HANDLING SAMPLES FROM THE MOON

The samples of rock and soil brought back from the moon would be a priceless scientific resource, and for scientists to be able to extract the maximum information from them, the samples would have to be carefully protected. Minute traces of earthborne contaminants could lead to completely erroneous interpretations of laboratory results. In 1964 scientists at the Manned Spacecraft Center proposed that NASA provide a laboratory in which lunar samples would be cataloged and subjected to preliminary examination, so that the requirements of principal investigators for specific types of material could be met. There were, as well, certain time-critical examinations that would have to be done as soon as possible after the samples were returned to earth.

To provide for these requirements would have required only a modest facility. But as plans for managing the samples developed, NASA came under pressure from space biologists and the U.S. Public Health Service to protect the earth against the introduction of alien microorganisms that might exist in lunar soil. What would have been a small laboratory designed to protect lunar samples against contamination grew into an elaborate, expensive quarantine facility that greatly complicated operations on the early lunar landing missions.

Early Plans for Lunar Sample Management

Preliminary definitions of the lunar science program noted the importance of laboratory studies on returned lunar material, but offered no suggestions as to how samples should be collected and handled.¹ Neither within nor outside NASA did anyone give serious thought to the details of preserving lunar samples in near-pristine condition until late 1963. Elbert A. King, Jr., and Donald A. Flory, two geoscientists who joined MSC’s Space Environment Division that year, were among the first to propose action to protect valuable scientific information that could be lost unless the lunar samples were handled under carefully controlled conditions.

In February 1964 King and Flory put together a concept of a sample receiving laboratory and forwarded it to Max Faget, director of engineering and development at the Manned Spacecraft Center. Their plan called for a small (100 square feet, 9.5 square meters) laboratory in which sample containers could be opened and their contents repackaged under high vacuum (one ten-millionth of atmospheric pressure) for distribution to the scientists who would conduct most of the studies. Remotely controlled manipulators would be used to carry out operations within the chamber, which would be sterile, chemically clean, and used for no other purpose.²

Faget recognized the importance of the proposed facility to the lunar science program and encouraged King and Flory to expand their concept. The second version of the “sample transfer facility” was considerably larger and more sophisticated. A 2,500-square-foot (232-square-meter) clean room contained several analytical instruments for performing preliminary tests on the samples. Within this area was a high-vacuum system containing remote manipulators and a separate sterile laboratory for biological testing. The vacuum chamber was equipped to prepare mineralogical and petrological specimens as well as divide and repackage the samples. The atmosphere in the entire area would be closely monitored so that subsequent investigators would know what contaminants might be present in their samples.³

These preliminary studies received considerable support in June 1964 when the Apollo science planning teams [see Chapter 3] met at Houston. Both the geochemistry and mineralogy-petrology teams emphasized the importance of controlling the environment in which the sample containers were first opened and the need for extensive preliminary examination of the samples at the receiving site.⁴ After discussions with members of these teams, King and Flory reworked their proposal and described an elaborate lunar sample laboratory. Projected at more than 8,000 square feet (740 square meters) of floor space, their third concept included offices for 30 visiting scientists as well as laboratories for chemical analysis, low-level short-lived radioactivity measurements, biological examination, and mineralogical and petrological preparations. This facility was not a mere sample-receiving and -packaging laboratory, but the center for much of the preliminary scientific work that would be done on the lunar samples.⁵ They presented this concept to MSC’s director, Bob Gilruth, on August 13. Gilruth approved, and Faget set about preparing to contract for design studies for it.⁶

MSC’s plans required Headquarters approval and funding, and when Faget explained the project Willis Foster’s Manned Space Science Division reacted cautiously, to say the least. While agreeing in general terms with the concept, Foster noted that it was a Headquarters responsibility and that the laboratory would be only a “receiving laboratory.” The detailed preliminary studies Houston was proposing should be left to outside investigators. In response to Faget’s request for $300,000 to conduct the design study, Foster replied that he could allot only $100,000.⁷ In view of the alarm with which some of his people viewed the size of the project MSC was proposing, Foster appointed an ad hoc group of Headquarters and MSC scientists to review it.⁸

The group’s first meeting in early November was, from Houston’s point of view, disappointing. Few of the participants had given much thought to the requirements for a receiving laboratory, and the discussion was long and inconclusive. The group’s chairman seemed determined to keep the size and cost of the proposed lab to the absolute minimum. Most members seemed to feel that a facility such as MSC was proposing would take much of the lunar science program out of the hands of academic investigators. In spite of MSC’s insistence that time was short, the group adjourned without taking any useful action.⁹ But the second meeting, a month later, produced enough progress that MSC’s representative felt Houston could go ahead with initial engineering studies.¹⁰

While Foster’s ad hoc group ruminated on the need for a receiving laboratory, Homer Newell - probably sensing that it would entail a considerable increase in the costs of lunar exploration - felt that an independent assessment by the scientific community was needed. Early in December he mote to Harry H. Hess, chairman of the Space Science Board, requesting the board’s judgment on the kinds of analysis that should be performed on the lunar samples as soon as they were returned, the facilities needed to do that work, and the staffing that would be required.¹¹ A five-man committee - three members of the Space Science Board and two academic scientists - met in Washington on January 14, 1965, to discuss Newell’s questions and to confer with members of the ad hoc group.

Three weeks later Hess reported to Newell that a sample receiving laboratory having a relatively restricted mission was indeed needed. The only critical examination was measurement of radioactivity induced in the lunar surface material by cosmic-ray bombardment, which would have to be measured as soon as possible because it quickly dropped to a very low level. The committee raised a question that Newell had not put to it: its members foresaw a need to quarantine the lunar samples until they proved biologically innocuous. A simple, general biological examination could be done at some existing Public Health Service or Army installation. Without specific information or plans to comment on, the committee could give only rough estimates of staffing requirements and probable costs. A minimal quarantine facility with a radiation-counting laboratory might be built for $2.5 million; it would require between 12 and 30 professional scientists plus a supporting staff.¹²

Hess’s committee emphatically asserted that the studies MSC was proposing should not be done in the receiving laboratory - or, for that matter, by any single group, inside or outside government - but should be entrusted to the scientific community at large. Neither did they see a compelling need to locate the laboratory at Houston, although “it may seem desirable that MSC have a part in the activity by virtue of its Apollo role,” If the Houston center could properly staff such a laboratory, however, it might “add to the overall environment at MSC.” On the other hand, since the radiation-counting laboratory would have to be built deep underground to shield it from natural radiation, the waterlogged soil of the Texas coast might make construction more expensive there, and thus some other site might be preferable. The committee also cautioned that such a laboratory would have to operate continuously to conduct worthwhile research; it could not be geared up to operate whenever a new set of samples was available and then shut down until another lunar mission was flown,¹³ which, they evidently suspected, was the way MSC was likely to operate the laboratory in light of its minimal scientific capability.

Manned Spacecraft Center officials, meanwhile, were anxious to get their preliminary engineering studies under way. Preliminary studies, design studies, contractor selection, and contract negotiations had to be disposed of as quickly as possible. Cost estimates and justifications had to be prepared for inclusion in the center’s budget proposals for fiscal 1967, when construction would have to start. According to early 1965 estimates, the laboratory would have to be operational by January 1969 to support the first lunar mission. Many critical and complex operations in the laboratory would have to be checked out beforehand, and managers estimated that a 9- to 12-month shakedown would be needed.¹⁴

The sense of urgency felt at MSC was not shared in Washington, however Faget wrote to Foster in mid-January 1965 urging hint to release funds for preliminary engineering studies for the laboratory and suggesting that Headquarters' ad hoc committee be replaced by a standing committee to oversee the incorporation of scientific requirements into the laboratory during construction. A month later Foster replied that study funds could not be released until the ad hoc committee made its report. He concurred with Faget’s desire for a standing committee and urged him to appoint one of his staff to it, pointing to the value of “a greater understanding by MSC of the scientific objectives of the laboratory,” which would enhance Houston’s chances of getting the facility. “Other NASA centers,” Foster said, “are submitting 'bids' for the laboratory.” ¹⁵

For the next several weeks, MSC and Headquarters discussed management of the laboratory, finally reaching an understanding as to future activity on the project. Foster would appoint a standing committee that would be given free access to design reviews and relevant program materials, so that Headquarters could be assured that the science requirements levied on the laboratory were being met. At Faget’s insistence, however, the committee would have no right to approve plans; their advice would be made available through the committee chairman to MSC’s point of contact for the receiving laboratory. Except for the specialized radiation-counting equipment, the cost of the laboratory would be included in MSC’s construction of facilities budget for fiscal 1967.¹⁶ Some discrepancy still existed between Headquarters’s and Houston’s cost estimates. Foster’s office seemed be thinking of a $1- to $2-million facility; the figure included in MSC’s preliminary 1967 budget was $6.5 million.¹⁷

The Specter of “Back-Contamination”

Houston’s planning for the sample receiving laboratory was vastly complicated the following summer by a question Hess’s committee had emphasized in its February report. They stated a clear requirement for quarantine of the lunar material until biologists could ascertain that it harbored no living organisms that might threaten the earth’s biosphere.¹⁸

The possibility that life exists or has existed elsewhere in the universe - even within our solar system - evolved from a science-fiction fantasy to a serious scientific question within a few decades. Although no positive evidence has ever been found to indicate that even the simplest living organisms exist elsewhere, a considerable accumulation of evidence that life might appear, under the right conditions, has led to a widespread conviction that it has appeared,^* somewhere.¹⁹

* The argument runs roughly as follows. Simple organic molecules related to the substances out of which living matter is made have been detected in space. Other organic material, possibly derived from living organisms, has been found in meteorites. Conclusive experiments have shown that precursors to living matter can be built from chemically simple substances under conditions presumed to have existed on the ancient earth. Given the vast number of galaxies observable in the universe (a billion billion, according to one estimate) it seems probable that solar systems like our own exist somewhere in those galaxies, and that conditions favoring the origin of life exist on an appreciable number of planets similar to earth.

As early as 1960 the Space Science Board had advised that NASA and other concerned government agencies (e.g., the Public Health Service) should establish an interagency committee on interplanetary quarantine to formulate a national policy for handling spacecraft and material returned from other planets.²⁰ Two years later, the working group on biology of the Iowa summer study [see Chapter 1] noted that

the introduction into the Earth’s biosphere of destructive alien organisms could be a disaster…. We can conceive of no more tragically ironic consequence of our search for extraterrestrial life.

Acknowledging that scientists by no means unanimously agreed on the existence of extraterrestrial life, the group nonetheless recommended that NASA employ

appropriate quarantine and other procedures... when handling returned samples, spacecraft, and astronauts [in order to] make the risk as small as possible.²¹

These cautions had little effect on NASA’s plans - in part because the danger seemed remote in the early 1960s, but also because no one in the space agency spoke^** for the life sciences.²² In the early days of space flight few biologists were interested in the space environment; the frontiers of biology were on earth. The life-science community created no demand for NASA support comparable to that created by space physics and astronomy.²³

** See Newell, Beyond the Atmosphere, chap. 16 (“Life Sciences: No Place in the Sun”). Of all the life sciences, space medicine - the effects of the space environment on human physiology - was the only one of prime concern to manned space flight; but it was only a subsidiary effort in Mercury and Gemini and was concerned mainly with settling some crucial operational questions. See John A. Pitts, The Human Factor: Biomedicine in the Manned Space Program to 1980, NASA SP-4213 (Washington, 1985).

As the Apollo program progressed, however, and the prospect of people returning from the moon with boxes of lunar rocks and soil became increasingly likely, concerned biologists continued to call attention to the need for precautions against contamination of the earth by organisms from the moon. On July 29, 1964, the Space Science Board convened a conference of representatives from the Public Health Service, the Department of Agriculture, the Fish and Wildlife Service, the National Academy of Sciences, and NASA to assess the back-contamination problem and recommend courses of action. The conference concluded that

the existence of life on the moon or planets cannot … rationally be precluded. At the very least, present evidence is not inconsistent with its presence…. Negative data will not prove that extraterrestrial life does not exist; they will merely mean that it has not been found [emphasis added].” ^***

*** This statement is quite correct; experimental proof of a negative postulate, such as “life does not exist on Mars,” is, in any practical sense, impossible. But many must have felt like one anonymous reader at MSC, who pencilled opposite the sentence in the margin of his copy of the report: “Like witches.”

>To contain any alien life forms, astronauts, spacecraft, and lunar materials coming back from the moon should be placed immediately in an isolation unit; the astronauts should be held in rigid quarantine for at least three weeks; and preliminary examination of the samples should be conducted behind “absolute biological barriers, under rigid bacterial and chemical isolation.” NASA should immediately take steps to work out the operational details of these procedures.²⁴

When Harry Hess’s committee, speaking for the Space Science Board, reported its position on back-contamination the following February, both Headquarters and the Manned Spacecraft Center realized that quarantine was a more serious concern than they had anticipated.²⁵ Although the director of Biosciences Programs in the Office of Space Science and Applications had kept in contact with the National Academy of Sciences and the Public Health Service, the emphasis on the possible dangers of lunar material came as a surprise to him.²⁶ Most speculation about extraterrestrial life excluded the moon. At Houston, the report portended serious complications in the design of the receiving laboratory and probably in flight operations as well, and Faget’s organization took steps to clarify the quarantine requirements.²⁷ Action at higher levels was slow in coming, however. Only in May did the NASA Administrator and the Surgeon General (chief of the Public Health Service [PHS]) discuss the matter, agreeing to set up an interagency advisory committee to deal with back-contamination.²⁸

By the end of July 1965, MSC had incorporated a general requirement for quarantine into its justification for building the receiving lab, but time was growing short and detailed specifications were needed. Then-current plans required the laboratory to be in operation by January 1, 1969. Allowing a year or more for engineering and design studies, another six months for checking out the equipment and procedures, and six months to correct deficiencies uncovered in the shakedown, just over a year would be left to build the laboratory and install the special scientific equipment. Procedures and space requirements for quarantine had to be settled as soon as possible. MSC already had an outside engineering firm working on a preliminary engineering survey, which would define the laboratory’s special requirements and determine what additional studies might be needed to specify its specialized scientific equipment.²⁹

Others at MSC were working to formulate a center policy on quarantine in the hope that it could be simplified as much as possible. In late July, Headquarters arranged for an informal meeting of PHS and manned space flight representatives to discuss quarantine and the lunar sample receiving laboratory.³⁰ Knowing that MSC had little chance of convincing the PHS that no hazard existed, Elbert King consulted with center medical experts and prepared a statement asserting that only subsurface samples should be treated as potential hazards and that quarantine could be terminated as soon as returned samples were found free of exotic organisms. He also set down several important policy questions concerning quarantine to serve as the basis for discussions with the PHS.³¹

When the two groups met at Houston on September 27, 1965, it soon became apparent that MSC’s evaluation of the hazard presented by lunar material was not shared by PHS officials. King argued that the lunar surface could be considered sterile: it was in a high vacuum, devoid of water, exposed to intense ultraviolet radiation and subatomic particles from the solar wind, and subjected to severe temperature changes. “If you really wanted to try to design a sterile surface,” King later summarized his argument, “this was it.” Thus surface material and the astronauts who came in contact only with it should not require such rigorous isolation as samples taken from greater depths. The PHS representative, Dr. James Goddard, chief of the Communicable Disease Center in Atlanta, was unmoved by these arguments. He asked whether anyone could be certain that no microorganisms could survive anywhere on the moon - in sheltered areas, for example. When no one could offer such assurance, Goddard insisted that quarantine must be strict. He and other PHS officials were upset, in fact, that MSC had taken such a casual view of the biological hazard. Even if it cost $50 million to implement an effective quarantine, Goddard said, the importance of the issues justified the added expense.³² When MSC asked whether the PHS’s immigration officers would allow the Apollo astronauts to enter the United States if they were handled in the same way the Gemini crews had been, the reply was emphatic: they would not.³³

When the conference was over MSC officials knew that the lunar receiving laboratory would have to be even larger and more expensive than they had expected. Quarantine would require astronauts and a fairly large support staff to five in isolation for at least three weeks. The numerous postmission debriefings would have to be conducted through the biological barrier. Not only that, but recovery operations would be much more difficult. PHS officials wanted to prevent exposure of the command module’s interior to the earth’s atmosphere from the moment it splashed down in the ocean, and the astronauts would have to be isolated at once - even in the rubber rafts used by the recovery crews. On reaching the recovery ship they would be led straight to a mobile quarantine chamber that could be flown back to the mainland. Passing the word to all branches of the Systems Engineering Division at MSC, Division Chief Owen Maynard directed them to show what measures were being taken to comply with these requirements. “Rather than assume the standard answer that no changes can - be made within present weight, cost and schedule limitations,” he said, “you should assume that [we are] morally obligated to prevent any possible contamination of the earth.” Initial examination should be based on the ground rule that “no [command module] components can be exposed to the earth’s atmosphere following entry, except those components external to the pressure shell which cannot be contaminated by the cabin environment.” While conceding that the first look might show the problems to be insurmountable, Maynard noted that the hazards should be completely documented so that action could be taken as needed.³⁴

Maynard’s instructions to his division probably reflected a widespread mood of resignation to working around the difficulties that would result from imposition of strict quarantine, which, in the view of some, was unnecessary.³⁵ But the question of back-contamination had been raised by the scientific community and recognized as important by the Space Science Board and thus had the potential to become a political issue that could create much adverse publicity for the Apollo program.

Toward the end of 1965 it was generally accepted that crew and samples would have to be strictly quarantined. On November 15 NASA’s Deputy Administrator, Hugh L. Dryden, wrote to the Surgeon General proposing that a formal liaison office with the Public Health Service be established, that a NASA-PHS advisory committee be set up to establish guidelines for back-contamination control and oversee NASA’s efforts to avoid infecting the earth, and that the PHS recommend the kind of facilities and staff required to carry out those efforts.³⁶ The Surgeon General’s reply a month later paved the way for establishing formal cooperation in managing quarantine in the Apollo program.³⁷

Congress Objects to the Receiving Laboratory

MSC had initially projected the cost of building the lunar receiving laboratory at $6.5 million, but providing for quarantine would increase that considerably. Before going ahead with plans to enlarge the laboratory, George Mueller, no doubt with a view to minimizing the cost increase, directed MSC to conduct a quick survey of quarantine facilities around the country that might serve to isolate crews and support staff following Apollo missions.³⁸ Houston evaluated 12 hospitals and research installations that were equipped for biological containment against the requirements imposed on Apollo, and concluded that none would be satisfactory. Only one, in fact, an Army hospital at Fort Detrick, Maryland (which provided care for personnel working with highly dangerous microorganisms), even came close. Converting it to accommodate Apollo, however, would require major new construction and would interfere with the Army’s research programs.³⁹ If the Apollo crews were to be quarantined, NASA evidently would have to build its own isolation ward for the purpose, and in spite of its cost Mueller believed he had adequate justification for it.

But lean years were beginning for manned space flight. President Lyndon Johnson pressed hard for expanded domestic social programs while announcing his intention to keep the federal budget under $100 billion. At the same time the nation’s involvement in southeast Asia deepened; troop commitments increased eightfold as the United States sent combat units to Vietnam. Other programs, including space, would be squeezed hard to keep costs down.⁴⁰

Administrator James Webb went to Congress in the spring of 1966 with an authorization request for $5.012 billion, 60 percent of it for manned space flight. It was an austere budget, Webb said, that provided “no margins of time or of resources to counter the effects of setbacks or failures.” ⁴¹ Manned programs required $54.4 million for construction of facilities - a sharp increase from the previous year’s request, but only one-fourth of what NASA had received two years before.⁴² The largest single amount, $36.5 million, went to Kennedy Space Center, most of it for completion of the Saturn V launch complex. The Manned Spacecraft Center needed $13.8 million, of which $9.1 million was allocated to the lunar receiving laboratory.⁴³

The House subcommittee on manned space flight was generally sympathetic to Apollo’s other requests, but it gave the lunar receiving laboratory unusually close scrutiny. In response to questions submitted by the subcommittee after the initial hearings on February 24, 1966, the Office of Manned Space Flight supplied for the record a detailed history, including statements from the Public Health Service, of the requirements imposed by the scientific community and NASA’s efforts to satisfy them.⁴⁴ But when William Lilly, Headquarters Apollo Program Control Director, and George Low, MSC’s Deputy Director, faced the subcommittee on March 1, some members apparently had not had time to study OMSF’s responses, Congressman Donald Rumsfeld suspected the receiving lab was NASA’s attempt to get a foot in the door for substantial expenditures later, and he saw no valid reason to build the lab at MSC.⁴⁵ Ranking minority member James Fulton of Pennsylvania, like Rumsfeld, did not see why the lab had to be at Houston; but he also faulted NASA for not planning to use existing facilities and questioned NASA’s assertion that the laboratory was needed.⁴⁶ Whatever the reasons for - the congressmen’s antagonism to the receiving lab, Lilly and Low had an unexpectedly rough day. Olin Teague, chairman of the subcommittee and an unswerving supporter of manned space flight, did not preside at these hearings, and his absence undoubtedly deprived them of a friendly interrogator who would have helped them make their case. The following week the subcommittee, not convinced that NASA had justified the receiving laboratory, struck it out of the authorization bill.⁴⁷

The loss of the laboratory was a blow to MSC and to Apollo; without it, NASA could not meet the scientific requirements imposed on the lunar landing missions. Mueller ordered a more detailed study of existing facilities that might serve either to quarantine the crews and samples or to conduct the required scientific studies.⁴⁸ MSC immediately appointed a site survey board to evaluate possible alternate locations. From a list of 27 facilities a group of 8 was selected for detailed investigation.^**** The board then prepared a list of detailed criteria for the laboratory, based primarily on its requirements for two-way biological containment, handling of samples under high vacuum, and low-level radiation counting. Secondary but important considerations included space, administrative and technical support services, and availability of utilities. Finally, the board was to consider logistics, principally the problem of travel to and from the site by engineers and others who needed to debrief the astronauts.

**** USPHS Communicable Disease Center, Atlanta, Ga.; Army Biological Center, Ft. Detrick, Md.; National Institutes of Health, Bethesda, Md.; Oak Ridge National Laboratory, Oak Ridge, Tenn.; USAF School of Aviation Medicine, Brooks AFB, Tex.; NASA Ames Research Center, Moffett Field, Calif.; Navy Biological Laboratories, Oakland, Calif.; and Los Alamos Scientific Laboratory, Los Alamos, N. Mex.

Since time was limited, the board split up into two teams, one to survey the eastern sites and one the western. Each team had a member who could estimate the cost of modifying and operating the candidate facilities, During the week of March 16-23 the teams inspected the eight establishments, conferring with officials at each site to assess the impact of Apollo’s requirements on local programs and their willingness to accept the project. The board then summarized its findings:

1. There is no single facility that will meet the criteria standards for any one of the major functional areas of the Lunar Receiving Laboratory, without extensive modification.
2. There is no single facility that can be economically modified or adapted to meet all the requirements of the Lunar Receiving Laboratory.
3. The use of any one of the sites investigated will result in reduction or reprogramming of some phase of nationally significant research effort.
4. An integrated facility is necessary to minimize public health hazards.
5. Maximum operational effectiveness, as a part of the Apollo mission, and minimum operating costs indicate a Houston location as the most preferred site.⁴⁹

The final report stressed the last point: efficient management of Apollo required the astronauts, spacecraft, and lunar samples to be as close as possible to Houston’s engineers and physicians, especially in the first few weeks after recovery.⁵⁰

While this survey proceeded, Headquarters gathered more supporting information in preparation for a rehearing.⁵¹ On March 31 Mueller, armed with the site survey report and stacks of extra facts, appeared before the subcommittee. In great detail he explained the history of the receiving lab, in particular the emergence of the requirement for quarantine, stressing NASA’s cooperation with the Public Health Service and the Space Science Board. Since some subcommittee members apparently felt that NASA had sprung a surprise in proposing the new facility, Mueller pointed out that chairman Teague had been informed of the probable need for a receiving laboratory in August 1965. Col. John Pickering, who had headed the site-evaluation survey, then explained that group’s operation and reiterated its conclusions.⁵²

This time the subcommittee was convinced and restored funds for the laboratory to the authorization bill.⁵³ Fulton, however, held out. He put his objections on record in the full committee’s report to the House, discounting the danger of back-contamination, asserting that the site survey teams had been packed with members predisposed to choose Houston as the site for the lab, and disputing the need to centralize all the operations in one place. Contrary to NASA’s own findings, many other facilities in the country could be used with minor modification, Fulton said.⁵⁴ When the authorization bill came to the House floor, it passed with the lunar receiving laboratory’s $9.1 million intact, though Fulton tried once more to kill it. “We simply have no facts,” he told his colleagues, “on which to build a practical foundation and a laboratory.” ⁵⁵

The lunar receiving laboratory survived the authorization hearings but fared somewhat less well in the Appropriations Committee,^# which cut out $26.5 million in construction funds. The committee did not eliminate or reduce any specific projects; it was simply not convinced that they should all be started immediately. Some projects (presumably the receiving laboratory, although it was not mentioned by name), the committee report pointed out, would not be needed until after the lunar landing.⁵⁶ The Senate Committee on Aeronautical and Space Sciences was more specific, reducing funds for the laboratory by $1 million and warning NASA to keep a tight rein on its costs and provide only the necessary minimum of specialized facilities.⁵⁷ In the final appropriations bill passed by Congress, NASA’s budget request for fiscal 1967 was cut by $44 million, bringing funding for space below $5 billion for the first time since fiscal 1963.⁵⁸ Research and development, the category that covered most of the agency’s expenses for space flight hardware and operations, suffered the smallest reduction, only $1.6 million out of $4,246.6 million requested. Construction of facilities was reduced by $18.2 million and administrative operations by $23.9 million⁵⁹; both of these reductions would have a considerable impact on construction and operation of the lunar receiving laboratory.

# Manned space flight (and the Manned Spacecraft Center) had lost a powerful friend in Congress a few weeks earlier. Representative Albert Thomas of Houston, chairman of the subcommittee that passed on NASA’s appropriation bills, died on February 15, 1966.

Completing Design and Starting Construction

Throughout 1965, the Manned Spacecraft Center developed the architectural and engineering requirements for the lunar receiving laboratory (LRL), relying on Headquarters’s Manned Space Science Division to define its scientific requirements.⁶⁰ By the end of the year Houston had completed its preliminary engineering study, requirements for quarantine of crew and support personnel had been incorporated, and in March 1966 NASA officials took to Congress a description for a building enclosing more than 86,000 square feet (8,000 square meters) of floor space. One-fourth of this was required for the crew isolation area, two-thirds for the sample-receiving laboratory and the biological facilities, and the rest for the radiation-counting laboratory - part of which was 50 feet (15 meters) below ground level and elaborately shielded against radiation from outside.⁶¹

Houston planned a two-phase construction program; the first, for the foundation and building shell, to begin in July 1966; and the second, to complete and equip the building, to start in September. Total construction costs were estimated at around $8 million. The vacuum system and its associated equipment were to be designed and built by the Oak Ridge National Laboratory of the Atomic Energy Commission. At the time of the congressional hearings MSC expected the entire facility to be ready for operation by the end of December 1967.⁶² A program office and a policy board for the LRL were established in May 1966.⁶³

Congress’s unexpected opposition to the LRL delayed the schedule, however, and by midsummer Headquarters advised Houston that it could solicit bids but could not open them until NASA’s authorization bill had passed. Both schedule and budget were tight, but it seemed that MSC would have to live with both, since Congress was far from favorable toward the project.⁶⁴ Clearance to open bids for the first phase of construction came on July 28 with the stipulation that no contract was to be awarded nor was the second contractor to be announced until Headquarters gave the word.⁶⁵ On August 1 MSC selected Warrior Constructors, Inc., of Houston for the initial phase of construction; on the 19th the contract for completing the laboratory went to a consortium of Warrior, National Electronics Corp. of Houston, and Notkin & Co. of Kansas City, Mo. The two contracts totaled approximately $7.8 million.⁶⁶

Staffing the Lunar Receiving Laboratory

While most of the early planning for the lunar receiving laboratory necessarily concentrated on the building and its equipment, the scientists who were drawing up its functions continually pondered the problem of providing a competent staff to operate it. The Space Science Board’s ad hoc committee (Harry Hess’s group) saw merit in establishing a “small but competent [scientific] staff headed by a scientist of recognized stature” to maintain a modest research program, but felt that “the problem of attracting a highly competent small staff is serious,” ⁶⁷ presumably because the environment at MSC did not appeal to scientists. The Houston center had only a few scientists, most of them younger professionals who had yet to establish their reputations and had little chance to do so in the roles they were assigned.⁶⁸ OSSA’s ad hoc committee proposed a permanent staff to sustain the laboratory, supplemented by visiting scientists who would do much of the experimental work On the lunar samples.⁶⁹

As plans matured, however, and particularly as the requirement for quarantine developed in 1965, the question of an organization and staff for the laboratory became increasingly pressing. In early September, James McLane, MSC’s engineer in charge of the early planning, outlined the peculiar requirements of the new laboratory in a five-page memorandum. McLane noted that preliminary studies had pointed up the need for a minimum of three persons to serve as an administrative staff: a director, a technical director (chief scientist), and an assistant technical director (sample curator), all of whom should be MSC civil service employees. Major questions concerning the roles of these staff members needed resolution. Where would they fit in the MSC organization? What responsibility would they have in managing and distributing the lunar samples? Should they be eminent scientists to satisfy the scientific community? (At one time McLane had heard that a Nobel laureate was being suggested.) How would differences between visiting scientists and MSC’s operations be settled? McLane urged that MSC and Headquarters work out these details, define the positions, and start recruiting. “It would be highly desirable,” he said, “to have at least one of these… positions filled reasonably early in the final design phase (late 1965).” Concerning quarantine, McLane felt that this might be better left to the Public Health Service; but whatever was decided, definite responsibility should be assigned as soon as possible.⁷⁰

But while design studies went on under the pressure of the early-1969 schedule for beginning operations, laboratory organization and staffing languished. Discussions with the Public Health Service and definition of the PHS’s role in quarantine took up most of the last half of 1965. MSC and the Headquarters standing committee for the sample receiving laboratory spent much of the first half of 1966 working over the lab design. And when Congress balked at Houston’s plan for the receiving lab, considerable effort had to be given to justifying its existence and its location. All in all, the lunar receiving laboratory created a knotty management problem, which was probably complicated by the lack of a focal point for science at MSC.

Early in 1966 the Planetology Subcommittee of OSSA’s Space Science Steering Committee,^## worried by the lack of progress in defining the scientific role of the receiving laboratory, recommended that the standing committee monitor that aspect of the planning and report periodically to the Steering Committee.⁷¹ After some discussion within OSSA, the standing committee was replaced by a Lunar Receiving Laboratory Working Group chaired by Dr. Clark Goodman of the physics faculty at the University of Houston, a member of the Planetology Subcommittee. At its first meeting on May 5, 1966, the group reviewed progress on laboratory design and studied MSC’s schedule for construction and activation of the lab. MSC’s presentation made no mention of staffing, and when the question was raised it developed that no job descriptions were available and no recruiting was under way for key positions. While members of the working group were impressed by MSC’s concept of the laboratory, they were concerned about the lack of definition of its organization. Their concern took the form of a resolution, in which they also recommended that at least 12 civil-service positions be made available for scientists in the LRL and stated the group’s willingness to suggest candidates.⁷² Later in the month MSC prepared an estimate of staffing requirements that showed 33 resident scientists (Ph.D. or equivalent) and provision to accommodate 15 visiting scientists working On grants from Headquarters.⁷³

## The Space Sciences Steering Committee, composed entirely of NASA employees, was responsible for recommending science programs and projects to the Associate Administrator for Space Science and Applications. Seven subcommittees, each having about half its members from the outside scientific community, advised the main committee on specific areas of space science.

Houston’s freedom to staff the receiving laboratory was restricted by the budget cuts imposed by Congress, which ultimately reduced the number of civil-service positions at the center by 84 in fiscal 1967.⁷⁴ The LRL Working Group continued to press for action while MSC struggled with the problem of fitting the laboratory into its organization.⁷⁵ A possible alternative came to light in midsummer when the University of Houston approached officials at MSC about managing the laboratory under contract.⁷⁶ The idea of using an outside management contractor had been considered by MSC, and Houston officials gave this initiative considerable thought. Early in September a plan was drafted for consideration by Headquarters, calling for the University of Houston, through its Houston Research Institute, to head a consortium of regional universities to provide professional staff and technical support for operations in the receiving lab.⁷⁷ In further discussions with Headquarters MSC stressed the value of a connection with the academic world and the difficulty of staffing the laboratory under existing civil-service restrictions.⁷⁸

Headquarters wanted to look more closely at the situation, however, and discussions continued through the rest of the year. NASA’s top managers evidently had visions that the lunar receiving laboratory would become a national laboratory for lunar studies, in which case participation by the academic community on a nationwide scale would be desirable.⁷⁹ Meanwhile, MSC was directed to create a task force to take care of the receiving laboratory’s basic needs, extend existing support contracts to meet immediate requirements, and await developments.⁸⁰ If additional scientific talent was needed, other NASA centers could be called on to provide it.⁸¹

During all these discussions, pressure from concerned groups mounted. The LRL Working Group especially emphasized the need to name a director for the laboratory. The Public Health Service felt that matters had reached a point where an organization and staff were critical to further progress, and suggested that the laboratory chief should be someone thoroughly familiar with biomedical science generally and quarantine in particular.⁸²

In fact, MSC officials had finally come to recognize the need for more than just a staff and organization for the receiving laboratory. By mid-December the Houston center had decided to create a Science and Applications Directorate, organizationally on a par with Max Faget’s Engineering and Development Directorate, in which all the center’s scientific activity would be centralized. [see Chapter 6] It would take over the activities of the Experiments Program Office and the Space Sciences Division as well as a number of other scientific functions scattered around the center. Robert O. Piland, chief of the Experiments Program Office, would act as director while a search was instituted for an established scientist to fill the position.⁸³ No director was named for the lunar receiving laboratory; pending a permanent appointment, Joseph V. Piland, project manager for LRL construction, was named acting manager.

To provide the laboratory technicians who would prepare the lunar receiving laboratory for operation, MSC turned to its support contractors. In mid-January 1967 Gilruth notified Headquarters that he intended to extend an existing contract with Brown & Root-Northrop, which would furnish technicians for the receiving laboratory under the direction of the project manager.⁸⁴ Between completion of the laboratory and the first lunar mission, Brown & Root-Northrop would train its employees in laboratory operations and maintenance and prepare for an operational readiness inspection and a rehearsal of a complete cycle of laboratory operation.

The Manned Spacecraft Center had recognized the need for a lunar sample receiving laboratory and was willing to support it, but many MSC engineers - and a few scientists as well - felt that the quarantine facility and its elaborate precautions were unnecessary impediments to Apollo operations. But however insignificant manned space flight officials believed the risk of back-contamination to be, it was a risk NASA could not afford to take. If they were wrong, the consequences would be, as the scientists said, disastrous.