The Moon Rocket Beginnings

This article is a Historical Essay Written and submitted by [[Grady Woodard]].

Grady’s Space Chronicles

The Moon Rocket Beginnings

After the transition days from Redstone-ABMA, we worked at NASA- Marshall Space Flight Center (MSFC) to remove the Army regulations and procedures that slowed us down. Things moved very slowly through the “Army’s chain of command” and this was not going to win the space race or put a man on the moon very quickly. MSFC had the assignment to come up with a Manufacturing Plan to build the Saturn 5 Moon Rocket. The task was in two steps. I was given the Step 1 task of putting together a schedule to build the rocket to place a man on the moon by the end of the decade. Two others were assigned to my team, one from the Test Laboratory and one from the Quality and Reliability Assurance Laboratory. One engineer from each Lab was to help input the schedule times for testing and inspecting of the massive moon rocket schedule. Different engineers from time to time were rotated in their place from the Test and Inspection Labs during this time.

Step 1 -To do this schedule, I used the backside and taped Size “D” Drawings, along the wall of my wing’s hallway in our Building 4712, making cutouts for doorways and drinking fountains, Using markers to make component schedule cutouts, we started work using time bar inserts to lay in on the long schedule Chart for each event of manufacturing, testing, inspection and procurements times. Soon, we noticed a Navy Rear Admiral and a Army Bridger General from the Pentagon looking over our shoulder at us. They only said they were, “Just looking.”

It took us three months to complete first draft of the Moon Rocket Master Schedule Chart. Dr. von Braun and a host of Managers came to look at it. It went very well until the Chart turned the Hallway corner in the building’s center connecting corridor, that was where the end date was shown. When von Braun saw the end date, he and his group went ballistic. They were very upset that the end date was two years beyond the decade limit ordered by President Kennedy. We were ordered to make the Chart comply to the President’s order. We just did not have time to adjust for that order before the review.

The Guests from the Pentagon told us about a Program Evaluation and Review Technique System ( PERT) they had used in the 1950’s to build the Navy’s Polaris Missiles. We at MSFC, and the Germans used the D. Gantt Charting System of Bars and Detail Charts, where data was taken from a Master Chart Schedule of events for component scheduling.

We deployed more resources and just stacked more events on top of each other that ran parallel to reduce the time on the Chart Schedule. Four weeks later on review, Dr. von Braun and his group was excided the Chart provided a six month buffer and gave us a “Good Job” smile, shook our hands and took the Chart down and carried it away with them. This method would use a lot of resources. The Officers from the Pentagon returned to Washington, saying nothing except that they had enjoyed the time with us.

Step 2 - The carry over Army System, was a long and slow approval process for requests was carried over from the Army days and the Germans had to make a procedure change in management to speed up the process. An order was sent out for all offices to measure and report their file volumes and reduce it by two-thirds. But file reductions just didn’t take place. Dr. von Braun had to change the mountains of paperwork and the way request orders were routed through the process for approval to the action level. No more carbon papers was used and new memory card typewriters were installed with copy machines that made all documents legible.

An order was issued to cut the approval and sign off routing time. The new Dr. von Braun way to get something done on a request was this; it would be signed only at one level in your organization that’s above the action organization level, but not below a Branch Chief. The MSFC’s Organizational Chart for the Laboratory levels was the Director, Division, Branch, Section and then the Units. One would send other interested offices a copy of the document for information to read and dispose or file in that office’s Project File. Only Project Files were authorized. The old Army’s initiating office “Reading Files” that secretaries kept, was abandoned.

All information copies were burned after one year and the Project Engineer’s completed Project Files were microfilmed after two years and files burned. I went from seventeen file cabinets to just two drawers plus a safe. We just had to remember dates and call the issuing organization’s office for a copy from their Project File if we needed to see something again.

To accelerate this change, NASA hired an Industrial Auditor to go through each office to show us how to organized to the new filing system and throw out unneeded paper work with files originated in the Army to meet current goals. Many felt like crying when they lost their files. The Army way was no more, the World did not come to an end! Tons of time and cost savings were made! We were then operating like the Industry we dealt with. Business was great, we were half way to the moon already!