Gene Kranz - Failure Is Not an Option

Aldrin does not bother to respond. The control team has gone to a negative reporting mode as seconds become even more precious. Normal reporting stops and controllers report only NoGo conditions, with the exception of Carlton’s fuel-remaining calls. The room is silent, expectant, listening intently to the crew calls: “700 feet, down [descending] at twenty-one… 540 feet, down at fifteen.” During the descent, Buzz Aldrin, the LM pilot, selected landing data from the computer display and called out the critical data to Neil Armstrong, who was piloting the LM. The reports normally consisted of altitude, rate of descent, and forward velocity, although in many cases only the single most critical element was reported.

Carlton calls out in hushed tones, “Attitude hold.” I acknowledge, “ATT hold,” then silence. The crew is searching for a landing site. Duke, in even more hushed tones, states, “I think we better be quiet from here on, Flight!” I respond, “Rog, the only call-outs from now on will be fuel.” My voice loops become silent, the atmosphere electric as we hang on to each of the crew’s words and wait for Carlton’s call. We are within 500 feet of the surface and continuing the descent. We watch displays that the crew cannot see and listen for sounds yet to be uttered. If anyone so much as clears his throat, twenty other voices shush him.

Reflexively, I reach out and grip the handle on the TV monitor with my left hand and think, Damn close! I continue to keep up with my notations in the log. Again, I feel Tindall stir in his chair as he leans forward to look at the displays. It must be hell to be a spectator today. I have to break through the tension. I run a quick status check, “FIDO, are you happy!” “Go, Flight!” “Guidance, how about you? Are you happy?” “Go, Flight!”

The tempo picks up, the crew call-outs of altitude and descent rate increase in frequency. You can almost feel the crew in Eagle reaching for the surface. I look at my displays. The descent rate is almost zero. They are hovering now, and I try some body English in my chair to help them find a place to land. I look at the clock and my log. It is more than eleven minutes since we started descent.

In every training run, we would have put it down by now. It is going to be close, damn close, closer than we ever trained for. The voice loops are silent. Then someone unconsciously keys his mike, and for a few seconds you can hear him breathing, then he unkeys. It is quiet, no discussion at all, and in these last few seconds, I feel that every controller, our instructors, program management, and those in the viewing room are mentally on board the LM, feeling for the surface along with Eagle ’s crew and aware fuel is almost gone.

The crew reports, “250 feet, down at two and a half, nineteen forward.” Still near hovering, I think, but moving forward pretty rapidly. They are over a boulder field trying to find a landing spot. I write in my log, “Here we go,” and advise Carlton, “Okay, Bob, standing by for your call-outs shortly.” The crew continues, “200 feet,” then, “160 feet, five down, nine forward.”

“Low level,” exclaims Carlton on the flight director loop. Propellant in the tanks is now below the point where we can measure it. It is like driving your car on empty. Controllers turn their mental clock on. We have 120 seconds or less to land or abort.

Carlton’s backroom controller, Bob Nance, using a paper chart recorder, is mentally integrating throttle usage by the crew and giving Carlton his best guesstimate of the hover time remaining before the fuel runs out. During training, he got pretty good at it and could hit the empty point within plus or minus ten seconds, but I never dreamed we would still be flying this close to empty and depending on Nance’s eyeballs. I wait for Carlton’s next call.

Armstrong is flying and Aldrin is reporting, “100, three and a half down, nine forward.” As the crew passes seventy-five feet, another call comes from Carlton, “Sixty seconds.” I marvel at his calm voice and wonder if he feels the turmoil I am starting to feel. I mentally integrate the time. At seventy-five feet of altitude with a descent rate of two and a half feet per second, we will have about thirty seconds of fuel remaining at touchdown, assuming Nance’s integration is good. It could be a lot closer!

Duke repeats Carlton’s call on the uplink: “Sixty seconds.” There is no response from the crew. They are too busy. I get the feeling they are going to go for broke. I have had this feeling since they took over manual control. They are the right ones for the job. I cross myself and say, “Please, God.”

Carlton’s voice again penetrates, “Stand by for thirty seconds, thirty seconds.” Duke echoes the time on the uplink. The whole mission is now down to the last thirty seconds, assuming we guessed right on fuel.

It is quiet, damn quiet, the silence so great you could hear a feather hit the floor. All the air seems to have been suddenly sucked out of the control room as each controller gasps and then swallows a gulp of air, then holds it for Carlton’s next call.

The crew report almost brings us to our feet: “Forty feet, picking up some dust, thirty feet, seeing a shadow.” They are going to make it! It is like watching Christopher Columbus wade ashore in the New World. Carlton calls, “Fifteen sec…” then stops.

There is a lengthy pause in all crew communications, then, “Contact light… engine stop… ACA out of detent.” It takes me a second to realize the crew is going through the engine shutdown checklist, just as they did in training. It really sinks in when Carlton, in a droll, almost bored voice says, “Flight, we’ve had shutdown.” Duke responds, “We copy you down, Eagle.”

Spectators in the viewing room and our instructors are drumming their feet on the floor, standing and cheering. We remain rooted in our chairs, but the sound seeps into the room. I experience a chill unlike any in my life. I am totally unprepared for the flood of emotion. This is the one thing that we never trained for—the instant of the actual landing. I am choked up, speechless, and I have to get going with the Stay NoStay. There is not one second to spare, and I just cannot speak.

While the world waits, Neil Armstrong sends goose bumps around the globe with the words: “Houston, Tranquillity Base here. The Eagle has landed.”

Frustrated at my lack of emotional control, I slam my forearm against the console. My pen flips into the air, startling Tindall and Charlesworth. In a voice that cracks, I say, “Everybody stand by for Stay NoStay. Stand by for T-1 [Time-1].”

Charlie Duke, equally unsteady and in an emotion-filled voice, closes out this phase with a statement that expresses our feelings, “Roger, Tranquillity. We copy you on the ground. You got a bunch of guys about to turn blue. We’re breathing again. Thanks a lot.”

In case of an emergency after the lunar landing, three LM liftoff times were selected that would permit a CSM rendezvous within the electrical power lifetime of the LM. The T1 time was two minutes after landing, T2 was eight minutes after landing, and T3 coincided with the CSM orbital pass two hours after landing.

While the world is celebrating, each of the controllers overcomes his own emotional overload and proceeds to swiftly assess spacecraft systems. They start the process to check for an acceptable surface attitude,then verify the primary computer configuration and LM systems status for a possible immediate liftoff. Within thirty seconds of landing, I start polling controllers to commit to a surface stay of at least eight minutes. If I receive a NoStay we must lift off in the next sixty seconds. All controllers crisply state they are “Stay for T1,” which Duke promptly relays to the crew.