BUILDING THE APOLLO 11 LUNAR MODULE

RICHARD A. HOFFMANN, P.E.
President and Chief Metallurgical Engineer
R.A. Hoffmann Engineering, P.C.
Brewster, NY

Upon the 50th Anniversary of Apollo 11, an engineer who participated in that effort reflected upon that remarkable achievement and the role he played in a “once in a lifetime” project...building a spaceship.

This talk details how the LM was built. The material choices, the tests conducted, the experience of failures, the challenges and lessons learned by the author as a young engineer fresh out of school who, in 1964 through a happy accident, found himself working with a group of talented engineers at Grumman Aerospace located in Bethpage Long Island. The task? Build a spacecraft that would successfully land a man on the moon and then safely launch them to an orbiting rendezvous ship. The mantra, “failure is not an option” was very real.

Richard Hoffmann is a Licensed Professional Engineer in six states. He earned his BS and MS degrees in metallurgical engineering at The Polytechnic Institute of Brooklyn, Brooklyn, NY in 1964 and 1968, respectively. In the early days of the United States’ space program, Mr. Hoffmann was employed by Grumman Aerospace Corporation, Bethpage, NY as a Staff Metallurgical/Materials Engineer working on the Lunar Module.

Currently, he is Founder and President of R. A. Hoffmann Engineering, P.C. (formerly, Hoffmann & Feige), in Brewster, New York, a materials engineering consulting firm founded in 1978, with a staff of 12 and a fully-equipped metallurgical laboratory servicing a diversified group of utilities (gas, LNG and power), building owners and managers, manufacturers, fabricators and design engineering firms. This technical consulting organization has grown from his personal technical initiatives into a small multi-faceted corporation with SEM/EDAX, expertise in materials applications and failure analysis (ferrous & non-ferrous materials, corrosion, cryogenics, high temperatures), quality assur- ance audits, and inspection and corrosion evaluations of piping systems and equipment.

Mr. Hoffmann actively participates in national technical committee activities, holds several technical certifications and licenses, and supports these committees by sharing his expertise and experience by serving for many years Mr. Hoffmann also holds memberships in the American Society for Metals International (ASM), American Society For Testing and Materials (ASTM), American Welding Society (he is an AWS Certified Weld Inspector), National Association of Corrosion Engineers (he is a NACE Accredited Corrosion Specialist, P), and Association of Water Technologies (AWT).

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