Gene Kranz - Failure Is Not an Option

Among the more exacting (and exasperating) tests was that of the Lunar Module—that buglike frail craft that would put two astronauts on the Moon while the command module circled over them in Moon orbit. The LM was a two-stage spacecraft, standing twenty-three feet tall on four rather spindly legs. The lower or descent stage had the propulsion systems and propellant used to get the craft down to the surface of the Moon. Triangular bays supported the batteries, water tanks, and helium used to pressurize the propulsion system. The landing legs supported a “porch” and ladder for the crew’s descent to the Moon. When the EVA was completed, the descent stage provided the platform for the ascent (or upper) stage’s launch off the Moon.

The ascent stage contained the living quarters, controls, displays, and the attitude control, guidance, navigation, and radar systems used for each maneuver. The brain of the LM was housed in a state-of-the-art computer with 36,864-word fixed and 2,048-word erasable memory. This stage also contained the ascent engine, propellants, batteries, life support, and the communications and data systems.

Directly over the crew’s heads was the hatch that provided access, when docked, to the command module through a tunnel. The crewmen stood in the lunar module, looking forward through a small triangular window on each side, with the commander on the left and LM pilot on the right. The external skin of both stages was paper-thin aluminum, the lower stage covered by multiple layers of gold Mylar insulation. You could easily poke a pencil through the side of the spacecraft. Portions of the interior were covered with netting to save weight and catch anything that might fall into nooks and crannies inside the LM. Designed to operate only outside the Earth’s atmosphere, the LM looked ungainly, had no heat shield, and was incapable of safely entering the Earth’s atmosphere.

I was flight director for Apollo 5, the unmanned shakedown cruise of the LM. The test plan consisted of a series of descent engine maneuvers to simulate a lunar landing, a “fire in the hole” abort, and a sequence of ascent engine maneuvers simulating a rendezvous of the LM with the CSM. The LM ascent engine is buried in a cavity in the top surface of the descent (landing) stage. The fire-in-the-hole test (“Fire in the hole” is a term used in mining when explosives are about to be detonated) involved shutting down the descent rocket, blowing the bolts that attached the ascent and descent stages, switching control and power to the ascent stage, and igniting the ascent rocket while still nestled to the landing stage. All these events occurred in fractions of a second, just as they would in a real aborted landing close to the lunar surface. The fire-in-the-hole abort was the most critical test of the mission and one we had to accomplish successfully prior to a manned mission.

On a personal level, this was the start of my journey to the lunar landing. The mission brought me face-to-face with the team of controllers that would take an American to the lunar surface. I dove into the mission as if it were the last one before the Moon. My Apollo 5 White Team was a curious mixture of youth and experience. Jerry Bostick was breaking in a new FIDO, Dave Reed, while John Llewellyn had an old grizzled World War II bomber pilot, Jim I’Anson, under his tutelage. The contrast between Reed, a city slicker, quick to respond, and I’Anson, a bushy-mustached West Texas rancher with a slow drawl, set the extremes of the team. Jack Craven and Don Puddy were my LM systems controllers.

The mission was a flight controller’s dream, consisting of a Saturn launch followed by a continuous string of eight maneuvers spread over five orbits. The entire mission was scheduled for only eight hours. If all went well, the mission would be flown totally under the command of the LM computer. This was the first mission for the new LM team and the most complex unmanned test we would ever fly. The LM’s contractor, Grumman, was also new to the space program. Grumman was understandably nervous, and they worked very closely with my team to get through the first flight of their frail but essential contraption. I anticipated, per Murphy’s Law, that if anything could go wrong it would. In the months before the first test I put heavy emphasis on making sure that if the LM automatic systems failed, the MCC team could take over and do the job. By the time we approached launch readiness, we had developed several different routes to achieve the primary mission objectives, incorporating eight ground-commanded alternates to the basic mission plan.

Three days before launch I faced a new problem. Jack Craven, my LM control engineer, responsible for the guidance, navigation, attitude, and propulsion systems, had been in a traffic accident. His Volkswagen was demolished, with Craven taking the steering column in the chest. There were no broken bones, but he was beaten up. Just breathing hurt. He was unable to speak beyond a hoarse, raspy croak. With only a single team, I was faced with scrubbing the planned Apollo 5 launch. Since unmanned missions were executed by ground control, the loss of an experienced controller made us terribly vulnerable. Craven, a former Navy “hurricane hunter,” was one of the most technically qualified controllers ever to step up to a console. Older than the rest and often a bit cranky, he had come from the recovery division to Flight Control in order to get a piece of the action. What we didn’t know at this time was that he was suffering from an increasing hearing loss. Even so, as Apollo progressed, he was given a troubleshooting job, often assigned as second man at the console for critical events. Dwight Coons, my flight surgeon, trained in medicine at the University of Toronto, volunteered to get Craven ready to fly the mission.

A launch countdown is a massive undertaking, like writing the score for a symphony. Putting one together for the first time is an experience not easily forgotten. The Apollo 5 lunar module, launch support equipment, software, and procedures were exercised in an integrated fashion for the first time in a countdown demonstration on Thursday, January 18. The one-day test stretched to almost three days and, without a gap in testing or a day’s break, we began the launch countdown. One of the many things NASA operations at MCC had in common with the military was that rest was a scarce commodity. If you are standing watch and then doing ship’s work at sea you run on about six hours of sleep in twenty-four; same goes in intense aircraft operations or field deployment in the infantry. You learn to live with fatigue for very long periods—and not let it erode your focus or dull your edge.

At the launch-minus-one day review Dr. Coons reported that Craven could support the mission, but he would be virtually immobile and have difficulty speaking. Bob Carlton drew the job of responding to Craven’s grunts and mumbled comments, selecting displays, issuing commands, and communicating to the control team. Bob would later become my LM control systems engineer for the lunar landing.

Late in the afternoon, after a ragged countdown and six hours of delays, I finally gave the call to the test conductor: “MCC is Go for launch.” Dr. Coons had done well. Craven was at the console in a stiff-backed chair, headset on, incredibly erect, unable to move head and body. He was a big-time coffee drinker and I knew his body was aching as much from lack of caffeine as it was from Coons’s therapy. Seated next to him was Carlton, serving as his voice and hands. The stakes were high, but failure was not on my mind. We had been virtually wedded to the LM and Saturn booster for a week.

The launch was smooth as satin. The LM, once separated from the booster, coasted through the second and into the third orbit, the control team snuggling up to their consoles. The only sound was a periodic hoarse grunt from Craven to Carlton. As the ship off the Australian coast acquired telemetry, the CapCom, Jim Fucci, reported, “Signal strength good… mission sequence five cued… clocks in sync.” After a final check with his controllers, he said, “Flight, we’re Go.” I acknowledged, listening as Fucci counted down the final seconds to the first test of the LM’s engine. The action was about to begin.