Launch day
at KSC found a series of heavy rain showers moving through the area.
Considering the self-generated lightning that had tossed Apollo 12’s launch
into a tizzy and with the shadow of Apollo 13’s near-disaster hanging over
NASA, Launch Director Walter Kapryan had some pressure on him. Adding to that
was the feeling of many that if another major failure or accident should
happen, President Nixon was poised to pull the plug on the entire program.
Kapryan decided to call a hold in the count at T-8 minutes and two seconds and
see what the weather was going to do. The hold lasted for 40 minutes and three
seconds. All the while it appeared on our TV sets as if the weather over the
shoulders of Walter Cronkite and Wally Schirra was getting worse. As time went
on it began to appear as if this may be Apollo’s very first scrub of a manned
launch.
All of “us kids” were gathered in the
family living room in front of the TV; my sister, brother and a few
neighborhood kids were there. There was no point in changing the channel, all
three networks had Apollo 14 coverage on. Together we waited out the hold while
I held court and answered what questions were sent my way; illustrating my
points by using my 1/200 AMT Saturn V model. Of course I had my trusty copy of
“We Came In Peace” at my elbow too. Any questions that I didn’t know the answer
to, I
simply made up a response that sounded real technical. It was a
skill that much later in life served me well as an airline pilot speaking to
passengers.
At 3:39p.m.
Eastern time NASA public affairs officer Jack King came on with one of more
than a dozen announcements he had to make during the hold,
"This is Kennedy Launch Control
remaining in the hold, T minus eight minutes and two seconds at this time on
Apollo 14. Standing by for further advisories from the National Weather Service
aircraft which is surveying the cloud conditions in the area. Just a matter of
a minute or two ago, the director of flight crew operations Deke Slayton called
in to Al Shepard in the spacecraft and mentioned to Al that at least it’s more
comfortable up there than it was in the old days."
This was a reference to the protracted
holds that took place prior to Shepard's Freedom 7 launch back in 1961, when
his bladder forced Al to "wet his pants." From the Apollo 14
spacecraft Shepard replied to Slayton, "Oh, my yes."
Jack King then went on to state, "He
also added to Deke that; we're in good shape up here. We're standing by for
further reports… Holding eight minutes and two seconds. This Kennedy Launch
Control."
Finally, at 3:55p.m. Jack
King came on with some good news, announcing that the count would be picking
up.
"This is Kennedy launch control.
Mark. We have resumed our countdown at T minus eight minutes and counting on
Apollo 14. We're still keeping a close eye on our weather conditions at this
time but Launch Director Walter Kapryan has made the determination to resume
the count. This should put us with a liftoff at three minutes past the hour if
all continues to go well. We are now starting the chill-down of the engine
chambers on the third and second stages of the Saturn V launch vehicle. This is
one of the critical elements and has to do with hold time. The chill-down has
to last a precise period. We feed in extremely cold helium into the engine
chambers of both the second stage and third stage to condition them for the
very cold liquid oxygen and liquid hydrogen that will be flowing into the
chambers when they’re due to ignite later during the powered portion of the
flight. All is still going well as far as the launch vehicle, spacecraft and
the three astronauts on board. Coming up to the seven minute mark, Mark! Seven
minutes and counting. This is Kennedy Launch Control.”
As the count hit the two minute mark,
CBS switched to NASA’s launch pad camera number 27 which was focused on the
Q-ball cover at the tip of the launch escape tower.
“What’s that? My Mom asked, “What’s that round thing there?”
I had no idea, but as she was asking me
the question Cronkite said, “That’s the Q-ball, the shield, at the very top of
the Apollo 14 spacecraft configuration that blows off 10 seconds before the
launch…”
I turned knowingly and parroted, “That’s
the Q-ball ma.” Seeing the line connected to the cover she asked,
“Well, does it just stay there?”
Apparently she had not heard Cronkite.
“It comes off at T minus 10 seconds,” I
replied as if I’d known that all along.
Then I made a mental note to later go
and find out what that Q-ball thing was for. Later I discovered it was for
measuring angle of attack as the Saturn V flew through the lower atmosphere. Of
course it would be a few more years before I learned what angle of attack
actually was, too.
As the count hit T minus eight point
nine seconds the five huge F-1 engines came to life. Long range news cameras at
the press site had their lenses blinded as the brilliance of the Saturn V
erupted through the rainy gloom. Close-up NASA cameras showed clearly the
release of the hold-downs and the retraction of the tail masts as the launch
vehicle lifted off at 4:03 p.m. Eastern time. In the wide angle shot the Saturn
V itself could hardly be seen as the blinding flame from the S-IC over-powered
the TV images. In our living room everyone broke into applause.
“Looks just like 12!” I exclaimed in
spite of myself, “Looks just like 12!”
Indeed, the TV images did look very much
like those of Apollo 12. The cameras followed the rising Saturn V for exactly
36 seconds before it vanished into the dense cloud-cover. Thereafter, the
cameras panned down to show Pad 39A smoldering in the gloom. As the shot
switched to Schirra and Cronkite, the buffeting of the departing Saturn V was
hitting the CBS press building and looking closely I could actually see the
window glass moving. Schirra reached up twice and placed both of his hands on
the glass to feel it move.
Walter Cronkite had warned the TV
audience that once the Saturn V went into the clouds the long range cameras
would lose it. However, he was happily surprised to be wrong as the picture
from the Riviera Beach camera, located 133 miles south of the launch site, came
in crystal clear. Oddly enough, that camera gave some of the best images of
first stage separation, skirt separation and escape tower jettison ever seen on
television. The S-IC first stage could be seen falling away for 22 seconds and
later both the tower and the S-IC/S-II skirt could be seen tumbling away for 31
seconds. As I watched, entranced, Apollo 14 remained on the TV as a single
bright spot right up until Mission Control announced that Apollo 14 had cleared
the Atlantic weather and just as those words were spoken, the bright spot
dropped behind some clouds.
Staging of the S-II and the S-IVB came
on-time and Apollo 14 was inserted into orbit around the earth after 11 minutes
and 43 seconds of powered flight. The crew read from their Command Module
Computer an orbit of 99 by 102.9 nautical miles.
“Rogha- Go orbit, booster safe.” Shepard
reported to Houston with a confident accent.
It did indeed appear as if everything was going exactly as planned. What Shepard did not know was that outer space and the Moon had plenty of surprises waiting for him and the crew of Apollo 14, and none of them were good. In fact Apollo 14 would end up dealing with more glitches than any other Apollo mission other than Apollo 13.
Apollo 14 was the first mission that I recorded. I used these two 3M C-30 cassette tapes, which gave me a whole hour's worth of time to capture the entire mission... I decided I needed longer tapes for future missions. Just 15 minutes per side didn't really cut it. Believe it or not, these tapes still play.