The Lafayette KT-135 EXPLOR-AIR Regenerative
Radio
and its importance to the Apollo Space Program
Previously top-secret details
concerning the role of the Lafayette EXPLOR-AIR
KT-135 regenerative receiver in the space
program during the Apollo Era have now been
declassified. Indeed, the radio was
so important to the program that Neil Armstrong, the first man to
walk on the Moon, was selected not because of his
qualifications as an astronaut, but because he
shared the same last name as the inventor of the
regenerative radio circuit, Edwin Armstrong.
Below are some very rare photographs of the KT-135
in actual spacecraft and the explanation of the secrecy surrounding
it. Also explained is how the EXPLOR-AIR came to be
known as the KT-135.
NOTE: Not a single
representative of NASA or its sub-contractors, or
any scientist, engineer, astronaut or government
official has come forward to refute any of the
evidence presented below!
Wide angle view of the Apollo 15 Command
Module. A KT-135 has been installed directly in front of the
center couch.
It is a verifiable fact that
not a single Lafayette EXPLOR-AIR radio receiver
ever failed at NASA during the Apollo moon landing
program. During the race to the moon against the
Soviet Union, the fact that NASA even used regen
radios, particularly the EXPLOR-AIR KT-135, was one of the most
highly guarded secrets of the time.
Close-up of above photo
Knowledge of the use of the
EXPLOR-AIR regen receiver by NASA had to be kept
from the Soviets. All photographs released by NASA
were edited to remove the radio. To this day, any
photographs of a KT-135 radio in any spacecraft are
very hard to find and are highly collectible.
The crew of Apollo 10 have a
belly laugh with Vice President Spiro T. Agnew when
he says, "The moon is going broke. It's down to its
last quarter! - but it's just going through a
phase!" Left to right: Eugene Cernan, VP Agnew,
Bruce Knoll and John Young.
In this photo, Cernan places his hand inside
his sweater to hide the fact that he is missing part
of his left index finger. More about
this further down on this page.
Deke Slayton at the controls while
Apollo astronauts listen to
a transmission from Apollo 10.
The KT-135 has been replaced with a music
conductor's BATON in this hilarious edited version.
The editor had probably watched "Lawrence Welk" the
night before. Despite the fact that no logical person would believe Mr. Slayton
is conducting music in
this scene, many Americans believe this is the
original photograph.
Inside the Lunar Module. The
simplicity and reliability of a three tube radio
made it an obvious choice as a receiver. To thwart
the Soviets from hearing any radio transmissions, they
were "hidden in plain sight." The frequency used was
6210 kHz, the same frequency used by Amelia Earhart.
It was easily tuned by the KT-135 on Band C.
Recently released documents from the Kremlin
contain no indication that the Soviets ever tuned to
this frequency during an American mission to the
Moon. The ruse worked perfectly.
Note: In this photo the Apollo Guidance Computer (AGC)
below the radio has been removed so technicians can
connect the power and antenna to the Lafayette
EXPLOR-AIR.
Layout of console at Mission Control
used to monitor the Lunar Module.
On the left is the raw image from the Hasselblad
film magazine, number 36N, published by NASA on
flickr.com on September 25, 2015. On the right is the
ridiculous doctored photo released by NASA in the
1970s.
So that the KT-135 would not appear in the
photograph, portions of the picture to the left and
right of Buzz Aldrin were REMOVED. How this was done
remains a mystery.
Mr. Aldrin is seen here making a gang gesture,
though it
wasn't known at the time that he, along with Eugene
Cernan, was affiliated
with a gang. The three downward pointing fingers represents the letter M, a gang symbol for the
notorious "Moon Boyz." The gang was so vicious
that each member had his left index finger chopped
off at the knuckle as part of his
initiation into the gang.
For no reason other than he was a member of the "Moon Boyz" gang, Buzz would often steal the lunch money
from people in the cafeteria, though he had plenty
of his own money. Then to humiliate his
victim, he'd walk up to the famished person while
holding a big tray of food and ask, "How ya like me
NOW?"
One time in the cafeteria, he jokingly snuck up
behind Jim Lovell, got him in a headlock, and placed
the stump of his amputated finger on Jim's eye. He
then loudly announced, "Houston, we've had a
problem!" When other's turned to look, it appeared
that his index finger was buried in Lovell's skull,
which caused them to scream in horror, and vomit.
On one of the many occasions Aldrin was admonished
because he "destroyed" the spacecraft during a
simulation, Flight Controller Steve Bales swears he
heard Aldrin reply to him, "Cash me ousside, howbow
dat." a half century before the phrase became famous
on Dr. Phil in 2017.
When the picture is inverted, a secret
code appears. dW7 IX 0770dV. Mr. Aldrin claims he was not
the person who signed the photograph and he doesn't know
what the code means.
After years of investigating it was found that it was just a code put there by a NASA photo
technician. "dW"" is the color filter in the
printer head of the photo enlarger, "7" is the exposure time in seconds, "IX 0770"
is September 7, 1970, and "dV" is the technician's initials.
Astronaut John
Young (smoking a pipe) looks on as Jack Lousma swats
Vance Brand's hand away from the regen control. On
the left, Deke Slayton begins to lunge at the radio,
while Ken Mattingly (standing behind Slayton) is
about to join the melee. Competition among the
astronauts as to who could best tweak the
regeneration control was fierce.
The instigator in this particular "battle of the
regen control" was the man on the far right, who
unbeknownst to the others, is reproducing the
squeals heard on a regen radio by playing a
THEREMIN! He would often do this, then sit back and
watch the astronauts fight over the radio.
Common hijinks and other mischief included pulling
the AC plug during critical mission maneuvers,
disconnecting the antenna, and loosening the set
screw on the main tuning knob.
During the Apollo 11
landing, Charlie Duke smuggled a small transmitter
into Mission Control, a Knight-Kit Home
Broadcaster that he built when he was a teenager. He repeatedly said "1202
alarm!" into the microphone, which
was then picked up on the various KT-135s around the
room, as well as the one aboard the Lunar Module. He then said, "We're go on that alarm!" on the
regular radio channel.
This caused a lot of consternation and bewilderment, as nobody knew
what it meant or who said it. Neil Armstrong
demanded, "Give us a reading on the 1202 alarm,"
while NASA software engineers frantically looked for
an answer. Charlie was trying so hard not to laugh,
he "was about to turn blue," which he relayed to
Neil after the Eagle had landed. Later
he confessed, generating uproarious laughter and a lot of knee-slapping at mission
control.
Astronaut humor.
Charlie Duke and the
wire leading from the microphone hidden in his hand to his
Knight Kit home broadcaster.
Charlie Duke in later years, holding an
actual KT-135 used at the Apollo Mission Control Center in
Houston.
Apollo astronauts in training. Hours of
practice are needed to tune a regen radio. Undated photo.
Katie Wasserman and the original
instruction manual for assembling the KT-135.
All of the KT-135 radios were built by women, under the direction
of Katie Wasserman. This is the same Katie Wasserman who supplied the manual on
Page 5 of this site. The KT designation is actually her
name, Katie. NASA ordered 135 Lafayette EXPLOR-AIR radios.
As each radio was finished, Katie would put the number on a
blackboard. Soon, she was known as "Katie 135." The radio
itself came to be called the Katie-135, or KT-135.
To avoid notoriety, she sometimes went by the name "Margaret
Hamilton." This was the name of the actress who played
the Wicked Witch of the West in The Wizard of Oz. She
explained that while pondering a false identity, she was
reading a book about the monkeys who were launched in V-2
rockets in 1948. With a picture of flying monkeys in her
mind, the Wicked Witch next popped into her head, so she
chose "Margaret Hamilton."
Gene Krantz (foreground) and
Dave Kraft at the Flight Controller's console,
November 14, 1969. Gene's KT-135 doesn't have an
enclosure. He liked to say, "Let's play it cool."
At
this very moment, 52 seconds into the flight, Apollo
12 has been struck by lightning. The fuel cells and
all instrumentation in the Command Module are
offline or malfunctioning.
This mission is about to be aborted. The capsule and
crew will be jettisoned and the huge Saturn V will
be blown up. However, the Lafayette KT-135 aboard the
spacecraft is still working! John Aaron, who is
monitoring the vehicle's electrical system from his
console, tells the Flight Director, "Try SCE*
to
AUX." CapCom Andrew Ramsey makes the call,
"Apollo 12, try SCE to Auxiliary. Over."
Aboard Apollo 12, Astronaut Alan Bean hears the call
on the KT-135 and toggles the SCE
switch to "AUX." The Instrumentation was restored. The
Lafayette EXPLOR-AIR KT-135 saved the
mission.
In the photo, Dave Kraft can be seen rubbing his
face as he remarks, "Man, that was a close shave!" A
technician leans forward and asks, "Dave, what if
you had a
razor that had two razorblades?" The technician was Matt Knoebel, who had a girlfriend named
Jill Lett. In 1971 the Gillette Trac II
razor was released, another spinoff of the space
program.
* Signal Conditioning
Electronics
John Aaron
after making the famous call, "Try SCE to AUX"
during the flight of Apollo 12. The only piece of
equipment still working in the capsule after the
lightning strike was the Lafayette Explor-Air
KT-135. John's call, and the KT-135, saved the whole
mission.
On the left is the console used by Sy
Liebergot during the Apollo 13 mission. Liebergot was the
EECOM on duty when the oxygen tank exploded. On the right is the
ludicrous altered photo released to the public. The radio
has been replaced with a TV screen! Why would Sy Liebergot
be watching a TELEVISION SHOW while the lives of three
astronauts were at stake?
The deception was so complete that a television screen was
also used in the movie "Apollo 13." When Liebergot was asked
what he thought of the movie he jokingly quipped, "It was
pretty good but they should have had me watching Lost
In Space on that TV set!"
At the end of the last Apollo 15 moon
walk, Commander David Scott performed a live demonstration
for the television cameras. He held out a Lafayette KT-135
and a feather, and dropped them at the same time. Because
there was no air resistance the feather fell at the same
rate as the KT-135, as Galileo had concluded hundreds of
years before - all objects fall at the same rate regardless
of mass.
Several methods were
considered to
suspend the 40 meter dipole antenna while on the
surface of the Moon. One
technician suggested helium balloons, claiming that
without any wind the balloons would stay permanently
in the same place once they were set aloft.
Another suggested building a house on the moon with
a detached garage, and suspending the antenna
between the house and the garage. They were both
reassigned to night janitors.
Then in 1972, as both Christmas and the launch of
Apollo 17 were approaching, a gifted engineer named
James Foster suggested artificial Christmas
trees! The trees were purchased at
Woolworth's and came in several segments. They were assembled in place, right out of the box.
They also created some atmosphere.
A recording of
Neil Armstrong's first steps on the moon. This is a real recording made from a KT-135.
Caution: adult language and F-bombs.
The rest, as they say, is history.
The United States of America landed men on the Moon, the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics did not. Without a Lafayette EXPLOR-AIR
KT-135 regen radio, the Soviet moon program was doomed to
failure.
Lafayette ceased production of the KT-135 kits in 1972,
crippling NASA's ability to go to the moon. The Apollo
Program was ended, and missions 18, 19 and 20 were
cancelled. Without a source of KT-135s any subsequent
attempts to land on the moon would have been futile.
When the Apollo program ended, the radios were
removed from the remaining spacecraft and thrown into a
scrap metal pile. The spacecraft were then sent to various
museums without the radio. Some Apollo astronauts and NASA
officials kept one of these scrapped KT-135s in their
personal collections. Many of these people, astronauts
included, have now passed away. When their estates are
settled, family members who have no idea what priceless
treasures they now possess, put them up for auction on ebay.
I hope you found this
entertaining and informative. Check out Carol Maher's KT-135
site
The recording of the first
steps on the moon is real. It was received on a
KT-135 and recorded on a digital recorder held to
the speaker.
An AM transmitter was built for the sole
purpose of broadcasting the audio portion of "The Onion" version of the
moon walk on YouTube. It was transmitted from a
laptop to the KT-135 on 2620 kHz.
NASA photos on Flickr:
https://www.flickr.com/photos/projectapolloarchive/albums
We now return you to your regularly scheduled program.
