When he first got to Hangar “O” Seger found things moving slowly. Nobody had touched anything in the interior of Apollo — except for the medical team on the recovery ship, who, in their radiationproof protective clothing, had removed the suited bodies of the astronauts — and the investigating teams at Canaveral were in a paralysis of indecision on how to proceed, for fear of fouling up this highly public operation.

So Seger made some calls, and looked up some old records, and radioed up to Muldoon a recommendation on how to proceed. Muldoon, still on his way home from the Moon, agreed.

The first task was to put together a cantilevered Lucite platform, hinged so that it could fit inside the hatch of the Command Module and then be unfolded to cover the interior of the craft. That way the investigators, hampered by radiationproof gear, could crawl on hands and knees around the interior, looking and photographing and disassembling, but without touching anything they didn’t need to.

Next Seger initiated the disciplines he wanted in the disassembly process itself.

For example he watched as a crew checklist — doused by seawater, pathetic and battered — was lifted out of the spacecraft. The disassembly team had prepared a TPS, a Test Preparation Sheet, for this, and every other action in the disassembly. The TPS detailed the physical action required, the part number of the checklist, its location. Before the checklist was touched the presiding engineer read out an instruction from the TPS. A Rockwell quality inspector moved into place to see, and a NASA inspector got ready. A photographer was called over. A Rockwell technician got carefully into the craft and then, using the specified procedure, took the checklist from its Velcro holder. The technician had to record the effort it took to get the checklist free, and any other anomalous observations he made.

The technician handed the checklist to the Rockwell quality inspector, who made sure that it was the right part and the right part number, recording his results on his copy of the TPS. The NASA inspector took the list, and he recorded his independent observations. The photographer took a picture of the part. The engineer put the list into a plastic bag, sealed it up, labeled it, and took it off to the appropriate repository.

If the engineer hadn’t been able to get the checklist out, because of some unanticipated obstacle, everything would have come to a halt while a revised TPS was sent to a review panel for approval of the modification.

…And on, and on.

And, meanwhile, everybody working on the hot Command Module was in a white radiation suit, and they had to shower and get tested for dosage every few hours.