Gene Kranz - Failure Is Not an Option

With one mission remaining and the EVA objectives not satisfied, a headquarters review board assessed the results. Their conclusions stated, “NASA has designed overly complex and demanding EVAs, based on analyses, theories, and concepts that are not entirely accurate.” The board recommended that we train the crew in a “neutrally buoyant” mode with the crewman suited and ballasted in a water tank. “This mode of training most closely replicates the environment experienced in EVA.”

To get ready for Gemini 12, the crew, controllers, and planners all went back to the drawing board. (Only weeks before, Gemini 12 had been a mission without objectives. Now the urgency to conduct a successful EVA had placed it on the critical path in the preparation for Apollo.) Buzz Aldrin, the EVA crewman, proved an apt student in the neutrally buoyant environment and the combination of extensive underwater training and improved tethers and tools unlocked the door to a successful EVA on the final Gemini mission.

Lunney and Charlesworth had been pulling twelve-hour mission shifts since I left, so they called me back for the sleep periods on Gemini 11 and 12. It was great to close out Gemini surrounded by the greatest crews and controllers who ever lived. We were a unique clan.

Gemini developed the tools and technologies we needed to go to the Moon, but even more, Gemini was an essential step for the crews and controllers. The culture of early Gemini operations centered on Kraft and Slayton, strong individuals who stepped up to the risks and with courage knocked them aside.

In the process, they defined the leadership qualities needed for success in space. Their words were clear, their expectations high. They knew they needed to develop a second generation of leaders. They used Gemini to select and test those individuals who would carry the torch in Apollo.

The 750 members of the initial Space Task Group that Dr. Robert Gilruth led to Houston had grown to almost 14,000 civil servants and contractors by the end of the Gemini program. Now the Manned Spacecraft Center was a technical powerhouse of scientists and engineers with vast responsibilities, charged with implementing the manned spaceflight program. Center responsibilities ranged from program offices charged with directing the design, development, and operations of the Mercury, Gemini, and Apollo space programs as well as the manned medical and lunar sciences and related experiments. The center also had lead responsibilities to integrate the design and operations activities of the Marshall Space Flight Center, in Huntsville, Alabama, in developing the Saturn boosters and the Kennedy Space Center in developing the launch facilities.

An Engineering Directorate supported the program offices in the design, development, and program integration of the space systems; a Science and Applications Directorate supported the lunar and space sciences; and a Medical Research and Operations Directorate supported space life science investigations.

The operational responsibilities of the center were assigned to two directors, Chris Kraft and Deke Slayton. Kraft’s organization was composed of four divisions responsible for trajectory design, MCC design and operations, spacecraft landing and recovery, and flight control. John Hodge led the Flight Control Division and I was his deputy.Slayton’s responsibility included an astronaut office, aircraft operations office, and a large division supporting flight planning, crew procedures, and simulator operations. The MSC team had been working on the Apollo program since the initial NASA-industry planning session in July 1960.

There are not many days in Houston that begin with a shiver. This one did, and it was not a premonition. A cold front was pushing through southeast Texas that Friday morning. A rare freeze was expected as I left the house for work, in the dark. I was ready to roll. The details of the day’s agenda were dancing in my head as I pulled out of the driveway.

Command and Service Module (CSM) 012 arrived at Kennedy Space Center from North American’s factory at Downey, California, on August 26, 1966. Systems tests were completed in September and were followed by altitude chamber tests to verify spacecraft pressure integrity and validate the system’s performance in a vacuum. During the chamber tests, problems with an oxygen regulator and later with the cooling system delayed completion of chamber testing until the Christmas holiday period. The Kennedy launch team carried most of the burden. They were working around the clock except on Christmas and New Year’s Day to complete testing so the CSM could be mated to the Saturn booster in early January 1967. The MCC had its own problems. Telemetry and trajectory computers were crashing for undetermined reasons, and astronaut training was falling behind due to simulator problems.

The CSM was moved to the launch pad at complex 34 on January 6 and the mechanical and electrical hookups (“plugs”) between the CSM, booster, and launch complex progressed smoothly and were completed January 18. A plugs-in test with the CSM and booster was supported by the MCC and was successfully completed the following day.

The launch day countdown is rehearsed several times to run through procedures, to check facilities, and to train the launch and flight teams. Rehearsals for the Apollo 1 launch day countdown consisted of two tests. The plugs-in test verified the procedures used to check out spacecraft and booster systems using electrical power supplied by the launch complex at the Cape. The plugs-out test verified the procedures for the final three hours from the entry of the crew into the CSM through launch. Ten minutes before the simulated launch the CSM was switched to internal power. (The plugs-out test configuration used a set of batteries mounted outside the CSM. The fuel cells were not active.) The plugs-out test concluded with a simulated launch and a series of orbital tests supported by the MCC.

The Cape is responsible for making sure that the CSM and booster are safe and meet the pre-launch requirements specified in the test procedures. The MCC’s responsibility is to ensure that all telemetry, command, and computer functions meet the mission rule criteria and that the MCC is ready to assume control of the mission. The testing sequence is similar to that used in Gemini, although more complex.

A second plugs-in test was conducted starting at 3:00 A.M. CST on January 25 to refine countdown procedures and troubleshoot launch day communications. The test was supported by the Apollo 1 backup crew, Wally Schirra, Walt Cunningham, and Donn Eisele, and my team in the MCC. Due to problems with the Kennedy Spacecraft Center ground checkout equipment, the planned ten-hour test staggered through the next day, finally concluding around 2:00 A.M. January 26. Since my team did not get much hands-on experience during the test I volunteered to power up the MCC and support the early hours of the following day’s plugs-out test.

The plugs-out test was not classified as high-risk. This classification was reserved for tests at the vacuum chamber or those involving propellants, cryogenics, high-pressure systems, or live pyrotechnics.

The sun was not yet up when I arrived at my office that morning. I called the Kennedy Space Center test conductor; his report that there were no more deviations (changes) to the test and checkout procedure was reassuring. [The TCP was a several-inches-thick manual for the test that synchronized every action of all elements of the launch team, booster, MCC, and CSM crew. It was not unusual to have twenty to thirty pages of changes that had to be inserted into the manual in the hours before a test.] I shoved a thick stack of the papers from my desk into a briefcase and walked the short distance to Mission Control, arriving about 7:00 A.M. local time.