Gene Kranz - Failure Is Not an Option

Before the mission Cernan had walked through the EVA procedures using the Gemini mock-up in what we called 1G training. Cernan had asked me to observe the training so I would be familiar with the sequence and terms he would use. I now could visualize his effort, virtually blind, trying to adapt and invent ways to anchor in a position, any position, that would let him get his work done or give him some respite. As flight director, I was helpless, hostage to a chain of events occurring 150 miles above me half a world away and with only scattered bits of UHF communications. It was like watching a movie in short segments, with twenty-or thirty-minute gaps between the segments. Only Tom Stafford or Gene Cernan could make these Go or NoGo calls.

As I looked around the room, controllers sat silent at the consoles, scanning their displays, hands tightly gripping the handles of their TV monitors, all empathizing with Cernan. Dr. Berry periodically would notch up the anxiety level of the room as he reported pulse and respiration rates. Each report from Cernan heightened the tension as we strained to hear. “My heel is caught on something. It touched the spacecraft and got a torque that won’t quit.” Every statement was punctuated by labored breathing and an occasional grunt. I found myself thinking, “God, am I glad Stafford had the sense to scrub the shroud EVA.”

In the second hour, the reports weren’t getting any better. Cernan selected a high oxygen suit flow in an attempt to keep cool and clear the helmet face plate. Then Stafford started to have problems communicating with Cernan. “Can you see out at all, can you read me?” Finally, Cernan conceded. “Tom, I’m going to call it quits. Nothing seems to be working.”

The struggle to unstow the maneuvering unit left Gene totally fogged over, sweat now pouring into his eyes and no way to wipe them dry. When Stafford called I quickly concurred in his NoGo of the remainder of the EVA. Frustration rang in Cernan’s voice as he said, “Sorry about the maneuvering unit.”

After a brief rest, the blinded astronaut started back to the hatch area. The only place on his visor that had cleared was at the tip of his nose. Peering through this small view hole, he secured the adapter area and started forward. Every time the tiny opening fogged over, Gene would rest for a few minutes until the plexiglass in front of his nose cleared, then he continued on. We had a blind crewman outside the spacecraft feeling his way with his hands back to the cockpit. I thought, “God, those guys are like icemen, chock-full of guts!” Two hours and ten minutes after opening the hatch, the crew started to repressurize the cabin. For the second time in the mission, I felt I had been granted a reprieve. We had walked the edge. Cernan was back inside and he had avoided disaster on the EVA.

We were blessed with a dedicated, well-informed, and highly professional press corps in the 1960s. (Unlike so many “reporters” today, they knew the difference between objective reporting of news and hyping things up to entertain the audience—and bump up their ratings.) The press conference was almost as much of an ordeal as the mission. Reporters were as confused as we were, asking, “Ed White’s EVA on Gemini 4 came off like clockwork. Why are we now having problems on Cernan’s mission?” They asked the tough questions, but they respected us and the work we did as long as we didn’t try to mislead them. For the first time at a conference I found it tough to give them specifics. I was as confounded as they were. In retrospect I am amazed that we had such a hard time figuring out what was causing the problem. We were still thinking in earthbound terms. Space has an entirely different set of rules and dynamics. We also had no telemetry to analyze what was happening, only the crew’s subjective impressions and some hazy pictures from the onboard TV camera. As a result of this nerve-wracking experience, most of the Gemini flight directors and Kraft developed a decided and long-lasting lack of enthusiasm for EVAs.

Wrapping up the press briefing, I said, “The nature of flight test is working at the boundaries of knowledge, experience, and performance and taking the risks needed to get there. There are times where the things you learn are things that you don’t expect. Often the plan you execute is different than the one you started. I believe this is one of those times.”

The Gemini 9 mission left me with mixed emotions. The rendezvous objectives had been satisfied, demonstrating the Apollo techniques and options for rendezvous and rescue. The docking objective was a bust, but based on the Gemini 8 experience I believed that any good formation pilot could dock. The EVA was a different story. At the debriefing party, Cernan’s words rang in my mind: “Geno [Cernan and I always called each other Geno], EVA is a tough SOB. There is nothing that prepared me well enough to do the job we had planned.” No one could reconcile White’s success with Cernan’s problems. We would just have to press on and get more EVA time.

With mixed feelings I left Gemini to join Kraft and Hodge in preparation for the first manned Apollo mission. I was proud to be named to the manned flight to kick off the Apollo program, but I hated to leave the console with three Gemini missions remaining. The flight director’s console was my life, the White Team my squadron mates. Missions were living, walking on the edge, feeling the camaraderie of the Brotherhood. Leaving the console was like walking away from the cockpit of my beloved Sabre. The flight director’s ultimate training comes at the console, working real problems, facing the risks, making irrevocable decisions. I had a lifetime of learning ahead as a flight director, and I envied Lunney and Charlesworth the experience they would gain in the final three missions. I volunteered to work the crew sleep shift if they needed me.

Lunney and Charlesworth directed the ever more aggressive missions of Gemini 10 and 11, conducting rendezvous, then docking and riding the Agena to record high altitudes. Their missions measured the space radiation environment and were crammed with significant new scientific objectives. The glow from the successful rendezvous, docking, and science experiments, however, could not compensate for the continuing difficulties encountered in EVA. Mike Collins’s experience on Gemini 10 further demonstrated the need for positioning aids, restraints, and realistic planning of space walk activities. Collins’s debriefing was fed into the training and planning for Dick Gordon’s EVA on Gemini 11.

I was an observer seated next to Charlesworth as Gordon’s EVA went to hell. As Dick moved from the hatch to retrieve a tether on the Agena, he lost his grip and drifted in an arc floating aft to the Gemini adapter. Conrad pulled him back toward the hatch with the oxygen umbilical. Gordon again moved to attach the tether to the umbilical, but it was obvious he was struggling. Charlesworth faced the same dilemma I had faced on Gemini 9.

Dick’s struggle while holding himself in position with one hand created a workload heat level beyond the capacity of the suit to cool. Sweat was running into his eyes, stinging and blinding him. With no way to wipe them, he groped back to the hatch. Kraft leaned over his console behind Charlesworth and demanded, “Get Gordon in!” By the time Gemini arrived at Tananarive, Conrad had already cut the EVA off after only thirty-three minutes.

On the final Gemini missions, Charlesworth, Lunney, and I found the limits of the flight director’s role. During the EVAs, we could only listen to the crew and watch over the spacecraft systems. Only the commander’s view from the cockpit afforded the perspective to make real Go NoGo decisions. But the experience we gained with Gemini stood us well for Apollo EVA planning.