Failure Is Not an Option

by Gene Kranz

  I talk briefly to each of the controllers, touch them on the back, and say, “How’s it going?” I snag a brownie to go with my coffee as I pass by the procedures console. I hang my silver and white brocade vest behind the flight director console, deposit my lunch in a drawer, place my Cokes in the refrigerator, and continue across to the exit, to the spacecraft analysis room. The SPAN room log tells me what the engineers are working on, and today it indicates that everything is normal.

  Mission Control during critical events is like a magnet, drawing controllers and astronauts close to the action. Every person not working a shift tries to find a place to plug in his headset. Each console has four communications outlets and as the landing time approaches, every outlet is filled. Since the astronaut observers do not have support staff rooms to hang out in, they burrow into obscure corners to find a place to plug in. Today, a bunch of them have found their home in the SPAN area. I do not blame them. Today, we will watch Armstrong and Aldrin open a new chapter in the history of exploration.

  Once we start the descent, we will have very little time to avoid disaster if things go wrong.

  We have a ringside seat; the only better one is in the spacecraft. My final stop is the simulation control area; I want to say thanks to SimSup Dick Koos and his team. To my surprise, he is not there. Having finished my circuit of the control and support areas I return to the flight director console. Lunney would never be awarded the Good Housekeeping award for the condition in which he leaves the console, so I set about to clean up the debris and make room for my flight books. Lunney and Windler are not cigarette smokers, so I dig around to find an ashtray. Lighting a cigarette, I pull my headset from the pouch and plug in on the left side of the console, punching up the intercom loops to listen to my team as they conclude handover.

  Everything is going smoothly, so I start reading the logs for all the shifts since I was last on console. Kraft arrives, and as he passes behind me, he pats me on the shoulder and says, “Good luck, young man!” He does not have to say more. He occupied this chair from Mercury to the Apollo 1 fire. I wonder how his stomach is today and whether his customary supply of milk is safely tucked away in the refrigerator. The last person to wish me good luck as he leaves the control room is John Hodge, who, like Kraft, has closed out his era in Mission Control and moved into the ranks of management. A new generation of controllers, many mentored by him, are now on the consoles.

  Lunney finishes updating the log and indicates the crew has been ahead of schedule all morning. He, Bostick, and the FIDO have been trying to resolve a 500-pound weight discrepancy during much of the shift and have fine-tuned the maneuver times to an exquisite level. Lunney ends his log with the comment that much of the work is trivial . . . “all peanuts.”

  Preoccupied, I put on my vest and move my gear to the right side of the console. I notice that the space artist Bob McCall is seated on the console step to my right. (NASA had run a competition to select artists to document the program. McCall was one of those chosen.) Looking over his shoulder briefly, I marvel at his work as he rapidly makes a series of pencil sketches of people in the room. I select my TV displays, bring up my intercom loops on the panel, and make the first entry in the flight log: “95: 41:00 MET White Team—descent, crew in LM, pressurizing preps—all looks good.” I adjust the intercom foot switch and call the controllers to give me an “amber” and check in. A small status light panel is at the top of my console. Each controller can signal me with the colored light to give his status. A green light signals “I’m Go!” Amber has several connotations, among them “console handover is in progress” or” I’m currently away from the console” or “I’ve got a problem, call me when you have time.” A red controller status gets a flight director’s immediate attention. It indicates that the controller has a serious problem or is preparing to call an abort.

  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, a
re 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. Noone 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.

  In the next hour we will do something that has never been done before. We will land an American on the Moon. The risks are high . . . that is the nature of our work.

  We worked long hours and had some tough times but we have mastered our work. Now we are going to make this work pay off.

  You are a hell of a good team. One that I feel privileged to lead.

  Whatever happens, I will stand behind every call that you will make.

  Good luck and God bless us today!

  I pause briefly, then resume, “Okay, all flight controllers, return to the flight director’s loop.” I think my phrasing was a bit more emotional than this, but since there is no recording of this private moment we shared, I have put down my best recollection of what I said. I did something I thought was important, something the team had earned, in the good times as well as the bad, an expression of my esteem, my confidence. We were a band of brothers.

  I am sure the people in the viewing room and the press corps wondered what in the hell I said. Those who are still around will know now.

  I note the time in the log, and call, “Ground Control, lock the control room doors.” I pause briefly, then say, “Take Mission Control to battle short.” From now on, no controller can leave or enter the room. The main circuit breakers in the MCC are blocked and closed. We count the few minutes to acquisition and I light up another Kent, inhale deeply, and say a prayer.

  Behind the Moon and out of contact with Mission Control, Armstrong performed a maneuver slowing the LM orbital velocity, allowing the lunar gravity to pull the spacecraft toward the surface. The LM is now silently coasting to an altitude of 50,000 feet. The final landing phase will take about twelve minutes.

  Bill Tindall stirs in the seat next to me. There is an air of expectancy in the room. The clock hits zero and the ground controller says, “Flight, we’ve had acquisition.” I do not know what the controllers are thinking at this moment, but it hits me; this is it—landing day.

  We are too busy now to think about this being the first landing. We do not have to look for problems because they come right at us, like flies drawn to a picnic lunch. Voice communications are broken, and LM telemetry is unable to lock up. The noise on the air-to-ground communications loop is deafening. Every controller punches the loop off so he can hear communications among the flight control team. Don Puddy instantly swings into action with his back room and his CapCom to select an alternate antenna.

  FIDO Jay Greene asks for a report on the descent orbit injection maneuver that the crew has performed behind the Moon. The maneuver sets up the conditions for landing, so the report is critical to Jay’s evaluation of the tracking data. The lunar module is now coasting toward the point for descent engine ignition. While the LM is descending, Mission Control is checking the spacecraft systems telemetry, and Armstrong and Aldrin are performing landmark tracking to make sure they are in the landing corridor. We get communications with the LM briefly; just long enough to get the crew’s maneuver report.

  The communications problem has bit us, and I am hard pressed to keep my frustration from surfacing in my voice. We have only two chances to get to the Moon and I sure as hell don’t want to blow off one of them. Every member of the White Team is ready for the race. Now we’re dead in the water. I have only five more minutes and then it’s Go or NoGo. I say a brief prayer, “Please God, give us comm.” The mission rests now on Puddy’s back. Charlie Duke works with Puddy to maintain voice communications with Armstrong and Aldrin in the LM so we can continue with the final preparation to start descent. Duke has to work around the comm outages and remember the controllers’ instructions. He watches comm signal strength indications and suggests an LM attitude change to try to improve the voice comm. Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin continue to roll through their checklists, while we try to sort out the problems.

  We get a burst of telemetry data at the time for the Go NoGo for powered descent, and I poll my controllers. The controllers make a rapid Go assessment, and then we lose data again. Since Duke cannot communicate with the LM, he relays the Go through Collins in CSM Columbia, who passes the Go to the LM Eagle. The intensity of the effort is coming in waves, centering on Go NoGo points. Puddy has seen enough data to recommend a switch to the aft antenna, and Duke again relays the message to Collins. A minor attitude change of the LM helps clear up some of the communications, but we still have signal breakups to contend with.

  This is not going the way it should, and I remember the mission rule on data needed for landing. It is up to me to decide if we have enough to continue. I am thankful that I swung the rule change to allow making the final call much later in the descent. Communications and data improve momentarily, and we listen to the final checklist items as the crew prepares to start the d
escent engine. All checklist items are complete both on the ground and in the air, then the mission smoothes out in the sixty seconds prior to starting down.

  The intercom crackles, the voices diced and chopped, staccato. I listen for any hint of concern or confusion. The voices have the steady, cool response of a well-tuned aircraft engine on a sunny day aloft. We are now engaged; the battle has been joined. The communications problem is the opening salvo. I am sure there will be more as I listen for the word “Flight!” to trigger me into the action chain. On a couple of occasions I have to order everyone to keep the level of chatter down in the control room because I have to be able to hear all the controllers, sometimes two or more of them speaking at once on the comm loop.

  As we approach the start of the burn, the noise on the air-ground voice comm starts to sound like bacon sizzling in the skillet, indicating another imminent loss of communications. As the wall clock hits zero, the crew calls out, “Engine start . . . 10 percent thrust.” The lunar module uses a low thrust level to settle the propellants in the rear of the tank before going to full throttle. As the crew continues to throttle up, data is again lost. The team reacts swiftly to recover communications. Puddy requests the LM aft antenna. Duke relays the request, and Collins calls Aldrin to switch antennas. While communications are being restored, Bales indicates he now has a problem.