Taking Science to the Moon by Donald A. Beattie

Taking Science to the Moon, written by Donald A. Beattie, was published in 2001 by Johns Hopkins University Press. Beattie, once a geologist for an oil company, joined NASA in 1963. He served with the agency until 1973 as an engineer and manager, helping oversee many of the scientific experiments taken to the moon during Apollo. His book discusses two separate but frequently intertwined aspects of these experiments: first, the contracting, design, and deployment of the experiments themselves, and second, the political and organizational struggles involved in getting these experiments funded and selected. Beattie presents a fascinating ground-level view of both aspects of Apollo science, making his book a valuable addition to the Apollo library.

The work of the scientists, engineers, and managers in the lunar science program is shown as being built upon a set of assumptions. Essentially, these planners assumed that the Apollo hardware would successfully carry the astronauts to the moon and return them safely home. This may seem like an obvious assumption to make, but the hyper-redundancy present in other parts of the program—such as in life support, communications, and propulsion—demonstrates that such an assumption was a luxury for the science team. It permitted the team to compartmentalize itself and work on a parallel, independent track alongside the rest of the Apollo. In other words, they had the freedom to think beyond the inevitable setbacks occurring in other areas of development. If there’s still trouble with combustion instability in the first stage’s F-1 engines, no matter—we can assume it will be worked out and can continue designing this experiment.

Beattie details some other optimistic assumptions that unfortunately never panned out. From early in the program, the science team planned for lunar exploration and research beyond the first exploratory Apollo landings. Lunar flying vehicles, large rovers with pressurized cabins, and multi-week mission durations were all on the drawing board at various times. Some mission plans called for two launches, the first carrying an unmanned lunar module packed with scientific equipment and the second carrying the crew. These plans assumed the continuation of high funding for NASA, but the agency’s funding peaked in 1966 and then fell dramatically. After the first successful landing, the political will to continue exploring the moon evaporated. Beattie explains these unrealized plans in depth. He also discusses his disappointment and regret that they never came to pass. Yet he also notes that Apollo’s scientific achievements went much further than the original moon mandate, which, after all, was solely to land a man there and safely bring him back.

The organizational machinations that led to these achievements seem to have stemmed from political turf wars between different NASA centers, each desiring its own slice of the scientific pie. There also seemed to be some friction between the science teams and the other parts of NASA. In one spring 1964 episode detailed by Beattie, a lunar science group gives a presentation to Maxime Faget of the Manned Spacecraft Center. They suggest changes might be made to the Apollo hardware to accommodate potential future lunar science objectives. Faget—at the time preparing for the launch of the first Gemini mission—turns to them at the briefing’s conclusion and asks whether high school students thought up their ideas. My impression was that Faget’s response was, at least in part, a reaction to the assumption discussed above. While Faget is actively working on the hardware that will keep astronauts safe, the science team has the luxury to assume this work will succeed and the freedom to begin asking for changes to future hardware.

As described in relation to the design of the lunar module in Tom Kelly’s Moon Lander, the key factor in Apollo science is weight. A small fraction of the already-tiny weight of the lunar module was allotted to the scientific payload. It was up to Beattie and other managers to come up with a set of experiments that was small and light enough to bring to the moon, robust enough to work in extreme conditions, simple enough to be set up by astronauts in bulky suits, and sensitive enough to generate useful data. Early plans for a several-thousand-pound science payloads on dual-launch missions gave way to an under-200-pound allotment on the first landing, Apollo 11.

The process of designing and building Apollo’s scientific experiments brings to mind some parallels with the New Horizons encounter at Pluto. In both cases, a massive amount of time was dedicated to preparations and planning, followed by a relatively tiny window of time in which the data was harvested and the science done.

In the case of Apollo science, planners held conferences to assess the state of lunar knowledge, then determined which practical experiments would best fill in the gaps. NASA managers gave contracts to aerospace and electronics companies to design the hardware for these experiments. Then, the machines and procedures went through years of testing and refinement before being installed on Apollo. After this years-long process, the astronauts had mere hours to set up and troubleshoot the experiments. In the case of New Horizons and its long coast to Pluto, mission planners had a nine-year period of relative inactivity before the scientific bonanza that was the Pluto/Charon encounter. Not long after the closest approach, Pluto again receded to a small dot in New Horizons’ sky.

The key difference between Apollo science and New Horizons is, of course, the human factor. Astronauts needed to be trained in the use of a wide array of instruments and scientific observation techniques. Consultation with them was critical in finalizing the designs and procedures, since they were the ones who would actually be implementing the instruments on the moon. And in some cases, the astronauts make their displeasure known at having to using certain experiments (notably including, as Beattie says, a lunar soil camera proposed by scientist Thomas Gold). New Horizons, on the other hand, doesn’t balk at having an extra detector installed.

For me the highlight of reading a new Apollo book is learning about new incidents and anecdotes beyond what is included in most general histories of the program. Beattie doesn’t disappoint on this front. One of my favorite passages here involves the creation of an artificial lunar surface on Earth for training purposes. After analyzing photos taken from a Lunar Orbiter spacecraft, scientists set aside a ten-acre space, arrange bags of fertilizer with varying amounts of explosive power, and detonate them in a particular order to simulate not just the sizes but also the relative ages of lunar craters in this particular area. Beattie mentions that film was taken of this process—I’d love to see that if it still exists.

Some Apollo books fall into the trap of rehashing the same details and narratives found in nearly every other history of the program. When you’re reading the history of a specific aspect of Apollo, it can become tiresome to sort through this stuff to get at the new material. In perhaps my favorite example of an author avoiding this pitfall, Beattie’s complete discussion of the Apollo 17 mission after the retrieval of the scientific data canister during the trans-Earth coast consists of: “Splashdown and recovery were uneventful.” He wisely saves that part of the story for other authors.

Taking Science to the Moon looks at the lunar experiments of the Apollo program in a way that balances on-the-ground details with a wider, more comprehensive view. Beattie’s presence at NASA during the key years of Apollo science leads to a fresh, unique perspective on this part of the Apollo program—a part often overshadowed by the heroics of the astronauts, the ingenuity of the spacecraft engineers, and the steely-eyed resolve of the flight controllers in Houston.

If there is any downside to the book, it is that the recounting of bureaucratic functions—meetings, reviews, conferences—can at times feel dry. But all of these accounts help inform an overall picture of Apollo science as being, in general, an extremely well-run organization. At the same time, Beattie’s discussion of experimental design and results makes the book a sort of primer on what we know about the moon thanks to Apollo. The book is a wonderful read for anyone interested in the scientific study of our moon and in the people who made it possible.