Gene Kranz - Failure Is Not an Option

The panel status lights at the top of my console instantly change from green to amber. Even the surgeon is listening in to the communications loop today. I advise them to go green if their handover is complete. One by one the status board returns to green. Andrew Patnesky, the NASA photographer at MCC, walks by and bends over. I rub his bald head for good luck, saying, “We’re Go, Pat.” He croaks, “Good luck.” Then he moves to sit behind the CapComs. Pat and I established this ritual way back in Gemini, and it seems to work. Today is not the day to omit it.

One spacecraft revolution in lunar orbit takes about two hours. During the front-side pass, we receive data for about one hour and fifteen minutes, followed by forty-five minutes when the spacecraft is out of sight behind the Moon. At spacecraft acquisition of signal on revolution eleven, the crew is still ahead of the timeline by about thirty minutes, and controllers scramble to check displays to make sure they didn’t miss any checklist items while the spacecraft was behind the Moon.

Spencer Gardner, my flight planner, brings everyone to the correct page, identifying checklist items the crew is currently performing. I like his crisp, businesslike call. Spence is on top of his job today. The crew works with the ground on voice checks, navigation updates, computer memory dumps, and docked alignments. Revolution eleven passes quickly, and at loss of signal the crew is working smoothly, still about thirty minutes ahead of the timeline.

The next revolution is equally smooth as the crew continues with LM landing gear deployment, autopilot checkout, and communications testing. They power up the steerable antenna, and for the first time we see the complete set of telemetry from the LM. The controllers quickly assess the data and happily give their Go. The Trench is scrambling to keep up with the crew, provide navigation updates, synchronize clocks on board the spacecraft, and, finally, give maneuver data to the crew.

The exquisite ballet of flight crew and ground controllers continues. Each participant is in perfect harmony with the other, moving to a cadence dictated by the laws of physics and the clock. I reference my workbook, note all items completed, and at 99:24 MET poll the controllers. “Okay, all flight controllers, go amber and stand by for Go NoGo for undocking.” The poll ends quickly with all controllers echoing, “Go!” Charlie Duke passes the Go to the crew. From now on, there is no getting ahead of the timeline. The CSM and LM are now flying in tandem around the Moon.

Over the air path in the control room I hear the voice of public affairs officer Doug Ward. He comments on the flight plan for the coming revolution. Ward is the youngest of the public affairs officers, does his homework thoroughly, and has what it takes to be a great flight controller if he wants. During press conferences, he is always ahead of the game and knows when to run interference for the flight director. He will pick up the ball and run with it if he thinks his flight director is about to get hung out to dry by the media.

Unknown to the MCC, Armstrong and Aldrin have not completely vented the pressure in the tunnel between the CSM and LM. When they undock, the pressure in the tunnel, like the cork in a champagne bottle or in a popgun, gives a slight thrust to the LM spacecraft. It is as if the crew had performed a very small maneuver with the rocket engines.

When we acquire telemetry and voice on revolution thirteen, the final revolution before CSM separation, the lunar module performs a pirouette while Collins, in the command module, makes a visual inspection. The two spacecraft continue flying formation, and the ballet enters its second act. Charlie Duke rattles off the long string of maneuver data for the landing and the abort and rescue options. The voice readbacks of the data by Aldrin and Collins are confirmed by the MCC team. After separation, the flight control team splits into two elements, each working with its own communications links and data stream to the two spacecraft.

This is the busiest time of my shift. I now have to keep logs on two spacecraft, each with its own plan, procedures, and timeline. The common link between the spacecraft is provided by Spencer Gardner’s flight plan. I keep the separate groups in harmony as the intensity in the room increases, then poll the controllers for the separation Go NoGo. We have met all of the criteria, are on the timeline, and both spacecraft look good. We take a deep breath and give a “Go for the separation maneuver.” Duke passes to the lunar module the Go for the maneuver that will bring it to a point 50,000 feet above the Moon.

I become aware that each of the controllers has reduced the crowding around his console. Duke and Slayton have cleaned house at the CapCom console. Astronauts Pete Conrad, Fred Haise, Jim Lovell, and Bill Anders have relocated to other parts of the room. Tindall maneuvers into the chair next to me, and I motion him to move closer to the console, where he can see the TV displays. This is his day and, I think, one of the happiest of his life. Of all our lives.

Collins acknowledges the Go for separation and, thrusting upward, performs a small radial separation maneuver. As the CSM moves away from the lunar module, Armstrong and Aldrin power up the radar and check it out by tracking Collins’s departing CSM. I wonder when I will start to see signs of pressure in my team. So far, the reports are crisp, their voices almost the same as they were in training—the controllers are in a groove. I marvel at how well they are holding up, for no matter how hard they try to appear relaxed and cool, I know the pressure has to be building in them.

As the clocks continue their relentless progress, I can finally feel the tension mixed with excitement in the room. The air starts to crackle as we anticipate coming events. I notice that the paper in my logbook is damp from my palms, and the paper is curling in a tight roll as I engrave each word with my ballpoint pen. Although I am not really aware of it, I’m close to maximum stress at this point, even though mentally I am as cool as a cucumber.

When both spacecraft go “over the hill” and we lose telemetry and voice, I advise the controllers to take five. The rush for the rest rooms, led by the people in the Trench, is the first indication of the pressure the controllers are feeling. I thought that nervous kidneys were exclusively my problem. I follow the stampede and listen to their voices. There is no loud talk and no joking. Their faces reveal a level of concentration and preoccupation that I have never seen before. I do not want to look at my face in the mirror for fear that I might let my own feelings show.

As we reenter the control room, I am inspired by the controllers’ mettle, for it takes courage to step up to our work. They are mostly in their mid-twenties. By comparison, I feel old at thirty-five. As I look around, it becomes real for me; in the next forty minutes, this team will try to take two Americans to the surface of the Moon. It will all be on the line. We will land, crash, or abort. In forty minutes, we will know which.

The emotion I feel in these final few minutes takes over. I have to talk to my team. I call on the loop, “Okay, all flight controllers, go to assistant flight director conference.” The AFD conference loop is a private communications channel used principally for debriefings or for soul-searching discussions with an errant controller, and it is used exclusively by Flight or the AFD. No one outside the control room can listen in. After controllers complete their check-in, I begin to speak from my heart:

Okay, all flight controllers, listen up.

Today is our day, and the hopes and the dreams of the entire world are with us. This is our time and our place, and we will remember this day and what we will do here always.