Failure is not an option!

There has been a tremendous amount of activity in the Mission Control Center (MCC) since my last journal about the SRTM mission, also known as Flight STS-99. We have only supported one flight since then, but we have gone through several upgrades to our software in the control center, as well as the construction of a new control room for training purposes. This room, called the Training Flight Control Room, or TFCR (pronounced "T-ficker"), is nearly complete and should be ready to support simulations by early July. All these activities have kept us very busy, but they are essential in getting the MCC ready to support the next major phases of the International Space Station, including operations with the Russian-built Service Module in July and the first three inhabitants on Expedition 1 before the end of the year.

As exciting as all this is, I wanted to take the opportunity of this journal to reflect back to an earlier age in our nation's space program, when we sent astronauts to the Moon and returned them safely to Earth. It was 30 years ago this past April when the people of Mission Control faced their biggest challenge with the explosion of an oxygen tank in the service module, of the Apollo 13 command module Aquarius. Thanks to Ron Howard's movie "Apollo 13", most people are familiar with the story, including the many close calls and eventual happy ending. Although some of the people involved in this historic mission are still working at JSC, many have long since retired. Among those that have gone is Gene Kranz, the flight director on console at the time of the explosion, and the man who led the tiger team to determine how to use the remaining resources to save the crew.

Gene has served as one of my role models for a long time, beginning with the Gemini missions when he first served as a Flight Director. Although I was in elementary school at that time, I followed the space program and watched whenever there was news coverage. We did not have the luxury of NASA TV at the time, so this was not very frequent. By the time Apollo 13 was plastered across our TV screens, however, Gene was a familiar figure associated with Mission Control. When I later came to work as an engineer with the MCC, and saw him in the lobby one day, it was like running into a legendary figure you never expected to meet.

I had the rare opportunity over this past weekend to attend a party held in honor of Gene's recently released book titled, "Failure Is Not An Option: Mission Control From Mercury To Apollo 13 And Beyond". Many of the other legends were there as well, including Chris Kraft, the original Mercury flight director and mentor for Gene. Also, there were the other Apollo flight directors Glynn Lunney, Jerry Griffin, Milt Windler and Pete Frank, a large number of Apollo era flight controllers and many current flight directors, flight controllers and astronauts. Another guest in attendance was Andrew Chaikin, who wrote the book "A Man on the Moon" about the Apollo program.

In my opinion, these two books are the absolute best way to gain a true understanding of what it was like to be involved in this historic endeavor. Both authors spent an incredible amount of time researching their books, including lengthy conversations with the key players involved and use of literally thousands of hours of transcripts and audio tapes from the missions. Gene tells the story from his personal viewpoint, bringing you into the world of Mission Control. His personal experience adds to the depth, and his writing style is enjoyable to read. Andy covers the program from the viewpoint of the astronauts that put their lives on the line every time they climbed into a capsule or high performance aircraft. In both cases no punches are held. You get the good and bad sides of the men and women that made 1969 and the regrettably few years following a historic time for all mankind.

I enjoy going into the Apollo control room and trying to imagine what it was like to be part of those missions. I have the advantage of working in the shuttle control room where the basic operating principles remain unchanged. If you really try, you can hear the chatter on the loops and the sound of p-tube canisters clanking into the receiving bins at the consoles with a pneumatic whoosh, or smell the stale smoke and coffee aroma, while up on the front screen a huge figure "8" track shows the path of the capsule on the way to the moon, or depicts a lunar landscape while live video on the right screen brings us the latest moonwalk in progress.

We are still working with astronauts who put their lives on the line so routinely that the general public loses sight of the risks, but rest assured that everyone involved with manned spaceflight is acutely aware of it. Mission Control still trains for every shuttle flight in the same, no compromise manner that was used for Apollo. The smells and sounds are different, and the room has changed, but the underlying dedication and creed of the flight controllers has not changed: In terms of getting our astronauts back safely from each mission, Failure Is not An Option!