Failure Is Not an Option Page 21
My answer was simply, “Yes.” With my response, the press corps applauded, and the atmosphere became friendly once again. They had caught the NASA flight directors fair and square, and for a few minutes had us jumping through the hoops. Virtually every event in my early career taught me some very painful but useful lessons.
We debriefed the UHF-6 episode with the mission team much like any other mission event. We determined never again to try a fast one. Personally, I took the attitude that a press conference was like a high-stakes poker game. I loved playing the game with the press, always telling the truth but showing my full hand only when asked the right question.
Apart from such public relations glitches, things were going well and certain individuals began to stand out as superlative performers. Griffin was a great systems guy. He was an Aggie (a graduate of Texas A&M, which enjoyed a fierce rivalry in football—and everything else—with the University of Texas) and, thanks to his experience as a back-seater in early jet interceptors, had an ability to make good snap decisions. He also had an uncanny ability to grasp complex issues. Next to Lunney, I considered him one of the quickest controllers to recognize problems and initiate corrective action. We were lucky that Kennedy’s challenge had inspired people like Lunney and Griffin and so many other sharp men and women to rally to the greatest challenge of our country in a turbulent era. They entered Flight Control as rookies and within a year, if they survived, they had the MCC version of a master’s degree in real-time operations. By their second year they had a Ph.D. in flight control.
During the periods of my shift when we were shooting the gap and the communications with the Gemini spacecraft were infrequent, I would drill the remote site teams with a series of hypothetical mission situations. My objective was to get the teams supporting my shift up to speed and on the edge, responding to each other crisply, precisely, correctly, and convincingly. Learning to make the seconds count, I would continue the brain twisters for hours, interrupting them only when the Gemini passed over a tracking site in real time. I did not know it then, but these early drills would pay off handsomely on Gemini 8 when the remote sites would be critically important.
In the midst of all this, the turnaround process on Pad 19 was going with remarkable smoothness. The Air Force 6555th test wing, Martin, the Titan contractor, and McDonnell were pulling off a miracle. All three teams of controllers were pulling double shifts, supporting the ongoing mission and preparing for the coming launch with Schirra and Stafford. After one of the extended shifts, John Llewellyn decided to go home to get some rest. When John did not arrive for shift change, the previous shift’s RETRO called his house to find out whether he was still at home.
Llewellyn awakened, realized he had overslept, and charged out of the house into his Triumph TR3, tearing up the road en route to the MCC. Arriving in the parking lot, he circled, looking for a parking space, his frustration mounting by the second. Spotting no spaces he made the only decision possible for a Marine, driving his car up the walk, circling across the grass and then up the steps, stopping at the entrance. Clipping his badge on, he emerged to a surprised group of controllers and security guards, moments later striding into the control room and, with a grunt, putting on his headset and starting the handover.
Outside the building, the security forces mustered around John’s car, calling in additional support. Lunney and Hodge were fed up with Llewellyn’s antics, so when they pulled his car pass after the mission John appealed to me as his judo partner to intercede on his behalf. I talked to Hodge, but in his clipped British accent he said, “Gene, Llewellyn has got to learn a lesson. Having him walk on site will maybe make a dent in his thick skull.”
The story doesn’t end here, however. With no car pass and faced with a mile-long walk from the front gate, John came up with an alternative not covered by the regulations. The first day of his suspension, Llewellyn pulled his horse trailer into the parking lot at the Nassau Bay Hotel across from the NASA main gate. Mounting the horse with his leather briefcase, then showing his badge prominently to the surprised guard, Llewellyn galloped through the gate to Mission Control. For the remainder of the week we knew John was in the office or on console when we saw a horse hitched to the bicycle stand. Llewellyn’s legend grew once again.
The simulations before the mission had shown that supporting two manned spacecraft simultaneously with a system designed to cope with only one Gemini spacecraft was a CapCom’s nightmare. The job was marginally doable. The slightest procedural glitch would crash the site computer. For each tracking site pass, the team had to load the computer at the site with telemetry and command programs for the first spacecraft the site acquired and then, after the guys at the site got a few minutes of data, they dumped the site computer program and reloaded the computer for the second spacecraft in the pass. As the rendezvous drew closer, the intervals between the two spacecraft narrowed from minutes to seconds. During this tense interval the site CapCom would be directing the computer switching, relaying instructions to both spacecraft, and reporting and responding to MCC in Houston. Never a dull moment.
The remote site drills on rapidly loading the computer programs had brought the site maintenance and operations teams to their peak. You could feel the gritty determination of the operators. The voice exchanges with the remote sites crackled as I handed over the shift to Hodge and his Blue Team for the start of the Gemini 6 countdown early in the morning of December 12, 1965. Hodge, puffing at his pipe, bid me good night as I beat a hasty retreat to the MCC sleeping quarters. Public Affairs had wisely canceled my post-shift press conference. The press would get its story from Kraft’s shift in the morning.
December 12, 1965, Gemini 6
The countdown proceeded without a glitch. The Trench computed the precise liftoff time for the rendezvous and passed it on to Kraft, who passed it to the test conductor on Pad 19. Schirra and Stafford were given the liftoff time, the countdown clocks were synchronized, and the liftoff was scheduled for 8:54 A.M. CST, Sunday, December 12. The controllers leaned forward, alternately scanning displays, reporting the final countdown events, and worrying during the final seconds to liftoff.
The chief worrier at this time was the booster engineer, Charlie Harlan. His console was on the left side of the Trench next to the RETRO. He was located so that if the console communications failed, he could yell out the Titan rocket data to those in the Trench, who needed his data. Seated next to Charlie was astronaut C. C. Williams, observing a small plot board displaying the Titan rocket’s fuel and oxidizer tank pressures. Between Harlan and Williams was the red abort toggle switch. The flight director normally executed the abort command, but the booster response to problems was measured in seconds and so booster engineers act on their own during launch. Their decision time was two to four seconds. Booster’s two main nightmares were calling for an abort when it wasn’t really necessary or ejecting the crew too late—the parachutes wouldn’t inflate or the crew would be swallowed in the boiling, explosive, toxic propellants that we called the BFRC, the big fucking red cloud.
Among many of the major differences between the Mercury capsule and the far more sophisticated Gemini spacecraft was a shift from the escape tower system to individual ejection seats modeled on those used in high-performance jet aircraft. To make the Gemini crew fully aware of conditions that would require ejection in the vicinity of the launch pad, we trained a two-man MCC team—an astronaut and one of my controllers. They monitored the booster for low tank pressures, engine parameters, and pad fallback conditions. The astronauts in the capsule had only meters indicating tank pressures and lights indicating thrust level.
Sitting on the launch pad, the Gemini astronauts would eject horizontally. Either crewman could initiate the ejection sequence by pulling a handle between his legs, which would jettison the hatches and fire both of the catapult rockets for both seats. If the Titan rocket engines shut down, or developed insufficient thrust after ignition, the controllers had only seconds to issue the abort c
ommand. The decision process allowed no delay and no error if the crew was to eject in time to avoid the fireball in a pad fallback. The ejection seats were the last resort and were irreversible.
Harlan, Williams, and the crew lived by a few simple ground rules. Booster must see two independent confirmations of a problem before deciding on an abort action, then when the abort command was transmitted, it had to be followed by a voice “Abort” before the crew would take action.
The abort command from the MCC illuminated a red abort light in front of both astronauts. If the crew saw the red light and received a voice-call “Abort,” they were to eject from the Gemini. At liftoff, to avoid a pad fallback, the overall response had to be within three seconds. Three seconds seemed a lifetime to the booster engineers. Harlan made the abort calls for the Titan engines, Williams for the fuel tanks. Both fingered their mike buttons nervously as the countdown clock approached zero for Gemini 6.
The crew also waited through the final seconds. The eyes of Schirra and Stafford were no doubt glued to the clock, engine lights, and tank pressure meters. In the launch sequence, at T=0, the firing command issues engine start commands. The engine lights in the cockpit will blink on briefly, then go out as the engine thrust builds. After two seconds, at greater than 77 percent thrust, the hold-down bolts fire, releasing the booster from the pad. The hold-downs are mechanical attachments that restrain the rocket until thrust is sufficient for liftoff. When the rocket moves one and a half inches, the electrical umbilicals release, which starts the clocks in the spacecraft and on the ground. At this point the mission is committed and liftoff has occurred.
At 8:54 A.M. Central Standard Time, the engines roared to life as steam billowed from the flame bucket. Harlan saw a blip indicating thrust buildup, and the first motion command triggered the clocks in the MCC to start counting up. Schirra and Stafford in the spacecraft felt the initial rumble of engine ignition, the thrust lights blinked, and the Gemini clock started, but then it was strangely quiet. Like a lightning bolt the same thought had to have flickered through the minds of the crew, Harlan, and the launch test conductor. Had liftoff occurred? Were we in a pad fallback? Was 300,000 pounds of rocket, spacecraft, and crew crumpling back to Earth?
Within the seconds allowed for this case, three separate minds came to the single correct conclusion. Harlan called over the voice loop to Kraft, “No liftoff . . . no liftoff!” In the spacecraft Schirra and Stafford were icemen. They held fire, calmly reporting the cockpit indication as the Martin test conductor initiated the kill recovery procedures.
A launch kill is the most critical single event the operations team faces in the seconds before a launch. The few seconds between engine ignition and the hold-down release is the kill period. With the rocket engines running, the launch system computer rapidly scans the final performance checks. If all is well, the hold-down bolts are released, but if there is a fault, the computer commands an engine shutdown. A complex sequence of commands closes the valves, engages relays, and returns control of the space system to the blockhouse.
During a launch kill everything has to go perfectly. The safing functions and events are critical to fractions of a second, commanding engine shutdown and locking out the hold-down release. The crew, controllers, and launch team must be super-cool, at the highest state of readiness, and all decisions must be perfect.
We not only dodged one bullet that day, we dodged two. The Titan kill occurred at 1.2 seconds because an umbilical released prematurely. Reviewing the data, we found that the engine thrust was already starting to decrease before the umbilical dropped. Engine inspection found a dust cover had not been removed during the engine assembly months before. That day we measured up to the challenge, but we were also lucky.
The turnaround was short and efficient, and much of the redundant testing was deleted. Having only five days of mission lifetime remaining for Borman and Lovell provided the needed incentive. It was going to be a horse race to get Gemini 6 turned around and rendezvous accomplished before we had to bring Borman and Lovell home.
December 15, 1965, Gemini 6—
Second Launch Attempt
The Cape test team pulled off another miracle, recycling for a successful launch with Schirra and Stafford three days after their kill.
The launch was almost an anticlimax considering all we had had to contend with before Gemini 6 actually lifted off the pad. The rendezvous plan launched Gemini 6 into an orbit below the target, and since the craft in the smaller orbit travels faster, it would catch up with Borman and Lovell’s spacecraft. Ground radar tracking was used by the Trench to compute a series of maneuvers to align the orbits of the two spacecraft and set up the catch-up condition. When the Gemini 6 passed in the smaller orbit below Gemini 7, a maneuver was performed to bring Gemini 6 to a position where the crew could initiate the final braking maneuver.
Six hours after liftoff, on the fourth revolution over the Hawaii site, and following nine maneuvers, Schirra smoothly braked to a standoff position on Gemini 7. Sensing history in the making, Jerry Bostick, the rendezvous FIDO, wanted an American flag for each of the mission controllers to celebrate the world’s first rendezvous. Unable to find several hundred flags in the stores, he had sent his secretary on the rounds of funeral homes in the Clear Lake area, collecting the flags they mounted on the fenders of cars for military funerals. As the two spacecraft closed together, Bostick started walking between the consoles passing out small flags to each controller. As Schirra closed to within feet of Borman and Lovell, Kraft gave the command and the flags were raised over each of the consoles. I mentally savored the moment of America’s triumph like a fine wine.
With the rendezvous complete, Kraft handed over to my team, and for the next four and a half hours the two spacecraft continued their aerial ballet like two friends celebrating a reunion, only this time in space. Just prior to sleep, Schirra performed a pair of maneuvers to establish a standoff position that separated the spacecraft by ten miles.
My shift was brisk and there was little time to celebrate. My team needed to get the final planning together to bring Stafford and Schirra home the next day, and when this was done, review the status of Borman and Lovell’s spacecraft to make sure it could stay in space for the planned duration of the mission. At the conclusion of Kraft’s press conference, reporters offered a champagne toast to Kraft’s team and America’s new space record. I watched the celebration on the TV at my console.
At the conclusion of my shift’s press conference, Martin Caidin, one of the great pioneers in aviation writing, Jim Maloney, and others in the press corps stood up and passed out champagne glasses just as I had seen them do for Kraft’s conference. Caidin passed me one wrapped in a red, white, and blue ribbon, then filled my glass and then the others at my press table. He poured from a bottle wrapped in a towel until the glasses were brimming, the liquid straw-colored and bubbly. It looked good, and as they offered me a toast, my ego soared. As I drank deeply the taste was familiar, but it sure as hell was not champagne. Caidin then unwrapped the bottle and set it in front of me. It was Canada Dry ginger ale. I had been had, a press gotcha on the White Team. There was no alternative but to laugh with them. It was that way with the media on Gemini; they were a great bunch of talented and dedicated professionals. (My mother came down for the lunar landing years later. Meeting ABC correspondent Jules Bergman was the highlight of her trip. She talked about it for years afterward. I mean, Gene Kranz was a guy she had known since he had been born—but Jules was a star!) Gemini 76—the biggest and riskiest one so far—had worked. We had calculated the risks and, in space and on the ground, won our bet. It was one hell of a great day.
Borman and Lovell continued their heroic mission. Borman finally got out of his suit, two of the three fuel cells ceased operations, two thrusters failed, and we were down to 4 percent of the orbital fuel when Gemini 7 came home. Their mission was longer than any of the planned Apollo missions and would hold the U.S. duration record for the next eight year
s. It was a great triumph.
All too soon, it was another time of change. Glynn Lunney launched the first Apollo Saturn developed by the Marshall team from Mission Control Center’s second-floor control room as Hodge and I were preparing for Gemini 8. Kraft turned the last five missions over to his students and began preparation for Apollo flight director duties. Hodge planned to leave for Apollo after Gemini 8, and I would follow him after Gemini 9. We would join Kraft for the first manned Apollo mission. Flight directors Glynn Lunney and Cliff Charlesworth would close out the final three Gemini missions.
March 16, 1966, Gemini 8
Due to staffing limitations, Hodge and I elected to support Gemini 8 on a two-shift basis. This was the dumbest staffing decision we ever made. With the planning, training, mission reviews, and the press conferences, by the time we were ready to fly we were flat-out exhausted. The two-shift arrangement, however, fitted in with the Agena team’s staffing. They had only two teams of controllers.
The astronauts for this mission were Dave Scott and Neil Armstrong. Scott, a former Air Force pilot, later flew on Apollo 9 and Apollo 15 as well, racking up more than 546 cumulative hours in spaceflight and more than twenty hours doing EVAs. Armstrong had done it all. Neil was a decorated Navy combat pilot in Korea. Then as a civilian, he spent seven years as a test pilot at Edwards AFB and was one of the few who had flown the X-15 to the fringe of space. He was the first civilian pilot hired into the astronaut corps. Neil would spend more than 205 cumulative hours in space, and would be the first man on the Moon. He had worked with Buzz Aldrin as a CapCom on my Gemini 5 team. With the successful rendezvous on Gemini 76, it fell to the Gemini 8 crew, supported by Hodge’s and my teams, to capture the next big objective: the physical docking of two spacecraft. If all went well, we would attempt our second space walk during orbit.