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"Griffin Daily New*
Apollo 10 Paves Way For Moon Landi
By PAUL K. HARRAL
UPI Space Writer
SPACE CENTER, Houston
(UPl)—Space historians of the
future may mention Apollo 10
only in passing. They may not
mention it at all.
But Apollo 10 and the three
men flying it are as much a
part of the first American
moon landing as the men who
may walk that barren surface
July 20.
Without Apollo 10 and astro
nauts Thomas P. Stafford,
Eugene A. Ceman and John W.
Young, the moon landing would
be riskier and might not even
be possible as soon as planned.
Apollo 10’s mission, just as
earlier Mercury, Gemini and
Apollo flights, is to add to
man’s knowledge of the moon.
And the specific purpose of
Stafford Missed
Landing On Moon
By United Press International
There was a time, a few
nonths ago, when a soft-spoken
space pilot named Thomas
Patten Stafford had every
' reason to believe he might
secome the first man to set
' bot on the moon.
The development problems
Jwith the Apollo moon landing
:raft caused a change in the
noonflight timetable. And Staf
ord came out of the shuffle
Apollo 10, a
nission designed to permit
>ther men to make the first
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Monday, May 19, 1969
Apollo 10 is to check some
problems earlier spacemen
discovered — problems which
must be answered or at least
understood before Apollo 11 can
land safely in the Sea of
Tranquility on the northeast
side of the moon.
Coast Toward Moon
Today the astronauts coasted
toward the moon, scheduling
only a brief rocket firing to put
them on the exact course
Apollo 11 will take when it
starts its moon-landing journey.
Stafford, Ceman and Young
blasted off from Cape Kennedy
Sunday in one of the almost
flawless launches that have
blessed the current phases of
the Apollo program.
They followed America’s first
moon mission—the Christmas
voyage of Apollo B—and they
lunar landing this summer
during Apollo 11.
r
, A lesser man might feel
, bitter. But not Stafford.
’ “It was a good possibility I
- would have made the landing,”
1 the baldish astronaut reflected
recently. “So is it disappointing
i not to have the landing?
“Well, I think if I can pull
this flight off and get it all
■ squared away so they can do a
safe one (with Apollo 11), I’m
. perfectly happy. What the
Apollo 10 mission is going to do
; is tie together all the knots
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led the way for Apollo 11, the
ultimate goal of the multibillion
dollar, 10-year program to land
on the moon.
Apollo 8 showed the craft
could go to the moon. Apollo 9,
just two months ago, showed
the lunar lander, a fragile,
almost insect-looking craft,
worked as advertised in space.
Why then, some will ask, fly
another mission before the
landing?
Apollo 10 objectives included:
—Providing additional exper
ience and confidence in the
lunar lander;
—Testing the Apollo rendez
vous radar—the method the
spacecraft and lunar module
(LM) use to find each other—at
its maximum range of about
350 miles;
. . . and pave the way for the
whole lunar landing mission.”
Stafford has come a long way
from the shady streets of
Weatherford, Okla., where he
was born the son of a small
town dentist and where he
courted pretty Faye Shoemaker
—his high school sweetheart
and now his wife—over cokes in
the back booth of Miller’s drug
store.
It was Faye who taught
Stafford to drive and shift
gears in her father’s old pickup
truck, because Stafford’s family
had no car. They were married
in Weatherford Methodist
Church, where both had been
baptized.
Stafford was graduated in
1952 from the United States
Naval Academy, with Faye
watching proudly while he
received his commission. He
later switched to the Air Force
and now, at 38, holds the rank
of colonel.
In 1965 Stafford co-piloted
Gemini 6 to man’s first
rendezvous with another orbit
ing craft, Gemini 7. And in 1966
he commanded the flight of
Gemini 9. During Apollo 10 he
hopes to fly within 9.5 miles of
the moon, closer than man has
ever been before.
Stafford’s crewmates on Apol
lo 10 are Eugene A. Cernan,
who also flew with him in
Gemini 9, and John W. Young.
There is never any doubt—
W’hether talking to Stafford
himself, or to his crewmates,
or to space agency officials and
engineers—that Stafford .’<? the
commander. He is tough
minded, efficient, thoroughly
respected. And well liked.
By guarding his crew against
unnecessary intrusions on their
time, and by delegating authori
ty, he got the masses of pre
flight paperwork out of the way
much sooner than past crews
have done. He did this so the
crew could rest and take some
days off the week before
launch.
Stafford’s own plans for those
days off were strictly business
—acrobatic flying in a jet
trainer to get used to excessive
gravity loads. He said his wife
and daughters—Dionne, 14, and
Karin, 11—would remain in
Houston and watch the launch
at home on television, as they
have done on past flights,
rather than visiting him at
Cape Kennedy.
| World Briefs |
BLAMES INFLATION
WASHINGTON (UPl)—The
home building industry has
blamed inflation for the slowing
in housing construction activity.
The Commerce Department
said Thursday such activity
declined in April for the third
consecutive month. Industry
spokesmen said the decline was
expected and would continue so
long as the supply of mortgage
money available to contractors
continues to be drained off by
inflation.
WILL DISCUSS FOOD
WASHINGTON (UPl)—Direc
tor General Adeke H. Boerma
of the U.N. Food and Agricul
ture Organization will discuss
world food problems with the
Nixon administration during a
visit to Washington Monday
through Thursday. Boerma also
will go to Pella, lowa, Tuesday
to receive an honorary degree
from Central College, and to
Miami, Fla., next Friday to
address the close of the sixth
Conference of the Americas on
Malnutrion. He will spend the
following two weeks in South
America.
BELL APPOINTED
NEW YORK (UPl)—David E.
Bell, a White House aide when
Harry 6 Truman was president,
has been appointed executive
vice president of the Ford
Foundation.
Bell, formerly vice president
in charge of the foundation’s
International Division, will con
tinue to direct its International
activities. ,
—Providing additional infor
mation about the future Ameri
can landing sites on the moon
and the moon itself; and
—Duplicating as closely as
possible, except for landing, the
Apollo 11 mission scheduled for
July.
Space scientists trying to
provide a good method for
predicting Apollo’s patch in
moon orbit also wanted more
information about the uneven
fields of gravity which pulled
Apollo 8 slightly out of its
intended path.
The men who direct the
program and those who fly the
machines provide their own
answers:
“We have tested at least once
every element of the Apollo
system,” Apollo program Direc
tor George Low said at a
Space Flights
Fun To Young
By United Press International
To astronaut John W. Young,
the grueling pace of prepara
tion for a moonflight has been
“a heck of a lot of fun.”
That is not too surprising. All
his life Young has had fun
doing things most other people
would think of as work. And he
chafes impatiently at enforced
idleness.
Young’s training schedule for
Apollo 10, America’s last space
mission before men try to land
on the moon this summer, has
often called for him to put in 16
hours of concentrated effort a
day.
“A lot of people think of this
as work,” said the boyish
looking veteran of two Gemini
spaceflights. “It doesn’t seem
like work to me.”
Born in San Francisco, Young
grew up in Orlando, Fla., a
mere 40 miles from where the
Cape Kennedy moonport was
built.
Before Young’s first Gemini
flight, his father recalled the
astronaut’s high school days
and the way he got into flying.
“John made all A’s—but he
didn’t seem to study especially
hard,” said William Young, a
retired Seabee commander.
“He was a good football and
track man. He used to draw
pictures of airplanes and
rockets all the time.
“He went to Georgia Tech,
got his degree in (aeronautical)
engineering and took a commis
sion in the Navy. He was on a
destroyer for two years, and
then applied for flight school at
Pensacola (Fla.). From there
on, he was in his element.”
Young joined the astronaut
corps in 1962 as one of nine
pilots selected for the nation’s
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second astronaut “class.” Also
in that group was Thomas P.
Stafford, commander of Apollo
10’s moon orbit flight.
By 1965 he was named co
pilot of the first Gemini
spaceflight, commanded by the
late Virgil I. “Gus” Grissom.
He went aloft again in 1966
aboard Gemini 10, this time as
commander of his own mission.
Like many of the other
astronauts. Young stays in
shape with bicycle riding and
handball. His trim, 5 foot 9 inch
frame and his shock of unruly
brown hair make him look
younger than his 38 years.
During the Gemini 3 flight,
Young smuggled a corned beef
sandwich aboard in his space
suit pocket because he knew
Grissom did not care too much
for the standard, mushy space
food.
Once in space, Young said, “I
pulled it out and offered it to
the skipper. I hadn’t counted on
the pungent odor of corned beef
in a closed cabin.”
The joke failed to amuse
space agency officials, who
keep a close eye on every
material put in a spaceship.
And during Apollo 10, Young
said, he will stick to strictly
regulation space food.
Although Young has blasted
into space twice, his wife
Barbara and his two children—
daughter Sandy, 12, and son
John, 10—have never been at
Cape Kennedy to see him off.
Young said this time would be
no different, and that they
would watch the launch on
television in Houston.
Now a Navy commander,
Young was a fighter pilot
before he joined the astronaut
corps.
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recent news conference. “We
have tested several times now
the launch vehicle. We’ve tested
the launch facilities and used
them. The command and
service modules have flown
manned now three times . . .
for a total time in space of just
about 30 days.
“What haven’t we done yet?”
he asked. “Well, as far as flight
test objectives are concerned,
we have not yet had lunar
module operations working at
lunar distances (about 237,000
miles from earth).”
Other Projects
He listed other projects that
could not be tried as close to
the earth as Apollo 9, the first
check ride for the lunar lander,
had to operate.
", . . So if yow look at all
these things together, the
Cernan’s Wife Likes Flying
By United Press International
Astronaut Eugene A. Cernan
counted down the final weeks
and days toward the launch of
Apollo 10 with growing impa
tience. For Cernan —and for
his family —flying is away of
life.
“It’s going to be good to fly
again,” he said a few days
before the mission. “It’s been
just about three years. It’s
gone by fast, but on the other
hand it seems like a long time
since I’ve flown.”
Cernan, 35, of course, has
been aloft in an airplane many
times in the past three years.
But for him, ever since he was
co-pilot of Gemini 9 in 1966, the
only real flight has been
spaceflight.
The tall, slim astronaut with
salt-and-pepper hair is not the
only member of his family who
likes to leave the ground
behind.
While Cernan was training
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operational things, and the LM
experience—we sa>d, ‘Gee, first
of all we have got to fly one
more time before we take the
big step of landing on the moon
... we should fly the LM one
more time before we land on
the moon and w« should fly in
moon orbit, rather than earth
orbit because there are so
many more things to be gained
there than there would be in
earth orbit,” Low said.
“We consider this flight as
being the final test for the
whole system before the
landing,” said Young, a veteran
of two previous space missions.
“We are trying to take as
many of the unknowns out of
the lunar orbit operation of the
LM as we possibly can,” said
Cernan, on his second mission.
“We are going over the exact
for his first mission in a
powerful spaceship and for a
spacewalk more than 100 miles
high, his attractive wife,
Barbara, was trying to learn
how to steer a tiny, single
engine airplane through the
skies.
It was even in the air that
Gene, as he prefers to be
called, met the girl who was to
become his wife. She was then
Barbara Atchley, a Houston girl
who flew for five years as a
stewardess.
Flying entered Cernan’s life
after college. Born in Chicago
and raised in suburban Bell
view, 111., his penchant for
things technical came to the
fore at Purdue University
where he received a bachelor of
science degree in electrical
enginering.
He also emerged from
Purdue with a Navy commis
sion and entered flight training.
Cernan wanted to get into
ng
same site that the G mission of
Apollo 11 will go over, so
therefore, we hope that we can
really pinpoint any anomalies in
that total (environment) that
will occur ... we hope that this
will help solve some of the
anomalies that we have had
before,” said Stafford, also on
his second flight.
“I guess there are a million
reasons why you could say F
mission (Apollo 10) is essen
tial,” Cernan added. “To me it
just makes logical, good, test
pilot sense.”
And perhaps Young, speaking
in a news conference at Cape
Kennedy prior to the flight,
summed it up: “I don’t think
you would care to do mission G
(Apollo 11) without having done
mission F.”
research and development
work, but with a flying role. So
he switched from an aircraft
carrier attack squadron to the
Navy test pilot school, and later
entered the Navy’s graduate
engineering school in Monter
rey, Calif.
It was there he learned about
the space agency’s search for a
third “class” of astronauts.
Cernan, looking for a chance to
fly higher than ever, applied
and was accepted in 1963.
Cernan got his first trip into
space sooner than he expected
—and in away he would just as
soon be avoided.
He and Thomas P. Stafford,
now commander of the Apollo
10 moon orbit mission, were
named backup crewmen for
Gemini 9. Then, on Feb. 29,
1966, the prime crew for
Gemini 9 was killed in an
airplane crash at St. Louis, Mo.
Stafford and Cernan moved into
the number one slots.