Gene Kranz - Failure Is Not an Option

I had been expecting some wild scheme since we first learned of the shroud problem. While politics was not my long suit, I knew enough to address my comments to the real players, Mueller, Mathews, and Gilruth. They seemed to be the swing votes. I could not yet figure out who was for the EVA besides Aldrin.

It was obvious that the top brass knew little about the shroud mechanism, so for about ten minutes I briefed them on the details. Then I talked about what the ATDA EVA would require Stafford to do—station-keeping with the ATDA while Cernan, free-floating on the umbilical with no handholds or footholds, tried to cut the band or pull the safing pin. Summarizing my argument, I said, “There is a lot of stored energy in the ATDA shroud mechanism. It is cocked and ready to fire and I don’t see any way to safely get it loose. When it separates I don’t want an astronaut or even the spacecraft in the vicinity. This is only our second EVA and it is already sporty enough. When we return to the target tomorrow morning, we will have completed our primary rendezvous objectives. The planned EVA is long and complex and Cernan should do the one he trained for. When we get this done, we will have done damned well on this mission.”

The discussion continued for another half hour until finally Mathews, the Gemini program manager, made his decision: “I think we should do an EVA to see if we can release the shroud so we get our docking objective. I think we can make the risk acceptable.” As he summed up the debate, I was surprised that no one in the room challenged his decision. Mathews closed the meeting saying, “Does anyone have any more comments?” Walking out the door, I took my last shot: “This is a stunt… a dangerous and unnecessary one and we’re going to kill someone.”

By the time Lunney and I got back to the control room, Charlesworth’s team was on the console and the Black Team had gone home. Lunney turned to me and said, “What are we going to do?” I replied, “Get smart.” I don’t react well when management starts second-guessing me, but I knew I had to keep a lid on my anger.

I was surprised and frustrated that Kraft did not shoot this crazy idea down. As I walked by his console I fired at him. “Chris, this is my last damned mission. I am through.” Kraft looked me straight in the eye, saying, “You got your orders, now do your job.” Red-faced, I turned away, thinking, “Screw the role of the flight director. When push comes to shove, the flight director is just another management flunky.” Later, Kraft denied he had directed me, but in the heat of battle it sure seemed like direction to me.

As quickly as my anger came, it went. If I had to implement a bad decision, I would make it come out right. My job had not changed. If it looked as if Cernan or Stafford was over their head, I would wave it off during the EVA. In the heat of real time, none of my bosses would be in a position to turn me around.

There was no sleep for me that night. I had to build a plan for the new EVA prior to starting my shift at 4:00 A.M. I had missed the early part of the meeting, so Lunney summarized the details of the proposal by Aldrin. When John Aaron heard about the shroud, he rounded up the crew systems team we worked with on the original EVA. The team and I worked through the night, searching for any hazards to the integrity of the space suit and the umbilical.

The shroud area provided the largest single hazard, littered with razor-sharp edges and items that could snag Cernan’s suit or catch the umbilical. Our plan was to have Stafford fly formation at the open jaws of the shroud. Cernan, on the umbilical, would check to see if the band was under tension, then verify that the springs were in the ball socket. From there the procedures became vague. Some believed that if we pulled the safety pin the band would release. Others thought Cernan should try to cut the lanyard with some medical scissors. This was the best we could do to keep Cernan away from the stored energy. Stafford, the commander, would have to use his judgment on when to call it a day if he didn’t like the setup.

When Charlesworth briefed me at shift handover, he said that astronaut Dave Scott had been in the Los Angeles area and, prior to returning to Houston, examined a shroud at the Lockheed plant. Later, in the shift over Carnarvon, Scott briefed the teams on his observations. Everyone was pitching in to try to keep Cernan out of trouble during the ad hoc EVA.

After I came back into the control room for my shift the next morning, Charlesworth advised that the crew was completing the third rendezvous in the first twenty hours of Gemini 9.

Approaching the end of our first day in orbit, Charlesworth gave the Go for EVA preparation over Carnarvon, then quickly handed over to my team. Armstrong and Lovell, my CapComs, briefed Stafford on the timeline and the areas of the shroud to avoid. During the air-ground discussion I started picking up vibes that none of the astronauts involved in the planning felt warm about the EVA. I wondered if Deke Slayton had polled his guys and was having second thoughts. Stafford and Cernan listened to the proposed plan and advised, “We’ll get together on this at the next site.”

Nine minutes later, over Canton Island, Stafford and Cernan gave us their input. Stafford took the lead. “Both of us are pretty bushed, we’re low on propellant, and by the time we finish with the prep we’re going to be mighty low. I think we should knock it off for a while and consider EVA for tomorrow.” Due to the low maneuvering fuel levels we all knew that there was no way to re-rendezvous with the target the next day, and that waving off today was tantamount to saying NoGo to the shroud EVA. I could have kissed the crew. Neil Armstrong turned in his chair and looked for my input. Smiling for the first time in hours, I gave Neil a thumbs-up, followed by a resounding, “Flight concurs.”

Before I received any further top-level input, I had the controllers give the Agena a few more jolts to see if we could kick the shroud loose. But the angry alligator was not about to surrender. Twenty-three hours into the mission, the exhausted crew separated for the final time from the docking adapter. Within one revolution Cernan was asleep and Stafford was soon to follow. The crew had made the right call.

Sometimes you need luck. The program dodged a bullet when the crew waved off. They also saved me from eating crow. I was glad that I never had to follow through with my words to Kraft in the heat of the moment that this would be my last mission. The flight director’s job was my life but I was still too proud to say, “Dammit, Chris, I was out of line!” I could easily have bailed out of the program, since I had recently received an attractive offer to go back into aircraft flight testing. If two stubborn types like Kraft and me locked horns, Kraft would have let me accept the offer. In any case, both of us were saved by the crew’s decision.

EVA skills, like those of rendezvous and docking, were an essential element of working in space. The skills were needed for lunar surface operations and for crew transfer between spacecraft in the event that the crew could not dock or was unable to open the hatches. Cernan’s EVA was developed to add to the knowledge base of the engineers and mission planners as they designed the more complex missions to come. It was also intended to test the utility of a jet backpack.

Cernan’s EVA the next day was as tough as it ever got in the MCC. Years later in his book he would describe it as “the EVA from hell.” We were behind the timeline from the beginning. It seemed that every EVA activity imposed a high workload on Cernan. In the tradition of great test pilots, his incredibly detailed and graphic reporting made us intimately aware of the problems he was encountering. He worked so hard that his helmet started to fog over from perspiration. The rest periods recommended by Dr. Berry gave Cernan a break, but no more. Cernan, partially blinded by the fog, continued aft to the Gemini adapter module, where the backpack was stored. Entering the adapter by raw force, Gene was further confounded by poor lighting, limited restraints, and inadequate footholds. After a brief rest, he resumed the EVA. The oxygen umbilical was a few inches short, making it difficult to don the maneuvering unit. Nothing seemed to be going right.