the procedures was landing minus twenty-four hours. As the deadline approached, the crews in the simulators wanted more time to check out the “final-final” set of procedures, which were in the tenth revision. Thirty-nine pages in length and containing more than 400 entries, they were the ticket home for our crew. The astronauts in the simulator were bothered by the continual changes and the frequent updates. They wanted a run-through with the final set of procedures. I froze further changes to the procedures and agreed to give the simulator crews six more hours to give me their okay.
With this delay, Lovell finally showed his exasperation with the entire process. The crew had been living in an icebox that was hurtling toward the Earth. Other than a brief overview of the intended sequence of the final eight hours, Mission Control had given them nothing but the reassurances that “the procedures are coming along.” Lovell wanted specifics, not vague reassurances.
Aldrich kept the master copy of the procedures in his personal possession, identifying each update by a revision number. He guarded them as if they were the tablets Moses brought down from Mount Sinai. Others may have had mark-ups, but his procedures were the ones that would be executed. His great fear was that he would misplace them as he moved between the meeting areas. At the time of Lovell’s prodding, Aldrich was working on the third revision for Thursday, April 16. We were less than twenty-four hours from entry.
In the final hours the flight planners, John O’Neill and Tommy Holloway, became the last link in the chain to get the crew back to Earth. They established a loop between the crews in the simulators, the controllers, and the work being done by Aldrich and Aaron. They tracked the instructions voiced by the CapCom to the crew. Their checks and balances virtually guaranteed that in the rush to brief the crews nothing would be overlooked. They were the guardian angels, always hovering near and making sure that we gave the crew the right information at the right time.
Shortly after 5:00 P.M. CDT, the White Team took their positions next to Griffin’s Gold Team members. By now my guys had been working almost continuously for about eighty hours. We had had a brief rest for about four to six hours after we passed the Moon and then snatched rest when we could. I remember their eyes, dull with fatigue and shadowed by anxiety. But their confidence and focus never wavered. As controllers plugged in their headsets, they shifted the papers and notebooks on the consoles. It was tough to find a place to work. As soon as CapCom Vance Brand started the entry checklist read-up, I was bombarded by calls from the controllers. Then I realized that in the rush to start the read-up to the crew, we had not made copies of the procedures for every team member. I told Brand to stop while we went out for copies. This was a vexing time for the crew. Time was becoming the most critical element, and with exasperation, frustration, and exhaustion gnawing at all of us, we had to wait for another half hour while copies were made for the controllers. Aldrich took this brief opportunity to incorporate two minor revisions into the final procedures.
Slayton, standing by in the MCC, had sensed the pressure and came on line to the crew. With just the right tone, his reassuring presence calmed our deadly tired crew. Deke was a pilot’s pilot, an operator’s operator, a straight shooter. Deke reassured Lovell, Swigert, and Haise that all was well with the procedures, and he kept up the chitchat as the minutes passed with agonizing slowness. Coffee was the substance that kept us going. Our surgeons had offered us something stronger, but we were all concerned about our performance deteriorating when the stimulants wore off. Most of us decided to make it on caffeine and cigarettes.
Brand began the final read-ups eighteen hours prior to entry, continuing into Windler’s Maroon Team shift. Although I was concerned that something might get lost with three teams vying for the console, we had no option but to continue. A single slip anywhere could be fatal. We were out of time and out of options. This was our last shot. Ken Mattingly and Joe Kerwin, aces among aces as astronauts and my CapComs for the final shift, stood behind Vance Brand and Charlie Duke at their console during the read-up. They listened to the astronauts’ questions, their voices and inflections, making sure that they fully comprehended every step and the rationale behind it. The read-up to the crew was concluded six and a half hours before the final entry procedures were to begin, not enough time for any of us to get any rest, just time to back off a bit before the final charge. I went to the viewing room downstairs for a brief nap.
Now, with a surplus of power, Windler gave the order to start power-up two hours early to try to get some heat into the spacecraft to give the crew a brief respite from the cold. Throughout the entire mission I had believed in my heart that we would get the crew home; now it was becoming a reality. Generating options was our business, and options remained as long as there was power, water, oxygen, and propellant. My controllers kept finding options.
Three hours before dawn, the White Team took its place next to Windler’s Maroon Team controllers. The eighty hours of uncertainty were now past and we were down to the final shift. During the return we had twice fought a shallowing trajectory, a glitch in a lifeboat battery, and a brush with typhoon Helen at the landing site. A last-minute maneuver returned us to the reentry trajectory. But we maintained our course as hour by hour we closed in on our objective, Earth.
The most chilling discussion came a few hours before entry, as the crew jettisoned the damaged service module and then maneuvered to observe the damage.
Lovell: “Okay, I’ve got her, Houston… there is one whole side of the spacecraft missing. Right by the… Look out there, will you? Right by the high-gain antenna, the whole panel is blown off, almost from the base of the engine.”
CapCom (Joe Kerwin): “Copy that!”
Haise: “Yes, it looks like it got the SPS [main engine] bell, too. That’s the way it looks, unless that’s just a dark brown streak. It’s really a mess.”
Lovell: “And, Joe, looks like a lot of debris is just hanging out the side near the antenna.”
Since the time of the explosion, I had deliberately avoided any discussion of damage to the command module, the reentry spacecraft. Briefly my thoughts focused on our decision not to trust the engine. Was it just a lucky guess or was there some gut instinct that Kraft, Lunney, and I shared? The heat shield scare with John Glenn’s Mercury mission was never far from my mind, but I gave this no further consideration. If there had been any damage to the command module heat shield, there was nothing we could do about it now. At a certain point the human factor has accomplished all it can. Then things rest in the hands of a higher power.
As I went around the horn for the final Go NoGo check for entry, I felt a sense of loneliness in the room. We were getting ready to turn the crew loose. Once in blackout they were on their own; no more help from the team, no one watching over their shoulder. During the last twenty-four hours we could vividly imagine how desperate the atmosphere must have been in the spacecraft, how cold and how close to the edge the crew must have been.
Joe Kerwin, my entry CapCom, was an astronaut and medical doctor. His bedside manner with the crew during the final hours was spectacular. He was coach, mentor, doctor, friend, and partner to the crew. At times I felt he was virtually on board the spacecraft, nudging the crew through its checklist. With my final status check and the “Go for entry,” a feeling of melancholy filled the air in the control room. This crew was special. We just could not lose them. Once again, failure was not an option.
It was tough to express feelings on the air-ground loop with the whole world listening. On this loop both the ground and the crew try to maintain a professional, almost unemotional tone and demeanor. Because we must be, we’re conditioned to be hard on the outside, show no emotions in our response, and never betray any uncertainty. But at times the emotional charge passes among team members like a ray of sun breaking through the clouds, then it is gone again. When a mission is over and the crew is safe, my feelings of relief and pride make me choke back tears. This was not yet the time; we had a way to go—but we were close. In less than thirty minutes, the saga of Apollo 13 would be concluded.
On board the spacecraft, Jack Swigert, a rookie, finally broke the silence. You could feel the emotion in his
