Howdy. Jfk emphasized the importance of the space race during a time of fear in the u. S. Incredible men and women took this challenge head on. Nessa became a beacon of hope for the nation. I am honored to introduce one of those legends. The man who pioneered apollo 11 and apollo 13. If you have ever heard the phrase houston, Tranquility Base is here, the eagle has landed. With great honor i am here to introduce houston. Mr. Gene kranz. [applause] mr. Kranz thank you. It is a real privilege. I have a couple aggies in the family. To be introduced by an aggie. They told me i had three hours will have to be speaking through lunch here. But jared said no, he will give me a call when i have five minutes. So he is going to stand up and give me sort of a heads up. , i have a three minute video of the actual Lunar Landing. And i think that will put this year, this decade of the 50th anniversary, firm in context of what is happening. I used this at the smithsonian. If you look at the smithsonian website on flight jacket night, basically i described the entire Lunar Landing, from the time we acquired the spacecraft until touchdown, and for roughly the first couple hours after the touchdown. I, theres a lot of details am going to lead out in my three hours here. But anyway, i was born in 1933. My father died. He was a world war i veteran and he died. My mother lived a very close to the American Legion boardinghouse. And basically she operated the boardinghouse for the soldiers, sailors, and airmen during world war ii. And basically my two sisters and ofrew up in an environment duty, honor, and country. And this is what i think inspired us. I wanted to become a naval aviator because we lived very the Naval Training center. Great lakes. And many people at our house were going to become aviators. And i got an appointment to annapolis, but unfortunately i failed the physical. So the navys loss was the air forces gain. And i moved into the air force, went through a small aviation college, and basically got my commission. My wings at Laughlin Air Force base. Then i went out at dallas, learned how to fly under the aces of the korean war. And my first initial assignment was to myrtle beach 354, which was commanded by a double ace. Inace in korea as well as world war ii. And he was what i would say an inspirational leader. He wouldcolored jeep, travel around to various locations on the base indicating his very presence. Here. Ould say hey, heres basically he made all of these people part of the 354. When the vagaries of military to a k55 got assigned korea. I lost my love affair with the hun. This really established the love affair with the saber. A marvelous, marvelous Fighter Aircraft. Down on the taiwan straits. Top cover during a period of time when nationalists would resupply the islands. I served as air controller with the seventh infantry. And returning to the states i elected to go to return reserve status. And looking for the jobs that ane out there, and there was opportunity to move into flight test with the b52 aircraft. I became a flight test engineer on the b52. But it was a flying testbed. Basically in the bombay they had trapeze and all kinds of equipment in there. They could lower such things, a we had thegine, quail missile in there, we did separation studies from various equipments they would install on the forward bombay. We did tough studies, we did acoustic studies. Truly a Great Program and very enjoyable. Lasted about 30 months. At the completion of the program and i had the opportunity to move to edwards, up to General Dynamics and learned about rockets. I saw an advertisement in aviation week. It was challenging. It said they are looking for qualified engineers to determine the feasibility of putting an american in space. This sounds look at pretty cool job. So i sent in an application. I did not hear from anybody until roughly about six weeks. All of a sudden i got a phone call, someone says are you still interested in coming here . I said yes. They gave me a reporting date. I reported to Langley Field in virginia. I sat around reading manuals. We had a relatively small group of people in the office. People would come in and say you think youre going to engineering, recovering. Nobody wanted me. Until finally my life changed. A guy by the name of Christopher Columbus came in, tapped me on the shoulder, and said i want you to go down to the cape, right account down, writes submission roles, and when you are through give me a call and we will launch. I did not know anything about rockets. I didnt know anything about spacecraft. But based on my work with the b52. It was a very interesting challenge. Houseout where the black were. He found out where safety were. You got to know the command guys and the place called mercury control. So, it was a marvelous place growing up. And learning the business of spaceflight, literally from the ground up, writing the book. One of the most interesting things was the quality of leadership that we had in those days. Nasa and the entire aircraft industry was just literally full of leaders. Project mercury was walter c williams. And if you have not taken a look at him, he basically established the highspeed test station out of what we call Edwards Air Force base today. I did a lot of work and development in the big Fighter Aircraft of world war ii, the p 51. Basically he was project engineer for the rocketship. He was Chuck Yeagers boss. Basically responsibility of the Steering Committee for all of the xseries of spacecraft. He was the toughest man i have ever known. He was a brawler. When you went into one of his meetings, he would call you he was very interested in mission rolls because i was writing mission rolls for the program. He would go to sleep on you. He would try to make up your mind, are you going to continue or not . All of a sudden his hand would go out and he had a big box about that big. He would shake them out, then go back to sleep. But the problem was when you finished, he heard every word and you had asked the darndest questions i have ever had in my life. The Space Task Group was incredible. I dont know if in modernday an organizations capable of building the same fashion. When they established the space dr. Robert they gave the responsibility to head up the organization. Basically he came from the Langley Research center was the mecca of aeronautical knowledge at that time. In andically he went picked in what he called the pick of the litter, the top 50 people he wanted in his organization. The Center Director picked another 50 people that maybe were not the pick of the litter, but they all became members of the Space Task Group. Then the canadian government got involved here, because the canadian government, they had the worlds topperforming airplane. Nothing could touch this. Aircraft in 1958 had hit an aircraft with the engine was expected to break bach 2. But the canadian government decided they could not afford to build that aircraft and cancel the program. They laid off 12,000 people in one day, which was devastating. In the government sent people down with welding torches a couple weeks later to destroy every aircraft that was sitting in the flightline. Five of the six had flown. This really ticked off the people, the engineers of the program. Jim chamberlain was the program and project manager at that time. Jim because of the doctor and says i have a bunch of good people out here that would like to work on your space program. Working onad been highspeed aerodynamics. They closed the embassy in toronto, and they brought in roughly 50 to 60 people. I dont know the exact number, but the interviewed each one for about five minutes, and they selected 31 to become members of the Space Task Group. Hodge,ef designer, john flight engineer, the number six aircraft, we had a guy doing ejection seat testing. We had basically the pioneers of Aeronautical Research in the united states. Now they are the middle part of the organization. I came in with a group of young americans, generally some people who had just served in the military. Others just out of college. And we were the raw material for this thing called the Space Task Group. It was amazing, the mixing of inse three cultures resulted a capacity that was greater than the sum of its parts. And we moved into project mercury. Was basicallyy our boot camp. This is where we learned the business of spaceflight. You know, in those days we had computers, but i could not trust them. Control mercury inhad a reliable vacuum tube bermuda helping us do some trajectory stuff. Our communications was lowspeed teletype that dated back to the days of americas pony express. Basically had 13 tracking stations around the world and we sent young people just like yourselves into these sites that were literally at the ends of the earth. The risk was very high for these young people, because this was the end of the european colonial period. At zanzibar they had worked under protection of the islanders. Controllers would march them out, then move them back to the Zanzibar Hotel and placed gunners around. We shut that down after only three years. But these young people were our eyes, ears, and basically the voice as he spacecraft passed overhead. In those that stayed operations became leaders of project apollo. Nearmisses during the Gemini Program. And othersissom popped off and we almost lost gus, the reason is almost every one of the crewmen, they had dimes in the pockets of their flight suits. When they were in the water struggling to survive, the flight suit was being pulled down by these roles of dimes he would give to the team. We almost lost gus, but we got him. John glenns was pretty close. We thought we had a heatshield with him. And we learned many things about spaceflight in those days. I will get to them when i wrap up. But john was close. We did not tell him we thought he had a heatshield process until he was in the process of reentering over the texas site. He said, by the way, i should have jettisoned this when i was back over california. That is when we explained when we thought we had a retro rocket package to hold the heatshield on. He wascarpenter, basically out of fuel as he arrived over the hawaii site. Very fortunate i had a controller there, a very young guy just like you folks right here. Basically he kept talking and reviewing the checklist for reentry with the crewmen after physical communications, line of sight. He just kept talking. Fortunately the atmosphere was such that scotty hurt him and started packing up. He got over the california site, very low on manual fuel, maybe just enough to turn around. We got him into an orientation that was close enough for we had him hired fire the retro rocket. But the control team now is learning the business of spaceflight. And when we got down finally to the end of the program, we felt that yeah, we know what the business is about and we know what we got dto do. The key thing is during john glenns flight we had about five people in the control room. Chief engineer, the manufacturer, program manager, the flight director, we all said what are we going to do . They are still debating, the spacecraft is going around the world. We finally said, look, there has got to be one boss and he is god. No one will challenge him. Responsibilities for the flight director take any actions necessary for crew safety and mission success. The other thing we found basically in my work in the flight test of the b52, i did not have complete understanding of. The thing is we were flying spacecraft, launching rockets that we have virtually no good data on. Whiche a pocket checklist fit in the lower pants of a pilots flight suit. I have a very rough schematic. It didnt tell the integrated information you needed to make realtime, time critical, high risk decisions. So at that time i established, i am going to become more knowledgeable than the people who designed the spacecraft. And i got support from chris craft, and i got support from what williamson. Contractor, we are going to build the manuals that we fly with. Shortly thereafter we set up a process of learning by doing. Every product, by the time we flew apollo, was developed by the Mission Controllers themselves. The flight systems, every procedure, normal procedures, emergency procedures, the whole nine yards, by the people in the Mission Control team. The other thing was the training. The training would come in from the manufacturers. Basically we knew what the business was. So i picked up the responsibility for all integrated training. And to this day, we still perform the integrated training. Between the control team and he controllers. So these were the major changes that we used in getting ready for the Gemini Program. Gemini, we had to come to grips with the new technologies of space. And for the first time we had a computer on board the spacecraft. New nothing about computers. But we were very fortunate the Army Mitchell command had been working with computers in the ground air missile command. So we found a lot of people who were retired and leaving, and we brought these guys in. They became our leaders for training. They basically taught us the business of what using computers was about. In thely we had to load programs for each one of the phases. But that was our first entry. We got into the use of cryogenics and fuel cells, propellant rockets. During mercury we used steam to basically rotate the thrust of the control. That is how we maneuvered spacecraft around. That would not get you very far if you wanted to rendezvous with something. So it came along the Gemini Program, and basically this is where we developed our teams. And they were darn i will not say darn, but there are one of the best darn teams i worked with in my whole life. Ed biting the bullet for things we normally would not do. For the first Gemini Mission we said lets try to do a rendezvous with the booster. We would separate from the booster and try to do it. Every pilot, boy, it did not work worth a darn there. Differents something about this new environment. Finally we started a simulation that allowed us to train the crews as well as the ground. We basically now had started to break ground in these technologies. And we moved into the apollo program. Hosch, chrisohn craft or the flight directors for the apollo one mission. Basically we all transitioned after we finished assigned missions in gemini. And we were sitting at the consoles january 7, 19 67, roughly one month from launch. Our crewmembers were gus grissom, ed white and roger chaffee. We had worked with gus on the Gemini Program and did most of the procedural work. Sort of anee was unknown to us, although he did have a reputation as one of the navy pilots who took pictures over the field during the missile crisis. The test did not go well. We had problems with communications, problems with life support. Basically crew reporting a noxious odor inside. The spacecraft. Four minutes before, fire exploded in the spacecraft. And those of us that were there that day will never forget it. It was searing. What wasally it was needed to get our act together to follow president kennedys challenge to go to the moon. And we did. We became tough and confident. Those were the words written on every blackboard. At Mission Control and in my office area. Tough and confident. Thewe went and we flew first of the apollo missions, apollo seven. Board. An answer not on it turned out to be that spacecraft was literally perfect. Then it was time to play poker. Because the lunar module was well behind in the development of software. We could not pack all the software into that machine. 60k machine, we could not pack it all in there. We were overweight. So what did we do . We decided, lets go to the moon. Go to the moon with no escape system. Just a basic command service module. E,e systems that are on ther the second flight test, and lets go for it. It was interesting, sitting at Mission Control that Christmas Eve listening to the crew, reading from the book of genesis as they circled the moon. It was a wonderful Christmas Eve. And it was a Christmas Eve that our nation needed badly, because in that decade we had the protests against vietnam, we had the civil rights issues that were coming up. It was good for america that day. So then finally we got ready to move into the apollo program. I mean, go into the final phase of the apollo program. Flightthe first manned test of the lunar module in the apollo nine mission. And it is interesting, we developed a the procedures. We did not know it at that time that we would used to save the crew of apollo 13. Training people would put us at the wrong end of the rendezvous. We had three rendezvous is we had to do and they would put us out with the lunar module and we had to come up with how to rescue them. We learned how to power down the spacecraft, etc. Where do we stand . Where is my auntie . How much time do i have . 10 minutes . Ok, another five. Ok, we learned to power down. The powerdown checklist, we had ofically a dress rehearsal the entire Lunar Landing on the apollo 10 mission. It was overweight, didnt carry enough fuel. The software had yet to be completed. And basically we came down to decided45,000 feet and we would terminate that and execute fire in the whole staging. That was sort of the baseline that we had going towards apollo 11. Apollo 11 was sort of a dream mission. By this time i was the director of the flight control. Apollo fire they had a Massive Organization change. You talk about the luck of the draw. Since i had to run the division as well as trying to become director i had an odd number of missions. 7, 15, and 17. The luck of the draw established i would be part of the first Lunar Landing mission. In Mission Control, we basically, again, run with a team of four controllers. The training is extremely rugged. There are many things you have to train into be proficient in down the line. So basically we have four teams that we split the job into. One team is always designated as basically a lead team. They handle the interface, they handle the media, they had development of the flight, right down the line. The boss at this time was assigned in the flight directors and their teams to mission phases. The dayhat he that he picked me for the first Lunar Landing i could have hugged him. I really wanted to get in there and say, god, what a deal. This is it. Basically i assumed the responsibility for the planning for that operation. But in the process of doing the thingsg, we had a lot of that were still left open from the apollo 10 mission. In particular we had to learn to land that guy. The key thing is there were certain characteristics. We had a very dumb software up there. Literally it was dumb. One of the things is we would update the landing radar based on ground data. We could be several thousand feet in altitude. When we get ready to land we need to know what the real altitude was. So we had radar on board that would take as your altitude, so the computer now had the stuff you gave them, it had what it is measuring, and if it was too great a difference it would just dive the moon, try to solve the problem instantaneously. So we had a lot of crashes. To a great extent, my boss, i had a telephone behind me and everyone was listening to how the training is going. They would call you up, sort of like, what they want to talk about. Why are you crashing . So i finally turned the switch off so they could not call me anymore. And that was the nature of our work. But as time came along, we developed the skills. And it was interesting to see how this group came together for this particular event. Now, andto landing day it is now time to go down to the moon. And theres about a 28 minute period from the time the spacecraft cracked the hill, you go from taking a look at the spacecraft, to the spacecraft timer on the proper trajectory right on down the line. You have a series of go, no gos, you go through this process, then you make the commitment to go for dissent. There are four problems aboard the spacecraft that we did not know about. That we would very quickly learn about. When the two spacecraft undocked, there was a residual pressure in the tunnel. And it was sort of like a champagne cork, pop. It essentially was the same as performing a maneuver. And depending upon the orientation of the spacecraft, it established what would happen in the trajectory. It would establish a radial area, but also shifted us downrange. We did not know this until finally we got tracking data. When we heard this, we did not know the impact. We have not figured out the impact the. The crew had basically been upside down. Had was thing we assets, communications problem. I almost waved off the first attempt at Landing Three times, because the antenna is trying to look through a piece of metal that had been installed underneath the thrusters with tape. But the never accommodated this and provided the pointing for those antennas as we are going down. They were put on because of flight test data and the lunar module in three nations missions of nine indicated there was burning of the skin of the spacecraft. Ok, five minutes. I have two more minutes, then we will get into the movie part of it. So we have that coming up as a surprise. A Massive Communications problem. The one thing that darn near killed us, however, is we had a discrepancy that was noted on a previous asian of the interface between the Previous Mission of the interface between the radar. 85 cormally ran at about pu. This errortion now, in the interface added another 13 cpu. Capacity int 98 that computer. And as soon as the crew gets an alarm, they ask what it is, boo m, we bumped down to peer navigation control. This was probably one of the toughest calls. The software is trying to make that decision, he is also trying to have the landing radar we got. So he has to move quickly from one problem to another problem, use this back room to give me the answer to the landing radar while he works the computer. A very interesting time. Basically this was probably i look at apollo 11 is much more different data difficult than apollo 13. Because apollo 13 we had time to think and work, and we had a team that we could bring to bear. But in apollo 11 we had seconds for every decision we would make. Now, can we show the movie i got from the actual landing . Ok. We should have it. Here we go. [video clip] eagle, you are looking great. Go. Go. Go. Capcom, we are go for landing. Go for landing, over. 3000 speed. 1201. Roger, 1201. We are go. We are go. Into the ag, 47 degrees. How is our margin looking . It looks ok. Eagle looking great. You are go. How are you doing . We look good here. Guidance, you happy . Go. 21 down. 33 degrees. Down to 19. 30, down town to 15. At hold. Standard speed them 3. 5. 47 forward. 1. 5 down. Down 2. 5. 19 forward. Bob, standing by. 3. 5 down. 13 forward. Least 200 feet. 5. 5 down. Down. 5. 5 down. Nine forward. Lowlevel. Lowlevel. Good. 100 feet. 3. 5 down. Nine forward. Feet. Looking good. 60. 60 seconds. 60 seconds. Picking up some dust. 2. 5 down. Great shadow. Forward. Drifting to the right. 30 seconds. 30 seconds. Back right. Ok. Engine stopped. The eagle has landed. We copy you on the ground. You have a bunch of guys about to turn blue. We are breathing again. [applause] mr. Kranz that was interesting, because you notice the Communications Discipline there. No one hit lowlevel, was talking except the guy calling out seconds of fuel remaining. And we had a guy in the back room, because we knew that once we hit lowlevel, we had 120 seconds of fuel and a 30 throttle setting. And he had a stopwatch in each hand looking at an analog trace of above and below 30 , trying to mentally give us the answer on how many seconds of fuel remaining we had. And we got good enough that we could nail it within about 10 seconds. When we landed the moon, we thought we had 17 seconds. We were pretty close to about 30 at that time. But when you go down on the moon the first time, that is calling it pretty close. The other thing was was back in the computer program. Neil armstrong is a pilot. I dont know if you have seen him flying the Lunar Landing testing vehicle, but when he punched out of that thing he had rotated about 90 degrees and went out about horizontal. About three swings and a parachute before he hit the ground. First attention is to fly the airplane. And as soon as the Program Alarm he didoccurring, he knew not have ejection capability up there. If he had a pod, he would be in the abort. He should have been when the alarms came out looking at his landing site and picking out, maneuvering the spacecraft lose using the landing point designator to find a place to land. At the time that he came down there, he was basically surrounded by, in front of him was basically a crater about as large around as a football field. And he had to make a decision, am i going to make it short of or fly over. He hadlanded short of, to be sure to clear something behind him. So he had to fly over. The other interesting thing is during this entire flying around in circles, basically he was blowing the lunar dust. And i dont know how many of you have driven in a slow a snowstorm down a road with the wind behind you, the snow is moving so it is really hard to figure out what is going on. Basically he had to find a large boulder. He found one about three meters. Basically that is what he used to determine his reference. Me,body is going to ask would i would like to do it again. Yeah, i would like to do it again. Because we worked for two solid hours making sure it was safe to be on the surface before we could join the world in celebration. I would like to do it one more time so we could join the world in the moment of landing . Questions . Thats enough. [applause] mr. Kranz ok. A couple minutes. I think they are hungry. Good afternoon, sir. From penn state university, sir. With renewed interest in space exploration, do you think Nuclear Thermal Rockets will play a big part. Thats a good question. I think propulsive technology is going to be key. But whenever someone asks me a question, based on my experience over about 40 years, it is going to be easier to build the rocket spacecraft than it is to build the team. Because the team is what will make missions happen. And when they talk about basically, we are going to have artemis program, we are going to say better get i building that team right now, because you are already behind the power curve. And i think that the workforce is the real key to success of any program. And we were blessed to have this marvelous Space Task Group with the experience it brought in. I think today we do not have the broad experience in the industry once had. So you are going to have to rebuild leadership about the cruise committee, you have to focus upon your objective, we have to get unity within our nation, we have a lot we have to do before we can move onward. Thank you, sir. Hello, sir. Engineeringanical student at kansas state. My question to you is, if you had to pick one or two, a handful of traits that you think are most valuable in an engineer, or a developer like that, what would you mr. Kranz that is an interesting question. It is one that my Training Team darn near killed me on. It is learn to listen. Ok . My Training Team i was getting ahead of the team. I was not going to let them do the work because that is their job. Basically they nailed me one day to the point where i executed the port and i landed in the atlas mountains. That is an altitude higher than when parachutes open. If you notice in the apollo 13 movie, i have a very Long Communications court. I learn and develop the discipline to step away from the data and i start strolling back and forth. Looks like i am praying. And i am listening to my team, intense listening. When i am ready, make a decision, i sit down, the team knows it, and we go off. But basically you have to learn to use your people and listen to them. Ok . [applause] thank you. Thank you. Youre watching American History tv all weekend every weekend on cspan3. Pulitzer prize winner carolyn ander discusses the life novels of Laura Ingalls wilder. She explains the difference between actual events and the authors life. The Jefferson CountyMissouri Library hosted this event. Jane good evening, everybody. We are really thrilled to see you here tonight. This is the third and final program in this series