The 50th anniversary of the first manned lunar landing on July 20 marks a true American achievement. For the historic Apollo 11 mission, a Kentuckian helped the crew reach the moon. Another son of the Commonwealth helped them get back to the USA.
John Leland “Lee” Atwood was at the launching end of the Apollo 11 mission.
Atwood, a native of Walton in Boone County, was CEO of North American Rockwell. The aerospace firm secured contracts from NASA for the second stage of the Saturn V rocket and for the Command Module (CM). The CM was the component that was space capsule, home for the astronauts, and the element (except for the astronauts) present during the mission from beginning to end.
John Leland Atwood (Wikipedia photo)
The second stage of the giant booster rocket, identified as SC-II, was new technology in the 1960s. The rocket engines in SC-II were to burn hydrogen as fuel. The hydrogen and oxygen needed for combustion had to be in a cryogenic state. That meant Atwood’s team at Rockwell had to contain and insulate the two elements in extreme temperatures onboard the rocket. The over 3,200 feet of welds on the interior tanks required a precise technique. Once filled, these same tanks had a thick insulative wrapping, maintaining the thermal extreme until the ignition altitudes were reached.
The new rocket motors assembled by Rocketdyne took the astronauts to an altitude of 115 miles above Earth. For the boost into space, Atwood and the Rockwell team accomplished the mission. The SC-II component and the entire Saturn V booster system was used 13 times without failure.
The Command Module was a different story.
The handiwork of Rockwell engineers initially proved to be faulty. A ground test of the Apollo 1 module produced a flash fire and three astronauts were lost. Atwell and his team were scrutinized during an inquiry, and some Rockwell personnel were affected. It took a re-set to gain corrective measures. The Apollo command modules that followed served NASA without major incident. The Apollo 11 capsule survives to this day.
Atwell’s expertise and leadership were recognized, including induction into the Kentucky Aviation Hall of Fame in 2000.
A second connection is described by a permanent exhibit about the recovery of Apollo 11 upon its return to earth.
Neil Armstrong, Buzz Aldrin, and Michael Collins were homeward bound after the successful July 20, 1969, lunar landing.
A watery rendezvous near the USS Hornet, the assigned recovery ship, would bring them back to earth. Max Hellmueller was an active duty sailor on the Hornet and a native of Lexington. As a crew member, Max participated in the challenges of physical recovery of the space capsule and the mandatory quarantine of the astronauts on board. He captured a visual record of the recovery and the on-board sojourn of the three astronauts.
From the perspective of a crew member, it is a special remembrance.
The collection is available for all to see at the Aviation Museum of Kentucky in a permanent exhibit. A truly unique artifact is a copy of National Geographic with the astronauts on the cover, along with their autographs.
The Aviation Museum of Kentucky is located at 4029 Airport Road, adjacent to Blue Grass Airport in Lexington. It is the official aviation museum of the Commonwealth as well as home to the Kentucky Aviation Hall of Fame and operates as a non-profit corporation. For more information, visit www.aviationky.org, or call 859-231-1219.
Apollo 11 traveled well over 953,000 miles from launch to return. It could not have made it from beginning to end without a healthy portion of Kentucky Pride.
Kentucky Aviation Museum
