Gene Kranz - Failure Is Not an Option

By the time the spacecraft arrived over Hawaii, the pressure was well below the point at which the fuel cells were expected to keep running—and continuing to drop. The crew advised Hawaii that they had abandoned the rendezvous test and had powered down most of the spacecraft equipment. The operation of the fuel cells required a very precise pressure balance between the oxygen and the hydrogen and the pressure of the water produced in the cell. We had no data to guide us when the cells were operating at the current level. Additional equipment was turned off as the spacecraft continued on a path across the United States.

It was customary for the second shift of controllers to be present for launch. This gave the launch team some extra controller resources if problems occurred. It also gave the second shift a good start at working and understanding the problems they would be given at handover. John Aaron from my shift had been sitting next to Kraft’s Red Team EECOM since launch. He walked over to Kraft’s console with the plot of the pressure data, his face reflecting the grim news. The rate of pressure loss, however, was starting to decrease. Faced with a possible fuel cell failure, but needing to buy more time to evaluate the situation, Kraft elected to continue for a few more orbits to see what would happen. The only good reentry options would occur for the mid-Pacific landing areas on orbits four, five, and six; then we would have to shoot the gap of poor coverage, a no-man’s-land. Kraft advised recovery to deploy aircraft to the orbit six landing area. Within the hour, six aircraft, a destroyer, and an oil tanker had received orders to proceed to the landing area southeast of Hawaii.

As Kraft continued to weigh the options, my control team was reporting to its consoles wondering whether we would get a shot at the problem. Meanwhile, Kraft was masterfully playing the options and assessing the alternatives. When the fluctuating oxygen pressure finally stabilized, and the fuel cells were still operating, I knew Kraft was going to go for a full day. He queried Cooper: “Gordo, I think the oxygen has bottomed out. We’ve got thirteen hours on the batteries. I think we should go for it.” Cooper’s response was immediate. “I was hoping you would say that. Let’s give it a go.”

I was mentally going through my handover questions for Kraft when he abruptly stood up and started to put his headset away. Surprised, I glanced at his log. At shift handover the controller coming on shift would check the log entries of the controller he was relieving in order to see if there were any outstanding items or problems. The log was a summary of the status of the mission. There was no set plan to follow—and I suspected he was ready to leave for the press conference. So I asked him, “Chris, what do you want to do?” His reply was crisp and curt. “You’re the flight director, it’s your shift. Make up your own mind.” Kraft had given me the job to shoot the gap!

The spacecraft flies sixteen orbits per day. During a mission, Go NoGo assessments are made of the spacecraft and crew to determine whether is safe to continue to the next point. These decisions are made by factoring in the spacecraft mission status and the locations of the naval recovery forces. The decisions are for orbits one, three, six, and sixteen, and multiples thereafter. The major daily Go NoGo is the one that shoots the gap of poor ground station coverage between orbits six and sixteen.

This event in my life as a controller stands out as the moment I finally came of age in Mission Control. Chris was right. I was the flight director, it was my shift, my decision, and I had better get going. Like my first solo with Mr. Coleman, it was time to spread my wings and give it a shot. I was damn happy to have Aaron on my shift. He was born to be a systems engineer; he could tell me in plain language what the status was of any element of the spacecraft.

In Mission Control, there is no such thing as a first team. Every team must have the leadership and technical knowledge to sustain the effort during a crisis. The White Team controllers stepped up to the plate and took their turn at bat.

The Trench worked with the recovery forces to select the best landing areas as we shot the gap. Aldrin, in between calls to the crew, worked with the flight planners to develop alternatives to the rendezvous. The systems team led by Aaron refined the power-down procedures in case we had to use the batteries. The team was on top of the job, and its response to the problem was electrifying. Within a few hours the engineers at McDonnell were running a laboratory test of a fuel cell in St. Louis to replicate the problem we were having in flight.

At John Aaron’s urging, I decided to run a load test on the fuel cell. As the team talked, we developed a plan to perform a power-up followed by an oxygen purge to the cell. We selected a time for the test so that if the cell failed, we would have enough battery power to get back the next morning to the landing area patrolled by an aircraft carrier. We developed the procedure, talked to the crew through the power-up, and held our breath. All eyes were on the data from the Hawaii site as the power-up and purge progressed. A purge shoots a stream of pure oxygen into the fuel cell to flush out any moisture and impurities in the cell. The spacecraft was again powered down while we evaluated the data.

The fuel cell sustained the load and with a few more data points we were convinced the pressure would gradually increase. We handed our data to Hodge at shift change and recommended a plan to power up incrementally over the next three days.

The press conference was Aaron’s show. When I got the press question, “What would it look like if we could open up an oxygen tank?” I handed the briefing over to him. I was proud of my team and Aaron in particular. Sitting next to me was a fresh college graduate teaching the world all about fuel cells.

We limped through the flight of Gemini 5 a day at a time. By day four, we had full power even though the oxygen tank pressure had only risen to 140 psi rather than the design operating pressure of 875-900 psi.

Before liftoff a clock was set in the MCC to read 119:06. At launch the clock started counting down. At the beginning of Kraft’s sixth shift, as the clock approached zero, the retrofire officer (RETRO) counted down the seconds over Kraft’s voice loop. At zero, Kraft lit up a cigar and proudly announced, “America has just set a new space record!” The Gemini 5 crew had eclipsed the Russian manned flight duration, and it was suggested to Conrad that he should perform a victory roll. Conrad wisely demurred, “I ain’t got the fuel, sorry!”

The next two days became really limited. The seesaw effect of powering up and down took a toll, and then the Gemini thrusters started to fail, further limiting the flight plan. With the crew in drifting flight and many experiments canceled, McDivitt, now a CapCom, decided it was time to pipe some Al Hirt jazz up to the crew for wake-up. Another MCC tradition was born.

During my final shift, I cut the mission short by one orbit. Tropical Storm Betsy had turned into a hurricane, and the recovery forces were moved off the storm track, north and west to the vicinity of Grand Turk Island in the Atlantic. The final shift allowed me to pull a “gotcha” on my friend and judo partner, Llewellyn. The Public Affairs Office prepared a news update for the in-flight crew and this one included a report that Scott Carpenter, now also an aquanaut, was descending to the Sealab off the California coast for a thirty-day undersea mission.

Llewellyn had never forgotten Carpenter’s remarks implying that Llewellyn did not know where Scotty landed on Mercury 7. John is intense, emotional, and trusting, perfect characteristics for an easy set-up. The defining moment that brings every mission to an end is John’s stentorian second-by-second countdown to retrofire. This is an event looked forward to by the entire team, and one John relishes like a fine cigar. I called FIDO, RETRO, and CapCom over to my console. I told them that we wanted to get Llewellyn to believe that Carpenter would perform the countdown to the Gemini 5 retrofire from the Sealab. The team readily agreed to give it a shot and see if we could pull a gotcha on John.