Innovator Profile Series 10: Dr. John C. Houbolt (1919 - 2014)

“The vast majority of human beings dislike and even actually dread all notions with which they are not familiar. Hence it comes about that at their first appearance innovators have generally been persecuted, and always derided as fools and madmen." – Aldous Huxley

 There are those special, extraordinary and exceptional individuals who do things of pivotal, perhaps historic achievement, and yet have had to endure repeated rejection, outright criticism and ostracism from their group and have to travel a long, tough, hard road to eventually get supported. It’s what many brilliant innovators who push boundaries, express “radical” ideas, go counter to groupthink and fight the status quo unfortunately experience. That is reflected in the story of aerospace engineer Dr. John C. Houbolt, who is widely recognized for his persistent and tenacious advocacy of the Lunar Orbit Rendezvous (LOR) approach for taking men to the moon and back.

He was derided and chided, but certainly no foolish maverick in the midst of other experts. On the contrary, if it were not for this engineer’s staunch determination to buck the system along with a small, select group of his peers at NASA’s Langley Research Center, NASA would not have been able to safely meet President Kennedy’s challenge to land the first man on the moon before the end of the 1960s.

President Kennedy’s Ambitious Vision that Stunned NASA

In a special joint session of the U.S. Congress on May 25, 1961, Kennedy proclaimed "I believe 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." He added, “We choose to go to the moon in this decade and do the other things not because they are easy, but because they are hard.” Hard was an understatement. Not only did Kennedy not realize and appreciate the size and complexity of that colossal challenge and other-worldly vision, but many NASA experts did not believe that lofty goal (pun intended) could be accomplished in Kennedy’s stated timeframe. Besides, Kennedy’s vision caught the top leaders at NASA off guard because there was no firm plan for carrying out such an audacious and ambitious mission.

The enormity and scope of the Apollo program involved a hyper-expensive and labor-laden mission involving about 400,000 scientists, engineers, technicians and other experts and cost an estimated $25.4 billion (roughly $160 billion in today's dollars). Going to the moon was the ultimate team effort and required the support of the American people, as Kennedy said, “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.”

It was obvious that countless new advanced systems, technologies, processes and rocket and spacecraft modules and components had to either be developed from scratch or greatly improved in performance. But at NASA, a basic, hyper-critical question first had to be addressed and answered: “What was the exact mode for getting to the moon and back in the safest way?” Without knowing that, it was impossible to begin designing the machines and everything else to go there.

America would not have won the space race with the Soviet Union, the famous Eagle would not have landed on July 20, 1969 and the crew of the Apollo 13 would not have survived the journey back to earth were it not for this outspoken innovative, unswerving engineer — an unsung hero with great ideas, bravery and confidence — from NASA’s Langley Research Center. Like so many other great contributors to science and engineering, Dr. John C. Houbolt was not a famous household name, but tirelessly operated and fought in the background to make a giant difference in the success of the Apollo program.

What Were the Possible Ways to Safely Get to the Moon and Back?

In any major project or venture, various teams and groups, perhaps from different areas in the organization, will brainstorm and support what they consider to be the ideal way to reach their goals. In NASA’s case, there were three (3) main camps, which quickly grew into factions with strong mindsets that backed different solutions to get to the moon. With smart people and a lot at stake, it was natural that there were some heated debates behind the scenes as to what seemed like the most obvious approach. Here were the three contenders:

One: Direct Ascent. You saw this method in science fiction novels, magazines and Hollywood movies. It was a very Jules Verne concept. An absolutely massive rocket would lift another giant vehicle into orbit — a “subvehicle” — that might have been perhaps 100 feet in height and extremely precarious to land. This large spacecraft would travel to the moon, land and then blast off toward home directly from the lunar surface. That huge, new proposed rocket, the Nova, was even bigger than the already gargantuan Saturn V rocket that stood at 363 feet (110 meters) tall and 33 feet (10 meters) in diameter and weighing over 6.5 million pounds fully fueled (almost 3 million kilograms). 

The Nova was still on the drawing board. Initially there were strong feelings in favor of this approach, but after making calculations, NASA engineers realized that such a single rocket that had to carry and lift the fuel needed to escape the earth’s gravity, braking against the moon’s own gravity, then leaving it and having to finally brake back down into earth’s gravity was not a realistic solution. Besides, it was enormously expensive and could not be designed, tested and ready anywhere near to Kennedy’s timetable. The rejection of this approach led to the second option: Earth Orbit Rendezvous.

Two: Earth Orbit Rendezvous (EOR). A second group, led by Werner von Braun — the brilliant NASA Engineering Program Manager and chief architect of the Apollo Saturn V rocket — liked and pushed for this approach to the moon. The concept was to launch two large pieces into space using the Saturn rockets and have them rendezvous and dock in an earth orbit where astronauts would assemble and fuel them using a space station (that would be created as part of this approach) as a base of operations. They would later detach a lunar mission vehicle from the modules that had joined up and would use it in a direct flight mode to the moon and back to earth orbit. Dr. von Braun was a big supporter of EOR because he was a strong, passionate proponent of a space station that could have many other scientific, commercial and other uses beyond the Apollo program.

 Three: Lunar Orbit Rendezvous (LOR). This proposed approach to the moon and back was a dark horse candidate favored only by a small group of engineers led by Houbolt at NASA’s Langley Research Center. Although the basics of the LOR approach had been expressed as early as 1923 by German rocket pioneer Herman Oberth, no one recognized or appreciated its true significance until two separate groups and Houbolt at Langley began to think about and explore its true potential.

One of these groups was the Lunar Mission Steering Group, led by Clinton E. Brown who was head of the Theoretical Mechanics Division. The other group was the Rendezvous Committee headed by Dr. John C. Houbolt, then the assistant chief of the Dynamics Load Division. Done at first independently, the brainstorming by these two NASA Langley groups led to an intensive analysis of two distinct subjects: the actual mechanics of the moon trip and secondly, the role of rendezvous in the operations of the proposed Earth-orbiting space station. As with other creative solution breakthroughs, combining these two different analyses, led some of the innovative minds at the two Langley study groups to now better have more confidence in the strong viability and advantages of LOR for a manned lunar mission.

And this proposed approach was the one that caused Dr. John Houbolt to be subject to the punishing gauntlet of personal and professional criticism and attacks. Unfortunately, big-thinking innovators who go outside and fight the mainstream of insular groupthink and “popular” conventional solutions that yield mediocre-to-acceptable or, worse yet, negative or dangerous results often have to endure the often abuse of detractors and attackers.

LOR required just one powerful Saturn V rocket that positioned a 50-ton spacecraft into a lunar orbit. This brilliantly-engineered spacecraft had three key parts: a mother ship, called the command module that carried three astronauts that would stay in lunar orbit, a service module connected to the back of the command module that carried fuel and power and the lunar module docked to the front of the command module. This lightweight lunar module made the descent to the moon with two astronauts and later took off to then link up with the command module (with one remaining astronaut on board) to get back to earth.

Two things matter greatly in space — weight and fuel. The lunar orbit rendezvous had the advantages of requiring only one rocket and of saving fuel and mass since the lunar module did not need to return to Earth. This initial concept sounded too risky to the establishment at NASA because the astronauts would have to link up the two space vehicles while circling the moon 250,000 miles from earth and any possibility of rescue was out of the question.

Nearly all the experts, with the exception of Houbolt and his small but ardent group of supporters blatantly dismissed it. Docking in space, especially around the moon appeared to be a risky, daunting and untried maneuver to many, but a maneuver that is now considered normal today. Yet, even back then, Houbolt considered it to be an acceptable and manageable risk… and achievable. He was adamant that a rendezvous of two spacecraft around the moon was not simply a possible method for a successful moon mission, but the only one that had the greatest chance of meeting Kennedy’s seemingly impossible deadline and doing it in the safest, quickest and least expensive way.

 What He Had to Experience

Houbolt had been studying the various technical aspects of space rendezvous since 1959 and believed the LOR approach so vital that he risked his entire reputation and career that he strived to build by aggressively promoting the concept. Although he was an outsider among the group of engineers studying a moonshot, he took on the impressive heavy hitters and experts and the hardened bureaucracy at NASA. With the initial popularity of the Direct Ascent approach, Houbolt told all those defenders that you can’t build this enormous rocket big and fast enough and certainly can’t manage the fuel and weight to accomplish the mission. He asked them why they were trying to carry all this mass down to the moon when if you take a relatively tiny lander you will save half the weight and fuel, build it much faster and land it more safely. He had been vigorously pushing for a smaller, lighter and less expensive option — a Chevrolet, not a Cadillac, he liked to say. 

When Dr. Houbolt started his campaign for LOR, there were lots of committee meetings with various groups at NASA. As an orbital expert, he fervently made his pitches to anyone who would listen, backing them up with detailed statistics and facts as he saw them. He even printed out flyers and gave them out almost as if a hawker on 8th Avenue in New York City. He was stubborn and sometimes annoying, many admitted (including his wife), but not proud enough or sheepish enough to relinquish his responsibility or to give up, despite his concept repeatedly laughed out of the room and disparaged. He knew he was right.

Houbolt got batted down by pretty much everybody, but there was one meeting attended by NASA Associate Administrator Robert Seamans, Werner von Braun and Max Faget that was especially acerbic and deeply hurtful for Houbolt. Faget was a cantankerous, but brilliant innovator who designed the original spacecraft for Project Mercury and is credited with contributing to the designs of every U.S. human spacecraft from Mercury to the Space Shuttle. Houbolt was attacked in the presence of von Braun and Seamans by fellow engineer Faget who pounded the table, got off his seat and says, “Don’t listen to Houbolt. His figures lie.” Amid a stunned silence in the room, Faget added, “He doesn’t know what he is talking about.” He calls him a liar in front of everyone. Houbolt was humiliated. His visceral reaction was of feeling dismissed, unjustifiably attacked, ignored and shoved aside.

In a long letter dated November 15, 1961, Dr. Houbolt admitted what he did was a breach of protocol. He took the bold and courageous action of skipping proper channels and wrote a 9-page letter directly to the incoming Associate NASA Administrator Dr. Robert C. Seamans. He said that his proposal had been derided as “a scheme that had a 50 percent chance of getting a man to the moon and a 1 percent chance of getting him back.” Describing himself in a passionate, if not somewhat melodramatic way “as a voice in the wilderness,” Houbolt protested that his support of LOR was excluded from NASA’s discussions for the Apollo mission. “Do you want to go to the moon or not?” he asked rhetorically, challenging the administrator to seriously review his solution and to act.

This innovative engineer poignantly asked in a challenging way, “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, but the issues at stake are crucial enough to all of us that an unusual course is warranted,” he said. A former NASA official recalled in a 2008 documentary that Houbolt’s detailed letter “…was rather strident in the way it was written. My first reaction was, ‘I’d like some way to get that son of a gun off my back.”

It took two weeks, but much to the leadership credit of Seamans, he openly listened and replied to Houbolt’s extraordinary letter. He agreed that “it would be extremely harmful to our organization and to the country if our qualified staff were unduly limited by restrictive guidelines.” The first major group to break camp in favor of Houbolt’s LOR was Robert Gilruth’s Space Task Group at Langley, that was soon to move to Houston. The second to come on board was the Werner von Braun and his team in Huntsville, Alabama. So on July 11, 1962 after much technical discussion, debate and in-fighting, Seamans and NASA Administrator James E. Webb announced during a press conference at NASA Headquarters in Washington, D.C., that lunar orbit rendezvous had been selected as the primary mission mode for the initial manned moon landing. He was disgusted about the way he was treated and left NASA in 1963.

As if from a Hollywood movie about Houbolt, the scene takes place on July 20, 1969 in NASA Mission Control in Houston where Houbolt was invited to see the hoped-for safe landing on the moon. Quietly sitting in the back row in the viewing gallery. The landing happens with the Lunar Module. “The Eagle has landed,” came the reply. The big exhale from all those in mission Control and everyone stands up and erupts in emotional celebration.

In this special, incredibly historic moment, Werner von Braun, the father of American rocketry stands in front of all the people in rapturous applause and celebration and asks, “Where is John Houbolt?” and he turns around and finds Houbolt and gives him what John describes as the OK sign with his thumb and simply, but proudly says, “John, it worked beautifully!” He described this to many people as the absolute highlight of his career at NASA.

Houbolt was understandably bitter. He felt he was mistreated, that his contributions were not rightfully recognized and that history did not give him his due. But, recognition from a famous, dashing, highly-respected scientist/engineer celebrity like Werner von Braun — that recognition in front of everyone at that most momentous time meant the world to Dr. John C. Houbolt. It was vindication, exoneration, and perhaps an oral way from one man of communicating a collective redemption from those those in NASA who doubted Houbolt and his invaluable innovation. 

 About the “Out-Of-This-World” Innovator

Dr. Houbolt was born in Altoona, Iowa and grew up in Joliet, Illinois. He had a lifelong love of aeronautics starting with building model planes where he competed in flight contests. He received a B.S. in Civil Engineering in 1940 and a M.S. in 1942 in the same degree and later received a Ph.D in Technical Sciences in 1957 from ETH Zurich. He taught courses in mathematics, aeronautics and spaceflight for both the University of Virginia and Virginia Polytechnic Institute from 1945 to 1963. His technical career was highly diversified with expertise in propeller whirl flutter, dynamic loads and aeroelasticity of aircraft and space vehicles along with special problems associated with space flight. He wrote more than 120 technical publications during his career.

Houbolt began his professional career in 1942 at the National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics (NACA) and stayed on at NASA for 21 years after it succeeded NACA. He was an engineer at Langley Research Center in Hampton, Virginia. In 1963, after the lunar orbit rendezvous technique was adopted for implementation, Houbolt left NASA to become a Senior Vice President and Senior Consultant with Aeronautical Research Associates of Princeton, Inc. (ARAP). In that position, he consulted on advanced technology, aeronautics and astronautics specializing in structures, aeroelasticity, systems analysis, flight mechanics and guidance and control. Dr. Houbolt returned to NASA’s Langley Research Center in 1976 as its Chief Aeronautical Scientist, providing technical consultation to Langley and other NASA organizations. 

In October 1985, he retired from NASA and became a private consultant. He served on numerous committees and accident investigations and was an active contributor in the NATO Advisory Group for Aerospace Research and Development (AGARD) for over 20 years. Over the years, he gave his expertise and ideas to the Air Force, Navy and Army along with various commercial companies. With the U.S. Air Force, he was a member of the Scientific Advisory Board, working on several classified projects including the highly advanced B-2 Spirit Stealth Bomber built by Northrop (later Northrop Grumman).

Prior to STS-1, the first mission of the Space Shuttle, Houbolt co-wrote a letter with structural engineer Holt Ashley to then Director Chris Kraft of Johnson Space Center urging him to delay the launch because he believed the orbiter would suffer a major loss of thermal protection tiles with the potential destruction of the vehicle. Though much later in 2003, he was right as missing tiles caused the Space Shuttle Columbia disaster.

 His Awards, Distinction and Recognition Later On

 In 1963, Houbolt received the NASA Exceptional Scientific Achievement Medal in 1963. This award cited his “foresight, perseverance and incisive theoretical analysis of the concept of lunar orbit rendezvous, revealing the important engineering and economic advantages that led to its adoption as a central element in the U.S. manned lunar exploration.” He was the first recipient of the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics (AIAA) Structures, Structural Dynamics & Materials Award in 1968. In 1972 he received the AIAA Dryden Research Lectureship Award. Houbolt was elected to the National Academy of Engineering in 1990.

He was awarded honorary doctorates by ETH Zurich in 1975, Clarkson University in 1990 and the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign in 2005. In 2007, the University of Illinois awarded him the Illini Achievement Award, their highest honor. In Joliet, a street near Joliet Junior College (which he attended) was renamed Houbolt Road, a mural in Joliet Union Station includes a Lunar Module that honored his work at NASA and a wing at the Joliet Area Historical Museum became a permanent exhibit to commemorate and celebrate his numerous achievements.

While so little is still publicly known of Dr. John C. Houbolt — he does not come up in any of the big documentaries about the Apollo program — Houbolt was a man of great ideas, impressive expertise, targeted tenacity and a drive to make large contributions in aerospace. Thousands of factors contributed to the success of the Apollo moon landing program, but no single one was more essential than the brainchild of Lunar Orbit Rendezvous (LOR), which saved NASA enormous development time and billions of dollars by efficiently using existing rocket technology and a vastly more efficient approach.

Houbolt died on April 15, 2014 at the age of 95. Indeed, he was the exceptionally dedicated innovative man who got us safely to the moon and back and made an indelible mark on human progress. Without a doubt, Dr. John C. Houbolt deserves great recognition and honor for his major contributions.

Though he sadly tends to be a footnote in history, I wrote this article as a fitting and timely tribute to Houbolt as we have just recently gone into space with an American-made rocket. After having to hitch a ride on Russian rockets for the last nine years, astronauts Bob Behnken and Doug Hurley, riding atop on a Space X Crew Dragon capsule with a Falcon 9 rocket on May 30, 2020, ended a nine-year drought for America’s own launch program. We now intend to go back to the moon and Mars… and beyond.

 Lessons We Can Learn from This Innovator and His Story

1.  Innovators must be fully confident in their idea or proposed solution and properly fight for it when detractors go on the attack. No big, bold or great ideas that at first seemed impractical, unworkable or even foolish by others got quick or easy acceptance.

2.  The effective presentation of your unusual or “radical” concept is critical. When you pitch it to others, apply professional, persuasive presentation skills and techniques using the “6 Cs”: Concise, Clear, Confident, Convincing, Creative and Compelling. See my book Innovative Presentations For Dummies for ultra-winning ways to pitch solutions.

3.  Don’t let cynics, skeptics, naysayers sway you regardless of their impressive experience, reputation, knowledge, current “proof” of their alternate idea or collaboration with others who oppose your views. Every breakthrough innovation was a far departure from current wisdom, practices, technology or science. Major advancements almost always come from mavericks, disruptors and even novices (in that area of expertise) who challenge tradition, convention and the status quo.

4.  Always sincerely listen and welcome all ideas, approaches, strategies and solutions from those people outside your department, division or other organization who want to contribute. Often, they are not hung up on traditional, conventional or currently accepted ideas, processes, models or systems. They might have a fresh, different and breakthrough approach that is light-years better.

5.  Be persistent, tenacious and persevering in trying to get your proposed innovation considered, understood and accepted by those of influence or authority. But be careful not to show impatience, frustration, annoyance, anger or other negative emotions with them, even though you are justified in felling that when dealing with close-minded or resistant people. If people don’t like you, they will avoid, ignore or sabotage you. Be nice and make friends in high places!

6.  Determine if the risk of bucking the system or going over people’s heads and outside accepted protocols and unspoken rules to contact those very high in positions of authority and power is worth it. Most innovators, who are deeply convinced of the efficacy of their huge idea (that can have great positive impact), will risk it, when all other attempts fail.

7.  The career and personal lives of highly innovative people in “buttoned-down organizational cultures” (that support the strong status quo and are unwelcome to “blue sky” ideas) can be very hurtful, stress-filled and disappointing. Either join another organization that welcomes creativity, change and ingenuity or learn to patiently adapt, persist and weather the conditions there for the longer-term possibility of being accepted and successful.

 About the Author

Ray Anthony is the Chief “Innovader” at Anthony Innovation Group in The Woodlands, Texas, USA. He is the author of 9 books and over 100 articles on organizational change, innovation, leadership, creativity, sales, presentation skills and other strategic business topics. His vanguard book, Innovative Presentations For Dummies (Wiley Publishing) shows how to powerfully reimagine, reinvent and remake presentations that win against the toughest odds. Ray is a successful, dynamic keynote speaker, executive coach, program developer, corporate trainer, videographer and creative who has worked with numerous Fortune 500 corporations and elite U.S. government agencies (e.g. CIA, NASA and USSOCOM) to help improve their operational performance and results through creativity and innovation. He can be reached at [email protected] or office: 281-364-7739 or cell: 832-594-4747.