Failure Is Not an Option

obsessed with ensuring that the control team was capable of detecting and responding to any problems in flight. Kraft gave me the authority to do anything needed to get on top of our job. I told him I had been marching my controllers in this direction for a long time. This was my first experience in the Go NoGo world in which Kraft lived.

At launch minus six days, Kraft got sicker than hell. He couldn’t even leave the apartment. I knew it was bad when he told me to cover the final simulation, pad tests, and pre-launch briefings. I wondered what he would do if he did not recover for the launch. Each day as I returned, I waited for his word, half expecting him to tell me to step into his seat. While I prayed for his swift recovery, I have to admit that I also liked the idea of filling his shoes for the first time. Kraft told me to go ahead with the briefings. Nervous as a cat in a rocking chair factory, I conducted the final readiness reviews. It finally dawned on me that I might actually have to do the launch, and I looked around for a security blanket, a way to mentally power down when I needed. A copy of Sports Illustrated, with a cover photo of an awesomely attractive young woman in a one-piece black-and-red swimsuit, was on the table. I cut out the photo and slipped it inside the plastic cover sheet of my mission book. Whatever happened, I would have her image with me at the console.

Kraft recovered through sheer willpower. As I watched him get dressed for launch day, impeccable in a crisply starched shirt and tie, I was relieved. With Chris firmly ensconced in the flight director’s seat, my job on Gemini 2 was simply to make sure the control teams were go, and the data flow met the pre-launch requirements. During the brief test flight the mission controllers would send ground commands to back up the automatic sequencer in the Gemini. These commands would separate the Gemini from the Titan rocket, fire the separation rockets, initiate the turnaround maneuver for reentry, etc. I used two stopwatches; one started at liftoff, and another started at Titan rocket shutdown to cue the controllers to send their commands. On my call, the controllers issued the commands to back up the onboard sequencer.

The press was allowed inside the control room. Launch coverage was provided by fixed cameras and lights on both sides of the room, with a roving camera coupled by an umbilical to a recorder. We weren’t going live with this one but we would be live on later launches. It seemed excessive coverage for a simple lob shot, but it was a launch that kicked off the next round in the race to the Moon.

As the countdown progressed through the last few seconds before launch, the lights turned on, the room momentarily bathed in brilliant white, while the cameras whirred. I had a fleeting urge to call out, “Lights, camera, action!” Then everything in Mission Control turned black as the Titan lifted off. It was so dark I could not read my stop-watches. We had been plunged into a power failure because of the overload caused by the TV lighting. The only illumination in the room came from the small buttons on the Western Electric intercom sets, which were provided with a battery backup.

Working blind, I listened to the reports from the launch pad. Unable to do anything, the controllers in the dark monitored reports coming in from the ships downrange. When Hodge didn’t hear my backup command calls, he reported mission status to Kraft from his console at the new control center in Houston. The teams were prepared for anything—except a total blackout.

Gemini 2 was in reentry and the mission virtually over before we were able to restore electrical power. The Titan rocket and Gemini spacecraft performed flawlessly and Hodge’s team in Houston tracked the entire mission. Kraft’s debriefing was short and curt. “Find out what happened,” he barked, “and fix it so it never happens again.” We soon determined that when the press powered up their lights and cameras the surge momentarily overloaded the circuit breakers and cut the power to the entire control center at the Cape. Houston made sure there would be no such snafus in the future. Critical systems were reassigned between two separate electrical circuits powered by three different electrical sources. And the press was required to provide its own power.

The mission was declared a success and the team returned to Houston, enduring the cheerful put-downs of the Houston controllers who had participated in the mission. In debriefing, Hodge jokingly told Kraft he should carry a flashlight with him for Gemini 3, the final mission to be controlled from the Cape. Kraft didn’t laugh.

March 1965

Almost overnight, it seemed we were back at the Cape in the final days of preparation for the first manned Gemini mission. This three-orbit flight test involved a large number of maneuvers to check out the propulsion and guidance systems and the new onboard computer, the first ever used in space. Gus Grissom had been selected as the pilot of America’s first two-man spacecraft with John Young as his co-pilot. Bright and exuberant, Young was a Navy pilot from the second class of nine astronauts. We now had three astronaut groups, including a new breed of scientist-astronaut, competing for a handful of flights.

Since the spacecraft would do three orbits, the sites at Carnarvon, Australia, and Hawaii were critical to the preparation for deorbit and entry. Dan Hunter, who was leading my operations section, anchored the team at Carnarvon. During the final week of testing, the network achieved readiness and I gave the Go to Kraft for the remote site teams.

Many of the early astronauts, in particular Slayton and Shepard, doubted that CapComs who weren’t astronauts could stand up to the pressure of time-critical decisions and communications. They believed that only an astronaut should get the job as the remote site CapCom. I disagreed. My remote site teams had matured. In my view, astronauts assigned to remote sites were observers given the job of assisting the controllers if that became necessary. In any event, five days before the launch Slayton deployed astronauts Charles (Pete) Conrad and Neil Armstrong to Carnarvon and Hawaii, respectively, continuing the tradition of stationing astronauts at critical positions on the ground track. Hunter and Conrad were both men of strong conviction. But given orders, they would salute their leader and then execute with few questions asked.

Three days before launch, the mission readiness review was concluded, and the time had arrived to begin the countdown. After a great meal at Ramon’s Supper Club, Kraft and I returned to the apartment we were still sharing. We went over the next day’s schedule and then retired for the night. It seemed like we had barely dropped off to sleep when I heard a loud pounding on the door in the hall. Someone shouted, “Chris, we got a problem!” It sounded like Slayton. I rapidly pulled on a shirt and pants, wondering what the hell had happened. By the time I emerged, Kraft and Slayton were in a heated argument. Deke was exclaiming, “Dammit, Chris, get your guy under control!” Kraft then went nose-to-nose with Slayton. I felt that within seconds the dispute would escalate beyond shouting. Then, magically, both realized it was time to deescalate but not back down. Like two junkyard dogs, they circled. Slowly, I realized that Hunter and Conrad had tangled at Carnarvon over who was in charge of the site during the mission.

Conrad had quoted Hunter as saying, “Kranz put me in charge, and if you give me any more trouble, I want your ass out of the control room.” Conrad, a Navy carrier pilot and new astronaut, was not about to take that from anyone. Besides, Slayton had told Conrad that he was in charge. Kraft finally got Slayton calmed down. It was around 3:00 A.M. by then. Chris agreed he would write out some guidance for the teams at Carnarvon and Hawaii in the morning.

In preparation for a mission, the tracking stations worked on the same schedule as the controllers, so Hunter was on site when I called on the conference loop the next morning. I briefly mentioned Deke’s outburst and asked him what the devil was going on out there. Hunter said, “Conrad arrived and proceeded to take over. Then the maintenance and operations staff and the site manager came to me and wanted to know who to take their orders from. I told them Conrad wouldn’t know an acquisition aid if it fell on him. If Carnarvon wants to support the mission, they damned well better take their orders from me.” (The acquisition aid is a piece of equipment used to lock on the capsule signals and point the site antennas.)

“The site staff,” he concluded, “is still not sure who is in charge and they want a Teletype directive to cover their ass.” I told Hunter I would get on it, terminated the voice conference, turned and briefed Kraft on Hunter’s side of the story. With two days until launch, Kraft was not about to get into a hassle with Slayton over roles and responsibilities. Conrad was an unknown quantity to me and I thought we could paper over the differences until after the mission, then resolve it properly. This turned out to be a serious mistake. Working with Kraft, I drafted a message that clearly reiterated the job description of the remote site CapCom job, assigning Hunter the overall site responsibility. When Slayton arrived, Kraft handed him the report and the argument in the apartment started all over again, only this time before a large audience in Mission Control.