Posted on May 21, 2015
Max Faget’s position was that considering the difficulty of the job, if each mission was successful half the time, it would be well worth the effort. But Gilruth thought that was too low. He want a 90% mission success ratio and a 99% ratio for Astronaut safety. Walt Williams who was currently running the Mercury program believed that astronaut safety needed to be limited to only 1 failure in a million which was 99.9999%.
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The cabin section (or primary structure) of the CM is assembled at North American in 1965
The CM probe would slip into the LM’s dish-shaped drogue, and 12 latches on the docking ring would engage, to lock the spacecraft together, airtight
Full-scale model of the service module, resting on a mockup of a spacecraft-lunar module adapter, with panels off to reveal part of the internal arrangement
Jettison of the launch escape system (right) after successful launch, also pulls away the boost protective cover that protects the windows from flame and soot
On the drawing of the launch escape system at upper right, the canard aerodynamic devices are near the top of the escape tower