Artifact Category: Document.
Date of use: June-July, 1969.
Dimensions: 21.8 x 27.9 cm each.
Program: Apollo.
Flown Status: Not applicable.
Description: Two 8.5 x 11 double-sided “Apollo/Saturn Launch Operations” pages attested to as being personally owned and annotated by Norm Carlson as the lead LV test conductor during the final phase of the Apollo 11 countdown and launch.
Both pages were removed from the official NASA manual ‘Launch Vehicle Operations for Support of Space Vehicle Countdown Demonstration Test and Launch Countdown,” with the upper right corners identifying the vehicle as “AS-506,” the serial number for the Saturn V rocket that launched the Apollo 11 mission.
The Launch Vehicle (LV) and Checkout Procedure documents are a bound, 3-volume set of manuals entitled "Launch Vehicle Operations for Support Vehicle Countdown Demonstration Test and Launch Countdown", dated May-July 1969. The front cover pages for each of the 3 volumes is stamped, "Release for AS-506" and "This TCP Contains Hazardous Operations".
The sheet issued as pages 102 and 103, dated June 20, 1969, features an array of check marks and underscores in green felt tip to either side and the second sheet, page 293, dated July 2, 1969, is marked in green felt tip to the front side. In fine condition, with trivial staining. Accompanied by a signed certificate of authenticity from aerospace memorabilia specialist Ken Havekotte.
Norman "Norm" Carlson (12 February, 1934 - 1 March, 2015) was the test director who oversaw the launch countdowns for Apollo 11, the first moon landing in 1969, and STS-1, the first space shuttle flight in 1981.
The man who gave the "go" for Saturn V boosters and shuttle orbiters to launch, is credited by his peers for devising the count's embedded stops. "The built-in hold came about from us trying to put some padding into the overall timeline," Carlson said in a recent interview with Jonathan Ward, the author of "Countdown to Apollo 11" and "The Rocket Ranch". "It didn't change T-zero. It simply added more time than actually showed on the procedure."
Norm Carlson holds up a sign reading "Beans Are Go" after the launch of the space shuttle Discovery's STS-26 mission in 1988. Credit: NASA.
After transferring to Florida, Carlson's first launches were the early Saturn I and Saturn IB test flights. Carlson then began working the manned Apollo missions.
It was Carlson, as the launch vehicle test conductor, who gave the "go" for Apollo 11's Saturn V to fly, but he did not care for "go/no go" polls that Houston Mission Control ran.
"I made the rule that if somebody has a problem, you stand up and say so immediately. I want to know now. I don't want to wait until I'm at two minutes prior to T-zero," Carlson said. "We're not going to have a damn poll. If you listen to Mission Control, they have all their polls, maybe a dozen of them. "FIDO Go!" That's just a big show. There is no value added, as far as I'm concerned."
After Apollo ended in 1975, Carlson went to Edwards Air Force Base in California for approach and landing tests with the prototype shuttle Enterprise. He then returned to Florida to serve as test director for the maiden mission of Columbia, STS-1, in 1981. It was a role he would serve for most of the first half of the 30-year space shuttle program.
He started the tradition of cooking beans for the team in the Launch Control Center, which grew from a single crock pot at the beginning, to a spread we all grew accustomed to partaking in.
Carlson retired in 1995, just before NASA's 100th crewed flight. He continued to attend launches, bringing barbecue pork and potato salad to Kennedy's Launch Control Center for his former team's pre-launch meals.
More information:
CollectSpace - Norm Carlson, NASA test director who gave 'go' for Saturn V, shuttle and beans, dies
