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00:00August 1968.
00:07CIA satellite photos show a huge Russian rocket nearly ready to launch.
00:13The CIA came rushing in.
00:15They had a picture of the vehicle on its way to the pad.
00:18It was obviously they were going after something big.
00:21And what could it be but a circumlunar flight?
00:25An American circumlunar flight going around the moon without landing
00:29isn't scheduled till next year.
00:32Now NASA management makes a daring change.
00:35The next flight, Apollo 8, will go all the way around the moon.
00:41My initial belief was this was absolutely crazy.
00:44But I realized that risk had to be taken
00:48if we were to achieve Kennedy's goal of landing on the moon within the decade.
00:54It will be the ultimate test for the mathematicians in the trench.
00:58Navigating a spacecraft toward a moving target a quarter million miles away.
01:04We were used to just going around the planet.
01:08And this was the first time that we were going to take people
01:12and send them to a destination.
01:15Apollo 8 will also be the first time men ride the giant Saturn V moon rocket.
01:21That was going to be the long pole in the tent.
01:25That big Hummer that had to get us out of the atmosphere.
01:28Everybody knew that that one was going to have to be done right.
01:31It overpowered you.
01:36To me, this was the greatest miracle of technology associated with the entire Apollo program.
01:42Taller than a 30-story building, the Saturn V weighs 6 million pounds.
01:50Just handling it takes a collection of huge, complex devices, each a marvel of engineering.
01:56To move it, a self-propelled platform bigger than a baseball diamond.
02:03To service it, a tower taller than the UN building in New York.
02:08Nine movable swing arms carry it electricity and fuel.
02:14Each weighs 30 tons.
02:16Underneath it, a flame deflector, taller than a six-story building,
02:22will keep the exhaust from bouncing back.
02:25Without it, the rocket would destroy itself.
02:29Hold down arms, keep it bolted to the pad until the engines reach full power.
02:34They must all release within 30 milliseconds of each other,
02:38or the rocket will tip over as it starts to move.
02:43By December 1968, the rocket is ready.
02:48Apollo 8 astronauts Frank Borman, Jim Lovell, and Bill Anders
02:53are about to become the first humans to head for another planet.
02:58Gene Krantz can only watch. He's training for the next flight.
03:03I was sitting out Apollo 8.
03:05And this is probably one of the times in my life
03:08when I really appreciated being on the sideline during the course of the mission.
03:12Because I had the ability to feel every emotion.
03:16I didn't have to suppress it like the guys on the console.
03:1920 seconds and count on us.
03:21December 21st, at 6.51 a.m., the beast comes to life.
03:27Except for a nuclear bomb, the noise of the Saturn V is the loudest man-made sound on Earth.
03:36The hold-down arms release, and 6 million pounds of rocket begins rising.
03:48Every controller held their breath, because we want that guy to fly.
03:54Our lives left high.
04:00We have liftoff, we have liftoff.
04:01At 7 a.m., resistance is made by Third.
04:03Cool.
04:16Powerciël.
04:17Two hours, 50 minutes after launch, translunar injection, TLI.
04:31All right, you are go for TLI.
04:35For the first time, humans will leave the gravity of the Earth and head for deep space.
04:41Ignition, not your ignition.
04:45I had this visceral feeling that we have left Earth orbit,
04:49going to a place that a human had never been before.
05:01We see the trajectory path change from basically going around the Earth,
05:05now to forming a figure-eight type maneuver.
05:08We're outward bound to the moon.
05:10We'd seen it only in training before.
05:12I had never seen it for real, nor had any controller.
05:15Space turn, I got it.
05:19Now, physics takes over.
05:21The spacecraft is coasting, the moon advancing.
05:25In two days, their paths will intersect.
05:28Then, another new unknown, lunar orbit insertion.
05:33If the LOI engine burn isn't just right,
05:37Apollo 8 could spin out into the solar system or crash into the moon.
05:43As we approached the moon, you know, everybody's anxiety, you know, started raising,
05:51because we knew that we were about to do something that was irreversible.
05:55We're just sitting there waiting.
05:57It's like waiting for a funeral to start.
05:59You have one engine that has to work perfectly.
06:03And if that engine doesn't work, you're not going into orbit around the moon,
06:07or if you're in orbit around the moon, you're not coming back home.
06:09Apollo 8, distance trajectory and guide foot good.
06:13The engine burn will happen behind the moon, out of radio contact.
06:18Until Apollo 8 reappears, no one on Earth will know if the Trench's equations are right.
06:24See you on the other side.
06:28Apollo 8, Apollo 8.
06:30Christmas Eve, 1968.
06:33Astronauts Frank Borman, Jim Lovell and Bill Anders in Apollo 8
06:38have just disappeared behind the moon.
06:41While they're on the other side, they'll perform a critical engine burn.
06:46The Trench has calculated the exact instant Apollo 8 should reappear.
06:52If the engine burn was successful, then they'd come around at this time and we'd see them.
06:58And if they didn't do the maneuver, then they would be early.
07:02We've heard nothing yet, but we're standing by.
07:07It's Apollo 8, very complete.
07:21To the second we saw that clock at zero, we heard the call,
07:25and we knew the crew had performed the perfect maneuver.
07:28We were now in orbit around the moon.
07:31Apollo 8 now in lunar orbit.
07:34There's a chair in this room.
07:41For the first time, humans have arrived only 60 miles from another planet.
07:48I think the best way to describe this area is a vastness of black and white.
07:54Absolutely no color.
07:56Then the crew and everyone watching on Earth sees something else.
08:03That was indescribable.
08:10If you didn't experience that, you'd missed something.
08:14You see it now, and you can make up that picture on any computer.
08:19But that was real.
08:21And it meant a lot to me.
08:22And it meant a lot, I think, to every human being on Earth that saw it.
08:26And then they did the unbelievable.
08:31I just couldn't believe it.
08:33In the beginning, God created the heaven and the earth.
08:39They started reading from the book of Genesis.
08:43And this was on Christmas Eve.
08:45And the earth was without form and void.
08:49And God said, let there be light.
08:52And there was light.
08:54And God saw the light.
08:56That it was good.
08:58And God called the proof of heaven.
09:01This was the surprise.
09:02Everything else had been pre-planned.
09:04And I was crying.
09:05It was so beautiful.
09:06And right now, this time, we find it hard to suppress, you know, the emotion of that instant.
09:14It's real for everybody who was there, who lived it.
09:18The waters called East Sea.
09:20God saw that it was good.
09:23And from the crew of Apollo 8, we close with good night, good luck, a merry Christmas.
09:31And God bless all of you.
09:33All of you, all of you on the good earth.
09:38To hear that coming from Americans circling the moon on Christmas Eve, very emotional moment.
09:47Very proud moment.
09:52Apollo 8 is a turning point in history, giving humankind its first look at our home as it really is.
10:03In early 1969, two more Apollo flights, 9 and 10, test the lunar lander.
10:12By June, Apollo 11, the first moon landing attempt, is only four weeks away.
10:22Behind the scenes at Mission Control, Gene Krantz's team is training, simulating the landing.
10:30The simulations were so real that no controller could discern the difference between the training and the real mission.
10:39Astronauts are in a mock spacecraft, controllers at their consoles.
10:44When the sim begins, the mission is played out as if for real, following a script created by the simulation team.
10:51A script designed to uncover weakness.
10:56They would start out with a normal mission so we could see that.
11:01After that, the rules were off.
11:04They would throw in any kind of failure that we might be able to have.
11:07The sim guys were devious people.
11:11They would give you a red herring to send you off sideways here and get you distracted.
11:17And then come the bomb buster, you know, hit you, kaboom.
11:22Only a month before the real landing, Krantz's sims are not going well.
11:28It seemed we couldn't do anything right.
11:30We'd crash into the surface of the moon.
11:32We'd board unnecessarily.
11:33Our bosses would call us up on the phone and they'd say,
11:36Hey, what's going on down there?
11:39By July 5th, they're out of time.
11:42There's one final sim before launch.
11:46Final simulation is essentially graduation day.
11:49It's one where you want everything to go exactly right,
11:52and you want to leave the crew and the control team feeling good about this mission.
11:58The sim begins.
12:05In charge of the landing computer on the lunar module, the LEM,
12:08is guidance officer Steve Bales.
12:15Halfway through the sim, the computer sounds an alarm.
12:18This alarm should never come up.
12:20So I called an abort.
12:22Capcom, no go, no go, no go.
12:25I thought we had done the right thing.
12:27My controllers thought they had done the right thing.
12:30But the simulation supervisor came in and said,
12:32No, you didn't do the right thing.
12:34You had that computer program alarm,
12:36but the computer was still functioning correctly.
12:39According to the sim supervisor, Krantz's team aborted unnecessarily.
12:45As a team, we had failed our final training day, and this was bad news.
12:54In a little more than a week, Apollo 11 will depart for the moon,
12:58and Gene Krantz's team is not ready.
13:02July 1969, ten days before the launch of Apollo 11.
13:15The final simulation has uncovered a problem with the landing computer.
13:19Gene Krantz wants Steve Bales to clear it up.
13:21Gene said, Look, I want you to go work on computer alarm rules,
13:27and I want to have an answer before the week's over.
13:30What are we going to do if this alarm comes up?
13:34The computer designers assure Bales the alarm can't happen in actual flight.
13:39But if it somehow does, it will be his decision whether or not to continue the landing.
13:49Today, mankind will attempt to land...
13:52Mission control in Houston reports everything is going for today's start.
13:57Two weeks later, the first moon landing is about to begin.
14:02Gene Krantz's entire life has led him to this moment.
14:08Of all of the flight directors, I'm probably the most emotional.
14:11And I felt compelled to talk.
14:14I said, We're getting ready to make history.
14:17We're getting ready to make history.
14:19You know what we're about to do.
14:21From the day that we were born, we were destined to be in this room this day.
14:26I have trained, I have absolute confidence in everyone in this room,
14:30but I want you to know something.
14:32No matter what happens to us this day,
14:35I will stand behind every decision that you make.
14:39However it goes.
14:40However it goes.
14:41When we walk out of this room, we walk out of this room as a team.
14:46I can't even say that today without getting choked up about it.
14:51That was the best, best thing he could have said to me.
14:55I said, Lock the control room door.
14:59And from that moment forward, no one would enter or leave this room
15:04until we had either landed, we had aborted, or we had crashed.
15:10Crance checks with every controller before starting the landing.
15:14Okay, all flight controllers.
15:16Go, now, go for powered descent.
15:18Retro?
15:19Go.
15:20Fido?
15:21Go.
15:22Control?
15:23Go.
15:24Calcom?
15:25Go.
15:26Econ?
15:27Go.
15:28Surgeon?
15:29Go.
15:30Capcom, we're go for powered descent.
15:31A quarter million miles away, astronauts Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin
15:34start down in the land.
15:36All right.
15:37Hey, Rachel, that looks good.
15:38Eagle Houston, everything's looking good here.
15:40Over.
15:41Then, only a minute into the descent,
15:43Steve Bales, callsign Guidance,
15:46sees they're going down too fast.
15:48We're at 20 foot per second, down back here.
15:50If the air increases, they could crash.
15:53Steve Bales comes to me and he says,
15:55Flight, we're halfway to our abort limit.
15:58So I was terrified.
15:59I thought I was going to have to stop the landing.
16:01Oh, you're looking, Guidance.
16:03We're at 20 foot per second.
16:04No change is what you're saying.
16:05No change.
16:06Roger.
16:07No change.
16:08The speed stays within abort limits.
16:12And I thought my big problem for the day was over.
16:15But in fact, Bale's big problem is about to begin.
16:2012-01.
16:2112-01.
16:22Roger.
16:2312-01 alarm.
16:2412-01.
16:25The computer alarm that is never supposed to happen in actual flight.
16:30The same one from the final sim.
16:33I'd forgotten what 12-01 was.
16:36My backroom, who knows everything, has reminded me,
16:39that's the one where you've got to make a choice.
16:42Bales is 25 years old.
16:45He has seconds to decide.
16:47Continue with an overloaded computer or abort.
16:50If we ever aborted a lunar descent, it would have been the most complicated maneuver we've done in human spaceflight.
17:00Time is running out.
17:02Bales makes his choice.
17:04I said, flight, we're go.
17:07I almost shouted it.
17:09We're going, let alarm.
17:10Go!
17:11Roger.
17:12Real good.
17:13Roger.
17:14The computer is hanging on by a thread.
17:16And now there's another issue.
17:18All of the problems that have occurred now are causing us to land long.
17:24They've overshot the landing zone.
17:27Boulders as big as houses are in the way.
17:30Searching for a safer spot, Neil Armstrong is running out of fuel.
17:35We wanted to have a margin at the end when we landed.
17:38We didn't want to land empty.
17:40In all of the sims, always, we had something on the order of three minutes of fuel left.
17:45Three minutes.
17:46Altitude still over 500 feet.
17:49The math doesn't look good.
17:52I said, okay, I'll flight controllers.
17:54No more calls except for fuel remaining.
17:57Okay, the only call out from now on will be yours.
18:02Then Bob Carlton in the systems row makes a fuel call no one wants to hear.
18:07Low level?
18:09Low level.
18:11This means that now the gas gauge on board the spacecraft is virtually reading empty.
18:17Boy, I clutched.
18:21The back room clutched.
18:23The whole control center clutched.
18:26The next fuel call will be 60 seconds.
18:30I started a stopwatch and I sat there and watched that watch countdown.
18:35And it come time to 60 seconds.
18:3760.
18:3860 seconds.
18:39Look at that altitude.
18:41We're never supposed to see this.
18:43This, the impossible has happened.
18:45We're not going to make it.
18:47He calls off 30 seconds.
18:4930.
18:5030 seconds.
18:51I'm still counting.
18:53When he hit zero, it is now land or abort.
18:58One or the other.
19:00Picking up some dust.
19:02I thought, picking up dust?
19:04How can you be picking up dust?
19:06Then it dawned on me, we might make it.
19:12About the time that he now calls off 15 seconds, we hear the crew going through the process of shutting down the engines.
19:25Contact light.
19:26Okay.
19:27Engine stop.
19:28We've had shut.
19:29Control both auto.
19:30Engine command override off.
19:31Suddenly, the engineers of mission control, the masters of preparation, find themselves completely unprepared for what is said next.
19:42Listen, uh, Tranquility Base here.
19:46The Eagle has landed.
19:48I'd never heard the words Tranquility Base before.
19:54In every simulation, in every training, they continued to call themselves Eagle even after they'd landed.
20:03Incredible name, I think.
20:04What an incredible name.
20:06Roger, Tranquility.
20:07We copy you on the ground.
20:09You got a bunch of guys about to turn blue.
20:11We're breathing again.
20:12Thanks a lot.
20:13And then the back room literally erupted.
20:16The people were pounding on the floor, cheering, applauding us.
20:21And then my control room started picking up the same buzz.
20:24And I said, okay, all you guys, settle down.
20:27Okay, keep the chatter down in this room.
20:30Come on, let's keep the chatter down.
20:32I said, guys, settle down, settle down.
20:35Keep your eye on the dadgum bird.
20:37This ain't over with.
20:38Keep it.
20:39Keep your eye on it.
20:42Outside the control center, the world celebrates.
20:45Inside, the mission goes on.
20:51Crew and spacecraft must be watched over, systems checked.
20:56Gene Kranz has another countdown to a decision.
20:59Is it safe to stay on the moon?
21:02It's just another moment in a busy, busy shift.
21:06Yeah, black controller is about 45 seconds.
21:09The T-1, stay, no stay.
21:10Stay, no stay.
21:11Stay, no stay.
21:12Stay, no stay.
21:13Stay, no stay.
21:14The first moon landing was an experience shared by millions.
21:19Ironically, some of the few who missed it were the very people who made it happen.
21:26That's one small step for man, one giant leap for mankind.
21:33That instant, we missed.
21:38And this team I felt so emotionally attached to that I just wished we could go back to that time and place and just do it one more time.
21:48Only this time, really enjoy the moment rather than having to be so darn busy.
21:54Everyone in mission control assumed this would go down in history as their finest hour.
22:03They had no way of knowing that an even greater challenge lay just ahead.
22:09A challenge that would take them to the brink of disaster.
22:13November 1969.
22:23NASA has met their deadline, landing on the moon before the end of the decade.
22:28But mission control cannot rest on its laurels.
22:32The flights that follow will be just as challenging, just as dangerous.
22:36Before every flight, our job was to train and simulate, to be ready for anything.
22:43Once we launched, our job changed.
22:46Then, it was all about problem solving.
22:49The most critical time is launch, powered flight.
22:54With the crew riding on six million pounds of high explosives, controllers don't have much time to solve problems.
23:01During powered flight, the mission decision process operated in around a 20-second time frame.
23:08Most people would think of 20 seconds as a blink of an eye.
23:11In mission control, it was a lifetime.
23:14November 14, 1969.
23:18Apollo 12.
23:20Astronauts Pete Conrad, Dick Gordon, and Alan Bean are headed for the second moon landing.
23:26The need to make a fast decision is about to fall in controller John Aaron.
23:31He's in charge of electrical and environmental systems.
23:35His call sign, ECOM.
23:38The thing that makes a good ECOM is a natural curiosity about how things work,
23:42even if you don't, are not responsible for them.
23:45Two, one, ignition.
23:49Apollo 12 lifts off.
23:52It's Jerry Griffin's first launch as flight director.
23:57And all of a sudden, everything, all the data went away, and there was a big static in my headset.
24:03What the hell was that?
24:06I said, ECOM, what do you see?
24:09I looked down at all of my, uh, telemetry data, the readouts from the spacecraft, and they were nonsensical.
24:15It doesn't get in, let's check.
24:18In the spacecraft, astronaut Alan Bean has no clue either.
24:22Just watch the platform gang, I don't know what I am.
24:25Lights pop on.
24:26Every, the alarm system comes on.
24:28More lights than I'd ever seen, ever, in the simulator.
24:32I mean, there was main bus A, main bus B.
24:34I got three fuel cell lights, an AC bus light, a fuel cell disconnect, AC bus overload, one and two, main bus A and B.
24:43It's an electrical failure.
24:45The command module has lost main power.
24:48Emergency batteries take over, but they'll only last two hours.
24:52Mission control is facing a launch aboard.
24:55Jettison the spacecraft and blow up the Saturn V.
25:02Now John Aaron's curiosity pays off.
25:05A year earlier, during a test, he had seen a strange pattern of data
25:09and had learned about an obscure switch inside the command module that could fix it.
25:14I had seen that pattern before, and it had been one year since I had seen it.
25:19But it was like that pattern was written in my mind.
25:24The Saturn V's engines keep burning, but the command module on top of the rocket is barely alive, powered only by emergency batteries.
25:34Everyone expects ECOM to abort.
25:39Then Aaron makes a different call.
25:41I said, Flight, tell them to take the SCE to AUX.
25:45Flight, it comes by SCE to AUX.
25:47And I said, What?
25:49Say again, SCE to AUX.
25:51SCE to AUX.
25:53I said, What's that?
25:57It was some obscure switch, signal conditioning electronics to auxiliary.
26:02I turned to the Capcom and Jerry Carr, and I said, SCE to AUX, Capcom.
26:08And Carr said, What?
26:11Mission control comes back and says, Try SCE to auxiliary, over.
26:16SCE to auxiliary.
26:18SCE to auxiliary.
26:19SCE to auxiliary.
26:21What the hell is that?
26:22SCE to auxiliary.
26:23SCE to auxiliary.
26:24Turned out Al Bean knew where that switch was.
26:28It was back over his shoulder.
26:30He threw the switch and we got all of our data back and we could see what the problem was.
26:35We got it back, Flight. Looks good.
26:37Okay.
26:40Later analysis reveals Apollo 12 had been hit by lightning, which traveled down the rocket's exhaust to the ground, knocking the spacecraft's main electric vehicle.
26:48system offline.
26:50The obscure SCE switch wasn't designed for this situation, but it works.
26:55Thank God for mission control. Thank God for mission control. I didn't have any idea what to do.
27:01Pete Conrad broke out in nervous laughter.
27:06You know what he did? I know what he is.
27:08He laughed all the way into orbit.
27:09You know what he did? I know what he is.
27:10He laughed all the way into orbit.
27:13I never thought of me.
27:14Why not to pull it for me, right?
27:16You're very incredible.
27:18Apollo 12 went on to make the second moon landing.
27:24In the control center, John Aaron's call, SCE to AUX, became legendary.
27:31If you took a poll of all of the people and asked them who is the most capable flight controller to ever sit in mission control, I think the majority of them would say John Aaron.
27:46Five months later, Apollo 13 astronauts Jim Lovell, Jack Swigert, and Fred Hayes are on their way to the moon.
28:01After two successful landings, mission control is confident.
28:06We were feeling pretty good about what we did, although a lot of us had a lot of guarded humble, because it's a dangerous business.
28:18How dangerous will soon become clear.
28:21No one realizes it, but there is a ticking time bomb aboard Apollo 13.
28:27Inside a liquid oxygen tank, there is a heater and fan to stir up the super cold mixture.
28:33Unknown to everyone, the wiring is damaged.
28:39April 13, 1970, nearly 56 hours into the flight.
28:43Gene Krantz's team is about to go off shift.
28:46Before they do, they request a cryo-stir, turn on the oxygen tank fan.
28:5213, we might get there, uh, stir up your cryo tank.
28:57Okay.
28:58Stand by.
28:59We've had a problem with you.
29:04Say again, please.
29:06Houston, we've had a problem.
29:08Main D, bus undervolt.
29:11Main bus undervolt, a power failure.
29:14No one knows it, but the bad wiring in the oxygen tank, too, has caused an explosion.
29:22At first, the astronauts in mission control think it's only a power failure.
29:27My initial gut reaction was, hey, we're gonna solve this problem, get back on track, and then keep driving towards the moon.
29:33Then astronaut Jim Lovell reports something even worse.
29:39Now, look today, you're looking out the, uh, hatch.
29:42So we are venting something.
29:44Crew thinks they're venting something.
29:47We are venting something out, uh, into the, uh, into space.
29:52To this day, I don't know why I did it, but I looked out the window, the side window, and I could see escaping at a high rate of speed of gaseous substance.
29:59We were losing our oxygen.
30:04And this now triggered me to a survival mode, when the only thought on your mind is survival, and you're trying to find a way to make it for the next few minutes.
30:13They don't understand what's wrong.
30:16All they know is they're losing oxygen and power.
30:20Okay, now, let's everybody keep cool.
30:22Let's solve the problem, but let's not make it any worse by guessing.
30:27But they can't solve it.
30:29The command module's power is dying.
30:31They switch to emergency batteries, but these will only last a few hours.
30:36Krantz orders ECOM, Cy Liebergot, in charge of electrical and environmental systems, to get help.
30:43Ecom, have you called in your backup ECOMs now, see if we can get some more brain power in this thing?
30:47We got one here. Roger.
30:49One of the first backup ECOMs to arrive is John Aaron.
30:54I watched what they were doing a few times.
30:56I said, guys, you're wasting our emergency batteries.
31:01We're going to have to power the command module down and turn it off.
31:05I'd like you to go down that power down procedure until you get...
31:09That was a big, big step.
31:12It never powered down a command module or any of the major spacecraft.
31:17That's right.
31:19They have no choice.
31:21The emergency batteries will soon run out, and they need them for reentry.
31:26To save them, they'll have to turn off the command module, their mother ship.
31:31It became apparent that the inevitable was facing us, that we were going to lose this mother ship.
31:40The crew moves into the lunar lander, the LEM.
31:43It will be their lifeboat.
31:45The command module, the only piece that can bring them home, is turned off to save its batteries.
31:53Now we know there's no more going to the moon.
31:56We also know it's going to be damn tough, maybe impossible, to get this crew back home.
32:00NASA reacts like any family after an accident.
32:05All over America, phones begin ringing.
32:08At contractors' offices and mission control, engineers not on shift come in to get the latest news, to help, or just be there.
32:17I'll never forget to go and run up those steps.
32:20I didn't even know what was going on.
32:22I said, man, I bet you I'll never be the same when I come out of this f***ing place.
32:27I knew it. And I wasn't.
32:31At this moment, Gene Krantz calls his mentor, Chris Kraft.
32:36I knew it was serious when I walked into a room.
32:39The electricity was here.
32:40The smoke was here.
32:42The environment was here.
32:43That these guys were under the gun.
32:48And he walked to me at the conference.
32:49I was busy.
32:50And I says, Chris, we're in deep s***.
32:53April 1970, 200,000 miles from Earth, Apollo 13's crippled, the crew's survival in doubt.
33:12After losing its power, the command module has been turned off.
33:16Astronauts Jim Lovell, Jack Swigert, and Fred Hayes huddle in the lunar lander.
33:21It can keep them alive, but with no heat shield or parachutes, it can't bring them home.
33:28If we didn't come up with some answers darn quick, not only wouldn't there be a landing,
33:33this crew might not come back to Earth.
33:37If the crew can be saved, it will take the entire mission control team.
33:42In the trench, it was our job to speed up their return back to Earth.
33:47The systems guys then had to figure out how they could get their systems to sustain life
33:53on board their spacecraft for as long as they could.
33:57An hour after the explosion, Gene Krantz's team goes off shift.
34:02Glenn Lunny comes on.
34:04One of his first steps is a critical engine burn.
34:07Without the burn, Apollo 13 will swing around the moon, miss the Earth, and remain in space forever.
34:16My choice was to go ahead and get it done, so to give at least that sense of comfort to the team and to the crew.
34:25The burn works.
34:32At least the spacecraft is on a path that will take it back to Earth.
34:37It was still a long way from being home, but we'd taken our first step, big step, back out of this hole.
34:44Glenn was the one who sort of restored order to the room and got us thinking on an even keel.
34:52Throughout NASA and at contractors all across America, engineers try to figure out how to stretch power, water, consumable.
35:04In the lunar module, the LEM, the astronauts hunker down, keeping lights and heat off to save batteries.
35:11There wasn't enough thermal blankets, so this thing cooled down.
35:17So I got a lower urinary tract infection, chills and fever.
35:21Of course, the chills part got very bad with the temperature environment we had.
35:28As Fred Hayes gets sicker and sicker, temperatures drop near freezing.
35:33In mission control, Gene Krantz has assembled his team in a back room.
35:41I said, okay, everybody, listen up.
35:44We have never lost an American in space, and we sure as hell aren't going to lose one now.
35:49You have to believe it, your team has to believe it, and we are the ones that must make it happen.
35:54The key will be powering up the dead command module. Only it has the heat shield and parachutes for reentry.
36:07This was a cold cutoff, and it was going to be a cold start-up in space, and that had never been done before.
36:14So that's what Krantz had to, his team had to go figure out. How do you do that?
36:21The command module's batteries have only two hours, so it will have to be turned on at the last minute, just before reentry, without wasting a drop of battery power.
36:32This whole thing came down to electricity. Electricity was the, was the constraining resource.
36:38So I elected John Aaron to basically become the power manager for the remainder of the mission.
36:46Krantz's team struggles to figure out how to power up a frozen spacecraft on a shoestring.
36:53Every engineer wants his system on, but John Aaron knows there won't be enough electricity to go around.
37:00I'll never forget the landing and recovery guide. I was not going to turn on the emergency rescue beacon.
37:06He says, oh, you can't do that. You can't do that. If you don't turn that beacon on, and they don't come down exactly where we want them, we'll never find those guys.
37:16I said, look guys, my only job is to find an ocean, to hit any ocean. If I can get them in the ocean, surely you can find them.
37:23That was the level of negotiations that went on for the next three days.
37:28Krantz's controllers work for three days and nights, planning a complicated power up that's never been done before.
37:38At the very last moment, I have to evacuate from the lunar module, rapidly power up the command module, initialize the computer, close the hatches, assure I'm in the proper orientation, then blow the pieces apart.
37:51This is a checklist that's going to be several hundred steps long.
37:58It was getting tight, and so I started to query mission control. Is the checklist ready? Is the checklist ready?
38:06Finally, Krantz's team has the plan.
38:09The emergency batteries come back to life. The crew jettisons the service module to begin re-entry. Then they see the damage.
38:27And in one, all five of that spacecraft missing.
38:35We were quite concerned. We couldn't believe that this thing drifting by was our spacecraft.
38:42Everyone now realizes the explosion was only a few feet away from the heat shield.
38:48Even the slightest crack in that shield, an Apollo 13 may disintegrate during re-entry.
38:53We didn't talk much about it, because there was nothing we could do about it.
39:06Re-entry begins, and with it, radio blackout.
39:11Will 13 burn up from a damaged heat shield? Will the frozen parachutes open?
39:17Mission control won't know until blackout ends.
39:20Now, blackout is a very difficult time for every, uh, controller, because we've done everything that we humanly can, and now there are no more give-backs.
39:33The trench has calculated the exact second blackout should end, and they'll be able to hear the crew again, if they're still alive.
39:40If they're still alive.
39:53The clock counted down through zero.
39:55And they say, okay, Joe, give him a call.
39:58And Kerwin calls, Odyssey Houston, standing by.
40:01Odyssey Houston, standing by, over.
40:03Apollo 13, this is Houston.
40:1013, do you read, this is Houston, over?
40:16Nothing.
40:18I said, Reto, are the clocks right? And he says, yeah, flight, they're right.
40:30Is this it?
40:35Is this all there is?
40:42Dammit, we got these guys back, and that heat shield has failed.
40:49My gosh, where have you been?
41:09Odyssey Houston, we show you on the mains, it really looks great.
41:13The most beautiful sight I've ever seen was those, the command module dangling on those three shoots.
41:26When I was crying, it was really hard to, uh, stop from crying at that time.
41:30And I sit down at the chair, and I rub my eyes, because I'm embarrassed in front of my team,
41:35to let them know that I've lost it.
41:37The rescue of Apollo 13 was Mission Control's finest hour.
41:51When these engineers said, failure is not an option, that wasn't just a slogan.
41:57They meant it literally.
42:00When something bad happened, it was the job of each person in the control center
42:04to analyze what all of the options were.
42:07How do we get out of this?
42:08Look at all of the options, and failure was not one of them.
42:21But there was no engineering option to repair loss of public support and political will.
42:26In December 1972, Apollo 17 ended the greatest exploration in human history.
42:43I never look at the moon without thinking that we have been there.
42:47I never look at the moon without thinking that it was a miracle that we got there.
42:51When I was a kid, and if somebody wanted to express something so impossible,
42:57it is beyond comprehension, they'd say,
42:59you can't anymore do that than you can go to the moon.
43:02And there's the moon.
43:06To this day, I go out at night, and I relive that moment when I saw the crescent moon,
43:14knowing that people were walking around on it.
43:17And I yearned for the day for that to be the natural thing again.
43:22Could we do it again?
43:23Could we, America, really do that again?
43:26It took a very clear goal, mandated by the president,
43:30the backing of the Congress, the backing of the citizenry,
43:33and a bunch of stupid guys like me that didn't know that it couldn't be done.
43:37Today, the original mission control room is silent, but it is not empty.
43:48Every time you walk in that door, you can feel the events of the past.
43:55I feel extremely proud of what we were able to do.
44:03I feel the pangs of terror that all of us faced.
44:09So I feel all of those emotions when I entered this palace.
44:13This consul here was the best part of my entire life.
44:20And I spent almost ten years at this consul.
44:25It is my life.
44:27It will always be my life.
44:29And I will never leave it behind.
44:32After the Apollo program, Gene Krantz remained at NASA for 22 more years,
44:43through the triumphs of Skylab, the space shuttle, the Hubble Space Telescope,
44:48and the tragedy of the Challenger.
44:52Today, he and all the others who pioneered the art of flight control have retired.
44:57But the torch has been passed to a new generation of mission controllers,
45:04cut from the same cloth, imbued with the same spirit.
45:11Setbacks are inevitable.
45:14Like the original Brotherhood of Controllers was tested by the Apollo 1 fire,
45:19today's controllers are also being tested.
45:21But just as nothing could end man's exploration of Earth,
45:28so too will the grand adventure of space continue.
45:32And whatever distant places future generations aim for,
45:37they will be carrying on a journey that had its start at a place called Mission Control.
45:51See you next time.
45:52.
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