by Gene Kranz
Dutch Von Ehrenfried contributed manning lists and Gemini EVA mission rules.
Chuck (Skinny) Lewis contributed Langley and MSC phone books that were invaluable in establishing the organization structure and personnel locations at critical times.
Jay Greene provided the complete set of Tindallgrams.
Gerry Griffin provided voice tapes that, when combined with mine, covered every Apollo mission.
Doug Ward provided press conference transcripts and converted the reel-to-reel voice tapes to cassette.
Glen Swanson, the NASA-JSC historian, provided biographical materials and researched events in the press transcripts.
Many other controllers volunteered personal notes, mission rules, console logs, photos, or other memorabilia. Some just answered my questions to help me make complex problems understandable.
The photos were acquired from many sources, including Mike Gentry in the NASA-JSC Media Resource Center. The controllers’ personal photos were processed by the One Great Photo Lab in Webster, Texas.
The technical content of the story was contained in the voice records, console logs, and mission reports; individual and group interviews were used principally to develop anecdotal data and to capture the gut feelings of the controllers.
The interviews were the most enjoyable part of writing this book. I interviewed controllers in groups to generate the emotional intensity that existed decades ago. I found that the controllers most vividly remembered the best moments, and that time had softened the edges on the bad moments. During the group sessions we sat around a cooler filled with beer, ate pizza, and reminisced. The interview sessions generally lasted about three hours and each involved seven to twelve controllers. I conducted ten group sessions with remote site teams, spacecraft systems engineers, simulation teams, the Trench, and mission designers and flight directors. I conducted individual interviews with Harold Miller (SimSup), John Hodge, Arnie Aldrich, and Ed Pavelka. Each interview was recorded on videotape.
Writing a book is a team effort and as in Mission Control, I needed a lot of help to get the job done.
Jan Pacek Weede, my NASA secretary for two decades, transcribed numerous voice tapes, and typed and updated the manuscript.
Jack Riley, my public affairs officer for many missions, helped me shape the original story and reviewed every manuscript draft.
My original draft of the book covered over 200,000 words, so Mickey Herskowitz, a Houston Chronicle sportswriter, helped me to condense the story and better focus my role in the story.
Throughout every stage of the book there were dedicated readers and reviewers, among them Ed Fendell, Gerry Griffin, Jerry Bostick, Jim Hannigan, Pete Frank, Jack Riley, Chuck Lewis, Glen Swanson (NASA Johnson Space Center History Office), Rebecca Wright and Carol Butler (NASA Johnson Space Center Oral History Project), Ralph Royce from the Lone Star Flight Museum, and my wife, Marta.
Jim Wade, formerly vice president and executive editor of Crown Publishers, accomplished the final structuring and shaping of the book. He is presently a member of the Independent Editors Group. Jim tuned, polished, and structured the manuscript. In the final months, he joined my list of the great mentors.
Bob Bender, my editor at Simon &Schuster, believed in the book from the very start and his editorial work helped to make it what it is today.
There were, remarkably, few disagreements among interviewees concerning events, actions, and principals described in this book. On a few occasions while I was using the MCC voice tapes it was difficult for me to identify the controller or crewman involved in the action. When this happened, I used a combination of the MCC access lists, control room photos, and video tapes, if they were available, to determine the individuals involved. The portrayal of events on the final shift between John Hodge and Chris Kraft preceding the Apollo 1 fire (Chapter 10) and the specific crewmen involved in the final Apollo 11 mission simulation (Chapter 15) represents my best judgment about these events and individuals.
The NASA history series, particularly the books This New Ocean (Project Mercury), On the Shoulders of Titans (Project Gemini), Chariots of Apolloi (Project Apollo), and Stages of Saturn (Saturn rocket development), were invaluable references in developing the chronology in the book. I recommend them to my readers.
There is no doubt that although four decades have softened many of the emotions, we are still a brotherhood.
Any errors in telling this story are solely mine.
Doing the Job
The one constant in the thirty-four years of my career in NASA was the consistent quality of our people, their dedication, and their willingness to do everything ever asked of them.
Three great leaders directed Flight Operations at the Manned Spacecraft Center in Houston. Chris Kraft, Sig Sjoberg, and Bill Tindall gave us our assignments, and when the chips were down trusted us to get it done. The four divisions under their direction were the Mission Planning and Analysis Division, led by John Mayer and Carl Huss; the Landing and Recovery Division, led by Jerry Hammack and Pete Armitage; the Flight Support Division, led by Lynwood Dunseith; and my Flight Control Division.
Rod Rose filled many roles in Flight Operations. He was the principal engineer integrating the myriad elements of the telemetry, voice, and trajectory data flow and processing.
Each of these divisions and key individuals, along with many others in the Manned Spacecraft Center, played a major role in the success of our early space ventures. My story is about only one of these great manned spaceflight teams.
The 400 members of the Flight Control Division staffed many of the Mission Control Center’s real-time decision positions. I was able to perform my duties as flight director because of a superb division staff who stepped in and ran the division when I was in training or working a mission. I would like to acknowledge the following individuals on the Flight Control Division staff: assistant for operations, Joe Roach; assistant for systems, Mel Brooks; chief of flight directors, Glynn Lunney; MSFC booster engineer office chief, Scott Hamner; technical assistant, Chuck Beers; business manager, Harold Miller; administration officer, Cecil Dorsey, and his assistant, Joyce Gaddy.
Lois Ransdell, “Pink Flight,” was my boss secretary and was ably supported by the division office secretaries: Suzanne Miller, flight directors; Carole Helms, booster engineers; Betty Defferari, business office.
The division had seven branches that corresponded to the technical specialties in Mission Control. The branch chiefs and their deputies worked as controllers while also leading the branch-level organizations. They selected and trained the new controllers in their basic skills, integrated the mission plans and documentation, and supported the spacecraft design. During simulations, they certified their controllers as ready for mission support. The branch chiefs and deputies were Charlie Harlan and Chuck Lewis—Flight Control Operations Branch; Jerry Bostick and Phil Shaffer—Flight Dynamics Branch; Carl Shelley and Gordon Ferguson—Simulation Branch; Richard Hoover and Lou DeLuca—Requirements Branch; Arnie Aldrich, Neil Hutchinson, and Rod Loe—CSM Systems Branch; Jim Hannigan, Don Puddy, and Bob Carlton—LM Systems Branch; Jim Saultz and Gerry Griffith—Experiment Systems Branch.
The branch secretaries also worked in Mission Control, and their work hours and life were as harried as that of the controllers. They were Sue Erwin, Ada Moon, Lucille Booth, Geraldine Taylor, Pat Garza, Maureen Bowen, Dorothy Hamilton, Kathy Spencer, and Elizabeth Pieberhofer.
The section chiefs led groups of five to seven controllers developing the spacecraft handbooks, procedures, and mission rules. They called the cadence, roused their controllers during the long and frustrating hours, and listened to their gripes. The section chiefs were Bill Platt, Ed Fendell, Perry Ealick, Bill Molnar, John Llewellyn, Ed Pavelka, Charlie Parker, Dick Koos, Jay Honeycutt, Lyle White, George Pettit, Charlie Dumis, John Aaron, Buck Willoughby, Gary Coen, John Wegener, Merlin Merritt, Bruce Walton, Harold Loden, Bill Peters, Ted White, Burt Sharpe, and Merrill Lowe.
Several of the section secretarie
s directly supported us in Mission Control. Among them were Jo Corey, Connie Turner, Sandra Lewis, and Donna Daughrity.
Great contractor teams supported the Flight Control Division. They kept the pipeline of information flowing so the controllers worked with correct and timely design and test data. “Learning by doing” worked because of the network of design engineers cultivated by these lead engineers: Bill “Blaster” Blair—North American; Charles Whitmore—Grumman; Stuart (Stu) Davis—Philco; Bill Harris and Ron Tunnicliff—McDonnell; Richard Freund—AC Electronics; Myron Hayes—IBM; Ron Bradford—Bendix; Jim Elrod—Lockheed; Fred Kuene and Lee Wible—Hamilton Standard.
To the rest of you in the ranks, you are in my heart.
APPENDIX
FOUNDATIONS OF MISSION CONTROL
To instill within ourselves these qualities essential for professional excellence:
Discipline Being able to follow as well as lead, knowing that we must master ourselves before we can master our task.
Competence There being no substitute for total preparation and complete dedication, for space will not tolerate the careless or indifferent.
Confidence Believing in ourselves as well as others, knowing that we must master fear and hesitation before we can succeed.
Responsibility Realizing that it cannot be shifted to others, for it belongs to each of us; we must answer for what we do, or fail to do.
Toughness Taking a stand when we must; to try again, and again, even if it means following a more difficult path.
Teamwork Respecting and utilizing the ability of others, realizing that we work toward a common goal, for success depends on the efforts of all.
To always be aware that suddenly and unexpectedly we may find ourselves in a role where our performance has ultimate consequences.
To recognize that the greatest error is not to have tried and failed, but that in trying, we did not give it our best effort.
GLOSSARY OF TERMS
Abort
A time-critical termination of an event
AFB
Air Force base
AFD
assistant flight director—MCC
ALSEP
Apollo lunar surface experiment package
AOS
acquisition of signal
ATDA
augmented target docking adapter (used as a Gemini rendezvous target)
CapCom
capsule communicator
Cape
Cape Canaveral
CDR
commander—senior astronaut on Apollo mission
CM
command module (reentry portion of the Apollo spacecraft that contains the crew)
CMP
command module pilot
CONTROL
Lunar Module engineer in the MCC responsible for propulsion, attitude control, and primary and abort guidance and navigation systems, including computer hardware
Cryo
cryogenic (oxygen and hydrogen fuels stored at very cold temperatures)
CSM
Command and Service Module—Apollo
EECOM
Gemini or CSM engineer in MCC responsible for electrical, environmental, communications, cryogenic, fuel cell, pyrotechnic, and structural systems
EVA
extravehicular activity
FCD
Flight Control Division—provides majority of flight controllers to the MCC
FCOB
Flight Control Operations Branch—provides assistant flight director and procedures, develops mission rules
FIDO
flight dynamics officer (the MCC specialist in launch and orbit trajectories)
FOD
Flight Operations Directorate organization; also, flight operations director in the MCC
FTE
flight test engineer
G
acceleration due to gravity forces
GMT
Greenwich Mean Time, also referred to as Zulu (Z) time
GNC
Gemini/CSM engineer in MCC responsible for propulsion, attitude control, guidance, and navigation systems, including computer hardware
Go NoGo
decision process to continue or abort a mission activity
GRR
guidance reference release
GSFC
Goddard Space Flight Center (Greenbelt, Maryland)
GT-
Gemini-Titan-(followed by mission number)
GUIDO
(pronounced GIDO) MCC specialist in navigation and computer software. During Gemini, this included the Titan II guidance system.
INCO
MCC engineer responsible for combined CSM, LM, EVA, and Rover instrumentation, communications, command, and television systems
KSC
John F. Kennedy Space Center, Florida
LM
lunar module, previously called lunar excursion module (LEM)
LMP
lunar module pilot
LOI
lunar orbit injection (maneuver to enter into lunar orbit)
LOS
loss of signal
LRC
Langley Research Center (Langley Field, Virginia)
MA-
Mercury-Atlas-(followed by mission number)
Mach
ratio of airspeed to the speed of sound at a given altitude
MCC
Mercury Control Center at Cape 1960-65 or Mission Control Center at Houston 1965-1972
MET
mission elapsed time (time since liftoff)
MPAD
Mission Planning and Analysis Division—responsible for analytic trajectory design
MR-
Mercury-Redstone-(followed by mission number)
MSC
Manned Spacecraft Center, Houston, Texas, used through 1973
MSFC
Marshall Space Flight Center (Huntsville, Alabama)
NACA
National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics
NASA
National Aeronautics and Space Administration
NoGo
the decision to cancel a planned event
OD
operations director position in Mercury Control, changed to FOD for Gemini and Apollo
PAO
public affairs officer—position in the MCC to release mission information
POGO
rapid up-and-down maneuver that if continued would destroy launch vehicle
psi
pounds per square inch
PTC
passive thermal control
RCS
Reaction Control System—small propulsion jets for attitude control and small maneuvers
Refsmmat
reference to stable member matrix—technique for conversion between coordinate systems
RETRO
retrofire officer—the MCC specialist in reentry trajectories
RSO
range safety officer—responsible for protecting landmass across the world from errant rockets
SCE
signal conditioning electronics
SimSup
simulation supervisor—the leader of the training team in the MCC