erican or NASA was the importance of considering the fire potential of combustibles in a system of all materials taken together in the position which they would occupy in the spacecraft and in the environment of the spacecraft. (26)
Leland Atwood and Dale Myers used charts to emphasize to Congress the changes that the company intended to make in both construction and test operations. North American would assign a spacecraft manager and a personalized team to each vehicle, appoint an assistant program manager whose only concern was safety, place additional controls on changes made during modification and checkout phases, and assign personal responsibility to specific inspectors. The company would also revise its fabrication and inspection criteria; expand its quality standards, issuing a handbook with better visual aids; install more protected wiring and plumbing; and insist upon additional major inspections. Myers then discussed fire-related hardware changes: the new unified hatch, materials reevaluation, fluids and plumbing reassessment, electrical system improvements, revised on-the-pad operations, and flammability tests. (27)
In Houston, Faget's engineering and development activity ran all sorts of tests on materials and components, and Robert Gilruth sent Borman with a Houston "tiger team" to Downey in mid-April.* The astronaut was to make on-the-spot decisions on contractual changes for the unified hatch, better wiring and plumbing techniques, and other improvements that had been planned even before the accident. Borman's tiger team watched closely, lending its assistance when necessary, as North, Americas, engineers went over the spacecraft piece by piece. (28)
What had happened to the command module, obviously, could just as well happen to the lunar module. Immediately after the fire, Thomas J. Kelly and a host of Grumman workers began a comprehensive review of materials in the lunar lander. Low sent Robert L. Johnston, a materials expert, to help Kelly's group. Grumman replaced nylon cloth in the spacecraft, relying mostly on Beta fiber (an inorganic substance developed by the Corning Glass Works, that would not catch fire nor produce toxic fumes) Perhaps the most important application of this material was as "booties" around circuit breakers, to lessen the possibilities of electrical shorts. In other areas, Grumman worked on its forward hatch, to ensure a crew exit within 10 seconds; the environmental control system; and a cabin and ex- terior pressure equalization system. All in all, the changes would add a three-- to four--month delay in deliveries to the schedule trouble the lauder was in even before the fire. Phillips sent a group headed by Roderick O. Middleton of Kennedy to look into Grumman s quality control and inspection procedures.. Middleton's audit team completed its report in mid-May, giving rumman generally good marks in the manufacturing process. (29)
In Washington, on 9 May, Webb was again called on the carpet by the Senate committee. The Phillips report was again a major subject for debate, this time in a context that made it appear that the NASA--North American relationship was in danger of becoming a political football. The very next day, however, congressional questioning began to wind down. As Congressman John W. Wydler put it:
Essentially the story of the Apollo accident is known to the American people. We have admissions and statements about the things that NASA ... and ... North American Aviation [were] doing wrong. . . . . But I want to say this to you, Mr. Webb. Over the past few years....I probably have been one of the most critical members on this committee of NASA. It appeared to me. . . . that you have had it too easy for your own good from this committee. This is not a criticism being directed at you or the Space Agency, but a criticism being directed inwardly at the Congress and this committee. I feel right now that you got less criticism than you deserved fin the past, but now] you are getting more criticism than you deserve. I don't intend to add to it for that reason.
Wydler di