Apollo 13 Accident - Flight Director Loop Part 1
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- Опубліковано 21 вер 2024
- The Apollo 13 Flight Director loop during the oxygen tank failure and the events following the accident, starting from the end of the last TV transmission from 13, about 8½ minutes before the accident, during the White Team shift led by Gene Kranz.
Timing Disclaimer:
These tapes, when digitised, were apparently played back slightly off realtime speed. I've attempted to correct some of it, but there may still be some timing errors.
50:11 - An interesting exchange begins here. Kranz doesn't understand what the other fellow has in mind. The other fellow re-explains his thought process and suddenly Kranz gets it and proceeds to issue the order accordingly. As I see it, this kind of negotiation is at the very heart of a well-functioning team.
A very good point; the teamwork was amazing. The other fellow was EECOM for the White Team, Sy Liebergot. Sy was on the console when the explosion happened and was crucial to the initial diagnosis and procedural steps that were taken to stabilize the situation. He wrote an excellent book called “Apollo EECOM” that I highly recommend.
I see now why Ron Howard had to add dramatic scenes to the movie. All these guys are so cool and professional, they make a life or death emergency seem totally routine and like no big deal.
9:20 - “Houston, we’ve had a problem”
10:12 - “We had a pretty large bang associated with the caution and warning”
16:15- “Can we review our status here Sy and see what we’ve got from a stand point of status? What do you think we’ve got on the spacecraft that’s good”
22:55 - “And it looks to me looking out the hatch, that we are venting something...out into space...it’s a gas of some sort”
24:33 - You can hear multiple voices raised in the background and Krantz says “OK now, let’s everybody keep cool. We’ve got the LM still attached. The LM spacecraft’s good, so if we need to get back home, we’ve got the LM to do a good portion of it with.”
25:05 - “Let’s solve the problem, but let’s not make it any worse by guessing.”
26:34 - “Advise him he’s getting close to Gimbal lock”
35:35 - “Flight, I’ve got a feeling we’ve lost 2 fuel cells. I hate to put it that way, but I don’t know why we’ve lost them. It doesn’t all tag up. And it’s not an instrumentation problem, the best I can tell right now.”
56:54 - “We’d better think about getting in the LM”
58:37 - “I want you to get some guys figuring out minimum power in the LM to sustain life”
1:02:08 - “See that juice is still going down there EECOM. Got any more suggestions? Flight, EECOM. Any more suggestions to pump up O2 tank 1 pressure?” A forlorn “Nooo” from EECOM
1:02:22 - “We’re going to hit 100 psi in an hour and 54 minutes. That’s the end right there”
Thank you kindly
9:04 - "The LEM overhead hatch is closed and the heater current looks normal."
Assuming they mean the O2 tank heater current?
Stirring fans would by now have been running too (their exposed wiring causes a short,
the Teflon insulation catches fire, causing an overpressure and explosion), then we get:
9:12 - "We've had a hardware restart...I don't know what it was."
*Edit*
Hadn't noticed this before but from 14:22 to14:35 FLIGHT and INCO figure out the exact time of the event: Krantz asks if the AC problem can be related to the high gain issue, INCO replies:
"We went to wide beam with Flight at 55:55:04 as best we can tell."
1:11:11 - the "we just lost the moon" moment on the crew audio in the background
9:26 "you see an AC main bus undervolt, ecom? - "negative flight"- "I believe the crew just reported it."
im literally in debt to you...I'm here trying to find quotes to add to music and this is gonna make it so much easier
They're on the NASA audio archive section of archive.org. The files on there are digitised recordings of multiple tapes with time annotations dubbed in, which I removed, then I joined up the rest.
The hard part was fixing the timing, as the tapes were digitised slightly off real-time (either slow and fast, depending on the tape), and it was over a minute out in places, after joining up the whole 6 hour recording. I've tried to correct it, although it's still not 100% right.
THEY HAVE APOLLO 13 TELEMETRY AND NASA LOST APOLLO 11 TELEMETRY ? WHOM ARE THEY KIDDING ? WELL, I'LL TELL YOU SOMETHING STRANGE ABOUT APOLLO 13. THEY HAD OXYGEN IN PLSS SUITS AND THEY DID NOT USE THEM WHEN THEY WERE SUFFOCATING FROM CO2. AND THEY DID NOT USE THE TWO MOON SUITS TO WARM THEMESELVES UP. WELL ? ephemetherson
Still fantastic.. Well done, good man !!
@@erickaminski1472 very short answer: co2 poisoning have jack shit to do with 02 concentration
@@drfilhobarreiros 3 guys in a tiny LEM, 2 with massive backpacks..... Sure would have worked. Why wouldn't they do that... could it be that they were literally a day away from "being suffocated"? Someone's shouting about an isue that was literally no issue except in Hollywood.
Btw if you DON'T use the backpacks you need your oxygen and power supply from the space craft.... IF you use them, you have to recharge them from the Lem after using them for 7 hours. Which kinda defeats the point.... All the right solutions for complete idiots with a stuck shift key.
/hours was the time per EVA for Apollo 17. Probably it was short by the time of Apollo 13.
Well done though. Good work.
26:22 "Advise him he's getting close to Gimbal Lock..." You almost forget despite their calm demeanor that there are 3 men flailing around in a broken tin can with the computing power of a casio digital watch close to just spiraling into nothingness. All the while executing every troubleshooting order from Houston... Different breed man, different breed of human these folks.
13 likes....
Honestly not sure why they didn't have to send a separate capsule up there with their balls. I don't know how it all fit in the CM.
They knew they had to keep cool & focus , or they wouldn’t come back.
"Different breed man, different breed of human these folks." Indeed!! The greatest generation.
I am not amazed at the amount. Of professionalism in these recordings
Absolute calm under intense pressures
Gene Kranz, man, what a great guy, who deserves far more recognition for the amazing job he did throughout Apollo.
Also Gemini. Personally I think he largely created the culture for Mission Control that put man on the moon AND saved Apollo 13.
41:35 Gene Kranz shows some extraordinary leadership and coolheadedness right there... he asks EECOM if the extra data from switching both AC power buses to the inverter shows anything yet... EECOM sounds a bit flustered in his response due to the heavy workload and asks for 2 minutes while he processes the extra data that's coming in.... Gene senses this and immediately reassures EECOM, by saying a simple "ok, take your time"
I know its just a small part of this... but its a moment that really stands out to me
What an amazing leader!
My favourite is: "Let's not make anything worse by making assumptions..."
EECOM was the most import in figuring out if the data was all real in the beginning right? Sy had to figure out if it was bogus data from instrumentation or if it was all correct and what it meant.
@@HunterPhenomMakoy EECOM did state early on that they thought it was cryo tank 3 that was probably venting. But that was the guess. The analysis of the data confirmed that eventually.
So Krantz had to know all of the systems, guidance procedures, nav procedures….basically he had to know every controller’s job at some pretty high level. And he had to do all that in front if the entire world. Mind boggling
It is wonderful this is recorded and avalible for us to listen too. Thank you who ever did this work and host this.
Well. the government recorded it, and I believe it's in the public domain...
I think historians would eventually want to look at what happened before and after the incident and I think that it is absolutely invaluable that the primary team was in the Houston operations center at the time and had no problems going on 24/7 duty if they had to. I think that dedication after this Flint incident has disappeared in American governance.
"What's Good?"
Yep it’s interesting for the layman, as well as for engineering /managerial types!
@@skyprop What do we have on the spacecraft that's good?
Kranz will always be one of my main heroes!! So cool under pressure! His autobio is a must-read!! Thanks for posting this!!
I'm going to have to read that! What's the title? Do I just look up his name and type in autobiography?
@MarkJoseph: If you've not found it yet, it's called "Failure is Not an Option". I can't recommend it highly enough!
I am feeling closer to history than ever before now. Thank you for uploading this :)
i've listened to these loops countless times over the years, they never get old.
Isn't it crazy percieving the passage of time through seeing years old comments?
@@SixstringmanYes
4 years ago, then 2 years ago, then 2 weeks ago.
I'm sure this post will be replied to in two years as well. Hello person from two years in the future, I hope you're okay.
Gene Kranz: The father of Crew Resource Management. I often listen to this every day.
Gene invited his team to correct him. He never made anyone feel bad.
Gene Krantz' book "Failure is not an Option" is a great read. It explains why he is cool as a cucumber. The guy was the one who wrote the launch manuals! He made a point to get to know engineers and learn everything about the systems. He also was a test pilot before joining NASA.
I looked up footage on UA-cam as I read the book which made it better.
been there and lived the dream. I can tell you its a methodology of thinkiing. technicians on steroids and some damn good Engineering attitude.
why is he so cool? how?
52 years ago this evening. Had the pleasure of meeting Gene Kranz and Fred Haise last fall. They still have that calm, cool, collected sense about them. Very much enjoying reading Haise’s new book.
Fascinating. The calm professionalism is amazing.
marty aron Thats what made the space race years so compelling - the mixture of awesome competance and professionalism mixed with incredible risk taking and courage.
Gene Krantz is the man. Cool, Calm, and Collected. Nothing shakes this man or rattles his cage. Straight to the point, and no second guessing. Failure was defiantly not an option, and neither was blind mistakes. The man was outstanding at his job, and all working under him were inspired by him to be just as outstanding at there's .
Absolutely Robert.
Going by the film "Apollo 13" he was the guy who held it altogether.
@@gazza2933 The movie is nothing to go off of. They basically made up conflicts and such for drama.
Robert Mitchum Nice, you saw the movie.
@@RandomCommentDue You mean Ken Mattingly wasn't really urgently called in so he could singlehandedly work out the power-up procedure in a simulator and then just take over as CAPCOM? :p And yeah, I don't see how anybody was okay with portraying the astronauts as panicky, testy characters, including the Haise v. Swigert thing and the out-of-control corridor burn.
@@gazza2933 Spoiler: check the next 3 parts.
Gene is an American Hero.
I've seen Apollo 13 probably a thousand times, it's my all time favorite movie, and listening to the actual back and forth between Jim Lovell, Jack Swigert, and Fred Haines and the ground control in Houston is amazing and chilling! To have such cool heads at such a nerve wracking time where every second could mean the loss of the crew is a testament to their bravery and determination to bring those guys home. Thank you to whoever found this audio and posted it!!!!
Fred Haise
I would've enjoyed the movie a lot more if they didn't treat Swigert (and also Haise to a somewhat lesser extent) like an idiot
My dear late friend Gary Scott was INCO on this portion of the flight, instrumental in getting the antennas repositioned throughout this part of the flight. You can hear him here on the early parts of the recording before the shift change.
Theres one on every video. Is the upvote harvest bountiful this year? Its looking a little anemic to me. Remember the rules: make your story obscure, but detailed, and quaint. Avoid hard facts, stick to anecdotes, keep things completely non-falsifiable.
You'll get the hang of it.
That was an amazing engineering team!
These Director's loops are absolutely fascinating. Thank you for posting them!
The movie skewed memories of what exactly transpired & what was said. This audio is priceless. Thank you for locating and uploading it.
A lesson in teamwork at 50:00 - Flight questions a suggestion by ECOM, and rather tersely and sternly. ECOM is not intimidated and succinctly explains the suggestion. Flight now understands what is being suggested and complies. This is true leadership, through respect for the individual team members and not through intimidation. Such respectful teamwork would have, for example, saved a lot of lives at Tenerife in 1977.
Kudos as well to ECOM for not allowing himself to be intimidated. In a dysfunctional team, the demand for quick and clear answers by Flight could have been interpreted as intimidation. Also noteworthy is the quick recognition and acknowledgement of mistakes. Nobody is afraid of saying, "I made a mistake, here is the correction." This team did everything right.
+alachabre Was that the incident with the KLM 747?
+fredro409 Yes.
One of the best moments in the whole thing. The level of professionalism shown by everyone is wonderful beyond words.
Areed
Yes yes yes. Thank you for pointing that out.
Kranz ability to lead by keeping calm, In control of his team and the rapidly evolving awful situation, but at the same time filtering and checking several input to him , then trying to give his young team time to come up with accurate answers is superb. He is an inspiration to me as a young leader
I think I'd prefer Kranz as Enterprise Cheif Engineer to Scotty!
100% agree.
If you didn't already know he's got two books out that I know of. I'm almost done with "Failure is not an option" and it's a fantastic read, he is an incredible leader.
He does presentations every so often. A fascinating speaker.
@smokeater2804 Did he write it or is it coauthored? Not that changes my determination to read it! Haha
I am amazed by how calm they all sounded while working this puzzling problem and how quickly they concluded they needed to power up the LEM
35:32 - G.E.T 56:21:46 - Time Since Accident 00:26:53
[EECOM - Sy Liebergot] - "Flight, I've got a feeling we've lost 2 fuel cells. I hate to put it that way. I don't know WHY we've lost 'em. It doesn't all tag up. It's not an instrumentation problem, best I can tell."
The first moment that EECOM diagnoses the actual problem. Everything before that point is analysis and troubleshooting.
That was the big difference between how Apollo 13 was handled and Columbia was handled. During Columbia nasa management did everything possible to avoid facing up to the actual problem, and avoiding any conclusion that would compel them to have to ACT to save the crew’s lives. They simply decided it would better for the crew to die in ignorance, than to die anticipating their fate…that was their solution.
I agree. I'd argue that the moment Sy decided to allocate power to re-entry systems was the "oh s***" moment for Command. They were thinking they could make it work until then. After that, priorities changed.
@@JB-qt3wo that’s awful
Could Columbia have made it to the ISS?
@@johnpooky84 No. If Columbia had had an unlimited fuel supply, I suppose anything is possible. However, moving from one orbital plane to another is not as simple as changing lanes on the freeway. Given the differences in the orbital planes of the shuttle and the space station, there was no way for Columbia to have maneuvered into a rendezvous with the ISS. Had the hole in the wing been detected once the orbiter was in orbit, the only chance for the crew would've been to launch another orbiter to rendezvous with them and transfer the crew over for the return to Earth. The Columbia orbiter itself was doomed.
People think "tough" when they think of Gene Kranz. He may be, but you see that his toughness manifests as calmness and coolness. The way he guided his team is unbelievable. It's like he already knew the answer and was simply pointing everyone the right way. He doesn't consider himself a hero, but he is. Everyone in that control room is.
I'll never forget what it was like that night. I was watching a movie and suddenly a crawl appeared at the bottom of the screen: "THE APOLLO 13 ASTRONAUTS ARE IN DANGER ... THE MISSION TO THE MOON MIGHT HAVE TO BE ABANDONED ..." It was very frightening. The next morning I learned the mission was being aborted in deep space.
It would have been a quick return home had they been able to use the Service Module engine. Just did not want to risk it. Danger that the SM made have collapsed or the engine may have exploded.
+Zoomer30 Sorry but the explosion had occurred in the Service Module. The Liquid Oxygen and Liquid Hydrogen tanks had exploded and the Fuel Cells were all but gone so they had to rely on the batteries from the Command and Lunar Modules for power and the engines of the Lunar Module for propulsion. The Service module was a complete wreck and its engine was totally useless. It had nothing to do with not "wanting" to risk it.
+Eric Koenig Nothing "exploded" and the LH2 tanks were never compromised. The LO2 tank #2 ruptured under high pressure and damaged shared piping to LO2 tank #1, which, in short order, emptied it as well.
In actuallity (though they couldn't know it at the time) the only problem with the SPS was that the high-beam antenna array was flung into the engine bell, denting it. They couldn't have fired nor steered the SPS anyway because they had no power to do so because the fuel cells were dead due to having no O2 supply.
Eric Koenig The Liquid Oxygen and Liquid Hydrogen powered the fuel cells, which produced power and water. They did not power the Service Module Engine. It was hypergolic (used Nitrogen Tetraoxide and NSMH).
Just one O2 tank ruptured, but because they had common plumbing to the fuel cells the other tank also leaked.
+Zoomer30 They didn't use hypergolic but cryogenic fuels to power the Service and Lunar Modules -- LO2 and LH2. As to nothing exploding, kindly read NASA's report.
science.ksc.nasa.gov/history/apollo/apollo-13/apollo-13.html
Ed Harris did a remarkable job playing Gene in the movie! ☺️
I served 32 years as Mission Support. This story was how we ran things. Calm. Stay with a problem and see it all the way through.
Sincere question, no disrespect: How many cartons of cigarettes did they go through during this?
My grandpa told me stories of he and his business associates back then going on business road trips during LOW stress scenarios, and stocking up and going through them all by the time they'd come back home.
Crazy to think about... I can only imagine during THIS type of stressful scenario!
Gene Kranz is a national hero. Aside from the fact that he presided over the save of Apollo XIII, all of his words are recorded. It is so much easier to second-guess the decisions of historical figures for which we have only the results plus diary entries or third-hand accounts. Gene Kranz's actions during the Apollo XIII mishap are all recorded, as is demonstrated here.
We could only know more about his handling of the situation if we were psychic and could know his actual thoughts.
He did his job well and completely in view of public scrutiny. How would you like what were probably your hardest decisions recorded and scrutinized for posterity? He is legendary.
Gene Kranz is such a bad-ass here. One of my personal heroes. It's funny how he always defers to others (such as Chris Kraft) when he is questioned about the management structure of Mission Control, and the role of the Flight Director in particular. Kranz always pointed to such people as the ones that really defined the roles of everyone at MC and how the team worked together.
However IMHO, Kranz is THE guy that exemplifies the ideal Flight Director in every way. His knowledge, temperament, and ability to get The Best out of his team, created the "ideal" situation within which everyone at MC could work.
I always felt he is such a class act, the kind of guy I'd follow to the gates of hell in a work situation. A true leader in every sense of the word.
***** You are quite correct. I only really began to understand his role in all this about a decade ago. His team was responsible for picking up a lot of the pieces that fell apart just before the shift change, even though many (If not all?) of Kranz' team remained behind, assisting Lynney's team from back rooms.
Good observation, Cashen.
Absolutely. Kranz was the perfect man for a crisis situation. Calm, focused and utterly determined to achieving the desired outcome.
George Theofanous
"I'd follow to the gates of hell"
I have tears in my eyes, because they say that.
Thank you
In Kranz's book, he discusses that, during any mission, the incoming person for any job would plug in and listen to what was going on to get up to speed.
Why this doesn’t have more views is beyond my comprehension. Listening to history as it happens. Just brilliant.
Because most of us now realise it was all staged.
@@nigelwilliams9307 It's interesting that aerospace engineers around the world have never agreed with you numpties.
29:15 When Gene says "A total of ten amps?" You can hear someone whistling in the background.
I assumed that was Jack Lousma since the Capcom sat relatively close to the Flight Director in the MOCR.
It was gene
That “whew” you hear is Gene.
Great upload. Thanks! Its amazing how everyone can keep calm in such a crisis. Very inspiring.
Even sitting here at home 44 years later, and know what happens, I'm on the edge of my seat, I can't imagine what it was like to go through it at the time. It was really great to have the different time references on the screen. I know tape recordings don't keep time nearly as accurately as digital so matching up the digital time displays with the audio recorded on tapes took some dong. Thanks.
Some dong it did take.
I remember being riveted to the television when i was a kid during this accident and safe recovery of the astronauts .
Thanks for posting .
Gene Krantz a true steely eyed missile man! I'm totally in awe of this guy!
Very fascinating to listen to. I met Gene Kranz one time and he couldn't have been nicer and more receptive. Great guy as all of the NASA crew are/were.
You can actually hear Kranz make a "whistle" sound when ECCOM says he wants you power down a total 10 amps. That was a big drop, a good 20 percent.
It is amazing how calm and professional these men behaved during this national crisis.
AL HENDERSHOT thats why they held the jobs, they did
They were 3 rooms away
I really appreciate you putting this out there for all of us to consume. I've listened to this loop 3 times over the past several days and I pick up a better understanding each time I listen to it. At this rate though, it'll take me 6 months to get through the whole set!
Absolutely fascinating, thanks for posting!
1:02:07 Kranz says "see that, the juice is still going down there ECOM, got any more suggestions?........on trying to pumping up 02 tank 1 pressure?" you can hear the pain in Liebergot's voice when he replies "nooo".
thanks so much for this - mission control: "what do we have that's good." this is a clinic for making sense of the unknown.
Thank you for uploading this....Wonderful!
Thanks for posting this. It also shows routine aspects of Apollo flights. That trained routineness (discipline) helped them survive.
We’ve all heard the iconic soundbites but it’s fascinating to listen to this in its entirely. Clearly the failure was so catastrophic that they had trouble believing that it was anything but an instrumentation problem. They had simply never imagined such a contingency. Krantz’s cool is astounding under the circumstances. I cannot help but draw comparisons between this and the lamentable episode that was the Challenger disaster, where lives were lost because safety margins were blatantly ignored in favour of the pressure to fly. Similarly I have to wonder whether something more could have been done to save the Columbia crew had the likes of Krantz been at the desk. Just my thoughts. Thank you so much for uploading this. You sir are a steely eyed missile man.
Peter Vines Unfortunately, I think the Columbia astronauts were as good as dead the second that piece of foam punched a hole in the wing's leading edge.
However, I do share your sentiment that having someone like Kranz involved might have kept the culture of "tough and competent" alive, which might have prevented the accident.
Peter Vines That's exactly what happened. Sy (EECOM) said in an interview that they saw a "Quadrupal" failure. Meaning, 4 totally separate spacecraft systems failed at the same exact time, and at that time MC felt that was simply impossible. We now know it's not, and this event started to transpire long before they even launched off the pad. The electrical current to the oxygen tank heaters was supposed to be changed to a different system prior to launch, but it went unnoticed by the subcontractor. So NASA at the time was powering that tank on the ground thinking it had been done. Because of this, the tank itself got to a VERY high temperature which in turn caused the pressure to be red-lined, and they had no way of knowing it because the thermostat in the tank only read up to a certain temp, and it was beyond that but still showed the max temp which was considered normal. They had no idea it was over-temp and over-pressured. This caused a wire in the tank to burn(on the ground) and become exposed. Soon as the tanks were stirred, it sparked and we know the rest.
This is a very basic way of stating it. Much more detail in the accident report which can be googled.
+Peter Vines great comment
+SolarWebsite NASA had contingency plans for mounting rescue missions with another shuttle but they blew it off.
Tommy Bruner That is true, but it did them little good when they didn't recognise the problem and allowed Columbia to reenter the atmosphere.
Also, it would have meant endangering the crew of that rescue shuttle to the exact same risks as that of the stranded shuttle, as the problem with falling foam damaging the orbiter was structural. What if THEIR wing got punctured, too?
Just one of the many flaws of the STS program.
This is actually riveting stuff. It’s about ten minutes after incident before you hear in all their voices that they’re properly concerned. Also loved the calming voice of “one problem at a time, let’s not create problems, limb is fine so let’s keep going”. Incredible
The way Lovell says "We got an AC Bus undervolt".....the level of tension in his voice, its creepy. They heard it, they felt it, the shock if it all.
Main B bus undervolt.
I can't honestly thank you enough for posting these. Outstanding
Gene Kranz is such a bad ass. Not only is the guy cool as a cucumber throughout the whole thing- breaking down the catastrophe into individual problems and addressing them one by one- but he knows the sequence/procedures manuals better than anyone else on the floor and corrects most of them. Why do we not have men like this leading us today? Maybe a better question is why do we not have men like this today.
+Tom Radom We do... They are all working for NASA
+Tom Radom Because we have become a "feel good" society. We all have to be sweet and nice, and nobody can take control of anything. THAT....and we have put bean-counters in charge of everything.
It's not that he knows the manuals better than anyone else on the floor, but it's more that he's a generalist. He knows a lot about everyone's jobs, and it's his job to make decisions based on the information that they give him.
He's cool and authoritative probably because of his military experience, combined with his five years of flight director experience at NASA. He knew that being the Flight Director, people looked to him to set the environment in Mission Control, and if he broke down, chaos could ensue.
Amen to that
"Failure is not an option"
2020 needs to switch SCE to AUX
stephen calvird the wisest thing I have read all year. Indeed good Sir, indeed...
Clever....clever....
"I understood that reference."
Calm down Eecom.
Unfortunately nobody did otherwise we’d have full information on the status of the country
These men are so calm that if I didn't know there were men were in space, I'd almost believe they were never in any danger at all. It sounds like they are only irritated about equipment failure. Indeed, they were all made out of the right stuff.
+RozitaVideo as convenient as freaking out feels. it rarely helps. control your emotions and you control the outcome. Anyone who cant handle that doesn't deserve to go to space (or anywhere dangerous for that matter)
I'd assume that's why they were there.
@@thelocust64 wow well said. Your advice can be applied to any of the day to day problems we all experience in life. It's amazing how we as humans always assume the worst and panic first when a problem arises. We do it so much that it fast becomes a serious habit that's very hard to break
Wow. Fascinating how well controlled they worked through this.
Odyssey and Aquarius are probably some of the most beautiful names for a spacecraft ever.
50 YEARS AGO TODAY....I guess I can officially say I am getting old (and maybe a little lucky to remember this)
Having been in situations when we had to solve a problem without lives on the line I am really impressed by the manner of all the people involved, not just the people on the ground, but also the crew. Everyone was so helpful and did what they were supposed to do. What a great team! I am so impressed!
Yep, the LEM was totally hypergolic, just like the SM engine (the OMS engines on the Space Shuttle were virtually identical to the SM engine, Aerojet made both).
The big bugaboo with the LEM was that there was no way to test fire the engines after assembly. It was a space age Catch-22: You could test the engines, but the propellants were so corrosive that they would have to be completely overhauled after the test. So the first time the ascent engine fired on a LEM was when it was lifting off from the Moon
Scary.
Scariest part of every one of those missions for me.
Wow.. Thanks for the info!! That makes it more intense!
LM
The designers chose hypergolic because of its simplicity, but they could not be tested. What a trade-off!
That goes for almost every hypergolic engine ever though.
In his book, Kranz criticizes himself for not thinking clearly enough/converging towards a solution during the first few minutes of the crisis....however I can’t imagine how anyone would be able to reconcile all of the disparate anomalies being reported quickly!
He also mentions several times during this loop that he doesn't have all the data on hand, and that he and the team will probably have a better understanding of the problem once they review the DLOG and the initial set of conditions. Hindsight is 20/20, but nobody in the MOCR really knew what happened up there until much later on when Don Arabian and the MER did their mission report.
Gradius6
Yes, especially since 93 seconds past since they flip the switch to stir the tanks and the actual explosion. I am surprised they were never asked “what type of bang?” they felt, but obviously their minds were busy just trying to stabilize things, especially headed in the wrong direction away from earth.
Thanks for sharing the great audio. Gene Kranz did not rise to occasion, he fell back on his training.
58:30 "...I want you to get some guys figuring out minimum power in the LM to sustain life...." a moment of clarity as to the desperate nature of the situation
25:04 "Let's solve the problem, but let's not make it any worse by guessing."
Thats gold.
Time to apply that to gummint, I'm thinkin' !!!
The above comment is actually made at 00:16:20 time since accident. During the approximately 1 minute preceding this, there is preamble from the flight director that adds context to this comment.
and "what have we got on the spacecraft that works. Lets start there". That attitude works in a lot of things. He didnt say that exactly, but thats my attitude.
THEY DID NOT GUESS THE FOLLOWING ?: WELL, I'LL TELL YOU SOMETHING STRANGE ABOUT APOLLO 13. THEY HAD OXYGEN IN PLSS SUITS AND THEY DID NOT USE THEM WHEN THEY WERE SUFFOCATING FROM CO2. AND THEY DID NOT USE THE TWO MOON SUITS TO WARM THEMESELVES UP. WELL ? ephemetherson
My sincerest thanks for uploading this for those of us who just love the Golden Years of NASA. Thank you and Happy Holidays
"Houston, we are venting something into space".....most chilling part, where everyone realizes it is not instrumentation.
Gifted men... gifted emotional stability... they prove anything is possible
But were they diverse enough? /sarc/
@@MarcKevinSmith WE GOING INTO A TIME OF THEATER OF THE ABSURD
Surprisingly calm during the situation, very effective and efficient.
Thank you so much for this post, I recently watched Apollo 13 and was inspired to look up such recordings, I find it all riveting...
Kids nowadays are panicing when wifi is bad. Those guys are in space with their lives hanging on a treath, being calm as brick of stone, running thru all procedures...
It's a pilot thing. Keep trying to fix the problem until it hits the ground.
"main B had an amp spike once before....."
Probably had a partial short then, just didn't blow the tank. A jump in current is a sure sign of a short.
Thanks for throwing this together
I would have thought the “what do we have on the ship that’s good?” line was a screenwriter line, but that is an original quote
Truely outstanding team of forward thinking engineers,Thankyou for posting,AP.
I know everyone loves Gene Kranz but it's fellow Flight Director Glynn Lunney that's the real hero in these recordings (parts 1 to 4) as he's on duty when they get the crew into the LM as the air escapes from the Command Module. Truly incredible. Shame he has been somewhat overlooked by history.
Adam Cleaver
If you haven't read it, get the book "From The TRENCH of Mission Control to the Craters of the Moon" One of the best of all Gemini/Apollo books. It has a number of chapters on different FIDO's,, all worth reading, but the best part is that the first half of the book is a book-length autobiography of Lunney. This was later expanded into a complete book "Highways Into Space", which I would also recommend, but it seems to be out of print. I think Lunney doesn't get the credit he deserves because he's not as colorful a character as Kranz. When you make a movie, you want the Flight Director to look like what the public expects a movie Flight Director to look like, which Kranz does but Lunney doesn't. Kranz gets all emotional and is very quotable while Lunney seems like your next door neighbor. Both great men, but Kranz is the guy the movie people and documentary makers will go after.
Also, John Aaron needs to write a book. Everyone else has and we need to get his story since he was in the middle of so much of the big stuff.
+RRaquello I agree 100%. Sad to say but nobody would have ever heard of Krantz either if it weren't for the movie. I think he's top dog of FD's because of his many years at NASA, hence many years of knowledge.
All those people involved with space flight were good, they had to be. Any time there's human life involved in an extremely hazardous undertaking, you better be damn good in what you do.
I'll have to check that book out. I'd love to have read a book by John Llewellyn (Retro). He has some colorful stories. Perhaps he's mentioned in that book?
Matt Capitano who are you bad mouthing?
Robert Mitchum I don't think so. I remember the white vest vividly back in the day. Krantz book is one of my favorites. Anybody who followed the space program knew who he was.
Thanks for sharing. This is awesome. I'm a big fan of Gene Kranz. His book was great. I was a child during the Apollo 13 mission, but have always been interested in the space program. Listening to history is an amazing thing.
Man the real thing is more suspenseful than the movie. I felt my heart rate go up as the time of the explosion approached.
Me too
+Gary Watson Yeah, every time I hear that controller ask for a cryo stir I go, "No, don't do iiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiit!!!"
I concur...... The movie, as good as it was, can't compete with the actual happenings as they unfold in real time. It would have been really great if the movie used more of the events and steps as we hear them here to get the guys back home. But then again, the movie would have been six hours long.
+Robert Mitchum The movie was full of anachronisms.
+Rob Falk Since a cryo stir was inevitable, the time they did it was the best possible choice. If done substantially earlier, or once in lunar orbit, they would be dead.
Sy at Ecom..wow, the guy knew his stuff. He was in the hot seat but was cool as a cucumber. Cudos to Kranz for walking the walk..trusting your people.
This audio is absolutely riveting.
It's neat hearing Gene Krantz do his work. Collaborative but he was one authoritative man. Hearing the troubleshooting is just awesome. You can tell about halfway through that they knew that they were venting oxygen (which explains the "guessin'" comment) but they wanted to rule everything else out first
Having read Jim Lovell's book, seen the movie several times and even read some of the transcripts from this mission, I was surprised to see how much time actually passed before the problem was identified.
Me too. They were initially thinking it was instrumentation. They ignored the astronaut's impressions of the "pretty loud bang".
It's false hope somewhat but the astronauts probably knew they just wanted to come back home.
@@randallsmith5631Yeah they did seem to ignore that for whatever reason but it turned out the crew may have assumed Mission Control knew it was an explosion when they didn’t. According to Hayes he and the crew knew it was some sort explosion within 5 mins and before they saw the venting of the oxygen. Evidently the debris from the explosion surrounded the spacecraft and stayed there until they burned I guess. But I’m just repeating what Hayes said and am not criticizing any them which would be ridiculous.
Great download. Thank you very much. Very enjoyable 6+ hours of listening.
Talk about some cool customers. You don't hear any panic in voices in this... either on the Odyssey or in Houston.
All Involved were cool, I think it's what saved them later on.
FIRST of ALL ! THEY WERE NOT FLYING TOWARDS THE MOON. IT'S ALL BULL THAT THE WHOLE WORLD REPEATS.
ephemetherson
@@erickaminski1472 You keep on believing that, Eric, if it makes you feel better. The rest of us will live in the real world.
@@jackbagley640 YOU JUST MADE ME BETTER. THANK YOU !
That's because they had a copies of hitchhiker guide to the galaxy on the every moon mission and on the front in big bould letters was don't panic. They were well trained for every possibility panicking is what normal people do not space pioneers.
If we only could bring all of these guys back today to fix the world.
You're so right
In the film the line “what have we got on the spacecraft that’s good?” Was taken to imply that gene was thinking about the LM. Here it sounds like he’s more interested in determining which systems on the command module are still operating within normal parameters.
Never realized that the around the moon fast return with move to the LEM was considered so early. Learned ALOT from this.
I grew up in Huntsville AL as my father was an engineer who worked for I.B.M., specifically the IU. This is a historical record that is readily available to so many of us thru this UA-cam video. Thanks for the upload.
I remember this so vividly, it was a time that the whole world held it's collective breath, and sighed with relief on a successful splash down.
This is amazing. Thank you for posting this.
1:10:28 - shutting down the reac valve on the fuel cell (the 'we just lost the moon' moment)
1:11:11 - you hear the crew on radio confirming twice because they know the ramifications of it
Gene Kranz. Absolute legend. Go on that man.
Shocking how much happened just in 15 mins.
The most infamous burst of static in the history of spaceflight. Well, that and the static burst when Challenger broke up.
Don’t forget Columbia’s static, probably the most chilling one as it was the longest one.
*****
At around 9:20 you can just barely hear the words "Houston we've had a problem". Just before this you can hear Jim Lovell (I think) asking CAPCOM to repeat himself ("Houston say again please").
I _think_ the flight director's loop includes everything (including the crew) and CAPCOM, whereas everyone else's loop has just FLIGHT and CAPCOM (to cut down on cross-talk). I could be wrong.
Many thanks. I should be doing the washing up, but I can't drag myself away from listening to this!!!
Did you get the washing done?
@@mrluke8264 Still in the sink! x
us a whole new respect to what NASA was able to do with what could have been a national disaster. Talk about successful failure, incredible team work. Every manager in any business could learn from this.
***** When they tell them to stir the tanks it takes a couple of minutes before the stir. You hear the static at 8:38 when the explosion occurs. It's around 9:04 that you hear him make the call "we've had a problem here" but it's very faint.
6:22 is when Gene Kranz mentions the stir. 6:42 is when Capcom sends the stir request.
Thank you so much for uploading this. I REALLY enjoyed listening to this. I've read so much about Apollo 13 and the Gemini/Apollo era in general that I was really geeked that I understood a great deal of what was said.
A good book recomendation for those that really want to understand the nuts and bolts of Apollo: "How Apollo Flew to the Moon" by W. David Woods. Having read that book, this stuff makes a lot of sense.
Thank you for this recommendation, will look into it
It wasn't until the 14th minute when Jim Lovell reports that there was something venting that Kranz realised that there had been an explosion, rather than an electrical glitch. But at that time they thought that fuel cell two was still good, which it wasn't. It was only when they realised all three fuel cells had failed did they realise just how big the problem was!
Fascinating stuff listening to all this.
And I worry when my check engine light comes on.
35:26 Sy accepting the nightmare on his screen isn't an instrumentation problem and the crew is in real peril.
Probably about 10 mins earlier when I he calls for a "power down".
Was Sy the guy with the thick rimmed glasses in the movie?
@@futureshock7425 yea
dandy thanks!
@@futureshock7425 His name is Clint Howard. I believe he is Ron Howards brother.
"Houston, we have a problem". The most famous line nobody ever said
@Sam Tyrer Yes, it still doesn't say "We have a problem"
We still have the LEM with us?
What a question. Just shows how totally focused Sy was on his stuff.