Gene Kranz - Failure Is Not an Option

Windler, the leader of the Maroon Team, now joined us at the console. He believed the shortest and fastest path back to Earth was the best. He seemed to favor the direct abort. Lunney and I disagreed. I said, “I don’t want to jettison the lunar module. We haven’t nailed down the exact cause of the explosion or the extent of the damage. The main engine or its control systems may have been damaged. We need more time to work out the procedures for the return.”

Lunney chimed in, “Keeping the LM buys time. We don’t have a second chance and if we jettison the LM we cut off a lot of options. Whatever we do, we damned well better do it right.”

I wrapped up the discussion: “We should hold on to the lunar module and go around the Moon and take our chances with the LM power. I believe we will come up with a plan that gets us home.”

Debates among flight directors are not uncommon. We all arrived at the flight director position along different paths. Given a few minutes, the rapid pooling of experience is often the quickest way to firm up our direction. The discussion was brief, intense, and conclusive. I wanted to get every option and opinion out on the table before we selected the return path. The Trench was nervous about pulling off a direct abort so close to the Moon. I knew Lunney would fight to the death for the long return after talking to the troops in the Trench. Controllers clustered about the console as we talked, recognizing a decision was imminent. Bostick and Deiterich were joined by my FIDO, Bill Stoval, from the Trench. Lousma crowded in, representing the crews.

I vividly remembered the EVA flap from Gemini 9, when I left instructions on the console about what to do only to have top management intervene, thus putting us on a risky course. With that in mind I was not about to leave the trajectory plan undefined. We had all the players at the console and I did not want to open the subject to further debate. I looked directly at Kraft. “Chris, I don’t trust the CSM service propulsion system. It’s in the back end, where we had the explosion, and we won’t know if it is good until we try it. Then it may be too late. We need to buy some time to think and to build the come-home procedures. I believe we can find the power. Our only real option is to go around the Moon.”

Kraft had been listening; he looked at Lunney and then nodded. Lunney said, “I agree. The direct abort closes out our options. We should keep the lunar module.”

The Trench had been standing by, faces grim, hoping they would not be told to pull off a direct abort at this late time. When they saw the decision coming down in favor of their preferred option, they smiled for the first time in a long while, nodding in agreement and relief. Through some miracle, a burst of intuition, something we had all seen, heard, or felt now told us, “Don’t use the main engine.” To this day I still can’t explain why I felt so strongly about this option.

We did not have much time to debate, and I was glad that there had been immediate agreement. Many people were unaware of the options, but I believed that the systems controllers thought I had made the wrong decision. They favored the fastest way home, a direct abort.

Missions run on trust. Trust allows the crew and team to make the minutes and seconds count in a crisis. In the scramble to secure the command module, we didn’t have a chance to brief the crew or even get their opinion on the return path. In my mind I knew the crew would fight to hang on to the lunar module. I felt Lousma, as their representative, would speak out if needed. Kraft went up to brief the NASA brass, who had congregated in the viewing room, on our plan to get Apollo 13 home. The Trench returned to their consoles to start developing the return trajectory plan and brief their back room. The systems guys would have to find a way back with what we had.

Fifty-three minutes after the explosion, the plan was becoming clear. The retreat to the LM was proceeding, the trajectory path chosen, and the handover to Lunney was accomplished. I signed off in the log at 57:05 mission elapsed time, one hour and ten minutes after the explosion. It had been the longest hour in my life.

When I left the control room the remaining cryo oxygen tank pressure was down to 100 pounds per square inch. Time was running out. In less than two hours the command module would die. The situation was not yet stable, but the direction was clear. Lunney presided over the retreat to the LM, saving as many of the CSM resources as we could. After transferring the navigation data to the lunar module computer, Glynn, with a resigned shudder, told the crew to turn off the CSM systems and the computer.

Walking down to the data room to meet my team, I thought of the work ahead. We had to put together in a few hours a set of procedures that normally would take weeks to work out. We would operate outside all known design and test boundaries of the space systems.

The White Team (called the Tiger Team by the media) assembled at 10:30 P.M. CDT in the data room on the second floor. The room was large, about thirty by thirty feet and essentially bare. The only furniture was gray government tables, two overhead TV monitors, and a single intercom panel. The controllers used the room occasionally for team meetings, systems troubleshooting, and working sessions with design engineers. When I walked into the data room I was greeted by my augmented flight control team. The controllers’ arms were filled with orange-colored recorder paper. They were kneeling on the floor, the paper strewn all over the place. In pairs, controllers marked the time annotation, measuring the squiggly traces and rapidly scanning for anything that could pinpoint the cause of the explosion. The room was noisy and smoky, the tension in the air palpable. Engineers and program office personnel, as well as key managers from Grumman, the LM designer, and North American, the CSM designer, were sitting on the tables, since there weren’t many chairs. It was a working room, used principally when there was trouble. Since we had no shortage of trouble, everybody knew it was the place to be.

There were three pieces to the puzzle of the return journey. The command module was the reentry vessel; it had the heat shield but very limited electrical power. The lunar module, which would be used as the lifeboat, was designed to support two crewmen for two days on the lunar surface and was our source for power, life support, and propulsion. The third piece was the damaged service module, the true extent of the damage still unknown. With these pieces we had to fly around the Moon, perform maneuvers, support three crewmen for more than four days, and then, at the very last moment, evacuate the crew into the command module. Then we had to separate the pieces so they would follow different trajectories for reentry.

Electrical power, water, and oxygen were critical. There was no way to stretch the power unless the Trench came up with options to speed up the return after we passed the Moon. The return plan split into two phases: In less than eighteen hours we needed a maneuver plan and procedures to speed up the return journey. Once this was completed we needed the entry plan sixty hours later. Everything else had to fit in between these two critical events. So far all we had done was to buy the time to give the crew a chance; now we had to deliver. I said a prayer for the crew and the teams that had to do the work.

Walking to the front I motioned to three of my controllers saying, “Aldrich, Bill Peters, and Aaron, come on up front where everyone can see you. The rest of you knock it off and find a place to sit.” I had worked many missions with Aldrich and Aaron and knew their capabilities. Peters, the TELMU on Griffin’s gold team, I knew as one of the best analytic minds in flight control if you gave him a bit of coaching. Some of the controllers rolled up their recorder paper and moved to sit on the tables surrounding the room. Others curled up cross-legged and sat on the floor and still others continued to roll out the records, reading the timing marks and placing notations on the edges.