Nice article, although I'm not so sure about this part:
> There’s a reason why there wasn’t an Apollo 18, or 19 and 20. Even though funding had been secured, an executive decision was made to kill the program early, because LoC was inevitable.
Was funding really secure? I believe that was the main sticking point; a quick search [0] seems to confirm this, and the John Young quote below backs it up: "Even if they’d had the money..." Not to say the risk wasn't a factor too of course, but it doesn't look like funding was otherwise guaranteed.
Anyway, I think what sets the risk of the Shuttle apart from Apollo is summed up nicely in one of the quotes (in reference to the Apollo program): "The awareness of risk led to intense focus on reducing risk." In the Apollo program, there was a pattern of rigorously hunting down and eliminating any possible known risks, leaving unknowns as the primary source of risk; on the other hand, the Shuttle program let known risks accumulate continuously until crews paid the price for a bad draw.
When debris hit Atlantis on STS-27 [1] and the shuttle only survived on a one in a million stroke of luck -- the completely broken tile happened to be over an aluminum mounting plate -- it should have been taken as a free lesson on one more known source of risk to eliminate. Instead, it led to seven people dying completely preventable and unnecessary deaths a few years later.
Spaceflight is inherently risky, it's true. That's why things like the Orion heat shield are so worrisome; because it is physically possible at our current level of technology to make it safer, and yet for political / funding / etc. reasons we're not doing the best we can.
[0] https://airandspace.si.edu/stories/editorial/why-did-we-stop...
The Saturn V's existed. Saturn V serial numbers were designated as S-5## where # is an increment from 1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saturn_V#Launch_history <--- see the Saturn V numbering scheme here.
SA-513 was repurposed from Apollo 18 to Skylab. SA-514 was meant for Apollo 19. They put it on display. SA-515 was also chopped up and put on display. Some parts were used in Skylab. https://www.space.com/nasa-extra-apollo-moon-saturn-v-rocket...
So there were 3 Saturn V already assembled and in existence.
Did the CSMs and LEMs exist? CSMs had a similar serial number scheme. And they designated "Block 1" and "Block 2" (iterations of the spacecraft design based on testing) CSM-0## and CSM-1##
The CSM used in Apollo 17 was CSM-114. On wikipedia it says that CSM-115 and CSM-115a were never fully assembled and cancelled, but if you look past that, you can also see that Skylab used, CSM-116, CSM-117 and CSM-118. These were Apollo CSMs, fresh off the same assembly line. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apollo_command_and_service_mod...
So there were 3 CSMs.
What about LEM? Similar number scheme, LM-## which is incremented with each one made. So first one was LM-1 and the last one used on Apollo 17 was LM-12. LM-13 is on display in a museum. LM-14 was on the production line (along with LM-15??) and a "stop work" order was issued and they were scrapped. Yes, they were literally broken down and turned into scrap. https://www.businessinsider.com/nasa-lunar-modules-lm14-lm15...
So NASA had 1 LEM and 2 were on the way. I think, we can charitably say that there were 3 LEMs available at the time. I think it's fair to say that...
There were 3 LEMs.
Did they have 3 crews? Funnily enough, they did have 3 crews already assigned! What a coincidence. https://web.archive.org/web/20181224161154/https://nssdc.gsf... :)
So the Saturn Vs existed and had been paid for. The CSMs existed and had been paid for. The LMs existed / were on the line and had been paid for. The crews existed (and had been partially paid for).
So what is the "funding shortfall" that caused America to stop going to the moon?
The "funding shortfall" here is the money required to pay for the ground crews and personnel for carrying out the mission. And that amount was $42.1 million out of $956 million for Apollo. The total NASA budget was, $3.27 billion that year.
$42.1 million. NASA admin just couldn't find $42.1 million of ground staff salaries etc out of the remaining $2.3 Billion budget.It's probably a coincidence that this happened right after Apollo 13. The decision was announced on September 2nd, 1970. Apollo 13 happened in April, 1970.
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So yes, the funding was there. I suspect the "funding cut" argument was an attempt to save face; after the US Government (and I mean the Government, it's clear both the White House and Congress were involved) decided to cut the cord post-Apollo 13.
I also suspect this is one of the many "open secrets" lost to time. It might have been known by "everyone" in the know at the time, but those who knew died off, and history crystallized around the written page.
Thank you for the in depth reply! You make a very good point, and the timing of Apollo 13 with the budget decision is pretty damning, I'm convinced.
I will point out however that the budget was congressionally-mandated, and no funds were allocated for moon landings as they were in previous years; it would have been illegal to use funds dedicated to other areas for moon landings. Maybe I'm being overly pedantic here, but to say the 'funding was secured' as in the article implies the decision to cancel the remaining programs lay with NASA leadership; it would be more accurate to say that funding for the remaining programs, though possible, was not secured, most likely as an attempt to save face by congress/govt.
No, that's a great point. Let me rephrase it, they couldn't go to congress in 1970 and say, "hey, we've got $2.3B in other parts of NASA, here's what we're happy to cut so that we can keep Apollo."
Apollo 18, 19 and 20 were cancelled in 1970. 3+ years ahead of Apollo 18. Apollo 17 didn't happen until December 1972.
The US couldn't plug this funding "shortfall" in 3+ years out of the many, many parts of NASA?
It's pretty clear that the decision to kill Apollo had been made. The money is just how they chose to do it so that the POTUS didn't have to go on record cancelling Apollo. There was no room for negotiation. POTUS and Congress had decided that Apollo needed to die and so it died. How it died was relevant only so far as to serve as a mechanism to save face.
Yes, you're right. I just don't know how else to put it. The capital outlays for the components of the missions had already been committed to ahead of time. The physical capital was present; the main cost of the missions; those assets existed / were in place. I don't know what the right language is over here.> one more known source of risk to eliminate.
How could they have eliminated that risk?
We can look at what NASA did after the Columbia disaster; namely, redesign the external tank, employ stricter quality control of the foam across the board, better monitoring of the heat shield integrity, and adding contingencies for being stuck in space with a damaged shuttle.
- They replaced the specific foam insulation that struck Columbia with external heaters, and redesigned other areas where foam was necessary to ensure greater structural stability + minimize damage to the shuttle in case of breakage. They also began more thorough inspection of any heat shield panels that would be reused between missions
- They added various cameras, both on the shuttle and on the ground, to monitor the heat shield throughout launch, plus accelerometers and temperature sensors. Also, the heat shield was checked manually on every mission once in orbit for damage, both with an extension to the Canadarm, and with ISS cameras when possible (a funky maneuver [0] where they would do a backflip to flash the shuttle's belly at the ISS for it to take high res pictures)
- Every mission from then on had a backup plan in case the shuttle wasn't in a state to return to Earth (this wasn't really the case before then, which is kinda wild). Another shuttle was always ready to launch, with a new configuration of seats to allow for sufficient crew space
- They sent up equipment and materials for repairs in space with every launch, though admittedly the usefulness of that was dubious and the repair kits were never used
Perhaps 'eliminate' was too strong a word, but there's no reason these precautions couldn't or shouldn't have been taken before it resulted in deaths and the loss of a spacecraft. (well, other than the aforementioned funding/politics/organizational failure)
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rendezvous_pitch_maneuver
>Every mission from then on had a backup plan in case the shuttle wasn't in a state to return to Earth (this wasn't really the case before then, which is kinda wild). Another shuttle was always ready to launch, with a new configuration of seats to allow for sufficient crew space
Actually the backup plan almost every time was to just stay on the ISS until another Shuttle could be prepared. They only had another Shuttle on standby a couple times, during missions where they weren’t going to the ISS.
>They sent up equipment and materials for repairs in space with every launch, though admittedly the usefulness of that was dubious and the repair kits were never used
Yeah it wasn’t even useful for a situation like Columbia. It didn’t lose a few tiles or something, it had a giant hole punched into its wing.
There’s no fixing that in space. So I personally think they focused on situations they could theoretically fix, even though those situations weren’t what happened to Columbia.
Worth mentioning, this is all particularly fresh in my mind because of a recently released video by the excellent Classic Aerospace History channel on YT, "A Brief History of the Space Shuttle". It's two hours long and provides a reasonably detailed overview of the program, would recommend if you're into that sort of thing: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WtmOVxcga-Y
The risk couldn't have been entirely eliminated, but most likely the external tank insulation could have been modified to at least reduce the risk of chunks breaking loose and damaging the thermal tiles during launch.