world I understood. But would these young people comprehend the meaning of all we had been trying to accomplish for so many years—the greatest use of economic and technological power in history for peaceful purposes? The Vietnam War was only one challenge facing (and, unfortunately, dividing) our country. Countless American lives were going to be lost before that long war was brought to an end. I honored those who served; I could not sympathize with those who did not honor members of their own generation, young men who were far removed from college campuses and demonstrations, who had no choice but to fight and be killed or maimed. I returned from that campus in California wondering what the young people I saw there would make of the legacy we were trying to pass on to them—and to the rest of mankind.
There was little fanfare the day NASA recovered from the shock of the Apollo 1 event and resumed the space race. Arthur Hill of the
“The powerful engines shook the press stands,” Hill’s story began, “rattling light fixtures and bouncing tables up and down. It was an awesome sight as brilliant yellow fire engulfed the launch pad at liftoff.” This time the fire was with us. We sent Saturn into space on the most immense pillar of flame ever seen at the Cape.
In Mission Control, all of us felt elated as America resumed its voyage to the Moon. The Saturn performed perfectly, blending new and old propulsion technologies in each of its three rocket stages, then as the mission ended, the command module was hurtled earthward at seven miles per second to test the heat shield during reentry.
The Apollo 4 test, more than any other, demonstrated George Mueller’s fearless “all-up” approach to testing. It showed that we had the right guy filling the job as NASA’s boss of manned space flight. “All-up” meant that every element of the space system was on board and operable. There were no “boilerplate” spacecraft. If you were successful, the concept was labeled brilliant, and you could focus your energies on the next step, the next set of unknowns. If you had problems, you found them early and somehow made time to fix them while keeping on schedule. If you failed, a lot of expensive hardware was reduced to junk and the schedule shattered.
I didn’t know much about the NASA hierarchy. Our Administrator, Jim Webb, lived in another world, Washington, D.C., from whence came our funding and our mandate. Webb, boss of the whole organization during the years of Mercury, Gemini, and early Apollo, had had a long, distinguished career, including serving as Director of the Bureau of the Budget and undersecretary of state in the Truman administration. A profoundly serious man with a vigorous manner and an ability to deliver a great speech when one was required, he knew every bureaucratic pitfall there was to know and how to navigate around them, inventing new strategies as needed. He was adroit at securing funding from an often reluctant Congress—and at keeping NASA’s critics at a safe distance from his people who were doing the work. His style was low-key and effective. He knew how to delegate and give people like George Mueller and George Low the authority they needed to achieve the goals in each mission.
The miracle of the NASA rebirth after the fire was due to four of the best leaders the program ever had. George Mueller, the boss of manned spaceflight, was a modest man, trained as a research engineer, with a great feel for the complex details of operations. He provided the foundation before, during, and after the calamity, and took the heat from Congress. Above all, he stood up for his people throughout NASA and provided an unwavering direction with his all-up test concept.
In 1966, the year before the Apollo fire, Goddard Space Flight Center advised me that they were not installing consoles for controllers on the two Apollo tracking ships. GSFC, the operator of our communications network, believed that the rapid advancements in communications technology would allow transmitting data and communications by satellite by the time the Apollo missions began. Since I had worked many shifts with the ships in Gemini, I was critically aware of the support they provided in covering key mission events and providing orbital gap coverage. I wanted a controller team aboard the ships for Apollo. I was not willing to risk the crew or mission objectives by making the MCC dependent on “may happen” technology.
I expressed my concerns to Kraft and after a brief discussion he stated, “You’re going to have to convince Mueller. He considers himself a communications expert and is the only one that can turn around GSFC’s decision.” The following day I flew up to Washington to sell my recommendation to Mueller.
This was not the first time I met Mueller. I had a lot of respect for the way he blocked for his team and took the heat when things went wrong. During a particularly rough press conference after the Gemini 9 Agena failure he sat with seven of us at the press table. Late in the conference a reporter asked, “This is the fourth straight mission where you have had some major problems. When are you going to start kicking some ass and—” That was as far as the reporter got before Mueller tore into him. He described the problems, the actions taken, then concluded with supportive remarks about his team. His vivid response brought a cheer from the other reporters.
Mueller was busier than hell at NASA headquarters, trying to get the Apollo program up to speed. As I sat outside his office I watched grim-faced engineers and project managers carrying the bad news into his office. During the summer of 1966 the Apollo program seemed to be unraveling.
I waited in the secretaries’ office as the time for our appointment passed and the afternoon turned into evening. About 8:00 P.M. he came out, apologized, and told me he had reservations for two for supper at the Georgetown Inn, so we would have our meeting there. During the meal, this man who knew more about communications technology than I ever would, listened politely as I briefed him between courses on why we needed controllers on the Apollo tracking ships.
I was impressed by his patience and courtesy, the force of his technical arguments, and his willingness to consider my ideas. To this day I am awed that a man with so much weighing on his mind would spend an entire evening with somebody way down the chain of command. He listened thoughtfully and then told me to go back to Houston; he would make a decision on the following day. Early in the afternoon word came down: my argument had prevailed. GSFC was directed to place controller consoles on the tracking ships.
George Low, the son of an Austrian immigrant, joined NASA’s predecessor, NACA, after his Army discharge and worked his way through the government ranks. After the fatal accident Low replaced Joe Shea as the Apollo program manager. He was a master at getting people to work together, creatively channeling their energies and thus building the momentum to achieve the objective.
The flight directors knew Low well from his middle-of-the-night visits to Mission Control during a flight, where he sat silently in the viewing room. Low worked both at MSC and back at NASA headquarters. He had a rare blend of integrity, competence, and humility. You would do whatever he asked you to do, regardless of the odds and regardless of the risk.
Rounding out the NASA management that directly affected us were Sam Phillips and Frank Borman. Phillips, an Air Force lieutenant general, came in from the Minuteman ICBM program. He possessed an uncanny ability to spot problems, define solutions, and keep the complex development processes moving ahead.
Borman, the astronaut who toughed it out on the fourteen-day Gemini 7 mission, was one of the most respected of the second class of astronauts. Flight controllers saw him as a table-pounding “let’s cut out the bitching and get on with it” type of guy. He was the one who finally stood up during the agonizing over the redesign of Apollo 1 and said, “Enough. Let’s get on with the job. It’s time to fly!”
We moved from disaster to flight in less than a year because we had leaders of this caliber—and because they trusted us.
In June of 1967, as Apollo forged ahead, fate reached out and grabbed me when I was made deputy to Hodge for the Flight Control Division. The division, the home base for the flight directors, controllers, and instructors, had grown to 400 personnel. Virtually every malfunction procedure, schematic, or mission rule used in training, or carried aboard the spacecraft, was produced by this division. The division planned and was now flying an average of six missions each year, a punishing load, and I was glad to give John a hand. I also welcomed the opportunity to step into division management because of the challenge to reach beyond my experience as a flight director and start developing broader organizational skills. I believed I had the capability to do more.
I immediately acquired new respect for Hodge because of his ability to perform as both division chief and
