Gene Kranz - Failure Is Not an Option

John Aaron likened his role that day to that of a medical intern treating a gunshot victim in an emergency room at midnight, plugging the hole in a man’s heart with his finger to stop the hemorrhaging as his emergency room team sprang into action. John’s next call made him a legend in Mission Control.

As Conrad’s voice reports continued, Aaron suddenly remembered the instrumentation funny from a year earlier. John now translated this single obscure event into a train of actions that would save the Apollo 12 mission.

Griffin was no longer writing in the log. His hand was now clenching a black government ballpoint pen. Like Aaron, he knew he had little time to make a decision. “How is it looking… EECOM, what do you see?”

Aaron paused in the middle of an exchange with his support staff, stared at his displays, then made the decisive call, “Flight, have the crew take the SCE to Aux.” [2] The signal-conditioning equipment (SCE) is a small redundant power supply that provided voltage to forty-six critical instrumentation points in the electrical, booster, control, fuel cell, and cryogenic systems. If the normal power supply fails, an auxiliary supply can be switched on. The words tumbling over the loop from Aaron were alien to Griffin, alien to the entire team. Taken aback Griffin stated, “Say again, SCE to Aux?” ending his statement with a question mark. This time more firmly and slowly, Aaron repeated himself.

When the CapCom, Gerry Carr, passed on Aaron’s recommendation, it made little sense to Conrad, who blurted out, “What the hell is that?”

Carr repeated the instruction, emphasizing “S-C-E to Auxiliary.” During powered flight, the command module switches and controls are allocated to the crewman who can see and reach them. This switch was Al Bean’s responsibility. Reaching forward, Al firmly toggled the switch down, and confirmed, “SCE is in Aux.”

Moments later, Aaron announced, “I got valid data, Flight. It is looking good.” Interspersed with the discussion, the Trench continued to rock through the abort mode calls. For a few seconds, Griffin worried that Aaron might give him an abort call, but when none came, Griffin exhaled a loud sigh of relief. In less than sixty seconds, the fuel cells were back on line, and Griffin had a Go from all his controllers to keep pressing on to orbit.

Aboard the command module, Conrad reported, “We’re pretty well straightened out now. Not sure what happened. I think we got hit by lightning.” Conrad’s suspicion was soon proved to be correct.

The CSM power was back, but with the status of the spacecraft uncertain, Griffin’s team gave a sigh of relief when the third stage of the rocket pushed Apollo 12 into orbit. “That may be one of the better sims,” was Conrad’s appraisal after achieving orbit. “We were chuckling about it up here. We had so many lights we couldn’t read them all.”

The Saturn guidance and propulsion had done a fantastic job. Griffin’s team settled down and started a meticulous check-out of the spacecraft. The question now was, Could we muster enough confidence in the spacecraft to fire up the engines and shoot for the Moon?

As the spacecraft flew toward Carnarvon, Australia, the Trench got the next shock. Radar tracking was minutes earlier than expected at Carnarvon. This was not good news, since it could occur only if the command module was in a much lower orbit than expected.

With a sinking feeling, Jay Greene conferred briefly with Deiterich, trying to resolve two incompatible pieces of data. Griffin had enough problems, so they decided to keep their concern to themselves while they anxiously waited for more tracking data, finally grunting a sigh of relief when they had confirmation that the Yankee Clipper was in the correct orbit. They trusted their gut instincts and they were right. An atmospheric anomaly had bent the tracking data, faking the radar into believing the command module had crossed the horizon early.

During a brief conversation over Carnarvon, Conrad left no doubt that they had been hit by lightning. “At the time of the event, about thirty seconds into flight, and again at about fifty seconds, I saw some illumination out the window. Inside the spaceship, everything went dark.” At least one of the two flashes of lightning seen by observers at the Cape had hit the spacecraft. Jim McDivitt, who stepped in as Apollo program manager when George Low moved to headquarters, had seen a ground-lightning strike near the launch pad. The strike’s path went from a cloud to the Yankee Clipper and then via the rocket’s exhaust to the ground around the pad. This was the strike that took place thirty seconds into launch. It was not clear if the illumination that took place at fifty seconds was also a strike. Reports of the strikes had been withheld until after the critical launch phase was over.

Sig Sjoberg, Kraft’s deputy and a gifted and intuitive design engineer, was deeply concerned over the report, visualizing the havoc that a lightning strike could cause in the Apollo spacecraft. Concerned over the inability to make a complete check-out of the CSM and booster prior to the translunar injection, he walked down to the systems row of controllers, talking briefly with the GNC, then with EECOM John Aaron.

Moving into the Trench, Sig approached Bostick: “Jerry, If you feel uncomfortable in any way about the TLI [translunar injection], speak out.” Fidgeting a bit, he continued, “I will support you if you give a NoGo today.” He then left and moved to the booster controllers, giving them the same speech.

Kraft, standing next to Griffin, offered the same advice. “Young man, we don’t have to go to the Moon today. It’s your call.” The input of Kraft and Sjoberg immediately removed all political pressure from the decision. Griffin knew all he had to do was make the right technical call. There could be no other way.

It was impossible to check out the entire spacecraft; that can be done only on the ground. In the short time available Griffin’s team ran a pre-maneuver checklist, realigned the CSM platform, and then, after much discussion with the crew, gave Conrad, Bean, and Gordon their translunar injection Go over Carnarvon. Throughout the mission the MCC and North American, the CSM contractor, continued to analyze the lightning strike, assessing any critical circuitry that might have been damaged or would prematurely fail. The pyrotechnic systems were the principal systems that could not be checked out. Since they were needed only for normal entry, their status had no bearing on the decision to go to the Moon.

Conrad and Bean made their pinpoint landing on the Moon next to the Surveyor, establishing a new set of space records, increasing the duration of the lunar surface activity—and surviving two lightning strikes. Aaron’s “SCE to Aux” call became legendary and Griffin survived his first launch. All in all, it was a damn good mission.

Four tough missions, the first lunar landing, and the Apollo 12 save—yes, 1969 had been good to us. A year of world-class performance under pressure and a perfect track record. We were Super Bowl champs and it was time to party.

After the long and irregular hours, the controllers were at a disadvantage when it came to the splashdown parties after the Apollo missions. After the congratulatory handshake, and puffing the traditional cigar, we secured the MCC consoles and called our wives. Exhausted by the demands of the mission but still pumped up by the adrenaline rush that comes from getting another crew home safely, everyone elected to attend the splashdown parties after the Apollo missions. The controllers’ splashdown parties normally started at the Officers Club at Ellington Air Force Base, about a ten-minute drive from the MCC. Occasionally the Air Force Reserve Squadron would fly up to Maine for crew navigation training purposes, stopping long enough to get a bunch of live lobsters and have them cooked and waiting for the splashdown.