LINKING SCIENCE TO MANNED SPACE FLIGHT
The Moon and the Space Science Program
NASA's initial space science programs were largely defined by the
projects transferred from other agencies and were mainly concerned with
the study of phenomena in near-earth space. But shortly after taking
over direction of space sciences, Homer Newell established a Theoretical
Division to support programs in planetology and lunar science.1 Unlike space physicists and astronomers, those
interested in the moon and planets had little hard data to work with.
Lunar and planetary science in 1960 was a field for theoreticians, and
few scientists devoted their entire attention to it. So when Robert
Jastrow, whom Newell appointed to head the new division, set out to
learn all he could about current theories and research in that area, he
had a very short list of sources to consult. High on the list was the
name of Harold C. Urey, professor at large at the University of
California at San Diego.
Urey, a chemist whose scientific career spanned four decades, had won
the Nobel Prize in chemistry in 1934. During the second World War he had
directed one of the major projects for concentrating uranium-235, the
fissionable material of the first atomic bomb. A scientist of catholic
interests, Urey became fascinated by the distribution of the chemical
elements within the earth and in the solar system. Noting that there had
been an extensive separation of iron from the rocky materials of the
earth and meteorites, he began to consider possible mechanisms for the
accretion of the planets out of the primordial matter of the solar
system. In 1952 he published a book on the origin of the planets, in
which he asserted his belief that the moon might provide the key to
understanding the formation of the solar system. On retiring from the
University of Chicago in 1958 at age 65, he continued to teach and
conduct research in California, devoting considerable time to
cosmology.2
Urey brought a chemist's approach to a subject that had previously been
the province of astronomers and astrophysicists. Like almost any chemist
of his era, he would have preferred to have samples that he could study
in the laboratory. Lacking lunar samples, he used information from
meteorites, plus such physical data as were available concerning the
moon, to construct working hypotheses. When Apollo was created, Urey
supported it for the contributions it could make to his own research
interests, but he was conscious of its nonscientific value as well. In
1961 he thought that the lunar landing was too expensive for its
potential scientific return, but on reflection he decided that if the
money were not spent on Apollo it might well go to less productive
projects and changed his mind.3 Urey
never failed to criticize NASA's practices when he felt criticism was
justified, but on the whole he was a dependable supporter of the lunar
landing program.4
Impressed by Urey's exposition of his theories and the potential they
held for space investigation, Jastrow brought him to Headquarters to
confer with Newell about possible NASA programs for lunar exploration.
Their enthusiasm convinced Newell that space science should make room
for a program in lunar and planetary sciences, and in January 1959 he
appointed an ad hoc Working Group on Lunar Exploration to coordinate the
efforts of NASA and academic scientists and to evaluate proposals for
lunar experiments.5
Such interest as there was in lunar missions in early 1959 was at the
Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL).* Even
there, however, many scientists favored missions to Venus and Mars
rather than to the moon, partly because the best opportunities for
launch to the near planets occurred less frequently.6 The moon - in earth's back yard, so to speak -
offered an optimum launch opportunity once every lunar month, and if one
were missed because of problems with a launch vehicle the delay was only
four weeks, whereas a mission to Mars would have to wait two years if an
optimum launch date were missed. While JPL was developing a plan for 12
deep-space missions, including 5 moon probes, Jastrow was urging Newell
to accelerate NASA's lunar exploration programs.
Once again, however, the Soviets' eagerness to achieve space
"firsts" exerted its pernicious influence on American space
programs. Even before the Working Group for Lunar Exploration could
finish drawing up a list of recommendations for lunar missions, the
Russian Luna I swung by the moon and into solar orbit, measuring
magnetic fields and particles in space. A month after JPL submitted its
plan to Headquarters on April 30, 1959, orders went out to Pasadena to
reorient the program to concentrate on lunar orbiting and soft-landing
missions. (Apparently Headquarters felt that the more frequent
opportunities for lunar missions offered the best chance to beat the
Russians to their apparent target.) As the year progressed, the Soviets
sent two more Luna spacecraft to the moon; one crashlanded, the other
photographed the hidden side of the moon for the first time. In December
Headquarters killed JPL's planetary exploration plan, in part because of
problems with the proposed Atlas-Vega launch vehicle, and substituted a
program of seven lunar missions using the Atlas-Agena B. Emphasis was on
obtaining high-resolution photographs of the moon's surface, but some
space science instruments would be carried as well. JPL would also
investigate the feasibility of sending a hard-landing instrument package
to transmit data about the moon. This project, called
"Ranger," was explicitly recognized as a high-risk project
geared to very short schedules and intended to capture the initiative in
lunar exploration from the Soviet Union.7
Since lunar and planetary exploration seemed to have a promising future,
Homer Newell established a Lunar and Planetary Program Office at
Headquarters in January 1960 to manage it.8 Initially, Ranger was the the new office's
only lunar project. In July 1960 a second, Surveyor, was approved. More
ambitious than Ranger, Surveyor had the objective of soft-landing a
large (2,500 pounds, 1,100 kilograms) instrumented spacecraft on the
moon's surface to gather physical and chemical information about the
lunar soil and return it to earth by telemetry.9
Both Ranger and Surveyor were technically ambitious projects, requiring
improvements in spacecraft stabilization, navigation and guidance, and
telemetry. Both encountered technical and management problems that
pushed back their completion dates to the point where rapidly changing
events made their original objectives obsolete. In 1960, neither Ranger
nor Surveyor was primarily intended to support the manned lunar landing,
which at that time was still only an idea in the minds of NASA's
planners, although both, if successful, would yield information useful
to that project. But the pressures generated by the needs of Apollo
between 1961 and 1963 forced Ranger and Surveyor into supporting roles
for the manned space flight program, to the intense chagrin of the space
scientists.
* JPL's director William Pickering
had proposed an unmanned lunar probe as a response to Sputnik but had
found no support for it.
1. R. Cargill Hall,
Lunar Impact: A History of Project Ranger, NASA SP-4210
(Washington 1977), pp. 15- 16.
2. Stephen G. Brush, "Nickel for
Your Thoughts: Urey and the Origin of the Moon," Science
217 (1982):891-98.
3. Senate Committee on Aeronautical and
Space Sciences, Scientists' Testimony on Space Goals,
Hearings, 88/1, June 10, 1963, pp. 51, 52-53.
4. Homer E. Newell, Beyond the
Atmosphere: Early Years of Space Science, NASA SP-4211
(Washington, 1980), pp. 212-13.
5. Hall, Lunar Impact, p.
15.
6. Ibid., pp. 5, 17; Clayton R. Koppes,
JPL and the American Space Program: A History of the Jet
Propulsion Laboratory (New Haven and London: Yale University
Press, 1982), pp. 99-100.
7. Hall, Lunar Impact, pp.
18, 20-24.
8. Ibid., p. 38.
9. NASA, Fifth Semiannual Report to
Congress, October 1, 1960, Through June 30, 1961 (Washington,
1962), pp. 49-50.
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