One of the most respected top managers of the Apollo program, Joseph P. Gavin, who led development of the NASA/Grumman Apollo lunar module, is airing sharp opposition to the Bush Administration/NASA goal of returning humans to the Moon as a stepping stone to Mars. 

  In a letter to Aviation Week & Space Technology, Gavin, former director of the lunar module development at Grumman, says he believes the near term Orion Crew Exploration Vehicle lunar plan and Moon base goal should be scrapped in favor of even more emphasis on Mars—especially robotic Mars exploration.

“I have been somewhat surprised to see the lack of active criticism of the administration’s vision for space exploration,” says Gavin in his letter to Aviation Week. “It seems to me to be more concerned with the 'how' as opposed to the 'why' he says.

The letter is carried in Aviation Week’s July 30 edition. The Apollo Grumman lunar module design is being used by NASA as an engineering starting point for the initial assessments of a the manned Lunar Surface Access Module (LSAM) that would return astronauts to the Moon in about 13 years under NASA’s new exploration vision.

“The argument that the Moon is a necessary training base for eventual manned expeditions to Mars is flatly unpersuasive,” says Gavin, who directed development of the first manned spacecraft ever to land on another body in space. 

After manned test flights in Earth orbit by Apollo 9 and lunar orbit by Apollo 10, six more Grumman lunar modules landed 12 astronauts on the Moon between 1969-1972 ( see Apollo 15 photo below ). Another acted as a lifeboat to save the Apollo 13 crew.

Gavin says the new NASA lunar vision should be shifted to Mars immediately. He will turn 100 yrs. old in 2020,  about when the first lunar landing since Apollo is envisioned.

“Inasmuch as we have been to the Moon—-yes I remember the Apollo days vividly—-it is unclear to me that there is any particular urgency to return, he says. “Past studies have indicated the complexity and the implied great expense of a lunar base operation.

“The application of Apollo style technology to replace the shuttle appears to be a desperate effort to save development costs. It also seems to be an invitation to the Europeans and others to jump ahead of us in pushing the frontiers of technology.”  

Gavin says “our first priority” should be to fully exploit the International Space Station. But the second major U. S. space program priority “should be to undertake further robotic exploration of Mars to see if human exploration [there] is really warranted,” he says.

  “Mars is becoming more interesting as we receive more data from the unmanned devices now in place and reporting back. The intriguing question of current or prior life on Mars needs to be answered,” he says.

While Gavin’s comments came in a letter to this Aviation Week editor, several other key Grumman lunar module engineers, who were led by Gavin,  told a recent NASA return-to-the-Moon symposium that they have doubts about whether the national political leadership and public  have continued will to undertake a major new manned lunar effort, as in Apollo. The symposium was not a forum about whether the U. S. should return to the Moon, but rather for a discussion between Grumman and NASA managers about how lessons from the Apollo lunar module program (begun 40 years ago) could aid development of the LSAM for the new NASA plan.

“Because in the 1960s everyone was conscious of Apollo, we were able to attract the best and brightest people to work on the program,” says Gerry Sandler who helped lead the Grumman lunar module Reliability and Maintainability Team.   “If it is not recognized that [the NASA/Bush lunar plan] is a major national priority people are not going to be as anxious to work on these kind of things as they were in the 1960s, he told the NASA symposium in Washington on the new lunar effort.

“We talked about that being one of the major differences on the upcoming program as opposed to the past,” says Bob Schwartz, also a retired Grumman lunar module engineer. “We were being watched by the entire world and we were not permitted to fail. I am not so sure there is that drive now,” he said.

Lunar module engineer Joe Mule’ said he believed it would take 15 years to reconstitute an engineering team like developed the Apollo spacecraft.

The Lunar Module veterans expressed concern about the current poor performance of U. S. students in math and science. But none of them openly expressed a preference for Mars over the Moon like their former boss Gavin, who did not attend the symposium because of a previously planned trip to Hawaii that conflicted with the timing of the Washington session.