One False Step Read online

   By the autumn of 1958, however, authorisation had been received for the use of a new launcher configuration called the Juno II; this was an actual Jupiter IRBM, with upper stages similar to those used by the Jupiter-C (which, remember, was based on the Redstone missile.) This would be used for a more ambitious program – launching a pair of probes to the moon.

   As with the launching of the first satellite into orbit, ABMA faced competition in the probe flights to the moon, this time based on its old rival, the USAF Thor IRBM, which would have three attempts to launch a probe to the moon before the Jupiter would have its first. Only the second of the three 'Thor-Able' shots attained any measure of success, attaining an altitude of just 71,300 miles, enough to provide some valuable scientific data, but less than a third of the way to the moon.

   If this was a novel, the Juno II would have been as triumphant a success as Explorer 1 had been, but this was not to be. At its first attempt, it attained an altitude of just 63,500 miles, less than the second Thor-Able – but the instrumentation on board did provide more valuable information on the Van Allen Belt, providing the first indication that there were in fact two such belts.

   Even the second Thor-Able was not a resounding success, though the probe it carried, Pioneer IV, did at least attain escape velocity and pass the orbit of the moon. By then, the Soviet Union was making serious bids for the moon itself, and before long, its early Luna series of probes would be completing the goals the United States was failing – close flyby, hard landing, and photography of the hidden 'dark side' of the moon.

   By this time, ABMA was beginning the initial planning work on its most ambitious project of all, the Saturn rocket. The launcher that would become NASA's workhorse during the lunar landing program originated as an Army project, the brainchild of Von Braun. The original design need was simple – to counter the obvious Soviet lead in launch payload capacity. Not merely to match it, but to surpass it, was the goal, and the target was an incredibly ambitious million pounds of thrust.

   The design was a quantum leap forward – the intent to have the launcher in service as early as 1961. To accomplish this ambitious goal, the concept of clustering engines was to be employed, instead of waiting on the larger engines that were then on the drawing board, but which would not be available for some years. This had the advantage that proven motors could be employed – indeed it was hoped to utilise some of the same basic designs for the Jupiter IRBM – in order to dramatically cut both testing time and costs.

   It was hoped that the Saturn could be employed in a wide range of missions, both civilian and military. Serious discussions on the possibility of putting a man into space were well advanced by 1959, and there were several projects beginning the relentless march from the drawing board into reality. The USAF 'Man-In-Space-Soonest' project was evolving into NASA's 'Project Mercury', and the USAF X-20 'Dyna-Soar' reusable spaceplane was in its early stages. The ability to launch large payloads into orbit would be vital for space exploration in the coming decade, and the Saturn was destined, it was hoped, to become the workhorse of space.

   As design work on the new launcher began, the Army began to consider what they might do with such a booster, and came up with one of the most ambitious projects considered in this period, or later – 'Project Horizon', the establishment of a military outpost on the moon.

   Even in 1959, there was nothing new about the idea of establishing a military outpost on the moon, though this was the first formalised planning document. The idea had been floating around for some years, pioneered both in science-fiction and in the popular perception of the future of spaceflight. The value of the 'gravity gauge' was considered as key here – that it would be impossible for any attack from outer space to be resisted by Earth-based defences, and that this would be the case for a considerable number of years. (Indeed, this is correct – there remains no reliable way to stop such an attack on a large scale, though projects for ballistic missile defence are as old as the first deployment of this weapon. The key here is that these missiles are based on Earth, not in orbit or on the moon.)

   A key plan of this period was setting up missile silos on the moon as an 'ultimate deterrent' – a true deterrent in fact, as the prolonged period between the launch of the missiles and their arrival at targets on Earth precluded the possibility of a first strike being launched from this base, but it would also be an extremely difficult target, making it an extremely secure command-and-control point. (At one point in the 1970s, the Soviet Union seriously considered establishing a military headquarters on the moon for precisely this reason, though it went no further than some planning documentation.) As originally projected, however, the Project Horizon base had no such weapons system, though it could be assumed that such would be added. Certainly Air Force plans – mostly still highly classified – were being made in this area.

   There were of other considerations as well. The presumed lead of the Soviet Union was apparently growing by the week, with a series of new space 'firsts', and the launch of Sputnik had a psychological effect on the American psyche that was still strongly in evidence; many feared waking up one morning to learn that the Soviet Union had claimed the moon, and had already constructed a military outpost there. The defence of the moon – despite the fact that at this point it had not even been visited by an unmanned probe – was considered as of paramount importance to the security of the United States.

   The use of the base for Earth observation would also be valuable; large telescopes could be mounted on the Moon, and used for applications such as meteorology and military reconnaissance; both of these functions could be better accomplished from orbit, but digging into the Moon would provide more protection against attack. In addition, activities in near-Earth space could be monitored, vital if space was to become a new theatre of war. The establishment of an 'observation post in the heavens' was the primary objective of the program.

   There were of course strong scientific possibilities. Though the nature of the base as an Army outpost, meant that military objectives were paramount, it was recognised that the base could be used to support the exploration of the moon; geological survey teams could roam around the landscape, and astronomers would have found it an ideal site for observation. (It may well have been in the back of the minds of many of the planners that an Army base on the moon could have served the same purposes as the Western forts, as outposts from which the growth of civilization could be encouraged.)

   Construction work for the base was scheduled to begin in 1964; it would require more than a hundred Saturn launches to complete. These would be in two types; the then-planned ABMA Saturn booster was described as 'Saturn I', with an advanced 'Saturn II' to be developed later on. The first cargo would be delivered to the moon in 1965, with the base to become operational in late 1966.

   The planning documents essentially describe the creation of an entire space program to support the base on the moon. An early step would be the construction of an equatorial launch pad, followed by the creation of a 24-hour communications network, as well as completing comprehensive maps of the moon in order to determine the ideal site for the base.

   1964 would see a hive of activity focused on the space effort, with six lunar satellites, eight lunar soft landings, seven lunar circumnavigations, four orbital return missions, and fifteen operational trips for the build-up phase; it was estimated that the Saturn I would be used seventy-six times in this year, forty of which would be for Project Horizon.

   Under this plan, the first man to land on the moon – a construction engineer, no doubt! - would have set foot on the surface in April 1965. He would have been the vanguard of a construction force, presumably consisting of workers from the Army Corps of Engineers, which would have spent the next eighteen months readying the base for occupancy. The base itself would operate with a task force of twelve men, and it was planned that forty Saturn launches would be used to supply the base in its first year.

   
Simply the numbers of launches involved illustrate the amazing scope of this project. In one year, this project would see more than twice the number of Saturn launches than actually took place. To call the engineering targets ambitious is an understatement, but it was assumed that a similar national effort to the Manhattan Project – a project that was foremost in the minds of many of the people preparing the plans for Project Horizon – would be used to place a military outpost on the moon.

   As for the base itself, it would consist of the living quarters, powered by a pair of nuclear reactors and using a parabolic antenna to maintain communications with Earth. Defence against possible Soviet attack was provided for; a series of claymore mines, designed especially for puncturing spacesuits, would be deployed on the perimeter of the base, and Davy Crockett missiles (tipped with low-yield nuclear warheads) would also be employed for protection. Laboratories for studying biological and physical sciences would be connected to the living quarters at the conclusion of the construction phase. To protect against the danger of radiation, much of the base would be buried.

   The staff at the base would have tours of duty ranging from three to nine months, and would consist of a medical officer, eight engineers of various types, astrophysicist, chemophysicist, astronomer, biologist, and project officer; though the standard manpower rating was twelve, duty rotations through 1965-67 would see the base complement ranging from nine to sixteen.

   A secondary goal was the construction of a space station, in the familiar Von Braun 'rotating ring' design; this would have been assembled by the empty top stages of Saturn I and II launchers – the first suggestion that a station could have been constructed through the use of such 'waste' components. The orbital station would sustain a crew of ten, primarily focused on operations supporting the lunar base; planning documentation does not suggest a scientific role, but it can be assumed that they would rapidly develop were such a base constructed.

   Had ABMA been given the full go-ahead for Project Horizon, it would by necessity have become the primary agency for American space efforts. As tantalising a possibility as the construction of such a base is, it must be stated that the schedule given was hopelessly unrealistic. The development of the Saturn I might have reached the 1964 timescale, but the funding required to maintain such a schedule of launches would have been unlikely to be attained; about the only way such funding could have been made available was if there was evidence that the Soviet Union was working towards the same goal, and such a program simply did not exist.

   As for technical feasibility, this is a more difficult question. In this author's opinion, assuming that the funding was available, the systems devised could potentially – assuming a realistic level of development as more advanced systems, launchers and concepts became available – have completed the goal of building a base on the moon, but it seems most unlikely that it could have been completed by 1966!

   As ABMA was reaching its finest hour, it was nearing its end. When it had began its space efforts in 1957, there were a collection of rival space programs in the United States, and it became increasing apparent that such a confusing and chaotic situation could not be allowed to continue. The Eisenhower Administration was concerned not only that left to itself, the United States could sleepwalk into supporting a series of rival space programs, but there were also strong concerns that the bulk of space efforts should be operated under civilian control – not only to ensure that the scientific potential of space exploration could be fully exploited, but also because the primary military use of space in this period was covert.

   Initially, it was hoped that these projects could be co-ordinated, and in a bid to counter the Soviet lead in missile technology, the Advanced Research Projects Agency was created – a Department of Defence organisation that would focus on future projects – including space, as well as ballistic missile defence, nuclear test detection, and a range of other work. It was apparent fairly quickly that ARPA's focus would be distorted by having sole responsibility for civilian space programs, and ultimately the decision was taken to provide authority for America's space efforts to a body that was then known as NACA (National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics.)

   This body was founded on the eve of the entry of the United States into the First World War, in 1915, and was tasked with pioneering new aeronautical techniques; in its history, the organisation more than attained this goal, but ironically, it was one of the few potentially interested institutions that had no ambitions in space. (This could have been part of the appeal – a fresh eye on 'space', unbiased by previous project goals and resultant prejudices, may have been exactly what was required at that time.)

   NACA became NASA, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration, and immediately began to cast its eye over the bodies that had been working in the space field. Naturally, the Army was one the first places it looked – the Air Force could legitimately claim that its expertise was required to maintain the ballistic missile project.

   The two bodies working at the cutting edge of space-work in the Army were the rocket development team in Huntsville under Von Braun, and the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in California. NASA asked for both, even though at the time, they lacked the funds to support either. The Department of Defence did not believe that the Army had any place in the 'space mission'; it was a matter of funding, as much as anything else, and NASA promised to be a good place to support such projects. A last-minute press scrum prevented this from taking place, and only the Jet Propulsion Laboratory would be transferred to NASA, where their expertise would immediately be put to use in the development of advanced probes and satellites, such as the Ranger series.

   The Von Braun team remained with the Army and development work on Saturn continued, albeit at a snail's pace. Within fairly short order, it became apparent that it was only a matter of time before the projects were terminated, or at best, starved to the point where the Von Braun team would be forced to break up, and one of the best rocket development teams in the world being lost. Reluctantly, General Medaris decided to offer the team lock, stock and blueprint to NASA, on the condition that they take responsibility for the development of the Saturn launcher – NASA willingly accepted this condition; Saturn would replace plans for the development of their own launcher, tentatively called the Nova, and development work could continue in earnest. ABMA was out of the space race. General Medaris retired shortly afterwards.

   As for the Redstone and Jupiter launches, they continued in service for a number of years, operated as the cornerstone of the US Army's medium-range missile force, and as a key part of the IRBM arsenal, deployed in NATO countries such as the United Kingdom and Turkey. The Jupiter became obsolete within a few years, as the Atlas and Titan missiles entered service.

   Both were still used to support space efforts. The Redstone sent Alan Shepherd and Gus Grissom into space on suborbital trajectories on the first two Mercury missions, though plans for more suborbital flights were cancelled as the Soviet Union was by then sending its astronauts directly into orbit. There were some plans to fly Mercury capsules on Jupiter missiles, either as manned tests of abort simulations, or primate flights, but these were cancelled in July 1959.

   It cannot be denied – but is too often forgotten – that the Army's space program proved critical to the birth of America's space program. The most successful American satellite series of the 1950s launched under the auspices of ABMA, and the ubiquitous Redstone booster was used to send the first two Americans – Alan Shepard and Gus Grissom – into space. (It would also have one last swansong in 1967, launching Australia's first satellite, WRESAT.)

   Reading the planning material for Project Horizon, one gets the idea that this is the 'NASA Space Plan, Mark I'. Most of the concepts and ideas used later by NASA saw their first origination in the planning documents produced at ABMA, from the development of a program to land two men on the moon – with a not inaccurate depiction of what they would do when they arrived – to the
use of spent Saturn boosters for space stations, which would be later realised in the Skylab project. The early plans for Apollo's flight to the moon were essentially the same as those outlined in the Project Horizon planning.

   Without the pioneering work completed by ABMA – against the instructions of many in the Eisenhower Administration – NASA's eventual form would have been completely different, if it even existed in the first place. There were three major streams of space work in the late 1950s; the failing Vanguard project, which was easily transferred to NASA without any major resistance, the USAF range of space projects, both to place a man in space and for a range of military objectives such as communications and surveillance, and that of ABMA. The USAF was always going to be extremely reluctant to yield its space role, tied closely as it was to the nuclear missile development program. (Indeed, the USAF would persist with plans for their own manned space program until 1969, with the cancellation of the Manned Orbiting Laboratory project.)

   ABMA was another story; it was a program that was looking for a loving, preferably wealthy home, and NASA was able to provide it at that time. It should not be a surprise that many long-term NASA projects and plans have a similarity to those of ABMA, for many of the same people were responsible for both. In a very real sense, the race to the moon began in Huntsville, Alabama, the self-proclaimed 'Space Capital of the World'.

  Bibliography

  A Lunar Exploration Program, N. W. Hinners, D. B. James and F. N. Schmidt, Bellcomm., Inc., 1968

  A Lunar Exploration Program Based Upon Saturn-Boosted Systems, Army Ordinance Missile Command, 1960