Gene Kranz - Failure Is Not an Option

• First manned Command Service Module (CSM)—C

• Manned test of CSM and Lunar Excursion Module (LEM)—D

• High Earth orbit (up to 4,000 miles) and test of the CSM at lunar reentry speeds—E

• Full lunar dress rehearsal, with CSM and LEM—F

• First lunar landing—G

• Subsequent lunar missions—H1, H2, and H3

• Extended lunar surface missions—J1, J2, J3, and so on.

The general public, of course, knows the main flights in the lunar sequence by number—G was Apollo 11, H2 the all-too-well-named Apollo 13, and so forth.

The summer and fall of 1967 were the busiest times I had ever known. Nothing seemed stable. Change was constant. The two certainties were that Wally Schirra would fly the first manned CSM mission, and the lunar landing goal for 1969 was unchanged. We had two and a half years to pull it off. Everyone went back to the drawing board. The command module would be redesigned at a cost of $75 million, and a safer spacecraft emerged.

Among the changes was a unified hatch that combined the exterior launch protective cover with the pressure hatch. (The launch cover protected the CSM surface from the rocket blast when the escape tower was jettisoned during launch.) The entire hatch mechanism swung out and could be opened by the crew in ten seconds.

When we completed a mission, it was like putting pictures into a scrapbook and then turning to a fresh, blank page. Someday we would have the luxury of looking back and remembering all the moments captured in those earlier pages, but the press of events gave us no time to indulge in reflections, to celebrate past accomplishments—or to grieve. For a time we simply could not dare to look back at the Apollo 1 inferno. We could only look forward to the next blank page, the next mission. But there was no way that any of us could escape those thoughts that come unbidden in the dark hours of the night: we would dream about those terrible last seconds. They would be with us forever. We would not leave the sadness behind until we accomplished what Gus Grissom, Ed White, and Roger Chaffee wanted America to do—land on the moon.

Spaceflight forced you to live with risk by focusing on the task at hand. I would compare it to a pilot walking away from an accident, muttering, “Son of a bitch, that was close!” Then, still shaken, he lights up a cigarette, picks up his helmet and parachute, and starts reviewing his actions and identifying what, if anything, he would do differently the next time. After hoisting a few with his squadron mates, he gets ready again to climb into his cockpit home.

At Mission Control, certain things were understood. Every mission must achieve its objectives, and it must be accomplished on schedule if we were to keep John F. Kennedy’s pledge to land a man on the moon in this decade.

While we were recovering from the fire, the space scientists sponsored by NASA continued their work to develop a follow-on exploration program for the Moon. I was sent to the University of California, Santa Cruz campus, in August 1967 to brief a group of government, individual, and university scientists on the Mission Control Center’s mission responsibilities and on the techniques we used to develop mission rules.

Preparing for the briefing in the campus library, I realized how narrow my world had become because of the intensity and isolation of my work over the last seven years. I had never been on a West Coast campus. What I saw was beyond my belief, the TV headlines coming alive. It was my first live encounter with the hippie generation. Their songs and chanted slogans dimly penetrated the library as we worked. When I left I was glad to get back to a world I understood. But would these young people comprehend the meaning of all we had been trying to accomplish for so many years—the greatest use of economic and technological power in history for peaceful purposes? The Vietnam War was only one challenge facing (and, unfortunately, dividing) our country. Countless American lives were going to be lost before that long war was brought to an end. I honored those who served; I could not sympathize with those who did not honor members of their own generation, young men who were far removed from college campuses and demonstrations, who had no choice but to fight and be killed or maimed. I returned from that campus in California wondering what the young people I saw there would make of the legacy we were trying to pass on to them—and to the rest of mankind.

There was little fanfare the day NASA recovered from the shock of the Apollo 1 event and resumed the space race. Arthur Hill of the Houston Chronicle reported from the Cape on the launch of the unmanned Apollo 4, the first flight test of the Saturn V, the world’s mightiest rocket. It was the only machine powerful enough to launch the two Apollo spacecraft, the CSM and LM, into Earth orbit and then hurl them toward the Moon.

“The powerful engines shook the press stands,” Hill’s story began, “rattling light fixtures and bouncing tables up and down. It was an awesome sight as brilliant yellow fire engulfed the launch pad at liftoff.” This time the fire was with us. We sent Saturn into space on the most immense pillar of flame ever seen at the Cape.

In Mission Control, all of us felt elated as America resumed its voyage to the Moon. The Saturn performed perfectly, blending new and old propulsion technologies in each of its three rocket stages, then as the mission ended, the command module was hurtled earthward at seven miles per second to test the heat shield during reentry.

The Apollo 4 test, more than any other, demonstrated George Mueller’s fearless “all-up” approach to testing. It showed that we had the right guy filling the job as NASA’s boss of manned space flight. “All-up” meant that every element of the space system was on board and operable. There were no “boilerplate” spacecraft. If you were successful, the concept was labeled brilliant, and you could focus your energies on the next step, the next set of unknowns. If you had problems, you found them early and somehow made time to fix them while keeping on schedule. If you failed, a lot of expensive hardware was reduced to junk and the schedule shattered.

I didn’t know much about the NASA hierarchy. Our Administrator, Jim Webb, lived in another world, Washington, D.C., from whence came our funding and our mandate. Webb, boss of the whole organization during the years of Mercury, Gemini, and early Apollo, had had a long, distinguished career, including serving as Director of the Bureau of the Budget and undersecretary of state in the Truman administration. A profoundly serious man with a vigorous manner and an ability to deliver a great speech when one was required, he knew every bureaucratic pitfall there was to know and how to navigate around them, inventing new strategies as needed. He was adroit at securing funding from an often reluctant Congress—and at keeping NASA’s critics at a safe distance from his people who were doing the work. His style was low-key and effective. He knew how to delegate and give people like George Mueller and George Low the authority they needed to achieve the goals in each mission.

The miracle of the NASA rebirth after the fire was due to four of the best leaders the program ever had. George Mueller, the boss of manned spaceflight, was a modest man, trained as a research engineer, with a great feel for the complex details of operations. He provided the foundation before, during, and after the calamity, and took the heat from Congress. Above all, he stood up for his people throughout NASA and provided an unwavering direction with his all-up test concept.

In 1966, the year before the Apollo fire, Goddard Space Flight Center advised me that they were not installing consoles for controllers on the two Apollo tracking ships. GSFC, the operator of our communications network, believed that the rapid advancements in communications technology would allow transmitting data and communications by satellite by the time the Apollo missions began. Since I had worked many shifts with the ships in Gemini, I was critically aware of the support they provided in covering key mission events and providing orbital gap coverage. I wanted a controller team aboard the ships for Apollo. I was not willing to risk the crew or mission objectives by making the MCC dependent on “may happen” technology.