How the UK helped America Go to the Moon
- 9th Dec 2024
- Author: John Statham
No one can blame the Americans for wanting to plant ‘Old Glory’ on the surface of the Moon. After all it took a gargantuan effort to get there. However, they didn’t take this decision lightly: they considered the bigger picture that humanity was leaving Earth and reaching out to grasp and land on our nearest neighbour in the cosmos. It wasn't just three men from America, so credit to them for that.
Now, to the point of the blog: I thought it might be interesting to focus on the United Kingdom in particular, and see what contribution some of its citizens made to help fulfil Kennedy’s goal, “First, I believe that 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 the Earth.”
Of course, there is that old saying, the American’s German scientists were better than the Russian’s German scientists – if it were only that simple… NASA had 400,000 employees involved in getting astronauts to, and returning them back from the Moon, but there were plenty of others working on Apollo who weren't from the United States.
A Welshman Aims for the Stars
It may surprise you to know that there was a man from the UK that was an Apollo astronaut, Dr John Anthony Llewellyn.
Born near Cardiff, he was one of only two that were not born in the U.S.A in the new group of eleven space farers – known by some as the “excess eleven.”
He, along with the other members of his group received jet pilot training for 13 months. But he soon realised that flying fast jets was not for him and along with the fact that the opportunity to be part of an Apollo flight was dwindling, just one year before Apollo 11 took off for the stars, he left.
Interesting that having had ambitions to reach for the stars, he did the complete opposite and dived down into the depths of oceans, being taught to dive by the one and only Jacques Cousteau.
He then worked for the National Oceanic and Atmosphere Administration (NOAA) and spent the majority of the next five years in a yellow pod at the bottom of the sea for scientific research.
He passed away at the age of 80 holding the position of professor of chemical & biological engineering at Florida State University.
Brits and Apollo
There are so many people that were British or had a strong link to the United Kingdom, with a link to the Apollo Program. Here are just a few:
John Hodge was from Essex and was the flight director on Mercury, Gemini and Apollo. In particular, the troublesome Gemini 8 mission, where Dave Scott and Neil Armstrong came close to blacking out but Armstrong’s calmness under pressure saved the day.
Also from Essex, Francis Thomas Bacon invented the fuel cell technology providing power for communications, air-conditioning and lights on the Apollo missions. You can find a real Apollo Fuel Cell on display in our rocket tower!
A Yorkshireman, by the name of Dr Ian Dodd was a manager of systems dynamics (launch, escape & docking) and Tecwyn Roberts from Anglesey was involved in the design of Mission Control in Houston.
There were several from these shores that worked as engineers at the Kennedy Space Centre too: James Hensley, Roy McCowan & John Humphrey. One of the first (and few) people to be tasked with analysing the rocks brought back from the Moon was William D. Ehmann. Many more from the UK worked at the Marshall Space Flight centre in Huntsville, Alabama.
Finally, Neil Armstrong – was of German, English, Scots-Irish, and Scottish decent and was a proud descendant of the Armstrong Clan.
Links to the East Midlands
As someone who was born and bred in Nottingham, I have left the final two items until last.
Keith Wright, hailing from the Bobbers Mill part of the city was responsible for developing the experiments (ALSEP) that the astronauts used on the lunar module, “My responsibility was to develop the testing and the operations, to make sure the experiments would work when we got to the Moon.”
I have seen him interviewed on several occasions on programmes to do with Apollo.
Finally, when every ascent stage of the Lunar Module left the Moon’s surface, it was powered by a fuel developed at the University of Nottingham in 1947. This was the research carried out by a PhD student called Ray Thompson.
Furthermore, in 1969, the university was approached by NASA to help solve issues they were having. Namely, that the N204 (dinitrogen tetroxide - rocket propellant) was causing blockages in the filters and fuel lines onboard the rockets and corrosion in the stainless steel and titanium fuel storage tanks. Professor Clifford Addison and Dr Norman Logan, from the University of Nottingham, were able to pinpoint the iron compound that was causing the corrosion and solve the problem.
Since Apollo, the Shuttle spacecraft and the Ariane rocket have used N204.
Ultimately, very few countries (if any), had the financial means to commit themselves to such a massive task – the Russians tried but their grasp didn’t exceed their reach, and they bowed out. A lot of the world were behind America. Many times, when the crew of Apollo 11 toured the world, people would say, “we did it,” not “you did it.” It was an incredible moment and even as an eight-year old, I sensed a feeling that the world in which we lived, for a brief moment, could be a better place. It goes to show, that the saying, “no man is an island,” for the most part, is true: to achieve anything there are always others on the side line that guide, encourage and support.
In the final reckoning, I’m sure the UK was not the only provider as regards helping NASA get to the Moon. Would the USA have got there without outside assistance? Perhaps… eventually… but not until maybe 1979, 1989? – I’ll let you ponder that one.
Full references / credits:
(Banner image) Buzz Aldrin on Moon - Apollo 11. Credit: NASA
(1) NASA astronaut Anthony Llewellyn. Credit: NASA
(2) John Hodge (left) flight director. Credit: NASA
