From the Moon to Mars the 1970s

Today, July 20th is best known for the Anniversary of Apollo 11 and the first footsteps on the Moon. It is indeed an auspicious occasion, to be remembered and honored. But it was Neil Armstrong who said something to the effect of - without the thousands of people who got us to the Moon, I could not have taken that step. Now that is not a direct quote, its just the gist of it. But the fact is, Neil Armstrong was a focused and humble guy, who understood that great achievements were made by teams, not individuals. He was special.

I have had the good fortune of meeting Neil, Buzz, Carl Sagan, Heinlein, Ray Bradbury, and many other such household names. They are great men indeed. But I have to agree with Neil, that the individuals behind the scenes that you don't hear about, are the 'meat and potatoes' of any mission. They come from a wider variety of expertise than you usually hear about, and their personalities are not always suited to TV and radio interviews. Heck, a large portion of them either don't think what they did is that important, or they simply do everything they do well, because they are driven to do so, and to them, THAT is the accomplishment - doing your best. But the fact is, that thousands of unnamed men and women around the world contributed to the Viking, and other missions as well.

So while we honor those by name that we know, lets take a second to do so for those that we do not know.

To start, Apollo could not have happened if it were not for a team of individuals referred to by one academic, as "A Bunch of Plumbers". (To learn more about that, you will need to read the book by that name, by one of them, John Newcomb, explaining how Apollo was made possible.) This was a team of individuals that invented systems, camera technologies, mapped trajectories, and took risks - they were the Lunar Orbiter Team, and they came from the unassuming NASA Langley Center. They were bootstrappers that came from middle America, immigrated from Europe, and were born into struggles that we don't feel today. Poverty was the norm for these folks, and engineering and science careers began on farms and family businesses, fixing equipment and learning resourcefulness, and in one room school houses to these first generation college graduates. They worked in the family businesses from age 10 and up, learning responsibility, teamwork, the value of hard work, and compassion. They walked to school - some barefoot - and listened to anyone willing to teach them. They didn't all love school, but they loved learning, and were driven to contribute to something greater than themselves, and in many cases, were part of the family economy, earning money to survive even at an early age.

But how did the Lunar Orbiter Team make Apollo possible?

They were given a job to map the surface Moon and choose safe landing sites for the Apollo Astronauts (candidates, at that time). And even though their mission was robotic orbiting craft, they knew that their work would pave the way to the Moon, to fulfill Kennedy's ambitious direction to "catch up" to the Soviet Nation in space exploration.

They did that and more. In the five planned missions, they fully met their mission objectives in the first two, and had 'room to spare' for additional exploration. After mapping the surface, they accomplished other tasks, both planned, and unplanned. The latter almost got them in hot water, when one of them decided to use a current position with line of site to earth, to the the true first "earthrise" image, of the Earth on a Moon horizon. You can learn about this an more in John Newcombs book, "A Bunch of Plumbers".

After and incredible 5 of 5 successful missions, the team was looking for new challenges, and with a group of leaders and tried and true missions, Mars was an obvious next step. But it was no easy matter, with JPL vying for the Project Office.

During the period of Apollo planning these individuals were readying themselves for this new challenge, and in the year 1969, when Apollo 11 Astronauts first stepped on the Moon, the teams at NASA Langley were hard at work on their next project - a Mars surface mission. The Project Office, was born in 1968 with a new plan which had been through one proposal cycle already, under the name Voyager Mission to Mars, before it was launched again as Viking.

NASA Langley researchers, mission operations, technicians, engineers, administrative staff and more worked on Viking just as they did Lunar Orbiter, and under the leadership of Jim Martin, Mission Manager, Iz Tabak, Chief Engineer, Gerald Soffen, Chief Scientist, and others, new challenges and objectives were defined.

And just a handful of years later, July 20th 1976, Viking Lander "touched down" on Mars and sent the first image from the surface of the planet.

The team that made this happen, began with the Project Office, but quickly grew to include the Primary Contractor Martin Marietta, and numerous other companies that provided niche products that were then customized further to meet the demands required to perform on the surface of a freezing planet, and to survive the high temperatures of atmospheric entry.

And the story of the Plumbers that went to the Moon continued, as they planned for Mars. More on that on another day.

And so, we ask you to join us in honoring those who are not recognized alongside the household names. And to remember Lunar Orbiter and Viking alongside Apollo, just as Neil would have done.