Gene Kranz - Failure Is Not an Option

“We had a damned good mission,” he said. “The spacecraft did well and now it’s time to stretch a bit more. We’re going for four days, you know that. What you don’t know is that we’re going to try to do an EVA [extravehicular activity]. Since January, Ed White has been in training for a possible space walk. We have scheduled altitude chamber tests with the space suit, chest pack, and umbilical to be run in a couple of weeks. We’ve just about caught up with the Russians—now we can set our own records.”

Chris never wasted words; his instructions were invariably clear and concise. “I want you to work with the engineering team in the Crew Systems Division. We are going to do an EVA if we can get the equipment ready in time. I want you to write the rules and put together the data package we will need to carry out the mission.” I was reminded of the day when Kraft first sent me down to the Cape, simply telling me, “Here’s a job that needs to be done and I trust you. Do it!”

Kraft started pacing. “This is risky,” he went on, “but I think it is worth the shot at getting a space walk on McDivitt’s mission.”

So I began leading two lives in flight control. Daily, I worked at running the Flight Control Branch and preparing as a flight director to lead my team on Gemini 4. I left work at 5:00 P.M., went home for dinner, then returned to work on the EVA plan. Each night I worked with the task force’s spectacular engineers, sitting in on briefings and studying the space suit’s operations, and then went back to my office to work into the night writing the rules for this high-profile mission.

As I was preparing for flight director duties and developing what I dubbed Plan X for the EVA, Marta had to take on all the work and planning for our move to Dickinson, Texas, ten miles south and about a twenty-minute drive from Mission Control Center. Our family had outgrown our house in Flight Controller Alley.

The EVA task force was the most powerfully creative effort I had witnessed to date in the space program. Astronauts, technicians, doctors, and engineers in a huddle—one minute discussing wrapping the twenty-five-foot umbilical in a figure 8 layout in its bag, another minute reviewing movies of Leonov’s space walk (obtained from Russian TV), while commenting on his body position and the mechanism used to tether him to the ship. The task force had to meet several deadlines and, as more top-level NASA management got involved, it was tough to keep a lid on what was going on in order to prevent leaks to the press. Our objective was to have the hardware qualified and planning for the EVA in place by launch minus fourteen days.

I was uneasy. I wanted a full briefing on the EVA systems and procedures for the teams prior to deploying to the remote sites. The orders came down: “No briefings.” But Kraft agreed I could use my secretary, Sue Erwin, to type the materials for the flight controllers’ data pack, and use Ed Fendell, assigned to Carnarvon, to prepare a data pack for the EVA Go NoGo sites. Sue was a tough-minded, tough-talking rodeo barrel race rider who had broken a leg when her horse fell on her, but had never stopped competing. Absolutely intolerant of foul language (of which more than a little was heard in the hallowed halls of MCC) and a woman with a radiant smile, she was the key to sanity in the wild world of flight control during the weeks prior to a mission.

After I had worked many extra hours with the task force for a month, the tight-knit flight controller community started to suspect something was up. The final equipment qualification for the EVA would not be completed before we held the mission deployment briefings. After the mission briefings on May 10, the remote site CapComs were called into my office and handed a double-sealed envelope. Only when given specific direction by me would they open the package. If no direction was given, the packages were to be returned unopened. The CapComs picked up the envelopes, about half an inch thick. Inside the envelope was another package labeled neatly in one-inch letters, PLAN X. The cover sheet for the data pack read:

The mission rules and flight plan are to be used with the data you already have; however, these rules cover flight plan activities you have not heretofore considered; i.e., booster rendezvous and extravehicular activity.

This brief note was a hell of a way for the controllers to learn of America’s first EVA. The remote site teams would be on their own, but at the MCC we had the talent of the engineers who developed the EVA equipment at our fingertips. The second element of Plan X involved an attempted rendezvous with the Titan booster to obtain experience in flying formation (close station-keeping with another object in space). With McDivitt flying in close enough, White could use his nitrogen-powered zip gun to propel him toward the Titan booster stage. The zip gun was a T-shaped EVA maneuvering device. It had a pistol grip and two small thrusters at the ends and used nitrogen as the propellant gas. I thought this was pretty sporty for the first American EVA.

One of my primary responsibilities was team building. I remembered a key method we used in the Air Force to weld rugged individualists into a cohesive working group. A squadron insignia is used to give a group of fighter pilots a unique identity—it binds them together as a team. While I was flying the Super Sabre at Myrtle Beach, Marta and I had volunteered to paint the squadron insignia on the ready room doors. Marta made scarves with our insignia for several of the pilots. She understood the need for team cohesion in a high-risk business. I discussed my concerns about the White Team’s training with Marta one evening. As we talked, she said, “Gene, white is your team color—why don’t I make you a white vest to wear when you are on console? You can use it as your team insignia.” Somewhat skeptical, I told her to give it a shot. I would make up my mind later on whether to wear it.

The press kit for Gemini 4 was released on May 21, fourteen days before liftoff. In it was a single page describing an EVA from an earlier plan. People immediately started to speculate on the possibility that there would be an EVA on this mission. We had only one final week of training when the word came down from headquarters: “We are Go for EVA.” I transmitted a message to all sites directing the CapComs to open the Plan X package, and I set up an all-sites conference call the following morning.

Around the globe, the plan was read, no doubt, with murmurs of disbelief that we would try for our first EVA without benefit of any training. The flight surgeons, in particular, were incensed because they had virtually no data on crew performance during the suited altitude chamber tests. Today we would not dare take this kind of risk—but at this point we were determined to at least catch up with the Russians, if not pass them. CapCom Ed Fendell’s team would give the Go for the EVA on the second orbit at Carnarvon, Australia, and then Ed White would step outside the spacecraft at sunrise over Hawaii. The EVA would be concluded over the Cape. The remote site teams burned the midnight oil to learn enough about an EVA to ask the right questions at the scheduled briefing the next day.

Crew systems engineers briefed the remote site and the control teams on the overall plan and details of the qualification testing. Then I briefed them on the EVA Go NoGo mission rules. Kraft wrapped it up with a brief pep talk. I could feel the confidence grow in the control teams worldwide. Kraft’s ability to use just the right words for the occasion was a rare gift. He was able to convince everyone who worked for him that no matter how steep the odds or how great the risks, we would succeed. Just the sound of his voice on the conference loop would give a young, inexperienced controller at some desolate site the confidence essential for doing his job. All of us who grew up in Flight Control learned how to use our own versions of this confidence-building technique that Kraft taught by example.