt him. Kennedy, however, was an astute politician.
On April 20, JFK sent a memo to Vice President Lyndon Johnson. He inquired what the status of the space program was to date. Lyndon Johnson was characteristically blunt, and proclaimed that "we are neither making maximum effort nor achieving the results necessary if this country is to achieve a position of leadership." Johnson concluded that manned exploration of the moon was far enough in the future so as the enabling programs would then put the USA in first.
Kennedy sent a request to the leadership of Congress to address a special joint session a couple of weeks later. After consultation, President Kennedy was invited to bring his message on May 25, 1961. Around the date he requested the joint session, Alan Shepard flew the first manned Mercury mission, which was a sub-orbital flight that lifted him up to 117 miles above the earth, whereby he stayed about 5 minutes before plunging back down again. Shepard was hailed as a hero, which, given the state of American rockets, characteristically he was.
Kennedy appointed Vice-President Lyndon Johnson as the civilian head of the NASA program. He intended the appointment as a means to give Johnson something to do. Unwittingly, Kennedy had unleashed a powerhouse. Johnson leaned on everyone, with unmerciful, unrelenting pressure. After Kennedy's address to Congress on May 25, 1961, Johnson felt almost no constraints to fulfill the program.
Kennedy announced to the joint session of his whole hearted support of the Apollo program; in part:
"First, I believe that this nation should commit itself to achieving the goal, before this decade is out, of landing a man on the Moon and returning him back safely to the earth. No single space project in this period will be more impressive to mankind, or more important for the long-range exploration of space; and none will be so difficult or expensive to accomplish."
President Kennedy reaffirmed his reasoning for space exploration in a defining speech at Rice University on September 12, 1962:
- If this capsule history of our progress teaches us anything, it is that man, in his quest for knowledge and progress, is determined and cannot be deterred. The exploration of space will go ahead, whether we join in it or not, and it is one of the great adventures of all time, and no nation which expects to be the leader of other nations can expect to stay behind in this race for space.
- For the eyes of the world now look into space, to the moon and to the planets beyond, and we have vowed that we shall not see it governed by a hostile flag of conquest, but by a banner of freedom and peace. We have vowed that we shall not see space filled with weapons of mass destruction, but with instruments of knowledge and understanding.
- There is no strife, no prejudice, no national conflict in outer space as yet. Its hazards are hostile to us all. Its conquest deserves the best of all mankind, and its opportunity for peaceful cooperation many never come again.
- We choose to go to the moon in this decade and do the other things, not because they are easy, but because they are hard, because that goal will serve to organize and measure the best of our energies and skills, because that challenge is one that we are willing to accept, one we are unwilling to postpone, and one which we intend to win, and the others, too.
By the time JFK made the Rice speech, NASA and Apollo had literally boomed with growth. It was also stirring huge public interest, often right down to personal pride, with feelings of ownership. Werner von Braun saw the 1961 congressional speech as a total commitment and ran with it. He was visited very often, and vigorously given near interrogations by Vice President Johnson as to where they stood.
LBJ was never really given the recognition for his assistance in the Apollo program. He stifled protest, twisted arms in the Senate, cajoled anger in the House, allocated funding that might have been meant for something else, and if von Braun dreamed it, Johnson somehow got it. By September 1962, NASA was employing upwards of 250,000 people. More was to come.
Chrysler Corporation had introduced Werner von Braun to the place where the huge Saturn V boosters could be built. In June 1961, the month after Kennedy's speech endorsing Apollo and getting men on the moon, a Chrysler team and von Braun drove from Huntsville to New Orleans. They were looking at one of biggest assembly buildings that had ever been constructed. The Michoud plant had somewhat of a checkered past, but it also had 1.8 million square feet under one roof! 48 square acres, all enclosed.
In January 1951, Chrysler had been selected to manufacture tank engines there. The assembly line opened in November 1951. In late 1954, the line was shut down, and the plant was essentially mothballed.
Michoud was part of a 34,500 acre land grant given by the French King in 1723. It survived the formation of the United States as well as the 1803 Louisiana purchase. Around 1820, a sugar plantation was opened up. The two huge smoke stacks survived from that time, and remain to this day in front of the huge facility. At one point, the entire 34,500 acres had been chopped up and sold piecemeal. An heir of one of the original owners hung on to a part of the land. After becoming hugely successful in reselling junk, he purchased every part that had been sold, thereby holding all the 34,500 acres again by 1850. In 1910 the entire tract was sold to a Chicago bank. The bank defaulted, and years of litigation followed. In 1923, it was reacquired by an investor that managed to hang on to the entire tract. He was keeping an eye on the Eastward expansion of the City of New Orleans.
When the US entered the World War, suddenly, mobilization came to the area. It had been selected for the site of two defense projects. The US Maritime Commission saw Michoud as a site for building Liberty Ships. The Army Air Force planned to build 1,200 plywood aircraft with a contract to Higgins Industries. Construction began immediately after the contract was signed. The US Army Corp of Engineers commenced digging a large canal for access to the intra coastal waterway of the Mississippi River out to the Gulf of Mexico. A Congressional act passed on August 12, 1942 authorizing the US Government to take over the entire facility. A long delay began, because the Corp of Engineers had not anticipated the huge amount of fill that was needed to beat back the swamp that comprised the site. The Maritime Commission that had sought to have boats built there decided that the site was no longer suitable and abandoned the contract in August 1942. The plant was completed in October 1943, however, by then the Army Air Forces had moved on and their plans for the plywood planes did not materialize.
The huge facility was closed on November 15, 1945, then given over to the War Asset Board. They leased it to the City of New Orleans for $9.5 million for 15 years. When the Korea war broke out, the Army Ordinance Board tried to pay out the lease to the City of New Orleans for the Michoud plant, but the City balked. As the lease holder, it decided that it was more desirable that it retain title, so it condemned the property. The Federal District Court agreed, handing it back to the US Government on April 12, 1951. Chrysler had already begun to move in to build the tank engines.
The engine production shut down in late 1954, and it was costing $150,000 a year to keep it maintained. By September 1961, Michoud was in the hands of NASA, and Chrysler began to move in (again), to be accompanied, later, by Boeing, which set up the Saturn V production area; at this point, Chrysler was building the Saturn I, the Saturn 1B, and the bigger Saturn 1-SB.
While Chrysler and Boeing were setting up the Michoud facility, NASA needed to be able to get the Apollo capsule into Earth orbit for space testing without the big Saturn V booster. Development began on a smaller alternative to lift the Apollo. The Saturn I could not do it, so Chrysler worked with the late Douglas Aircraft Company to engineer a rocket to meet the new requirements. Design study went on with both creating a whole new booster (as Douglas wanted), and modifying the Saturn (as von Braun wanted). After nearly 18 months, Chrysler agreed with von Braun, and Douglas agreed that an improved Saturn I, the S-IB, with a different engine in the second stage and improvements in the existing H-1 engine, would meet the NASA goals. A contract to build 9 Saturn IB boosters was tied into the existing Saturn I contract held by Chrysler, as a sort of extension. Chrysler would build the first stage Saturn IB booster, while Douglas would construct the second stage under a new contract with the new engines.
The work was quickly expanding, covering employment for over 300,000 employees, spread over several major aircraft design companies and defense contractors.
Testing commenced with the Saturn I in October 1961, continuing through mid 1965. Chrysler delivered 10 Saturn I boosters on time, with no failures. By the time that the last Saturn I flew, the production line for the Saturn IB at Michoud had been completed and the first of those boosters came off the line. Changes incorporated while the 1B was being produced resulting in a version called the S-1B which fitted more powerful engines.
Chrysler built 9 of the large IB and S-1B boosters; the first one flew on February 26, 1966, with the commencement of Apollo, designated as AS-201. There were strong indications of potential disasters in the Apollo Capsule, with this first complete test. Three major capsule complications occurred, all related to wiring, and all were short circuits. Chrysler's booster performed without any noted problems.
AS-202 lifted off on August 25, 1966. It was sub-orbital, like AS-201. It flew only 33 minutes, and for some reason a lot of the flight characteristics remain classified. No capsule problems seemed to have occurred. The Chrysler-built booster again performed with exactly as it should. This mission was out of sequence, actually flying after AS-203.
AS-203 was a test of the nose cone only. It was planned as a not recoverable equipment flight test. It had been pushed ahead of AS-202 because it was ready to go. It flew on July 15, 1966 and the Chrysler-built S-1B performed flawlessly.
AS-204 was a full mission ready test that ended with a very sad disaster that occurred on January 27, 1967. A fire in the 100% oxygen of the capsule caused the first deaths of the American space program. From the time that Astronaut Gus Grissom yelled "fire," an elapsed time of 8 seconds was recorded. Thereafter no further escape efforts or human noise were heard. It took over 5 MINUTES to get the hatch open from the outside.
The subsequent investigation was absurdly shocking and the blame rested with NASA officials. They had taken many shortcuts, ignoring obvious changes to enhance safety. The capsule contractor, North American Rockwell, had submitted many design change suggestions, as well as written inquires about the blatant disregard for normal safety. It was extremely puzzling in the face of the extraordinary circumstances for which the vehicle was supposedly built for! The worst offense is that NASA did not have any supporting documentation to pinpoint areas where the failure might have occurred! It was repulsive and unforgivable.
There was enough blame, however, to go all around. North American should have just simply halted the building of such a flawed design. Their engineers knew it. The assembly of the craft was poor, and obvious to those that were to use it. Gus Grissom the Commander of Apollo 1, had complained to the point that he was counseled, the implication being that he had "screwed up his first flight by losing that capsule, so he may just lose his position altogether." He was uncharacteristic in his silence after that, However, when the Apollo capsule was delivered, Gus publicly walked up to the craft and hung a big lemon on it!
It took 21 months before another capsule was built to fly. In that time, the entire craft was redesigned for absolute (as much as possible considering the inherent risks) safety of the men inside the craft. 1,407 wiring connections were changed or eliminated. Fireproof materials were used exclusively, including a glass based suit for astronauts, which didn't allow for static buildup. The hatch was redesigned with explosive bolts so that any one of the three men inside could initiate the sequence that blew off the hatch within a second. Air inside the capsule matched sea level mixtures. The build sequence and assembly were documented, blueprinted, written in technical manuals, and were briefed to all concerned. These was so good that when the Apollo 13 capsule oxygen tank blew en route to the moon, all the recommendations to save the men came out of the associated documentation for the capsule and the lunar lander!
The Apollo space craft rebuilding did not lessen the production of the Chrysler boosters. The huge Saturn V was coming to fruition at the Michoud facility. Much of the production work overlapped as far as the Saturn boosters, in that one model started before the other model ended.
The initial design for the Saturn 1 grew out of the Redstone Missile design which had morphed into the Jupiter C rocket by 1955. Werner Von Braun had initially set the requirements in mid 1957. At that time, there were no requirements established for any such booster. Von Braun sent it back to the development folks who continued to study it. The Russian launch of Sputnik put emphasis on building larger rockets. Chrysler looked at the cluster concept of single engines being connected to a common area to achieve the lift requirements set by Von Braun; the concept looked wild, but was remarkably effective in operation. The H-1 engines were already developed and were available, saving some $100 million on development. The contract to build the Saturn 1 was signed July 29, 1958. Most personnel working on the design had nicknamed it the "Super Jupiter."
NASA announced that it had chosen the Chrysler designed booster on January 10. 1962. Development work had already commenced as the C-5 rocket, which was officially designated "Saturn" in early 1963.
Even on paper, the design parameters were spectacular. The Saturn V remains, to date, the single largest rocket booster ever built, even surpassing the mighty Soviet efforts in their 30 engine monstrosity. The Saturn V totaled 363 feet in length, and 33 feet in circumference, with 3 stages. The Chrysler-built first stage had 5 engines. By contrast, the Soviet NL moon rocket was 340 feet tall, with 30 engines, and had 5 stages.
Chrysler, as the prime contractor, had brought in other major contractors, including Boeing, Douglas, Huntsville Missile, North American Aviation, and IBM.
NASA was fortunate in that the huge 1.5 million pound thrust engine had been developed by the US Air Force in 1955! It was also fortunate to have chosen Chrysler Corporation as the Prime Contractor, due to its tremendous engineering depth and military-production quality. Chrysler was adept at crisis management, always able to move quickly in any direction to solve or resolve issues concerning the rocket programs. They had the "all in" mind set. Because of this, along with their outstanding, unblemished record, to date with ALL the missiles that they had built, NASA adopted a test method previously untried before. This was considered because of the methods that Chrysler adopted for building the rockets for ABMA and NASA.
One of the reasons that Chrysler boosters were so reliable was anchored in their design philosophy that marked the cornerstone of their production methods. The Chrysler rockets were not overdesigned, which would have added unnecessary weight. They were, however, designed for redundancy if the test results revealed that any system had a statistical possibility of failure at 0.000002%. That meant of course, that each part, as well as each Chrysler built system, had to meet out at 0.999998% design parameters. It boded well, and certainly cut a lot of development engineering out of the Apollo program. It was needed.
James Webb became head of NASA on February 14, 1961. He found an agency that was expanding so fast, that it was already beyond a single person's control. Webb found himself constantly mired in reforms, resolutions, and assertions of his authority. In mid 1963, Webb came to realize that NASA was functionally out of control. It lacked central authority, and worst of all, the appropriations were being applied haphazard, which might invite a huge congressional oversight. He needed to do something.
Webb had established a good friendship with US Air Force General Bernard Shriver, who also recognized the lack of organization. General Shriver recommended a member of an outside contractor that was working with the USAF, George Mueller. Mueller did not hesitate, but he demanded that he be allowed to re–organize NASA because he found no management control anywhere he went. Within 30 days, Mueller had pushed control of NASA into three major branches, all reporting through him. He was a genius, but had no arrogance to his personality. Within a few months, he brought forth the "all in" concept of flight testing the new, costly Saturn V booster.
This "all up" testing basically did away with all the smaller concepts advanced by Werner Von Braun, who advocated taking one step at a time. After a face to face meeting, von Braun had to admit that his "reasoning was impeccable, and it all made imminent sense to do." Thus, the first test of the new Saturn V would be a "all up" test, with every component up and running. It cut months of development out of the moon landing project. Later, von Braun admitted that without the "all up" concept there would have been no possible way for NASA to have had men set their foot on the moon within the parameters set by President Kennedy.
The first "all up" test of the new Saturn V came on November 9, 1967. It was also the first named numbered Apollo flight. (Apollo One would come later as a memorial.)
Assembly and getting the Saturn into place took two months. Fueling began on November 6, 1967. It took 89 tractor trailer loads of Liquid Oxygen, 28 tractor trailer loads of Liquid Hydrogen, and 27 Train car loads of RP-1, a refined kerosene.
No one was actually prepared for the consequences of unleashing such a heretofore powerful rocket. Mainly, no one could have guessed. As it happened, it was all taped, as it was being experienced, by none other than the Premier CBS news correspondent Walter Cronkite, known as the "voice of America."
At noon, the liftoff had commenced. By the time the end of the powerful rocket motors passed the end of the tower on pad 39A, the entire 363 foot giant was at 100 miles per hour. The subsequent shock waves, without any muffling device, rolled across the flat Florida landscape. Walter Cronkite was inside the CBS newsroom, 4 miles away from the launch complex. As he was enthralled at reporting the mighty booster rising higher and higher above the Cape, the room began to shake, with loud booming, rumbling noises filling his microphone. The ceiling tiles began to fall, and he was forced from his chair in an effort to keep the windows from crashing in. The huge Vertical Assembly Building, where the rocket was assembled, was buffeted hard by the shock waves, and Launch Control shook with the vibrations of the booster. My brother and I, standing in his backyard 48 miles away, could hear the rumbling of the mighty Saturn as it headed, faster and faster towards space. It was an amazing experience which I will always be able to recall. We, the United States of America, were on its way to going to the Moon. The proof was in the huge blowtorch cutting across the deep blue sky of central Florida.
One of the most famous pictures ever taken, a Saturn 4 with a clearly visible pressure ring forming as it goes supersonic out of Cape Canaveral, Florida (NASA photo).
The first test was an unqualified success. Sitting in the blockhouse viewing gallery, sat Werner von Braun, not part of the launch team.
The end of Apollo flights came with the ocean landing of Apollo 17 on December 19, 1972. After being to the moon and back, safely, six times, (Apollo 13 was a different story), it became blasé to the American people. Chrysler had fulfilled its original contract, building 15 of the huge stage one of the Saturn V. No failures of those boosters occurred. Three boosters were left over. One went for Skylab, two are used for displays. All the money to launch the remaining 3 Apollo flights, 18, 19, and 20 had been appropriated. Suddenly, President Nixon chopped it all out. No real explanation has ever been given for this.
Richard Nixon became President of the United States on January 20, 1969. He never really made his feelings about NASA public, then again, he rarely did anything that truly exuded fondness. NASA had entered into studies of other missions even before the moon landing was accomplished; George Mueller was at the spearhead of the Space Transportation System, or "Space Shuttle." In 1969, he made an address which outlined the shuttle; it caught Nixon's attention, most likely because it was a totally American conception and project. Like Eisenhower, Nixon was not happy with the German origins of the moon project. Nixon quickly assigned his Vice-President as the civilian head of the shuttle program, much like Kennedy had assigned Lyndon Johnson. Even as Nixon enjoyed all the praise of the six successful moon landings, he already had designs on cutting funds for NASA, seizing upon the shuttle as a means to mask his true intentions. The shuttle was never meant as a vehicle to explore any other worlds, being limited to an orbit of no higher than 375 miles. In a darker side, Nixon ensured that all the German Scientists associated with Werner Von Braun, and von Braun himself, were forced into retirement by 1972. By that time, Chrysler’s involvement was over.
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