From The Art of Manliness, a blog I read and recommend, I find this look back at Gene Kranz, Mission Director for Apollo and a key man behind the push to the moon, achieved 40 years ago today. However, somehow I think that Kranz might say that the achievement occurred with the safe return of the Apollo 11 crew to earth and the deck of the Hornet 4 days later.
We should celebrate the walk on the moon of 2 men, 40 years ago today, but we should also remember the hard work, dedication, and sacrifice made by thousands to make it happen.
From Kranz’s speach to his team after the Apollo 1 capsule fire and the death of Grissom, White and Chaffee. The blog post (link follows) is well worth a read.
”Spaceflight will never tolerate carelessness, incapacity, and neglect. Somewhere, somehow, we screwed up. It could have been in design, build, or test. Whatever it was, we should have caught it. We were too gung ho about the schedule and we locked out all of the problems we saw each day in our work. Every element of the program was in trouble and so were we. The simulators were not working, Mission Control was behind in virtually every area, and the flight and test procedures changed daily. Nothing we did had any shelf life. Not one of us stood up and said, ‘Dammit, stop!’ I don’t know what Thompson’s committee will find as the cause, but I know what I find. We are the cause! We were not ready! We did not do our job. We were rolling the dice, hoping that things would come together by launch day, when in our hearts we knew it would take a miracle. We were pushing the schedule and betting that the Cape would slip before we did.From this day forward, Flight Control will be known by two words: ‘Tough’ and ‘Competent.’ Tough means we are forever accountable for what we do or what we fail to do. We will never again compromise our responsibilities. Every time we walk into Mission Control we will know what we stand for. Competent means we will never take anything for granted. We will never be found short in our knowledge and in our skills. Mission Control will be perfect. When you leave this meeting today you will go to your office and the first thing you will do there is to write ‘Tough and Competent’ on your blackboards. It will never be erased. Each day when you enter the room these words will remind you of the price paid by Grissom, White, and Chaffee. These words are the price of admission to the ranks of Mission Control.”
via Lessons in Manliness from Gene Kranz | The Art of Manliness.
