by James R. Hansen

Monographs in Aerospace History Series #4

Last revised: January 25, 1999

For further information, please contact: Stephen J. Garber, NASA Headquarters History Office 
2 

Index

Index ...............................................................................................................2

Foreword.........................................................................................................3

Introduction....................................................................................................5

Brown's Lunar Exploration Working Group ................................................7

Michael's Paper on a "Parking Orbit".........................................................10

The Rendezvous Committees.....................................................................12

Houbolt's First Crusade ..............................................................................15

The Feelings Against Lunar-Orbit Rendezvous ........................................18

The Space Task Group's Early Skepticism................................................21

Mounting Frustration...................................................................................24

President Kennedy's Commitment.............................................................27

Houbolt's First Letter to Seamans..............................................................28

A Voice in the Wilderness ...........................................................................34

The LOR Decision........................................................................................37

Conclusion ...................................................................................................42

Notes.............................................................................................................44

Key Documents............................................................................................54
3 

Foreword 

One of the most critical technical decisions made during the conduct of Project Apollo was the 

method of flying to the Moon, landing on the surface, and returning to Earth. Within NASA during 

this debate several modes emerged. The one eventually chosen was lunar-orbit rendezvous 

(LOR), a proposal to send the entire lunar spacecraft up in one launch. It would head to the 

Moon, enter into orbit, and dispatch a small lander to the lunar surface. It was the simplest of 

the various methods, both in terms of development and operational costs, but it was risky. Since 

rendezvous would take place in lunar, instead of Earth, orbit there was no room for error or the 

crew could not get home. Moreover, some of the trickiest course corrections and maneuvers had 

to be done after the spacecraft had been committed to a circumlunar flight.

Between the time of NASA's conceptualization of the lunar landing program and the decision in 

favor of LOR in 1962, a debate raged between advocates of the various methods. John C. 

Houbolt, an engineer at the Langley Research Center in Hampton, Virginia, was one of the most 

vocal of those supporting LOR and his campaign in 1961 and 1962 helped to shape in a 

fundamental way the deliberations. The monograph that is printed here is an important 

contribution to the study of NASA history in general, and the process of accomplishing a largescale technological program (in this case Apollo) in particular. In many ways, the lunar mode 

decision was an example of heterogeneous engineering, a process that recognizes that 

technological issues are also simultaneously organizational, economic, social, and political. 

Various interests often clash in the decision-making process as difficult calculations have to be 

made and decisions taken. What perhaps should be suggested is that a complex web or system 

of ties between various people, institutions, and interests brought forward the lunar-orbit 

rendezvous mode of going to the Moon in the 1960s.

This is the fourth publication in a new series of special studies prepared by the NASA History 

Office. The Monographs in Aerospace History series is designed to provide a wide variety of 

investigations relative to the history of aeronautics and space. These publications are intended to 

be tightly focused in terms of subject, relatively short in length, and reproduced in an 

inexpensive format to allow timely and broad dissemination to researchers in aerospace history. 

Suggestions for additional publications in the Monographs in Aerospace History series are 

welcome. 

Originally printed in November 1995, this Monograph was very popular and went out of print. 

The NASA History Office is reprinting this Monograph with the original text, two slightly different 

photos, and some other very minor layout changes. We hope you find the LOR story engaging 

and especially timely in light of the thirtieth anniversary of the Apollo 11 mission in July 1999.

ROGER D. LAUNIUS 

Chief Historian

National Aeronautics and Space Administration 

15 December 1998
4 

There was a reluctance to believe that the 

rendezvous maneuver was an easy thing. In fact, to a 

layman, if you were to explain what you had to do to 

perform a rendezvous in space, he would say that 

sounds so difficult we'll never be able to do it this 

century.

–Clinton E. Brown, head, Langley 

Lunar Mission Steering Group on 

Trajectories and Guidance (from an 

interview with the author, 17 July 

1989)

I'm not so sure we ever thought of rendezvous as 

very complicated. It's an amazing thing. We thought 

that if our guys could work out the orbital mechanics 

and we gave the pilot the right controls and stuff, 

then he'd land it and make the rendezvous. We didn't 

think it was very complicated.

–Arthur W. Vogeley, Langley 

Guidance and Control Branch (from 

an interview with the author, 17 July 

1989).
5 

Introduction

On Thursday morning, 25 May 1961, in 

a speech to a joint session of Congress, 

President John F. Kennedy challenged 

Americans to rebound from their recent 

second-place finishes in the space race. 

"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 

safely to earth. No single space 

project... will be more exciting, or more 

impressive ... or more important ... and 

none will be so difficult or expensive." 

The dynamic 43-year-old president also 

told the American people, "It will not 

be one man going to the Moon, it will 

be an entire nation. For all of us must 

work to put him there."1

At first, no one at NASA's Langley 

Research Center in Hampton, Virginia, could quite believe it. If President Kennedy had in fact just 

dedicated the country to lunar landing, he could not be serious about doing it in less than nine 

years. It was just not possible. NASA had been studying the feasibility of different lunar missions 

for some time. But sending an astronaut—one that landed on and returned from the surface of 

the Moon safely by the end of the 1960s? NASA was not exactly sure how that lunar mission 

could be accomplished at all, let alone achieved in so little time.

Not even Robert C. Gilruth, the leader of the Space Task Group (STG) located at Langley and the 

long-standing site of spacecraft expertise in the young Federal agency, was prepared for the 

sensational announcement. When he heard the news, he was in a NASA airplane somewhere 

over the Midwest on his way to a meeting in Tulsa. He knew that Kennedy planned to say 

something dramatic about the space program in his speech, and he asked the pilot to patch it 

through live on the radio. Looking out the window over the passing clouds, he heard every word 

and was struck by the incredible goal.

The message stunned him. "An accelerated program, yes," he wanted that. "A lunar landing, yes, 

in an orderly fashion, with time to work through all the difficulties that such an enterprise was 

bound to encounter," he wanted that, too. "But not this," he thought to himself.2

 This was too 

much, too fast. Talk about overconfidence—the first piloted Mercury flight by Alan Shepard had 

taken place only three weeks ago, on 5 May; NASA had made this one brief fifteen-minute 

suborbital flight—not even a complete orbit yet—and the president announced that the nation is 

going to the Moon and on a very ambitious schedule. Suddenly, the STG really had more than it 

could handle. It already was busy preparing for another suborbital flight (Virgil I. "Gus" 

Grissom's, on 21 July 1961) and for the first orbital flight sometime early next year (John Glenn's, 

on 20 February 1962). The group's top talent was still "involved almost exclusively" preparing for 

the first manned orbital flight, and Gilruth himself, before the president's announcement, "had 

spent almost no time at all" on lunar studies, so demanding were the activities of Project 

Mercury.3

President John F. Kennedy addressing a joint session of 

Congress on 25 May 1961 to announce an accelerated lunar 

landing program.
6 

Only one word described Gilruth's feelings at that moment: "aghast." Aghast at the audacity of 

the president's goal: for American astronauts to fly a quarter of a million miles, make a pinpoint 

landing on a familiar but yet so strange heavenly body, blast off, and return home safely after a 

voyage of several days through space—all this by the end of the decade. Only one thought was 

more daunting, and that was that he was one of the people who would have to make it happen.

But only the project managers directly responsible for making Mercury a success felt so burdened 

in 1961 by the prospects of having to meet the lunar commitment. Other planners and dreamers 

about space exploration inside NASA, whose natural curiosity and professional inclination led to 

speculation about the profiles of future missions, were elated.

For example, inside the small Theoretical Mechanics Division set up inside the old stability wind 

tunnel building at NASA Langley, Clinton E. Brown and his mathematically oriented colleagues, 

having heard about Kennedy's announcement, said, "Hooray, let's put on full speed ahead, and 

do what we can." In their minds, landing astronauts on the Moon as quickly as possible was 

obviously the right thing to do next if the United States was going to win the "space race." 

Moreover, Brown and his team—plus one other key Langley researcher, Dr. John C. Houbolt, a 

rendezvous expert not part of Brown's group, who later became the leading actor in the lunarorbit rendezvous drama—were confident that they had figured out the best way to accomplish it 

some time ago.4

 To understand this confidence, however, an understanding of earlier 

developments provides necessary context.
7 

Brown's Lunar Exploration Working Group

In Sputnik's wake in late 1957, a small circle of Langley researchers had plunged into the dark 

and frigid depths of space science. "We were aeronautical engineers," remembers William H. 

Michael, Jr., a member of Clinton E. Brown's Theoretical Mechanics Division who had just 

returned to Langley after a two-year stint in the aircraft industry. "We knew how to navigate in 

the air, but we didn't know a thing about orbital mechanics, celestial trajectories, or 

interplanetary travel, so we had to teach ourselves the subjects." In the Langley technical library, 

where during the days of the National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics (NACA) the word 

"space" was not even allowed, Michael could find only one book that helped: It was An

Introduction to Celestial Mechanics but it had been published in 1914, before the first pioneering 

rocketry had taken place under Robert H. Goddard. Michael had never heard of its author, a 

British professor of astrophysics named Forrest R. Moulton.5

 With this out-of-date text in hand, 

nevertheless, Michael and a few associates taught themselves enough about the equations of 

celestial mechanics to grow confident in their computations. Before long, the novices had 

transformed themselves into experts and were using their slide rules and early electronic 

computers to figure out ways to reach the Moon and to return.

This team did not know at the time how useful their calculations would so quickly turn out to be. 

In anticipating the trajectories for different lunar missions in the late 1950s, Brown, Michael, and 

their colleagues were "leapfrogging" over what most people deemed "the logical next step": an 

Earth-orbiting "space station." The group also did not know that their mental gymnastics would 

set the direction of the U.S. space program for the next twenty years.

Even after Sputnik, most proponents of space travel still believed—following the wisdom of 

Konstantin Tsiolkovskiy, Hermann Oberth, Guido von Pirquet, Wernher von Braun, and other 

space-minded visionaries—that humankind's first step out into the universe would be to some 

sort of space station in the Earth's orbit. From this nearby outpost, which could also serve as a 

research laboratory in which all sorts of unique experiments and valuable industrial enterprises 

might be conducted, human travelers could eventually venture out in spaceships for trips to the 

Moon, the planets, and beyond. Therefore, after establishing Project Mercury, and putting an 

astronaut into space, most in NASA believed that the development of a space station was "the 

next logical step." It was the perfect target project by which NASA could focus its space-related 

studies as well as its future plans.6

But Clint Brown and his associates felt differently: the politics of the space race were dictating 

the terms of the American space program, not the inspired prophecies of the earliest space 

pioneers. The Soviet Union had already demonstrated that it had larger boosters than did the 

United States, which meant that the Soviets had the capability of establishing a space station 

before Americans could do so. Brown explained years later, "If we put all our efforts into putting 

a space station around the world, we’d probably find ourselves coming in second again." The 

"obvious answer" was that "you had to take a larger bite and decide what can really give us 

leadership in the space race." To him "that clearly seemed the possibility of going to the Moon 

and landing there."7

 In other words, what Brown was arguing, in this feverish and confused early 

stage of the spaceflight revolution, was that the "obvious answer" should take precedence over 

the "next logical step."

The conviction inside Brown’s Theoretical Mechanics Division in favor of lunar studies over space 

station studies grew stronger in early 1959, when Langley’s Associate Director, Eugene Draley, 

agreed to form a Langley working group to study the problems of lunar exploration. Brown, the 

catalytic group leader, asked for the participation of six of Langley’s most thoughtful analysts: 
8 

David Adamson, Supersonic Aerodynamics Division; Paul R. Hill, Pilotless Aircraft Research 

Division; John C. Houbolt, Dynamic Loads Division; Albert A. Schy, Stability Research Division; 

Samuel Katzoff, Full-Scale Research Division; and Bill Michael of Brown’s Theoretical Mechanics 

Division. Dr. Leonard Roberts, a talented young mathematician from England, eventually joined 

the group. Brown assembled them for the first time in late March 1959 and then periodically into 

1960. Besides advising Langley management on the establishment of lunar-related research 

programs, Brown's people also organized a course in space mechanics for interested center 

employees. For many involved, this course offered their first real exposure to relativity theory. 

The Brown study group even disseminated information about the Moon by holding public 

seminars led by experts from Langley and nearby universities.8

Everything about this original lunar study group was done quietly and without much fuss. In 

those early days of NASA, when the management of research was still loose and did not always 

require formal research authorizations or approval from NASA headquarters in Washington, the 

research center pretty much ran itself. Langley management, from Director Henry Reid and 

Associate Director Floyd Thompson on down, was oriented toward research and encouraged its 

people to take some initiative. When Brown expressed his desire to work more on lunar 

exploration than on the space station, Draley simply told him, "Fine, go ahead." Henceforth, he 

and his lunar working group accentuated their efforts in studying the problems associated with 

how America would someday reach the Moon. They were doing what Langley researchers did 

best: they were exploring an interesting new idea and seeing how far they could go.

The researchers at Langley were not the only Americans thinking seriously about lunar missions. 

There were officers in the Air Force, people in "think tanks," professors at universities, and other 

engineers and scientists in and around NASA all contemplating going to the Moon. In February 

1959, a month before the creation of Brown’s lunar exploration group at Langley, NASA 

headquarters created a small Working Group on Lunar and Planetary Surfaces Exploration. (This 

later evolved into the Science Committee on Lunar Exploration.) Chaired by Dr. Robert Jastrow, 

the head of NASA headquarters’ new Theoretical Division, the working group included such 

leaders in planetology and lunar science as Harold C. Urey, professor at large at the University of 

California at San Diego, as well as a number of leading scientists from the Jet Propulsion 

Laboratory in Pasadena, California, and a few from Langley. In their meetings, Jastrow's group 

looked into the chances for both a "rough" landing on the Moon—wherein a probe would crash 

into the surface and be destroyed but not until an on-board camera sent back dozens of valuable 

pictures to the Earth—as well as "soft" landings wherein a spacecraft would actually land intact 

on the Moon. Langley’s William Michael attended one of the first meetings of Jastrow’s 

committee. Partly in reaction to what he had heard at this meeting, Michael and others at 

Langley began developing some ideas for photographic reconnaissance of the Moon's surface 

from lunar orbit, as well as for lunar impact studies.9

 John Houbolt, of Langley's Dynamic Loads 

Division, also participated in some of these meetings to share his knowledge of the requirements 

for spacecraft rendezvous.

Two months later, in April 1959, NASA headquarters formed a Research Steering Committee on 

Manned Space Flight. The purpose of this special committee—which was chaired by former 

Langley engineer Harry J. Goett, the first Director of NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center—was to 

analyze human-in-space problems, make recommendations about the missions to follow Project 

Mercury, and to explore the technological "stepping stones" necessary to prepare for future 

missions. It would then set forth the general outline of research programs to support those 

missions.10

In its final report, which appeared at the end of 1959, the Goett Committee (as it was known) 

called for a lunar landing with astronauts as the appropriate long-term goal of NASA's space 

program. But between the present emphasis on Project Mercury and that goal, there needed to 
9 

be major interim programs designed to develop advanced orbital capabilities and a manned 

space station.

Langley's representative on the Goett Committee, Laurence K. Loftin, Jr., the technical assistant 

to Langley Research Center Associate Director Floyd L. Thompson, agreed with this thinking. 

However, two other members, the STG’s Max Faget and George M. Low, NASA’s director of 

spacecraft and flight missions in Washington, did not. During meetings from May to December 

1959, they voiced the minority opinion: that the Moon should be NASA’s next objective after 

Mercury. George Low, brought to NASA headquarters by Director of Space Flight Programs Abe 

Silverstein from NASA’s Lewis Research Center in Cleveland, was particularly vocal. Not only did 

Low want to go to the Moon, he wanted Americans to land on it, and as soon as possible.11
10

Michael's Paper on a "Parking Orbit" 

Meanwhile at Langley, members of Brown's lunar exploration group were already studying ways 

for landing on the Moon someday. They explored several options and ideas, but in one of these 

studies, by Bill Michael, the group examined the benefits of "parking" the Earth-return propulsion 

portion of a spacecraft in orbit around the Moon during a landing mission.

The spark for Michael's interest in what eventually was called a "parking orbit," a spacecraft in a 

"waiting" orbit around the Moon or some other celestial body, involved his own calculations to 

determine whether there was any advantage in a lunar mission to some additional "staging." 

Staging was a proven and necessary technological concept, first explained by Tsarist Russia's 

space visionary Tsiolkovskiy in the late 1800s, by which a self-propelled, staged-rocket vehicle 

(Tsiolkovskiy called it a rocket "train") could ascend to greater and greater heights as its different 

stages expended their fuel and separated. 

In a lunar landing mission, Michael speculated, one would not want to fly a big rocket directly 

from the Earth to the Moon, as Jules Verne’s popular book and other science fiction fantasies 

envisioned. The big rocket would result in too much unnecessary weight being taken down to the 

surface. It would be much wiser to take "an intermediate step" and go into lunar orbit, where 

much of the total weight remained behind—the structure of the interplanetary spacecraft, its 

heavy fuel load for leaving lunar orbit and heading home, and its massive heat shield necessary 

for a safe reentry into the Earth's atmosphere. "It's very expensive to accelerate any type of 

mass to high velocity," Michael reasoned. "Any time you do not have to do that, you save a lot of 

fuel and thus a lot of weight."12

The upshot of his calculations, which he documented in early 1960 in a never-to-be-published 

paper titled, "Weight Advantages of Use of Parking Orbit for Lunar Soft Landing Mission," was to 

identify one of the most basic advantages of what eventually was known as the concept of 

"lunar-orbit rendezvous." Michael had to make several assumptions about what might entail a 

lunar landing mission—the spacecraft's engines, the structural weights, and so forth. But his 

results implied that by going into orbit around the Moon rather than going directly to the lunar 

surface, one could save an impressive 50 percent or more of the total mission weight. Figuring 

the numbers did not require any difficult or sophisticated calculations.13 Nor did it require any 

knowledge of the writings of Russian rocket theoretician Yuri Kondratyuk and British scientist and 

Interplanetary Society member H.E. Ross, both of whom had expressed the fundamentals of the 

lunar-orbit rendezvous concept (Kondratyuk in 1916 and Ross in 1948).14 Neither Michael nor 

anyone else at Langley at this point, so they have always maintained, had any knowledge of 

those precursors.

The Langley scientists also had not yet known anything about competition from contemporaries. 

That did not take long, however. Later the same morning that Michael first presented his rough 

"parking orbit" calculations in Clint Brown's office, a team led by Thomas E. Dolan from Vought 

Astronautics, a division of the Chance-Vought Corporation in Dallas, gave a briefing at Langley. 

This briefing concerned Vought's ongoing company-funded, confidential study of different 

problems related to "Manned Lunar Landing and Return" (acronym "MALLAR") and, specifically, 

its plans for a manned spaceflight simulator and its possible application for research under 

contract to NASA.

During the briefing, Dolan's team members mentioned an idea for reaching the Moon. Although 

the Vought representatives focused their analysis on the many benefits of what they called a 

"modular spacecraft"—one in which different parts, including a lunar landing module, were 
11

designed for certain tasks—Brown and Michael understood what was being advertised: the 

essentials of the lunar-orbit rendezvous concept. "They got up there and they had the whole 

thing laid out," Brown remembers. "They had scooped us" with their idea of "designing a 

spacecraft so that you can throw away parts of it as you go along." For the next several days, 

Michael walked around "with his face hanging down to the floor."

Nevertheless, the chagrined Langley engineer wrote a brief paper, confident that he had 

spawned his idea simultaneously and independently of all others. Furthermore, the word spread 

around Langley that Dolan had developed the idea of using a detachable lunar-landing module 

for the actual landing operation after an earlier visit to Langley when engineers in the Pilotless 

Aircraft Research Division, who were somehow familiar with Michael's embryonic idea, had 

suggested a parking orbit. This explanation, however, may simply have been "sour grapes." On 

the other hand, Dolan had made several visits to Langley in late 1959 and early 1960, and 

Michael remembered having already mentioned his idea to a few people at the laboratory, "so it 

shouldn’t have been any surprise to anybody here at Langley that such a possibility existed."15

The truth about this will probably never be known.

What is known is that Michael’s paper, at least in retrospect, had some significant limitations. It 

was only two pages long and presented little analysis. Its charts were difficult to follow and 

interpret. There was no mention of "Earth-escape weights," although an informed reader could 

infer such numbers by a type of inverse reasoning. Perhaps most importantly, the paper did not 

explicitly mention either the need for a separate lunar lander or the additional weight savings 

derived from using one and then discarding it before the return trip home. In sum, one would 

already have to have been familiar with the subject even to recognize, let alone fully fathom, 

what was being implied.

Michael’s paper had one last problem: it was never published. Therefore, it was hardly a fully 

developed articulation of a lunar landing mission using lunar-orbit rendezvous. Nonetheless, 

Michael’s unpublished paper on the weight advantages of a parking orbit made a fundamentally 

important contribution: for NASA researchers contemplating lunar missions, it zeroed in on the 

central theme of rendezvous. As his paper concluded, the chief problems in a lunar landing 

mission were the "complications involved in requiring a rendezvous with the components left in 

the parking orbit."16

Although disappointed that Vought had already hit on the idea of lunar-orbit rendezvous, the 

Langley researchers were hardly demoralized. Staffers in and around Brown's division quickly 

began making lunar and planetary mission feasibility studies of their own. John P. Gapcynski, for 

example, considered "factors involved in the departure of a vehicle from a circular orbit about the 

Earth." Wilbur L. Mayo calculated energy and mass requirements for missions to the Moon and 

even to Mars. Robert H. Tolson studied the effects on lunar trajectories of such geometrical 

constraints as the eccentricity of the Moon's orbit and the oblate shape of the Earth; he also 

analyzed the influence of the solar gravitational field. John D. Bird, who worked across the hall 

from Michael, began designing different "lunar bugs," "lunar schooners," and other types of small 

excursion modules that could land on the surface of the Moon after departing a "mother ship." 

"Jaybird" (as Bird was called by his peers) became an outspoken advocate of the lunar-orbit 

rendezvous concept. When a skeptical visitor to Langley offered, with a chuckle, that lunar-orbit 

rendezvous was "like putting a guy in an airplane without a parachute and having him make a 

midair transfer," Bird set that visitor straight. "No," he corrected, "It’s like having a big ship 

moored in the harbor while a little rowboat leaves it, goes ashore, and comes back again."17

 
12

The Rendezvous Committees 

There was a growing feeling within NASA in late 1959 and early 1960 that a rendezvous in space 

was going to be a vital maneuver no matter what the agency's mission after Project Mercury 

might be. If it were a space station, travel vehicles would have to meet and dock with that 

station and then leave it. Thus NASA had to be able to bring two vehicles together in space. A 

lunar mission, too, would require some sort of rendezvous either in lunar orbit, as Michael's study 

suggested, or around the Earth from an orbital base—perhaps the space station itself—where a 

lunar-bound spacecraft might be assembled or at least fueled. Even if neither were done, there 

would still be communications and military "reconnaissance" satellites to inspect and repair, 

which would also require rendezvous maneuvers. Rendezvous had to be a central element of all 

future flight endeavors—whatever they might be.

By the late summer of 1959, Langley's senior staff was ready to proceed with detailed studies of 

how best to perform rendezvous maneuvers in space. Two rendezvous study committees 

eventually came to life, both chaired by Dr. John C. Houbolt, the assistant chief of Langley's 

Dynamic Loads Division. 

Houbolt (with a B.S. and M.S. in civil engineering from the University of Illinois) was an aircraft 

structures expert who began working at Langley in 1942. In contrast to most Langley 

researchers, he had some significant foreign experience, having been an exchange research 

scientist at the British Royal Aircraft Establishment at Farnborough, England, in 1949. In 1958, he 

had only recently returned from a year's education at the Swiss Federal Polytechnic Institute in 

Zurich, where his dissertation on the heat-related aeroelastic problems of aircraft structure in 

high-speed flight had earned him a Ph.D.18

After returning from his graduate work in Switzerland, Houbolt and many other Langley 

researchers in the post-Sputnik phase became increasingly curious about spaceflight. Largely 

independent of the conversations taking place within Brown's group, Houbolt was on his own. He 

said years later, "I racked down and went through the whole analysis of orbital mechanics so I 

could understand it." From his own preliminary studies of trajectories, he saw the vital 

importance of rendezvous and began to recognize and evaluate the basic problems associated 

with it. During the STG's training of the Mercury astronauts at Langley, Houbolt was the one who 

presented their course of lectures on space navigation.19

Houbolt especially studied one particular problem related to rendezvous in space—the timing of 

the launch. NASA could not launch a mission at any arbitrary time and be assured of effecting a 

rendezvous with an orbiting spacecraft. To visualize the problem, Houbolt built a gadget with a 

globe for the Earth and a small ball on the end of a short piece of coat hanger, all connected to a 

variable-ratio gearbox. It simulated a satellite at different altitudes and in different orbital planes, 

enabling him to calculate the varying amounts of time it would take for the satellite to orbit 

around the revolving Earth. From his considerations of orbital mechanics, he knew that a change 

in orbital plane at 25,000 feet per second without the help of any sort of aerodynamic lift would 

require an enormous amount of energy and realistically could not be made. With this simple but 

ingenious model, Houbolt saw how long one might have to wait—a period of perhaps many 

days—to launch a rendezvous mission from Cape Canaveral. But he also found a way to 

circumvent the problem: if the orbital plane of the satellite could be made just one or two 

degrees larger than the latitude of the launch site, one could extend the launch "window" to four 

hours every day. Thus, he began to understand how NASA could get around the long waiting 

periods.20
13

The word quickly spread around Langley that Houbolt, the aircraft structures specialist, was now 

"the rendezvous man." He even had a "license to rendezvous." The Rand Corporation, a nonprofit 

think-tank organization in southern California connected to Douglas Aviation and interested in 

space rendezvous, presented it to a visiting Houbolt in early November 1959 as a jovial "pat on 

the back" after he had made a successful rendezvous in Douglas's rendezvous simulator.21 Thus 

when NASA Langley created its steering groups to study the problems of orbital space stations 

and those of lunar exploration missions, Houbolt, already recognized as a brilliant analyst, 

naturally emerged as the one to provide the input about rendezvous.

The first of Houbolt's rendezvous committees was tied to the laboratory's Manned Space 

Laboratory Group. Headed by the Full-Scale Research Division’s Mark R. Nichols, an 

aerodynamics specialist who was reluctant to accept the assignment, this group came to life in 

the late summer of 1959. It was similar to Brown's interdivisional Lunar Exploration Working 

Group, except that it was larger and had committees of its own. One of them, Houbolt's 

committee, was supposed to investigate the matter of rendezvous as it pertained to Earth-orbital 

operations. And it did—in a "loosely organized and largely unscheduled" way—into the first 

months of 1960. Serving on the committee were John M. Eggleston, Arthur W. Vogeley, Max C. 

Kurbjun, and W. Hewitt Phillips of the Aero-Space Mechanics Division; John A. Dodgen and 

William C. Mace of the Instrument Research Division; and John Bird and Clint Brown of the 

Theoretical Mechanics Division.22 Given the overlapping memberships and responsibilities of the 

different committees and study groups created during this increasingly busy and chaotic period, it 

is no wonder that there has been so much confusion in the historical record about how the 

concept of lunar-orbit rendezvous first germinated in NASA and about who deserves credit for 

what.

At one of the early meetings of the Manned Space Laboratory Group on 18 September 1959, 

Houbolt made a long statement on the rendezvous problem, one of the first made anywhere 

inside the NASA family. He insisted that his committee be allowed to study rendezvous "in the 

broadest terms" possible because, as he presciently argued, the technique was bound to play a 

major role in almost any advanced space mission NASA might initiate.23 Three months later, in 

December 1959, Houbolt appeared with other leading members of the Manned Space Laboratory 

Group before a meeting of the Goett Committee studying NASA's long-term plans. He urged the 

adoption of a rendezvous-satellite experiment that could "define and solve the problems more 

clearly"—something similar to the essence of NASA's later project, Gemini. Most members of the 

Goett Committee were still focusing more narrowly on a space station and a circumlunar mission; 

they showed little interest at that time in his experiment idea.24

The second Houbolt rendezvous committee met for the first time six months later, on 24 May 

1960. This was one year and one day before Kennedy's "landing on the moon in this decade" 

speech and one week after representatives from the Goddard and Marshall Space Flight Centers 

and the Jet Propulsion Laboratory had met at Langley (16–17 May 1961) for an intercenter 

review of NASA's current rendezvous studies. At this meeting—at which Houbolt gave the 

principal Langley presentation (based on a paper he had just delivered at the national 

aeronautical meeting of the Society of Automotive Engineers in New York City, 5–8 April)—there 

was "complete agreement" that rendezvous was "an important problem area" that opened "many 

operational possibilities" and warranted "significant study." The strength of Houbolt's 

presentation made it obvious that of all the NASA centers, Langley was "expending the greatest 

effort on rendezvous." It had eleven studies under way, compared to three at the Ames Research 

Center and two each at the Lewis Research Center and the Flight Research Center. The Marshall 

Space Flight Center had an active interest in rendezvous only in connection with advanced Saturn 

missions. With their "leanings toward orbital operations," Wernher von Braun's people at Marshall 

had done little work specifically on rendezvous and were not prepared to talk about it.25
14

This second rendezvous committee was part of the Lunar Mission Steering Group created by 

Floyd L. Thompson, who had become Langley Research Center Director in 1960. Chairing the 

group was hypersonics specialist John V. Becker, chief of the Aero-Physics Division.26 Becker's 

organization incorporated the Brown group, with the dynamic Brown himself serving as the chair 

of a committee on trajectories and guidance. Five other committees were quickly organized, with 

Howard B. Edwards of the Instrument Research Division chairing an instrumentation and 

communications committee; Richard R. Heldenfels of the Structures Research Division, a 

committee on structures and materials; Paul R. Hill of the Aero-Space Mechanics Division, a 

committee on propulsion, flight test, and dynamic loads; Eugene S. Love, Becker's assistant chief 

of the Aero-Physics Division, a committee on reentry aerodynamics, heating, configuration, and 

aeromedical studies; and John C. Houbolt, the rendezvous committee. Serving with Houbolt were 

John Bird and John Eggleston, who were also members of his other rendezvous committee, plus 

Wilford E. Sivertson, Jr., of the Instrument Research Division.

Becker's organization, as a whole, was supposed to take a "very broad look at all possible ways 

of accomplishing the lunar mission." At the time, NASA was conceiving it as a circumlunar rather 

than a landing mission. (By the late summer of 1960, Lowell E. Hasel, the secretary of Becker's 

study committee, was referring to the organization in his minutes as the "LaRC Circumlunar 

Mission Steering Group.") More specifically, the Becker group wanted to determine whether there 

was any reason to quarrel with the STG general guidelines for lunar missions established a month 

earlier, in April 1960.27 Over the course of the next six months, this group met six times, sent 

representatives to NASA headquarters and the Marshall Space Flight Center for consultation and 

presentation of preliminary analyses, and generally educated itself in the relevant technical areas. 

Its exploratory experimental data eventually appeared in twelve Langley papers presented at the 

first Industry/NASA Apollo Technical Conference held in Washington, D.C. 18–20 July 1961. Long 

before, however, Langley's Lunar Mission Steering Group had discontinued its activities. In midNovember 1960, when the STG developed its formal Apollo Technical Liaison Plan, which 

organized specialists in each problem area from every NASA center, there was no longer any 

need for the group, so it simply quit meeting.28
15

Houbolt's First Crusade

In his paper presented before the Society of Automotive 

Engineers, of all organizations, in April 1960, 41-year-old 

John Cornelius Houbolt focused on "the problem of 

rendezvous in space, involving, for example, the ascent of a 

satellite or space ferry as to make a soft contact with 

another satellite or space station already in orbit." His 

analysis of "soft rendezvous" could have applied to a lunar 

mission, but the paper did not specifically refer to that 

possibility.29

However, Houbolt already had been studying such an 

application. This was clear from the minutes of a meeting 

of Langley's Manned Space Laboratory Group on 5 February 

1960, when Houbolt discussed the general requirements of 

a "soft landing device" in a lunar mission involving lunarorbit rendezvous. This discussion took place even though 

that particular rendezvous committee was supposed to 

focus more narrowly on reaching and leaving an Earthorbiting space station.30

From this point on, Houbolt began to advertise the idea of 

lunar-orbit rendezvous in different meetings and conversations. In the spring of 1960, he talked 

about landing on the Moon with Robert O. Piland and various other members of NASA's Space 

Task Group. During the same period, he mentioned the lunar-orbit rendezvous concept to William

A. Mrazek, director of the Structures and Mechanics Division at Marshall Space Flight Center, for 

whom he had been helping evaluate the S-IV stage (consisting of four uprated Centaur engines) 

of the Saturn rocket.31

By the early summer months of 1960, when the Lunar Mission Steering Group first began holding 

meetings, Houbolt already had discovered the advantages of a lunar landing mission via lunarorbit rendezvous. Intellectually and emotionally, he had embraced the concept as his own. 

Sometime during the previous months, while performing "back-ofthe-envelope"-type calculations to confirm how much less rocket-boosting power NASA would 

require if it went to the Moon via lunar-orbit rendezvous, the Langley engineer had experienced a

powerful technological enthusiasm akin to a religious experience. Three years later, in a 1963 

article, he described what happened: "Almost simultaneously, it became clear that lunar orbit 

rendezvous offered a chain reaction simplification on all ‘back effects': development, testing, 

manufacturing, erection, countdown, flight operations, etc." Inside his head, everything 

"clicked"— "all would be simplified." Everything about a manned lunar landing would be made 

much easier. "This is fantastic," he thought to himself. "If there is any idea we have to push, it is 

this one!" In this moment of revealed truth arose an ardent resolve: "I vowed to dedicate myself 

to the task." From that moment on, until NASA's selection of the mission mode for Project Apollo 

in July 1962, Houbolt proved to be NASA's most dedicated, active, eloquent, stubborn, and 

informed crusader for what came to he known as "the LOR concept."32

Houbolt's first chance to "convert" others in terms of what now was his LOR concept was in 

September 1960, when new NASA Associate Administrator Dr. Robert C. Seamans, Jr., toured the 

Langley Research Center during an orientation visit. Seamans had a Ph.D. in aeronautical 

engineering from MIT and was a former member of a National Advisory Committee for 

John C. Houbolt at the time of the 

lunar-orbit rendezvous debate.
16

Aeronautics (NACA) technical subcommittee on aircraft stability and control. He had assumed the 

NASA position on 1 September and one of his first official duties was visiting all of the agency's 

field centers to learn about their programs and meet their personnel. One of the many people he 

encountered at Langley was an excited John Houbolt, who seized the moment to speak privately 

about the advantages of LOR. In essence, he said that "we ought to be thinking about using LOR 

in our way of going to the Moon."33

Bob Seamans reacted with interest. Although NASA had no mandate from political leaders to 

begin a lunar mission, NASA headquarters was seriously planning a lunar landing program. In 

October 1960, it had formed a small intercenter working group to establish a preliminary program 

for a manned lunar landing. Houbolt was Langley's representative on this committee, which was 

chaired by George Low. Low had been the primary manned lunar landing enthusiast at NASA 

headquarters and a strong early advocate of rendezvous methods as an alternative to the direct 

ascent approach, which presupposed the use of the anticipated gargantuan Nova rocket and 

which up to that time had almost completely dominated NASA's thinking about how to conduct a 

lunar-landing mission.34 Knowing Low's preference for orbital staging techniques, Seamans was 

inclined to listen carefully to Houbolt's arguments for LOR.

Moreover, Seamans had previously been chief engineer for the Radio Corporation of America's 

(RCA) Missile and Electronics Division in Massachusetts and had been involved in an Air Force 

study known as Project Saint—an acronym from "satellite interceptor." This "quiet but farreaching" classified military project involved the interception of satellites in Earth orbit. Because 

of this earlier work, Seamans, who was exactly the same age as Houbolt, was predisposed to 

listen to interesting ideas about rendezvous techniques and maneuvers. Houbolt explained to him 

how LOR would work even if less weight than that of the entire spacecraft was left in a parking 

orbit. If one just left the weight equivalent to that of the spacecraft's heatshield, NASA could 

realize some significant savings. Impressed with the notion of how important it was to leave 

weight in orbit, and equally impressed with the zeal with which Houbolt expressed that notion, 

Seamans invited the impassioned Langley researcher to present his ideas formally before his staff 

in Washington.35

Before that, however, Houbolt was to give two other briefings on rendezvous. The first was in 

November 1960, to the U.S. Air Force Scientific Advisory Board at the Pentagon. The second, on 

10 December, was to leading members of the Space Task Group—Paul Purser, Robert Piland, 

Owen Maynard, Caldwell Johnson, James Chamberlin, and Max Faget (Chair Robert C. Gilruth 

was not present). During both talks, Houbolt spoke about all the possible uses of rendezvous—in 

terms of both lunar orbit (such as manned lunar landing) and Earth-orbit (such as assembly of 

orbital units, personnel transfer to and rescue retrieval from a space station, proper placement of 

special-purpose satellites, and inspection and interception of satellites). Houbolt tried to clarify 

how rendezvous would be both inherently useful and technically feasible in many space missions. 

In other words—and historians have missed this key point—he was advocating rendezvous in 

general, not just the LOR concept. If Americans were going to land on the Moon with existing 

rocket boosters, or even with the boosters that were planned, then the United States would have 

to use a combination of Earth-orbit rendezvous (EOR) and LOR.

Recalling his argument years later, Houbolt said, "We would put up a component with a first 

booster; we would put up another component with another booster; then we would rendezvous 

the two of them in Earth orbit. Then we would go to the Moon with this booster system and 

perform the lunar-orbit rendezvous with the remaining spacecraft. The whole reason for doing it 

this way (via EOR) would be because the boosters were still too small." At the same time, he was 

also championing LOR. He lectured from charts showing a soft lunar landing conducted with both 

the Saturn-class rockets then in development as well as existing launch vehicles such as Atlas or 

Langley’s innovative little Scout rocket. He concluded by emphasizing the "great advantage" of 
17

LOR—how the Earth-boost payload in a lunar landing mission would be reduced by a factor of 2 

to 2.5. "I pointed out over and over again" that if these boosters could be made bigger, then 

NASA "could dispense with the Earth-orbit rendezvous portion and do it solely by lunar-orbit 

rendezvous."36

Houbolt recalls that neither the Air Force Scientific Advisory Board nor the STG seemed overly 

interested. Nor did they seem overly hostile, however. It was this apparently passive reaction to 

his advocacy of LOR, which he was to experience more than a few times in the coming months, 

that so frustrated Houbolt and eventually helped push him to bold action. Not all of the reaction 

was so passive. Some of it, from intelligent and influential people inside the space program, was 

strong, harshly worded, and negative.

On 14 December 1960, Houbolt traveled to Washington with a group of Langley colleagues to 

present the staff at NASA headquarters the briefing he had promised Bob Seamans three months 

earlier. All of the important people were in the audience, from Administrator T. Keith Glennan, 

Seamans, and Wernher von Braun on down through the leadership of the STG. For fifteen 

minutes, Houbolt moved carefully through his charts and analysis. He concluded, as he had done 

in the earlier briefings, with an enthusiastic statement about the weight savings—a reduction of 

Earth payload by a factor of a "whopping" 2 to 2.5.

When he finished, a small man with a receding hairline and a bow tie jumped up from the 

audience. Houbolt knew all too well who he was: the intuitively brilliant and hot-blooded Max 

Faget, his long-time Langley associate and present member of the STG. "His figures lie," Faget 

accused, rather nastily. "He doesn't know what he's talking about."

Even in a "bull session" back at Langley, Faget's fiery accusation would have been upsetting. But 

"in an open meeting, in front of Houbolt's peers and supervisors," it was "a brutal thing for one 

Langley engineer to say to another."37 And Faget had not bothered to say this to him four days 

earlier during the more private STG management briefing at Langley, when Houbolt and the 

others, who also were to give talks at headquarters (Clint Brown, John Bird, and Max Kurbjun), 

had previewed their same, exact presentations. This time, he carried his vocal objections out into 

the hallway, even after the meeting was over.

Houbolt tried to stay calm, but clearly he was agitated. He answered the charge simply by telling 

Faget that he "ought to look at the study before [making] a pronouncement like that."38 It was 

an "ought to" that Houbolt would be passing on to many other LOR skeptics before it was all 

over.

Curiously, at the same NASA headquarters briefing, Clint Brown had made an earlier 

presentation, based on a study he had conducted with Ralph W. Stone, Jr., of the Theoretical 

Mechanics Division, showing a general operational concept of an LOR plan for a piloted lunar 

mission. Brown's basic idea was to develop an early launch capability by combining a number of 

existing rocket boosters, specifically the Atlas, Centaur, and Scout. He also illustrated the 

advantage of rendezvous for weight reduction over the direct lunar mission. But curiously, 

Brown's talk—unlike Houbolt's—did not provoke any strong negative reaction.39 Perhaps it was 

because Houbolt gave a more explicit analysis of the advantages of LOR over the direct 

approach. Perhaps it was because Brown had given his presentation first and Faget needed to 

build up some steam. Or it could have been personal, with Faget simply liking Brown and 

disliking Houbolt.
18

The Feelings Against Lunar-Orbit Rendezvous 

The basic premise of the LOR concept, which NASA 

would eventually develop as Project Apollo, was to fire 

an assembly of three spacecraft into Earth’s orbit on top 

of a single powerful (three-stage) rocket, the Saturn V. 

This 50,000-pound-plus assembly would include: a 

mother ship or command module; a service module 

containing the fuel cells, attitude control system, and 

main propulsion system; and a small lunar lander or 

excursion module. Once in Earth’s orbit, the last stage 

of the Saturn rocket would fire and expend itself, 

boosting the spacecraft—and its crew of astronauts—

into its trajectory to the Moon. After braking into lunar 

orbit via the small rockets aboard the service module, 

two of the crew members would don space suits and 

climb into the lunar excursion module (LEM), detach it 

from the mother ship, and descend to the lunar surface. 

The third crew member would remain in the command 

module, maintaining a lonely but busy vigil in lunar 

orbit. If all went well, a top half, or "ascent stage," of 

the LEM would rocket back up, using the ascent engine 

provided, and redock with the command module. What 

remained of the lander would then be discarded to the 

vast darkness of space—or crashed onto the Moon, as 

was done in later Apollo missions for seismic 

experiments—and the astronauts would return home in 

their command ship.

One can summarize the LOR concept by referring to 

three "only" statements:

1. Only a specially designed lunar module (the 

LEM) would actually descend to the Moon's 

surface.

2. Only a portion of that LEM, the so-called 

"ascent stage," would return to dock with the 

command module in lunar orbit.

3. Only the command module, the Apollo capsule 

itself, with its protective heatshield, would fall

back to Earth.

Knowing what we know now—that Americans would 

land on the Moon and return safely before the end of 

the 1960s, using the LOR method—it might be hard to 

imagine and appreciate the strength of feeling against 

the LOR concept in the early 1960s. In retrospect, we 

know that LOR enjoyed—as Brown, Michael, Dolan, and 

especially John Houbolt had said—several advantages 

over competitor methods. It required less fuel, only half 

An early LOR spacecraft configuration. 

A comparison of the proposed mammoth Nova 

rocket with the very large Saturn C-5 and C-1 

launch vehicles 

A diagram from 1962 demonstrating the three 

basic approaches considered for lunar landing 

missions. 
19

the payload, and less brand-new technology; it did not need a monstrous rocket, such as the 

proposed Nova for a direct flight; and it called for only one launch from the Earth, whereas one 

of LOR's chief competitors, "Earth-orbit rendezvous," required two. Only the small, lightweight 

LEM, not the entire spacecraft, would have to land on the Moon; this perhaps was LOR's major 

advantage. Because the lander would be discarded after use and would not return to Earth, 

NASA could customize the LEM’s design for maneuvering flight in the lunar environment and for 

landing softly on the Moon. In fact, NASA could tailor all the modules of the Apollo spacecraft 

independently—and without those tailorings compromising each other. One spacecraft unit 

performing three jobs would have forced some major compromises. But three units performing 

three jobs, without compromise, was another LOR advantage that no one at NASA could 

overlook.

In the early 1960s, however, all these advantages were merely theoretical. On the other hand, 

the fear that American astronauts might be left in an orbiting coffin some 240,000 miles from 

home was quite real. If rendezvous had to be part of the lunar mission, many felt it should be 

conducted only in the Earth’s orbit. If that rendezvous failed, the threatened astronauts could be 

brought back home simply by allowing the orbit of their spacecraft to deteriorate. But if a 

rendezvous around the Moon failed, the astronauts would be too far away to be saved, because 

nothing could be done. The morbid specter of dead astronauts sailing around the Moon haunted 

the dreams of those responsible for the Apollo program. It was a nightmare that made objective 

evaluation of the LOR concept by NASA unusually difficult.

It also was a nightmare that John Houbolt understood all too well, but he recognized that all the 

alternative schemes had serious pitfalls and dreadful possibilities. In fact, he was certain that all 

the other options involved even more perils. None of them offered a rescue possibility. In 

contrast, LOR offered the chance of a rescue by having two small landing modules, if NASA 

wished, rather than just one. One lander could be reserved with the orbiting mother ship and 

used only if the number-one lander encountered serious trouble. Or, in the case of an accident 

inside the command-and-service module, even one attached LEM could serve as a type of 

"lifeboat." (This actually did happen during Apollo 13, when, while the spacecraft was outward 

bound and 200,000 miles from the Earth, an explosion in one of the oxygen tanks within the 

service module caused a leak in another oxygen tank. NASA had an urgent life-threatening 

problem that it could only solve because it had the LEM. The astronauts headed home, without 

landing, temporarily occupying the LEM.) Therefore, Houbolt could not accept the charge that 

LOR was inherently more dangerous, but neither could he easily turn that charge aside.

It was an amazingly tempestuous intellectual and emotional climate in which NASA would have to 

make perhaps the most fundamental decision in its history. It was a psychological obstacle that 

made the entire year of 1961 and the first seven months of 1962 the most hectic and challenging 

period of John Houbolt's life.40

On 5 January 1961, Houbolt again spoke about rendezvous in Washington during the first 

afternoon of an historic two-day meeting of the Space Exploration Program Council at the NASA 

headquarters. NASA had created this council for "smoothing out technical and managerial 

problems at the highest level." Chaired by Associate Administrator Seamans, this council meeting 

included, as it always did, all program office heads at headquarters, the heads of all NASA field 

centers, and their invited guests and speakers. The council had been meeting quarterly since 

early 1960, but this first meeting of 1961 was by far the most historic to date: it was the first 

inside NASA to feature a full-scale, agency-wide discussion of a piloted lunar landing.41

By the end of the first day of this meeting, everyone realized that the mission mode for a human 

landing on the Moon by NASA could be reduced to three major options: direct ascent, which was 

still the front-runner; Earth-orbit rendezvous (EOR), which was gaining ground quickly; and 

lunar-orbit rendezvous (LOR), the darkhorse on which only the most capricious gamblers in NASA 

would have ventured a bet.

A different speaker addressed each option. First, Marshall's impressive rocket pioneer from 

Germany, Wernher von Braun, reviewed NASA's launch vehicle program, with discussion on the 
20

advantages of Earth-orbit rendezvous. This option involved launching two pieces of hardware into 

space independently using advanced Saturn rockets that were then under development. The two 

pieces would rendezvous and dock in the Earth’s orbit. The modules that had joined up during 

the rendezvous would allow for the assembly, fueling, and detachment of a lunar mission vehicle. 

That augmented ship would then proceed directly to the surface of the Moon and, after 

exploration, return to the Earth. The immediate advantage of Earth-orbit rendezvous, as von 

Braun clearly pointed out, was that it required a pair of less powerful rockets that were already 

nearing the end of their development—in other words, twice as many of his early Saturns. The 

biggest pitfall, as with direct ascent, was that there was not yet any clear concept of how the 

spacecraft would actually make its landing. Of that essential maneuver, von Braun offered no 

details, admitting that serious study would have to be conducted very quickly.

Next, Melvyn Savage of the Office of Launch Vehicle Programs at NASA headquarters talked 

about direct ascent. This was basically the method that had been described in science fiction 

novels and shown in Hollywood movies. A massive rocket, roughly the size of a battleship, would 

be fired directly to the Moon, land, and then blast off for home directly from the lunar surface. 

The trip would be like that of a chartered bus, moving from point A to point B and back to A 

again in one huge booster vehicle, the proposed twelve-million-pound-thrust Nova rocket.

Late in the afternoon, Houbolt discussed rendezvous and highlighted the unappreciated wonders 

of his darkhorse candidate. To him, the advantages of LOR and the disadvantages of the other 

two options were clear. Any single big rocket, such as Nova, that had to carry and lift all the fuel 

necessary for leaving the Earth's gravity, braking against the Moon's gravity as well as leaving it, 

and braking back down into the Earth's gravity again was not the most practical, especially if the 

mission must be accomplished soon. The development of a rocket that mammoth would take too 

long, and the expense would be enormous. In Houbolt's opinion, Earth-orbit rendezvous was 

better than direct ascent but not nearly as good as LOR. Once the lunar-bound spacecraft left its 

rendezvous station around the Earth, the rest of its mission would be accomplished exactly as 

with direct ascent. NASA's astronauts would still have to land an incredibly heavy and large 

vehicle on the surface of the Moon. The business of backing such a large stack of machinery 

down to the Moon and "eyeballing" it to a pinpoint soft landing—on what at the time was still a 

virtually unknown lunar surface—would be incredibly tricky and dangerous. Those few NASA 

researchers, such as Arthur W. Vogeley of Langley's Aero-Space Mechanics Division, who had 

been thinking about the terrors of landing such a behemoth (and getting the astronauts down 

from the top of it using an inside elevator), understood that there were no satisfactory answers 

to that approach.42

There were other talks that day, including an introduction by George Low, head of NASA 

headquarters lunar landing task force, and a technical talk by Houbolt's nemesis Max Faget that 

outlined the hardware and booster requirements for several possible types of lunar missions. But 

everyone walked away from the meeting understanding that if the United States were to reach 

the Moon by the end of the decade, NASA would have to evaluate the comparative benefits and 

risks of these three major options and somehow quickly pick the one that would work.43 At this 

point, the odds were excellent that the choice—if one were to be made—would be either direct 

ascent, which seemed simplest in concept, or Earth-orbit rendezvous. The LOR concept was a 

"long shot"—almost not worthy of mention for many NASA officials.
21

The Space Task Group's Early Skepticism 

In the early months of 1961, the STG, still at Langley, was preoccupied with the first Mercury 

flight and the hope—soon to be crushed by Vostok 1—that an American astronaut would be the 

first human in space. When any of its members had a rare moment to consider rendezvous, it 

was thought of "as one of several classes of missions around which a Mercury program follow-on 

might be built."44

On 10 January 1961, four days after the meeting of the Space Exploration Program Council, 

Houbolt and three members of the Theoretical Mechanics Division—division chief Clint Brown, 

Ralph Stone and Manuel J. "Jack" Queijo—attended an informal meeting at Langley with three 

members of STG's flight systems division—H. Kurt Strass, Owen E. Maynard, and Robert L. 

O'Neal. Langley Associate Director Charles Donlan, Gilruth's former chief assistant, also attended. 

It was at this meeting that Houbolt, Brown, and the others tried to persuade the men from the 

STG (Donlan had only recently been reassigned to Langley from the STG) that a rendezvous 

experiment belonged in the Apollo program and that LOR was preferable if any realistic plans for 

a lunar landing were to be made.45

They were not persuaded. Although the STG engineers received the analysis more politely than 

Max Faget had the month earlier, all four admitted quite frankly that the claims about the weight 

savings were "too optimistic." Owen Maynard remembers that he and his colleagues initially 

viewed the LOR concept as "the product of pure theorists' deliberations with little practicality." In 

essence, they agreed with Faget's charge, although they did not actually say it, that Houbolt's 

figures did "lie." In advertising the Earth-weight savings of LOR and the size reduction of the 

booster needed for the lunar mission, Houbolt and the others were failing to factor in, or at least 

greatly underestimating, the significant extra complexity, and thus added weight, of the systems 

and subsystems that LOR's modular spacecraft would require.46

This criticism was central to the early skepticism toward the LOR concept—both inside and 

outside the STG. Even Marshall's Wernher von Braun initially shared the sentiment: "John 

Houbolt argued that if you could leave part of your ship in orbit and don't soft land all of it on the 

moon and fly it out of the gravitational field of the moon again, you can save takeoff weight on 

earth." "That's pretty basic," von Braun recalled later in an oral history. "But if the price you pay 

for that capability means that you have to have one extra crew compartment, pressurized, and 

two additional guidance systems, and the electrical supply for all that gear, and you add up all 

this, will you still be on the plus side of your trade-off?" Until the analysis was performed (and 

there are some former NASA engineers who still argue today that "this trade-off has never been 

realistically evaluated"),47 no one could be sure—but many NASA people suspected—that LOR 

would prove far too complicated. "The critics in the early debate murdered Houbolt," von Braun 

remembered sympathetically.48

Houbolt recalls this January 1961 meeting with the STG as a "friendly, scientific discussion." He, 

Brown, and the others did what they could to counter the argument that the weight of a modular 

spacecraft would prove excessive. Using an argument taken from automobile marketing, they 

stated that the lunar spacecraft would not necessarily have to be "plush"; an "economy" or even 

"budget" model might be able to do the job. One such "budget model," which the STG engineers 

did not seriously consider, was one of John Bird's lunar bugs, "a stripped-down, 2,500-pound 

version in which an astronaut descended on an open platform."49 In answer to the charge that a 

complicated modular spacecraft would inevitably grow much heavier than estimated, Houbolt 

retaliated that the estimated weight of a direct-ascent spacecraft would no doubt increase during 

development, making it a less competitive option in comparison with rendezvous.
22

But in the end, all the substantive differences between the two groups of engineers went out the 

window. All Houbolt could say to the STG representatives was "you don't know what you're 

talking about," and all they could say to him was the same thing. "It wasn't a fight in the violent 

sense," reassures Houbolt. "It was just differences in scientific opinion about it."50

Whether or not this skeptical response to that day's arguments in favor of LOR indicated any 

general STG sentiment in early 1961 has been a matter of serious behind-the-scenes debate 

among the NASA participants. Houbolt has argued that the STG consistently opposed LOR and 

had to be convinced from the outside, by Houbolt himself, after repeated urgings, that it was the 

best mission mode for a lunar landing. Leading members of the STG, notably Gilruth and Donlan, 

have argued that that was not really the case. They say that the STG was too busy preparing for 

the Mercury flights even to bother thinking seriously about lunar studies until after Kennedy's 

commitment. Gilruth recalls that when Houbolt first approached him "with some ideas about 

rendezvousing Mercury capsules in earth orbit" as "an exercise in space technology," he did react 

negatively. It was a "diversion from our specified mission," according to Gilruth, and therefore 

not something on which he, as the head of Project Mercury, had any time to reflect.51

According to Gilruth, it was only later that he found out that Houbolt was interested in LOR. By 

that time, in early 1961, NASA had started studying the requirements of a manned lunar landing 

through such task forces as the Low Committee, and the STG did its best to follow suit. When it 

did think seriously about a lunar program, especially about that most critical operation of actually 

landing astronauts on the Moon, LOR gained "early acceptance... notwithstanding the subsequent 

debates that erupted in numerous headquarters committees."52

"I was very much in favor of that mode of flight to the moon from the very beginning," Gilruth 

has since claimed. "I recall telling our people that LOR seemed the most promising mode to me—

far more promising than either the direct ascent or the earth orbital rendezvous modes." The 

most important thing in planning for a lunar landing program was to minimize the risk of the 

actual operation. Thus, LOR was the best choice among the contending modes because it alone 

permitted the use of a smaller vehicle specifically designed for the job. In Gilruth's view, he was 

always encouraging to Houbolt. In his estimation, he felt all along that "the Space Task Group 

would be the key in carrying the decision through to the highest echelons of NASA" and "of 

course, this proved to be the case."53

Houbolt accepts little of these assertions; in fact, he "violently disagrees" with them. He points 

out that on several occasions in late 1960 he had briefed leading members of the STG about his 

LOR ideas. He also asserts that Gilruth had to know about them, that the STG had ignored and 

resisted them as too optimistic, and that the STG would continue to ignore and resist them and 

insist strongly on the need for developing large Nova-class boosters for a while. As evidence, he 

points to many subsequent instances where his ideas were summarily discounted by the STG and 

to different expressions of resistance from key STG members. One such statement came from 

Gilruth in an official letter as late as September 1961. "Rendezvous schemes are and have been 

of interest to the Space Task Group and are being studied," Gilruth informed NASA headquarters 

on 12 September. "However, the rendezvous approach itself will, to some extent, degrade 

mission reliability and flight safety." Rendezvous schemes such as Houbolt's "may be used as a 

crutch to achieve early planned dates for launch vehicle availability," Gilruth warned. Their 

advocates propose them "to avoid the difficulty of developing a reliable Nova class launch 

vehicle."54

Houbolt felt strongly that if he could just persuade Gilruth's people to "do their homework" on 

rendezvous, "then they too would become convinced of its merits." But for months, he could not 

get them—or anyone else—to do that. There was "virtually universal opposition—no one would 

accept it—they would not even study it." In his view, it was "my perseverance, and solely mine" 
23

that caused the STG and various other groups to study and realize finally "the far-sweeping 

merits of the plan." It was "my own in-depth analysis" and "my crusading" based on that analysis 

that, above all else, later "paved the way to the acceptance of the scheme." In Houbolt's view, if 

not for his constant badgering, NASA might have tried to reach the Moon some other way.55

In early 1961, when the Low Committee announced its plan for a piloted lunar landing and its 

aspiration for that bold mission to be made part of Project Apollo, it definitely seemed that NASA 

was still resisting LOR. In outlining the requirements for an ambitious lunar flight, the 

committee's chief recommendation was to focus on the direct approach to the Moon, leaving 

rendezvous out. LOR was not discussed at all. Low remembers that during the time of his 

committee's deliberations, he asked one of its members, E.O. Pearson, Jr., to visit John Houbolt 

at Langley and "to advise the Committee whether we should give consideration to the Lunar 

Orbit Rendezvous Mode." Pearson, the assistant chief of the Aerodynamics and Flight Mechanics 

Research Division at NASA headquarters, returned with the answer, "No," LOR "was not the 

proper one to consider for a lunar landing." A rendezvous 240,000 miles from home, when 

rendezvous had never been demonstrated—Shepard's suborbital flight had not even been made 

yet—seemed, literally and figuratively, "like an extremely far-out thing to do." Maybe LOR would 

save some weight; maybe it would not. But even if it did, it was not the best approach; too many 

critical maneuvers would have to be made after sending the spacecraft with its precious human 

cargo on its lunar trajectory. If any rendezvous had to be included, it would be much better in 

the Earth’s orbit, where everything about the spacecraft could be thoroughly checked out and the 

craft brought back safely with its human occupants if something went wrong.56

Thus the Low Committee, in early 1961, recognizing that it would be too expensive to develop 

and implement more than one lunar landing mission mode, made its "chief recommendation": 

NASA should focus on direct ascent. "This mistaken technical judgment was not Houbolt's fault," 

Low admitted years later, "but rather my fault in trusting a single Committee member instead of 

having the entire Committee review Houbolt's studies and recommendations."57
24

Mounting Frustration

Everything that happened in early 1961 reinforced John Houbolt's belief that NASA was 

dismissing the LOR concept without giving it due consideration. On 20 January, he gave another 

long rendezvous talk at NASA headquarters. In this briefing, he displayed analysis showing a 

scenario for a lunar landing using Saturn rockets and outlined a simplified rendezvous scheme 

that had been worked out by Art Vogeley and Lindsay J. Lina of the guidance and control branch 

of Langley's Aero-Space Mechanics Division. He also mentioned some preliminary Langley ideas 

for developing fixed-base simulators by which to study the requirements for lunar orbit, landing, 

and rendezvous.58 Like so many of his earlier presentations, it was received passively, without 

much enthusiasm. On 27–28 February, NASA held an intercenter meeting on rendezvous in 

Washington, but no presentation on LOR was made by Houbolt or anyone else. As if by a political 

consensus, the subject was not even raised. This absence prompted one concerned headquarters 

official, Bernard Maggin from the Office of Aeronautical and Space Research, to write Houbolt a 

memo a few days later in which he commented on the lack of consideration for LOR by NASA, 

especially by the STG.59

Politics, of an institutional sort, were involved in the unfolding lunar landing mission mode 

debate. The people and organizations involved in the building of the big rockets were interested 

in direct ascent and even in Earth-orbit rendezvous. That type of rendezvous, although not 

requiring the super-big Nova booster, would still require two or more big Saturns per mission. 

Abe Silverstein, the director of the Office of Space Flight Programs at NASA headquarters, was 

working primarily from his experience as the former head of Lewis Research Center, which was 

the old NACA propulsion research laboratory now heavily involved in rocket development. 

Wernher von Braun had to be thinking about the best interests of his Marshall Space Flight 

Center, which was primarily responsible at that time for developing the Saturn family of launch 

vehicles. What then were the politics? They centered around the concern over where the work 

for the overall lunar program was going to be performed. Was it to be conducted primarily by the 

people and organizations capable of building, managing, and launching very big rockets? By von 

Braun's team in Huntsville, which would need two to eight Saturn 1-class boosters to get enough 

weight up into Earth orbit to get to the Moon and back without having to perform LOR?60 Or by 

somebody else?

For the most part, Langley management, with no such vested interest, sat on the "sidelines." No 

matter which mission mode was implemented, its researchers and wind tunnels would have 

plenty of work to support the program.61

In some articles and history books on Project Apollo, the LOR concept has been called a pet 

concept of the Langley Research Center. That was not at all the case. Even within Langley, LOR 

was embraced only by a small but vocal minority. Langley management did not support LOR until 

after the STG and the rest of NASA did. The personal opinion of Center Director Floyd Thompson, 

as well as that of most of his senior people, mirrored that of the STG: LOR was too complicated 

and risky. It was better to use direct ascent or Earth-orbit rendezvous.62

Houbolt was a brilliant engineering analyst—and an energetic, persistent, and often eloquent 

advocate of the causes he espoused—but he was not an overly shrewd behind-the-scenes player 

of institutional politics. Faced with the impasse of early 1961, his first instinct was simply to find 

more sound and logical retorts to the criticisms he had been hearing. With the help of Brown, 

Vogeley, Michael, Bird, Kurbjun, and a few others, he developed more elaborate and detailed 

studies of "his" lunar landing mission, along with detailed weight-savings analyses. Somehow, he 
25

felt, there had to be a way to circumvent the problem and convince the agency that it was 

making a big mistake in dismissing LOR.

On 19 April 1961, he was to give another briefing on rendezvous to the STG. Hoping to package 

his argument more convincingly, he turned to the use of the so-called "admiral's page." This was 

the established Navy practice of using a short, visually convenient executive summary so that 

"the admiral" would not have to "wade through the morass" of a long report. For his STG 

briefing, Houbolt placed sixteen pages worth of charts, data plots, drawings, and outlined 

analyses—taken from his own analysis as well as material supplied by Langley's Bird, Kurbjun, 

and Vogeley—onto one seventeen-by-twenty-two-inch foldout sheet. The title of his foldout was, 

"Manned Lunar Landing Via Rendezvous," and its cover included a closeup telescopic photograph 

of the Moon. A number of the important people attending the meeting received a copy of the 

printed circular and could follow along from box to box.63

As had been the case in Houbolt's earlier presentations, this one also addressed both Earth-orbit 

rendezvous and LOR, but it clearly stated a preference for LOR. In this talk, however, he 

advocated, for the first time, two specific projects for which he supplied project names and 

acronyms. He called the first ("Project 1") MORAD ("Manned Orbital Rendezvous and Docking"). 

This was his old idea for a modest flight "experiment" as a follow-on to Mercury that would 

"establish confidence" in spaceflight rendezvous techniques—a small payload from a Scout rocket 

serving as a target vehicle for a maneuvering Mercury capsule in the Earth’s orbit. He called the 

second ("Project 2") MALLIR ("Manned Lunar Landing Involving Rendezvous"). It was this 

project, naturally, that contained the essence of the controversial LOR scheme.64

The last box of the foldout contained Houbolt's recommendations for "Immediate Action 

Required." For MORAD, he wanted NASA to give a quick "go-ahead" so that Langley could 

proceed with a work statement before issuing a study contract by industry. For MALLIR, he 

wanted NASA "to delegate responsibility to the Space Task Group" so that the STG would have to 

give "specific and accelerated consideration" to the possibility of including rendezvous as part of 

Project Apollo. In response to the STG's apparent resistance to his rendezvous ideas and its 

current discretionary freedom to treat rendezvous as part of Apollo on a "will also consider" basis, 

Houbolt wanted a NASA directive that made rendezvous integral to an accepted project. In other 

words, he was asking for something that would make the STG, finally, give rendezvous the 

attention that it merited. "I simply wanted people to study the problems and look at [them], and 

then make a judgment, but they wouldn't even do that," Houbolt remembers with some of his 

old frustration. "It was that strange a position."65

Nothing immediately resulted from either of his proposals. Again, the reaction seemed to him 

mostly negative, as if the STG still wanted no part of his ideas. His frustration mounted. "I could 

never find a real answer to why they wouldn't even consider it," Houbolt laments. Perhaps it was 

the "not-invented-here" syndrome. Perhaps it was just because he was an "outsider" who was 

"rocking the boat on their own thinking, and they didn't want anybody to do that."66 Or perhaps, 

looking at it psychologically, the STG was not prepared to think seriously about such an incredibly 

bold and seemingly treacherous idea when they were not even sure they could make their own—

perhaps more credible, but still difficult—Mercury program a complete success. In other words, 

Mercury "was proving so troublesome that rendezvous, however simple in theory, seemed very 

far away." Houbolt was never sure.67

At this April 1961 briefing, however, a solitary STG engineer did demonstrate a clear and 

exceptional interest in Houbolt's rendezvous analysis. James Chamberlin approached Houbolt 

after the meeting and asked him for an extra copy of the foldout sheet and "anything else he had 

on rendezvous." Interestingly, both Houbolt and Chamberlin recall Chamberlin telling him that he 

had known about Langley's rendezvous work but that this was the first time he had heard any of 
26

the details about the lunar orbit version.68 One might indeed wonder then how widely the 

information from Houbolt's previous talks had spread within the STG. Perhaps it is significant that 

Chamberlin was not one of Gilruth's old associates from the NACA. He was one of the relative 

newcomers—and a very talented one (Chamberlin had been chief of design for the Avro Arrow 

aircraft, an advanced airplane cancelled by the Canadian government)—whom the STG had 

recruited from Canada in late 1959.
27

President Kennedy's Commitment

Houbolt's briefing to the STG came at the end of a humbling week for America. On 12 April, the 

Soviets beat the United States in sending the first human into space, cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin. 

Three days later, with President Kennedy's hesitant approval, a confused and ultimately 

humiliated invasion force prepared by the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) landed at Cuba's Bay 

of Pigs, only to be driven back quickly by an unexpectedly efficient army of 20,000 led by 

communist Fidel Castro. Pierre Salinger, Kennedy's articulate press secretary, later called this 

"the three grimmest days" of the Kennedy presidency. It was a period of national crisis that 

proved in same ways to be more urgent than even the troubled aftermath of the Sputniks.69

Up to this time, NASA had been preparing for a lunar landing mission as its long-term goal in 

space. Some visionaries in NASA, such as George Low, wanted to do it sooner rather than later 

and were working to convince NASA leadership, now headed by a new Administrator, James E. 

Webb (Glennan resigned in early 1961, with the change from a Republican to a Democratic 

administration), that such a program should be pushed at the politicians. Not all the politicians 

needed to be pushed. Most notably, Vice President Lyndon B. Johnson was pressing NASA for a 

larger and more ambitious space program that included a lunar landing program.70 President 

Kennedy was actually the one who needed to be convinced. The Gagarin flight and the Bay of 

Pigs fiasco, followed by the welcome relief and excitement of Alan Shepard's successful Mercury 

flight on 5 May, were enough to convince him. Sputniks I and II had occurred during the 

previous Republican administration and had helped the dynamic young senator from 

Massachusetts beat former Vice President Richard M. Nixon in the 1960 election. But now, in just 

the past month, Kennedy's "New Frontier" had been undermined by crisis. The confidence of the 

American people needed to be restored. Something had to provoke the country into rebounding 

from its recent second-place finishes in the space race and national humiliation.71 On 25 May 

John Kennedy announced that landing American astronauts on the Moon was the way to restore 

confidence.
28

Houbolt's First Letter to Seamans

Six days before Kennedy's historic announcement, and 

oblivious that it was coming, John Houbolt sent "a hurried 

non-edited and limited note" of three single-spaced pages 

to Robert Seamans at NASA headquarters. Confident from 

past meetings that Associate Administrator Seamans was 

greatly interested in the subject of rendezvous, Houbolt 

took the liberty of going above several organizational layers 

and around his superiors to communicate with him directly.

His message was straightforward and not overly passionate. 

The situation with respect to the development of new 

launch vehicles was "deplorable"; the Saturns "should 

undergo major structural modifications," and there was "no 

committed booster plan" beyond Saturn. Furthermore, 

NASA was still not attending to the use of rendezvous in the 

planned performance of the Apollo mission. "I do not wish 

to argue" whether "the direct way" or "the rendezvous way" 

is best, Houbolt reassured Seamans. But "because of the 

lag in launch vehicle developments," it seemed to him that 

"the only way that will be available to us in the next few 

years is the rendezvous way." For this reason alone, it was 

"mandatory" that "rendezvous be as much in future plans 

as any item, and that it be attacked vigorously."72 If NASA 

continued to dismiss LOR totally as it had been, someday 

there were going to be sorry NASA engineers.

If Houbolt had known that an ad hoc task group at NASA 

headquarters was at that moment concluding that 

rendezvous had no place in the lunar landing program, his 

letter to Seamans would have carried a higher sense of 

urgency. But there is nothing in his letter to suggest that 

Houbolt knew anything about the meetings of the so-called 

Fleming Committee. Established by Seamans on 2 May, the 

job of this committee was to determine, in only four weeks, 

whether a lunar landing by astronauts was in fact possible 

and how much it would cost. Chaired by NASA's assistant 

administrator for programs, William A. Fleming, who—

unlike George Low—was known to be neutral on the ideas 

of a lunar landing and the method for doing it, this 

committee eventually recommended a lunar landing 

program based on a three-stage Nova. In essence, the 

Fleming Committee "avoided the question of rendezvous versus direct ascent." Seeing "no reason 

to base its study on a risky and untried alternative"—and apparently not seeing with equal clarity 

that going to the Moon with a huge and unproven launch vehicle was also "risky and untried"—

the committee spent all its time trying to choose between solid-fuel and liquid-fuel propellants for 

the Nova stages.73

Houbolt and the other LOR advocates at Langley would have been dismayed. To them, it had 

been clear for some time that developing the rendezvous concept was "the obvious thing" to do 

A high-angle view of the Saturn V 

launch vehicle that was used for the 

Apollo 15 mission to the Moon in 

1971. 
29

before a lunar mission. But to so many others, it was still an absurdly complicated and sporty 

proposition.

Still others, such as Bob Seamans, were not sure what to think. On 25 May, after hearing 

President Kennedy's speech, Seamans appointed yet another ad hoc committee "to assess a wide 

variety of possible ways for executing a manned lunar landing." Whether Houbolt's letter of six 

days earlier played any major direct role in prompting Seamans to create this new committee, to 

be chaired by Bruce T. Lundin, an Associate Director at the Lewis Research Center, is not certain. 

But it surely contributed to it, as two pieces of circumstantial evidence seem to indicate. (Houbolt 

believes that Seamans created the Lundin Committee specifically because of his letter. "The story 

I got [from somebody else at NASA headquarters] was that my letter jolted Seamans, and he got 

up at five o'clock in the morning, got on the phone, called several people and said, 'Be at my 

office at seven o'clock.' ... And then they formed the Lundin Committee." There are no 

documents to support Houbolt's version of the story, but based on what Seamans has said about 

the formation of the Lundin Committee, there is no doubt that Houbolt's letter did contribute 

directly to its establishment—perhaps not as exclusively as Houbolt has heard. [Houbolt interview 

with the author, 24 August 1989, Williamsburg, Virginia, copy of transcript, p. 31.]) First, in 

explaining why a new task force was necessary, Seamans pointed out to his directors of 

Advanced Research Programs (Ira H. Abbott) and Launch Vehicle Programs (Don R. Ostrander) 

that the Fleming Committee was finding it necessary "to restrict its considerations to a limited 

number of techniques by which it is feasible to accomplish the mission in the shortest possible 

time." Consequently, there were "numerous other approaches"—and he specifically mentioned 

the use of rendezvous—that were not currently being assessed. Second, Seamans wrote back to 

Houbolt on 2 June, thanking him for his comments and reassuring the distressed Langley 

researcher that "the problems that concern you are of great concern to the whole agency." NASA 

headquarters had just organized "some intensive study programs," Seamans informed him, 

without mentioning the Fleming or Lundin committees by name. These programs "will provide us 

a base for decisions."74

It is not true, as some historians have said, that Seamans made sure that Houbolt was on the 

Lundin Committee.75 Houbolt was not an official member of that committee; one of Floyd 

Thompson's assistants, Laurence K. Loftin, Jr., was Langley's representative, although he 

apparently did not attend all the meetings. But Houbolt did meet with and talk to the committee 

several times; in fact, in his view, he was "the real Langley representative" because Loftin did not 

attend as regularly as he did.76

The idea behind the Lundin Committee, at least as Seamans had expressed it, was to take an 

open-minded look into the alternative "modes" for getting to the Moon, primarily those involving 

"mission staging by rendezvous" and "alternative Nova vehicles." From its initial meeting, 

however, that idea seems to have been seriously compromised. Larry Loftin, who attended the 

opening meeting in early June 1961, remembers that Seamans came in the first day and "sort of 

gave us our marching orders." Then Abe Silverstein, director of the Office of Space Flight 

Programs at NASA headquarters, came in to address the members. Silverstein said:

Well, look fellas, I want you to understand something. I've been right most of my life 

about things, and if you guys are going to talk about rendezvous, any kind of 

rendezvous, as a way of going to the Moon, forget it. I've heard all those schemes 

and I don't want to hear any more of them, because we're not going to the Moon 

using any of those schemes.

And with those words of warning and damnation, which completely violated the reason for 

having the committee in the first place, the usually masterful but, in this case, self-righteous 

Silverstein "stomped out of the room."77
30

To its credit, the Lundin Committee disregarded Silverstein's admonition and instead considered a 

broad range of different rendezvous schemes. With a complete analysis of the rendezvous 

problems by Houbolt and assorted insights from invited analysts both from inside and outside 

NASA, the group studied mission profiles involving rendezvous in Earth orbit, in transit to the 

Moon, in lunar orbit before landing, in lunar orbit after takeoff from the Moon, and in both Earth 

and lunar orbit. It even considered the fantastic idea of a "lunar-surface rendezvous." This 

involved launching a fuel cache and a few other unmanned components of a return spacecraft to 

the Moon's surface—a payload of about 5,000 pounds—and then landing astronauts separately in 

a second spacecraft whose fuel supply would be exhausted just getting there. The notion, as 

absurd as it now sounds, was that the landed astronauts would find the previously deposited 

hardware (homing beacons previously landed as part of the unmanned Surveyor program were 

to make pinpoint landings possible) and then assemble and fuel a new spacecraft for the return 

trip. Television monitoring equipment would check everything out before sending astronauts from 

the Earth to the landing area via the second spacecraft.

Houbolt thought this was "the most harebrained idea" he had ever heard. In the committee's 

final "summary rating" of the comparative value of the different rendezvous concepts, however, 

lunar-surface rendezvous finished only slightly lower than did his LOR. One anonymous 

committee member (most likely the Jet Propulsion Laboratory representative) even picked lunarsurface rendezvous as his first choice.78

As Houbolt remembers bitterly, the Lundin Committee "turned down LOR cold." In the final rating 

made by the six voting committee members (Loftin voted, Houbolt did not), LOR finished a 

distant third—with no first place votes, only one second, two thirds, two fourths, and one fifth or 

last place. Far ahead of it were two different low-Earth-orbit rendezvous schemes, the first one 

using two to three Saturn C-3 boosters and the other involving a Saturn C-1 plus the Nova. Both 

concepts were strongly favored by NASA Marshall, which by this time had embraced the idea of 

Earth-orbit rendezvous for its potential technological applications to the development of an 

orbiting space station.79

Houbolt was crushed when he heard the results. Having LOR placed at the same level of disdain 

as the ridiculous lunar-surface rendezvous was especially insulting. He had given the Lundin 

Committee his full-blown pitch, complete with the foldout sheet and slides. "They'd say, 'That 

sounds pretty good, John,' but then the next morning the same guys would come up and say, 

'John, that's no good. We don't like it at all.'" For Houbolt, it was a perverse reaction to figure 

out. There would be an initial favorable reaction, but then "overnight, completely negative."80

Loftin reflects back on the general fear and pessimism about LOR that ultimately ruled over the 

committee:

We thought it was too risky. Remember in 1961 we hadn't even orbited Glenn yet. 

We certainly had done no rendezvous yet. And to put this poor bastard out there, 

separate him in a module, let him go down to the surface and then fire him back up 

and expect him to rendezvous. He didn't get a second chance; it had to be dead 

right the first time. I mean that just seemed like a bit much.

Moreover, Loftin and the others believed—incorrectly—that there was no real way of performing 

a rescue mission using LOR. In Earth's orbit, if things did not go right, then NASA might still be 

able to save its astronauts. In his gut, Loftin felt along with the others that the idea of LOR was 

just "kind of absurd."81 It was an uneasy feeling that made it difficult for the Lundin Committee 

to acknowledge that all the other options entailed more complicated problems.

As discouraging as everything had been for John Houbolt up to this point, things quickly got 

worse. On 20 June, ten days after the Lundin Committee delivered its recommendations, Bob 

Seamans formed yet another task force, chaired by his assistant director of launch vehicle 
31

programs, Donald H. Heaton. Following up on the summary ratings and recommendations of the 

Lundin Committee, Seamans asked Heaton's group to focus on Earth-orbit rendezvous, 

establishing the program plans and the supporting resources needed to accomplish the manned 

lunar landing mission using rendezvous techniques.82 Trying to stay within those guidelines, 

Heaton refused to let Houbolt, an official member of his committee (Langley's W. Hewitt Phillips 

also served on it), even talk about LOR.

Houbolt felt himself being caught in a bizarre trap of someone else's making. He was one of the 

strongest believers in rendezvous in the country—he was not against Earth-orbit rendezvous, he 

was also in favor of it. He had just returned from his well-received formal presentation on both 

mission modes at an international space flight symposium in France.83 But he and his Langley 

associates had conducted the analysis, and they knew that LOR would work even better than 

Earth-orbit rendezvous for a lunar landing. So he pleaded with Heaton that during the 

committee's study of rendezvous in Earth orbit, it also should study LOR in comparison. Heaton 

simply answered, "We're not going to do that, John. It's not in our charter." Then Heaton 

challenged, "If you feel strongly enough about it, write your own lunar-orbit [minority] report."84

Houbolt eventually did just that. Heaton's report, which was published in late August, concluded 

that Earth-orbit rendezvous "offers the earliest possibility for a successful manned lunar 

landing."85 In postulating the design of the spacecraft that would make that sort of lunar mission, 

however, the Heaton Committee previewed a baseline configuration that Houbolt regarded as a 

"beast." It involved "some five different pieces of hardware that were going to be assembled in 

the Earth-orbit rendezvous," Houbolt remembers. "It was a great big long cigar." In his opinion, 

such an unwieldy concept "would hurt the cause of rendezvous." NASA engineers, especially in 

the STG, would read the Heaton report and say, "Well, we knew it all the time; these rendezvous 

guys are nuts."86

Or they were being driven nuts. The summer of 1961 was the busiest in the lives of many NASA 

engineers, certainly in John Houbolt's. "I was living half the time in Washington, half the time on 

the road, dashing back and forth."87 In mid-July, he was to be in Washington again, to give a talk 

at the NASA-Industry Apollo Technical Conference. This important meeting was to include about 

300 potential Project Apollo contractors. It was so important that Langley management, in 

association with the STG, in the tradition of the NACA-NASA annual inspections, was holding a 

formal rehearsal of all its presentations prior to the conference.

Houbolt was to give his talk at the end of the day of rehearsals because he had another NASA 

meeting earlier that day in Washington. "I was to rush out to the airport at Washington National, 

get on the airplane, they were to pick me up here and then bring me to where they were having 

the rehearsals." However, when he arrived breathless at the airport, the airplane could not take 

off. In refueling the aircraft, the ground crew had spilled fuel on one of the tires, and the Federal 

Aviation Administration would not let the plane take off until the tire had been changed. That 

made Houbolt a little late—and the STG member waiting for him a little impatient. "They dashed 

me back to the conference room, and with all of the other rehearsals finished, "everybody was 

sort of twiddling their thumbs," complaining "where the hell is Houbolt?"

After a brief apology, Houbolt began his talk. Up until the end, he purposefully said nothing 

specifically about LOR and talked about rendezvous in general. Then he said he had three or four 

final slides. "There is a very interesting possibility that rendezvous offers," Houbolt ventured, 

similar to a lawyer who was trying to slip in some evidence that he knew the judge would not 

allow, "and that is how to go to the moon in a very simplified way." He then described the whole 

LOR concept.

People listened politely and thanked him when he had finished. "That's a damn good paper, 

John," offered Langley Associate Director Charles Donlan. "But throw out all that nonsense on 
32

lunar-orbit rendezvous." Houbolt remembers that Max Faget and several other members of the 

STG offered the same advice.88

This was "strike three." The Lundin Committee had been "strike one" against Houbolt—LOR was 

completely rejected. The Heaton Committee had been "strike two"—LOR would not even be 

considered. Houbolt's rehearsal talk was, in a sense, the "third strike." But at least all three had 

been "swinging strikes," so to speak. Houbolt had used each occasion to promote LOR, and he 

had given his best effort each time. Furthermore, he was to have a few more times "at bat." The 

"inning" was over but not the entire "ballgame."

The next "inning" in fact came quickly, in August 1961, when Houbolt met with the so-called 

Golovin Committee—yet another of Bob Seamans' ad hoc task forces. Established on 7 July 1961, 

this joint Large Launch Vehicle Planning Group—co-chaired by Nicholas E. Golovin, Seamans' 

special technical assistant, and Lawrence L. Kavanau of the Department of Defense—was 

supposed to recommend not only a booster rocket for Project Apollo but also other launch vehicle 

configurations that would meet the anticipated needs of NASA and the Defense Department.89

The committee was to concern itself only with large launch vehicle systems, so nothing 

necessitated an inquiry into the LOR scheme. However, three members of the NASA 

headquarters staff working with this group—Eldon W. Hall, Harvey Hall, and Milton W. Rosen, all 

of the Office of Launch Vehicle Programs—asked that the LOR concept be presented for their 

consideration of a mission plan.90 This was to be done as part of a systematic comparative 

evaluation of three types of rendezvous operations (Earth orbit, lunar orbit, and lunar surface) 

and direct ascent for a piloted lunar landing. The Golovin Committee assigned the study of Earthorbit rendezvous to the Marshall Space Flight Center, lunar-surface rendezvous to the Jet 

Propulsion Laboratory, and LOR to Langley. The NASA Office of Launch Vehicle Programs would 

provide the information on direct ascent.91

This commitment to a comparative evaluation of the mission modes, including LOR, constituted a 

critical turning point in the history of the tortuous intellectual and bureaucratic process by which 

NASA eventually decided on a mission mode for Project Apollo. This is not to say that the Golovin 

Committee would conclude in favor of LOR, because it would not. Its final, somewhat vacillating 

recommendation, made in mid-October after all the field centers had delivered their reports, was 

in favor of a hybrid rendezvous scheme that combined aspects of both Earth-orbit rendezvous 

and LOR. The committee's preference was clearly for some form of rendezvous. Lunar-surface 

rendezvous, the Jet Propulsion Laboratory's deformed baby, had been ruled out, and direct 

ascent was fading as a possibility. The engineering calculations were showing clearly that any 

single rocket that had to carry all the fuel necessary for carrying out the entire lunar mission was 

just not a realistic option—especially if the mission was to be accomplished anywhere close to 

President Kennedy's timetable. The development of a rocket that mammoth would take too long, 

and the expense would be enormous.

For Houbolt and the other LOR advocates, then, the work of the Golovin Committee meant the 

first meaningful opportunity to demonstrate the merits of LOR in a full-blown comparison with 

the other viable options. It was the kind of opportunity for which Houbolt had been asking in all 

of his previously unsuccessful briefings. When he appeared before the committee in August 1961, 

"they were damn impressed." They asked him, to his delight, whether the STG knew about it. 

Golovin turned to Aleck C. Bond, the STG's representative on the committee, and asked him to 

return to Langley and "check with your fellows on what they're doing about this." A few days 

later, Houbolt was again in front of the STG talking to them in a well-received presentation about 

the same thing that they had told him not to talk about just the month earlier.92

With the Shepard and Grissom flights accomplished and the Golovin Committee now urging them 

to study rendezvous, the STG members started to come around. Thus far, as other historians 
33

have noted, the STG had "seen little merit in any form of rendezvous for lunar missions" and had 

reserved "its greatest disdain for the lunar orbit version."93 Now at least some of its engineers 

were showing solid interest. In early September 1961, Jim Chamberlin, the STG recruit from 

Canada who asked for Houbolt's circular and other supporting material after hearing the

proposals for MORAD and MALLIR five months earlier, talked to Gilruth about an LOR plan for a 

lunar landing program—and for a preparatory three-flight rendezvous experiment—that sounded 

much like the ideas Houbolt had been pushing. This was most significant. Never before had a 

member of the STG seriously offered any flight plan for a lunar landing involving any sort of 

rendezvous in lunar orbit. Although Gilruth was not convinced of the merits of such a scheme, he 

was open to further evaluation.94

Chamberlin's notion derived in part from the STG's August 1961 proposal for an accelerated 

circumlunar program; this proposal appeared as an appendix to its "Preliminary Project 

Development Plan for an Advanced Manned Space Program Utilizing the Mark II Two-Man 

Spacecraft." In essence, the larger document called for the start of what became known as 

Project Gemini, the series of two-astronaut rendezvous and docking missions in Earth’s orbit that 

NASA successfully carried out between March 1965 and November 1966.95 But the seed for 

Project Gemini, as planted by Chamberlin at least, must also have some important connection to 

Houbolt's April 1961 MORAD (Manned Orbital Rendezvous and Docking) proposal.96
34

A Voice in the Wilderness

During the late summer and early fall of 1961, Houbolt was busy preparing the formal report that 

the Golovin Committee had requested. Except for his "admiral's page," much of the analysis in 

favor of LOR was still in a loose form. So along with John Bird, Art Vogeley, Max Kurbjun, and the 

other rendezvous people at Langley, he set out to document their research findings and 

demonstrate what a complete lunar landing mission using LOR would entail. The fruit of this 

labor was an impressive two-volume report titled, "Manned Lunar-Landing through Use of LunarOrbit Rendezvous." Published by NASA Langley on 31 October 1961, this report promoted what 

its principal author, John O. Houbolt, called a "particularly appealing scheme" for performing the 

President's lunar landing mission.97

One might have thought that this extremely thorough document would have been enough, even 

for a zealous crusader like Houbolt, but it was not. The Heaton Committee had submitted its final 

report in August 1961—a report with which Houbolt, an official member of that committee, 

fervently disagreed. Some "arbitrary ground rules" had kept Houbolt from talking about LOR, 

and, when he protested, Heaton had told him to write his own minority report. If Heaton 

imagined he would not do it, he was wrong.

On 15 November 1961, Houbolt fired off a nine-page letter to Seamans with two different 

editions of his LOR "admiral's sheet" attached to it. The Langley engineer feared that the letter 

might cost him his job. He was skipping proper channels, a bold move for a government 

employee, in appealing directly to the Associate Administrator, NASA's number-two official. 

"Somewhat as a voice in the wilderness," Houbolt's letter opened, "I would like to pass on a few 

thoughts that have been of deep concern to me over recent months." He then framed his 

concerns in terms of questions: "Do we want to go to the moon or not?, and, if so, why do we 

have to restrict our thinking to a certain narrow channel?" He also asked: "Why is Nova, with its 

ponderous size simply just accepted, and why is a much less grandiose scheme involving 

rendezvous ostracized or put on the defensive?" "I fully realize that contacting you in this manner 

is somewhat unorthodox," Houbolt admitted, "but the issues at stake are crucial enough to us all 

that an unusual course is warranted."98

Houbolt's biggest complaint was against the bureaucratic guidelines that had made it impossible 

for the Heaton Committee to consider the merits of LOR. "This is to me nonsense," he stated 

frankly. "I feel very fortunate that I do not have to confine my thinking to arbitrarily set up 

ground rules which only serve to constrain and preclude possible equally good or perhaps better 

approaches." Too often, he declared, NASA has been narrowly circumscribing its thinking:

[G]round rules are set up, and then the question is tacitly asked, "Now, with these 

ground rules what does it take, or what is necessary to do the job?" A design begins 

and shortly it is realized that a booster system way beyond present plans is 

necessary. Then a scare factor is thrown in; the proponents of the plan suddenly 

become afraid of the growth problems or that perhaps they haven't computed so 

well, and so they make the system even larger as an "insurance" that no matter what 

happens the booster will be large enough to meet the contingency.

Somehow, Houbolt warned, "the fact is completely ignored that they are dealing with a 

ponderous development that goes far beyond the state of the art."99

In condemning the drive for huge and tremendously expensive new boosters and instead 

advertising the efficacy of a lunar mission involving LOR and more modest boosters, Houbolt did 

worry about the impression he might be making. He and Seamans had had "only occasional and 
35

limited contact" and really did not know each other that well. Houbolt realized that Seamans may 

feel that he was "dealing with a crank." "Do not be afraid of this," Houbolt pleaded. "The 

thoughts expressed here may not be stated in as diplomatic a fashion as they might be, or as I 

would normally try to do, but this is by choice." The most important thing was that Seamans 

heard his heartfelt ideas directly and "not after they have filtered through a score or more of 

other people, with the attendant risk they may not even reach you."100

It took two weeks for Seamans to reply to Houbolt's extraordinary letter. Seamans agreed that "it 

would be extremely harmful to our organization and to the country if our qualified staff were 

unduly limited by restrictive guidelines." He assured Houbolt that in the future NASA would be 

paying more attention to LOR than it had until then.101

Seamans also informed him that he had passed on his long letter with its attachments to D. 

Brainerd Holmes, who had just replaced Abe Silverstein as head of the Office of Manned Space 

Flight (recently renamed Space Flight Programs). Unlike Seamans, who apparently was not 

bothered by the letter being sent outside formal organizational channels, Holmes "didn't like it at 

all" and said so when he in turn passed the letter to George Low, his director of spacecraft and 

flight missions. Low was more forgiving. Although he conceded that it might have been better for 

Houbolt to have followed standard procedures, he found the basic message "relatively sound." 

He, too, felt that "the bug approach" may yet prove to be "the best way of getting to the moon" 

and that NASA needed to give it as much attention as any other alternative. At the end of the 

memo to Holmes in which he passed on these feelings, Low recommended that Houbolt be 

invited to Washington to present in detail Langley's plan for a manned lunar landing via LOR. Low 

also suggested that Houbolt be a member of Holmes's staff.102

That never happened, but another person who did join Holmes's staff at this point, Dr. Joseph F. 

Shea, eventually played a major role in supporting Houbolt's ideas and making the future 

decision in favor of LOR. A 35-year-old Ph.D. in electrical engineering, Shea arrived at NASA 

during the first week of January 1962 and became Holmes's deputy director for spaceflight 

systems. From 1956 to 1959, this energetic engineer from the Bronx had served as the systems 

engineer at Bell Laboratories for a radio guidance project involving the Titan I rocket. In 1959 he 

moved to General Motors, where he ran the advanced development operation for its A.C. 

Sparkplug Division. His major achievement in this job was winning a contract for developing an 

inertial guidance system for the Titan II.103

At NASA, Joe Shea found himself thrust into helping sort out the best means of accomplishing 

the lunar landing mission. During one of the first days in his office, Brainerd Holmes came to see 

him, with his copy of Houbolt's letter in hand. Shea perused the long letter and followed Holmes 

to Seamans's office. Seamans asked him whether he thought there was anything to Houbolt's 

message. After an unsure response, Seamans advised the young systems engineer that NASA 

really did not know how it was going to the Moon. Shea answered tactfully, "I was beginning to 

get the same suspicion.104

"Shea didn't know much about what was going on," Houbolt remembers, but quickly he became 

informed within days of the meeting with Seamans and Holmes about the Houbolt letter, Shea 

was at Langley for a private conversation with Houbolt and for a general briefing attended by 

Langley management and the leadership of the STG. Going into the meeting, if Shea had a 

preference for any one lunar mission mode, it was a weak one for Earth-orbit rendezvous. But, 

especially after reading Houbolt's letter to Seamans and knowing that Seamans was sympathetic 

to it, Shea was not against the other options. Shea was an open-minded man who "prided 

himself on going wherever the data took him."105

And the data led him toward LOR. When Houbolt finished his much-practiced pitch, the receptive 

Shea admitted that the analysis looked "pretty good." He then turned to Gilruth, Faget, and other 
36

members of the STG and asked them politely whether they, too, had been thinking along the 

lines of LOR. Having heard about the general skepticism toward Houbolt's ideas, Shea expected a 

negative reaction, but he did not get it. Instead, the STG leaders responded in a mildly positive 

way that signified to Shea, as the discussion continued, that "actually, they had been doing some 

more thinking about lunar-orbit rendezvous and, as a matter of fact, they were beginning to 

think it was a good idea."106

Shea returned to Washington convinced that LOR was a viable option for Apollo and that the next 

step for NASA was to award a contract for an even more detailed study of its potential. On 1 

March 1962, eight days after astronaut John Glenn's historic three-orbit flight in Mercury 

spacecraft Friendship 7, NASA awarded Tom Dolan's Chance-Vought Corporation, the firm that 

had been one of the original proponents of the LOR concept, the contract to study spacecraft 

rendezvous.107 At Langley on 29 March, a group of researchers led by Houbolt briefed a ChanceVought team on the center's LOR research and mission plan.108 On 2 and 3 April, Shea presented 

LOR as a possible mission mode for Apollo in a headquarters meeting that was attended by 

representatives of all the NASA centers.109

The final decision to select LOR for Apollo was in the making.
37

The LOR Decision 

In the months following Houbolt's second letter to Seamans, NASA gave LOR the serious 

consideration for which Houbolt had been crusading. To the surprise of many inside and outside 

the agency, the darkhorse candidate became the front-runner. Several factors worked in its 

favor. First, there was growing disenchantment with the idea of direct ascent because of the time 

and money necessary to develop the huge Nova rocket. Second, there was increasing technical 

apprehension over how the relatively large spacecraft demanded by Earth-orbit rendezvous 

would be able to maneuver to a soft and pinpoint landing on the Moon. As Langley's expert on 

the dynamics of rendezvous, Art Vogeley, explained, "The business of eyeballing that thing down 

to the Moon really didn't have a satisfactory answer. The best thing about LOR was that it 

allowed us to build a separate vehicle for landing."110

The first major group to favor LOR was Bob Gilruth's STG. During the critical months of the 

Apollo mission mode debate, this group was harried not only with planning for the first Mercury 

orbital flight but also with packing and leaving for its new home in Houston. Once the STG's 

engineers started closely examining the problems of landing a spacecraft on the Moon and had 

the analysis confirmed by industry, they, too, saw the wisdom of the staged approach built into 

LOR. It possessed a certain elegance of economy that was absent in the other schemes.

During an interview in the late 1980s, Houston's Max Faget recalled the details of how the 

Manned Spacecraft Center finally became convinced that LOR was the right choice. By early 

1962, "we found ourselves settling into a program that was not easy to run, because so many 

different groups were involved. In particular, we were concerned about the big landing rocket, 

because landing on the Moon would, of course, be the most delicate part of the mission. The 

landing rocket's engine, which would be controlled by the astronauts, would have to be 

throttleable, so that the command-and-service module could hover, and move this way and that, 

to find a proper place to touch down. That meant a really intimate interface, requiring numerous 

connections, between the two elements," as well as between Houston and the Lewis Research 

Center. "Accordingly, we invented a new proposal for our own and von Braun's approach. It 

involved a simpler descent engine, called the lunar crasher, which Lewis would do. It wouldn't be 

throttleable, so the interface would be simpler, and it would take the astronauts down to a 

thousand feet above the lunar surface. There it would be jettisoned, and it would crash onto the 

moon. Then there would be a smaller, throttleable landing stage for the last thousand feet, which 

we would do, so that we would be in charge of both sides of that particular interface."

But at that point, Faget and his colleagues in Texas "ran into a real wall." Initially, their thinking 

had been that the landing would be done automatically with radar and instrument control. But 

the astronauts, along with a growing number of NASA engineers (primarily at Langley), began to 

argue that the astronaut-pilots were going to need complete control during the last phases of 

landing and therefore required a wide range of visibility out of the descending spacecraft. How to 

provide that visibility "with a landing rocket big enough to get the command-and-service module 

down to the lunar surface and wide enough to keep it upright" was the problem that Houston 

began tackling in early 1962, and they found out quickly that they could not solve it. "We toyed 

with various concepts," Faget remembers, such as putting a front viewing-porch on the outside 

or a glass bubble on top of the command module similar to the cockpit of a helicopter. But all of 

the redesigns had serious flaws. For example, "the porch would have to be jettisoned before liftoff from the moon, because it would unbalance the spacecraft." "It was a mess," Faget admitted. 

"No one had a winning idea. Lunar-orbit rendezvous was the only sensible alternative."111
38

Houbolt's role in the STG's eventual "conversion" to LOR cannot be described without upsetting 

someone—or at least questioning the correctness of some key player's memory. Faget, Gilruth, 

and others associated with the Manned Spacecraft Center believe that Houbolt's activities were 

"useful," but hardly as vital as many others, notably Houbolt himself, believe. "John Houbolt just 

assumed that he had to go to the very top," Gilruth has explained, but "he never talked to me." 

It is Gilruth's belief that LOR "would have been chosen without Houbolt's somewhat frantic 

efforts." The "real work of convincing the officials in Washington and Huntsville," he says, was 

done "by the spacecraft group in Houston during the six or eight months following President 

Kennedy's decision to fly to the moon." In other words, they were the ones who sold it, first to 

Huntsville and then, together with von Braun, to NASA headquarters. Houbolt's out-of-channels 

letter to Seamans was thus irrelevant.112

Houbolt believes that the STG's version is self-serving "baloney." He talked to Gilruth or his 

people many times; they never told him that they were on his side. If Gilruth or some other 

influential officer in the leadership of the space program had just once said to him, "You can stop 

fighting. We are now on your side; and we'll take it from here," then, Houbolt says, he would 

have been satisfied. But they never said anything like that, and they certainly did not "during the 

six or eight months" after Kennedy's speech. In fact, their words always suggested the opposite. 

It was not until early 1962, as seen in the prodding from Joseph Shea, that the STG gave any 

indication that it, too, was interested in LOR.113

Significantly, the outsiders or third parties to the question of Houbolt's role in ultimately 

influencing the STG's position tend to side with Houbolt. Bob Seamans remembers nothing about 

the STG showing anything but disdain for LOR during 1961.114 Nor does George Low. To the best 

of his recollection, "it was Houbolt's letter to Seamans that brought the Lunar Orbit Rendezvous 

Mode back into the picture." It was only after the letter that a group within the STG, under Owen 

Maynard, began to study LOR. According to Low, "the decision was finally made" about the 

lunar-landing mission mode "based on Houbolt's input" and on the results of the systems 

engineering studies carried out at the behest of Shea's Office of Manned Space Flight Systems, 

"Without a doubt," in Low's view, the letter Houbolt sent to Seamans in November 1961 and the 

discussions at headquarters that it provoked "were the start of bringing LOR into Apollo."115

One final piece of testimony from an informed 

third party supports the importance of Houbolt's 

role in convincing the STG of the benefits of 

LOR. Starting in late 1961, NACA veteran Axel 

Mattson served as Langley's technical liaison 

officer at the Manned Spacecraft Center. 

Mattson maintained a small office at the Houston 

facility for the timely transmittal of technical 

information between Langley and Gilruth's 

recently removed STG. It was not a high-profile, 

management-level operation at all, nor was it 

supposed to be. According to the agreement 

between Gilruth and Langley director Floyd 

Thompson, Mattson was to spend most of his 

time with the engineers in the field who were 

working on the problems.116

In early 1962, sometime after the Shea briefing at Langley, Floyd Thompson sent Houbolt to 

Houston. The purpose of his visit was, in Mattson's words, "to get the STG people really to agree 

that [LOR] was the best way to go and to support it." Mattson brought Houbolt to almost 

(From left to right) Wernher von Braun meets with 

Robert Gilruth and other high NASA officials, 

George Mueller and Kurt Debus, sometime in the 

mid-1960s. The chart on the wall is a diagram of 

the Apollo 8 mission.
39

everyone with some interest in the mission mode issue. Houbolt told them about LOR and 

answered all their questions. At the end of the day, Mattson felt that "it was all over. We had the 

support of the Manned Spacecraft Center" for LOR.117

Symbolically, on 6 February 1962, Houbolt and former Langley engineer Charles W. Matthews, 

now of the Manned Spacecraft Center, gave a joint presentation on rendezvous to the Manned 

Space Flight Management Council, a special body—formed by Brainerd Holmes in December 

1961—to identify and resolve difficulties in the manned spaceflight program on a month-tomonth basis. The two engineers compared the merits of LOR and Earth-orbit rendezvous, 

concluding in favor of LOR. It is worth noting that Gilruth telephoned Houbolt personally to ask 

him to give this talk. According to Houbolt, it was "the first concession" that Gilruth had ever 

made regarding LOR.118

As luck would have it, the call from Gilruth came on a Friday, the day before Houbolt and his 

family were to leave for a ski trip to Stowe, Vermont. Gilruth asked him if he could be in 

Washington on Monday to give the talk, and Houbolt—remembering how he had to make 

reservations at the resort three months in advance—reluctantly agreed. On Saturday he flew with 

his wife and children to Albany, New York, rented a car, and drove to the ski resort. He stayed 

the night, drove back to the airport in the morning, boarded an airplane, and was in Washington 

in time for the Monday morning meeting.

With the STG now firmly behind LOR, it boiled down to a contest between the Manned Spacecraft 

Center in Houston and the Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville. Marshall was still a bastion 

for those who supported Earth-orbit rendezvous. Von Braun's people recognized two things. First, 

Earth-orbit rendezvous would require the development of advanced versions of Marshall's own 

Saturn booster. Second, the selection of Earth-orbit rendezvous for the lunar landing program 

would require the construction of a platform in Earth orbit that could have many other uses than 

for Apollo, scientific and otherwise. For this reason, space station advocates—and there were 

many at the Alabama facility—were enthusiastic about Earth-orbit rendezvous.119 To them, this

mode of rendezvous would offer the best long-term results.

But von Braun, their own director, would disappoint them. During the spring of 1962, the 

transplanted German rocket designer made the altruistic decision—despite the wishes of most of 

his people—to support LOR. He surprised them with this shocking announcement at the end of a 

day-long briefing presented to Joe Shea at Marshall on 7 June 1962:

We at the Marshall Space Flight Center readily admit that when first exposed to the 

proposal of the Lunar Orbit Rendezvous Mode we were a bit skeptical—particularly of 

the aspect of having the astronauts execute a complicated rendezvous maneuver at a 

distance of 240,000 miles from the earth where any rescue possibility appeared 

remote. In the meantime, however, we have spent a great deal of time and effort 

studying the four modes [Earth-orbit rendezvous, LOR, and two Direct Ascent modes, 

one involving the Nova and the other a Saturn C—5], and we have come to the 

conclusion that this particular disadvantage is far outweighed by [its] advantages....

We understand that the Manned Spacecraft Center was also quite skeptical at first 

when John Houbolt advanced the proposal of the Lunar Orbit Rendezvous Mode, and 

that it took them quite a while to substantiate the feasibility of the method and finally 

endorse it.

Against this background it can, therefore, be concluded that the issue of "invented 

here" versus "not invented here" does not apply to either the Manned Spacecraft 

Center or the Marshall Space Flight Center; that both Centers have actually embraced 

a scheme suggested by a third source.... I consider it fortunate indeed for the 
40

Manned Lunar Landing Program that both Centers, after much soul searching, have 

come to identical conclusions.

The persuasive von Braun then proceeded into a long elaboration on "why we do not 

recommend" the direct ascent and Earth-orbit rendezvous modes and "why we do recommend 

the Lunar-Orbit Rendezvous Mode."120

For Marshall employees and many other people inside NASA, von Braun's announcement seemed 

to represent a type of closure—that is, the culmination of a sociopolitical process that occurs in 

technology typically "when a consensus emerges that a problem arising during the development 

of a technology has been solved." In this case, it was a very undemocratic form of closure, 

coming from von Braun himself, with little support from his own engineers.121 For closure to 

occur and LOR to become the mission mode for Apollo, it did not take any referendum or 

consensus; it simply took a decision made and stuck to in the face of any later opposition. 

Although some questions about his motives still need to be answered, one apparent factor above 

all seems to explain his shift in sentiment. Von Braun understood that it was absolutely 

necessary, if NASA were to meet President Kennedy's deadline, to proceed with the program—

and no movement was possible until the decision about the mission mode was made. Both the 

Manned Spacecraft Center and Langley's John Houbolt had worked on von Braun to convert him 

to their side. In April 1962, Houbolt sent him several of the papers prepared at Langley on a 

lunar landing mission using LOR, including the published two-volume report. Von Braun had 

requested the papers personally after hearing a presentation by Houbolt at NASA headquarters. 

Then von Braun sent copies of the Langley papers to Hermann Koelle, in Marshall's Future 

Projects Office. And after he made his unexpected announcement in favor of LOR to the stunned 

crowd of Marshall employees in early June, von Braun reciprocated by sending Houbolt a 

personal copy of his remarks. This was a noteworthy personal courtesy by von Braun to the 

Langley engineer. In fact, the final sentence of the cover letter asked Houbolt to "please treat 

this confidentially (in other words, keep it to yourself), since no final decision on the mode has 

yet been made."122

The LOR decision was finalized in the following weeks, when the two powerful groups of converts 

at Houston and Huntsville, along with the original band of believers at Langley, persuaded key 

officials at NASA headquarters, notably Administrator James Webb, who had been holding out for 

direct ascent, that LOR was the only way to land on the Moon by 1969. With the key players 

lined up behind the concept, the NASA Manned Space Flight Management Council announced 

that it favored LOR on 22 June 1962. On 11 July, the agency announced that it had selected that 

mode for Apollo. Webb made the announcement, even though President Kennedy's science 

adviser, Dr. Jerome Wiesner, remained firmly opposed to LOR.123

On the day that NASA made the public announcement, John Houbolt was presenting a paper on 

the dynamic response of airplanes to atmospheric turbulence at a meeting of NATO's Advisory 

Group for Aerospace Research and Development (AGARD) in Paris.124 His division chief, Isadore 

E. ("Ed") Garrick, also was at the meeting. A talented applied mathematician who had been 

working at Langley since the 1930s (and who had assisted the NACA's great flutter theorist 

Theodore Theodorsen), Garrick had witnessed the evolution of his assistant's ideas on space 

navigation and rendezvous. He had listened sympathetically to all of Houbolt's stories about the 

terrible things that had been blocking a fair hearing for LOR.

While at the AGARD meeting in Paris, Garrick noticed a little blurb in the overseas edition of the 

New York Herald Tribune about NASA's decision to proceed with LOR. Garrick showed the paper 

to Houbolt, who had not seen it, shook Houbolt's hand, and said, "Congratulations, John. They've 

adopted your scheme. I can safely say I'm shaking hands with the man who single-handedly 

saved the government $20 billion."125
41

In the ensuing years, whenever the question of Houbolt's importance for the LOR decision was 

discussed, Garrick made it clear that he was "practically certain that without John Houbolt's 

persistence it would have taken several more years for LOR to have been adopted." Although 

"the decisions of many other people were essential to the process" and although "there is no 

controversy that Houbolt had help from others, ... the essential prime mover, moving ‘heaven 

and earth' to get the concepts across, remains Houbolt himself."126
42

Conclusion

Whether NASA's choice of the LOR concept 

would have been made in the summer of 

1962 or at any other later time without the 

research information, commitment, and 

crusading zeal of Houbolt remains a matter 

for historical conjecture. His basic 

contribution, however, and that of his 

associates who in their more quiet ways also 

developed and advocated LOR, seems now 

to be beyond debate. They were the first in 

NASA to recognize the fundamental 

advantages of the LOR concept, and for a 

critical period in the early 1960s, they also 

were the only ones inside the agency to 

foster it and fight for it. The story of the 

genesis of the LOR concept thus testifies to 

the essential importance of the single 

individual contribution even within the 

context of a large organization based on teamwork. It also underscores the occasionally vital role 

played by the unpopular and minority opinion. Sometimes one person alone or a small group of 

persons may have the best answer to a problem. And those who believe passionately in their 

ideas must not quit, even in the face of the strongest opposition or pressures for conformity. 

Thousands of factors contributed to the ultimate success of the Apollo lunar landing missions, but 

no single factor was more essential than the concept of LOR. Without NASA's adoption of this 

stubbornly held minority opinion in 1962, the United States may still have reached the Moon, but 

almost certainly it would not have been accomplished by the end of the 1960s, President 

Kennedy’s target date.

One can take this "what-if" scenario even further. Without LOR, it is possible that no one even 

now—near the beginning of the twenty-first century—would have landed on the Moon. No other 

way but LOR could solve the landing problems. No less of an authority than George Low has 

expressed this same judgment. "It is my opinion to this day," Low wrote in 1982, "that had the 

Lunar Orbit Rendezvous Mode not been chosen, Apollo would not have succeeded." All of the 

other modes "would have been so complex technically, that there would have been major 

setbacks in the program, and it probably would have failed along the way." Low also believed 

that without "John Houbolt's persistence in calling this method to the attention of NASA's decision 

makers" and "without Houbolt's letter to Seamans (and the work that backed up that letter)," 

NASA "might not have chosen the Lunar Orbit Rendezvous Mode." Houbolt's commitment was a 

key factor in the adoption of LOR and was "a major contribution to the success of Apollo and, 

therefore, to the Nation."127

At 4:17 p.m. (eastern daylight time) on 20 July 1969, John Houbolt, by then a senior consultant 

with the innovative Aeronautical Research Associates of Princeton, New Jersey, sat 

inconspicuously as one of the "nest" of invited guests and dignitaries in the viewing room of 

Mission Control at the Manned Spacecraft Center in Houston. Like so many others around the 

world at that moment, he listened in wonder to the deliberately spoken, yet wildly dramatic 

Houbolt won a special award from NASA in 1963 for his 

work on LOR.
43

words of Apollo 11 astronaut Neil Armstrong: "Houston, Tranquility Base here. The Eagle has 

landed."

If one ever needed some final confirmation of the importance of Houbolt's role in the selection of 

LOR as the mission mode for Apollo, it would come here, during the alternate cheering and 

shushing of that precious moment, when Americans landed and stepped on the Moon for the first 

time. Turning from his seat, NASA's master rocketeer, Wernher von Braun, found Houbolt's eye 

among all the others, gave him the okay sign, and said to him simply, "John, it worked 

beautifully."

Houbolt was speechless at what would be the greatest moment in his professional life—not to 

mention one of the greatest moments in the life of the entire human community. But the 

crusader was thinking: "By golly, the world ought to stop right at this moment."128 The 

righteousness of his cause had been justified.
44

Notes

1. President John F. Kennedy, quoted in John M. Logsdon, The Decision to Go to the Moon: Project Apollo 

and the National Interest (Cambridge: MIT Press, 1970), p. 128. 

2. Robert R. Gilruth, "Experts Were Stunned by Scope of Mission," New York Times, Moon Special 

Supplement, 17 July 1969. The description of Gilruth's reaction is taken from an interview, in Kilmarnock, 

VA, 10 July 1986, and from Charles Murray and Catherine Bly Cox, Apollo: The Race to the Moon (New 

York: Simon and Schuster, 1989), p. 16-17.

3. Robert R. Gilruth, Director of Key Personnel Development, NASA Manned Spacecraft Center, to Francis 

W. Kemmett, Director of the Staff, Inventions and Contributions Board, NASA headquarters, 28 August 

1973. The main purposes of Gilruth's letter, which was solicited by a NASA awards board, were to evaluate 

Dr. John C. Houbolt's role in NASA's July 1962 decision in favor of the lunar orbit rendezvous (LOR) 

concept for Project Apollo and to determine whether Houbolt's contribution was worthy of the maximum 

prize that NASA had been authorized to give ($100,000) for an outstanding national contribution. To do 

that, however, Gilruth had to review the Space Task Group's position on LOR and the entire Apollo mission 

mode controversy. It is believed that no historian besides the author has seen this letter, which is in the 

author's personal LOR file. After a long investigation, the NASA Inventions and Contributions Board, 

chaired first by Francis Kemmett and then by Frederick J. Lees, decided not to give Houbolt the award.

4. Clinton E. Brown interview, Hampton, VA, 17 July 1989. Brown's remarks are from a panel discussion 

involving Brown, William H. Michael, Jr., and Arthur W. Vogeley that the author organized and led as part of 

Langley's celebration of the twentieth anniversary of Apollo 11, the first manned lunar landing. A videotape 

of the evening program featuring this panel discussion is preserved in the Langley Historical Archives 

(LHA), Langley Research Center, Hampton, VA. 

5. William H. Michael, Jr. interview, Hampton, VA, 17 July 1989. F.R. Moulton's book on celestial 

mechanics was available by 1958 in a second edition (London: The MacMillan Co., 1956), but the NASA 

Langley library seems not to have had it. The library did get one later.

6. On the history of pioneering thoughts about and proposals for space stations, see Frederick I. Ordway 

III, "The History, Evolution, and Benefits of the Space Station Concept," presented to the XIII International 

Congress of History of Science, August 1971; Barton C. Hacker, "And Rest as on a Natural Station: From 

Space Station to Orbital Operations in Space-Travel Thought, 1885-1951." Both of the preceding 

unpublished papers are available in the archives of the NASA History Office in Washington, DC. For 

published information, see Wernher von Braun and Frederick I. Ordway III, Space Travel: A History: An 

Update of History of Rocketry & Space Travel (New York: Harper & Row, 1985), p. 18-20; Howard E. 

McCurdy, The Space Station Decision: Incremental Politics and Technological Choice (Baltimore and 

London: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 1991), p. 5-8, 237 (n.7). On NASA's belief that a space 

station was the logical follow-on to Project Mercury, see Barton C. Hacker and James M. Grimwood, On 

the Shoulders of Titans: A History of Project Gemini (Washington, DC: NASA SP-4203 1977), p. 5-6; 

McCurdy, The Space Station Decision, p. 7-9. 71.

7. Brown interview, 17 July 1989.

8. Clinton E. Brown to Eugene C. Draley, Associate Director, "Formation of a Working Group to Study the 

Problems of Lunar Exploration," 24 March 1959, A200-1B, Langley Central Files (LCF), Langley Research 

Center, Hampton, VA. 

9. William H. Michael, Jr., to Eugene C. Draley, Associate Director, "Attendance at Meeting of Working 

Group on Lunar and Planetary Surfaces Exploration at NASA Headquarters on 14 February 1959," A200-

1B, LCF; William H. Michael, Jr., "Attendance at Meeting for Discussion of Advanced Phases of Lunar 

Exploration at NASA Offices, Silver Spring, Md., Saturday, May 2, 1959," A200-1B, LCF. On the Jastrow 

Committee, see R. Cargill Hall, Lunar Impact: A History of Project Ranger (Washington, DC: NASA SP4210 1977), p. 15-16; William David Compton, Where No Man Has Gone Before: A History of Apollo Lunar 

Exploration Missions (Washington, DC: NASA SP-4214 1989), p. 13-14.
45

10. Harry J. Goett to Ira S. Abbott, "Interim Report on Operation of ‘Research Steering Committee on 

Manned Space Flight,'" 17 July 1959, A200-1B, LCF. On the Goett Committee, see Hacker and Grimwood, 

On the Shoulders of Titans, p. 9-10; Logsdon, The Decision to Go to the Moon, p. 56-57; and Murray and 

Cox, Apollo: The Race to the Moon, p. 43-45.

11. Laurence K. Loftin, Jr., interview, Newport News, VA, 5 August 1989, copy of transcript in LHA, p. 100; 

Murray and Cox, Apollo: The Race to the Moon, p. 43-45.

12. Michael, Jr., interview, 17 July 1989.

13. W.H. Michael, Jr., "Weight Advantages of Use of Parking Orbit for Lunar Soft Landing Mission," in 

Lunar Trajectory Group's [Theoretical Mechanics Division] unpublished "Studies Related to Lunar and 

Planetary Missions," 26 May 1960, A200-1B, LCF.

14. On 13 November 1948, H.E. Ross presented the essential elements of the LOR scheme in a paper he 

presented before a meeting of the British Interplanetary Society in London. His conclusion was that LOR–in 

comparison with a direct flight to the lunar surface from the Earth–would reduce the Earth-launch weight by 

a factor of 2.6. In his paper Ross credited Hermann Oberth, Guido von Pirquet, Hermann Noordung, Walter 

Hohmann (of "Hohmann transfer" fame), Tsiolkovskiy, and F.A. Tsander for having earlier discussed ideas 

pertinent to the LOR concept. See H.E. Ross, "Orbital Bases," Journal of the British Interplanetary Society

26 (January 1949): 1-18. For a history of the first pioneering inklings about the value of rendezvous in orbit, 

lunar and otherwise, see Barton C. Hacker, "The Idea of Rendezvous: From Space Station to Orbital 

Operations in Space-Travel Thought, 1895-1951," Technology and Culture 15 (July 1974), as well as 1963 

(supplemented 5 February 1965 and 17 February 1966), copy in the Milton Ames Collection, Box 6. The 

quote from Clint Brown about Michael's reaction to the Vought briefing is from Murray and Cox, Apollo: The 

Race to the Moon, p. 114-115. 

15. For the Vought concept that came out of the MALLAR study, see Vought Astronautics brochure, 

"Manned, Modular, Multi-Purpose Space Vehicle," January 1960.

16. Michael, Jr., "Weight Advantages of Use of Parking Orbit for Lunar Soft Landing Mission," p. 2. 

17. The "Jaybird" story is taken from Murray and Cox, Apollo: The Race to the Moon, p. 115. For the 

technical reports that resulted from the early lunar studies in the Theoretical Mechanics Division, see, 

among others, J.P. Gapcynski, "A Consideration of Some of the Factors Involved in the Departure of a 

Vehicle from a Circular Orbit About the Earth"; W.L. Mayo, "Energy and Mass Requirements for Lunar and 

Martian Missions." Both articles are in the Lunar Trajectory Group's "Studies Related to Lunar and 

Planetary Missions." On Bird's lunar bug ideas, see Michael, Jr., interview, 7 April 1989, copy of transcript 

in LHA, p. 14-15. See also William H. Michael, Jr., and Robert H. Tolson, "Effect of Eccentricity of the Lunar 

Orbit, Oblateness of the Earth, and Solar Gravitational Field on Lunar Trajectories," June 1960, copy in the 

Langley Research Center's Technical Library.

18. John C. Houbolt, "A Study of Several Aerothermoelastic Problems of Aircraft Structures in High-Speed 

Flight," Eidgenoessiache Technische Hochshule Mitteilung 5 (1956): 108 p. Throughout his career at NACA 

and NASA Langley, Houbolt was not a terribly prolific author of technical papers. A complete bibliography 

of his papers is available among the author's papers in the LHA.

19. John C. Houbolt interview, Williamsburg, VA, 24 August 1989, transcript in LHA, p. 3.

20. Ibid., p. 7-8.

21. Ibid., p. 9. On Rand and the early space program, see Walter A. McDougall, Heavens and the Earth: A 

Political History of the Space Age (New York: Basic Books, 1985), especially p. 89, 102, 106-110, 121-123.

22. Hacker and Grimwood, On the Shoulders of Titans, p. 13; Loftin, Jr., interview, 5 August 1989, p. 100-

101.

23. NASA Langley, "Minutes of Meeting of LRC Manned Space Laboratory Group," 18 September 1959, 

A200-4, LCF. See paragraph five for Houbolt's statement on the rendezvous problem. 

24. Houbolt interview, 24 August 1989, p. 9-10.
46

25. Bernard Maggin to Milton B. Ames, Jr., "Inter-center Discussions of Space Rendezvous," 23 May 1960; 

John C. Houbolt, "Considerations of the Rendezvous Problems for Space Vehicles," presented at the 

National Aeronautical Meeting of the Society of Automotive Engineers, New York City, 5–8 April 1960. Both 

documents are in A200-La, LCF. The point about Marshall’s limited interest in the rendezvous problem is 

from Hacker and Grimwood, On the Shoulders of Titans, p. 14-15.

26. Lowell E. Hasel, "Minutes of Meeting of LRC Lunar Mission Steering Group," 24 May 1960, A200-1B, 

LCF.

27. Space Task Group, "Guidelines for Advanced Manned Space Vehicle Program," June 1960. For the 

summary details of these guidelines, see Ivan D. Ertel and Mary Louise Morse, The Apollo Spacecraft: A 

Chronology, Vol. I: 38-41. In brief, the STG identified a manned circumlunar mission as the "logical

intermediate step" toward future goals of lunar and planetary landing. Essential to the guidelines were 

plans for advanced Earth-orbital missions and an Earth-orbiting space station. 

28. NASA Space Task Group, "Apollo Technical Liaison Plan," 16 November 1960, A200-Lb, LCF; Langley 

to Space Task Group, "Langley Appointments to Apollo Technical Liaison Groups," 7 December 1960, in 

Project Apollo files, LCF. The following Langley researchers were appointed to the Apollo liaison groups: 

William H. Michael, Jr. (Theoretical Mechanics Div.), to Trajectory Analysis; Eugene S. Love (Aero-Physics 

Div.), to Configurations and Aerodynamics; John M. Eggleston (AeroSpace Mechanics Div.), to Guidance 

and Control; Robert L. Trimpi (Aero-Physics Div.), to Heating; Roger A. Anderson (Structures Research 

Div.), to Structures and Materials; Wilford E. Sivertson (Instrument Research Div.), to Instrumentation and 

Communication; David Adamson (Aero-Physics Div.), to Human Factors; and Joseph G. Thibodaux, Jr. 

(Applied Materials and Physics Div.), to Onboard Propulsion. Interestingly, John Houbolt was not appointed 

to any of the liaison groups.

On the first Industry-NASA Apollo Technical Conference, see the Wall Street Journal, 18 July 1961. Among 

the many valuable papers given by Langley's John Becker to the Archives of Aerospace Exploration at 

Virginia Tech, there is his file on the Lunar Mission Steering Group. On the file's cover, Becker provides a 

brief written introduction to the file's contents. Inside the file there is a copy of the Apollo Technical Liaison 

Plan, with handwritten notes by Becker. For information about this file and others in the Archives of 

Aerospace Exploration, contact the special collections archivist at the university library in Blacksburg, VA.

29. Houbolt, "Considerations of the Rendezvous Problems for Space Vehicles," p. 1.

30. NASA Langley, "Minutes of Meeting of LRC Manned Space Laboratory Group," 5 February 1965, 

A200-4, LCF. See paragraphs three and ten.

31. William A. Mrazek, Marshall Space Flight Center, to John C. Houbolt, 16 May 1960, B10-6, LCF; 

Houbolt interview, 24 August 1989, p. 11.

32. John C. Houbolt, "Lunar Rendezvous," International Science and Technology 14 (February 1963): 63. 

There have been several attempts to clarify the detailed history of the genesis of LOR at Langley and 

Houbolt's role in it. The best efforts to date are Hacker and Grimwood, On the Shoulders of Titans, p. 14-

16, 60-68; John M. Logsdon, "The Choice of the Lunar Orbital Rendezvous Mode," Aerospace Historian

(June 1971): 63-70; and Murray and Cox, Apollo: The Race to the Moon, chaps. 8 and 9. None of them are 

complete, nor fully satisfy the Langley participants in the history, such as Houbolt, Michael, Brown, et al. In 

a footnote to their excellent book on Project Apollo, Murray and Cox remark on the holes in the overall LOR 

story, suggesting that "there is a fascinating doctoral dissertation yet to be written on this episode." This 

essay may not close off the possibility of this doctoral dissertation, but its goal is to fill in many of the gaps 

and stress the Langley role in LOR.

33. Houbolt interview, 24 August 1989, p. 15; Hacker and Grimwood, On the Shoulders of Titans, p. 15-16.

34. Serving on the Low Committee were Eldon Hall (Office of Launch Vehicle Programs, NASA HQ), Oran 

Nicks and John H. Disher (both of the Office of Space Flight Programs, NASA HQ), Alfred Mayo (Office of 

Life Sciences Programs, NASA HQ), Earnest O. Pearson, Jr. (Aerodynamics and Flight Mechanics 

Research Div., NASA HQ), Heinz H. Koelle (Marshall), Max Faget (Space Task Group), and John Houbolt 

(Langley). See Hacker and Grimwood, On the Shoulders of Titans, p. 28-29. For Langley's copy of the first 

draft of the Low Committee report, "A Plan for a Manned Lunar Landing," 24 January 1961, see A200-1B, 

LCF. On the cover sheet of this report, Low identifies the members of his Lunar Landing Working Group; 
47

Houbolt's name is not included. He had been named to the committee, but he did not participate in its 

discussions. Nor did anyone else from Langley. 

35. "RCA Will Do Saint Payload," Aviation Week and Space Technology 5 (December 1960): 27. For other 

sources on Project Saint, see Hacker and Grimwood, On the Shoulders of Titans, p. 416 n. 64. 

36. Houbolt interview, 24 August 1989, p. 16, 21-25. On Houbolt's final chart, there were three conclusions: 

(1) "Rendezvous opens possibility for earlier accomplishment of certain space measurement with existing 

vehicles"; (2) "There is a need for rapid development of manned rendezvous techniques—should make use 

of Mercury and 'Saint' technology"; and (3) "NASA should have manned rendezvous program in long-range 

plans with objectives of expediting soft lunar landings and flexible orbital operations."

37. Murray and Cox, Apollo: The Race to the Moon, p. 116.

38. Houbolt interview, 24 August 1989, p. 17-18.

39. See the reference to Brown's presentation in Charles J. Donlan to NASA Headquarters, Code KB, 

Director of the Staff, Inventions and Contributions, 1 March 1974. A copy of this letter is in the author's 

personal LOR file. John D. Bird also refers to it in, "A Short History of the Development of the Lunar-OrbitRendezvous Plan at the Langley Research Center," p. 2.

40. The preceding two paragraphs are derived from the author's unsigned feature story, "The Rendezvous 

That Was Almost Missed: Lunar-Orbit Rendezvous and the Apollo Program," NASA News Release No. 89-

98, 7 July 1989, p. 5-6.

41. Hacker and Grimwood, On the Shoulders of Titans, p. 28-29.

42. Houbolt interview, 24 August 1989, p. 21-26.

43. John I. Cumberland, Executive Secretary, Space Exploration Program Council (SEPC), to SEPC 

members and speakers, "Agenda for SEPC Meeting, 5–6 January 1961," A200-IB, LCF. During the first 

day, other technical presentations were made by Oran Nicks (Lunar and Planetary Programs, NASA HQ) 

on "Support by Unmanned Lunar Program"; Milton B. Ames (Office of Advanced Research Programs, 

NASA HQ) and E.O. Pearson (Aerodynamics and Flight Mechanics Research Div., NASA HQ) on 

"Research and Development Support"; and Clark T. Randt (Office of Life Sciences Programs, NASA HQ), 

on "Life Science Aspects."

44. Hacker and Grimwood, On the Shoulders of Titans, p. 29.

45. Robert L. O'Neal to Charles J. Donlan, Associate Director, "Discussion with Dr. Houbolt, LRC, 

Concerning the Possible Incorporation of a Lunar Orbital Rendezvous Phase as a Prelude to Manned 

Lunar Landing," 30 January 1961, A200-1B, LCF.

46. Ibid. p. 60; Owen Maynard to Frederick J. Lees, Chairman, NASA Inventions and Contributions Board, 

13 November 1982. A copy of this letter is in the author's personal LOR file. In truth, Houbolt's numbers 

were overly optimistic in estimating the required weights for the lunar excursion module, because in some 

critical areas detailed information about the necessary subsystems was not available. Subsequent analysis 

by NASA and its industrial contractors provided much more realistic weight numbers. The later values for 

these weights did not turn out so radically out of line with Houbolt's projections; they were still within the 

single-launch capability of the Saturn V vehicle and therefore validated the advertised feasibility of the LOR 

mode for the manned lunar landing mission. 

47. Dr. Harvey Hall to KB/Director of the Staff, NASA Inventions and Contributions Board, 28 March 1973. 

A copy of this letter is in the author's personal LOR file.

48. Von Braun quoted in Murray and Cox, Apollo: The Race to the Moon, p. 116-117.

49. Ibid., p. 117.

50. Houbolt interview, 24 August 1989, p. 22.

51. Gilruth to Kemmett, 28 August 1973, p. 1; see note 2 of this monograph. 
48

52. Donlan to Code KB, Director of the Staff, Inventions and Contributions, 1 March 1974, p. 2; see note 39 

of this monograph. 

53. Gilruth to Kemmett, p. 1.

54. Gilruth to Nicholas L. Golovin, 12 September 1961, quoted in Hacker and Grimwood, On the Shoulders 

of Titans, p. 61.

55. The quoted phrases are from Houbolt's letters to Francis W. Kemmett, NASA Inventions and 

Contributions Board, 23 May 1978 and 2 September 1981. Copies of these letters are in the author's 

personal LOR file.

56. The phrase "like an extremely far-out thing to do" is from George Low, quoted in Murray and Cox, 

Apollo: The Race to the Moon, p. 117.

57. George M. Low, "A Plan for Manned Lunar Landing," 24 January 1961, A220-Lb, LCF; George M. Low, 

President, Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, Troy, NY, to Frederick J. Lees, NASA Inventions and 

Contributions Board, 21 October 1982. A copy of this letter is in the author's personal LOR file. See also 

E.O. Pearson, "Notes on Key Problems of Manned Lunar Missions," 13 January 1961, A200-1B, LCF. 

58. See M.J. Queijo to Associate Director, "Techniques and Problems Associated with Manned Lunar 

Orbits and Landings," 21 February 1961, A200-1B, LCF.

59. Bernard Maggin to John Houbolt, 1 March 1961, A200-1B, LCF.

60. Brown interview, 19 July 1989. The politics also involved at least one major industrial firm, North 

American Aviation in Los Angeles, which already had a big contract for a command-and-service module 

based on the direct-ascent mode. If NASA selected LOR, North American most likely would have to "share 

the pie" with some other contractor that would be responsible for the separate lunar lander. That contractor 

turned out to be Grumman. For more on the politics of the mission-mode decision, see Henry S.F. Cooper, 

"We Don't Have to Prove Ourselves," The New Yorker (2 September 1991): 64.

61. NASA Langley, "Work at LRC in Support of Project Apollo," 3 May 1961, Project Apollo file, LCF. This 

15-page report divided Langley's Apollo support work into seven categories: (1) trajectory analysis, (2) 

configurations and aerodynamics, (3) guidance and control, (4) heating, (5) structures and materials, (6) 

instrumentation and communications, and (7) human factors. See also Rufus O. House to the Langley 

Director, "Number of Professionals in Support of Project Apollo," 19 May 1961, Project Apollo file, LCF. 

This memo advised center management that there were 326.5 professionals currently involved in research 

projects supporting Apollo, with 91 of these involved in the study of reentry heating problems.

62. Loftin interview, 5 August 1989, p. 93.

63. NASA Langley, "Manned Lunar Landing Via Rendezvous," 19 April 1961, copy in A200-1B, LCF.

64. Hacker and Grimwood, On the Shoulders of Titans, p. 61.

65. Houbolt interview, 24 August 1989, p. 30.

66. Ibid., p. 28.

67. Hacker and Grimwood, On the Shoulders of Titans, p. 61.

68. Ibid.

69. See McDougall, Heavens and the Earth, p. 8, 318, 328; Murray and Cox, Apollo: The Race to the 

Moon, p. 79-80.

70. For an analysis of Lyndon Johnson's enthusiasm for the lunar mission, see McDougall, Heavens and 

the Earth, p. 319-320; Logsdon, Decision to Go to the Moon, p. 119-121.

71. For a more complete analysis of the political thinking behind Kennedy's lunar commitment, see chapter 

15, "Destination Moon" (p. 307-324) of McDougall's Heavens and the Earth.
49

72. John C. Houbolt, Associate Chief, Dynamic Loads Division, to Dr. Robert C. Seamans, Jr., NASA 

Associate Administrator, 9 May 1961, copy in Box 6, Milton Ames Collection, LHA.

73. Hacker and Grimwood, On the Shoulders of Titans, p. 36; Murray and Cox, Apollo: The Race to the 

Moon, p. 81-82, 110. The Fleming Committee had 23 members, 18 of whom were from NASA 

Headquarters; Langley had no representative. The members from headquarters were: Fleming, Addison M. 

Rothrock, Albert J. Kelley, Berg Paraghamian, Walter W. Haase, John Disher, Merle G. Waugh, Eldon Hall, 

Melvyn Savage, William L. Lovejoy, Norman Rafel, Alfred Nelson, Samuel Snyder, Robert D. Briskman, 

Secreat L. Barry, James P. Nolan, Jr., Earnest O. Pearson, and Robert Fellows. The other members were 

Heinz H. Koelle (Marshall), Kenneth S. Kleinknecht and Alan Kehlet (STG), A.H. Schichtenberg (The 

Lovelace Foundation), and William S. Shipley (Jet Propulsion Laboratory). Not surprisingly, most of these 

men were big-rocket specialists. 

74. Robert C. Seamans, Jr., Associate Administrator, to John C. Houbolt, Associate Chief, Dynamic Loads 

Div., NASA Langley, 2 June 1961, copy in Box 6, Milton Ames Collection, LHA; Seamans to Director, 

Launch Vehicle Program (Don R. Ostrander), and Director, Advanced Research Programs (Ira H. A. 

Abbott), "Broad Study of Feasible Ways for Accomplishing Manned Lunar Landing Mission," 25 May 1961, 

A200-1B, LCF.

75. For example, Murray and Cox state that Houbolt was a member of the Lundin Committee (Apollo: The 

Race to the Moon, p. 118).

76. Loftin interview, 5 August 1989, p. 91-97; Houbolt interview, 24 August 1989, p. 32-34. Other members 

of the Lundin Committee, besides Lundin and Loftin, were Walter J. Downhower (Jet Propulsion 

Laboratory), Alfred E. Eggers (NASA Ames), Harry O. Ruppe (NASA Marshall), and Lt. Col. George W. S. 

Johnson (U.S. Air Force). Unlike the Fleming Committee, this task force—by design—had no members 

from NASA headquarters and was conceived to represent the technical judgments of the NASA centers. 

77. Laurence K. Loftin, Jr., told this story from the audience during the 17 July 1989 videotaped celebration 

program for the twentieth anniversary of the Apollo 11 lunar landing. See also Loftin interview, 5 August 

1989, p. 93.

78. NASA (Lundin Committee), "A Survey of Various Vehicle Systems for the Manned Lunar Landing 

Mission," 10 June 1961, A200-1B, LCF.

79. Ibid., p. 16; Houbolt interview, 24 August 1989, p. 34.

80. Houbolt interview, 24 August 1989, p. 33; see also Murray and Cox, Apollo: The Race to the Moon, p. 

118.

81. Loftin interview, 8 August 1989, p. 93-94.

82. Seamans to Directors for Launch Vehicle Programs and Advanced Research Programs and to Acting 

Director for Life Sciences Program, "Establishment of Ad Hoc Task Group or Manned Lunar Landing by 

Rendezvous Techniques," 20 June 1961, A200-1B, LCF. See also Hacker and Grimwood, On the 

Shoulders of Titans, p. 37-38. Serving on the Heaton Committee were ten officials from NASA 

headquarters, five from NASA Marshall, one from the NASA Flight Research Center, and two from Langley. 

The two from Langley were Houbolt and W. Hewitt Phillips. There was also one representative from the 

U.S. Air Force.

83. Houbolt's paper, "Problems and Potentialities of Space Rendezvous," first presented at the 

International Academy of Astronautics' International Symposium on Space Flight and Reentry Trajectories, 

was published under the same title in Astronautica Acta 7 (1961): 406-429.

84. Houbolt interview, 24 August 1989, p. 39.

85. For the conclusions of the Heaton Committee, see Ad Hoc Task Group for Study of Manned Lunar 

Landing by Rendezvous Techniques, "Earth Orbital Rendezvous for an Early Manned Lunar Landing," Part 

I, "Summary Report of Ad Hoc Task Group Study," August 1961.

86. Houbolt interview, 24 August 1989, p. 39.
50

87. Murray and Cox, Apollo: The Race to the Moon, p. 119. See also Houbolt interview, 24 August 1989, p.

46.

88. Houbolt interview, 24 August 1989, p. 47-48.

89. "Report of DOD-NASA Large Launch Vehicle Planning Group, Vol. 1, 1961," copy in A200-1B, LCF. 

See Hacker and Grimwood, On the Shoulders of Titans, p. 67-68. The members of this committee, besides 

those mentioned in the text, were: Kurt R. Stehling and William A. Wolman (NASA HQ); Warren H. Amster 

and Edward J. Barlow (Aerospace Corp.); Seymour C. Himmel (NASA Lewis); Wilson Schramm and 

Francis L. Williams (NASA Marshall); Col. Matthew R. Collins (Army); Rear Adm. Levering Smith and Capt. 

Lewis J. Stecher, Jr. (Navy); and Col. Otto J. Glaser, Lt. Col. David L. Carter, and Heinrich J. Weigand (Air 

Force). There were no Langley representatives on the committee.

90. John D. Bird, "A Short History of the Development of the Lunar-Orbit-Rendezvous Plan at the Langley 

Research Center," final supplement, 17 February 1966, p. 3.

91. Harvey Hall, NASA Coordinator, NASA-DOD Large Launch Vehicle Planning Group, to Langley 

Research Center, 23 August 1961, A200-Lb, LCF.

92. Houbolt interview, 24 August 1989, p. 49.

93. Hacker and Grimwood, On the Shoulders of Titans, p. 60.

94. Ibid., p. 55-60.

95. On the Shoulders of Titans is an outstanding, detailed history of the Gemini Program. For a briefer and 

somewhat more colorful insight into this important preparatory program for the Apollo mission, see Michael 

Collins Liftoff: The Story of America's Adventure in Space (New York: NASA/Grove Press, 1988), p. 63-

113. Better yet, see Collins' memoir, Carrying the Fire: An Astronaut's Journeys (New York: Macmillan, 

1977). Collins, the command module pilot for the Apollo 11 mission to the Moon, was also an astronaut in 

the Gemini Program (Gemini-Titan X, 18-21 July 1966). His memoir is one of the best books about the 

manned space program of the 1960s. 

96. Houbolt interview, 24 August 1989, p. 49-50.

97. NASA Langley, "Manned Lunar-Landing through Use of Lunar-Orbit Rendezvous," two vols., 31 

October 1961, copy in Box 6, Milton Ames Collection, LHA. Other Langley researchers who made 

contributions to this two-volume report were Jack Dodgen, William Mace, Ralph W. Stone, Jack Queijo, Bill 

Michael, Max Kurbjun, and Ralph Briasenden. In essence, Houbolt and his associates prepared this twovolume report as a working paper that could provide, as NASA Deputy Administrator Hugh L. Dryden would 

later explain, "a quick summary of the information then available on LOR as a mode of accomplishing 

manned lunar landing and return." See Dryden to the Honorable Clinton P. Anderson, Chairman, 

Committee on Aeronautical and Space Sciences, U.S. Senate, 11 April 1963, copy in A200-1B, LCF.

98. John C. Houbolt, NASA Langley, to Dr. Robert C. Seamans, Associate Administrator, NASA, 15 

November 1961, p. 1, copy in the Milton Ames Collection, LHA.

99. Ibid., p. 3.

100. Ibid., p. 1.

101. Robert C. Seamons, Jr., to Dr. John C. Houbolt, NASA Langley, 4 December, 1961, copy in Box 6, 

Milton Ames Collection, LHA. 

102. George M. Low, President, Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, Troy, NY, to Mr. Frederick J. Less, 

Chairman, Inventions and Contributions Board, NASA, 21 October 1982. A copy of this letter is in the 

author's personal LOR file. See also Murray and Cox, Apollo: The Race to the Moon, p. 120. 

103. For an excellent capsule portrait of Dr. Joseph F. Shea, see Murray and Cox, Apollo: The Race to the 

Moon, p. 120-125.

104. Ibid., p. 124.
51

105. Ibid.

106. Ibid., p. 125.

107. Ertel and Morse, Apollo Spacecraft: A Chronology, Vol. I: 141. On Glenn's historic flight, see Lloyd S. 

Swenson, James M. Grimwood, and Charles C. Alexander, This New Ocean: A History of Project Mercury

(Washington, DC: NASA SP-4201 1966), p. 420-436.

108. Bird, "A Short History of the Development of the Lunar-Orbit-Rendezvous Plan," 17 February 1966, p. 

4.

109. NASA, "Minutes of Lunar Orbit Rendezvous Meeting, April 2-3, 1962," copy in A200-1B, LCF. See 

also Ertel and Morse, Apollo Spacecraft: A Chronology, Vol. I: 147-152.

110. Arthur W. Vogeley interview, Hampton, VA, 17 July 1989.

111. Faget quoted in Cooper, "We Don't Have to Prove Ourselves," 64. For details of the Manned 

Spacecraft Center's final evaluation in favor of LOR, see Charles W. Matthews, Chief, Spacecraft Research 

Div., MSFC, to Robert R. Gilruth, MSFC Director, "Summary of MSC Evaluation of Methods for 

Accomplishing the Manned Lunar Landing Mission," 2 July 1962; Robert R. Gilruth to NASA Headquarters 

("Attn: Mr. D. Brainerd Holmes"), "Summary of Manned Spacecraft Center Evaluation Methods for 

Accomplishing the Manned Lunar Landing Mission," 5 July 1962. Both memoranda are included in 

appendix A of the NASA Office of Manned Space Flight's confidential 169-page report, "Manned Lunar 

Landing Program Mode Comparison," 30 July 1962.

112. Gilruth to Kemmett, 28 August 1973.

113. See Murray and Cox, Apollo: The Race to the Moon, p. 125.

114. Ibid.

115.. George M. Low to Frederick J. Lees, Chairman, Inventions and Contributions Board, NASA, 21 

October 1982; George M. Low to John C. Houbolt, Senior Vice President and Senior Consultant, 

Aeronautical Research Associates of Princeton (NJ), Inc., 7 August 1969. Copies of both letters are in the 

author's personal LOR file.

116. For analysis of Mattson's liaison role for Langley at the Manned Spacecraft Center, see my book, 

Spaceflight Revolution: NASA Langley Research Center from Sputnik to Apollo (Washington: NASA SP4308, 1995), pp. 357-369. Axel T. Mattson, Research Assistant for Manned Spacecraft Projects, to Charles 

J. Donlan, "Report on Activities (16-19 April 1962) Regarding Manned Spacecraft Projects," A189-5, LCF. 

According to Mattson's memorandum, he took Houbolt to see the following personnel of the Manned 

Spacecraft Center: Charles W. Matthews and John M. Eggleston (Spacecraft Research Div.), Owen 

Maynard and Eilsworth Phelps (Spacecraft Integration Branch), Floyd V. Bennett (Flight Dynamics Branch), 

and Leo T. Chauvin and William F. Rector (Apollo Spacecraft Project Office). Along with Houbolt, Langley's 

John D. Bird was also visiting the Houston center to discuss LOR. One of the Houston engineers with 

whom Houbolt and Bird met, Chuck Matthews, had just returned from a meeting at NASA Marshall. There, 

Matthews had reviewed Houston's thinking on the LOR concept. According to Mattson's memo, that 

presentation was "apparently well received by von Braun, since he made favorable comments." See also 

Axel T. Mattson interview, Hampton, VA, 14 August 1989, transcript in LHA. 

117. Statement by Axel T. Mattson at the 17 July 1989 evening program on the twentieth anniversary of 

Apollo 11.

118. "Minutes of the MSF Management Council," 6 February 1962, p. 1; Houbolt interview, 24 August 

1989, p. 64.

119. Brown interview, 17 July 1989; Houbolt interview, 24 August 1989, p. 68-72.

120. "Concluding Remarks by Dr. Wernher von Braun about Mode Selection for the Lunar Landing 

Program Given to Dr. Joseph F. Shea, Deputy Director (Systems) Office of Manned Space Flight," 7 June 

1962. A copy of this 11-page document is preserved in Box 6, Milton Ames Collection, LHA. For more on 
52

von Braun's surprise announcement in favor of LOR and the reaction of the Marshall audience, see Murray 

and Cox, Apollo: The Race to the Moon, p. 139.

121. For an introduction to the concept of "closure" in science and technology, see Wiebe E. Bijker, 

Thomas P. Hughes, and Trevor Pinch, eds., The Social Construction of Technological Systems: New 

Directions in the Sociology and History of Technology (Cambridge and London: MIT Press, 1990), p. 12-13. 

122. John C. Houbolt, Chief, Theoretical Mechanics Div., NASA Langley, to Dr. Wernher von Braun, 

Director, NASA Marshall, 9 April 1962, A189-7, LCF; von Braun to Houbolt, 20 June 1962. A copy of the 

latter is in the author's personal LOR file. Von Braun argued later that he really had not changed his mind 

from Earth-orbit rendezvous to LOR; he had not been a strong supporter of Earth-orbit rendezvous in the 

first place. His people at Marshall had investigated Earth orbit while Gilruth's people in Houston had 

investigated lunar orbit, but that was part of a NASA management strategy to cover all the options 

thoroughly. He personally did not take sides until he had all the facts; when he did, he supported LOR. See 

Murray and Cox, Apollo: The Race to the Moon, p. 139.

123. NASA, "Lunar Orbit Rendezvous: News Conference on Apollo Plans at NASA Headquarters on July 

11, 1962," copy in Box 6, Milton Ames Collection, LHA. In the press conference, Robert Seamans credited 

John Houbolt specifically for his contribution to the LOR concept: "I would first like to say that when I joined 

NASA almost two years ago one of the first places that I went to was Langley Field, and there reviewed 

work going on at a research base under Dr. John Houbolt. This work related both to rendezvous and what 

a man could do at the controls, of course under simulated conditions, as well as the possibility of lunar orbit 

rendezvous" (p. 8). On Wiesner's opposition to LOR, see McDougall, Heavens and the Earth, p. 378; 

Murray and Cox, Apollo: The Race to the Moon, p. 140-143.

Even after its July 1962 announcement in favor of LOR, NASA continued to evaluate the other major 

options for the Apollo mission mode. See, for example, the Office of Manned Space Flight's confidential 

"Manned Lunar Landing Program Mode Comparison," 30 July 1962, and the office's follow up and also 

confidential "Manned Lunar Landing Mode Comparison," 24 October 1962. Copies of both documents are 

in A200-1B, LCF. Both reports concluded that—although some forms of Earth-orbit rendezvous were also 

feasible and would have adequate weight margins—on the basis of "technical simplicity, scheduling, and 

cost considerations," LOR was the "most suitable" and the "preferred mode." 

124. John C. Houbolt, Roy Steiner, and Kermit G. Pratt, "Flight Data and Considerations of the Dynamic 

Response of Airplanes to Atmospheric Turbulence," July 1962.

125. Houbolt interview, 24 August 1989, p. 73.

126. I.E. Garrick, Distinguished Research Associate, NASA Langley, to Francis W. Kemmett, Code KB, 

NASA Inventions and Contributions Board, NASA Headquarters, 18 November 1974. Garrick wrote two 

other letters to Kemmett, dated 14 November 1975 and 12 September 1978. Copies of all three of these 

letters are in the author's personal LOR file.

127. Low to Lees, 21 October 1982, p. 2-3. On 7 August 1969, two weeks after the successful completion 

of the Apollo 11 mission, von Braun wrote Houbolt a personal letter in which he referred to Houbolt's 

"singular contribution to the Apollo program." Von Braun stated, "We know that it must be highly gratifying 

to you because of the rousing and complete success of your Eagle. The LM concept that you developed 

and defended so effectively—even, on occasion, before unsympathetic tribunals—was indeed a prime 

factor in the success of man's first lunar landing mission." Wernher von Braun, Director, NASA Marshall, to 

John C. Houbolt, Senior Vice President and Senior Consultant, Aeronautical Research Associates of 

Princeton (NJ) Inc., 7 August 1969, copy in the author's personal LOR file.

128. Quoted in Bill Ruehlmann, "If It Hadn't Been for Three Langley Engineers, the Eagle Wouldn't Have 

Landed," The Virginian-Pilot and The Ledger-Star, 15 July 1989. Throughout this paper, I often use the 

metaphor of Houbolt as "a crusader," knowing that this association has plagued Houbolt for nearly thirty 

years. It is one of the major factors that killed his chances for getting a $100,000 cash award from the 

NASA Inventions and Contributions Board in the late 1970s and early 1980s (see note 3 of this paper). This 

board decided, after a lengthy inquiry, that it did not give awards to individuals who simply advocated or 

"crusaded" for causes, however righteous they were.
53

One might wonder whether the NASA board did not significantly underestimate the sometimes vital role of 

a crusader in the ultimate success of a major technological endeavor. Most certainly in this case, the 

awards board used a much too literal definition of "crusader," for Houbolt was not just arguing for 

something for which other people were more responsible. Rather, he made LOR into a personal cause 

when, after extensive work on the relevant problems and his mounting frustration with NASA's failure even 

to consider LOR as a feasible option, he became convinced that he should crusade. "Not until I showed 

them all my analysis and so forth did the awards committee even realize that I had gone into so much 

depth in terms of working through all the various parts of the problem," says Houbolt. Or, to quote again 

from George Low's letter to the NASA awards committee, "it is my strongly held opinion that without the 

Lunar Orbit Rendezvous Mode, Apollo would not have succeeded; and that without Houbolt's letter to 

Seamans (and the work that backed up that letter) [author's emphasis], we might not have chosen the 

Lunar Orbit Rendezvous Mode" (Low to Lees, 21 October 1982, p. 3.) Despite this emphatic testimonial 

from one of NASA's most esteemed former officials, Houbolt received no award. 
54

Key Documents